Art Gallery Addict

I was an art gallery addict. I realized that I was an addict when I went to a market research group discussion about going to public art galleries.

It was the usual market research set up, an office meeting room with a group of 9 people, 6 women and 3 men, chips, orange juice and stale sandwiches and a researcher leading the discussion. All the subjects considered themselves to be regular visitor to public art galleries. There was another group for people who did not consider themselves to be regular visitors to public art galleries. The research was being conducted for the regional art galleries of Victoria.

We were asked how often we went to an art gallery. Most of these people said that visited one gallery every week or fortnight. I had to admit that I go to 3 – 4 galleries a week, sometimes more.

It must have been an odd group discussion because everyone was taking notes on things to do, names of galleries to visit and events to look forward to. I was in a room full of art gallery addicts trying to find their next gallery to hit.

Fortunately being an art gallery addicts is cheap compared to many addictions. Most galleries and exhibition are free. Even better free wine and snacks at the opening, sometimes there is better quality finger food, sushi, smoked salmon, once I even had steamed crab. I used to go to a lot of the exhibition openings but these days they seem to fill the time with schmoozing rather than seeing more exhibitions.

Looking around at the crowd at an exhibition opening you have to wonder if they are collectors (unlikely), fellow artists (more likely), friends of the artist, just there for the free wine and cheese or are they art gallery addicts like me? I still see other art gallery addicts at these openings. Like Paul with his unruly hair and his single colour outfits, all blue one day and all orange the next, he is at every second exhibition opening that I go to.

I learnt something about myself from the other addicts at the market research session. Art gallery addicts are cheap and selfish. They are not snobs – they just want to keep this free pleasure and enjoyment just for themselves. They like the space and quiet of the galleries. They enjoy the chance to be alone with their thoughts and the simple pleasure of seeing something new.

Maybe I should set up an organization, AGAA (Art Gallery Addicts Anonymous) have a twelve-step program to ween myself off art galleries but I don’t think that I’ll kick the habit.

NGV Problems

Some have greeted the news of the appointment of Tony Ellwood to director of the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) with joy. I am more cautious as the NGV has a lot of problems with its space, its collection and its role. Tony Ellwood was the directorship of both the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art and we will see what he brings to the NGV.

Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square

“At the beginning of the twentieth century the National Gallery of Victoria was one of the world’s most richly endowed galleries as Alfred Fenton’s bequest made available to it an annual amount exceeding the combined grants of London’s British Museum and National Gallery. Yet money alone could not secure quality or build a collection of distinction.” Elieen Chanin and Steven Miller, Degenerates and Perverts – The 1939 Herald Exhibition of French and British Contemporary Art, (The Miegunyah Press, 2005, Carlton) p.219

Elieen Chanin points to a series of problems with the NGV’s acquisition policy. At the beginning of the twentieth century the NGV was spending a lot of money on replica paintings and sculpture. The NGV also purchased of works of dubious authenticity like the “Rembrandt Self Portrait” in 1933. The NGV collection was focused on public approval and so many opportunities to buy modern art at good prices were ignored; unlike the Americans who leapt at the opportunity. The NGV then paid higher prices to acquire similar work later when public opinion had changed. There was criticism of these acquisitions at the time but the NGV choose to ignore rather than respond to them. Buying from Britain may have been loyal and patriotic when Victoria was part of the British Empire but 19th and early 20^th British art has become a sidetrack in art history. And so the NGV’s collection is full of conservative taste, tax dodges and political interference and although this has improved in recent decades the effects on the collection remains.

The addition of the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square has improved the way its collection is displayed and along with the NGV Studio for street art and the NGV Kids space the NGV continues to expand in useful directions. However space is still an issue for the NGV, for example, their fashion exhibitions are still divided between galleries at the NGV International and NGV Australia (disrupting this distinction).

“There are 32 curators at the NGV but not one major exhibition” Juan Davila (talk 3/2/2012 “Dispersed Identities”, University of Melbourne)

Issues of space and the display of the collection in that space ultimately lead to the question of what is the purpose of having a public art gallery. The idea of the art gallery has been under-examined compared to the extent that it influences on the art it exhibits. Especially once the state had acquired all that valuable art. There is assumption is that an art gallery is educational housing a high quality collection to educate the next generation of artists and designers. However this educational assumption would exclude most contemporary art from the collection or force the gallery assume about the place of contemporary art in future education. Or is the role of a state gallery to enhance reputation of contemporary artists represented by Australian commercial galleries? Should its collection include examples of Melbourne’s burgeoning street art? Or, is it simply a location for infotainment, for host travelling international blockbuster exhibitions that can be measured in visitor numbers and revenue?

