Mark of ambition: will the NGA's $14m commission win our hearts?

Lindy Lee's Ouroboros, a gigantic interactive stainless steel masterpiece due to be unveiled outside the National Gallery of Australia in October, is the most expensive artwork commissioned in Australia.

It's also one of the biggest and most ambitious, a soaring idea that has taken 200 people, 60,000 hours and 13 tonnes of scrap metal to create.

So, will it be worth the money?

When gallery director Nick Mitzevich announced the commission in 2021, he said the work would be a "benchmark" for public art in Australia.

We're now just weeks away from the work's arrival in the capital after a long journey south from Brisbane foundry, where it has been painstakingly manufactured by a large team of artisans.

It will arrive here on a truck with a police escort, and be lifted into a waiting pond, which will remain a muddy construction site until the work's unveiling in October.

The anticipation is building; the gallery has a live feed on the building site and is planning a major unveiling.

But for many, the concept of public money being spent on public art is, well, a hard sell.

Dr Mitzevich maintains the work is a necessary and timely statement on the role of public art in mainstream Australia.

It's also a mark of ambition, an invitation for artists and galleries to think big.

Ouroboros is already being compared to works overseas like Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate in Chicago.

And unlike a painting, or even one of the many works in the gallery's soon-to-be-redeveloped Sculpture Garden, it will be seen from the road, and visitors can walk through and into it.

Speaking to The Canberra Times earlier this week, Lindy Lee said she knew the price tag was a point of contention for Australian taxpayers, especially as there had been nothing to look at, other than artist's impressions, since the announcement three years ago.

But she hoped that people would forget about the money once the work was installed and they saw how much work had been unveiled.

"If it doesn't work, I'm the one who's going to have to wear it, the terrible embarrassment, but if it does work, then everybody's going to have to shut up about the money because it will become very evident why it's cost that much and they're not even going to think about it," she says.

Lee pointed out that she, the artist, would only receive a small amount of the $14 million, and that most had been spent on materials and labour.

But she had a feeling people would embrace the work because it wasn't "about being clever".

And that its magnitude would encourage people to think outside themselves, regardless of what she says or intended.

"The experiencing of a work of art is way more important than anything you can say about it - that's just the thing that I will not resile from," she says.

Dr Mitzevich said he wanted to elevate the role of art in daily life.

"We're the National Gallery and it's important that we work to elevate both the position of artists in Australia and in the way that they're received through Australian society and mainstream press, but also to give them opportunities to work at a level that they wouldn't normally," he said.

"Without the National Gallery commissioning this, Lindy could never have made this work of scale or complexity. And as well as Lindy working on it, there are very few Australian craftspeople or manufacturers that have made something so complex on this scale as well."

It could also mark a turning point for the city of Canberra, which hasn't had anything resembling a commitment to public art since its ill-fated percentage-for-art scheme was abandoned in 2011.

The scheme instigated by then-chief minister Jon Stanhope back in 2009 was modest, and short-lived, lasting just two years and resulting in more than 40 works that are now dotted around the city.

The combined value of all of Canberra's public artworks, including those beyond the official scheme, would barely compare to the cost of Ouroboros, and the city has yet to witness anything truly monumental to call a landmark.