National Gallery of Victoria – Australian Collections (Part I)

Monday, 9 January 2012 

National Gallery of Victoria – Australian Collections (Part I)

I haven’t been through the rooms of the National Gallery of Victoria’s permanent displays of Australian art for some time now, and the balmy summer afternoon seemed as good as any to spend a few hours within its air-conditioned comfort. I must confess that I had admired the National Gallery’s building in Federation Square from the moment I saw it. In my opinion, it is as much a monument to the late 20^th-Century architecture as its former home, the Neo-Classical temple in Swanston Street, is to the mid-19^th-Century; or Roy Grounds’ modernist bastion in St Kilda Road to the prevalent architectural style of the 1960s. However, I was always puzzled by the absence of a grand – or at the very least an easily identifiable – main entrance: one entry is tucked away at the end of the Atrium off Flinders Street; another is facing the rail yards at the dead end drive to a car park in Russell Court.

From the moment the new gallery opened its doors, I was equally befuddled by the sheer expanse of depressingly empty, grey-wash walls in the foyer and escalator areas. Some of my clients, in order to accommodate their increasingly growing art collections, are building extra walls and home extensions. Here, on the other hand, we had a brand new, purpose-designed gallery which brazenly featured that anathema to every serious art collector: feature walls!!! I cannot possibly relate my elation when I saw, upon entering the gallery today, that some of these walls have been repainted in white, and others feature signature wall paintings and light installations by Brooke Andrew. I am cautiously optimistic that this re-design heralds a gradual reversal of the erstwhile trend.

Immediately upon entering permanent Australian art rooms, I noticed two things: the sobriquet of Colonial (used to describe Australian art prior to 1901) has been dropped in favour of a more general (and politically correct) descriptor 19^th Century Australian Art; and the rooms begin with a vast display of Aboriginal shields, some of which date back to the nineteenth century – a very elegant and thoughtful acknowledgement of artistic traditions that existed on this continent prior to 1788. John Glover’s monumental River Nile of 1837, depicting Aborigines, is hung adjacently to the display of shields. Its detailed execution, careful brushwork, and subtle light effects bear witness to the artist’s high standing, which he attained prior to his arrival in Australia in the British artistic circles where his landscapes were considered comparable to those of Constable.

Among the display of early Australian portraits, that of an Unknown Lady attributed to Henry Mundy of c. 1834 is as good as anything that would have been exhibited same year at the Royal Academy. Showing a clear indebtedness to the spirit of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Mundy poses the lady out of doors, on the terrace of her Italianate mansion, with an obligatory column and landscape in the background to underscore the ‘landed’ status of the sitter. The woman’s lively face is painted confidently in fresh and fleshy colours; the eyes sparkling; corners of her mouth caught in a knowing, superior aristocratic smirk. The textures of gauze head dress and flowers are expertly handled; the dark green of her shawl is echoed in the elegant parasol with a jewelled ivory handle seen in the foreground of the picture.

… to be continued… 

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. Where applicable, images are courtesy of the artists and their galleries.]

The Blake Prize 2011 – Part II

Saturday, 23 April 2011 

The Blake Prize 2011 – Part II 

As discussed in the previous post, the inclusion of random artworks with very tenuous connections to religious subject matter devalues the nature of the Blake Prize as an award for religious art, and dilutes its message and directive.

Landscape artists are among the ‘worst’ culprits in this sense. We all have a spiritual experience when we commune with nature; but even the least artistically-aware among us know the difference between a work of art on a religious subject matter and a landscape painting. For example, I personally admire works by Mary Tonkin, but I question the validity of including her painting as a finalist in the prize, for it is no different to the works that are currently on display at the Australian Galleries. Same comment applies to the entries by Martin King; Janine Mackintosh; or Kate Briscoe.

