Written by Dina Modianot-Fox
Tuesday, 27 January 2009 00:00
One painting resembles a Roy Lichtenstein, another has the emblematic target of Jasper Johns, and a photographic portrait channels Andy Warhol. If that doesn’t sound like Aboriginal art, then an exhibit touted as Australia’s first major survey of indigenous art will both enlighten and astound.
The show, mounted by the
National Gallery of Australia (NGA), is titled
“Culture Warriors” and spans across a variety of genres, juxtaposing the established and the avant-garde: traditional iconography next to Western-style realism; bark paintings, textiles and Lorrkon (hollow log coffins) alongside abstracts, bronze sculptures and digital media.
Thirty-eight years after a few Aboriginal men launched the
Papunya Tula movement by painting their symbolic dots and circles on a schoolhouse wall, Australia’s indigenous art seems to be experiencing a sea change. “We’re influenced by what is around us,” said show curator Brenda Croft, herself an artist and a member of the Gurindji and Mudpurra peoples of Australia’s Northern Territory. “Our works are evolving. We’re using modern techniques like acrylics and refining our work, even in such traditional art forms as bark painting.”
The traditional forms are very much in evidence in the works of five artists of international repute. Dubbed the “Big Guns”, they include one woman —
Jean Baptiste Apuatimi, who learned her strong geometric designs from her late husband. Two of the others, Philip Gudthaykudthay and John Mawurndjul use refined rarrk (cross hatching) techniques to decorate hollow logs.
Lofty Bardayal Nadjamerrek’s human and animal figures on bark and paper are reminiscent of rock paintings. Arthur Koo’ekka Pambegan Jnr makes massive painted milkwood sculptures of creation stories from his Aurukun culture.
But of the 30 artists on show, many of the others take a decidedly Western approach—in style if not in subject. “There is a new wave of indigenous artists who are doing contemporary work, but still with a strong Aboriginal identity,” said Philip Watkins, director of Tandanya, the
National Aboriginal Cultural Institute in
Adelaide. “The old artists came from traditional communities—first and second generation of initial contact with whites, but the new artists have lived and worked in more urban environments.”
Many of the works reflect that urban experience—as well as the painful history of the Aboriginals since Europeans settled in Australia in 1788. Some do it with irony, others with humor, still others with anger.
One of Vernon Ah Kee’s installations—black vinyl letters on a white wall— screams out “not an animal or a plant”; until a 1967 national referendum gave them the right to be counted in the census as people, Aboriginals came under the Flora and Fauna Act. Another proclaims, “stolen removed”; thousands of young Aboriginals were taken from their parents and sent to institutions or white foster families in an “assimilation” policy that lasted until the late 1960s.
In
Daniel Boyd’s portrait of
George III, a take-off on one painted in 1773, the British king wears a stately necklace made of indigenous skulls. Danie Mellor’s diorama features kangaroos made out of shattered Spode crockery, the quintessential English china of the 18th century. Richard Bell calls his work “liberation art”; many of his paintings, which draw on Western artists, rail against injustices in the criminal justice system.
“All the artists are pushing boundaries. We have a huge pool of talent,” said Croft, who found it difficult to narrow the selections down to 90 works—all done in the last three years.
Although Aboriginals account for about 2% of the population, it is estimated that they make up between 25-50%, and possibly more, of Australia’s visual artists, contributing a minimum of $300 million to the country’s economy.
For the past few decades, indigenous art has enjoyed booming prices and ever-widening markets causing works to appreciate at dizzying rates. In 2007, the NGA paid a record $2.4 for “Warlugulong”, a monumental painting by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (1932-2002), which had sold for $36,000 in 1996. The price would have been even higher if the government had not warned that it could not leave the country.
Works that Aboriginal artists sold for $150 thirty years ago have been changing hands for hundreds of thousands of dollars. A whole group of indigenous artists has attracted auction prices near or above $1 million, including
Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910-1996). Women are fairly new participants in the indigenous art movement. But Kngwarreye, whose style has been compared to
Jackson Pollock’s, has higher combined revenue for her paintings than any other Aboriginal artist. Her
“Earth’s Creation” sold for over $1 million in 2007. There was a retrospective of her works in Osaka, Japan, recently in yet another sign that Asia is joining America and Europe in their appreciation of indigenous art.
“I’ve constantly been told that the
Aboriginal art bubble was about to burst—that prices couldn’t keep going up,” said Croft, “but it hasn’t happened.”
There is, however, a downside to this thriving market and it’s at the very core. Auction houses and galleries have profited greatly from the spectacular resale prices—while the artists have been left with the amounts they originally received, usually very small.
Possum Tjapaltjarri is one of countless indigenous artists to die penniless. That painting that fetched over $2 million earned him only $1,200— what he got when he painted it in 1977. “Aboriginal art has been taken advantage of,” said Watkins. “Artists who have international reputations are not seeing the benefit of the work that is sold on the market. There are carpetbaggers who continue to exploit artists—and there are many non-Aboriginal artists.”
To help right this situation, the Australian government plans to institute a royalty scheme in July that guarantees artists 5% of the resale proceeds of works sold for $1,000 or more. But there are two provisos—it applies only to living artists and it is not retroactive.
There is irony in the bend toward Western art taken by some contemporary indigenous artists. The towering figure in Aboriginal art, Albert Namatjira (1902-1959), won such acclaim for his realistic watercolor landscapes that he was made an Australian citizen. However, he died a broken man after being jailed for sharing alcohol with his relatives.
Those days are well and truly over. Last February,
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologized to the Aboriginals for all the wrongs they suffered. “Aboriginals are looked at as people now,” said Nici Cumpston, an assistant curator at the
Art Gallery of South Australia, the first state gallery that hosted the exhibition, which will go overseas after it finishes touring Australia. “The art is rich and vibrant and talking for itself, and the artists are coming into their own.”
To underscore its commitment to Aboriginal art, the NGA has pledged to hold a nationwide indigenous art exhibit, like “Culture Warriors,” every three years. “It’s a long process,” said Croft, “but the door that was very narrow is widening and will not narrow or close again.”
Saturday 04 February 2012
