There’s a tremendous hullaballo about the National Gallery of Australia’s 40thbirthday celebrations, but I’m not quite sure why everybody is getting excited. For a start, a 40th birthday is hardly one of the great jubilees. 50 has a ring to it, and 100 is always a big deal, but 40?
Then there’s the program. The blockbuster show for summer is the Cressida Campbell survey, which is also the subject of this week’s art column. It’s unusual to have an Australian artist in this slot instead of a major international show, but if they wanted to choose one who will pull the crowds they couldn’t have chosen better. It’s a great honour for Cressida, but her exhibition is virtually the only thing of note for the first six months of this “anniversary” year.
It’s unequivocally a good thing to have moved the Aboriginal Memorial from the foyer to the centre of the gallery. This is an iconic work and deserves the prominence. Besides, it looks so much better than the previous installation in that space: multiple wall-sized photos of Sarah Lucas eating a banana, and a bunch of repulsive sculptures – all courtesy of London art dealer Sadie Coles. I never thought I’d see the NGA providing a shop window for a commercial gallery, but that’s pretty much what happened.
Commendable as it may be, moving the Memorial doesn’t constitute an original, crowd-pulling show. Neither does a rearrangement of the Australian collection, or the international collection, or the Indigenous collection. These are the things that major galleries do – or should do – regularly. The Kara Walker project show is a two room fragment, and the Annual Lecture she is supposedly giving on 13 October, sounds like it’s going to be a conversation with Daniel Browning from Radio National. Note to NGA: a conversation is not a lecture.
A production by Justene Williams of the Suprematist opera, Victory over the Sun, will run for two nights only -14 & 15 October. There’s a projection by Daniel Crookes; a wall drawing of dots, commissioned from Bridget Riley; the Angelica Mesiti show that was in the Australian pavilion in Venice in 2019; a Rauschenberg and Johns print show from the collection; and two pretty woeful sculptures by Tracey Emin and Linda Marrinon, added to the Sculpture Garden. Director Mitzevitch called the Emin sculpture “magnificent” last week, which may be interpreted as “a magnificent waste of money”. A clay doodle by the talentless Tracey, turned into a Henry-Moore sized bronze, has cost the gallery a cool million.
Add this to the $14 million spent on the Lindy Lee sculpture, which we probably won’t see until well in 2024, and the $6.8 million lavished on the Jordan Wolfson animatronic doodad, which has also yet to appear. By now we’re up to more than $22 million and counting. Suddenly it’s crystal clear why the 40th anniversary program is so threadbare: for $22 million Nick could have brought in four blockbuster exhibitions, generating revenue for the gallery, and for Canberra. The only thing on the entire program that will draw audiences to Canberra is the Cressida Campbell show.
I could go on, but I’ve probably said more than enough already. For all the fanfare, the 40th anniversary is clearly more spin than substance. If I were responsible for a program like this, I’d be keeping quiet about it.
Speaking of keeping quiet, David O. Russell, maker of excellent Hollywood movies, should maybe hide out for a while until his new film, Amsterdam, has gone onto cable and disc. It’s not fun when a good director comes up with a film as muddled and awkward as this one, wasting an all-star cast. I suppose trying to fix a big studio movie when it’s going wrong is a bit like trying to stop a runaway semi-trailer. I’ve endeavoured not to be too mean in the review. You’ll have to believe me when I say I’ve also pulled my punches in regards to the NGA’s 40th anniversary.