Live Review: How Western Sydney Turned The Art Gallery Of NSW Into A Nightclub

The Art Gallery of NSW is a known institution, and since first serving art to the community in 1880, has become a notable entity both as a landmark and as a pillar within the arts space. Beyond that, It’s a place for first dates, a stop on the tourist itinerary, and a hub for arts folk to ponder upon swirls of colours and stories projected onto canvas. 

But on one brisk Friday night on September 6th, Western Sydney creative collective Hotter Out West turned the Art Gallery of NSW into the best nightclub in Sydney. 

The Art Gallery of NSW has held its late-night celebration of the Archibald Prize – the Archie Party – since 2022. The night poses as a significant relic of culture for the honourable arts prize, and has also acted as a placeholder for emerging musicians and DJs to turn the gallery floor’s into a mosh pit. Hotter Out West’s curation of musicians and DJs spoke to their ethos as a collective – to uplift Western Sydney through and through. Let me set the scene for you.

From outside the gallery’s steps you can already hear the thump of drum-and-bass bellowing from inside. The sound system seems challenged by the high-BPM, fast-paced edits that DJ Shzar switches in between – but this is his flowstate in action. Shzar has played at all Hotter Out West parties since the collective's inception, gaining a reputation as a tastemaker and DJ that treats you to a sweat-induced, undeniably good time. He switches in between any sound he can get his hands on, speaking to the audience through a fine-tuned selection of ‘00s pop, Brazilian funk, Afrobeats and more.

The first live act on the bill is rap and hip-hop artist Josef, who while only having 3 tracks released, has garnered the attention of music lovers from many pockets of the Sydney music scene. Onstage he is cool, nonchalant and boyish – an endearing banner of his personality. He takes to the mic like he’s done it ten times over in another life, a reassuring facet of an artist who knows who they are and lives to tell the tale.

The genre-bending Dylan Atlantis – with their band The Useless Aliens – take to the stage next. Watching Atlantis perform is entrancing – in a similar vein to Josef, they perform with assuredness of who they are. They muse soulfully on songs like Zoo and the unreleased Velvet Skin, and with the addition of talkbox, everyone’s nose screws up from the sound of nothing but timeless, passion-filled music. Sound is always better felt rather than heard in my opinion, and this felt truly celestial. As a music lover with a deep appreciation for the movement of Hotter Out West, you can only wish the sound worked consistently for the artists throughout the night. But even battling technical difficulties and the personal frustration that your art has to be compromised, Dylan Atlantis still made the ground floor of the gallery theirs for the night.

On the level below, DJ PAT.D turned the room out with Sade and Pinkpantheress edits and anthemic Sexyy Red cuts for the baddies and bootyshakers adjacent. It was liberating to watch an art institution that carries this inevitable sense of formality to it become a sexy, raunchy hideaway for those who want to scream, shout and frantically move their body. From girls in bubble skirts and biker boots to older ladies in kaftans and Gorman scarves, Pat.D’s selections spoke to everyone.

The final act of the night was Zion Garcia, a trailblazer in the local hip-hop scene that had guests waiting front and centre ten minutes before he even started. Zion is a name that gets thrown around a lot, and for very good reason – he’s a star.

Every time you watch Garcia, it is better than the last. He’s an artist who is always chasing new ways to make the live experience unique and unforgettable, and for the Archie Party, he pulled out all the stops. His talented band came in clutch, accentuating the sonic oddities riddled within his music and catapulting it further through live remixes, extended cuts, and backing vocals. Garcia dances like a puppet to the sounds that surround him, moved by each bass line, kick drum and chord progression. Proclamations of “ZG at the Archie Party” on the mic are more than just a catchy line to throw out for crowd engagement, but moreso a personal realisation that Garcia has made his stamp inside the city’s most prolific arts venue. Zion Garcia is truly the best of the best, and to witness him in his glory was nothing short of awe-inspiring.

The biggest takeaway from the Archie Party was simple: community matters. 

Up until recently, it seemed almost bewildering for a homegrown arts collective, far in Sydney’s West, to be granted the opportunity to host a night of music on two floors of the Art Gallery of NSW. But real recognises real and art recognises art. And given the trust that those at the helm of the art gallery’s event bookings must have, it’s clear that there is value and merit in giving creative autonomy to kids with big dreams, big passions and an even bigger motivation to make a momentous mark on the world. The Art Gallery of NSW innately possesses this energy that is (unspokenly) synonymous with upper-class whiteness and the idea to be “proper” and “digestible”. This year’s Archie Party was a spit in the eye of that notion. The Archie Party is for the people. The Archie Party is for everyone. Hotter Out West is for the people. Hotter Out West is for everyone.