Barry O'Farrell has been asked to open the Francis Bacon exhibition on November 16th. The NSW Government has singled out TAFE fine arts courses to be 'commercialised' by January 2013, one full year ahead of introducing this approach across TAFE. Effectively it will mean 30 art colleges, 4000 students and over 200 artist teachers will see the closure of TAFE art schools as few will be able to attract the numbers of students in the next month to be viable. We estimate that 70% of artists in NSW train through the TAFE system - the AGNSW is promoting a Premier that is cynically contemptuous of art and artists.
Even if you can't make it, the Save Art TAFE group are also asking people to write a protest post on their facebook wall, it's gotten very lively on there so check it out and add your own:
https://www.facebook.com/ArtGalleryofNSW
— at Art Gallery of New South Wales
Fbook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/396375090432927/