NGA wants double space

But shouldn’t a masterpiece be timeless? Isn’t that why we still read Shakespeare, listen to Beethoven and flock to galleries and museums to see Dali, Da Vinci, Escher, Turner, Monet, Munch, Nolan etc

Groundbreaking it may have been, timeless and art it aint.

bulldog you look at blue poles from a 2005 perspective.

look at art from the era and environment it was created in.

eg: i really like liechensteins bengay dot approach, but felt it had run its course towards the end. repeating earlier work and affixing silver paper to it didnt do it for me. but looking at his work from the late 50’s and 60’s you can appreciate how innovative it was.

in its time and place.

With you Chris; that ‘painting’ (and I use that term loosely) does very little for so many.

Before anyone flames me for that, let it be known that I have studied art and I do appreciate many abstract pieces. IMHO Blue poles is a joke that most Australians didn’t get and Pollock was laughing all the way to the bank.

Just a thought – but why doesn’t Ron get permission to send ‘Blue Poles’ out to Sotheby’s
most people wouldn’t miss it, IMHO, and the sale would cover the refurbishments. Theer might even be some left over to buy some Australian art.

I think you’ve misunderstood, bulldog. The NGA wants some of the money that will flow from the Telstra privatisation to go into purchasing big-ticket items for the NGA, as an investment strategy for the Future fund (which is being established to pay for Commonwealth public servants superannuation). which is all well and good, but as the Australian points out in its article, it is only a good investment strategy if you then realise the gain on your investment by selling the items in the future. Imagine the furore if the Future Fund decided to sell some artwork that had become hugely popular and was hanging on the walls of the NGA. It’s a nice try by the NGA to get some pricey purchases, but I don’t think people will fall for it.

Telstra still have a pretty big investment up at AWM in the Theatre; can’t see them throwing money around the institutions to liberally; otherwise we’ll have the “Telstra Parliamentary Triangle”.

This would be interesting, beause if Telstra is later privatised, it could be a real role reversal where it owns the government infrastructure…

Telstra issues aside; kudos to Ron for having a vision for his institution. For too long we have had a couple of National icons suffering from lack of funding, lack of government support and lack of vision. It’s embarrasing when we compare most of our institutions to our international peers. Embarrasing.

For anyone interested in the Telstra money thing, here’s today’s CT article on the matter.

Basically Mr Radford says some of the Future Fund money should be invested in art cos it’s a good investment (says he) and then the NGA can display the artworks until such time as the government wants to sell them again.

ahh sorry I misread that, I can only agree with you, the ngv is shocking!

bonfire, how do you know that the redesign is atrocious when it hasn’t been built yet?

i think teh nga is one of canberras more attractive public buildings. im sad that it was never completed to the original architects design. the entrance to this day remains a debacle.

i hope that in the redesign, they dont sacrifrice the mid-century architectural feel.

the ngv redesign is atrocious. i doubt i’d visit it again, and thats sad because i used to love it.