New Gallery Director Outlines Aims

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31994, 22 May 1969, Page 12

New Gallery Director Outlines Aims

“The Press’* Special Service PALMERSTON NORTH. Mr B. D. Muir, who has been appointed director of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery after holding a similar post in Palmerston North for nearly a year, said today that he felt his youth—he is 26—would be an advant-, age in his new position because he was still receptive to ideas which he personally opposed, and had the energy to keep ahead of the present trend in New Zealand art.

He hoped he could change i the old concept of art galleries as “tombs preserving old things, or things worth looking at.” He listed his aims as providing good works for the public to appreciate and frequent temporary exhibitions, including all styles of visual objects from classical art to industrial design. When building a permanent collection, Mr Muir said, he resisted the practice of leaving each work in the same position for 50 years. He hoped that people would be attracted to galleries by the novelty of their presentation and the fact that each time something was viewed it could be seen in a different light.

Displays should concentrate on themes, art periods or subjects, and not on a total display of the whole collection at once.

Mr Muir said he tried to make people react to what they saw. In pursuing this he had found opposition among persons who considered art was restricted to pleasant scenes.

By developing a gallery along these lines he hoped that people would be drawn repeatedly to the gallery, “not because it is the right thing to do, but because they want to.”

To strengthen the gallery’s place as a living centre he planned to hold recitals and informal discussions in an

atmosphere in which no-one would feel excluded. The Robert McDougall Art Gallery was well established but in need of a change. It held an important position among the galleries of New Zealand, and had the additional advantage of being close to a fine arts school where the new movements in art could be observed as they developed, he said.