the first director of the Museum of Contemporary Art who shaped how Australians experience art
- Written by: Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Senior Fellow, School of Culture and Communication. Editor in chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
In 1975 when Gough Whitlam opened the Manet to Matisse exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which had come to Australia from the United States, he proudly proclaimed it was only possible as the Australian government had
indemnified the owners of the works comprising the exhibition against loss or damage to a total amount of US$70 million. Without this support the exhibition would very likely have not been possible because of the prohibitive cost of normal insurance cover.
In 1975, US$70 million was the equivalent of A$100 million. A Sydney tabloid newspaper ran a double page spread showing some of the great art to show their readers “What $100 million looks like”.
European art of this quality had never previously been seen in Australia. The queue to see the exhibition stretched all the way down Art Gallery Road to St Mary’s Cathedral.
Four years later the Art Indemnity Scheme was formalised. It is the policy that makes exhibitions like Magritte and Pharaoh possible.
Leon Francis Parossien, who negotiated with Whitlam, Lionel Murphy and the American lenders to the exhibition to create a new way of protecting art in transit, died on November 5 after a long illness.
Parossien was one of the great enablers of our creative landscape. He imagined a better future, then made it happen.
A vision, and a plan
As with many of his generation, Parossien’s pathway to education was through a teaching scholarship. After initial studies at RMIT, he taught in Victorian secondary schools before completing a bachelor of arts at the University of Melbourne.
He was subsequently appointed to teach art history at the Melbourne Teachers College, followed by an appointment as a senior lecturer at the Tasmanian School of Art.
The breadth of his understanding of what art could be, combined with his administrative abilities, made him a logical choice to be the first director of the Visual Arts Board of the fledgling Australia Council.
Parossien’s great talent was that he was able to both have a vision for the Big Picture – the way he wanted the world to be – and to understand the ways and means to get there. He knew supporting the arts was more complex than giving grants to individual artists.
At the Australia Council he was responsible for advocating funding for exhibitions, and organisations that could administer them. He negotiated seed funding to establish a professional association of art historians. The Art Association of Australia and New Zealand celebrates its 50th anniversary next month.
When the Sydney Opera House opened in 1973 with a very small international exhibition, ambitiously named “The Biennale of Sydney”, Leon thought of the exciting exhibition of sculpture held at Mildura earlier that year. He ensured that Mildura’s director, Tom McCullough, was fully supported in creating the memorable 1976 Biennale.
Some years after he left the Australia Council, Parossien directed the 1984 Biennale of Sydney. Josef Beuys’ installation, 7000 oaks (7000 iechen), is still growing today, between the two Art Gallery of NSW buildings.
A contemporary collection
In 1984, Paroissien and his partner Bernice Murphy were appointed to share the single position of curator of the Power Collection at the University of Sydney.
Murphy had previously been the curator of contemporary art at the Art Gallery of NSW. Both the collection and the department of fine arts had been funded by the bequest of John Wardell Power “to make available to the people of Australia the latest ideas and theories in the plastic arts”.
A distinguished collection had been assembled, but as the Power funds had been depleted, most of the collection remained in storage. Negotiations with the then premier, Neville Wran, led to the university being offered use of the old Maritime Services Building at Circular Quay.
The newly completed planting for the First Fleet Park in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art, in 1988.
City Engineer's Department Negatives, 1980-1988/City of Sydney Archives, CC BY-NC-ND
In 1989, it was announced that, while it would continue its links with the Power Bequest, the new building would be called the Museum of Contemporary Art. Paroissien was named its first director, while Murphy was chief curator.
When the Power collection was first established there was an assumption that “contemporary art” could not include work from “provincial” Australia. The previous curator, Elwyn Lynn (who had accepted gifts of works from Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan), believed it was against the terms of the bequest to spend money on Australian art.
Paroissien and Murphy saw Australian art, and indeed art from all countries, as being a part of a neverending visual conversation. Shortly after their appointment they held an exhibition of Aboriginal art from Ramingining in the Northern Territory, which was later bought in its entirety.
By purchasing the Ramingining Collection they indicated both that art sees no boundaries, and that Australia should celebrate its own culture.
Leon Paroissien, right, with Victor and Lottie Smorgon when they donated their collection to the MCA in 1995.
Supplied
European and American art was not abandoned. Paroissien’s time at the MCA saw exhibitions by Robert Mapplethorpe and Marina Abramović.
After leaving the MCA 1998, Paroissien was appointed director to develop a new Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei.
As well as full time positions, Parossien was active in many advisory positions, including chairing the public art committee of the Sydney Olympic Advisory Committee. He was also an editor, of Art and Australia and many other publications. He will be fondly remembered as a mentor to later generations of curators and arts administrators.
In a statement describing the impact of Parossien’s life, Susan Templeman, the Australian government’s Special Envoy for the Arts said, “Leon planted seeds from which towering trees have grown”.
It is an appropriate metaphor.
Authors: Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Senior Fellow, School of Culture and Communication. Editor in chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
