Page 62 - Studio International - October 1970

Melbourne Installation shot 'Harald Szeemann in Australia'
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne,
commentary: June—July 1971
From the left : Ceramic cars by Margaret Dodd
Untitled by Ross Grounds
Harald Szeemann Pigment catch by Guy Stuart
Wan pieces by Aleksander Dantro
Photoscripts by Warren Knight
in Australia Photo : George Mehes
2 Ti Parks
Ross Lansell Mixed media, 1o> Ii x 11 ft
Banner 1969-70
Collection: Pinacotheca Gallery, Melbourne
Photo: George Mehes

Frankly I've had some serious misgivings
about filing the following negative report,
particularly since it's almost certainly the first
acquaintance of readers of this journal with
Melbourne-oriented art. But pussyfooting is
not an especially admirable practice, particularly
in the long run. One may as well be right or
wrong (odds-on the latter) with passion, as
Baudelaire advocated.
No potted histories either for those readers
entirely unacquainted with Australian art,
since textbooks of sorts such as Robert Hughes's
The Art of Australia and Bernard Smith's
Australian Painting 1788-196o are fairly
readily available.' Instead, in media res;
specifically, the questionable outcome of the
1972 Kassal Documenta director Dr Harald
Szeemann's breakneck Australian tour last
April, quite properly disdainfully mounted,
after a Sydney season, at Melbourne's art
establishment, the NATIONAL GALLERY OF
VICTORIA, last June—July. Bearing in mind
Harold Rosenberg's admonition about
`swinging curators', what did Szeemann think
about contemporary Australian art ? And what
did we think of Szeemann's thinking ?
This extraordinary stunt came about through
the efforts of the prosperous Sydney fabric
maker cum art collector and entrepreneur John
Kaldor. Officially, this was his 'Art Project
No. Two'. The first was Christo Javacheff's
famous massive plastic wrap-up of part of the
Sydney coastline in 1969, one of the few
internationally newsworthy occasions in
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