Two decades after opening on the banks of the Brisbane River, the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) is firmly established as one of Australia’s best-loved cultural buildings – designed by Architectus as a lightweight, riverside pavilion that enhances Brisbane’s standing as a global city and a destination for contemporary art.
To celebrate the gallery’s 20th anniversary, Architectus partnered with visual and performance artists The Huxleys and photographer Jo Duck on a series of images capturing GOMA’s commitment to surprising and playful art.
The Huxleys donned some arresting Australian animal costumes – at once a love letter to local wildlife and exuberant queer spectacle – and posed in and around the building in some delightfully offbeat ways. Parading along the riverside boardwalk, pausing in galleries, even “staffing” the reception desk. (Catch all the action behind the scenes here.)
The images juxtapose the clarity and rigour of Architectus’ thoughtfully designed spaces with the irreverence and theatricality of The Huxleys’ eye-catching costumes.
GOMA’s pulsing heart
Rather than treating the architecture as a neutral backdrop, the shoot captures GOMA’s pulsing artistic heart. Members of the public who encountered the Huxleys in action got to experience firsthand a small taste of the play, curiosity and creative energy the building has offered the community over the past two decades.
“When Architectus and GOMA asked us to help mark 20 years of luminous creativity and culture, we said ‘yes’ before they’d even finished the sentence,” says Will Huxley.
“This building has poured so much art, life and sheer magic into Brisbane and, for two visual artists like us, that’s basically our love language.
“We have a soft spot for GOMA. Garrett grew up in Queensland and studied at Queensland College of Art and Design, just down the road. It’s also where we first stood in front of a full Cindy Sherman exhibition and had our minds thoroughly rearranged by one of our great artistic heroes.”
“We’ve got such joyful memories of having performed at GOMA’s 10th birthday bash, Sugar Spin,” Will adds. So coming back to strut our surreal, Australian fauna-inspired creatures against the chic lines of the building felt like the most fitting kind of homecoming – equal parts reverence and ridiculousness, exactly how we like it. We love GOMA!”
The Architectus team has also marked two decades of GOMA with a celebratory mini‑documentary that takes viewers behind the scenes with Design Manager Michael O’Sullivan to explore the question: What happens in an art gallery when no one is watching? The film is a joyous showcasing of how the building works, how it has evolved over the years and what it means to the community.
A welcoming and generous building
Commissioned by the Queensland Government in 2002 following a design competition win, Architectus envisaged GOMA as a welcoming and generous building from the beginning – extending the Queensland Art Gallery into a two‑site institution and offering a visual connection to the river, parkland and city beyond.
Dr Stephen Long, Principal at Architectus, says the opening of GOMA in 2006 represented a pivotal moment for Brisbane.
“GOMA came along at a time when the city was really maturing and seeing itself more confidently on the national and international stage. It put Brisbane on the contemporary arts map.”
“I think the key to the building’s enduring success is that it expresses an openness and a welcome to everybody. Its entrance is generous, natural light is abundant and the river and the city are right there in view.”
For Architectus as a practice, the project was the starting point for a now-substantial body of public work.
“Winning GOMA led to the foundation of Architectus in Brisbane and of our public architecture portfolio,” says Dr Long. “From that commission has come a whole lineage of museum, gallery, library and theatre design projects. We still regularly take new team members on a walk through GOMA to experience our design approach up close.”
Another thing that makes GOMA special is that it’s a true ‘place of return’, he adds.
“Friends and families have been stepping into this building for the last 20 years and now their children are going back with their own friends and family. GOMA is embedded not just in the life of the city but in people’s lives and personal histories.”
