Queensland Art Gallery Annual Report 2006-07

highlights and achievements / QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY ANNUAL REPORT 06–07 7 As part of the opening celebrations program for GoMA, 'Queensland Live: Contemporary Art on Tour' continues its eight-venue tour of regional Queensland with a showing at Ipswich Art Gallery. Rose Marin, Public Programs Officer, Artspace Mackay, completes a two- week regional internship at the Gallery during the Kids' APT Summer Spectacular festival. February Key works are acquired for the Gallery's contemporary international collection including the watercolours Mediterranean Sea (afternoon effect) 4-2-02 2002 and Atlantic Ocean (morning effect) 7-14-02 2002 by American artist Spencer Finch, Someone I don't know who reminds me of someone you don't know 2004 by French artist Pierre Bismuth, and Swiss artist Olivier Mosset's painting Untitled 2002. MARCH Screening more than 60 films, the APT5 cinema program Hong Kong, Shanghai: Cinema Cities opens at the Australian Cinémathèque and takes audiences on a thematic and chronological journey through the interconnected film histories of both cities. The newly restored Wurlitzer Style 260 theatre pipe organ is officially launched in the Australian Cinémathèque, with a premiere screening of the National Film and Sound Archive's new restoration of The Story of the Kelly Gang 1906; organ accompaniment is provided by Tony Fenelon. The major new Collection publication Brought to Light II: Contemporary Australian Art 1966–2006 is launched with a public program of artist and writer talks, artist interviews and panel discussions. The APT5 artist-in-residence program is initiated with Auckland-based Niuean artist John Pule in residence at Tropical North Queensland Institute of TAFE in Cairns. Olafur Eliasson's The cubic structural evolution project 2004 — a key work of the Gallery's contemporary international collection and an installation in which visitors participate in the construction of a white Lego cityscape — is displayed at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. APRIL The Japan Fantastic: Focus on Tezuka film program, presented in association with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, opens at the Australian Cinémathèque and features the Tezuka Kids' Flicks program. Thai artist Sutee Kunavichayanont is in residence at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba as part of the APT5 regional artist-in- residence program. The Minister announces the nine short-listed artists for the Gallery's second Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award exhibition, to be staged by the Gallery in August 2007. Doug Hall, AM , ends his 20-year term as Director of the Queensland Art Gallery on 13 April. MAY 'Myth to Modern: Bronzes from the Queensland Art Gallery Collection', an exhibition of 14 bronze sculptures, starts its 13-venue regional Queensland tour at Hervey Bay Regional Gallery. Anthony Edwards, Exhibitions Officer, Pinnacles Gallery, Thuringowa, begins a 'Backstage Pass' regional internship and assists with the demount of the APT5 exhibition. Tony Ellwood is announced as the new Director of the Queensland Art Gallery on 18 May; he commences his appointment on 4 July. 'The 5th Asia–Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art' closes on 27 May; the six-month-long exhibition attracts over 750 000 visitors to QAG and GoMA. JUNE The annual 'Education Minister's Awards for Excellence in Art' exhibition is shown at GoMA for the first time and features 53 works by art students from secondary schools throughout Queensland. German abstract painter Katharina Grosse arrives at the Gallery to begin transforming GoMA's long gallery as part of 'Katharina Grosse: Picture Park', the first in a series of solo international project exhibitions at GoMA. On 21 June, eminent Chinese artist Ai Weiwei gifts to the Gallery his site-specific installation Boomerang 2006, an APT5 commission installed in the Gallery's Watermall. Attendance over the two sites for the year ending 30 June 2007 is a record 859 413. Highlights and Achievements Queensland Art Gallery Board of Trustees Chair, Wayne Goss, leads a public tour of APT5 at GoMA.