Vew from the chair: Speeches of Richard WL Austin

the one hand and the remaining twelve participants on the other. Rather, it should be seen as the forum for a multi-faceted dialogue, debate and exchange of ideas between all thirteen countries, with Australia acting simply as one of the participants. I think I can fairly say that this is an occasion of great significance for Australia as a whole. Mindful of this, the Premier, in a gesture of exemplary generosity, invited the Prime Minister to open the Triennial. His international commitments made this impossible, but his absence does, in a sense, help to emphasise that this is, first and foremost, a Queensland initiative, conceived in this Gallery and strongly supported by the Queensland Government before any other organisations came into the picture. The Triennial later received significant funding from the Federal Government through the Australia Council, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and its Embassies and High Commissions abroad, but it was the Premier who took, from the outset, a personal interest in, and gave unstinting support to, the Triennial-in every possible way. It is appropriate, therefore, that he should be opening it tonight. And now, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce the Premier of Queensland, the Hon.Wayne Goss, and to ask him to address us. 14 Speech to Delegates at the Asia-Pacific Triennial Conference, 18 September 1993 NOTE: THE FIRST TRIENNIAL CONFERENCE HELD TO COINCIDE WITH THE EXHIBITION WAS ATTENDED BY MORE THAN 400 DELEGATES FROM THIRTEEN COUNTRIES IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION AS WELL AS REPRESENTATIVES FROM EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES. IT HAS BEEN ACKNOWLEDGED AS ONE OF THE MOST DYNAMIC AND SIGNIFICANT ART CONFERENCES HELD IN AUSTRALIA, BREAKING NEW GROUND AND OPENING A NEW DIALOGUE IN CONTEMPORARY ART. As Chairman of the Queensland Art Gallery Board of Trustees, it is my pleasure to be with you this morning and to offer, on behalf of all the Trustees, a very warm welcome to all the delegates to this conference. In the very earliest stages of planning for the Asia-Pacific Triennial, it became apparent that a major conference should be held to coincide with the opening of the exhibition. During the three years of preparation leading up to this exhibition, the Gallery had the advantage of generous and enthusiastic assistance by distinguished scholars and artists from all over the region. The natural continuation of this has been to give all of these people, together with other delegates, the opportunity to converse and debate as part of a wider forum. The Queensland Art Gallery has a long-established commitment to encouraging scholarship and has held a number of forums and symposiums in the past-in particular, delegates may already be aware of those events held to complement other major exhibitions-'Toulouse-Lautrec: Prints and Posters from the Bibliotheque 37