Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it.
R.W. Emerson, Self-Reliance
I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve said to me: “I’m dying to know what you make of the thing in the basement at the Art Gallery of NSW!” Leaving aside the thought that it sounds like a story by H.P. Lovecraft – “The Thing in the Basement” - I can answer that question right away. I had such a negative reaction I was almost physically repelled.
Nevertheless, it’s not sufficient, even in a world that’s forgotten the role of criticism, to simply say: “I liked it”, or “I hated it”. There are many, many questions raised by Mike Hewson’s mega installation, The Key’s Under the Mat, in the space we must now refer to as the Nelson Packer Tank, in the building we must now refer to as Naala Badu. To get the most obvious one out of the way, as quickly as possible, it’s pointless to ask: “But is it art?”
If a work is given (substantial) space in a public art museum, and nominated as art, then it’s art. It’s not worth arguing about definitions. It’s far more important to ask what kind of art; whether it’s good or bad, successful or a failure.
There’s also the strategic question of who the artist is, and why he should be given the singular honour of taking possession of such a big hunk of the AGNSW ahead of many better known, better performed candidates. Before this project was announced I knew virtually nothing about Mike Hewson - a native of Christchurch, trained as an engineer, who has spent the past decade making large scale installations in public places and galleries.
The first piece featured on Hewson’s website dates from 2013, being one of a series of large-scale digital prints featuring images of Christchurch before the earthquakes, laid over urban spaces that had been damaged and altered. It’s a clever idea, but rather one-dimensional. You see it, say: “Oh yeah, I get it,” and move on.
In hardly more than a decade Hewson has gone from making installations for alternative spaces such as First Draft or Alaska Projects, to occupying prime real estate at the AGNSW. It’s an astonishing career trajectory for any artist, especially when we see that the 30 projects featured on his website are often variations on the same themes, aiming to complicate our understanding of a public space or building.
Hewson’s sudden surge to prominence may be a tribute to his own drive and initiative, but it helps that the AGNSW’s senior curator, Justin Paton, is also a native of Christchurch, who was working at the Christchurch Art Gallery at the time of the earthquakes. At the very least, Paton has been acquainted with Hewson’s work from the beginning.
It may also help that Hewson appears to be a very good friend of Beau Neilson, who is rapidly making a name for herself as a cultural entrepreneuse in Sydney. I’m not suggesting he’s benefiting from her personal wealth, but as with Paton, the contacts must be useful. As Beau is also on the Board of Trustees of the Powerhouse Museum, it will be interesting to see if Hewson is in line for some sort of project from director, Lisa Havilah, who likes to spread the love among “associates”.
If the artist has capitalised on his contacts, that’s only what all artists seek to do, with varying degrees of success. As he works out of a gigantic warehouse-studio in Alexandria, employs a team of skilled assistants, and a lot of heavy machinery, it appears that Hewson’s career is on the successful side of the ledger.
So much for the artist, it’s the art that raises the biggest issues. If you haven’t been along yet, the installation includes a sandpit, a pool, changing sheds, a communal barbecue, a laundry, a kiosk, swings, a sauna, a steamroom, racks of towels and slippers, fully grown palm trees, a shack for an artist-in-residence, an elaborate climbing frame, a glass booth for a DJ, scattered hunks of recycled stone, scattered bricks and plastic buckets, even a vending machine where you can buy the artist’s merchandise. That’s by no means an exhaustive list, but you get the picture.
As a playground, the installation seems to be working well. On the day I looked in, the place was full of children running in all directions, making a lot of noise. There were mothers anxiously chasing after their offspring or placidly watching them play in the sandpit. A bunch of cool-looking dudes were clustered in a corner staring at their laptops. A few people were sitting in the sauna, fully clothed, laughing awkwardly. Nobody seemed to be making much use of the barbecue or the tables where artists are encouraged to be creative, but I presume there are busier and quieter periods. There was no DJ in residence, but the music was still blaring out throughout the space, sounding more like muzak than anything that commanded attention.
The arrangements may look anarchic but they are the fruit of meticulous planning. In creating this riotous enclosure, Hewson laid a false floor to conceal water pipes and power cables. Tonnes of stone were lifted into place, slabs of metal cut and welded. It must have been one hell of an install job. The time it necessitated appears to have shortened the season of the previous Tank installation, Yalu, by Ishmael Marika and the Mulka Project, which was part of the Yolngu Power exhibition.
Viewers were given only 20 days to experience this exceptional work, almost certainly the most successful installation ever created for this difficult space. Simple, atmospheric, evocative, Yalu was the antithesis of The Key’s Under the Mat and was cut short to make way for the funfair.
When the AGNSW is prepared to ditch an outstanding Indigenous work in favour of Hewson’s project, we see how much importance it is assigning to this installation. Another indication is that the catalogue tells us the show “opened 4 October 2025”. The gallery has provided no closing date, suggesting that it could run for months or years, or at least until the novelty wears off.
Under current circumstances, this may be an congenial idea for the AGNSW. The installation is attracting a steady stream of parents and children who might not otherwise be drawn to an art museum, helping boost attendances at a time when the gallery is reeling from brutal government funding cuts that have led to staff lay-offs and the scaling back of the exhibition program.
What could be better than a long-running child magnet in the basement?
To answer that question, let’s go a little deeper into the meaning and ramifications of The Key’s Under the Mat. A first observation is that it conforms to a wellworn definition of avant-garde art, namely, work that blurs the distinction between art and life, or even looks forward to the withering away of the special category of ‘art’ into everyday life.
