FIRST LOOK
AT CITY’S $60M NEW ART AND SOUL
THE city’s $60m art gallery at HOTA, Bundall will open its doors for the first time next weekend. The Bulletin got a sneak peek ahead of the launch. As Ann Wason Moore reveals, it will polarise opinions.
CRIENA Gehrke leans in and whispers: “Yes … it is what you think it is.”
One week from the grand opening of the $60.5m HOTA Gallery, this is an exclusive peek behind the scenes with the CEO of our own Home of the Arts.
And “it” is certainly, well, revealing.
So what is it? It’s a collection of white, shiny objects – bones and shells and parts indescribable – interspersed with tufts of brown fur, all presented in a distinctly familiar, distinctly feminine shape – not quite a map of Tasmania, but definitely somewhere in the vicinity.
Criena draws closer to read the inscription, then gazes back up at the installation, which is part of Gallery 3’s Hyper-Aware exhibit that features 21st century highlights from HOTA’s vast collection.
“Or … maybe it isn’t,” she muses.
Look, if it is, let’s just say that it gives gallery patrons more to talk about than even the controversial six-metre outdoor sculpture, created by Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, standing by the entrance.
But what it is and what it isn’t, isn’t even the point … the point is that it’s here, and we’re talking about it.
That’s what art is all about, and finally art has its forever home here in our masterpiece of a city.
Besides, perhaps Criena’s artistic impressions are coloured by her own labour of love as she guides the gallery through to its imminent due date. Although as she keeps reminding herself, just like a pregnancy, the finishing line is actually the starting point.
But this is one incredible baby.
Designed by international architects ARM with more than 2000sq m of museumstandard exhibition space, the new Gallery will have the capacity for touring exhibitions of an international size and scale alongside exhibition spaces for the City Collection and smaller temporary exhibitions, a dedicated Children’s Gallery and almost 1000sq m for collection storage and exhibition preparation.
In this, its first public iteration, three stunningly scaled galleries present works from the 4400-strong $32m City Collection, including the magnificent mural-size artwork The Rainforest, created by arguably Australia’s greatest living landscape painter William Robinson. In fact, it is this work which inspired the unique design of the gallery itself.
On the ground floor is the show-stopping 1000sq m showcase space that is so vast, it houses with ease the epicallysized art installations that make up Solid Gold: Artists from Paradise.
Those are the facts and the figures … but then there is the feel.
If the gallery’s exterior has Gold Coast residents divided, with its ultra-bright playful colours derided by some as an “overgrown kindy”, inside is pure magic – filled with light and space. It’s sexy and sophisticated.
There is not just art on these walls, the very walls are art.
And, as Criena points out, it mirrors the body and soul of our city.
“The Gold Coast gets ridiculed for its bright, brash character. It is a city of glitz and glamour – that’s what makes you look,” says Criena, who moved to this city eight years ago.
“But the inner life of the city is deep and rich. There is a soulfulness and a passion in the character and the environment of the Gold Coast … and it’s a culture that’s more sophisticated than many realise on face value.
“The beauty of the city is that we are not bound by tradition – and you can see that in the gallery. We’re not trying to be Melbourne, we’re just being ourselves … and that is completely addictive.
“I came here from Melbourne and I told my family it would just be for a year. But I could never leave – instead, they all joined me.
“Sometimes I think the Gold Coast is the most inappropriate love affair of my life, it’s such a wildly charismatic city, it’s such a place of opportunity, it’s not sensible but it makes complete sense.”
Criena says the HOTA Gallery experience itself will embody the Gold Coast character – a place to not just ponder but play and party.
From the ground-level casual, fine-dining restaurant Palette to the rooftop The Exhibitionist Bar, with its incredible views of the Gold Coast skyline only enhanced by the fact that resident mixologist Tom Angel is one of the top bartenders in Australia, to the casual HOTA Cafe, the arts precinct experience is not confined to one crowd.
In fact, Criena says board shorts and sandy feet are always welcome indoors.
“If you want to come in your cocktail dress and suit, that is absolutely fine. And when you leave, we want you to feel like you’ve just been to the best dinner party of your life.
“But if you bring the kids for a swim in the lake and then you want to wander inside, we want you.
“This gallery is for every resident. We want to make this fun, we want to make it personal. It should be somewhere mums and dad bring the kids and somewhere the kids want to go.
“We want to make art part of the everyday lived experience of every Gold Coaster.”
And it turns out this gallery is meaningful not just for local residents, but the entire art world.
Constructed and completed in the midst of a global pandemic, a crisis that has hit the arts industry hardest, its success has become a symbol of hope to artists and cities internationally.
“When COVID hit, we had a choice – either stop work or double down. We doubled down. It was incredibly difficult but we kept this workplace operating smoothly and safely – not easy given the challenges of social distancing on a worksite or even just accessing materials.
“It meant moving
We want to make art part of the everyday lived experience of every Gold Coaster
forward with our expressions of interest for the Solid Gold exhibit, but we just did not want to lose momentum or to let our artists down.
“Now we’ve come through it and cities and artists around the world can see how amazing the result is. We’re a beacon of hope that it’s still worth investing in the arts, that it’s a worthy attraction not just for tourists but the entire community. It’s investing in your soul.
“I think we have just been so incredibly fortunate to have the City of Gold Coast and Mayor Tom Tate backing us the whole way. It would be so easy to consider the arts an ‘extra’, as non-essential, but we have been elevated and I think it will pay dividends to the city in the long run.
“Even just in terms of jobs right now, we have 120 full-time employees and 200 casuals … we’ve become a major employer. It’s incredible.”
Even before any international recognition, Criena says HOTA managed to secure a world premiere exhibition exclusive to the Gold Coast and Australia –
Contemporary Masters from New York: Art from the Mugrabi Collection, drawn entirely from the famed art collector’s private collection.
Set to debut in November and featuring approximately 70 career-defining works from the likes of Andy Warhol, JeanMichel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Richard Prince and Jeff Koons, Criena says the exhibit was secured through pure Gold Coast heart.
“I really don’t know how we ever had the gall to even think of asking for this,” she says.
“At the time there was no guarantee of funding, no gallery and no data … but we had a plan and we had backing from the City and we had selfbelief – and somehow we made it happen.
“That’s the DNA of this city. We dream big and we’re not tied down by rules and traditions. We give it a go and we back ourselves – that’s how we’ve built this city, from the Q1 to the canals.”
And while every major development and every new chapter of this ever-changing town comes with its own controversies, Criena says she can sense a change in attitude as we come of age as a city.
Locals may still love to hate – or hate to love – some of our more colourful additions, but there’s a defensiveness now that only comes from an abiding affection.
“Amongst ourselves we might make fun of certain aspects of the city, but to any outsider we close ranks and defend our own. It’s great to see and feel that real sense of family developing in the community,” she says.
“Even with some of the reactions to Ramesh’s sculpture, or to the gallery building – you could see some of those comments change as the story went national.
“And isn’t that amazing in itself? Who would have thought the Gold Coast would be the centre of a national arts story?
“As much as this building and this art reflects the DNA of the city, I think it’s going to help change and elevate it as well. We’re our own work in progress.”
And what exactly are we? Just like that piece hanging in Gallery 3, just like HOTA itself, we’re whatever we want to be.