In conversation with Andrew Martin and Sue Cato moderated by Sebastian Goldspink
Each talk runs for approximately 45 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. A valid ticket to Sydney Contemporary 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online here.
About the Speakers
Andrew Martin is a Managing Director at MA Financial Group and the Head of the firm’s Asset Management business. He has over 30 years’ experience in global investments as a principal investor and adviser across a range of sectors including real estate, infrastructure, private equity and energy. Driven by a strong passion for the arts, Andrew founded the MA Art Prize, complemented by his personal collection of contemporary art chronicling Australia’s artistic talent over recent decades.
Sue Cato has been a leader in corporate communications and issues management for over 20 years and is an avid art collector. She is a board member of Carriageworks and is a member of Chief Executive Women. Sue is a regular panelist on ABC TV’s The Drum and on the 2UE Breakfast Show and is a commentator on business issues for the national press.
Sebastian Goldspink is a Sydney-based independent curator. In 2011, he created the artist run space, ALASKA Projects as a platform for exhibiting contemporary art in unused or disused spaces. Since its inception, ALASKA has showcased over 500 artists across 150 exhibitions. A proud descendant of the Burramattagal people of Western Sydney, Goldspink has curated exhibitions nationally throughout Australia and internationally in London, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Christchurch. In 2022 he curated the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art for the Art Gallery of Australia entitled Free/State. The Biennial bought together a multi-generational group of 25 Australian artists. Goldspink has held professional appointments at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Art Month Sydney, National Art School and Dlux Media Arts.
The 10th Edition Collector Lounge presentation has been generously supported by our partners Aon and Artwork Transport.
Image: Tristan Chant, Game Night, 2024 and Mount Titan, 2024. Acquired from BAProjects at Sydney Contemporary 2024
Kym Elphinstone with Max Germanos, Gaibrielle Germanos in conversation with 10th Edition Collector Lounge Curator Sebastian Goldspink
Each talk runs for approximately 45 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. A valid ticket to Sydney Contemporary 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online here.
About the Speakers
Kym Elphinstone is an arts advocate and advisor with more than two decades experience championing the work of contemporary artists. Kym is the founder of Australia’s leading cultural communications agency Articulate Advisory, through which she has advised on and launched hundreds of arts initiatives for public and private museums, galleries, biennales, art fairs and foundations. An avid art collector, Kym was a founding board member of Art Month Sydney, founding member of the MCA Young Ambassadors, sits on the board of Ngununggula and is the Chair of Firstdraft.
Max and Gaibrielle Germanos are avid art collectors and founders of 3:33 Art Projects. Through their curatorial platform, 3:33 Art Projects, they actively champion emerging and mid-career artists.
Sebastian Goldspink is a Sydney-based independent curator. In 2011, he created the artist run space, ALASKA Projects as a platform for exhibiting contemporary art in unused or disused spaces. Since its inception, ALASKA has showcased over 500 artists across 150 exhibitions. A proud descendant of the Burramattagal people of Western Sydney, Goldspink has curated exhibitions nationally throughout Australia and internationally in London, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Christchurch. In 2022 he curated the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art for the Art Gallery of Australia entitled Free/State. The Biennial bought together a multi-generational group of 25 Australian artists. Goldspink has held professional appointments at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Art Month Sydney, National Art School and Dlux Media Arts.
The 10th Edition Collector Lounge presentation has been generously supported by our partners Aon and Artwork Transport.
Image: Mark Maurangi Carrol, Two Stories High (West), 2025. Acquired from Nasha Gallery at Sydney Contemporary 2025
Join Mary Apple and José Da Silva for a conversation reflecting on the life, work and enduring international legacy of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most influential conceptual artist. Through a personal lens, the discussion will consider Apple’s radical transformation of identity, his astute understanding of art’s relationship to commerce and branding, and the ongoing relevance of his ideas about labour, authorship and value.
Mary Apple | Speaker
José Da Silva | Speaker
This talk will be held in the 10th Edition Collector Lounge. Each talk runs for approximately 45 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. A valid ticket to Sydney Contemporary 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online here.
About the Speakers
Mary Apple is a New Zealand-based curator, writer, and collaborator who was the partner and wife of the prominent pop and conceptual artist Billy Apple
José Da Silva is an Australian curator and the Director of Sydney’s UNSW Galleries, where he has led a dynamic program of contemporary Australian art and design since 2018. In 2024, he curated the 18th Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art and became Chair of University Art Museums Australia.
Join curator and art historian Lisa Slade to explore how collections shape Australian art history. From bark painting to ceramics, Australian art takes many forms and has many faces. Drawing on works presented in the Collectors Lounge exhibition, all acquired at Sydney Contemporary since 2013, uncover how contemporary works are indebted to Australian art history and, in turn, how these works and their makers are playing a critical role in shaping new histories.
About the Speaker
Professor Lisa Slade is the Hugh Ramsay Chair in Australian Art History in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Between 2015 and 2024 she was Assistant Director, Artistic Programs at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Lisa has curated major exhibitions including Vincent Namatjira: Australia in colour, the 2019 Venice Biennale presentation of James Darling and Lesley Forwood’s Living rocks: a fragment of the universe, the 14th Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Magic Object, the national touring exhibitions Quilty and the Tarnanthi: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art’s Kungka Kunpu (Strong Women).
Both have witnessed the shrinking of arts coverage in Australian media and the changing role of the critic. What is lost when there are fewer independent voices willing to make difficult judgments? And what happens when those who remain feel the pressure to be everyone’s good friend?
John McDonald has been one of Australia’s most widely read art critics for more than four decades. He served three separate stints as senior art critic for the Sydney Morning Herald, beginning at just 23 years of age, was Head of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Australia, and is the author of The Art of Australia: Exploration to Federation. Since the Herald ended his column in 2024, he has continued writing independently, demonstrating that a critic can outlast the masthead.
Michael Reid OAM spent a decade as weekly art market columnist for The Australian before writing a weekly column for six years in the Sydney Morning Herald‘s Good Weekend. He is Chairman of Michael Reid Galleries, with spaces across Sydney, Berlin, regional Australia, and a space expected to open in Los Angeles in late 2026. Reid remains one of the country’s most recognisable voices on the Australian art market.
Be prepared for a kind but frank conversation about criticism, the changing media landscape, the art market, and why independent opinions, in this time of mass validation, still matter.
This talk will be held in the Collector Lounge, Sydney Contemporary
