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Reflecting on European Collections

Georges Petitjean
Eyeline 84
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Australian Aboriginal art is making increasingly regular forays into the European art scene. This was most notably the case with work by Doreen Reid Nakamarra, Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, Gordon Bennett and Warwick Thornton being included in the latest dOCUMENTA 13 (2012). The optically mesmerising large-scale canvases of Doreen Reid Nakamarra and Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri were placed prominently in the main exhibition building, the Fridericianum, in what is arguably the most important contemporary art event in the world. Less than a month after the closure of the Documenta, in October 2012, the exhibition Tjukurrtjanu: aux sources de la peinture aborigène (Tjukurrtjanu: The Sources of Aboriginal Painting) opened its doors to a French and international public at the Musée du Quai Branly. Although this exhibition was toured from the National Gallery of Victoria, a museum which is usually associated with art, its Parisian venue is rather perceived as an ethnographic museum associated with material culture in a broader sense than solely art. It is between those two, often opposed, poles that exhibitions dedicated to Australian Aboriginal art in Europe mainly operate.

Three major exhibitions that recently took place in the cities of Bordeaux, Rome and Lugano (Switzerland) took varying positions in this bipolar field. While one exhibition concentrated on Indigenous Australian art from remote communities, the two others endeavoured to break through the delimitations often placed on Aboriginal art, consciously seeking connection with the wider art world and engagement with the ‘contemporary’. The three exhibitions thus reflect the current state of reception of Indigenous Australian art and its relationship to non-Indigenous art on the European continent.

The first exhibition, ‘Mémoires Vives: Une Histoire d’Art Aborigène’ (‘Vivid Memories: An Aboriginal Art History’), took... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

Installation view, ‘Mémoires Vives: Une Histoire d’Art Aborigène’ (‘Vivid Memories: An Aboriginal Art History’), Musée d’Aquitaine, Bordeaux, 2014.

Installation view, ‘Mémoires Vives: Une Histoire d’Art Aborigène’ (‘Vivid Memories: An Aboriginal Art History’), Musée d’Aquitaine, Bordeaux, 2014.

Installation view, ‘Dhukarr, Arte Aborigena Contemporanea: La Collezione Knoblauch’ (Dhukarr, Contemporary Aboriginal Art: the Knoblauch Collection’), Museo delle Culture – Heleneum, Lugano, 2014.

Installation view, ‘Dhukarr, Arte Aborigena Contemporanea: La Collezione Knoblauch’ (Dhukarr, Contemporary Aboriginal Art: the Knoblauch Collection’), Museo delle Culture – Heleneum, Lugano, 2014.