Artonview 98 | Winter | 2019.Q2

National Gallery of Australia

Winter 98 | 2019

International Year of Indigenous Languages ARTONVIEW WINTER 2019 | 98 National Gallery of Australia

Rehang of International galleries

Until 27 October FREE

nga.gov.au

Zico Albaiquni The stage of earthly delight I 2018 (detail), oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Yavuz Gallery, Singapore

Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia Māori Markings: Tā Moko Learning Gallery and Studio Travelling exhibitions Plus the latest news and updates, acquisitions and more

High Tea National Gallery of Australia 11 am and 2 pm sessions daily Celebrate our winter exhibition Monet: Impression Sunrise with an unforgettable high tea, and enjoy a selection of French-inspired, sweet and savory delights. Book the high tea when you purchase your exhibition ticket at ticketek.com.†

© The Estate of Ian Fairweather/Copyright Agency, 2019

entries invited

AUCTION • SydNey • 28 AUgUST 2019 important australian + international fine art sydney 02 9287 0600 melbourne 03 9865 6333

$43

per member

$48

per guest † To book the high tea only, for children’s menus or for groups of eight or more, contact the National Gallery directly on (02) 6240 6711 or via events@nga.gov.au. Please advise of guests with special dietary upon booking.

info@deutscherandhackett.com www.deutscherandhackett.com With the D+H April auction selling nearly nine out of ten works and achieving 100% sale rate by value, demand is currently high for quality works of art at auction.

For an obligation free market appraisal of works in your collection, please contact our art specialists in Sydney or Melbourne for the forthcoming major August auction.

IAN FAIRWeATHeR BARBECUE, 1963 EST: $800,000 – 1,200,000 SOLd FOR $1,708,000 (INC. BP) NEW AUCTION RECORD ApRIl 2019, SyDNEy

ARTONVIEW 98 WINTER 2019

CONTENTS

The National Gallery of Australia acknowledges and pays its respect to the traditional custodians of the Canberra region, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples and their Elders past and present.

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Artonview may contain names and images of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Editor Eric Meredith Guest contributors Marianne Mathieu, Assistant Director, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris Enin Supriyanto, independent curator Contributors Sally Brand, Program Producer Kelli Cole, Assistant Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Crispin Howarth, Curator, Pacific arts Nick Mitzevich, Director Shane Nelson, Indigenous Program Producer Mary-Lou Nugent, Head of Travelling Exhibitions Katie Russell, Head of Programs, Education, Research Library and Archives

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IN BRIEF

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EXHIBITION LISTING

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NEW BOOKS

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A MONET WINTER ESCAPE

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START PLANNING FOR SUMMER

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NEW INITIATIVE LEARNING GALLERY AND STUDIO Katie Russell introduces the Gallery’s new Learning Gallery and Studio

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ENGAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES Shane Nelson, Sally Brand and Kelli Cole discuss various aspects of the Gallery’s engagement with the International Year of Indigenous Languages, including Body Language, the first exhibition in the Gallery’s new Learning Gallery

Advertising enquiries ArtonviewAdvertising@nga.gov.au Enquiries artonview.editor@nga.gov.au

DIRECTOR’S WORD Nick Mitzevich

nga.gov.au/artonview

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MAJOR EXHIBITION MONET: IMPRESSION SUNRISE

© National Galley of Australia 2019 PO Box 1150, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia +61 (0)2 6240 6411 | nga.gov.au

Marianne Mathieu traces the birth of an icon in Monet’s body of work, from the first Impressionist exhibition to private collections and, finally, the Musée Marmottan Monet

30 Published quarterly. Copyright of works of art is held by the artists or their estates. Every effort has been made to identify copyright holders but omissions may occur.

Crispin Howarth speaks to tā moko artist Turumakina Duley

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Views expressed by writers are not necessarily those of the National Gallery of Australia.

Designed by Kristin Thomas Proofread by Meredith McKendry

COMING EXHIBITION CONTEMPORARY WORLDS: INDONESIA Enin Supriyanto explores the work of the Indonesia artists who shifted away from the idea that Indonesian art had to carry a socio-political message

ISSN 1323-4552 ISSN 2208-6218 (Online)

CURRENT EXHIBITION MĀORI MARKINGS: TĀ MOKO

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EXHIBITIONS TRAVELLING EXHIBITIONS Mary-Lou Nugent looks at the exhibitions that the National Gallery is currently touring around Australia

Printed by Adams Print, on FSC certified paper using vegetable-based inks, FSC-C110099

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ON LOAN FRANCIS BACON’S TRIPTYCH Simeran Maxwell examines the National Gallery’s Francis Bacon painting Triptych 1970, travelling to the Centre Pompidou in Paris later this year

44 52 Cover: Claude Monet Impression, sunrise 1872 (detail), oil on canvas. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, gift of Victorine and Eugène Donop de Monchy 1940

DONATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS NEW ACQUISITIONS Fiona Lowry, Melanie Douglas, Ricky Maynard, Waal-Waal Ngallametta, Abdur Rahman Chughtai

DIRECTOR’S WORD

The acquisition of Blue Poles in 1973 was a seminal moment for the

Members will get the chance to witness another breakthrough

nascent National Gallery of Australia. In April, I was in New York to

moment in art history with the opening of Monet: Impression Sunrise

honour Ben Heller, the art collector and dealer who sold the Gallery the

on 7 June. Claude Monet’s masterpiece Impression, sunrise 1872 will sit

iconic masterpiece, at a premiere screening of a documentary about

alongside other significant works by the father of Impressionism as well

the work. Sadly, Ben passed away on 24 April, a day before the launch.

as the work of other artists of the era who helped influence Monet. The

In remembering his influence on the young institution, we should not

titular work is a rarely lent treasure of the Musée Marmottan Monet in

forget the courage and foresight shown also by inaugural director James

Paris. The exhibition will also draw on other important international and

Mollison in pursuing the acquisition. More than forty-five years later,

Australian collections to trace the story of the development of one of the

that daring must continue to be our guide as we share the stories of the

world’s most famous artists and the birth of the Impressionist movement.

most inspiring and impactful Australian and international artists with

Another important opening in June is Contemporary Worlds:

our audience.

In telling those stories, the voices of women artists have been

Indonesia, an exhibition that showcases some of the most exciting new and established artists from Indonesia’s key artistic centres of Bali and

under-represented for too long. Last month we announced Know My

Java. Witness the dynamic artists emerging from our near neighbour,

Name, a major campaign to recognise and celebrate Australian women

and a growing seat of global influence. They are engaged, connected and

artists. We encourage you to connect with the campaign and join us in

responsive to ideas and issues—and many will soon be represented in the

driving awareness of this issue. It can be as simple as posting a story

national collection. We hope you join us for the opening weekend of this

about your favourite female artist on Instagram or Facebook. Don’t forget

vibrant exhibition. There will be a hub of activity, including opportunities

the hashtag #knowmyname. The National Gallery does not deny the

to hear from the artists, as well as performance, music and food.

role it has played in this significant imbalance, and we are determined

Last month, we opened the gallery component of our new Learning

to bring about permanent policy changes to address inequalities in the

Gallery and Studio with the exhibition Body Language—part of our

national collection.

response to the International Year of Indigenous Languages. The second

Our 2020 program will include a major exhibition of Australian

phase of this project, the Learning Studio will open in August and will be

women artists, including our latest acquisition ASSEMBLY, a three-

accompanied by a Mobile Studio. These educational initiatives, important

channel video installation by Australia’s representative at the Venice

to engaging the next generation of art lovers, owe much to our outgoing

Biennale, Angelica Mesiti. This work captures one of Australia’s foremost

Deputy Chairman Tim Fairfax AC. We appreciate his ongoing support to

women artists at her breakthrough international moment. Her work

engage and energise the younger members of our audience.

is innovative and speaks to us of the need for connection during these

Finally, we welcome Natasha Bullock, our new Assistant Director

disrupted times. Mesiti has a unique capacity to engage her audience—

(Curatorial and Programs), from the Museum of Contemporary Art

across the country people will have the opportunity to experience this

Australia. Natasha has expertise in maximising the synergies between

during a national tour of ASSEMBLY in partnership with the Australia

education, public programs and curatorial. We look forward to her

Council for the Arts.

leadership. We also welcome the Hon Richard Alston AO, Michael

Audiences have been fascinated by our other recent acquisition,

Gannon, Terri Janke and Sally Smart to our Council. Richard—filling a

Urs Fischer’s candle sculpture Francesco 2017, which has generated

vacant position—has already started his term and we look forward to

significant visitors. It is a work that inspires repeat visits—he recently

the others joining us in August. They replace John Hindmarsh AM, Tim

lost his head. Alive and changing, this shape-shifting wax model is

Fairfax AC and Jane Hylton, all of whom have contributed enormously to

emblematic of art of the twenty-first century. Community support is

the National Gallery over the years. John will also be standing down from

central to our ability to acquire world-class art. We hosted Foundation

his role as Chair of our Foundation. We thank them for their dedicated

members for our annual fundraising Gala Dinner and Weekend, which

and admirable service to the arts in Australia.

supported the purchase of Francesco. We are grateful to everyone

Nick Mitzevich

who contributes to this event, supporting the National Gallery’s important role in bringing the most innovative and progressive art to Australian audiences.

Another highlight was the specially commissioned animated illumination by Tony Albert, I AM VISIBLE 2019. The Enlighten festival was the perfect platform to shine a light on issues around the experience of Indigenous Australians. The illumination of the Gallery’s brutalist facade to share stories of proud, young Aboriginal men brought their compelling stories to a much wider audience. We continue to explore innovative ways to tell the stories of all Australians.

Opposite: Urs Fischer Francesco 2017, Paraffin wax, microcrystalline wax, encaustic pigment, stainless steel, wicks, aluminum powder, steel, stainless steel hardware, bronze hardware, electrical wiring, LED light, AAA batteries. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased with the assistance of the National Gallery of Australia Gala Fund 2019. © Urs Fischer, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London

ARTONVIEW 98 WINTER 2019

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IN BRIEF Angelica Mesiti’s Venice Biennale work joins the national collection Angelica Mesiti is Australia’s representative at this year’s Venice Biennale.

With ASSEMBLY, Mesiti continues to explore the nature of

Working with internationally recognised curator Juliana Engberg, she

connection and how the act of coming together might enable and support

has developed one of her most ambitious works, the three-channel video

democracy at a time when it is under threat. It brings together a wide

installation ASSEMBLY 2019. The National Gallery of Australia has just

range of historic and contemporary places, events and objects with

acquired this major work and, following its premiere in Venice, will be

strong connections to democratic processes and aspirations. The work

bringing it to Australian audiences in 2020.

was filmed in two historic sites redolent with democratic associations:

This is the second work by Sydney-born, Paris-based Mesiti to

Australia’s Old Parliament House and Palazzo Madama, the seat of the

join the national art collection. The first was The calling 2013–14, which

Italian Senate in Rome. It also drew together over forty artists, performers

was shown alongside four other works by her in the National Gallery’s

and musicians to demonstrate the power of what Mesiti refers to as the

exhibition of her work held between September 2017 and April 2018.

‘human necessity to come together’.

The exhibition offered an expansive view of Mesiti’s practice, providing

ASSEMBLY will feature in a major exhibition at the National

visitors with a strong sense of her long-standing interest in the ways that

Gallery in 2020 and will tour nationally in partnership with the

we communicate and come together in everyday life.

Australia Council for the Arts.

Working across video, performance and installation, Mesiti is one of Australia’s foremost contemporary artists and has an internationally renowned practice. She is currently the subject of a major show at Paris’s Palais de Tokyo. Her contemplative works focus on the complexities of culture, exploring multicultural dimensions through movement, large-scale videos and sound works. ‘Creating a community within the installation, between the performers on screen and the audience, is something I am always thinking about’, she said in 2017.

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IN BRIEF

Below: Angelica Mesiti ASSEMBLY 2019 (production stills), threechannel HD video installation, sound. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2019. Commissioned by the Australia Council for the Arts on the occasion of the 58th Venice Biennale. Photos: Bonnie Elliott. Courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Australia and Galerie Allen, Paris

Know My Name National Gallery leads campaign to elevate women artists The National Gallery is leading a major campaign to recognise and celebrate Australian women artists, which will include permanent policy change to address the imbalance in the national collection. ‘We want to drive awareness and, most importantly, recognition because achieving equality should be every day, in every field and sector of our community’, said National Gallery Director Nick Mitzevich.

The Know My Name campaign was unveiled to the public on 25 May, during the global 24 Hour Project, with the Gallery open for twenty-four hours in support of the worldwide photographic initiative. The campaign will include a major exhibition of Australian women artists at the Gallery in May 2020, as well as many other initiatives such as creative collaborations, digital campaigns and retail partnerships. Partners include Instagram, Facebook, Ooh Media and the Seven Network.

The campaign is the brainchild of National Gallery Assistant Director Alison Wright, who said, ‘Women have been shaping Australian culture for more than sixty thousand years, and it is through the voices of artists we can define a country of diverse cultures, of tolerance, kindness and inclusion’.

Join the conversation #knowmyname

Above: Patricia Piccinini with her work Eulogy 2011 at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, April 2019.

Left: Sally Smart in her NGA Play installation at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, November 2018.

ARTONVIEW 98 WINTER 2019

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Contemporary Worlds opening weekend 21 to 23 June 2019 Make sure you’re in Canberra this winter, as the National Gallery is planning a big weekend of opening events in association with its exciting new exhibition Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia. The programs will explore the vibrant and complex arts of Australia’s closest neighbour, beginning with a free community event Contemporary Worlds After Hours from 6.00 to 8.00 pm on Friday 21 June.

