AGWA illustrates the power of arts

Australians have rediscovered a healthy appetite for high-quality arts if recent findings from the state’s art gallery are an accurate guide.

The Art Gallery of Western Australia welcomed an annual record 437,960 people through its doors in 2023, a 60.4 per cent increase from FY19, the last full year of operation before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tourist figures peaked last year, too, with visitors having travelled from beyond Perth increasing 83 per cent.

AGWA director Colin Walker said the visitation growth was not only significant but revealed a shift in the age profile of visitors, with increased engagement from young people.

“In the year before COVID started, our two highest age cohorts were the fifty-five to sixty-four, and sixty five plus,” Dr Walker told Business News.

“Now, the two highest cohorts are sixteen to twenty-four, and twenty-five to thirty-four; forty-four per cent of our audiences are under thirty-four.

“We haven’t lost any of the old ones, by the way, so the two groups that were previously the highest age cohorts are still high, much higher than they used to be.

“What’s changed is that we’ve attracted a significant, younger demographic.”

Dr Walker said this growth indicated the level of demand for arts from younger generations and showed the way the market was shifting.

AGWA launched a curatorial initiative with the Simon Lee Foundation Institute of Contemporary Asian Art in 2022 to bring new and emerging arts from Asia to WA.

Last year’s exhibition of works by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara became the most visited exhibition in AGWA history.

“There are much different expectations on art now than there were even a few years ago: the relationship between art and entertainment … the ability to see [arts] frequently, explore your journey in the arts, feel more immersed in the world experience; these are really big drivers [of increased visitation levels],” Dr Walker said.

“We’ve seen that internationally and particularly in our parts of the world in Australia and Asia.

“Thanks to a fantastic donation by the Simon Lee Foundation, we’ve got this ability to access Asia in a way we haven’t been able to for a long time.

“It meant we were hitting people with new things they actually want to see, and therefore the money follows.

“Once you get this excitement and ambition, people want to be associated with those things. That’s where we’re headed.”

He said South Korean artist Anna Park would be coming to Perth for an exhibition, for which she had curated an entire body of work exclusively for AGWA.

“She’s been covered in US Vogue, she’s the designer of one of Billie Eilish’s album covers … her works are just astonishing.”

Money maker

AGWA’s non-government cash revenue has increased 124.3 per cent over four years, rising from $2.8 million in FY19 to $6.39 million in FY23.

The philanthropic portion of this lifted by 38.9 per cent over the same period, and Dr Walker said some of these donations were the largest the gallery had received, with several upwards of $250,000.

“One of them $1.4 million and one was $750,000,” he said.

“The rest of non-government revenue came from our own commercial activity, from sponsorship and what we’ve managed to do in the markets.

“Broadening our income base has generated that amount of money, which has enabled us to be a little more aggressive, I suppose, in showing people what they could have from their state art gallery.”

For three years, AGWA has been developing plans for a new gallery space to be built in the Perth Cultural Centre’s Urban Orchard.

The gallery completed a business case in December 2022, before updating the proposal in November 2023 to incorporate the substantial elevation in visitation levels.

Dr Walker said the plans were under review by state government, which he hoped would recognise the potential benefits for WA arts and culture.

“We still have plans to develop the Roe Street car park as part of the overall PCC redevelopment,” he said.

“The development timelines change; it’s a more complex space to design than people think.”

Dr Walker said it was vital to design the area to maximise visitor attraction and retention through the intersection of landscape, infrastructure, additional attractions and commercial strategy.

“It’s just a complex project and complex projects take a little bit of time, but I’m fairly confident something will begin later this year,” he said.

Galleries across Australia have undergone significant redevelopments in recent years.

The Art Gallery of NSW reopened in 2022 after a $344 million expansion, while the $1.7 billion transformation of the Melbourne Arts Precinct is currently under construction.

The latter includes the building of a new gallery for National Gallery of Victoria called The Fox: NGV Contemporary.

Dr Walker said an expansion for AGWA would bolster WA’s arts offerings and attract more people to Perth.

“[W]e’re relatively isolated … for the attraction and retention piece, how can we offer a city that’s compelling, not just to visitors and tourists but for people to actually come, settle down and make their lives here,” he said.

“We felt that we needed a new gallery, firstly because it helps the city and state in that sense, but also because we want to meet the arts market.

“We’re limited with what we can do at a heritage building. We can’t make the doors any wider or the ceilings any higher.

“We put together a business case to see to see what could be done [and] we came up with a preferred option and submitted that to government.”

Politically, Dr Walker said, the timing was right.

“The premier, treasurer, and cultural minister all have a real sense of what culture can and can’t do in terms of city and state building,” he said.

“We’ve seen that with the [Malaga] film studio and the Aboriginal Cultural Centre commitments and what they intend to do with the Perth Concert Hall.

“Nobody has a right to anything. We have to make arguments as to who should get what. I think our argument has been pretty compelling, mainly because we can point to a future.

“We don’t have an ageing, declining audience. We’ve got a young, rising audience, and I think that’s quite difficult to achieve in any institutional context.”

AGWA has launched a four-year process to digitise its full collection of 18,600 artworks, backed by a $500,000 donation combined with its own matched cost raising.

The transition to digital will enable the community to access the State Art Collection database online.