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

4 Time Off June 6-19, 19l 1111111111111111111111111111111111111•Y'isual ART NOUVEAU IN AUSTRALIA Qld Art Callery, MIM Bldg till June 22 . It', colourful, rich, varied: boasts all the sensuousness and 1lnuou1neu of line and detail of the genre, but ... Ouchi It's ao fundamentally commercial In Its approach lo art and the public. And If you think you've heard me on this theme before In relation lo our State Gallery, you're right. piece of merchandising are to be not only financial, but not fussy either. Art by the sq. metre, or Money for gawd's sake. And do you really want to litter your coffee table with statements like: 'There Is (sic) virtually no pure Art Nouveau buildings In Australia? Tough luck, becuase due lo the d~vlous commerctalism of The Organization, If you wanna play. you pay. The commercial approach lo art Is a nasty little leitmotif which ln • lnuatea Itself once again Into a public exhibition at the Qld Art Gallery, this time the Art Nouue,1u In Australia show. Yes, you are correct In remembering that I levelled the same charge In relation lo the Centuryof Modern Masters ex- hlbltton held back In February– March. In that Instance I was annoyed that a public service like the Stale Gallery should charge entrance fees when (a) they purport to be a Stale, l.e. publicly-funded , organization existing for the benefit of the said public, and (bi the public purse, both lnstttutlonally and Individually. Is raided for work which Is of dubious quality In the first place. This current exhibition merely confirms the growing suspicions that the Masters show planted In rny suspicious little head. Someone In our cultural bureaucracy Is out to make a fast buck, mes enfanls. Consider the scenario: You walk Into the Art Nouveau sec– tton of the Gallery. All around you are palnttngs, stained glass, ceramics, screens, sket– ches, furniture , glowing with that attentton to decorative detail, that sheer visual In– dulgence which characterize this parttcular style. You hurry forward to explore this least, to discover who produced what, where anl!;!lll!ien, only find ... nothjng! -<• For a moment your curiosity turns to bewilderment. Can It be that the State Gallery would mount such a totally anony– mous showing of work. all done so mysteriously? Th-.n you notice that each Item , though sadly lacking In iden– tification , is numbered. You refer lo an attendant who con– firm s what yo u already suspect. For a small fee the Gallery will hand over a copy of the catalogue which unravles the cryptic number– ing, and tells you what you have been looking al , who produced It, etc. All the info onw would naturally expect lo find accompanying the works themselves. Not a bad lurk, eh? And . at $4.50 a hit per catalogue. a lucrative one, by gad. Of course the brains behind this little scheme. worthy In Its straightforwardness of Ned Kelly or Al Capone, would argue that what you are getting for your loot Is much more than a simple catalogue. Aher all It's got full colour photographs, historical and biographical notes, looks good on a coffee table, and wtll be a lasting souvenir of your visit. Bully. But what If you really only want a catalogue, and a complete one at that? Your $4.50 also buys you , at no dis– count. a hastily added Insert of 'errata' and 'addenda'. The targets of this particular Having got all that oll my chest. I am now calm enough lo make yet another of the uni– que special offers which re– main exclusive lo this column. Yes readers and artlovers, by simply cutting around the dot– ted line surrounding this deathless prose, you get your very own absolutely free alter– native guide to the Art Norweau in Australia ex– hlblton . Not merely a catalogue, an entire critique! And as this, like all my offers, Is a strictly limited edition (we're talking Art. not money) I strongly advise you to place your copy under the glass on top of the coffee table... geddit It? Gumnut Nouveau And now, a few words about the works In question . While dealing speclflcaly with the Australian version of Art Nouveau, which Barry Hum– phries forever dubbed Gumnut Nouveau, the exhibition raises some Interesting problems for students of 'Australian' art about where the local variant of a particular style comes from, how It differs from the mainstream (If there Is one) , and what makes It different. · This ts a contentious point, as one school of thought argues that any purely national focus obscures the wider global and hlstorlcal characteristics of a movement or development . But to give Humphries' wit– ticism Its serious due, anyone looking at the work on show would have to concede that It Is not only self-consciously Australian , It makes a positive fetish of It. Gumnut Is spot-on. Never will you see so many furling eucalypt leaves, coiling possum tall, unmistakably an- ig cash -for art's sake ' ' could be wolth • $1 mllllon. The MIM donation WU announced by the com• pany's manaalnl dtrec• tor, ~ Bruce Wat.aon. who ll&ld the foundat1011 WU helpln1 to develop an &It l&liery and collec• tlon worthy of QuNna• 1111d. -n:i folllldatlon , WU ,rall)1n1 the support of the Queensland people In w~ promised t,o be an e~ctttnr phase of the 1t.ate'1 cultural life, Mr Wlt.taon •Id at a func• tlon at the llte of the new cultural centre on the IOUth bank of the Brt .tbt.ne River. The Queen1land OoV• ent'a ,ubaldy contrl• butlon wu announced at he function by the Dep– uty Premier and Liberal leader, Dr Liew EdwardJ. The rovemment wlll provide· 1 tl for every $2 n.lffll by the roundatton In cuh rrubscrtptlon.s, up t.o I maximum 111b1ldy ol '1 mtlllon. Government In tbe field of art and further proof of Its Interest In enhanc• Ing the cultural life of Queerurl&nd, Dr Edwarda utd. The announcement.a followed the move by the Ut&h Foundation lut week In pre1entln1 & 15th century patntln1 worth ,to.000 to the Queenaland .Art Gallery. The pa1nt1n1, •v11111n and Child with St Jame• the Pll,rlm, St Catherine and the Donor 9,•fth St Peter." by tbe Master of Frankfurt. la the slnRte most valuable acquisition by the rallery In 20 years. Ut&h and MIM have become the first rounder benefactors of the Queensland Art 01!lery Pllundatlon, which wu launched laat December t.o usat the ,,uery trustees malntatn, Im• prol'e and develop the state collectlon. The collection will be housed tn the new ,1,.1 mtllton art gallery, du for completion In th• 111tddle nr 1981. It ls P• or thi, n2 mtlllon cuttur• 1I centre betn, bum op• postte North Quar. The foundation h11 Nt a target or S3 million for rundJ t.o help the pllery lfC\l!t atanlltcant woru. T h a president, Bir Oeorge 'P't • her, aid lhl preparatory work for 1.ht appeal wu complete ~, brochures and ap.,.– lettera, dtnct.ed to bull• nesae • throurhout state, WO •.Id i,,, II! n111t Wf k, tlpodean nymphs and satY1s, Those of us, and that's everyone I know, who got swept up In the 1960s Art Nouveau revival and plastered our walls with Mucha posters and Kllmt culouts, would find themselves hardput to recog– nize the generic characterlsHcs of the style which united these artists beneath the positive welter of natlonallsHc signposts that distinguish the Australian work . This Is particularly Intriguing in view of the fact that 'Art Nouveau' as a single unified movement never existed - the term Itself ls of fairly recent origin , a convenient retrospec– tive umbrella label which actu– ally refers to several different developments In several dif– ferent parts of the world . Thus exponents of 'the' style them– selves - ranging as historically and geographically far afield as William Morris In early Vic– torian England, Serusler and Toulouse-Lautrec In turn•of– the-century France, and Henry Van de Velde In Post-Great– War Holland , would not recogn ize themselves as belonging to the single school Implied by the term Art Nouveau . The national emergence of what we, In retrospect, have defined as an International style, was known variously as Jugendsttl In Germany, Modernlsmo In Spain, SHle Liberti In Italy and In France as either Moderne, Metro, Nouille or Yachting! What enables us, with the benefit of hindsight, to identify as the unifying themes and characteristics which Iden– tify a broad movement Is the common reaction against pre– vailing values and concepts about 'Art', and the common alternative values and concepts which the dissenting arttsts proposed . art for everyday What, fundamentally, was the Initial reaction against? Now when talking about ar– tists, It Is rather stlly and a little unrealistic to try to separate the idea from Its visual embodi– ment - after all that's what art ts about - the nowerlng of