I wish to see more contemporary interpretations of the Old and New Testaments, like those in the works by Robert Dickerson and Christopher O’Doherty; more interpretations of the lives of the Saints such as those by Andrew Mezei and Peter Neilson; or such truly inspiring and meditative installations like those by Janine Whitling and Heather Elyard. As I mentioned above, it is great to see works by Indigenous artists included; but where are representations of other religions from the Middle East, Asia, andSouth-East Asia, who all have rich and diverse iconographic traditions? Last but not least, where are any depictions of Australian or international religious leaders – or does the prize specifically proscribe the inclusion of portraits of the very people who ensure the survival and perpetuation of religion and spirituality?

One of the biggest problems that I see with this Prize is its pointlessness. It only encourages creation of religious art (or pretending that you make some) for the sole purpose of enticing works into the competition with a promise of a cash award. There is no life for religious artworks beyond the prize, and that’s perhaps one of the biggest reasons why so many artists eschew the challenge of creating an artwork especially for the Blake.

When we consider portrait prizes, such as Archibald, Moran, or others, chances are paintings that were created especially for these exhibitions (and many are) might be acquired by national and state institutions, or by the sitters, their families and friends, or crazed and cashed-up fans. Landscape, still-life, and general art prizes have likewise a broader appeal with a likelihood of the works by winners or finalists being acquired by public and institutions, or, in the case of an acquisitive award, even by the prize-giving entity itself (i.e. Doug Moran, Arthur Guy, Savage Club, etc).

When it comes to religious art, we may have to think back to the nineteenth-century France, where a revival of religious art was experienced between 1830s and 1870s, precisely because the government offered a wide support for religious painting and sculpture, and spent substantial amounts of money on acquiring religious artworks either from the annual Salon or directly from artists’ studios, which were then placed with a religious institution (unless specifically acquired for a public collection).

I pray someone would prove me wrong, but there is no such program in existence inAustralia. Furthermore, religious institutions and places of worship are very unlikely to acquire anything from exhibitions like these, filled with half-hearted transmutations on the subject of religion (though they do commission ‘proper’ works on religious subject matter from artists like this year’s winner, Leonard Brown, or stained-glass artist and sculptor Janusz Kuzbicki).

So, once again, what is the purpose of the Blake Prize, in its current form, apart from a self-serving and self-perpetuating exercise that is not being treated seriously and with due respect by the artists who submit their works to it, or by the judges who seem to accept so blindly and indiscriminately anything that is thrown their way – as the current exhibition of the finalists shows?

www.blakeprize.com.au

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

The Blake Prize 2010 – Part I

Friday, 22 April 2011 

The Blake Prize 2010 – Part I

And now something just in time for Easter…

A dear friend of mine was closely involved with the Melbourne leg of the 2010 Blake Prize Finalists’ exhibition, which was appropriately staged at the Toorak Uniting Church, in Toorak Road, Toorak. Appropriately, because the Blake Society awards prizes for religious art, and what a better place to stage a show of its finalists than in the context of an actual place of worship.

I must confess that this was the first time that I actually saw the Blake Prize and examined in detail works of its finalists. Don’t get me wrong, I have been aware of the Prize for a very long time. It is an important event in the annals of Australian art, and over the years its prizes had been awarded to such worthy recipients as Justin O’Brien, Leonard French, Stan Rapotec, John Coburn, and numerous other luminaries of Australian art, for whom religion – or at the very least religious inspiration – was an integral part and subject matter of their oeuvre.

I privately rejoiced the fact that its 2010 winner is Leonard Brown, who is another worthy recipient. He is a lay Orthodox priest; and his professional painting practice includes icon painting, superbly executed in a traditional Russian style. However, his contemporary art practice is best described as conceptual and textural minimalism; titles of his works are invariably derived from theological texts and liturgical hymns; and once you get the brevity of his aesthetics, combined with the intense spirituality that guides his works, the world of his art reveals itself. The winning work, If you put your ear close, you’ll hear it breathing, is very much representative of his works that are usually exhibited at the Charles Nodrum Gallery here in Melbourne, or elsewhere in Australia.

I can perhaps think of only few other artists in the exhibition, who continuously explore religious subject matter in their works. This includes Heather Elyard, who decorated the walls of the Jewish Museum of Australia, and who is represented in the exhibition by an installation, Archive of Signs; the octogenarian Franz Kempf is perhaps another one. It is also interesting to observe the presence in the finalists’ exhibition of paintings by Aboriginal artists, such as Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarray, Genevieve Kemarr Loy, and Cowboy Loy Pwerl, for their works are indeed a reflection and interpretation of their traditional mythological lore. The fact that the Blake Prize is becoming an all-inclusive award irrespective of religious leanings is demonstrated by the presence of works by Arabic artists, such Rolla Khadduri and Cath Braid’s My Prayer is…

However, I started noticing with an increasing concern the presence in the exhibition of works by the artists who do not usually paint on religious subject matter; and who have not deviated at all from their usual style or manner of painting. They simply took any odd work from their studio, whacked a religiously-seemed subtitle onto it – and suddenly it’s a religious painting worthy of being entered into a religious art award. In my opinion, this devaluates the prize, and dilutes its message and directive.

… to be continued… 

www.blakeprize.com.au

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

The Stony Rises Project @ RMIT

Thursday, 12 August 2010

The Stony Rises Project at the RMIT unites the works of multi-disciplinary artists and landscape designers, including Vicki Couzens, Lesley Duxbury, Ruth Johnstone, Seth Keen, Gini Lee, Jenny Lowe, Marion Manifold, Laurene Vaughan, Carmel Wallace, and Kit Wise. The exhibition shows that Australian artists in their majority are still influenced by the interpretation of and interaction with the landscape. This is hardly surprising, given the fact that – luckily for us – Australia (since at least the arrival of the First Fleet) has not been the site of wars, major upheavals, or religious-based conflicts.

Therefore, the artists are free to feign – and I stress the word feign – their concern with the issues of environment and climate change. I have observed in of the earlier posts how Christian Lock’s elegantly abstract paintings at the John Buckley Gallery were supposed to express the artist’s concerns with the water quality and other environmental issues affecting the Port Philip Bay, which only became apparent when one read the accompanying exhibition blurb. Likewise, in this exhibition, Gini Lee’s installation is an explorative and documentative exercise, arranged like a series of design ‘story’ boards. Carmel Wallace’s use of local volcanic rock is highly decorative, used literally as a prototype for book ends, rather than in any perceptible concern- or action-provoking way. Digital animation and video installations by Kit Wise and Seth Keen are quietly contemplative and meditative experiences, as is the installation by Ruth Johnstone (a highly skilful and imaginative artist and an influential pedagogue, who sadly seems to have fallen off the main commercial gallery circuit).

Works by Vicki Couzens are conspicuous by comparison in this exhibition. There is something disturbing, contentious, and thought-provoking to her larger-than-life possum-skin cloak, flayed and hung like the proverbial shroud. Her landscape photographs, which document sites of major armed conflicts between the colonists and the indigenous population, are as poignant as memorial sites of First and Second World War battles. The Honour Roll is another silent witness to these conflicts, uncomfortably reminiscent of such mourning monuments as Yad Vashem. In the current curatorial climate, where wall texts increasingly read like an apologia, striving to imbue exhibited works with depth and meaning which is not necessarily apparent, works by singular artists like Vicki Couzens clearly stand out in a class of their own.

[© Eugene Barilo v. Reisberg 2010. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Melbourne Art Fair 2010 [Part II]

Sunday, 8 August 2010

[... continues from previous entry]

Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of the Art Fair is the presence of international galleries. It is always interesting and refreshing to see the works of artists from other countries, as their vision and aesthetics are informed by heritage, artistic sensibilities, and political and / or religious points of view which are different from our own. While New Zealand galleries always have had a strong presence at the Fair, Australians still have to contend themselves by the crumbs of international dealerships that deign to descend upon Australian shores. Even then some of these are still owned and run by Australian expats. The directors of the Melbourne Art Fair have to work further, longer, and harder to entice the likes of Gagosian, Zwirner, or Ropac to dazzle local audiences with class acts of truly international renown.

That having been said, Yamaki of Tokio, TrépanierBaer of Calgary, Tim Melville of Auckland, and 10 Chancery Lane of Hong Kong all presented outstanding exhibits with interesting, fresh, and original works, most of which have not been seen in Australia before.

To reiterate what I said above, the Art Fair was filled with art works by Australia’s most prominent and outstanding contemporary artists. This exhibition is no forum for new developments or dramatic departures in their career, and I still enjoyed installations by Janet Laurence at ARC, Sam Jinks’s hyper-realistic sculptures at Karen Woodbury, Daniel Crooks’s video works at Anna Schwartz, Sally Smart’s large-scale mixed media works at Greenaway, and many others as much as I did when I saw them at their respective galleries.

Therefore, the ‘surprises’ of the exhibition have been reserved to those artists whose works I may not have seen before in Melbourne’s premier galleries. These include a superb red and black construction painting by Marion Borgelt at Turner Galleries, and amazing spherical glass and mixed media sculptures by the same artist at Dominic Mersch; mixed media sculptures by Masauki Tsubota at Yamaki; neo-classical interpretations of Indian lives by Canadian artist Kent Monkman and most incredible distorted sculpted heads by his countryman, Evan Penny, both at TrépanierBaer; carved wooden sculptures with South-East Asian influences by Simeon Nelson at Mossgreen; thick impastoed works by Craig Weddell and hyper-realistic paintings by Brett East at Gallery 9; superb etched glass vessels at Perth Galleries; new grisaille monochromatic landscapes by Tony Lloyd at Sam Hill-Smith; superb vivid-blue paintings by Danie Mellor at Michael Reid’s; a selection of works by Tony Albert in various media at Gallerysmith; Alexander Setton’s sculpture at Jan Murphy; haunting, almost pre-Raphaelite in their appearance photographs by Robert Thornley at Tim Melville; innovative landscape paintings by Peter Gardiner at Damien Minton and by Andrew Taylor and Neil Frazer at Martin Brown; icy-blue photographic works by Sonia Payes at Charles Nodrum; installation sculptures covered in white fur by Kathy Temin at Roslyn Oxley; and fine ceramic vessels by Vietnamese artist Khanh Cong Bui at 10 Chancery Lane.

To sum it all up, the Art Fair still represented an orgiastic experience for any art lover, even despite the retinal exhaustion caused by the sheer amount of art on display and many familiar faces in the crowd. It gives a great opportunity to Melbourne and Sydney art lovers to experience works by those artists from other states that do not normally exhibit in these metropolises; to everyone else an unparalleled opportunity for a one-stop shop to view the best of Australian art under one roof; and those who are merely curious about art without actively collecting in, a biennial art fix and perhaps an enticing opportunity to acquire their first piece.

Despite all the costs enumerated above, the Art Fair is a great opportunity for galleries to promote themselves and their artists and increase their mailing lists. True, for the costs of being at a four-day fair, an interstate gallery could hire 45 Downstairs in Melbourne or Depot Gallery in Sydney for more than a month, but they would be unlikely to receive anywhere near as much exposure as they would during these four, hectic, crowded, head-spinning days!

[©Eugene Barilo v. Reisberg 2010. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgement.]

Melbourne Art Fair 2010 [Part I]

Sunday, 8 August 2010

The Melburnian art world has been galvanised for the entire week by the Melbourne Art Fair. It has united under one roof in the spectacular Victorian splendour of the Royal Exhibition Building nearly eighty (predominantly Australian) commercial galleries of the highest calibre.

It can be argued that for regular Melbourne- or Sydney-based gallery goers, the Art Fair represented few surprises. The Art Fair is what it is. It is a marketing and promotional exercise on a vast scale for Australian art world in general and for Australia’s premier commercial galleries in particular.

I believe the individual stands at the Fair are priced between $15,000 and $25,000. If one would take into account further exhibitors’ costs, such as marketing and promotion of their individual stands both online and in print, freight of artworks to and from the Fair, staffing costs at the Fair as well as at their respective galleries (most of whom would open on Sunday as well), not to mention travel and accommodation costs for interstate and international galleries, the costs of the Fair begin to mount towards a $30,000+ mark for most of the exhibitors.

While this is still a drop in the ocean as compared to the costs of exhibiting at international fairs, these expenses have to be covered by sales. Therefore, few galleries take chances with their exhibits. Most put their best foot forward, and by ‘best foot’ I mean the best artists of their stables.

It is no mean challenge to cover the exhibition expenses exclusively from sales generated within the four days of the Fair, therefore, most (if not all!!!) galleries begin their presales long in advance, staging exclusive previews and notifying potential buyers weeks if not months in advance. As the result some works arrive at the Fair (virtually) pre-sold, giving their respective stands an appearance of a busy and successful trading spell.

Despite all the costs enumerated above, the Art Fair is a great opportunity for galleries to promote themselves and their artists and increase their mailing lists. True, for the costs of being at a four-day fair, an interstate gallery could hire 45 Downstairs in Melbourne or Depot Gallery in Sydney for more than a month, but they would be unlikely to receive anywhere near as much exposure as they would during these four, hectic, crowded, head-spinning days!

Most galleries opt for group displays, and such galleries as Roslyn Oxley, Martin Brown and Dominic Mersch of Sydney, Karen Woodbury, Niagara, and Gallerysmith of Melbourne, Greenaway and Hill-Smith of Adelaide, Beaver of Canberra, etc, presented excellent exhibition stands brimming to the rim with the crème de la crème of Australian artists, too numerous to be enumerated here.

Few galleries opted for solo exhibitions, and examples at this show include DVD works by Daniel Crooks at Anna Schwartz’s stand, Janet Laurence at ARC, Stephen Bush at Sutton, Simeon Nelson’s sculpture at Mossgreen, etc.

Some time ago, Niagara Galleries had put together an innovative display, combining within its stand works by a painter and a sculptor. If my memory serves me correctly, these were Angela Brennan and Robert Bridgewater. It preserved a tighter curatorial look of the stand, but also allowed for a better, more efficient use of the exhibition space.

Since then, a number of galleries have followed Niagara’s lead, and this year, for example, we had witnessed such ‘parings’ as Dale Hickey and Bruce Armstrong at John Buckley’s, Nathalie Ryan and Juan Ford at Diane Tanzer’s, and an adventurous ‘triumvirate’ at Charles Nodrum’s stand of sculptures by Clive-Murray-White, paintings by Mattyas Gerber, and photographic works by Sonia Payes.

Given the fact that some of Australia’s most successful and / or highest-selling artists are represented by several galleries across the country, their works were popping up again and again in two, three, or more stands at the Fair. These include, for example, such artists as Rick Amor, Adam Cullen, Thornton Walker, Anna Eggert, and Marion Borgelt to name but a few.

… to be continued…

[©Eugene Barilo v. Reisberg 2010. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgement.]

Just Drawn @ Linden, St Kilda

Friday, 6 August 2010

A new exhibition opened tonight at Linden Gallery in St Kilda. Titled Just Drawn, it features works on paper by proppaNOW collective, which comprises of high-profile, predominantly Queensland-based, Australian urban indigenous artists.

The gallery has been transformed by this impressive selection of predominantly black and white works. Vernon Ah Kee is exhibiting a suite of charcoals, Unwritten – primeval forms, haunting shadows of human visages, all executed in straight cross-hatched lines, a veritable antithesis to his better known, highly-finished, hyper-realist portrait drawings.

Gordon Hookey’s Animals, also drawn in charcoal, reveal the artist’s quick and observant eye capable of capturing the unique kinetic energy of a veritable menagerie of birds and mammals.

Laurie Nielsen focused his suite of Scar drawings on fragments of barbed wire – a recurrent motif in urban indigenous art – cold and menacing when executed in black charcoal, but almost fetishist when drawn in warm glowing reds.

Tony Albert’s One by One 1-5 is a creative, thought-provoking, and moving substitute portrait of Eddie Albert (the artist’s grand-father?), a WWII veteran; while Jennifer Herd’s suite of works, On Dying, expresses grief and mourning through the schematised interpretation of traditional decorative elements and tribal designs.

Given my passion for portraiture, drawings by Bianca Beetson are among my favourite works in the exhibition. In it’s been a bad day – please don’t take my picture – this versatile artist innovatively utilises text to outline facial features of her (self)portraits, capturing the likeness and at the same time providing the viewer with the narrative, giving the term “a speaking likeness” an entirely new dimension.

The entire exhibition is united and summed up by a spectacular collaborative wall drawing by Richard Bell and other artists in the exhibition, which snakes around the perimeter of one of the galleries and along the hallway’s wall, almost evoking the late Mike Brown’s Fitzroy murals, and reflecting on collaborative nature and community spirit of traditional indigenous art.

The proppaNOW collective focuses on the art of drawing, and the artists invited exhibition visitors on the opening night to engage in a collaborative drawing exercise on a large continuous sheet of paper, with the winner of the best drawing receiving a work on paper by Gordon Hookey.

[© Eugene Barilo v. Reisberg 2010. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Queen’s Birthday Honours 2010

(C) Sonia Payes - Portrait of John Mawurndjul (AM), 2007

Tuesday, 15 June 2010

Dear Diary,

Earlier this year, when Australian Day Honours have been announced, I was rather dismayed to notice that hardly any art world figures, including artists, curators, or philanthropists, had been included on the list.

The Queen’s Birthday 2010 Honours List, which has been announced and published on Monday, 14 June 2010 – www.itsanhonour.gov.au – is positively brimming with the luminaries of the art world!!!

The following visual artists have been distinguished with an honour this year: the sculptor Peter Corlett (OAM), whose public sculptures grace a number of sites in Melbourne as well as throughout Australia and overseas; John Mawurndjul (AM), perhaps one of the most sought after and eagerly patronised (and lionised) Indigenous artists, whose works were shown at a recent Venice Biennale (and who graces the cover of Sonia Payes’s book on Australian artists, illustrated above); Lewis Morley (OAM), a prominent photographer, perhaps best known for his provocative portrait of Christine Keeler; Marleen Pratt (OAM), a respected South Australian floral painter; and the artistic South Australian couple, Angela (AM) and Hossein Valamanesh (AM) (also featured in Sonia Payes’ book, illustrated below).

(C) Sonia Payes - Portrait of Hossein Valamanesh (AM), 2007

Among public gallery professionals, the list features the NGA curator Robert Bell (AM); and Dr Andrew Sayers (OAM), former Director of the National Portrait Gallery.

Among philanthropists, executives, and multifaceted board members who have significantly contributed to the art world, the following have received the recognition: Lin Bender (AM); Sandra Benjamin (OAM), former Board President of Jewish Museum of Australia; Alison Carroll (AM), of Asialink; Elizabeth Proust (AO); Dr Gene Sherman (AM), the gallerist and philanthropist extraordinaire; and the art patron and collector Jason Yeap (OAM).

I am certain that I may have missed a number of other art world luminaries, who are not personally familiar to me, not to mention numerous individuals from the Performing Arts, who have been also recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2010.

It is great to see the increasing recognition of the Australian art world!!!

[© Eugene Barilo v. Reisberg 2010. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Brave New World: Resale Royalty Act for Visual Artists in Australia

Wednesday, 9 June 2010

Dear Diary,

I cannot begin this entry otherwise but to acknowledge that today, 9 June 2010, marks the commencement of the Resale Royalty Act for Visual Artists in Australia.

From this day onwards, a royalty of 5% will be levied on commercial resales of artworks, given that:

• The artworks are above $1,000;
• This is the second or subsequent transfer of ownership by sale, gift, or inheritance, which has occurred on or after 9 June 2010;
• The sale is transacted by art industry professionals, such as galleries, auction houses, dealers, consultants, and the like (but excludes sales transacted between private individuals).

The royalty is paid to artists during their lifetime and for seventy years after their deaths to their designated heirs and estates. The terms “visual artists” and “artworks” encompass a wide variety of media and disciplines, and include painting, sculpture, photography, graphics, video, and installation art as well as glass, ceramics, jewellery, etc.

