Is the NGA’s head in the past?

A Museum is supposed to focus on the past but that’s not what we expect from a Gallery.  

Browsing through the National Gallery of Australia’s (NGA) primary temporary exhibitions listed for this year, we see a program that we would expect to see at a museum rather than the nation’s primary art gallery; historic objects and images from Peru, Bali, Polynesia, Indonesia, and Tokyo.

While it is not unusual for a national gallery to embrace the cultural histories of its region and beyond, punctuated with the occasional blockbuster exhibition of ancient treasures, one might ask whether the line up below rings any bells in terms of balanced programming? 

• Gold and the Incas: Lost worlds of Peru (6 December 2013 – 21 April) – showcased the splendour of the ancient pre-Hispanic cultures of Peru.
• Garden of the East – Photography in Indonesia 1850s – 1940s(15 February – 22 June)
• Atua – Sacred gods from Polynesia (23 May – 3 August)
• Bali – Island of the gods (13 June – 3 August), an exhibition of sculpture, textiles, paintings, architectural elements and ritual objects.
• Stars of the Tokyo Stage – Natori Shunsen’s kabuki actor prints (19 July – 12 October), an exhibition that explores images of Japanese kabuki theatre of the 1920s and 1930s.

• Light moves – Australian contemporary video art (18 April – 20 July) drawn from gallery’s holdings collected over the past 40-years.
• Arthur Boyd – Agony and Ecstacy (5 September – 9 November), an exhibition of more than 100 works across diverse media, but rigorously claiming not to be a retrospective.

While these two box-checkers might be laudable exhibitions in their own right – and we are in no position to critique them at this point – in terms of programming they are hardly a stretch of the imagination – video flags the now box and, while you can’t go wrong with Boyd, there is little territory left uncharted on this Australian icon. One must acknowledge, however, that they are sound choices for visiting audiences and turn towards the gallery’s collection. But is it enough?

The imminent return of an 11th century, Chola dynasty bronze sculpture Shiva as Lord of the Dance over fraudulent provenance, has focused attention on the NGA recently but it is arguably a sideshow. The National Gallery of Australia is set for signficant change with the announcement of Director Ron Radford’s retirement in September.  

Published on the NGAs website, its Strategic Plan 2013-2017 states, ‘We strive to lead the way in our field and in everything we do. We are open to new ideas and new ways of doing things.’

Last week The Art Newspaper released its annual report on attendance figures at cultural venues globally. Among the Australian institutions in the top 100, the National Gallery of Victoria led in 24^th position.  The NGA came in seventh behind ACMI, QAGOMA, AGNSW, MCA, and the Melbourne Museum and with less than half the attendance of the NGV, sitting at just 770,243.

Geography is clearly a major contributor to these figures. But we might learn something from the ranking of last year’s exhibition.  In the list of the top exhibitions globally (ranked by visitor average per day) the NGA came in second among the Australian venues, with its exhibition Stars in River: Jesse Traill ranked at 152, and Kastom – Art of Vanuatu at 153. As the exhibitions were presented concurrently (February – June 2013), it seems less a situation of preference and more a case of “two birds with the one stone”. It should be noted that the exhibitions coincided with Canberra’s Centenary celebrations.

The NGAs blockbusters for the year: Toulouse-Lautrec – Paris & the Moulin Rouge (14 December – 2 April) and Turner from the Tate – The Making of a Master (1 June – 15 September), sat much lower in the list at numbers 284 and 315 respectively; and its great export Australia at the Royal Academy of Art London came in at just 277.

It is a curious result given the cost, marketing and bravado we reserve for blockbusters, while the largely unheard Jessie Traill exhibition of prints from the early 20^th century, shown in the small project gallery, had over double the daily visitor average of the big spenders. 

The NGA took a backstep from its ambitious blockbuster program in the early 2000, but in an address at the National Press Club on the occasion of the gallery’s thirtieth anniversary (October 2012) Radford said the gallery was amping up the program to coincide with Canberra’s centenary. ‘Canberra and the National Gallery have become known for these international blockbuster exhibitions. They are now expected…Visitors must and do come from all over Australia. Indeed, they account for nearly 80% of the audiences for these exhibitions.’

What, then, went wrong? Turner from the Tate: The Making of Master exhibition attracted 153,627 visitors while the celebrated Melbourne Now exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria brought 753,071 through the door.

Is it simply that Australian’s viewing tastes are changing? And should our national gallery be better accommodating these shifts?

In the light of such questions this year’s program at the NGA looks lost, and to play with words, antiquated. The 1966 Lindsay Report was quite specific, unequivocal and logical about what the new National Art Gallery in Canberra should be. ‘It was to be a national gallery of the New World’. We tend to think less stridently about geographic definitions these days, and one might consider that when it comes to deciding how we are to grow our collections and display the culture of our regions.

The NGA’s 2014 Temporary Exhibition Program does address one of the gallery’s current priorities to show ‘leadership in promoting the rich cultures of our Asia–Pacific region’. However, it grapples with balance and the ability to find a coherent identity as our nation’s premier visual arts institution in this programming. 

While 2013 and 2012 were more even, or rounded, primary exhibition programs, the definition of our national art gallery remains sketchy. How will it define its future in our times and with today’s audiences. Ramsay has spoken about the NGAs Stage 2 development, The Centre for Australian Art, which he says ‘is about much more than getting our strong visual culture on display for all Australians, as important as that is. It is a statement about our maturity as a cultural nation.’  

These are interesting times to consider such questions, as the gallery starts to embark on its search for a new director.