“I know something and you know something else”

Talk: 

Chris Durcon

Art Gallery of NSW

July 13, 2013

“I know something and you know something else”

This is the maxim of Chris Durcon, Director of Tate Modern, London, who was in Australia this week to talk to Sydney and Melbourne audiences about the lecture title: The 21^st–century museum. Durcon typifies this new breed of the polymathic museum directors with hybrid accents and lucrative personal brands that they bring to their posts. This puts them more into the frame of the ‘roving curator’ than the static directorships of administrations past.  

Thanks to the increasingly powerful arts muscle that is Kaldor Public Art Projects audiences received an intimate presentation from Durcon, free of charge. A sort of BorisGroys meets Richard Branson, he is relaxed, sagacious and infectious in his quest to open up, enliven and activate a public museum model that is fit for the 21^st-century.

The lecture explored what audiences should expect from their museums and what museums shouldn’t give to their audiences. (And by ‘museum’, he means what we would locally refer to as galleries.)   

The 21^st-century audience is the primary stakeholder in these civic-minded spaces. In the Western, secular society the museum is a platform for community congregation. The museum site is meeting place that invites the audience to be part of the experience, shifting the historic model from consumer to contributor. Enabling what Durcon calls the “collective production of memory”.

Durcon also advocates a return to the original meaning of curator, as a person who ‘takes care’. But in this instance they are stewards for the public good rather than public goods. This again reiterates the quickly changing role of the 21^st-century museum from an object-orientated site to an experiential place.

Durcon also assigns new responsibilities to audiences, as they must learn how to make decisions for themselves in order to become part of the new museum experience. He also raised the point of imposed “self-denial”, by not showing audiences what they want to see. I assume this comment is directed at the marathon, tea towel merchandise-friendly exhibitions that finance the briefer, edgier shows. I found Durcon’s analogy “you know what happens to a sponge that stays wet for more than a month” rather helpful to summarise that insight.

In light of Durcon’s lecture, what I think we all know is that the Art Gallery of NSW is an institution on the move. Given that the ‘existingbuilding is ill-equipped to meet the needs of the 21st century’ and ‘stifles the Gallery’s ability to attract visitors, stage major exhibitions and fulfil its role as the principal art museum serving Australia’s global city’, the plans for the Sydney Modern expansion seem suddenly very pressing. While the expansion’s main emphasis is on increasing the gallery’s physical space, Sydney Modern will allow Australia to participate on the global, shared platform of cultural production.

Interview with Dr. Rebecca Huntley: Gen Y, leadership and the arts

    

 Dr Rebecca Huntley is a researcher and author with a background in publishing, academia and politics. She holds degrees in law and film studies and a PhD in Gender Studies.

Rebecca is a social researcher and an Executive Director of The Mind and Mood Report, Australia's longest running social trends report. She is the author of three books, The World According to Gen Y: Inside the New Adult Generation, Eating Between the Lines: food and equality in Australia, and her most recent memoir, The Italian Girl. 

When Rebecca isn’t talking to Australians about their lives, she is working on her fiction and non-fiction projects, cooking and knitting.

We can’t have it all. Gen Y has seen that with the Gen X’ers. With this in mind, do you think Gen Y will have a more lifestyle-orientated approach to career and social goals?

Absolutely. We are seeing this already in both young men and women in Gen Y even before they get married and have kids. The desire for a life outside work, activities that promote health and wellbeing, travel, time with friends, passions and a like-long commitment to learning.

Gen Y characterizes the notion of the individual as his or her own brand identity. How do you see this unfolding within setting of large corporations and companies where you are just a number, where the individual is discouraged in favor of the collective personality of the workplace? Do you think there will be cultural and organisational revisions to allow for this?

Yes, we can already see this in terms of how consumers, younger and older, are using social media and creating their own content, lobbying or bypassing big media and corporations.

On the contrary, do you think the self-confidence and can-do attitude of Gen Y will see a meaningful shift towards a more mobile, multi-skilled and self-determined workforce?

Yes but only the very skilled and very adaptable will thrive in this market. I worry that those without those skills will get duded along the way.

As a legacy of graduating high school and university during the decade of the crisis’s, crunches, recessions and downturns, Gen Y has, it’s fair to say, never experienced economic confidence that was a fixed feature for the Gen X’ers and Baby Boomers. How do you think this will result in the decades to come, as Gen Y’s start to become leaders in politics, business and culture?

The theory is they will be more flexible and adaptable but again the comment above still holds true. Will Aussie Gen Y’s still support the idea of a social safety net for those who aren’t on the upside of the changing economy?

From your observations, what do you think it takes to be an effective and influential leader in the creative and cultural industries of today?

Passion. Education. The ability to take risks. And again, adaptability.

Gemaine Greer’s advice to women is to stop cleaning, or just do once a month at the most. What’s your advice to young women, who want big, satisfying careers as well as big, fulfilling lives?

Choose a supportive partner! Realise there will be tides in your career, big waves and little ones, so learn how to body surf and don’t get dumped when you aren’t paying attention. Be honest but assertive with your employer. Lean in as Cheryl tells us.

Last question, you can choose any piece of art in the world to own. What will it be?

Guernica. I would then sell it and fill my house with less expensive but nevertheless important work by Italian futurists like Giorgio Morandi and Giocoma Balla. Also a few Emily Kame Kngwarreyes please.