getting up close and personal

As per our tutor's mantra, "get up close and look at the art", I went today to the Art Gallery of South Australia to do just that. Feeling skeptical about the difference this would make to my appreciation of Indigenous art, I nevertheless sat and looked. To my surprise, this did indeed change everything. Without being there, seeing the works, one cannot grasp the sense of scale and tactile nature of some of the works. In particular, I was impressed by the bark paintings that were given to the gallery in 1956 by Charles Mountford, who controversially collected hundreds of these types of paintings on an eight month long expedition to Arnhem land in 1948.

Fig. 1 Mamarika, Mimimimi. "The Malay Prau." natural pigments on eucalyptus bark, 43.7 x 86.0 cm (irreg), Umbakumba, Groote Eylandt, Northen Territory: Art Gallery of South Australia, Aboriginal Artists Agency, 1948.

Exhibited as a group of about 12 paintings, it was an emotional experience. Knowing that some had most likely been 'liberated' from the artists, coupled with their tribal rawness and abstraction had a powerful influence on me. I sat down and write the following:

"Looking at the small collection of Indigenous bark paintings in the Art Gallery of South Australia, I have a real sense of history from gazing at the works. These pictures don't belong on a wall- they belong among their people. The patterns they use evoke a sadness, a dispossession. On the surface, the simplicity of the stories they portray is disarming. You're not gazing at reclining figures eating grapes in opulent surroundings, you're staring at survival, the struggle of the next meal."

Hanging nearby is some work from late nineteenth century French Impressionists, and the difference in the visual discourse of the two styles brings the bark paintings into sharp relief. Also nearby were four Tiki 'grave poles', which I commentated on as well:

"Looking at these four grave poles, I imagine a vast series of them marking the graves of many, like a conventional Christian graveyard, but with colour and pattern and personality. A far cry from the mossy, mouldy crumbling stone that marks the graves of their western counterparts, who are remembered only by the earth that bears them. These, however, signify a vibrant culture even in death."

As I wrote this passage, I witnessed two elderly ladies, very much of Western countenance, look briefly at both the grave poles and bark paintings. A question was asked by the first lady (which I didn't catch), to which the second replied, "no, not particularly..", after which they promptly left to view the French impressionist section. They were caught off guard when they realised I was watching them, and the awkward, guilty expressions on there faces were telling.