Hossein Valamanesh’s ‘Where do I come from?

’
South Australia focus and ‘TARNANTHI 2017’ preview
The 57th Venice Biennale and ‘documenta 14’ in review
AU $12.95
NZ $14.95 Issue 302 / October 2017
SG $14.95 artmonthly.org.au
 The 2018 Anne & Gordon Samstag
International Visual Art Scholarships

The University of South Australia congratulates

our 2018 Samstag Scholars
Sasha Grbich (SA) and Julian Day (NSW)

unisa.edu.au/samstag

Sasha GRBICH with Heidi ANGOVE, Very Local Radio, 2014-15

still image from live performance, courtesy the artist. Photography by Zihan Loo.
The 2018 Anne & Gordon Samstag
International Visual Art Scholarships

The University of South Australia congratulates

our 2018 Samstag Scholars
Julian Day (NSW) and Sasha Grbich (SA)

unisa.edu.au/samstag

Julian Day, White Noise, 2016

installation view, NEW16, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. Photography by Matthew Stanton.
 CONTENTS

04 Editorial

06 Dispatches
Andrew Stephens

12 October in the galleries

Chloé Wolifson

18 The intimacy of shared histories:

A South Australian roundtable
Liz Nowell, Adelaide

26 States of commonality and correspondence:

‘The Drawing Exchange’
see page 18
Joe Frost, Adelaide

32 Every face has a story, every story has a face: Kulila!

Marlene Rubuntja, Larapinta
CONTRIBUTORS
33 Clay bosses: Indigenous potters at the JamFactory
Hannah Kothe, Pukatja En Young Ahn is a freelance writer and curator with a PhD
in art history; Joe Frost is an artist and drawing lecturer
36 Pepai Jangala Carroll’s journey home at the National Art School, Sydney; Hannah Kothe
Luke Scholes, Walungurru is Manager of Ernabella Arts Inc. and an Art Monthly
Australasia Board member; Janis Lejins is an emerging
40 Hossein Valamanesh: In his mother’s hands artist, writer and curator who currently lives and works
Andrew Purvis, Adelaide between London and Australia; Anne Loxley is Senior
Curator, C3West at the Museum of Contemporary Art
52 Making a splash: ‘Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017’ Australia, Sydney; Liz Nowell is the Chief Executive Officer
En Young Ahn, Münster of ACE Open, South Australia’s flagship contemporary art
gallery; Andrew Purvis is a curator, artist and arts writer
54 Solidarity: Live your Greece in myth based in Adelaide; Marlene Rubuntja is a member of
Audrey Schmidt, Athens and Kassel Yarrenyty Arltere Artists, Larapinta; Audrey Schmidt is
a writer and editor based in Melbourne; Luke Scholes is
58 Venice 2017: The good, the bad and the ugly Curator of Aboriginal Art at the Museum and Art Gallery
Janis Lejins, Venice of the Northern Territory; Andrew Stephens is a visual arts
writer based in Melbourne; he is Editor of Imprint magazine
64 Sydney Ball 1933 – 2017 for the Print Council of Australia; Chloé Wolifson is a
Anne Loxley Sydney-based independent writer and curator.

Cover:
Hossein Valamanesh, Hasti Masti, 2016,
ink on paper, unframed in 9 parts, 199 x 199cm;
image courtesy the artist and GAGPROJECTS, Adelaide;
photo: M. Kluvanek
WELCOME TO ISSUE 302 Editor Michael Fitzgerald
art.monthly@anu.edu.au
Creative Director Patrick Leong
Shared stories fill this South Australian focus edition and spill over Publication Manager Anne-Marie Jean
geographical borders, expanding our sense of art and place. With artmonthly.admin@anu.edu.au
the ‘clay stories’ of the Remote Communities Ceramic Network, for Assistant Publication Manager Rachel Powell
instance, the work of Ernabella artist Derek Jungarrayi Thompson artmonthly.admin@anu.edu.au
in the top north-west corner of South Australia links up with his Business Development Karen Brown
Indigenous contemporaries in Far North Queensland and the Torres artmonthly.ads@anu.edu.au
Strait. ‘We come from different communities, different Country,’ says Volunteers Esther Carlin, Aishah Kenton, Annette Liu,
Brooke McEachern, Jess Semler and Ila Silakka
Thompson, ‘but we are all sharing our Tjukurpa (cultural stories).’
ABN 90 008 651 385
ISSN 1033-4025
Indeed, with the TARNANTHI: Festival of Contemporary Aborigi- Print post approved PP299436/00114
nal and Torres Strait Islander Art about to hit Adelaide this month, RRP AU$12.95 (regular issue)
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ia focus edition, we note that such conversations are taking place with Advertising
non-Indigenous artists too. For example, in ‘The intimacy of shared artmonthly.ads@anu.edu.au
histories: A South Australian roundtable’, Liz Nowell convenes a Subscriptions
wide-ranging artistic discussion – one centred on ideas of exchange, artmonthly.admin@anu.edu.au
collaboration and inclusion. Diversity, says Nowell, ‘is vital to any Published by Art Monthly Australia Ltd,
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thriving art community; it not only makes for a dynamic cultural
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a sense of belonging.’ Our thanks go to all the contributors to this www.artmonthly.org.au
special edition, and to Arts SA, in allowing such stories to be told. Situated at
ANU School of Art & Design
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Michael Fitzgerald
Printed by Lithocraft, Melbourne
Editor Distributed by IPS (Australia)
Art Monthly Australia Ltd Board
Ann Stephen (Chair), Michael Fitzgerald (ex-officio),
Helen Ennis, Denise Ferris, Hannah Kothe,
Andrew McNamara, Christine Nicholls, Leigh Robb,
Claire Roberts, Zara Stanhope and Paul Tilley (Treasurer)
International Council
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Jenny Harper, Yuki Kihara, Robert Leonard, Russell Storer and
Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll
Art Monthly Australasia Supporters
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Natalie King, Ian McLean, John Mateer and David Williams
Opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the authors and
not necessarily those of the publisher and Editor.

Kindly supported by Art Monthly Australasia is assisted by the

The Australian National University Australian Government through the Australia Council,
its arts funding and advisory body.
debra phillips

THE GOOD.
THE JUST.
THE BEAUTIFUL.

20 oct–11 nov 2017

91 Stanley Street
eaSt Sydney nSW 2010 auStralia
info.kronenbergWright@gmail.com

kronenbergwrightartistsprojects.com
Dispatches Andrew Stephens
Tjala Arts women’s collaborative painting for the APY Art Centre Collective and Purple House fundraiser auction in Adelaide on 15 October 2017;
image courtesy the artists and Ernabella Arts, Pukatja
Getting people home
The South Australian town of Ernabella, just south of the state’s
border with the Northern Territory, is nowhere near any big city.
When people living in the town or the vast surrounding lands
develop a serious medical issue – end-stage renal failure, for
example, where they become dependent on dialysis a few times a
week – they have little choice: they must move to far-distant places
such as Adelaide, Port Augusta or Alice Springs for treatment. They
must move away from Country, family and all they know and love.
Artmaking – frequently and productively pursued
in the area as a way of life – is an unlikely saviour, but that’s
what the local people are doing. As part of this month’s
TARNANTHI: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Art in Adelaide, artists from all over
Australia are helping. Many are from the huge expanse of
territory around Ernabella, including seven big art centres in
the APY Lands, and they are donating their work for an art
auction so they can get a dialysis unit running in Ernabella.
While the town’s Pukatja Dialysis Centre already has
government funding for infrastructure, the community is
confident the auction – with top artist names – will be lucrative
6
enough to support operational costs. Hannah Kothe, Manager of
Ernabella Arts Inc. and an Art Monthly Australasia Board member,
says the APY Art Centre Collective and Purple House, which
runs dialysis centres in the region, have fostered much excitement
about the auction. Purple House grew out of a movement of
Western Desert people to set up dialysis centres. Senior men and
women collaborated on work that was auctioned at the Art Gallery
of New South Wales in 2000, raising over AU$1 million for a
dialysis service in Kintore, 500 kilometres west of Alice Springs.
Now, Purple House operates eight dialysis units in remote areas.
‘Ernabella has been chosen by the patients because it is one
of the oldest communities in the area, there is an aged-care facility
there, and quite a lot of support for people,’ says Sarah Brown,
CEO of Purple House. ‘And that continuation of art centres being
advocators and supporters of community initiatives is wonderful.’
Kothe says the new unit will be a life-changer for people:
‘They will be able to come back to Country and live in this
community.’ The Purple House auction, entitled ‘Getting
people home’, will be held at the Tandanya Conference
Room in Adelaide on 15 October 2017 at 12 noon.
Like any family, at Tautai we take pride in guiding our young people to flourish.
An example of this is our ever-growing community of talented Pacific artists
who are shining in their chosen art forms. We invite you to discover
the diversity and depth of our vibrant Pacific community.

www.tautai.org
Heath Franco, Red Radiata, 2017, still image from HD video, colour, 16:9, 4:30 mins duration; image courtesy the artist
Stories from the Limestone Coast
During the first component of his two-part residency at the Lime-
stone Coast earlier this year, artist Heath Franco found himself
spending a lot of time alone and wandering through the extraor-
dinary landscape. There, near Mount Gambier, volcanic activity
over millennia has produced bizarre, arresting formations and
the famous Blue Lake that many people find themselves capti-
vated by. For Franco, though, while he thinks the limestone ef-
fect is astonishingly beautiful, it has been the far less spectacular
pine forests that have piqued his interest in concocting artwork.
Franco is not from Mount Gambier and stresses that
even when he finishes the second part of the residency this
month, he will only have been a visitor – and that all he
can base his work on will be what he has briefly absorbed.
‘I’m not claiming to know the place,’ he says. ‘I won’t
have been there long enough to get to know it intricately.’
The Limestone Coast residency has involved mentoring
two younger artists, Caroline Hammat and Luke Pellen, help-
ing to produce work to be screened in Mount Gambier’s Main
Corner Complex gallery from the end of October. It will be
8
sited such that it can be viewed from inside or outside the space,
and while Franco says he is not sure how the work of each artist
is going to pan out individually, he is certain there will be strong
connections based on each person’s heritage and – crucially –
their relationship to the local natural and built environments.
When Franco, an emerging New South Wales artist, ar-
rived in Mount Gambier for the first part of the residency in
April, he consciously had not done any research about the Lime-
stone Coast. ‘I wanted to get there and make up my own mind
about it. So I spent most of the time getting to know the area geo-
graphically and socially as much as I could in such a short time.’
Shooting videos and photos, he spent little time in the studio.
When Franco discovered the introduced Monterey pine
forests – a big industry in the area’s economy – he wanted to
explore the European fairytale tradition’s connection with
forests as large, mysterious and foreboding places. ‘I am
a visitor to the area so I am looking at my position in this
situation – just as the pines don’t belong there either. So I am
exploring the magic of the forest, and the link to another place.’
 Ecsta s y Baroque
a nd
Be yond

16 SEPTEMBER 2017 – 25 FEBRUARY 2018

Audrey Flack Ecstasy of St. Theresa 2013. Printed at the Experimental Printmaking Institute, Lafayette College, Pennsylvania. Pigment print and screenprint, edition 67/75.
Collection of The University of Queensland. Gift of Audrey Flack, 2017. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York.

Supported by the UQ Node, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100–1800)

University Drive, St Lucia

07 3365 3046
www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au
Open daily 10.00 am – 4.00 pm
Tamara Dean, Elephant ear (Alocasia odora) in Autumn, 2017, from the series ‘In our nature’, pure pigment print on cotton rag, 45 x 60cm;
image courtesy the artist and Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney
Greening the Biennial
Erica Green came to Adelaide the same year the city had
its first Biennial of Australian Art – 1990 – and she was
alert from the start that this event produced a high sense of
excitement among both locals and visitors. Now, as Curator
of the 2018 Biennial (3 March – 3 June 2018), titled ‘Di-
vided Worlds’, she is finding out how to deploy that excitement,
rather than just absorbing and enjoying it herself. With that
has come the task of tackling the tricky concept of ‘the theme’.
‘When I was given the brief about two years ago, I was
very conscious of the Biennial’s distinguished history,’ says
Green, Director of the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum
of Art. ‘But as I started to think about its history, place and
time, I became very conscious that in recent times the idea of
a “theme” in a very large exhibition such as a biennial has, in
many ways, become a misnomer. I was conscious that the idea of
a thematic tends to be ferociously interrogated by critics – and
that becomes the focus of expectations about the exhibition.’
Green countered this spectre with a simple precept: to ap-
proach artists whose work intrigues her, and to start construct-
ing a program that would be a pulse-taker and amplifier of the
10
contemporary art world: ‘I think I have a marvellous selection of
artists who bring a lot of experience and a great deal of maturity,
their work being very complex and layered. That has been a driving
force.’ But what has emerged as she has drawn together this cohort
of artists – from Vernon Ah Kee, Angelica Mesiti and Douglas
Watkin to Daniel Boyd, Tamara Dean and John R. Walker –
is a sense of diversity that goes far deeper than appearances.
What began to emerge following her discussions with many
of the artists was that, while they correctly perceived the world and
its societies as riddled with conflict born of cultural differences,
they dealt with that fact creatively. ‘In the world of the visual
arts, this idea of “difference” and diversity is something that is
celebrated. It is what makes the visual arts so vibrant: the visual
arts absorb differences and are [therefore] constantly evolving.’
Instead of talking about the world as a positive/
negative polarity, Green’s theme, as such, is about how
differences can combine to make something whole. ‘Art
is a companion to civilisation, and through it we are con-
nected to some of the bigger questions in life and society.’
October
in the
galleries
Chloé Wolifson
‘Lucas Grogan: Skies’
Turner Galleries,
Perth
6 October – 4 November 2017
Grogan’s first solo exhibition in
Western Australia coincides with
his residency at Turner Galleries.
Featuring the artist’s synonymous
blue and white palette, the exhibition
comprises a new suite of paintings
and drawings in which hypnotic
intersecting patterns make refer-
ence to architectural forms. Several
works in the show have been painted
using a new shade, YInMn Blue.
The inorganic pigment was recently
discovered by accident by chem-
ists researching at Oregon State
University, and Grogan has sourced
the colour from the United States.
Lucas Grogan, Bridges 1, 2017, ink, enamel and acrylic
on archival mount board, 185 x 125cm; image courtesy
the artist and Turner Galleries, Perth
12
‘Caz Haswell:
Made in Hong Kong/Curtains’
Flinders Street Gallery,
Sydney
19 October – 11 November 2017
Following her parents’ deaths in
2015, Haswell collected a number
of their possessions which she has
subsequently responded to in ‘Made
in Hong Kong/Curtains’. Using
resonant materials including velvet,
leather, clay, zinc plate and glass,
the artist explores the official and
untold sides of family history. Rifles,
silverware, ornate gilded frames,
embossed leather book covers and
dinner plates all suggest rich stories
which invite the viewer to piece
together this family’s history and
reflect on their own. The exhibition’s
title refers to beginnings and ends:
the place of Haswell’s conception,
and a theatrical term for closure.
Caz Haswell, Drinker of White Wine, 2017, velvet,
cotton and metallic thread, steel rod, 129 x 120cm;
image courtesy the artist and Flinders Street Gallery,
Sydney
Sam JINKS Divide (self portrait) 2011 #romancingtheskull
mixed media, 86 x 60 cm,
Collection: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
Purchased 2015, © Sam Jinks 13
‘Mervyn Rubuntja & Family’
Watch This Space,
Alice Springs
5 – 21 October 2017
At the age of 13, Mervyn Rubuntja
moved with his family to Hermanns-
burg where he observed his uncles
painting in the style of their father
Albert Namatjira. Rubuntja began
to paint at the encouragement of his
family and continued to do so after
returning to Alice Springs in the
mid-1970s. In this exhibition, the
celebrated watercolour artist presents
his own works in both contemporary
and traditional styles, alongside the
works of his family. The show repre-
sents a convergence of cultures and
the enduring legacy of Hermanns-
burg’s Indigenous painting school.
Mervyn Rubuntja, Untitled, 2017, watercolour on
paper, 23 x 71cm; image courtesy the artist and Watch
This Space, Alice Springs
14
‘Dylan Smyth: A Construct’
PhotoAccess,
Canberra
12 October – 5 November 2017
The camera and photographer’s
typecast roles as documenter of truth
are explored in this body of work
by Newcastle-based artist Dylan
Smyth, who begins by documenting
nondescript architectural structures.
These photographs are then used
to painstakingly construct three-
dimensional dioramas which form
the subject of new images. The
resulting photographs reflect the
original scene observed by Smyth
while also containing subtle indica-
tors of the process of their construc-
tion: edges of brickwork sit bluntly
against what, on closer inspection,
appears to be a cardboard footpath.
Dylan Smyth, Maryville 1, 2013–17, digital inkjet print,
30 x 45cm, edition of 5; image courtesy the artist and
PhotoAccess, Canberra
‘Kāryn Taylor: Implicate Order’
Anna Pappas Gallery,
Melbourne
4–28 October 2017
Kāryn Taylor considers how reality,
as described by quantum physics, is
purely abstract – understood only
through mathematics and probabil-
ity. By extension, her work considers
abstraction in terms of the perception
and construction of reality out of
nothing. Using sheet acrylic (perspex)
which is cast into two-dimensional
surfaces, Taylor’s works harness light
and other atmospheric conditions and
appear to glow from within despite an
absence of any electrical components.
Viewers can expect ‘an experiential
encounter with the unseen world’.
Kāryn Taylor, Altered State, 2017, cast acrylic, 60 x 60 x
5cm; image courtesy the artist and Anna Pappas Gallery,
Melbourne
Fred Williams in the You Yangs
until 5 November 2017
Ground–breaking paintings, drawings and prints that represent the turning point in Williams’ vision
of Australian landscape.

Exhibition partners

Geelong Entry fees apply IMAGE

Fred Williams
Book online or purchase
Gallery on arrival You Yang pond (detail) 1963
Little Malop Street Open daily 10am – 5pm oil on composition board
Geelong 3220 Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Drop-in tours Sunday
Gift of Godfrey Phillips International
T +61 3 5229 3645 between 2pm– 4pm Pty Ltd 1968
geelonggallery.org.au © Estate of Fred Williams
15

‘Telaesthesia’
Hill Smith Gallery,
Adelaide
23 September – 14 October 2017
Tony Lloyd, one of the founders of
Melbourne Art Fair satellite event
‘Notfair’, has curated this group ex-
hibition which includes the work of
Stephen Haley, David Ralph, Camil-
la Tadich, Darren Wardle and Lloyd
himself. The title refers to a parapsy-
chological notion of perception from
afar, and this group of artists depicts
an expanded view of reality, par-
ticularly a digitally augmented one,
using a realist painting technique.
‘These painters can be categorised
as representational or realist but the
interesting question is: Which reality
are they representing?’ Lloyd asks.
Tony Lloyd, Elemental, 2016, oil on linen, 120 x
213cm; image courtesy the artist and Hill Smith Gallery,
Adelaide
16
‘Amber Wallis:
Part Time Painting’
Edwina Corlette Gallery,
Brisbane
3 – 19 October 2017
The title of Amber Wallis’s exhibition
refers to the artist’s recent experience
of becoming a parent, and the show
explores the consequent navigation of
the impact of this on her art practice.
As well as practical and temporal
constraints, the experience has also
facilitated Wallis’s revisiting of
memories from her own childhood.
The resulting paintings, with their
compartmentalised compositions
connected by deliberate brushstrokes,
encapsulate what the artist describes
as ‘a fragmented approach with long
thought processes and minimal
practical time’. Shadowy greys and
blues and fleshy pinks suggest a
mapping of psychological space.
Amber Wallis, Vase, 2017, oil on linen, 150 x 120cm;
image courtesy the artist and Edwina Corlette Gallery,
Brisbane
‘Philip Wolfhagen:
Hinterlands’
Bett Gallery,
Hobart
13 – 30 October 2017
Born and residing in the island
state, Wolfhagen’s show draws
inspiration from the Tasmanian
landscape, including the geometry
of the Jurassic dolerite in the moun-
tains near his home. The fragile
vegetation that characterises these
austere alpine landscapes requires,
according to the painter, ‘a careful
rendering to bring out its subtle
beauty’. Another group of paintings
in the show employ graphic marks
to continue a decade-long interest
in the portrait-format compositions
of Claude Lorrain which are framed
by dark tree forms, investigating the
relevance or otherwise of traditional
concepts of landscape composition.
Philip Wolfhagen, Hinterland no. 2, 2017, oil and
beeswax on linen, 120 x 96cm; image courtesy the artist
and Bett Gallery, Hobart
 Arthur Streeton
Blue and Gold

25 October 2017 - 25 February 2018

Carrick Hill, South Australia

Image: Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton, (1867-1943)

The Blue Mountains, c. 1920s
Collection of the Carrick Hill Trust, Adelaide; Hayward Bequest www.carrickhill.sa.gov.au
 —SA FOCUS—
The intimacy
of shared histories
A South Australian roundtable
Liz Nowell, Adelaide
They say that change is as good as a holiday and, for South
Australia, seismic shifts in the arts landscape over the past 18
months have led to a refreshed sector, brimming with a renewed
sense of optimism and opportunity. Over the past 12 months
alone, Adelaide has seen: the merger of two contemporary art
organisations, the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia
and the Australian Experimental Art Foundation, into a single
new entity, ACE Open (for which I am the Chief Executive
Officer); the formation of the new Adelaide artist-run initiative
Sister; the relocation of Fontanelle to Port Adelaide; Emma Fey
appointed as the new Executive Director of Guildhouse; and a
AU$17.54 million investment from BHP Billiton into this year’s
TARNANTHI: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Art. More broadly, the state has and continues
to undergo huge change; as the manufacturing industry begins
to collapse, the State Government turns its attention to major
infrastructure projects and renewable energy. But what does this
mean for the artists living and working here? I sat down with
three – Elyas Alavi, Ali Gumillya Baker and Sera Waters – to
talk about the challenges, opportunities and future of the arts in
South Australia.1
Liz Nowell (LN): I would like to begin by talking
about your individual practices, particularly in relation to
place. Adelaide, or South Australia more broadly, is a site of
immense historical significance, but also a place that champions
contemporary art and experiences. How do the historical and
contemporary aspects of place impact on your work?
Sera Waters (SW): Place, and being in this particular
place of Adelaide, is critical to my practice. Through my work I
respond to the many histories and how these play out as legacies
contemporarily. From spending time in places linked to my
family histories, I notice connections that can’t be turned up
from other forms of research. So, in that way, being in Adelaide
informs my practice directly.
Adelaide and its art communities have also undoubtedly
shaped what I make, how I make, and the opportunities I have
been able to take up. Being a smaller community has many
benefits, especially getting to know the art scene intimately.
Adelaide is also an affordable city in which to sustain a studio.
Elyas Alavi (EA): I primarily work in painting,
performance art, poetry and, more recently, video installation.
My work focuses on issues around identity, memory, exile and
18
displacement through personal experiences. Place is important
as my work mainly deals with political and social issues from
my homeland of Afghanistan, and from Iran where I lived as a
refugee for years, as well as from the Middle East in general.
Adelaide as a place has impacted my practice on different
levels. Here I was able to study visual arts and make a good
connection with my university, with peers, local artists and
galleries, all of which have supported me in establishing myself
as an artist. With this support, I have also found the confidence
to safely work within a range of subjects, including LGBTIQ
[lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning]
topics, which I would not be able to do in Afghanistan or Iran
without fear of severe reprisal. After living here for nearly 10
years I feel safe and able to express my concerns through my
practice. Adelaide has become another ‘home’.
Ali Gumillya Baker (AGB): I have grown up on Kaurna
country in the Nunga community on Tarndanyangga [Victoria
Square]. My family on my mother’s side come from the Far West
Coast of South Australia. We are Mirning from the Nullarbor.
My late father, who was white, escaped from an exclusive
religious sect when he was 16 and was shunned by his family. I
have been privileged to have been loved and cared for by amazing
Aboriginal elders, some of whom have now passed away. I have
been teaching Australian history and art and cinema for the last
17 years in an inspirational team of mainly Indigenous academics
at Flinders University. In the last five years a group of us have
focused on collective work to think about multimedia and
performance as a powerful tool for communication. My practice
encompasses performance, photography, film, sound, textile and
installation.
LN: Visitors often comment that, in many ways, Adelaide
is the perfect city for artists: not only is it affordable, but
there is also an abundance of studio space, a strong arts scene,
accessibility to nature, a vibrant nightlife and the availability of
fresh produce. And unlike other smaller Australian cities such as
Perth or Darwin, it is only a short and cheap flight to the Eastern
seaboard. Having said that, I think there is also a perception
that there is a ‘lack of opportunities’ for professional artists
– certainly this is what people have commented to me. But I
wonder whether or not this is actually true. South Australia has a
strong track record of supporting contemporary artists, whether
it be through opportunities like the Samstag Scholarships, the
Ali Gumillya Baker, sovereignGODDESSnotdomestic #1, 2017, digital photograph on lightbox, 120 x 83cm; image courtesy the artist

19
Top:
Sera Waters, Boundary Wreath, 2017, installation view, ACE Open, Adelaide, 2017; found woollen needleworks, wool, velveteen, beanfill, hooks, 210 x 130cm;
image courtesy the artist and Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide; photo: Grant Hancock

Bottom:
Sera Waters, 9 Son Pining (Toxic Needles), 2017, installation view, ACE Open, Adelaide, 2017; found wooden bowls, rope, handmade beads, beads, herringbone vinyl floor tiles,
dimensions variable; image courtesy the artist and Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide; photo: Grant Hancock

20
South Australian Living Artists Festival (SALA), and the now
(sadly) defunct Artists’ Week as part of the Adelaide Festival.
Those opportunities are only increasing, with the recent
establishment of the Ramsay Art Prize, residency opportunities
offered by organisations such as the Helpmann Academy, and
the establishment of new partnerships across institutions, such as
Next Wave and ACE Open.
SW: I am excited about Adelaide and the arts for we do
some things really well, and the rest of Australia is catching onto
that. Adelaide Festival time, for example, is a highlight and we
have so many interstate and international visitors for good reason.
For me, it is not that there has been a ‘lack of opportunities’, but
more that there is a danger of saturating local audiences (outside
of festival time) and thus a need to take my art beyond Adelaide.
The ‘lack’ arises around creating future pathways further afield.
So reaching interstate audiences, making lasting connections
beyond Adelaide, and pursuing these, is the biggest difficulty,
as is overcoming freight and travelling costs. Valuable and well-
connected galleries – for me, Hugo Michell Gallery and ACE
Open – recognise these challenges and have fortunately opened
important pathways.
EA: I have mixed feelings about this. As a small city,
Adelaide is affordable with less living and studio costs. Artists
know each other which makes it easier to collaborate. We have
great initiatives here, but as an artist from a CALD [culturally
and linguistically diverse] background, there is a slight lack of
opportunity. Only a few galleries actively engage with or are
interested to show works by early career artists with a CALD
background. Commercial galleries are few and far between, so
artists have to look interstate, and I feel there is not enough
diversity in Adelaide, not enough engagement with political
and social critique across cultures in exhibitions. Nexus Arts,
a multicultural not-for-profit multi-platform arts organisation,
has been a huge help over the years in truly supporting my
practice, as well as that of other CALD artists in Adelaide, by
facilitating small-scale developmental exhibition and curatorial
opportunities.
Another important issue is that there are few opportunities,
especially for emerging artists, to meet curators – especially from
interstate. It is an important step to be able to exhibit in galleries
outside Adelaide. Inviting curators to Adelaide and studio visits
would help a lot, especially for emerging artists.
AGB: As part of my interest in what decolonisation might
mean for cultural production, I have always found the art scene
in Adelaide to be very white, with whiteness not being limited to
this place, but a particular kind of white (free-settler) conservatism
associated with the history of wealth and art in Adelaide. There is
also still an assumption that we are entertained by ideas brought
in from outside this place. For example, with WOMADelaide or
the Adelaide Festival, we are often told that the big stars come
from elsewhere. There is an impact of economic globalisation
in relation to perceived opportunity and creative young people
leaving the state. I earn money for survival from teaching, so my
art practice is much more focused on ideas relating to silenced
histories and long-loved and -told stories of place.
LN: Ali, I think you have made an important point: that
the idea of ‘opportunity’ in relation to artistic practice is very
much framed within a western-capitalist context. Which leads
me to the idea of ‘diversity’ within the sector. I think it is crucial
that artists are exposed to different pedagogies, different ways of
seeing and thinking. And diversity, in all its forms, is vital to any
thriving art community; it not only makes for a dynamic cultural
sector, but also ensures that both practitioners and audiences can
find a sense of belonging …
EA: Although I found a good network among the art
communities of Adelaide, mostly among peers and connections
through the art circuit, I have still felt really isolated. Part of
this might be because my art is more involved with my cultural
and ethnic homeland and it is difficult to transfer that to an
Australian audience, to people who have not felt or experienced
similar things. Being small, the art scene is quite close-knit.
This can be good and bad since there is much more emphasis
on individuals rather than on any sense of community. There
are initiatives that challenge that formula, like Fontanelle’s artist
studios. This has been a great environment in helping me to be
not completely isolated.
SW: While working on the local arts zine Vitamin last
decade,2 I realised how many people felt they were outsiders or
on the periphery of the arts community. This really surprised me,
as I was feeling this too and felt alone in this. Projects such as
the zine (as well as studios, ARIs and so on) help people connect
more and certainly helped me. As with every industry there are
trying stages, so connecting with ‘your’ people is very important
and key to continuing in what can be a difficult career.
AGB: I studied Visual Art at the University of South
Australia in the 1990s at Underdale Campus (now a housing
estate). There were many aspects to this education that I enjoyed
and that were enormously beneficial and generous – some post-
structuralist ideas and amazing white feminist artist lecturers. But
what I found thoroughly lacking, and also made me very angry,
was the lack of Aboriginal voices. Not once during my degree
was I taught by an Aboriginal person and, when I think about
it, that is still happening. Aside from the fact that Indigenous
peoples have an enormous amount of insight into this country
and into cultural production (not only in local communities),
we also have incredible and transformative perspectives on the
ways of the colonising cultures that have established ideas of self
here. There was little-to-no context of the violent and very recent
history of this country given to any of the students. This can
create a feeling of being outside, of not understanding something
very crucial related to belonging and place. When we know these
long and short histories, it makes us see the landscape and people
differently. More recently, there is renewed interest in addressing
the impact for us all, and in emerging from the shadow of the
racist foundational representations of settler-state colonialism, to
re-examine the intimacy of our shared stories.
LN: Absolutely, the Adelaide arts scene is a very close-knit
sector, which is both a blessing and a curse. Given our state
is less transient than others, how do you think this translates
to diversity of practice, particularly in relation to conceptual
rigour, materiality and form? Sera, as someone who has studied
and taught across a number of art schools in South Australia,
could you comment on how the art schools have impacted on
cultural production. It has been said that there is a distinct South
Australian aesthetic – one that emphasises a ‘commitment to
making’ or ‘material thinking’.3
EA: I am not sure about a style, but the small visual arts
education sector here certainly is interesting. Each of the three
main institutions could be said to have a very distinct style, in
that they have different approaches to art education, but I can
only speak for one of these, the University of South Australia
where I studied. It has always been seen as a conceptual art
school, basing most disciplines in theory and academia more
than in building manual technical skills or expertise.
SW: Being so immersed in Adelaide art, it is difficult for
me to identify its style. However, I have heard curators recognise
there is a certain tendency towards object-based, often highly
crafted art. When I think of my favourite local artists, many of
their artworks could be seen to fit this generalisation, but dig
down into their practice more and they come from very diverse
21
22
Elyas Alavi, Naan/Bread, 2016–17, video installation; LED light, Middle Eastern bread, acrylic on wall, 158 x 269cm, video: 4 mins 45 secs duration;
image courtesy the artist; photo: Grant Hancock

23
Elyas Alavi, Mohamad Jan, 2016–17, video installation; T-shirt belonging to Mohammad Jan, one of the victims of Kabul’s July 2016 blast when more than 90 protesters
were killed; image courtesy the artist; photo: Grant Hancock
places. From my perspective (as someone who has moved across
art schools in Adelaide), while the ‘meaning through making’
approach has been enabled and even encouraged by specific art
schools and lecturers passing on their knowledge, the Adelaide
arts topography is interconnected more generally. Everything
is entangled: galleries, funding, studios, policy, education,
institutions, festivals, art practice. I cannot help but think of the
long-term effects and passed-along inheritances of places such as
the JamFactory, the Women’s Art Movement, Adelaide Central
School of Art or, more recently, the SALA Festival. As an artist, I
am aware of these histories and they influence my practice.
LN: And what about the future? What do you see as the
opportunities and challenges ahead?
SW: I am excited about future prospects for Adelaide
and the arts, and have always been of the mindset that sharing
opportunities creates more for all in the end and a diverse vibrant
atmosphere. Growth of the arts sector here could enable more
exhibiting opportunities, projects and galleries locally and, with
it, hopefully a growing support base, including collectors, and
audiences from elsewhere.
EA: As much as there have been good, bad and interesting
changes in the local sector, there is so much more that could be
achieved here in Adelaide. We don’t have the numbers or critical
24
mass that other capital cities have, but we have a manageable
scene, with strong links to regional areas around us and beyond.
Continuing, even increasing the level of support, through
collaborations, funding and other initiatives would be amazing.
Engaging as many people as possible in creating a real community
– organising more discussion groups, talks and inviting interstate
curators – would be helpful.
AGB: I am always humbled and hopeful for transformative
cultural practice. For Nunga ways of considering belonging,
authorship and collectivity, there is a renewed potential openness
to our complex local identities – what cannot be bound and is
unmanageable and human about our shared experiences.
1. This conversation took place over email in late August and early
September 2017.
2. Vitamin was created by Shaw Hendry between 2004 and 2010. See
www.vitaminarchive.com, accessed 8 September 2017.
3. See Nick Mitzevich’s comments in the Wendy Walker-convened
roundtable discussion ‘Small enough to be agile’, Art Monthly Australia,
no. 283, September 2015, p. 24.
Ali Gumillya Baker, sovereignGODDESSnotdomestic #2, 2017, digital photograph on lightbox, 120 x 83cm; image courtesy the artist

