Highs and Lows in APT 8

The following is a brief preview - the full content of this page is available to premium users only.
Click here to subscribe...

Yamani

As Queensland has been a crucible for urban indigenous artists it is not surprising that they figure among the strongest works in the eighth Asia Pacific Triennial. Encountering Brook Andrew’s Intervening Time (2015) in the Australian galleries, or Richard Bell’s video spoofs, involves a series of visceral jolts of shock or laughter. Yet the complete surprise for me was the remarkable Yamani Indigenous women’s group who performed their own score in Queensland languages to Len Lye’s 1929 animation Tusalava. Remarkably Lye’s avant-garde primitivism is not critiqued, but becomes a source of cross-cultural exchange for these musicians who reclaim and ‘finish’ Tusalava.*

Danie Mellor

It is almost taboo to critically address Indigenous art, creating a disabling critical vacuum for such a significant strand of contemporary art. So whether brave or foolhardy, I confess to finding Danie Mellor’s installation poorly made, particularly for such a high profile artist. The wall text claims that his monumental double positive and negative photos of Queensland rainforest reflected in a curved blue space create an ‘immersive void … that recalls the metaphysical space of Yves Klein’s void and the curved model of the universe proposed by Einstein’. All I could see were the buckling seams of overlapping paper.

Richard Bell, Larry, 2015. Still. Writer, Producer, Production Design: Richard Bell. Digital video; 10:16mins, colour, sound, ed. of 5. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane

Brook Andrew, Intervening time, 2015. Installation view. Museum intervention including the artist’s TIME, 2012 and other works from the Queensland Art Gallery Collection. Courtesy the artist and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne. Photograph QAGOMA.