Peter Matthews, Director, Regional Arts
Victoria
The notion of a Museum of Modern Art is for
many in Australia an oxymoron. Museums are thought to be depositories
of old stuff to look at, and the more progressive museum will
do interesting cultural interpretive things with the old stuff.
But I would think that a Museum of Modern Art is really just an
art gallery to most Australians. Therefore the question of where
museums fit in the Arts is an easy one to answer - they don’t.
Perhaps if the question were to be asked in other countries, the
answer would be different.
It is indisputable that Museums, in all their
forms, are an important part of the cultural landscape - but depending
on your own definition, they may not be part of the arts landscape.
I wonder if rather than arguing that Museums are part of the Arts,
it would be better to argue the cultural value of Museums and
convince the arts funding agencies to take a broader cultural
view of their policy area. I appreciate that this is no easy task,
but it might prove to be the more effective path in the long term.
It is also worth noting that Museums Australia
(Vic) is one of the major beneficiaries of state government funding
through Arts Victoria. So the museum sector does get a fair slice
of the arts pie, as do the Library sector and the Public Records
Office, for that matter.
I would suggest that an enlivened Museum community,
which reaches its audience in contemporary and exciting ways,
has more of a chance of shifting the policy boundaries than by
arguing that Museums are part of the Arts and the people who run
them are artists. I have no doubt, as Jenny suggests, that there
are many creative and talented people who develop museums and
their programs. However there are creative and talented people
in many professions - teachers, designers, architects, and so
on. The suggestion that they are ‘artists’ is more complicated
than simply being a question of creativity and talent. ‘Who
is an artist’ is a debate that travels the ground from the
argument that ‘we are all artists because we all have the
capacity for artistic expression’ to arguments that distinguish
artistic endeavour by its quality. Or, expressed another way,
the professional artist, who is normally the beneficiary of arts
funding, as opposed to those who engage in arts practice for personal
fulfilment.
Regional Arts Victoria, and before it the
Victorian Arts Council, has in its thirty-year history had little
to do with Museums, although some of our 70 regional affiliate
groups would no doubt have local connections with regional Museums.
Our focus has been on performing and community arts, and more
recently on visual arts in schools, public and community arenas.
However, this is not to say we would not be
willing to do so. As I understand it, the ‘collections versus
interpretation’ debate is one in constant flux in the Museum
community. The interpretative aspect of both the collections and
the buildings that house them, and how they relate to regional
communities, may be the most interesting point of crossover between
museums and the arts, and we would be happy to explore it.