Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation Christmas celebration

Foundation President, Mr Tim Fairfax; committee members; Queensland Art Gallery board members; distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen.

Kaye and I are delighted to join you once more for this wonderful celebration – a celebration of many things.

This evening we acknowledge with deep appreciation the generosity of Queenslanders who support their premier visual arts institution through the QAGOMA Foundation.

We mark another successful year of the foundation’s support for so many of the gallery’s projects and activities, and the growth of its collections.

And, above all, we celebrate the gallery’s continued success in encouraging and nurturing the close, always enriching connection of Queenslanders with art. 

The arrival of the Ninth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art here at QAGOMA is an undoubted highlight for the gallery over the next five months.

‘Arrival’ is, I know, an understatement, because the triennial is and has always been the culmination of years of dedication and hard work by the entire gallery team.

The gallery has leveraged its excellent relationships with artists and art institutions in the Asia-Pacific – relationships to which Kaye and I can attest from our official travel in the region – to bring their art here, to the banks of the Brisbane River. 

The APT is a signature QAGOMA initiative and a triumph for the gallery and for Queenslanders.

As Patron, I acknowledge with gratitude the foundation’s role in supporting APT9.

I congratulate all those whose efforts have culminated in the exhibition and the comprehensive program of activities that form an integral part of the APT experience.

Kaye and I very much look forward to viewing the exhibition in a short while.

I am also delighted to acknowledge the visionary leadership – not to mention extraordinary generosity – of foundation President, Mr Tim Fairfax, over the past 10 years.

Over that decade, foundation membership has increased by more than 80 per cent, with upwards of 600 new members, and the value of the foundation’s funds under investment has tripled.

It is with the greatest of pleasure that I take this opportunity, as 2018 draws to a close, to congratulate, thank, and pay tribute to Tim and Gina, to all foundation members, and to QAGOMA itself, for the enormous contribution they make to that critical and fundamental connection between Queenslanders and great art.  

Thank you.