A Companion to Australian Art. Группа авторов
Читать онлайн книгу.
in response to criticism of being of being too “museum-centric” as the Museums and Galleries Association of Australia (MGA)) nor the Council of Australian Art Museum Directors (CAAMD), whose membership only represents the nine major state and federal entities, could adequately represent their interests.
The major regional galleries in NSW (in Newcastle, Armidale, Bathurst etc), have also built up substantial permanent collections, of real distinction. In the Western District of Victoria the gifts of the Shaw family’s rich collections of European and Asian decorative arts, for example, provided the stimulus for the creation of a local, and thriving, art gallery in Hamilton (est. 1961). Aspects of its collection (e.g. Asian ceramics, British silver and important watercolors by Paul Sandly) are of global significance.
It is true to say however, that, with the exception of the relatively small group of major regional galleries of the kind mentioned above, most are small, often with perilous funding levels provided by local government. Most have relatively small permanent collections (some specialize in particular areas such as sculpture, ceramics or photography) but concentrate overall on temporary exhibitions of Australian painting and sculpture, and decorative arts and craft. Local governments are becoming increasingly aware of the potential to drive inward cultural tourism, and the Bendigo Art Gallery in central Victoria (easily accessible by road and rail from Melbourne) has led the way with medium-sized exhibitions drawn from global institutions, with a special emphasis on historical and contemporary fashion.
Regional galleries everywhere, which are funded by local councils, are all too often at a higher level of risk to funding and general support, subject to the changing interests and priorities of new mayors and councillors (unlike the state capital and federal art galleries, “guaranteed” by their enabling legislation), and there have been in recent years some regrettable instances of inappropriate and ill-informed decision-making by funding authorities, leading to disappointing disruptions.
The recent completion of HOTA (“The Home of the Arts”), a new visual and performing arts precinct for the Gold Coast (a thriving beach tourism and business region south of Brisbane in Queensland) provides at its centre a $60.5 million building for the collections and programs of the former Gold Coast Art Gallery. This ambitious project, fully funded by local government without state or federal government assistance, provides a welcome exception to the often inconsistent local funding for the arts mentioned above.
University Art Galleries
The majority of Australia’s leading universities have created art galleries available not just to the student body and academic staff, but also to the general public, often in the spirit of community outreach. University art spaces are too numerous to list here, but a small group have substantial buildings and reliable financial support because they are also the repositories of significant university fine art collections built up through a history of gift and purchase. Arguably the earliest fine art collection is contained in the Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney, which specializes in antiquities and archaeology, established in 1860, following the donation of Sir Charles Nicholson’s private collection of antiquities and curiosities. These collections have grown exponentially, and in 2003 the Nicholson and Macleay Museums (the latter dedicated to natural history), and the University’s Art Gallery, were combined, and a significant new building, rebranded “Sydney University Museums” has recently opened, named for the Chinese–Australian businessman and philanthropist Chau Chak Wing.
The University of Melbourne’s Ian Potter Museum of Art is housed in a distinguished modern building by Nonda Katsalidis (opened 1998) and is a key part of the University’s provision for managing its extensive collections of fine art and antiquities. In 1972 a formal commitment was made to create a university art gallery, which had several homes before occupying its new permanent facility on the edge of the campus facing the city.
The Ian Potter Museum of Art presents major exhibitions reflecting many periods, but with an emphasis on modernism and contemporaneity. The RMIT University Gallery in Melbourne has a similar track record, though on a much smaller scale. In 2018 the Victorian College of the Arts (a part of Melbourne University) opened the Buxton Gallery, funded by the businessman and collector Michael Buxton, which also houses his private collections of contemporary Australian art; and the Samstag Museum of Art in Adelaide presents innovative exhibitions of mainly Australian contemporary art (housed since 2007 in a distinguished contemporary building facing North Terrace) having evolved from the first gallery (est. 1977) at the South Australian College of Advanced Education within the University of South Australia.
A New Phenomenon: The Rise of the Privately Funded Gallery
One of the most interesting and influential museological phenomena of the twenty-first century in Australia is the appearance of the private art museum open to the public. Relatively common in Europe and especially North America, the “private” gallery has, in the last 10–15 years, become a welcome and effective part of Australia’s museological offering. It is a subject too complex to be discussed at any length in this chapter, but several notable projects must be acknowledged on account of the impact they have made.
The Hobart-based investor and entrepreneur David Walsh has, quite literally, changed the cultural landscape of Tasmania, fundamentally transforming the cultural tourism economy with his spectacular Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), situated dramatically on a private peninsula jutting into the estuary of the Derwent River in northern Hobart. Walsh’s concept has been to create an architecturally significant building complex (designed by Nonda Katsalidis, with James Turrell’s recently installed and brilliantly lit Pharos highly visible from the river and surrounding land) to house his deliberately eccentric and challenging collection, and changing exhibitions. At the time of opening in 2011 a driving concept of “sex and death” was announced, offered along with cutting-edge navigational technology which allowed the complete absence of labelling and didactics. For example, the downloadable app offered to visitors provided a link to the “Art Wank” series of often cheeky commentaries. Walsh wanted the public’s encounter with exceptional works, such as the Chapman brothers’ Goya-influenced Great Deeds Against the Dead, to be an experience of public museology stood on its head – and he succeeded. The owner-curator’s characteristically outspoken blogs about the collection and exhibitions, and art and life generally, are eagerly read.
In Sydney, Judith Neilson, with her daughter Paris, has created another significant entity, White Rabbit Gallery (opened 2009), inserted within a traditional inner suburban commercial building by Smart Design Studio. Neilson’s collection is dedicated exclusively to contemporary Chinese visual culture in all its forms, often on a monumental scale, installed with verve and courage. The huge collection they have formed, always selecting personally and instinctively, and the exhibitions drawn from it and other sources, have had a transformative effect on the reception of contemporary Chinese art in Australia.
In Victoria, the first of these major new private initiatives was the TarraWarra Museum of Art created and funded by Marc and Eva Besen, with a building designed by Allan Powell on their estate and vineyard in the Yarra Valley to the north-east of Melbourne, opened in 2003. At the heart of the museum is the Besen’s important private collection of mainly mid–late twentieth century Australian art, now constantly enhanced by their curatorial team with major contemporary acquisitions, and a program of often very edgy exhibitions and special installations.
Following a model well established in the US, Melbourne itself now has two dedicated private “house museums” available to the public at designated times and by appointment. The first was architect Corbett Lyons’s and his wife Yueji’s “Lyon Housemuseum” in the suburb of Kew, and such is its success, and such are the demands imposed by the size of their growing collection of essentially contemporary Australian art, that another wing has recently been added.
In addition, the architect Charles Justin and his wife Lea have created the “Justin Art House Museum” project in another Melbourne suburb, deliberately smaller in scale than the former example, conceived as a broad and very personal interactive engagement, often with art and technology a recurrent feature, with the owner-curators creating opportunities for relaxed discussion.