The cover of Australian Art Exhibitions: Opening Our Eyes shows three Anangu women gazing in wonder at the dome of Travelling Kungkarangkalpa in Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters, a stellar hit at the National Museum of Australia in 2017. The image captures the museum’s evolution from an exclusive European sacred site to an inclusive, syncretic space, the chapel replaced by a Dreaming epic animated with cutting-edge digital technologies. We know that such shifts have been hard won, but Opening Our Eyes attempts to bring detail to the changing cultural paradigms reflected in exhibitions of Australian art between c.1950 and 2018. By extension, this is an art historical account of the country’s transformation from an Anglo-centric cultural backwater to one of self-reflexive, urbane cosmopolitanism. To collate, let alone curate, nearly 70 years of exhibition history is an ambitious (and expensive) project, research initially supported by an ARC Linkage Grant between NGA, NGV, AGNSW, AGSA and Museums Australia and the four author’s universities: Catherine De Lorenzo and Joanna Mendelssohn at UNSW, Catherine Speck from Adelaide University and Alison Inglis, University of Melbourne. This partly explains the book’s focus on these major institutions and key figures within them: if there is an ideology at work (despite the authors’ disclaimer to the contrary), it is the alliances between Australia’s sandstone establishments and their tacit self-assuredness in serving Australia’s arts professionals and cultural elite. For example, since the introduction of its art history program in 1946 the University of Melbourne has worked closely with the NGV as a ‘nursery for generations of curators and directors as well as collectors and patrons of the arts.’ (p30) Drawing on state and national archives, interviews, exhibition catalogues and the authors’ experiences as witnesses to several landmark exhibitions, the book begins by mapping the historical, political and structural developments underpinning today’s public art institutions. Credit is given to a coalition of the willing between state gallery directors in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide who from the late 1940s advocated for touring exhibitions, capital investments in buildings and the professionalisation of the museum sector. The optimism of (and nostalgia for) the Whitlam years, the early powers of the Australia Council, the establishment of

中文翻译：

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澳大利亚艺术展：让我们大开眼界

澳大利亚艺术展览的封面：睁开我们的眼睛展示了三位阿南古妇女惊叹地凝视着歌曲中的旅行Kungkarangkalpa 的圆顶：追踪七姐妹，这是2017 年在澳大利亚国家博物馆的大热门。该图像捕捉了博物馆从一个独特的欧洲圣地，一个包容的、融合的空间，小教堂被一部用尖端数字技术动画化的梦幻史诗所取代。我们知道这样的转变来之不易，但 Opening Our Eyes 试图为 1950 年至 2018 年间澳大利亚艺术展览所反映的不断变化的文化范式带来细节。推而广之，这是该国从一种以盎格鲁为中心的文化死水，变成了一种自我反省的、文雅的世界主义。整理，更不用说策展了，近 70 年的展览历史是一个雄心勃勃（且成本高昂）的项目，研究最初由 NGA、NGV、AGNSW、AGSA 和澳大利亚博物馆与四所作者的大学之间的 ARC Linkage Grant 支持：新南威尔士大学的 Catherine De Lorenzo 和 Joanna Mendelssohn，Catherine来自阿德莱德大学的 Speck 和墨尔本大学的 Alison Inglis。这在一定程度上解释了本书对这些主要机构和其中的关键人物的关注：如果有一种意识形态在起作用（尽管作者有相反的免责声明），那就是澳大利亚砂岩机构之间的联盟及其在服务中的默契自信澳大利亚的艺术专业人士和文化精英。例如，自 1946 年推出艺术史课程以来，墨尔本大学一直与 NGV 密切合作，成为“几代策展人和导演以及艺术收藏家和赞助人的托儿所”。(p30) 借鉴国家和国家档案、访谈、展览目录以及作者作为几个标志性展览的见证者的经验，本书首先描绘了支撑当今公共艺术机构的历史、政治和结构发展。归功于悉尼、墨尔本和阿德莱德的州立美术馆馆长之间的意愿联盟，他们从 1940 年代后期开始倡导巡回展览、建筑资本投资和博物馆部门的专业化。惠特拉姆时代的乐观（和怀旧），澳大利亚委员会的早期权力，