If you don’t think Prince Harry has done much to change the world recently, five years ago he did provide The Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones with an opportunity to reflect on the appropriation of contemporary Aboriginal art. In his article of August 20, 2003, “Aborigines are wrong about Harry” Jones reflects on the “modernist sublime”, and its relation to previous critiques of primitivist appropriation, observing “The case against Harry is not simply that his pictures are a pastiche, in their banally decorative way, of Aboriginal art, but that he has appropriated symbols with specific cultural meanings. Intellectual property is an unusually powerful concept in Aboriginal culture.” Given the developments in this field in the past five years, it’s worth a read, and caused us to reflect on the specificity of this work, currently the entrance decor for the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art’s They are Meditating: paintings from the MCA’s Arnott’s Collection, curated by Djon Mundine.
What’s the connection? Is it possible that the situation Jones describes, ludicrously exploited by the younger and more naive Prince Harry, and many other much more serious artists, has now been inverted? This is not to imply the meaning of The Inversion of Tradition elaborated by Nicholas Thomas in 1992, in which he identifies inversion as a conscious process of cultural opposition, but rather an inversion of meaning seemingly imposed by the interventionist motivations of the institutions of the art world.
This work, by Richard Birrinbirrin, is the latest in a series of commissioned murals Mundine has introduced as the entry experience to exhibitions he has curated, both at the MCA, and subsequently in Europe. Djon has often expressed the observation that aspects of contemporary Aboriginal art look just like early minimalism (Daniel Buren meets Sol LeWitt, etc.), and he has exercised his various roles and influence to promote this idea. In his view “Aboriginal art has continually struggled in not being seen as contemporary…” and now we see the latest outcome of this motivation. Regrettably, Aboriginal art as architectural decor has since caught on, most notoriously when John Marwurndjal’s (and others’) “sacred” designs were applied to the columns and ceiling of the bookshop at the Musee du quai Branly in Paris. So what’s the relevance of “inversion” to this discussion, apart from the clumsily obvious, the depiction of sacred sites, painted on the ground, turned upside down and reproduced on the ceiling of a Paris shop? At vast expense, and to much brouhaha. When art becomes decor, content is evacuated, and the secular and sacrilege coincide…
As promotion for the MCA show, back in Sydney, Richard Birrinbirrin (who is clan leader of the Mannharngu, the eldest son of the late David Daymirringu Malangi) is shown painting the classical palette of his family’s tradition: red and yellow ochre, white pipeclay and carbon black, in this instance in vertical acrylic stripes. In a previous MCA exhibition curated by Mundine in 2000, the entrance was also painted, with horizontal stripes, red ochre, white, yellow ochre, and white, recognisable as the representation of Djirrididi (kingfisher) body design, made famous by the art of the late Micky Durrng (Liyagawumirr’).
In this case, Birrinbirrin’s wall painting is also titled “Djirrididi (kingfisher)”, but in this instance both the colours and orientation of the stripes are different. It’s understood that the colour black was given to the mainland clans by the Djan’kawu Sisters. In the art of Arnhem Land, such micro-details of non-figurative art are usually rich with coded meanings, which are owned, inherited, licensed by particular clans, triggering references to particular ancestral narratives. These designs retain their traditional referents, whether seen on bodies, hollow logs, barks, baskets, or now in printmedia, on canvas, or applied to architectural settings.
At the entrance to the exhibition visitors will find this video monitor (set amongst the striped doors, lift surrounds etc.) which shows Richard Birrinbirrin and his djungayi (manager) David Dharrapuy roller-painting the striped entrance hall, plus Birrinbirrin’s introductory talk, plus a short interview with Djon Mundine. Inter alia, Birrinbirrin describes the stripes as body painting for ceremony (although which ceremony is not identified), as the kingfisher story, and as “the colour of the sunset”. It’s explained that these colours derive from (or reference) the passage of the ancestral Djang’kawu Sisters through central Arnhem Land who, it is said, as they travel west the black colour is added to the white, yellow and red. There’s no mention of the verticality of the stripes, although when Birrinbirrin talks about body painting, he gestures horizontally across his chest. So the origin of the verticality of this stripe installation remains to be confirmed. Dharrapuy speaks briefly in Yolngu matha to explain that this is his mother’s story, and Birrinbirrin explains that he’s using it with permission “if not, we’re stealing [from] each other”. The sisters of the late Micky Durrng, Helen Ganalmirriwuy and Ruth Ngalmakarra, who paint the kingfisher story in white yellow and red, also attended the opening, but did not appear in the video. Here’s another more lighthearted viewpoint.
