Bangaliwuy Marrawungu / Bunhangura towards Dhuwalkitj 1947 / Lumber crayon on butchers’ paper / Ronald M and Catherine H Berndt Collection, Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia, Perth

For the first time, a selection of 81 of a collection of 365 vibrant, colourful crayon drawings made by a group of senior Aboriginal leaders and bark painters in Yirrkala, north-east Arnhem Land, are the focus of an exhibition created by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, in collaboration with Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre at Yirrkala and the Berndt Museum at the University of Western Australia in Perth. Here, exhibition curator Cara Pinchbeck writes on these extraordinary works and the history behind them.

The Yirrkala crayon drawings are a unique collection of artworks, stunning in their visual strength and impact. They are also an unrivalled document of Yolngu knowledge and law. The works were made by the senior leaders of the Yirrkala community in 1947 through their collaboration with the anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt. The Berndts had travelled to Yirrkala to undertake research, arriving in late 1946, and as part of their work asked artists to produce paintings in natural pigments on bark. In the first two months of their research they collected over 200 bark paintings. Their concern that these works would be destroyed when transported out of Yirrkala led Ronald Berndt to request rolls of butchers’ paper and boxes of coloured crayons from his father in Adelaide. This method of recording Indigenous knowledge had been used by other anthropologists and allowed an immediacy not replicated in other mediums, in addition to being easily transportable.

This new art form was embraced by the artists working at Yirrkala and over the next five months they created 365 crayon drawings that the Berndts then painstakingly documented. The works are distinct in the brilliant colour palette used and the complexity of the information contained within them. The collection evidences the amazing things that can be achieved through collaboration, mutual respect and understanding. These attributes have been central to the development of this exhibition, with people from all four corners of the continent working together to ensure that these works are accessible and the exceptional artists who created them are afforded the recognition they deserve.

Mowarra Ganambarr / Djang’kawu created waterhole on Dätiwuy estate 1947 / Lumber crayon and graphite on butchers paper / Ronald M and Catherine H Berndt Collection, Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia, Perth

The crayon drawings are now held by the Berndt Museum of Anthropology of the University of Western Australia, Perth, which is a partner in this project, along with Buku-Larrnggay Mulka, the art centre that services the artists of Yirrkala today. A small number of the drawings have been included in the Berndt Museum exhibition ‘Djalkiri Wanga: the Land is my Foundation’ (1995) and the National Museum of Australia’s ‘Yalangbara: Art of the Djang’kawu’ (2010–12)¹. However, ‘Yirrkala Drawings’ is the first major exhibition to include a significant number of the works, with the accompanying catalogue publishing the entire collection. The descendants of the artists who worked with Ronald Berndt have actively sought an exhibition of this nature for some time, so that their fathers and grandfathers can be known and the extent of what they achieved in working with the Berndts can be fully appreciated.

Although much is known of Ronald and Catherine Berndt and their work, far less is known of the majority of the artists with whom they collaborated. Many of these men are among the most important bark painters of the twentieth century, exceptional artists who were also cultural leaders and social negotiators, and deserve to be recognised as important figures in the history of this country.

Wonggu Mununggurr / Fish trap at Wandawuy 1947 / Lumber crayon on butchers’ paper / Ronald M and Catherine H Berndt Collection, Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia, Perth

When Wonggu Mununggurr began working with the Berndts during their trip to Yirrkala in 1946–47, he was a cultural leader who had led an extraordinary life. That Wonggu decided to collaborate with them, and comprehensively document the complexities of Yolngu culture and law in the brilliant works that we see in this exhibition, highlights his generosity and desire to share knowledge as a form of cross-cultural collaboration. To some, this may seem a surprising thing to do, but when considering Wonggu’s life experiences we see that they are marked by engagements with outsiders, at times complex but predominantly based on generosity and cooperation. Working with the Berndts was just another of his partnerships. Of course, Wonggu was not the only artist to work with the Berndts, but he was certainly the most productive, creating an amazing 84 of the 365 works that form the Yirrkala crayon drawing collection from 1947. In considering Wonggu’s life, we are able to gain an insight into the lives of many of the artists who worked with the Berndts and events that preceded this seminal collection of drawings.

Born in the early to mid 1880s, Wonggu grew up on country, travelling to various camps with the changing seasons. During his early years, Macassan traders visited annually and lived with the Yolngu for several months. These important ties that had spanned centuries were severed when Wonggu was in his early twenties and the government introduced license fees, effectively banning such visits. By August 1932, Wonggu had allowed Fredrick Gray to camp on his country at Caledon Bay and establish a trepang (sea cucumber) processing plant. Wonggu and his family worked for Gray, utilising their extensive skills and continuing the long history in the trade of their natural resources.

In 1934, Wonggu was described in Brisbane’s Courier-Mail as the ‘King of the Balamumu’ and he and his sons as the ‘Black Gangsters of Caledon Bay’. Such reports were in relation to a number of murders in the region with three of Wonggu’s sons, Maw’, Natjialma and Dhangatji Mununggurr, being convicted of the murder of five Japanese trepangers after voluntarily going to Darwin for what was to be a fraught trial. During this time Wonggu began working with Donald Thomson who had been travelling throughout north-eastern Arnhem Land, with the government’s support, to resolve tensions in the area. Given his reputation, Wonggu was key to Thomson’s engagements with the Yolngu and they developed a close association and friendship that is apparent in Thomson’s engaging photographs and writing:

Wonggu proved to be a man of remarkable intelligence . . . frank and completely fearless, and each day my respect increased for this gallant warrior . . . the grand old man of the people of Caledon Bay.²

Wonggu was a leader of the people of Caledon Bay, the Djapu clan, and he travelled extensively throughout his country with his extended family, reported to include 20 wives and 60 children, before settling in the Methodist Mission at Yirrkala in 1937–38. This distinct change to mission life brought Wonggu into closer contact with the numerous clans of the region who were now all living on Rirratjingu clan country. In 1942, Wonggu worked with Thomson again, providing scouts and guides to Thomson’s Special Reconnaissance Unit, who defended the region against the Japanese as part of operations for World War Two, with six of Wonggu’s sons being members of the detachment.

In each of these engagements we see Wonggu’s desire to work collaboratively, which he continued in working with the Berndts when they arrived at Yirrkala in late 1946. The Berndts were interested in Wonggu’s life and immense cultural knowledge and provided him with a forum for making his inheritance known on terms that were appropriate and appreciated. Wonggu was by no means alone in this endeavour. Twenty-six of his peers from various clan groups were provided with the same forum and chose to work with the Berndts, enthusiastically responding to the desire for them to provide detailed images of country, accompanied by extensive documentation. The result was astounding and Berndt considered this body of work to be his greatest accomplishment.

The sheer size of the collection is staggering, as is the grand scale of the individual works and their vibrant colouration. However, the overriding strength of these drawings lies in the mastery of the artists in working with the new medium of crayon on paper. Although the process of drawing on paper is vastly different from painting in natural pigments on bark, the artists seamlessly translated their inherited clan designs to this new medium. While this highlights the willingness of the artists to try new things, it also shows the strength of visual language that is inherent in Yolngu art. When the use of crayon did not provide the desired effect required by some artists, pencil was introduced to achieve the precise line work and fine detail that is inherent to bark painting. It is thought that the pencil, and the occasional chalk to be found in the works, may have come from the Yirrkala Mission School.

The knowledge embedded within the works is phenomenal and their complexity shows that the artists knew exactly what they were doing — documenting their title deeds to land, laying down details of Yolngu law and providing meticulous information on the ancestors that are intimately connected to country and inform being in the present. The artists were explaining their world and worldview to outsiders. Through the works we learn the intricacies of culture, clan relationships and connection to country, from the land to freshwater, saltwater and the sky.

An important aspect of this project has been providing the artists’ families with access to the artworks and documentation of their fathers and grandfathers and allowing people to openly comment on these. Through this process details have been corrected, new information has come to light and discussion has been provoked about the importance of these men and the significance of what they did. These insights have been captured in the filmed interviews that feature in the exhibition catalogue, as well as short films within the exhibition space. The interviews allow people to speak of their own family, the artworks and the subjects depicted in their own terms. This has added an additional layer of knowledge and meaning to the works, while also bringing to light little known aspects of Australian history.

Yirrkala remains an important centre of artistic excellence, with many of the descendants of the artists who created the crayon drawings being artists of national and international renown today. Working through Buku-Larrnggay Mulka, these artists produce extraordinary works that both honour and offer innovation within the visual language refined by their fathers and grandfathers, as seen in the stunning larrakitj (hollow logs) that will be displayed in this exhibition.

Wonggu Mununggurr / Fish trap at Wandawuy 1947 / Lumber crayon on butchers paper / Ronald M and Catherine H Berndt Collection, Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia, Perth

Wonggu Mununggurr and his peers have left an amazing legacy through their landmark artworks, the comprehensive documentation of Yolngu knowledge that accompanies these and the artistic skills they have handed on to their descendants. Ronald and Catherine Berndt were keenly aware of what these men had created:

Our deep sense of gratitude to the Arnhem Landers themselves, particularly those at Yirrkala . . . cannot be expressed in mere words. Perhaps one day . . . these people will read with interest this history of these people’s contact with alien groups. In this way they will receive some compensation and, in some slight degree, our debt to them will be honoured.³

It is our hope that this exhibition goes some way in honouring this debt, in giving back to the Yirrkala community, bestowing the individual artists with the recognition they deserve and providing access to the artistic and cultural inheritance the artists of the Yirrkala crayon drawings have left us all.

Cara Pinchbeck is Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, and exhibition curator of ‘Yirrkala Drawings’.

Mawalan Marika and Wandjuk Marika / Yalangbara sandhills and goanna holes 1947 / Lumber crayon and graphite on butchers paper / Ronald M and Catherine H Berndt Collection, Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia, Perth

Endnotes
¹  ‘Yalangbara: Art of the Djang’kawu’ was a touring exhibition presented by the National Museum of Australia, developed by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in partnership with the Marika family, and supported by the Northern Territory Government.
²  Donald Thomson in Arnhem Land, Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2003.
³  Foreword, Arnhem Land: Its History and its People, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1954. This is an edited excerpt of an article originally published in the November 2013 edition of Look, the Art Gallery of New South Wales’s magazine for members. Reproduced with the kind permission of Cara Pinchbeck and Jill Sykes, Editor, Look magazine. ‘Yirrkala Drawings’ is at QAG from 12 April to 13 July 2014. The Gallery holds bark paintings by some of the original Yirrkala artists, including Mawalan and Wandjuk Marika, Munggurrawuy Yunupingu and Mowarra Ganambarr, and larrakitj, bark paintings and prints by their descendants, including Dhuwarrwarr Marika, Wanyubi Marika, Gulumbu Yunupingu and Gunybi Ganambarr. A selection of their contemporary works will accompany the 1946 drawings in the exhibition.

‘Yirrkala Drawings’ is at QAG until 13 July 2014. The Gallery holds bark paintings by some of the original Yirrkala artists, including Mawalan and Wandjuk Marika, Munggurrawuy Yunupingu and Mowarra Ganambarr, and larrakitj, bark paintings and prints by their descendants, including Dhuwarrwarr Marika, Wanyubi Marika, Gulumbu Yunupingu and Gunybi Ganambarr. A selection of their contemporary works will accompany the 1946 drawings in the exhibition.

Dynamic, vivid and unlike any other Indigenous Australian artworks, these magnificent crayon drawings by senior Aboriginal leaders and bark painters of Yirrkala in north-east Arnhem Land are showcased in Yirrkala Drawings, the first comprehensive publication on the subject. Accompanied by insightful essays and interviews with the artists’ descendants, this book reveals the enduring power of this land and its people. The publication is available from the QAGOMA Store and online.

A ‘We Need To Talk’ event with members of LEVEL artist-run initiative

Since 2012 Brisbane feminist art collective LEVEL has been hosting picnics as a way of bringing women and their friends together for a collaborative meal and political discussion. This series of events, ‘We Need To Talk’, celebrates the political and the personal through the sharing of food and ideas. Past picnics have focused on the difficulties that women experience in their work and personal lives, their experiences of gender, and how we can work together for a fairer world.

LEVEL will be holding another picnic as part of the upcoming ‘Harvest‘ exhibition opening weekend. This picnic’s theme is food and revolution and you’re invited to join in.

Bring along your favourite recipe (and a plate of food if you can), and join the conversation on the feminist picnic rug as we ask what role food plays in women’s lives, whether the kitchen is a playground or a battleground, and how we can use the idea of the ‘recipe’ – a shared set of ingredients and methods – as a way forward to a better world. Together we will develop a recipe for a revolution.

So, join us at 2.30pm this Sunday 29 June for our ’We Need To Talk’ Picnic: Talking Feminism And Food on the Maiwar Green at GOMA.

For the full schedule of the ‘Harvest: Art, Film+Food’ opening weekend celebrations visit the Gallery’s website.

Fallen Fruit (David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young) / Pineapple wallpaper Brisbane at Dusk 2014 / Image courtesy: The artists

The Gallery’s major exhibition and film program ‘Harvest: Art, Film and Food’ presents a selection of works from the Collection, alongside feature films and documentaries, depicting food across the ages and exploring food production, distribution and consumption from multiple perspectives. Here, Frances Bonner looks at connections between feminism, permaculture and food futures.

Fallen Fruit (David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young) / Fallen Fruit of Brisbane: Pineapple Express 2014 / Image courtesy: The artists

‘Harvest: Art, Film and Food’ looks at the conjunction of food and art — not just the static moment of the still life, but the much wider picture of food’s production and consumption and its movement between those two sites both in colonial and contemporary times. It is concerned with the connections food can make, at the dinner table for instance, or in Aboriginal ties to country, and the disconnections when food choices can emphasise otherness or differences in status.

The very word ‘harvest’ can lead both to visions of excess and to the possibility of failure and famine. In the ‘Harvest: Food on Film’ cinema program, such features as La Grande Bouffe 1973 and Babette’s Feast 1987 or the documentary Supersize Me 2004 demonstrate the first, and Distant Thunder 1973 and Bitter Seeds 2011 the second. Unsurprisingly, inequities in the global distribution of foodstuffs are more to be found in the program’s documentaries than the features, but political statements about the circulation of food and associated objects are equally to be found in the artworks of the exhibition itself. Malaysian artist Simryn Gill’s Forking Tongues 1992 provides a telling instance: a spiral of cutlery and chillies curves around on the floor, reminding us both of the worldwide spread of the powerful food plant once it was taken by colonial powers from its homelands in South America, and the cultural specificity of cutlery as ‘tableware’. Not everyone eats at table, not everyone uses cutlery. The forks and the chillies placed on the gallery floor are both, to an extent, out of place.

Food is particularly linked to the feminine; its preparation is overwhelmingly women’s work and this theme arises in the exhibition. Outside the home, in the public world of restaurants, the gendering shifts, as does the status. The film program’s documentaries show this very well, with works such as El Bulli: Cooking in Progress 2011, Kings of Pastry 2009, Step Up to the Plate 2012 and Jiro Dreams of Sushi 2011 all stressing the masculinity of high-end cooking across different cultures. One could even extend this to Remy, the rat hero of the animated feature Ratatouille 2007. Ang Lee’s early feature Eat Drink Man Woman 1994 collapses the distinction though, by looking at a Taiwanese family whose patriarch is a master Chinese chef but whose more important domain in the film is his family, the daughters for whom he cooks each Sunday.

Production still from Jiro Dreams of Sushi 2011 / Director: David Gelb / Image courtesy: Curious Films

Food security and alternative production practices are important concerns in ‘Harvest’. A key work here is Emily Floyd’s Permaculture crossed with feminist science fiction 2008. Floyd’s work often engages with the texts of alternative, even utopian movements, especially ones with links to the 1960s and 70s. This particular installation work draws on two movements that flourished in the 1970s, and which had clear links with 1960s counterculture: permaculture and feminism. The term ‘permaculture’, a compound word derived from ‘permanent’ and ‘agriculture’, was coined by Tasmanian Bill Mollison during talks about alternate ways of producing foodstuffs, before he and David Holmgren published a guide to its practices in 1978. Feminism (or Women’s Liberation, as it was called then) engaged in many practical political activities, which continue to have real effects, centring on women’s work. One of feminism’s many cultural expressions includes the often forgotten feminist science fiction.

Emily Floyd, Australia b.1972 / Permaculture crossed with feminist science fiction (installation views) 2008 / Laminated timber, timber, vinyl, polyurethane varnish / Purchased 2009. The Queensland Government’s Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © The artist

The path from 1960s counterculture — alternate lifestyles, the Whole Earth Catalog (1968–72) and such — to permaculture is clear, as is shown by The Real Dirt on Farmer John (2005), a documentary on a North American variant. Mollison was never as flamboyant, nor as persecuted, as farmer John Peterson, but the trajectory from ‘hippie’ margins to an organic mainstream is shared. Feminism’s relationship with the counterculture was more fraught. Sexual liberation had had little effect on everyday sexism; men still called the shots and women did the housework. Women’s Liberation grew out of disenchantment with the mainstream as well as the counterculture, but utopian elements of the latter were carried through. At first, activities were centred on practical issues — self-help manuals were key publications. Existing literary works by women were read with awakened eyes. For some, these works included contemporary science fiction novels, like those of Ursula Le Guin. Here was a genre that imagined different ways of being, one that used extrapolation into both better and worse futures in order to comment on the present, and to try out visions of how things might otherwise be. By the mid 1970s, feminist science fiction was thriving.

Production still from The Real Dirt on Farmer John 2005 / Director: Taggart Siegel / Image courtesy: Antidote Films

Permaculture can now be found on ABC TV’s Gardening Australia, and feminism is, according to recent work from the United Kingdom, up to its Fourth Wave (Women’s Lib was its Second). Neither movement has been as successful as its 1970s exponents had dreamed, but Emily Floyd’s work is significant in that it brings the texts of that time into a world that has, in part, been altered by them both.

Floyd prints quotations from these texts onto blocks of reclaimed timber, which are then piled up over a sizeable area of the gallery floor, around a much larger wooden egg — the symbol of life and a source of food. She distinguishes the blocks by the use of different fonts. According to QAGOMA’s Julie Ewington in her Optimism catalogue entry on this work, ‘Heavy Heap’ marks the permaculture ones; while ‘Neuropol’ is used for the feminist science fiction.¹ ‘Heavy Heap’ is more rounded and incorporates countercultural swoops as serifs; ‘Neuropol’ is comparatively angular and sharp. They are actually not that different, which is surely part of the point: a viewer has to look and read closely.

Floyd draws on two authors for the science fiction component: Le Guin and Doris Lessing. Neither was quite central to the feminist science fiction project; they were, however, the most substantial women writers of the genre being read by feminists (though obituaries of Lessing following her death in November 2013 only occasionally mentioned her science fiction writings). Floyd draws from Lessing’s Canopus in Argos (1979–83) series as well as her near-future dystopian work Memoirs of a Survivor (1974). Le Guin is one of the most highly regarded science fiction writers, male or female, having won the genre’s two highest prizes twice: a Hugo and a Nebula, with The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and The Dispossessed (1974). Floyd quotes from both.

One of the most striking of Floyd’s wooden blocks carries a quotation from the first, announcing: ‘The King is pregnant’. This signifier of the science fictionality of the novel is largely why it interested feminists. Le Guin had devised a race of androgynous humans who become male or female for only a few days a month in the fictional world of Gethen. The king happened to become pregnant during such a phase. For the rest of the time, sex and sexuality were not evident and sexual difference had no impact on social organisation. Le Guin has since written that she wrote The Left Hand of Darkness as a feminist thought experiment about a world without gender, and which, perhaps because of this, had never experienced a war. She claimed it was not a depiction of a utopia, because ‘it poses no practicable alternative to contemporary society’.² Her principal narrator was, however, a male visitor from a world much like our own, as is typical of utopian fiction. The Dispossessed’s subtitle, An Ambiguous Utopia, indicates her more formal exploration of that particular type of writing.

Feminists admired The Left Hand of Darkness, but criticised it for its male narrator and Le Guin’s decision to use male pronouns for the androgynous characters. More explicitly feminist science fiction writers wrote from the female characters’ perspectives, or made up new pronouns to avoid stereotyped responses. Defending herself in the essay ‘Is Gender Necessary? Le Guin expressed distaste for made-up pronouns, while admitting that she regretted showing her Gethenians engaged in conventionally male rather than female activities.³ She was not alone in creating controversy among her followers: Mollison and Holmgren discussed pest control by noting that ‘blackbirds can become table meat’ and advocated shooting wild possums and marinating their flesh in wine.4 Their suggestions were not widely welcomed.

Compared to much feminist art, like Emily Floyd’s, food and the work of harvesting and serving it was a minor thread in feminist science fiction, mentioned for the most part out of necessity or as a cause of duress, at least in Le Guin’s texts. However, Always Coming Home (1986), the third of her books from which Floyd quotes, is different. It depicts a sustainable agrarian society through a collection of rather whimsical and poetic ‘anthropological’ documents, including recipes. Floyd’s piece otherwise earns its place in ‘Harvest’ for its permaculture component. Floyd ‘crosses’ the two movements, allowing us to see them, in opposition and hybridised.

The tone of Le Guin’s and Lessing’s novels is sombre. Much feminist science fiction depicts a dystopia, where things have become worse for women. Yet there are also many complex works that combine strangeness and joy. The spirit of these, like Joanna Russ’s The Female Man (1975) or Carol Emshwiller’s later surreal Carmen Dog (1988), in which women inexplicably become animals and female animals women, is wonderfully similar to artist Mika Rottenberg’s ‘Harvest’ work, Mary’s Cherries 2004: false red fingernails become glacé cherries as they pass down a three-woman production line. Rottenberg’s combination of sex, flesh, treadmills and confinement does not speak of utopia by any means, but the resulting bowl of cherries, far more abject than an ordinary one, still reminds us that this is just what life ‘is’. It also shows elements of that 1970s verity — female solidarity. The continuities between the walls of the box in which the video is presented and the walls surrounding Mary and her fellow workers draws us into the production.

Mika Rottenberg, Argentina b.1976 / Mary’s cherries (stills) 2004 / Single-channel video installation: 5:50 minutes, colour, sound, 4:3, 28” CRT monitor and mount, media player, speakers, wood, carpet, stucco, fluorescent light, fan and concrete blocks / Purchased 2013. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / Images courtesy: The artist and Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York / © The artist /The presentation of Mika Rottenberg’s Mary’s cherries in ‘Harvest’ is supported by Council on Australia Latin America Relations

Floyd could have chosen works more at the heart of feminist science fiction, like those by Russ or Emshwiller, but Le Guin and Lessing are likely more recognisable now. Furthermore, Le Guin, like Mollison, allows us to see the utopianism of the 1970s as subject to debate: there was no settled agreement on how a better world would look. However, while the blackbirds and marinated possums quietly disappeared from subsequent permaculture manuals, feminist science fiction remained a perfect site for exploring options. Proposals for better worlds should be revisited and revised, and by crossing permaculture with feminist science fiction, Emily Floyd invites us to do just that.

Associate Professor Frances Bonner is an Honorary Researcher in the School of English, Media and Art History at the University of Queensland. Her most recent publication is Personality Presenters: Television’s Intermediaries with Viewers (Ashgate, 2011) and she also writes on celebrity, adaptation and science fiction.

Endnotes
¹  Julie Ewington, ‘Emily Floyd: The seed, the egg and the spaceship’, Contemporary Australia: Optimism [exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2008, pp.86–9.
²  Ursula Le Guin, ‘Is gender necessary’, The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, Berkley Books, New York, 1982, p.158.
³  Ursula Le Guin, ‘Is gender necessary, redux’, Dancing at the Edge of the World, Paladin, London, 1992, p.15.
⁴  Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements, Corgi, Melbourne, 1978, pp.32, 35.

Masami Teraoka, Japan/Unites States b.1936 / McDonald’s Hamburgers Invading Japan/Chochin-me 1982 / 36-colour screenprint on Arches 88 paper / Purchased 2005. The Queensland Government’s Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © The artist

Despite a nostalgic turn to the past, writes Morris Low, printmakers in postwar Japan were increasingly open to international influence. ‘Hanga’ not only showcases the Gallery’s stunning collection of historical and contemporary prints but also illustrates how important the medium was, and still is, in Japan.

‘Hanga’ pays homage to the modern Japanese print movement and its key exponents, showcasing examples of sōsaku-hanga (creative prints) by major artists that were created in the shadow of Japan’s defeat in the Pacific in 1945 and during the decline of the traditional ukiyo-e ¹ print.

After the war, Japanese artists increasingly produced prints. The woodblock was still highly favoured — it is estimated that, until 1975, about half of the professional print artists in Japan still used the woodblock as their primary technique. Artists such as such as Saitō Kiyoshi (1907–97), Sekino Jun’ichirō (1914–88) and Sasajima Kihei (1906–93) sought to depict a peaceful Japan by emphasising its traditional culture, its ancient religions, architecture and landscape. Sekino was particularly skilled in portraits of Bunraku and Kabuki actors — his Bungorō on stage 1953 depicts a renowned puppeteer. Yoshida Tōshi (1911–95) specialised in tranquil landscapes. His prints of Mount Fuji from 1962 evoke the ukiyo-e of old, rather than a Japan that was experiencing high economic growth.

Sekino Jun’ichiro, Japan 1914-1988 / Yoshida Bungoro – doyen of manipulators of female dolls in ‘Bunraku’, or puppet theatre 1953 / Colour woodblock print on paper / Gift of Emeritus Professor Joyce Ackroyd, OBE 1990 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © Estate of the artist

Despite this nostalgic turn to the past, in terms of content, printmakers were increasingly open to international influence. Saitō’s works have a sensibility that is arguably Japanese, yet he looked to the prints of Edvard Munch and Paul Gauguin for inspiration rather than the ukiyo-e masters. Saitō came to international prominence when his works won a prize at the São Paulo Biennale in 1951, and he subsequently travelled to the United States. However, artists continued to draw on East Asian traditions associated with calligraphic mark-making. Lee Ufan was born in Korea in 1936, moving to Japan two decades later. His drypoint prints from 1986 show the tool moving across the plate to create a record of the material properties of the encounter. Prints by female calligrapher and painter Shinoda Tōkō (b.1913) also show the artistic process. Her work was exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1954, and she lived in New York during 1956–58. Her lithographs bring together traditional calligraphy with Abstract Expressionism.

The possibilities offered by silkscreen techniques were not fully explored by Japanese artists until after the war. The rainbow-coloured prints by Ay-Ō (b.1931) make the most of the medium, as do prints by conceptual artist Arakawa Shūsaku (1936–2010), which combine colour lithography with screenprinting. Both artists sought to go beyond mere aesthetics. Arakawa arrived in New York in 1960 and became known for works that interrogate the intertextuality of meaning between the visual and verbal. His work was influenced by his mentor, Marcel Duchamp. Ay-Ō has long been associated with the Fluxus movement, having been introduced to George Maciunas in 1961 by Yōko Ono and joining Fluxus in 1963. His image Finger box (from the ‘Rainbow Landscape’ series) 1974 seems to have borrowed an image from an ukiyo-e print.

Graphic designer and printmaker Yokoo Tadanori (b.1936) became interested in mysticism and psychedelia around this time. His busy, colourful prints are inspired by ukiyo-e prints and Pop art, exhibiting works as part of ‘Word and Image’ in 1967 at MoMA. In 1974, he travelled to India, which resulted in his ‘Shambhala’ portfolio of screenprints. The mythical city of Shambhala, better known as Shangri-la, features in Tibetan Buddhist art and culture, most recently in the work of Gonkar Gyatso, who is also represented in the QAGOMA Collection.

Yokoo Tadanori, Japan b.1936 / Prthivi-devaloka (from ‘Shambala’ portfolio) 1974 / Photo-screenprint with offset text on hand-laid paper / Purchased 1991 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © The artist

In the 1960s, Teraoka Masami (b.1936) left Japan to study in Los Angeles. Using the flat and graphic style of ukiyo-e prints, he produced memorable images that comment on the ‘Americanisation’ of Japanese culture. The result of cross-cultural encounters by Japanese artists engaging with the rest of the world (especially the US), they are images that make the most of Japan’s traditions while exploring new depths in meaning.

From the early influence of sōsaku-hanga to the innovation and experimentation of printmakers of the late twentieth century, ‘Hanga: Modern Japanese Prints’ demonstrates the importance of the medium to contemporary art in Japan, and acknowledges Japanese artists as leaders in the global practice of printmaking.

Dr Morris Low is Associate Professor of Japanese History at the University of Queensland’s School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics.

Endnote
¹  Classic woodblock prints that were produced as part of a collaborative process and often depicted beautiful women and Kabuki actors.

Hanga: After Hours Special Insights Tour | Join Morris Low after hours in the Queensland Art Gallery for a special tour of ‘Hanga: Modern Japanese Prints’, where he will provide insights into the display and reveal little-known stories about the artists and prints that make up this fascinating exhibition. Professor Low will also discuss key figures who have promoted Japanese prints in Brisbane, and provide insider tips for budding collectors.

Hanga: After Hours Special Insights Tour | 6.00pm Wednesday 20 August | Gallery 6, QAG | Free, entry to the Gallery for this program is via Stanley Place

The Queensland Art Gallery, 2003 / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library

His vision of Brisbane celebrating its powerful river changed the face of the city’s South Bank waterfront, and his award-winning design for the Cultural Centre enabled the Queensland Art Gallery to host major national and international exhibitions, including the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. In this tribute, we honour the legacy of one of Queensland’s most esteemed architects, Robin Gibson, AO 1930-2014.

Winner of the Sir Zelman Cowan Award for the most outstanding public building in Australia of 1982, the Queensland Art Gallery building at South Bank is characterised by the robust expression of its white concrete frame. Horizontal tiers step back from the river’s edge in a rigorously formal arrangement, invoking a classic modernist aesthetic and shaping a careful spatial sensibility, firmly in the tradition of Mies van der Rohe’s seminal Barcelona Pavilion. With his 1973 prize-winning design, architect Robin Gibson, AO, sought to create a vibrant urban park as an integral part of an extensive mannered complex, in order to foster community engagement with culture, much like its most discernable reference: the 1969 Oaklands Museum of California — widely respected as one of the most significant examples of mid-twentieth-century modernism in the United States — designed by Pritzker Prize‑winning architect Kevin Roche (of Roche Dinkerloo) and landscape architect Dan Kiley.

Queen Elizabeth at the Queensland Art Gallery site, 11 March 1977 for the Silver Jubilee Fountain celebrations / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library

Construction of the Queensland Art Gallery began August 1978, site construction at 11 June 1979 / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library

Queensland Art Gallery, June 1982 / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library

Queensland Art Gallery, June 1982 / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library

Alongside state-of-the-art innovations, including spaces designed especially for Queensland artists’ projects, touring exhibitions, and the emerging ‘blockbusters’, the building’s design demonstrated Gibson’s own creative interests. Paralleling the passage of the Brisbane River, a chain of pools across the site provided a visual spine for the later, extended Cultural Centre. The main exhibition rooms appeared in a variety of spatial scales. View lines connected the interior with the gardens and pools outside. The expansive Watermall was a truly remarkable and generous civic room, designed precisely for the celebration of convivial society. Each aspect of the building reflects what Gibson considered intrinsic and imperative adjuncts to personal aesthetic contemplation. His conviction that the river was one of the city’s most compelling attributes, which was a key aspect of his proposal, instigated a spirit of renewal that led to the revitalisation of the South Brisbane waterfront. The thriving cultural hub and urban playground that the Cultural Centre and adjacent Southbank Parklands became spurred Brisbane’s civic identification as the ‘River City’.

Advocacy and engagement are essential aspects of any successful architect’s public projection, and Robin Gibson’s call for a new, dedicated home for the Gallery throughout the 1960s underscored the importance of these. This new building was a proving ground for a dramatic reframing of the Gallery’s role in the development of Brisbane as a tourism destination. In addition to this, and considering the lack of purpose-built facilities until this time, the new building would more effectively support the organisation’s longstanding service programs for the rest of the state. Those new aspects of his art museum design were critically important, and positioned the Gallery to embrace a focus on contemporary art along with its more historically oriented collecting and exhibitions. Within its first decade at the new site, the Queensland Art Gallery launched several ambitious undertakings and has since become a leading institution in the region, in part because of its capacity to stage unique projects such as the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) exhibition series. Gibson’s emphasis on functionality, which underpinned the initial development of the building project, was founded on his commitment to extensive international research, an awareness of what was going on in the world at the time, and great judgment regarding what was most important in the outcome.

When the Millennium Arts expansion of the original Cultural Complex was endorsed in 2000, Gibson was commissioned again to create the new entrance to the existing building. Adding a crystalline curve to the otherwise rigorous rectilinearity of his original structure, Gibson demonstrated that clear intelligence bastioned by an underlying and mischievous wit for which he was well known.

Robin Gibson’s curved glass addition to the Gallery building, 2007

Robin Gibson’s greatest contribution to the state as a master architect, 1982 Queenslander of the Year, and 1989 recipient of the then RAIA Gold Medal for outstanding contribution to the profession, is an enduring reminder of his commitment to the Gallery’s purpose, his professional regard for those outside as well as inside public buildings, and his personal conviction that the aim of architecture is not only to house but also to magnify the experience of living.

Michael Barnett worked for many years at the Gallery on its building development programs, including the Gallery of Modern Art.

‘Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion’ explores the tremendous innovation of Japanese fashion designers from the early 1980s to the present. This will be a rare opportunity to view over 100 unique garments drawn from the unparalleled collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute in Japan.

Japanese design’s innate subversion of Western fashion norms transformed the international fashion world in the 1980s, not only because of its slick, fabric-oriented garments, but also because it heralded a way forward in fashion design across the globe. The Kyoto Costume Institute’s ‘Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion’ is at the Gallery from 1 November 2014. Here, director and exhibition curator Akiko Fukai outlines the history behind the exhibition.

The history of fashion has long been associated with Western culture and informed by a Western perspective. Then, in the mid twentieth century, Japanese fashion designers triggered a dramatic change. Armed with a distinctive philosophy and aesthetic cultivated outside the West and clearly distinguishable from Western culture, Japanese designers delivered a multifaceted perspective to the world of fashion. The world had little choice but to recognise and accept Japanese fashion.

Comme des Garçons (Rei Kawakubo) / Spring/Summer 1997 / Collection: Kyoto Costume Institute / Photograph: Takashi Hatakeyama

But what exactly is Japanese fashion? For over 30 years, there has been much discourse on Japanese fashion, and it has made an indelible mark on Western fashion history. Nevertheless, there has never been a comprehensive examination and verification of the garments created by Japanese fashion designers. This exhibition originally stemmed from that realisation and represents a new evaluation of fashion from Japan. The Kyoto Costume Institute (KCI) was in an ideal position to carry out a verification based on actual garments in its collection, assembled as a result of KCI’s longterm vision.

It was not until the late twentieth century that Japanese fashion — which until then had relentlessly copied the West — finally displayed its uniqueness. Kenzo Takada, Issey Miyake, and Hanae Mori began to attract attention during the 1970s, setting the stage for Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto to debut in Paris in 1981. Kawakubo’s and Yamamoto’s designs didn’t follow the existing trend and were completely devoid of the traditional aesthetics of Western fashion. Their distinctive garments triggered enormous controversy. Their fashion was described as avant-garde because they introduced a completely new concept in clothing. The term also referred to their exploration of the relationship between clothing and the body and the examination of women from a different perspective, as well as producing what could be interpreted as three-dimensional art from the viewpoint of the West at the time.

Re-examining the works of these Japanese designers, the traditional thinking and sensibility of Japanese culture is evident. This is manifested in the flat designs, the importance placed on the fabric and the wabi (simple and subdued) aesthetic which exudes from their achromatic garments.

Junya Watanabe Comme des Garçons / Spring/Summer 2002 / Collection: Kyoto Costume Institute / Photograph: Takashi Hatakeyama

Some observers were clear from the outset about the extent of the impact of these Japanese designs and on the methodology of Western fashion, as demonstrated by Hebe Dorsey’s statement: ‘Japanese fashion, which used to be a case of culture shock, is now a head-on clash of civilizations’.¹ As though to corroborate this, Japanese fashion began to attract attention from the art world. Designers around the world gained a firm respect for their Japanese counterparts, and designs that had earlier been described as being ‘avant-garde’ entered the mainstream on a number of different levels. Japanese fashion went on to dismantle the symbolic nature of the Western aesthetic: it pushed open the heavy door of fashion as a Western cultural concept by transcending national boundaries, gender, and the framework of the conventional fashion system, paving the way for fashion to progress into the twenty-first century.

A further development in Japanese fashion emerged in the 2000s, with Tokyo fashion — inspired by pop culture — attracting younger generations, following on from interest both nationally and internationally in Japanese anime and manga from the mid 1990s. Representing ‘Cool Fashion’, Tokyo fashion is part of the contemporary Japanese culture branded ‘Cool Japan’. Some time will be required to accurately identify the true nature of this phenomenon.

‘Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion’ was originally organised in conjunction with the Barbican Art Gallery in London. It is the first major exhibition to comprehensively survey avant-garde Japanese fashion from the early 1980s to the present. The exhibition consists of four sections that feature the unique sensibility of Japanese design, alongside a showcase of six individual designers.

Junya Watanabe Comme des Garçons / Autumn/Winter 2009–10 / Collection: Kyoto Costume Institute / Photograph: Masayuki Hayashi

The first section, ‘In Praise of Shadows’, takes its name from an essay written by Juni’chiro Tanizaki in 1933, and represents the Japanese designers’ unique sensibility in the use of black. The intentional use of blacks — hitherto considered ascetic — was the antithesis of colour-dominated 1980s Western fashion, and shocked the whole industry. Black eventually became a byword for Japanese fashion and went on to become the colour of the late twentieth century.

‘Flatness’ addresses the issue of actually creating the garment, or how a flat piece of fabric can be used to clothe a three-dimensional body and examines the unique approach adopted by the Japanese. Taking the kimono as an example, instead of cutting the fabric, the two-dimensional material is arranged so that it covers the body, unlike garments in the West, which are designed to fit the contours of the body. When the fabric is arranged, it creates an ambiguous space known as ma, not quite fitting the body. This design concept has been a consistent part of Issey Miyake’s designs since ‘A Piece of Cloth’ in 1976.² Arranging the fabric so that the clothing moves away from the body to create an unpredictable shape, obvious in Kawakubo’s designs of the early 1980s, also allows the clothing to transcend its perceived limitations. In other words, these garments are extremely abstract. Similarly Japanese designers have also applied the concept of origami to clothing.

The ‘Tradition and Innovation’ section explores the greatest characteristic of Japanese fashion, which is the designers’ fine sensibility when it comes to fabric, and it was this that attracted worldwide acclaim from the beginning. Fabric is an absolutely essential element in delivering a new look, texture and shape. Japanese designers are well versed in this through their knowledge and understanding of kimono. Such designers already have their own ideas for fabric production when embarking on a new design. This contrasts with Western designers, who are more likely to choose their fabric from what textile producers make available.

Undercover (Jun Takahashi) / Spring/Summer 2007 / Collection: Kyoto Costume Institute / Photograph: Kazuo Fukunaga 

Finally, the ‘Cool Japan’ section examines the symbiotic relationship between street style, popular culture and high fashion. It features works by Jun Takahashi for Undercover and TAO, including ‘Lolita’ fashion. Following these four sections, the exhibition presents individual designers’ past and recent work alongside new pieces at the cutting edge of Japanese fashion today.

From its initial opening in London, ‘Future Beauty’ has attracted extensive media attention and has generated much new interest.³ The exhibition toured to Haus der Kunst (Munich), the Seattle Art Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, USA), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Tokyo), and the National Museum of Modern Art (Kyoto). Its final destination is the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.

Akiko Fukai is Director at the Kyoto Costume Institute and the curator of ‘Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion’, at GOMA 1 November 2014 – 15 February 2015.

Endnotes
¹  Hebe Dorsey, ‘The Japanese and Paris: Couture Clash, Head-On’, International Herald Tribune, 14 October 1983.
²  ‘The Issey Miyake Collection is founded in the philosophy of clothing made from “a Piece of Cloth”, a concept which explores not only the relationship between the body and clothing, but also the space that is born between them. The philosophy has evolved and grown as have Miyake’s interests always founded in innovative clothing combined with modern research and development.’ http://mds.isseymiyake.com/mds/en/collection/, viewed 3 July 2014.
³  The exhibition has attracted extensive media acclaim, including by renowned fashion critic and editor Suzy Menkes (‘In praise of shadows and light’, New York Times, 22 November 2010). Also, see Christopher Muther, ‘Peabody Essex reveals Japanese fashion’s avant-garde beauty’, Boston Globe, 20 November 2013; and Laura Jacobs, ‘Sensational and cerebral’, Wall Street Journal, 6 December 2013.

Exhibition Tickets
Exhibition tickets are available to purchase online or at the ‘Future Beauty’ ticket desk.

Opening Weekend | Saturday 1 & Sunday 2 November 2014
Celebrate the opening of ‘Future Beauty’ with special events, discussions, talks, tours and more with International and local guest speakers, designers and curators

Up Late
2014 | Friday 21, 28 November & 5 December | 5.30-10pm
2015 | 23, 30 January & 6, 13 February | 5.30-10pm
Tickets on now on sale. Up Late Friday night events return during ‘Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion’. Experience GOMA in a different light and enjoy the unique opportunity to see the exhibition at night, enjoy live music performances and meet up with friends.

Pop-up Shop
The ‘Future Beauty’ Pop-up Shop will feature a stunning range of fashion-themed publications and merchandise. Explore the innovation and creativity of Japanese fashion, design and street-style in this unique store, exclusive to GOMA during the exhibition.

Comme des Garçons Pocket at GOMA
Exclusive to GOMA during ‘Future Beauty’ the Comme des Garçons Pocket store is the Japanese label’s first Queensland retail space. The shop will stock the iconic Play line, as well as wallets and fragrances. 

Future Beauty Hotel and Travel packages
The Gallery partners with a number of operators offering a variety of great travel and accommodation packages.

Exhibition Sponsors
Principal Partner: Tourism and Events Queensland
Principal Sponsor: Audi

At the QAGOMA Future Collective launch: (l-r) Zoe Graham, Joseph O’Brien, Christie Nicolaides, James White, James Chandler, Hana Carlson, Melody Chen, Liam Ferney, Dominique Jones, Foundation President Tim Fairfax AC and Charlie Smallhorn

One of the things that strikes people about art is the price. News bulletins always feature stories about a Picasso setting a record price in the tens of millions, or a recently discovered Degas expected to sell for an astronomical price at auction. It makes art seem out of reach to ordinary people.

But a new initiative is helping to change that. The QAGOMA Future Collective is bringing together young Queenslanders who are committed to supporting the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) and want to help build its Collection and programs.

So on a recent November evening, some of the city’s best and brightest gathered at dusk to drink wine and chat about the once-in-a-generation storm that had torn the city a proverbial new one in the previous evening. It was also an opportunity to hear Tim Fairfax AC and Gallery director Chris Saines CNZM talk about the new initiative. The pitch is simple. For a tax deductible $1000 annual donation, members get access to fun and exclusive events and opportunity to learn about art from inside. Importantly, the group have a crucial role to play in shaping the future of the Gallery. 

That could mean supporting the acquisition of an artwork by an emerging Australian artist. Imagine taking friends through QAGOMA twenty or thirty years from now, stopping in front of a significant work on display and being able to say : “I helped secure that for the Gallery”.

Liam Ferney

Shonen Knife are Naoko Yamano (vocals/guitar), Ritsuko Taneda (bass/vocals) and Emi Morimoto (drums/vocals) / Photograph: Akira Shibata.

Since 2008, QAGOMA has worked with Brisbane-based music manager Paul Curtis to co-curate the music program for the Gallery’s Up Late series — a unique way to experience our major exhibitions after hours, with live music, talks and themed dining. We asked Paul to introduce one of the bands for ‘Future Beauty’ Up Late, internationally renowned Shonen Knife.

Japanese contemporary music culture, not unlike Japanese fashion culture, is known for its unique aesthetic, often fuelled by a variety of influences and approaches. One of the many Japanese music assemblages to achieve international notoriety¹, Shonen Knife’s unique brand of sugar-pop punk sets them apart from their contemporaries. Drawing influence from the likes of 1960s girl groups, Bubblegum Pop, The Ramones and The Beach Boys, they are driven by a DIY aesthetic and iced over with fun, carefree lyrics covering a range of topics from animals and food to fantasy.

Shonen Knife was formed in Osaka in 1981 by long-term core member Naoko Yamano along with her sister Atsuko and Michie Nakatani. Taken from a Japanese knife brand, the band’s name literally translates to ‘boy knife’, perfectly capturing the mixture of cuteness and danger in their music.

In 1986 one of Shonen Knife’s tracks featured on a Sub Pop compilation in the US, bringing them to the attention of Sonic Youth and Red Kross, who invited them to tour there. Quickly gaining fans among many alt-rock bands of the time, a Shonen Knife tribute album was released in the US in 1989, titled Every Band Has a Shonen Knife Who Loves Them. Two years later, enthusiastic fan Kurt Cobain offered them the support slot on the Nirvana UK tour just prior to the release of Nevermind. Like many others at the time, Naoko had little idea who they were:

 . . . so I went to a record store, and I bought their CD. And when I saw their photograph, I thought they might be scary persons, because their hairstyles and their clothes were very grunge. But once the tour had started, I noticed that all the members were nice, good persons.

This tour catapulted them to international cult status and in a sense opened up the world for other Japanese contemporary music artists. With this surge of interest they released their first major album Let’s Knife (Capitol) in August 1992. From there followed a never-ending run of tours and releases, with the trio having just launched album number 19, Overdrive.

Naoko Yamano (vocals/guitar) / Photograph: Akira Shibata

Paul Curtis | Speaking to Naoko prior to their US tour for Overdrive, I asked her a few questions, including how the current touring was going, what she was looking forward to most about their return to Australia in 2015, and what she thought about playing at GOMA:

Naoko Yamano | It’s been going very well. We’ve toured the United Kingdom, Europe and Japan and got good reactions from the audience . . . I’m looking forward to see our fans in Australia. I often see our fans from Australia at our shows in Japan. I’m so happy about that and it’s wonderful. I’ve never played at a major art gallery. Hmm . . . I can’t imagine but I’m so excited.

Paul Curtis | The band has a strong visual identity, especially in a fashion sense, emulating the costume and style of 60s girl groups – more often looking out of Japan, than within, as Naoko reflects:

Naoko Yamano | . . . we are influenced by British and American rock visuals. From the first place, we wore matching costumes. I like 60s and 70s fashion like Yves Saint Laurent, Mary Quant or Pierre Cardin, which is our basic concept for our costumes . . .

Our original drummer, my younger sister Atsuko designs and makes them. She left our band in 2006 because she moved to Los Angeles, but continues to help Shonen Knife. She was a professional designer at a Japanese clothing company in the 90s and her design is cute and comfortable. We get sweaty on stage and our costumes are made from water-repellent cloth.

Paul Curtis | So what came first for Shonen Knife — the look or the sound?

Naoko Yamano | ‘Both are important but the sound is a little more important for me. Music, the vibration of the air, effects to our mind.’

Paul Curtis | In asking what Naoko’s thoughts were on the current Japanese music scene, and what Japanese bands she liked, I discovered she doesn’t listen to much popular Japanese music as she explains . . .

Naoko Yamano | . . . because it isn’t ROCK but there are many cool bands at the underground scene. I’d like to introduce Extruders, Convex Level, Papalion, Red Sneakers . . . they usually play at tiny clubs. It’s difficult to explain but all of their music is unique. I like to listen to 70s British Hard Rock like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Thin Lizzy, like that.

Paul Curtis | So after 33 years of performing, what keeps Shonen Knife on top of the world?

Naoko Yamano | I just look forward and never look back. I don’t keep myself fresh with conscious. Everything is without conscious and it’s natural . . . I want to keep making happy music. When I see our audience’s happy faces, it’s my favourite moment. I like to play tennis and watch men’s pro-tennis matches. I like to continue as long as I can. I have to keep myself healthy.

Paul Curtis | And finally, what can the Up Late audience expect from your upcoming performance at GOMA in January?

Naoko Yamano | We’ll play some songs from our new album Overdrive and play best hit songs, too. Our present members are great performers and everybody at our show can enjoy and be happy through our music. Let’s ROCK!

Shonen Knife are Naoko Yamano (vocals/guitar), Ritsuko Taneda (bass/vocals) and Emi Morimoto (drums/vocals). They perform at Future Beauty Up Late on Friday 23 January 2015. You can purchase your tickets in advance at qtix.

Endnote
¹  These include the freeform nature of The Boredom’s noise/punk melange and their spiral-structured, percussion-based psychedelia; the experimental pop generated by the likes of Buffalo Daughter or Cornelius; the space-trekking electronic dub convergence of Audio Active, and the doom/sludge pop of Boris; the atmospheric hip-hop of DJ Krush and bizarre J-Pop world of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu; the electronic future sounds of Ken Ishii and Towa Tei and ‘the new stereophonic sound spectacular’ of Pizzicato Five’s homage to 1960s pop and lounge jazz; Fantastic Plastic Machine’s twisted take on bossa nova and French pop; Melt-Banana’s mix of grindcore, pop and electronica; The 5.6.7.8s’ surf/garage rock; and the mutant-big-band ska of the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra.

Real and Imaginary Mutants: Indian Ink and mutant protein drawing

Svenja Kratz (Recipient of QAGOMA’s 2012 Queensland New Media Scholarship) has recently returned from undertaking a five month residency at the Art and Genomics Centre in Leiden, The Netherlands. Kratz discusses how the award helped furthered her progressive new media practice at the intersection of biology, science and art.

As a child I was always fascinated by biology, particularly organisms that melded with my love of science fiction and horror from zombie snail producing parasites to mutant creatures born with multiple or vestigial organs. These extraordinary organisms challenged my idea of normalcy, embodiment and intelligence, further highlighting evolutionary strategies and myriad interspecies connections. Within my professional practice as an Australian new media artist working across art and science, the idea of the mutant continues to be a point of intense interest. This is partly due to my continued love of the extraordinary, but also because within the context of biotechnology, popular media representations and contemporary science fiction narratives are rife with mutants, from human/pig hybrids proposed for xenotransplantation almost two decades ago, to hybrid creatures of the Splice kind.

These popularist narratives are intense and compelling, but what are the realities of mutant production within contemporary biotechnology, particularly synthetic biology? Are hybrid human/animal creatures really just around the corner? What does it take to make a mutant? As a practitioner, I felt these questions could only be answered through hands-on engagement within the area of genetic engineering and synthetic biology.

Thanks to the Premiere’s 2012 New Media Scholarship from QAG/GOMA, I finally had the opportunity to learn about genetic engineering and mutagenesis during a six-month residency at Gorlaeus Laboratories at Leiden University in The Netherlands from July to December 2013. The residency was organised with support from Robert Zwijnenberg, one of the founding directors of the Art and Genomics Centre and formed part of the large-scale Biosolar Cells research programme. As the title suggests, Biosolar Cells focuses on the potential of solar energy for long term sustainable energy production. While the programme encompasses a variety of research areas including plant research and artificial leaves, I was fortunate enough to be integrated into the Solid State NMR group led by Professor Huub de Groot under the supervision of Professor Wim de Grip and PhD candidate Srividya Ganapathy. The project I worked on aims to increase the absorbance spectrum of light powered protein pumps, which are proteins used by Archaea (single-celled microorganisms) to convert sunlight into chemical energy. Increasing the absorbance spectrum would enable the proteins to use more of the available light spectrum for energy conversion.

Sunlight to energy conversion of bacteriorhodopsin (Halobacterium salinarum) protein – sunlight causes a change to the protein configuration which moves protons across a gradient to produce energy / Image adapted from Bacteriorhodopsin chemiosmosis.

While their research encompasses proteins from a variety of Archaea, my work focused primarily on AR3 – a protein isolated from the organism Halorubrum sodomense. These proteins were incorporated into E.coli bacteria via plasmids (bacterial molecules) – a common genetic engineering method – which enabled them to be grown in large cultures, processed and tested for shifts in absorbance spectrum.  The amazing thing is that bacteria with the AR3 protein are able to shift in colour from a standard off-white to stunning purple.

AR3 E.coli cultures showing purple shift in colour

Bright purple AR3 proteins extracted as membrane vesicles

Since, my scientific knowledge was pretty much limited to cell and tissue culture and very basic genetic engineering from my recent PhD studies, the first few months were taken up with training in basic bacterial culture and spectroscopy (a method used to determine shifts in absorbance spectrum), as well as running optimization experiments.  

Culture of genetically engineered E.coli on Agar plate

Large volume AR3 E.coli culture in Erlenmeyer flasks

Range of AR3 E. coli colour intensity based on cell culture volume and environmental parameters during optimization experiments

During the initial stages of my residency, I worked hard to impress my lab supervisor and instructor Srividya with my technical competence – largely because she said if I showed enough progress and time permitted, she would show me how to create a mutant.  Let me tell you…there is nothing like the promise of mutants to spur on productivity, and with the last months of my residency creeping up, I was finally ready to learn the magical art of site-specific mutagenisis – a common protein engineering process that involves making highly specific changes to a DNA sequence.  However, like many laboratory processes, the actual work is far from magical – just many, many long hours pipetting tiny amounts of DNA and chemicals into tiny tubes, amplifying DNA fragments and seemingly endless gels complemented by sleepless nights hoping that the processes were successful. 

Doing PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to amplify DNA fragments and running gels to check success

Genetic engineering is definitely not the Frankensteinian melding of parts that I had once imagined, but a somewhat tedious and unglamorous process in which successful outcomes are often invisible to the naked eye and must be determined through other mechanisms such as gel electrophoresis.  This process separates macromolecules such as DNA by size and allows the researcher to determine whether the sample contains the right genetic sequence.  Indeed, following about a month of labour, the creation of my mutant AR3FS – which included a single amino acid change from phenalynine to serine – was successful.   I had succeeded because I had the right bands telling me that the transformation worked! 

Restriction gel showing expected bands for AR3FS DNA illustrating that the mutation was successful

Unfortunately, there were no otherwise discernable changes from the original AR3 – same colour, same absorbance spectrum.  

AR3FS membrane vesicles

So sadly, my mutant did not live up to my great expectations of significantly advancing the study.   I am no science hero, and my mutant is quite frankly a bit of a flop.  However, it did show me that many of the real mutants in biotechnology are not large creatures, but often almost imperceptible existing on a micro-scale in the form of bacteria and proteins.  It seems that human/animal hybrids are still a long way off and that the real mutants are microscopic (and quite possibly among, and within, us already).

The last remaining weeks of my residency were taken up growing bacterial cultures and isolating the proteins as coloured pigment.  Although another tedious process, this enabled me to isolate the protein (no DNA) for safe handling and shipment back to Australia.   Indeed, by the close of the residency, I had a whole palette of protein pigments.  

Mutant protein pigments isolated during the residency

Due to GMO regulations, I was not able to bring any AR3FS samples to Australia, but I prepared a number of frozen stocks prior to my departure.  Kept in the -70 freezer at the Gorlaeus Laboratories, they await possible further use and augmentation.  I think that is perhaps the most exciting thing about scientific research, the potential of project outcomes, like genetically engineered cells to be used and developed further.  I have hope that they may yet contribute something amazing to scientific research.

So…where does the art come in?  Well, since finishing the residency, I have completed a series of drawings titled Real and Imaginary Mutants which depict mythological creatures such as the Fiji mermaid and Jackalope, as well as imagined biotech-mutants.  These imaginary mutants are coloured with the pigment made from the mutant proteins commenting on the difference between perception and reality of contemporary mutants – within the work, the mutant is the coloured protein and not the representation. These works were exhibited at the SGAR Gallery in June this year along with a series of mixed media works that engaged with the evolution of scientific knowledge and human desire for understanding and control over nature.  

Real and Imaginary Mutants: Indian Ink and mutant protein drawing

In addition to the drawings and mixed media works, I am currently working with micro-electronics engineer Michael Maggs on holographic and custom projection mapping display systems.  To date we have perfected a projection system which will be premiered as part of Experimenta: Recharge this year.

The holographic chamber is next which will connect more directly with the residency featuring a voice responsive video hologram.  Holograms and mutants – what more could you want!

Projection detail for The Contamination of Alice: Instance #8 for Experimenta

Mock-up of holographic display chamber in final development

Svenja Kratz | Recipient of QAGOMA’s 2012 Queensland New Media Scholarship

Excitement is building around the development of one of the major projects in the Pacific representation of APT8 – the SaVAge K’lub by Rosanna Raymond.

A multi-art installation and performance event, Raymond’s APT8 SaVAge K’lub riffs off the late-Nineteenth Century gentlemen’s club of the same name, though placing less emphasis on secret men’s business and more on more on the ‘VA’ within SaVAge. ‘VA’ is a term invoking Samoan philosophical understandings of space. As Raymond describes it, this space ‘is an active space. It is activated by people. It binds people and things together. It forms relationships, and reciprocal obligations’.

For her APT8 K’lub Raymond has invited a group of Pacifika ‘members, performers, makers, articulators, hunters and gatherers’ ¹ to respond to the GOMA space, ‘embellishing it with their presence by introducing new objects, documentation and performance that engage audiences in key ideas around Pacific objects, performance, cosmologies and culture’². Key to the development of Raymond’s Brisbane K’lub was a Wāngana workshop held in Piha, Aotearoa | New Zealand in late May 2015.  Comprising a dedicated space and time to share ideas, to develop an understanding of the SaVAge K’lub ethos and to collaboratively develop a response, each participating artist began to generate ideas about the works and performances they would in consultation with Raymond, contribute to the installation for APT8.

Young New Caledonian Arts Management student Allan Haeweng shares his experiences of this time.

Notes
1 & 2  Rosanna Raymond, ‘Ko au te whare tāonga, te whare tāonga ko au: I am the Museum, The Museum is Me’, Paper presented to the Innovative Heritage: Conversations between Arts and Heritage conference, Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus-Senftenberg, Berlin, 2014, via email to the author, 12 May 2015.

Ruth McDougall

On the last weekend of May as the waves were rolling in on the beach of Piha, so were the clouds. Despite heavy rain the morale of the participants of the SaVAge Development Wānanga 2015 was high. When Rosanna Raymond invited me to give a little help over the weekend, I rejoiced at the idea of meeting new artists, attending their workshops and above all, of being able to see and hear their booming ideas develop as part of Raymond’s SaVAge K’lub project for the upcoming 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT8). Little did I know the experience would take me beyond that.

The weekend opened with a pōwhiri, a Māori ceremony during which the Auckland-based artists welcomed their fellow APT artists from Wellington and Brisbane. Words were exchanged with breaths, and the ceremony concluded with the traditional hongi. After a short lunch, everybody came into the main whare and sat in a circle. There each spoke in turn about who they were and the reasons that had brought them there. As I entered the space, I was impressed by the atmosphere of mutual trust and welcome.

It was in a family spirit that the weekend unfolded. It was also in that main whare that everything took place. We danced, we performed, we listened, we heard Ranginui, the Sky Father, crying over Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother, as we chanted our haka as loud as the rain drops. Except for the few walk breaks we took by the wild sea, we were enveloped in a sense of time and place where the heart of our discussions would keep us lively. I was surrounded by artists drawing, weaving, assembling, dancing, writing, thinking – It impressed upon me that in such a fertile soil, creativity sprouts.

Looking back, I cannot help but feel peaceful, and naturally grateful for the opportunity to embark for a weekend on the SaVAge K’lub waka. Soon their waka will reach the shores of the Brisbane river – Beware.

Allan Haeweng

The SaVAge K’lub Wāngana was supported by Creative New Zealand.

Participants included: Allan Anshell, Jess Holly Bates, Eric Bridgeman, Precious Clark, Lisa Fa’alafi, Charlotte Grayham, Maryann Talia Pau, Numatangi McKenzie, Aroha Rawson, Rosanna Raymond, Reina Sutton and Suzanne Tamaki.      

Ross Manning, Australia b.1978 / Spiral 2015 / Industrial ceiling fan, swivel, silk / Courtesy: The artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane / © The artist

In conjunction with ‘GOMA Q: Contemporary Queensland Art’, emerging writers had the opportunity to enter the ‘GOMA Q’ Emerging Writers Competition, launched on the opening weekend of the exhibition. A judging panel comprised of the Emerging Creatives team and the QAGOMA Blog coordinator had the difficult task of choosing a winner from the many high quality entries about the ‘GOMA Q’ exhibition. We are pleased to announce the winner is Elliott Nimmo, his blog published below. Entries from four talented runners up will also appear on our Blog over the coming weeks.

Babylon Now

An old land, far-reaching and impenetrable, whose primeval architecture expands arid in every direction. Space and structure – a land of mythos.  The world evoked in David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon is as cruel as the landscape in which it is set. A colonial tale of new bodies in ancient lands. Babylon was of course an ancient and bustling metropolis in Mesopotamia. It has long been romanticized and mythologized, its status enriched and perhaps enhanced, by time and our own inherent desire for rose-tinted nostalgia.

I thought of Malouf’s work, particularly his title, Remembering Babylon, when I walked through ‘GOMA Q: Contemporary Queensland Art’. It is an exhibition that posits new flesh in an old land. The visceral nature of the Australian landscape imposes itself in our daily lives – whether it’s felt in the Brisbane River that courses its way, serpentine, past Southbank, or the gnarled granite monolith of Mount Coot-tha, or the muddy mangroves on Stradbroke Island. It is the landscape that particularly resounded in me when I looked at the work of Mavis Ngallametta (b. 1944), of the Kugu-Muman and Kugu-Uwanh peoples. Her painting, Wutan #2, is an electric portrayal of land and home – of country. Its parched chiaroscuro is energized by undulating brushstrokes in white, which remind me of glowing jets of wind blowing across the desert. The painting is counterpoised against a field of ultramarine blue, which, to the European eye, recalls the deep azure sky. I have seen several exhibitions of Ngallametta’s work at Martin Browne Contemporary in Sydney, and have had the extraordinary opportunity to hear her sing at one such opening. Each work sings, as she does, each brushstroke ululates as she does, as her story is cast across the wall, the earth, the air. The beauty in Ngallametta’s oeuvre is a living history, a connection to country, and the unusual artifice with which it is constructed.

Mavis Ngallametta, Kugu-Muman and Kugu-Uwanh peoples, Australia b.1944 / Wutan #2 2014 / Natural pigments and charcoal with acrylic binder on canvas / Purchased 2015 with funds from Cathryn Mittelheuser, AM, through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery /  © The artist

In contrast to Ngallametta, the work of emerging artist, Monica Rohan (b. 1990) suffuses historical European aesthetics with a contemporary inquiry into autobiography. Here, whimsy and dexterity work in sync to explore different emotional and physical states of being. Rohan’s facility for oil paint leaves the wefts and weaves of the fabric – which I see as a landscape of sorts – rich and vibrant on the surface, a surface where lies the influence of a European tradition of painting.  

Monica Rohan, Australia b. 1990 / Jumble 2015 / Oil on board / Courtesy: The artist, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane and Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne

In this show, it is clear to anyone that the medium of painting is as alive and innovative as ever: old themes are explored anew, new techniques are displayed, and everyday notions are immortalized on canvas.

Let’s move away from the historically loaded act of painting and examine an artwork of the expanded field:

Spiral is part of an overarching project explored throughout the work of Ross Manning (b. 1978). A long coil of dowel oscillates in a spiral, powered by a ceiling fan. Kinetic energy brings life to an otherwise mundane object. Manning’s years living in Tokyo as an English teacher proved very influential: it was there in the dense electronic forests, where every surface is electrified with light and movement, that Manning began his early experiments with electronics. For me, the work also speaks to Ngallametta’s work, and to Rohan’s: its sinuous, energized rope moves, gyrates like the peripatetic brushwork present in Wutan #2; it announces its relationship with Rohan’s fabric folds through its own activated materiality.

Like the characters in Malouf’s Babylon, the work in the ‘Goma Q’ exhibition assumes its own relationship to the land in which it is made: it draws from a context that is at once dissimilar and the very same – whether up north in the tropics or the hinterland of the South East. It is art made by citizens of a new cosmopolitanism, a Babylon for now.

Elliott Nimmo is an artist based in Sydney, Australia. He has just completed a Master of Fine Art at the National Art School in Sydney, where his work focused on the appropriation of fashion and advertising imagery. 

Clark Beaumont, Australia est. 2010 / Nicole Beaumont b. 1990; Sarah Clark b. 1991 / Joy Ride 2015 / © The artists / Photography: Brodie Standen

In conjunction with ‘GOMA Q: Contemporary Queensland Art’, emerging writers had the opportunity to enter the ‘GOMA Q’ Emerging Writers Competition, launched on the opening weekend of the exhibition. A judging panel comprised of the Emerging Creatives team and the QAGOMA Blog coordinator had the difficult task of choosing a winner from the many high quality entries about the ‘GOMA Q’ exhibition. Llewellyn Millhouse was one of the four runners up and his blog is published below. Entries from the three remaining talented runners up will also appear on our Blog over the coming weeks. View the winning entry.

Clark Beaumont: Love I and II & Joy Ride

Clark Beaumont are a collaborative duo whose live and mediated performance works ‘investigate ideas and constructs surrounding identity, female subjectivity, intimacy and interpersonal relationships’ (Clark Beaumont 2015).

A diptych of large scale framed photographs; Love I and II 2014 depict a performed moment in which both artists gaze at their reflection despite embracing each other in a hug.  As the didactic explains, through Love I and II, Clark Beaumont ‘subtly explore the notion that love is, even in its purest form, a predominantly selfish act . . . Whilst embracing one another, each artist’s focus remains inward, as conveyed by their attention to the hand-held mirrors’ (GOMA 2015).

Not so subtly, this work resembles a pithy one-liner, using the cliché of the mirror reflection to suggest that inter-subjectivity is both dependent on and undermined by narcissism. As a purely visual scenario, the hug and mirror form a superficial dichotomy between the most iconic act of authentic inter-subjective compassion and the most iconic act of contrived self-indulgence.

In contrast, the participatory performance Joy Ride 2015 offers a far more complex and engaging approach to the relationship between narcissism and inter-subjectivity. Situated at the exit of the exhibition beyond a heavy curtain, Clarke Beaumont occupy an installation consisting of several retractable barrier posts leading to a single step high purple podium and accompanied by a sleek black metal lectern. Invited to come-on-down and step-on-up to the podium, one member of Clark Beaumont proceeds to embrace the participant in a hug. As soon as contact is made, the remaining member of Clark Beaumont activates the podium, which begins rotating slowly as the participant is held in a polite embrace. A banally uplifting soundtrack is activated in unison with the podium, whilst an as yet unnoticed photographer begins hurriedly to capture the precious moment.

Exiting out of the exhibition and immediately stepping up on to the stage, I did not have time to witness the spectacular event before participating. The 10 or so agonising seconds of discomfort and vulnerability as the podium makes a full rotation and the participant is freed from the spotlight came to me as a complete surprise. Stepping off the podium, thanked politely and shuffled out of the way, the transaction gives the immediate impression of a free-floating snapshot from the climactic moment in a soppy Hollywood romance.  Like a blockbuster-themed sideshow at Warner Bros. Movie World, the participant consumes the spectacular moment as if gazing at an image of themselves from outside their body.

Recently returning from the Kaldor Public Arts Project residency facilitated by Marina Abramović, Clark Beaumont’s relationship to Abramović and the legacy of her performance works is clear. However, in contrast to the soppy humanism of Abramović’s The Artist is Present 2012 and 512 Hours 2014, with their mythological reputation of reducing participants to tears, Clark Beaumont’s Joy Ride both subverts and complicates the common-sense relationship between intimacy and authenticity.

In Joy Ride, the cliché hug is not just inverted, but rigorously destabilised by the problematic of performative identity. Expecting a vulgar and over-performed “authentic” intimacy, the participant is surprised by the deadpan impassivity of the embrace and its sickly sweet overture. Clark Beaumont perform this caricature of customer service with an abundantly cold and stiff pretension. Instead of working comfortably together with the performer, co-operating to make a farce of the “authentic moment”, the participant of Joy Ride is left painfully vulnerable.

The power of Joy Ride lies in this vulnerability, the participant struggling with the image of their performance in the face of Clark Beaumont’s mundane indifference. Relinquishing all control over the intimate transaction, the participant becomes dependent on Clark Beaumont. Smiling desperately at the camera the participant clings to the embrace for safety, despite it being the direct source of their discomfort.

By participating in this conflictual realisation the audience is forced to understand the obfuscated violence of narcissism. Resoundingly de-sexualised, the product sold by the “hug store” is a painfully slow and dispassionate slap in the face. Sold to satisfy the desire for affection, the hug-image-product serves only to amplify that desire, reinforcing the void between the subject and the other. In a gallery tour, curator Peter McKay advertised Joy Ride as a chance to “have your own Hollywood moment”. The relationship between this performance and contemporary screen culture is the key to its appreciation, reflecting a sexuality directed inwards yet sustained by a severely external and alienating image culture.

Clark Beaumont, Australia est. 2010 / Nicole Beaumont b. 1990; Sarah Clark b. 1991 / Love I and II 2014 / Digital type C photographs / Image courtesy the artists / © The artists

Both Love I and II and Joy Ride share the same basic premise. In the place popularly associated with compassionate and authentic inter-subjectivity, Clark Beaumont facilitate its unsettling opposite. Assuming that the interactive performance Joy Ride is meant as an extension of the intent behind the earlier work Love I and II, the contrast between these two works demonstrates the critical importance of medium to Clark Beaumont’s practice.

Llewellyn Millhouse is a Brisbane artist working across sculpture, painting and video.  He is currently completing a Doctor of Philosophy at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University.

Monica Rohan, Australia b.1990 / Over-reacting 2015 / Oil on board / Courtesy: The artist, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane, and Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne / © The artist

In conjunction with ‘GOMA Q: Contemporary Queensland Art’, emerging writers had the opportunity to enter the ‘GOMA Q’ Emerging Writers Competition, launched on the opening weekend of the exhibition. A judging panel comprised of the Emerging Creatives team and the QAGOMA Blog coordinator had the difficult task of choosing a winner and four talented runners up from the many high quality entries about the ‘GOMA Q’ exhibition. Anna Jacobson was one of the four runners up and her blog is published below. Entries from the two remaining runners up will appear on our Blog over the coming weeks. View the winning entry.

Bold colour and tension in the work of Monica Rohan at ‘GOMA Q’

Two figures lie in unrest, seeming to comfort the other but not quite touching, the coloured cloth morphing into a jungle beneath them. They wear grey long-sleeved shirts that are just visible, alluding to their emotional state of sadness, hopelessness or depression. Their limbs fall and their feet turn into the fabric of birds, tropical plants and foliage as though trying to enter the world of the bright print, taking solace from the colours wrapping themselves up. The oil painting is called Jumble 2015 by Monica Rohan and is part of ‘GOMA Q: Contemporary Queensland Art’, which features a wonderful mixture of emerging and established artists. Born in 1990, Rohan is one of Queensland’s emerging artists who graduated from the Queensland College of Art in 2011.

Looking at Rohan’s paintings and reading the ideas behind it, I felt an instant connection. The figures throughout this series of four oil paintings appear to wrap themselves in the bright colours as a way to combat the anxieties of everyday living and overwhelming situations. The contrast of the bright, colourful fabrics against the agitated and brooding poses of the figures create tension in the work, opening up stories and potential narratives behind each in the viewer’s mind.

Rohan’s process involves taking photographs, featuring herself as the model, and painting from them, adding a touch of the surreal that can be seen in the elongated limbs of the figures and extended swaths of fabric. The figure’s faces are hidden by hair or turned away into the colourful fabric. Clues as to the anxiety of the figures are evident in the wild hair and agitated movements. For instance, in Bluster 2015 the figures appear in a battle, while not physically touching one another. In Over Reaching 2015 the figures are again in opposition but this time, pull away from each other, revealing inner conflict.

Installation from left to right: Yeah right ok 2014 / Bluster 2015 / Jumble 2015 / Over-reacting 2015

It is interesting to see how the curators have ordered the artworks for display. When read from left to right, the two figures coil in moments of unrest and are then separated by battle as they toss in pairs throughout this series. For example, Yeah Right Ok 2015 depicts two figures curled up in fabric and not quite mirroring the other at either end of the material, Bluster 2015 shows the battle between selves, Jumble 2015 depicts the two figures lying down almost to comfort each other but again not touching and the final piece Over Reaching 2015 shows the figures pulling away from the selves in opposition. However, this series could be read from right to left as well, or one image may be chosen to draw meanings from.

Rohan tackles the concept of anxiety and other difficult emotions through surreal compositions and bold colour. Her work has currency and is important in combating stigma, giving voice and visual expression to these often hidden conditions.

I strongly encourage you to visit ‘GOMA Q: Contemporary Queensland Art’ to discover Rohan’s work and to see the many other thought provoking artists on display.

Anna Jacobson is a Brisbane artist and writer who works across poetry and photography. She is currently undertaking a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative and Professional Writing at the Queensland University of Technology and was shortlisted in the Lord Mayor’s Photographic Awards in 2014.

 Production still of The Proposition 2005 / Director: John Hillcoat /Image courtesy: Sony Pictures

From its enduring classics to its modern-day interpretations, the continuing social relevance and popularity of the Western film genre is evident, writes Jason Jacob. The Australian Cinématheque presents ‘The Western’ screening until November, a curated program of selected works by filmmakers such as John Ford, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Takashi Miike, Quentin Tarantino and more.

Production still from Sukiyaki Western Django 2007 / Director: Takashi Miike / Image courtesy: Entertainment One Australia

Production still from Django Unchained 2012 /Director: Quentin Tarantino / Image courtesy: Sony Pictures, British Film Institute

The vitality and endurance of the Western is a product of that genre’s continuing engagement with something of central importance to the human race: the nature and meaning of settlement under the condition, or shadow, of modernity. In every great Western, such matters are either central to the narrative or infectiously ambient across character and setting, viz., What does it mean to civilise a frontier? Is violence a necessary component of building a safe, productive society? Is the history of settlement, particularly that in the western frontier of the United States in the nineteenth century, one of courageous grasping at Manifest Destiny, or genocidal destruction? What response is available to fight against the emerging impersonal dynamism of large scale capitalist expansion by the fragile frontier communities? Are women civilising forces or an enfeebling restraint on What A Man’s Gotta Do? Once we have safe, secure, domesticated societies, why do we continue to thirst for the heroic individual, the spectacle of violence, the energising clash of principles? Westerns stage the emergent realisation that our morality is intimately tied to our capacity to decide our political and social and communal future: they present the existential question (listen for it in the dialogue), what ought we to do to? Such questions continue to find resonance long after the real historical events of the westering of the US because they are our questions today, too. As world events indicate, we have still not found secure and shared answers.

Production still from The Daughter of Dawn 1920 / Director: Norbert A Myles / Image courtesy: Milestone Films

Often people assume they know what a Western is and what it does, but it can be limiting to think of a genre as merely the sum of variations across a fixed group of elements: black-and-white, cowboy hats, the homestead, saloon, gunfighter, rancher, whore with a heart or Noble Savage on a painted horse. Rather, as philosopher Stanley Cavell argues, a genre is a medium, ‘something through which or by means of which something specific gets done or said in particular ways’¹: the Western is a medium that thinks through the questions in the paragraph above in particular narrative and aesthetic ways. Although the genre crosses a wide range of popular and fine art forms (comics, novels, radio serials, painting, photography), its central artistic contribution is instanced in the great Hollywood movies of the twentieth century.

Production still from The Searchers 1956 /Director: John Ford / Image courtesy: Roadshow Films

‘Westerns’ were not referred to as such during the early period of cinema: ‘frontier picture’, ‘historical film’ and ‘topical crime picture’ were among the labels given to the short films that were shot on location in outdoor settings, often in combination with some thrilling action moments. The Great Train Robbery 1903, conventionally understood as the first Western, still exhibits some of these elements (although it was shot in New Jersey), but it also reminds us that at that time, the frontier had already become history and therefore a rich source of fiction, as mass urbanisation generated an appetite for mythic foundational stories. Many films of this early period and into the 1920s continued to develop and enrich the emerging genre, but it was not until John Ford’s Stagecoach 1939 that we can genuinely see the genre’s full artistic potential. An apparently simple narrative of seven strangers sharing a dangerous journey across Indian territory is in fact a critical questioning of whether these archetypal figures — all strangers, with no common history or tradition — can find the moral and social resources to survive, live and work together on that journey, and in a new town, a new world. It is the story of the United States and, as such, the journey of the stagecoach driving across the planet is also an emblem of the question of whether a unified nationhood is possible. As Robert Pippin puts it, ‘This turns out to be a question not just about social cooperation but about a higher and more complicated unity — something like a political unity’.² Ford’s Westerns dominate any account of the genre because of the depth to which they investigate and raise troubling questions about the possibility of such unity: The Searchers 1956, a long and difficult film, is unmatched in the extent of its confrontation with the unsettling fact that, to quote Pippin once again:

. . . the origin of the territorial United States rest on a virulent racism and genocidal war against aboriginal peoples, a war that would not have been possible and perhaps could not have been won without the racist hatred of characters like the John Wayne character.³

Production still of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 1962 / Director: John Ford / Image courtesy: Park Circus

What is most troubling about the film is its insistence that our regret and apologies in the here and now for such events may not help us transcend that past. Equally troubling, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 1962 raises the difficult matter of whether a society that needs to tell itself lies about the past in order to function politically is one worth living in at all. 

Along with Ford, the Westerns of Anthony Mann, Howard Hawks and Budd Boetticher (to name some favourites) are fascinating in their patterning of deep moral and political matters that often get perfunctory attention as merely elements in a genre. Nicholas Ray’s outstanding Johnny Guitar 1954 pivots around similar questions of the courage and capacity for violence needed by an individual to defend a settlement against evil; in this case, it is an entrepreneurial saloon-keeper, Vienna (Joan Crawford), fighting for her life against malevolent community leader Emma (Mercedes McCambridge in her best performance). Ray’s film reminds us of the centrality and complexity of the Western’s handling of the feminine: sometimes as a domesticating force that is seen as a limitation, or an ideal; or as a moral and generative figure variously idealised or punished.

Production still from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 1966 / Director: Sergio Leone / Image courtesy: Park Circus

Over the past four decades, Westerns have tended to answer the question of whether civilised settlement is possible or, indeed, desirable, far more pessimistically. Sam Peckinpah’s Westerns already yearned for a world where a homosocial community forged in the common pursuit of order and justice was not corrupted by the temptations of modernity; while Clint Eastwood’s, in a related manner to Sergio Leone’s output, see a world in which individuals with the skilled capacity for violence are incompatible with the rest of society but will not disappear from it. Modern films in the genre, such as No Country for Old Men 2007, depict societies where the figures of law are ‘overmatched’ by both corporate and individual evils.

Production still from True Grit 2010 / Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen / Image courtesy: Paramount Pictures

But there are grounds to be optimistic, and some recent instances of the genre can help us navigate that. Nicolas Ray’s The Lusty Men 1952, set in the world of rodeo stars, suggests that yearning for a safe domestic life is not some conformist submission to a suburban dream: it has substance, and allows the generative pressure of companionship and family to flourish. Deadwood (2003–06), the HBO television Western, stages a primordial world of mud and violence in a gold-mining town in the 1870s, pulling together the threads of damaged, violent and criminal individuals who, despite themselves, build a community (almost) sufficient to defeat the malign forces of capitalism. Finally, Nic Pizzolatto’s True Detective (2014–15) combines noir atmospherics with the moral search for meaning characteristic of the Western medium, depicting a world where civilisation or settlement is vanishing, leaving behind the moral and industrial wastelands of Louisiana and Los Angeles. In those worlds, as in Stagecoach, characters who share no history have to muster the resources of hard work, wholeheartedness and companionship in order to imagine that a better world is possible.

Jason Jacobs is Professor of Screen Aesthetics and Head of the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland. He is author of Deadwood (BFI TV Classics, British Film Institute, 2012) and co-editor of Television: Aesthetics and Style (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013).

Endnotes
¹  Stanley Cavell, The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Harvard University Press, London, 1979, p.32.
²  Robert B Pippin, Hollywood Westerns and American Myth: The Importance of Howard Hawks and John Ford for Political Philosophy (The Castle Lectures in Ethics, Politics, and Economics), Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2011.
³  Pippin.

Dale Harding, Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal peoples, Australia b.1982 / their little black slaves, perished in isolation (installation views) 2015 / Charred wood, antique furniture, wood stain, scent diffuser / Courtesy: The artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane / © The artist

In conjunction with ‘GOMA Q: Contemporary Queensland Art’, emerging writers had the opportunity to enter the ‘GOMA Q’ Emerging Writers Competition, launched on the opening weekend of the exhibition. A judging panel comprised of the Emerging Creatives team and the QAGOMA Blog coordinator had the difficult task of choosing a winner and four talented runners up from the many high quality entries about the ‘GOMA Q’ exhibition. Kathleen Morrice was one of the four runners up and her blog is published below. View the winning entry.

Small Spaces and Big Feelings

I feel like I have just been punched in the stomach. This is my reaction to Dale Harding’s deeply affecting installation work, Their little black slaves, perished in isolation (2015), currently being shown at the ‘GOMA Q’ Exhibition. I think you would have to be made of stone to not feel the same way. Working from family recollection Harding gives a voice to an unnamed young Aboriginal woman who, in the 1930s, was forced by the Department of Native Affairs into what was essentially slavery. The work commemorates her death, “isolated and alone, away from home”¹. The experience reveals something deep inside us all, something of our deepest human fears. Ideally, wouldn’t most of us want to die comfortably in our beds, old and surrounded by those we love, content that they will be safe? As Harding reminds us, such luxuries aren’t fairly and justly afforded to all.

In Alain de Botton’s book Art as Therapy, he makes a case for art being a tool that can help fix problems. Assisting with memory, he argues, is one function. Another is that it’s okay to engage with sorrow. The dignified way Harding honours the life and death of this woman recalls a legend told by the Roman historian Pliny the Elder. Dibutades sketches the outline of her departing lover’s shadow on a wall so she can remember him when he is far away at his shepherding duties. This portrait contains the lover’s particular physiognomy, but also his personality and essence. In the instance of Harding’s work, the “portrait” of the young unnamed Aboriginal woman contains all that is known about her now: the particulars of her internment, her death, and the circumstances around it. Her true persona is denied to us by history. The memoriam Harding has created is a gesture alike the mourners who float away flowers for those lost at sea. It is all that we can do, and what we rightly should do.

Harding’s post-conceptual work interweaves the familial and historical; the personal truly is political. The artist has said that the stories he tells unburdens some of the histories and knowledge that his family and the wider Aboriginal community bear, ‘[that] they are really nasty, often hurtful stories and so I consider it is quite important work to try and unearth these stories and share them with the wider community…’. A key motive in Harding’s work is the rewriting or revising of history, and this is successfully done by placing the audience in a sense of having time-travelled to the location of the woman’s’ room.

Harding effectively employs academic Homi K. Bhabha’s term “mimicry” through recreating a colonial room where his forbearer was locked in at night by her ‘employers’. It is sparsely furnished with an old bed and a plain set of drawers. These symbols of forced domesticity and labour are difficult to distinguish in the dark room, and are a reflection of the despair, loneliness and alienation the woman must have felt. This hybrid space exposes the worst of human nature – those who, in the past, treated our First Nations people appallingly. It is also a space of reflection for all Australians.

The sensation of looking into Harding’s black room reflects the darkness and shame of our nation’s past history, and forces us to confront the question academic John P. Bowles asks, “How can we address our own culpability – unwitting as it may be…?”. Racism is something we all as Australians must exterminate, and we all have a part to play. The recent words of politician Nova Peris come to mind, which criticised those who deny injustices and wrongs done to Aboriginal Australians. Like Harding, she is committed to telling the truth about past wrongs, and that Aboriginal people should be able to tell their own stories. She suggests that reconciliation can be like the peaceful relationship Australia now has with Japan, after a history of war. Harding has shown us that art has the power to transform. If I could meet Alain de Botton, I would suggest another function of art – one to foster reconciliation.

Kathleen Morrice is a Brisbane artist currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Queensland College of Art.

Endnote
¹  Their little black slaves, perished in isolation 2015 exhibition didactic

Monica Rohan, Australia b.1990 / Jumble 2015 / Oil on board / Courtesy: The artist, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane, and Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne / © The artist

In conjunction with ‘GOMA Q: Contemporary Queensland Art’, emerging writers had the opportunity to enter the ‘GOMA Q’ Emerging Writers Competition, launched on the opening weekend of the exhibition. A judging panel comprised of the Emerging Creatives team and the QAGOMA Blog coordinator had the difficult task of choosing a winner and four talented runners up from the many high quality entries about the ‘GOMA Q’ exhibition. Sarah Bradley was one of the four runners up and her blog is published below. The entry from the remaining runner up will appear on our Blog next week. View the winning entry.

The ‘GOMA Q’ Class of 2015

It was a pleasing winter’s day in Brisbane. As the season waved July goodbye, the people of Queensland could relish in the long-awaited and effortless jeans and t-shirt weather. With rarely worn cardigans tossed aside, the incentive to explore the sunlit streets began to set in. On the weekend, as if foretelling the sudden spark in the air, GOMA extended its doors into the open-air for the Winter Design Market. The entry to the museum was abuzz with stalls showcasing some of Queensland’s most creative artisans. The local talent clearly enchanted audiences, sparking the intrigue of a range of museum-goers, from curious toddlers reaching for the frightfully delicate ceramic plate to elderly patrons carefully choosing gifts for their grandchildren. This cross-generational engagement offered the ideal doorway into GOMA’s current exhibition, ‘GOMA Q: Contemporary Queensland Art’ (until 11 October 2015).

With all the strength of my will power, I peeled myself away from the tempting delights of the market and entered the museum. I had journeyed over to GOMA to view the newly opened ‘GOMA Q’ exhibition. Upon entering, I bumped into a friend who had just finished visiting the exhibition. As an early-modern art devotee, my friend admitted to feeling that the diverse assortment of contemporary artworks felt like a bit of a “jumble”. However, as I would soon discover, this “jumbled” sensation was the exact element of the exhibition that excited me. Just as the bustling markets outside provided a diverse crowd with the grounds to support a common, local cause, ‘GOMA Q’ offered the artists the chance to share their unique voices under the broad, embracing arm of contemporary Queensland art.

As I walked through ‘GOMA Q’, I was reminded of the spatial curation of a graduate exhibition for an art university. This struck me in the sense that the exhibition’s arrangement was designed to profile each of the thirty artists without impeding on any artist’s work in the space. The “jumbled” variety of artworks that were conceived by the ‘GOMA Q’ class of 2015, were cohesive in the space for the precise reason that they were never intended to be cohesive in the first place. Instead, they were selected to illuminate the dynamism and variation of creative vision (both established and emerging), which propels the Queensland art scene forward.

I cannot allude to the concept of the “jumble” without discussing Monica Rohan’s painting bearing the same title, Jumble 2015. Since graduating from the Queensland College of Art in 2011, Rohan has received due praise for her distinctively complex, insightful, yet mysterious self-portraits. Hidden within the heaping folds of vibrantly coloured, tropical fabric, the artist’s toppling figure appears in a binary of physical and emotional states. Jumble communicates the artist’s internal battle with identity as an introvert in a society that demands responsiveness and embraces the spotlight. This “jumbled” relationship the artist holds with her identity in society echoes the changeable and dynamic voices of contemporary artists in Queensland. Therefore, to “un-jumble” is to obstruct innovation and blockage the “GOMA Q” class of 2015.

Sarah Bradley is an art history and accounting student at the University of Queensland. She is currently undertaking a curatorial internship at UQ art museum as well as interning at ‘Life Art Worldwide’.

Launch of the QAGOMA Future Collective, GOMA Bistro, November 2014

In November 2014, the Gallery Foundation launched the Future Collective, a new supporters program for young professionals to get involved in the Gallery’s projects, engage in contemporary art, and connect with others who share a common interest. One year into the program, we asked Future Collective member Danielle Dunsmore to share her thoughts on being part of the group.

The invitation arrived for the QAGOMA Future Collective, piquing my interest. Cool art, groovy people and of course the opportunity to get dressed in arty clothes – too good to resist.

The first event was just after a nasty summer hail storm. I took a friend who regaled me with horror stories of hail smashing her car windows only one day prior … but, frankly, I was listening to Director Chris Saines telling us how we could be part of a brand new collective that would raise funds for artworks – new, contemporary works that would help to build the Gallery’s Collection into the future. I was in.

Danielle Dunsmore and her guest Karen Black at the Future Collective artist in-conversation and private viewing of ‘GOMA Q: Contemporary Queensland Art’, GOMA, July 2015

For almost a decade I have been involved in sponsoring the Gallery in a corporate capacity and when those resources dried up, I was left adrift. Until the Future Collective.

Every subsequent event has been a little bit special, and I have brought along a variety of people: artists who knew more people than I did; friends who joined me recently at the fabulous ‘8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT8) opening; and even in-town out-of-towners who obviously needed to be introduced to Queensland culture.

After a year of events we raised an amazing $29,000 in funds. Gallery curators and program coordinators pitched their projects to us – and we had to choose only one to support. I felt bad not choosing Assistant Director Simon Wright’s amazing live performance program – and then noticed that he wasn’t in the room … phew, I could safely vote for my other choice. (Only later did I realise that he was standing right behind me!)

Simon Wright, Assistant Director, Learning and Public Engagement, speaking to member Andrew Tynan at the Future Collective project pitch event, GOMA, October 2015

A group of works from Abdul Abdullah’s ‘Coming to terms’ series, both topical and beautiful in its own dark way, was ultimately chosen through a majority vote. The pieces feature in APT8 and at a special Future Collective Pre-Opening Party event we were lucky enough to meet the artist himself.

Abdul chatted to my boyfriend about skateboarding, beer – oh, and art – and then stepped up to give a lovely, heartfelt speech, thanking us for our support. Our pleasure, Abdul. Thank you for creating such marvelous works!

And thank you QAGOMA. I’m here to stay.

Danielle Dunsmore, Future Collective Member

APT8 artist Abdul Abdullah speaks at the Future Collective End of Year Celebration, GOMA, November 2015

This is the second instalment in a series of blog posts by members, so keep an eye out for more anecdotes, stories and reflections on the Future Collective.

Production still from Persepolis 2007 / Director: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud / Image courtesy: Roadshow Entertainment

The post-9/11 rise of Islamophobia and subsequent polarisation of many Muslim filmmakers requires a sophisticated examination of the multiplicity of Muslim voices and viewpoints. This is just what the rich and diverse ‘The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT8) cinema project ‘Pop Islam’ strives to do, writes Anne Démy-Geroe.

Spirituality, rather than religion, has been cited by artists and academics from the vast geographic area explored in ‘Pop Islam’ as a defining characteristic of Asian cinema in general.¹ Khaled Sabsabi, the Lebanese– Australian artist and co-curator of the cinema project, whose video installation Naqshbandi Greenacre Engagement won the 2011 Blake Prize for Religious Art, states that ‘Spirituality and the sacred is all around us’.² Yet religion is prominent in films from Islamic cultures, and the starting point must be the Prophet biopic. American–Syrian director Moustapha Akkad’s pre-9/11 Al-risâlah (The Message) 1976 has long been the only film worth serious consideration. This irked the Iranian film bureaucracy, where the official view of cinema is that it is a tool to educate on Islamic values. In 2015 they sought to rectify this with the release of Majid Majidi’s Muhammad: The Messenger of God, the first part in a lavish trilogy retelling the Prophet’s life. Budget was no issue for Majidi — the most recent figure is US$70 million — and it is evident on screen. Sets required some 40 Italian craftsmen to re-create Mecca and Basra in Iran, and Majidi and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, spent two years in pre-production developing the film’s aesthetic, based on Caravaggio-styled lighting. The issue of depicting the Prophet was trickier, as his depiction remains forbidden in Islam. While Majidi consulted with around 40 theologians from all areas of Islam, the film has nonetheless proved controversial, revealing the differing interpretations of, and responses to exploring, Islamic beliefs and events in cinema. This continues for many of the films in this project.

Production still from Takva: A Man’s Fear of God 2006 / Director:Özer Kiziltan / Image courtesy: The Match Factory

Making films concerning the Islamic clergy has been popular within various national cinemas, and also a site for (limited) criticism. An early example from Turkey is the delicate Takva: A Man’s Fear of God 2006, in which the devotion and humility of the protagonist draws him to the attention of a Sufi order. But in fulfilling the duties of his position as a rent collector for the order, he perceives a lack of compassion in the man he considers his spiritual leader, resulting in a spiritual crisis. In Marmoulak (The Lizard) 2004 from Iran, the presence of compassion in a clergyman that gives a thief a new chance at life: he escapes prison clad in the clergyman’s robes. Eventually it seems that clothes do make the man. But humour is elicited early in the film from scenes clearly familiar to an Iranian audience, such as when he discovers that taxis will not stop for a clergyman. Released onto Iranian screens to popular acclaim, Marmoulak was withdrawn after protests from the clergy, illustrating the difficulty of decoding Iranian cinema’s often ambiguous intent and use of metaphor and allegory.

A considerable body of work has been made in response to Islamophobia. Persepolis 2007, an incisive animation based on the graphic novel by expatriate co-director Marjane Sartrapi, is a unique diasporic take on Iran, its official Islamic values and Sartrapi’s early feelings of alienation growing up in Europe. The film traverses the ciphers of the Islamic Republic — the hijab, the morality police — with an insight born of personal experience. In the foreword to the graphic novel, Sartrapi states quite explicitly that one of her aims is to address media stereotypes of Iran. Countermanding negative stereotypes of Islam has been the aim of other Muslim filmmakers, including Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan, who produced and starred in My Name is Khan 2010, a plea for tolerance set in post-2001 America.

Production still from Wadjda 2012 / Director: Haifaa Al-Mansour / Image courtesy: The Match Factory

Production still from Offside 2006 / Director: Jafar Panahi /Image courtesy: Madman Entertainment

Malaysia, with its ongoing ethnic and religious conflicts, has many examples of the consequent issues for filmmakers. The late director Yasmin Ahmad was forthright in incorporating themes of interracial and inter-faith tolerance throughout her career, and often found herself under attack from more conservative elements of the press. Muallaf (The Convert) 2008 opens, as do all Ahmad’s films, with the Islamic verse ‘In the name of God, the most Gracious and most Merciful’. However, unlike her previous films, here it is provocatively written in Chinese, in keeping with the ethnicity of one of the characters in the narrative. Ahmad encountered problems with Malaysian censors. The film was eventually released in her home country, uncut, albeit with the dialogue of several scenes muted. Alongside Saab and Ahmad is newcomer Haifaa Al-Mansour who, as the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia, made Wadjda 2012. Her female protagonist has one simple aim: to be able to ride a bicycle, an activity considered unsuitable for females. This very basic desire on the part of a young Muslim girl is reminiscent of Jafar Panahi’s highly entertaining Offside 2006, shot during a World Cup soccer match in Tehran. Women are not officially allowed into soccer matches in Iran, and Panahi was inspired to make the film after his experience at a soccer match with his daughter. Digital technology allowed Panahi to make Offside — still banned in Iran — without the otherwise necessary permits, essentially outside the system.

Production still from Dunia 2005 / Director: Jocelyne Saab /Image courtesy: Catherine Dussart Productions

Harnessing the power of the moving image as a catalyst for peace in areas of religious conflict is the driving force behind Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab’s new Resistance festival, which was initially to have been based in Tripoli, historically the site of much religious conflict. Saab’s own work demonstrates her focus on women in particular. In the powerful and controversial Dunia 2005, the eponymous character is a student of both Sufi poetry (mind) and belly dance (body) in Cairo. In seeking to unite these two arts spiritually, Dunia must confront the tradition, in the form of circumcision, to which she has been subjected. In response to the changing political situation of Indonesia, director Garin Nugroho felt compelled to make the grim Mata tertutup (The Blindfold) 2012, tracing the recruitment of a young girl to a radical Islamic organisation, though emphasising that this is outside the experience of most Indonesians.

Production still from A Separation 2011 / Director:Asghar Farhadi / Image courtesy: Entertainment One

Of the films in ‘Pop Islam’ dealing with the everyday and domestic life, I would single out Turkish filmmaker Semih Kaplanoğlu’s Bal (Honey) 2010 and Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar winning Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (A Separation) 2011. Honey depicts the daily existence, both idyllic and fraught, of a young boy from a remote part of Turkey. The loss of his father while out harvesting the wild honey that provides for their existence, and his mother’s subsequent problems making ends meet, are explored in this exquisitely beautiful film. The narrative of A Separation is largely driven by events set into motion when the traditional Islamic values of the working-class couple come up against the middle-class couple for whom the wife works. The husband forbids his wife to work although they desperately need the money; his disobedient wife, conflicted about whether she is breaking Muslim taboos in washing the old man for whom she works as a carer, consults a mullah. While the film was enormously popular in Iran, its official reception was conflicted.

Simple classifications can never fully describe the content or contain the viewpoints of what is embraced by them. ‘Pop Islam’ does not try to do this; instead it explores the rich and ancient cultures of the Islamic world as they are today through a plethora of the sometimes conflicting voices from within. The complex view that emerges from this cinema project is an important and vital one.

Dr Anne Démy-Geroe lectures on Asia Pacific cinema at Griffith Film School. She is a board member of NETPAC, the Network for the Promotion of Asia Pacific Cinema, an Academy and Nominations Council member of the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, co-director of the Iranian Film Festival Australia, and was the inaugural Artistic Director of the Brisbane International Film Festival.

Endnotes 
¹  Aruna Vasudev and Philip Cheah (eds), ‘Introduction: How the East kept a steady gaze’, When Strangers Meet: Visions of Asia and Europe in Film, Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), Singapore, 2012, p.5.
²  William Verity, ‘A day in the life of prize-winning artist Khaled Sabsabi’, Encounter, ABC Radio National, 11 November 2014, www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/encounter/a-day-in-the-life-of-prize-winningartist-khaled-sabsabi/5882352, viewed September 2015.

‘Pop Islam’ explores representations of Islam in contemporary film, documentary and video art. The reach is global, stretching from Australia and South-East Asia, through the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and Africa, while also visiting communities in Central Asia, Europe and North America. Co-curated with Australian-Lebanese artist Khaled Sabsabi, it seeks to demonstrate diverse experiences and opinion for the more than 20 per cent of the world’s population who are practising Muslims. Visit our website for screening details.

Carrie McCarthy walks us through her first Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, as one of our biggest fans, we invited her in for a photo shoot and a chance to reflect on the exhibition series.

I was sixteen and doing work experience at the Gold Coast Art Gallery. My supervisor had received a fax (!) about a brand new exhibition of Asian and Oceanic art being launched at the Queensland Art Gallery, and for some inexplicable reason I was put in charge of taking a group of volunteers up to see the show. God knows why they thought I was responsible enough to get 22 octogenarians there and back safely, but as one of the volunteers said to me on the day “at least you’re young enough to remember where the bus is parked.” Obviously I survived the experience, as did the volunteers, but boy was it a birth of fire. Forget my first APT? I couldn’t if I tried!

It’s extraordinary to think how much the Asia Pacific Triennial has grown in the last 23 years. Back then there was no GOMA, and Queensland Art Gallery was a very somber sort of place. Beautiful, with its watermall and cascading indoor garden, but quiet and controlled, and interminably solemn. To see it full of experimental Asian art and tribal motifs was a challenge for some people I think. I certainly remember the conversation on the way home getting rather heated when it came to what constituted art. To be honest, I’m not sure anyone really knew what to make of it in those early years. I think perhaps there was a certain level of resentment that the Gallery was being given over to artwork from other countries. I mean, why take the Charles Blackmans off the walls to make way for Asian artists, or even worse, New Zealanders? Weren’t our artists good enough? It’s a cringe worthy memory, but one I remember pretty clearly.

Reflecting on all the APTs I’ve seen since, it’s occurred to me that each iteration has been as much an indication of how society was maturing as it was an example of the changing face of contemporary art from the region. As QAGOMA has widened the scope of inclusion, so too has the APT widened the audiences’ perspective on the world. From 13 countries in 1993, to 36 nations in 2016, many of them places we don’t often include in our imagining of the Asia Pacific region – places like Iran, the UAE and Georgia – all brought together to share their cultures, celebrate their connections and consider their influence on each other. It’s an extraordinary opportunity for Australia, when you think about it.

This year, particularly, I have been delighted by the intimacy of the works included, and the sheer beauty with which some pretty confrontational concepts have been presented. Where previous years have featured big, bold statements that scream their message across the Gallery, APT8 is more restrained and introspective, forcing audiences to get up close to the artworks to appreciate their content, or sit in darkened rooms and wait as the artist slowly reveals their intent. It is an APT that rewards the audience by revealing itself a little more with each visit. What it lacks in Instagram-friendly exhibits it makes up for in contemplative moments, and I for one don’t mind the chance to lose myself in its meditations.  

Carrie McCarthy | Cultural Flanerie

Yukultji Napangati, Pintupi people / Untitled 2014 / Synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen / The James C Sourris, AM, Collection. Purchased 2015 with funds from James C Sourris, AM, through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery /  © The artist

Glenn Manser shares a few thoughts on his favourite work in the Collection.

Among the hubbub of the APT8 opening night and the kaleidoscopic representations of a multiplicity of cultures, there was one particular work on display — a recent addition to the Collection — that simply mesmerised me. This large and strikingly beautiful painting by Indigenous Australian artist Yukultji Napangati dominated the second-floor walkway of GOMA.

Recently acquired through the generous support of Foundation Committee member James C Sourris, AM, this memorable piece radiates the autumn hues of country associated with Marrapinti, west of Kiwirrkura in the Pollock Hills of Western Australia. This finely dotted work of vivid oranges and yellows reflects the undulating and quirky striations of Napangati’s country. The roundel, imaginatively integrated into the painting, captures not only the creek and cave at this site but also, more symbolically, the ceremonies that were ancestrally performed by Pintupi women.

The incorporation of this painting, together with another of equal proportions on loan from the Hassall Collection for APT8, subtly reminds the passer-by that in an exhibition that promotes art in the context of contemporary Asia and the Pacific, Indigenous Australian artists like Yukultji Napangati bring a sensitivity to country and culture that resonates with both sophistication and continuity.

Glenn Manser is an art collector, QAGOMA benefactor and Foundation member.

The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT)
is the Gallery’s flagship exhibition focused on the work of Asia, the Pacific and Australia. 
Until Sunday 10 April 2016

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Exhibition Founding Sponsor: Queensland Government
Exhibition Principal Sponsor: Audi Australia