The National Gallery of Australia will get a significant funding injection over the next four years to fix its building and build up the national collection, according to the mid-year budget update.
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The government will give an extra $63.8 million over four years, including a one-off capital injection of $6.2 million to carry out urgent repairs on the 40-year-old building.
It will also give an additional $14.4 million per year to “enable the gallery to continue to safeguard and exhibit its important collection of artworks”.
Director Nick Mitzevich said the funding boost was a “great shot in the arm” for the gallery, and one that he had been working towards since he first took on the helm in July.
The gallery has also just opened a major international summer blockbuster, Love & Desire: Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces from the Tate, which will see the usual interstate crowds coming through the doors.
“Obviously it's a great vote of confidence in the vision our new chairman Ryan Stokes and I have put in place, and we're looking to the year ahead,” Mr Mitzevich said.
“My focus is to make sure that the existing building is in great shape and then to make sure the gallery is bursting at the seams, to make sure that we're contributing to the cultural life of Australia and for me, when you're bursting at the seams, that's the best argument for development.
“Being down at heel or having a broken wheel is not good enough anymore. You have to show need, and you have to be able to demonstrate the impact that you make and how you contribute to the cultural life of Australia, and that's what I'll be focusing on.”
He said he and Mr Stokes, who was appointed the gallery council’s new chair in June, had worked hard to respond to the findings of a damning report from the National Audit Office in June that found, among other things, that the gallery had been forced to use government funding meant for acquiring and maintaining new works to prop up its operating budget.
“Ryan and I, when we started, took the findings of the National Audit Office report, that was released in June this year, very seriously, and we've been working closely with the minister to raise this as a serious issue,” Mr Mitzevich said.
“We've made some internal structural changes in response to the report in the gallery, and now we're heartened that the government has also seen the urgency of our need, and responded accordingly.”
While the gallery has plans to expand and build a new wing for Australian art in the future, Mr Mitzevich said his priority in the near future was to repair the existing building.
“It's very important, it's one of the leading public buildings, not in Canberra but in Australia. It's a masterpiece of the early 1980s, and it's also an important public building,” he said.
The capital works funding will be on top of the $21.5 million announced in the 2018-19 budget to deal with urgent maintenance issues, including leaking roofs in exhibition areas.
“The leaking roof is a work in progress, the $21.5 million is part of fixing that problem, but it's an issue that will take about nine to 12 months to rectify,” Mr Mitzevich said.
“My immediate focus will be the building works to repair the existing building, because we have 57 priority projects.”
He said the extra funding for acquisitions would restore the gallery’s full acquisition budget.
“The national audit office identified that we were using funds from our collections budget to fix capital problems, building issues and operational issues, so we will not have to divert that anymore,” he said.
“This essentially is a reset of our budget, and it means that we can be sustainable and that we can make sure that the national collection grows in its ambition, as the government has always intended it to be.”
