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HOTA GALLERY OPENS ITS DOORS WITH MAJOR EXHIBITION, NEW COMMISSIONS AND 100+ ARTWORKS FROM THE CITY COLLECTION

Announcement posted by HOTA 06 May 2021

The new $60.5 million HOTA Gallery - Australia's largest public gallery outside a capital city - opens free to the public this Saturday.

Contemporary cultural precinct HOTA, Home of the Arts opens the major new $60.5 million HOTA Gallery on Australia’s Gold Coast on Saturday 8 May 2021. Spanning six levels and including over 2,000m2 of AAA rated, international standard exhibition space and a dedicated Children’s Gallery, HOTA Gallery is the largest public gallery outside a capital city in Australia. 

 

Celebrating artists from across Australia and the world, HOTA Gallery presents world premiere international exhibitions, Australian exclusives and new commissions, and is home to the $32 million City Collection, consisting of more than 4,400 artworks.

 

Designed by award-winning Melbourne-based architects ARM, the gallery is the latest addition to Australia’s dynamic new arts precinct, HOTA, Home of the Arts, sitting on the banks of the Nerang River on the Gold Coast in Queensland. The Gallery is the centrepiece of the City’s Cultural Precinct master plan which guides the evolution of the precinct over the next 10-15 years. 

 

Criena Gehrke, HOTA CEO said: ‘We’re delighted to throw open the doors and welcome the Gold Coast to the new HOTA Gallery for the first time. The Gallery will challenge everything people thought they knew about arts and culture on the Gold Coast, it’s bold, unapologetic and completely unbound by tradition.

 

‘HOTA Gallery represents everything we believe in at HOTA, from local artists front and centre in our first major exhibition, to hidden and unexpected stories in our collection galleries, exquisite Indigenous art and wonderful, immersive experiences for our youngest culture vultures in the Children’s Gallery, there is truly something for everyone.'

 

The Gallery’s inaugural program launches with the major exhibition SOLID GOLD: Artists from Paradise (8 May - 4 July 2021). Commissioned by the Gallery, 19 emerging and established Australian artists and collectives, each with a personal connection to the Gold Coast region, have created new works exploring the relationship between people and place, the human impact on the natural world, as well as the urban environment and beauty of the landscape. 

 

Artists including Hiromi Tango, Michael Candy, Abbey McCulloch, Samuel Leighton-Dore, Elliot Bastianon, CJ Anderson and Lisa Sorbie Martin have created indoor and outdoor works ranging from large-scale sculptures, ceramics, paintings, photography to immersive video and installations, presented throughout the Gallery and the surrounding HOTA parklands. 

 

Tracy Cooper-Lavery, Director, Gallery and Visual Arts, HOTA said: ‘It’s absolutely fitting that the first ever major exhibition in HOTA Gallery is SOLID GOLD - Artists from Paradise, an exhibition of all new works by local artists. SOLID GOLD showcases the incredible depth of creativity and talent in our city and will position local artists into the national conversation.

 

‘SOLID GOLD will be followed later in the year by Lyrical Landscapes – The Art of William Robinson and in November we will present Contemporary Masters, selected works from one of the world’s largest private collections based in New York in an exhibition exclusive to HOTA Gallery. Visitors will be able to enjoy iconic works from legendary contemporary artists, such Jean Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons.’

 

Acclaimed Queensland Waanyi artist Judy Watson and Sri-Lankan born, Sydney based artist Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran also present two major outdoor artworks commissioned by the Gallery. Responding to the history of the site and local Indigenous people, Brisbane based artist Judy Watson has created a multi-part sculptural garden work, serving as a place of gathering, education, knowledge, and ceremony for all visitors. For his largest sculpture to date, contemporary artist Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran has created a monumental six-metre high, double-sided sculpture welcoming visitors to the entrance of the Gallery. 

 

Alongside the premiere exhibitions and new commissions, HOTA Gallery also presents works from the $32 million City Collection. Consisting of more than 4,400 artworks, the collection includes one of the largest collections of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art in regional Australia.

 

Presented across three galleries, HOTA Collects showcases more than 100 works from the City Collection to reflect key developments in Australian art over the past 50 years, spanning abstraction, feminist art, Indigenous art, ceramics and twenty-first-century photography. The inaugural hang include works by Ben Quilty, Tony Albert, Julie Rrap, Jenny Orchard, Nell, Tracey Moffatt, Gordon Bennett, Michael Zavros, Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, Linde Ivimey, the Huxleys, Scott Redford, John Gollings, Kenneth Macqueen, Vida Lahey, Charles Blackman, Fred Williams, William Robinson and Ethel Carrick Fox.

 

The inaugural exhibition in the new dedicated Children’s Gallery is World Upside Down (8 May – 10 October 2021). Working with Gold Coast artists Lowana Skye-Davies and Alinta Krauth, the Children’s Gallery is an immersive space filled with interactive art and hands-on making activities, inspired by the themes found in the first two major exhibitions, Solid Gold and Lyrical Landscapes.

 

Major upcoming exhibitions include Lyrical Landscapes: The Art of William Robinson (31 July 2021) celebrating one of Australia’s foremost living artists and greatest landscape painters and a world premiere exhibition exclusive to the Gold Coast and Australia, Contemporary Masters from New York: Art from the Mugrabi Collection (13 November 2021), drawn entirely from the famed art collectors private collection. 

 

Tickets to the HOTA Gallery Launch weekend have proved some of the hottest in town, with all tickets being snapped up in under two hours. Following this, tickets to the first month of the HOTA Gallery experience were released, with over 1364 tickets allocated in the first 24 hours.

Although tickets for the Gallery’s launch weekend have sold out, the local community can still join in on the celebrations with free music on the Outdoor Stage all weekend long.

