| QAGOMA | |
| Coordinates: | |
| Location: | Southbank, Brisbane, Australia |
| Visitors: | 1,146,277 (2019/20) [1] |
| Director: | Chris Saines [2] |
The Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, colloquially known as QAGOMA, is an art museum in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It consists of the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG), which is the main building, and a second gallery, the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), situated away. Both are located within the Queensland Cultural Centre in South Bank. QAGOMA has a large collection of Australian art and is a leading institution in the Asia-Pacific.
The museum was established in 1895 as the Queensland National Art Gallery, and throughout its early history was housed in a series of temporary premises. In 1982, the gallery moved to a permanent location in the Queensland Art Gallery, designed by architect Robin Gibson.[3]
In 2006 the museum's second building, the Gallery of Modern Art, was opened, and was awarded the 2007 RAIA National Award for Public Architecture.[4]
The art museum is colloquially known as QAGOMA.[5] It consists of the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG), which is the main building, and the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), situated away. Both are located within the Queensland Cultural Centre in South Bank in Brisbane.[6]
Visitor numbers for the 2019-20 period were at 1,146,277, a marked decline from recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. QAGOMA is the home of the Australian Centre of Asia Pacific Art and is also the host of the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art.
Curator Peter McKay was appointed to the curatorial team at QAGOMA in 2011. On 8 August 2018 he was appointed Curatorial Manager of Australian Art.[7] [8]
QAGOMA holds a collection of more than 20,000 artworks from Australia and around the world, with an internationally significant collection of contemporary Asian and Pacific art. It has extensive collections of Asian, Oceanian, Australian and Indigenous Australian art.
The gallery's historical Asian collection spans from the neolithic period through to the 20th century, and highlights the artistic developments influenced by social change, philosophy and technique. The department aims to show the importance of cultural exchange in the region and its continuing role in the development of Asia's decorative traditions, and helps to contextualise the contemporary Asian collection. The works range from painting, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, metalware, lacquerware, photography and furniture.[9]
Some of the collection's highlights include:
QAGOMA's contemporary Asian art collection is among the most extensive of its kind in the world, with over one thousand works dating from the late 1960s to the present, documenting modern historical trends of social change and changing patterns of artistic production. The collection demonstrates the contributions of Asian artists to global contemporary art, and the influence of traditions, philosophies and techniques. The collection includes leading artists from all parts of Asia, as well as the Asian diaspora with strengths in contemporary Chinese art, contemporary Japanese art, contemporary Indian art and a major collection of Southeast Asian art. Some of the artists represented include Xu Bing, Atul Dodiya, Nam June Paik, Yayoi Kusama, Lee Ufan and Ai Weiwei.
The gallery's Australian art collection dates from the colonial period onward, and presents historical moments of first contact, settlement, exploration and immigration. Works from the colonial period highlight the influence of European traditions, and the emergence of a distinctly Australian vernacular with the Heidelberg School movement in the late 19th century.[10] Some of the Australian artists featured in the collection include, Eugene von Guerard, John Glover, Richard Godfrey Rivers, Fred Williams, Ray Crooke, Russell Drysdale, Charles Conder, Ethel Carrick, Sam Fullbrook, Vida Lahey, Sidney Nolan, Rupert Bunny, Louis Buvelot, William Bustard, Bessie Gibson, John Russell, William Dobell, Ian Fairweather, John Perceval, Arthur Boyd, E. Phillips Fox, Margaret Preston, John Brack, Charles Blackman, Hans Heysen, Sydney Long, Margaret Olley, Hugh Ramsay, Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts.
Some of the collection's highlights include:
QAGOMA's contemporary Australian collection reflects the diversity of people in Australia, and dates from the conceptual/abstract art of the late 1960s-70s to the present. Many of the works recognise the core collecting areas of painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, glass and ceramics, while expanding to include artists' increasing use of a wider variety of media including photography, digital media and film. Some of the leading artists represented in the collection include, Peter Booth, eX De Medici, Fiona Hall, Bea Maddock, Jan Nelson, Patricia Piccinini, Tony Tuckson, Anne Ferran, Bill Henson, Rosemary Laing, Pat Brassington, Tracey Moffatt, Savanhdary Vongpoothorn, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, Hossein Valamanesh, Ian Burn, Aleks Danko, Susan Norrie and Mike Parr.
The gallery's historical international art collection focuses on Western European and North American work, and spans from the early Renaissance to the second half of the twentieth century. The collection has strengths in Northern Renaissance; British art from the late-18th to late-19th century, including Victorian and Edwardian painting; and modern European and American painting, sculpture, photography and prints from the late 19th century to the second half of the twentieth century. The majority of the over 2000 works in this area are Western European.[11]
Some of the collection's highlights include: