Page 8-9 - Annual Review 2009

Rewind
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Rewind
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Director’s message
Welcome to the 2009 Review. This is our
opportunity to look back over the past year,
to share some of the program and acquisition
highlights, and to thank our supporters and
partners.
This year the Gallery’s Collection has been
central to our achievements. In one of 2009’s
most exciting projects, our exemplary collection
of contemporary Chinese art was presented
and contextualised anew in ‘The China
Project’. One of the project’s three exhibitions,
‘Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese
Collection’, brought together works dating
from the early 1980s to the present. Major
collection works — such as Xu Bing’s A book
from the sky 1987–91 — were shown along with
past acquisitions from the Asia Pacific Triennial
exhibition series. The project truly represented
an institutional milestone.
Other contemporary acquisitions featured at
the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) in Collection-
based displays, among them Julian Opie’s
People walking. Coloured 2008, the first major
work by this British artist to enter an Australian
collection. In the Queensland Art Gallery,
an absorbing new hang of the Australian
collection was shown in six magnificent rooms,
refurbished earlier in the year with support
from the Queensland Government. The
display profiles new acquisitions and presents
Australian art from European exploration
and occupation to the 1970s. Our Indigenous
Australian holdings were also strongly
profiled during the year in major exhibitions.
‘Floating Life: Contemporary Aboriginal
Fibre Art’ featured works from the Gallery’s
unique collection of Indigenous fibre, and
selected works from the exhibition ‘Namatjira
to Now’ began a ten-venue tour of regional
Queensland. Five Collection-based exhibitions
toured regional Queensland in 2008–09 — an
unprecedented level of programming rewarded
with record regional attendances of more than
79 000.
We had the rare opportunity this year to
see works by some of Australia’s best loved
painters hang alongside 71 works loaned from
the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York. This followed the success, in recent
years, of exhibitions featuring twentieth-
century icons such as Andy Warhol and Pablo
Picasso. The ‘American Impressionism and
Realism’ exhibition again reflected the Gallery’s
commitment to programming quality and
exclusive international exhibitions.
As always, the year’s exhibitions were supported
by interpretive programs, including artist
talks, tours and a comprehensive publishing
program. Innovative audience development
continued to frame Gallery experiences for
different audiences, from Up Late events to My
Gen’s book club, to special events for the very
youngest of our visitors.
Review provides us with a chance to thank
the many sponsors and supporters who have
worked with the Gallery during the year.
Please visit the Relationships section (pp.76–
86) for highlights of essential sponsorship
contributions to the 2009 program.
At the time of writing, the Gallery has just enjoyed
the very successful opening of ‘The 6th Asia
Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT6).
This exhibition series demonstrates every aspect
of the Gallery’s programming and ambitions. It’s
an ongoing catalyst for internationally recognised
collection development, and it successfully immerses
general audiences in the work of some of the
region’s most exciting and relevant contemporary
art. While the series is part of an international
calendar of biennials and triennials, its success
is grounded in its collaborative and authentically
local character. It’s created within the region and is
uniquely about the region. While Review is about
celebrating the Gallery’s achievements of the past
year, already the APT is sweeping us into 2010.
We look forward to presenting many other exciting
projects in the year ahead.
Tony Ellwood
Director
Installation view, ‘Floating Life: Contemporary Aboriginal Fibre Art’,
Gallery of Modern Art.
Viewing works in APT6 are (left to right): Tony Ellwood, Director,
Queensland Art Gallery; Rick Wilkinson, President GLNG and Queensland,
Santos; Anna Bligh, MP, Premier of Queensland and Minister for the Arts; and
Professor John Hay, AC, Chair, Queensland Art Gallery Board of Trustees.