National Gallery backs away from 'offbeat' contemporary blockbusters

In the wake of an attendance and revenue slump blamed on the unpopularity of its James Turrell retrospective, the gallery's director Gerard Vaughan has signalled a move away from "offbeat" contemporary blockbusters back to the traditional.

The six-month exhibition of the American installation artist caused the gallery's annual revenue from ticket sales to plummet by more than 57 per cent from $3.8 million to $1.6 million.

While visitor numbers for the year dropped more than 17 per cent from 809,512 to 671,669 in 2014-15, its annual report revealed.

But Dr Vaughan appeared unconcerned by the outcome, saying unlike its Melbourne and Sydney counterparts with their large populations, the Canberra gallery "can live with" the numbers dip.

"It's very difficult to apply the sort of criteria you would apply to visitor numbers for places like Melbourne and Sydney … it's not what we do it for, we don't have to worry about that so much," he said.

With its renewed focus on Australian artists and its pending Tom Roberts' blockbuster, Dr Vaughan said it could be a "good number of years" before a contemporary show similar to the Turrell retrospective returned to the gallery.

"It was quite an expensive show to run, we had to sell tickets for it," he said.

"A lot of the contemporary shows that take place elsewhere get special grants from government so people come in for free and that's a whole different ball game."

But he defended the decision to stage the "offbeat" yet "important" Turrell show and said visitor numbers should not be a constraint to blockbusters focused on contemporary artists.

The visitor slump came after a stellar 2013-14 when the Turner from the Tate and Gold and the Incas blockbusters attracted about 314,000 people, giving the gallery a record attendance.

The Turrell retrospective was announced by his predecessor Ron Radford, but Dr Vaughan said the low visitor numbers were not unexpected.

"We knew because we'd done market research [for Turrell] that an exhibition that's very contemporary is not going to bring in the number of visitors of one of those traditional blockbusters," he said.

"We went into it with our eyes wide open but it's not a reason not to do something.

"Canberra is very different to Sydney or Melbourne, they service cities of 5.5 million and 4.5 million, Canberra has 350,000.

"Our visitor base is made up of Canberrans and tourists who choose to come in, and those that choose to come for an exhibition."

The National Gallery of Victoria was the most visited gallery in the country for the second year running in 2014-15, with about 2.3 million visitors to its twin venues.

Besides the Roberts retrospective – its first Australian blockbuster – Canberra's gallery is hoping to woo back art lovers with a rehang bringing the Australian art downstairs, putting the international works upstairs and regularly reshuffling its 187,000 works into themed mini exhibitions to "do justice to the collection".

But Dr Vaughan admits it's a temporary measure while the gallery waits for government funding to double the size of the 33-year-old building.

He hopes for "good progress" within the next five years with support crystallising to make the concept plans a reality.

"[The rehang] is going to work for three, five, six years, but the reason we're doing this is as a sort of interim approach because this building ran out of room over 20 years ago," he said.

"The collections have grown and grown and they're fantastic but the public can't have access to anything like a decent cross section for practical reasons."

He wouldn't say if he felt new arts minister Mitch Fifield and the federal leadership change would result in more support for the gallery.

"I think governments of any party have always supported [the gallery]," he said.

"But in real terms, and this is across the board for state and federally-funded museums and galleries … the value of the government contribution is dropping and we're having to be much more active and entrepreneurial about earning income on our own.

"That means philanthropy, sponsorship and running entrepreneurial activities like restaurants and shops."