John Curtin Gallery Bunuru Season 2023

However vast the darkness...

AZIZ HAZARA: Bow Echo

LISA REIHANA: in Pursuit of Venus [infected]

OCCURRENT AFFAIR proppaNOW: Vernon AH KEE, Tony ALBERT, Richard BELL

Megan COPE, Jennifer HERD, Gordon HOOKEY, Laurie NILSEN

Carrolup coolingah wirn – The spirit of Carrolup children

WANJU, WELCOME

2023 marks John Curtin Gallery’s Silver Anniversary year, as we celebrate 25 years since opening in 1998. We commence this year in Bunuru, with our 2023 Perth Festival exhibition However vast the darkness… an assembly of powerful works centred on truth-telling. This suite of three distinct projects also marks the 25th Anniversary of our partnership with the Perth Festival by bringing together two acclaimed international artists – Aziz Hazara from Afghanistan and Lisa Reihana from Aotearoa New Zealand – alongside the work of seven artists from the proppaNOW Aboriginal artist collective established in Brisbane. Hazara and Reihana each present their most singularly ambitious works, alongside an array of politically charged work by proppaNOW artists in the exhibition OCCURRENT AFFAIR, curated by Peta Rake from the University of Queensland Art Museum.

However vast the darkness… sits alongside our continuing exhibition Carrolup coolingah wirn – The spirit of Carrolup children, devoted to revealing the story of the Stolen Generations Aboriginal child artists detained at the Carrolup Native Settlement in the 1940s.

To nurture hope through optimism and belief in the resilience of culture, when all may seem lost, is one of the most powerful of all human traits. Encouraging us to work together to build a better future amidst the persistent darkness of adversity, in times of profound geopolitical tension and enduring disadvantage and repression, However vast the darkness… presents truth-telling as a key step toward illuminating a path through this darkness.

CARROLUP COOLINGAH WIRN - THE SPIRIT OF CARROLUP CHILDREN

Carrolup coolingah wirn - The spirit of Carrolup children was the first exhibition curated at the John Curtin Gallery by First Nations curator Michelle Broun. This exhibition exposes injustices suffered by Aboriginal people under government programs of segregation and assimilation that resulted in the tragedy of the Stolen Generations. This recent history is revealed through the remarkable story of the creation of hundreds of artworks created by Aboriginal children detained at the Carrolup Native Settlement, south of Perth in the 1940s.

Forcibly removed from their families and communities across Western Australia, these Stolen Generations children attended the Carrolup State School between 1940-1950, within the confines of the Carrolup Native Settlement. By the age of 14 they were forced to depart Carrolup, to find employment – the boys principally as regional agricultural labourers and the girls as domestic servants.

Soon after Noel White became headmaster and moved to Carrolup with his wife Lily and three children in early 1946, he was inspired to take the children into the surrounding bushland on ‘rambles’ to explore and importantly, only observe, the natural landscape, from which they were encouraged, back in the classroom, to “draw what they saw” from memory.

The artworks they created between 1946-1950 have astounded all that have seen them since. Hundreds were exhibited and sold across the UK from 1950-51 by British philanthropist Florence Rutter. Her collection of artworks that remained unsold eventually passed into the hands of New York art collector and gallerist Herbert Mayer (the Collection’s namesake). This Collection of 122 artworks remained hidden in a storeroom at Colgate University, New York until their chance discovery in 2004. These artworks quickly become a symbol of resilience and hope for Aboriginal people and in 2013 Colgate University transferred their custodianship and care to Curtin University, Perth.

As we look ahead, with new partnerships and further progress on the development of the Carrolup Centre as the new dedicated home for The Herbert Mayer Collection of Carrolup Artwork, 2023 brings the promise of change and hope for better futures. As a nation, we are moving inexorably towards this year’s national referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. We hope that through increased exposure of the Carrolup artworks, the broader community can perhaps begin to understand the depth of suffering that Aboriginal people have endured across Australia since settlement colonisation.

LISA

REIHANA

- IN PURSUIT OF VENUS [INFECTED] 2015-17

Lisa Reihana’s in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015–17, is a filmic reimagining of the French panoramic scenic wallpaper Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique. Designed by artist Jean-Gabriel Charvet and produced between 1804-05 by French wallpaper manufacturer Joseph Dufour, Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique reflected a widespread fascination in Europe with the Pacific voyages undertaken in the 18th Century by mostly British and French explorers. In promoting the wallpaper when it was first produced, the manufacturer Joseph Dufour explained that the peaceful, idyllic scenes were intended “to reveal the natural bonds of taste and enjoyment that exist between all men.”

in Pursuit of Venus [infected] is shown here alongside a full-scale facsimile of Les Sauvage de la Mer Pacificque, whose exotic themes drew upon popular engraved illustrations of the time that were derived from original drawings notably by Scottish artists Sydney Parkinson and Alexander Buchan, employed by Joseph Banks aboard the HMB Endeavour on Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific c1768-70. These Empire building exploits brought profound and unwelcome change to the Indigenous peoples across the Pacific. After being confronted by the content of the ‘Dufour wallpaper’, Reihana felt strongly compelled to make a work that redressed the widespread historical inaccuracies and cultural misrepresentation throughout Dufour’s wallpaper. Reihana set about creating a work that replaced the absurd neo-classical figures from Charvet’s wallpaper design, with contemporary filmed vignettes of First Nations Pacific people to represent their cultural practices as authentically as possible with what James Cook and Joseph Banks would have

encountered. Working collaboratively with specific groups of First Nations people from across the Pacific, and non-indigenous actors portraying the encounters of the British explorers, Reihana created over 70 separately filmed narratives that are seamlessly inserted throughout the vast, gently flowing panoramic video that mirrors Charvet’s Pacific vistas. These unfold within a looping visual and sonic world where time is cyclical and the temporal and spatial dimensionality can be linked to Tā-Vā – the Pacific theory of time and space. In an act of cultural reclamation, the artist re-casts this original European fabrication, to suggest a far more complex story, seen specifically through the eyes of the First Nations people of the Pacific.

Of Māori and British descent, Lisa Reihana is at the forefront of experimentation and since the 1990s has significantly influenced the development of contemporary art and contemporary Māori art in Aotearoa New Zealand. Reihana represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale in 2017 with in Pursuit of Venus [infected] 201517. Since premiering at the Auckland Art Gallery in May 2015 it has become a seminal work in Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history canon. In 2014 Reihana was Awarded an Arts Laureate Award by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, the Te Tohu Toi Ke Te Waka Toi Maori Arts Innovation Award from Creative New Zealand in 2015 and in 2018 she was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Reihana lives and works in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Above Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique, 1804–1805. Jean-Gabriel Charvet (artist) Joseph Dufour et Cie, Mâcon, France (manufacturer & publisher), courtesy Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth.

AZIZ HAZARA - BOW ECHO 2019

Aziz Hazara‘s large-scale video installation Bow Echo, 2019, was premiered at the Biennale of Sydney NIRIN in 2020, on the cusp of the COVID-19 global pandemic. It takes its title from a devastating weather storm that clusters numbers of powerful thunderstorms in a fast-moving straight line. A bow echo can be hundreds of kilometres across, with destructive cyclonic force winds that cause severe devastation in a short period of time.

Growing up in war-torn Afghanistan, whose capital Kabul is often rocked by devastating terrorist attacks – many of them horrific suicide bombings – Hazara has created a compelling work that speaks with a searing simplicity of this ongoing horror. Afghanistan’s population continues to endure terrorist atrocities, even under Taliban rule, that in 2021 replaced the previous decades of international armed conflict. In the artists own words: “The work has been inspired by my own experience of the recurring horrors of suicide bomb attacks that have unsettled the city of Kabul. They are a sort of ‘horror game’ and since 2001 have taken place in different parts of the city, becoming an integral part of its recent history… The question of how best to represent this history and its effect on the lives of individuals has been one of the most persistent questions during the making of this work. Very often, the idea of representation becomes a dilemma.”

Bow Echo, 2019 is presented as an enveloping arrangement of five large video screens hanging from the ceiling in a darkened room that confront the viewer with five images of young boys, all desperately struggling to stand still and be heard playing toy bugles, atop a dramatically windswept mountain overlooking Kabul. This same mountaintop was once the stronghold of local Warlords that controlled the city of Kabul from the same vantage point. The plaintive calls of the toy bugles, which each child is desperately struggling to blow amidst the swirling sand storm, herald the urgency of their community’s plight against continuing repression and acts of unspeakable violence, amidst the cultural desolation of war-ravaged Afghanistan. The intense high-pitched sound of the bugles is overtaken by the sound of the bow echo itself and the growling rumble of drones that along with low flying helicopters have become an almost constant aural backdrop to the city of Kabul. To the artist’s despair, the plight of the people of Afghanistan has worsened in recent years since the Taliban takeover when many nations suspended humanitarian aid and armed conflict persists in some parts of the country between the Taliban and sectors of Islamic State.

Hazara works lives and works between Kabul, Afghanistan and Berlin, Germany.

Above Aziz Hazara, Bow Echo, 2019, production still from 5 channel installation with sound, duration 4:17 mins, image courtesy the artist & Experimenter, Kolkata, India. Previous pages Lisa Reihana, detail in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015-17, UHD video, colour, sound, 64min, Image courtesy the artist and New Zealand at Venice.

proppaNOW - OCCURRENT AFFAIR

OCCURRENT AFFAIR is a major exhibition featuring new and recent works by Brisbane-established Aboriginal artist collective proppaNOW. OCCURRENT AFFAIR features new commissions and existing works by Vernon Ah Kee, Tony Albert, Richard Bell, Megan Cope, Jennifer Herd, Gordon Hookey and the late Laurie Nilsen. The John Curtin Gallery is the first of 7 venues to present this major touring exhibition with Museums & Galleries of NSW from The University of Queensland Art Museum.

