Queensland Art Gallery Presscuttings Book 10 : Record of press coverage, March 1982 - May 1984

.. • I , J I r , AN INTERVIEW WITH PHILIP BACON WITH THE opening of the new Brisbane Art Gallery, Considerable attention is currently being focused on the state of the a-:ts in the Sunshine Capital. Arts News gets a tan talking to Philip Bacon: Why would anyone choose to earn a living running an art gallery, as opposed to, say, becom• ing a bricklayer? I'd always been interested in art - we'd always had pictures on the wall .. . but mostly I was involved with someone whose family had an art gallery. I helped out on weekends and during University vacations, and ahh . . . I liked it. I also thought I'd rather do this than law. You've established a succeHful, international-standard art gallery in what has been considered one of the least culture-conscious places in Australia. Was it as hard as one would imagine? There really has always been a lot more going on in Brisbane than most people think. Some of the great figurative artists of the 50s had their first exhibitions in Brisbane. The early Blackman 'Alice' pain• tinge, for instance. The first big Nolan exhibition was in Brisbane in 1948. .Arthur Boyd, Drysdale, they all had major exhibitions in Brisbane. So there was already a nucleus. Does the new gallery mean Brisbane has finally come of age? Hmmm, when the performing arts centre opens too, there will be a highly visible focal point for the arts in Queensland. Hopefully, this will bring us of age in our own eyes. We have indulged in 'Queens• land-bashing', however clients and collectors from Sydney or Melbourne are absolutely astonished that a gallery in Brisbane would be offering for sale the sort of things that we do. What makes an international· standard gallery? Ahh, l suppos11 it's to do with the quality of the art that you show, the expertise you bring to showing it, and the philosophy behind the reason for showing it. TEN What makes an international work is the artist's expertise in his medium. What makes an artist interna• tionally acclaimed is, largely, luck. Art, by nature, is very parochial. Very few Australian artists really make it abroad, but very few ar• tists in England make it in, say, America. How do you find your artists, or do they just turn up on your doorstep? We do get a lot of artists coming in, asking to show us their work, and in the main we can't do anything with them. Ours is the biggest space in Brisbane, our ar• tists are at a certain level of their work, and we're booked up two years in advance with artists we already represent. All this makes it difficult to slot new artists in. There are a lot more spaces in Brisbane now that cope with that anyway. We have a stable of "regulars", and sometimes other galleries who have represented an artist elsewhere will ask if I want to represent them in Brisbane, so we find some of our artists there. Of course, there are certain ar• tists that I am inclined to pursue, and we generally get them. How does It feel to continually have bJghly desirable works in your possession, so briefiy, only to watch them leave in someone else's hands? I've always wondered whether I preferred buying pictures or sell– ing them. I think I prefer buying them. But if I don't sell them, I can't continue to buy, so I balance it out that way. I get a terrific thrill placing a picture, seeing a certain painting I . think would be perfect for so-and• so. It has less to do with the corn• mission I make. than with know– ing you're placing something where it really belongs. Paintings go round and round, By Geoffrey Fitzgibbon Philip Bacon: "I wouldn't want to be an artist." anyway. We all only have a lend of things like paintings or furniture, and there comes a time when it just has to move on. Have you ever bad any incline· tion to paint or sculpt yourself? People always ask me that, and I always say no, but in fact . . . I sort of took some IE.ssons once from a local painter, and an art teacher, to see just what it was all about. I was a great copyist, but I had no sort of creative impulse at all ... I figure there's enough bad painters without me being another one. What purpose does art serve? It pays for my suits. (grins). No. It enriches life. It seems to be a necessary part of mankind. What we need beside bread and wat.er . The more cultured and Charles Condor: 'Seated Woman' "Yee, you didn't expect to see this in Brisbane, but there's a lot more going on in this town than you'd imagine." ARTS NEWS ...