This program will provide a great opportunity for visitors of all ages to learn about contemporary Indonesian culture while savouring some Indonesian cuisine and refreshments. You can tour the exhibition, meet the artists and curators, experience live works by Melati Suryodarmo, Duto Hardono and Octora and participate with your family and friends in the activation of work by Yudha ‘Fehung’ Kusuma Putera.

Free artist talks and performances will also be held on Saturday 22 (the winter solstice!) and Sunday 23 June. The activation of the exhibition and the Gallery through performance art brings to life contemporary practice by using the physical and temporal presence of the artist and the body as a creative medium.

Details of opening-weekend events available at nga.gov.au/calendar

Left: Octora Global apartheid voyeurism: The pose 2017, durational performance and installation. Courtesy of the artist Below: Duto Hardono Variation and improvisation for ‘In harmonia progressio’ 2016–17, actualisation of an instruction score by performers. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2018. © Duto Hardono

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IN BRIEF

Lichtenstein to Warhol Opens 7 September 2019 From Abstraction to Pop, minimalism to maximalism, Lichtenstein

As well as celebrating the great riches of the collection, this

to Warhol: The Kenneth Tyler Collection will showcase exceptional

exhibition marks the beginning of an exciting new program that builds

works by major artists active in United States in the postwar period,

on Ken Tyler and Marabeth Cohen-Tyler’s generosity. The Kenneth E Tyler

including Josef and Anni Albers, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper

AO and Marabeth Cohen-Tyler Foundation was established last year,

Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Robert

through the auspices of the American Friends of the National Gallery

Rauschenberg, Donald Sultan and Andy Warhol.

of Australia, to enable the Gallery to continue an ambitious program of

Ken Tyler was at the forefront of the American print renaissance.

He orchestrated the move from printmaking as a minor artform to a leading visual practice. His ambition was to create works on a grand

Tyler-related publications and exhibitions, the most recent of which include California Cool and the now touring David Hockney: Prints.

The foundation will also continue to sponsor emerging curatorial

scale, using groundbreaking materials and techniques, exploring both

staff and support research and access to the collection through a variety

two and three dimensions, emphasising papermaking and adopting a

of dynamic digital platforms. Through their creativity and philanthropy,

wide-ranging palette.

the Tylers have created a legacy for both the National Gallery in Canberra

Thanks to Tyler’s generosity over many decades, the National

and Australia as a whole.

Gallery of Australia boasts the most comprehensive collection of postwar American art outside the United States as well as a large collection of candid photography, film and audio. The Kenneth Tyler Collection directly reflects Tyler’s entrepreneurial innovation and passionate drive to collaborate with some of the twentieth century’s most brilliant artists.

Above: Roy Lichtenstein Reflections on crash 1990, lithograph, screenprint, woodcut, metalised PVC plastic film collage and embossing.

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1991. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/Copyright Agency

ARTONVIEW 98 WINTER 2019

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Māori exhibition brings Gallery to life On the morning of Friday 22 March, just over a hundred guests and dignitaries gathered on the lawns of the National Gallery’s Australian Garden for the ceremonial launch of the exhibition Māori Markings: Tā Moko. The event represented a significant cultural exchange between two indigenous groups: one, Māori, the other, Ngambri.

Paul House of the local Ngambri people welcomed guests and a delegation from Aotearoa New Zealand’s Toi Māori and led a cleansing smoking ceremony with his son Reuben. Tamahou Temara and Derek Lardelli of Toi Māori then headed a procession with karakia (ritual incantations) that took visitors through the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art galleries, Polynesian art gallery (where they stopped briefly to address the works on display) and up to the exhibition.

Lardelli and Temara acknowledged the images of Maori ancestors and the taonga (heritage treasures) in the exhibition before guests where ushered in for three short speeches: one by the Gallery’s Katie From top: Welcoming and cleansing ceremony for the opening of Māori Markings: Tā Moko at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, March 2019; Tā moko demonstrations, March 2019.

Opposite, from top: ‘Create space: The mists of time’ at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, March 2019; Workshop of Sayyid Hussain Shah The Godfrey shawl c 1870, cashmere wool, natural dyes. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, gift of the Godfrey family 1992

Russell, another by Trevor Maxwell, Chair of Toi Māori, and, finally, one

by New Zealand High Commissioner Dame Annette King. A warming performance by the local Tumanako Māori Cultural Group, led by Isaac Cotter, concluded the morning events.

Live tā moko demonstrations, accompanied by music and singing, were held in the afternoon, bringing the Gallery to life with a community spirit. This spirit continued with a second day of demonstrations on the Saturday, presenting some of the liveliest scenes visitors to the Gallery have ever been witness to.

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IN BRIEF

Mobile Studio Pop-up activities for the whole family to share Whoever you are and whatever your artistic skill or confidence, bring the whole family and join our friendly staff at a Mobile Studio pop-up. The program, formerly called ‘Create Space’, is an established family favourite and it’s about to become a regular option for visitors keen to explore the national collection through a range of activities and experiences. Already this year, these intensive creative sessions have popped up all over the gallery, even in the Sculpture Garden, where it took inspiration from Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya’s fog sculpture Foggy wake in a desert: An ecosphere 1982.

The program has become the centrepiece of our school holiday offer. Look out for activities during NAIDOC Week and in our exhibition Maori Markings this July. Activities and focus works from the national collection change regularly, so check our What’s On borchure or the Gallery’s website as well as our social media for locations. When you arrive, our friendly staff at the front desk will help direct you. Mobile Studio pop-ups are free for everyone and all materials are provided.

For dates, go to nga.gov.au/calendar

Asian art on the move Opens 1 September The Asian collection is on the move, with the current Asian galleries closing in July this year and the collection displayed afresh from September across two floors, connecting Australian art on level 1 and international art on level 2. The move is an exciting opportunity to reimagine and reinterpret art from across Asia, reveal works not shown before and celebrate the riches and diversity of the Asian collection.

Presented within a framework of four broad themes, the inaugural display will include works dating from 2500 BCE to the present.

The theme ‘Time and place’ presents a diverse group of works, including a suite of 1940s woodblock prints by Chinese artist Gu Yuan, photographs of the Javanese coastline by Indonesia’s Kassian Cephas and his son Sem and a group of watercolours, prints, photographs and devotional and natural history paintings that explore art produced in Kolkata between the late eighteenth and the late twentieth centuries.

‘People’ explores the concept of portraiture in a wide range of media and contexts, including Chinese funerary figures, Indonesian ancestor figures, modern Japanese woodblock prints and paintings, costume and ceramics.

‘The natural world’ shows approaches to the depiction of nature, including celebrating the seasons, mythological creatures and patterns inherent in natural forms. The largest section of the new displays focuses on ‘Devotion’, reflecting the role of spiritual belief as an impetus in the creation of art. Gods, ancestors, saints, guardians and eccentrics, text and narratives and pilgrimage sites and shrines have inspired the subjects of the works on display.

ARTONVIEW 98 WINTER 2019

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EXHIBITION LISTING

AT THE GALLERY

TRAVELLING EXHIBITIONS

MONET: IMPRESSION SUNRISE

DAVID HOCKNEY: PRINTS

Claude Monet’s rarely loaned Impression, sunrise is joined by other world-famous paintings from the Musée Marmottan and select collections worldwide.

7 June to 1 September 2019 Adult $22.00 | Children 16 and under free Concession $20.00 | Member $17.00 Book now at ticketek.com or 1300 795 012

Hockney’s printmaking practice through key works from the collection.

3 May to 16 June 2019 @ Araluen Arts Centre 13 July to 8 September 2019 @ Hazelhurst Arts Centre 5 October to 1 December 2019 @ Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery

MĀORI MARKINGS: TĀ MOKO

THE NED KELLY SERIES

Exploring the Māori art and tradition of tā moko, face and body marking.

22 March to 25 August 2019

Sidney Nolan’s iconic paintings of the exploits of Ned Kelly and his gang.

21 June to 4 August 2019 @ Riddoch Art Gallery 5 October 2019 to 16 February 2020 @ Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory

BODY LANGUAGE Indigenous Australian cultural identity and language expressed through art.

11 May 2019 to February 2020

CONTEMPORARY WORLDS: INDONESIA Twenty of the most exciting emerging and established artists from Bali and Java’s key artistic centres.

21 June to 27 October 2019

BODIES OF ART: HUMAN FORM FROM THE NATIONAL COLLECTION Investigations of the human form throughout time.

On now

YAYOI KUSAMA: INFINITY ROOM Cult contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama’s infinity room THE SPIRITS OF THE PUMPKINS DESCENDED INTO THE HEAVENS 2017.

On now

URS FISCHER: SCULPTURE Swiss artist Urs Fischer’s four-metre-high wax candle sculpture Francesco 2017.

Until 27 August

NGA.GOV.AU 10

EXHIBITION LISTING

DEFYING EMPIRE: NATIONAL INDIGENOUS ART TRIENNIAL Contemporary art responding to the 50th Anniversary of the 1967 Referendum.

26 July to 13 October 2019 @ Mildura Arts Centre

ART DECO FROM THE NATIONAL COLLECTION: THE WORLD TURNS MODERN Stylish items from an age of jazz and flappers, glamorous fashion and design.

31 May to 25 August 2019 @ Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre 7 September to 27 October 2019 @ Ipswich Art Gallery 16 November 2019 to 2 February 2020 @ Horsham Regional Art Gallery

TERMINUS: JESS JOHNSON AND SIMON WARD An unforgettable virtual-reality experience

by Jess Johnson and Simon Ward.

4 November 2019 to 1 March 2020 @ Heide Museum of Modern Art

NEW BOOKS

Monet: Impression sunrise 204 pages, hardcover | $49.95 This publication traces the story of the artistic influences on Monet leading up to the creation of his groundbreaking painting Impression, sunrise in 1872. Centred around this key work that gave Impressionism its name, for the first time Australian audiences will see Monet’s paintings in the context of works that shaped the fledgling artist into the leader of Impressionism. The exhibition demonstrates the influence of English landscapists such as JMW Turner and Richard Parkes Bonington, the French Barbizon School and Realist artists working in the decades before Monet, including Charles Daubigny, Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet, as well as Eugène Boudin and Johan Barthold Jongkind, who worked directly with Monet, mentoring him and encouraging him to broaden his artistic approach.

Maori markings: tā moko 104 pages, softcover | $39.95 Tā moko is the unique Māori art of marking the skin with patterns that connect, patterns that tell of prestige, authority and identity. Māori Markings: Tā Moko explores this tradition, from its origin in the legend of Mataora and Niwareka and the earliest European records of the practice to its contemporary resurgence from the 1990s. Important early Māori sculpture, nineteenthcentury prints, paintings and photography and contemporary photography trace the story of this unique cultural art form. The portraits in the exhibition span the past two hundred and fifty years and include images of men and women influential in Māori history. Significantly, this book also distinguishes the art of tā moko from common tattooing, as societal perceptions today have wrongly conflated the two.

Contemporary worlds: Indonesia 140 pages, hardcover | $49.95 Charting the turbulent post-Reformasi period in Indonesia, from the fall of Suharto in 1998 to the present, Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia explores the vibrant and complex art of Australia’s closest neighbour. Showcasing twenty of the most exciting emerging and established artists from Bali and Java’s key artistic centres of Bandung, Yogyakarta and Jakarta, this book explores concepts ranging from sexuality, gender roles and family to environmental concerns, the art market, material and form, the everyday object and how we might listen to and learn from the sounds of Indonesia. Captivating painting, sculpture, installation, moving image, photography, textiles, live performance and film reflect the social and political change negotiated by Indonesia over the past twenty years. The publication is in English and Bahasa Indonesia.

All books and many more available at the Gallery Shop and online at shop.nga.gov.au.

ARTONVIEW 98 WINTER 2019

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CANBERRA’S TOP 5 WINTER INDULGENCES 1

2

Boutique wine tasting

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Canberra is close to 30 boutique cellar doors

Arguably the best thing about winter is

offering delicious local seasonal wines. Book

getting cosy near a fireplace. Be lured

a wine tour or draw straws for who’s driving.

to the Monster Kitchen and Bar’s salon

Truffle hunt

and dining room fireplace or enjoy

The region’s Truffle Festival offers an unusual

the warmth at Canberra’s oldest pub,

opportunity to join growers and their dogs on the hunt and the chance to taste these prized 3

The Old Canberra Inn. 5

Hot-air ballooning

culinary gems in season.

The view from a hot-air balloon as you

Decadent day spas

float above the city at dawn must be

Pamper yourself at one of the city’s premier

the most serene way to appreciate the

day spas, Jindii EcoSpa, situated at the

charm of our nation’s capital.

base of the tranquil Rainforest Gully in the Australian National Botanic Gardens.

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Fireplace dining

A MONET WINTER ESCAPE

A MONET WINTER ESCAPE This winter, spend a weekend with Monet in Canberra and discover the National Gallery’s Monet: Impression Sunrise, and enjoy a Parisian experience in Canberra.

Whether you’re planning a winter getaway to the national capital or a

neighbours. A selfie in our Yayoi Kusama infinity room is also a must

luxury staycation to shake off those winter blues, Canberra will warm

before you leave us to watch the sun set over the lake while enjoying

your soul. Home to Australia’s national collections and a thriving local

dinner on the Kingston Foreshore. Then finish your day in style at the

arts scene, Canberra is brimming with cultural and natural attractions,

lounge and library of Little National Hotel for some champagne and

delicious wines and great cuisine.

socialising (or a book of your choice) by the fire.

Begin your winter escape with a few nights at the Avenue Hotel

If you have an extra few days, you might want to immerse yourself

in the heart of the city. Make your Monet adventure a feast for the senses

in more culture and history. The National Museum, National Library,

with fine French dining at Les Bistronomes. The truly adventurous

Museum of Australian Democracy and Australian War Memorial are all

might like to channel Monet’s en plein air style by taking an early

nearby. Nature lovers, however, might prefer to explore the bush capital’s

morning stroll along Lake Burley Griffin as the sun rises, remembering

spectacular surrounds. Mount Ainslie Lookout and Black Mountain

to rug up. Otherwise, wake up later and grab a café au lait and French

Tower are both popular, and, further afield, Namadgi National Park and

patisserie from the National Gallery’s cafe when we open at 10.00 am.

Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve offer remarkable scenery. Canberrans, like

See the extraordinary paintings by Monet and discover the

the French, also have a great appreciation for fine wine, and an array of

artists that influenced his work before you experience the masterpiece

award-winning wineries are a stone’s throw away, including Lerida Estate

that gave rise to the term Impressionism, Impression, sunrise 1872.

just over half an hour north.

A morning among these French masters will get you in the mood for a

If you’re here on a Sunday, explore the Old Bus Depot Market

delicious bite before you explore the rest of the national collection. You

in Kingston, where you will find art, vintage homewares, clothes and

can indulge in a high tea at the Gallery for the duration of the exhibition—

other handmade goods. Then head to the Molonglo Group’s buzzing

but remember to book your tickets through Ticketek beforehand for

warehouse-style precinct on Dairy Road to enjoy artisan beers and one

this exclusive dining experience. If you feel like exploring nearby Barton

of Canberra’s legendary Brodburgers. You can also book a tour of the

instead, try the charming, award-winning French bistro and wine bar

brewery on the weekend. And, to cap off your Canberra winter getaway,

Buvette for a glass of red, steak and frites.

you can channel the French Alps at Vertikal Indoor Snow Sports.

In the afternoon, explore the world’s largest Aboriginal and

Discover there is much more to Canberra than politics this winter

Torres Strait Islander display and discover more about history’s great

with the added Parisian magic that Monet: Impression Sunrise can bring

art movements, contemporary trends and the culture of our nearest

to your local getaway.

Opposite: Claude Monet Tuileries 1876 (detail), oil on canvas. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, gift of Victorine and Eugène Donop de Monchy 1940 Left: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

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START PLANNING FOR SUMMER Hugh Ramsay 30 November 2019 to 29 March 2020 Delve into the paintings, portraits and sketchbooks of seminal Australian artist Hugh Ramsay, whose brilliant career was cut short at just twentyeight years of age. The young artist shot to fame when he had the rare honour of having four works accepted into the New Salon in Paris in 1902. Revel in his remarkable artistic achievement as the National Gallery displays an array of exceptional works in this exhibition drawn from a range of public and private collections.

This focused exhibition will reveal his tremendously close bonds with his family and friends. Featuring paintings, drawings and works on paper, this exhibition highlights Ramsay’s remarkable insights as a portraitist. The National Gallery of Australia holds the majority of the artist’s sketchbooks, which convey his abilities as a draftsman as well as his charisma and humour.

Left: Hugh Ramsay Miss Nellie Patterson 1903 (detail), oil on canvas.

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1966 Below: Christian Thompson (Bidjara people) Berceuse 2017, threechannel video installation. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, gift of the artist 2019. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. Courtesy of the artist and Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin

Revealing your Australian collection in a new light Opens 7 December Come December, audiences, old and new, will see and experience our

about them through surprising juxtapositions and correspondences.

Australian art in a whole new light in completely refurbished gallery

All media will be included. Videos, photographs, ceramics, textiles,

spaces. The display will illuminate the stories of our country from diverse

jewellery, furniture, prints, drawings, paintings, sculpture and

perspectives. Among the introductory works will be a performative video

installation (to mention just a few). This will make for lively displays that

by Christian Thompson, Berceuse 2017, titled from the French word for

are not so much contained in rooms but follow threads that flow across

lullaby and reimagining his traditional language of Bidjara. The haunting

intersecting spaces and ideas.

soundscape resonating across the spaces will set the tone for a clear acknowledgment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and ideas, particularly around loss and reclamation.

The new displays will take visitors through the entangled threads of our stories, including many migrant perspectives, from the late eighteenth century to the present day. While encompassing a broadly chronological approach, there will be alternating rhythms across the spaces. For instance, there will at times be an intimate focus on a remarkable individual work, alongside moments of intensity in clustered groupings and dramatically massed displays. In these various instances, the selections will be purposeful and insightful of the multilayered stories across places and timeframes.

We have been delving into the depths of the national collection to unearth works that haven’t been shown for many years, but we will also re-examine and reveal afresh some of the Gallery’s best known and most loved works, challenging perceptions of what we think we know

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START PLANNING FOR SUMMER

Matisse/Picasso 13 December 2019 to 13 April 2020 The rivalry between Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso is one of the most significant stories of modern art, and it is this story that the National Gallery will tell this summer in its major exhibition Matisse/Picasso.

Drawn from some forty important international collections, Matisse/ Picasso shows how these two pioneers of modern art mined each other’s work to enhance their own and shared the need to confront the challenges set by the paintings of Paul Cézanne.

In the early twentieth century, Picasso became a colossus of modern art, revered and emulated by many of the younger generation of avant-garde artists who had initially been inspired by Matisse and Fauvism. He explored seemingly endless stylistic possibilities for art, leaving few paths uncharted. Others could only follow suit, with the exception of Matisse.

Matisse/Picasso will trace the paths these two artists took over decades as they responded to each other. It will begin with the young Picasso settling in Paris, where he was determined to make a name for himself. Taking radical steps towards Cubism, he confronted the older Matisse, who was then renowned as the radical leader of the Fauves.

Despite Picasso’s competitive bravado and resistance, Matisse’s creativity also enticed, disturbed and ruffled him.

In the end, when Matisse was at his most dynamic, Picasso was also, such was the power of their rivalry and respect for one another.

No one was more watchful of Matisse’s art than Picasso and vice versa.

Both explored pictorial issues in unique ways, but always remained on guard, acknowledging and challenging each other through their creative output.

Right, from top: Henri Matisse Still life with oranges or Basket of oranges 1912, oil on canvas. Musée National Picasso-Paris, Picasso’s personal collection. © Photo: RMN-Grand Palais (Musée National Picasso-Paris)/Mathieu Rabeau, Succession H Matisse/Copyright Agency; Pablo Picasso The soles 1940, oil on canvas. National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh, purchased 1967. © Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency. Photo: Antonia Reeve

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NEW INITIATIVE

Learning Gallery and Studio 16

LEARNING GALLERY AND STUDIO

Katie Russell introduces the Gallery’s new Learning Gallery and Studio, the gallery part of which is already open, launching in May with the exhibition Body Language, while the studio is currently in development and will open in August.

This winter the National Gallery launches the Learning Gallery and

Indigenous Australian cultural identity and language. In many

Studio, two initiatives, under the one umbrella, dedicated to young

Indigenous communities across the country, body markings are a

people’s engagement with art. Enabled by a recent transformative

form of communication that operates in tandem with movement and

donation from Tim Fairfax AM, these two spaces expand on the

verbalisation. The works in the exhibition, in a wide variety of media,

innovations and success of the various offerings for young visitors

demonstrate the infinite expressive potential of the human body to

over the course of the Gallery’s history.

convey meaning. They are also supplemented by interpretive labels

Located in several gallery spaces since 1992, many readers will

written in both English and the traditional languages of the artists.

recall the Children’s Gallery, the variety of exhibitions presented there

Co-curated by Kelli Cole in our curatorial department and Shane

testifying to the depth and breadth of the national art collection.

Nelson in our public programs and education team, Body Language

The Children’s Gallery was a unique space where items from all

will surely delight audiences of all ages (see pages 21–3 for more).

collecting areas would be brought together to elucidate a theme or

The Learning Studio, in tandem with the Learning Gallery

illuminate a topic—certainly, in 1992, this was an innovation in the

and the galleries beyond, is a site for creativity and art production.

Australian art museum sector, which still has not been matched in

From the Confucian school of thought comes the maxim, ‘I hear and

terms of collection presentation and interpretation for children.

I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand’, and it is this

Another part of the Children’s Gallery experience was the

idea that underpins the fundamental principles guiding the studio’s

collaborative approach between curatorial and educational staff in

development and the National Gallery’s broader engagement with

the development of interactive activities and in writing interpretive

young people. The studio makes real our firm belief in the profound

texts specifically for children. This was a marked and positive shift

impact of personalising the encounter with art through creative

from the way larger exhibitions or collection displays were delivered.

response. To this end, the Gallery’s Small Theatre is currently being

It spoke to a holistic, inclusive way of working that valued an exchange

transformed into a flexible art studio.

of ideas between professionals. On a broader industry level, the fact

On weekdays during school terms, visiting students will have

that staff from areas other than Education consistently presented idea

the opportunity to complete their gallery tour with a hands-on art-

for the space demonstrated that, in the two decades of the Children’s

making session in the studio to reflect and respond to the works of

Gallery’s existence, children were unquestioningly recognised as a valid

art they have seen on display. Other weekday studio activations will

audience for art and that working with this audience is not solely the

include our popular toddler and pre-school sessions. On weekends

domain of educators.

and during school holidays, however, the studio will transform into an

The Learning Gallery will honour and build on the legacy of

intergenerational learning space where children and their families can

all previous offerings for children. It draws on our own history, the

get creative with art-inspired activities developed in response to the

innovative work of other Australian galleries and international examples

exhibition program.

to realise a space that embodies our commitment to offer meaningful art experiences to all our visitors. Each year will see two exhibitions presented in the Learning Gallery. The first of these, Body Language

For more information regarding these exciting developments in support of gallery learning, go to nga.gov.au/whatson

focuses on language and identity in Indigenous Australia, including iconography, as part of the Gallery’s contribution to the International Year of Indigenous Languages.

Featuring works from the national collection, including work

by Emily Kam Kngwarray, Jarinyanu David Downs, Reko Rennie, Ali Gumillya Baker and Vernon Ah Kee, Body Language explores

Opposite: American Masters 1940–1980 at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, August 2018, featuring Roy Lichtenstein’s Kitchen range 1961–62. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/Copyright Agency

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ENGAGEMENT

International Year

Languages

Shane Nelson discusses what the International Year of Indigenous Languages means to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to all Australians, while Sally Brand focuses on Tony Albert’s spectacular animated projection, which was shown during the Enlighten festival earlier in the year, and Kelli Cole explores some of the themes in the National Gallery’s new exhibition Body Language.

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INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES

Australia’s Indigenous peoples have occupied this land for more than 65 000 years. Before the arrival of Europeans, there were over 250 distinct Indigenous Nations with over 600 original language dialects.

Today, only around 120 dialects are still spoken, and approximately ninety per cent of these are in danger of being lost. The situation is dire and, while pronounced in Australia, it is something many of the world’s indigenous languages are facing. In response, the United Nations last year declared that 2019 would be the International Year of Indigenous Languages to promote awareness to help preserve Indigenous languages and safeguard the rights of those who speak them.

Speaking as an Indigenous man (Wiradjuri and Walgalu peoples), language is more than just a means to communicate.

It is a unique cultural trait and is an essential element of our identity. Language carries meaning beyond words themselves and is an important platform that assists in the transmission of knowledge, particularly for oral cultures. Of course, language is not just a verbal expression, Aboriginal symbols and iconography are an essential part of Indigenous languages.

Designs and patterns are communicated through ritual, dance, song, body painting, rock engravings and paintings. There are also non-verbal cues such as hand gestures and facial expressions used to communicate messages.

In Australia, each Indigenous language is unique to place. It echoes the landscape from which it arose. When the language of the land is spoken, it brings together the land and its people, past, present and future. Connection to Country is critical, as land underpins kinship and defines community and language groups.

Learning an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language incorporates the realities of its people and facilitates people’s deep engagement with knowledge, ways of being and ways of knowing.

It develops an understanding of historical, current and ongoing connection to place and culture. By learning an Indigenous language, all people can gain broader access to knowledge and understanding of Australia that can only come from an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander perspective.

The National Gallery’s current exhibition Body Language explores Indigenous Australian cultural identity as it is expressed through verbal and visual language. The Indigenous voice is a pillar of the National Gallery’s programs and displays. In addition to our regular public activations of the Indigenous collection, we are planning a series of programs in 2019 and beyond that focus on language and engage artists who work with language to create interventions in gallery spaces throughout the building. Tony Albert’s I AM VISIBLE on the Gallery’s facade during the Enlighten festival was a fantastic example of this.

Important national Indigenous events such as NAIDOC Week also provide opportunities for people to engage with Indigenous languages.

In 2019, the week will run from 7 to 14 July and the national theme is ‘Voice. Treaty. Truth’. Keep an eye on our website for further details on our events for NAIDOC Week.

Shane Nelson

Electric Fields performing at the National Gallery of Australia for the Enlighten festival, Canberra, March 2019.

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Tony Albert’s I AM VISIBLE Elevating the voices of Australian artists and First Nations peoples is

as heart beats and rippled across the surface of the Gallery’s brutalist

central to the National Gallery of Australia’s commitment to leading a

cement facade.

progressive national cultural agenda. In late 2018, the Gallery engaged

‘A target takes away any invisibility—it highlights presence’, says

leading Australian artist Tony Albert of the Girramay, Yidinji and Kuku-

Albert, who regularly addresses issues of racial profiling and miscarriages

Yalanji peoples of Queensland to illuminate the Gallery’s facade for

of justice in our community, both locally and globally. While the young

Canberra’s annual Enlighten festival, kickstarting the Gallery’s programs

men in Albert’s work are unified by their target, they are also depicted as

celebrating 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages.

individuals, proud, strong, defiant and, at times, becoming superheroes

The resulting event-based commission, I AM VISIBLE, was

or angels with glowing and emanating haloes. Incredibly popular,

launched on 1 March with an evening of programs, including art making

both onsite and through social media, I AM VISIBLE received national

activities for all ages, a live-streamed conversation between Albert

media coverage for its confronting yet optimistic stance that destabilised

and the Gallery Director Nick Mitzevich and an hour-long concert

stereotypes and offered new images for now and our collective future.

by label-defying electronic dance act Electric Fields. Soaring into the

Looking ahead, the Gallery will continue to commission contemporary

Canberra evening, lead vocals by Zaachariaha Fielding in Pitjantjatjara,

artists to develop illuminated animations to connect audiences with the

Yankunytjatjara and English resonated with Albert’s illuminated digital

art of today and issues critical to Australia and the world.

animation, which featured statements of love for family and community

Sally Brand

in his ancestral language of Girramay.

The large-scale, six-minute digital animation was a first for both the artist and the Gallery and was produced in collaboration with Sydney-based architectural projection specialists The Electric Canvas.

Conceived in three parts, I AM VISIBLE repurposed imagery from Albert’s earlier series, including Brothers 2012–15, examples of which are held in the national collection, and Moving Targets 2015, a collaboration with Bangarra Dance Theatre Artistic Director Stephen Page and dancer Beau Dean Riley. Throughout the illumination, the target was a recurring symbol that adorned young Aboriginal men’s chests, pounded

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INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES

Above: Tony Albert (Girramay, Yidinji and Kuku-Yalanji peoples) with his I AM VISIBLE 2019, architectural digital projection for the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, commissioned by National Gallery of Australia 2018–19, production by The Electric Canvas with contributions by Stephen Page (choreography) and Beau Dean Riley (dancer). Courtesy the artist and Sullivan + Strumpf, Sydney

Right, from top: Damien Shen (Ngarrindjeri people) Ventral aspect of a male #1 (detail), from On the Fabric of the Ngarrindjeri Body: Volume II 2014, pigment inkjet print. Purchased 2016; Joan Nancy Stokes (Warrmungu people) The Stock Yard Story 2002, synthetic polymer paint on canvas. Purchased 2003

Body Language Body Language explores Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural identity expressed through forms of text, imagery, photography, artistic designs and body paint. It showcases a range of artists and mediums that convey the ways in which Indigenous Australians communicate. The works included, while captivating, also encourage the Gallery’s non‑Indigenous audiences to become more visually and culturally literate.

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, our languages are fundamental to the expression of our culture and identity.

But for us, language goes beyond words on a page. It is alive in our oral traditions and in our designs, as means for sharing important and, at times, sacred knowledge, of keeping our stories and cultural ties alive and of constructing our identity—which is also inextricably connected to Country. In a gallery context, we often speak about the long artistic traditions of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, but these visual traditions are also strongly linked to language, to communicating and passing on knowledge, to our oral history traditions.

Evident in many works in Body Language, symbols remain the visual form to retain and record significant information. The Ancestors taught us designs, patterns and stories, which have been reinforced and replicated for generations in ritual, dance, song, body painting, rock engraving, carving, painting and on cultural objects. Symbols drawn in the earth or sand, and now painted on canvas and appearing in other mediums, can represent animal tracks or landmarks. Combined in different ways, they communicate stories or directions to those who can read them.

When considering symbolism in Aboriginal art, people will often turn to what they consider is ‘traditional’ Aboriginal art, carrying with them the baggage of what they believe qualifies as a symbol—fine dotting and concentric circles being obvious examples. This comes from a limited understanding of the complexity of the symbolism and the diversity of Indigenous nations in Australia. Emliy Kam Kngwarray, for instance, rarely used the well known iconography or motifs of Western Desert painting. Instead, she chose to follow the women’s traditional methods of mark making.

Body painting and ornamentation are traditions that carry deep spiritual significance for many Indigenous Australian people, whose cultural rituals and iconography can differ greatly from one nation to another. Scarification, in which deliberately placed scars tell a story, was another widely practised form of body language, although it is

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INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES

Opposite, from top: Vernon Ah Kee (Kuku Yalanji, Yidinji, Waanyi, Gugu Yimithirr and Koko Berrin peoples) Can’t chant (wegrewhere) #2 2009, digital print on photographic paper. Purchased 2009. © Vernon Ah Kee; Christopher Pease (Minang, Wardandi, Ballardong and Nyoongar peoples) Cow with Body Paint 2007, balga (xanthorrhoea) resin and natural earth pigments on hessian on canvas. Purchased 2009. Courtesy the artist and Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin and Gallerysmith, Melbourne Right: Emily Kam Kngwarray (Anmatyerr people) Ntange Dreaming 1989, synthetic polymer paint on canvas. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1989. © Emily Kam Kngwarray/Copyright Agency

now restricted to some discrete areas of Australia. It is a ceremonial

interrogating the slogans used (predominantly by young white men)

practice and is sensitive and sacred in nature.

during the riots: ‘We grew here, you flew here’. As an Indigenous man,

Body Language includes artists widely dispersed throughout

Ah Kee takes ownership of these words to highlight the hypocrisy in

Australia and showcases that language, verbal or visual, is key to

them and the history of denial with regard to Australia’s own violent

our identity. Notably, the bi-lingual written material supporting the

history toward those who ‘grew here’.

exhibition was produced in consultation with the artists and their

Then there is Minang and Noongar artist Christophe Pease’s Cow

communities. Navigating the exhibition, audiences will discover

with Body Paint 2007, which sits alongside Ah Kee’s works, and carries

many nations and peoples. However, works are not arranged by where

a similar sentiment, albeit related to Western Australia’s pastoral history.

the artists live or where the works were created but by how the they

Both Pease’s and Warrmungu woman Joan Nancy Stokes’s works speak of

connect or speak to each other in the space, to highlight similar

important narratives of the roles of Indigenous people in the Australia’s

narratives or ideas.

pastoral industry. Stokes’s works are particularly fun and vibrant but are

Damien Shen is a Ngarrindjeri man, for instance, and his

also a strong reminder of a life that ended for many Indigenous people

photographs sit alongside Tasmanian Ricky Maynard’s, as both are about

following the Gurindji strike, or Wave Hill Walk-Off, which lasted from

continuing cultural knowledge and about strength and reliance. They

1966 to 1974.

hang juxtaposed to an intimate Western Desert Papunya board by Kaapa

Body Language includes many other narrative threads and

Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa, a man whose country sits across three nations—

incorporates aids to help audiences discover and learn more about

Anmatyerre, Warlpiri and Arrernte—in the Northern Territory. Shen and

Indigenous Australian language and what language means to us and

Tjampitjinpa’s works both show mark-making designs of body paint.

for our ongoing resilience.

Vernon Ah Kee’s compelling text and photographic works in the

Kelli Cole

exhibition were created in response to the racially charged riots in Cronulla in December 2005. The photograph Can’t chant (wegrewhere) #2 2009 shows three young men, two of which are holding surfboards that mirror the iconography of rainforest shields, standing resolute on

Body Language 10 May 2019 to February 2019 nga.gov.au/learninggallery/bodylanguage

the beach, as if going into battle. The wordplay of the title is echoed in cantchant 2009, the words ‘we grew here’ filling the canvas and

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MONET: IMPRESSION SUNRISE

MA JOR EXHIBITION

Marianne Mathieu, Assistant Director of the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris and curator of Monet: Impression Sunrise at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra from 7 June, traces the birth of an icon in Monet’s body of work, from the first Impressionist exhibition to the collections of Ernest Hoschedé, Georges de Bellio, Victorine and Eugène Donop de Monchy and, finally, the Marmottan.

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The term ‘impressionist’, a jibe made by the hostile critic Louis Leroy, and almost immediately reclaimed by Jules-Antoine Castagnary in defence of the new painting, was quickly adopted by the group of painters formed by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley. The mockery was short-lived, and the term soon acquired positive connotations. It was also the root of a further movement, ‘Neo-Impressionism’, coined in 1886 by the critic Félix Fénéon to define the methods of Georges Seurat. Thus, from shortly after the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, the word passed to popular usage. And there it remains.

But Impression, sunrise 1872, the work that inspired the name, suffered a very different fate. From being the centre of a scandal in the exhibition that defied Salon conventions, the painting fell into relative obscurity for decades before it was recognised as the founding work of Impressionism and became an icon of art history. Its first owner was Ernest Hoschedé, who, between 1865 and 1878, gathered one of the premier collections of his time—the prestige of which was matched only by the brevity of its existence. At first, he attended only the Salon.

But, from 1870, he took an interest in Edouard Manet and the future Impressionists, becoming one of their first patrons. He acquired Impression, sunrise for 800 francs in May 1874 and eventually owned as many as thirty works by Monet.

Sinking under his debts, however, Hoschedé was soon obliged to dispose of part of his collection, privately selling some of his Monet oils before the seizure of his estate in 1877. It was on the second day of the insolvency sale in June 1878 that Georges de Bellio purchased the painting. The son of a rich aristocratic family of Macedonian origin, de Bellio led a discreet, bourgeois life. His first purchases as a collector display his eclectic tastes. However, his fame in this arena is as one of the earliest supporters of Impressionism. He undoubtedly visited the first Impressionist exhibition in Nadar’s former studio in April 1874.

He bought nothing there but had purchased his first Monet, The Seine at Argenteuil 1873, some weeks earlier. He had a profound admiration for Monet and considered him, after Manet, the greatest painter of his time.

He unhesitatingly supported Monet in the artist’s lean years.

After de Bellio’s death in Paris in January 1894, his collection went to his daughter Victorine. It was a capital asset that provided her and her husband Eugène Donop de Monchy with a bourgeois lifestyle. In 1924, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition, the critic Adolphe Tabarant wrote a well-documented study that took up two pages of the Bulletin de la vie artistique of 15 April 1924. Researching his article, he contacted Eugène on 13 January 1923, asking ‘to know what became of this picture [Impression, sunrise], which has a prominent place in the history of modern art’. The article focused entirely on the Pages 24–5: Claude Monet Train in the snow. Locomotive 1875, oil on canvas. Gift of Victorine and Eugène Donop de Monchy 1940 Above, from top: Claude Monet Europe Bridge. Saint-Lazare Station 1877 and Spring through the branches 1878, oil on canvas. Gifts of Victorine and Eugène Donop de Monchy 1940

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1874 exhibition, with Impression, sunrise at its centre and as the only illustration. Thanks to his synthetic approach, Tabarant was the first to present Impression, sunrise as the founding work of Impressionism and thus bestow on it a new place in Monet’s oeuvre.

The relative obscurity of Impression, sunrise nevertheless survived

Opposite, from top: Claude Monet Impression, sunrise 1872, oil on canvas. Gift of Victorine and Eugène Donop de Monchy 1940; Claude Monet Creuse valley, evening effect 1889, oil on canvas.

Bequest of Michel Monet 1966

this publication and others, notably Marthe de Fels’s La vie de Claude

All works in this feature are from the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

Galerie Rosenberg in Paris asked to loan Europe Bridge in 1931 and

MONET: IMPRESSION SUNRISE

Monet of 1929, and continued to be overlooked for exhibitions until

Eugène took the initiative to point out that he also owned Impression, sunrise. In 1934, Victorine and Eugène Donop de Monchy attended the opening exhibit of the new Musée Marmottan, administered by the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Victorine and Eugène were childless and decided to honour the de Bellio name by leaving the works they had inherited to the Marmottan.

The Second World War, however, accelerated the transfer of part of their collection. When war seemed inevitable in 1939 and the evacuation of works of art began, the couple sent two packing crates containing eleven Impressionist paintings, including Impression, sunrise, to the Marmottan’s director Henri Le Riche, who was able to secure them with the main national collections, notably those of the Louvre, at the Château de Chambord. Victorine was 77 and Eugène was 86 at the beginning of the German occupation of France in May 1940. Hard times were coming, so they decided to immediately donate the eleven works already entrusted to the Marmottan. Thus the Impressionist collections of the Musée Marmottan came into being.

Victorine completed the donation in 1945 and added other works in 1947. The Impressionist corpus was now one of the most highly

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esteemed and sought-after in the world and the perpetual secretary praised the entrance of these masterpieces into the collections of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. But Europe Bridge was still cited as a highlight of the museum’s collection. The publication of John Rewald’s History of Impressionism, however, marked a new era in Impressionist studies in which the 1874 exhibition, Leroy’s article and Impression, sunrise

This article is an edited extract of Marianne Mathieu’s essay ‘The birth of an icon’ in the Gallery’s new book Monet: Impression sunrise, available at the Gallery Shop.

Monet: Impression Sunrise 7 June to 18 August 2019 nga.gov.au/impressionsunrise

emerged as key elements in the birth of Impressionism.

The final piece solidifying the birth of Impression, sunrise as an icon came in April 1957, when Victorine refused to authorise the Académie to lend Impression, sunrise ‘outside France’ after receiving a loan request from the National Gallery of Scotland—agreeing to the loan

Join the conversation #monetnga

of Train in the snow and Europe Bridge. Thereafter, Impression, sunrise established itself as the undisputed centrepiece of the Musée Marmottan Monet’s collection and attained the status of universal masterpiece that it enjoys today.

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MONET: IMPRESSION SUNRISE

Above: Claude Monet Waterlilies 1903, oil on canvas.

