15 April 2010

Andrew Sayers steps up to the National Museum

| johnboy
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Peter Garrett has announced that the Portrait Gallery’s Andrew Sayers is going to bring his magic touch to the National Museum.

Even if you have reservations about the very existence of a portrait gallery as a national institution it’s hard to fault the work Mr Sayers has done in making the portrait gallery one of the most worthwhile destinations in Canberra.

The Museum on the other hand has not been the drawcard it could be.

It’ll be very interesting to see if lightning strikes twice!

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eyeLikeCarrots8:02 am 16 Apr 10

Has anyone done a risk assesment on this.

Last time Peter organised for something to be put up in somewhere a few people got fried and some houses got burnt ?

His bio in the press release doesn’t mention any experience in museums (which are rather different to art galleries given the need to select and present artifacts which are representative rather than just attractive) but he’s certainly made a success of the Portrait Gallery, which could have easily been a total turkey. The fact that the Portrait Gallery has a wonderful (and what looks to be easy to expand) building while the NMA is stuck with a lemon is a critical problem though.

Gungahlin Al6:14 pm 15 Apr 10

Good luck to him – he’s got a hell of a job.

Irrespective of whether one likes the outside of the architecture, that building so completely fails as a workable national museum it is embarrassing. Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, hell even Hobart have really good museums. But not Canberra.

In my opinion…

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