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?

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.

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.