 

The line up on Saturday the 8th of May will feature the Powerhouse Soul vocals and fiery frenetic instrumentation from Hussy Hicks, dreamy psych pop sunshine from EchoWave, the joyous colourful sounds of Samba, Bossa Nova from Augusta Street, the hip hop, soul, traditional rhythms from young First Nations band, Jarulah and Blackline Band and the funky, house, disco and soul vibes from DJ Felix.

 

Sunday 9th May will deliver a free concert of live and loud homegrown talent, Echoes of Gold. Featuring performances by Eliza & The Delusionals, Donny Love, San Mei, Alt Fiction, DENNIS. and DJ sets by VICES; hosted by Kate Baggerson and Zac Fahey, with live on stage interviews with artists, musos, and industry movers and shakers.

 

The Design Collective Markets have also curated a selection of Gold Coast and Queensland makers and retailers for a pop-up market selling a selection of boutique wares, who will be accompanied by food outlets and local brews.

 

Information on the 2021 exhibition program can be found at www.hota.com.au, with further details and programming to be announced in late 2021.

 

From Monday May 10 the Gallery is open to the public and free to visit from 10am, but bookings are required.

 

-ENDS-

 

FOR ALL MEDIA ENQUIRIES: 

To request interviews, further information or imagery please contact:

Amy Stalinescu | M10 Collective

E: amy@m10.com.au M: 0411 789 195

 

IMAGES: Images available for download HERE


ABOUT THE EXHIBITIONS

SOLID GOLD: Artists from Paradise

8 May - 4 July 2021 

HOTA Gallery’s inaugural headline exhibition, Solid Gold: Artists from Paradise (8 May - 4 July 2021) premieres new works from emerging and established artists celebrating the diversity, richness and ambition of the Gold Coast. Commissioned by HOTA, artists with a national reputation including Hiromi Tango, Michael Candy, Abbey McCulloch, Samuel Leighton-Dore, and Libby Harward, alongside locally recognised artists and collectives, present a series of indoor and outdoor works ranging from sculpture, weaving, textiles, ceramics, painting, photography, video and installation works. The project, a $100,000-worth of commissions and artworks marks the largest presentation of new works by Gold Coast artists undertaken by HOTA.

 

Lyrical Landscapes: The Art of William Robinson

31 July - 3 October 2021

Lyrical Landscapes: The Art of William Robinson (31 July - 3 October 2021) celebrates one of Australia’s foremost living artists and greatest landscape painters William Robinson AO. The Queensland-born artist has been awarded both the Archibald and Wynne prizes and is celebrated for his monumental canvases that transformed perspective and the way we view Australian landscape painting in a thoroughly new direction. Coinciding with his 85th year, Lyrical Landscapes, guest curated by Dame Quentin Bryce AD CVO, presents Robinson’s entire Creation Series, produced over 16 years, together for the first time. Widely considered his master works, the series highlights the artist’s spiritual connection to the natural world and through their symphonic composition explores his love of classical music. The monumental multi-panelled paintings will be presented alongside intimate studies and prints. 

 

Contemporary Masters from New York: Art from the Mugrabi Collection

13 November 2021-27 February 2022

The world premiere exhibition Contemporary Masters from New York: Art from the Mugrabi Collection will feature approximately 70 works from some of the world’s most influential contemporary artists, from Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Richard Prince to Jeff Koons. Developed by HOTA Gallery Director, Tracy Cooper-Lavery and drawn entirely from the private collection of famed art collector Jose Mugrabi, the owner of the largest collection of works by Warhol, the exhibition will mark the first time these iconic works have been shown in Australia. Influential, popular, and controversial, these artists are a unique cultural phenomenon, whose reach extends far beyond the confines of the art world.

 

World Upside Down

8 May -10 October 2021

Alongside the main exhibition space, HOTA will unveil the dedicated Children’s Gallery with its first exhibition World Upside Down (8 May - 10 October 2021). Inspired by the themes of Solid Gold and Lyrical Landscapes, the exhibition includes interactive art encouraging the young and young-at-heart to be curious and creative, responding to the natural environment to design a world for the future.

 

ABOUT THE HOTA COLLECTION

The HOTA Collection was established in 1968 and houses more than 4,400 artworks.

The collection has been developed around specific collecting themes and strengths and has been predominantly acquired through sponsorship, benefaction and art prizes including the Gold Coast Art Prize, International Gold Coast Ceramic Art Award and The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award. 

Through the vision of the Gallery’s first Director Fran Cummings, and later the benefaction of Patrick Corrigan AM, the City of Gold Coast holds an important collection of Indigenous work from across Australia, in particular barks by John Mawurndjul, Charlie Djurritjini and Dorothy Galaledba. Continuing this rich collection theme, recent acquisitions include major paintings by Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gaboriand Gordon Hookey.

Presented across three floors of galleries, HOTA Collects will showcase more than 100 works drawn from the collection reflecting key developments in Australian art over the past 50 years, spanning abstraction, feminist art, Indigenous art, ceramics and twenty-first-century photography. The inaugural hang will include works by Ben Quilty, Gordon Hookey, Michael Zavros, Linde Ivimey, Abbey McCulloch, Anna Carey, the Huxleys, Scott Redford, John Gollings, Kenneth Macqueen, Vida Lahey, Charles Blackman, Fred Williams, and Ethel Carrick Fox.

Alongside these works, Gallery 3 will also premiere a number of recent acquisitions; large-scale installations by Nell and Alex Seton, with major works including Mid Century Modern, a series of 70 photographs by Tony Albert, Emily Floyd’s Literary Parrot (Ver-Vert), and the epic painting Nyinyilki by Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori. On Level 5, HOTA Gallery will present works by Australian sculptor Linde Ivimey, including works in HOTA’s Collection, and items on loan from the artist.