Elizabeth Ann Macgregor

Peter Hill

The Albury Wodonga Superfiction 1993

Collaboration Peter Hill and J.J. Voss (Photographer)

Elizabeth Ann Macgregor: Tartan Docs and other “creative collisions”

Peter Hil meets Liz Ann Macgregor, recently appointed director of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, in the café of the Melbourne Biennale

There is an old Scottish saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, in with the boot and in with the heid”, and remembering it I trod carefully as I approached Liz Ann Macgregor, for I could see that she was kitted out in one of her ten pairs of trademark tartan Doc Martens.
But the new director of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, daughter of the Bishop of Sutherland and raised in the Orkney Islands of Scotland, is not anticipating any immediate bovver in her new role. She is one of Europe’s leading curators and has a global knowledge of the international art world that will make her entirely suited for the job in hand. No one rises so high and so fast in her chosen profession without also being hungry to learn and to listen.
“I’ve had a hectic ten days,” she told me, once I’d advanced to the top of the queue of that day’s appointments. MCA board member Rupert Myer was one ahead of me as I sat discussing the dual attractions, to the unbiased outsider, of Sydney and Melbourne with Liz Ann’s husband Peter. He is also a museum director and is currently involved in a huge renovation of the Wakefield City Gallery, a trial by fire that Liz Ann recently underwent, with huge success and to the tune of $6 million, at Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery.
“I’ve had one-to-one meetings with all the MCA staff at every level,” she began, when I asked her how she was going to tackle her new job. “I’ve asked each of them to give me three suggestions on how to make improvements to the museum, to how it runs, to what we show, and to where we want to go from here.” That sounded to me like a wise beginning, but it begged the question of what changes she herself would want to make.
“ This probably sounds a very obvious thing to say, but I like the way artists are working with new technologies and it seems to me to make sense for the MCA to have that as quite a large part of its program. The institution has had a long relationship with film, or exhibitions about film, and perhaps a logical progression from this will lead to some kind of cinematheque in the future. The “Hitchcock” exhibition from MOMA in New York is one of the ones I’ve inherited and I think it will look tremendous in the MCA.
Transport costs will always be a big problem for a city like Sydney in terms of bringing physical work here from America and Europe. Film is not so difficult. But having said that, there are a lot of artists working in a whole range of media, including paint, that I would like to bring to Australia. We’ve got this new project space now where Guan Wei’s currently showing. It’s a slightly rawer space than the big museum spaces and I hope we can do some faster-paced shows there, not six to eight weeks but more three to four weeks. I’m conscious that will put quite a bit of pressure on the curatorial team, but we’ll see. I am also very excited about the Asia Pacific region. It is not something I know a huge amount about. I probably know more about Japan than anywhere else in the region, and I am keen to learn. When I come back to take up the position I will arrive just in time for the opening of the Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane and I’m very much looking forward to attending that.”
I knew that she was at the end of a week of lengthy meetings with her board, the media, and other curators and directors like Tony Bond, Nick Tsoutas, and Edmond Capon. But what about artists, I wondered, did she meet many of them?
“When I arrived last week and looked at the schedule that had been prepared for me I saw that there were all kinds of meetings from morning till late at night, but there were none with artists. The first thing I did was to arrange an artists’ dinner which we had last night. It wasn’t as big as I’d have liked it to be…but yes, meeting artists, making studio visits, and listening to the advice of artists is crucial for anyone working in the contemporary visual arts.”
Liz Ann Macgregor has been running the Ikon gallery in Birmingham for over a decade and showing the work of artists as varied as Callum Innes, Nancy Spero, Pervaiz Khan, Howard Arkley, Dalziel and Scullion, and Georgina Starr. Before that she worked for the Scottish Arts Council and in her early days there spent three years as driver and curator of the famous Travelling Gallery, a converted bus which still takes art to prisons, shopping centres, schools, inner city housing estates and the more remote regions of the Highlands and islands. “I’ve been showing slides of those days to my staff in Sydney,” she told me when I suggested Australia could do with such a fleet of mobile galleries. “My life as a bus driver. They were happy times.”
But her own personal career bus has zipped along since then. In addition to the dynamism she has brought to the Ikon she was one of the judges of The Turner Prize the year that Damien Hirst won it. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Art, chair of the BBC West Midlands Advisory Board, a board member of the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art, and a trustee of the Public Arts Development Trust in London. With such a mix of influences on her professional life, I wondered what artists and art movements excited her? And would she include any Australians in her list?
“I’ve got the Gordon Bennett survey show opening in the Ikon in November. It opens in Brisbane in July. That’s a huge passion of mine I’m a big fan of Gordon’s work. The Ikon is also quite coincidentally presenting the work of two other Australians – Simeron Gill who lives in Sydney and Lyndell Jones from Melbourne who’s making
quite a major new piece which is very concerned with issues of audience interaction with technology. This is one of my passions too because I don’t think it has been exploited nearly enough. Too much of it is still at the level of “touch a screen or press a button.”
Lyndall has been exploring a more experiential way of interacting which will also push the limits of the technology. One show I am proud of one that springs to mind immediately is an exhibition called Trans-continental which introduced the work of a number of Latin American artists to Europe who have now gone on to be very successful. People like Sodou Morellis and Jack Lerner. It was good to move outside the European-North American axis. I’ve always tried to bring in people from different cultural backgrounds, like Keith Piper and Yinka Shonibare.”

