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Tony Bond on Perspecta

interviewed by Graham Coulter-Smith

Graham Coulter-Smith
Eyeline 08
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Tony Bond is Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Apart from curating Perspecta, he is involved in curating several other regular exhibitions, plus special projects, and the development of the international contemporary collection. 

GRAHAM COULTER-SMITH
We may as well begin with a question about the last Perspecta, the infamous 1987 Perspecta which gave rise to the notion of the new "academy". Why was this show so elitist, isn't Perspecta supposed to be a survey of what's happening now in Australian art? 

TONY BOND
Do you select a small nucleus of major artists, have a theme, or make it a free for all? I don't really think there's any stable con­cept of what Perspecta is. There's no historical reason to suppose that it was ever intended to have a rigid format. The first two Perspectas, after all, were dealing with a broad spectrum of artists, although it wasn't a young people's show in either case. The discussion after '83 was how do you go on with Perspecta and continue to maintain its standards, it might have to focus down to a tighter, tougher show. I tended to believe that that was the case. I thought that if we went on trying to show people not previously exposed then probably the show would cease to have great relevance. 

On the other hand in '85, for my first Perspecta, I was delighted when I went out into the community and discovered that there was a full stratum of people who were worthy of attention, but hadn't been shown. And that experience led to that show involv­ing 150 artists. 

After '85 my feeling was that I'd earned a... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

Ken Orchard, Blueprint (for a moment of intertia), 1988. 12 panelled woodblock print on Stonehenge paper, 369 x 516cm. Courtesy Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney. 

Ken Orchard, Blueprint (for a moment of intertia), 1988. 12 panelled woodblock print on Stonehenge paper, 369 x 516cm. Courtesy Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney. 

Jay Younger, Anxiety as Style Nice Blue Version: noiserV eulB eciN elytS sa yteixnA, 1989. Cibachrome, approx. 127 x 102cm. Courtesy Milburn + Arté, Brisbane, Sydney, Paris. 

Jay Younger, Anxiety as Style Nice Blue Version: noiserV eulB eciN elytS sa yteixnA, 1989. Cibachrome, approx. 127 x 102cm. Courtesy Milburn + Arté, Brisbane, Sydney, Paris.