Of Barks and Biennales

Aboriginal Art Directory | 08.08.08

Will Owen talks about They are meditating and Papunya Painting: Out of the desert.

Quoted from the post:

Like the Papunya show, this one made me realize how poor an experience even the best catalogs can offer--and these were very good catalogs. But in both cases, and this should really be no surprise, though it was, the physical presence of the paintings was a revelation.

Perhaps scale is a critical factor in my response to these two shows. The Papunya paintings were majestic and grand; the barks in the MCA show were mostly quite small. And it seemed often that the intimate size of them worked in surprising ways.

The best paintings in the show--indeed the best room of the five devoted to the Arnott's collection--were those by Yirawala. The sheer variety of styles that the master exhibiting in the relatively short span of time during which these works were collected would be enough to qualify for a significant show in itself. But the mastery, the vivacity, the draftsmanship!

URL: http://homepage.mac.com/will_owen/iblog/C1917859515/E20080807080551/index.html

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Contact Details

Gallery: Australian Museum
Telephone: +61 2 9320 6000
Address: 6 College Street Sydney Sydney 2010 NSW

Gallery: Museum of Contemporary Art
Contact: Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Programs
Telephone: +61 2 9245 2400
Address: Circular Quay West George Street The Rocks Sydney 2000 NSW