A strange image indeed: Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, naked, one armless, one decapitated, both clad in T-shirts and draped in a quilt covered with Australian flags. A cameraman holds his microphone in front of the royal couple, almost as though waiting for them to speak. Meanwhile, a man bearing a tube of glue tries to paste the T-shirts onto the sculptures. This is an image about images, and what they mean to us. More—it is an image that asks who or what ‘us’ might be.

This is April of 1995, the International Year of Tolerance; Paul Keating is still prime minister of Australia, and republicanism is on the agenda. The sculpture is Gregory Taylor’s Down by the lake with Liz and Phil, a depiction of the royal couple naked on a park bench. Liz and Phil didn’t stay down by the lake for very long. The sculpture of the queen was soon beheaded; attacks on the prince followed.