Queensland Art Gallery Presscuttings Book 8 : Pressclippings, 1977-1981

THE NATIONAL TIMES, WEEK .ENDING JULY 15, 1978 . ·- -~:~:..·~· Edited b y PHILLIP McCARTHY THE FRASER Government's major. showpiece of corporate involvement in the arts, the Australian Art Exhibitions Corporation, is foundering. Last month the Australia Council de– cided to shelve the organisation·because of the financial failure of its current pro• gram of Colombian gold artefacts. The council. the sole shareholder in the corporation, also considered drop• ping Brisbane and Sydney from the five• city tour because of the exhibition's re•, suits in Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne. · In the' end it decid d to retain the seasons - Brisbane from July 13 and Sydney from August 22 - but instructed the corporation to cut costs. According to the council's general manager, John Cameron , the seven• month tour is facing a loss of about $500,000 on current projections, He told The National .Times: "As things stand at present, the corporation will need all of its current assets, some $360,000 plus about $250,000 more to cover its costs. That extra money will have to come from the council." For the corporation the situation marks a major reversal of its fortunllS in its two-year history. It was originally establishr,d solely to organise and manage last year' Chinese archae• ological exhibition. Prime Minister Mai• colm Fraser announced its formation in August 1976 as an offspring of · the. ·Australia council. Because of the great success of the Chinese exhibition, purticularly under the sponsorship and underwriting deal the corporation negotiated with Mobil Oil, it was reconstituted as an ongoing a~ncy last year. The concept of the corporation, with its ;on! of relieving the Government of a maJQr financial burden, had obvious at· tractions to a budget-minded Govern• ment. . The PrimeMinister, who isdescribed in the corporation's annual report as having a direct interest in its establishment, emphasised the company's business fla• vour from the start. One of its functions, he said, would be to invite sponsorship support of exhibitions bycommercial and industrial organisations. The compuny's original board included businessmen like Sidney Baillieu Mr.er, Andrew Grimwade and Harry M, Miller, Grimwade resigned after the Chi• nese exhibition. Miller resigned in May, thereby avoiding close association with the problems that were then emerging. · Its current membership comprises businessmen James Leslie, Sidney Bail– lieu Myer, Mark Farmer and Bruce Red• path, accountants Normun Baker and John Kenny, barrister John Bland, lvor Bowden of. the Foreign Affairs Depart• rnent, the corporation's executive direc• I LD UD By PHILLIP McCARTHY Cast gold ornament from the Colombian artefacts exhibition. tor, Bronwyn Thomas and three Austra– lia Council representatives, Dr Jean Bat– tersby, Elwyn Lynn and Leon Parois– sien. The corporation made a net profit ol' $516,000 from the Chinese exhibition. It paid $154,000 to the three participating galleries and retained $361 ,000. This was, in the words of its annual report, "working capital for future blo kbuster exhibitions in Australia." This year the blockbuster was the 220· piece Colombian gold exhibitio.·. titled, somewhat ironically now, El Dvrado. The exhibition was chosen from the vast collection of Indian gold - jewellery, or- namcnts and small latues - of Bogota's Musco de l Oro controlled by the country's ntral bank. The exhibition bega n its tour in Ade– laide in February and problems began to emerge by the time it reached'·Perth in April. An Australia Council study ,of the situation- begun after box office returns wer down in Perth - estilJlated that :tllcndnnces in Perth and Adelaiae ·t.>ere about 50 per cent lower than the original budget had envisaged. That report was di cussed at the council's meeting last momh. The attendance estimates were later caled down. On this, more modest, ex• ' peciation attendunces were still 25 per cent down. With a total budget of $1.2 million such miscalculation is costly. But with the blockbuster treatment conceived by the corporation, it has a further effect. In the six-month tour of the Chinese exhibition the sale of souvenirs - repl• icas, posters and trinkets - generated 1 almost as much revenue as admission charges ($783,070 and $796,402 respec. tively for the whole tour). A major box office reversal has a flow-through effect causing lower mer• chandising sales. Almost 595,000 people in three cities saw the Chinese exhibition. On current projections probably about J00,000 in five cities will see El Dorado when it finishes in Sydney on October I. Attend• ances in Adelaide, Perth and Mel~urne have totalled 175,000: revenue from ad• ~missions· hasrbeerr-$2 I6;000 and-front-- merchandising $145,000. , The. corporation maintains that the exhibition will still be the third most popular exhibition, in terms of attend•. ance, ever brought to Australia. The problem is that it budgeted for it to be much more so. If a similar situation had occurred dur• ing the Chinese exhibition, Mobil would have picked up the bill through its under• writing agreement. But for El Dorado the sponsorship did not extend that far•. Amatil, through its Benson and Hedges. cigarette subsidiary, kicked in $175,000 but did not agree to underwriting. The Australia Council, as the parent body, will have to make up the losses from its Federal Government allocation for this financial year. The major point is that its budget does not take account of such unexpected losses. With indications pointing to only a minimal increase in its funds in next month's budget, a $250,000 bill will sig• nificantly affect many of its other pro– grams. According to the corpora tion's chair• man, James Le~lie, who is alsoichairman of Mobil, the situation may not~me to Conrinued on page 44