Image: via gawker.com
If the role of art is to disturb, not please, as Frie Leysen argued recently on ArtsHub, what happens when arts organisations delve into the pockets of the gambling sector, coal mining corporations or telecommunication companies? Do business partners with problematic agendas dampen the arts’ drive to challenge societal structures and norms, or enable artists to flourish on their dollar?
At the Fifth Public Art Galleries Summit held in Bendigo, Anna Thurgood, Gallery Director, Artspace Mackay explored whether partnerships between galleries and coal mines is a pact with the devil or a match made in heaven.
