Harbour City gains unexpected cheerleader in Melbourne's lord mayor
One immutable fundamental of federation relations that founded the Commonwealth of Australia – state-on-state rivalry – was upended recently when Nick Reece, lord mayor of Melbourne, undertook a whistle-stop tour of Sydney ... and liked it.
'Sydney and Melbourne are the two best cities in the world!' Reece said glowingly of the northern metropolis on a LinkedIn post (but not in an official media release, as far as we could tell).
Talk about undermining 124 years of slow burn resentment towards the Harbour City nurtured by our bitter, envious friends to the south.
Reece also blew smoke in the direction of some of NSW's most prominent power players (though the state's unofficial premier, Peter V'landys, was missing).
NSW Premier Chris Minns was 'a seriously smart guy … he also has an incredible knowledge of rugby league'. But Reece kept it real, musing that Minns might be lucky enough to score an invitation to the AFL Grand Final, which will be a non-event to most Sydneysiders, what with the Swans' season of woe.
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Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore was a 'legend' who had 'copped a bit over the years' but was someone who deserves 'huge credit for her vision and determination'.
He also name-checked Business Sydney's Paul Nicolau and Crown Resorts chairman John Borghetti, and mused that Melbourne had 'much to learn' from the Vivid festival, which should send chills down the spine of our snobbier southern neighbours.
Still, Reece managed to straddle a line between enthusiastic guest and Melbourne advocate, ready to heap praise on his hometown. So when meeting hospitality baron Justin Hemmes, he cannily pointed out that while he loved his tour of The Ivy, the billionaire manbun's biggest project was Parkade in Melbourne, the next target of Merivale's imperial ambitions.
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The exhibition has been conceived as if the visitor is strolling through a garden, with potted palms on rotating platforms across the gallery. One standout is the 2020 artwork F=O=U=N=T=A=I=N, a wall of white neon Japanese script measuring three metres high and ten metres wide, with an archway for gallery-goers to walk through. It's installed near an earlier work, 2018's Composition for 37 Flutes, in which air is drawn through 37 glass pipes, periodically breathing sound into the luminous space. Evans has spent weeks in Australia working on the installation of dozens of delicate artworks like these, including site-specific new works made in response to Sydney's winter light. Of these, the biggest is Sydney Drift (2025) which fills a whole room with neon scribbles installed across three dimensions - from circles of various sizes to parabolas and dramatic straight lines. Mirrors installed on columns also amplify the artworks into entire scenes of luminosity. 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