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As far as party music goes, it doesn't get much better than having renowned tabla player and DJ Talvin Singh play.
And although playing all night in a gallery for 4000 guests who are there for the art doesn't sound like the ideal gig, Singh - who grew up in East London - seems happy to contribute to the ambience for the opening of the fifth Asia-Pacific Triennial in Brisbane. It's an exhibition devoted to exploring contemporary art from Asia and the Pacific.
Art from Asia has such a high profile, it is hard to imagine it was relatively uncharted territory when Brisbane's first Asia-Pacific Triennial (APT) opened in 1993.
Queensland Art Gallery director Doug Hall has led the event since then and has seen the Asian art scene grow to the point where most major Asian cities now have their own international art events.
"It has been a pretty exciting phenomenon," he says.
"Earlier in the piece we were often breaking new artists and there wasn't a body of critical opinion around. Or an accumulation of scholarly opinion about many of the artists, many of the works and many of the kind of collectives we were dealing with."
The APT buys many of the works from each exhibition, partially as a way to compensate for the difficulty of accessing work from some countries.
"The acquisition of works also reinforces the gallery's credentials of wanting to have an enduring relationship with modern and contemporary art of the region - not just winging it through a programme once every three years," says Hall.
This APT is twice the size of previous exhibitions and features more than 37 artists. The Queensland Art Gallery also opened a second building - the Gallery of Modern Art, or GoMA - a dedicated facility for showing this growing collection.
Although local politics nearly prevented the completion of GoMA in time for the opening of APT5 in December, any complications seemed long-forgotten at the unveiling as proud politicians lined up to speak about the "future of the smart state" and "a new Queensland, where arts and culture are recognised".
GoMA also has its own cinema facility, the Australian Cinematheque. Below the main auditorium stage is an 80-year-old Wurlitzer organ, which will be raised on a hydraulic platform for its first performance in a season of silent-era films from Shanghai and Hong Kong, curated for APT5 and starting in March. The programme includes one of the earliest Chinese films, and marks the midpoint between the 2005 centenary of movie-making in mainland China and Hong Kong's 2008 centenary.
"Here we have one of the most influential art forms of the 20th century," says Hall. "It just seemed crazy [cinema] was marginalised in mainstream institutions. That certainly gives us an opportunity to play a role in what we have done in creating a culturally literate city when it comes to contemporary art - we will hopefully do the same with cinema as well."
GoMA's head of cinema Kathryn Weir says the APT's film selection tries to bring together diverse practices and genres, from documentary and short film, through to the most commercial end of the spectrum, featuring Hong Kong movie and pop star Jackie Chan.
"They all have something to say about visual cultural production in Asia today," she says.
Weir describes Chan as a "complex local-global phenomenon". She says his presence in APT "explores how someone who is out of Hong Kong is possibly one of the best-known actor-directors today, working in Hollywood but also maintaining a very strong local identity. And also with a strong and complex relationship with a traditional Chinese art form."
As well as screening Chan's films, 29 sequences from his movies are spread across seven projectors, highlighting different aspects of his career. This includes the influence that 10 years of Chinese opera training has had on the humour in his films.
Hall says it is important for GoMA to reconsider the boundaries of what takes place in a Western-style art museum and how it is presented, especially when dealing with cultures that think differently about their art and whether it should be preserved.
"It cannot be for us to be prescriptive about what particular cultures find modern and relevant to their lives," he says.
"We have tried, in one sense, to avoid that and avoid cultures becoming illustrations for curatorial constructs, which can be fraught with something that can be easily exoticised."
He acknowledges APT's inclusion of Pacific performance programmes, as well as a display of woven Pacific textile mats: "I don't think it looks forced. I think it looks as if it possesses its own logic."
APT's regional approach offers audiences a deeper awareness of their own neighbourhood. Vietnamese artist Din Q Le's history of helicopters demonstrates the interconnectedness of the Asia-Pacific region. He notes that herbicides used in Agent Orange during the Vietnam War were produced in New Plymouth.
One of APT5's recurring motifs is renewal and change, and Le's project focuses on recovering from the fading memories of war.
"The helicopter, for Vietnam, is a killing machine," says Le. "We have to overcome and move on." He built his own helicopter using a Russian truck motor and instructions from the internet, becoming a local folk hero in the process.
The Chinese Long March Project similarly uses their nation's social upheavals as a key influence, taking a collective of artists to retrace Mao Zedong's famous trek as a symbol for China's more recent regeneration. Having ventured into the Chinese provinces to connect with communities, the Long March Project is now an ongoing organisation and will be working with New Zealand artists for the Auckland Triennial in March.
Long March participant Qin Ga says contemporary art was once an underground activity in China but it has become mainstream and used as a symbol of the country's rapid development.
"You should have a closer relationship with Chinese culture," he says. "Chinese contemporary art shouldn't just be a diplomatic cultural card."
It is exactly this kind of long-term relationship that the APT has helped the Queensland Art Gallery establish throughout the region, an example politicians would be wise to follow.
* Andrew Clifford travelled to Brisbane courtesy of Tourism Queensland.
What: The 5th Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art
Where and when: Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, to May 27
On the web: www.asiapacifictriennial.com
