‘Sydney has lost a vital organ’: artists mourn the closure of Carriageworks

The decision by Carriageworks to call in the administrators has stunned the arts community as it struggles to survive.

Video artists Shaun Gladwell and gallerist Anna Schwartz at Carriageworks in Sydney. Picture: Renee Nowytarger

The decision by Carriageworks management to call in administrators has stunned the nation’s arts community, many of whom are struggling to stay afloat during the lockdown.

Carriageworks, a multi-arts venue that hosts everything from contemporary opera to farmers markets, opened in 2007 as part of the redeveloped Eveleigh Railway Workshops in inner Sydney.

Faced with an “irreparable loss of income” due to the cancellation of six months of activities, the board said on Monday night that it had appointed voluntary administrators to the institution.

Chief executive Blair French is hoping to reopen after social distancing restrictions have been relaxed­. But the collapse has also sparked a renewed round of lobby­ing among the city’s cultural powerbrokers: the Sydney Opera House has been asked by the state government to consult on the venue’s long-term sustainability, while Lord Mayor Clover Mayor is pressing Premier Gladys Berejiklian to save Carriageworks and other institutions by diverting the $1.5bn cost of moving the Powerhouse Museum to Parramatta.

Carriageworks was especially vulnerable to the downturn, generati­ng three-quarters of its revenue from non-government sources, mainly through events and programs. Its 2018 financial report showed a bottom line loss of $559,236 with net negative equity of $545,078. Commercial events generated $3,955,625, while other income included government grants ($3,463,797), box office ($1,552,995) and farmers markets ($1,113,295.)

It might be financially shaky, but the venue’s artistic credentials are solid. Carriageworks has presented­ performances by cultural­ figures from around the world, from Bjork to American artist Nick Cave to Belgian choreo­grapher Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Japanese composer Ryoji Ikeda.

And as well as its resident companies, which include the Sydney Chamber Opera and Moogahlin Performing Arts, it has hosted performanc­es from the likes of Bangarra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and staged events for the Sydney Festival, the Sydney Writers’ Festival and ­Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.

The Sydney Dance Company was due to show its latest New Wave program there in November. “It’s really sad,” says artistic director Rafael Bonachela­. “I hope it can be solved and saved.”

Among the arts figures saddened­ by the news was Melbourne­ gallerist Anna Schwartz, who launched a partnership with Carriageworks in 2015 after closing her Sydney gallery at the venue. She said many artists, among them Antony Gormley, Joseph Kosuth­, Yinka Shonibare, Angelica Mesiti, Marco Fusinato and Mike Parr, had realised their most ambitious works at the site. “I am very upset about the possible loss of Carriagew­orks to Sydney, to Aust­ralia and the world more widely,” she says. “While I had the gallery there, there was no artist who was not challenged by the space and what it offered.”

Schwartz says it would be a tragedy to extinguish Carriagewor­ks’ indigenous legacy. “The interplay between­ cultural forms ­afforded by Carriageworks, — visual art, installation, performance and film — is unique in Australia,” she says. “It is a jewel which I hope will be preserved and treasured.”

Shaun Gladwell, one of the artists who showed at Carriageworks under Schwartz, says it has given him an “incredible nurturing and support”.

“I’m unable to imagine Sydney without Carriageworks,” Gladwell says. “It houses so many fond memories and wild experiences. It’s an understatement to say that Carriageworks is big, colossal, not only in terms of its vast interior dimensio­ns that would make visit­ors’ jaws drop when they first walked in. Artists knew it was possible to do absolutely anything in such a place.

“Carriageworks is immense also in terms of the range of its programming, from visual arts to live performance, pushing artforms in every possible direction. Sydney has not lost a limb, but a vital organ. And I can only hope to see the day, sooner than soon, that its doors will be open again.”