HOTA, Home of the Arts believe art should be accessible to everyone, and from today, HOTA have announced that works from the City Collection will be available to view online, ahead of the new HOTA Gallery opening on May 8.
The Gold Coast’s City Collection features over 4,500 artworks and is valued at approximately $32 million, including one of the largest collections of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art in regional Australia.
HOTA CEO Criena Gehrke said presenting the City Collection online is a real coming of age for HOTA Gallery.
“Collected for the city over the past 60 years, we think you’ll be amazed at the depth of the collection and we can’t wait to show it off in its new home.”
“But if you can’t wait until May 8 when the Gallery opens, then I’m proud to announce that for the first time, you can now explore more than 200 wonderful artworks from the collection online.”
The HOTA Gallery team have been engaged in digitising the revered collection, creating a digital record of each work of art in preparation for the move to its new home in the collection store within the HOTA Gallery.
Residents of the Gold Coast and beyond will now be able to search over 200 artworks in the collection and can filter their search by artist, date, material and even colour, with more works to be added on an ongoing basis.
As part of the online catalogue, the City Collection will contain information about each of the works, including artist details and identifying which artworks will be on display in the HOTA Gallery for public viewing.
“Many major galleries across the world have public collections, so as we head towards opening the new HOTA Gallery – Australia’s largest public gallery outside a capital city – this is a huge milestone for us,” Criena said.
“As its name suggests, the City Collection is just that – a collection that belongs to the people of the Gold Coast and the community.”
Since 1968, the City has been collecting works for the collection, and with the opening of the HOTA Gallery (formerly Gold Coast City Gallery) in 1986, the collection was made available for viewing by the people of the Gold Coast for the first time.
To date, just a small snapshot of the City Collection has been displayed, which contains many significant works of art and reflects key developments in recent Australian art, including abstraction, feminist art, Indigenous art, ceramics and twenty-first century photography.
The online catalogue, maintained and curated by HOTA, is supported by a company called Vernon, who are leaders when it comes to cataloguing collections online. The company facilitates the online collection of other major galleries across the world, including Hayward Gallery Southbank Centre (UK), Christchurch Art Gallery (NZ), National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery New South Wales and MONA in Tasmania.
When it opens on May 8, the $60.5 million HOTA Gallery will span six levels and present a dynamic program of world premiere international exhibitions, Australian exclusives and new commissions.
Designed by award-winning Melbourne-based architects ARM, the Gallerywill include over 2,000m2 of AAA rated, international standard exhibition spaces and a dedicated Children’s Gallery, and will be home to the $32 million City Collection, consisting of more than 4,500 artworks.
For more information on the HOTA Gallery and City Collection, visit: https://hota.com.au/collection/
Media contact: amy@m10.com.au