Mr Albanese Goes to Washington, and all is well with the world?
Well, not quite. We may have the possibility of some submarines and some certainty about digging up our rare earths, but we don’t have “the most ambitious exhibition of First Nations Australian art that has ever been seen overseas”. For the exhibition with the intriguing title, The Stars We Do Not See, was due to open in Washington last weekend in the capital’s National Art Gallery, only to suffer from the disfunction of the US political process which has meant that all national organisations are shut down until Congress can agree to vote them the money to keep going.
Very frustrating for the National Gallery of Victoria people who announced this mighty project last September, had delivered it to the Gallery, had produced a catalogue, and organised all sorts of opening events – only to have to retire back to Melbourne. For curator, Myles Russell-Cook, “It was definitely a difficult task trying to capture such an expansive collection and story”.
I wonder whether Albo timed his visit to gain kudos from this art? For, with 200 artworks by more than 85 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, the hype is almost all true. Mind you, I do wonder whether “everything in the show is a total masterpiece,” as claimed by Russell-Cook, who was Senior Curator of First Nations and Australian Art at the NGV when the show was conceived and developed.
So, a burn through the related book is interesting. An enthusiasm for necklaces, the Lajamanu community’s art output, and artworks by the likes of Willy Jolpa, Marilyn Nicholls, Fred Jigili and Charlie Djurritjini certainly pushed the boundaries of my familiarity. The suggestion that Nyapanyapa Yunupingu might be “one of Australia’s greatest painters” would certainly upset Christopher Allen at The Australian. And then there is the hero image that forms the cover of the book – Kunmanara (Waywiria) Burton’s late-life ink patterns that may match the core of her once-brilliant paintings, but seem to me to lack context in such prominent placement and don’t really do anything to explain the mysteries of her minyma mingkiri tjuta: the tiny, delicate but resilient female desert mice that give birth to generations, and, as bearers of the miracle of life, are inextricably connected to “women’s business”.
All of which is related deep in the catalogue, where Myles Russel-Cook does a fair job of explaining some of the complexities of the culture behind the artworks for the American mob. The show’s title The Stars We Do Not See, for instance, comes from the late Gulumbu Yunupingu’s memorable barks capturing the stars above her, especially her memories of sleeping outdoors as a child and being told that the stars had cried when she woke up dew-damp. For the curator, her works “show no negative space in the universe” – her crosses are visible stars surrounded by the dots between the crosses representing everything that isn’t seen — sometimes referred to by Yolŋu people as “second stars.”
For the NGV is keen to update Washingtonians on the 1941 show at the same gallery, Art of Australia, which was a vain attempt to make ‘young country’ links to America via an emphasis on development through hardship and heroism, leaving only a token mention of Aboriginal works as “salvage anthropology”. Now it’s points of difference that are emphasised….more constellations in the Southern Hemisphere skies, many more stories, 2300 generations of people, and a rich past that’s absolutely interwoven into the present. So Maree Clarke’s photo, Long Journey Home shows her Boonwarrung family members painted and dressed as in the past with a traditional reed canoe, about to set out across a colonialised Port Phillip Bay. It’ll be an arduous crossing.
“Most, if not all Indigenous art is political”, Russell-Cook tells his readers. It may be obvious when viewing a Maree Clarke, a Destiny Deacon or a Richard Bell (all present), but it’s less so with works from the East Kimberley where ‘The Killing Times’ were dealt with as a first priority so that the artists (and viewers) could move on. Strange, then that Paddy Bedford is represented by “a masterpiece from 2000 (that) encapsulates the spiritual essence of Country, particularly the significance of the painting’s namesake place, Joowarringayin linked to his maternal lineage”, while Rover Thomas is hailed as “a leading figure in the East Kimberley school of landscape painting”. Surely he was more than that.
The book (but not the show, which operates thematically) is presented chronologically rather than trying to tell the story of different language-groups and their different ways of visual story-telling. Which means the pictures start with Barak and Tommy McRae, those 19th Century chroniclers of their threatened cultures, before passing quickly through Albert Namatjira. Then we head for Croker Island in the 50s where Paddy Compass Namadbara was continuing the practice actually initiated by Melbourne academic Baldwin Spencer, who’d seen painting on the bark gunyas where Arnhemlanders survived the wet season and had suggested doing the same on more transportable barks. Often anonomysed and seen as anthropological rather than aesthetic, they’re now recognised as the first Aboriginal ‘art’.
