Rockhampton Art Gallery s Brendon Tohill turns the making of moving boxes into an artform
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With a cutting knife, hot-glue gun and cardboard, Brendon Tohill is crafting special housing for one of 3,000 pieces of artwork in his care.
The nationally significant collection, valued at more than $18 million, will soon be loaded into trucks with temperature, humidity and security controls for relocation to its new home in Rockhampton.
Most of the renowned collection, established by former Rockhampton mayor Rex Pilbeam and other community leaders in 1976, has been in storage for decades in the city s existing art gallery, which does not have enough space to display every piece.
Dutch government shows real leadership
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January 16, 2021 10.00pm
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The Age, email letters@theage.com.au. Please include your home address and telephone number.
Dutch government .
Australia’s own scandal along these lines was perpetrated by the Morrison government (the so-called robo-debt scheme) – a scheme to claw back hundreds of millions of dollars from tens of thousands of impoverished Australian citizens.
After refuting the obvious for years, a full-scale investigation showed that robo-debt was a farce that devastated the lives of thousands of hapless Australians and the government is now committed to reimbursing those unfortunates hundreds of millions of dollars.
In 1958, when the young Daniel Thomas was first appointed at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the word “curator” was not in the Public Service Board lexicon. He felt his official title of “professional assistant” was inaccurate so he signed his letters “curatorial assistant”.
In time, the bureaucracy adopted his language and the term is still used to describe the entry level curatorial position for new graduates.
The years I spent working for Thomas as a curatorial assistant in the 1970s transformed my understanding of what art can do. His generous pedantry means that even now I sometimes hear his voice in my ear, questioning the precise meaning of a word I want to use.