This dazzling new harbourside statue celebrates everyday heroes. But it comes with a warning

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A Sphinx-style golden bronze bust of a proud black woman has been unveiled on Sydney harbour, the first in a series of three public outdoor sculptures funded from a $3 million philanthropic gift which has been earmarked for the lawn of the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Monumental in scale and shimmering like precious gold, Ancient Feelings is the work of British sculptor Thomas J. Price, renowned for a practice that challenges the idea that only historic or wealthy individuals or those of high station ought to be commemorated in public squares.

Ancient Feelings by British sculptor Thomas J Price is unveiled at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

“Ancient Feelings raises questions about who gets to be seen and who gets to be valued,” Price said. “It’s all about offering people an alternative representation of humanity.”

Price’s three-metre tall bust of a fictional “every woman” has been shrouded in secrecy since it was commissioned a year ago, and hidden inside a tent since it was moved into place last week in the dead of night.

By happenstance, the covers came off on the same day as arts leaders gather at the Sydney Opera House to make their case for tax reform and discuss ways to unlock philanthropic giving.

Ancient Feelings was made possible by The Balnaves Foundation, honouring the late Neil Balnaves, the television executive who gave $20 million to arts organisations. Its public sculpture commission is the largest philanthropic gift for programming the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) has ever received.

“My father strongly believed in the power of art to enrich lives,” said son Hamish, chief executive of The Balnaves Foundation. “He was particularly passionate about bold public sculpture and its ability to challenge and ignite conversation.

“It’s always easy to argue for a new machine at a hospital for what it will do and that’s an easy equation. However, I think ultimately the health consequences can be as dire if you have a society which doesn’t value the arts and doesn’t put money towards it. It will have a longer tail and effects won’t be as direct, but it will come back to bite us as a society if we don’t value it and put funds to it.”

The MCA’s Neil Balnaves Tallawoladah Lawn Commission is the latest in a long line of global art projects bringing contemporary art into the public realm including The Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square and the High Line, a green rail trail created on a former New York railroad spur.

In New York’s Times Square in June Price stopped pedestrian traffic with his 3.6 metre-tall bronze sculpture, Grounded in the Stars. Ancient Feelings is the artist’s first public art commission in Australia.

Grounded in the Stars at Times Square New York.

“Sculpture in the public place is a real art form, we are not just talking about the realm of statues in parks any more,” MCA’s director Suzanne Cotter said. “We’re a long way from that. We no longer necessarily think about sculpture as something that sits high up on a plinth that represents a certain type of person or event.

“When so much of our experience is mediated and defined by digital technology, it’s the physicality of sculpture the tactility of it that can be incredibly affirming in terms of who we are. You see people walking around and basically looking at their iPhones. This is something that can stop them in their tracks and pull them out of that digital space.”

The bust was cast using the lost wax technique and assembled from parts made in Switzerland and Shanghai before being shipped to Sydney. Price deliberately uses bronze to connect to the iconography of ancient deities.

“I grew up in London, and I was lucky enough to be taken to the British Museum a lot by my mother, and so I grew up looking at ancient Egyptian heads and these fragments of monumental sculptures which were part of the identity of some of the greatest nations that ever existed on Earth,” he said.

Price created his sculpture with the greatest detail down to the braiding, and fine wisps of hair at the neck nape. The patina was modified to gleam but not bling in concert with the Sydney Opera House and the MCA’s sandstone facade.

“It has a sort of magic to it, which vibrates, I guess, and we respond to that in an emotional and psychological way. It’s wordless, but you feel it,” he said.

“I’m fascinated by materials and the sorts of associations and messages they carry with them and how we read them, like bronze is often connected with the notion of power, and officialdom, because it’s a fantastic alloy that has been used over centuries to present people in power.”

Federal Arts Minister Tony Burke is to join arts ministers from across three states and leaders from the arts sector for Thursday’s tax forum which comes at a time when the sector has been impacted by the cost of living, rising costs, stagnating government funding and changing consumer behaviour.

The MCA, Opera Australia, Sydney Theatre Company and the Australian Ballet have each posted operating deficits, all while the Art Gallery of NSW is preparing to shed 51 staff to plug a $7.5 million deficit.

Victoria Balnaves said the foundation was deliberate in its public giving.

“We could be cheque writers and not publicly give,” he said. “Our father was always very passionate about speaking out about the lack of philanthropy in Australia and how much we lag the UK and US.”

“I really think that philanthropy needs to step up,” Hamish Balnaves said, “but you don’t really attract philanthropy if the government’s exiting at the same time. It mustn’t be forgotten that a lot of projects philanthropists fund are in and out. We give money, it gets spent – it doesn’t help in keeping the organisations running and all the set-up costs. If the public values art, usually politicians follow.”