TAASA Review Issues

Derek Gillman

It was only supposed to be off display for six months … Five years later, the Asian collections of the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) are making a very welcome public return. The new space is only a temporary one, as the Gallery is shortly to embark on an $80 million dollar refurbishment by Mario Bellini – expected to be complete by the end of the millennium. One of the principal targets of the NGV’s strategic plan, and which therefore features prominently in the architect’s brief, is for Asian art to be given a prominence congruent with the quality of the existing holdings and their importance to Melbourne, and the high profile that Asian art now has within Australia at large.

For the time being, prior to what will undoubtedly be a period of ‘creative disruption’ at the Gallery, the intention is to put out as much fine material as possible without engaging in a major development that might itself  be swept away in the larger scheme. The temporary space is considerably smaller than the original ground floor rooms around the Coles courtyard, which is cause for regret, but under the present circumstances should be forgivable. It occupies a gallery on the first floor that until recently was used for curatorial offices (and is identical in size and configuration to the new Roper gallery for western and pre-Columbian antiquities), plus the adjacent landing.

The initial thought, in 1995, was to put a selection from the Asian holdings in the former curatorial space only, but several moves made during 1996 – involving the VicHealth Access Gallery and Asian storage – allows the collections to flow out into the main circulation space. That in itself has been no mean achievement in a gallery that is bursting with art at every seam, either on display or in storage. The principal advantages are that, on the one hand, it has substantially increased the modest amount of space available for the immediate future, and, on the other, it has made possible the creation of two separate areas to address quite distinct aspects of the collections.

The main gallery is devoted principally to the NGV’s very significant holding of Chinese ceramics and archaic bronzes, on the grounds that, with limited space available, it is sensible to focus on the strong elements of the collection. The gallery is daylit, but conceived to reduce light in the central zone where we’ve sited a capacious case that can accommodate Japanese screens, or Chinese furniture and costumes. The first floor ceilings are simply too low to allow us to show Melbourne’s splendid collection of Ming and Qing period literati paintings, which have just had an all-too-brief outing in a handsome show curated by Mae Anna Pang, The evocative brush (September-October 1996), probably the last until the redevelopment can house them in the environment they deserve.

The adjacent landing is being used to show sculpture from India, and Central and East Asia, including the great tree goddess from South India, the two monumental Northern Qi bodhisattvas from Xiangtang shan, and the exceptional Tibetan gilt-bronze image of the 1000-armed Avalokiteshvara. Much of the best of what can be shown will be shown. On the educational front, the intention is to help visitors feel comfortable with the displays without making too obvious an incursion into the objects’ visual space.

The gallery will be open by Christmas 1996, with a celebration launch at the time of the Chinese New Year in early February. The room brochure for ‘The Evocative Brush’ is available from, the NGV shop at $2. 

Derek Gillman is deputy director, international art and collection management at the National Gallery of Victoria.