“Every time a new gallery – or even a new exhibition – is opened in Melbourne, Canberra or Brisbane, one hears a chorus of comments about how Sydney will soon be left behind. This is the second biggest furphy in Australian art… It is just as fatuous to imagine that any other city currently poses a challenge to Sydney’s supremacy as Australia’s centre for the visual arts…”
[…but…]
“There are plenty of areas for improvement. The funding priorities of the NSW Ministry for the Arts are overdue for a periodic review and overhaul. The hardworking S. H. Ervin Gallery is desperately in need of funds, as is the Asia-Australia Art Centre in Haymarket. Public art in Sydney is still known mostly for its spectacular failures. Most scandalous of all is the destructive campaign against the National Art School that has flourished for the past two years within the ranks of the Education Department…”
John McDonald, The picture’s not all bleak at the arts end, Sydney Morning Herald, February 11.
Andrew Frost
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