The exhibition takes up the entire ground floor of the large gallery, and includes two especially massive works. Cai Guo-Qiang’s Heritage (2013) features life-sized pairs of animals sipping from a large water-filled pool, while in Olafur Eliasson’s Riverbed (2014), a creek runs through a rocky landscape recreated majestically within the gallery.For both works, a lot of hydraulic expertise has been involved to manage the volumes of water required. ‘‘Riverbed really appealed to me,’’ Barlow says. ‘‘With many museums, there is a desire to bring in immersive/interactive works in a way that can be quite spectacular and performative – but Riverbed is radically quiet, with all those stones and the greyness of it, and the purity. And I felt we needed at least one work where you can touch water.’’
Born to Icelandic parents in Denmark, Eliasson has said Riverbed is an attempt to capture the landscapes he visited in Iceland as a youth. Barlow links it, too, to the Australian experience of drought, but also to the beginning and end of time – the work seems primeval and apocalyptic in equal measure.
Working closely with Eliasson’s studio, the GOMA team used 3D modelling to install the work over eight weeks, beginning with a hand-cut timber-truss support frame lined with waterproofing material and ‘‘geotextile’’ fabric. All of this was covered with 100 tonnes of sand, small river pebbles and large hand-selected basalt rocks. The installation was underpinned by pump systems to regulate the flow of water through the channel.
While this ‘‘real’’ experience is bound to draw visitors, there are other equally profound moments on offer in Water. In his Heat (2018) series, Australian photographer Paul Blackmore considers water from a spiritual perspective. Blackmore, who has photographed water-based scenery for many years, recalls shooting the Kumbh Mela ritual, held in 12-year cycles at four riverbank pilgrimage sites in India. It attracts millions of Hindus.
‘‘Watching that mass of humanity going to the water for that spiritual cleansing, I could see clearly how water connects us to each other,’’ Blackmore says. ‘‘I swim every day – and for me it is like a baptism. There is a sense of renewal.’’
The Heat series was the first time Blackmore had shot photographs in the surf and below the water. ‘‘I had to fall into a rhythm with the ocean,’’ he says. ‘‘I had to anticipate how people were moving … it is a bit of a dance between you and the subject matter.’’