The Art Gallery of South Australia has become the nation's first public gallery to acquire a major painting by influential British artist Chris Ofili.
Ofili was part of the Young British Artists group that dominated the global art scene in the 1990s that included the likes of Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst.
While Hirst was busy pickling sharks in formaldehyde and Emin embroidering tents with the names of her lovers, Ofili was painting a black Virgin Mary using elephant dung and snippets from pornographic magazines.
The YBAs, as they were known, made headlines worldwide, with a protester smearing Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary with paint in 1999, and New York mayor Rudy Giuliani trying to withhold funding from the Brooklyn Museum where it was on display.
In the years since, Ofili left the controversies (and London) behind to set up a studio in Trinidad and in 2017 he began a monumental series based on the seven deadly sins, with mystical figures in lush, ornate surroundings.
When the paintings finally went on display in London in June at Ofili's first gallery show in seven years, the AGSA was quick to negotiate, buying a key work titled The Swing.
"We ended up being able to acquire what was seen as one of the most glorious paintings in that exhibition," AGSA director Rhana Devenport told AAP.
Bought through the James and Diana Ramsay Foundation, The Swing cost more than $1.5 million, although Devenport would not reveal the exact price.
(For anyone who thinks that's a lot of cash, it's worth noting that Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art founder David Walsh owned Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary for a time - the one that caused the controversy - he sold it in 2015 for about $6 million.)
The Swing depicts a lounging satyr (a mythical horned creature with a permanent erection) at the base of the canvas, his tail curling above his head.
A female figure swings lazily above, her form merging with the decorative background, the canvas saturated with tropical colours and thousands of tiny, mysterious particles.
"It's extraordinary, over three meters high, exquisitely painted by a British artist at absolutely the height of his powers," said Devenport.
Ofili was inspired by a synthesis of French symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé's poem Afternoon of a Faun, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard's 1767 French Rococo painting, also titled The Swing, according to AGSA curator Leigh Robb.
Ofili's painting is a masterpiece, a study of lust and desire that draws on Caribbean foliage and quality of light, she said.
Oh, and there's no elephant dung to be seen.
The artwork goes on show Thursday as the centrepiece in a new display titled Metamorphosis, featuring more than 40 works from the AGSA collection, with many on show for the first time.
JW Waterhouse's much-loved Circe Invidiosa, 1892 will be hung near the Ofili painting, another British work the gallery acquired the very same year it was first exhibited.
The Swing also speaks to other works in the collection such as Untitled (TBOMB), 2020, by Indigenous artist Daniel Boyd, a scene that also references pointillism with thousands of dots of transparent glue.
Ofili won the prestigious Turner Prize in 1998, the first black artist to receive the award, and was the sole artist to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2003.
His work is currently on show at the Tate Britain in London, with a vast site-specific painting installation titled Requiem, a tribute to fellow artist Khadija Saye who died in the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire.
The AGSA's 2024 program revealed on Thursday features the Adelaide Biennial, and a survey of New Zealand born Australian artist Brent Harris titled Surrender and Catch.
There's also an exhibition of Radical Textiles, and from July until April 2025 there's Reimagining the Renaissance, which explores the Italian Masters alongside Northern and English Renaissance art.
Metamorphosis opens at the Art Gallery of South Australia on Thursday.