Here’s how Birrinbirrin (we believe) painted the wall of Bula’bula Arts in Ramingining. More geometric, like a logo…
Closer to home, women from both Balmbi (Birrinbirrin’s mother’s side) and Djambarrpuyningu clans paint their baskets similarly, sometimes referencing the kingfisher design, sometimes without any narrative attribution. See, for example, this basket by Judy Baypungula, who is Ngakarrana (and Birrinbirrin’s classificatory mother), also painted in acrylic. The different sequences of the four colours may (or may not) be significant, especially if you compare with the second basket, by Margaret Gindjimirr’ (Balmbi), or the third, by Judith Djelirr…
As with these and other baskets, previous examples of the Djirrididi design (including, for example, the relevant poles in the Aboriginal Memorial at the NGA) conventionally have the stripes running horizontally, referencing the marks left on mangrove trees by tidal waters. With the Liyagawumirr’ version, applied as body painting, elements of the design sometimes run vertically, on the thigh, or on the torso.
When asked what his new “site-specific wall painting” is about, Richard Birrinbirrin says, “body painting”. When asked which story, he is not forthcoming. So, we ask ourselves, where’s the precedent, where does this striking design of vertical stripes come from? How does the artist conceive of a monumental installation derived from a sideways-tipped design? Is this an anything goes approach to form and colour? Maybe it is possible to see this as an instance of the inversion of the expectation that non-figurative Aboriginal art makes specific coded references to ancestral designs, invoking ancestral narratives. In the current discourse, this is usually seen as the crucial legitimization of their difference and distinctive otherness, and as a guarantee against the values of look-alike late modernisms. But if painting no longer has the need of a inherent narrative, or precedent, then geometric forms and the palette of just four colours may in themselves be a self-sufficient motivation for an abstract work of art.
So, is this a kind of inversion? This is not to deny the place of invention within tradition, along the lines suggested by Marshall Sahlins, whereby innovation is recognised as the distinctive way by which tradition proceeds. But when Aboriginal artists (or their agents) appropriate the look of the art of another culture, or when the art is no longer grounded in the prior motivation of a coded narrative, a disconnection between tradition, representation and abstraction has occurred. Neither is this likely to be an indigenous postmodernity, as for example in the work of Gordon Bennett, where non-figuration makes no claim to a mnemonic relation to inside knowledge, but asserts its critical relation to modernism’s claim to sublimity, which is a position much closer to Thomas’ original conception.
If we don’t think this what is happening here, what we’re left with is a kind of institutional agency, where the abstract effect of the decor and the ubiquitous shopping experience frames the experience of the art… This is risky business indeed, when secular and sacrilegious motives combine.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Will // Apr 1, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I would like to put forth some observations on the assumptions you make about the artists’ intentions and some of the facts you base your arguments on.
In the case of Mawurndjul’s work, first of all, Kunwinjku sacred painting is not ground painting; it is done on bodies, log coffins, and bark. Your metaphor of inversion relative to the ceiling of the Quai Branly bookstore is groundless.
Secondly, the painting on the ceiling of the bookstore is the result of a commission Mawurndjul received. He selected the design himself, which was reproduced from a bark painting that he made for sale (not for religious or sacred purposes) through Maningrida Arts & Culture in 2003, roughly two years before the commission was received. The artist himself supervised the work of French painters who transferred the design from photographs to the ceiling. The column in the bookstore was painted by Mawurndjul himself with the assistance of his wife, Kay Lindjuwanga. From all I know of the preparations for the Museum, Mawurndjul was in control of the process from start to finish. I expect that he saw the commission as an opportunity to put his art, drawn from but not identical to sacred design, before an international audience, and to further his own reputation as an artist. On both of these counts, he has been quoted (in other contexts) as desiring to educate non-Aboriginal people about his culture.
With regard to Birrinbirrin’s work, as you say yourself, the artist is not forthcoming. The sequence of color in the MCA mural is the same as a similar, horizontally oriented mural that Birrinbirrin painted on an exterior wall of the Bula-bula Arts Centre in Ramingining in 2005. It also makes sense that the color sequences on Judy Baypungula’s baasket are different–as his classificatory mother she belongs to a different moiety and clan, and designs would naturally be different.
I can’t speculate as to why Birrinbirrin altered the design for the MCA. But to assume that he, or Mawurndjul, or any other artist directly involved in such projects is not making conscious choices and is being manipulated by “a kind of institutional agency” is to demean the artist by denying his own agency and ability to make decisions regarding the presentation and use of his painting. Simply by painting for the market at all the artists are removing their designs from the realm of the sacred, although this does not imply that they do not have serious, if secular, or educational agendas.
2 Nigel // Apr 1, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Thanks for your comments Will. Nothing in the post is intended to show disrespect for the individual artists, or to demean their individual agency. That is, however, precisely the issue that arises in circumstances such as these. Such artists’ expressions of a desire to “educate” continues to be admirable. However the effects of what is produced under such circumstances is the stuff of critical debate, and the responsibility of those who advise and take responsibility for such matters as the social agency of the institution.
Firstly, my reference to Mawurndjul painting “on the ground” was not meant literally, but referencing the orientation of whatever material (bark, paper, canvas) the artist works on. When upside down on the ceiling, it becomes groundless indeed.
In the Mawurndjul/Lindjuwanga instance, I understand the process by which the work was commissioned and executed, but the effect of the framing context is the powerful influence on the meaning of the work that is the final outcome, and which concerns me. This is the work that enters the public domain, and the consequences for the meaning of the original design, and the process towards abstraction are surely valid matters for debate.
