Art Museums in Australia
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Art Museums in Australia 70_okladka_Art Museums in Australia_Jagodzinska_Str TYTULOWE.indd 1 2017-10-10 16:28:42 Katarzyna Jagodzińska Art Museums in Australia Jagiellonian University Press 70_okladka_Art Museums in Australia_Jagodzinska_Str TYTULOWE.indd 3 2017-10-10 16:28:42 REVIEW Professor Dorota Folga-Januszewska COVER DESIGN Pracownia Register COVER IMAGE Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania Photo credit: Mona/Leigh Carmichael Image courtesy of Mona Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia The author’s fellowship at the Australian Institute of Art History at the University of Melbourne was funded by a Group of Eight This publication is funded by the Faculty of International and Political Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, from the funds earmarked for statutory activities © Copyright by Katarzyna Jagodzińska & Jagiellonian University Press First edition, Kraków 2017 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN 978-83-233-4336-3 ISBN 978-83-233-9702-1 (e-book) www.wuj.pl Jagiellonian University Press Editorial Offices: Michałowskiego 9/2, 31-126 Kraków, Poland Phone: +48 12 663 23 80, +48 12 663 23 82, Fax: +48 12 663 23 83 Distribution: Phone: +48 12 631 01 97, Fax: +48 12 631 01 98 Cell Phone: +48 506 006 674, e-mail: [email protected] Bank: PEKAO SA, IBAN PL 80 1240 4722 1111 0000 4856 3325 Table of contents 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword by Jaynie Anderson ..................................................................................... 7 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 11 Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... 15 1. An overview of art museums in Australia ...................................................... 17 2. Shifts in Australian museums: interview with Bernice Murphy .............. 39 3. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra ......................................................... 57 3.1. Interview with Gerard Vaughan ................................................................... 59 3.2. Interview with Mark Van Veen ..................................................................... 75 4. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne ........................................................ 85 4.1. Interview with Alison Inglis and Fiona Moore .......................................... 88 4.2. Interview with Irena Zdanowicz .................................................................. 100 4.3. Interview with Tony Ellwood ........................................................................ 109 5. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney ....................................................... 115 5.1. Interview with Michael Brand ...................................................................... 116 6. Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide ........................................................ 123 6.1. Interview with Nick Mitzevich ..................................................................... 124 7. Art Gallery of Ballarat ......................................................................................... 133 7.1. Interview with Gordon Morrison ................................................................. 134 8. Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane ................... 143 8.1. Interview with Doug Hall .............................................................................. 145 8.2. Interview with Simon Wright and Tarun Nagesh ...................................... 153 9. Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth ......................................................... 165 9.1. Interview with Stefano Carboni .................................................................... 166 6 Table of contents 10. McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery, Melbourne ........................................ 175 10.1. Interview with Robert Lindsay ................................................................... 176 11. Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne .......................................................... 183 11.1. Interview with Kelly Gellatly ....................................................................... 184 12. Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne ................................................. 193 12.1. Interview with Linda Michael ..................................................................... 196 13. Linden New Art, Melbourne ............................................................................ 205 13.1. Interview with Melinda Martin and Edwina Bolger ................................ 206 14. Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney ........................................................ 213 14.1. Interview with Elizabeth Ann Macgregor ................................................. 215 15. TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville ....................................................... 225 15.1. Interview with Victoria Lynn ...................................................................... 227 16. Lyon Housemuseum, Melbourne .................................................................... 235 16.1. Interview with Corbett Lyon ....................................................................... 236 17. Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart ........................................................... 245 17.1. Interview with Jane Clark ............................................................................ 247 18. Some thoughts about museums addressing their audiences: interview with Louise Ryan .............................................................................. 257 19. Australian art exhibited abroad: the case of Great Britain ....................... 263 19.1. Interview with Simon Pierse ....................................................................... 264 19.2. Interview with Kathleen Soriano ................................................................ 270 19.3. Interview with Christopher Riopelle ......................................................... 277 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 285 Foreword by Jaynie Anderson 7 FOREWORD BY JAYNIE ANDERSON What was the best way for a young Polish art historian to understand the visual culture of exhibitions in Australia, while she was the recipient of a fellowship at the Australian Institute of Art History in Melbourne? To achieve her aim Katarzyna Jagodzińska chose to engage in dialogue with Australian museum directors, curators, collectors and museologists in the 21st century. Katarzyna had already established a track record in Poland with successful publications and a book on Central European museums. Her first encounter with Australia was when she attended the international CIHA congress at the University of Melbourne on Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration and Convergence(2008) to present some of her research on museology. She won a fellowship, given by the Group of Eight, the Australian University Consortium, for three months in Melbourne in 2014/2015. Go8 fellowships are intended for young career re- searchers from Central European countries, to establish long-term links with Australian institutions. They are mostly awarded to scientists. Katarzyna’s book, published reasonably soon after her fellowship, will go a long way to fulfilling the aim of the fellowship but in the humanities. Katarzyna’s solution to the question posed above, was to adopt the Hans Ulrich Obrist technique of the Interview to engage with what is going on now in Australia. Her Interview Project, is the first attempt to do this in Australia. Unlike other publications on contemporary Australia her scope is national. With the strength of multiple voices her interviews reveal what is going on in museums, their policies for collections, for exhibitions, for new buildings, for education policies, and most of all, their obsession with contemporary art. The conversational format of the interviews allows for many revealing asides about the individuality of Australian museums, their many virtues, and aspi- rations. Her volume was never intended to cover everything. There are also fascinating interviews with curators abroad, namely Kathleen Soriano, who was responsible for the survey of Australian Art at the Royal Academy (2013), and Christophe Riopelle, who curated the exhibition on Australian Impressionism at the National Gallery of London (2016). They describe their experiences of cross cultural co-curation with Australian museums for their recent contrasting exhibitions of Australian art in London, which were not without controversy. Whatever the polemics, both had considerable visitation, and reveal that not 8 Foreword by Jaynie Anderson only contemporary Australian art, whether Aboriginal or not, is of interest to a global public. Riopelle reveals how a work by Albert Streeton, that was hung on loan to the National Gallery, became so popular, that it led to the creation of an exhibition around four Australian artists. It is an instructive example of how to decide on an exhibition. Would that ever happen in Australia? Our proce- dures might not allow it. The volume opens with an introductory essay by Katarzyna,