Australian Art Notes: May

Left: JASON WING 'Blacktown Dreaming' 2012 (installation view, beds and hypodermic syringes). Part of the exhibition 'People of Substance' at the Kluge-Ruhe Collection, Charlottesvile, Virginia USA.

NCP and The Budget

News of the postponement, in the face of budget pressure, of Simon Crean’s long-awaited National Cultural Policy (NCP) has been greeted with a combination of disquiet and cynicism. This follows a less-than-enthusiastic response to the NCP discussion paper released last year, with a diminution of engagement with Asia a sore point for some commentators. In Platform Papers, Finding a Place on the Asian Stage (Currency House), Asialink founder Alison Carroll and former diplomat Carrillo Gantner point out that OzCo’s Asian arts spending has fallen from 50%+ of international funding under the Keating government, to between 10–20% now. Ozco acknowledges this but says the dollar value has increased. The paper, perhaps surprisingly, praises the commitment of Alexander Downer and admonishes the Rudd/Gillard governments, and arts mandarins in general, for their tepid commitment to our region. There has been little media analysis of either the discussion paper or the many hundreds of submissions received, but Stephen Crittenden (The Global Mail, April) suggested that Australia's institutions, including the libraries and museums, feel “sidelined by a strong push to dislodge the arts from the centre, or to de-privilege the arts”. These concerns were perhaps alleviated by the announcement of $64m in new money for the arts over 4 years, $40m of it allocated to the major collecting institutions, in part to help them digitise their collections. $3.2m was allocated to the Australia Business Arts Foundation to promote arts sponsorship and philanthropy. Other noteworthy allocations are for a new Islamic Museum of Australia ($1.5m), the Antipodes Centre for Greek Culture, Heritage and Language ($2m), both in Melbourne.

Auction action

The autumn sales are upon us, and Menzies Art Brands achieved a total of $8.42m (including buyer’s premium) in March. Deutcher and Hackett had an encouraging result at their May auction with a 71% clearance rate and total of $6.5m. The record-breaking sale of Arthur Streeton’s Settler’s Camp (1888) for $2.52m set a new auction benchmark for the artist, eclipsing his previous record of $1.4m for Sunlight Sweet Coogee in 2005. Settler’s Camp joins the all-time top 10 in sixth place, coming in behind Sidney Nolan, Brett Whitely and John Brack, the latter two with 3 paintings each in the top 10. Sotheby’s May auction of 80 lots was solid if not spectacular, with a clearance rate of 81% and overall sales over $8m, including two $1.2m sales – Arthur Boyd’s Dry Creek Bed, Alice Springs (1954) and Frederick McCubbin’s Whispering in Wattle Boughs (1886). One noticeable pass-in was Fred Williams’ Summer Snow at Perisher (1976) which had $750-850k expectations. It must be a distracting time for Sotheby’s Chair Geoffrey Smith, who has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, with an unedifying legal stoush with (ex-partner) Melbourne dealer Robert Gould playing out in Victoria’s Supreme Court as AMA went to press. Putting all this into perspective, the only privately held version (there are 4) of  Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1895) fetched $119.9m (IBP) at Sotheby’s New York, beating the previous record of $106.5m paid for Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (1932).

Photofinish

The $50k Head On Portrait Prize (HOPP) was awarded to 3 co-winners: Tracey Nearmy, Chris Budgeon and David Manley. The annual Head On Photo Festival, only in its third edition, has already grown to be Australia’s largest, with over 200 events and 100 venues across greater Sydney. The HOPP finalists are on show at the Australian Centre for Photography until 17 June, and Hijacked 3 opens on June 30, with Hijacked 2 on tour, currently in Mannheim, Germany. The Moran Prizes organisation has appointed Graham Howe judge for the $100k Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize, to be announced on July 17, along with the $150k Portrait Prize (for a medium other than photography). After a decade at NSW’s State Library, the exhibitions will move to a new venue – the heritage-listed Moran House in Bridge St, Sydney. In Canberra the NPG ‘s 2012 National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition has closed, and will tour to Moree, Port Macquarie, Adelaide and Griffith over the next 12 months. Submissions for the NPG’s $10k I.D. Digital Portrait Award 2012, open to 18-30 year-olds, closes on 17 June and will be on display from 2 August. Across the Tasman the Auckland Festival of Photography kicks off on 21 June.

dOCUMENTA (13)

12 Australian participants are included in the quinquennial dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel, Germany from June 9, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, who also curated the 2008 Biennale of Sydney. They include artists Khadim Ali, Gordon Bennett, Fiona Hall, Simryn Gill, the late Doreen Reid Nakamarra (1955-2009), Stuart Ringholt and Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri. Also participating are writer/curators Jill Bennett, Romaine Moreton, Stephen Muecke, Nikos Papastergiadis and Hetti Perkins. Gordon Bennett will also be the subject of a prestigious solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art (AAMU) in Utrecht (Netherlands) from mid June. Currently showing (until 10 June) at AAMU is Heart and Soul, drawn from the collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty.

Jason Wing at Kluge-Ruhe

Following last month’s item about Australian artists in the USA, Aboriginal/Chinese artist Jason Wing’s installation People of Substance is on show at the University of Virginia’s Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection. Curated by Liz Nowell, the work was previously shown at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery in Sydney. A previous Kluge-Ruhe exhibitor, Melbourne artist Reko Rennie, will collaborate with American Indigenous artist Frank Buffalo Hyde on a work for Hyde’s upcoming show at the Museum for Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico from 13 June.

NGA appointments 

Tim Fairfax has been appointed Interim Chair of the NGA Council, replacing Rupert Myer after 9 years. Mr Fairfax, who will serve until 31 December 2012, is President of the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation, Chair of the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation, the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation, the Salvation Army Brisbane Advisory Board, and a member of the Philanthropy Australia Council. Ron Radford was also re-appointed as NGA Director for a third term, until 30 September 2014. Also announced was a landmark partnership with the Royal Academy of Arts (London), to stage a significant survey exhibition of Australian in 2013.

NMA acquisitions

The National Museum of Australia has acquired two valuable pen and ink drawings by the Aboriginal artist Tommy McRae (c.1835 – 1901): Buckley’s Escape and Murray Tribal Warfare. The Museum paid $79k and $24k respectively at auction. Tommy McRae lived in the Upper Murray, Victoria, where he made and sold books of drawings, one of very few Aboriginal artists to depict life in 19^th century Australia. Both drawings had been with the same NSW family since they were bought from the artist in the 1890s. They join another sketchbook by McRae acquired in 1986, as well as other works by 19^th century Aboriginal artists including William Barak and the pen and ink drawings by the artist known as Oscar of Cooktown.

Federal PPSR

The Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR), created under the Commonwealth Personal Property Securities Act 2009 commenced on 30 January 2012. Artists and dealers who provide or accept art on consignment are affected by this new law. Information is also available about what the new law will mean for Indigenous artists and art centres. www.ppsr.gov.au

David Corbet's National Artnotes appear in edited form in Art Monthly Australia (www.artmonthly.org.au)