Queensland Art Gallery Annual Report 1991-92

FRAMEWORKS FOR THE FUTURE Ten Years on the South Bank and the Decade Ahead As it enters its second decade on a permanent site - and reflects on its rapidly approaching Centenary - the Gallery is now actively considering and redrawing the frameworks for its future. Installation view of the The Gallery opened on its present site on 21 June 1982. To that time, the Gallery's role and functions had been Versailles inspired Hall of Mirrors which scene-set consistently limited by sporadic Collection growth, occurring within a succession of temporary buildings since its inception some of the earlier in 1895 and equipped with few professional and institutional resources. These new and permanent premises enabled the works in 'Masterpieces creation of a radically expanded and more certain foundation for the Gallery's Collection, its programs and the growth from the Louvre: French of its audience. Bronzes and Paintings from the Renaissance to Prior to 1982, the Gallery had been defined through its Brisbane-based role, with a limited capacity for extension into Rodin' in 1988. regional Queensland. During the early to mid 1980s, programs largely revolved around the support of temporary touring exhibitions, the Gallery functioning as a 'receiver' institution with an exhibitions program - fully engaging the building's award-winning architecture. With its institutional resources dramatically reshaped and enhanced, the Gallery soon achieved a state, national and f international reputation for the innovative and professional presentation of exhibitions and for the effective outreach of its regional services. Within five years of opening, over 3.25m visitors had passed through the Gallery doors, â 4 , establishing (and subsequently maintaining) the highest per capita attendance 1' Gallery in Austr lia. The Gall ry had also initiated and organised its first major international - - ' .' exhibition, and organised and jointly curated the first major exhibition of contemporary Australian art shown in Japan. In the year of the Australian Bicentenary and World Expo t - '88, Brisbane, the Gallery hosted and substantially organised eight major exhibitions of which four were international and four Australian in origin. In undertaking a complete rehang and reinterpretation of the Collection (1989-90), the Gallery reclaimed and reanimated a relatively silent inheritance. It turned the techniques of the blockbuster, in which it had become so adept, towards the Collection. During the late One of the Gallery's - major works, Picassos ' . - . 1980s, the Gallery fundamentally shifted and La Belle Hollandaise 1905, ' . refined its thinking in relation to concepts of was re-displayed in 1991 collection, conservation and communication - as part of 'Your roles axiomatic to a modern art museum -with Coliecoon Revesled , , the notion of making works work becoming something of an institutional imperative. Through a complete reorientation of policy positions, the Gallery has framed and built specific k ' Collection emphases; created enhanced 4 enjoyment of and intellectual access to the Collection, through more focused exhibitions, interpretive resources and documentation; achieved unparalleled levels of sponsorship and donation; and become a more pro- active initiator and organiser of major inter- national exhibitions reflecting the needs of the institution and responding to its audience. 8