GAB 77 (Grishin’s Art Blog number 77)

Sydney Contemporary 2024

Lisa Roet, Skywalker Gibbon Sydney Contemporary 2024, photo: S Grishin

Is the age of the commercial art gallery coming to an end and are art fairs the way of the future for marketing art in Australia? Certainly, the decline and the plight of commercial art galleries in Australia (as well as elsewhere around the world) has been noticeable for a couple of decades and the pace of commercial art gallery closures appears to be accelerating in recent years.
 
The tradition of the gallery crawl also appears on the decline and whereas I was frequently part of a hearty throng, now I normally find myself as the only visitor in the gallery. Figures on sales in commercial art galleries are rubbery and largely anecdotal. The few galleries that are prepared to tell me, in confidence, their figures on art sales are generally in decline and many have difficulty in keeping their heads above water. Others have very deep pockets and these galleries survive through creative accounting methods with other parts of a business written off against losses made by the gallery.

Sydney Contemporary 2024, photo: S Grishin

One major established commercial art gallery in Sydney, told me that they only make only about 20% of their sales through the front door – in other words – through sales from exhibitions. About 40% of their business is through various art fairs and a further 40% through the stockroom with many of the sales coming from online enquiries. This raises the question of the need for a for a physical space or at least the size of the bricks and mortar premises. With more people working from home, there are fewer people on the street window shopping and interested in popping in to look at art.
 
Sydney Contemporary, since it was founded by Tim Etchells in 2013, has become a glittering fixture in the Australian art scene. They claim to attract about 25,000 visitors to each of their art fairs with ticket prices generally starting at about $40. There is certainly much fanfare with installations, performances, cafés and bars and an array of art stalls eager to sell art.

Queenie McKenzie, Country, 1990, natural earth pigments, various dimensions photo: A Secondary Eye, Sydney

 
Last year’s Sydney Contemporary boasted 96 art galleries representing over 500 artists presented through thousands of artworks. This year the number has shrunk considerably with 85 galleries and 400 artists represented. Many of the big non-Sydney commercial art galleries are absent this year with some reporting that the costs are prohibitive and the returns are limited. Once you consider booth hire, lighting, freight, transport, accommodation, staff salaries and related expenses, even a modest-sized booth would leave a gallery out of pocket by about $50,000. In other words, you would need to sell about $140,000 worth of art to break even. If you want a bigger space, then you need to take out the abacus and start multiplying.
 

Works on Paper section, Sydney Contemporary 2024, photo: S Grishin

 
This year’s Sydney Contemporary has Lisa Roet’s giant Skywalker Gibbon sitting on the roof of the Carriageworks complete with its soundtrack. Nine metres high and twenty metres across it is difficult to let it go unnoticed. The endangered primate was first recorded in 2017 and ironically was made in protest at human excess that has started to threaten life on the planet and it warns of the extinction that many species are now facing. Below the Skywalker Gibbon is the entrance into the art fair.
 
In contrast to earlier incarnations of Sydney Contemporary, this year it appears a bit roomier and less cluttered. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Works on Paper section of the art fair. Whereas in previous years it was crammed into an awkward space, in 2024 it has a central more defined space in Hall A. The 26 galleries, studios and workshops in this area include Agave Print Studio, Australian Print Workshop, Alphabet City Press, Cicada Press, CBD Press, Baldessin Studio, Damien Minton Presents, Melbourne Studios, Parker Contemporary, Print Council of Australia, 5 Press, Riverside Studios, Upspace and Whaling Road Studio.
 

Works on Paper section, Sydney Contemporary 2024, photo: S Grishin

Printmaking is experiencing a revival in Australia and internationally and despite the squeeze on the art form in many of the art schools, as a people’s art it has gone into the broader population with privately owned and community presses producing some exceptional fine work throughout Australia.
 

Graeme Drendel, Monument 2, 2024, oil on canvas, 198x244 cm photo: Australian Galleries, Melbourne

 
Of the displays from the major established galleries, Australian Galleries has one of the more memorable exhibitions – an extensive survey of the work of the Melbourne figurative artist Graeme Drendel. There is an integrity and honesty in Drendel’s paintings – work with a surreal touch.

Graeme Drendel at Sydney Contemporary Sept 2024, photo: S Grishin

Some of the other galleries whose exhibits became etched in my mind include Alcaston Gallery, APY Art Centre Collective, Artereal Gallery, Arthouse Gallery, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Flinders Lane Gallery, James Makin Gallery, Lennox Street Gallery, MARS Gallery, Martin Browne Contemporary, Niagara Gallery, Olsen, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Saint Cloche, Station, Sullivan + Stumpf, Sutton Gallery and A Secondary Eye.

Antonia Mrljak, Poggioreal, 2024, oil on Belgian linen, 138 x 154 cm. photo Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney

 
It is an art fair, a rapidly changing feast, where much that glitters is gold. Glitzy rubbish rubs shoulders with refined outstanding art and after four hours I cannot claim to have paused and examined every booth and to have looked at every work on view. There is enough high-quality art on display to make a visit to Sydney Contemporary a must if you are interested in feeling the pulse of contemporary Australian art.
 
Sydney Contemporary, Carriageworks, Sydney
5-8 September 2024