He wrapped Sydney’s coast for his first project. Now Kaldor is transforming the art gallery

Two years ago then-deputy director of the Art Gallery of NSW Maud Page came to veteran arts patron and benefactor John Kaldor with a proposal. She wanted to reshow some of the more than 200 works he has gifted the museum.

Kaldor’s response was characteristic.

“I said, ‘Well, that’s very kind of you’, but what I want to do is somehow to turn an exhibition into a project because my two loves are collecting, which I started in my early 20s, and making projects.”

The impulse to make living art events has shaped Kaldor’s career since 1969, when he commissioned artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude to “wrap” the Little Bay coastline in the now legendary project, Wrapped Coast.

It was the first of his Kaldor Public Art Projects, which have brought major international artists to Sydney over more than five decades.

For the latest and 38th project, The Object Lesson, Kaldor turned to German contemporary artist Thomas Demand, with whom he first worked in 2012. The idea came from his desire to avoid a conventional hang of his donated works.

A key element of the project is its venue – the stunning Isaac Wakil Gallery in the AGNSW’s new building, Naala Badu.

“I wanted to expose the beauty and the extent of it – it’s enormous,” says Kaldor. “I wanted to come up with some sort of hanging method that you could see from one end to the other.”

Demand’s radical solution was to suspend the works he selected on vast panels, some more than 30 square metres, hanging from the ceiling.

“It’s no mean engineering feat to have these things hang so beautifully,” says Kaldor. “There are some really heavy works.”

Artists represented in the show include Christo; Gilbert & George; Andreas Gursky and Francis Alÿs.

Demand has based his monumental design on a drawing by American artist Sol LeWitt, which is displayed at the entry.

“As a viewer, you walk in and then suddenly you realise, actually you are walking in a drawing,” he says.

Demand, a sculptor and photographer with a deep interest in architecture, was clear from the outset that visitors should choose their own path though the artworks, absorbing the experience however they wish.

“There are many architects who try to tell you where to go as a visitor,” he says. “Here, you have to find your own trail. There’s no direction where you have to go and what you have to do.

“I’m hoping that this is a kaleidoscope. Wherever you walk around, suddenly there’s unexpected colour combinations, spatial experiences. And it makes a little bit of a journey through the space.”

A willingness to embrace risk and find solutions has marked Kaldor’s projects from the beginning.

He recalls the audacity of Wrapped Coast, when Christo covered 2.5 kilometres of Little Bay with fabric and rope.

“We were so lucky,” says Kaldor. “So lucky. Firstly, that we got permission. Secondly, no one got hurt. I mean, we had no safety ropes, no helmets, nothing. And there were hundreds of kids on site helping and, touch wood, nobody got injured.

“I went there three years ago to look at the site … and said, John, you must have been cotton-picking out of your mind even to think about it. But when you are young, you don’t worry about it.”

The Object Lesson has the air of a swansong for Kaldor, a sprightly 89, and his life work dedicated to contemporary art. However, he says, it does not necessarily draw a line under his public art projects.

“I always say that it’s art that keeps me young,” he says. “I can’t sit still. It’s not in my nature. I have no projects planned [currently]. But I didn’t plan this one either – I was offered it. So we will see.”

Kaldor Public Art Project 38 Thomas Demand: The Object Lesson is on from August 30 until January 11 at the Art Gallery of NSW

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