Beautiful but shallow: The NGV’s new blockbuster is big on celebrity but light on insight

The NGV has long flirted with fashion brands, including major shows for Alexander McQueen, Dior, and Chanel. The latest is Cartier, the renowned “jeweller of kings and the king of jewellers”, in a show originated at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.

Hundreds of jewels from over a century are on display. These pieces are often small, and you’ll want to get up close to see the intricate craftsmanship, the interplay of light. They are also behind protective glass – yet more reflective surfaces, more angles for the light, for your own reflection, for the scattering of dust. Any photos you take will be double-exposed with the reflection of your hand, your phone, your face, equally awed and haunted by the ostentatious wealth on display.

This sort of show remains controversial. A show spotlighting an artist, yes, an art movement, sure – but a brand? When Cartier was announced, The Age’s Cara Waters questioned the “pimping out” of our peak cultural institution. Cartier has a flagship store up the road on Collins Street. Do we need to give them the floor here too, one of the only places left dedicated to art for art’s sake?

The show begins with historical context. A series of photographs, letters, ads and catalogues establish Cartier as a family business, founded by Louis-François Cartier in 1847 and taken to global renown by his sons Louis, Pierre and Jacques.

The brand’s artistic process is displayed through studies, graphite drawings, plaster casts and scrapbooks. A style emerges, shaped by early-20th century Orientalism: jewellery from Egypt, art and textiles from Japan and China, and mosques in Uzbekistan, all filtered through art deco and refracted through diamonds.

From there, the exhibition encompasses the delicate, the tasteful, and the wildly garish. It is dripping with wealth. Emeralds, rubies, sapphires and diamonds are embedded in platinum and gold, glittering in the (sensitively done) lighting.

There’s playfulness too, from a bright desk clock in turquoise, lilac and silver-gilt, to some 1920s and ’30s multi-coloured, so-called “Tutti Frutti” bracelets and the startling gold crocodile necklace worn by Mexican film star María Félix. Taste is a delicate line to tread.

A large portrait of Dame Nellie Melba from the NGV collection announces some Australian additions to this iteration of the show. There are some little kangaroo ornaments, works incorporating opals from Lightning Ridge, and hints at the extraordinary story of Melbourne-born Molly Fink, who became the wife of Martanda Bhairava Tondaiman, the Raja of Pudukkottai.

The handiwork is often extraordinary, but the pieces are rarely tasked with standing on their own merit – there is always a name attached. Mostly, the pieces are designed to showcase the wealth of the wearer, and a jewel is nothing if not draped across a powerful figure.

The names of those who bought, commissioned and wore these pieces explain their value: the Comtesse de Casteja; the Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson; Daisy Fellowes, daughter of the third Duke of Decazes; the Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan. Titles that speak of enormous wealth, and the means (and need) to flaunt it.

The show then becomes the story of shifting wealth, influence and power across the century, from royalty to industrialists to film stars like Elizabeth Taylor and Gloria Swanson. A tiara of more than 1000 diamonds was commissioned for the Countess of Essex in 1902, was later worn by Clementine Churchill to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and then by Rihanna on a 2016 magazine cover. She’s standing in what looks like a burning oil field, exuding confidence, remoteness and sex. Stripped of its human context, the tiara is here behind glass, looking slightly bereft.

Design is always a key part of an NGV exhibition, and this time it’s sensitively handled by Netherlands-based designers Studio Sabine Marcelis and CLOUD. As I said, the pieces are small, leaving rooms largely empty and open but for light, carpets in peach and turmeric, and mirrored surfaces, drawing the eye to the stars of the show.

Many visitors will be entranced by the intricacy and beauty of the pieces on display. Others will bask in the wealth. Dollar figures never appear, but the spectre of commerce hangs over it all. I’ve been assured that the NGV maintained curatorial independence and wasn’t obliged to kowtow to the brand’s influence.

For the NGV, this show will no doubt draw in huge numbers, as it did in its original form at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. For Cartier, the fawning approval of a respected public institution offers legitimisation and status which, one might argue, is what the brand is all about. A cynic might argue that that describes the art world too.

Jewellery and fashion absolutely belong in a cultural institution like this, being part of the cultural fabric of our lives. Commerce is part of that. Brands are part of that. But there’s little critical reflection here, little insight, and very little to engage with beyond aesthetics and riches.

Cartier is at NGV International from June 12 to October 4.

The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday.