Queensland Art Gallery Annual Report 1991-92

T E N T H ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS In June the Queensland Art Gallery celebrated the tenth anniversary of its opening on its present site - its first permanent premises and Stage One of the Queensland Cultural Centre. Celebrations to mark the anniversary were postponed a week due to the opening of the new South Bank development on the weekend of 21 June. Anniversary activities began with the Fabula Arts Ball on Saturday 27 June, which brought together more than The Queensland Cabinet 800 members of Brisbane's lively arts community for a night of celebration, performance and visual spectacle. The met in the Gallery's water mall was transformed into a spectacular stage for performances by prima ballerina Rosetta Cook and the boardroom before Rock'n' Roll Circus, Anthony Babicci's performance piece 'Wild at Art', and an uplifting operatic aria by Sharon Moore; joining the Queensland and into a dance floor, featuring lighting and slide projections by Tim Gruchy and Geoff Kelly, and contemporary dance arts community for lunch in the sculpture music by DJ Johnny Griffin. Other features were a highly innovative work-in-progress, Mondale: An Interactive Computer Video courtyard. Installation by Tim Gruchy, and Andrew Campbell's specially created photographic studio installation in which party-goers were photographed. This successful arts ball formula originated with the 300MINUTES Ball in 1991, held to celebrate National Arts Week. I Monday 29 June was a day of public festivity. State Cabinet, who met in the Gallery Boardroom joined Gallery staff, local artists members of the arts community, sponsors 10 donors, other supporters and the media for a barbeque lunch on the lower level of the . • 4 sculpture courtyard. The Premier of Queensland the Hon Wayne Goss MLA cut the anniversary cake :een placed on a whimsical cake stand created by artist Scott Whitaker, and the Ten Favourite Artworks in the Collection, as nominated by the public and ocal identities who took part in the Celebrities Choice promotion. A tour sheet of the Celebrities Choice was produced for the public. The ten most popular works were: Vida Lahey Monday morning 1912; Blandford Fletcher Evicted 1887; E. Phillips Fox On the beach c. 1909; R. Godfrey Rivers Under the jacaranda 1903; Pablo Picasso La Belle Hollandaise 1905; Ian Cutting the Gallery's Fairweather Epiphany 1962; Rupert Bunny Bathers tenth anniversary cake, ( ,:' 1906; William Dobell The Cypriot 1940; Brett on a stand created by , Whiteley Portrait of Arthur Rimbaud 1970-71; Brisbane artist Scott , and Alison Clouston Pterodactyl car 1985. Whitaker, are (from left): Mr Doug Hall, & \ LI Thousands of visitors enjoyed performances by Director; the Hon. , Imbala Aboriginal Dancers, Rock'n'Roll Circus, Wayne Goss, MLA, Country Starlight Stampede and Paul Kelly. Premier and Minister A regional Queensland fax art project invited for Economic and Trade , Development and artists' perspectives on the concept of a cultural Minister for the Arts; . . . Brisbane Line. Throughout the day, forty regional and Mr Richard Austin, . artists from Toowoomba, Cairns, Townsville, OBE Chairman of Trustees Rockhampton, Noosa, the Gold Coast, Ipswich, 4 . Childers, Roma and Innisfail faxed to the Gallery their artistic responses to the question 'Does the Brisbane Line Exist?' and al works were displayed as they were received. Works imitating Australian impressionist and naive colonial paintings, a seventeenth century 2