Rosella NAMOK, Blue Water, 2005, Lithographie, 76 x 56 cm © Bertrand Huet, Courtoisie de Baudoin Lebon.
“Blak Beauty: Poetic Itineraries of Aboriginal Australia” proposes a discovery of Australian Aboriginal art and literature in an unprecedented combination of painted images and poetic writings; two forms of expression that nourish some of the world’s oldest artistic traditions. Based on the Baudoin Lebon collection, one of the very first collections of contemporary Aboriginal art in France, the project confronts a set of ritual objects, ochre paintings on bark, and acrylic works on canvas from northern and central Australia, with a selection of poetic texts written by contemporary Aboriginal authors. These connections highlight a poetry of space in which the creative act does not dissociate image, words and a look at salient contemporary issues in Australia, France and Oceania.
Thematically organised into seven sequences, the exhibition explores how artists relate to places, memories and knowledge in the context of the colonial and environmental upheavals in Australia’s history. Highlighting the beauty of Aboriginal experience and cultures, such as Romaine Moreton’s poem ‘Blak Beauty’, the exhibition offers an insight into Aboriginal Australia and an encounter with a courage that ‘knows no defeat’ (Moreton).
Works by Timmy Payungka, Gulumbu Yunupingu, Fred Ward Tjungurrayi, Lily Hargraves Nungarrayi, Mick Gill Tjakamarra, Dorothy Napangardi, Rosella Namok, a video work by Judy Watson and texts by Lisa Bellear, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Yvette Holt, Jeanine Leane, Romaine Moreton, Charmaine Papertalk Green, Ellen van Neerven, Adrian Webster, Alexis Wright, and Craig Santos Perez are presented.
Curated by Estelle Castro-Koshy et Arnaud Morvan.
SOURCE: Australia now France 2021-22.