ArtsHub has received a copy of a recent e-letter from Carriageworks CEO, Fergus Linehan to Clothing Store resident artists, which states: ‘Over the past five months, we have been looking at the future of Carriageworks. It’s an exciting time, but we are also facing some real challenges. In particular, we’ve had to take a long hard look at our financial position and find a workable business model. As part of this, we have had to make the difficult decision to restructure certain areas of our programming department.
‘Unfortunately, as a result, there will be a redundancy affecting two positions, those of Associate Curator, Visual Arts and Exhibition Manager. This decision was not taken lightly,’ wrote Linehan. ‘The Clothing Store residencies remain an important part of Carriageworks’ programming and we will continue to provide support for artists in residence.’
Linehan confirms that the two employees will continue in their roles until 22 December 2023, and will then work on a contract basis over January/February 2024.
With the stripping of these Visual Arts positions from the organisation, what will this mean for the expanded visual arts program of Carriageworks, which has existed since the organisation’s inception?
Visiting Carriageworks’ website, there is no visual arts programming advertised beyond Salote Tawale’s survey exhibition, I Remember You, which closes 28 January 2024.
ArtsHub reached out to Linehan and the organisation for clarification on the redundancies and their wider impact on programming.
Linehan assured ArtsHub: ‘It’s always sad to have redundancies – no one likes it. But it’s not a sort of wholesale run on redundancies across the organisation, or a withdrawal from the art form.
‘But there is some work to do about the kind of business model around us, just to make sure that anything we do is going to be supported. And that’s created something of a hiatus.’
He continued: ‘Obviously, there tends to be a bit of a reshuffling of the deck whenever somebody comes into programming departments. What Lisa [Havilah] did with visual arts was very different to what Blair [French] did.’
Linehan said that those big international, existing projects that have come in to the venue previously are very different strategically, operationally and financially to, for example, its current exhibition, which is a look at the practice of a mid-career artist.
In an earlier interview, at the time of Linehan’s appointment and on the back of a pandemic return to operations, he told ArtsHub: ‘We’re no longer in crisis in the way we were before, but we are still below the surface. One of the things I worry about a little bit, is people just imagining that it has snapped back into 2019. We’re in a process of rebuilding resilience into the arts at the moment, so there’s incredible opportunity, but I’m also conscious that there’s work that needs to be done. There’s certainly a kind of a recalibration needed. And that’s where my focus is at the moment. I’m just trying to put this together for the next 12 months.’
Read: Q&A: Fergus Linehan on taking on Carriageworks
Perhaps, we are seeing the first rollout of that recalibration, especially in the light of Creative Australia also rethinking its funding for 2024.
Visual art programming at Carriageworks
Over the years, Carriageworks has delivered incredible international visual arts programming, including celebrated artists’ creative site-responsive works, such as Daniel Buren (France, 2018), Song Dong (China, 2013), Christian Boltanski’s massive kinetic installation Chance (France, 2014), Ryoji Ikeda‘s Test pattern (No 5) in 2013 and return in 2015 with Superposition, Ganesh Versus the Third Reich by Back to Back Theatre, Tehching Hsieh’s Time Clock Piece (also in 2014), Zhang Huan’s Sydney Buddha (2015) and the much loved US artist Nick Cave’s Until (2018).
It has also been a key venue for delivering the important survey exhibitions, The National: New Australian Art, the Biennale of Sydney and the incredible 24 Frames Per Second – an exhibition of 24 screen-based works of 18 Australian and six international artists (2015) – as well as supporting solo projects by Australian artists.
Linehan confirmed that the site will be handed over for hire in the first months of the year to a TV company, a practice that the organisation has employed for some time now to create income. ‘And then we pop up in May/June again. So July is when our program starts to kick in and there’s quite a good piece in that period. We do have visual arts projects planned and in the pipeline, and we are also thinking about how we can do this effectively, and in a way that we can resource.’
Linehan reiterated: ‘We’re a small organisation in a big building. We do need to concentrate our resources as well.’ Carriageworks currently has between 35 and 40 staff.
ArtsHub also approached Penelope Benton, Executive Director, National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA), to canvas the organisation’s view of the impact this week’s news may have upon the visual arts sector.
Benton told ArtsHub that Carriageworks has ‘played a major role in elevating the careers of visual artists with the opportunity to stage significant works of scale’.
‘There is nowhere quite like it, particularly for major installation-based work,’ she says.
Benton adds: ‘The visual arts is currently in an even more precarious financial position due to the ongoing impacts of the pandemic. Many galleries are facing financial challenges. Like other businesses, the visual arts are affected by the squeeze of escalating inflation. The return of self-generated income from hosting events and other activities to pre-pandemic levels has not yet returned. At the same time, government funding has either remained stagnant or, in some cases, declined. The combination of these factors paints a picture of heightened vulnerability. Funding at both state and federal levels needs to be urgently addressed to ensure the sustainability and growth of the visual arts sector.’
While exhibition programming appears to have been placed on hold until at least July at Carriageworks, the Clothing Store artist studio program, established in 2017, will continue. Next year, the organisation is offering the year-long residencies rent free for the first time.
Ongoing struggles at Carriageworks
The financial stability of Carriageworks has been more complex than a virus pushback. The beleaguered institution owed more than $2 million to around 140 creditors according to documents made available to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in 2020.
It was one of the great shocks to the arts sector, coming with the announcement in May 2020, that Carriageworks had moved into voluntary administration. It followed a cut of 19 staff the month earlier (9 April 2020).
The tables turned in July 2020, with Carriageworks securing a 20-year lease agreement with the NSW Government. Part of the condition of the KPMG administrators, was to secure the lease and a commitment to future annual funding of $2.5 million. A group of philanthropists saved the day.
Now three years on, pressure on the organisation continues, in the light of a flatter market this year, inflation and rising business costs. A source tells ArtsHub that Carriageworks is ‘heading toward major deficit this year’.
Carriageworks opened in 2007 under inaugural Executive Director Lisa Havilah, and became home to a number of arts organisation, as well as a multi-use space. It was celebrated as a success story, with attendances growing year on year, in 2012 reporting an estimated 400,000.
In August 2013 it announced it would double its size, adding an extra 5000 square metres to be able to host major arts events, such as the successful Sydney Contemporary and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. It meant that Carriageworks had become the largest multi-arts venue in the country, but also perhaps one of its most operationally complex. And, ever since, it has struggled to stay buoyant with changing governments, reduced funding and pandemic cuts to income.
Carriageworks, however, remains much loved, and this news will land hard on the sector.
ArtsHub will continue to follow this story in the new year.
