tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/qagoma-79889/articles
QAGOMA – The Conversation
2024-03-26T16:39:44Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/226008
2024-03-26T16:39:44Z
2024-03-26T16:39:44Z
Strong, resolute and uncompromising: you should see the intense and beguiling art of Waanyi artist Judy Watson
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583934/original/file-20240325-30-dphcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=58%2C0%2C7755%2C5205&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Installation view of 'mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson’ at Queensland Art Gallery. © Judy Watson/Copyright Agency. Photograph: C Callistemon © QAGOMA </span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains the name of someone who has died.</em></p>
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<p>In the late 1970s, the south bank of the Brisbane river was a hectic construction zone, the new and permanent home of the Queensland Art Gallery. At this same time, Judy Watson’s fledgling career as a visual artist was also beginning. </p>
<p>It is fitting that Watson’s expansive survey show, <em>mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri</em> (“tomorrow the tree grows stronger”, taken from a poem by Watson’s son Otis Carmichael), is staged in the Queensland Art Gallery building, which this year celebrates its 42nd birthday. </p>
<p>Contemporary photographs of the Robin Gibson-designed building on opening day in 1982 show a stark, sun-soaked edifice with small spindly trees on a sparse verge overlooking the river. The history of Watson’s considerable creative practice through the decades align with the gallery building. </p>
<p>Like the gallery, Watson is as much a part of the cultural fabric of Brisbane’s visual arts scene from the late 20th century into the new millennium. Her work is held in many public and private collections, both in Australia and internationally, most notably in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Gallery in London. </p>
<p>Originally trained as a printmaker, Watson is now truly a multimedia artist. The 130 artworks within this survey show include prints, drawings, paintings, video and installations spanning her career between 1981 to 2023. </p>
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<span class="caption">Judy Watson, Waanyi people, Australia b.1959. red tides 1997. Pigment and pastel on canvas,187.0 x 112.8cm. Mollie Gowing Acquisition fund for Contemporary Aboriginal art 1999 Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney © Judy Watson/Copyright Agency. Image courtesy: The artist and Milani Gallery.</span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-looking-at-black-ground-1989-by-judy-watson-69767">Here's looking at: black ground, 1989 by Judy Watson</a>
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<h2>‘Rattling the bones of the museum’</h2>
<p>Born in 1959 in Mundubbera and raised in Brisbane’s outer-suburban Acacia Ridge, Watson undertook her initial visual art training in Toowoomba before leaving Queensland to work and study interstate, and then overseas. </p>
<p>Watson’s matrilineal family is from Waanyi country in north-west Queensland, and this bloodline is a principal driving force of her art practice. </p>
<p>In this exhibition works are arranged into thematic categories; identity, ecology, feminism, and Watson’s investigations into historical and social archives. </p>
<p>Challenging notions of Indigenous aesthetic perspectives, Watson has spoken in the past about bringing hidden histories to light through delving into archives (“rattling the bones of the museum”, as <a href="https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/learn/education-resources/mudunama-kundana-wandaraba-jarribirri-judy-watson/the-archive/">she puts it</a>). </p>
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<span class="caption">Judy Watson, Waanyi people, Australia b.1959. 40 pairs of blackfellows’ ears, lawn hill station (detail) 2008. Wax and nails, 40 parts: 15 x 10 x 3cm (each, approx.). Collection: The artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane (Meeanjin/Magandjin). © Judy Watson/Copyright Agency. Photograph: N Umek © QAGOMA.</span>
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<p>One such work is 40 pairs of blackfellow’s ears, lawn hill station (2008) which sees 40 pairs of cast beeswax ears nailed to the gallery wall, echoing the 19th century grisly punishment and murder of the Waanyi peoples by a <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/grisly-secret-of-cattlemen-who-kept-40-pairs-of-ears-as-trophies-in-outback-horror-house/news-story/17022ba7691314b4cff5aadbf8511936">brutal cattle station boss</a>. </p>
<p>A more contemporary event, the demise of Palm Island man <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-19/palm-island-community-still-struggling-after-death-in-custody/5901028">Cameron Mulrunji Doomadgee</a> is also explored in memory bones (2007), a print work which Watson describes for her is “internal grieving” where white rib-like forms float above a blood-like splatter of red ochre. </p>
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<span class="caption">Judy Watson, Waanyi people, Australia b.1959. memory bones, 2007. Pigment and pastel on canvas, 211 x 127cm. The James C. Sourris AM Collection. Gift of James C. Sourris through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2010. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Judy Watson/Copyright Agency. Photograph: N Harth © QAGOMA.</span>
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<h2>Beauty and power</h2>
<p>In the 1990s, Watson <a href="https://collection.qagoma.qld.gov.au/page/biography-judy-watson">won</a> the Moet and Chandon travelling fellowship, the second Indigenous artist to do so, after fellow Queenslander Gordon Bennett. Unlike Bennett, whose “in ya face” work was overtly socio-political, Watson’s approach is more subtle. </p>
<p>In the Louise Martin-Chew’s 2009 book about Judy Watson, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Judy_Watson.html?id=3su-oyZ-ky4C&redir_esc=y">Blood Language</a>, Watson described how her work aims to seduce the viewer through its beauty. Powerful messages of Indigenous dislocation, Stolen Generations, and disenfranchisement lie beneath. </p>
<p>There are monumental works that fill the gallery walls. In canyon (1997) we see a two-storey high thin vertical canvas with a snaking skein of yellow ochre. In two halves with bailer shell (2002), the shells used to bail water out of a canoe, are rendered in thin white lines over a sumptuous ocean-blue. </p>
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<span class="caption">Judy Watson, Waanyi people, Australia b.1959. two halves with bailer shell 2002. Pigment and synthetic polymer paint on canvas 194 x 108cm. Purchased 2003 Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra © Judy Watson/Copyright Agency.</span>
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<p>The deep pigments within Watson’s works – particularly the indigo blues and ochres – are intense and beguiling. Printed or digital reproductions do not do them justice: these works must be seen in the flesh. </p>
<p>Several sculptural works broaden Watson’s practice, with walama (2000) a large installation of bronze termite mounds and upside-down dillybags, and her wonderful toe row (2016), a cast bronze fishing net permanently installed outside the gallery.</p>
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<span class="caption">Judy Watson, Waanyi people, Australia b.1959. walama (installation view) 2000. Bronze, 18 parts (various dimensions). Courtesy: The artist, Milani Gallery and UAP Brisbane (Meeanjin/Magandjin). Photograph: C Callistemon © QAGOMA.</span>
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<p>Over the course of four decades, those spindly trees bordering the Queensland Art Gallery now tower over the riverbank, offering welcome shade to visitors and forging a connection between the gallery and the river. </p>
<p>Like those mighty trees, Watson’s career has grown in a similar manner in that time: strong, resolute and uncompromising. This survey exhibition offers a counterpoint to the online world of glib fast-art purveyors that feed the insatiable appetite of social media consumers. </p>
<p>Watson is an artist of the highest integrity, a living legend of Australian art, her people, and country. Tomorrow the Watson tree will indeed continue to grow stronger.</p>
<p><em>mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson is at the Queensland Art Gallery until August 11.</em></p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-artists-judy-watson-and-helen-johnson-are-stripping-back-australias-white-blanket-of-forgetfulness-188721">How artists Judy Watson and Helen Johnson are stripping back Australia's 'white blanket of forgetfulness'</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226008/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alasdair Macintyre does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An expansive Queensland Art Gallery survey show of lyrical Indigenous artist Judy Watson, mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri, is both thought provoking and stunningly beautiful.
Alasdair Macintyre, Associate lecturer visual arts, artist, PhD, Australian Catholic University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219228
2023-12-11T04:08:18Z
2023-12-11T04:08:18Z
Fairy Tales at QAGOMA: how we revived these stories with new myths, new media and new quirks
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564725/original/file-20231211-26-1452zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2038%2C1364&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Henrique Oliveira, Brazil b.1973. Corupira 2023, commissioned for ‘Fairy Tales’, installation (detail), Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) Brisbane 2023. Plywood, tapumes veneer and tree branches. Courtesy: Henrique Oliveira. © Henrique Oliveira. Photograph: C Callistemon © QAGOMA</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Fairy Tales, the latest exhibition at Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), gives off the pleasurable hum of remix culture, artists riffing on a core theme in numerous ways. </p>
<p>Overseen by the gallery’s cinematheque curator Amanda Slack-Smith, Fairy Tales focuses on how artists, designers and filmmakers have taken inspiration from fantasy motifs, adapting the fairy tale vocabulary of extremes (light and dark, good and evil, rich and poor) to their own artistic needs.</p>
<p>Based in handed-down oral traditions, fairy tales share characteristics with all manner of fables, folk stories and mythological narratives throughout the world. </p>
<p>These stories, which were initially rarely intended for children (yet featured them as central characters in easy-to-understand plots), made their way into print from the 17th century. </p>
<p>After the coining of the word <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2014/08/he-coined-the-word-folk-lore/">“folklore” in 1846</a>, colonisation, advertising and the international spread of mass culture drove folklorists and creatives to praise the authenticity of localised oral traditions. </p>
<p>This seductively designed show at QAGOMA makes clear that, rather than fairy tales being simply preserved, the modern age revived them with new myths, new media and new individualistic quirks, from Hans Christian Andersen to Walt Disney and beyond.</p>
<h2>Creatures in the night</h2>
<p>Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira sets the mood of the exhibition brilliantly with his gnarled and twisted woodland, Corupira (2023). </p>
<p>The sculpture builds slowly as you enter the corridors of the space and culminates in a meeting of massive tree branches that have burst through the gallery walls. Oliveira’s title refers to a Brazilian folk story about <a href="http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2012/04/o-curupira-lenda-amazonica.html">red-haired satyr-like creatures</a> who, living in the Amazon forest, deceive hunters and loggers from the shadows, killing them – or at least putting any potential coloniser off course. </p>
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<span class="caption">Henrique Oliveira, Brazil b.1973. Corupira 2023, commissioned for ‘Fairy Tales’, installation (detail), Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) Brisbane 2023. Plywood, tapumes veneer and tree branches. Courtesy: Henrique Oliveira. © Henrique Oliveira. Photograph: C Callistemon © QAGOMA.</span>
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<p>It is a great opener to the show because it metaphorically turns viewers into fairy tale wanderers, and artists into tricksters and spell-makers.</p>
<p>Oliveira’s work chimes perfectly with The Nightwatch (2004) by Belgian artist Francis Alÿs, consisting of surveillance video footage of a fox the artist released into London’s National Portrait Gallery (with the gallery’s permission) during the night. Alÿs’s fox continues the fairy tale tradition of depicting forest animals as actively engaging with human societies.</p>
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<p>Alÿs self-consciously titled his work after a 17th century painting by <a href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-C-5">Rembrandt van Rijn</a> in which citizens are depicted serving as defenders and official volunteers for their city. Alÿs might be suggesting the contemporary artist is like a public servant whose job, like the fox in the video, is to intrude on the prized traditions supported by museums. </p>
<p>Australian artist Abdul Abdullah’s provocative photograph Troubling the Margins (from the Interloper series) (2022) follows a similar idea. Abdullah literally shows himself as a fox in a henhouse. </p>
<p>The artist-as-fox smiles maliciously at the viewer as if saying to the art world: “I can’t believe you let me in here.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564759/original/file-20231211-31-hrnsbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564759/original/file-20231211-31-hrnsbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564759/original/file-20231211-31-hrnsbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564759/original/file-20231211-31-hrnsbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564759/original/file-20231211-31-hrnsbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564759/original/file-20231211-31-hrnsbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564759/original/file-20231211-31-hrnsbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564759/original/file-20231211-31-hrnsbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Abdul Abdullah, Australia b.1986. Troubling the margins (from ‘Interloper’ series) 2022. Digital print, 162.5 x 130cm; made with the assistance of David Charles Collins. Courtesy: The artist and Yavuz Gallery, Sydney. © Abdul Abdullah.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-amazing-ngv-triennial-2023-makes-us-question-our-world-and-forces-us-to-see-it-differently-207295">The amazing NGV Triennial 2023 makes us question our world and forces us to see it differently</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Uncanny images</h2>
<p>One of many terrific sculptural works in the exhibition, Jana Sterbak’s Inside (1990) is an empty glass coffin seemingly pregnant with a smaller mirrored coffin inside. </p>
<p>A reversed imagining of life in death, the piece responds to the many glass coffins in fairy and folk tales (such as Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Grimm’s Brothers The Glass Coffin), exploring the uncanny idea of death being put on permanent display for the living.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564728/original/file-20231211-19-23r8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564728/original/file-20231211-19-23r8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564728/original/file-20231211-19-23r8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564728/original/file-20231211-19-23r8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564728/original/file-20231211-19-23r8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564728/original/file-20231211-19-23r8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564728/original/file-20231211-19-23r8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564728/original/file-20231211-19-23r8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Patricia Piccinini, Australia b.1965. Enchanted Field (installation view, detail) 2023. Fairy Tales, GOMA, Brisbane. Collection: The artist © Patricia Piccinini. Image: C Callistemon © QAGOMA.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s not a coffin but a caravan in Patricia Piccinini’s The Couple (2018), where two realistically rendered hybrid human-animal lovers are frozen in a serene moment cuddling on a fold-out bed, their clawed feet sticking out from under the sheets. </p>
<p>Piccinini’s works often centre on hyperreal figures that look genetically altered. These sculptures are at their most interesting when they make viewers aware of themselves. I felt stupid for it, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty for gawking too long at the sweet-looking couple’s physical deformations.</p>
<p>Projected behind a huge semi-transparent curtain, an exquisitely staged installation of Jean Cocteau’s 1946 film Beauty and the Beast is situated in relation to costumes and props from its production. This and other displays of material from fairy-tale-inspired films Where the Wild Things Are (2009) and The Labyrinth (1986) are among the most engaging cinema-themed pieces in the exhibition.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IsXkv1mpRUk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>The capacity of anything to intrigue</h2>
<p>In my 2015 <a href="https://www.routledge.com/How-Folklore-Shaped-Modern-Art-A-Post-Critical-History-of-Aesthetics/Hill/p/book/9780815386551#:%7E:text=culture%20more%20generally.-,How%20Folklore%20Shaped%20Modern%20Art%3A%20A%20Post%2DCritical%20History%20of,here%20as%20less%20a%20direct">publication</a> about the relationship between folk art and fine art, I argued art critics and art historians in the 19th and 20th centuries narrowly discussed oral traditions and amateur cultural creations in anthropological terms. </p>
<p>By their reasoning, these were artefacts that failed to live up to the special insights and feelings expected of fine art. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564730/original/file-20231211-19-ykan71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564730/original/file-20231211-19-ykan71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564730/original/file-20231211-19-ykan71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564730/original/file-20231211-19-ykan71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564730/original/file-20231211-19-ykan71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564730/original/file-20231211-19-ykan71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564730/original/file-20231211-19-ykan71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564730/original/file-20231211-19-ykan71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gustave Doré, France 1832–83. Little Red Riding Hood c.1862. Oil on canvas, 65.3 x 81.7cm. Gift of Mrs S Horne, 1962. Collection: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This school of thought is no longer the case. Fairy Tales is a good example of the recent expansion of art-history-based curating into larger visual culture frameworks. Clothing, relics, paintings, literary documents, installations, videos and filmic props now all cohabit the museum in non-hierarchical ways, staging not the inherent value of specific material so much as the capacity of anything to intrigue.</p>
<p>For a show about timeless human fears and fantasies, Fairy Tales may be curiously timely.</p>
<p><em>Fairy Tales is at QAGOMA, Brisbane, until April 28, 2024.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-poetically-charged-art-of-tacita-dean-gives-its-audience-a-moment-for-stillness-and-time-219485">How the poetically-charged art of Tacita Dean gives its audience a moment for stillness and time</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219228/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wes Hill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Fairy Tales focuses on how artists, designers and filmmakers have taken inspiration from fantasy motifs, adapting the fairy tale vocabulary of extremes to their own artistic needs.
Wes Hill, Associate Professor, art history and visual culture, Southern Cross University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/200160
2023-06-26T02:02:20Z
2023-06-26T02:02:20Z
Nothing is left to chance and every detail is carefully calculated: the hyperrealistic (and divisive) paintings of Michael Zavros
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533878/original/file-20230626-185700-c4qk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C3%2C2041%2C1483&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Michael Zavros, Australia b.1974, Bad dad 2013. Oil on canvas, 110 x 150cm. Purchased 2016 with funds raised through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation Appeal. Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. © Michael Zavros </span> </figcaption></figure><p>Michael Zavros’s art is autobiographical to an obsessive – even neurotic – degree. </p>
<p>Not only is much of his work self-referential with images of self, his children, his aspirations and his daydreams, but the whole discourse around his art has been formulated by the artist through his endless interviews, his social media presence and the mythology he has cleverly constructed around himself. </p>
<p>Even the essays in the catalogue accompanying this new exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, are riddled with quotations from the artist. Do we know too much about Zavros and what he thinks he is trying to achieve in his art to be able to see his art? </p>
<p>How would we respond to this exhibition if we happened upon it by chance in a gallery in downtown Thessaloniki and were told it was by some contemporary Greek artist whose name we didn’t know? Would it make sense and how would we negotiate it? </p>
<p>Zavros is identified with an exacting photorealist technique. Much of his earlier work was derived from found imagery of desirable fashion accessories and celebrated brand names that he would render in a painstaking manner as exactly and as lovingly as he could. </p>
<p>This exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of Zavros’s work in a state gallery and is selected from his work from the past 25 years. Assembled by curator Peter McKay, it contains over 100 pieces, primarily paintings, but also including sculptures, photographs, video pieces and performance art. </p>
<hr>
<p>
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</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Mastery of technique</h2>
<p>What are we to make of his oeuvre to date? Zavros exhibits a mastery of an exquisite technique and a refined sensibility. Nothing is left to chance. Every detail is carefully calculated. </p>
<p>Photography plays a key role in his art making. In his earliest pieces, clippings from a fashion magazine were meticulously reproduced as oil paintings as in Man in wool suit (1998). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533877/original/file-20230626-154331-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533877/original/file-20230626-154331-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533877/original/file-20230626-154331-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533877/original/file-20230626-154331-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533877/original/file-20230626-154331-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533877/original/file-20230626-154331-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533877/original/file-20230626-154331-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533877/original/file-20230626-154331-qa1qtd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Zavros, Australia b.1974, Man in a wool suit 1999. Oil on board, 15.2 x 19cm. Courtesy: the artist. © Michael Zavros.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Aspirational garments, fashion statements and great architectural edifices were carefully studied, appropriated and translated into a photographic form. </p>
<p>Depending on scale, this was sometimes carefully projected onto a painting surface. The huge Acropolis Now (2023) mural in acrylic, measuring about 7.5 metres by almost 20 metres, frames the entrance to his exhibition.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533883/original/file-20230626-16-eh3869.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533883/original/file-20230626-16-eh3869.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533883/original/file-20230626-16-eh3869.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533883/original/file-20230626-16-eh3869.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533883/original/file-20230626-16-eh3869.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533883/original/file-20230626-16-eh3869.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533883/original/file-20230626-16-eh3869.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533883/original/file-20230626-16-eh3869.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Zavros in front of Acropolis now 2023 at Michael Zavros: The Favourite, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane. Photograph: David Kelly. © Michael Zavros.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other designs from photographs may be plotted onto a canvas through the very traditional dot method, or resolved in Photoshop and then transferred before being painted. </p>
<p>As a general observation, the photographic origins of most of his works – despite the attempted and frequently successful attempts at verisimilitude – is generally reflected by a certain prevailing flatness in the paintings. </p>
<p>This applies to some of the most accomplished and acclaimed pieces including Bad Dad (2013), and Phoebe is dead/McQueen (2010). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533873/original/file-20230626-137221-p33knr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533873/original/file-20230626-137221-p33knr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533873/original/file-20230626-137221-p33knr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533873/original/file-20230626-137221-p33knr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533873/original/file-20230626-137221-p33knr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533873/original/file-20230626-137221-p33knr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533873/original/file-20230626-137221-p33knr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533873/original/file-20230626-137221-p33knr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Zavros, Australia b.1974. Phoebe is dead/McQueen 2010. Oil on canvas, 110 x 150cm. Collection: Moran Arts Foundation, Sydney © Michael Zavros.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Conspicuous consumption</h2>
<p>Invariably the question arises concerning the ideology or the conceptual underpinnings of Zavros’ imagery. </p>
<p>On a very simple level, one can say much of his imagery touches on highly desirable luxury goods, as items of conspicuous consumption. The artist has reasoned that, as many people aspire to own such items, exquisitely rendered images of them would appeal to the same people.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533881/original/file-20230626-74220-xfx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533881/original/file-20230626-74220-xfx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533881/original/file-20230626-74220-xfx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533881/original/file-20230626-74220-xfx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533881/original/file-20230626-74220-xfx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533881/original/file-20230626-74220-xfx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533881/original/file-20230626-74220-xfx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533881/original/file-20230626-74220-xfx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Zavros, Australia b.1974, Ars Longa Vita Brevis 2009. Oil on canvas, 210 x 167cm. Courtesy: the artist © Michael Zavros.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This, together with the knowledge Zavros belongs to a family of Cypriot Greek and Irish immigrants living on the Gold Coast where such aspirational items would be economically out of reach for them, provides a certain confidence in such a reading. </p>
<p>Artistic success has brought out the narcissist in the artist with such hypnotic images as V12/Narcissus (2009), where the artist has appropriated a pose from the famous Caravaggio painting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_(Caravaggio)#/media/File:Narcissus-Caravaggio_(1594-96)_edited.jpg">Narcissus</a>. Now it is the artist reflected in the shiny surface of his brand-new car. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533875/original/file-20230626-19-e8fwl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533875/original/file-20230626-19-e8fwl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533875/original/file-20230626-19-e8fwl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533875/original/file-20230626-19-e8fwl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533875/original/file-20230626-19-e8fwl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533875/original/file-20230626-19-e8fwl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533875/original/file-20230626-19-e8fwl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533875/original/file-20230626-19-e8fwl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Zavros, Australia b.1974, V12/Narcissus 2009. Oil on board, 20 x 29.5cm. Gift of the artist 2013. Donated through the Australian government’s Cultural Gifts Program. Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Image courtesy: Michael Zavros.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Is Zavros celebrating the existing world order and its elite and the consumption of luxury goods, or is he critiquing it, shining a light on folly and exposing it with irony and creating subversive art? </p>
<p>This seems to be a basic divide between his supporters who acquire his work at <a href="https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/12m-feeding-frenzy-on-art-by-brisbanes-da-vinci/news-story/8fdedba969d12a3fa61a6c87625bdd6f">ever-increasing prices</a> and <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/the-things-someone-loves-about-the-work-the-next-person-hates-why-michael-zavros-art-polarises-20230621-p5di7g.html">his detractors</a> who view him essentially as an artist dedicated to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancien_R%C3%A9gime">Ancien Régime</a> who has a vested interest in propping up its existence.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/buy-art-because-you-love-it-not-because-it-might-make-you-rich-50921">Buy art because you love it – not because it might make you rich</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Power and prestige</h2>
<p>On the evidence presented in this exhibition, there seems to be a development in his thinking from appropriation and celebration to a questioning of earlier assumptions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533886/original/file-20230626-179830-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533886/original/file-20230626-179830-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533886/original/file-20230626-179830-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533886/original/file-20230626-179830-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533886/original/file-20230626-179830-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533886/original/file-20230626-179830-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533886/original/file-20230626-179830-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533886/original/file-20230626-179830-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Zavros, Australia b.1974, The poodle 2014. Oil on canvas, 135 x 150cm. Private collection © Michael Zavros.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is difficult to view pieces including The poodle (2014) other than as a critique of a society completely out of control and sacrificing function for the sake of cute design.</p>
<p>The large installation piece Drowned Mercedes (2023) has the aspirational car of his dreams made functionless by being filled with water. </p>
<p>As with most of Zavros’s work, there is an autobiographic element. In the garage of the house where he normally parks his car, during the floods the water would have flooded this car. This gleaming symbol of power and prestige is destroyed through the impact of climate change.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533879/original/file-20230626-119066-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533879/original/file-20230626-119066-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533879/original/file-20230626-119066-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533879/original/file-20230626-119066-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533879/original/file-20230626-119066-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533879/original/file-20230626-119066-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533879/original/file-20230626-119066-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533879/original/file-20230626-119066-fvy3b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Zavros with Drowned Mercedes 2023 at Michael Zavros: The Favourite, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane. Photograph: David Kelly © Michael Zavros.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Zavros, who is one of Australia’s most successful younger artists – he will turn 50 next year – has reached a certain watershed in his career. </p>
<p>Reflecting on the experience of this major exhibition, he told me he had a “scrapbook full of ideas” and will now have the opportunity to do something about it with large-scale installations and painted bronzes. </p>
<p>Let’s hope this comes to fruition.</p>
<p><em>Michael Zavros: The Favourite is at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, until October 2.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200160/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A new exhibition of the Australian artist’s work at QAGOMA is the first comprehensive survey of Michael Zavros in a state gallery.
Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188722
2022-08-24T20:01:57Z
2022-08-24T20:01:57Z
QAGOMA’s Embodied Knowledge is an energetic and inclusive celebration of contemporary Queensland art
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480177/original/file-20220821-2925-rms2jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C13%2C4473%2C5982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Justene Williams, Australia b.1970. The Vertigoats 2021. Mixed media. Installed dimensions variable. Purchased 2021 with funds from the Contemporary Patrons through the QAGOMA Foundation.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection: QAGOMA. Photograph: Natasha Harth, QAGOMA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA)</em></p>
<p>Drawing together 19 artists and collectives, Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art is a celebration of women, people of colour and LGBTIQA+ artists. All share a connection to Queensland.</p>
<p>Co-curators Ellie Buttrose and Katina Davidson have presented an energetic and inclusive group show. The conversations are varied and important without collapsing into parochial cliché. </p>
<p>The curators cleverly weave multiple interconnecting themes investigating history, memory and self. Embodied Knowledge gives visual form to the complexity and diversity of contemporary art in Queensland. </p>
<p>At the entrance to this exhibition, you are immediately greeted with Kamilaroi and Bigambul artist Archie Moore’s newly commissioned installation in the gallery’s Watermall. Titled Inert State 2022, it consists of pieces of paper gently floating on the surface of the water. </p>
<p>On closer inspection, each document is a coroner’s report. </p>
<h2>Counter-memorials</h2>
<p>In the wake of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-news-media-play-an-important-role-reminding-the-country-that-black-lives-still-matter-161412">Black Lives Matter movement</a>, memorials have become increasingly contested terrain, with artists seeking to challenge the very idea of what a memorial might be.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480172/original/file-20220821-38135-bc8uno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480172/original/file-20220821-38135-bc8uno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480172/original/file-20220821-38135-bc8uno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480172/original/file-20220821-38135-bc8uno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480172/original/file-20220821-38135-bc8uno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480172/original/file-20220821-38135-bc8uno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480172/original/file-20220821-38135-bc8uno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480172/original/file-20220821-38135-bc8uno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Archie Moore, Kamilaroi/Bigambul peoples, Australia b.1970. Inert State (detail) 2022. Found hardcover books,steel, high-density polyethylene, polyurethane foam, microporous polyolefin silica-based paper. Dimensions variable. Commissioned for ‘Embodied Knowledge’ by QAGOMA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy: Archie Moore and The Commercial, Sydney. Photograph: Natasha Harth, QAGOMA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since the 1991 release of the <a href="https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/first-australians/royal-commission-aboriginal-deaths-custody">Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody</a> report, more than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/dec/06/beyond-heartbreaking-500-indigenous-deaths-in-custody-since-1991-royal-commission">500 Indigenous people</a> have died in police custody in Australia. Moore’s installation is a no-nonsense account of the ongoing racial violence in Australia’s prison systems. </p>
<p>Bitterly, this is a memorial in the present tense: Indigenous deaths in custody have not stopped. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-lives-matter-is-a-revolutionary-peace-movement-85449">Black Lives Matter is a revolutionary peace movement</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Also working in a counter-memorial mode, Kamilaroi artist Warraba Weatherall critiques museum collections that continue to hold human remains and cultural objects from Weatherall’s Country and its surrounds. </p>
<p>To Know and Possess (2021) is a series of ten memorial plaques cast in bronze. Each plaque is a cast of an original museum record. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480173/original/file-20220821-30405-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480173/original/file-20220821-30405-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480173/original/file-20220821-30405-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480173/original/file-20220821-30405-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480173/original/file-20220821-30405-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480173/original/file-20220821-30405-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480173/original/file-20220821-30405-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480173/original/file-20220821-30405-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Warraba Weatherall, Kamilaroi people, Australia b.1987. To know and possess (detail),2021, cast bronze, 10 pieces: 10.1 x 15.2 x 3cm (each). Purchased 2022. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. Photograph: Natasha Harth, QAGOMA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The series sits awkwardly, out of scale on the expansive and otherwise empty gallery wall. </p>
<p>This is entirely the point, Weatherall is interrogating the supposed “<a href="https://www.artforum.com/print/197603/inside-the-white-cube-notes-on-the-gallery-space-part-i-38508">ideological purity</a>” and neutrality of the gallery space and, by extension, the institutional archive. </p>
<p>He reminds the viewer of the violence collecting practices continue to exert on Indigenous peoples. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480490/original/file-20220823-24-j0vkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480490/original/file-20220823-24-j0vkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480490/original/file-20220823-24-j0vkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480490/original/file-20220823-24-j0vkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480490/original/file-20220823-24-j0vkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480490/original/file-20220823-24-j0vkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480490/original/file-20220823-24-j0vkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480490/original/file-20220823-24-j0vkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Warraba Weatherall, Kamilaroi people, b.1987. To know and possess (installation view in ‘Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art’, Brisbane, 2022) 2021, Cast bronze, 10 pieces: 10.1 x 15.2 x 3cm (each). Purchased 2022. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art © Warraba Weatherall. Photograph: Natasha Harth, QAGOMA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is as if the plaques are deliberately antagonising or waging war with the wall where they are hung.</p>
<p>Callum McGrath’s installation emerges from his ongoing research project investigating and documenting public sites that are memorials for the queer community. </p>
<p>Part travel diary, part images selected from the internet, Responsibilities to time (2019) is presented in a series of leather-bound photo albums. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480174/original/file-20220821-43498-icpinc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480174/original/file-20220821-43498-icpinc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480174/original/file-20220821-43498-icpinc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480174/original/file-20220821-43498-icpinc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480174/original/file-20220821-43498-icpinc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480174/original/file-20220821-43498-icpinc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480174/original/file-20220821-43498-icpinc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480174/original/file-20220821-43498-icpinc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Callum McGrath, Australia b. 1995. Responsibilities to time (detail) 2019. Purchased 2021. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation. Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy: Callum McGrath</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The scale of McGrath’s work is intimate: he invites the spectator to step in and take a closer look. The frosted page dividers frustrate the viewer’s desire to see. Instead, the viewer is left with absences and gaps. </p>
<p>The work is a potent reminder of how queer histories are made invisible by heteronormative history. By working with amateur photography, McGrath is undermining the archive and its claims to authority. </p>
<h2>A sense of self</h2>
<p>This exhibition cleverly interweaves key moments in the history of <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-mabo-decision-and-native-title-74147">native title</a>. </p>
<p>Meriam artist Obery Sambo is from the Torres Strait island of Mer (Murray Island) and a descendent of a long line of master mask and headdress-makers. Here he continues that tradition with his own ornate masks.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480175/original/file-20220821-37908-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480175/original/file-20220821-37908-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480175/original/file-20220821-37908-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480175/original/file-20220821-37908-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480175/original/file-20220821-37908-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480175/original/file-20220821-37908-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480175/original/file-20220821-37908-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480175/original/file-20220821-37908-8sxjet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Obery Sambo, Meriams of Mer, Australia b.1970. Sumes Borom (Bush Boar) 2019. Coconut husk, synthetic polymer paint, straw, shells, feathers, seeds, 30 x 34 x 46cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy: Obery Sambo / Image courtesy: Umbrella Studios</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1774369">In 1898</a>, the University of Cambridge sponsored a team of anthropologists to travel to the Torres Strait, where they filmed Sambo’s ancestors dressed and dancing for ceremony. </p>
<p>Many years later, the footage was used as evidence of cultural continuity in the Mabo ruling in 1992. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-mabo-decision-and-native-title-74147">Australian politics explainer: the Mabo decision and native title</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Working in an entirely different register, Justene Williams’ installation The Vertigoats (2021) consists of a series of mannequins. </p>
<p>Williams has long been associated with the <a href="https://nga.gov.au/exhibitions/justene-williams/">grunge aesthetic</a> of Sydney in the 1990s. This work is more disco. With their disproportional limbs, Williams’ figures gleefully dance and cavort across the gallery space. </p>
<p>In her sights is the darker side of the online wellness and fashion industries. The idealised fabrication of our online selves is placed under pressure as the mannequins’ elongated limbs stretch to nightmarish proportions. </p>
<p>In playful dialogue with Williams’ mannequins is Jenny Watson’s series Private views and rear visions (2021-2022). Comprising of 48 paintings displayed along the length of the gallery wall, the work’s scale is commanding. </p>
<p>Watson has painted over printer’s proofs of the exhibition catalogue for a showing of her work <a href="https://www.griffith.edu.au/art-museum/whats-on/past-exhibitions/jenny-watson-chronicles">in 2016</a>. This creates a curious fold in time: Jenny on Jenny. </p>
<p>Watson is at her performative best: she places the notion of the authentic self under pressure while working in her distinctly confessional mode of address. Watson draws on recurring motifs that have defined her career, such as the lone woman, horses and the playful incorporation of text. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480176/original/file-20220821-41010-9t0pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480176/original/file-20220821-41010-9t0pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480176/original/file-20220821-41010-9t0pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480176/original/file-20220821-41010-9t0pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480176/original/file-20220821-41010-9t0pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480176/original/file-20220821-41010-9t0pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480176/original/file-20220821-41010-9t0pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480176/original/file-20220821-41010-9t0pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jenny Watson, Australia b. 1951. Private Views and Rear Visions (detail) 2021. Synthetic polymer paint on printers’ proof. 48 pieces: 100 x 72cm (each).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy: The artist and QAGOMA. Photograph: Natasha Harth</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Embodied Knowledge is on display at QAGOMA until January 22.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188722/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chari Larsson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art is a celebration of women, people of colour and LGBTIQA+ artists.
Chari Larsson, Senior Lecturer of art history, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/178156
2022-03-02T05:39:40Z
2022-03-02T05:39:40Z
Brisbane floods: pondering the wisdom of placing our major galleries, libraries and theatres on the banks of a flood-prone river
<p>As a historian, I spend many hours at the State Library of Queensland looking out the large glass panels gazing at the Brisbane River. Its tranquil brown water quietly meanders past, offering an ideal place to watch the CityCat ferries and the occasional passing rower. </p>
<p>But this weekend the water was roaring, racing past the library, full of pontoons, boats and debris. The river broke its banks, reclaiming its floodplain and inundating buildings in its path, until the flood <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-28/south-east-queensland-weather-flooding-bom-brisbane-evacuations/100866270">peaked at 3.85 metres</a> at the Brisbane gauge.</p>
<p>Maiwar (Turrbal name for the Brisbane River) has a long history of floods, as does the south end peninsula or Kurilpa, “place of the water rat”. This land, once full of waterholes, creeks and wetlands provided sustenance for Turrbal and Jagara peoples for centuries. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449340/original/file-20220301-25-1ol2cfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449340/original/file-20220301-25-1ol2cfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449340/original/file-20220301-25-1ol2cfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449340/original/file-20220301-25-1ol2cfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449340/original/file-20220301-25-1ol2cfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449340/original/file-20220301-25-1ol2cfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449340/original/file-20220301-25-1ol2cfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449340/original/file-20220301-25-1ol2cfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flooded streets of Brisbane in 1893.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Queensland State Archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By 1893 when a flood of 8.35 metres occurred in central Brisbane, South Bank was an industrial site occupied by wharves, factories, commercial businesses, and the railway line, with residential estates in nearby West End. </p>
<p>After the flood, commercial businesses moved to the north side and between 1900 to the 1970s the south bank declined, left as largely undeveloped open space. </p>
<h2>A new cultural precinct</h2>
<p>In 1969, the Queensland Art Gallery Site Committee selected the river’s south bank as the site of a new state art gallery, its river location regarded as enhancing its aesthetic appeal. </p>
<p>By 1974 the state government had acquired more land for a cultural precinct, undeterred by the 1974 floods that reached 5.45m at the Brisbane gauge. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449342/original/file-20220301-12844-1aizsvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449342/original/file-20220301-12844-1aizsvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449342/original/file-20220301-12844-1aizsvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449342/original/file-20220301-12844-1aizsvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449342/original/file-20220301-12844-1aizsvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449342/original/file-20220301-12844-1aizsvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449342/original/file-20220301-12844-1aizsvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449342/original/file-20220301-12844-1aizsvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1974 floods reached a height of 5.45 meters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Queensland State Archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Additions included the Queensland Art Gallery (opened in 1982), Queensland Performing Arts Centre (1985), Queensland Museum (1986) and Queensland State Library (1988, extended 2006). The cultural precinct expanded with the Playhouse Theatre (1998) and the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA, 2006). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449343/original/file-20220301-13-fnb2wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449343/original/file-20220301-13-fnb2wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449343/original/file-20220301-13-fnb2wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449343/original/file-20220301-13-fnb2wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449343/original/file-20220301-13-fnb2wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449343/original/file-20220301-13-fnb2wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449343/original/file-20220301-13-fnb2wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449343/original/file-20220301-13-fnb2wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">By 1987, the Queensland Art Gallery and Queensland Performing Arts Centre (both far left) had been opened, but most of the south bank was undeveloped.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Queensland State Archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With its riverside landscape forecourts and restaurants, and iconic Brisbane eye, the designs took advantage of the location, and were intended to make a statement when viewed from the north side of the river. </p>
<p>The adjacent land was developed for World Expo ’88, now South Bank Parklands and home to the Queensland Conservatorium (1996) and ABC studios (2013). </p>
<p>The precinct stretches more than 450 metres along the Brisbane River and is now the cultural hub of Brisbane.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449344/original/file-20220301-13-v739uv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449344/original/file-20220301-13-v739uv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449344/original/file-20220301-13-v739uv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449344/original/file-20220301-13-v739uv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449344/original/file-20220301-13-v739uv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449344/original/file-20220301-13-v739uv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449344/original/file-20220301-13-v739uv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449344/original/file-20220301-13-v739uv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1988, South Bank was home to the World Expo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Queensland State Archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The 2011 floods</h2>
<p>But South Bank’s watery history is never far away. </p>
<p>In 2011 Brisbane again flooded, this time to 4.46m at the Brisbane gauge, and the precinct’s vulnerability was exposed. Within hours its riverside location switched from an asset to a liability. The carparks and basement levels were inundated where the electrical, fire and air-conditioning systems were located, rendering the buildings unsafe. </p>
<p>The buildings were all closed as basements pumps went into overdrive. </p>
<p>Water did not enter the Queensland Art Gallery, but the lower level of the Children’s Art Centre, River Café and back-of-house areas were damaged at the Gallery of Modern Art. The first floor was well above river levels and the ground floor’s robust design allowed it to be hosed out. </p>
<p>The State Library was forced to move its collection to higher levels – as staff had been doing in previous wet weeks – and was saved by the 2006 renovation that had already relocated some books to higher levels. The Edge, the children’s space on the ground floor, was damaged. </p>
<p>Almost three metres of floodwater inundated the lower end of the Playhouse at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. It was a month before performances could be held. </p>
<p>The headquarters of the Queensland Theatre Company, only blocks away in Montague Road, was in waist-deep water. </p>
<p>Thousands of props and costumes were destroyed – years of theatrical history were sent to the dump. The stage flooring and lower-level seating, bar, reception and green rooms were irrevocably damaged.</p>
<p>As the floodwaters receded, humidity (the harbinger of mould) rose, the power loss making humidity monitors and air conditioning impossible. Librarians and museum and art curators monitored anxiously. </p>
<p>But after a few weeks, in the spirit of “the show must go on”, the curtains re-opened at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre and these cultural hubs returned to business as usual.</p>
<h2>The 2022 floods</h2>
<p>When floodwaters rose again this year my fellow historians and I were texting each other to ask: “what’s happening to the State Library, is it in trouble?” </p>
<p>Sadly, it was. The State Library of Queensland, its access limited for months by COVID-19, is <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CajHbw7oUJR/">again closed</a>. The community tool library on ground floor of the library is completely under water. </p>
<p>The Queensland Theatre Company is again inundated with water.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CagMKSqrhAC","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Performances at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre are <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CaikgqsrzYo/">postponed</a> until at least March 7. </p>
<p>The ABC, an essential service in floods, was inundated. Brisbane news was diverted through Melbourne or Perth and local journalists reported in the field. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1498023292892217344"}"></div></p>
<p>In a few weeks’ time I hope to return to research at the state library. Once again, I will look out over the river and enjoy the peaceful reverie of seemingly benign water pass by. </p>
<p>But this time I will contemplate the wisdom of placing all our cultural repositories on the banks of a flood-prone subtropical river.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/like-rivers-in-the-sky-the-weather-system-bringing-floods-to-queensland-will-become-more-likely-under-climate-change-176711">Like rivers in the sky: the weather system bringing floods to Queensland will become more likely under climate change</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margaret Cook does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Prone to flooding, by the 1970s Brisbane’s South Bank was largely undeveloped open space. It is now home to Queensland’s major cultural institutions.
Margaret Cook, Lecturer in History, University of the Sunshine Coast
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/173241
2021-12-08T05:51:06Z
2021-12-08T05:51:06Z
Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art shows how our local differences demand curiosity and care
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436287/original/file-20211208-25-1mjhuk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6441%2C4297&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Yuma Taru
The spiral of life – the tongue of the cloth
(yan pal ana hmali) – a mutual dialogue 2021
Ramie suspended from metal threads / 500 x 250cm (diam.); installed dimensions variable / Commissioned for APT10</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy: The artist and Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Development Centre</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art</em></p>
<p>The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art has earned its rightful place in Australia’s cultural calendar for the ambitious scope of its artistic programming, highlighting the diversity and range of artistic practices across the Asia Pacific region. This 10th triennial, ATP10, features 150 artists and collectives from 30 countries.</p>
<p>The curatorial gambit characterising the triennial <a href="https://acca.melbourne/program/defining-moments-first-asia-pacific-triennial-of-contemporary-art/">since its inception</a> in 1993 has always been highly complex: how to give representation to the region’s complexity, without homogenising or flattening cultural differences? </p>
<p>To answer this question, I would point to two interconnected concerns or themes that distinguish APT10: an emphasis on First Nations’ perspectives and a gentle excavation of underexamined or invisible histories. </p>
<h2>Cross-cultural conversations</h2>
<p>The extraordinary Yolngu/Macassan Project draws attention to the richness of the cultural, social, and spiritual connections between the Macassan sailors from southern Sulawesi in Indonesia and the Yolngu people of north-eastern Arnhem Land. </p>
<p>For hundreds of years, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2009/07/21/2632428.htm">this pre-colonial relationship</a> was based on the Macassan trading tamarind in exchange for sea cucumbers (<em>trepang</em>), until the practice was banned in the early 1900s. The project includes a Yolngu-crafted Macassan sail, bark paintings and pottery shards and underscores the enduring influence of the Macassan’s visits on the Yolngu people. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436286/original/file-20211208-141213-1fxsoh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436286/original/file-20211208-141213-1fxsoh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436286/original/file-20211208-141213-1fxsoh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436286/original/file-20211208-141213-1fxsoh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436286/original/file-20211208-141213-1fxsoh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436286/original/file-20211208-141213-1fxsoh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436286/original/file-20211208-141213-1fxsoh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436286/original/file-20211208-141213-1fxsoh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nawurapu Wunungmurra, Dhalwangu/Narrkala people Australia 1952–2018. Macassan pot 2016. Ceramic with earth pigments and polyvinyl acetate 40 x 43cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy: Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, Yirrkala</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Co-curated by Abdi Karya and Diane Moon, the richness of the Yolngu/Macassan Project accentuates the crucial educational role played by APT10: by investing in research and collaboration, meaningful cross-cultural conversations are reignited and brought to the attention of broader audiences. </p>
<p>Another important curatorial collaboration is Between Earth and Sky: Indigenous Art from Taiwan. Co-curated by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paiwan_people">Paiwan</a> artist Etan Pavavalung and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makatao_people">Makatao</a> curator Manray Hsu, eight Indigenous artists from Taiwan work across mediums to retrieve cultural techniques and criticise the corrosive effects of colonisation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436291/original/file-20211208-140109-lnecjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436291/original/file-20211208-140109-lnecjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436291/original/file-20211208-140109-lnecjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436291/original/file-20211208-140109-lnecjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436291/original/file-20211208-140109-lnecjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436291/original/file-20211208-140109-lnecjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436291/original/file-20211208-140109-lnecjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436291/original/file-20211208-140109-lnecjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Between Earth and Sky: Indigenous Contemporary Art from Taiwan (APT10 installation view). 4 Dec 21 – 25 April 22.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For over two decades, Yuma Taru has driven the revival of <a href="https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=18,23,45,18&post=24402">Atayal weaving and dyeing</a>. Seeking guidance from her grandmother and Tribal Elders, Taru established a collective of local women dedicated to preserving traditional weaving practices and techniques. </p>
<p>The spiral of life – the tongue of the cloth (<em>yan pala na hmali</em>) – a mutual dialogue (2021) is a textile-based installation hung from the ceiling and gives visible representation to the Atayal oral language. </p>
<p>According to the Atayal Elders, words must be akin to the cloth’s softness, so thoughts can be conveyed without injury or damage to the listener. </p>
<h2>Ideas of scale</h2>
<p>Themes of migration and displacement are taken up by Suva-born, Melbourne raised Salote Tawale. Tawale has exploited the scale of GOMA’s dramatic central gallery space by installing a large bamboo raft No location (2021). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436290/original/file-20211208-21-geogn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436290/original/file-20211208-21-geogn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436290/original/file-20211208-21-geogn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436290/original/file-20211208-21-geogn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436290/original/file-20211208-21-geogn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436290/original/file-20211208-21-geogn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436290/original/file-20211208-21-geogn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436290/original/file-20211208-21-geogn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Salote Tawale, Fiji | Australia b.1976. No Location 2021. Composite digital image.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the artist</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The raft was inspired by a traditional Fijian watercraft, <a href="http://virtual.fijimuseum.org.fj/index.php?view=objects&id=74">bilibili</a>, Tawale remembers seeing in the Fiji Museum in Suva as a child. The vessel becomes a metaphor for moving between cultures and the threat of sea-level rise activated by climate change. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436190/original/file-20211207-19-11ucjx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436190/original/file-20211207-19-11ucjx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436190/original/file-20211207-19-11ucjx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436190/original/file-20211207-19-11ucjx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436190/original/file-20211207-19-11ucjx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436190/original/file-20211207-19-11ucjx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436190/original/file-20211207-19-11ucjx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436190/original/file-20211207-19-11ucjx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alia Farid, Kuwait b.1985. In Lieu of What Was (details) 2019. Fibre-reinforced polymer. Five pieces: 297 x 100 x 100cm; 280 x 260 x 260cm; 240 x 130 x 130cm; 255 x 123 x 123cm; 240 x 160 x 160cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy: The artist and Portikus, Frankfurt. Photograph: Diana Pfammatter © Alia Farid.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sitting adjacent is Kuwaiti-Puerto Rican artist Alia Farid’s large-scale installation In Lieu of What Was (2019). Kuwait’s water consumption is amongst the highest in the world, however, it has no rivers and so Kuwait relies on desalination plants and the importation of water. </p>
<p>Farid’s sand-coloured sculptures stand desolately in the gallery space. It is as if they have been excavated from the future as archival “relics” from when the Gulf region still had access to water. </p>
<p>The impressiveness of scale is also at play in Balinese artist I Made Djirna’s installation Kita (2021). Like strings of enormous beads, hundreds of pumice stones hang from the ceiling, evoking an immersive jungle-like experience. </p>
<p>With its textured and layered cascading pumice stones (traces of the island’s volcanic activity), coconut husks and terracotta masks, the spectator’s attention is focused on the installation’s physical and material presence. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436192/original/file-20211207-136652-1ir186g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436192/original/file-20211207-136652-1ir186g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436192/original/file-20211207-136652-1ir186g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436192/original/file-20211207-136652-1ir186g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436192/original/file-20211207-136652-1ir186g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436192/original/file-20211207-136652-1ir186g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436192/original/file-20211207-136652-1ir186g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436192/original/file-20211207-136652-1ir186g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">I Made Djirna, Indonesia b.1957. Kita 2021 (work in development, artist studio, Kedewatan, Bali) Strings of pumice stone, carved stone and coconut shells. Site-specific installation. Commissioned for APT10.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy: The artist</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Curiosity and care</h2>
<p>Cambodian artist Svay Sareth spent his childhood in a refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodia border during the devastating war-ravaged years of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge">Khmer Rouge regime</a> (1975-79). Sareth has taken up durational performance as a metaphor for Cambodia’s traumatic and violent history. </p>
<p>In the video work Mon Boulet (2011), Sareth wheeled an enormous 80-kilogram metal ball for approximately 250 kilometres. He had no provisions, prompting chance encounters and interactions for obtaining food, water, and shelter with many people over the course of his six-day journey. </p>
<p>An adjacent cinema series <a href="https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/cinema/programs/apt10-cinema-under-the-radar">Under the Radar</a> highlights film making from across Asia and the Pacific. Combined with a comprehensive children’s program, APT10 promises to provide a range of experiences drawn from both within and around the region over the summer months ahead. </p>
<p>While the global pandemic grinds on in the background, APT10 feels fresh, forward looking and optimistic. After almost two years of closed and restricted borders, the exhibition delivers a poignant reminder: we are all globally interdependent, however, our local differences demand both our curiosity and care. </p>
<p><em>APT10 is showing at QAGOMA until April 25 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173241/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chari Larsson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
This exhibition highlights the diversity and range of artistic practices across the Asia Pacific region.
Chari Larsson, Senior Lecturer of art history, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/160462
2021-06-16T09:13:23Z
2021-06-16T09:13:23Z
European Masterpieces from the Met demonstrates art’s power to speak to the human condition
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406620/original/file-20210616-15-ao7rey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) Italy 1571–1610
The Musicians 1597
Oil on canvas
92.1 x 118.4cm
Rogers Fund, 1952 / 52.81
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: European Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.</em></p>
<p>Thanks to the pandemic, exhibitions such as European Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, which opened at QAGOMA on the weekend, are fraught with logistical difficulties. Quarantine rules and social distancing requirements, not to mention the actual health effects of COVID, have dramatically affected the ability of gallery and museum staff to plan, oversee and shepherd high profile exhibitions into existence. </p>
<p>The fact they are open at all stands as an extraordinary demonstration of trust between institutions and their commitment to the power of masterworks to speak to the human condition. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406622/original/file-20210616-22-kgk5dd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406622/original/file-20210616-22-kgk5dd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406622/original/file-20210616-22-kgk5dd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406622/original/file-20210616-22-kgk5dd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406622/original/file-20210616-22-kgk5dd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406622/original/file-20210616-22-kgk5dd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406622/original/file-20210616-22-kgk5dd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406622/original/file-20210616-22-kgk5dd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vincent van Gogh.
The Netherlands 1853–90
The Flowering Orchard 1888
Oil on canvas
72.4 x 53.3cm
Signed (lower left): Vincent
The Mr and Mrs Henry Ittleson Jr Purchase Fund,
1956 / 56.13
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The excuse for this exhibition was a major refit of the European Galleries at the Met. Planned long before the pandemic, exhibitions like this one take on new meaning in current times. None of us are going to be able to travel with ease to New York any time soon. These exhibitions remind us of what we are missing. So, as our memories of the joy of visiting international galleries fade, what impression of the Met emerges from this show? </p>
<p>Certainly, the quality and depth of its collection shines through. This exhibition doesn’t give us all the Met’s greatest hits. Everyone will have a favourite painting that didn’t make the cut. However, the curatorial choices are clever.</p>
<p>It is fun to play the mental game of which of an artist’s pictures from the Met you would choose to include. Time and again, it proves to be on the walls in Brisbane. </p>
<p>Lost in the interplay of glances among the figures in Georges de La Tour’s The Fortune Teller, you don’t regret for a moment that we didn’t get his darkly moody <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436839">The Penitent Magdalen</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406619/original/file-20210616-3654-1lluv08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406619/original/file-20210616-3654-1lluv08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406619/original/file-20210616-3654-1lluv08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406619/original/file-20210616-3654-1lluv08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406619/original/file-20210616-3654-1lluv08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406619/original/file-20210616-3654-1lluv08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406619/original/file-20210616-3654-1lluv08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406619/original/file-20210616-3654-1lluv08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Georges de La Tour.
France 1593–1653
The Fortune-Teller c.1630s
Oil on canvas
101.9 x 123.5cm
Signed and inscribed (upper right): G. de La Tour Fecit Luneuilla Lothar: [Lunéville Lorraine]
Rogers Fund, 1960 / 60.3
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fans of French neoclassical painting are extremely well served by Marie Denise Villers’ portrait of Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes — a luminous, arresting portrait whose sitter is painted with breathtaking clarity and intensity. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406617/original/file-20210616-3598-xi7q2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406617/original/file-20210616-3598-xi7q2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406617/original/file-20210616-3598-xi7q2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406617/original/file-20210616-3598-xi7q2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406617/original/file-20210616-3598-xi7q2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406617/original/file-20210616-3598-xi7q2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406617/original/file-20210616-3598-xi7q2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406617/original/file-20210616-3598-xi7q2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marie Denise Villers.
France 1774–1821
Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes (died 1868) 1801 Oil on canvas
161.3 x 128.6cm
Mr and Mrs Isaac D Fletcher Collection, Bequest of Isaac D Fletcher, 1917 / 17.120.204
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition plays up the advantages of distance. Second-tier works gain new life separated from their more famous siblings.</p>
<p>In New York, Poussin’s Saints Peter and John Healing the Lame Man is overshadowed by the riotous profusion of bodies in his <a href="http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-paintings/abduction-of-the-sabine-women.htm">Abduction of the Sabine Women</a>. In Queensland, away from the noise of the Sabine painting, it is possible to appreciate the elegant structure of this religious picture.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406616/original/file-20210616-3582-14k8k6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406616/original/file-20210616-3582-14k8k6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406616/original/file-20210616-3582-14k8k6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406616/original/file-20210616-3582-14k8k6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406616/original/file-20210616-3582-14k8k6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406616/original/file-20210616-3582-14k8k6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406616/original/file-20210616-3582-14k8k6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406616/original/file-20210616-3582-14k8k6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nicolas Poussin.
France 1594–1665
Saints Peter and John Healing the Lame Man 1655 Oil on canvas
125.7 x 165.1cm
Marquand Fund, 1924 / 24.45.2
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Connoisseurs of technique will not be disappointed by the works on display. Fra Angelico’s The Crucifixion rightly occupies an important place in the history of perspective. One can trace the story of the treatment of light from Caravaggio through to Cézanne.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406615/original/file-20210616-21-1ukgijr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406615/original/file-20210616-21-1ukgijr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406615/original/file-20210616-21-1ukgijr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406615/original/file-20210616-21-1ukgijr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406615/original/file-20210616-21-1ukgijr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406615/original/file-20210616-21-1ukgijr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406615/original/file-20210616-21-1ukgijr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406615/original/file-20210616-21-1ukgijr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fra Angelico (Guido di Pietro) Italy c.1395–1455.
The Crucifixion c.1420–23 Tempera on wood, gold ground 63.8 x 48.3cm
Maitland F Griggs Collection, Bequest of Maitland F Griggs, 1943 / 43.98.5
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Venice is expertly evoked with Turner’s characteristically soft, wispy brushstrokes; a perfect contrast to the thickness of paint found in El Greco’s The Adoration of the Shepherds or Rembrandt’s Flora. The <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436326">Fragonard</a> (The Two Sisters) looks like a Fragonard.</p>
<p>More than this, what makes these works so exciting is the way they brim with ideas. Vermeer’s Allegory of the Catholic Faith is a good example. It’s one of his cleverest paintings. One could spend a week in front of the work unpacking its symbolism and theological ideas.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406614/original/file-20210616-3839-1p2hv1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406614/original/file-20210616-3839-1p2hv1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406614/original/file-20210616-3839-1p2hv1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406614/original/file-20210616-3839-1p2hv1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406614/original/file-20210616-3839-1p2hv1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406614/original/file-20210616-3839-1p2hv1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406614/original/file-20210616-3839-1p2hv1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406614/original/file-20210616-3839-1p2hv1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Johannes Vermeer.
The Netherlands 1632–75
Allegory of the Catholic Faith c.1670–72
Oil on canvas
114.3 x 88.9cm
The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931 / 32.100.18
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The works not only reflect ideas, they stage deliberate interventions. Titian’s Venus and Adonis is a case in point. It shows the couple in a passionate embrace, the moment before Adonis is about to head off on the ill-fated hunt that will cost him his life. </p>
<p>The accompanying label describes this work as “re-imagining” Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Latin epic about mythological transformations. This fails to capture the dynamism of the relationship. This is a painting desperately keen to escape its origins in Ovid’s work. In Ovid, you never forget that Adonis is the product of incest, the offspring of a mother who burned with unnatural desire for her father. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406612/original/file-20210616-3862-dr00fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406612/original/file-20210616-3862-dr00fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406612/original/file-20210616-3862-dr00fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406612/original/file-20210616-3862-dr00fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406612/original/file-20210616-3862-dr00fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406612/original/file-20210616-3862-dr00fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406612/original/file-20210616-3862-dr00fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406612/original/file-20210616-3862-dr00fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) Italy c.1485/90–1576 Venus and Adonis 1550s Oil on canvas.
106.7 x 133.4cm
The Jules Bache Collection, 1949 / 49.7.16
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-ovids-metamorphoses-and-reading-rape-65316">Guide to the classics: Ovid's Metamorphoses and reading rape</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It is a tale so monstrous that Ovid even warns his readers (or at the very least their daughters) not to read it. Ovid makes you feel uneasy about love. His epic is full of rape and violence. This painting rewrites Ovid’s story and invites you to devote yourself to the pleasures of love, even if they have tragic consequences.</p>
<p>Equally compelling is Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Pygmalion and Galatea. Critics have not been kind to Gérôme. His great crime was to be born so late and live so long. He jumped the wrong way on Impressionism, railing against the “junk” of modern art, and few have forgiven him.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406610/original/file-20210616-13-7guv9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406610/original/file-20210616-13-7guv9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406610/original/file-20210616-13-7guv9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406610/original/file-20210616-13-7guv9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406610/original/file-20210616-13-7guv9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406610/original/file-20210616-13-7guv9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406610/original/file-20210616-13-7guv9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406610/original/file-20210616-13-7guv9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jean-Léon Gérôme.
France 1824–1904
Pygmalion and Galatea c.1890
Oil on canvas
88.9 x 68.6cm
Signed (on base of statue): J.L. GEROME.
Gift of Louis C Raegner, 1927 / 27.200
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet at the same time, Gérôme was engaged in arguably his most important sequence of works, his series of paintings and sculpture depicting the moment when the fantasies of the sculptor Pygmalion are realised and the statue he has been carving — with whom he has passionately fallen in love — comes to life.</p>
<p>Gérôme’s sequence is uneven. The sculpture is terrible, now perfectly at home in that temple of kitsch, Hearst Castle in California. The reason why that sculpture fails is why this painting succeeds. In the sculpture, despite a bit of added paint, we see only marble.</p>
<p>Here, in an example of virtuoso painting, Gérôme plays with the transition of stone to flesh. We see a miracle unfolding before our eyes. It is a painting inviting us to contemplate art’s ability to imitate, perfect, mediate and complicate our relationship with the world. In this, it is a perfect emblem of this exhibition. </p>
<p><em>European Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is showing at QAGOMA Brisbane until October 21.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160462/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alastair Blanshard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
None of us are going to be able to travel with ease to New York any time soon but this exhibition showcases the quality and depth of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection.
Alastair Blanshard, Paul Eliadis Chair of Classics and Ancient History, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/158413
2021-04-07T03:08:35Z
2021-04-07T03:08:35Z
Tenderness, desire and politics: William Yang’s work is a portrait of a life well lived
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393454/original/file-20210406-21-5np5i2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=594%2C615%2C5463%2C3745&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">William Yang, Brett Whiteley, 1975.
Image courtesy: the artist.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© William Yang</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: William Yang: Seeing and Being Seen, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane.</em></p>
<p>How does an image become an icon? Moreover, how does a photographer become iconic? A <a href="https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/william-yang">major survey exhibition</a> of the work of Queensland-born, Sydney-based photographer William Yang goes a long way towards answering these questions. </p>
<p>Yang is a much loved photographer, performer and storyteller. This show at the <a href="https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/william-yang">Queensland Art Gallery</a> is a celebration of Yang’s multifaceted practice that has steadily unfolded over the past five decades. </p>
<p>The act of seeing can be predatory and voyeuristic. In her classic 1973 book <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/On_Photography/uZ-sBAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=on+photography+susan+sontag&printsec=frontcover">On Photography</a>, Susan Sontag observed that the photographer’s camera “may presume, intrude, trespass, distort, exploit”. The camera, however, can also be joyful and playful. Much of Yang’s work falls into the latter category. Operating in a highly intimate register, Yang’s ability to disarm his subjects is striking. </p>
<p>Organised roughly chronologically, the exhibition moves through the various phases of Yang’s life. Born in North Queensland in 1943, he is a third generation Chinese-Australian. Growing up in the town of Dimbulah, the experience of being an outsider features prominently throughout his body of work. </p>
<p>Yang’s family disavowed their Chinese heritage, preferring their children to assimilate. In his floor talk at the media preview, Yang described the experience of having to “come out” twice: first as a gay man, and second in search of his Chinese identity in his 30s. </p>
<p>In one of his most iconic images, Life Lines #3 – Self-portrait #3, Yang rephotographs a vintage image of himself at age three and recounts in handwritten text the racist taunts he experienced at primary school. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393449/original/file-20210406-15-xqp7iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393449/original/file-20210406-15-xqp7iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393449/original/file-20210406-15-xqp7iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393449/original/file-20210406-15-xqp7iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393449/original/file-20210406-15-xqp7iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393449/original/file-20210406-15-xqp7iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393449/original/file-20210406-15-xqp7iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393449/original/file-20210406-15-xqp7iq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Yang.
Australia, 1943, Life Lines #3 - Self portrait #2 (1947) 1947/2008 photographer: Unknown. image 100.0 x 70.0 cm. Collection of The University of Queensland,
purchased 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Carl Warner
Reproduced courtesy of the artist and
Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This strategy features prominently throughout the exhibition. Yang will frequently rework his photographs, handwriting text onto the images. Through the repeated use of first person, Yang creates a sense of closeness with the viewer akin to sharing a diary or confession. </p>
<p>In his catalogue essay accompanying the exhibition, author and broadcaster Benjamin Law observes Yang possesses a “superpower”: an ability to create a sense of ease with his sitting subjects. Like a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6bius_strip">Möbius strip</a>, Yang has traced his observations directly onto Law’s image, tracing the contours of his body and reinforcing the connection between photographer and subject. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393451/original/file-20210406-19-sai5bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393451/original/file-20210406-19-sai5bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393451/original/file-20210406-19-sai5bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393451/original/file-20210406-19-sai5bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393451/original/file-20210406-19-sai5bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393451/original/file-20210406-19-sai5bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393451/original/file-20210406-19-sai5bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393451/original/file-20210406-19-sai5bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Yang, Australia, b. 1943, Ben Law. Arncliffe 2016, Inkjet print on Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag. Image courtesy the artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© William Yang</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yang moved to Sydney via Brisbane in 1969, and found paid work as a social photographer. Working in a photojournalist tradition, which reaches back to New York-based photographers such as Nan Goldin and Diane Arbus, there was a complex duality at play.</p>
<p>On the one hand there is a warm exuberance characterising much of his social photography. </p>
<p>On the other, there is an urgent political undercurrent. What emerges is an important photographic archive of Australia’s emerging gay and lesbian communities in the 1970s and 1980s. </p>
<p>Visibility as a political strategy comes to the fore in the powerful sequence “Allan” from the 1990s Sadness project. Allan’s life is memorialised as Yang traces his friend and ex-lover’s physical decline from a HIV-related illness, poignantly reminding us of the terrifying devastation wreaked by AIDS on Sydney’s gay community during this time. </p>
<p>The viewer is allowed into the intensely private world of death and dying as Yang chronicles the final 12 months of Allan’s life with dignity and tenderness. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393456/original/file-20210406-21-nii8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393456/original/file-20210406-21-nii8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393456/original/file-20210406-21-nii8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393456/original/file-20210406-21-nii8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393456/original/file-20210406-21-nii8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393456/original/file-20210406-21-nii8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393456/original/file-20210406-21-nii8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393456/original/file-20210406-21-nii8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Yang, Allan, no.1 (from the ‘Sadness’ series) 1990. Gelatin silver photographs, ink / 21 photographs, 51 x 41cm (sheet, each). Purchased 2000.
Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© William Yang.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yang is at his playful best when he disrupts stereotypical ideas of nationhood. For generations, the beach and its lifesavers have occupied a symbolic position in Australian’s national consciousness. </p>
<p>In one of the key images of the exhibition, lifeguards from Sydney’s Tamarama beach are captured by Yang’s desirous gaze, forcing the viewer to consider the heterosexual framing of national identity. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393459/original/file-20210406-19-10v8w04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393459/original/file-20210406-19-10v8w04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393459/original/file-20210406-19-10v8w04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393459/original/file-20210406-19-10v8w04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393459/original/file-20210406-19-10v8w04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393459/original/file-20210406-19-10v8w04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393459/original/file-20210406-19-10v8w04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393459/original/file-20210406-19-10v8w04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Yang, Tamarama Lifesavers 1981.
Inkjet print on Hahnemühle Fine Art Pearl.
Image courtesy the artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© William Yang</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Family history has also preoccupied Yang over the decades. The series “About my mother” is both affectionate and loving as he retrospectively documents the relationship with his mother Emma after her death. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393460/original/file-20210406-17-1k4uiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393460/original/file-20210406-17-1k4uiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393460/original/file-20210406-17-1k4uiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393460/original/file-20210406-17-1k4uiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393460/original/file-20210406-17-1k4uiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393460/original/file-20210406-17-1k4uiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393460/original/file-20210406-17-1k4uiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393460/original/file-20210406-17-1k4uiqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Yang, 1943, Mother. Graceville. 1989. (from About my mother portfolio) 2003, Gelatin silver photograph ed. 2/10.
51.3 x 61.1cm. Purchased 2004. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation Grant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© William Yang. Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Again, text is important as Yang records his memories and observations. Some are candid and fun; others record Emma’s unwillingness to acknowledge Yang’s sexual identity. Yang reflects:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My mother had a dignity that came, I think, from a position of humility: I never noticed this when she was alive (heavens! there was the whole relationship between me and my mother to obscure it), but eleven years after she died, as I print up these photos in the dark room, I notice it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of the surprising aspects of the exhibition is Yang’s landscape photography. </p>
<p>Frequently, Yang will insert himself into these landscapes. Working in a large-scale format, these images suggest Yang is still trying to make sense of his identity and his relationship with the physical environment of far north Queensland that shaped his childhood. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393463/original/file-20210406-17-15gw7tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393463/original/file-20210406-17-15gw7tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393463/original/file-20210406-17-15gw7tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393463/original/file-20210406-17-15gw7tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393463/original/file-20210406-17-15gw7tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393463/original/file-20210406-17-15gw7tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393463/original/file-20210406-17-15gw7tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393463/original/file-20210406-17-15gw7tq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Yang, Australia, 1943, Return to the place of childhood. Dimbulah 2016. Inkjet print on Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton.
Rag. Image courtesy: The artist</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© William Yang.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>William Yang: Seeing and Being Seen is showing at the <a href="https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/">Queensland Art Gallery</a> until August 22.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158413/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chari Larsson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Born in 1943, photographer William Yang has spoken of having to ‘come out’ twice: first as a gay man and secondly in search of his Chinese identity. A new exhibition marks his career.
Chari Larsson, Lecturer of art history, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/150067
2020-12-01T01:02:59Z
2020-12-01T01:02:59Z
Born to be wild — revelling in the design and desire of the motorcycle
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371879/original/file-20201130-14-1py0f7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=220%2C101%2C1621%2C1198&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Majestic c.1929 Collection: Bobby Haas and Haas Moto Museum</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Haas Moto Galleries LLC. Photographer: Grant Schwingle</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: <a href="https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/themotorcycle">The Motorcycle — Art, Design, Desire</a> at Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art</em></p>
<p>Motorcycles are such a guy thing, right? Think Steve McQueen in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057115/?ref_=ttmi_tt">The Great Escape</a>, Arthur Fonzarelli in television’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070992/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Happy Days</a> and Daniel Craig’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls014854639/">James Bond</a>. All blokes, exuding controlled coolness, astride impressively loud, throbbing engines. </p>
<p>Yet in Motorcycles — Design, Art, Desire, this summer’s blockbuster exhibition at Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art (QAGoMA), there is a mean red motorcycle that was ridden by the fastest Australian woman on two wheels, Kim Krebs. </p>
<p>How fast did she go? <a href="https://www.dlra.org.au/profiles/495.htm">The numbers</a> are hard to get your head around: 244 miles per hour. That’s <em>miles</em>. In kilometres that is a tick under 400 per hour. Think of the legal limit you can drive along the highway and multiply it by four … and she is still attempting to go even faster. </p>
<p>Kreb’s record breaking ride is one of a hundred motorcycles in the exhibition, drawn from collections all over the world by curators Charles M. Falco and Ultan Guilfoyle.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371901/original/file-20201130-13-1jhs9dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Very fast blue and pink motorbike" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371901/original/file-20201130-13-1jhs9dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371901/original/file-20201130-13-1jhs9dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371901/original/file-20201130-13-1jhs9dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371901/original/file-20201130-13-1jhs9dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371901/original/file-20201130-13-1jhs9dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371901/original/file-20201130-13-1jhs9dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371901/original/file-20201130-13-1jhs9dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The need for speed in blue and pink. The 1991 Britten V1000 motorcycle. Britten Motorcycle Company Ltd, Christchurch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/celebrating-the-feminist-holden-80054">Celebrating the feminist Holden</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Motorcycles? In an art gallery?</h2>
<p>This is a niche category exhibition that follows similar QAGoMA shows such as the fashion house Valentino Retrospective, Past/Present/Future (2010), California Design: Living in a Modern Way (2013-14) and Marvel: Creating the Cinematic Universe in 2017. </p>
<p>The Marvel exhibition drew over <a href="https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/172228/Annual_Report-_2017-18.pdf">a quarter of a million visitors</a> (I confess I had season tickets and still miss seeing Hulkbuster each week) clearly indicating such shows, however singular, have broad appeal. </p>
<p>QAGoMA director Chris Saines says the gallery runs with a broad definition of what constitutes modern culture. Accordingly, people who ordinarily would not visit art galleries beat a path to this one for specialised exhibitions. Niche shows appeal to specific demographics, who have a rusted on dedication to their passion. </p>
<p>With the opening of Queensland’s borders following coronavirus restrictions perfectly coinciding with this exhibition, there will surely be a steady stream of two-wheeled devotees making their way to Brisbane. </p>
<p>But this show will also educate and inform those with an interest in design, modern history, popular culture, and art, who are willing to learn something new, and like me, may start to see motorcycles in a different way.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-evolution-and-motorcycles-have-in-common-lets-take-a-ride-across-australia-95880">What evolution and motorcycles have in common: let's take a ride across Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>From original steampunk to future motors</h2>
<p>Encompassing early models from the Victorian era (bicycles with an engine strapped to them, very steampunk), through the mid-20th century’s chrome muscle machines, to sleek concept bikes of the future powered by electricity, this exhibition covers the motorbike’s 150-year history. </p>
<p>All the big names are here: Norton, Triumph, BSA, Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki. There are also a number of bespoke style designers, including Australia’s Deus Ex Machina, whose ultracool Drover’s Dog (2009) accommodates a surfboard on its side.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371889/original/file-20201130-14-gak51v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Motorbike with surfboard strapped to side." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371889/original/file-20201130-14-gak51v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371889/original/file-20201130-14-gak51v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371889/original/file-20201130-14-gak51v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371889/original/file-20201130-14-gak51v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371889/original/file-20201130-14-gak51v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371889/original/file-20201130-14-gak51v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371889/original/file-20201130-14-gak51v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From the road to the surf. The Drover’s Dog (2009) by Deux Ex Machina is an Australian bespoke design.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joseph Mildren/Deus Ex Machina</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Exhibition designer Michael O’Sullivan has used the gallery’s expansive ground floor to great effect. The angular architecture reflects and amplifies the stars of the show, setting this exhibition apart from a mere motor show exposition. </p>
<p>Each item is treated like a fine art object, gleaming chrome lit to perfection, positioned just so. Information panels inform the curious lay person and digital projection screens show great motorcycle movie moments to seal the deal. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Handsome man on motorcycle from 1960s movies" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371868/original/file-20201130-23-1c5ssro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371868/original/file-20201130-23-1c5ssro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371868/original/file-20201130-23-1c5ssro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371868/original/file-20201130-23-1c5ssro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371868/original/file-20201130-23-1c5ssro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371868/original/file-20201130-23-1c5ssro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371868/original/file-20201130-23-1c5ssro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Steve McQueen revs up for his 1963 Great Escape.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057115/mediaviewer/rm4146496768/">IMDB</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are of course elements within the design of the motorcycles that reflect fine art values of their era, most notably German <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm">Bauhaus</a> and <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dsgn2/hd_dsgn2.htm">Art Deco</a> influences, when motorcycles morphed from the simple functionality of economical transportation to aesthetically pleasing status symbols.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-who-owns-the-copyright-to-your-tattoo-142825">Explainer: who owns the copyright to your tattoo?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Slow riders and low riders</h2>
<p>The oldest known motorcycle, and the first that exhibition visitors see, was developed by Frenchman Louis-Guillaume Perreaux. Steam-powered, the 1871 model had a top speed of 14 kilometres per hour and being mainly made of timber, would not have been a comfortable ride.</p>
<p>Contrast this with the cruiser motorcycles a century later, most notably by Harley-Davidson, when riders reclined on customised bikes, such as the almost impossibly elongated Chopper, just like the one ridden by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064276/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Easy Rider</a> (1969).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371887/original/file-20201130-13-aohz94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Antique motocycle" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371887/original/file-20201130-13-aohz94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371887/original/file-20201130-13-aohz94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371887/original/file-20201130-13-aohz94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371887/original/file-20201130-13-aohz94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371887/original/file-20201130-13-aohz94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371887/original/file-20201130-13-aohz94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371887/original/file-20201130-13-aohz94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Louis-Guillaume Perreaux Vélocipède à vapeur c.1870 Département des Hauts-de-Seine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Musée du Domaine départemental de SceauxPhotograph: Olivier Ravoire</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the eve of the exhibition, land racer Krebs described what it feels like to ride in excess of 200 miles per hour. She spoke of feeling a kind of serenity, as she travels so fast across the salt plains that the roar of her turbo-charged engine is left far behind her.</p>
<p>“What are you aiming for?” a journalist asked her. </p>
<p>“I am aiming for forever”, she replied.</p>
<p>Just like something an artist would say.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/themotorcycle">The Motorcycle — Art, Design, Desire</a> is showing at QAGOMA until 26 April 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alasdair Macintyre does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An exhibition of 100 motorcycles celebrates them as revved up works of art, worthy of our desire.
Alasdair Macintyre, Associate lecturer visual arts, artist, PhD candidate, Australian Catholic University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/149433
2020-11-16T00:44:45Z
2020-11-16T00:44:45Z
‘One of the most important Australian artists of the late 20th century’: Gordon Bennett’s Unfinished Business
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368813/original/file-20201111-23-1nq3zw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014 Home Decor (Algebra) Ocean 1998 Synthetic polymer paint on linen / Two parts: 182 x 182cm (each); 182.5 x 365cm (overall) © The Estate of Gordon Bennett
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gift of The Hon. Paul Guest OAM QC under the Cultural Gifts Program 2018. Collection: Bendigo Art Gallery</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Unfinished Business: The art of Gordon Bennett, QAGOMA, Brisbane.</em></p>
<p>At the entrance to this exhibition, there is an excerpt from the artist’s notebook from December 1991. Written just three years after Bennett graduated from art school as a mature aged student, it gives a very clear sense of his early ambition and political purpose.</p>
<p>He writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am trying to paint the one painting that will change the world before which even the most rabid racists will fall to their knees … of course this is in itself stupid and I am a fool but I think to myself what have I got to lose by trying? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Impossible aims, such as this one, often underpin and drive the work of major artists; an achievable aim after all would be quickly satisfied. A cause as worthy and challenging as anti-racism, on the other hand, can provide material for a lifetime. This task is the “unfinished business” referenced in the title of the show.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368968/original/file-20201112-17-1ozm05j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368968/original/file-20201112-17-1ozm05j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368968/original/file-20201112-17-1ozm05j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368968/original/file-20201112-17-1ozm05j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368968/original/file-20201112-17-1ozm05j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368968/original/file-20201112-17-1ozm05j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368968/original/file-20201112-17-1ozm05j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368968/original/file-20201112-17-1ozm05j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014.
Abstraction (Citizen) 2011
Synthetic polymer paint on linen / 183 x 152.3 x 3.2cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The Estate of Gordon Bennett Private Collection, Adelaide</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bennett died in 2014, aged 58. He did not discover his Aboriginal heritage until around age 11 and always resisted being pigeonholed as an Aboriginal artist. Given that consistently expressed view, thinking about how his work addresses the cause of anti-racism is an apt prism through which to view the current exhibition. </p>
<p>Certainly, the notebook quote reflects how Bennett’s reputation has been cemented in Australian art history. We tend to think of him as a key figure in political or critical postmodernism.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-postmodernism-20791">Explainer: what is postmodernism?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>He is understood alongside politically inclined American artists from the so-called Pictures generation of the 1970s and 80s (Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levin). In Australia, he would be placed in dialogue with key postmodernist artists such as Imants Tillers, Tracey Moffatt, and Juan Davila. </p>
<p>Of the latter four, Bennett is most easily understood as a critical postmodernist. Typically, this is the style of contemporary art associated with ideology critique, unveiling systems of discrimination and oppression like racism and sexism. This critical orientation is particularly evident in Bennett’s history paintings, displayed in the third room of the exhibition.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368967/original/file-20201112-19-4m7eau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368967/original/file-20201112-19-4m7eau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368967/original/file-20201112-19-4m7eau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368967/original/file-20201112-19-4m7eau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368967/original/file-20201112-19-4m7eau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368967/original/file-20201112-19-4m7eau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368967/original/file-20201112-19-4m7eau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368967/original/file-20201112-19-4m7eau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014.
Haptic Painting (Explorer: The Inland Sea) 1993 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas / 177 x 265cm © The Estate of Gordon Bennett</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection: Commonwealth Bank of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These large scale history paintings of the 1990s are perhaps his best known works. They often use the dots associated with Aboriginal Western Desert painting intertwined with western systems of realist depiction. </p>
<p>The visually complex and layered works challenge received accounts of Australian colonial history. They reference the massacres of Aboriginal people — in Myth of the Western man (White man’s burden) (1992) and The nine ricochets (Fall down black fella, Jump up white fella (1990) — and question the valorising of Captain Cook in Big Romantic Painting (Apotheosis of Captain Cook) (1993) and Possession Island (1991).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368965/original/file-20201112-12-1ijfjsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368965/original/file-20201112-12-1ijfjsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368965/original/file-20201112-12-1ijfjsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368965/original/file-20201112-12-1ijfjsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368965/original/file-20201112-12-1ijfjsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368965/original/file-20201112-12-1ijfjsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368965/original/file-20201112-12-1ijfjsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368965/original/file-20201112-12-1ijfjsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014.
Possession Island 1991
Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas Two parts: 162 x 260cm (overall)
© The Estate of Gordon Bennett
Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection: Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his recent book <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/rattling-spears_a-history-of-indigenous-australian-art/">Rattling Spears: A History of Indigenous Australian Art</a> (2016), art historian Ian McLean argues that anger is the consistent emotion expressed by Bennett’s work. He writes of Bennett: “The anger is never far from the surface of his work, though he was perplexed by the common perception of it as angry.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368974/original/file-20201112-19-1an67rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368974/original/file-20201112-19-1an67rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368974/original/file-20201112-19-1an67rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368974/original/file-20201112-19-1an67rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368974/original/file-20201112-19-1an67rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368974/original/file-20201112-19-1an67rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1201&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368974/original/file-20201112-19-1an67rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1201&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368974/original/file-20201112-19-1an67rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1201&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014.
Outsider 1988
Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas / 290.5 x 179.5cm
The University of Queensland, Brisbane Acquired with the Assistance of the Visual Arts and Crafts Board of the Australia Council, 1989</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The Estate of Gordon Bennett Collection: The University of Queensland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps McLean reads Bennett’s work in this way because anger at injustice is the emotional tone critical postmodernism typically adopts. But is this the tone Bennett actually adopts? I confess I used to think so, but seeing this exhibition has made me reconsider. </p>
<h2>Form as much as content</h2>
<p>In Bennett’s most anthologised article, acerbically titled “The Manifest Toe”, he describes his approach to art using an expression that is often used in critical rather than art theory: the “politics of representation.” Here we get to the crux of Bennett’s contribution. Not only is art about political content, form is also at stake. Representation itself is political. </p>
<p>Attending to form as much as content enables a different view of Bennett’s oeuvre and critical purpose. Indeed, Bennett’s extraordinary attention to visual languages, their meanings and implications, is the key revelation about his oeuvre I have taken away from the current exhibition.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368969/original/file-20201112-16-1usrtj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368969/original/file-20201112-16-1usrtj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368969/original/file-20201112-16-1usrtj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368969/original/file-20201112-16-1usrtj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368969/original/file-20201112-16-1usrtj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368969/original/file-20201112-16-1usrtj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368969/original/file-20201112-16-1usrtj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368969/original/file-20201112-16-1usrtj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014.
Home Decor (After M Preston) No 3 2010 2010 Synthetic polymer paint on linen / 182.5 x 152cm © The Estate of Gordon Bennett.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection: The Estate of Gordon Bennett</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I already knew Bennett was in dialogue with other artists and their distinct painterly idioms: Mondrian, Margaret Preston, Thomas Bock, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jackson Pollock to name just a few. I was also aware of his concern with western systems of representation and their oppressive effects. </p>
<p>What I had not realised is that he is also in an intense dialogue with himself and his earlier work. Looking through the exhibition, this internal language becomes insistently present as the resonances between works start to sound. </p>
<p>Forms and styles of representation recur, transmute and metamorphose across his oeuvre in a dizzying fashion. </p>
<p>For example, the small painting of a black angel in the installation in the first room of the exhibition titled Psycho(d)rama (1990) recurs in Notes to Basquiat (Jackson Pollock and his Other) (2001). </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nothing-quite-prepares-you-for-the-impact-of-this-exhibition-haring-basquiat-at-the-ngv-128100">'Nothing quite prepares you for the impact of this exhibition': Haring Basquiat at the NGV</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The strange row of heads depicted in the very early work, The Coming of the Light (1987) forms part of the background of this same image.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368814/original/file-20201111-23-1392b4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368814/original/file-20201111-23-1392b4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368814/original/file-20201111-23-1392b4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368814/original/file-20201111-23-1392b4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368814/original/file-20201111-23-1392b4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368814/original/file-20201111-23-1392b4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368814/original/file-20201111-23-1392b4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368814/original/file-20201111-23-1392b4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014 Notes to Basquiat (Jackson Pollock and His Other) 2001 Synthetic polymer paint on linen / 2 panels: 152 x 152 cm each, 152 x 304 cm (overall)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The Estate of Gordon Bennett Private Collection, Adelaide</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pollock’s vibrant skeins of paint can be tracked across a range of works: a section of Blue Poles as a background image in Notes to Basquiat (Jackson Pollock and his Other) (2001). </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-looking-at-blue-poles-by-jackson-pollock-51655">Here's looking at: Blue poles by Jackson Pollock</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Pollock’s action painting is presented as a form of cultural appropriation of First Nations’ sand painting in Notes to Basquiat: Bird (2001), and those same active lines form the veins of Bloodlines (1993).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368973/original/file-20201112-17-1spvkc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368973/original/file-20201112-17-1spvkc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368973/original/file-20201112-17-1spvkc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368973/original/file-20201112-17-1spvkc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368973/original/file-20201112-17-1spvkc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368973/original/file-20201112-17-1spvkc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368973/original/file-20201112-17-1spvkc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368973/original/file-20201112-17-1spvkc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014.
Bloodlines 1993
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas and rope on wood
Three parts: a: 182 x 182cm; b: 182 x 61cm;
c: 182 x 182cm; 182 x 425cm (overall) Purchased 2019 with funds from the Neilson Foundation through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation
© The Estate of Gordon Bennett</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The diversity of Bennett’s work is another striking feature. At times it is as though we are looking at the work of more than one artist. For example, expressionism features in the highly visceral Outsider (1988), which replays Van Gogh’s Starry Night. An Aboriginal man is inserted into the picture whose exploding head is turning into stars. </p>
<p>In Notes to Basquiat (Death of irony) 2002, Bennett astonishingly knits a homage to Basquiat with Islamic patterns and calligraphy into a coherent composition .</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368809/original/file-20201111-21-1kkktcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368809/original/file-20201111-21-1kkktcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368809/original/file-20201111-21-1kkktcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368809/original/file-20201111-21-1kkktcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368809/original/file-20201111-21-1kkktcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368809/original/file-20201111-21-1kkktcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368809/original/file-20201111-21-1kkktcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368809/original/file-20201111-21-1kkktcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014 Notes to Basquiat (Death of Irony) 2002 Synthetic polymer paint on linen / 152 x 304cm © The Estate of Gordon Bennett.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection: The Estate of Gordon Bennett.</span></span>
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<p>This is the third major survey show to consider the breadth of Bennett’s work and should not be missed. Bennett emerges as one of the most important Australian artists of the latter part of the 20th century and one we have certainly not finished interpreting. </p>
<p><em>Unfinished Business can be seen until 21 March 2021</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149433/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Best receives funding from the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australian Research Council . </span></em></p>
A major survey of Gordon Bennett’s work showcases a dizzying blend of styles and themes.
Susan Best, Professor of Art Theory and Fine Art, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/128308
2019-12-10T18:56:32Z
2019-12-10T18:56:32Z
In our time of climate crisis, the exhibition Water is a subtly crafted plea
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305754/original/file-20191208-90618-1utfpyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C32%2C3575%2C2316&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Olafur Eliasson, Denmark, b.1967 Riverbed 2014 (detail) Site specific installation. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pictured: The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, DenmarkCourtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los AngelesPhotograph: Iwan Baan.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Water, GOMA, Brisbane.</em></p>
<p>As I write these lines, bushfires rage through the ancient forests of New South Wales and our cities are choked with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/world/australia/sydney-fires.html">smoke</a>. The severity of these fires is fuelled by drought. </p>
<p>For this reason, the new exhibition Water at Brisbane’s <a href="https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/">Gallery of Modern Art</a> is a timely and necessary contribution to an important question in art: how to best give visual representation to climate change - something that until very recently has been an abstraction for most people? </p>
<p>It is impossible to separate Water from the politics of climate change. The relationship, however, between art, politics and our cultural institutions can be uneasy bedfellows. This exhibition asks important questions. What is the role of the institution? To care for our shared cultural heritage? To educate? To agitate for change? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-drought-is-affecting-water-supply-in-australias-capital-cities-127909">How drought is affecting water supply in Australia’s capital cities</a>
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<p>Water does all of these things. As debates rage as to Australia’s readiness and commitment to transition to a low carbon economy, perhaps this is where the exhibition is most prescient: it sidesteps the politics and instead presents a nuanced and gentle provocation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305780/original/file-20191209-90609-1vpceio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305780/original/file-20191209-90609-1vpceio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305780/original/file-20191209-90609-1vpceio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305780/original/file-20191209-90609-1vpceio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305780/original/file-20191209-90609-1vpceio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305780/original/file-20191209-90609-1vpceio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305780/original/file-20191209-90609-1vpceio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305780/original/file-20191209-90609-1vpceio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cai Guo-Qiang, China, b. 1957, Heritage (installation view) 2013 Animals: polystyrene, gauze, resin and hide. Installed with artificial watering hole: water, sand, drip mechanism. Purchased 2013 with funds from the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Diversity Foundation through and with the assistance of the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © The artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph: Mark Sherwood, QAGOMA.</span></span>
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<p>With almost 100 works by international and Australian artists, Water spans the entire ground floor of GOMA. Organised into five themes, “A rising tide”, “Deep”, “Pulse”, “Cycles” and “Held”, the exhibition is fluid and dynamic, much like water itself. </p>
<p>Entering, visitors are greeted by Quandamooka artist Megan Cope’s RE FORMATION (2019), a recreation of a midden consisting of cast-concrete oyster shells and copper slag, a byproduct of the mining industry. </p>
<p>Before colonisation, the coastal shellfish reefs provided a major food source for local Indigenous people and performed a critical role in the health of Minjerribah or Stradbroke Island’s fragile reef ecosystem. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305781/original/file-20191209-90603-oils7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305781/original/file-20191209-90603-oils7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305781/original/file-20191209-90603-oils7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305781/original/file-20191209-90603-oils7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305781/original/file-20191209-90603-oils7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305781/original/file-20191209-90603-oils7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305781/original/file-20191209-90603-oils7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305781/original/file-20191209-90603-oils7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Megan Cope, Australia, b.1982, RE FORMATION (Noogoon/St Helena Island) 2016-2019, Cast-concrete oyster shells, copper slag / Dimensions variable Purchased 2019 with funds from the Contemporary Patrons through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art FoundationCollection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern ArtPhotograph: Installation view, GOMA, Brisbane, 2019. Photographer: Natasha Harth, QAGOMA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy: The artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY, Dianne Tanzer & Nicola Stein © Megan Cope</span></span>
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<p>The flexibility of GOMA’s architecture is exploited to full effect with Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson’s Riverbed (2014). The gallery space has been radically transformed to become a monochromatic, craggy landscape that gently slopes upwards. Winding its way down through the space is a bubbling creek.</p>
<p>The experience is thoroughly performative as visitors are encouraged to physically negotiate the landscape, to pick a line through the scree. In this way, they are transformed from passive spectators to active walkers. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLUX3AI2Uic">Eliasson’s</a> intentions are firmly political. He believes that greater awareness can be achieved through participation. By creating shared spaces, new modes of knowing can be developed, a way of reframing and transforming our future. </p>
<p>This question of transformation recurs through the exhibition. Rather than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/08/a-z-of-climate-anxiety-how-to-avoid-meltdown">anxiety-inducing nihilism</a>, Water is playful, optimistic and forward-looking.</p>
<p>William Forsythe’s The Fact of Matter (2009) occupies GOMA’s central atrium, inviting visitors to take up the challenge of navigating through the grid-like structure. The work is a metaphor for how we are collectively capable of responding and adapting to the challenges that lie ahead. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305759/original/file-20191208-90552-128p4rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305759/original/file-20191208-90552-128p4rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305759/original/file-20191208-90552-128p4rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305759/original/file-20191208-90552-128p4rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305759/original/file-20191208-90552-128p4rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305759/original/file-20191208-90552-128p4rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305759/original/file-20191208-90552-128p4rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Forsythe, The Fact of Matter 2009, Site-specific installation comprising gym rings, fabric straps, gym mat and truss system / Dimensions variable. Pictured: Installation view, William Forsythe: The Fact of Matter, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2019. Courtesy: The artist Photograph: Chloë Callistemon © William Forsyth.</span>
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<p>The exhibition encourages us to think differently about water and to reconsider its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/may/11/water-weirdest-liquid-planet-scientists-h2o-ice-firefighters">strangeness</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305758/original/file-20191208-90592-1mndwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305758/original/file-20191208-90592-1mndwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305758/original/file-20191208-90592-1mndwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305758/original/file-20191208-90592-1mndwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305758/original/file-20191208-90592-1mndwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305758/original/file-20191208-90592-1mndwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305758/original/file-20191208-90592-1mndwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305758/original/file-20191208-90592-1mndwu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">David Medalla, Philippines / United Kingdom b.1942, Cloud Canyons No.25 1963/ 2015Plexiglass tubing, motor pumps, porous stones, wood, water, detergent / Six tubes: 300 x 20cm (diam.), 250 x 20cm (diam.), 200 x 20cm (diam.), 150 x 20cm (diam.), 100 x 20cm (diam.), 50 x 20cm (diam.); basin: 200cm (diam.)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© David Medalla, Purchased 2014. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation.Collection: QAGOMA</span></span>
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<p>David Medalla’s Cloud Canyons No. 25 (1963/2015) reminds us how mutable water can be, as it somehow straddles the boundary between solid and liquid. This work is quietly in constant motion as it hands itself over to chance and gravity, breaking the rules as to how liquids are supposed to behave. </p>
<p>Water’s curator Geraldine Kirrihi Barlow cleverly draws from QAGOMA’s permanent collection to create new dialogues and conversations. Favourites such as Cai Guo-Qiang’s Heritage (2013) return.</p>
<p>Other works such as the video Holding On (2015) by Samoan-born Angela Tiatia have grown in urgency as the peoples of the South Pacific are already feeling the impacts of rising sea levels. </p>
<p>Tiatia’s performance was filmed on the main atoll of the tiny, low-lying island nation of Tuvulu. Tiatia lies motionless on a cement plinth, as the waves from the rising tide slowly and menacingly roll over her. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305755/original/file-20191208-90552-1n81msh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305755/original/file-20191208-90552-1n81msh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305755/original/file-20191208-90552-1n81msh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305755/original/file-20191208-90552-1n81msh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305755/original/file-20191208-90552-1n81msh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305755/original/file-20191208-90552-1n81msh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305755/original/file-20191208-90552-1n81msh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Angela Tiatia New Zealand, b.1973 Holding On 2015 (still) Video installation / 12 minutes Image courtesy the artist. © Angela Tiatia.</span>
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<p>Other strategies exploit the emotive and humorous possibilities of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculative_fiction">speculative fiction</a>. Michael Candy’s video work Little Sunfish (2019) takes its departure point from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and the ongoing leaking of radioactive material from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305777/original/file-20191209-90618-1gvm85r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305777/original/file-20191209-90618-1gvm85r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305777/original/file-20191209-90618-1gvm85r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305777/original/file-20191209-90618-1gvm85r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305777/original/file-20191209-90618-1gvm85r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305777/original/file-20191209-90618-1gvm85r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305777/original/file-20191209-90618-1gvm85r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305777/original/file-20191209-90618-1gvm85r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Candy b.1990, Durban, South AfricaLives and works near Tallebudgera Creek, QueenslandLittle sunfish (still ) 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy the artist.</span></span>
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<p>A small robot was designed to investigate the damage and named “<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/fukushima-robot-cleanup/">Little Sunfish</a>”. As it becomes increasingly anthropomorphised, the robot, in Candy’s hands, is playful and quirky, albeit leaving a trail of radioactive waste in its wake.</p>
<p>In one extraordinary sequence, Little Sunfish befriends a curious cuttlefish and the distinctions between animal and robot begin to disintegrate. </p>
<p>This exhibition is a subtly crafted plea for water. Water can give and water can take. Without it, however, we are nothing. </p>
<p><em>Water is at <a href="https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/water">QAGOMA </a> until 26 April 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128308/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chari Larsson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Water can give and water can take. Without it, however, we are nothing. A new exhibition presents a nuanced and gentle provocation as we grapple with drought and climate change.
Chari Larsson, Lecturer of art history, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.