Funding Mozart cover bands just isn’t right

Photograph of crowd at Gallery 4A

If art is about creativity, then why does most of the government funding go to a few relics from the past?

Last night’s exhibition launch at Gallery 4A included reminders that contemporary art galleries struggle to survive: a begging bowl on the bar, and speeches studded with polite requests to become a member or make a donation, and genuinely thankful thank-yous to the private patrons.

Yet as Marcus Westbury writes in the Sydney Morning Herald today, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra gets nearly $9M funding annually — more than all of Australia’s visual arts artists put together. Or all writers and publishers. Or all the dancers.

Continue reading “Funding Mozart cover bands just isn’t right”

Polite!

Photograph of people ignoring food

The food is laid out, ready to eat, but everyone’s waiting for someone else to make the first move.

This photo was taken at the close of the Marrickville Contemporary Art Prize exhibition on Sunday. Eventually the woman in the blue top sliced into the cheese — and suddenly the spell was broken!

’Pong tells me that in Thai, the very last piece on a plate is called “the polite piece” — the piece everyone is too polite to take.