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It's three days before Christmas but, rather than winding-down, National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) Director Tony Ellwood is, if anything, accelerating. The state's new Labor Government has only recently been sworn in (including the freshly minted Minister for Creative Industries, Martin Foley), and for Ellwood there are plans to make and people to meet. We meet in the Director's light-filled and catalogue-lined office (publishing is a particular passion), a former NGV Art School room which overlooks a serene expanse of moat and one of NGV International's signature bluestone walls - a view which Ellwood describes as 'very Melbourne'. Indeed, since taking over the helm from Gerard Vaughan in August 2012, Ellwood has made Melbourne central to the NGV's mission, most notably with their hugely ambitious contemporary survey of the city's visual artists, 'Melbourne Now' (2013-14). Almost a year on since that show garnered a massive 753,000 visitors, Ellwood takes brief pause to consider its legacy - and the NGV's future - in the following edited interview.1
Michael Fitzgerald: You've already outlined much of your extensive 2015 program, including two Federation Square exhibitions - 'Shifting Gear' and 'Indigenous Art: Moving Backwards into the Future' - that have been partly inspired by 'Melbourne Now5, which opened up the gallery to working more closely with the city's design sector and urban Indigenous artists. How else would you describe the legacy of 'Melbourne Now' 12 months on?
Tony Ellwood: It's heartening to hear external people say that it's influenced their curatorial or artistic practice, which I do hear. I try not to talk about ['Melbourne Now5] too much because I really want to keep my eye on the future, but it has certainly given the institution a confidence that I don't think it had before to curate in new ways, and to work across collections and to pair different styles of curatorial practice together. It's also given us the opportunity to show a bit more flair when it comes to publishing, and to rely...