I had not expected that our meeting would take place inside the main building of Melbourne’s first biennale of contemporary art. But since we were there, I asked Liz Ann Macgregor if she had enjoyed it? What artists stood out?

“I think its fantastic, there are so many memorable things in it you want to go back over and over again. I think it’s great that once you buy your ticket you can make repeat visits. This was something I found extremely frustrating about the Sydney Biennale, the fact that you could only go once on the one ticket. I think the way the main building has been used here in Melbourne is a fabulous piece of curating. All credit to the city of Melbourne and to Julianna for pulling it off. As for artists I really loved the work of Ricky Swallow, a young Melbourne artist, who had the most fantastic kinetic pieces. His work showed extraordinary invention and imagination, it was absolutely amazing. He was telling me he’s up for the Kennett prize. I also liked Mariele Neudecker’s mountain installation upstairs, but I am biased here because we are working with her at the Ikon. We’ve commissioned her for next year to do a major installation. Patricia Piccinini’s video piece with all the trees was interesting as was Lyndell Jones’ piece. As soon as I heard the Scottish voices that was it. And what’s amazing is that everything is working, which is unusual for a show of this size at this stage in its run. It shows a great deal of commitment to the artists from the curators. So often shows like this go up and then are left so that by the end of it only a few things are functioning.”

And the Sydney Biennale? I asked her if the MCA would continue the collaboration that started with Jonathon Watkins journey into “the everyday”?

“ Absolutely. I think it’s incredibly important, and I’m very much looking forward to it
The Sydney Biennale is a great world institution and has had great success in the past. All credit to those who have built up its reputation internationally over many years.
I like the idea of the next one having six curators,” – and she reeled them off – “Sir Nicholas Serota from the Tate, Fumi Nanjo from Japan, Hetty Perkins, Louise Nery from Parkett, Harald Szeeman who did this year’s Venice Biennale, Robert Storr from America and then Nick Waterlow chairing it all. What a team. I think they are aiming at coming up with a common list, but I think what will happen is that everyone is going to go around and say ‘oh, that’s Nick Serota’s choice’ and ‘that’s Louise’s.’ I think in those kind of shows, and Juliana’s achieved it here, you have to have that element of spectacle. It’s got to compete, and you have to have what I would call ‘creative collisions’, things jamming up against each other, dialogues taking place. I know not everybody likes the idea, but I think it’s going to be marvellous. In a city like Sydney, with so many different venues, there has to be an element of controversy, and the choice of those six selectors almost builds in controversy from the outset because their selections are bound to be quite different. They are all coming from very different positions and it will be very difficult for it to be a wonderfully coherent show. I quite like the idea that you can have these switches in perception within the same exhibition.”

