Modern and Contemporary Art Australia: Perspectives on Place
When appreciating artwork, knowing the qualities that make an artwork great is crucial. Amongst many qualities, one of the most important qualities is showing the social issue. An artwork with such quality grants viewers to contemplate and thus expands their perspective on the world. Perspectives on Place exhibited by Modern and Contemporary Art Australia showcased two types of contemporary artwork: the first type reveals the national history of colonization and the second type shows the current world governed by the western system. The exhibition offers viewers an opportunity to contemplate and reach a conclusion that the national condition is the global status quo. From the museum’s permanent collection, the artworks on display were desolate works insufficient in craftsmanship and lacking in aesthetic value. Looking back at Australian modern art, I was expecting an evolved form of refined artwork depicting abundance. Exhibited artworks are similar to conceptual art, as their theme matters more than physical appearance.
Australia
Before Colonization
Two essential artworks presented in the image summarizes the theme of the exhibition.
Painted by an artist of Aboriginal descent, each of the 72 artworks contains images of plants native to Australia. Aware of the characteristics of each plant, the artist painted each plant affectionately. The artwork shows the artist’s affection and knowledge of Australian flora. Originally an output of affection, the artwork changes its connotation when juxtaposed with the artwork on the floor.
The artwork has 400 separate components, and each component comprises a concrete pedestal embedded with a singular oyster shell. The selection of the material is directly related to the Australian history of colonization. Shells refer to Shell mounts formed by Aborigins. The mounts are the residues of cultural and communal life and indicate Aboriginals’ occupation over a long period. After arrival, European settlers destroyed the shell mounts to mine limestones. Limestones were processed to create the raw material for mortar, which was then used in various colonial buildings. The embedded concrete pedestals of the artwork were also made from mined limestones.
Through the keen selection of the materials, the artist states that the purpose of destruction and mining was to lay out the basic foundation to establish the western system in the fertile land abundant in natural resources. The constant and calculated form of each component of the artwork graphically demonstrates the western system overridden onto the Australian landscape, connecting back to the artwork displayed on the wall.
Violence
The artwork is comprised of three parts:
1. a suite of large-scale charcoal drawings featuring soldiers shooting
2. a vast wall drawing: a myriad of tiny dots on an expansive paper
3. a takeaway artist’s book
The component that addresses an evident narrative is 1. The subject relates to the story of the SMS Novara, an Austrian ship that docked in Sydney Cove in 1858 and departed with hundreds of handcrafts made by Aboriginal people destined for European collections. Joseph Selleny, as an official artist of the ship, produced numerous drawings of Australian flora, fauna, and even portraits of Aboriginal people. By depicting a graphic scene of violence, Nicholson points out Selleny omitted to depict colonial violence.
1, once had an apparent form, is smudged. The artist employed the cartoon technique to create the first two components of the artwork. The cartoon refers to the sketching technique for painting fresco (wall painting) invented by Renaissance artists. Once they finished sketching fresco subjects on a real scale with charcoal on paper, they punctured tiny holes in the outlines of the subjects. Then they pounced the paper with a small cushion against a wall to paint the fresco on. The process left dotted lines on the outlines of the subjects on the wall. 2 is the outcome of the repetition of the process, so the dots are in disarray.
When the intention of the cartoon and its process combined with the narrative of the artwork induces a wealth of connotations. Cartoon is a foundation for building up a fresco painting. Fresco is a large wall painting meant to be seen by mass, so publicity is one of the main characteristics of a fresco. By selecting shooting soldiers as a subject, the artist intended to publicize the violence of colonization that Selleny missed. Despite that he created a cartoon for his fresco, he didn’t even start the base layer of the painting. Moreover, he repeatedly pounced the charcoal sketch to make the subject hard to identify. Through his process of cartooning, the artist compares shooting with pouncing, in which charcoal dots are ‘shot’ onto paper instead of bullets. In the artwork, the cartoon is a metaphor for colonial violence. Just as a sketch is ready for building up paint layers, colonial violence lays a foundation for building up a new governing system.
Settlement
World
Individual
Thank you for reading the shortened version of the article. It is the first article of contemporary art chapter in the comprehensive study on Australian Art. The study is divided into three chapters according to era: classical, modern and contemporary. To read the complete article, and view the complete list of the articles within the study, please direct to the linked articles.
Modern and Contemporary Art Australia: Perspectives on Place
Australian Art: from Classical Antiquity to Contemporary Emerging Talents
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