Next year I’m off to America, where I have been invited to do a show at the Kluge-Ruhe Museum at the University of Virginia.
The Kluge-Ruhe institution is dedicated to Australian Aboriginal art and is the largest body of such work ever collected in the United States.
The collection, now situated in Virginia, began when John W. Kluge started collecting Aboriginal art back in 1988. In just over 10 years he compiled one of the largest private collections of Australian Aboriginal art in the world.
In 1993, Kluge purchased the collection and archives of the late Professor Edward L. Ruhe of Lawrence, Kansas. Ruhe began collecting Aboriginal art while visiting Australia as a Fulbright Scholar in 1965. He exhibited his collection widely in the United States between 1965 and 1977.
So I find it really fascinating that one of the largest collections of Australian Aboriginal art is in Virginia. I’m also very keen to see if there are any works associated to my community, the Kamilaroi/Gummaroi people.
In early 2011, I’ll go to Virginia with a few stencils in hand and create an installation on the interior of the museum for a show being curated by National Gallery of Victoria’s curator of Aboriginal Art, Stephen Gilchrist.
