Queensland Art Gallery Presscuttings Book 5 : Presscuttings, June 1972 - November 1976

LIKE America's deep south, Austra– lia's shallow north may be said to re– present the cultur– al n ad l r or the nation. Queenaland'• t r op I c beaches nnd lllhh forttilb s hould be an artists' parodtse, und lnch><:d ~ome maynltlcent IJUh>· tern ha\'e emerved lrom t h•.be cllmCli. The tillltA:'6 dbai;ter area Is In the mnnugemenl o! offlch1I nrl offalrs. The QUe<'Mland Art Oallery Is falling do1rn, Its roof-rafters eaten by ,inllent termlleli, Ha oollec!IOIUI, which Include the Rubin Col• lectton or School of Par• Is pnlntlnp nre cur• renlly valuL:a at a round I ~4 mllllon. So the nnnouncemcnt ~f w,~ ii::i:m~L :~~ 0 1ri~ further nc..-s thnt, It wlll tnke a mlnhmun of fl\•c /;~';I'S wtlc n~~ 1 1~~c11;~1J/~~ How Is II that neither t.hc Gallery tni>t<.X's nor the St ole gO\'OMlllll'llL tit:Cm to have knov:n nbout the condition or the l>Ullding ,mW I\O"' ? The answer Is thnt t11e)' did lmow. Tiley hne known t.llllt :l:~J"¥t~. ~~Jegen:; goverrunent a ppr o v c d the l\lte for It near t.ho Botanical Onrdcns. . ,. 1 •• ( No water art damage Nn ln:-,.1t of nfn- con• :;;~.-p1t•n1~,. hnd nc,·urrl'cl ul tht• Q11rt•11~1nnc1 Art. Cini~ lrn· fru111 \H1tt·r ,h,nrni:t', thl• At·tinl! C"ul1 11 rnl J\1•– t l \' 11 l I' s i\•tlm., tcr I Mr. Mcl<cchmr 1 !-111.d yt'sLcr- Lb~~r Ml'l{f'rhnie told Mr. \vood A.1 ,.1'., Ton– woomha South I in Rtnte Pnrli:um•nt thnt. some olrh•r pnl11tln1,t." nt the 1,?1tllf'r\' mli,:ht lHl\'tJ dr– trrlorntrd o, rr , h,, ~·rnr": b u L none hn<I hf'r ll Hm,111\X lts more n,luable work.'-. ••• 11n-e penltim Quc'l!n:.111 ud pr cve n l e tl IM:illg dono. Slnco I !luO t-.·o goud dlrc,;ton; hU\'C re.,l~ne<I on•r the colll.-ctlon~ kllll their cur11lorli1I how,lnl( "';~h~•ni·cilrst,, Rob e r t Huin,·b, resigned In 19ti0 b<""""" hi• plLLnS tor the ne" · p.Jlery were summnrily re)t'ctt:d. Thu second. urnrlo Thomll8, resigned u, !Otl7 , beeo\l/le the chalnnan of tnlbl,!l>i !ll'OII03ed to ~u Plem,so'a "La Belle Hol• ~i\~ ":;1'1~d :~f:! to Jluy for the new "'ll\1~1~ 111 one el'l'ectull ox/,edlent tollOl\·IN: an~ ot, ,er the QAO l>oard hlllj bumbled on ever 611 Wfi1tc ant& In the woOd\\'Ork are Im<~ but rit tf,o 00 1ct:;,1';';~\'.~11ri~~ "Lt\ Belle Hollan• dnl: ·", the only m11Jor Plc,1.S ·o pulnUng O\\'Ucd t, · 11u Aus rr.111111 pnl>llc ~ lid,', Is now "/'purent- 1,· to 110 Into n r-condl• t'loned ll'Tllll•• nJc,ng "·ith t'Om111rnlon pieces thnt lnulude II lso Plcnsso's nne•t etching, "Mino• t "{~~~l 3 'J;~ Queeru;laud coc1'croaches ml11ht do to these ond companion ..-ork• In m·e years can \l'Cll be lmagtned. Queensland needs a ne\\' State gaUe1-y ur– l(Ontly• bnt tl\'9D n1ore 11rgentlY It needa a new, ~l~~-::1 ~c:l~~?n~t~: tlon. Melbourne, Vic. 1 3 A p ;;COURIER MAIL" ' 197', Brl11Mne, Qld. to open ~HE QuHnsland Att .Gallery would open in the M I M city building in a matter of weeks Sir L T , . ' ' last night. ' •on rout 1a1d b~cn~:~~v~~~cf~nttngs nnd obJets d'nrt hnd the old gnliery t e Aonn Stre~L bulldtng from 11 1egury ferrace. I lr unn. the ArL Gal- 11·.1 h r.lccLr'.cnl r r ,· c h a i r m n. n of 1 irusLcrs. >Aid 1hr , 4 ml!- an, n 24-hour •rmed J/011 co!Jcctlnn wns storcri j?Uit rd. on one or 1hr 11 ,. 0 rloo,· Hr ORld Jhr ~•llery's r ner IL!<l1cb M.I.M. bu11,111l~ ln~11 rcr had thrrntcncd n c r th 1 • In cancel the po Icy bc- ernmrni'. C' ntr Gor- rnusr or Lhc cl11n~crous S7 1_'lcnt ls rr pnrtrrJ to br connltlon of the Gregory o.000 n vr ar. Tern cc bu ilding. · S I r Lron ""lrl t hr The company had con- tru.<1 ers itere conv111ce<1 s1dcre.d p,r rlrr risk and SCCUl'li)' 11·a., adequate, t~ ~~~ \~lll ty of Colla The pendulum's swing inclined to wards the pendulum lheory of art - the notion that every action will eventil· ally produce a reaction– will be strengthened in his belief by lhe exhibition of "Some Recent American Art" al the Art Gallery of NSW. Jackson Pollock's "Rh,c Poles," painted in 1953, has arrived in S)•dney (on its way to its permanent home in the Nnuonal Gal• !cry of Australia) in time to be !ihown in conjunction with the touring American exhibition. Most of the works in this coll<clion can be look– ed upon as products of the reaction 10 Pollock's paint• ing nnd the abstract ex• By JAMES GLEESON pressionist movement in general. Minimal anJ ,onccr,111al art wcn: surely provoked into l,cin1t by the qualilics that made "Blue Poles" n land mark in 1wcn1icth century pnintinp:. The absolute freedoms it proclaimed and the mo• tions it both emhodied an,l relcnscd marked a limit to the pendulum's swing to• wards the Jionysian para– meter of ar!. What we sre in this exhibition is a ~roup of work~ crrated al nr ncnr the ar,ollonian parameter or the pendulum's ~wing - and it has taken 20 years lo reach that poinl. JJ we had to rind n single word to describe the essential quality of these works, it wou!J 1'c srrcn• ii)', Wincklc.mann, the nrostlc of cln~, kism. maintainC't1 that "art should aim nl noble sim– plicity and c.1lm 1trand– c11r." To these moJcrn classicists, words like "noble" and "1tramlcur" may be ,lightly suspect, but there is no doubt about their acceptance of simplicity and c:1lmness. What could be simpler or calmer thnn A1tnes Martin's precise nnJ ddi• ·c.,te gri,ls, or the repcti• tion of a single basic shape or clement that is the substance of so much of the nrt of Carl Andre, Mel Bochner, Don Judd. Sot Le Will, Robert Irwin, Dan Flavin and others? ___ ,..... __ loan from the Na1i,mal Gallery of Australia) by Eva Hesse. Althouph we find in thc-111 th!.! same quali1ics of ~implicity, repetition and ,lc1:1chmen1. they ali;o h:wc an intan~iblc quality that provokes a sense of alnrm. They arc any1hing but t·:ilm nr srrrnc. She is not concerned with absolutes like the cube or the ~pherc. Art for her i~ not an c~lcnsion of mathematics. It is nn nt– tcmr1 to say the unsay– ablc. to push ~-"~ the frontier<, to go beyond the known. Her death nt the •~e of 34 i, a sad loss, )'<I the work she accomplished in her short career is enough "' show thnt the pendulum ha, already begun another sweep that will quick!)' ol:H.·c lhcsc "recent" work!'i in 1he perspective of his• l~ry.