Open 21 May 2011

The Art Gallery of New South Wales unveils a new floor for contemporary art, featuring the John Kaldor Family Gallery. With the inclusion of the Kaldor Collection, the Gallery now holds Australia’s most comprehensive representation of contemporary art from the 1960s to the present day.

In 2008 John Kaldor and his family announced their intention to give the John Kaldor Family Collection to the state of NSW. This was the catalyst for the government to provide funds to the Gallery to build a state-of-the-art offsite storage facility to allow space within the Gallery to display the collection.

The Kaldor Family gift, valued in excess of $35 million, is the largest single art donation to an Australian public gallery and includes over 200 works of art.

This extraordinary gift, together with funds generously donated by the Belgiorno-Nettis family, enabled the re-development of the Gallery’s old storage area and existing display space to create an entire new floor of 3300 square metres of exhibition space. The floor comprises the John Kaldor Family Gallery, a suite of contemporary and modern galleries, a dedicated photography gallery and a study room for the Gallery’s works on paper collection.

There are a number of commissioned and newly installed, site-specific works of art, including five vast drawings by Sol LeWitt, a major wall work by Richard Long and a new installation by Ugo Rondinone on the large stairwell that descends into the John Kaldor Family Gallery.

Open Weekend
Saturday 21 & Sunday 22 May 2011
The Gallery will hold an open weekend to celebrate the launch of the new contemporary galleries. Events include keynote talks by leading international and Australian artists, floor talks by Edmund Capon and John Kaldor, and an extensive performance and film program.