ARTBAR

Overview

The newly redeveloped Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) is launching a nocturnal program ARTBAR. Held on the last Friday of every month, ARTBAR aims to overhaul your experience of the art institution with an artist-curated evening of art, music, performance and, most importantly, booze.

First cab off the rank is Sydney-based artist Justene Williams, whose work, Crutch Dance (2011) is currently showing as part of the Volume One: MCA Collection exhibition on level one. Her performance videos are notably outrageous, and as such her curated night is sure to be an eclectic evening of irrational and bizarre sights and sounds.

The Jurassic Lounge program at the Australian Museum has proved to be a highly successful get-cool-young-kids-in-the-door model and, although ticketed, at least the regular door entry was only $15 and included one free drink, ARTBAR is $20. I am all for experiential extra-curricular museum programs, and especially those of the late night variety (yay for the MCA finally staying open late on Thursdays!), but it seems a little pricey for a program that so far (as of this writing) hasn’t released any act or content details. All rants aside, I am sure ARTBAR will prove to be a mystery-filled journey into the creative worlds of our artists.

We wait with bated breath.

Update: Since the writing of this article, the MCA has released the evening's list of DJs (Charlie Chux, Perfect Snatch, Touch Sensitive, Tyson Koh), as well as promises of performance art, karaoke, hot shaves for the itchy-faced, and the plausible suggestion that watching the first night of the Vivid lightshow from their balcony might be a nice thing.

Still from Crutch Dance by Justene Williams.