The idea of emblazoning outsized farm storage buildings with oversized art began in Western Australia in 2015. Designed as a pilot project to bring art to rural regions, the stunt was a hit. There are now more than 30 larger-than-life works that have been painted on silos all across Australia.
In 2018, a Banksy painting titled "Girl with Balloon" shredded itself as soon as it was sold for $1.4 million at Sotheby's. The street artist had hidden a shredder in the frame. In 2021, it was re-auctioned for US$25.4 million.
“Rainbow” is the name given to this public art sculpture made from shipping containers which was created by artist Marcus Canning in 2016. This eye-catching work of art in the colourful Perth suburb of Fremantle pays tribute to the industrial port history of the area.
Maurizio Cattelan’s "America" (2016), an 18-karat-gold toilet, is fully functional and is believed to have been used by 100,000 people in New York.
Zimbabwe's boundless landfills became artist Moffat Takadiwa’s muse. His work draws attention not only to the problems of waste management and global consumption patterns, it actively encourages us to question our daily activities.
Chris Milk’s The Treachery of Sanctuary (2012) is composed of three white monolithic screens sitting above a black reflective pool, visitors are invited to the pool's edge, where their shadows appear on the first screen before dissolving into a flock of fluttering birds. On the second panel, the birds appear again, this time pecking away at and consuming the spectator's spectre. In their shadows on the third screen, the participant is bestowed with wings.
Deborah Kelly’s vibrant collage animation Beastliness presents a kaleidoscopic vision of the future. Featuring a cast of hybrid creatures created from the pages of obsolete encyclopaedias, textbooks and natural history magazines, Kelly uses the scaffolds of old scientific knowledge to create an alternative reality.
