When the shed rules the heart

For several years the gallery owner had thought seriously about opening premises in Sydney. Many of her clients were based there. Also, for more than 20 years she had positioned herself as the sole Australian representative for several artists; it was in their interests to have a shopfront in the city.

"Over the last few years I've done a number of exhibitions at the Danks Street complex (in Waterloo) and that was really good," Schwartz says.

"But I realised I needed something much larger and stand-alone."

In the end it was CarriageWorks, the reclaimed former carriage workshop at Sydney's Eveleigh Rail Yards, that captured her heart. "It was like falling in love," Schwartz says of her first visit to the new arts precinct late last year. She describes her gallery, situated at one end of the long brick-walled shed, as "just remarkable, it had an incredible effect on me. I realised it was extraordinary and terrifying, and that nothing else would ever satisfy me."

Schwartz, who is married to Melbourne developer and publisher Morry Schwartz and whose daughter Zahava Elenberg is an architect, has an innate sense of structure and spaces. She can also see their potential to become works of art in their own right.

Schwartz employed architect Tim Greer of Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, the firm behind the $49 million CarriageWorks redevelopment, to create what she describes as "a very generative and very satisfying gallery, although very challenging because it's so big".

Schwartz is not joking: it is 55m long and 15m wide, with high ceilings and pitched skylights. Greer has linked three spaces - an entrance, the gallery and a backroom storage area - by creating one long continuous white wall that snakes through the area.

"We've deliberately closed down parts of the space like the storeroom out the back, but at the same time it's still a huge space," the architect explains. "I can't think of another commercial gallery in Sydney that has such a vast space."

Referring to the CarriageWorks building, Greer adds: "The space is what makes this (development) so special. Sydney's public space is so mean and measured out. But here, we have this opportunity of vast spaces. And because it's slightly in a wasteland, it's not about things outside of it, it doesn't rely on anything outside. It's just about itself and that's also very unique for Sydney."

Anna Schwartz Gallery opens on Sunday. A commercial gallery in a publicly funded development is unusual for Australian arts centres. Schwartz has worked closely with CarriageWorks management to ensure the two entities have a strong relationship based on the mutual goal of presenting outstanding art in a dynamic new centre.

CarriageWorks chief executive Sue Hunt sees CarriageWorks as a building with two halves: the public spaces for hire at one end and commercial tenancies at the other.

The business model relies on commercial rental income supporting the not-for-profit theatres and rehearsal spaces.

The NSW Government remains the landowner while CarriageWorks is a public company with its own board of directors.

The new Anna Schwartz Gallery "fits commercially and fits culturally", Hunt says. "It also fits in terms of destination. We areable to put our existence and our brandagainst a fantastic operation like Anna's gallery."

Hunt says the contemporary sits comfortably within the Victorian-era industrial buildings: "Anna's gallery has placed a whole sense of newness in the old. You can step across the threshold and you're in another space, another world."

CarriageWorks opened in January last year and notched up about 50,000 visitors in its first year.

Hunt expects this year's figure will exceed that, adding that the Biennale of Sydney, which starts next week, and curiosity about Schwartz's new gallery will stimulate potential visitors.

But the ongoing challenge remains the strategic promotion and marketing of the centre, its philosophy and purpose, and its location. "When people first come here, they see these large spaces and say, 'Oh, now I get it.' They don't have a sense of the scale of the project until they cross the threshold," Hunt says.

The Anna Schwartz Gallery is the sixth commercial area to be leased. Four areas remain and the NSW arts ministry is considering appropriate future tenants and uses.

It's critical, Hunt says, to find tenants whose activities and values align with CarriageWorks'. So what is that philosophy?

CarriageWorks is dedicated to contemporary art practice, from dance to theatre, the visual arts and music. Its public spaces are rented out for fashion parades, corporate dinners, parties, launches and the like, and these events help bring visitors from outside the known arts constituency.

Its resident companies include Playwriting Australia, movement-based theatre company Force Majeure, physical theatre company Stalker, visual theatre artists Erth and the Bilbi Aboriginal language centre.

CarriageWorks's reputation is spreading, especially among artists who want to work in a centre where other artists are rehearsing, practising, taking class, making costumes, writing plays.

Hunt recalls former NSW premier and arts minister Bob Carr's enthusiasm years ago for a place that would bring Sydney's artists together. "There was this feeling that if you create a clustered facility for arts practitioners, the sector can grow," she says.

This weekend the spotlight is on Hunt's newest tenant. Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, will officially open the gallery: a new home for Schwartz's impressive stable of artists, including Peter Booth, Susan Cohn, Dale Frank, Shaun Gladwell, Robert Hunter, Lyndal Jones, Callum Morton, Jan Nelson, Mike Parr, Vivienne Shark LeWitt and Daniel von Sturmer.

The opening exhibition is a survey of Parr's 37-year career. "This first show is an example of the kinds of exhibitions I want to put on in the gallery," Schwartz explains. "I want to do survey shows of artists we represent and also curated shows. But we'll remain a viable commercial gallery, this is a commercial business."

The exhibition will be accompanied by a 930-page book on Parr's work produced by Morry Schwartz's publishing company. Anna Schwartz says this kind of investment - the scale of the exhibition, the book and the marketing - is integral to her role as a gallery owner.

"I think it's an honourable thing to do, to support artists and provide an ongoing way for them to keep working," she says.

"I'm also committed to the publishing program. It's very important to disseminate and mediate the work of the artists we represent through publishing."

Of the exhibition, she says: "These are tough works by Mike. They're beautiful and they're extraordinary, and they have an amazing integrity and poignancy and depth.

"And I think they'll be made much more accessible and comprehensible to people in light of the book. It's a good show to open with."

Picture: Sam Mooy - Gallery Owner Anna Schwartz is opening her first sydney gallery, Carriageworks at Everleigh.