Art on Paper/Variable Installation: Sara Hughes’ Torpedo at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Acquired in 2015, Sara Hughes’ Torpedo in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) is a wall installation comprised of hundreds of painted and hand-stencilled paper clothing tags. During preparation for the exhibition, Out of the Ordinary in 2017, the variable nature of the work became apparent. The artist indicated that the work could be installed with different dimensions, requiring more or less clothing tags, consequently changing the presentation of the work. This variability has been negotiated between the artist and relevant stakeholders each time and it is expected that the work will continue to change for future iterations depending on the display context. There are increasing numbers of artworks in the AGNSW collection that are fixed in their material elements and yet variable in their display potential, prompting the need to review the care and management of these works. There have been few discussions in the conservation literature that consider issues associated with the fixity, variability and changeability of art on paper installations. This paper contributes to this literature by considering Sara Hughes’ Torpedo in some detail, focusing on its relationship with these different states and how this relates to concepts such as originality and authenticity.