Reopening of galleries a boon for art-starved Sydneysiders

When NSW art galleries start opening their doors next week, eager art lovers should perhaps take as many precautions against the medical condition known as Stendahl Syndrome as they will against the coronavirus.

Named for the French novelist and critic known as Stendhal, who became physically sick from feasting on too much art in Florence in 1817, the psychosomatic disorder is known to cause rapid heartbeat, fainting and even hallucinations. Art-starved Sydneysiders could encounter the same reaction when galleries reopen their doors for the first time since March warns art historian and lecturer Lorraine Kypiotis, education outreach coordinator at the National Art School.

“Some people do have a physical reaction to art especially if they have an emotional connection to a work," she says of the syndrome which still afflicts gallery visitors in Florence today.

"There’s nothing that replaces the physical experience of seeing an artwork up close; to stand so close you can see the texture of the paint or feel the smoothness of the marble. With people hankering to have galleries open again, many will recall this feeling of being overwhelmed by a sense of an artwork's beauty,” says Kypiotis, who is also a guest lecturer at the Art Gallery of NSW which opens again on Monday.

“Returning to the Art Gallery of NSW will be for many like visiting an old friend. Some people will just want to stand near the works as they would an old friend, regardless of the fact they may have seen them many times. Some will just go straight to old favourites,” she says, admitting she's eager to see Australian artist Elioth Gruner’s Spring Frost (1919), which depicts a small herd of dairy cows in the early morning.

Art Gallery of NSW director Michael Brand is looking forward to opening the doors for art lovers to visit old friends (in the permanent collection) and new (the Biennale of Sydney). Just what art galleries mean to a community is a question he has been pondering while working in the near-empty gallery these past months, curating a new show called Some Mysterious Process. He's decided they are way more than public institutions where you can come to see art.

“You can time-travel and mind-travel, and given we’ve all been locked down in our houses so long, they will again be places you can get out of your own little world and explore the wider world through the art form,” he says.

As well as seeing the widely acclaimed works in this year’s Biennale, Brand encourages visitors to visit and see with fresh eyes the Pukumani burial poles (1958), juxtaposed in the gallery 's collection with Indigenous bark paintings and the works by 20th century artists Tony Tuckson, Ian Fairweather and Fred Williams.

“There are very few people who would walk into that room and think 'I can do better than this',” he says. "They show you why we need to appreciate all Australian artists."

The 101 predominantly Indigenous artists in curator Brook Andrew’s Biennale of Sydney, NIRIN have been widely acclaimed. The event was open for only 10 days in March and CEO Barbara Moore is thrilled the event has now been extended.

“I think art galleries are sanctuaries; they are calm no matter what is going on in the outside world, and there’s a certain smell, a light, a feeling you get that you don't get anywhere else,” she says.

“NIRIN as an exhibition is about connection and healing and all the things we are craving right now. There’s a real thirst to be able to experience art again and to feel that good force,” she says.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, is showing two floors of NIRIN works, when it reopens on June 16 (it's general collection remains closed until further notice.) MCA Director Liz Ann Macgregor urges visitors not to miss Erkan Ozgen's video Wonderland, about a young boy who is mute and deaf, describing with his body his experiences in Syria when ISIS came to his village.

"I think it is one of the most powerful and affecting works about the trauma of war I have ever seen...Both mesmerising and distressing, it is a work that is not easily forgotten. As we emerge from the COVID-19 crisis, it is a reminder of the impact of war on children around the world," she says.

She also urges visitors to experience the outdoor Smorgon Sculpture Terrace with its bronze work Matter Matters by Danie Mellor.

"Sculpture is so hard to enjoy online – you need to walk around to appreciate these slender mangrove-inspired sculptures," she says.

For Herald art critic John McDonald, the Biennale in all its locations is a must see. For him, there is an unbridgeable gulf between the experience of standing in front of a work of art and seeing one reproduced online.

‘‘Not only does one lose a sense of (true) colour, texture and scale; the big absence is that indefinable ‘aura’ that Walter Benjamin discussed in his famous essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,’’ he says.

‘‘We’re now so thoroughly immersed in that age – many people are happy to stay home, sample and buy art online. This is a very dangerous moment, as we are diminishing our range of responses to a work. It encourages artists to make superficial products that only need to look good in a photo.’’

Associate professor Felicity Fenner, from UNSW’s Art & Design agrees, although she's been heartened by the number of people seeking her advice to buy art online in the COVID-19 era.

“When you shop online for a dress, you don’t get to feel the texture or see how the fabric falls; it’s the same with art online," she says.

As curator of City Dialogue: Public Art and the Biennale of Sydney – which is expected to re-open at Customs House to align with the Biennale – she feels exhibitions are set up so that the artworks are "in conversation".

“As a curator I need to advocate the importance of going out to see art, the objects are set up as if they are in conversations themselves, so we can have conversations about them,”she says.

David Williams, the curator at White Rabbit Gallery, hopes the Chippendale space which showcases one of the world's most significant collections of Chinese contemporary art, will help shape geopolitical conversations, when it reopens next Saturday, June 6.

“I think for visitors to White Rabbit the thing they will have missed most about our gallery are the art attendants, and the opportunity to have a conversation with them which makes the art accessible,” he says. Their current exhibition And Now, can contribute to a broader dialogue about China that does not just include COVID-19, he says.

“Given the virus began in China, we offer a different way to look at China through contemporary art."