April 2022: In 2022, the NGV’s world-leading collection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and design moves to the ground floor of The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, establishing a new and dynamic permanent exhibition space in which familiar masterpieces from the collection are displayed alongside new acquisitions in exciting and novel configurations.
Traversing the ground floor galleries, this collection display juxtaposes extraordinary masterworks with other important and unexpected works by artists from around Australia working across a diverse range of media. Through these visual dialogues, the collection display invites audiences to draw connections between works, revealing as many overlapping themes and stylistic tendencies as it does idiosyncrasies and differences.
Masterpieces that will now be on permanent display include: Emily Kam Kngwarray’s large-scale monochromatic painting Big Yam Dreaming 1995; the vividly colourful collaboration between seven Kaiadilt women from Bentick Island Dulka Warngiid (Land of All) 2007; the Martumili women’s collaborative painting Ngayarta Kujarra 2009; as well as the first Indigenous artwork acquired through the Felton Bequest, Spirit Dreaming through Napperby country 1980 painted by Anmatyerre artists Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri and Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri.
Tony Ellwood AM, Director of the NGV, said: ‘The new and ongoing location for the NGV’s collection of Indigenous art and design allows local and international visitors the opportunity to experience these much-loved masterpieces from the collection year-round. The ever-changing presentations will also embed these collection masterworks into surprising and constantly refreshed contexts, offering new and surprising insights into the artworks and showcasing the breadth of First Nation’s art and design.’
The permanent collection engages with a variety of important themes, visual techniques and subject matter, including the principles of design and art-making techniques; identity and activism; the environment and the custodianship of Country; the consequences of colonisation and the desecration of sacred sites; and more.
Highlight works include the immense cartographic work Spirit Dreaming through Napperby country 1980 by Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri and Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. This work is displayed alongside more recent acquisitions, including a monumental woven floor mat by senior Ramingining artist Elizabeth Djutarra from 1991, as well as an iconic earth pigment on canvas Purnululu country by Gija artist Jack Britten, from 1989. Together these works highlight the different ways in which Aboriginal artists across Australia connect with materials from the landscape, mapping their cultural identity onto Country.
In the epically-scaled Anwerlarr anganenty (Big yam Dreaming) 1995, also on display, Emily Kam Kngwarray represents her birthplace, Alhalker, an important site for anwerlarr, the pencil yam. The organic lines derive from women’s striped body paintings for awely (women’s ceremonies) and signify the long branching tuberous plant underground. The rhythmical monochrome design can be likened to the veins, sinews and contours seen in the land from above. In the ground-floor exhibition, Kngwarray’s work is presented in an entirely monochromatic room, alongside works by Dorothy Napangardi, Kunmanara (Wawiriya) Burton, and Lena Nyadbi, highlighting the visual dynamism of the monochrome palette.
Also on display are works in ochre, including work by Kimberley’s man Rover Thomas, who, amongst many other accomplishments, was the first Aboriginal artist to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale. Displayed alongside Thomas’ work is a previously never displayed new media installation, Minnimb (Humpback whale) 2019 by Bard artist Darrell Sibosado. By viewing these works one after the other, audiences perceive the different ways artists from the Kimberley use geometric designs to pass on cultural knowledge. In the case of Sibosado, traditional pearl shell designs have been translated into a large-scale wall-mounted sculpture of corten steel, representing the sacred and now endangered humpback whale.
Indigenous Art from the NGV Collection is on display from 15 April 2022 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Fed Square, Melbourne. Free entry. Further information is available via the NGV website: NGV.MELBOURNE
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