The decision to acquire the work of Primavera artists began in 1993, the first purchase being a suite of works by Gail Hastings, an artist included in the inaugural Primavera exhibition.

Everyone wants to be close to ‘the wheel of history’, to be remembered, to occupy a place within the wider schema of recent art history; and yet, it is only with the benefit of hindsight that the relative importance of an artist’s work can be determined. The exhibition aims to reflect this tendency by taking its title from one of Gail Hastings’ ‘sculptural situations’ being exhibited here for the first time.

Isabel Finch and Clare Lewis, ‘To make a work of timeless art’, in To make a work of timeless art: MCA Primavera Acquisitions, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2008, p.2.