Curiously it excludes furniture, which places in limbo works by such renowned practitioners as Prenzel, Newson, and a host of others, whose pieces have been attaining good prices on the art market.

For the next five years at least, the scheme will be administered by the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL), which will charge 10% fee on every transaction. Thus, if an artwork resells for $10,000, and attracts a royalty of $500, the artist (or the artist’s beneficiaries) will receive $450.

It is highly probable, that the majority of royalties raised will be payable (just like overseas) to the estates of Australia’s most commercially successful artists, such as Brett Whiteley, John Brack, Arthur Boyd, and the like. This is inevitable, but this is the nature of the beast. The scheme cannot operate only in order to help “struggling” artists, and it is great to know that some of this money will be channelled towards someone like Charles Blackman, whose recent output, shall we say, has not been as commercially successful as that of his former years.

Some of the younger artists, whose works became a favoured staple of the art traders, including Del Kathryn Barton, Sam Leach, Michael Zavros, and others, also stand to benefit from the Act.

It is interesting to think about the fact that works by artists, who have passed away within the last 70 years, would also attract resale royalties. This include such art market favourites as Arthur Streeton (who died in 1943), Rupert Bunny (1947), Albert Namatjira (1959), Roy de Maistre (1968), Norman Lindsay (1969), Ian Fairweather (1974), Grace Cossington Smith (1984), and innumerable others.

The Resale Royalty Act would have very little initial impact on non-indigenous primary market, i.e. most commercial galleries that consign and sell artworks directly on behalf of the artists and do not engage in resales. These include some of our top commercial galleries, and in Melbourne alone they count Tolarno, Sutton, Schwartz, and numerous others among them.

However, it is highly likely that any of these galleries may end up representing estates of those artists, whom they currently show, but who would pass away after 9 June 2010. The legal transfer of their works to their heirs and / or estates would be considered as the first transfer of ownership. This in turn would trigger resale royalty once their works come up for sale in their respective galleries, even though these works will be sold for the first time.

The Resale Royalty Act would immediately affect most of the indigenous art galleries, who adhere to the current practice of purchasing artworks directly from the artists and / or respective indigenous art centres and communities. Therefore, once again, sales of works by most indigenous artists would attract resale royalty, even though their works would be sold for the first time by their respective galleries.

This will be perhaps the first instance of us witnessing funny-looking prices that take into account the 5% fee. With the introduction of GST, we got used to seeing $11,000 instead of $10,000. We will now be seeing $11,550 and the like (as 5% is levied on the entire sale price inclusive of GST).

The Resale Royalty would also have an immediate impact on those secondary market dealers who buy their stock outright, and especially on those art dealers / consultants who specialise in high volume, high turn-over art trade. This milieu is sometimes referred to as “flippers”, and it includes those who acquire items from an art auction in order to onsell them to another art market professional or consign them within a short period of time to another art auction. Can you imagine the fun they would have with filling in all the ensuing paperwork!

As mentioned above, the 5% resale royalty is calculated on the entire amount inclusive of GST. Auction houses are a separate caste, once again: resale royalty is calculated on the hammer price and excludes buyer’s premium.

Furthermore, as also mentioned above, the resale royalty does not apply to a sale which is transacted between two private individuals who are not art market professionals. There is no doubt that this loophole will be tested to its limits.

I admit to being a “Jack of All Trades”, and my practice does include sales (and resales) of artworks. Therefore, sooner or later, my clients and I will be liable to pay resale royalties on some of the works I sell.

So, where do I stand on the issue? Personally, I applaud it. I do realise that the Resale Royalty Act would result in the increase of administrative paperwork and reporting. However, it would also bring more transparency to the art market and make a job of valuing an art work much easier!

Last but not least, I have dedicated my life to art. Knowing that almost every time I resell an artwork a small part of this resale will go to the artists, would bring me an enormous pleasure. Maybe, it might even encourage me to sell more!!!

