NATIONAL GALLERY OF AUSTRALIA, CANBERRA 12 OCTOBER 2007 – 10 FEBRUARY 2008 Culture Warriors, the NGA’s inaugural National Indigenous Art Triennial exhibition, showcases works by 30 living Australian Indigenous artists. It traverses a range of visual arts media including paintings on bark and canvas, three-dimensional objects such as woven artworks, wooden, metal and ceramic sculptures, along with digital new media and video. The extensiveness of this survey exhibition allows for only the most cursory sampling of its offerings here. Therefore I shall take the tack of identifying those artists whose artworks I found most truthful and aesthetically compelling – taking into account that one woman’s truth is not always another’s. Kuninjku artist John Mawurndjul’s ochre-painted Mardayin designs, originating from sacred male body-painting ceremonies, are exquisitely rendered on bark as well as on hollow log ‘coffins’. Mawurndjul’s finely wrought, web-like patternings are without blemish – simply perfect. While Mawurndjul’s markings have a revelatory quality, he does not give up his secrets. Moving from Arnhem Land to the Western Desert region, similarly intricate ‘webs of meaning’ are also revealed in the beautiful, gracile and subtle mark-making of Doreen Nakamarra Reid. The same purity of style and painterly qualities evident in Mawurndjul’s work are also present in that of Nakamarra Reid. Queenslander Danie Mellor makes a witty visual statement à propos of the complex relationships between nature and culture in his marvellous Wonderland, 2007, installation. In Wonderland the artist has brought together highly-skilled ceramic work with a variety of other media, including kangaroo skin. The latter brings a rather abject quality to the ears and paws of Mellor’s mostly ceramic marsupials. Mellor’s installation is essentially a satire on countless past and present ‘pastoral’ scenes of Australian wildlife, while simultaneously providing a commentary on stereotypical museological as well as conventionalised (neo-) colonial photographic display practices. It seems that creating this nouveau-Australiana has also occasioned Mellor a visit or two to the taxidermist’s – his stuffed, chirpless birds on branches offer their own kind of mute statement. In terms of sculptural work, I cannot conclude without mentioning Owen Yalandja’s superb, carved Yawkyawks, 2007, (Antipodean Sirens/Mermaids/Ancestral Beings, more or less) that have been cleverly juxtaposed with Anniebell Marrngamarrnga’s fascinatingly left-of-field woven versions thereof. Coolly composed and engaging, Marrngamarrnga’s and Yalandja’s works complement each other beautifully.
DANIE MELLOR, 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, INSTALLATION OF MIXED MEDIA, KANGAROO SKIN, CERAMIC, SYNTHETIC EYEBALLS, WOOD, BIRDS. ARTWORK APPEARS IN CULTURE WARRIORS COURTESY THE ARTIST. PHOTO: COURTESY THE ARTIST AND NGA, CANBERRA
The observation needs to be made that the work on display in Culture Warriors is not of consistent quality but, in places, patchy. There’s also another whole debate to be had, a debate tapping into broader contemporary social discussions about whether to ‘mainstream’ Aboriginal artwork by including it with other Australian art or, alternatively, to separate it curatorially, which is the approach that has been taken in Culture Warriors. The question of the ‘mainstreaming’ of contemporary Aboriginal art is a tricky one because I (and certain others) would contend that Aboriginal art in fact does, at this point in history, constitute the mainstream. The Triennial has now become institutionalised, which may account for the tactic employed. This is probably a good enough reason for erecting a curatorial fence around Indigenous art, at least for the moment. Many works that I have discussed in this review are not drawn from the ranks of the major or usual prize-getters. Indeed, John Mawurndjul is the only artist among the most prominent group of artists listed as the ‘big guns’ (a highly contestable concept in this context) in the somewhat overblown publicity blurb accompanying Culture Warriors. Nevertheless there are many artistic ‘sharp-shooters’ represented in this exhibition, whose works do make it well worth the effort to visit. www.nga.gov.au CHRISTINE NICHOLLS IS A WRITER, CURATOR AND ACADEMIC WHO WORKS IN AUSTRALIAN STUDIES AT FLINDERS UNIVERSITY, ADELAIDE.
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