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It’s over. After visiting the latest “Blockbuster Melbourne Winter Masterpieces” exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, I’m vowing to never renew my membership.
The end came quickly as I visited this year’s blockbuster, a show of the French impressionist Pierre Bonnard’s work intersected with contemporary projections from the contemporary artist India Mahdavi.
Artist India Mahdavi’s wallpaper frames Bonnard’s works.Credit: Justin McManus
According to NGV Magazine, the show “presents the iridescent paintings of Bonnard within immersive scenography by Paris-based designer India Mahdavi.” In other words, Bonnard’s art is no longer enough and needs to be reappraised and cast against tutti-frutti wallpapers if it wants to remain relevant.
The result is cultural vandalism and visual assault, with the NGV converting itself to an institution of superficial entertainment. It’s no longer about understanding, but the experience. As T.S. Eliot so aptly put it, “We had the experience but missed the meaning.”
For years now, the Winter Masterpieces exhibitions have been considered a must-see event in Melbourne, up there with the grand final, Boxing Day Test and Melbourne Cup for punters who prefer art to sport.
The NGV’s Bonnard exhibition.Credit: Justin McManus
Originally set to open in 2020, the Bonnard show was delayed by the pandemic and hotly anticipated by many. Sadly, it was not worth the wait.
Upon entering the exhibitions, crowds of art grazers move through the technicolour galleries on an art acid trip and, like with a magic eye puzzle, trying to find the art against garish, clashing wallpapers. Seemingly inspired by The Lume’s Monet exhibition and the NGV’s 2017 Yayoi Kusama exhibition, the space becomes one giant selfie backdrop, filled with countless visitors experiencing the art but not considering its meaning.
The NGV is Australia’s most visited gallery. It sits comfortably among the most popular in the world and has boasting rights of being ahead of The Tate in London and The Guggenheim in New York. Moreover, the NGV makes much of the fact that, statistically, between 70 and 75 per cent of its annual visitors are from Victoria.
In a pre-pandemic world, the NGV welcomed over 3.3 million visitors between 2017-18.
While it’s likely the latest addition to the Winter Masterpieces series will continue this trend of high participation, the NGV has sold out by prioritising entertainment over knowledge.
With Bonnard, “immersive” goes well beyond tote bags, post cards and printed aprons and extends to after-hours access, live music events in the Great Hall and a French dining experience. But all is this really necessary? Do serious art goers actually need this? Perhaps in future years we’ll see ‘Rapping with Rembrandt’ or ‘Rock around Van Gogh’.
While Melbourne may see itself as the cultural capital of the nation and the NGV as Australia’s premier gallery, what kind of art culture is it actually selling?
High visitor numbers and a being a tourist drawcard are certainly important, but more so from a promotion perspective, as opposed to actual education of an audience. By offering cheap visual thrills and what amounts to a pandering for our growing need for digital distraction, the NGV has advertised itself as an insecure institution.
Is the NGV so uncertain of itself that it believes that without the whizzbang appeal of music, projections, pop-up dining and late-night viewing their visitor numbers will drop and that people won’t come to see the work of a celebrated French painter if it simply hangs on a wall?
In the Bonnard show, the NGV has achieved one thing above all else – alienating serious art interest. It is imperative the NGV rethinks its actual position as an art institution. Justifying itself with high visitor numbers at the cost of deepening fine art awareness in this city and beyond matters. As a friend who saw the exhibition said to me recently, “I no longer belong to this world.”
It was a telling comment and one the NGV would do well to hear. In its attempt to blood a new audience, the NGV is at risk of losing its core traditional art audience who have supported the gallery from its original opening with attendance, advocacy and pride in its status, and who are at risk of no longer feeling it’s for them.
For me, it’s too late. I can no longer subscribe to an institution that is more about foot traffic and social media aesthetics for its own sake. If the NGV is not troubled about losing members, then its decline as a serious international gallery is all but ensured.
Christopher Bantick is a Melbourne-based writer.
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