Bequest of Michel Monet 1966

History of the Marmottan Located in the heart of Paris, the Musée Marmottan Monet has an

The reputation of the Académie attracted donations and bequests

intriguing history as a hunting lodge to a French duke and home to art

to the Marmottan, the earliest of which were in keeping with the

enthusiasts, many renovations and some of Europe’s great masterpieces.

traditions embodied by the Académie and championed by Marmottan.

It houses a collection of pre-modern paintings, sculptures and

However, when Victorine and Eugène Donop de Monchy announced

illuminations and boasts the world’s leading collections of works by

a bequest of eleven Impressionist works, among which was Monet’s

Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot. This Impressionist treasure trove is

Impression, sunrise 1872, a new chapter in the Marmottan’s history

also enriched with works by Eugène Delacroix, Eugène Boudin, Edouard

began (see the preceding pages). With the Second World War, the bequest

Manet, Edgar Degas, Gustave Caillebotte, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro,

became a gift and the cornerstone of the museum’s coveted Impressionist

Paul Gauguin and Auguste Rodin.

collection. The De Bellio Donop de Monchy Room opened in Victorine’s

The building was once owned by art historian and collector Paul Marmottan, whose father, Jules, acquired the property from the

presence in October 1948.

Cementing the Impressionist collection as one of museum’s

family of the Duke of Valmy. Jules was highly successful in business, a

greatest treasures was a bequest from Monet’s youngest son, and only

philanthropist and a collector of Old Masters and medieval art. As Jules’s

living descendent, Michel, who died in 1966. Monet had left his son

only son, Paul inherited his father’s substantial fortune, mansion and

most of his late works and a collection of paintings and drawings by his

collections in 1883. At the time, he was a senior public servant in Eure

contemporaries such as Boudin, Renoir, Morisot and many others. Over

prefecture, but he gave it up to move to Paris, marrying Gabrielle Rheims

a hundred works by Monet, including an unrivalled group of his large

a few years later. The couple divorced in 1894. Ten years on, the death

waterlily paintings, were added to the Marmottan’s collection.

of his beloved Marie Martin, whom he intended to marry, led him to a

The world’s largest collection of Monets had taken shape, and the

solitary life, which he filled with the study of art. He became an expert in

museum became known as the Musée Marmottan Monet. Many other

and collector of the French Consulate and Empire periods.

benefactors have enriched the museum since its creation, including

His first acquisitions were assembled in the pavilion of the mansion,

several other descendants of artists, who followed Michel’s example, such

which he redecorated in the Empire style. Later, he acquired adjoining

as the Rouart family, who bequeathed to the museum the world’s leading

land to build an extension, making room for his collection alongside his

collection of works by their forebear the Impressionist Berthe Morisot.

father’s and transforming rooms in the main house, including several of

The museum is now a must-see for lovers of Impressionism visiting Paris.

the salons. When he died in 1932, he entrusted his home and collections to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, both to preserve them and to make

For a more detailed history, see the Marmottan’s website

them available to the public. Just two years later, the doors of the Musée Marmottan, as it was then known, opened.

Above: Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris.

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CURRENT EXHIBITION

MÄ€ORI MARKINGS 30

MAORI MARKINGS: TA MOKO

Crispin Howarth speaks to tā moko artist Turumakina Duley about moko and the practice of tā moko today.

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Pages 30–1: Serena Stevenson Turumakina Duley and Ashley Duley 2004 (detail), digital print Left: Turumakina Duley demonstrates tā moko at the opening day of Māori Markings: Tā Moko, 22 March 2019.

Opposite: Serena Stevenson Turumakina Duley and Mark Kopua 2004, digital print

Crispin Howarth: How did you get started as a tā moko artist? What

People come for many different reasons. We discuss the appropriate

were the biggest influences that led you down that path?

placement, the appropriate patterns and talk about what they want to

Turumakina Duley: I was introduced to moko through the kapa haka,

express through their moko.

the performance of traditional dance and songs, when growing up in New Zealand. We would draw on moko for our stage performances,

Crispin: As a moko wearer yourself, do you think it’s a more accepted

and from there I began to do my own research into carvings, photos

form of cultural expression these days—firstly, in the Māori community,

and painting of moko, the work of artists such as CF Goldie, Gottfried Lindauer and even one of my own ancestors, Joseph Jenner Merrett, a cartographer and an artist for Governor Grey.

Around 1993, I started with tattoo, as a friend brought around a homemade machine (tattoo gun), and we would practice on friends.

But really, about six years later, the main influence on my journey is Mark Kopua, who picked me up and became my tutor. He taught me moko and the origins of why it was placed on and how—the whole practice around moko. Mark was very much a mentor to me. His background was as a master carver for around twenty-five years before turning to moko. Carving and moko are closely related, using the same knowledge base for patterns. While the mediums may vary, the information behind the patterns is the same.

Crispin: How do you decide on what is right for a person’s moko?

What is the process?

Turumakina: Moko is more accepted now than it has been for decades.

This is something practitioners have been trying to achieve over the past twenty-five years. The Māori community is really normalising it again.

We are getting to the point that, within five to ten years, it’s going to be common in Aotearoa to see facial moko—it’s going to be everywhere!

Outside of the Māori community? Acceptance is pretty good in my experience. As a wearer of facial moko, you get a lot of people curious about it, and they want to ask about it. Obviously, you get the closedminded people, too, associating moko with criminality, but it’s easy to spot a gangster from somebody who is not a gangster, right? Really, it comes down to the person that’s wearing the moko and how they wear it. For us, it’s a tohu rangatira, a marking of nobility, a marking of high culture.

Crispin: Apart from the actual physical practice of using tattooing guns, what do you consider are the biggest differences between tā moko

Turumakina: When someone comes to me seeking moko, firstly, I need

practice of the nineteenth century and tā moko of today?

to establish the reason for the moko. There are many, from benchmarks

Turumakina: The difference in tā moko today as compared to the

and achievements in their lives to very deep-seated reasons such as

nineteenth century is in the change of lifestyle, in the way we live.

memories of people, including children, who have passed on. So, the

The modern world, with its technologies, is totally different to Māori life

way that a pattern operates is usually drawn from nature. There are

in the nineteenth century. Different livelihoods, more connection to the

proverbial sayings attached to patterns, and philosophy comes through

environment, warfare, defending the people from outside marauders—the

that. For example, the silver fern—the way that each new leaf starts

lifestyles dictate how you are marked on your skin. Toa, what we would

off as a spiral and unfolds and then dies and a new one comes up

call a soldier today, warriors of rank, would take on certain markings.

and takes its place and then another takes its place. It’s this ongoing

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but also by non-Māori, both in New Zealand and overseas?

We lost a lot of knowledge, particularly around male facial moko in

process of regeneration and rebirth symbolising renewal that makes

the late nineteenth century. A lot changed also because of the Tohunga

the fern pattern synonymous with children, raising children and

Suppression Act 1907 making it illegal, so practices went underground.

nurturing children.

Today, there may be a few families around, pockets here and there,

MAORI MARKINGS: TA MOKO

that have retained some of that earlier knowledge. But, today, we are

else can walk in and get. I can relate to that, so my thinking is that I am

redefining the reasons we get moko, the markings that are relevant to

happy to tell their stories through a Māori paradigm.

our lives.

The tradition of moko was one of initiation, rites of passage— it started around that age—but it also benchmarks achievements in

Crispin: The wearing of moko seems to be growing, even among nonMāori. What’s the future for tā moko, as you see it, as a practitioner?

your life and gives you a goal to strive towards and achieve in your life.

Turumakina: Maintaining the genealogical ties to receive facial moko

business development. I approached my family to talk about and get

is really quite important. In the media over the past year, the issues of

permission to receive a facial moko to commemorate the achievement of

pākehā receiving facial moko have sparked up a debate over whether

getting a degree. I am a moko artist, and it felt like a natural progression

moko can be a gift to people who are part of the Māori community,

for me. So I got my family’s blessing and was able to benchmark that

married into the community, but are non-Māori. It really needs to be

achievement. Moko is not something placed on the skin willy-nilly.

a community decision to gift facial moko to a non-Māori person. If

There are good reasons why people come to me, as a practitioner, to

my elders came to me and explained that the person has served the

get moko.

For my own journey, I went to university and did a bachelor of Māori

community for years and years and asked me to give that person a moko, then I would have to oblige. Some practitioners would oblige and others wouldn’t, preferring to keep facial moko as Māori only.

But, in terms of moko on the rest of the body for non-Māori, we’ve already got people from all over the world tattooed with patterns of all cultures. There are those who are on their own journeys, interested in the Māori culture of moko. They do their research, and they are attracted to the art of tā moko because it holds a depth of meaning, so they do not

First published in the National Gallery’s book Māori markings: tā moko, available at the Gallery Shop.

Maori Markings: Tā Moko 22 March to 25 August 2019 nga.gov.au/tamoko Join the conversation #tamoko

want to go and just put on something in a tattoo studio that someone

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COMING EXHIBITION

CONTEMPORARY WORLDS

INDONESIA

Enin Supriyanto explores the work of the artists in Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia who shifted away from the dominant idea that Indonesian art, particularly since Reformasi, had to carry a socio‑political message.

CONTEMPORARY WORLDS: INDONESIA

In the discourse of modern Indonesian art, ‘Indonesian identity’ has become the subject of much dispute between artists, observers and critics. One art critic who wrote extensively on attempts at constructing an Indonesian art identity was Sanento Yuliman. In his 1969 article ‘Finding Indonesia in Indonesian paintings’, he traced how the concept of ‘Indonesian identity’ has been constructed by artists and art critics in Indonesia throughout history. His conclusion was that these attempts had never been truly useful, nor did they succeed at finding the ‘Indonesian identity’ they longed for. Rather than trying to identify one ‘framework’ for Indonesian art, which some artists would deliberately rebel against, he argued for ‘many frameworks’, reflective of the richness and contradictions of ‘Indonesian-ness’.

In the Reformasi era, the perspective that identified Indonesian art as art that carries socio-political messages was considered the most relevant ‘frame’ for serious discussions. Indonesian artists whose works rebelled against this image were marginalised. Works that put more importance on form and materiality, and did not engage directly with the social and political reality of Indonesia, were seen as anomalies and mostly ignored by critics, curators and representatives of art institutions outside Indonesia.

Today, this perspective of Indonesian art is no longer as relevant.

Over the past twenty years, the country’s political and social situation has changed, and a new generation of artists has emerged. That is not to say that artists no longer incorporate socio-political concerns into their works, or even take up activism as part of their artistic practice, but that they have different attitudes and viewpoints in approaching art compared to their predecessors. Although some artists also consider these issues not important enough to be part of their work or part of their motivation to create art.

Handiwirman Saputra, Faisal Habibi, the Tromarama collective and Albert Yonathan Setyawan are among the artists who have rebelled against the socio-political ‘frame’. With the exception of Saputra, who began his career in the midst of Reformasi, they are part of a generation of artists who started their careers around a decade after Reformasi, distancing themselves from this tumultuous period.

For me, Saputra’s approach and working method are reminiscent of those of a dukun, a traditional healer or shaman. Whether taking care of the spiritual-magical aspects in a ritual or the more practical work of healing an ailment, a dukun would often assemble a mixture of several different objects. There is usually no linear causal relationship between these objects, either functional or symbolic. For instance, can we find any common thread between objects wrapped in a dukun’s talisman: strands of human hair, brown round pebbles picked from a riverbed, drops of blood, black thread, a piece of bark from the forest, tree roots, charcoal pieces from a fireplace, a piece of white cloth?

From an art-historical perspective, Saputra could be considered a bricoleur, as defined by Claude Lévi-Strauss in The savage mind.

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A bricoleur can work with any material or tool within his or her reach, surpassing the skills of even the most dedicated craftsperson. A bricoleur needs to use all of his or her imaginative powers to construct a new ‘grammar’ for materials to be able to create the grandest poetic expression for them. This fits with Saputra’s view that all things and forms project a ‘behaviour’ and that he has to engage in a dialogue with them and find the right ‘treatment’ for them to produce evocative works of art.

Interest and attention to materiality and form are also apparent in Habibi’s works, although he has different artistic motivations, uses different methods and creates different artistic expressions. His works can appear mischievous and silly, as he plays around with everyday objects with the sole purpose of surprising us with an unusual visual composition (without any attempts at creating metaphors). In his installation Mind the gap 2015, he chose a variety of iron plates in random geometric shapes, metal scraps from a workshop, which he then reassembled in a precise, calculated configuration and composition. To a certain extent, Habibi applies surrealist thinking in his method of work. Surrealists view the modern individual as being trapped in routine and boredom. But, at the same time, it is in the everyday that we find the materials and energy to break routine, to dissolve our boredom and alienation.

It is in this everyday domain that we can draw several comparisons between Habibi’s body of work and that of Tromarama.

Established in Bandung in 2006, Tromarama is an art collective comprising Febie Babyrose, Herbert Hans and Ruddy Hatumena.

Lately, their works have been particularly focused on addressing a range of questions: in what way is our everyday constructed, or even determined, by the variety of preselected images mediated through and on the internet? What kind of social relations are we actually experiencing in this constant and complex contestation between the real and the virtual? Where can we find a space that truly provides conscious and free choices for people as individual and social beings, if in many cases these choices have been predetermined for us by data and algorithms?