One of Australia’s leading Aboriginal art collectives, proppaNOW was established in Brisbane in 2003 to give urban-based Aboriginal artists a voice. They present a unique and controversial perspective of black Australia which is sometimes confronting and always thought provoking. proppaNOW create art that raises awareness of Aboriginal urban expression that depicts a contemporary story. They reinforce that Aboriginal Australia is a living culture that has evolved since time immemorial.

Conceived as a collaborative activist gesture, OCCURRENT AFFAIR addresses current socio-political, economic and environmental issues, while celebrating the strength, resilience and continuity of Aboriginal culture. Engaging wordplay through its title, OCCURRENT AFFAIR references the sensational journalistic style of some television current affair programs. OCCURRENT AFFAIR embraces the slippage between language and its associated readings to probe and present new narratives. The exhibition reflects on the ongoing state of affairs affecting Aboriginal communities – issues that are relevant to all Australians.

OCCURRENT AFFAIR is an exhibition from The University of Queensland Art Museum touring with Museums & Galleries of NSW. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. This project is assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program.

First Nations visitors are advised the artworks on display may contain images and voices of people that are deceased. All images of deceased artist’s work have been reproduced with kind permissions of the artist’s family.

Above Laurie Nilsen, Dollar Dilemma Flag, 2020, digital print on textile. Installation view, OCCURRENT AFFAIR, UQ Art Museum, 2021. Reproduced courtesy of The Estate of Laurie Nilsen and FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane. Photo: Carl Warner

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge and thank all of the artists whose work appears under the curatorial umbrella of this year’s Perth Festival exhibition However vast the darkness… Aziz Hazara – the award winning Afghanistan born artist currently working between Kabul, Afghanistan and Berlin, Germany; celebrated Aotearoa New Zealand artist Lisa Reihana –who resides and works in Auckland, New Zealand; and the seven artists from the Brisbane-established Aboriginal artist collective proppaNOW: Vernon Ah Kee, Tony Albert, Richard Bell, Megan Cope, Jennifer Herd, Gordon Hookey and the late Laurie Nilsen. Thank you one and all for your dedication to your practice and sharing your vision with the world.

Thank you to Peta Rake, Acting Director/Senior Curator, Curators Amanda Hayman and Troy Casey (Blaklash Creative), Brent Wilson, Senior Exhibitions and Production Coordinator for your generosity and calming presence during our installation and Curatorial Assistant, Isabella Baker, all from the University of Queensland Art Museum, as well as the team at Museums & Galleries NSW coordinating the exhibition’s tour of Australia, for your collective commitment and support in launching the national tour of this important exhibition here in Perth.

I would like to thank Mrs Christine Simpson Stokes AM, Mr Kerry Stokes AC and all of the staff at the Kerry Stokes Collection for their generosity and assistance with the loan of the monumental video work in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015-17, as well as the loan and support for the production of the full-scale facsimile of the panoramic ‘Dufour wallpaper’ Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique, 1804-1805.

A special thank you to Deputy Director, Jane King, who as Acting Director for the last 3 months of 2022 in my absence, was stewarding the delivery of the myriad components of However vast the darkness… Thank you to all the staff at the John Curtin Gallery - especially our Exhibitions, Comunications and Installation teams who have again worked tirelessly to generate another impeccably produced assembly of experiences for our visitors. The staff’s collective dedication and teamwork allow us to meet every challenge and continue to deliver exhibitions of the highest standard.

Thank you everyone.

Chris Malcolm Director, John Curtin Gallery

This publication supports the exhibition: However vast the darkness…

AZIZ HAZARA Bow Echo 2019

LISA REIHANA in Pursuit of Venus [infected]

2015-17

proppaNOW: OCCURRENT AFFAIR

Vernon AH KEE, Tony ALBERT, Richard BELL, Megan COPE, Jennifer HERD, Gordon HOOKEY, Laurie NILSEN

Carrolup coolingah wirnThe spirit of Carrolup children

10 February - 16 April 2023

This exhibition is a Perth Festival event supported by Visual Arts Program Partner Wesfarmer Arts, and Lotterywest.

Publication copyright 2023 John Curtin Gallery unless otherwise stated.

Text Copyright © Chris Malcolm

All rights reserved. This catalogue is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. No illustration in this publication may be reproduced without the permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be made to the publisher. All works of art are copyright of the artists.

ISBN: 978-0-6450795-5-5

However vast the darkness… Curator: Chris Malcolm.

Occurrent Affair Acting Director/Senior Curator: Peta Rake, UQ Art Museum with Curators Amanda Hayman and Troy Casey.

Cover Aziz Hazara, Bow Echo, 2019, production still from 5 channel installation with sound, duration 4:17 mins, image courtesy the artist & Experimenter, Kolkata, India