25
 —SA FOCUS—
States of commonality
and correspondence
‘The Drawing Exchange’
Joe Frost, Adelaide
A joint venture between Adelaide Central School of Art and
Sydney’s National Art School, ‘The Drawing Exchange’ saw more
than 20 artists from around Australia converge on the campuses of
both schools during the second week of August this year. We came
together to create wall drawings in exhibition spaces and public
areas, in a festival-like event that was open for students and the
general public to observe. The premise was simple but ambitious:
to air a gamut of definitions of drawing at a public scale, bringing
artists and audience into dialogue with the challenge of ephemeral
site-specific drawing.
The intensive study of drawing is at the core of the teaching
programs at each school, and as two institutions that have thrived
outside the university system it is perhaps surprising that they have
not partnered for an initiative such as ‘The Drawing Exchange’
before. But such is the separation that 1400 kilometres and a state
border can induce. Across both venues through the weeks of ‘The
Drawing Exchange’ (and resulting exhibitions), commonalities
and correspondences emerged organically.
The full-scale representation of the human body was a theme
in Adelaide (Rob Gutteridge, Luke Thurgate) and large images of
human heads popped up in both cities (Daniel Connell, Jonathan
McBurnie). Artists on either side of the border tuned into the
rhythmic pulse of line (Liz Bradshaw, Annelies Jahn, Pollyxenia
Joannou, Yve Thompson); used the wall as a ground to scribe
an arc upon (Sally Clarke, Margaret Roberts); and inscribed the
wall itself with the illusion of fracturing (Christopher Orchard)
or bowing (Caroline Durré). The indoors became a space for
summoning the city (Wendy Murray) or to diagram a sculptor’s
schema (Roy Ananda).
New and redundant technologies were both conspicuous,
with machines leaving traces after sound (Ben Denham, Sasha
Opposite:
The Drawing Exchange, installation view, Adelaide Central School of Art (ACSA), August 2017, with: Sally Clarke, Void, 2017,
modelling clay on wall, 300 x 300cm, made using instructions by Chelsea Farquhar; image courtesy ACSA, Adelaide; photo: Sam Roberts
26
Grbich) or tracking across the terrain of a sheet of paper (James
Dodd), while the iPad (Sally Parnis) and the virtual-reality
headset (Susannah Williams) served as interfaces to prise apart the
illusions of drawn space. Finally, video links to artists drawing on
a daily basis in studios in Melbourne (Zhen) and Rome (Johnnie
Dady) extended the circle beyond the Adelaide–Sydney axis.
The theme of exchange was thoroughly borne out. For me,
it entailed swapping cities for a week with one of the lecturers of
Adelaide Central and entering that school’s extended family. Many
hundreds of visitors streamed through ‘The Drawing Exchange’
during the days when the drawings were being made, enjoying
close, unmediated proximity to the artists-at-work. Thus, at the
very moment of committing marks to the largest surface I have
ever touched, my methods became the subject of a discussion
that would never arise in the studio. But the quietly industrious
camaraderie I enjoyed with the artists working to either side of me
was the counterpoint to this performance. Some were seasoned
wall-drawers, others were first-timers, with a healthy mingling of
generations, but the shared memory of the endeavour will endure
even after the drawings have been erased.
‘The Drawing Exchange’ saw artists Daniel Connell, Johnnie Dady,
Ben Denham, James Dodd, Joe Frost, Rob Gutteridge, Wendy
Murray, Christopher Orchard, Sally Parnis, Margaret Roberts,
Yve Thompson and Luke Thurgate create work and exhibit at the
Adelaide Central School of Art from 7 August until 22 September;
participating from 7 August until 2 September at Sydney’s National
Art School were artists Roy Ananda, Liz Bradshaw, Sally Clarke,
Caroline Durré, Sasha Grbich, Annelies Jahn, Pollyxenia Joannou,
Jonathan McBurnie, Susannah Williams and Zhen.
27
Top:
The Drawing Exchange, installation view with artist Susannah Williams, National Art School (NAS), Sydney, August 2017;
image courtesy NAS, Sydney; photo: Steven Cavanagh

Bottom:
The Drawing Exchange, installation view with (from left) artists Sally Clarke and Margaret Roberts, National Art School (NAS), Sydney, August 2017;
image courtesy NAS, Sydney; photo: Steven Cavanagh

28
Top:
The Drawing Exchange, installation view with artist Caroline Durré, National Art School (NAS), Sydney, August 2017;
image courtesy NAS, Sydney; photo: Steven Cavanagh

Bottom:
The Drawing Exchange, installation view with artist Jonathan McBurnie, National Art School (NAS), Sydney, August 2017;
image courtesy NAS, Sydney; photo: Steven Cavanagh

29
Top:
The Drawing Exchange, installation view with artist Liz Bradshaw, National Art School (NAS), Sydney, August 2017;
image courtesy NAS, Sydney; photo: Steven Cavanagh

Bottom:
The Drawing Exchange, installation view, Adelaide Central School of Art (ACSA), August 2017, with (from left) artists Wendy Murray and Joe Frost;
image courtesy ACSA, Adelaide; photo: Sam Roberts

30
Top:
The Drawing Exchange, installation view with the work of Roy Ananda, National Art School (NAS), Sydney, August 2017;
image courtesy NAS, Sydney; photo: Steven Cavanagh

Bottom:
The Drawing Exchange, installation view, Adelaide Central School of Art (ACSA), August 2017, with: Luke Thurgate, Monster (in response to Rob Gutteridge), 2017,
charcoal on wall, 300 x 272cm; image courtesy ACSA, Adelaide; photo: Sam Roberts

31
 —SA FOCUS—

Every face has a story,

every story has a face: Kulila!
Marlene Rubuntja, Larapinta

Yarrenyty Arltere Artists sewed these heads, to show all our

faces, to tell our stories. These faces show lots of different
feelings. You can’t say that we only worry about one thing or
that only one thing makes us happy; we have too many feelings
inside our heads and bodies.
That one with the eyes closed and the bird flying across
her face? Well, that belongs to Dulcie Raggett. She is thinking
about what to make next with her sewing. She is looking for new
ideas inside her own mind. If she closes her eyes, then she can
think about art instead of thinking about bad and sad things,
about the things that worry us. Dulcie had that little tent back
then to sleep in, no home, just the tent and the creek across the
road. Dulcie is still waiting for a home, now with her daughter.
If you let the worry fill you up, well you just might not be able
to get out of bed some days.
And the head with lots of tears? Well, that’s me because
my family hurts when it fights. But when you drop your tears,
they take away some of that pain and hurt. Those tears flow out
like a river, taking all that pain with them. I cry a lot you know.
For ‘TARNANTHI 2017’, we also made a new film called
Petrol Been Wasting All Our Lives, because back then in 2000
petrol smelling was everywhere. We made a film to share that
story because it was a scary time and we don’t want that time to
come back ever again. I remember Dulcie Sharpe and Raymond
Ebatarinja used to shift inside the Learning Centre to get away
from all those sniffers. They were some of the ones trying to fix
this up. Those kids were really smart with their sniffing, down Marlene Rubuntja’s story was told to art coordinator Sophie
the creek, up the hill, everywhere. When the adults ran out of Wallace. The collaborative soft sculpture Every face has a story,
wine they would sometimes sniff too. People also sniffed that every story has a face: Kulila! was made by artists Trudy Inkamala,
bicycle glue – you know, for fixing up your broken tyre. Maybe Roxanne Petrick, Dulcie Raggett, Marlene Rubuntja, Rosabella
it gave people a hole in the head because people were mad for Ryder, Dulcie Sharpe, Rhonda Sharpe, Roxanne Sharpe and
the sniffing. It really was a bad time. That’s why we made this Valerie Stafford at Yarrenyty Arltere Artists, Larapinta, in 2016.
film – and to show how we had the idea to make the Yarrenyty- Along with the video work Petrol Been Wasting All Our Lives
Arltere Learning Centre and art centre a place for everyone to (2017), it will be exhibited as part of ‘TARNANTHI 2017’ at
get well so we won’t have that scary time again. the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, from 13 October
2017 until 28 January 2018.

Trudy Inkamala, Roxanne Petrick, Dulcie Raggett, Marlene Rubuntja, Rosabella Ryder, Dulcie Sharpe, Rhonda Sharpe, Roxanne Sharpe and Valerie Stafford,
Every face has a story, every story has a face: Kulila!, 2016, 9-piece soft sculpture made with bush dyed woolen blankets, wool, cotton, feathers, sticks, 228 x 120 x 100cm;
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, acquired through the TARNANTHI: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art supported by BHP, 2017;
image courtesy the artists and Yarrenyty Arltere Artists, Larapinta

32
 —SA FOCUS—

Clay bosses
Indigenous potters at the JamFactory

Hannah Kothe, Pukatja

Derek Jungarrayi Thompson in the studio; image courtesy the artist and Ernabella Arts, Pukatja

33
Jimmy K. Thaiday working at the Erub Arts studio; photo: Lynnette Griffiths
With the clay you can really be the boss of that one. You can
add to it or can take away. You can straighten or mend it.1
For two weeks this month, Nephi Denham, Lawrence
Inkamala, Jimmy K. Thaiday and Derek Jungarrayi Thompson
are working alongside one another as part of a ceramics
residency at JamFactory to coincide with the TARNANTHI:
Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Art. The four men are all emerging ceramic artists exploring,
as JamFactory’s Senior Curator Margaret Hancock Davis
has described, the ‘expressive and celebratory’ qualities of the
medium.2 The men each work within the art centres in their
communities – Nephi Denham at Girringun Aboriginal Art
Centre, Lawrence Inkamala at Hermannsburg Potters, Jimmy
K. Thaiday at Erub Arts, and Derek Jungarrayi Thompson at
Ernabella Arts.
The residency is the first in a series of planned activities
for the recently reinvigorated Remote Communities Ceramic
Network. The Network was established in 2006 and is a semi-
formal alliance between five remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander art centres working in clay. Artists from each art centre
are also presenting new work in ‘Clay Stories: Contemporary
Indigenous Ceramics from Remote Australia’, an exhibition at
JamFactory at Seppeltsfield as part of the festival. The exhibition
is presented by Sabbia Gallery in Sydney, and is embarking on a
tour of regional galleries throughout 2018 and 2019 supported
by Visions of Australia.
Derek Jungarrayi Thompson has been a practising potter
at Ernabella Arts in South Australia’s Anangu Pitjantjatjara
Yankunytjatjara Lands since 2011. He joined the art centre
when senior men convened the first watiku (men’s) ceramics
workshop. Similar workshops have been held at Ernabella Arts
every year since. Meanwhile Thompson has travelled twice to
the Australian National University for ceramics residencies, and
twice to Jingdezhen in China to work at the Big Pot Factory.
He is now looking forward to the opportunity to work with
Indigenous men of the same or a similar generation, from
different communities, sharing stories and developing skills:
34
Lawrence Inkamala at Hermannsburg Potters; image courtesy the artist
I started in ceramics because some of the old men asked me
to come along to the first watiku workshop. I have kept going
and going with my ceramics. Now I heard that Lawrence
Inkamala joined Hermannsburg Potters. He is like me, not a
tjilpi (old man) yet; it is good to work together, to learn from
each other.3
Lawrence Inkamala is the newest artist of the four to join his
respective art centre and consequently the Network. He began
at Hermannsburg Potters less than 12 months ago, although his
family’s artistic legacy goes back to the early days of the Namatjira
School:
I joined the Pottery because no man was working here. My
mum always told me I needed to work at the Pottery. Growing
up, I used to always watch my grandfather making his water-
colour paintings, my Nanna Anita, my mother Hayley, all the
ladies working. It looked like something I’d want to do.4
In comparison, both Jimmy K. Thaiday and Nephi Denham
are seasoned artists with experience travelling beyond their own
community to develop and present new work. Earlier this year
Jimmy travelled from his home in the Torres Strait to Singapore
for an exhibition of Erub ‘Ghost Net’ sculptures, another
manifestation of his three-dimensional practice. In 2016 Nephi
travelled to Monaco to work on the installation of the large-scale
‘Bagu’ sculptures at the city’s Oceanographic Museum. While
the residency at JamFactory may be a little closer to home, it
equally offers the chance to develop new work and explore new
techniques based on exposure to other cultures and ways of
making. The opportunity to work alongside other Indigenous
ceramic artists also opens up possibilities for both individual
and collaborative works based around shared themes and stories.
According to Jimmy K. Thaiday:
The experience of being around different cultures, learning
and seeing in a totally different environment and culture
makes me think how I interpret my own stories.5
 Nephi Denham and Emily Murray creating one of the large ceramic ‘Bagu’ figures at Girringun Aboriginal Art Centre;
photo: Valerie Keenan

Derek Jungarrayi Thompson adds:
We come from different communities, different Country, but
we are all sharing our Tjukurpa (cultural stories). We speak
different languages. We are telling stories using clay. Some of
those other fellas make sculptures. I tell my stories on pots.6
Vitally, the residency presents the opportunity for the men
to refine and deepen their command of clay – broadening their
technical knowledge and pushing their creative practice through
working alongside each other. The intention being that they will
return to their respective communities with a greater mastery of
the medium, as the community ‘clay bosses’ perhaps.