I don’t expect Yolngu artists to sit around discussing such issues as late modernism, minimalism or neoprimitivism – these are the concerns of advisers, critics, and anyone else who cares to engage with the development of their work, its integrity, and the consequences for its reception in the wider art world.
I would however argue that whether or not Mawurndjul’s imagery is secret, sacred or desacralized, landscape or abstract, the context of the MqB (and worse, its shop) is as neoprimitivist as the old MNAAO was primitivist, and as such the effect of the work in this context is ultimately demeaning, if not sacrilegious.
In whose long term interest, you might ask, is it to endorse the application of motifs which have their origins as fine art or religious art to the domain of décor and abstract effects? In what sense is the individual and social agency of the artist compromised by the application of (socially, culturally, religiously) significant images to contexts of reception conceptually quite different from the development of their art?
Teatowels? Wallpaper? Entry effects? Where should we stop? I could show you some of the culturally primitivising material that is sold in the space below that ceiling, if you would like… Which is all part of the framing discourse, to which the artist and his/her work, is subjected, and for which their agents carry responsibility.
The spectrum of intentionality and meaning in contemporary Indigenous non-figurative art, from sacred to desacralized, landscape to abstraction is a slippery path indeed. How often are difficult or inappropriate questions glossed by reference to “inside” meanings (ie. kept secret)? And how often has this been deployed as a marketing or promotional strategy, injecting mythic (or mystical) narrative associations into works that are otherwise in the zone we call “abstract”? Or is there a new category of secret-secular, like all those art for art’s sake, self-referential, or non-objective works that are titled “Untitled”?
I have no objection to this being the nature of contemporary art, however with contemporary Indigenous art it’s unethical to argue it both ways, especially if exegesis and interpretation is not admitted as a valid process in our engagement with art.
3 Susan // Apr 1, 2008 at 11:01 pm
There is virtue I think in the banded murals as entrance statements to Mundine’s bark shows in that they get folk wondering. But I can’t help but wonder if, over time this act has served to dilute the power of the art it intends to promote and belies the incredible power and beauty of the treasures within.
The banded hollow logs in ‘The Aboriginal Memorial’ are something which have engaged me over a long time. The banded logs are all made by Dhuwa moiety people of the Manharrngu (Gulaygulay) and Liyagawumirr clans (Dhanyula, Daypurryun 2, Rrikili) of central Arnhem Land. The difference as discussed is the inclusion of black in some logs, being the Manharrngu logs of the mainland. The coastal and island Liyagawumirr use only had red, yellow and white in their design. But when the Djan’kawu came to Dhamala on the mainland, they gave the Manharrngu people the colour black. I believe that is why you see so much black in old Manharrngu man David Malangi’s (1927-1999) paintings as well as in Manharrngu versions of the Djirrididi design hollow logs.
The black banded hollow logs in ‘The Memorial’ are by Neville Gulaygulay, son of Malangi and first wife Elsie Ganbada. He was not able to tell me much about the use of black on the logs, but I pieced it together through fieldwork. So it is explored in: Jenkins, S. (2003), It’s a Power: An Interpretation of The Aboriginal Memorial in its Ethnographic, Museological, Art Historical and Political Contexts, (thesis), National Institute of the Arts, Canberra, Australian National University, pp. 178-180 if you are interested. These issues are also touched on in: Jenkins, S. (ed) (2004), ‘No ordinary place: the art of David Malangi’ (monograph), Canberra, National Gallery of Australia. p.19.
I wonder if the banded dilly bag by Judy Baypungala in the first post is in fact the Dhuwa design and she as a Yirritja woman has had the authority to paint it on the bag by virtue of being married to Malangi. Or is it possible it was a collaborative piece where, as an accomplished weaver she made the bag and a Dhuwa person applied the body painting?
4 Aboriginal abstraction 2 // Apr 2, 2008 at 1:37 am
[...] the Musee quai Branly, see the comments to Risky Business: the invention of Aboriginal abstraction below, and here are some more [...]
5 Nigel // Apr 2, 2008 at 2:10 am
Thanks Susan, and on your last point, Margaret Gindjimirr’ also paints the same design. As you know, there are many instances of both men and women painting across moiety – with permission – and anyway, (Dhuwa) Djambarrpuyngu women paint kingfisher with the black stripe included as well…
6 georgie // Oct 14, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Is any one willing to do a survey on Aboriginal Art? It’s irrelevant how much experience you have – email me @ schleterg@gmail.com – it’s only seven question (1 page) long, so don’t worry!
Thanks a bunch!
7 flats on rent in noida // Jul 7, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Great Post. Does anyone know if there is a legal way I can display this content on my own website- thanks
8 internalising the frame | iconophilia // Apr 16, 2010 at 6:16 am
[...] P.S. The question of “Aboriginal abstraction” is discussed in more detail on ArtWranglers. [...]
Leave a Comment