TONY ELLWOOD
Director, National Gallery of Victoria (ngv.vic.gov.au)
“Melbourne is a city that’s always moved in and out of a conversation about art because art is a natural extension of what it is to be a Melburnian. It’s right in your face when you walk down a laneway, as you read a menu in a bar or look at the lighting design of a new café. We don’t see it as some sort of tourist trope; it’s simply a part of who we are.
It’s never static. There might be a stencil or spray art in a corner – maybe Fitzroy or somewhere you mightn’t go too often, like the west or further north – and in six months it’s painted out for something completely different.
When I walk through the NGV I love to pick a corner. The rooms of decorative arts – which were modelled on the decorative arts rooms of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum – are particularly magical. It’s amazing to look into one case and delve into 17th-century silver and in the next are 18th-century ceramics. I’m constantly learning.
I love a quiet Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon at the gallery – I recommend those times when I have friends in town. The atmosphere is slightly more tempered, more tame. But on the flipside, a Saturday afternoon before the football crowds go off to the MCG has a buzz. At that time you’ll get a really diverse audience who tend to be more vocal about what they like and don’t like. There’s an energy to that I enjoy.
In Melbourne you can be talking to someone who you might think is only interested in science or maths or football or whatever and you’ll mention a cultural experience and they’ll be totally into it. On the Friday nights we do at the NGV – with DJs, food, performers, that kind of thing – one of the demographics that comes out in full force is men in their 20s. The sort of guys you’d expect to see at the football are comfortably coming out to view art on a Friday night. That’s Melbourne.”