On the corner of Foster Street, Sydney – between the boutique hotels, “contemporary office spaces” in converted warehouses, the assisted living facility and the fancy cocktail bars – sits the Hotel Hollywood. “Everyone has a story about the Hollywood,” says Rupert McEvoy, one of three curators behind a chaotic group show opening above the pub on Friday.
Hours before doors open, the trio are still counting and cataloguing works, but they estimate there are more than 150 pieces by at least 100 artists, including big names such as Blak Douglas, Lindy Lee and Ken Done, and emerging and first-timers too – among them, John Safran. Together, they’ve been lovingly crammed into the crumbling apartment formerly occupied by city legend Doris Goddard, unchanged and opened to the public for the first time.
Goddard – a cabaret performer and screen actor – added the art deco building to her string of Sydney venues in 1977 and lived above it until she moved into assisted care 18 months before her death in 2019. The pub was sold in 2021.
Under her custodianship, the Hollywood became one of the first pubs in Sydney where men and women could drink together. “[Goddard] said she’d had women asking could they go in,” exhibition co-curator David Art Wales tells Guardian Australia. “She told them, ‘Look, you can – but I don’t want any complaints about blue language.’”
It was a mixed crowd, he says (“police, reporters, bikies … and Roger Rogerson”), but Goddard had a zero-tolerance policy on harassment. She fielded all complaints herself from her stool behind the bar, where she could reliably be found telling tall tales, or playing her guitar.
The back room, formerly the ladies’ bar, is now lined with Goddard’s souvenirs: a letter to Gough Whitlam; glamour shots from her cabaret and cameos; strongly worded missives to lawyers (“All was sweetness and light until 1995 …”); a stack of passports; bundles of cross-continental love letters from different addresses.
Wales, 59, and McEvoy, 21, crossed paths there one night and started plotting possible uses for the first floor, which had been filled with boxes since Goddard’s death. An art show – co-curated by McEvoy’s friend and collaborator Alba Tijm – seemed like a natural step.
The two younger curators are passionate about showcasing local emerging artists: not only up-and-comers like Bridget Stehli, Wolfgang Saker (son of Michael, who also has work in the show) and Lyla Dushas, but friends, neighbours and art school peers. To this mix, Wales – once dubbed “the Warhol of Darlo” – adds decades of art-world experience, and friendships cultivated in Australia and in New York, where he collaborated with, among others, Keith Haring.
Scattered through the apartment, you’ll see work from artists Reg Mombassa, Susan O’Doherty, Louise Tuckwell, Ken Done and Graeme Davey – whose archival Triple J “exploding head” artwork from the 90s is part of the show on a strict loan.
“It is really just stuff that we love; just reaching out to mates and trying to pull together a really cool show,” McEvoy says. There’s a silver gun from notorious Basquiat forger Alfredo Martinez, a friend of Wales’ who died in New York last week. Works by family members of artists and curators sit among pieces from local celebrities, like Peter Jia who works at the Darlinghurst EzyMart, and Rhett Hutchence (brother of Michael). Several have already been sold.
“I’ve got people that I was just at university with, you know, two seconds ago, showing with Lindy Lee and Blak Douglas,” McEvoy says happily. “You don’t really see that in Sydney at all.”
“The famous, the infamous and the un-famous,” Wales adds, sounding pleased with a democratic lineup that reflects his own philosophy: “There’s no need to be intimidated. If you need help from somebody … just ask.”
Known for his playful takes on vintage brands, ad campaigns and playing cards (one of which, of Anthony Albanese, is owned by the prime minister), Wales has been making art in a room above Goddard’s old apartment for almost a year. He knew the Hollywood’s manager – he has work hanging downstairs – so when he lost his studio, he texted to see if they might want an “artist in residence”.
“[The manager] replied saying, ‘What would that look like?’, and I texted back a little selfie.” Here, Wales mimes a cheery wave. The informal agreement comes to an end with Wales’s own solo show, Man Walks Into a Bar, in October.
The chance to make art without the pressure of rent, or looming deadlines, has been transformative, he says. All three curators agree that the self-funded show would have been impossible if they hadn’t got the space for free. “A lot of people wouldn’t have that option,” McEvoy says. Tijm is fierce about the amount of real estate sitting empty in Sydney – if more owners were prepared to open unused space up for use, she says, the city could really “see what was possible”.
Current owner Brody Petersen has approval to add two floors of office space to the Hotel Hollywood building, but for now – not least due to costs and market uncertainties – he’s sitting on it. Next year, he plans to turn Goddard’s apartment and the floor above into “co-living space”. (The pub itself will stay as is, he says: “Not everything needs to be ripped apart, gutted down and made shiny and new.”) Meanwhile, he tells Guardian Australia, he’s “just going to enjoy running this pub and let these artists use that space.”
Petersen has his own memories of Goddard from the years before he bought the place. “Doris was always in here, just watching everyone have a good time,” he recalls. “She just wanted everyone to have fun.”
Tijm and McEvoy are enthusiastic about showing people a part of “the old Sydney”. But they are properly fired up about the way artist-run initiatives in venues like the Hollywood make the city’s creative underground accessible to everyone, not just those with a toe or nine in the art scene. “We have people that wouldn’t normally go to an art show coming to these,” McEvoy says, “then getting that itch to go to another show – and supporting the arts.”
It feels voyeuristic to wander through rooms once strictly off-limits to visitors. A wild array of pieces adorns every wall and alcove; shelves above Goddard’s old kitchen stove are transformed into a cabinet of curiosities, full of sculptures. It’s taken the trio seven months to get the space ready; when they began, Wales says, “you couldn’t see the floor”. But now Goddard’s belongings have been sorted: claimed, donated, chucked – and some kept. Like the ancient “fatbuster” in one dim corner; and an old brush that an alarmed McEvoy once caught Tijm using.
Also recovered: a pile of Goddard’s old phone books and Polaroids, saved from the street corner by artist Lina MacGregor, who worked in a nearby restaurant. When MacGregor heard about the show, she and co-artist Robert Agostino used the materials to make a work – calling every number. The recordings of these calls play under the stairs in a sound installation, memories of Goddard and the Hollywood drifting through the apartment.
The curators, sounding slightly disappointed, admit they haven’t seen any ghosts – though Wales swears he once felt a “weird” chill. But in Goddard’s old bedroom, you can still see the old monitor she used to keep an eye on the pub’s goings-on – squares “burned in” from continuous 24-screening, McEvoy points out. If the party looked good, she’d pop down for a cameo, maybe take over the band for a bit. “She was just such a starlet.”
By 7pm on opening night, the pub was packed. Curious visitors crowded the footpath – more than the venue could hold. Within half an hour, they had to close. Not bad for a self-funded show.
Hooray for Hollywood is open at the Hotel Hollywood, Sydney, until 30 September, from 12-6pm or by appointment
