Queensland Art Gallery Annual Report 2004-05

14 15 The Gallery was also fortunate to acquire a group of 24 untitled gelatin silver photographs by Nasreen Mohamedi. A senior Indian artist, Mohamedi’s work is a highly innovative and individual exploration of the formal aesthetics of Modernism in India. This group of photographs represents the entire body of work in this medium produced by Mohamedi, who died in 1990. Several significant works from the Pacific region were acquired during 2004–05, including a set of four self- portraits by Greg Semu, Self portrait with pe’a 1995, printed 2004, which address issues of colonialism and the nineteenth-century photographic archive on Samoa. Another highlight from the Pacific region included three works by Ronnie van Hout — Abduct , Hybrid and ‘after Peryer’ , all 1999, printed 2004. The three portfolios of prints irreverently and satirically engage with New Zealand culture, addressing language, violence and the intersection of high art and popular culture. An important addition to the international art collection was the painting attributed to the Circle of Joos de Momper, Jesus healing the blind c.1600–20. De Momper is regarded as one of the leading Flemish landscape painters of his time. The acquisition of this beautiful work complements and enhances the collection of mid sixteenth- to mid seventeenth-century art works held by the Gallery, including works by Jan Brueghel, Tintoretto, Giambologna and Rubens. The Gallery also received a significant gift of an early Richard Hamilton painting, Carapace 1954, for the contemporary international art collection. Richard Hamilton is one of the most important figures in postwar British art and is best known as a founding member of the Independent Group. Carapace foreshadows Hamilton’s later pop art concerns and examines the effects of technology on perception. The painting is a significant addition to the Gallery’s holdings of contemporary British art. Another important acquisition for the international art collection was Jana Sterbak’s From here to there 2003, a six-channel video installation filmed in a wintry Quebec landscape, from the perspective of a Jack Russell Terrier fitted with the latest in lightweight medical camera equipment. Sterbak’s work is informed by an ongoing engagement with science, society, literature and music, and the artist uses various media to explore perceptions of desire, constraint, the body, technology and artistic creation. The Gallery continued to highlight the scope and depth of its Collection through focused displays held throughout the year. The ‘Blak Insights: Contemporary Indigenous Art from the Queensland Art Gallery Collection’ exhibition presented more than 140 works displayed over 7 gallery spaces. ‘Blak Insights’ allowed viewers to experience the rich variety of the Gallery’s contemporary Indigenous collection acquired over the past 20 years. The display showcased some of the finest contemporary work by artists such as Tracey Moffatt, Destiny Deacon, Gordon Bennett, Richard Bell, Anmanari Brown, Djambawa Marawili, Minnie Pwerle and Ken Thaiday Sr. ‘Ten Thoughts about Frames’ examined the art, history and techniques of framing — from the gilded decorative frames of the Middle Ages to the sophisticated use of framing techniques in modern cinema. The exhibition featured works representing various styles, media and periods from the Gallery’s Collection, and won the set/display design category of the 2005 Queensland Design Awards. ‘The Look of Faith’ explored artists’ poetic responses to ideas and expressions of religious and spiritual faith. The display featured a series of images of Christ, saints and martyrs dating from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, including Albrecht Dürer’s series ‘The Large Passion’ and ‘The Apocalypse’. Addressing a more mythical and secular dimension of faith and poetry of spirit were contemporary works by Australian and international artists Judith Wright, Bea Maddock, William Robinson, Michael Riley, Joseph Jurra Tjapaltjarri, Colin McCahon and Santiago Bose. A rich and varied picture of art-making in the early decades of the twentieth century in Australia was presented in ‘Essentially Modern: Australian Prints from the Collection’. The display highlighted the work of artists who challenged the academic tradition of landscape painting, adopting innovative techniques in order to capture the excitement of a rapidly changing world, and featured printmakers Margaret Preston, Thea Proctor and Dorrit Black. Shades of white and nuances of light were explored in ‘White/Light’, which featured works by Judith Wright, Tim Johnson, Bea Maddock and NN Rimzon. Contemporary minimalist works by Robert Hunter, Howard Taylor and Dorothea Rockburne also featured, together with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus garden 1966/2002, which was exhibited in the Gallery’s Watermall for the first time since the Asia–Pacific Triennial in 2002. ‘Families and Fictions: Contemporary Photography from the Collection’ focused on works drawing on established photographic traditions, particularly the family snapshot. The display was curated around a number of new acquisitions — including a major portfolio of 30 photographs by the Australian-Chinese artist William Yang entitled About my mother 2003, which explored the artist’s Chinese family history — and featured artists who drew on personal histories and family archives. ‘Pastels in Focus’ presented the beautiful, and sometimes daring, work produced in the medium by Australian women artists during the early twentieth century, while the display ‘North by North-west: Contemporary Indigenous Art from the Queensland Art Gallery Collection’ featured art from Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula to the Kimberley region of Western Australia. ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ featured artists who explore the ambiguous territory between reality and disguise in self-portraits, using theatrical personas or through challenging stereotypes. The display included the work of Australian and international artists Fiona Foley, Tracey Moffatt, Luke Roberts, Greg Semu, Yasumasa Morimura and Cindy Sherman. The Registration section maintained its role in contributing to the physical and legal management of the Gallery’s Collection, as well as those objects under the Gallery’s temporary care as loans, acquisitions and exhibitions from other sources. Interest in the Collection from external institutions was demonstrated by 41 objects being lent to exhibitions organised by regional, interstate and international galleries. These included the loans of Edgar Degas’s Trois danseuses à la classe de danse (Three dancers at a dancing class) c.1888–90 to the ‘Degas: Classico e moderno’ exhibition at the Complesso del Vittoriano, Rome (October 2004 – February 2005); and Bridget Riley’s Big Blue 1981–82 to the ‘Bridget Riley: Paintings 1961–2004’ exhibition, organised by the British Council, in Sydney and Wellington (December 2004 – June 2005). A total of 223 objects were on loan to Queensland Government offices as at 30 June 2005. Some 300 objects were received on loan for exhibition purposes from Belgium, England, the Czech Republic, Finland and Germany, including items for display in ‘The Nature Machine: Contemporary Art, Nature and Technology’ exhibition. Over 400 objects were received for consideration for acquisition and included shipments from Canada, China, France, French Polynesia, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Pakistan and the United States. Preparations commenced for ‘APT 2006: Asia–Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’. The Provenance Research Project — initiated in December 2001 to confirm the Gallery’s good title to works of European origin that may have been confiscated during the period of Nazi rule (1933–45) — entered its final phase. The Deaccessioning Policy (endorsed by the Board of Trustees in November 2000) was revised, and a staged, three-year-cycle stocktake of the Collection was initiated. Work continued on the implementation of an upgraded Collection Management System, and assistance was provided to the Public Art Agency in the formulation of standards for a public art cataloguing project. The Conservation section continued to undertake preventive conservation, treatment and research relating to the care of works in the Gallery’s Collection. Preventive projects were also prioritised for those works moving to storage facilities in the Gallery of Modern Art. Major treatments undertaken included the cleaning, coating and relocation of Lee Ufan’s Relatum 2002; the paint consolidation and reframing of Ian Fairweather’s Café tables 1957, and the restoration and reframing of Edgar Degas’s Trois danseuses à la classe de danse (Three dancers at a dancing class) c.1888–90 prior to its loan to Italy. Work began on the conservation cleaning of The Café Balzac mural 1962, a triptych by Colin Lanceley, Ross Crothall and Mike Brown. Most Conservation staff have been involved in this collaborative project to document, test and treat the work. Cleaning has since been completed on the triptych’s first panel. Treatment and reframing of works by Arthur Streeton was undertaken in preparation for the ‘Streeton: Works from the Queensland Art Gallery Collection’ regional travelling exhibition. In particular, Sunny cove 1893 and Sketch for ‘Still glides the stream and shall forever glide’ 1895 received new oak frames, while June evening, Box Hill 1887 underwent a major cleaning with the removal of old restorations. Gallery conservators also continued work on the Old Master Project, which involves the analysis and restoration of historical paintings from diverse Queensland collections. Staff completed treatment on Jesus healing the blind c.1600–20, attributed to the Circle of Joos de Momper, and began treatment on The adoration of the Magi by Scarcellino. A major treatment on Gerard Soest’s Portrait of a lady c.1660s was also undertaken. INTERNATIONAL ART CONSERVING THE COLLECTION DOCUMENTING AND MANAGING THE COLLECTION DISPLAYING THE COLLECTION