The standard approach to an art gallery, even a modern or contemporary gallery, is to sample works arranged on neutral-coloured walls or in open spaces. We’re not supposed to touch these works or interact with them in any way, except through our imaginations. We are invited to contemplate what we see, striving to appreciate the artist’s talent, skill and intelligence. The greatest works of art, according to the poet, R.M. Rilke, send the message: “You must change your life”.
This ’standard’ approach has been under assault for the past century, or at least since 1917, when Marcel Duchamp exhibited a porcelain urinal as a work of art. By now we’ve seen every possible novelty or gimmick, intended to “subvert” our experience of the art object, but audiences still seem to prefer looking at works of art that don’t require their active participation.
The Key’s Under the Mat is what is quaintly termed “a social sculpture” being all participation, and only “art” because the AGNSW chooses to recognise it as such. It’s immediately reminiscent of some of the devices and events designed by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle; the sprawling, room-sized assemblages of Jason Rhoades; and – in the barbeque area – the communal meals of Rirkrit Tiravanija, with whom Hewson studied in New York.
There have also been many works designed specifically with children in mind, but I couldn’t name another on such a grand scale.
By pitching the work as essentially a playground for children and adults, Hewson and the AGNSW are daring us to dislike it. To say, “Bah humbug!” is to play the Grinch who hates Christmas, or the snob who detests pop culture. The show exerts a kind of moral pressure on us to play along, saying how great it is to see all these little kids having such a marvellous time at the art gallery.
This is why so many people who loathe this event are unwilling to say so in public. Nobody wants to be viewed as an elitist or a party pooper. Nobody wants to be the one who spoils the kiddies’ fun.
The problem is that these kids are not having a great time at the art gallery, they’re having a great time in a whacky children’s playground that just happens to be in the basement of the art gallery. They would be having the same experience had the work been created for Darling Harbour, or Barangaroo or a Westfield Shopping Plaza. It’s not the work that lends status to the gallery - it’s entirely the other way around. By hosting this event and calling it “art”, the folks at the AGNSW have conferred a rarefied kudos on an installation that might be considered funky but utilitarian in another location. In doing so, they may have more to lose than to gain.
Had I come across Hewson’s work in some other context, as a public playground, I would have been impressed by the ambition and innovation on display. To encounter it in the privileged domain of the AGNSW, is to be disconcerted by the inappropriate nature of the venue. Call me a snob, but I would argue there’s a certain dignity the public art museum needs to preserve at all times. It is a special place where rare and valuable works of art may be sampled by the public. To visit the gallery should not be the same as visiting Luna Park or an adventure playground. The first-hand experience of art is something that is unique to the individual.
The playground, by contrast, is a communal affair, with fun and leisure its major aims. Allow children to believe that visiting the art gallery is like visiting a playground, and they will find the standard gallery experience to be incredibly dull and boring. Who wants to stand around looking at pictures when you can play on the swings or in the sandpit? Play is all about oneself, about one’s body, about living in the moment. The experience of looking at art is contemplative. It takes us out outside ourselves into another dimension.
The famous “aura” of the work of art that Walter Benjamin saw as endangered in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction, is being rapidly dissipated by the growing number of people who prefer to experience art online. When a major gallery endorses the idea of art as a fun, participatory, undemanding experience, it only emphasises the lack of appeal in looking at a bunch of old pictures hanging on a wall.
Today, art appreciation is suffering a generational divide like never before. The majority of visitors for art museums and major exhibitions are aged 50 and over, while the number of visitors in their 20s is shrinking. The problem is that these older visitors are the ones who pay to see shows, spend money in the shops and cafes, and become members and donors. In their mania for luring the “young demographic”, galleries risk alienating this core audience which helps to pay their bills and justify their existence.
I’m finding that The Key’s Under the Mat is exactly the kind of show that makes many older gallery-goers despair of the place, whether or not they say so out loud. The target audiences for this event are not core gallery patrons, but parents seeking distraction for their kids, and those using the basement as a cool place to hang out, for a short while at least.
It’s a self-contained entertainment, not a long-term audience builder. The installation allows the AGNSW to congratulate itself on the great things it’s doing for children, but not to consider the effect it’s having on adults who see only a lot of junk that has no place in the museum. One might even argue that it’s depriving kids of the many and varied art experiences they might have at the gallery when it’s seen only as a place for play. If my feedback is any indication, the thought that Mike Hewson’s masterpiece might inhabit the nether reaches of the AGNSW for an indefinite period – like some contemporary version of Dante’s Inferno – is deeply distressing to many people.
I don’t think we should be so quick to dismiss the idea that an art museum requires a certain dignity. Nobody wants to be the grouch that spoils everyone else’s fun, but it’s a bad feeling when a certain idea of fun becomes compulsory. For someone like me, who gets their fun from reading a book or looking at paintings, there’s nothing attractive about going the AGNSW for barbecue or a sauna, or to play in the sandpit, but it’s the sight of the gallery celebrating its own populist virtue that’s truly unappealing. Do we need to bribe kids and parents with a playground to get them into the gallery? One gets the impression the AGNSW expects to be congratulated for turning itself into Sydney’s most elaborate child-minding centre, but let’s give them credit - perhaps they’re pursuing a more insidious strategy. The logical next step is to apply for the lucrative government subsidies paid to other child-minding centres. It’s a brilliant way of overcoming those irritating budget cuts inflicted on mere arts institutions.
Mike Hewson: The Key’s Under the Mat
Art Gallery of NSW, Opened 4 October 2025