We went on to discuss the many different hats that must be worn by the director of such a museum, especially one where funds are finite. Curating is only one part of the job, just as editing and commissioning is only one small role, expected of today’s magazine editor. Such a person must also be a skilled project manager, fund-raiser, marketing expert and strategic planner. They must be adept at applying for funding and comfortable in the role of hosting gala openings and dinner parties. They must be able to win the press and provide unbeatable photo opportunities that will knock skate-boarding ducks off page four of the tabloids and provide catalogues on time for the more serious broadsheet reviewers of contemporary art, and God knows there’s not many of them in Sydney. Liz Ann Macgregor has been critical of press treatment of contemporary art within Britain, and not just in the tabloids, so she should feel right at home in her new city. On her last visit she told Joyce Morgan of the Sydney Morning Herald “ There’s a reactionary strand within art criticism…which dismisses everything contemporary as a waste of time.”
At the Ikon almost 70 % of her funding came from various public sources, but Macgregor is a believer in a broadly pluralistic approach to cultural fund-raising.
“It’s incredible that the MCA exists at all,” she continued. “ It was an amazing achievement on the part of Leon and Bernice to get it up and running. As you know it raises 89% of its own funds. And the university, as I think is also widely known, has been reducing its contribution. The Power Bequest no longer has as much money as it once did. So my feeling is we must continue to raise private money, and that will be one of my roles. I have to persuade people in the private sector that we are worth investing in. Basically I will be talking to anybody who might give us money, and that very much means talking to the public sector as well. I will be having meetings with the State government and with the Federal government, and have already made one visit to Canberra. Potentially Canberra could be a very big player. What I really want to get into the position of doing is finding out what it is we can offer all our different partners. I want to say to the university, ‘Look, we can give you this.’ And the same at all levels of government and business. We can provide certain services without compromising our role as a dynamic venue for contemporary art. On top of all that we have some terrific board members, really committed people.
But first and foremost I want to promote the international dimension. Bringing the best in and taking Sydney and Australia’s name out. It is a two way process. A strategy is beginning to emerge as to how we might do that and who we might enter into partnerships with. I have no illusions about the problems of achieving all this, but this is how I am starting out.”
I was interested in the overseas curators and galleries with whom she might want to collaborate, and as I expected the list was eclectic. “The Hennaonstacht in Oslo which is now run by Ganni Yanschat is somewhere that I would be very keen to continue working with. He has a great setting and some very interesting ideas. In fact he’s working with me on Gordon Bennett at the moment. But wider than that I will be looking to New York, to the New Museum which is a fantastic venue. The new Baltic centre in Gateshead, Declan Macgonagle in Dublin, and Andrew Nairne in Dundee. I’ve recently been to Lisbon and there are some very interesting things going on in Portugal.”
More than most countries Australia tends (with important exceptions) to show discreet exhibitions of contemporary Australian art, and quite separate exhibitions of international art. Would Liz Ann Macgregor break away from that trend?
“I may very well put on the occasional survey of contemporary Australian art, but a lot of the time I will be looking for a mix such as you’ve mentioned. Last year, as a result of spending three months in Melbourne, my colleague at the Ikon Claire Dougherty curated an exhibition called Claustrophobia. It had twelve artists in it, three of whom were Australian – Howard Arkley, Caroline Eskdale and Kathy Temin. That is exactly the kind of mix we would like to be looking at when we are doing big thematic shows. Just yesterday one of the curators at the MCA gave me a proposal for a show she’d like to do which has something like 15 Australian and six international artists in it. I think those kind of things would be really good to look at.”