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CONTEMPORARY WORLDS: INDONESIA

Setyawan, on the other hand, follows a completely different

framework—not to the ‘historical burden’ of finding and constructing

approach to dealing with the commotion of everyday life. In many of

an ‘Indonesian‑ness’, as Yuliman argued in 1969, nor to the idea that

his works, especially ones resembling the mandala or kalachakra,

it must be critical of the country’s socio-political problems.

the rhythmic patterns move concentrically from the centre out. Such movements occur until the outer and inner boundaries no longer exist as a contradiction. This repetition is also found in the elements or objects that he uses as building blocks to form a larger structure, transcending the boundaries between the parts and the whole, as seen in his series Mandala study 2012–15. In his works resembling a labyrinth, repetition also occurs, although in the actions of entering and exiting the labyrinth.

Repetition in Setyawan’s works not only occurs during the

This articles is an edited extract from the National Gallery’s book Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia, available soon at the Gallery Shop.

Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia 21 June to 27 October 2019 nga.gov.au/contemporaryworlds Join the conversation #contemporaryworlds

process of creating their multiple identical forms, but also manifests itself when he arranges the works in a gallery. For Setyawan, creation and presentation make up a complete meditation process. In many instances, as he is setting up his pieces for display, deep in the rhythm of his own repetitive motions, one witnesses a meditative experience that eventually shapes the performative qualities in his work.

Of course, Indonesian art has always been diverse, despite certain discourses tending to dominate from time to time. However, today, Indonesian artists have proven themselves particularly adept at taking inspiration from many sources and taking on a variety of artistic practices. Indonesian art is no longer shackled to a single

Pages 34–5: Faisal Habibi Mind the gap 2015, steel.

Courtesy of the artist and ROH Projects, Jakarta Opposite: Handiwirman Saputra No roots no shoots no 8 2018–19 (detail), part A: fibreglass resin, plastic, steel wire and cloth, part B: 20 chromogenic prints on aluminium plates. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2019 Below: Tromarama Intercourse 2015, two-channel video.

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2018.

Courtesy of the artist and Edouard Malingue Gallery

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EXHIBITIONS

Travelling exhibitions Mary-Lou Nugent looks at the exhibitions that the National Gallery is currently touring around Australia.

David Hockney: Prints at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, February 2018.

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TRAVELLING EXHIBITIONS

The Ned Kelly series 21 June to 4 August @ Riddoch Art Gallery For the first time in sixteen years, the Gallery’s collection of Sidney Nolan’s ‘Ned Kelly’ paintings is touring Australia in its entirety. The

Art Deco from the National Collection: The World Turns Modern 31 May to 25 August @ Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre

tour, which began in 2018, spans five states and one territory, giving

The National Gallery holds many treasures from the Art Deco period,

Australians across the country the chance to experience one of the

and audiences around Australia can enjoy these iconic works during the

greatest sequences of Australian paintings of the twentieth century.

2019–20 tour of Art Deco from the National Collection.

Nolan’s starkly simplified depiction of Kelly in his armour has

Works include Jean Broome-Norton’s Woman with horses 1934 and

become an iconic Australian image and, while following the main events

the lyrical painted works of Rupert Bunny, along with key examples of

of the Kelly story, Nolan did not intend the series to be an ‘authentic’

Australian design such as one of only four known extant Cafe Australia

depiction of these events. Rather, these episodes became the setting

chairs designed by Marion Mahony Griffin. European examples are also

for the artist’s meditations upon universal themes of injustice, love and

included such as Sonia Delaunay’s printed fabric Signal, which she first

betrayal. The Kelly saga was also a way for Nolan to paint the Australian

created for the seminal International Exhibition of Modern Decorative

landscape in new ways, with the story giving meaning to the place.

and Industrial Arts, held in Paris in 1925, from which the term Art Deco

Above all, he considered it ‘a story arising out of the bush and ending

was derived.

in the bush’.

The exhibition is currently at Riddoch Art Gallery in Mount

The national tour of Art Deco commenced in May at the Tweed Regional Gallery in Murwillumbah, home of the Margaret Olley Art

Gambier, and will tour later in the year to the Museum and Art Gallery

Centre. From there, it will travel to regions and venues with their

of the Northern Territory in Darwin before reaching its final venue of

own rich Art Deco heritage, including Ipswich in Queensland and the

Cairns Art Gallery in Queensland in early 2020.

heritage-listed Horsham Regional Art Gallery in Victoria. The tour then concludes at the Hazelhurst Arts Centre in Gymea from June to August 2020.

The Ned Kelly series at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 2018. Photo: Andrew Curtis

Art Deco at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2018.

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Defying Empire: National Indigenous Art Triennial

David Hockney: Prints

26 July to 13 October @ Mildura Arts Centre

3 May to 16 June 2019 @ Araluen Arts Centre 13 July to 8 September @ Hazelhurst Arts Centre

Defying Empire, the third National Indigenous Art Triennial, features thirty contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists

The National Gallery is thrilled to be touring a stunning survey of David

from across the country. Opening at the Gallery in Canberra in 2017,

Hockney’s prints from 1961 to now. Highlighting the depth and scope of

it commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 Referendum that

Hockney’s printmaking output, David Hockney: Prints opened in Cairns

counted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Australians for

in Queensland in February and is currently at Araluen Arts Centre in

the first time.

Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. It will then travel to Hazelhurst

The works in the exhibition collectively explore and represent the resilience of Australia’s Indigenous people since first contact and their ongoing fight for recognition. ‘We defy: By existing; By determining our

Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in Victoria.

David Hockney: Prints presents an explosion of diversity of

identity; By asserting our histories; our culture; our language; By telling

expression in printmaking drawn from Gallery’s collection of Hockney’s

our stories, our way; By being one of the oldest continuous living cultures

works on paper. It features his hallmark large lithographic portraits,

in the world’, wrote Tina Baum, curator of the exhibition and Curator of

etchings of fairytales, panels of iPad drawings, the splashes of colour of

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery.

the Paper pool series and his immersive lithographic water studies.

The exhibition’s national tour encompasses five states and

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Arts Centre in Gymea in New South Wales before concluding at the

As a young artist, Hockney explored his sexual identity and

territories over two and half years, making it the Gallery’s largest touring

experiences through painting and printmaking by developing a

survey of contemporary Indigenous art. It has just ended at the Western

subversive iconography relating to his homosexuality. Now 81-years-

Plains Cultural Centre in Dubbo but will open again at the Mildura Art

old and a towering figure in British art, he is still searching for and

Gallery in Victoria in July.

expressing new ways of exploring art and depicting the world.

Defying Empire: National Indigenous Art Triennial opening night at the University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, Brisbane, July 2018. Photo: Simon Woods

David Hockney: Prints at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, February 2018.

TRAVELLING EXHIBITIONS

Touring a VR experience The national tour of Terminus: Jess Johnson and Simon Ward commences in November 2019. Terminus is a virtual-reality exhibition presenting a choose-your-own adventure into the technological. It is the first time that the National Gallery has planned a tour of this scale and focus, providing visitors in seven venues across five states with access to an innovative and interactive art experience.

Tour venues include large metropolitan galleries such as Heide Museum of Contemporary Art and the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art as well as smaller art galleries in regional cities such as Geraldton in Western Australia and Murray Bridge in South Australia. The importance of engaging students with this highly contemporary work has also had a major impact on plans for the tour, with university galleries such as the Plimsoll Gallery and the Academy Gallery in Tasmania and the Samstag Museum of Art at the University of Adelaide included on the itinerary.

Jess Johnson and Simon Ward, with their pioneering use of virtual reality, hold a unique position among contemporary art practitioners. Visitors will navigate five distinct realms, with Johnson’s drawings transformed from analogue to digital by Ward and from solo practice into cross-disciplinary collaboration, forming the basis of this virtual experience.

Terminus: Jess Johnson and Simon Ward 4 November 2019 to 1 March 2020 @ Heide Museum of Modern Art See full tour dates and venues online at nga.gov.au/exhibitions

Jess Johnson and Simon Ward’s virtual-reality experience Terminus 2017–18, at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, May 2018. Commissioned with the assistance of The Balnaves Foundation 2017. Courtesy of the artists; Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney; Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland and Jack Hanley Gallery, New York

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ON LOAN

Simeran Maxwell examines the National Gallery’s Francis Bacon painting Triptych 1970, which will be travelling to the Centre Pompidou in Paris later this year.

Francis Bacon’s

Triptych 42

FRANCIS BACON’S TRIPTYCH

The British artist Francis Bacon was famous for his raw, dark and often

Collection until mid July, is Bacon’s lover and muse George Dyer, who

violent canvases. By appropriating classical art and myths, and later other

took his own life on the eve of Bacon’s first Parisian retrospective at the

favourite literary sources, he presents a polarising view of the twentieth

Grand Palais in 1971. Both figures are seated in hammocks derived from

century. His works capture the dualities of life and death and beauty and

Eadweard Muybridge’s photographic plate ‘Woman in a swing’ from

ugliness as well as notions of civilisation and barbarism, all of which

Animal locomotion 1887. Bacon worked from photographs and memory,

will be explored in a retrospective of his late work opening at the Centre

rather than from life, preferring to place a ‘lens’ between himself and

Pompidou in Paris from September. During the 1970s, Bacon undertook

the world. Figures are distorted, positioned in ill-defined spaces and

a group of important large figurative paintings. These tripart canvases, a

simultaneously evoke the ambiguity of dreams and the sharp focus of

format he adopted early in the 1940s, demonstrate his interest in working

conflict and tension. Audiences can see this at once erotic and dangerous

in series. Bacon said, ‘I see images in series’, and, ‘I suppose I could go

work in Bodies of Art before it makes its way to Paris.

long beyond the triptych and do five or six together, but I find the triptych is a more balanced unit’.

On the left and right panels of his 1970 painting Triptych, on display in the Gallery’s Bodies of Art: Human Form from the National

Francis Bacon’s Triptych 1970 at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2019. © Francis Bacon. DACS/Copyright Agency

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DONATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS

Donations Partnerships

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Foundation Gala Dinner and Weekend

Bequest Circle

Now in its eleventh year, the National Gallery of Australia Gala is a major

The National Gallery of Australia’s Bequest Circle represents and

annual fundraising event that offers a two-day curated program for

acknowledges a special group of like-minded people whose love of art

invited guests. Supporters come to Canberra from around Australia and,

and commitment to Australia’s National Gallery has inspired their future

the world to celebrate and share the national art collection and the artists

giving. Formed to honour such donors during their lifetime, it justly

who sit at its core.

recognises the significant role benefactors play in the life of the National

This year, the program started with a cocktail reception in our Australian galleries with artist Danie Mellor in front of his monumental nine-panelled work Landstory 2018, the focus of the current Members

the Gallery, its collection, staff and community of supporters.

The generosity of our supporters enables us to develop important

Acquisition Fund campaign. On Saturday, the Director hosted the

initiatives and build the collection. ‘I am passionate about the critical

inaugural Australian Artists Long Lunch in our beloved Sculpture Garden

role the National Gallery plays in the cultural life of our nation’, says

with eleven celebrated artists. Behind-the-scenes and collection tours

Director Nick Mitzevich, ‘and I believe our collection helps define,

then filled the afternoon before the evening program.

educate and inspire us as a people’. We are committed to honouring

Guests’ donations, and those of absent friends, this year assisted

the interests of our legacy donors, whether that is the acquisition of

with the acquisition of Urs Fischer’s candle work Francesco 2017,

works of art in specific collecting areas, education programs or other

which was lit by generous supporter and Deputy Chair of our Council

key activities.

Tim Fairfax AC. They then enjoyed a private viewing of Love and

To join the Bequest Circle, you simply need to let us know you have

Desire: Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces from the Tate before dinner in the

remembered the National Gallery in your will. All bequests of varying

Gandel Hall, transformed by the flower creations of Doctor Lisa Cooper.

amounts and types make a valuable and enduring difference. Make a

A specially designed three-course menu by award-winning Melbourne

lasting gift to the Gallery and help us build a legacy that will educate and

chef Shaun Quade was served. A highlight of the evening was a beautiful

inspire all generations to come

and captivating performance by Sarah Blasko.

For more information about the Bequest Circle or to discuss your

The program concluded with a special presentation of Tony Albert’s powerful animated light work I AM VISIBLE, commissioned for this year’s Enlighten festival, which brought the building’s facade to life against the night sky.

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Gallery and creates an opportunity to foster a closer relationship with

DONATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS

options, please go to nga.gov.au/giving or contact the Gallery’s Foundation on (02) 6240 6691

The Robert and Eugenie Bell Decorative Arts and Design Fund The Robert and Eugenie Bell Decorative Arts and Design Fund for the

collection and celebrate Robert’s legacy through the generosity of those

acquisition of decorative arts, design and crafts of the twentieth and

who share his passion.

twenty-first centuries has been established to honour the legacy of

The National Gallery’s new Sid and Fiona Myer Decorative Arts and

Dr Robert Bell AM and to acknowledge Robert and his wife Eugenie’s

Design Curator Rebeca Edwards reveals more about Liminal on page 53.

passion for and commitment to the field. Announced by Director Nick

The Gallery greatly appreciates Sid and Fiona Myer’s dedication to

Mitzevich at the memorial celebration for Robert in October 2018, this

funding this important curatorial role at the Gallery, which we will share

dedicated fund will continue Robert’s lifelong work, which ‘has resulted

more about in our spring issue.

in a collection of international magnitude of which we are very proud’,

nga.gov.au/giving

said Mitzevich at the time.

Robert was the Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the National Gallery of Australia from 2000 until his retirement in 2017.

Over this period, he dedicated his expertise to shaping the Gallery’s internationally renowned Decorative Arts and Design collection.

He was an integral part of building the fabric of the nation’s art history in his chosen field, and his contribution to the National Gallery and other institutions will serve as his legacy for years to come.

