History

Peter Cripps / 1984-6

My total programme, including exhibitions and publication policies, was constructed around my understanding and perception of the contemporary historical context of the Institute. This context had clearly changed and developed from the time of its establishment to my appointment in 1984. For instance, John Buckley's programme included a large range of international and Australian exhibitions at a time when the Queensland Art Gallery was housed in temporary premises; John Nixon created a programme of Australian artists and documentation about them, while Barbara Campbell's guest curatorial programme prior to my appointment existed in a changed artistic and cultural community in which the number of local, younger practising artists had proliferated. I attempted to establish clear aims for my programme against these developments, while always framing the programme within a broader, critical context. Thus, for example, any interest in expressionism attempted to place local concerns and debate on that particular matter into the context of contemporary neoexpressionism.

I also very quickly became aware that there was a view afoot in Brisbane, perhaps almost a hegemonic perception, that Brisbane was the end of the world artistically speaking. Most artists located in Brisbane seemed to believe that any success for them was contingent upon their relocation from the periphery closer to the centre, meaning Sydney, Melbourne, New York or wherever. I wanted to challenge this perception very strongly, while simultaneously attempting to stimulate a more sophisticated artistic debate and dialogue locally. At times this didn't happen, sometimes pushing people into warring camps based on what were often misconceptions, particularly in relation to the programme. The very successful Robert Mac-Pherson survey exhibition (co-curated with Malcolm Enright) was, amongst other things, a challenge to the view that nothing important and substantial in an artistic sense ever came out of Brisbane. The Q Space + Q Space Annex exhibition, as well as Past and Present (curated by Bob Lingard) and Know Your Product (curated by Ross Harley) reflected my desire to challenge this dominant perception, but always attempting to place the challenge critically and in a broader context. None of these exhibitions was ever intended to say it all, as it were, but to open up and provoke debate and further detailed enquiry.

I should add that the need for the Institute to stage the Robert MacPherson show was another manifestation of the Institute's context, notably the failure of the Queensland Art Gallery to meet its responsibilities in relation to contemporary Australian art. While government sponsored Contemporary Art Spaces have been a very important development in relation to contemporary Australian art they have also allowed the state galleries (with the notable exception of New South Wales) to neglect their respon¬sibilities in this regard.

The exhibition programme sought to achieve a balance between international, interstate and local artists, as well as a balance between young, midcareer and established ones. In the first instance there was not so much emphasis on international shows because of the time lag between organising them and their coming to fruition. There were though two international shows, Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs which attracted a substantial viewing audience and John Handhardt's Whitney Museum video exhibition. Additionally, the Fritz Rahmann exhibition held during Sue Cramer's directorship and the Raimund Kummer exhibition held at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne were organised during my term.

The programme was synergistic in nature, the total it was hoped being more than just a sum of the parts. Each exhibition was structured in relation to other exhibitions and to the overall programme. For instance, at the deep structural rather than surface level, Show No Cowardice, Brisbane Hot, Know Your Product, Q Space + Q Space Annex and Past And Present showed some considerable complementarity and intertextuality, as it were, as did the Robert MacPherson exhibition in its own divergent way.

The list of exhibitions during my directorship, outlined elsewhere in this publication, indicates the strength of the programme. For instance, Peter Tyndall, Richard Dunn, Vivienne Shark Le Witt, Robert Hunter, Stieg Persson, John Young, Janet Burchill, Geoff Lowe, Dale Frank, Marianne Baillieu and Tim Johnson had one person shows from interstate. Dick Watkins also had a one person show which was important for placing debates about expressionism and postmodernism in a broader and longer term framework. Young local artists, Scott Redford, Mark Webb and Bronwyn Clark-Coolee also had exhibi¬tions while Bronwyn also curated the Richard Dunn exhibition. This was part of an attempt to encourage young curators; Robyn McKenzie also curated a show under this category. There were also, as indicated in the list elsewhere, a substantial number of group exhibitions accompanied by professionally researched and produced catalogues. This was a real achievement in my view, but sometimes not recognised for what it was. Exhibitions arguing a thesis are much more interesting, but they are also open to substantial critique. 'Loose' group exhibitions are much less demanding and as a consequence considerably safer. I eschewed the safer line.

Residencies of both artists (Peter Tyndall, Mark Webb, Hollie) and of writers and publishers (Paul Taylor, Ashley Crawford) complemented the exhibition programme. In a very broad sense, the programme pursued the tensions between modernism and postmodernism, which was an important debate at the time, within the classical white modernist space which was the IMA.

