Priceless art that only security guards are seeing at GOMA

The European masterpieces exhibition at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art was drawing big crowds until everything shut down but the good news it is having an extended run.

You kind of hope the security staff at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane appreciate fine art because they are the only ones who are getting to look at a billion dollars worth of masterworks that are on display at the moment. Maybe that should be “were on display”. Are they actually on display if no-one can view them? It’s like that philosophical conundrum - “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

We know the works are there because we’ve seen them but we just can’t see them at the moment.

European masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is the biggest art blockbuster ever to come to Queensland and it’s a bit lonely right now. QAGOMA staff , including director Chris Saines, are all working from home.

“The doors are locked and the only people who can view them is security which is monitoring them,” Saines says.

Chris Saines hopes paintings such as Titian's Venus and Adonis will soon be viewed again at GOMA. Picture: NIGEL HALLETT

And it’s a shame because things were going swimmingly until the latest lockdown.

“It has been going superbly well,” Saines says. “Current attendance is 33,500 visits with about 1860 people per day since it opened. That’s a fabulous figure. We are extremely pleased.”

Saines says before lockdown 20 per cent of visitations were from interstate which is more than expected.

He points out that the exhibition has been designed for the Covid-19 era with plenty of space in the gallery.

“The work is so well spaced out and the rooms are big so there is no crowding,” Saines says. “People are being very respectful in the space. There is 2000 square meters of gallery space for the show and very high ceilings and this is an exhibition that has been designed with Covid in mind. There can be a bit of a wait to get in during normal times and before new restrictions we could have 800 people at a time. That is what we will probably return to after lockdown. We count them in and count them out.”

A work we are missing out on right now ... Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute c. 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner

Pre-booking a ticket gives you quicker access and because tickets aren’t timed or for specific dates if you have booked a ticket before lockdown it can be used anytime after lockdown.

Saines says the exhibition runs for longer than most international shows and that means ultimately everyone should be able to see it.

And what will they see? Masterpieces spanning 500 years - from the 1420s and emerging Renaissance to the height of early twentieth century post-impressionism. This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity also allows visitors to GOMA to experience works by painters such as Rembrandt, Rubens, Turner, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, and Monet, direct from The Met’s collection – one of the finest collections of European painting in the world, the majority of which rarely leave permanent display in New York.

Paris Dancers, Pink and Green c. 1890 by Edgar Degas is one of the masterpieces we will see again after lockdown

Highlights of the exhibition include Fra Angelico’s finely painted altarpiece The Crucifixion c. 1420–23; Titian’s poetic Venus and Adonis of the 1550s; the immediacy and drama of Caravaggio’s The Musicians 1597; Rembrandt’s painterly Flora of c.1654; Vermeer’s beautifully observed Allegory of the Catholic Faith c.1670-72, and van Gogh’s idyllic The Flowering Orchard 1888.

Right now these masterpieces are sitting in the cavernous galleries of GOMA unloved. But you can see and read about them on the gallery’s website in the interim. And hopefully we will all get to see them in the flesh ...or the canvas ...sooner rather than later. The exhibition runs until October 17.

qagoma.qld.gov.au