First came the Art Gallery of New South Wales' Art After Hours series. Then the City of Sydney's Late Night Library evenings, and the cavalcade of gourmet all-hours food trucks. Now it seems Sydney has a new witching hour institution.
The MCA's response to the city's craving for grown-up late nights is ARTBAR, a slate of talks, installations, screenings and one-off performances programmed by guest curators on the last Friday of the month. The all-you-can-eat combo of drinks, DJs, live art and harbour views has proved a winning one: the nights continue to sell out. All these civilised small bars and intelligently curated nights are worlds away from the smokey, brawling pubs and tepid 7-Eleven meat pies of the old city's nightlife. Perhaps Sydney really is growing up.
ARTBAR's guest curator this month is artist Daniel Boyd. His night, titled the Up in Smoke Tour, will be a musical and informative journey into the age of enlightenment. It includes video works, a performance from the Crayons, a Dreamtime Ink Australia tattoo parlour, and a panel discussion with the humdrum title 'When I die bury me inside the Gucci store, I don’t want to end up in a museum'.