Has the worldwide success of Bluey signalled the death knell for the Griffith University Art Museum?
GUAM, as it’s known in the art world, looks set to close soon, along with its accompanying South Bank Studio, in order to free up space for the university’s film students.
Pro-Vice chancellor (Arts Education and Law) Professor Scott Harrison says visitor numbers for GUAM have dwindled in recent years while film student enrolments are going gangbusters. It seems the success of Bluey, the creation of former student Joe Brumm, has something to do with that.
“The success of Bluey is a factor in the increased numbers of Griffith Film School students,” Prof Harrison says. “And then Lachlan Pendragon, another Griffith student, was nominated for an Oscar this year for his short film An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It. These things have an effect.”
Part of that effect will almost certainly be the closure of GUAM to make way for film students who are in a temporary space at West End until mid-2024.
Prof Harrison says it’s a difficult decision and agreed there was a bit of “angst” around that decision,
“I’d say there’s a lot of angst, which is fair enough,” he says. “I didn’t want to close it but we have to make space for the film school students. We’re in a formal consultation process with staff to be completed by December 15. Goodbye doesn’t mean forever, though.
“We are looking at the possibility of relocating (the art museum) to our CBD campus when that opens in a few years. Or we’d love a generous donor to step in with a new location.”
Prof Harrison says the university’s extensive art collection, most of which is displayed at various Griffith University campuses, will continue to be shown and the student gallery spaces at South Bank will remain. Artists booked to exhibit next year will be given as much notice as possible of the changes and appropriate action taken with respect to their contracts.
University art museums are traditionally important in the intellectual life of a city and the QUT Art Museum and UQ Art Museum made up a trio of top-notch galleries along with GUAM, although visitor numbers are relatively low for all of them.
One senior arts industry figure told us it was the business of universities to support and promote art, including the art of graduating students from the university’s Queensland College of Arts, and that it was travesty that GUAM would be closing.
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GUAM has flown under the radar for much of the time, although it made the headlines nationally in 2019 when a public furore erupted over the display of a painting, by sometimes-controversial artist Juan Davila, of the Virgin Mary cradling a penis. The Catholic Church and other Christian groups mounted a campaign to shut down the exhibition, which went ahead regardless.
GUAM has exhibited the work of a range of emerging and established artists, including Ben Quilty.
Prof Harrison says anyone seeking more answers on the proposed closure can refer to the museum’s website.
griffith.edu.au/art-museum
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