Not for everyone

The opening of MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art, in Hobart adds a new element to the landscape of Australian art galleries. Unlike public galleries, MONA doesn't have to  appeal to a broad audience.

MONA exhibit

 MONA is funded by David Walsh who does exactly what he likes as the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

 We were led underground to a lecture on "David's" intentions. There is a bit of a cult of "David" on the promontory. "It's David who makes all the final touches, everything ultimately comes down to his say," says Mark Fraser, late of Sotheby's Australia.

Cristina Ruiz from The Art Newspaper reported for Utne:

Imagine a museum that overturns virtually every accepted notion of institutional practice: an underground museum with no natural light, with a deliberately confusing design so visitors get lost as they wander through its halls; a museum that, in places, is incredibly noisy and very, very smelly.

What are the risks of ignoring accepted practice? From the Visitor Research point of view, we know that every place will find a following – ranging from broad popularity to niche. I'm predicting that MONA will attract a small passionate audience that is drawn to the intensely individual experience it offers. The process started with strong media interest before the gallery was open. Now MONA has 10,000 followers on Facebook, one of whom, Vance Joplin, said.

I'm from Sydney, I was there the 2nd day MONA opened. I'm flying back on the 27th till the 29th, and spending both the Saturday and the Sunday from open till close crawling over the museum.Thank you David, for letting me inside your head, and now I'm here, I like the way you think man.

MONA will survive because it has a benefactor who doesn't need the entry fees or the approval of a large audience. In contrast, publicly funded museums and galleries are answerable to the taxpayer and there are strict limits on what taxpayers are prepared to fund. In effect, the mandate of publicly funded galleries is to appeal to everyone without causing TOO much offence.

Of course, the practical realities mean that many galleries remain as quietly elite as they always were. A notable exception is the Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art (QAG/GOMA) which has programmed some stunning and popular shows. It leads Australia in offering high-end experiences for families in all its exhibitions as shown by this lego table in the recent exhibition 21st Century, the First Decade.

GOMA – 21st Century, Art in the First Decade

And here is the Catch 22.  If galleries take the elitist road, like MONA, they won't get public funding, but if they take the popular route, like GOMA, the critics will ask, "Is it Art?" as The Australian did in this article.

QAG/GOMA has decided to attract and serve broad audiences and it is suceeding splendidly. With 1.8 million visits last year, it is quite a way ahead of its nearest equivalent, Melbourne's NGV, which attracted 1.5 million visits.

If MONA can continue to pay its way, it will find a loyal niche audience that loves the shock of controversy. This means that the new kid on the block will play nicely with its peers by doing something entirely different from them.

For a while, that is. MONA is more-or-less programmed to self-destruct as David Walsh notes: 

If I cared about longevity I wouldn’t have built a museum a couple of meters above the sea level. The Derwent is a tidal river. In 50 years, a lot of money is going to have to be spent on MONA or it’s going to be underwater.

Posted by Gillian Savage

Social policy

Society as a whole is a messy system of intersecting influences. Like all systems, societies feature scarcity of supply and competing needs, along with real-time adaptation and feedback loops. I picture it like a squiggly mass of inter-coiled tentacles.

Governments steer this messy system along, trying to avoid the worst feedback systems that create economic boom and bust and the attendant misery. Then something blows up and the whole squiggling mass writhes and spasms. Today the Bank of Japan poured a record 15 trillion yen ($183 billion) into the financial system to avoid ... something economists and bankers know about.

We mere mortals hope that the highly trained treasurers, economists, bankers and finacial experts see some orderly processes under the squiggling mass of contemporary economic societies.

In our humble corner, we make our own contribution to social well-being and order through the social impact studies we conduct. Social impact studies set out to describe and delineate the social costs and benefits of places and services. Whether it is a new gambling service or a new museum, we can document its social consequences.

A new book by Lois Silverman is a welcome addition to the field. In The Social Work of Museums Silverman describes some of the ways in which museums are socially healing places.

She points to the scope of her work in the preface:

Museums have long been institutions that care for the world's treasures. It is my passonate belief that the most important and essential work museums do is to use their unique resources to benefit human relationships and, ultimately, repair the world.

She sets out to provide a theoretical framework as a foundation for future practice. Along the way she examines the ways that museums foster social functioning, human well-being, favourable social conditions, and social change.

Taking a social work perspective, Silverman gives specific examples of ways contemporary museums help individuals, pairs, families and groups achieve the needs essential to a healthy individual and society.
 
In Silverman's hands, society no longer looks like a messy clump of writhing tentacles. It looks much more orderly and more human. Which is just what good museums do – they reflect our greater potential. Who can put a price on that?


Posted by Gillian Savage

What goes around, comes around

At the beginning of January, I spent several days in Canberra visiting museums, galleries and heritage places with my sister who hasn't been there for decades.

The visit reminded me how much work we have done for various Canberra institutions over the years. Among many other places, we enjoyed Reconciliation Place which extends across the landscaped area between the Library and the Portrait Gallery. I recall that we surveyed visitors in connection with the renovation of the Arts and Humanities Campus which is the open space between Questacon and the Library. Visitors wanted some practical elements incorporated into this area, especially more shade and a sheltered picnic/BBQ facility. Families and school groups put particular emphasis on this.

This image shows how the designers incorporated the sheltered picnic area into the formal setting. I think it works quite well.

Picnic pavillion in Humanities and Science Campus

We see in today's Sydney Morning Herald, that the ANU will partner with the Smithsonian to operate a national museum of astronomy and space science on Mt Stromlo, outside Canberra.

The vice-chancellor of the ANU, Ian Chubb, said the partnership would ''create something wonderful for Australia. A museum on Mount Stromlo, which is an active hub of leading-edge international astronomy and space research, will ensure we inspire future generations of young Australians to look to the skies."

The ANU and the Smithsonian are partners in the billion-dollar Giant Magellan Telescope, which will be more than 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope and allow researchers to study the whole history of the universe and other Earth-like planets.

An astronomy and space science museum on Mt Stromlo makes sense and I think it will be an attractive addition to the cultural institutions in Canberra, especially with the partnership with the Smithsonian.

We have seen a number of proposals for museums in Canberra that lacked this logic and did not get off the ground, so to speak.

We look forward to the ongoing enrichment of Canberra's cultural institutions over the coming years.

Posted by Gillian Savage