The text, more like the show, begins with an explanation of the visual language that emerged from Papunya, “consisting of dots, concentric circles and geometric symbols to express the essence of place and presence of Ancestral beings who merged with and became an integral part of the land”. Good stuff, though AAD readers will now know that such iconography pre-existed Papunya in the just released drawings from Birrundudu in 1945.
And the peak of the NGV First Nations Collection? Am I being unfair in reading Russell-Cook as believing this lies with the “revolutionary” Yolŋu women, especially the Yunupiŋu Sisters, including of course, the starry Gulumbu and “one of Australia’s greatest painters”, Nyapanyapa. As the curator seeks to justify this: “Almost sixty years later, the Gumatj sisters Nancy Gaymala and Gulumbu, Nyapanyapa, Barrupu, Djerrkŋu, and most recently Djakaŋu Yunupiŋu all embarked on their own bark-painting journeys, creating works that totally redefined expectations of contemporary Yolŋu art. Before 1970, no Yolŋu woman had painted sacred themes on bark or ḻarrakitj (memorial poles) in her own right. Bark painting was strictly the business of men. In recent decades, however, the inventive works of Yolŋu women artists in these media have garnered national and international recognition”.
Three of the sisters make the show, along with another seven artists from the dynamic Buku Larrnggay Art Centre where they work. But it’s Nyapanyapa who gets a 25-artwork installation, Gäna (Self) which pretty much covers the breadth of her work: “As a collection of work, it can be read as a self-portrait”, writes Siena Stubbs from Buku in the catalogue.
The NGV, of course has headline-making art that simply had to travel. Emily Kngwarreye’s ‘Big Yam’ at 8 metres will justifiably catch the eye; Clifford Possum and Tim Leura’s collaborative ‘Spirit Dreaming Through Napperby Country’ is virtually a synthesis of early Papunya art by the two related masters in 1980; and the women’s collaboration at Maningrida to weave a 100 metre long fish fence on commission from the Gallery is a mighty example of the traditional crafts of pandanus and vine collection, preparation, dying and then weaving. A giant Sally Gabori won’t be easy to ignore.
The book ends chronologically with two works analysing identity. I wonder what the Americans will make of a comparison of Pitjanjatjara Betty Muffler’s classical study of her role as a desert Nangkari (healer) with Gunditjmara and Djabwurrung “contemporary artist” Hayley Millar Baker’s film tackling “the burdens women carry with them across their multiple roles and identities” far away in the southern cities. Interesting that Muffler is alive and painting but may not be seen as a “contemporary artist”!
Let’s hope Americans get to see The Stars We Do Not See soon, and that we discover what they think of our masterpieces.
Meanwhile, DCers can get ahead with the exhibition ‘ALL THAT COUNTRY HOLDS’ which is actually open at the Australian Embassy in Washington courtesy of two governments that are functioning (WA and the Feds). Curated by Noongar woman Zali Morgan, the exhibition brings together the creative strength of six Kimberley art centres, collaborating as Kimberley Aboriginal Art and Culture, and 10 leading artists with works that highlight the Kimberley’s Country, culture and traditions. The showcase is made possible thanks to $425,538 in WA Government funding.
The Kimberley artists featured in the exhibition – Angelina Karadada Boona, Ben Ward, Evelyn Malgil, Jan Griffiths, John Prince Siddon, Leah Umbagai, Mary-Lou Divilli, Mervyn Street, Pauline Sunfly, and Miriam Baadjo – represent the cultural diversity and artistic excellence of the region. Leah Umbagai has travelled to Washington to represent Mowanjum Arts Centre in person. “When I paint, I’m connected to my ancestors and to the land. Sharing that here in Washington is a way of opening a window into our world”.
And then there’s Michael Reid at the commercial end of the business who had hoped to capitalise on the NGV’s presence in Washington. He’s actually extended his hire of a gallery – his first foray into America, though he has plans to open permanently in Los Angeles – in the hope of an NGA opening. And surely the naming of his exhibition, ‘The Stars Before Us All‘ is more than a credit to the NGV’s efforts.
Reid describes it as “A bold articulation of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, presenting more than 30 new and historical works by 20 leading contemporary First Nations practitioners, including Emily Kame Kngwarrey, Regina Pilawuk Wilson, Owen Yalandja, Djirrirra Wunuŋmurra Yukuwa, Nici Cumpston, Dr Christian Thompson, Betty Chimney, Danie Mellor and more. The exhibition marks the United States debut for several of the exhibiting artists, including this year’s Telstra Art Award-winner Gaypalani Wanambi and offers works from right across the Australian continent, including the Tiwi Islands, Arnhemland, Far North Queensland, the Torres Strait, the Central Desert, the Kimberley and beyond”.
