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I recently visited our nation's great capital, Canberra. While I was there, I did some the of typically touristy things. It's not the first time I have been Canberra, though it's hard to tell how much has changed with Canberra and how much has changed with myself and how I perceive things with culture war overtones being imbedded in my mind. But regardless, my perception was that broadly speaking left-wing politics dominates even in what is ostensibly non-partisan, politically neutral public institutions.
Firstly, there was the National Gallery of Australia. Frankly, I think the NGA is a pretty piss-poor gallery overall. It's international and pre-modern (pre-1800) collections is almost laughably bad for what is apparently Australia's highest public gallery. Outside of a couple of notable pieces, such as a couple of Monets and the infamous Blue Poles by Pollock, there is very little of interest. There were a lot of (post)modern pieces which I found atrocious (I probably don't have to go into a rant about why postmodern art sucks here), the worst offender being a piece that was literally just a square canvas planted black. That's it. The lack of a good international and historical collection is at least somewhat understandable because the NGA is a very young gallery by international standards, and (I imagine) it's pretty hard to build up a great collection especially with a relatively small budget. But even compared to other Australian galleries such as the National Gallery of Victoria and especially the American great galleries which I have had the pleasure of visiting- as unfair as the comparison to the Met or the National Gallery of Art might be - the National Gallery of Australia falls short.
The NGA's strength is naturally it's very large and extensive Australian art collection, including artists ranging from Arthur Streeton (and other Australian Impressionists) to Sidney Nolan to more contemporary artists that I or most people couldn't give two shits about. But the Australian collection is where some of the 'woke' influence was most apparent, on the descriptions of the works of art. Every single piece of Australian art had to have its 'indigenous' name of the location prefaced before the actual common name, regardless of how (ir)relevant it is to the actual artwork. So every piece of artwork created in Melbourne was labelled as 'Naarm/Melbourne'. In addition, there would often be huge non-sequiturs at the end of an artwork's description to insert some connection to Indigenous peoples. For example, it would describe the artist's personal history, how they ended up painting that specific painting, etc, only for the last sentences to abruptly talk mention the local Indigenous group and their connection to the area (bonus points if they mention how it was then taken over by English settlers). This also happened to a lesser extent in some of the other landmarks I visited. There is a lot of this general handwringing over Indigenous issues that has become pervasive in Australia and the Anglosphere more broadly. Now, one might argue that the NGA is simply catering to its dominant audience - the leftwing 'intelligentsia' who both dominate in the art world and the kind of person who would bother to visit an art gallery in the first place. But honestly this isn't good enough to me. The NGA is meant to be a national gallery for all Australians, and should be making a conscious effort to make themselves approachable for the general Australian public.
Next, we have Old Parliament House, now home to the Museum of Australian Democracy. It's honestly a pretty interesting museum, more than its name would suggest. However, there is a pretty stark contrast between the newer and rotating exhibits and the older, permanent exhibits. The older exhibits mainly aim to preserve and present Old Parliament House as it was in 1988 when the Australian government moved to (New) Parliament House (it's pretty awesome), and explain how Australian democracy works more generally. It's pretty politically impartial. The newer exhibits have an implicit left-liberal political ideology in their presentation that might be hard for the casual viewer to realise. It's not just being unabashedly pro-Australian democracy which it understandably is. The more charitable explanation is that the Museum is taking an implicitly teleological view of Australian democracy - all the historical events in Australia's political history led up to the political system we have today, and current Australian democracy is good (it's literally the point of the Museum) therefore all those events were necessary if not good (Gillard's 'misogyny speech', gay marriage plebiscite and and historical political protests generally so on are all presented positively and uncritically). This charitable interpretation really falls apart when you consider what is lacking in the exhibitions and what the counterfactual would be. There was no real rightwing political victories presented and definitely not presented positively, such as Abbott's 'Stop the Boats' campaign (Operation Sovereign Borders) which despite its poor reputation was quite popular with the general population and more-or-less remains the basis of both Labor and Liberal's policy towards asylum seekers/refugees/boat people to this day. It's also hard to imagine that if the gay marriage plebiscite had failed, there would be a exhibition celebrating this as a triumph of Australian democracy like there currently is one celebrating its success (ironic given that many pro-gay marriage advocates initially opposed the plebiscite before they got the results). it was occasionally less subtle with its bias, like an exhibit on Australian Prime Ministers ending with 'Who is Next' and showing a drawing a Muslim woman, an Asian woman and an Aboriginal man, and some shibboleths about 'all Australians from all cultural backgrounds'.
Lastly, I'll talk Parliament House itself. Of all the landmarks visited, Parliament House thankfully (and perhaps somewhat ironically) most apolitical (or politically neutral might be more accurate) presentation, other than the obvious stance of Westminster pro-liberal democracy. As an active political institution which contains Members of Parliament and Senators that may actively support or opposite any given political issue, greater care must have been places to present everything as politically neutral. This is probably aided by the fact that the number of public exhibits is relatively small, given that its primary role is actually a working institution and not a museum, and the main draw for the tourist or member of public is going to see the the House and Senate Chambers. Visiting Parliament House did make me realise an interesting statistic, however due to the obligatory 'Women in Parliament' mini-exhibit. Less than one-third of House of Representatives are women, yet over half of the Senate are women. A pretty notable discrepancy, which I would suggest may be caused by the fact Senators are usually selected by intraparty politics (and thus the agenda to promote female politicians) while seats in the House of Representatives are far more competitive.
To end of a positive note, here is where I make declare my love for Australian democracy. Australian Parliament House represents the best of Australian democracy. The architectural design is fantastic, with lots of open space and big sweeping boomerang wings that feel inviting. It open and accessible to the public, and you can pretty wander around much the building (not counting offices) unescorted. It really does feel like there Parliament is there to serve the Australian public. Sorry to bash our American cousins, but in stark contrast when I visited Congress you had to book a tour, and had to be escorted around the entire time. I understand that security may be a bigger concern for you Americans, but the ability to more-or-less freely walk around the most important political body is the prime example of why I love and appreciate Australian democracy.
Yes, but which square canvas painted black was it?
It may be one of Robert Motherwell's Iberia series, painted during the Spanish civil war. Though the most famous variants have a dash of non-black paint somewhere, some don't. Motherwell's Iberia canvasses have thick black paint and look almost like a map relief.
It may be one of Ad Reinhardt's paintings. He did a lot of them. Reinhardt's canvasses tend to have very subtle patterns and shades, though the whole point of some of the canvasses is to not have any patterns whatsoever. That would be consistent with the philosophy of art-as-art he was exploring:
But if you are really lucky, it was the original Black Square by Kazimir Malevich. The Black Square is one of the most influential works of modern art, ground zero for exploration of what modern artists and modern art audience mean by art. [Intentionally so](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Square_(painting)): "It is from zero, in zero, that the true movement of being begins."
If it was the Black Square, then there is an additional [bonus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Square_(painting)) for the Culture War angle:
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