The function of the museum causes little problem in the world’s great centres of art such as New York and Paris. In such places the visitor and the resident will find not only museums of modern art but also museums of contemporary art as well as those specialising in everything from classical antiquity or Asian art to museums devoted to the life’s work of individual artists. And if you can’t find the museum you are seeking the chances are it is still being built or is under refurbishment.
By contrast, in cities like Sydney and Melbourne the function and role of museums is constantly up for discussion. Sydney has a museum of contemporary art but no museum of modern art. However its state gallery fulfils just about every role imaginable from custodian of the nation’s treasures to contemporary project space. It is not unlike London’s Tate Gallery (a comparison which will change dramatically with the addition of the new Bankside site), and as such it is one of my favourite forms of art gallery. I enjoy a mixed visual diet just as I enjoy listening to high opera and acid rock, and am not afraid to admit that two of my favourite artists would be El Greco and Damien Hirst. When I visit the AGNSW I am fed well.
So how should an incoming director of a museum of contemporary art plan a visual menu that will appeal to the intelligent lay person, the curious family dipping in for a Sunday outing, and the professional artists, critics and theorists? One might also mention the bevvies of hairdressers and fashion designers whom Joanna Mendelsohn told the Bulletin’s readers often seem to make up the majority of the institutions’ interested shareholders? Can the popular and the elite be held together within the fabric of one building like two opposing ideas? I asked Macgregor about her experiences at Birmingham.

“Our way of operating is really important,” she told me. “One of the things that we try to do in our new building is to bring together the diverse aspects of the gallery’s programming. This includes its main gallery exhibitions, its community touring program which takes small scale programs to libraries and community centres all round the region, plus its other outreach and education work which had hitherto acted almost like three separate units. I’ll give you an example of one of the most successful ways that happened. When we were closed for the refurbishment we commissioned Yinka Shonibare, who was in Lynne Cooke’s Sydney Biennale, to make a project with a group of Birmingham people. He’d never worked in that way before in terms of his art practice although he was working part-time as an arts development worker at Shake, the organisation for people with disabilities. We asked him to come up with a project working with a group of local people, to make an exhibition that was built around the idea of how museum’s classify people but was also about how people identify themselves. Each of the participants in the project made a show-case about their lives – some of it fictional, some of it real. That took place over about six months and became a small scale touring exhibition which we sent out to libraries, hospitals, and community centres. Afterwards it was incorporated into Yinka’s solo show at the Ikon so that it came back into the core of the institution, and one of the things this did was to break down any hierarchy between the gallery and the outreach program. What was great was that all the participants have become huge supporters of the Ikon, so it was good for audience development because news of the show spreads into the community through family and friends.
Through working with an artist it was possible to break down all these preconceptions that “modern art’s not for me” - things that people commonly say about art when they haven’t had a chance to experience it. Taking all of that one stage further with the Ikon staff, we then abolished all the separate disciplines of education, touring, and exhibitions and just called everybody curators. They do all perform different roles, but they are all involved in the heart of the planning process and that has had a huge impact on the way that we do things. We recently worked with Adam Chodzko in a similar way. But I think that’s going to be one of the great challenges for the MCA. It’s got a building that’s fabulous, and in a great location, but it is a bit like a fortress. And I think one of the things to do is to break down the idea some people in Sydney have that “it’s not for us.” There’s still a perception - and politically this is something of a problem - that contemporary art is not for the people, it’s for the wealthy. I was disappointed to see in a survey in Australia that 50 % of people thought the arts were only for the “Chardonney drinking classes.” Although I’m sceptical about the way many of these surveys are framed. But I don’t just want the MCA to be popular with the public, I want it to be popular with artists, whether its running “life after art school” programs or opening up our library to them. It’s one of the best art libraries I’ve seen anywhere, with an equally great librarian called Meg who flies up from Tasmania every few months.
My final question was about when we would see her first exhibition at the MCA.
“It’s very difficult to say. Looking at the program from now into 2000 I think the first show I’ll really be able to influence is the Olympic slot next year. We are currently looking at that, but I don’t yet know what it will be.”
I left her in the capable hands of Claire Williamson who, when she was a curator at ACCA in Melbourne, had spent three months working with Liz Ann at the Ikon. As I walked towards Spencer Street station I reflected on her recent staff meetings and was presumptuous enough to ponder what three changes I’d bring to the MCA: