On a recent Sunday afternoon, with a few hours up my sleeve, I decided: I want to see a Rothko. I wasn’t in the mood to wander around the gallery, spending a couple of minutes with hundreds of pieces of art. I just wanted to find the Rothko at the National Gallery of Victoria, stand in front of it for 10 minutes and then go outside again to enjoy the sunshine.
We’re extraordinarily lucky in Australia that the permanent collections at our state galleries are free to attend. Our public collections are just that: owned by the public, belonging to us, there for us to enjoy.
