July/August 08
An Ever Expanding Universe (WA) > WA
Because of its title, my initial reaction to this exhibition was one of curiosity. Read More
Art Deco 1910 - 1939 (VIC) > VIC
With its Bakelite radio, Tamara De Lempicka painting and luxurious dressing table complete with intricate ivory inlays, the opening room of the National Gallery of Victoria’s Art Deco show says it all. Read More
Melbourne Art Fair (VIC) > VIC
With 80 commercial galleries, 10 project spaces, two specially commissioned installations and anticipated sales at the $10.5 million mark, the Melbourne Art Fair isn’t the sort of place to play things down. Read More
Puberty Blues
To stay sane in this world it is sometimes necessary to step back and laugh at the sheer nonsense that follows in the wake of a moral scandal. Read More
Robert Jenyns (NSW) > NSW
Pop psychologists and armchair analysts are masters of the succinct and the obvious. Read More
The enchanted forest: new gothic storytellers (VIC) > VIC
Curiouser and curiouser... a new approach to gothic. Read More
Turn, Turn, Turn: the past talks to the present (NSW) > NSW
Nick Waterlow is the only person to have curated more than one Biennale of Sydney. Read More
VIVID National Photographic Festival (ACT) > ACT
Australian photography festivals are seemingly multiplying at a rapid pace, with VIVID being the latest member to join the growing team. Read More
Culture warriors: The National Indigenous Art Triennial
By David Wills
The inaugural National Indigenous Art Triennial, currently at the National Gallery of Australia features the work of 30 artists from around the country. Working across a wide gamut of media, from paint to installation, 2D to 3D and beyond, Culture Warriors links with a key date in Australia’s history, namely the 1967 Referendum which led to Indigenous Australians recognised as citizens for the first time since settlement. Significantly, the exhibition coincides with the National Gallery’s twenty-fifth birthday celebrations and NAIDOC’s fiftieth anniversary, as well as considerable international interest in contemporary Indigenous art.
Culture Warriors, curated by Brenda L. Croft, relates contemporary stories of vibrant remote, rural and urban communities from the world’s oldest surviving culture. Croft notes that “The hardest task has been to select only 30 of the country’s many, many Indigenous artists”. The positive to emerge from this daunting task, however, is that future triennials will continue to feature insightful groupings of artists, and additionally bring fresh perspectives through involving and supporting emerging Indigenous curators.
Jean Baptiste Apuatimi, Tiwi people Yirrikamini, 2007, natural earth pigments on canvas,160 x 200 cm. Purchased 2007, National Gallery of Australia © Jean Baptiste Apuatimi.
Working consistently since before the 1967 Referendum, and with some significant local and international achievements between them, are Jean Baptiste Apuatimi, Philip Gudthaykudthay, John Mawurndjul, Lofty Bardayal Nadjamerrek AO and Arthur Koo’ekka Pambegan Jr who form the core group of artists affectionately known as ‘the big guns’. The exhibition aims to ensure "that their work is seen and celebrated during their lifetime" says Croft.
The only female artist in this group is Tiwi Islands painter Jean Baptiste Apuatimi, who credits her husband with teaching her to paint. Her work exhibits the esoteric qualities associated with the Tiwi Islands along with a bold use of geometric design and narrative. Philip Gudthaykudthay’s series of badurru are hollow logs employing a fine miny’tji and rarrk technique—clan body design and cross-hatching. Hailing from Central Arnhem Land, Gudthaykudthay is one of the first Aboriginal artists to have a solo exhibition in a contemporary art gallery. Western Arnhem Land is home to the Kurulk clan, of whom John Mawurndjul is a member, and who can count former French president Jacques Chirac as a fan. Sacred places and the land are his focus. Mawurndjul is passionate about his work and is continuously developing his rarrk techniques:
“I just can’t stop thinking about my paintings” he says. Bardayal Nadjamerrek’s bark and paper works show to great vantage his skill as one of the finest rock art painters in Arnhem Land. Lastly, Arthur Koo’ekka Pambegan Jnr is deeply passionate about his Aurukun (far north Queensland) culture and his work. Although well known for his narrative sculptural installations, Culture Warriors presents his first works on canvas alongside his installations.
Elaine Russell, Kamilaroi people. Untitled (from the mission series). 2006, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 80 x 110cm. Purchased 2006, National Gallery of Australia © Elaine Russell.
Shifting a generation, the exhibition takes us to Danie Mellor’s installation The contrivance of a vintage Wonderland... A museum-styled, billabong–shaped diorama which combines a mob of mosaicked kangaroos, a taxidermy emu, a tree and a flock of Australian parrots to form a multi-layered musing of, among other things, the notion of Social Darwinism, iconic Australian identity and the oddness of museums. The disparate juxtaposition of blue and white Spode plates highlights the exotic, while real kangaroo paws and fur give a harder edge, suggesting perhaps unease with what is or can be Australian culture. Mellor cites a 19th Century story about a pair of kangaroos taken to a European zoo to reproduce and a blue and white Spode china plate as inspiration. Unfortunately two male kangaroos were taken and without suitable food – they died without the desired aim of playing happy families in a foreign land.
Daniel Boyd’s Treasure Island is a camouflage-like map that succinctly questions the romantic view of Australia’s ‘birth’. Each coloured segment represents one of 300 plus languages that existed pre settlement, so this image that at first seems almost whimsical, represents great loss and sadness. Yet the work suggests there is hope as indigenous views question the tales told in one-sided history books.
Culture Warriors is a wide-angle view of contemporary indigenous art practice and a very welcome addition to the National Gallery's programming. As the rest of the world's appetite for Indigenous art grows, it is an important exhibition to be taking place on home soil.
Danie Mellor, Mamu/Ngagen peoples The contrivance of a vintage Wonderland (A magnificent flight of curious fancy for science buffs…a china ark of seductive whimsy…
a divinely ordered special attraction…upheld in multifariousness), 2007, mixed media – kangaroo skin, ceramic, synthetic eye balls, wood, feathers, dimensions variable. On loan from Danie Mellor.
David Wills is a Canberra-based artist, writer who is currently completing his PhD at the ANU School of Art.
