Meet Karen Quinlan, Arts Centre Melbourne chief executive and unofficial custodian of Kylie Minogue’s golden hot pants

Karen Quinlan is on a mission to expand Melbourne’s arts precinct — and Kylie Minogue’s iconic hot pants are just one small element of her tireless journey.

Matt Johnston

@Media_Matt

9 min read

May 23, 2025 - 2:00PM

Meet Karen Quinlan, the unofficial custodian of Kylie Minogue’s gold hot pants.

Victoria

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She may be the unofficial custodian of Kylie Minogue’s gold hot pants, but Arts Centre Melbourne chief executive Karen Quinlan is yet to meet the Australian musical icon.

“I did go to her concert recently, I’d love to meet her,” she says.

“It’s great for Australia to have someone like Kylie as an ambassador who has been generously donating collection items for many years, which enhances our story telling and adds lustre to our collection.”

The hot pants, along with a gold top and leather shoes worn in the video for Minogue’s ‘Spinning Around’ hit in 2000, are some of the 850,000 items that are held by Arts Centre Melbourne and will be rotated through a new Australian Museum of Performing Arts from December.

The museum, which will be housed in Hamer Hall, has been a passion project for Quinlan since taking the reins at the city’s home of performing arts three years ago.

The “constantly evolving” collection also includes new items from legendary performers such as the late Barry Humphries and Olivia Newton-John.

Emma Howarth views Kylie Minogue’s famous gold hot pants during a Sydney exhibition. Picture: Supplied

Quinlan says gifts and donations to the collection demonstrate generosity and a “deep understanding of what cultural heritage is and its importance”.

“The performing artists know their place in the world, they have found fame and success and this can be an inspirational story.”

Telling Australian stories has been the bedrock of Quinlan’s career in the arts, which spans various media and institutions, such as the National Gallery of Victoria, Bendigo Art Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery.

Her own story began as one of five children to a hairdresser and a jockey.

“I grew up in Maribyrnong, a suburb with simple post-war housing. The nearby river flooded frequently and life was challenging however I always nurtured an ambition to do something big with my life,” she says.

Quinlan sat down with Matt Johnston for the Herald Sun’s Big V Interview to share the journey and reveal what’s next for Melbourne’s famous – and expanding – arts precinct.

Quinlan sat down with Matt Johnston for the Herald Sun’s Big V Interview. Picture Kym Smith

THE SIXTIES KID

Born in suburban Melbourne in the swinging sixties, Quinlan’s childhood embodied the hedonism and optimism of the period.

She was the fourth of five children in her working class family, surrounded by pets, siblings, and local kids which made life fun.

In their early careers her mother was a hairdresser and her father was a jockey who had been apprenticed to her grandfather – a successful trainer.

“We didn’t have much, but you learnt to be inventive and creative and you worked with what you had,” she says.

“I wouldn’t call myself a tomboy, but I was out on bikes and out playing. And I think you learn as a young child through play.

“We were building tree houses, we would build billycarts, I was servicing my dragster.”

She was the fourth of five children in her working class family. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

She attended local Catholic schools that were heavy on the Ten Commandments but, with hindsight, provided a grounding in positive values.

“I think what that Catholic education gave me is the ability to be honest and the ability to see the joy in the world and to be optimistic about life,” she says.

“We always have times when we think about things with the glass half empty, but inside I’m very much about the glass being half full.

“At times in my childhood we struggled as a family but we all came through.”

She describes a sense of ambition, which was “the sense that I wanted to do more with myself”.

“When I say I’m ambitious, I was ambitious for myself, the grass always looked greener on the other side of the river,” she says.

“In those days, you were talking about nursing, you were talking about teaching, you were not talking about running an arts centre or art galleries, for goodness sake”.

“So I think that it was very much about, ‘how far can I go? How ambitious can I be for myself? What is this world offering me?’”

TEACHING AND TEXTILES

Quinlan began her professional career as a teacher, following an education degree at the University of Melbourne.

She supported herself through dressmaking, wedding gowns and bridesmaid dresses – skills taught by her grandmother on a pedal-powered treadle sewing machine.

“I used to love the fact that you could sit there and use your feet to actually make it work,” she says.

“It is a very basic machine, but it has a heaviness to it that I quite like.”

“I was never going to be a fashion designer. Dressmaking was really about, ‘how can I make ends meet for myself now that I’m living away from home’?

“I was always interested in textile design and costume and over the years I’ve developed different interests from there.”

Quinlan began her professional career as a teacher, following an education degree at the University of Melbourne. Picture: Supplied

When the school at which she taught closed down, Quinlan gravitated to the costume and textiles collection at the National Gallery of Victoria, and became a volunteer. Her first paid job was there.

