The Art Gallery of New South Wales, one of Australia’s most important art institutions, faces an especially acute cultural challenge. Museum building in a real-estate obsessed city that Mark Twain called “superbly beautiful” — in the sunny heart of a proud “sporting nation” — often requires overcoming a barrage of negativity. The Sydney Opera House was loathed before it was loved, and the Modern has traveled a rough road already. — The New York Times
The debate around SANAA’s newly-opened $344 million expansion in some ways mirrors the one leading up to the (then $102 million AUS) Sydney Opera House in the late-1960s, which, at the time. centered on a discussion over the value of cultural investments that culminated in philosopher Peter Singer’s groundbreaking text Famine, Affluence, and Morality.
“Most of the rulers and commentators really do believe that ‘culture’ is a nonessential or luxury additive rather than part of the educational, civic, ethical and moral systems whereby a society might govern its core values and activities,” University of Canberra professor Ross Gibson told the Times in summary of that history.
The gallery has reported a total of 120,000 visitors in the first ten days of opening.
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