Wall
to Wall
Collections & Collecting at the National Gallery of Australia
14 Oct '98 - 26 Jan '99
Martin Sharp
and Tim Lewis The unexpected answer (Yellow House) 1973
National Gallery of Australia. Gift of the Philip Morris Arts Grant
1982. Bizarre, eccentric, eclectic, mind-boggling, idiosyncratic: Wall to Wall examines the variety of works that the National Gallery of Australia collects and the ways that they are displayed. Wall to Wall is intended to underscore the depth, diversity and beauty of the National Collection.
A Rich &
Varied Collection
The works on display in a museum are like the tip of an iceberg:
only a small part is visible, with the bulk of the collection out of
sight. Many of the works in Wall to Wall are unfamiliar
exhibits which have appeared infrequently on the walls. These
works have been taken from the Gallery's repository or store house.
It is popularly assumed that this is either a graveyard for unfashionable
works or, alternatively, that it is an Aladdin's cave of undiscovered
treasures. The reality is far more prosaic.
Computerised cataloguing ensures that details of all works in a collection are known and listed. All of the National Gallery's collection is listed on the Internet. The works in store provide support for the collection on the walls. The store is called upon for theme exhibitions or to substitute for works on loan. Using the works in storage, the output of the most influential artists can be seen in depth, as with Arthur Boyd, Australia's most important living artist, whose work is displayed in this exhibition. Works on paper, because they are changed regularly to minimise deterioration caused by light, are also plentiful among the collection in storage.
Treasure Rooms
Wall to
Wall draws on all major areas covered by the National Gallery of
Australia's collection policy and includes Australian, including Aboriginal
art, European, American, Asian and African art in diverse media. More
works of art than have ever been seen at any one time will be on display
in the new exhibition galleries in a deliberately eclectic and dense
display - as the name Wall to Wall suggests. The display
is divided into five zones, each to feature a particular way of collecting.
- The first area
will include works from the Max Ernst Collection, acquired by the
Gallery in 1985. Ernst was a noted member of the Surrealists.
He collected tribal art from North America, Africa and the Pacific
region. The display also includes a collage and prints by Ernst,
making clear the similarities and differences between the works he
made and the works he collected. The presence of Ernst's works will
stamp this area with the authority of the artist as collector.
- Corporate
patronage has provided the Gallery with another very rich collection. Wall to Wall includes selections from the Philip Morris Collection
which were purchased for the Gallery between 1973 and 1988. This extensive
body of work defines a particularly inventive and productive period
in the history of Australian art, the seventies and early eighties.
The range of photographs, paintings, prints and sculpture documents
the work of emerging artists and contemporary trends, always a risky
business. The works of many noted artists were acquired, giving
the Gallery perhaps the best representation in Australia of this period.
- A room is set
aside for the work of a major artist collected in
depth - in this case, Arthur Boyd. The biggest collection area
in the National Gallery is devoted to Australian art. The Gallery
uses its collection to tell the story of Australian art in all its
complexity and, simultaneously, shows the evolution of the major artists
within that narrative. How (and why) artists are collected in
depth is visible in the intertwined themes of the compassion and social
conscience of Arthur Boyd, teased out in a display of his paintings,
drawings, prints and sculpture. The display will showcase 80
works drawn from the Arthur Boyd Gift to the National Gallery which
comprises some 2,500 items, spanning more than 40 years of the artist's
work from 1934 to 1975.
- A collection
built around an art movement can be seen in the room
devoted to Pop art and its legacy. The paintings and prints
by Australian and international artists demonstrate how a museum collection
defines an historical period. The hot sexuality of Richard Larter's
paintings is contrasted with the New York 'cool' of Andy Warhol's
portraits of Mao Tse-Tung. The mediated images acknowledge the influence
of television and photography as the prime influences on how we view
our world in the electronic age. This room is charged
with the unrepentant optimism and boisterous energy of the sixties.
- Public understanding of the arts is largely informed by the logical narrative of the textbook or museum exhibition. Not all displays need to be serious, however. The fifth room attacks such rational displays, celebrating a decorator taste. Here art has been chosen 'to match the lounge suite'. Everything is red: paintings, prints, sculpture, ceramics and costumes. The works are hung cheek by jowl, jostling for the viewer's eye.
Boxes &
Crates
In addition to the works on display, curators will show works to the
public directly from solander boxes at advertised times throughout the
period of the exhibition. The solander boxes will be chosen to indicate
the range of works on paper from all parts of the collection.
The attention given to preserving the works in the collection will be
evident in a conservation display. The Conservation Department will
show aspects of the varied duties that they perform for the Gallery
- for example, arranging the packing of works to be transported.
The crates in which works have been transported to exhibitions nationally
and internationally will also be on display. A varied and challenging
public program has been designed to work in tandem with the concepts
announced by the exhibition and will include talks by noted Australian
artists, collectors and dealers.
'It was very late before we would admit we were collectors': The famous American collector, Dominique de Menil's confessional statement makes collecting sound like a secret vice. Collecting is a passion and an obsession. While the idea of collections and collecting forms the central concept for Wall to Wall, at the core is the sheer aesthetic delight and wonder of works of art. This is the ultimate rationale for collecting, as witnessed in Wall to Wall.
For further information and photographic images, please contact:
Michael Desmond
Senior Curator
International Paintings & Sculpture
Tel. (02) 6240 6434
Helen Power
Promotions Officer, Public Affairs
Tel. (02) 6240 6431, Fax (02) 6240 6561