[© Eugene Barilo v. Reisberg 2010. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Current Exhibitions @ Latrobe Regional Art Gallery

Sunday, 14 February 2010

Dear Diary,

Latrobe Regional Art Gallery in Morwell is but an hour and a bit away from the Gippsland Art Gallery in Sale. It has a much larger and better purpose-designed building for its collection and exhibitions’ program. However, curatorially and content-wise it is worlds apart, and at times has not been able to match the curatorial strength of Sale’s gallery on exhibition by exhibition basis.

Its current offerings consist of the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award, that has been travelling around Australia since 2008; the John Meade exhibition; a selection of works from the CBUS Collection; and a multimedia installation based on works by indigenous artists. The gallery also has an Access Space, which is a necessary (though not necessarily the most inspiring) part of a regional arts centre.

LRAG’s custodianship of the CBUS Collection (which has been put together over the years with the advice from the late Dr Joseph Brown) allows it to pull out at will an exhibition of good works by big-name artists, even if the curatorial theme is a bit weak, hurried, or poorly researched. The current exhibition is the case in point. Entitled Women of the World, it has good examples by John Brack, George Baldessin, Richard Larter, Arthur Boyd, Juan Davila, Ivor Francis, Sidney Nolan, Ray Crooke, David Keeling, and others. Naturally, all feature women as their main protagonists. However, the wall texts give a bland, rushed, almost Wikipedian in its sécheresse explanations about who the artists are, and where else their works are held (as if this is relevant to this particular display). No attempt whatsoever is made to discuss the diverse portrayal of women, their meaning and significance in the exhibited works in particular and in the broader context of the artists’ oeuvre in general. Even a first year BA student (let alone any member of the professional curatorial team) could have been capable of pulling out short concise statements about the works that would have had more relevance to the works on display. It is yet another example of the curatorial “laziness” encountered on recent visits to public galleries.

Tandura – Resting Place is a video projection by Gippsland’s indigenous artists Eileen Harrison, Frances Harrison, and Jennifer Mullett (Gunnai / Kurnai women), with the assistance of the multi-media artist Ian de Gruchy. Black and white aboriginal designs are projected in a continuous slide show onto the darkened space’s four walls to the accompaniment of soothing indigenous music and sounds of the forest. The resulting effect is one of the total immersion of sight and sound, a transportation into another world. The laconic simplicity of the projection, combined with the sophisticated level of aestheticism, is somewhat reminiscent of Jenny Holzer’s projections at the ACCA, though the artists are using silent images instead of words to convey their message. In my opinion, this is the one of the best exhibits at the gallery at the moment, exactly of the kind one wants to see in a contemporary, public, non-commercial exhibition space.

I cannot adequately comment upon John Meade’s exhibition, as the space is overcrowded with objects, reminiscent of a high-end interior design shop rather than a selection of sculpture, installations, and video art by this talented inter-disciplinary artist. Even three works would have sufficed in this limited space for a more powerful visual and aesthetic impact than the kaleidoscopic jumble currently on view.

I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award. It does not have a pre-determined curatorial direction, and therefore presents a multi-faceted snapshot of Australian drawing today, in all its styles, media, artistic, aesthetic, and conceptual directions. There is a large-scale hyper-realistic drawing of a bull by Angus McDonald, and a pair of striking portrait studies by John Philippides. There are sublimely atmospheric, abstracted works on paper by Anne Judell, Gordon Watson, and Sussie Heymans. I had another encounter with the works by Ken Smith, whose drawing A Truck Crossing the Bridge by the Sea is most likely to be an original drawing for the painting I discussed earlier in the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery’s Master Landscapes exhibition, though the drawing is naturally less contrived and stylised than the finished painting. There is a most delicate and touching work by Michelle Cawthorn, reminiscent of a crocheted, patterned doily; instantly recognisable yet always superbly executed pastel of hair by Deborah Klein and chinagraph of the nude by Godwin Bradbeer; and an innovative laser drawing by Theresa O’Connell. Striking and powerful figurative charcoals by Andrew Antoniou and Ted May provide a wonderful contrast to the delicately whimsical ink drawings by Gosia Wlodarczak.

[© Eugene Barilo v. Reisberg 2010. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgement.]