Consigned to the Flames

# 588

Will we see a phoenix rise from these ashes?

In 1956, Tom Bass (1916-2010), the sculptor who would dominate public art in Australia for at least two decades, began work on a large-scale relief for the Fairfax building on Broadway. That sculpture, The Sydney Morning Herald (1956-59) was a typical Bass creation, combining a very literal narrative with modernist stylisation. Moulded in clay and cast in a copper alloy, it was characteristic of its time.

The sculpture occupied a prominent position at the entrance to the building until 1995, when Fairfax moved to Sussex Street. It was temporarily installed at the publishing plant in Chullora, but reinstated when the company moved again, to Pyrmont in 2007. A final move in August 2020, after Fairfax had been taken over by NINE Media, saw the SMH and other publications housed in Denison Street, North Sydney.

This time there would be no reprieve. When the Tom Bass Sculpture Studio (TBSS), which looks after the artist’s legacy, approached NINE to find out whether the sculpture would be relocated, they were told the Winten Property Group declined to include the work in their plans, and had commissioned a piece from contemporary installation artist, Nike Savvas. That piece, Chroma Haze, is a formalist arrangement of coloured steel tubes hanging from the ceiling. In one stroke, NINE had demonstrated its complete disregard for Fairfax’s traditions and heritage by replacing a sculpture full of meaning with a large decorative abstraction. One wonders why the two pieces, so very different, couldn’t co-exist in an entire office block.

When the TBSS realised the sculpture was probably doomed to languish forever in storage they began negotiations with NINE Media to have it moved. Sculptor, Jenny Turpin, herself responsible for one of Sydney’s best public works in Chippendale’s Central Park, suggested the TBSS approach the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), with a view towards returning the piece to its first home on Broadway, perhaps in connection with the university’s journalism course.

These negotiations were underway when the pandemic hit, throwing everything into limbo. Having heard nothing from either party for a long period, the school approached the UTS, and was told by curator, Stella McDonald, that communications had broken down during the COVID 19 crisis. She affirmed that the UTS was interested in proceeding and authorised the TBSS to make the necessary overtures.

When the school contacted NINE Media, they found that the previous Head of Property Operations, with whom they had been in discussions, had left the company in August 2023. On 11 February this year, they sought assistance from NINE’s General Counsel and Company Secretary, Rachel Launders, who reported back, on 11 March, that the sculpture had been destroyed in a massive fire at a storage depot in Girraween, in October 2023.

Almost a year-and-a-half had passed, and no-one had bothered to inform either the TBSS or the UTS of the sculpture’s fate. The pandemic is one excuse, and changes of staff another, but it doesn’t argue any great efficiency or duty of care, not to have let the interested parties know what had happened.

The TBSS were now put in touch with Liong Lim, the Group Risk Director, who expressed his sympathies, and assured them NINE had taken every reasonable precaution. He also told them NINE was still in discussions with the storage company and the insurer – after a year-and-a-half (!). It emerged that the sculpture was not a nominated item with a specific valuation but included within a blanket insurance cover. That, it seems, is where the story ends for NINE Media.

It's not, however, an adequate conclusion for the TBSS, who would like to know whether NINE ever considered having the damage assessed by a conservator. Was the sculpture completely destroyed? Transformed into a puddle of molten copper? Were there photos taken? What happened to the copper? Was it sold for scrap?

Furthermore, has NINE considered using part of the insurance payout to restore the work? With today’s technology it may be possible to 3D print a replica from photos and measurements. It wouldn’t be the authentic work, but it would preserve the memory of an important sculpture and the heritage of a newspaper group with a proud history – even if its present incarnation leaves much to be desired.

I also wondered what else had been lost in this fire. The other major public artwork at the Herald’s old Broadway office was a large-scale mural by Salvatore Zofrea. Was that mural in the same storage depot? Were there other works of art? Records? Files? Photos?

Reluctant as I am to play the journalist, I emailed Liong Lim and asked him a few questions. I got an immediate, cordial response but no actual answers. Eventually I asked the most basic of questions: Could he tell me the date and location of the fire?

Four days later, I was still waiting, so I asked again. Here is his response: “Hi John - apologies, I was travelling the last couple of days… The fire occurred in December 2023 at the storage facility in Girraween. We've been liaising with the Tom Bass Sculpture Society as a courtesy to keep them updated.”

No lack of politeness, but I already knew the fire had taken place on 28 October 2023. It seems that Mr. Lim had simply done a quick Google search and noticed another fire, which occurred at a factory in Girraween in December. Had he kept looking, as I did, he would have found multiple fires in this ill-fated suburb, which must be the fire capital of Sydney. No wonder insurance companies are slow to pay up. The Aboriginal name apparently means “Place of Flowers”, although “Place of Fires” might be more appropriate, or perhaps “Place of Many Insurance Claims”.

When I suggested that October 2023 was a more likely date, he replied: “That one might be it…”

Having done such a sterling job with my first question, Mr. Lim could answer no others because he was awaiting the insurer’s report.

Being no expert on the ways of insurance companies, I looked online to understand their obligations to the claimant. First of all, it seems they must respond within 10 days to say whether they will accept or deny a claim. One presumes they accepted NINE’s claim. The next stipulation is that if an expert report is required it should be delivered within 12 weeks. If a complaint hasn’t been resolved after 45 days, the claimant can take the matter to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.

All told, even considering the complexity of the claim, it appears that NINE Media have been tremendously generous with their insurance company in waiting more than 18 months for a report.

If I were a proper journo (they are almost an extinct species) I’d take this information back to the congenial Mr. Lim, so he could offer me another excuse or two, but I’d like to post this piece before Christmas.

The moral of this grim story is that NINE Media have shown not the slightest interest in the Tom Bass sculpture or the heritage of the newspaper group they have colonised.

To dump the sculpture in a storage depot without a proper insurance valuation means it was not even treated as a valuable work of art, but a piece of office furniture.

To not bother getting a conservator or art valuer to look at – and confirm – that irreparable damage had taken place, means we will never know whether anything could have been recovered.

To not inform the TBSS and the UTS, who were negotiating a new home for the sculpture, is unforgivable, even allowing for staff changes and COVD-19.

By acting in this manner, NINE continues Sydney’s long legacy of reckless, barbaric acts against works of art, perpetrated by corporations and developers who have wantonly destroyed sculptures by Tom Bass, and even Rayner Hoff, which could and should have been preserved. The fact that NINE has done it through neglect, not active vandalism is cold comfort. One might have thought we’d turned that corner, with the extreme care Macquarie Bank took to relocate Bass’s P & O Fountain recently, but there’s no rule book that any company is bound to follow.

Sad to say, such slackness fits the profile of a media company that believes the only way to turn around a sinking ship is keep sacking people and reducing the level of content to a point where any semi-literate reader feels insulted. Lack of resources, lack of will, lack of experience, complete moral failure… Welcome to the world of contemporary journalism. I won’t get started down this track because it’s too big a topic - and arguably, too depressing. The point is that big corporations might be expected to demonstrate even the smallest duty of care towards the art and heritage they inherit when they take over a long-established company. They might feel a vague moral obligation to allow future generations to appreciate a work that had been enjoyed since 1959. Despite what’s happening in Washington DC, most enterprises today feel a need to temper those age-old business practices of rape, pillage and plunder with a faint veneer of civilisation.

Stop-press. There is a more positive coda to this story, because Monique Farmer, National Managing Editor for the former Fairfax publications tells me the old SMH crowd feel very strongly about the Bass sculpture and are keen to get a replica made. We’ll need to wait and see if good intentions translate into concrete reality.

The art column this week finds me in Broken Hill with a bunch of artists, soaking up the Industrial Sublime. If you thought Pro Hart was the only game in town, the artists in Blow Backs Ins have found lots of other ways of looking at this unique environment. Meanwhile, it was sad to discover that Pro’s heirs seem to have disposed of his great, sprawling art collection, which was worth a trip to the Silver City in its own right.

The movie being reviewed is The Count of Monte Cristo, a thrilling new adaptation of one of the most adapted stories of all time. This version of Alexandre Dumas’s classic has been written and directed by two Frenchmen, Alexandre de la Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte, who show consummate respect for a tale that managed to engage generations of readers long before CGI was invented. Given a chance, an historical favourite will exert its own popular appeal. Just be thankful NINE Media didn’t get hold of it first.