The Art Gallery of NSW’s head of International Art, Tony Bond, is retiring from the job. He’ll hang up his wig and mitre next month after 29 years acquiring work for the gallery and curating some of its best remembered exhibitions. Noted for his die hard commitment to modernist masterpieces Bond acquired key pieces for the gallery collection including works by Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley, Tony Cragg and Anselm Keifer.
In a story in today’s The Sydney Morning Herald by Michael Fitzgerald, Bond looks forward post-retirement to tending his patch – literally – he owns a vineyard in the Blue Mountains. But even with the exit now planned, Bond hints at the ever expanding AGNSW will expand even further:
Leaving the gallery at a crossroads under the new director, Michael Brand, Bond is hopeful of its future. ”If we get a new building, we could be a lot more flexible about how we use the collection and that would be great,” he says. ”Definitely Aboriginal and contemporary art are going to have a much higher profile.”
Pic: Anselm Kiefer, Glaube, Hoffnung, Liebe, 1984-1986.