As Derek articulates, the connecting thread that has brought

these four men together is their practice in clay, however varied. 1. Email conversation with Nephi Denham via Valerie Keenan, Gir-
In fact, their diverse uses of the medium mirror the diversity of ringun Aboriginal Art Centre, August 2017.
their influences, cultures and experiences. To date Jimmy has
worked primarily creating sculptural forms based on reinter-
2. Margaret Hancock Davis, ‘Clay stories’, TARNANTHI: Festival of
pretations of Torres Strait songs, dances and body adornment,
Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, exhibition cata-
wood-fired in a kiln at Erub Arts and often incorporating natural
logue, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2017.
fibres and occasionally resin elements.
Derek and Lawrence tell their stories on the surface of
pots, using form, mark and colour to depict and express country 3. Conversation with Derek Jungarrayi Thompson in Pukatja Com-
sustained by Tjukurpa/Tnangkarra, family and culture. Derek’s munity, August 2017.
work skillfully employs underglazes, locally collected terra sigil-
lata and sgraffito mark-making to depict stories of the mythic
Wanampi (watersnake), Ngintaka (sand goanna) and others that 4. Email conversation with Lawrence Inkamala via Gabrielle Walling-
formed his Country. ton, Hermannsburg Potters, August 2017.
Lawrence is quickly developing his hand-building skills
and his use of painted underglazes to, as he eloquently describes,
‘catch the landscape’,7 an endeavour of artists from the Ntaria 5. Email conversation with Jimmy K. Thaiday via Lynnette Griffiths,
community across both watercolour painting and ceramics. Erub Arts, August 2017.
Nephi’s work is based on the Far North Queensland
traditional and ceremonial practice of firestick-making and
maintenance, essential in a rainforest environment. Traditionally 6. Derek Jungarrayi Thompson, op. cit.
these firesticks were made up of two parts: the jiman (sticks) were
made from mudja (wild guava tree) and a bagu (body) made from
boogadilla (milky pine tree). Today Nephi and other Girringun 7. Lawrence Inkamala, op. cit.
artists reinterpret bagu, creating sculptural figures in a new
medium. His ‘Bagu’ figures as well as some hand-built vessels
incorporate painted underglazes and pattern-making of rainfor- ‘Clay Stories: Contemporary Indigenous Ceramics from Remote
est iconography, including clearly defined blocks of colour, linear Australia’ is on display at JamFactory at Seppeltsfield as part
work (predominately black charcoal) and distinctive diamond of ‘TARNANTHI 2017’, from 7 October until 10 December
shapes. 2017.

35
 —SA FOCUS—

Pepai Jangala Carroll’s

journey home
Luke Scholes, Walungurru

36
Pepai Jangala Carroll at Womikata, near Pukatja, South Australia, in July 2017 with: Yumari, 2017, stoneware with slips and underglazes, 44 x 40cm;
image courtesy the artist and Ernabella Arts, Pukatja; photo: Rhett Hammerton

37
During a cool week in April 2017, the illuminating painter and
maverick ceramist Pepai Jangala Carroll journeyed into Country
not visited since childhood in the 1950s. With a troop carrier
of followers who included Derek Jungarrayi Thompson, staff
from Ernabella Arts and myself, Pepai took us into the storied
landscapes of the deserts outside of Alice Springs. Pepai was de-
termined to return to his father’s Country near the Walungurru
(Kintore) community 500 kilometres west of Alice Springs. We
were destined for two sites marked on Pepai’s map as personally
significant: the soakage water of Ininti and the vast salt lake of
Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay).
Like many Pintupi people of his generation, Pepai was
born at the former ration station of Haasts Bluff. His father, a
Pintupi man, Henry Paripata Tjampitjinpa, and his Pitjantjatjara
mother, Nancy Napangati, spent time living there before moving
briefly to Areyonga and then Papunya. For a while Paripata was
a dingo scalper and travelled long distances collecting their pelts
which he sold to support his growing family. On one such trip in
the 1950s, a young Pepai accompanied his father into Country
for which they both held customary rights. This included an op-
portunity to visit Paripata’s birthplace at the soakage Ininti. Little
did they know that this would be their first and only journey
there as father and son.
After the untimely death of his mother, Pepai and his
siblings were sent to live with relatives in Ernabella. Paripata
remained in Papunya and passed away a short time later, further
isolating Pepai from the distant lands for which he held custom-
ary rights. Staying on in Ernabella with his family, Pepai married
Alison Milyika Carroll and together they have five children. He
spent his early years working as a carpenter and on a sheep station
and later was appointed various community governance roles.
These included 20 years as Community Constable, a role he
retired from in 2006. However, retirement did not sit well, and
soon after Pepai took to painting and then ceramics, establishing
himself as a stalwart at Ernabella Arts in the Pukatja Community
of South Australia’s far north-west.
Now some 60 years since he journeyed there with his
father, Pepai was due to return to Country and connect with
those who could help him bridge the personal, social and cultural
gap that had persisted since his last visit. At Walungurru, senior
men gathered to speak with Pepai, inspired by his impassioned
and determined quest for knowledge. Pepai sat solemnly, listen-
ing with intent, absorbing the details of the impressive lineage
of Tjampitjinpa and Tjangala, who spoke of the time prior to
the establishment of settlements and missions. It was a touching
moment to observe and a reminder that Pepai’s experience is not
uncommon among those caught up in the tumultuous period of
resettlement that many experienced in the Central and Western
deserts over the past century.
38
Later that day we finally arrived at Ininti, where there now
lies an abandoned outstation nestled gently between glorious
sandhills that cannon into a nearby escarpment of ancient rock.
On arriving Pepai felt a rush of memory and spoke of his family
travelling and living in Country prior to contact:
They would all stay here, just the family. They stayed here
without anything [bore, power and so on], no house. They
stayed at the soakage. This water is the soakage.1
A small overgrown depression marked the source at Ininti. Keen
to test the reliability of its water, the vicinity of the soakage was
cleared and a deep hole was dug. As the ground under our feet
slowly swelled with water, this gentle man of the desert began to
smile with quiet joy.
Our travel continued to Kiwirrkura where Pepai spent
valuable time with his classificatory father Jimmy Brown
Tjampitjinpa and then onto Wilkinkarra. On arrival Pepai hur-
ried toward its great salty expanse and revelled in its absorbing
presence. He wandered alone, taking it all in, happy to remember
his time with his father Paripata.
At the insistence of many he had spoken to on this journey,
Pepai was encouraged to visit other related sites, most notably the
rockhole site of Yumari. It is this place, in particular, which has
inspired a new body of work:
I went to that place Kiwirrkura and I was returning and we
came halfway to see my father’s Country, to see my father’s
and grandmother’s Country and the big rockhole, it’s really
long. I was looking at it and after seeing it I thought, ‘Well, I
might paint this one’. The name of the place is Yumari. That
place Yumari. I’m painting that one now.
Clearly a man of innate sensitivity to landscape, Pepai’s recent
works are striking and unknowingly bear iconography like that
used by senior Pintupi men before him to identify Yumari,
namely the late Uta Uta Tjangala. The subsequent body of work
that this journey has inspired will mark 2017 as a significant year
in Pepai’s artistic life.
1. All quotes in this article were drawn from the author’s conversations
with the artist in April 2017.
This article was part of a longer text originally commissioned for
the TARNANTHI 2017 catalogue published by the Art Gallery
of South Australia (AGSA), Adelaide. The recent work of Pepai
Jangala Carroll and fellow Ernabella artist and potter Derek Jun-
garrayi Thompson is being shown in the exhibition ‘Mark and
Memory’ as part of ‘TARNANTHI 2017’ at the AGSA from 13
October 2017 until 28 January 2018.
Pepai Jangala Carroll, Mu Mu, 2017, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 175 x 280cm; image courtesy the artist and Ernabella Arts, Pukatja; photo: Rhett Hammerton

39
40
 —SA FOCUS—

Hossein Valamanesh
In his mother’s hands
Andrew Purvis, Adelaide

Hossein Valamanesh, Where do I come from?, 2013, digital print on canvas, 95.5 x 217.5 cm, edition of 6 + 1 AP;
image courtesy the artist and GAGPROJECTS, Adelaide; photo: M. Kluvanek

41
Hossein Valamanesh, Daily Bread, 1995, fabric, rope, papier-mâché, stones, 254 x 150 x 30cm;
image courtesy the artist and GAGPROJECTS, Adelaide; photo: M. Kluvanek

42
In Hossein Valamanesh’s Where do I come from? (2013), maps of
the world have been cut into small squares and collaged together
to create a new geography. On Valamanesh’s idiosyncratic earth,
the ocean is vast, made up of tessellated tiles of subtly variegated
blue. The continents have coalesced into a tightly organised
archipelago, a chain of islands that resemble lines of Persian
calligraphy:
Whence have I come, why this coming here?
Where to must I go, when will my home to me be shown?1
This reorganisation of topography reflects an emotional
comprehension of the world, one in which accustomed spatial
relations are dissolved and supplanted by an understanding that
comes from the heart. Valamanesh is a man with two homes: one
is found in a vividly recollected childhood in Tehran, the other in
his adopted country of Australia.
For the Adelaide-based artist, these two places are closely
intertwined; the subtle, allusive iconography that runs throughout
his work is constructed from both his memories of Iran and
his sensorial engagement with the Australian landscape. Now,
this rich intermingling of cultures will be borne out for real, as
Valamanesh is about to stage his first ever solo exhibition in Iran,
also titled ‘Where do I come from?’, at Aaran Projects in Tehran.
Valamanesh left Iran for Australia in 1973 at the age of 24.
Since arriving in this country, he has enjoyed a long and richly
productive artistic career. Although known primarily as a sculptor,
his varied practice has ranged from lithography to land art, while
taking on large-scale video installations, public art commissions
and stage design. Valamanesh’s practice is characterised by
meditative processes of material engagement, enriched by a
mysterious, almost mystical personal symbology. The exhibition
at Aaran Projects is intended to convey a sense of this fecund
diversity, encompassing 24 years of practice, from 1992 to 2016.
The judicious selection of work manages to draw out
many of the persistent themes and ideas in Valamanesh’s practice
and identifies many of the key elements of his visual language,
allowing one to read this exhibition like a retrospective in
miniature. The artist’s abiding passion for the poetry of Rumi is
evident in the elegant installation Home of Mad Butterflies (1996),
in which lines from the poet are painted along the wall, the final
words repeated again and again so as to create long ribbons of text
around the room. Two ladders and a pair of empty shoes imply
the presence of the absent calligrapher; these two visual elements,
the ladder and the implied figure, continue to be recurring motifs
in Valamanesh’s practice. The use of text can be found elsewhere
in the show, in Memory Stick (2008) and Hasti Masti (2016), the
latter work playing with two repeated Farsi words (hasti meaning
‘existence’ and masti meaning ‘intoxication’) to create a neat
formal composition.
Another refrain of Valamanesh’s practice is the entangling
of his two homelands, juxtaposing the intricate ornamentation
and patterning of Islamic art with natural elements sourced from
his garden and surrounding suburbs. In Architecture of the sky no.
1 & no. 2 (2014), the artist references the sophisticated brickwork
that both decorates and supports the ceilings of Iranian mosques,
translating these complex patterns into formal arrangements of
lotus leaves. Elsewhere in the exhibition, the installation Both
sides of the story (1995) features an ornamented picture frame
containing a panel of red dirt, conjuring up associations with the
Australian desert.
‘Where do I come from?’ might also be considered
retrospective in the way in which the artist’s biography is
interwoven throughout the work. His art is suffused with visual
elements sourced from memory, evoking recollections of his
childhood in Tehran, his relationship with his wife, and the
midlife heart attack that almost claimed his life. For instance, the
work Daily Bread (1995) references the traditional naan bought
from the local markets of Tehran, which is baked on a bed of hot
stones that then have to be swept from the loaf before eating.
The work also alludes to his grandmother’s chador, beneath which
he used to play. In this sense, the exhibition is bookended by
two works: In my mother’s hands (2011), in which the artist has
subtly retouched a photo of himself as a baby to draw the viewer’s
attention to his mother’s hands only just visible in the frame;
and Passing time (2011), which features the artist’s own hands,
now those of an older man, perpetually threading his fingers
in a looped video (made in collaboration with his son Nassiem
Valamanesh).
For Valamanesh, the opportunity to show this body of
work in Tehran is much-anticipated. For a long time the artist
has employed a system of personal symbology combined with
a set of cultural signifiers unique to his Iranian childhood. For
Australian audiences, this has often imbued the work with a
sense of numinous meaning; it will be fascinating for the artist
to garner the response of viewers for whom these allusions are
more immediately accessible and comprehensible. Conversely,
the elements of the Australian landscape may take on new
connotations of exoticism and strangeness for Iranian audiences.
As a man with two homes, Valamanesh’s work will be viewed
differently in each place. With ‘Where do I come from?’, the
possibilities are both thrilling and intriguing.
1. From Rumi’s Masnavi poem, translated by Shahriar Shahriari, 1998.
See www.rumionfire.com/shams/rumi114.htm, accessed 5 September 2017.
Hossein Valamanesh’s exhibition ‘Where do I come from?’ is
on display at Aaran Projects in Tehran from 27 October until 13
November 2017.
43
Hossein Valamanesh, In my mother’s hands, 2011, photographer unknown, digital print on paper, 75 x 60cm, edition of 7 + 1 AP;
image courtesy the artist and GAGPROJECTS, Adelaide

44
Hossein Valamanesh, Passing time, 2011, MDF, monitor and media player, 61 x 52 x 52cm, 4 minute loop, edition of 6 + 1 AP;
image courtesy the artist and GAGPROJECTS, Adelaide; photo: M. Kluvanek

45
Hossein Valamanesh, Architecture of the sky no.1, 2014, lotus leaves on paper on plywood, 120 x 120cm;
image courtesy the artist and GAGPROJECTS, Adelaide; photo: M. Kluvanek

46
 Another Look:
Contemporary Artists
and The Collection
Five contemporary artists have been
commissioned to produce new work
inspired by the Town Hall Gallery Collection.
Featuring: Vivian Cooper Smith, Dana Harris,
Siri Hayes, Tai Snaith and Kylie Stillman

28 Oct – 20 Dec

SMITH, Vivian, Edward (2017), Digital C-Type Print, 60 x 80cm, Ed. 5+2AP,
© Image courtesy of the artist and Galerie pompom.

