Art As Food For Thought

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday May 28, 1997

BRUCE JAMES

Art venues are becoming as accessible in Sydney as cups of real coffee. And it's not just the major galleries but small, experimental ones that are giving art-lovers all the culture they can lap up. BRUCE JAMES writes.

TEN years ago you couldn't get real coffee within cooee of the CBD. A cup of java was something illicit you scored at the other end of William Street. Now, every two-seat eatery in town has high roast, and cafe-carts ply their trade on Pitt Street.

Much the same has happened to art. The heady stuff used to be in Paddington - East Sydney at a pinch. Apart from the heyday of David Jones's Gallery and The Macquarie Galleries in the '50s and '60s, the centre of Sydney has been historically short of serious venues. Even The Macquarie's much-vaunted move to Clarence Street in the mid-'80s failed to signal an enduring trend. But galleries of significance are mushrooming in the '90s.

This is partly because the city itself is growing up, architecturally and culturally. As well, the establishment and/or public museums around the perimeters of the city have encouraged a committed new audience for art. These institutions ring the CBD like a modern Stonehenge. To the west, the vast Powerhouse Museum; to the north, the bold Museum of Contemporary Art at The Rocks, the National Trust's reliable S. H. Ervin Museum and Art Gallery at Observatory Hill and the innovative Museum of Sydney on the site of First Government House at Phillip and Bridge streets.

On the eastern side, the surprising State Library Gallery, the evocative Greenway Gallery in Hyde Park Barracks and the bijou Mint Museum are bolstered by the venerable and burgeoning Art Gallery of NSW across the greensward of the Domain. To the south, the mighty Australian Museum in College Street completes the cordon. Within this magic circle, art lovers are finding a wealth of lesser but no less interesting artistic facilities.

Newest kid on the block is Gallery 4A, a Haymarket exhibition space that typifies the more experimental directions of contemporary art. Run by the Asian Australian Artists Association as a non-profit venture to promote cultural ties in the region, 4A is a silent temple in a setting from Blade Runner. You really feel the pulse of the city in travelling to this one. Outside, Chinatown rumbles; inside, the 21st century has already dawned. Initiated by Lindy Lee, Emil Goh and Melissa Chin, the gallery boasts sponsorship from James Fairfax and Cameron Macintosh.

Dealer Stephen Mori relocated from Leichhardt to Day Street in the early '90s. He brought with him a high-profile stable of contemporary artists, including proven stars such as Susan Norrie, Tim Maguire and Narelle Jubelin. The remarkable Judy Watson - like Norrie and Maguire, a MoeEt & Chandon fellow - shows at Mori's, as do NSW and interstate artists at the cutting edge. Indeed, the gallery's position is just that - in his few years in Day Street, Mori has seen Darling Harbour creep up to his porch and the city explode at his back door. The place is jumping.

Meanwhile, around the corner in Erskine Street, CBD Gallery says it all in its name. This artist-run venture hosts challenging exhibitions of sometimes chilling purity. Punchy, provocative, baffling and, once in a while, ridiculous, CBD is never dull. Many of its artists are represented by mainstream galleries, but they use the venue for the kind of experimentation and artistic exchange not easy elsewhere. The concept is off-Broadway, the content out there.

Pendulum Gallery in nearby Clarence Street operates on similar collective principles. In essence an L-shaped, upper-floor room, it offers tandem shows by younger practitioners, many of whom may not yet have dealer representation. It's thus a fertile source of quality contemporary art at modest prices. It's also one of the few city venues where "unknowns" from interstate can try on Sydney for size. And contrariwise. Although they often pass unreviewed in the press, the shows at Pendulum are among Sydney's best.

An exemplary dealer show took place at Yuill/Crowley in March when this George Street gallery presented yet another knockout ensemble of word paintings by the great Australian artist Robert Macpherson. To beard Kerry Crowley in her Modernist den, go to the Block Building foyer near Dymocks. Take the trompe l'oeil lift to the eighth floor, turn left and surrender to the all-white embrace of the most impeccable space in town. New York, eat your heart out.

Quiet, cool, contemplative, Yuill/Crowley is, if there be such a thing, an avant-garde institution. Earlier incarnations in Pyrmont and Surry Hills were mere preparation for this incomparable site and stimulating program.

At an extreme remove from Yuill/Crowley, conceptually and commercially, Quadrivium Gallery in the QVB promotes designer objects and decorator art. Open, airy and elevated, the interior is a cross between boutique and boardroom. Quadrivium has frequent exhibitions of contemporary Aboriginal and Asian art, and a changing stock of one-off or limited-edition timber, metal, ceramic and glass works.

These are some of the city's most contemporary outlets. Venues on the fringe include Watter's Gallery, Crawford Gallery, Beatty Gallery, First Draft, 151 Regent Street, the UTS Gallery, T.A.P. Gallery, Gitte Weise Gallery and Artspace.

WHERE ARE THEY?

Gallery 4A

Room 3, 3rd floor

405-411 Sussex Street

Phone: 9211 2245

Mori Gallery

168 Day Street

Phone: 9283 2903

CBD Gallery

62 Erskine Street

Phone: 9290 3076

Pendulum Gallery

2nd floor, 203 Clarence Street

Phone: 9262 4170

Yuill/Crowley

8th floor, The Block, Suite 1

428 George Street

Phone: 9223 1410

Quadrivium Gallery

Level 2 (Town Hall end)

Queen Victoria Building

Phone: 9264 8222

© 1997 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home