Popular gallery opens Sydney branch

By LINDA HERRICK

The Gow Langsford Gallery, which first opened 15 years ago in an old service station in Grey Lynn, launched its Australian branch in Sydney on Friday. Gow Langsford manager Melanie Roger says the space, part of the six-gallery Dank St complex in the inner-city suburb of Waterloo, is larger and "more industrial" than the Auckland premises in the St James Building.

Gallery directors John Gow and Gary Langsford have already tested the appeal of contemporary New Zealand artists at the Melbourne Art Fair, the premier art trade event in the Asia-Pacific region, and they intend showing top Aussie artists in the gallery as well. The Sydney debut is a group show which includes works by Colin McCahon, Shane Cotton and Australian wunderkind Tracey Moffatt, who also has an exhibition at Wellington City Gallery until May.

It sounds like an excellent CER strategy but, of course, Gow Langsford is not alone in its international aspirations. Kiwis Deborah White and Ken Johnson, who moved to Melbourne two years ago, have organised a number of exhibitions featuring NZ artists and this month took their Pacific Notion show - "a little taste of the Pacific" - to the Macy Gallery at Columbia University in New York City. Featuring John Ioane, Lily Laita, Andy Leleisi'uao, Filipe Tohi and Niki Hastings, a version of the New York show opens at the Sydney College of the Arts on March 7, with the artists travelling to Sydney for workshops and seminars.