The programme was also about visual education and display. Q Space And Q Space Annex and Know Your Product extended the notion of art to embrace all (?) cultural artefacts, while also recognising that at times within Brisbane, so-called popular culture had a greater following, support and profile than so-called high art, which is to go some considerable way towards accepting the sociological argument proffered by Bourdieu and the like, that the high/popular distinction is largely social and political in nature. In some senses the Robert MacPherson show epitomised what the IMA had become: a support base for conceptual art (often unrecognised in a commercial sense). The success of the Robert MacPherson exhibition (and its tour) and the positive response to the accompanying catalogue were important in establishing the professional nature of the programme. There were other more material benefits in terms of subsequent success in VAB special purpose grant applications. Sales from the MacPherson catalogue were also utilised for the production of the Institute publication ProductPeter Cripps Interviews. (This publication was dedicated to Robert MacPherson.) The MacPherson survey was in all senses a very professional exhibition which set a standard.

Three high profile public forums on Provincialism, Expressionism and Art Criticism were held during my directorship. These were an integral part of the overall programme which attempted to promote very substantial discussion and debate. They certainly achieved this. In retrospect, the topics seem a little crude but at the time they were relevant to the IMA's context. There seemed to have been very little precedent for such forums and as such they were timely in terms of the growth of the Brisbane art community. The forums were always conceived as public forums meant to appeal to, and involve in discussion, the full spectrum of the Institute's potential audience. The forums provoked much discussion, at times acrimonious, but certainly there was a period of intense dialogue, argumentation and debate which extended well beyond the Institute and which gained considerable newspaper coverage. Thus for example, the newspaper heading on the Provincialism forum stated 'Artists in Ferment at IMA Forum' (The Courier-Mail, 11 August 1986). These debates encouraged people to take positions, to work out their stance on a variety of matters. It certainly encouraged young artists to decide where they stood and what they were doing. At times though, it seemed a little as if viewpoints and opinions were confused with the person articulating the position and thus the debate became other than intellectual, a clear indication in another sense of the intimacy of the power/knowledge coupling as Foucault has suggested.

During my time at the IMA I pursued vigorously a publication programme. As I stated in the foreword to the Past And Present catalogue: 'In Queensland, publications dealing with contemporary art are extremely rare. Of course, there is the important University of Queensland Press "Focus On" series from the late 1960s. However, since that time little has been published'. The situation has improved somewhat now with the locally produced art magazine, Eyeline. This dearth of art writing was another aspect of the context in which I worked. There were basically two sets of publications from my time: exhibition catalogues (Show No Cowardice, Robert MacPherson, Past And Present, Recession Art And Other Strategies, Know Your Product, Q Space And Q Space Annex and the Judy Annear curated Shadow Of Reason exhibition, which came to fruition after I had left the Institute) and other publications (Queensland Writing No 1, Interviews with Nine Queensland Artists, Peter Cripps Interviews and Art Criticism). The latter publications were intended as source material. It was hoped that there would be follow up research. In a few cases this has occurred with some of the subsequent articles in Eyeline magazine. Queensland Writing No 1 with papers by Bob Lingard on Queensland expressionism and by Ross Harley on popular culture in Brisbane was the progenitor of the other publications and the basis for the successful VAB grant application. The Peter Cripps Interviews monograph served as additional source material about a group of artists who had had IMA exhibitions; it also functioned as source material about those exhibitions. Interviews with Nine Queensland Artists has also operated in a similar way and has been utilised by a variety of subsequent writers as a base of knowledge and ideas about a group of young Queensland artists who at the time of publication had received little exposure. The Art Criticism publication sought to raise questions about the nature of art criticism in Queensland and its impact upon art production here. I had hoped that issues raised in the publication would perhaps challenge the dominance of a particular brand of modernist criticism pervasive in Queensland. In retrospect, I feel a little disappointed with the outcome of this particular forum. There was one further monograph which I wished to produce before I left the Institute: a set of Peter Anderson interviews with artists initiated by John Nixon during his directorship. Unfortunately I was not able to complete this task before leaving, but I do believe that this important component of the IMA archive ought to be published at some stage.

The nature of my overall programme (exhibitions, forums, publications and an annex programme) was backed by incredible support from the VAB and particularly from Ross Wolfe, its chairperson at the time. The VAB and Ross recognised the professional nature (and importance) of what I was attempting to achieve. Their support, both financial and in morale terms, was very important to me. The same could be said of Dona Greaves after she took up her position with the comparable state department.

It has always seemed to me (before my appointment and since) that the IMA has been regarded very highly by the funding bodies and by the broad spectrum of the Australian art community. This respect is based upon the professional nature of the IMA, both in artistic terms and in management terms. Since its inception the IMA has been very well managed in financial terms, serving as something of a model for other contemporary art spaces. At times the local response to the IMA has been very critical but often in an uninformed way – perhaps one can't be a prophet in one's own country? – but then again in retrospect such criticism is to be encouraged for as one newspaper critic put it 'The IMA ... is at present the only forum that allows regular public confrontation on aesthetic issues' (The Courier-Mail, 11 August 1986).

Thanks: I would like to express my very sincere thanks to both Joan Sherriif (Administrator) and Bob Lingard (President) for their unwavering support for my programme, my practice and for me individually during my term as IMA Director.