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To mark the occasion, the museum present ‘beyond the Tower: UQ Art Museum – 40 years and counting’, an exhibition surveying the museum’s history with 130 works of art from their collection of more than 3700 pieces.
UQ Art Museum Director and exhibition co-curator Dr Campbell Gray said the exhibition emphasises the rich and thought-provoking collection of artworks held by The University of Queensland.
“Since our doors opened in 1976, we’ve been committed to critiquing current issues and contemporary art through our acquisition program, exhibitions and events,” Dr Gray said.
“The exhibition highlights this central focus and reveals the diversity and vibrancy of the collection.”
The exhibition’s title, ‘beyond the Tower’, alludes to the Museum’s beginnings on the upper levels of UQ’s Forgan Smith Tower, before it moved to the repurposed James and Mary Emelia Mayne Centre – formerly Mayne Hall – in 2004.
In keeping with the Museum’s foundational aims, the development of the Collection and the exhibition program has been led largely by the desire to unpack ‘the contemporary’ – works of art that interrogate, critique and record the present moment. ‘beyond the Tower’ reminisces over the changes and challenges of the past and, with that as context, to set the compass for the decade ahead.
Co-curator Samantha Littley said the exhibition was an opportunity to acknowledge the generosity of donors and to recognise how donated artworks had helped shape the collection.
“Purchasing decisions are driven by collecting policies, but donated artworks enter a collection more serendipitously, and viewers will see that in the way we have hung this show,” Littley said.
“The central spaces feature artworks purchased around the time they were made, while a selection of artworks donated to the University occupy surrounding walls and alcoves in more eclectic arrangements, signifying the respective elements of design and chance inherent in these modes of acquisition.
The generosity of donors extended beyond the collection and had influenced the expansion of the museum over the years through financial contributions and bequests from individuals from a wide spectrum. The University’s commitment to collecting significant works of contemporary art has also been a factor in the development of the Museum over the years.
UQ’s incoming Chancellor, Mr Peter Varghese AO, will officially open ‘beyond the Tower: UQ Art Museum, 40 years and counting’ on Friday 15 July.
Public program: Saturday 16 July, 2pm:
Join exhibition curators Dr Campbell Gray and Samantha Littley for a tour of the exhibition, followed by a conversation with inaugural Director Dr Nancy Underhill.
UQ Art Museum
9 July to 13 November, 2016
Queensland
