Driving cultural change: insights into the Sydney Modern Project

Date: Monday 6 June

Time: 12:15pm for 12:30pm - 2pm

Venue: Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Domain, Sydney

Price: $35 pp to include light lunch

Dress: Business Attire

An international art scholar and cultural leader, Michael’s commitment to the arts is evident in his significant contribution to Australian and international art and in his work that spans art museums and academia as well as the government, philanthropic and community sectors.

Michael currently serves on the Visiting Committee of the Harvard Art Museums, the International Advisory Board of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Board of Trustees of the Australian Institute of Art History and is a member of the Asia Society Australia Advisory Council.

Creating new narratives for the Gallery is the Sydney Modern Project, a bold vision lead by Michael and the Gallery’s team of creative thinkers to deliver inspiring new cultural infrastructure for Sydney.  This vision is informed by both the city’s natural beauty and its multicultural community.   

Prior to returning to Australia to take up his Art Gallery of New South Wales appointment in 2012, Michael was consulting director of the new Aga Khan Museum in Toronto while it was under construction prior to its opening in 2014.

Before this, he worked as director of the world-renowned J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles from 2005–2010.  Here Michael’s priorities and achievements included resolving claims for the restitution of antiquities made by the governments of Italy and Greece and bringing contemporary and non-Western art into the Museum’s programs.