New South Wales’ sleek new art museum has been a decade in the making.
The Yiribana Gallery at the Sydney Modern is dedicated to the display of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. (Courtesy of Art Gallery of New South Wales/Zan Wimberley)
A neoclassical pile in Sydney’s Domain parkland, the Art Gallery of New South Wales has served as one of the country’s top cultural institutions for over a century, its thick sandstone walls enclosing a priceless collection of Australian and international art. But as modern museums go, this one was in need of an overhaul by the time the oughties rolled around.
Hence the Sydney Modern, a US$246 million expansion that has been hailed as the city’s most significant cultural development since the debut of the Sydney Opera House 50 years ago. Almost doubling the Gallery’s exhibition area, the new structure is a cluster of limestone-faced pavilions by Pritzker-winning Japanese firm SANAA, with a public art garden that connects it to the original building next door.
In contrast to its more solemn neighbor (which has also been refurbished and rehung), the new wing — the official name of which is pending community consultation — is about light and integration, its modular galleries stacked to follow the natural slope of the hill they’re built into. This means that when you’re not gazing at art, you’re treated to views of nearby Woolloomooloo Wharf and Sydney Harbour through improbably angled glass windows.
The opening program spotlights the work of 900 artists, including nine site-specific pieces created for the launch. Among the latter are giant polka-dotted flowers by Japan’s Yayoi Kusama, fantastical bronze sculptures by New Zealand artist Francis Upritchard, and, lurking underground in a former World War II– era oil tank that has been converted into a subterranean exhibition space, haunting installations by Argentine sculptor Adrián Villar Rojas.
But the undisputable highlight is the Yiribana Gallery, relocated from the basement of the old wing and given pride of place near the new entrance. Dedicated to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, its displays include commissions from Indigenous creators like Lorraine Connelly-Northey, Karla Dickens, and Jonathan Jones. A Sydney Modern welcome by the oldest living culture in the world — it doesn’t get any better than this.
A view of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ new SANAA-designed building. (Photo: Iwan Baan)
Maori artist Lisa Reihana’s moving-image installation GROUNDLOOP overlooks the central atrium. (Courtesy of Art Gallery of New South Wales/Jenni Carter)
Woven chronicle, an installation by Mumbai-based visual artist Reena Saini Kallat, is being shown as part of the “Making Worlds” exhibition. (Courtesy of Art Gallery of New South Wales/Zan Wimberley)
This article originally appeared in the March/May 2023 print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Modern Times”).
