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Fiona Hall / Australia b.1953 / Tender 2003–06 / US dollars, wire and vitrines / Purchased 2006. The Queensland Government’s Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Fiona Hall
Fiona HallTender 2003–2006
Not Currently on Display
In Tender, Fiona Hall explores the complex relationship between the natural world and human systems of value, trade and exchange. The work consists of thousands of shredded US dollar bills painstakingly woven into 86 bird nests, each for a different species and following its natural design.
Many of the pieces were produced in the South Australian and Queensland Museums, after careful study of nests in the collections, as well as during Hall’s visits to Sri Lanka. Tender might be understood as legal tender such as currency or coin, a quality of kindness, or a feeling we have when we are vulnerable to pain.
Fiona Hall was born in 1953 in Sydney, where she studied painting at the National Art School in the early to mid 1970s. Later that decade, she worked in London as an assistant to British photographer Fay Godwin before relocating to New York, where she graduated in 1982 with a Master of Fine Arts (Photography) from the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester.
Since the early 1990s, Hall has exhibited in mixed media, particularly the innovative use of metals, including low relief, cutting, shaping and knitting. She transforms ordinary objects in order to analyse the relationship between nature and culture, exploring themes such as environmentalism, globalisation and consumerism.
Hall undertakes major public commissions and projects that embrace a range of media, and has increasingly engaged with themes of ecology, history and the effects of globalisation. She has mounted numerous solo exhibitions and participated in many group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, and was the country’s representative at the Australian Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015 with the installation work Wrong Way Time 2012–15.
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think the artist used United States’ currency to make birds’ nests?
2. Think about the types of shelter that animals and humans make. What forms do they take and what materials are used?
3. Can the built environment play a role in defining a culture? Think of different homes in your neighbourhood, and what is different or similar about them.
Activities
1. Imagine how you could fashion the cosiest, most protective nest for a young bird against predators. What would you use to conceal or camouflage the bird from danger? Sketch and label a diagram and, from an adult bird’s perspective, write a short statement justifying the value of this habitat.
2. Think of words that have two meanings and consider an artwork that you could create to explore this duality. Consider how the title of the work helps to communicate a deeper meaning to the audience.