WALALA TJAPALTJARRI SELF-PORTRAIT
11.12.2019 → 29.03.2020For Aboriginal people, Country is an integral and inseparable part of the human being. When Walala Tjapaltjarri (c.1967) paints the ancestral land of the Pintupi people which he belongs to, he highlights the strong spiritual connection linking him and Country and thus creates a portrait of himself.
Walala Tjapaltjarri is one of the last Aboriginal people who have lived a traditional life. He and his family joined modern society in 1984 by walking out of the Gibson Desert 800 km from Alice Springs, where they lived reclusely, as nomads perfectly mastering the complexity of their harsh environment. Two years later, he started to paint by reproducing images of the Tingari cycle, sacred songlines that relate to Ancestors of the Dreaming who shaped the landscape of the region, to law on initiation and to patterns painted on the body during eponymous ceremonies. In the late 1990s, he developed his own artistic vocabulary, a rhythmic and powerfully graphic abstraction of traditional Pintupi motifs.
The paintings selected for his 1st solo exhibition in Europe, created in the last two decades, are characteristic of his work. Rectangle structures or curved lines on a monochrome background depict a physical and spiritual mapping of his territory, of the sandhills, sacred mountains or waterholes inseparable from his own existence.

Past exhibitions
ARTIST ACTIVIST ARCHIVIST : BERNHARD LÜTHI INVITES
Main exhibition 16.06.2024 → 10.11.2024
HIGH FIVE!
Main exhibition 17.12.2023 → 14.04.2024
ABSUM
Special Focus 17.12.2023 → 14.04.2024
INTERSTELLAR
Main exhibition 18.06.2023 → 12.11.2023
OBJECT OF INTEREST 700 E
Special Focus 18.06.2023 → 12.11.2023
DREAMING IN THE DREAM OF OTHERS
Main exhibition 10.12.2022 → 16.04.2023
NAMSA LEUBA
Special Focus 12.06.2022 → 06.11.2022
PAPUNYA 1971
Special Focus 12.06.2022 → 06.11.2022
FUGITIVE PRESENT
Main exhibition 12.06.2022 → 06.11.2022
BREATH OF LIFE
Main exhibition 13.06.2021 → 17.04.2022
LAST WHISPERS : PRELUDE
Special focus 03.11.2021 → 17.04.2022
VLADIMIR ŠKODA
Special focus 13.06.2021 → 08.10.2021
RESONANCES
Aboriginal Art 14.06.2020 → 25.04.2021
SUPERSTUDIO
Special focus 30.09.2020 → 04.04.2021
MICHAEL COOK : BROKEN DREAMS
Special focus 14.06.2020 → 20.09.2020
BEFORE TIME BEGAN
Contemporary Aboriginal Art 09.06.2019 → 29.03.2020
WALALA TJAPALTJARRI SELF-PORTRAIT
Special focus 11.12.2019 → 29.03.2020
MYSTERY AND MODERNITY
Special focus 21.09.2019 → 01.12.2019
PAINTING ON COUNTRY
Special focus 09.06.2019 → 15.09.2019
YANN ARTHUS-BERTRAND
Legacy, a life as a photographer 16.12.2018 → 31.03.2019
ROBERT FIELDING
Special focus 16.12.2018 → 31.03.2019