Modern and Contemporary Art Australia: Perspectives on Place

When appreciating artwork, knowing the qualities that make an artwork great is crucial. Amongst many qualities, one of the most important qualities is showing the social issue. An artwork with such quality grants viewers to contemplate and thus expands their perspective on the world. Perspectives on Place exhibited by Modern and Contemporary Art Australia showcased two types of contemporary artwork: the first type reveals the national history of colonization and the second type shows the current world governed by the western system. The exhibition offers viewers an opportunity to contemplate and reach a conclusion that the national condition is the global status quo. From the museum's permanent collection, the artworks on display were desolate works insufficient in craftsmanship and lacking in aesthetic value. Looking back at Australian modern art, I was expecting an evolved form of refined artwork depicting abundance. Exhibited artworks are similar to conceptual art, as their theme matters more than physical appearance.

Topics Covered

• Australia: Before Colonization, Violence, Settlement
• World: Individual, Population

Australia

Before Colonization

Comprised of two essential artworks, the image summarizes the theme of the exhibition.

 three close up paintings of Shirley Purdie, Goowoolem Gijam - Gija plants, 2013-16

Painted by an artist of Aboriginal descent, each of the 72 artworks contains images of plants native to Australia. Aware of the characteristics of each plant, the artist painted each plant affectionately. The artwork shows the artist's affection and knowledge of Australian flora. Originally an output of affection, the artwork changes its connotation when juxtaposed with the artwork on the floor.

 Megan Cope, Foundations III, 2020

The artwork has 400 separate components, and each component comprises a concrete pedestal embedded with a singular oyster shell. The selection of the material is directly related to the Australian history of colonization. Shells refer to Shell mounts formed by Aborigins. The mounts are the residues of cultural and communal life and indicate Aboriginals' occupation over a long period. After arrival, European settlers destroyed the shell mounts to mine limestones. Limestones were processed to create the raw material for mortar, which was then used in various colonial buildings. The embedded concrete pedestals of the artwork were also made from mined limestones.
Through the keen selection of the materials, the artist states that the purpose of destruction and mining was to lay out the basic foundation to establish the western system in the fertile land abundant in natural resources. The constant and calculated form of each component of the artwork graphically demonstrates the western system overridden onto the Australian landscape, connecting back to the artwork displayed on the wall.

Violence

 Tom Nicholson, Cartoons for Joseph Selleny, 2014

 Tom Nicholson, Cartoons for Joseph Selleny, 2014

The artwork is comprised of three parts:
1. a suite of large-scale charcoal drawings featuring soldiers shooting
2. a vast wall drawing: a myriad of tiny dots on an expansive paper
3. a takeaway artist's book

The component that addresses an evident narrative is 1. The subject relates to the story of the SMS Novara, an Austrian ship that docked in Sydney Cove in 1858 and departed with hundreds of handcrafts made by Aboriginal people destined for European collections. Joseph Selleny, as an official artist of the ship, produced numerous drawings of Australian flora, fauna, and even portraits of Aboriginal people. By depicting a graphic scene of violence, Nicholson points out Selleny omitted to depict colonial violence.

1, once had an apparent form, is smudged. The artist employed the cartoon technique to create the first two components of the artwork. The cartoon refers to the sketching technique for painting fresco (wall painting) invented by Renaissance artists. Once they finished sketching fresco subjects on a real scale with charcoal on paper, they punctured tiny holes in the outlines of the subjects. Then they pounced the paper with a small cushion against a wall to paint the fresco on. The process left dotted lines on the outlines of the subjects on the wall. 2 is the outcome of the repetition of the process, so the dots are in disarray.

When the intention of the cartoon and its process combined with the narrative of the artwork induces a wealth of connotations. Cartoon is a foundation for building up a fresco painting. Fresco is a large wall painting meant to be seen by mass, so publicity is one of the main characteristics of a fresco. By selecting shooting soldiers as a subject, the artist intended to publicize the violence of colonization that Selleny missed. Despite that he created a cartoon for his fresco, he didn't even start the base layer of the painting. Moreover, he repeatedly pounced the charcoal sketch to make the subject hard to identify. Through his process of cartooning, the artist compares shooting with pouncing, in which charcoal dots are 'shot' onto paper instead of bullets. In the artwork, the cartoon is a metaphor for colonial violence. Just as a sketch is ready for building up paint layers, colonial violence lays a foundation for building up a new governing system.

Settlement

Rosemary Laing, brumby mound #6, 2003, Photography

The image is from one dozen unnatural disasters in the Australian landscape, a photography series by Rosemary Laing. The image features red domestic objects arranged in the red soil plains near Tanami Desert, the land of the Wirrimanu Aboriginal community. Originally from a conventional household, the objects sit on the setting awkwardly. The objects represent modern western life settled uneasily on the Australian landscape, invoking histories of colonization, migration, and displacement.

World

Individual

 Christian Thompson AO, Dead Tongue, 2015

In the looped video, the artist is silenced by the Union Jack flags held between his teeth. The video is similar to photography in that the artist doesn't move throughout playtime, but the video has a soundtrack. A song in Bidjara, one of the Aboriginal clans' languages, plays along with the video, offering viewers an immersive experience.

The artist, who is of Bidjara descent, is aware that Bidjara is an endangered language, but he insists that it continues to be a living language if one word of the language is spoken. His work demonstrates the resilience of his Bidjara language and Aboriginal culture in the wake of Australia's colonization.

While showing Australian social issues, his image also reflects the conditions of non-westerners living in a modernized society. The traditional governing system of non-western countries was overridden by the western system directly or indirectly, as western ideas and systems established the foundation of modern society. Though traditional cultures are still tightly knitted to people's lives, the world is run by western ideas, especially capitalism, and productivity. Without any questions, modernized non-westerners follow the path set by past generations and instructions proposed by authority: they study at schools, then goes to work to afford their living.

Population

Louisa Bufardeci, Ground Plan, 2003-2009

In the large print that occupies an entire wall, the world map is reimagined as an architectural plan. Each country is resized according to the relative size of its population instead of its landmass. Borders of each country are configured as rooms in a metaphorical shared house. Open doors suggest the flow of people, capital, resources, and information between countries. The containment of countries within a Western design suggests the world is governed by a western system.
The most intriguing part about this work is that the size of each country is resized according to its population. The population is comprised of modernized westerners and non-westerners. The conditions of both groups of people are depicted by the previous artwork, Dead Tongue. Two artworks are purposefully displayed closely to communicate the idea of the world as a colony of modern civilization. 

Thank you for finish reading the article. It is the first article of contemporary art chapter in the comprehensive study on Australian Art. The study is divided into three chapters according to era: classical, modern and contemporary. To view the complete list of the articles within the study, please direct to the linked article. 

Australian Art: from Classical Antiquity to Contemporary Emerging Talents

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