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"A victim of its own success", a "Frankenstein "; these are Peter Timms' descriptions of his "monster" show, Getting to Know Mr Booth. Such apparent ambivalence from a curator faced with national praise! The extent to which it is possible to measure an exhibition as a success or failure, and the means by which this might be achieved, are questions of continuing debate within the art museum profession and often in relation to requests from funding bodies to show their worth in statistics, or in "queues at the door". The outcomes of the curatorial strategies of this successful exhibition, rather than its success, are the subject of this review.
David Hansen, Director of Riddoch Art Gallery, the originating gallery for this exhibition, commented that in Painting 1982, Riddoch Art Gallery had "located every difficulty" the Mt Gambier community had with contemporary art-"including size, cost, it was nasty and it had a dick ". Powerfulness/empowerment and powerlessness are the themes of both the central painting in the show, Booth's Painting 1982, and the premise upon which Peter Timms has curated the openended, detective-game style exhibition, with the intention to teach the audience the skills with which to interpret the work. The curatorial style is intuitive and non-prescriptive in its intent, at once empowering the non-art educated public for whom it has been designed and restricting the art educated public who made up the bulk of the audience at the opening lectures at Brisbane City Hall Art Gallery and Museum.
Around the central work, curator Peter Timms has gathered an informing array of artworks, by artists including Hieronymus Bosch, Diane Arbus, Lean Golub, Francisco Goya, Arthur Boyd, and others. Peter Timms does