Warumunga and Luritja woman, Kelli Cole is to return to Mparntwe/Alice Springs with her new appointment as Director of Curatorial and Engagement at the planned National Aboriginal Art Gallery.
“This a bonus for the Gallery”, declared the NT’s Arts Minister (and Deputy Chief Minister) Chansey Paech, “as Kelli has vast curatorial experience. She has just co-curated (with Hetti Perkins) the Emily Kam Kngwarray exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, which is a major project”.
And it was a project which saw Cole spend much time in Central Australia as she researched Kngwarreye’s personal, family and spiritual history at Utopia Station.
“We are very fortunate to have Kelli on board”, Paech continued, “following her long and successful career (since 2007) as a Senior First Nations Curator with the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. Kelli has also had a long involvement with the NAAG, including being a member of the National Reference Group”.
Kelli is from Alice Springs and was the niece of Robert Ambrose Cole, the late Aboriginal artist who was partner to Rodney Gooch, the man who discovered and nurtured Emily. She has written about Indigenous art for several prominent gallery publications.
According to the NGA, Kelli was curator of Special Projects for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Department at the Gallery, working on major projects, including the National Indigenous Art Quinquennials in 2007, 2012, 2018 and 2021 and assisted in the development of the new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander galleries in 2010.
Kelli curated several exhibitions herself, including the children’s exhibition, Alive and Spirited 2015. She was awarded the Australia Council Visual Arts curatorial fellowship in 2014 and took a year off from the NGA to curate two exhibitions for Canberra Glassworks. She was then employed as a consultant curator at the National Museum of Australia for Unsettled: Stories within, an exhibition showcasing five leading First Nations artists in response to the NMA’s major exhibition, Encounter 2016. Back at the NGA, Kelli co-curated Resolution: new Indigenous photo media travelling exhibition and Body Language exhibition 2019.
In 2020 Kelli worked with Tjanpi Desert Weavers to commission the major installation Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters) 2020, life sized figures represnting the women and their male pursuer who feature in the huge Songline. This featured in the KNOWMYNAME exhibition of Australian women’s art.
Meanwhile, back in Mparntwe, somewhat surprisingly, Tracy Puklowski, who was the earliest senior appointment at the NAAG, tells me she’s moved on to NT Libraries. In 2022, Arrernte public servant Sera Bray was appointed to co-lead the development of the NAAG as Senior Director First Nations. Now she stands alone at the NAAG’s administrative peak. It looks as though the gallery will be very much a First Nations (and women’s) run establishment.
Hi Jeremy
I recall reading your articles published in The Canberra Times over the years.
I respond to your comment and the remarks of other critics that the NGA show is the least impressive of the national retrospectives to date. In part, the reason may stem from an apparent schism between NGA and Donald Holt of Delmore Station Gallery (DSG) who may have the best holding of her work on the evidence of an exhibition at Mary Place Gallery in Sydney in the late 90s. I agree the 22-panel artwork should have been hidden and can only think that it was purchased when the NGA had negligible work and was sold a pup.
I reside in Canberra and offered a couple of works (5′ x 4′) to the NGA but never heard anything. The works were purchased from Judy Behan at Chapman Gallery in Canberra and sourced from DSG. The NGA show misses the sublime work she produced at DS away from the demands of her community, particularly during the period from 1989 to 1993.
I really hope that the Tate Gallery does its homework; it should not simply uplift the NGA show. Works should be sourced from DSG and others (Hank Ebes and Europe/US collectors).
Thanks for your thoughts, Bill Mccarthy, which are even more appropriately attached to my earlier review of the Emily Kam Kngwarray exhibition which Kelli Cole co-curated (https://aboriginalartdirectory.com/kame/). I believe you are correct in suggesting that provenance was a key factor in artwork selection at the National Gallery – and it surely should be irrelevant. Delmore has never been popular with the curators! I fear that the Tate will have contracted to take the NGA show, lock, stock and barrel. However I will attempt to draw your comments to the attention of Kimberley Moulton, recently appointed adjunct curator at the Tate specialising in First Nations and Indigenous art.
Kimberley Moulton has confirmed that the Tate version of the NGA’s Emily Kam Kngwarray exhibition will be very much the same as Canberra’s. Her words: “The Tate will be working with the curators for the iteration of the exhibition at Tate Modern 2025”.