Exhibition
12.06.22 → 06.11.22
Fondation Opale presents photography from urban centers across Australia which explores central themes of Australian history such as stolen generations, intersectional racism or dispossession, alongside unique wamulu paintings (wamulu is a yellow flower from the Central Australian Desert originally used for ephemeral ceremonial ground paintings).
FUGITIVE PRESENT thus brings together two very different mediums that aim to render visible something immaterial, even if for a brief moment in time. Featuring photographic works by Michael Riley, Tracey Moffatt, Robert Fielding and Tony Albert as well as wamulu ground paintings by Ted Egan Jangala, Dinny Nolan Tjampitjinpa, Johnny Possum Japaljarri and Albie Morris Jampijinpa.
Special Focus
PAPUNYA 1971
Exhibition
12.06.22 → 06.11.22
Acrylic paintings on board or canvas from Central Australia more than any other art best evoke Aboriginal art since the 1970s. This painting movement originates in the government settlement of Papunya, located 250 km north-east from Alice Springs.
In 1971, with the support of an art teacher, Geoffrey Bardon (1940-2003), several initiated men execute a mural, Honey Ant Dreaming, on the wall of the small school of Papunya, using acrylic paint. This leads to a minor cultural revolution. A group of about thirty men start to paint on everything they can find, from hardboard to floor tiles. Stories represented relate to the creation of the country and the transmission of the Law to the people.
FUGITIVE PRESENT credit
Tracey Moffatt, Touch, 2017 (detail) © Tracey Moffatt, courtesy Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney