Strike!

# 605

Revolutionary stirrings at the Art Gallery of NSW

Whenever I hear that workers have risen up in protest and walked off the job, I think of Sergei Eisenstein’s great film of 1925, Strike! Imagine the downtrodden wage slaves of the Art Gallery of NSW descending on Parliament House, throwing stones, crying: “C’mon Boys, let’s shut her down!”, “To John Graham’s office, comrades!”. Cut to the Minister and his advisors, smoking cigars, squeezing lemons into their drinks, wiping their shoes with a list of workers’ demands. Cut to starving child: “Papa, I’m hungry”.

It may not end well for Eisenstein’s proletarians, but you’ve gotta admire their courage and fervour. Things are unlikely to reach the same levels of high drama among Sydney’s arts workers, but we have seen the first glimmerings of pushback last week when employees of the AGNSW laid down tools and held a protest meeting on the gallery steps.

The catalyst was the government’s removal of $7.2 million from the AGNSW’s allocation, and its demand that jobs be slashed. The Treasury wanted 70 jobs to go, but it seems the final number will be 51 – which represents a reduction of roughly 13% from a total staff of 382. This qualifies as a bloodbath.

The drone’s eye-view reveals a state cultural landscape in ruins due to government policies that seem inexplicable unless we assume a deliberate intention to destroy infrastructure it has taken decades to establish. The ultimate absurdity is Mr. Graham’s infatuation with the Powerhouse - a dark fantasy that has zero chance of ever being anything but a permanent hole in the public purse. By the time this saga is completed - if it’s ever completed! - there will be little change from $2 billion, and three unwanted venues that continue to suck $100 million a year from the taxpayer.

Director, Lisa Havilah, is looking increasingly like Nero, drunk on her own “visionary” schemes while the entire arts budget of NSW goes up in flames. Nobody can understand the voodoo hold she has over Arts Minister Graham, because both public and professional opinion has been warning of catastrophe since Day One. This year, matters have reached the point where this runaway financial bonfire is quite obviously having a destructive impact on the state’s other arts institutions.

In order to feed his pet monster, Mr. Graham and his myrmidons have pulled funding from 18 regional galleries, put the knife into the AGNSW, defunded the Australian Design Centre, and generally starved a long list of important, well-run institutions with dedicated audiences. This week finds the government giving back a few pennies to stave off the growing outrage – providing two-year funding to some galleries instead of four-year funding; handing the ADC a paltry $150,000, which is still not enough to ensure its survival. It’s a pathetic tactic that expects institutions to be grateful for being bashed with a slightly smaller club.

For the arts in this state, the cuts are becoming a matter of life or death. Up until this point, it has been like shooting fish in a barrel for Mr. Graham.

I’ve argued these points incessantly, but they need to be repeated. When we give up on a story after one or two articles and withdraw into silence – the preferred method of the mainstream media nowadays – truly bad policies will only get worse. We saw last week how a long-building mess can come as a complete surprise to the Sydney Morning Herald, a newspaper that has distinguished itself over the past few years by taking every piece of government spin at face value.

It was slightly ironic that within days of running a marshmallow story titled: In a first, the city’s biggest cultural institutions are run by women, the SMH was obliged to run another piece – by the same intrepid reporter! – called: ‘It’s a travesty!’: Art Gallery staff in walk out to protest job cuts.

The first piece was a Q & A, in which Linda Morris pitched profound questions at six women who are now in charge of Sydney’s cultural institutions:

Writing and reading are somewhat old-fashioned ideas in the internet age… How does the state’s oldest library survive?

You are accused of having too many works by dead white men in your collection. Do you? And if so, how do you correct that?

And even a prod at the evil opposition: “…And yet, your gallery has been accused in the Murdoch press of being too woke.”

Unfazed, the women on the end of this fearsome interrogation, managed to reply in ways that sounded just like press releases. Take Maud Page, for instance: “The art gallery showcases such a broad spectrum of artistic voices and contemporary and historical art that offers an enriching experience for all visitors.”

I could go, but you get the idea. It appears that the whole point of the story was: “These directors are women. Isn’t that amazing?” My own first question was: “Where’s Suzanne Cotter? Doesn’t the Museum of Contemporary Art count as a major cultural institution?”

I’m sorry if I let my mask of cosmopolitan indifference slip, but honestly, what should a librarian say to an interviewer who suggests that “reading and writing are somewhat old-fashioned ideas?” Maybe point out that these activities are not as old-fashioned as thinking and congratulate the interviewer on having successfully avoided that pitfall.

And who are these anonymous people “accusing” the AGNSW of having “too many works by dead white men?” Maybe the gallery should have a big bonfire. That’d draw the crowds.

A mere six days later, we find the same Linda Morris reporting:

Staff at the Art Gallery of NSW have walked out in protest at the axing of 51 jobs as budget figures reveal employee costs at the Powerhouse Museum are set to soar by 20 per cent at a time when the museum is mostly shut to the public.

This strikes a slightly different note to the “Six Women” seminar, in which Maud proclaimed: “I would say every single institution around this table is open and generous and welcoming to everyone.” And Lisa Havilah of the Powerhouse, added: “I don’t think we should see ourselves in competition with each other. Sydney is an international city and we can help each other.”

The thrust of the second SMH article is that every cultural institution in Sydney is in competition with the Powerhouse – a voracious maw which is swallowing tens of millions in government funding while being almost entirely closed to the public! At the same time the AGNSW is sacking 51 employees in order to cope with a $7.2 million cut, the Powerhouse has been given another $10 million towards staff costs. This makes the PHM, with a wages bill of $60.6 million, by far the most expensive cultural employer in Sydney. The AGNSW, by comparison, is set to spend $51 million. The Australian Museum, the most efficiently run of all the lot, has a staff budget of $38.1 million.

There are various ways of looking at this predicament. Staff at the AGNSW strongly believe Maud Page must have been informed of the impending staff cuts when she was given the director’s job. In other words, Maud knew what she was getting into, and might be accused of selling out employees for personal ambition. In her defence she could argue that it would have been the same story no matter who was appointed, but this will not dispel an air of smouldering resentment. Although the first few months of Queen Maud’s reign may have been a time of cautious optimism, the honeymoon is over.

Had an earlier director such as Edmund Capon been told he had to lose 51 staff, I suspect he would have pulled strings, made phone calls to politicians, various elder statesmen, major donors and sponsors, and fought this directive. Maud did not have this power, and as far as the government was concerned, that was a recommendation for the job. It rings hollow when the director tells Artshub that “the wellbeing of staff is our top priority, and we are focused on supporting our people throughout this process.” It’s always reassuring to know that those who have given you the sack are concerned about your wellbeing.

According to my discussions with staff last week, the entire gallery is wreathed in gloom, with nobody being able to concentrate on their work due to the overall air of insecurity. Are we are seeing the first signs of rebellion?

Even if we discount the feelings of resentment that will linger when the bloodletting is over, the gallery will remain in straightened circumstances. It seems clear there will be little money to host major exhibitions, or even minor ones. But without a vibrant exhibition program, matters can only get worse. As Tony Ellwood has proven at the National Gallery of Victoria, in this game you need to spend money to make money. Invest in major exhibitions, do great catalogues, give the impression of constant activity, and audiences will come.

For more than a decade, under the zombie leadership of Michael Brand, the AGNSW lapsed into a coma. With all efforts focused on securing funds for the new wing, there was no money for exhibitions, catalogues, acquisitions, and so on. Everything was dismissed as being too expensive, or too much trouble. Or, laughably, for not having sufficient commercial potential. The outcome was a gallery that shed long-term supporters, failed to inspire new audiences and became a venue for package shows.

The singular folly was the insistence on building a massive new wing without adequate provision for increased costs. Politicians love to open new buildings but are reluctant to fund them, and this is something that should have been hammered out during the decade-long building process. Now the squeeze is on, with the government actively raking back the cash so it can be showered on Powerhouse rave parties and catwalk shows.

As Mr Graham must know that when the AGNSW is on the skids, holding out the begging bowl, it has far less chance of attracting private and corporate money. By hosting fewer shows you can only expect less revenue from visitation, from shops and cafés. A slow-down of activity, abetted by staff cuts and belt-tightening, leads inevitably to a smaller income stream. It’s a bad joke for any director to imagine that a shortfall can be made up from increased ticket sales, higher door charges, venue-hire, restaurants, shops and merchandise. At the AGNSW, under current circumstances, all these revenue streams are guaranteed to decline.

Gina Fairley at Artshub tells us the AGNSW is claiming 2.37 million visitors to both venues during 2024-25. This is hard to believe, unless we count everyone who saw both buildings as two visitors rather than one, plus everyone who came to an after-hours wedding function and never looked at a work of art. Had the AGNSW managed to attract 2.37 million visitors it’s unlikely there would be a revenue problem today. The danger with such rubbery figures is that they set up false expectations with government, who are less likely to congratulate you than to reduce your stipend.

The only way forward is for the Minns government to face up to its responsibilities and fund the AGNSW to the degree that is required to enable it to operate with a reasonable degree of enterprise. The same goes for all the other arts institutions Mr. Graham has been sabotaging. This could be achieved if a fraction of the huge expenditure on the Powerhouse was reined in, and Lisa Havilah made subject to the same structures that have been imposed on her peers. This would entail budgetary restraint, a halt to the pointless growth in staff numbers for a shuttered institution, and a bigger commitment to raising money from private and corporate sources.

As there is no reason to expect a sudden windfall from tight-fisted private and corporate benefactors in Australia, governments cannot shirk their obligations in the immediate future. Culture is as much an essential service as health, welfare and education.

If truth be told there probably are too many people employed by AGNSW, but it’s much harder to fire than to hire. Over the past decade the gallery has convinced itself it needed more staff for one project or another, allowing the numbers to gradually creep up. But when relatively few exhibitions are held, staff are not being used to the best of their abilities. The danger with mass firings is that experienced workers will go, while newcomers remain, removing essential expertise and corporate knowledge. The pain inflicted on 51 people drags down the morale of the entire institution.

At present there is nothing on the horizon but a continuing spiral into mediocrity: less shows, less programs, less reason for sponsors to want to put their name to an institution going backwards. The rot must be arrested at the top, with the abandonment of the scorched-earth approach favoured by the Ministry of the Arts. The AGNSW leadership, for their part, cannot be passive recipients of one blow after another. Maud and her team need to stand up for staff and speak out against the degradation of the gallery, even if it makes life uncomfortable for themselves. As for those employed by museums and galleries in this state, if they care for their institutions and for their own survival, they’ll need to get back on the barricades.

The art column this week looks at Tender Comrade at the White Rabbit Gallery. It presented me with the tricky dilemma of how to write about a LGBTQIA+ show when it’s slightly disappointing by the usual WR standards.

At the movies, I’m looking at The Thread, a French courtroom drama that sucks you right in, as courtroom dramas tend to do. The film gains a lot from strong performances by Daniel Auteuil, who also directs, and a hulking Grégory Gadebois, who plays a man accused of murdering his wife. I’m looking forward to an Australian courtroom drama featuring John Graham as the politician who murdered the arts in NSW. He may get off by pleading insanity.