MINISTER for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts Paul Fletcher made a mad dash this morning (June 2) from opening the National Museum’s show “Endeavour voyage – The untold stories of Cook & the First Australians” to help re-open the National Gallery of Australia where, under new health and safety guidelines, visitors will take part in pre-booked timed ticketed sessions, use sanitiser stations and follow a signposted route of “Belonging: Stories of Australian Art” and “Xu Zhen®: Eternity Vs Evolution,” as well as the international art collection display. All other exhibitions and displays will be closed for now.

ALSO opening this week is the ACT’s tiniest art space, Gallery of Small Things, which measures less than six metres square. That means the gallery can welcome one to two visitors, but luckily owner Anne Masters has a ceramic space adjacent to GOST where one  visitor can wait while the other views the show at 27 Wade Street, Watson, Thursdays to Sundays, 11am to 4pm, gostcbr@gmail.com

SYDNEY Festival has today announced the appointment of its new festival director for 2022, Australian curator and producer Olivia Ansell, who has over two decades’ experience as a director, choreographer and performing artist, who will  comes to the role after two and a half years as head of contemporary performance at Sydney Opera House. She’ll commence her three-year tenure in November.

SELBY & Friends have a filmed a live recording of the Dvo?ák “Piano Quintet in A, Op.81” taken in the James O. Fairfax Theatre at the NGA in 2013. The artists are Tobias Breider (viola), Clancy Newman (cello), Kathryn Selby, (piano) Elizabeth Layton (violin) and Grace Clifford (violin) who was only 14 years old at the time.