About

Hugh Cornwell (The Stranglers), outside the Queens Hotel, Brisbane, Thursday 1 March, 1979. Photo: David Pestorius.


Since the late 1970s David Pestorius has been culturally active in his hometown of Brisbane, Australia, initially as a participant in the local punk/new wave scene, which produced such important groups The Saints and The Go‑Betweens. He performed in bands, photographed and wrote about them for local and national music publications, and between 1980–82 hosted a regular weekly new release program on radio 4ZZZ-FM.

In the second half of the 1980s Pestorius began to work closely with visual artists, taking the formative experience of punk and allowing it to shape his activities in the world of art. Over the last two decades he has realised numerous projects, often in co-operation with major cultural institutions internationally, featuring a wide range of cultural producers, including artists, architects, writers and musicians.

In 1993 Pestorius commenced to represent artists and work as a gallerist regularly hosting public exhibitions in a range of spaces owned or controlled by him. Since 1996 he has frequently participated in major international art fairs, while in 1999 he was the first foreign gallerist to open a showroom in Berlin-Mitte. Today he hosts an average of six exhibitions annually from the Pestorius Sweeney House in the inner Brisbane suburb of Hamilton.