Town Hall Gallery

Hawthorn Arts Centre
360 Burwood Road, Ph: 03 9278 4700
Hawthorn VIC 3122 www.boroondara.vic.gov.au/arts

DEREK KRECKLER
ACCIDENT & PROCESS
14 OCTOBER - 26 NOVEMBER
A major survey exhibition bringing together,
for the first time, fifty years of the artist’s oeuvre.
It encompasses photography, video, installation
and performance documentation that dates from the
1970s to the present day. Curated by Hannah Mathews.

Image: Derek Kreckler, Wet Dream (red) (detail), 1978,

colour video, digitised from 35mm transparencies, looped.
Courtesy of the artist.

A PICA touring exhibition

The development, presentation, promotion and tour of this

project has been assisted by the Australian Government
through the Ministry for the Arts’ Visions of Australia program

Corner Kembla & Burelli Wollongong Art Gallery is a service of Wollongong City Council and
streets Wollongong receives assistance from the NSW Government through Create NSW.
phone 02 4227 8500 Wollongong Art Gallery is a member of Regional and Public Galleries
www.wollongongartgallery.com of NSW. WCC©1463751.MDP
www.facebook/wollongongartgallery
open Tues-Fri 10am-5pm
weekends 12-4pm

47
 WAVERLEY
ARTIST
STUDIOS 5 artists studios
12 months

Waverley Artist Studios are for emerging, mid career and

professional artists. Based in Bondi, studio spaces are
offered from February 2018 – January 2019. Successful
applicants will benefit from:

e A fully subsidised studio space

e Paid professional development opportunities

APPLICATIONS CLOSE 20 OCTOBER 2017

www.waverley.nsw.gov.au/art

2 /2016: V ISUA L A R T S
A NU
G RADS CHOOL
U A T E S OF
EASAO
RTN
Main Gallery, ANU School of Art
2 / 2 0 1 7 : V I S U A L A RT S
Exhibition
G RA D U ATOne
E S E A S ON
16–25 June ANU
Main Gallery, 2016School
| Reception
of Art Wednesday 15 June, 6pm
Carolyn Young Photography & Media Arts | Doctor of Philosophy
Kelly Austin Ceramics | Master of Philosophy
Gregory One Painting | Doctor of Philosophy
ExhbitionHodge
28 September -Two
Exhibition 14 October 2017
Charlotte Banks Painting | Master of Philosophy
30 June – 9 July 2016 | Reception Wednesday 29 June, 6pm
Peng Qian Ceramics | Doctor of Philosophy
Exhbition
Julia YangTwo
Ceramics | Doctor of Philosophy
Daniel October 2017 Sculpture | Doctor of Philosophy
18 - 28Stewart-Moore
Odette England Photography and Media Arts | Doctor of Philosophy
Exhibition Three
CRICOS# 00120C | MO_CASS16220

Khadeeja Althagafi Gold and Silversmithing | Doctor of Philosophy

18–27 August 2016 | Reception Wednesday 17 August, 6pm
Michael Edwards Painting | Doctor of Philosophy
Bryan Spier Painting | Doctor of Philosophy
Genevieve Swifte Photography and Media Arts |
Doctor of Philosophy
Image: Susan Banks, Full Stretch (Braden and Kane) Detail, 2017,
Image Kelly Austin, peat composition, 2016. Wheel-thrown stoneware and porcelain and
acrylic35on
glaze, canvas,
x 25 x 25cm. 112.5 x 90 Andrew
Photograph: cm. Photographic
Sikorski credit: David Paterson

48
 Gallery Opening night New work from the studios
Former Mansfield Gallery Wednesday 11 October 2017 @square1 • sq1.net.au
269d Darlinghurst Rd Exhibition
Darlinghurst, NSW 11 October – 22 October 2017
Opening hours Finissage
10am – 5pm Friday 20 October 2017

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Michael Zavros, Flora, 2016, Oil on aluminium
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www.mosmanartgallery.org.au

49
 Recent and forthcoming
ORIGINAL AND NEW FROM TRANSIT LOUNGE
FROM TRANSIT LOUNGE

‘a tender examination of ‘studded with tender details that mark A Dante-esque journey
identity and self expression’ its sensitivity to trauma and despair’ through Sydney in the
JODIE SLOAN, THE AU REVIEW THUY ON, THE AUSTRALIAN post-punk 1980s

PROGRAM
26 August – 15 October 2017

BOOK CLUB
Works by contemporary artists Chris Bond,
Deidre Brollo, Simryn Gill, Julie Gough,
Stephen Goddard, William Kentridge, Archie Moore,
Brigita Ozolins, Patrick Pound, Cyrus Tang,
Ahn Wells, and writer Naomi Riddle, acknowledge
the material and conceptual resonance of books.
A gallery project curated by Meryl Ryan

LEZLIE TILLEY: GLASS CAGE

A patient respect for the integrity and poetry of
an idea distinguishes the practice of established
Hunter-based artist Lezlie Tilley. In this exhibition,
we see her work evolve from reworked books and
A-less texts, to a sound work that resonates with
the influence of Philip Glass and John Cage.
A gallery project curated by Meryl Ryan in consultation with the artist

From Book Club: Patrick Pound, The Collector 2000-17, a collection of novels,
dimensions variable, courtesy the artist and Station, Melbourne; Hamish McKay Gallery,
Wellington; and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland © the artist

THE HUNTER’S ONLY WATERFRONT GALLERY ARTGALLERY.LAKEMAC.COM.AU

50
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MEMORIAL
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10am–5pm (DST) 2 Mistral Road, South Murwillumbah NSW
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12 MARCH 2018 Studio Artist Agatha
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Anh Do, 2016 Finalist Photo Maja Baska.

51
 —REVIEW—
Making a splash
‘Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017’
En Young Ahn, Münster
Nicole Eisenman, Sketch for a Fountain, 2017, installation view, ‘Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017’, 2017;
bronze, plaster, basin; photo: En Young Ahn
Skulptur Projekte Münster occurs every ten years in the north-
western German university city of Münster. It was initiated in
1977 to edify the citizens about the latest contemporary art
developments and in response to an uproar against the 1973
installation of George Rickey’s kinetic sculpture in a local park.
The exhibition has been non-thematic. Artists are invited to
Münster and asked to develop site-specific works following their
visits. Apart from their proposed budgets, artists are allowed the
full control of their work.1 Beyond the conventional sculptural
approaches, diverse explorations of public sculpture, including
ephemeral actions and electronic technology-based experiments,
are also permitted.
The first Skulptur Projekte featured only male artists. This
gender bias was subtly pointed out in the recent fifth edition
by the Berlin-based Iranian artist Nairy Baghramian’s Privileged
Points (2017), a lacquered bronze sculpture, consciously installed
on a popular site used only by male artists in the past. With the
exception of Thomas Schütte’s Nuclear Temple (2011), Baghra-
mian’s sculpture was one of 35 newly produced works that com-
prised ‘Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017’. The majority of the
works were installed within a radius manageable by a short-term
visit and reachable by bicycle.2 For the first time, some works
52
were also shown in the neighboring former mining town of Marl,
made accessible by a regular free bus service throughout the 100-
day exhibition period. The new works together with the public
collection of 39 works by past participants like Claes Oldenburg
and Donald Judd, allowed the reappraisal of sculpture as an ef-
fective medium in generating a broad public discussion on the
current issues in art and their social relevance. They also enabled
a glimpse of the art historical development of sculpture in the
last half-century.
For example, an engaging debate on the concept of sculp-
ture and public art was activated by the American performance
artist Michael Smith’s Not Quite Under_Ground, which com-
prised a fully operational tattoo parlour intended for seniors aged
65 and older. The parlour offered permanent tattoos on the body
of its visitors, a private realm, as a souvenir of art experience.
A highlight of the latest Skulptur Projekte was Pierre
Huyghe’s After ALife Ahead, a spectacular time-based and
biotech-engineered work. Inside a disused ice rink, the artist cre-
ated a landscape of hills, valleys and islands inhabited by algae,
insects, GloFish and chimera peacocks. All the processes taking
place were carefully designed to be mutually interdependent. For
example, changes in the local weather might influence a strand
Ayşe Erkmen, On Water, 2017, installation view, ‘Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017’, 2017; ocean cargo containers, steel beams, steel grates, 6400 x 640cm; photo: En Young Ahn
of HeLa cancer cells in an incubator at a corner of the building,
in turn triggering the opening and shutting of a pyramid-shaped
window in the celling. The ambiguity of the artist’s aims, en-
hanced by some constituent elements of the work, virtually im-
possible to grasp by an audience without the required expertise,
generated multiple interpretations.
Another intriguing work was the New York-based French
artist Nicole Eisenman’s Sketch for a Fountain installed on an
idyllic park lawn. It consisted of five larger-than-life nude figures
which were made of bronze or plaster, casually grouped around
a rectangular pool. The voluminous and ambiguously gendered
figures prompted a number of questions about the perceived
normal ideas of body and sexuality, making one ponder whether
this work was an allegory of a queer Arcadia.
A number of the works concerned the political issues of
globalisation, climate change, refugees, immigration, racism and
resurgent nationalism. In Münster, these works were staged in a
more nuanced way than the unnecessarily didactic approach of
‘documenta 14’ in Kassel.
Skulptur Projekte offered a refreshing and pleasurable
experience in contemporary art. The best example of this was
the Berlin-based Turkish artist Ayşe Erkmen’s On Water, a
participatory installation at the harbour. The artist created a
‘bridge’ by sinking metal containers just below the surface of
the water between the bustling gentrified northern pier and
the industrial southern pier. The public was invited to cross the
bridge, creating the illusion of ‘walking on water’ when viewed
from a distance. Besides the fun of splashing, the crossing between
the two riverbanks was designed to prompt the participants and
viewers to question the politics of both social- and city-planning.
1. This autonomy was stressed by Artistic Director Kasper König, who
has co-curated every edition of the exhibition since 1977, and also by his
curatorial team of Britta Peters and Marianne Wagner during the press
conference on 9 June 2017.
2. To live up to Münster’s claim that it is the most bike-friendly city
in Germany, Skulptur Projekte offers visitors a bicycle available from its
rental booth behind the Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural
History.
‘Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017’ was on display throughout
Münster and neigbouring Marl from 10 June until 1 October 2017.
53
 —REVIEW—
Solidarity
Live your Greece in myth
Audrey Schmidt, Athens and Kassel
The experience of ‘documenta 14’ in Athens was necessarily
shaped by the Athenian landscape itself, which was well traversed
considering that it spread across 47 venues with up to 30
kilometres between some of them. There has been a documented
spike in politically motivated graffiti in Athens in light of the
economic crisis, which became central to the tourist experience
along with the ancient ruins and abandoned shopfronts that
collectively created the ambience of a post-apocalyptic genre
film. It was this intersection of the cityscape and some of the
artworks that was the most engaging aspect of the now widely
criticised recent edition of the quinquennial exhibition. Amid
the heavy-handed curation and uninspiring (or intentionally
de-spectaluralised), sprawling form cut by ‘documenta 14’ across
Athens and Kassel, sat a rare instance of synergy: a collaboration
between Waanyi Aboriginal artist Gordon Hookey and the bleak
urban landscape shaped by the Athenian crisis since 2009. The
graffiti has become so much a part of the ‘context’ in Athens that
documenta curators organised for Hookey to take a tour with
bombers and writers assigned to work with him on the project.
While the idea of this graffiti tour did nothing to dispel my
hesitations with regard to the prevalent nationalistic discourse of
Greece, land of the south, land of disobedience; be it by chance
or divine intervention (curatorship), this context suited Hookey’s
practice better than most.
The curatorship of documenta’s Artistic Director
Adam Szymczyk and the endless supporting texts and public
programs came to shape the experience of the exhibition
into an authoritarian political statement on the current state
of neoliberalism, globalisation and its precarity. Aside from
the obvious contradictions inherent in positioning the 31
curatorial workers of ‘documenta 14’ as the morally unsullied,
anti-capitalist custodians of an exhibition with a €37.5 million
budget, Szymczyk went on to claim, at the April press conference
in Athens, that ‘an exhibition should be an experience, without
great programmed expectations’.1 This position perhaps
accounted for the lack of information available prior to and
during the previews, but completely ignored the prescriptive
curatorship that near-policed the ‘experience’ of audiences. As a
result, the artists and artworks included in ‘documenta 14’ often
felt ancillary to Szymczyk’s curatorial agenda.
The coopting of activist language and imagery in order to
create an association between a product or brand and the desire
for liberation is hot right now. From Just Cavalli’s 2013–14
advertising campaign, to Dior’s ‘we should all be feminists’, right
through to this year’s Pepsi commercial with Kendall Jenner. In
such a cultural environment, it is rarely long before consumer-
54
ism coopts countercultural movements, reducing their aims and
methods to a set of marketable slogans and signs. It was perhaps
this environment that bred my scepticism for documenta’s
brand of activism (or ‘crisis romance’?) that seemed to equate art
tourism with being a part of the solution, supporting the cause:
‘Learning from Athens’.2
Hookey’s work has often been described as incorporating
multiple aesthetic styles and practices, exploiting the interplay
of text and pictorial elements to cut across the conventions of
historical painting, pop art, graffiti, surrealism and mural art.3
Hookey’s work in Athens, Solidarity (2017), was painted directly
onto the concrete walls of the Athens School of Fine Arts. A
raised black fist, a symbol of unity or solidarity, rises out of the
earth at the end of a rainbow that extends out of frame. The
tree-like roots of the clenched fist, housing glimmers of gold
and silver love hearts, reach down to meet the pavement and the
word ‘solidarity’ written in bold red text – the ‘O’ also taking the
form of a heart. Etched into the blue sky are the words of Che
Guevara: ‘Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the
true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.’
In his essay on graffiti in post-crisis Greece, Yiannis
Zaimakis emphasises the use by writers of prominent political
figures, popular heroes and revolutionary vocabulary works to
‘achieve [a] political message passing effectively across different
types of publics’.4 Characteristic of Hookey’s work as well,
Solidarity was not only accessible in its public positioning but
also in its highly familiar subject matter. The entry of political
messages regarded as marginal by the media/popular culture into
public discourse is a key effect of both graffiti and Hookey’s oeuvre
and, as such, their synchronicity proved particularly successful.
While on the surface Solidarity may seem overly optimistic,
the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow seems to imply a veneer
of cynicism to the utopian mission of marginalised solidarity as
one that is steeped in fantasy. The pot of gold remains (almost)
unattainable as the end of the rainbow itself is a constantly
moving target. Between the word ‘solidarity’, over the roots of
the fist, was a pre-existing graffiti ‘piece’, and at the top right
another sample of graffiti read ‘crapumenta’ in Greek. In my
conversations with Hookey ahead of writing this essay, he
expressed his desire to tread carefully in Athens, to not be too
‘loud’ in imposing concepts or ideas on the Athenian context – a
position Szymczyk would have done well to consider. Hookey’s
scrupulous incorporation of the local graffiti into his work
rather than seizing the space wholly for himself was clearly
demonstrative of these intentions. So despite the acknowledged
utopianism of ‘solidarity’, there was a real, felt understanding for
Gordon Hookey, Solidarity, 2017, installation view, ‘documenta 14’, Athens School of Fine Arts, 2017;
acrylic paint on concrete; image courtesy and © Gordon Hookey/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017; photo: Stathis Mamalakis

55
Gordon Hookey, MURRILAND!, 2017, installation view, ‘documenta 14’, Neue Neue Galerie (Neue Hauptpost), Kassel, 2017; oil on linen and mural;
image courtesy and © Gordon Hookey/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017; photo: Michael Nast

56
the oppression of others – a sentiment that Hookey has revealed
is intimately tied to the Aboriginal worldview which resides in
‘empathy and kinship with everything’.5
Hookey’s distinctive paintings, which he describes as
‘accumulative’, have something else in common with a wall
inscribed with multiple layers of graffiti – the latent potential to
build alternative, or counter-hegemonic spaces of representation
that challenge existing social structures and narratives that have
historically worked to obscure and pervert the course of justice.
For the Kassel leg of the exhibit, Hookey’s work MURRILAND!
(2017) rewrote the popularly imagined history of his Austral-
ian home state, Queensland, inspired by Congolese painter
Tshibumba Kanda Matulu’s History of Zaire (1973–74) – a foun-
dational reference proposed by the roaming art platform Frontier
Imaginaries.6 The rainbow of Solidarity extended into this work
and ran through its 10-metre length, referencing the Aboriginal
Rainbow Snake motif and exemplifying Hookey’s accumulative
approach.
Hookey and the graffiti writers of Athens worked to chal-
lenge hegemonic spaces of representation primarily through the
dissident use of language and repurposed iconography. This was
remarkably apparent in MURRILAND!, which employed Abo-
riginal English and wordplay to disrupt conventional linguistic
meaning and reposition language itself as a tool of colonialist
oppression. As Hookey has often noted, English is his second
language – being violently alienated from his first – and so he
considers it his right to use and pervert the English language and
culture with unrestrained and wilful freedom in his art practice.7
MURRILAND! itself referenced the broad term ‘Murri’
that encompasses all Aboriginal people of Queensland and so, in
its renaming, Hookey has reclaimed the state whose borders have
since been defined by a western approach to mapping (defined
by colonisation) rather than by the distinct Aboriginal language
groups or Nations within, and across, those boundaries. The
repositioning of colonialist Australian insignia was poignantly
illustrated by a map-like inset showing an enlarged view of
the Southern Cross with the word ‘Austika’ affixed. This deft
association with the swastika – itself a symbol commandeered
by fascism – succeeded in illuminating the white nationalism the
Southern Cross has come to represent.
On the mural extension of Hookey’s 10-metre canvas
in Kassel, an army of anthropomorphised kangaroos with the
Aboriginal flag reflected in their sunglasses, stood armed with
‘New Clear Proliferation’, emphasising again the importance
of, and strength in, alliances and camaraderie as a revolutionary
blueprint. Another inset of the mural revealed the reappearing
pot of gold, led by an arrow to a disembodied white arm holding
an Aboriginal flag – again calling into question the illusive
concept of solidarity, implying that the guardians of, and thus
also the contemporary obstacle to, true solidarity remain with
the white Australia that has consistently failed its First Peoples.
One key example of linguistic subversion in Athenian
graffiti came to mind with ‘Live your myth in Greece’, the
slogan coined by the Ministry of Tourism during the 2004
Summer Olympics, repurposed to read ‘Live your Greece in
myth’.8 In amongst documenta’s sweeping political statements
and suffocating prescriptive texts and guides, Hookey’s inclusion
felt like a much-needed spotlight on the mythology of unity in
an exhibition that claimed to be unified by its representation
of marginalised artists, without dismissing the importance and
power of solidarity. The biggest farce of documenta can be found
in the words of Alain Locke in his seminal 1928 critique of art-
as-propaganda: ‘[I]t perpetuates the position of group inferiority
even in crying out against it … according to the exotic tastes
of a pampered and decadent public.’9 While the public wasn’t
necessarily ‘pampered’ by a decadent spectacle in the context of
‘documenta 14’ in Athens, Hookey navigated the contradictory
authoritarian tone of the exhibition with a play on revolutionary
vocabulary that encouraged the viewer to re-evaluate where
mythology, history and propaganda intersect – without
pandering to curatorial exoticism.
1. See Hili Perlson, ‘The Tao of Szymczyk: documenta 14 curator says
to understand his show, forget everything you know’, Artnet.com, 6
April 2017: news.artnet.com/art-world/adam-szymczyk-press-conference-
documenta-14-916991, accessed 8 September 2017.
2. ‘Learning from Athens’ was the controversial working title of
‘documenta 14’.
3. See, for example, Joseph Pugliese, ‘Gordon Hookey: Theatres of war’,
On Reason and Emotion: Biennale of Sydney 2004, exhibition catalogue,
Biennale of Sydney, 2004, pp. 110–13.
4. Yiannis Zaimakis, ‘ “Welcome to the civilization of fear”: On political
graffiti heterotopias in Greece in times of crisis’, Visual Communication,
vol. 14, no. 4, 2015, pp. 393–4.
5. Gordon Hookey, ‘Terrorism and terraism’, Borderlands e-journal, vol.
5, no. 1, 2006, p. 7.
6. Although the completed first canvas of MURRILAND! was unveiled
in Kassel as part of ‘documenta 14’, an earlier stage was shown at
Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art in 2016, and later stages will be
exhibited at Eindhoven’s Van Abbemuseum in 2018.
7. Hookey, op. cit.
8. Zaimakis, op. cit., p. 380.
9. Alain Locke, ‘Art or propaganda?’, Harlem, vol. 1, no. 1, November
1928.
‘documenta 14’ was on display in Athens from 8 April until
16 July 2017, and in Kassel from 10 June until 17 September
2017.
57
58
 —REVIEW—

Venice 2017
The good, the bad and the ugly

Janis Lejins, Venice

Eliza Douglas in Anne Imhof, Faust, 2017; installation view, German Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale, 2017;
image courtesy the artist and the German Pavilion 2017; photo and © Nadine Fraczkowski

59
 Tracey Moffatt: My Horizon, exterior view, Australian Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale, 2017; image courtesy the Australia Council for the Arts; photo: John Gollings
This European summer, Venice, overburdened by tourists
and blighted by climate change, hosted three epoch-defining
exhibitions and an unrelenting heatwave called Lucifer. As the
Trumpian ascent continued to dominate the news, the city’s three
marquee exhibitions began to feel like a spaghetti western – there
was the good, the bad and the ugly.
The national pavilions of the 57th Venice Biennale were ‘the
good’. The most rewarding of these – of Germany, Italy, South
Africa, South Korea, Hong Kong, New Zealand, France, Austria
and Australia (in that order) – focused on prosecuting one com-
pelling idea, often with one artist, in a way which was designed to
meaningfully contribute to a broader collective discourse.
New Zealand’s pavilion, entitled ‘Emissaries’, featured Lisa
Reihana’s in Pursuit of Venus [infected] (2015–17), a large pano-
ramic video installation which fused source material, animation,
performance, a raft of Pacific cultures and a potted history of
colonialism into a cutting cultural panopticon to unflinchingly
render the pitfalls of imperial expansion.
Given an audience inevitably desensitised by spectacle,
Australia’s contribution of ‘My Horizon’ was comparably flat.
Tracey Moffatt’s elegant new photographic sequences, ‘Body
Remembers’ and ‘Passage’, and her two slightly ham-fisted new
video works – The White Ghosts Sailed In and Vigil – followed
the familiar filmic vein of her previous work. Unfortunately
the overall installation felt somehow institutionalised, with the
contribution inadvertently coming off as an accolade which had
been bestowed on a well-established artist rather than an attempt
to produce a platform to contribute, challenge and define the
prevailing cultural discourse.
Germany blew everything else out of the water. Winner
of the Golden Lion for best pavilion, Anne Imhof ’s totally cap-
tivating ongoing performance of Faust was essentially a poetised
neoliberal internment camp, and a full four months after the
opening there was still an hour-long queue to get in. The pavilion
was ominously encircled by tall wire fencing and a couple of well-
endowed Doberman pinschers. Inside, the space was clinically
60
unnerving: the raised floor (under which the performers some-
times crawled) was made of thick glass and every joint seemed
set in hospital-grade stainless steel. The interior was populated
by beautiful Adidas-clad twenty-somethings who slunk around,
often in slow motion, to a throbbing A Clockwork Orange-esque
soundtrack. Inevitably they were confronted by iPhone-wielding
spectators who, slack-jawed, jockeyed for comparative ocular
advantage. The result was that there was nowhere to hide. Every-
thing was the stage and at every possible moment the work laid
its consequentialist mechanics bare.
The interspersion of audience and performers meant the
artist’s key preoccupation, Faustian individualism, was not only
comprehended as the defining economic unit of the contempo-
rary epoch (vis-a-vis Facebook), but was also the primary mate-
rial element driving the performance. The work surreptitiously
forced the total embodiment of Imhof ’s thesis that today ‘aimless
individuality persists even as it clusters into groups. They may
sing together, but their song is of the I.’1 It is hard to emphasise
just how seamlessly Faust made its audience and actors the hyper-
self-conscious embodiments of the signifier. In Faust, everyone
instinctively inculcated themselves into Imhof ’s dance of soul-
less individualism – perhaps because this state has become our
default societal setting.
The Venice Biennale’s curated exhibition in the Central
Pavilion and Arsenale, Christine Macel’s ‘Viva Arte Viva’,
comprised ‘the bad’. Initially conceptualised as a celebration of
the centrality of ‘the role, the voice and the responsibility of the
artist’,2 the exhibition descended into a hedonistic reversion to
art for art’s sake – a potpourri of uncomfortably overt curatorial
nescience. Despite devoting two cavernous rooms to a bizarre in-
fatuation with artists who like magic (‘Pavilion of the Shamans’),
the few truly magical moments in this year’s central exhibition
emerged in the ‘Pavilion of the Earth’. The literal grounding of
this pavilion disrupted the exhaustingly self-indulgent bubble
of Macel’s artist-world and permitted an ostracised audience (of
mostly non-artists) to have a tenuous route in.
Lisa Reihana, in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015–17, installation view, New Zealand Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale, 2017; image courtesy New Zealand at Venice; photo: Michael Hall
The high point of the show was undoubtedly Charles
Atlas’s The Tyranny of Consciousness (2017) – a cinematic experi-
ence depicting 44 simultaneous sunsets, all shot from the same
location in Florida. In a booming voice-over to the piece, famous
drag queen Lady Bunny waxed lyrical about the confusing and
complex times we are living in – about climate change, conflict
and corporate greed, and how important it is not to be ignorant.
Despite this powder-coating of relevance, ‘Viva Arte Viva’
came off as an unfortunate curatorial mission to fetishise artistic
alterity. More often than not, the exhibition felt excruciatingly
indirect – a tautological exercise which seemed hell-bent on in-
sulating art from the uncomfortable realities of contemporary
life and, to some extent, segregating artists from the rest of our
community.
Then there was Damien Hirst’s Biennale-eclipsing
wunderkammer of a show at the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della
Dogana, ‘Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable’ – an
exercise of such magisterial egotism and opulent kitsch that it
could only be understood as a lavish tongue-in-cheek ode to the
uber-rich. Hirst’s massive exhibition, overflowing with marble,
gold, bronze, crystal and jade, was supposedly the ancient bounty
of a second-century collector lost in a legendary shipwreck. This
was, of course, an elaborate lie. Hirst made it all up – or at least
paid a small army to do it for him.
Among the 189 artworks, including over 100 sculptures
and 21 object-crammed cabinets, a typical piece was Unknown
Pharaoh (2017). Made from Carrara marble, it featured nipple
piercings and spookily resembled singer Pharrell Williams. Every
now and then there was a wink and a nudge – like when Hirst
unsubtly stamped ‘Made In China’ on the back of something.
Anyway, you get the gist. The exhibition was like Disneyland for
oligarchs.
In its shameless commercialism, the exhibition self-
consciously epitomised the uncomfortable congress between
the uber-rich (and their ‘poor’ taste) with our ‘culture’. Frankly,
this awkward nexus is a defining feature of art history (not to
mention the currently hyper-inflated contemporary art market).
For whatever reason, no-one has been as forthright as Hirst in
exploiting it. Everything in this exhibition was surreptitiously for
sale via the artist’s galleries, and prices for the substantive pieces
began at around US$1 million. Throughout the show, Hirst glee-
fully adopted the notion of ‘kitsch + dollars = culture’, reportedly
spending upwards of US$100 million to substantiate what might
have been imagined on the back of a napkin into an orgy of
marble and gold. The estimates have Hirst potentially making a
US$1 billion return on his investment.3
This was an exhibition of such incomparable hubris, such
megalomaniac idiocy, that it could only be cohered as a critique.
Indeed, it was impossible for it to be rationalised as anything
other than a marvellous satire – ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ for
the twenty-first century. ‘Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbe-
lievable’ exalted in its belligerent irreverence and thus displayed a
critical sense of self-awareness. As a result, Hirst has successfully
earned himself the honour of being the artist whose work best
surmises the prevailing vapidity of our current cultural moment.
1. See www.deutscher-pavillon.org, accessed 1 September 2017.
2. See u-in-u.com/venice-biennale/2017/viva-arte-viva/christine-macel-
statement/, accessed 1 September 2017.
3. Kenny Schachter, ‘Is this show worth a billion dollars? A few thoughts
on Damien Hirst’s new venture in Venice’, Artnet.com, 24 April 2017. See
news.artnet.com/art-world/kenny-schachter-on-damien-in-venice-934115,
accessed 1 September 2017.
The 57th Venice Biennale, including Christine Macel’s ‘Viva
Arte Viva’, is on display until 26 November 2017; Damien
Hirst’s ‘Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable’ is exhib-
ited at Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana, Venice, until 3
December 2017.
61
Charles Atlas, The Tyranny of Consciousness, 2017, installation view, ‘Viva Arte Viva’, 57th Venice Biennale, 2017;
5-channel video installation, colour, audio: helm and Lady Bunny, 23:44 mins; image courtesy La Biennale di Venezia; photo: Italo Rondinella

62
Damien Hirst, Demon with Bowl (Exhibition Enlargement), installation detail view, ‘Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable’, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, 2017;
© Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS/SIAE 2017; photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

63
 —TRIBUTE—
Sydney Ball 1933 – 2017
Anne Loxley
He was one of our most distinguished artists and yet, like most
Australian abstractionists, Sydney Ball never achieved wide public
recognition. Despite this, his long career consistently attracted
critical acclaim, with two of his fiercest champions being Patrick
McCaughey and Elwyn Lynn.
I first met Syd in 2003 when some of his ‘Modular’ series
was shown in a group exhibition alongside much younger artists.
I was overwhelmed by the power of the works and the charm and
modesty of the man who had created them. Four years later, I had
the privilege of curating an exhibition of Syd’s abstract work from
1963 to 2007. The paintings made the galleries they inhabited
sing. Each time I encountered the works, one word pulsed in my
mind: ‘commanding’.1
Born and educated in Adelaide, Syd
studied architecture in the 1950s. In 1962 he
left for New York where he studied at the Art
Students League and came into contact with De
Kooning, Krasner, Motherwell, Newman and
Rothko. At this time Syd completely embraced
abstraction. As John McDonald wrote:
It was a very long way from the Royal South
Australian Art Society where he had exhib-
ited in the late 1950s. In this stimulating
environment Ball painted the first of his
‘Cantos’, a series of geometric abstractions
that set bars of colour within a circle, itself
set within the square of the canvas.2
In 1964, the ‘Canto’ paintings and the ‘Band’
series which preceded them were featured in
a solo show at New York’s Westerly Gallery, and reviewed by
Donald Judd as ‘fairly abecedarian’.3 Syd had no qualms with
Judd’s assessment, saying: ‘I was learning the alphabet of colour
painting with the imagery of the early vertical band paintings.’4
Indeed, Syd’s habit of producing bodies of work by
establishing a set of artistic parameters, or problems to resolve,
was key to his methodology. He continued with a series until he
felt the particular conundrum he set himself was spent.
Syd returned to Australia in 1965 to his first Australian
exhibition – he showed the ‘Canto’ paintings at John Reed’s
Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne. His following ‘Persian’
series comprised large works in which bands of colour follow fluid
Islamic-inspired forms. Three were included in ‘The Field’, the
milestone exhibition of Australian abstract art which opened the
National Gallery of Victoria’s St Kilda Road premises in 1968.
In 1967 Syd commenced the ‘Modular’ paintings –
constellations of geometric panels painted variously in oils, acrylic
and automotive enamel. The series was exhibited at Sydney’s
Bonython Gallery in 1969. Soon after Syd was back in New York
where he moved onto the ‘Link’ paintings – Frankenthaler-esque
renderings of lozenges of colour floating on earthy tones. Then
came the ‘Stain’ series, the monumental paintings of splashes and
drips which were to occupy him for almost a decade.
Sydney Ball with Zonal Turn, 1969; image courtesy the estate of Sydney Ball and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney and Singapore
64
Syd returned to Australia in 1971, and with the ‘Stain’
series he resumed his position as one of Australia’s leading paint-
ers. In 1976 Syd and then partner artist Lynne Eastaway bought
some bushland at Glenorie in north-west Sydney. He engaged
the young Glenn Murcutt to design a house which would be in
simpatico with the land. By 1983 the house was complete, and it
was here that Syd lived the rest of his life.
At the Glenorie property with its Aboriginal rock carvings,
Syd realised the landscape provided enough visual material to
warrant a new series of work. An unrelenting proponent of an
internationalist abstract visual vocabulary since 1963, he fell prey
for the first time to the allure of the natural Australian landscape.
From 1980 until the early 2000s, Syd worked through several
series exploring painterly gestures and landscape
motifs, introducing abstracted shapes and a
symbolic approach to landscape, including
naturalistic and totemic marks. For Syd, this
expressionist phase was a necessary detour from
his primary work as a colour painter.
His last series was the smooth, shiny
‘Infinex’. Recalling the 1960s ‘Modular’ works,
these assemblages were fabricated from Syd’s
sketches and Pantone instructions – an astute
way to work for the increasingly frail but
mentally robust artist.
Syd Ball was anointed with such praise as
a ‘prophet of abstraction’ and among Australia’s
‘greatest colourists’,5 and he was loved by
younger artists. He continued to devise new
works, setting himself new challenges right
until his death. In so many ways, Syd was an
exemplary artist: rigorous, hardworking, highly
informed and endlessly inventive.
1. ‘Sydney Ball: The Colour Paintings 1963 – 2007’ opened at
Penrith Regional Gallery & the Lewers Bequest, Sydney, in November
2008 before travelling to the McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park,
Melbourne, and the Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide.
2. John McDonald, ‘Avant-garde Australian painter Sydney Ball
believed in pure colour’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 March 2017.
See www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/avantgarde-australian-painter-
sydney-ball-believed-in-pure-colour-20170308-guu20w.html, accessed 3
September 2017.
3. Donald Judd, exhibition review, Arts Magazine, May 1964, n. p.
4. From the author’s interview with the artist in Sydney Ball: The Colour
Paintings 1963 – 2007, exhibition catalogue, Penrith Regional Gallery &
the Lewers Bequest, Sydney, p. 13.
5. See www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-06/sydney-ball-abstract-painter-
dead-at-83/8328728, accessed 3 September 2017.
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