A N I MM E R S I V E E XP E R I E NC E : I NNO V A T I V E A S I A N A R T E X H I B I T I ON S I N A U S T R A L I A - TAASA Review December 2011

A N I MM E R S I V E E XP E R I E NC E : I NNO V A T I V E A S I A N A R T E X H I B I T I ON S I N A U S T R A L I A – TAASA Review December 2011

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This article was originally found in the December 2011 edition of TAASA Review (Volume 20, Issue 4, Page 20).

The full article is available for free to TAASA Members.

Katherine Russell T he concept of the blockbuster' exhibition has been with us since at least the 1960s and is most closely linked with either ancient Near-Eastern art (for instance Tutankhamun and the golden age of the Pharaohs) or EuropeanOld Masters’.

In other words, exhibitions that offer, as art historian Andrew McClellan puts it, [a] steady diet of impressionism, mummies, and anything with "gold" in the title' (2008: 184-85), and which are heavily promoted to generate high visitor numbers.

Major exhibitions of Asian art in Australia have differed quite markedly from this approach, and yet have forged new paths based on the need to engage visitors with largely unfamiliar images and ideas...