Museum of Contemporary Art Australia


The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, located in George Street, Sydney, is an Australian museum solely dedicated to exhibiting, interpreting and collecting contemporary art, both from across Australia and around the world. It is housed in the art deco-style former Maritime Services Board Building on the western edge of Circular Quay.
The museum was opened in 1991 as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and from 2010 underwent an 58 million expansion and re-development, reopening on 29 March 2012 under its current name as the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. The collection contains over 4,000 works by Australian artists that have been acquired since 1989. The collection spans all art forms with strong holdings in painting, photography, sculpture, works on paper and moving image, as well as significant representation of works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.

History

The establishment of the MCA was mandated in the will of Australian expatriate artist JW Power, who bequeathed his personal fortune to the University of Sydney with the express purpose of informing and educating Australians in the contemporary visual arts.
In December 1970 the University of Sydney also received the Seymour Bequest for the purposes of a performing arts centre, and sought to combine the two bequests into an arts complex that would include within it the Seymour Centre and the Power Institute facilities, including a home for the Power Gallery. The Seymour centre was opened in 1975 without designs for the Power Institute of Fine Arts being integrated into the final building.
This collection of artworks thus took the form of the ‘Power Gallery of Contemporary Art’, a travelling collection of artworks without a permanent address. Between John Power’s death and the eventual establishment of the museum as we know it today, the collection was mainly housed in the University of Sydney. They were stored in the University’s Fisher Library during the 1970s. The collection functioned as an exhibition within the Madsen Building on campus between 1980 and 1989.
With the relocation of the Maritime Services Board from the 1949 built five-storey building to larger premises in 1989, the building and site was donated by the Government of New South Wales to the Museum of Contemporary Art. Funded by the University of Sydney and the Power Bequest, restoration and refurbishment of the building commenced in 1990 under the direction of Andrew Anderson of Peddle Thorpe/John Holland Interiors and in November 1991 the Museum of Contemporary Art officially opened.
Extensions made in 2010–2012 were to a design by Sydney architect Sam Marshall. The new extension, called the Mordant Wing, opened in March 2012. The wing was named after the chairperson of the museum’s board, Simon Mordant. The role of chairperson is expected to be taken over by Lorraine Tarabay in July 2020.
The MCA is a not-for-profit, charitable organisation which receives ongoing funding and support from the NSW State Government through Arts NSW and the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council. Every year, the MCA raises approximately 70% of its income from a variety of sources such as exhibitions and events, sponsorship, donations and venue hire.

Architecture

The museum comprises two wings, the main section housed in the former Maritime Services Board building, and the newer Mordant Wing on the museum's Northern end opened in 2012.
The architecture of the Museum of Contemporary Art has drawn both criticism and praise from both Australian and international commentators, mainly directed towards the buildings' contrasting facades. The former MSB building is six floors of brick and concrete with an Art Deco exterior. The building’s former offices were renovated into a more open space with movable walls to accommodate exhibition requirements, with some rooms left intact as archival spaces. The building itself is heritage listed both within NSW and federally.
The design of the Mordant Wing is by Sydney-based architect Sam Marshall who began planning the extension in 2001, after designs by Japanese and German architectural firms were ultimately rejected in 1997 and 2001 respectively.
The Mordant Wing is a more contemporary design inspired by cubism, its facade consisting of overlapping black and white boxes with large angular windows. The Mordant wing includes a range of facilities including a library, classrooms, and a rooftop sculpture terrace with views of the harbour. The extension also created dedicated spaces within the building to exhibit video art.

Collections

What is now the museum’s main collection emerged from the Power Collection in the original founding of the museum.
The museum’s initial acquisitions policy, based on the will of John Power, sought to acquire mainly international contemporary art whilst only “very occasionally” purchasing Australian art as complementary to its foreign collection. From 2002, the museum has shifted to increase its emphasis on Australian artists and currently holds over 4500 works.

Selected Temporary Exhibitions

The Primavera exhibition has been staged annually since 1992, in honour of Cynthia Jackson's daughter Belinda, a jewellery maker. It exhibits the work of Australian artists aged 35 or younger and runs for several months over the summer.

Programs

The Museum of Contemporary Art holds a number of public programs over its calendar year, including an Indigenous learning program and an 'Art + Dementia' research program.

The Bella Program

The MCA’s Bella Program is a creative program for individuals with disabilities and their families, and has a dedicated space in the Mordant wing in the museum’s Jackson Bella Room.

Genext

'GENEXT' has been held since 2005 as an public engagement program aimed at young people aged from 12 to 18, run by MCA’s Youth Committee. GENEXT is an after-hours program that includes activities such as live music, discussions, and art workshops. It is held four times annually, and included over 16,000 participants over the course of its first ten years of operation.
In collaboration with the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum of Contemporary Art takes part in the Sydney Festival and the Biennale of Sydney, with the scheduled 2020 iteration of the latter taking place partially online due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia.