Lot 46

Sullivan+Strumpf, Melbourne
Private collection, Melbourne

Sam Leach: The Ecstasy of Infrastructure, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, 19 November 2011 - 4 March 2012

"With its seemingly incongruous title The Ecstasy of Infrastructure, this exhibition draws together a complex and dynamic web of interconnections, traversing a broad array of social, cultural, philosophical and scientific ideas and concerns. In conceiving this exhibition, the artist produced a diagrammatic chart outlining a network of associations which informed the development of a new suite of paintings. With their respective backgrounds in plumbing/housepainting, engineering and economics, Ralph Balson, Edwin Tanner and Leach are all linked, in the outer perimeter of this drawing, by their active involvement in the underlying infrastructure of society. For Leach, Balson and Tanner's backgrounds in fields other than art seemed to point ‘to a particular way of viewing the world as system and construction'. In the centre of the sketch, the three artists are also drawn together by a shared interest in the relationship between art and science." (excerpt, exhibition catalogue)

Sam Leach: The Ecstasy of Infrastructure, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, 2012 (illus., cover)

© Courtesy of the Artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, 2026