Page 62-63 - Annual Review 2009

Collection development continued
with great strength in 2009, reflecting
the Gallery’s commitment to collecting
across a broad range of strategic areas.
At the end of the 2008–09 financial
year, there were 13 743 works in the
Collection, with 579 of these acquired
in the 2008–09 year.
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63
Selected acquisitions —
International art
Historically, like most Australian art museums,
the Queensland Art Gallery’s international art
department has focused predominantly on
acquisitions from Western Europe and the
United States. In recent years, however, the
international art department has pursued a
program of acquisitions that seeks to reflect the
expanded international field for contemporary art
production — one that looks not only to the art
centres of Western Europe and North America
but also embraces Africa, Eastern Europe, Central
and South America.
Among this year’s highlights is a series of
contemporary African acquisitions, a new area
of collection development for the Gallery.
Robin Rhode Promenade 2008
South African artist Robin Rhode works across
a diverse range of media, but is best known
for photographs and animations documenting
ephemeral work made in public spaces. In
2002, Rhode relocated to Berlin, a move which
led to a development in his practice where
formal considerations have been more strongly
emphasised. Promenade is an important work
from this more recent phase. Early twentieth-
century experiments in geometric abstraction
and visual music have been Rhode’s point of
departure and inspiration for Promenade.
Romuald Hazoumé Liberté 2009
Romuald Hazoumé was born in Porto-Novo,
Republic of Benin, where he continues to live and
work. His practice embraces sculpture, painting
and photography, but he is best known for his
‘masks’ — an ongoing series in which discarded
materials (most often plastic jerry cans) are
modified to take on the appearance of a face.
The cans are ubiquitous in Benin, and often
used to transport black-market petrol across
the border from Nigeria. Hazoumé has exhibited
extensively since the 1980s, and been selected for
major group exhibitions internationally. A mask
and two photographs by Hazoumé were acquired
in 2009 and a further two masks (including
the work pictured on p.65) will be proposed for
acquisition in early 2010.
Frédéric Bruly Bouabré Publicities 2007
Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, from the Côte d’Ivoire,
is among the most senior and influential artists
working in west Africa.
This new acquisition is a significant group of ten
drawings, documenting print advertisements
seen by the artist in Abidjan. Since the 1970s, the
artist has transferred his thoughts and research to
postcard-size drawings such as these.
A visitor views Spencer Finch’s The Light at Lascaux (Cave Entrance),
September 29, 2005, 5:27PM 2005 / Fluorescent light fixtures and lamps
with filters / Purchased 2009. The Queensland Government’s Queensland
Art Gallery Acquisitions Fund
Julian Opie People walking. Coloured 2008
Other recent acquisitions of international art
have expanded the Gallery’s growing collection
of screen-based and electronic media art. In
2008, the Gallery acquired video works by Beat
Streuli and Rivane Neuenschwander.
This year, with support from the Tim Fairfax
Family Foundation, the Gallery acquired a major
work by Julian Opie, People walking. Coloured
2008, the first major work by this artist to enter
an Australian collection. Opie is regarded as one
of the leading British artists of his generation, and
his work is characterised by a highly simplified
visual language, resembling the pictograms
associated with public signage. The human figure
is the pre-eminent subject of his work.
Spencer Finch The Light at Lascaux (Cave
Entrance), September 29, 2005, 5:27PM 2005
Exhibited in Spencer Finch’s exhibition at
GoMA in 2009, The Light at Lascaux employs a
formation of fluorescent tubes to recreate the
light experienced by the artist at the entrance to
the Lascaux Cave (famously discovered in 1940 as
containing some of the most stunning examples
of prehistoric art). The illusion of depth and effect
of dappled light play against each other, while
the combination of colours invites viewers to
experience a heightened awareness of the glow in
the gallery as the carrier of an idea of a particular
place and time.