At the time the NGV was undergoing a major redevelopment led by director James Mollison, while up-and-coming curators included Tony Ellwood – who leads NGV today.

Ellwood shifted to the Bendigo Art Gallery in the mid-90s, and Quinlan followed in 1996 when a curator position opened.

“I’d heard of Ballarat because of Sovereign Hill and the Eureka flag,” she says with a wry smile.

“Bendigo wasn’t on my radar, but once I arrived and discovered the collection I was really impressed and could see the potential.”

The gallery played an integral role in the community, which Quinlan appreciated once she lived in the city and began working with Ellwood, with whom she formed a “dynamic” partnership.

“Tony had a huge impact on me because he was driven in a good way, his kind of ambition was something that inspired me,” she says.

NEW ROLES, RECORD CROWDS

Despite barriers many women have had to overcome to reach senior positions, Quinlan says gender wasn’t an issue in her career progression.

“I always thought that if you’re good at what you do, you can get to where you need to be,” she says.

An example was provided at the turn of the century when Ellwood shifted back to the NGV, as its deputy director.

Quinlan was pregnant with her first child, and the Bendigo council approached her to ask why she hadn’t applied for Ellwood’s vacated position.

“I said, ‘I’m about to have a baby’,” she says.

“They said ‘we don’t think that’s a problem, we think you can do it, we want you to apply’ and I was appointed in 2000. Five months later I had my first baby!’

Quinlan at the Bendigo Art Gallery with its favourite piece 'Girl with Cigarettes' by Agnes Goodsir.

Two years later, their second child arrived, at a time the city “started to really get behind the gallery”.

“The Council could really see the benefits of a thriving arts precinct and the Gallery led the way,” she says.

Blockbuster exhibitions such as the Golden Age of Couture, Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly drew record crowds, and Quinlan was afforded the freedom to travel the world to procure pieces and establish deals with international institutions, including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in London.

“After I explained where Bendigo was in the world the V & A said ‘oh we did a show from Victoria, from Melbourne’s Arts Centre’ – it was a show about Kylie Minogue,” she says.

“They said at that point in time it was ‘one of our most popular shows’. It is incredible how things go around in a little circle.”

After 18 years leading the Bendigo Art Gallery, with her children now teenagers, Quinlan shifted to Canberra’s National Portrait Gallery as its director.

As she describes the transition and her children she pauses, with emphasis.

“They are my life, they are everything to me,” she says.

Quinlan says her work at Bendigo revolved around history narratives, artists, and people, so she “took that world with her to the space of portraiture, which was an easy transition”.

It also led to a broader examination of what makes a “good” portrait and the relationship between artist and sitter.

She describes her love of biographies, and her side-project exploring the life of Australian artist Agnes Goodsir, who has a low profile in her home country but whose time in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s led to international renown.

Kylie Minogue's hotpants costume. Picture: Supplied

“Her work was so different to everything else that the Australian art world was doing at that particular time,” Quinlan says.

“She was quite modern in her approach and she left Australia to find herself, I believe. And I loved that; I love her narrative because her pathway to self-discovery was so inspirational.”

MISSING MELBOURNE

Quinlan describes the Portrait Gallery as a “beautiful institution” but when an opportunity to lead Arts Centre Melbourne arose, she realised she wanted to “go to the next level”.

“I was ready for a bigger challenge and this had a building and transformation at its core and I have always found reinvention and transformation compelling,” she says.

Quinlan was already familiar with the collection, and with an institution that is “all about storytelling”.

“Storytelling and people again,” she says.

“It had a plan, and it had a major funding announcement. It felt right.”

The Centre was about to undergo a refurbishment, improving the quality and access of theatres, as well as linking to a new contemporary gallery

It is all part of a $1.7bn Melbourne Arts Precinct transformation, which will create new outdoor gardens and provide greater access to arts organisations.

“I think this precinct has enormous potential for Melbourne,” she says.

“What I want to do with our buildings is really utilise them in a way that they’ve never been utilised. And that means greater activation and programming.”

The Australian Museum of the Performing Arts is described as a “small beginning” of this broader plan to tell a story about “how Australia fits within a global context”.

The State Theatre – which proudly hosts the country’s largest stage – is currently being “reimagined” and updated, respecting John Truscott’s extraordinary legacy in terms of interior design and the heritage significance of Roy Grounds architecture.

“I’m old enough to remember when this place opened, so I had a really strong appreciation of what the architect’s vision was,” she says.

“There’s so much potential here and I just feel that, again, that’s one of the reasons I came back.

“As always, so much is happening, it’s a great time to be in Melbourne.”