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T
he overarching feeling one gets from the recently opened Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, at Adelaide’s University of South Australia, and its launch exhibition, ‘Wonderful World’, is that they are very much of the ‘here and now’. Both the space and exhibition resonate with our current ‘noughties’ values in presentation, as well as artist representation, with this exhibition showing exclusively Australian and South Australian artists.1 Of course, ‘now’ is an inseparable bed-friend of the past and the future; it displays the results of where we have been and indicates to some extent where we are headed. But ‘here’ is slightly more elusive. Though these artists are linked by geographic location, their personal and yet globally-focused ‘heres’ continue to prod at that perennial, though outdated conundrum, ‘what constitutes “Australian” art?’ That aside, ‘Wonderful World’ in the brand new Samstag Museum is a viewing experience permeated with a mix of nostalgia, excitement, apprehension and sublimity; all qualities relevant to our ‘here and now’ existence.
The recently named Samstag Museum of Art we see today has arisen from an active past as the University of South Australia gallery. Director, Erica Green, has guided it since 1991 through its previous incarnations; as a large gallery space on the now-demolished Underdale campus, to its 1998 relocation within a somewhat compromised warehouse awaiting demolition at the current City West campus site. Now, after a long time planning, the Samstag Museum is in its first custom-built space. Situated within the Hawke Building, an impressive structure, designed by John Wardle Architects in association with Hassell, this gallery has been built for flexibility; set over two stories, it can host one large exhibition or two... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline