Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" FE e Sydney, N.S.W. MARKET OF $71/2M I HAVE made a rough estimate of the annual turnover in the Australian art market. It comes to $71 million. I don't know how big an industry this is by comparison with, say, glove -making, or olive - growing, but It's certainly not insignificant. The figure has been ar- rived at by asking a few Sydney dealers their an- nual turnover, making guesses about the other States, and then adding half -a -million for the art auctions. I have, of course, made no attempt to estimate direct sales made by artists to their customers. In any case I think it would not be a high figure. Nor have I attempted to add the sums spent on architectural or public work. In the first place, most of the cost of, say, the Margel Hinder fountain at Newcastle goes to en- gineering, and the artist might well make a loss, even when the cost "was, in fact, about $80,000. - In the second place, I have not been able to obtain figures for things like Norma ltedpath's fountain in Canberra, or the stained-glass windows, tapestries and sculptures in the National Library at Canberra. However, apart from these few exceptionally large commissions an architect has estimated that 20 or 30 routine large buildings each year might spend $10,000 to $30,000 each on art. It might be one sculpture in the front, or a spread of lithographs through the offices. in any case it doesn't amount to much, and very little of it passes through the deal- ers' galleries. I have not added the figures for art prizes and scholarships either, for a lot of it will be contained in the dealeis' turnover. However, It Ls about $150,000. of which $80,000 is available to all -comers, the rest to invited artists only. These figures are being dug out for a paper I am preparing for the annual conference of the art mus- eum profession. The paper will be called "Patronage of the Visual Arts in Australia," and I think it will show that the private sector, that is the art market, does a great deal for the living Austra- lian artist. The galleries, whose turnover I have estimated, mostly handle living Aus- tralian artists, Only David Jones' is chiefly for non - Australian art. And only Clune, Joseph Brown and to some extent. Artarmon, have become specialised in dead Australian artists, So, a lot of people are buying art. Moreover, there are plenty of dealers' galleries that scarcely make any profit and rtany of them advance large stuns to art- ists-even to young artists not ,yet established. In London there is only one gallery, the Rowan, that advances money ex- tensively to young artists. And in England, according to the British Council's Lillian Somerville, there are only about six artists who 'live entirely by their art. Australia has many more than six artists who live by the sale of their work. But support of the liv- ing Australian artist is only one side of art pat- ronage. And although it is extensive in the private sector and although the bulk of the public sector's money also goes to living Australians, this . is not enough. The other side et art patronage is bringing ex- cellence of any kind to the people (including the art- ists) of Australia. This means purchases and ex- hibitions for the art museums. And here we are_ Impoverished and provin- cial indeed. In fact, the most am- bitious de-provincialising acts of patronage have come from the private sec- tor recently, When Mr. Dusseldorp built Australia Square - and spent about $90,000 on a sculpture by Calder, and tapestries by Vasarely and Le Corbusier - he was simply wanting things that might be the best of their kind in the world. And when Mr. Kaldor brought Christo to Aus- tralia, and somehow got. S50,000 in money and $70000 worth of materials and labor, he also was de- termined that Australians should participate in the world's best and most am- bitious art. These are only interim conclusions. When I've finished collecting facts and figures the art patron - ART by daniel themes age situation might seem different. I'll let you know. Holdsworth Gallery: Joseph Szabo fills the gallery with a handsome show of mutiple-stretcher canvas constructions, like Michael Johnson made a season ago. Only each of Szabo's canvas slabs is a dark -toned graded spec- trum, not a single color. And the slabs have more complex relationships than Johnson's: occasionally they project laterally from their mother -rectangle. If dark pictures are always obviously hand- some, museum - worbhy boardroom -worthy, dig- nified and so on, light pictures can be more desirable (gentlemen pre- fer blondes?). At any rate Szabo also shows a hand- ful of pale, upright slab - compositions, some of whose slabs have cham- fered edges. These have a very beautiful _ effect of delicate unfolding, and of floating extension beyond their own confines. This sensibility for the open- ended is very different from the strongly con- tained counterpoint of his dark pieces, and less traditional. Today it is more likely to produce good art. Also at Holdsworth, some excellent American posters, published by Poster Originals, Olden- burg, Johns, Rauschen- berg, Hockney. Lichten- stein, etc., $6 to $13. Bonython Gallery: Kate Briscoe is a ycung English painter who settled in Sydney recently. She con- tinues the aostract-expres- sionism with landscape titles which was so com- mon in Sydney 10 years back. Oil Jamieson's thick- ly crusted large paintings of Queensland farm life have always been difficult to take. One appreciates the very genuine involve- ment with his subject. And maybe his heavy-handed lack of slickness is what mercifully saves him from becoming another Pro Hart. Jerry Van Beek Gallery: John Martin's first one- man show is color -field ab- stracts, mostly upright. with a look of John Hoy - land. Rudy Komori: Mervyn Moriarty has changed. He now paints muted soft - color hard-edge interpene- trating lattices, like a sky version of Anuszkiewlcz's New York On Art. They turn out to be landscapes. Beaulieu: Cedric Flower. shows a set of decorative paintings of the zodiac figures. Inhlbodress: More on Michael Parr's word -pic- tures next week. Mean- while remember that this co-operative gallery at 38 Charles Street, Woolloo- mooloo, is one of the very few that is open on Sun- days. Another is the Sebert Gallery at the Argyle Arts Centre. where Eva Keky has an exhibition.