Sunday, 15 January 2012
… continued from the previous entry (final) …
National Gallery of Victoria – Australian Collections (Part VII)
… This exultation, however, was short-lived, as displays of permanent collections of contemporary art were dismantled, and the space was increasingly given over to temporary exhibitions. The whole-sale acquisition and permanent installation of the Joseph Brown Collection further encroached into the amount of exhibition spaces that could be dedicated to displays of contemporary collections.
The current situation is such that the North-Western gallery on the top level serves as an intermittent display space for Australian art post 1960s. The current selection of works is certainly worth visiting – for it is quite unknown how soon it will be pulled down and replaced by yet another temporary exhibition; or for how long living Australian artists would be denied the pleasure and satisfaction of seeing their works on the walls of this premier institution. There is also a danger that international visitors, who might come to the NGV when these galleries are dismantled, would walk away with an erroneous and undeserved impression that pretty much nothing of value has happened in this country after the Antipodean revolution of the 1960s – for that’s when the chronological displays of Australian art conclude in the (thus far sacrosanct) spaces on the second level galleries.
The solution, of course, is that the NGV in Federation Square desperately needs another floor – or another space – dedicated to the display of their extensive, exhaustive, and incomparable collections of post-1960s Australian art and artists. That such a space has not been envisaged or considered necessary when the new building was being designed is baffling and incongruous to say the least, as if the architects were not briefed that the collection would continue to grow and that more worthy art would be produced – and acquired – as time progresses.
[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2012. Where applicable, images are courtesy of the artists and their galleries.]
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