10 August 2009

Masterpieces from Paris: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and beyond - Coming to Canberra

| johnboy
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Apparently this is the big one. The biggest and bestest art blockbuster the National Gallery will ever stage.

The NGA is trumpeting their exhibition scheduled for the summer holiday period:

    Never have so many masterpieces been brought together in one exhibition in this country.

    There’ll be no need to travel to Paris to see major and numerous works by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, Pierre Bonnard, Claude Monet, Maurice Denis Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and Edouard Vuillard … for four months you can visit them in Canberra.

    Australia will be the first country to exhibit these paintings together outside France.

Apparently Paris’ Musée d’Orsay is closing for renos and sending its star pieces out on the road to earn some reciprocal touring rights when they re-open.

Andrew Barr informs us that San Francisco and Tokyo are the only other two cities getting the exhibition and is kicking in $500,000 of our money to help the gallery make the most of it.

Interestingly a very similarly worded media release is also bearing the Chief Minister’s name.

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Can’t wait to see works of art, bring some class to Canberra

I wonder what the “& beyond” tagline means. Did they mean “& more”? Can anyone explain?

They missed the opportunity to tell us that this show will be so impossibly awesome, that they’ll have to close down the entire NGA afterwards. This is because no matter how hard they try, they will never stage a blockbuster as staggering as this EVER again, and their entire collection will become permanently redundant by comparison.

Can’t wait.

Not a gloat, but we were lucky enough to be in Paris in Nov and we got to see some of these artists paintings, + some Picassos while we were there. all the while saying we will never get to see these in canberra – im so happy to be wrong and we will be there for sure!!!

it will be absolutely mesmerising

hope they get their crowd management right

neanderthalsis10:01 am 11 Aug 09

Good to see the NGA getting some quality material for exhibitions.

As for the crowds, they were excessive on any given weekend for the last few big exhibitions. Skipping out from work on a weekday might be the best bet for those of us who froth at the mouth when forced to mix with large numbers of people.

Gungahlin Al7:41 am 11 Aug 09

And misshelly’s advice might be right on the money – cos the Egyptian show crowds were intolerable.

Gungahlin Al7:40 am 11 Aug 09

It’s pretty big news – but aren’t those pictures all a bit OLD?
😛

ACT Arts Minister Andrew Barr seems to have dipped out on the limelight somewhat on this announcement. He put the following on Facebook the day before:
“Big event announcement tomorrow. Fantastic news for Canberra. Great for Tourism. More details to come…”

But then the CM put out the release and snavelled the CT front page. And Andrew got a booby prize photo on the back page of CT with an explanation of how he’d been asked by camerapeople to get out of shot so they could get Pater Garrett alone…

Also amusing were various radio hosts on ABC pretending not to know and talking about “…what the big announcement could be later this morning…?” when clearly they had read the whole thing already in the newspaper, as had anyone who gets the paper.

Embargoed releases make for some bemusing charades methinks.

December-April… maybe a good time to see it to avoid the crowds would be just after Xmas when Canberra usually becomes as ghost town cos everyone buggers off elsewhere.

Holden Caulfield10:25 pm 10 Aug 09

Noice!

Hells_Bells748:45 pm 10 Aug 09

Looking forward to seeing it.

This is fantastic! I remember when they had the one on the impressionists, and how Monet’s haystacks just glowed. So different from the prints you see everywhere.

I am seriously excited to see this. should be great. to bad its going to be packed. so hate crowds and nga can’t handle 10 people let alone 100s

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