Queensland Art Gallery Annual Report 2006-07

collection / QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY ANNUAL REPORT 06–07 17 International art The Gallery's holdings of international art were strengthened by the acquisition of works by French artist Pierre Bismuth, United States-born Spencer Finch, and Swiss artist Olivier Mosset. Olivier Mosset is among the most influential European minimalist painters of the late twentieth century, and Untitled 2002 is an important addition to the Gallery's holdings of contemporary international painting. In this work, the conventional monochrome painting takes on a wide range of symbolic and popular associations, such as a game for children, and a hug (O) and a kiss (X). Working across a variety of media including installation, painting, sculpture and photography, in Atlantic Ocean (morning effect) 7-14-02 2002 Spencer Finch explores the medium of watercolour. In his depiction of a body of water, Finch's aim is to show that light itself must be perceived, or experienced, in order to see anything at all. Pierre Bismuth's practice concerns itself primarily with perception, specifically the manner in which we come to make sense of cultural forms, such as art, cinema and the print media. Someone I don't know who reminds me of someone you don't know 2004 explores the relationship between language and object by using found photographic images from a variety of sources. Cinema and the moving image During the year, several significant moving-image works by APT5 artists were acquired by the Gallery. Yang Zhenzhong is a major voice in contemporary Chinese art. His work challenges social conventions to reveal the dreams, aspirations and fears underpinning contemporary urban life in China. I will die (Shanghai version) 2001 captures digital video footage of Shanghai residents in cafes and bars, homes and offices, reciting the words 'I will die'. Edited together in montage, the short performances cause viewers to consider their own responses to mortality. Using video, sculpture and installation, since 1990 Dinh Q Lê has developed a significant international profile for his contributions to contemporary Vietnamese art. The farmers and the helicopters 2006 is a three-channel video installation featuring interviews with Vietnamese farmers, documentary footage and sequences from Hollywood films dramatising the Vietnam–US War (1959–75). The work explores the trauma and psychological effects resulting from the War and shows how these effects still permeate the cultural memory and landscape of Vietnam. Since 2002, performance artist Qin Ga has been associated with the highly visible Long March Project, a multi-artist project that uses the historical Long March undertaken by Mao Zedong as a framework to consider contemporary art in China. In The miniature long march sites 1–23 2002–05, the artist inscribed his body through tattoo as he undertook the journey of the Long March. Braving frostbite and sunburn and pushing the limits of endurance, the artist gradually connects with, and is transformed by, the cultures, histories and geography he encounters on his Long March — his body is mapped by each stop of the journey. Displaying the Collection (QAG) For the opening of the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) across two sites in December 2006, the displays of Australian art were greatly expanded and entirely reconceived. With the departure of works from the period after the 1970s to their new home in GoMA, two additional galleries were made available for the display of some of the richest holdings in the Gallery's Collection, including some rarely seen works and new acquisitions. The recently conserved The Café Balzac mural 1962 by Colin Lanceley, Mike Brown and Ross Crothall — the largest and one of the best known works from the Annandale Realists group of the early 1960s — provides a major focus for the new Australian art display. Fairweather Room Ian Fairweather (1891–1974) was one of Australia's most significant modernist artists. The new Fairweather Room is the most extensive permanent display of Fairweather's art in Australia and presents works ranging from the artist's early figurative paintings to his renowned late paintings, and recognises the close connection he shared with the state, in adopting Bribie Island as his home. The inaugural display explored one of the artist's most powerful themes, the relationship between mother and child. Queensland Heritage Gallery For the first time in a permanent display, the Gallery presented a survey of art produced in the state from the 1850s to the 1930s. Incorporating paintings, photographs, films, drawings, prints, ceramics and furniture, the display draws on key Collection works by artists such as Isaac Walter Jenner, Bessie Gibson, and LJ Harvey and his School. It featured works by visiting artists who documented the early settlement of Queensland, such as Conrad Martens and Harriet Jane Neville-Rolfe; and some icons of the Collection, including Godfrey Rivers's Under the jacaranda 1903 and Vida Lahey's Monday morning 1912. Australian Galleries The pre-1970 Australian collection featuring major paintings by Edwardian expatriate artists, including George Lambert, E Phillips Fox and Rupert Bunny; works by the Heidelberg School artists Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton; important modernist paintings by Margaret Preston, Sidney Nolan and Fred Williams; and works by significant Indigenous artists were rehung in galleries 10, 11, 12 and 13. Asian Gallery In December 2006, the Gallery opened a new display devoted to Asian art. Alongside works from the Gallery's Collection are objects on long-term loan from private and public collections, including many prestigious international institutions. The inaugural display featured Chinese porcelains and Buddhist statuary from the Shanghai Museum; Persian miniatures and porcelains, ancient earthenwares and thirteenth-century Khmer ceramics from the Arthur M Sackler Gallery, Washington, DC; Joseon dynasty white porcelains from the National Museum of Korea; and a group of significant sixteenth- to eighteenth- century ceramics relating to the Japanese tradition of the tea ceremony from the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Japan. Dinh Q Lê Vietnam b.1968 In collaboration with Tuâ´n Andrew Nguyê˜ n and Phù Nam Thúc Hà The farmers and the helicopters (stills) 2006 Three-channel video installation, Mini DV and DVD formats: 15:00 minutes, colour, sound (originally recorded on high definition video), ed. 1/10 Purchased 2007. The Queensland Government's Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund