Nick Mitzevich’s Instagram feed says so much more than the official portraits. It captures the spirit of the man who leads our top art museum. One of the first things he did upon starting was to head out to Country with curators Djon Mundine and Franchesca Cubillo to Ramingining, Arnhem Land to pay respect to Aboriginal elders. Image courtesy @nickmitzevich
Sitting across from Nick Mitzevich, his head slightly lowered and a boyish enthusiasm percolating within, he announced: ‘Today is day 74 in the office, and I’ve kinda got a plan.’
He continued: ‘I knew what I wanted to do in these first months, and I am ticking it off.’
Appointed the Director of the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in April (he started in the role 2 July), Mitzevich is the sixth director in the Gallery’s 36-year history, however he is not its youngest, as some have suggested.
Both inaugural director James Mollison and Irishman Brian Kennedy (1997-2004) claim that status.
Mitzevich comes to Canberra after eight years as Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), where his track record for escalating visitation, up 167%, nurturing philanthropic giving and benefaction, which went up 400%, and a brokered BHP Billiton deal to the tune of $17.5 million, precedes him.
Expectations are sitting high with the appointment of Mitzevich. Will he bring that Midas touch to Canberra? The answer, he says, lies in the NGA’s DNA.
National Gallery of Australia near completion, front view, c. late 1980; image courtesy nga.gov.au
From Mollison to Mitzevich
Similarly, a kind of Midas charm has long been associated with James Mollison’s NGA directorship and legacy – a story played out in the Gallery’s current American Master’s exhibition. Seventy-five per cent of the works were purchased by Mollison before the Gallery opened in 1982.
Read: Review: American Masters 1940-1980, NGA
‘It demonstrated that collecting with courage and foresight is so much a part of the institution’s DNA,’ Mitzevich told ArtsHub.
Earlier this month (5 October), the Gallery’s Council approved Mitzevich’s first acquisition in the role, Francesco (2017) by Swiss artist Urs Fischer. It will soon be exhibited in the Gallery’s foyer, where over the course of the ensuing months, the artwork will slowly melt away as a candle burns within.
Mitzevich told The Australian: ‘I wanted the first acquisition under my directorship to embody what this generation of art is about.’
Perhaps we are witness to the dawning of the institution’s vision returning?
One of the first things that Mitzevich did upon his appointment was to meet with Mollison.
‘I caught up with him a few weeks ago; it was really important to do that. Obviously his tenure is well documented, but I wanted to get under the skin of what drove some of Mollison’s decisions,’ Mitzevich told ArtsHub.
‘I don’t want to emulate what he did, but I do want to understand the rationale behind those decisions, and that will give me a sound base to work out how I then reinterpret it for the 21st century.
‘You must logically follow in a similar strategic direction. Institutions are never vacuum-sealed off from the past. I want to understand the DNA of the organisation and take it to the next stage,’ he continued.
Launching partnership with Tate for Love & Desire: Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces. Maria Balshaw and Nick Mitzevich; image courtesy @nationalgalleryaus
A quick stamp on the institution
Part of that Mitzevich-style vision was revealed this week with the announcement of the Gallery’s 2019 program.
As Deputy Director Alison Wright said: ‘It’s got his hands all over it.’ While Mitzevich walked into a program already well in track, ‘in less than a 100 days he has tweaked that 2019 program to expand it. It is unthinkable what has been achieved in that short time,’ Wright continued.
In his short time in the Director’s chair, Mitzevich has had meetings in London with the TATE, travelled to Paris to lock down exhibition details for Monet: Impression Sunrise, and travelled to Arnhem Land to pay respect to Aboriginal Elders.
At the TATE he announced the loans of draw-card signature works, Ophelia and The Lady of Shalott, which will travel for NGA’s Pre-Rapaelite show Love and Desire.
The blockbuster bang continues with Monet: Impression Sunrise – an initiative of Mitzevich’s and the first time that the NGA will mount a major winter blockbuster. It will be presented in a new temporary exhibition space on level one. Then late next year is Matisse / Picasso.
It is not the first time Mitzevich has paid a nod to former NGA director Betty Churcher’s model for popular event style shows, in many ways blending her philosophy with his own.
While the Matisse / Picasso exhibition was in play before Mitzevich signed on, he is escalating it as a content package part of a much broader charter to reach out to audiences. Mitzevich told ArtsHub: ‘We have to go beyond just putting on exhibitions and collecting art – we have to go somewhere that is about content.
‘You don’t have to visit Canberra to have a relationship with the NGA – in our future, the geographic location is only one part of what we do. We are revving up how we broadcast and develop content to connect with the wider community.’
The 2019 program also includes a redesigned sculpture gallery and a popular exhibition about the human form – Bodies of Art; the opening of a Yayoi Kusama infinity room; a new interactive creative learning centre and children’s gallery thanks to the generosity of Tim Fairfax AC – a $2 million gift announced the week Mitzevich started – and a new major commission of Indigenous art to tour Asia as part of a $4 million Wesfarmers partnership – also announced in the early days of Mitzevich’s directorship.
All talk about access and engagement, a foundation not surprising given Mitzevich’s past as an art educator, and integral to his management model.
Mitzevich makes rectification sexy
While building rectifications are hardly the sexiest topic, the way Mitzevich has embraced critical works offers punters the clearest insight to the kind of ‘blue sky thinking’ that has become his signature style.
At a cost of $21.5 million, the Gallery will be systematically taken offline over the next three years as individual galleries are closed to replace all the glazing in the building. Mitzevich has taken the “window issue” a step further; he wants to also reveal original windows planned by architect Colin Madigan, which have been covered up for either conservation reasons or for added hanging space.
Mitzevich said: ‘This building is the high priest of coolness from that period of the 70s. Madigan crafted an extraordinary sculpture. One of the things I want to do is to make the building really shine.’
He continued: ‘The original building had a great sense of orientation. Over the years it has been partially modified, but in doing its orientation has been diminished.’
The silver lining in these building works, for Mitzevich, is that it gives him the opportunity to rethink how the Collection is displayed.
Nick Mitzevich, Director National Gallery of Australia. Photo: Sven Kovac
Bringing the Mitzevich rehang to Canberra
It was only three years ago, that then new NGA Director Gerard Vaughan, relocated and rehung the Australian galleries.
Mitzevich’s new take on Australian art will be rolled out by the end of next year. ‘This is brand Australia here – so we will be working with our team of curators to rethink how we tell the complex and conflicting story of Australia’s cultural evolution.’
He told ArtsHub that he won’t be turning to a thematic hang, as he has created at Art Gallery of South Australia. ‘That formula was crafted around its assets and its strengths – it was like an eccentric 19th century mansion. The strengths here are very different.
‘Using historic approaches to defining things isn’t necessarily relevant for the 21st century. I have always prioritised multiple perspectives on an issue. What is fascinating about Australian art are the collisions and similarities, and you have to expose both – there is only one Australian art and it is made by people in this country,’ Mitzevich said.
‘The best way to tell that story is to rub them against each other because they always were,’ he added of blending the gallery’s collections of First Nations art within the broader Australian art story.
‘Why can’t we have a morning star pole with a (Frank) Hinder sculpture – it is about ideas, it is not about classification, and audiences are weary of that.’
He added that he felt Australia was at a very ‘critical point’ in how its leaders of cultural endeavours tease it out that mixing pot.
Ditching expansion plans
When the National Gallery of Australia opened in 1982 the Collection had less than 1,000 works. It now has in excess of 156,000. For most, that explosion of assets scream “space limitations”, however Mitzevich is adamant that the ‘space issue’ is not a good argument for change.
‘The strength of the collection lies in what you do with it … My priority will be to make the existing building the best it can be and is working at full potential,’ he told ArtsHub.
In a conversation with Vaughan (August 2015) he told ArtsHub that the land is secure; the need is undoubtedly pressing, and conceptual drawings have been work-shopped, but added that there was no timeframe in place for Stage 2, a new wing decided to contemporary Australian art for the NGA.
‘I have no idea when this building will be built. We are working on it right now and will be ready to go when someone fires the starter’s pistol,’ said Vaughan.
Vaughan inherited the plan for Stage 2 from his predecessor Ron Radford who ushered the gallery through a $100 million – known as Stage 1. It included the creation of the Indigenous galleries and the new foyer.
Read: Making the National Gallery more accountable
Mitzevich said that the timing is not right now, and having recently gone through the tensions that come with such conversations of a new building (he steered the pitch for Adelaide Contemporary), he was of the opinion that there are other plans to take priority. Essentially, building on assets rather than building buildings.
He said: ‘There is always the dream of an extension to focus on telling a wider story of Australian art – I won’t let go of that – but in the interim the existing building must work in the best possible way it can. And, when it is bursting at the seams, that will be the driver then to have those conversations.’
