‘I, OBJECT’ INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN ART TOURS TO NORTHSITE CONTEMPORARY ARTS CAIRNS
Audiences in Cairns can experience more than 60 contemporary and historical works from the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Indigenous Australian Art collection when the exhibition ‘I, Object’ tours to NorthSite Contemporary Arts from 26 October to the 24 December 2024.
‘I, Object’ features contemporary painting, sculpture, and installation by leading Queensland artists Vernon Ah Kee, Tony Albert, Michael Boiyool Anning, Fiona Foley, Danie Mellor, Christian Thompson, Warraba Weatherall and others alongside 20 historical shields, boomerangs and clubs.
QAGOMA Director Chris Saines said ‘I, Object’ was an exhibition first developed by Bruce Johnson McLean, former Curator of Indigenous Australian Art, QAGOMA and shown at the Gallery of Modern Art from August 2020 through to August 2021.
‘We’re really thrilled this iteration of ‘I, Object’ will now tour to audiences in regional Queensland from 2023-2025 and after its showing in Rockhampton travel on to Caboolture, Toowoomba, Ipswich, Cairns, and Mackay.’
‘I, Object’ considers the many complex relationships Indigenous Australian artists continue to have with objects – from the histories informing their creation to the social and cultural consequences of their collection.
The exhibition demonstrates the great pride and inspiration of inherited cultural practices and historical Indigenous objects, and reveals the difficulties posed by their collection and estrangement.
A group of contemporary shields in the exhibition by artists Michael Boiyool Anning and Danie Mellor speak back to traditional shield-making practices and the mark-making traditions they have been preserved. In conversation with the historical shields on display, these contemporary works also comment on the impact of Western aesthetics and colonial policies on Indigenous people and society,’ Ms Davidson said.
‘I, Object’ also considers the Indigenous body-as-object and critiques the continued consumption of Indigenous images and identities that range from early genealogical and scientific studies to the demeaning, romanticised images of Aboriginal people and cultures.
Works reflecting these ideas include Tony Albert’s large-scale multi-media installation whiteWASH 2018 that comprises a collection of mid-century Aboriginalia ashtrays, and Vernon Ah Kee’s compelling triptych Neither pride nor courage 2006, large, hand-drawn portraits of male members of the artist’s family that reflect the practices of anthropologist Norman B Tindale (1900–93), who recorded vast amounts of genealogical information about Indigenous communities from all over Australia in the 1920’s and 30’s.
Other highlights in the exhibition include carved sculptures by Wik-Kugu artists Craig Koomeeta and Alair Pambegan, and Fiona Foley’s large-scale, text-based sculpture DISPERSED 2008, a monument to the Aboriginal people who were driven off their land, and many of whom were killed, on the Queensland colonial frontier in the nineteenth century.
