"Francis Bacon: Five Decades" opens at Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales’ (AGNSW) summer blockbuster, “Francis Bacon: Five Decades,” opened November 17 amidst vociferous demonstrations outside the museum by AGNSW staff facing retrenchment. State Premier Barry O’Farrell, responsible for an AUD 1.2 million budget cut to the museum, was due to open the exhibition but pulled out at the last minute seemingly to avoid a monumental PR blunder. “We were just told he couldn’t make it. No reason was given,” a gallery insider told ArtAsiaPacific.

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