(See also my post about State Galleries & Politics and Arts Diary 365 for a 7 part examination of the NGV’s collection. Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7.)

How Galleries Affect Art

Contemporary art is aesthetically dependent on gallery spaces; the gallery or museum architecturally and aesthetically frames the work defining it as art. It was the modern world that created the art gallery, the art museum and the contemporary art museum. And modern art grew increasingly dependent on gallery spaces. Despite the emergence of site-specific works, many works of contemporary art depend on the art gallery setting to give them meaning and even existence.

Given that the art gallery/museum has been the prime location for art it is surprising that there has been very little written about the aesthetic impact and other effects of art galleries and museums. Paul Mattick, Jr. of Adelphi University notes this in his entry on museums in A Companion to Aesthetics (Blackwell, 1992); adding that “a quick survey of the British Journal of Aesthetics and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism turns up not a single article devoted to the subject.” (p.297) Mattick did say “a quick survey”; my research was better, because I found two articles in the first volume of the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism in 1941 (Ananda K. Coomaraswamy “Why Exhibit Works of Art” and John D. Forbes “The Art Museum and the American Scene”). Neither of these articles is particularly insightful and both conclude that there is an educational function to art exhibitions. Mattick’s entry in A Companion to Aesthetics is possibly the best article written on the subject (I wish that A Companion to Aesthetics had been published when I was writing my thesis it would have made my life a lot easier).

Mattick traces the history of the art museum from the proto-art galleries of European royalty designed to be impressive displays of power and wealth. To the first art museums that removed the religious, political and moral function of art organizing them and, in that process, expanding the categories of art to include, industrial and non-European arts.

Although the architecture of art museums has changed from re-purposed neo-classical palaces to renovated industrial buildings and architectural design icons their function remains basically the same as that of the proto-art gallery. They are a display of the state’s wealth and power with a little bit of education thrown in.

It is for these reasons that I pay particular attention to current art gallery/museums, to the little details describing the number of people working in the gallery, the type of lighting in the gallery, the type of space, etc. in this blog. I have been trying to write about a greater variety of galleries so that no gallery benefits unduly from the free publicity in this blog. The mode of exhibiting art in white walled cubes may appear to be natural and necessary whereas it is arbitrary and only sufficient (see my blog post on The White Room). Gallery practice will change but if nobody pays attention it people will assumed that current practice is natural. I wonder how much longer the white walled gallery will continue to be the norm? Fortunately I am not alone in looking at galleries HobArts has a post about basically, the top 10 architectural features of contemporary art galleries, except HobArts lists 12.

The Gallery Director

Q: Do you think this multiplication of galleries implies a certain lack of progress in artistic creation?

Kahnweiler: No, I don’t think so. I see it as a purely economic phenomenon.

Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler was 23 years old when first opened a little art gallery in Paris, prior to that he had worked in finance, after that he became Picasso’s dealer. (Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, My Galleries and Painters, Thames and Hudson, 1971, p.33)

Last year Christine Abrahams Gallery closed after 25 years of business. I met Guy Abrahams, director of the Christine Abrahams Gallery, once or twice when I we were both studying at Monash University. Guy was studying law and I was studying philosophy.

Christine Abrahams Gallery was a clothing factory before architect Daryl Jackson converted it to a gallery. This is typical of many of Melbourne’s galleries; as clothing manufacturing moved to outer suburbs or other countries, many of Melbourne’s former clothing factories have been converted to art galleries. Flinders Lane was the centre of Melbourne’s clothing industry and is now the centre of art galleries.

Before Christine Abrahams founded her gallery in 1983 she had been manager of Powell Street Gallery and a co-director of Axiom Gallery. Regarding being the director of a commercial art gallery, Guy Abrahams said: “It is a role that involves an appreciation of art and a passion for it, an interest in people and sensitivity to the needs of the artist and one’s clients. Business skills are also vitally important because commercial galleries depend on sales to survive and on selling art for the sake of the artist”. Australian Jewish News reported 9/9/08

The well planned and announced closure of Christine Abrahams Gallery stands in contrast with the sudden closing of Groundfloor Gallery, Belamain in Sydney in September 2008. Several Sydney artists claiming they are owed more than $20,000 collectively for sold works by Groundfloor Gallery director Jeannette Mascolo.  The difference between these two gallery closures is clearly is one of business skills and not artistic.

I am happy to celebrate the opening of an art gallery with a free glass of wine but I do not mourn the closure of any art galleries; they are businesses. More or less art galleries are not an indication of artistic progress or vitality. Art galleries do have an effect on art but then so do the shops selling art supplies (art critics, art magazines, etc.).