This fund was seeded by Robert and Eugenie, and fully taxdeductible contributions are welcome from anyone who wishes to support it. The inaugural acquisition made through the fund was Melanie Douglas’s Liminal 2018, a perfect pair of light and dark glass vessels that have seemingly been drawn into being. As Douglas says: ‘I am using line to inform, define and enable three-dimensional space’. This is a significant work of art that will enhance the Gallery’s

Opposite: Patricia Piccinini with Danie Mellor and his Landstory 2018, the focus of this year’s Members Acquisition Fund, at the Foundation Gala Dinner, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, March 2019.

Above: Eugenie Bell and Rebecca Edwards, Sid and Fiona Myer Curator of Ceramics and Design, with Mel Douglas’s Liminal 2018 at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, April 2019

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Private donors The Gallery acknowledges the support of its many private donors and recognises here all donations made between 6 October 2018 and 22 March 2019.

You have our thanks.

Maurice Crotti AO and Tessa Crotti

Martin Browne and Ahmed Begdouri

The Hon Ashley Dawson-Damer AM

Dr Dax Calder

Timothy Fairfax AC and Gina Fairfax

Deborah Clark

John Gandel AC and Pauline Gandel AC

Jean Curthoys

Gandel Philanthropy

Lauraine Diggins OAM

Helen Gannon and Michael Gannon

Dr Donna Foley

Kerry Gardner AM and Andrew Myer AM

Simryn Gill

Julian Goldenberg and Neta Saint

John Godschall Johnson

Richard Griffin AM and Jay Griffin

Denise Green AM

Peter Hack

Kate Hodgkinson

William Hayward and Alison Hayward

Graham Howe

Jennifer Hershon

Billie Jo McCann

Australian art: works on paper

Sue Hewitt

John McPhee and Dr Jim Sait

Lyn Williams AM

John Hindmarsh AM and Rosanna Hindmarsh OAM

Dr Margaret Middleton

Neil Hobbs and Karina Harris

Arryn Snowball

Cézanne Watercolour and Drawing Fund

Dr Helen Jessup

Joanna Tanaka-King

Susan Elder

Bruce Keebaugh and Chyka Keebaugh

Christian Thompson

Katarina Kroslakova

Lynnette Thompson

The Lansdowne Foundation

Dr Gerard Vaughan AM

Elizabeth Laverty

Susan White

Raymond Leggott and Chris Kirby

Lyn Williams AM

Asian Art Fund Meredith Hinchliffe

Arthur Streeton The Point Wharf, Mosman Bay 1893 Maurice Cashmere in memory of Sarah Cashmere Claire Parkhurst in memory of Sarah Cashmere

Donations John McConville Alison McIntyre Neilson Foundation

Paul Little AO and Jane Hansen

Education Patron

Amanda Love and Andrew Love

Tim Fairfax AC

Dr Andrew Lu OAM Dr Peter Lundy RFD and Dr Maureen Bremner

Andrew Gwinnett and Hiroko Gwinnett

Kenneth Tyler Print Fund

Exhibition Patrons: Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia

Prudence MacLeod and Alasdair MacLeod

Phillip Keir and Sarah Benjamin

Susan Maple-Brown AM

Keir Foundation

Dr Michael Martin and Elizabeth Popovski

Masterpieces for the Nation 2018

Ezekiel Solomon AM

Fiona Martin-Weber and Tom Hayward

Diana Brookes

Robert Meller and Helena Clark

Exhibition Patrons: Hugh Ramsay

Margaret Brown

Jan Minchin

Maureen Chan

Colin Hindmarsh and Barbara Hindmarsh

Jan Murphy

Wendy Cobcroft

Baillieu Myer AC and Sarah Myer

Sally Hardy

James Notaras and Sophia Notaras

Colin Hill and Linda Hill

Roslyn Oxley OAM

Maria Nicoll

Geoffrey Pack and Leigh Pack

Óscar Pampín Cabanas

Exhibition Patrons: Love and Desire Krystyna Campbell-Pretty John Schaeffer AO and Bettina Dalton

Suzanne Maple-Brown and Anthony Maple-Brown

American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia Kenneth Tyler AO and Marabeth Cohen-Tyler

Exhibition Supporters: American Masters

Roslyn Packer AC

Terra Foundation for American Art

Elizabeth Pakchung

Masterpieces for the Nation 2019

Lady Potter AC

Sue Dyer

Foundation Board Publishing Fund

Kenneth Reed AM

Ray Wilson OAM

Gary Sands John Schaeffer AO and Bettina Dalton

Foundation Gala Dinner Fund 2019

Morry Schwartz AM and Anna Schwartz

Members Acquisition Fund 2016–17 Irene Delofski and Ted Delofski

Members Acquisition Fund 2017–18

American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia

Andrew Sisson AO and Tracey Sisson

Philip Bacon AM

Jane Smyth OAM and Dr Warwick Smyth

Julian Beaumont OAM and Annie Beaumont

Ezekiel Solomon AM

Anthony Berg AM and Carol Berg

Ursula Sullivan

Members Acquisition Fund 2018–19

Berg Family Foundation

Bret Walker SC

Meredith Adams

William Blinco and Annette Blinco

Rhonda White AO and Terry White AO

Lenore Adamson

William Bowness AO

Sally White OAM and Geoffrey White OAM

Robert Aernout

Sir Ronald Brierley

Wendy Whiteley

Antoinette Albert, Emily Albert and Anna Albert

Adam Brooks

Lyn Williams AM

Elizabeth Allen

Andrew Buchanan PSM and Kate Buchanan

Ray Wilson OAM

Dorothy Anderson

Robyn Burke and Graham Burke AO

Jason Yeap OAM and Min Lee Wong

John Anderson

Robert Cadona

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Japanese Art Fund

Andrew Cameron AM and Cathy Cameron

Gifts of work of art

Terrence Campbell AO and Christine Campbell

Dr Dudley Anderson and Lisa Anderson

Sue Cato

Mark Bayly

Damian Clothier QC and Sarah Greer

Jenny Brown

DONATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS

Wendy Cobcroft Irene Delofski and Ted Delofski

Michael Askew and Debra Askew Margaret Aston Michelle Atkinson and William Atkinson Robin Austin

Dr Brian Babington and Rhonda Babington

Dimity Davy

Dr Joseph Johnson CSC, AAM, and Madeleine Johnson

Brett Backhouse

Haydn Daw and Susan Daw OAM

Penelope Jurkiewicz and Waldemar Jurkiewicz

Dr Lynne Badger

Patricia Degens

Karin Keighley

Anna-Rosa Baker

Ian Dewar

Helen Kelleher and John Kelleher

Bernadette Baker

Megan Douglas

David Kennemore and Rosemary Kennemore

Sheryl Ballesty

Murray Doyle

Judith Kennett

Janet Bamford

Susan Duffy and Shaun Duffy

Helen Kenyon

Lesley Barker

Lindy Dugard and Peter Dugard

Ilse King

Estelle Barnes and Chris Barnes

Robyn Duncan

Christine King and Kenneth Wardrop

Julian Beaumont OAM and Annie Beaumont

Peter Eddington and Joy Williams

Ron Kirkland and Christobel Kirkland

Vivienne Beddoe

Mark Edwards

Joan Kitchin

Janet Bedloe and Chris Bedloe

Kathy Eyles

Geraldine Kruger and Edward Kruger

Maria Bendall

Ian Falconer and Mary Falconer

Robyn Lance and Robert Lance

Andrew Bennett

Norman Feather

Naomi Landau

Prof Martin Bennett

Anthony Felgate

Janet Lapworth

Judith Bibo

Peter Flanagan and Cheryllee Flanagan

Faye Anita Lee

Noel Birchall and Georgina Birchall

Jo-Anne Flatley-Allen

Dr Frederick Lilley and Penelope Lilley

Martin Black and Norma Black

Wayne Fletcher and Lynn Fletcher

Liz Lynch and Michael Lynch

Robert Blacklow

Carolyn Forster OAM and Richard Forster

Douglas McAlister and Fleur McAlister

Valerie Boot and Dr Hector Macdonald Boot

David Franks

Patricia McCullough

Robyn Boyd and Penleigh Boyd

Dr Noel French and Freida French

Jan McDonald

Robert Boyes

Dorothy Galvin

Dr John McEwen and Josette Laudereau

Margaret Brennan and Geoffrey Brennan

Richard Gate

Hugh Mackay and Dr Sheila Mackay

Margaret Brown

Helen Gee and Mark Gee

Selma McLaren

Matthew Brown and Julie Alt

Janet Gibson and Alan Cory

Virginia McLeod and Robert Bleeker

Vicki Brown

Lindsey Gilbert and David Gilbert

Hugh Major

Ian Bruce

Sylvia Glanville

John Malone

David Bruce-Steer and Leith Bruce-Steer

Mary Gleeson

Dr Michael Martin and Elizabeth Popovski

Jennifer Bryson

Robert Gnezdiloff and Moya Gnezdiloff

Rosamond Mason

Antony Buckingham

Ian Gollings AM and Shirley Gollings OAM

Graeme Mayo

Alice Buckley and John Buckley

June Gordon

Dr Betty Meehan

Annette Byron

Dr Elizabeth Grant AM

Tina Merriman

Dorothy Cameron

Pauline M Griffin AM

Lisa Molvig

Yvonne Campbell

Katrin Hackney

Anthony Moore

Deb Carroll and Jim Carroll

Claire Haley

Catherine Moore

Jane Carver

Lorraine Handel

Andrew Moorhead

Marguerite Castello

Cheryl Hannah

Dr Elizabeth Morrison

Carmen Castelo

Sam Harkiss and Dr Carolyn Petersons

Anne Moten and John Moten

Maureen Chan

Yvonne Harrington

Dr Ann Moyal

Prof Andrew Cheetham and Jan Cheetham

Dr Patricia Harvey and Dr Frank Harvey

Joananne Mulholland and David Rivers

Angela Chklamovska

Bruce Hayes

Michele Munn

Christine Clark

Colin Hill and Linda Hill

Janet Munro

Kathryn Clarke

Dr Marian Hill

Catherine Murphy and Christopher Murphy

Patricia Coats

Elisabeth Hilton

Laura Murray Cree

Ken Coles AM and Rowena Danziger AM

Meredith Hinchliffe

Susan Myatt

Bruce Cook

Neil Hobbs and Karina Harris

Graham Cooke and Cassandra Cooke

Margaret Hughes and the late Brigadier J Garth Hughes

National Gallery of Australia Voluntary Guides Association

Natalie Cooke

Mie Ling Huisken and Ron Huisken

Maria Nicoll

Paddy Costanzo and Karen Costanzo

Emer Prof Terence Hull and Dr Valerie Hull

Barbara Noden

Kerry-Anne Cousins

Gary Humphries AO and Cathie Humphries

Caroline Nott and David Nott

Barbara Crawford

Judith Hurlstone and Clive Hurlstone

Kathleen Nowik

Merrilyn Crawford

Claudia Hyles

Marie Oakes

Georgia Croker

John Hyndes and Danielle Hyndes OAM

Major Terry O’Brien OAM and Lucinda Lang

Catherine Crompton

Angela Isles

Diana-Rose Orr

Mary Curtis and Richard Mann

John Jackson and Rosslyn Jackson

Dr Milton Osborne

Commander Andrew Dale and Barbara Dale

Lucie Jacobs

Robert Oser and Agie Oser

Maria Magda Damo

Prof Chennupati Jagadish and Dr Vidya Jagadish

Geoffrey Pack and Leigh Pack

Rowena Davey and Alan Davey

Clifford Jahnsen and Suzanne Jahnsen

Hazel Parsons

Elisabeth Davis and Walter Davis

Susan Jardine

Susan Boden Parsons Brian Partridge and Helena Partridge

ARTONVIEW 98 WINTER 2019

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Robert Pauling

Helen White and Robert Richardson

Andrew Phelan and Monica Phelan

Anne White and Peter White

Richard Price

Rev George Wilkins

Anne Prins

Dr Wayne Williams

Wendy Rainbird

Emer Prof David Williams AM and Margaret Williams

The Hon Margaret Reid AO

Dr Jonathan Williams and Cathryn Williams

Ardyne Reid

Lyn Williams AM

Helene Rey

Andrew Williamson and Carolyn Williamson

John Richards-Pugh and Barbara Richards-Pugh

Zandra Wilson

Dr Lyn Riddett

Amelia Witheridge

Paul Robilliard and Hanan Robilliard

Prudence Wootton

Susan Rogers

Diane Wright

Arjen Romeyn

Michael Wright and Robyn Wright

Alan Rose AO and Helen Rose

Sandra Young

Warwick Ross and Margot Ross

Helena Zobec and Richard Marson

Dr James Ross Diana Ryan

Robert and Eugenie Bell Decorative Arts and Design Fund

Bridget Sack

Margaret Ainscow

Raoul Salpeter and Roslyn Mandelberg

Maxine Armitage

Dr Murray Sandland

Eugenie Bell

The Sargeson family

Beverley Bell

Sally Saunders

Michael Bogle

Fiona Sawyers

Max Bourke AM and Margie Bourke

Janet Schmidt

Rose Cahill and Costa Kakavas

Annette Searle

Sarah Carlson and Simon Hansen

Penelope Seidler AM

Prof Helen Ennis and Roger Butler AM

Prof Robert Shanks and Josephine Shanks

Prof Arline Fisch

Rosamond Shepherd

Jody Fitzhardinge

Gene Sherman AM and Brian Sherman AM

Robyn Gordon and Bruce Gordon

Barry Smith-Roberts

Meredith Hinchlie

Prof Nicholas Standish and Marcia Standish

John Hindmarsh AM and Rosanna Hindmarsh OAM

David Stanley and Anne Stanley

Claudia Hyles

John Stead Steensen Varming (Australia)

Prof Helmut Lueckenhausen and Gillian Lukeckenhausen

Helen Stewart

Lisa Molvig

Robyn Stone and Dr Alison Kesson Gay Stuart and Charles Stuart

National Gallery of Australia Voluntary Guides Association

Lynette Swift

Dereck Rooken-Smith

Roger Tall

Sally Saunders

Dr Richard Telford and Sue Telford

Ezekiel Solomon AM

Juliet Tootell and Ben Tootell

Roberto Thomas

Sylvia Tracey

Dr Caroline Turner AM and Dr Glen Barclay

Helen Tuite

Maryanne Voyazis, Fred Smith and Olympia Smith

Hugo van Willigen and Hendrika van Willigen

David Walker and Margaret Ainscow

Derek Volker AO and Susan Volker

Liz Williamson

Linda Rossiter and Peter Rossiter

Maryanne Voyazis, Fred Smith and Olympia Smith Pamela Walker Preventive Medicine and Rehabilitation Centre Dr Jill Waterhouse Jenny Watt and Raymond Watt Gabrielle Watt Wendy Webb Alexandra Wedutenko Dr Tony Weir Dr Julie West and Glenn Hughes Angela Westacott June Westmacott Vibeke Wetselaar

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DONATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS

Rotary Fund Rotary Club of Belconnen

Partnerships Strategic Partners

Indigenous Art Partner

Contemporary Art Partner

Major Partners

Visions of Australia

Supporting Partners

Media Partners

Promotional Partners

L E R I D A E S TAT E

ARTONVIEW 98 WINTER 2019

51

NEW ACQUISITIONS Fiona Lowry In Australian art history, the use of the airbrush to depict the landscape

of a strange event has happened. And what is about to happen next.

is associated with the suburban-based work of the late Howard Arkley.

Evoking the lineage of great Australian landscape thrillers such as Picnic

Yet, in recent years, contemporary Sydney-based artist Fiona Lowry has

at Hanging Rock and the more contemporary Wolf Creek, Lowry creates

established her own immediately recognisable and highly celebrated

an intensely psychological space within the Australian bush—a ‘paranoid

application of the technique. In contrast to the black-edged, blockish

space’, to use the artist’s words—that charges her painting with a sinister

pop-palette of Arkley, in Lowry’s hands, the airbrush recreates the

yet beautiful intangibility.

fleeting yet sublime experience of being immersed within the Australian

of foreboding. Here, her palette is restricted to mulberry and port-wine

which she has repeatedly returned. Her latest diptych, The ties that bind

hues, reminiscent of dried blood, and applied in varying degrees of

is a breakthrough work in her practice. The confidence displayed in its

opacity, with the occasional blur of violet and dusty pink. This variegated

increased scale, the sophistication of its structure and the sumptuous

style functions to slow the viewer’s eye as it explores the composition,

colour are indicative of an artist who has reached an exciting highpoint.

resisting a fast scan across the surface. Instead, the eye encounters

Set in a cryptic composition, we discover several naked bodies,

patches of uncertainty that demand a refocussing and a determined

both alone and arranged in pairs. A standing woman looks down upon

attempt to ascertain, and thus ‘solve’, the composition’s numerous

another who, although collapsed backwards, is propped up with the

and deliberately obscure elements. Jaklyn Babington, Senior Curator,

support of a kneeling male figure. Another woman stands on a boulder,

Contemporary Art

looking expectantly at a man preparing to lift her. Moving with purpose towards the far-right of the composition, a man carries a woman over his shoulder. Presented across two canvases, thise cinematic scene provides us a mere fragment of an unknown narrative. We wonder what kind

52

Lowry is known for her haunting use of colour to set an atmosphere

bush. It is this subject that has long fascinated Lowry, and it is one to

NEW ACQUISITIONS

Below: Fiona Lowry The ties that bind 2018, acrylic on canvas. Purchased 2019/ Right: Melanie Douglas Liminal 2018, kiln-formed, coldworked and engraved glass. Robert and Eugenie Bell Decorative Arts and Design Fund 2019

Melanie Douglas Canberra-based glass artist Mel Douglas has long been interested in the tension between form and surface. Over almost two decades, she has explored this relationship, employing traditional glass-making methods and engraving techniques to create deceptively complex objects with a serene, meditative quality. This interest is elegantly realised in Liminal, a piece which, as the title suggests, explores and complicates the threshold between two and three dimensions.

Liminal is composed of a pair of near opaque monochromatic forms, which, viewed side by side, set each other in striking relief.

Although working with a material that is often defined by weight and density, Douglas instead imbues these objects with lightness and a linear sensibility. They are seemingly frozen in motion, resting lightly on curved bases that appear to rock forward without ever entirely tipping. Their surfaces vibrate with movement through the application of carefully engraved lines that move in rhythmic patterns across each object and disrupt the even texture of the kiln-formed glass. When viewed alongside each other, the pair’s subtle variations of tone become more defined and take more solid form as a three-dimensional drawing.

Since graduating from the Australian National University in 2000, Douglas has been recognised internationally for her distinctive style and approach and is among the most innovative of Australian artists working in contemporary glass. Liminal is significant example of her practice and the inaugural work to be acquired for the National Gallery of Australia by the Robert and Eugenie Bell Decorative Arts and Design Fund. For more about the fund, see page 47. Rebecca Edwards, Sid and Fiona Myer Curator of Ceramics and Design

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Ricky Maynard Since the mid 1980s, Ben Lomond and Big River man Ricky Maynard

Compellingly, however, the series does not refer to the actual subject of

has documented the contemporary experience of Aboriginal people.

the case—the Wik people’s traditional lands—but, instead, locates the

His black-and-white photographs are always imbued with a blend of

power and impact of the decision in the faces of Elders, each shot against

intimacy and objectivity. The Gallery recently acquired the last remaining

a plain white backdrop, whose struggles led to it.

prints of arguably his most important series, his portraits of five Wik Elders, Returning to places that name us 2000.

The men and woman shown in Returning to places that name

It is difficult to think of a more politically significant moment in contemporary Australian photography than Returning to places that name us. Maynard has drawn on the full evidentiary force of photography

us were each involved in the Wik and Thayorre people’s fight to regain

to produce a document of great political and artistic substance, one that

custodianship of their traditional land on western Cape York, which they

locates the course of Australian history in the faces of five Aboriginal men

had never ceded and that had been dispossessed from them by mining

and women. Shaune Lakin, Senior Curator, Photography

and pastoral leaseholders in the early twentieth century. In 1996, the High Court ruled in favour of the claim that native title had not been extinguished by pastoral and mining leases, a ruling that found native title and leaseholds could coexist.

The Wik decision was a landmark ruling in Australian history, the first test case of native title as it applied to a large area of mainland Australia. These handprinted gelatin silver prints offer us a ‘record’ of the historically complex and potent events that led to the Court’s formal recognition of the Wik people’s prior ownership and unceded sovereignty.

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NEW ACQUISITIONS

Above: Ricky Maynard (Ben Lomond and Big River people) (clockwise from top left) Wik Elder, Joe, Wik Elder, Gladys, Wik Elder, Joel and Wik Elder, Arthur from Returning to places that name us 2000, gelatin silver photographs. Purchased 2019. © Ricky Maynard/Copyright Agency Opposite, from top: Waal-Waal Ngallametta (Kugu Uwanh people) The road to pawpaw behind swampy area 2018, natural earth pigments and charcoal with synthetic binder on canvas. Purchased 2019; Abdur Rahman Chughtai Fragrance 1920s, etching. Gift of Liz Wilson 2018.

Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program

Waal-Waal Ngallametta Waal-Wall Ngallametta first came to the attention when she began weaving and basketry using cabbage palm, pandanus leaf and, later, reclaimed synthetic ghost fishing nets at the Wik and Kugu Arts and Craft Centre in Aurukun, 811 kilometres north-west of Cairns. Her aesthetic combined ancient structural technique with lyrical, vibrant and colourful asymmetrical form. She began to paint on canvas around 2008.

The medium of painting is not new to Aboriginal people of the Cape York Peninsula, as they have been painting clan designs as part of ceremony and ritual on bodies and on sculptural forms since time immemorial. Ngallametta’s paintings provide a multi-dimensional view of her Country—physical, spiritual and social—and reveal the important sites that she had custodial obligations over. Her wonderful paintings feature a range of geographical layers. White and black paint seep across the canvas like veins in cliffs, while the colour relationship and the overlayering of graphic elements are emotive expressions.

It was with great sadness that the Gallery learnt of her passing in January 2019. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art staff was incredibly fortunate to have worked alongside of her over the years, travelling with her nationally and internationally, hearing her many remarkable stories and songs of family, history, Country and culture.

She inspired and encouraged us with her generosity, openness and joy.

We will forever be indebted to her for sharing the wonderfully rich and complex aesthetic of her Muman, Wik Unwanh and Putch ancestry, and we continue to pay our respects to her family, friends and community at this difficult time. Franchesca Cubillo, Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

Abdur Rahman Chughtai Abdur Rahman Chughtai is an important South Asian twentiethcentury artist whose watercolour paintings, etchings and aquatints were influenced by the orientalist style of the Bengal School in Kolkata led by Abanindranath Tagore. Chughtai created romantic works that reference Persian, Rajput and Mughal miniature painting, Japanese woodcuts and Art Nouveau, including the works of Aubrey Beardsley. These influences were popular at the Mayo School of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan, which Chughtai attended from 1911, eventually becoming the head instructor in chromo-lithography.

He was an accomplished printmaker, having studied etching in London in the 1930s, and produced small editions of prints throughout his career. The etching Fragrance is characteristic of his oeuvre, the subjects of which were drawn from the stories and history of the IndoIslamic world. The opulent dress and jewellery of the meditative female subject is rendered in precise linear detail, balanced by fine aquatint and delicate draughtsmanship.

This is the first work by the artist to enter Australia’s national collection and complements paintings by Indian artists Jamini Roy and Nalinikanta Majumdar. All three works will be on display in the new Asian galleries, which open in September. Carol Cains, Senior Curator, Asian Art

ARTONVIEW 98 WINTER 2019

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Until 25 August 2019 FREE

Gottfried Lindauer Tomika Te Mutu, chief of the NgÄ i Te Rangi tribe, Bay of Plenty c 1880 (detail), oil on canvas, National Library of Australia, Canberra, Rex Nan Kivell Collection

KO35

NATIONAL GALLERY OF AUSTRALIA 7 JUNE – 1 SEPTEMBER

Claude Monet Impression, Soleil Levant 1872 Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet

ACCO MM PACKA ODATION GES FR OM

$141

WE’VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU! This Winter see the painting that changed the art world forever, Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, in an exhibition that is exclusive to the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra!

Impression, Sunrise will be accompanied by a collection of Monet works from the Museé Marmottan Monet in Paris.

EXCLUSIVE ONLY to Capital Hotel Group guests booking on this package is priority access to the exhibition via the NGA members line!

To book your exclusive accommodation offer visit www.capitalhotelgroup.com.au or call 1800 828 000.

Package includes: • Accommodation • 2 tickets to the exhibition • Free parking and WiFi • EXCLUSIVE to Capital Hotel Group guests on this package is priority access to the exhibition via the NGA members line!

Photo: Minna Gilligan

Follow the National Gallery to see more of the collection and go behind the scenes

Claude Monet Impression, sunrise [Impression, soleil levant] 1872 Gift of Victorine and Eugène Donop de Monchy 1940 MusÊe Marmottan Monet

When everything you need is already included.

Worth every moment.

Enjoy an effortless experience from check-in to touch-down, whether you’re taking a short flight or with us for the long haul. With our renowned service, complimentary refreshments, the latest in entertainment, and Wi-Fi on select domestic flights — it all comes together to make your journey with Qantas worth every moment.

qantas.com *Wi-Fi on board available on selected Australian domestic flights. Amenities, food, beverage and entertainment offerings vary between flights and cabins.

High Tea National Gallery of Australia 11 am and 2 pm sessions daily Celebrate our winter exhibition Monet: Impression Sunrise with an unforgettable high tea, and enjoy a selection of French-inspired, sweet and savory delights. Book the high tea when you purchase your exhibition ticket at ticketek.com.†

© The Estate of Ian Fairweather/Copyright Agency, 2019

entries invited

AUCTION • SydNey • 28 AUgUST 2019 important australian + international fine art sydney 02 9287 0600 melbourne 03 9865 6333

$43

per member

$48

per guest † To book the high tea only, for children’s menus or for groups of eight or more, contact the National Gallery directly on (02) 6240 6711 or via events@nga.gov.au. Please advise of guests with special dietary upon booking.

info@deutscherandhackett.com www.deutscherandhackett.com With the D+H April auction selling nearly nine out of ten works and achieving 100% sale rate by value, demand is currently high for quality works of art at auction.

For an obligation free market appraisal of works in your collection, please contact our art specialists in Sydney or Melbourne for the forthcoming major August auction.

IAN FAIRWeATHeR BARBECUE, 1963 EST: $800,000 – 1,200,000 SOLd FOR $1,708,000 (INC. BP) NEW AUCTION RECORD ApRIl 2019, SyDNEy

National Gallery of Australia

Winter 98 | 2019

International Year of Indigenous Languages ARTONVIEW WINTER 2019 | 98 National Gallery of Australia

Rehang of International galleries

Until 27 October FREE

nga.gov.au

Zico Albaiquni The stage of earthly delight I 2018 (detail), oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Yavuz Gallery, Singapore

Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia Māori Markings: Tā Moko Learning Gallery and Studio Travelling exhibitions Plus the latest news and updates, acquisitions and more