Sun, Feb 23, 2003 page19

• Old crafts get a new look

  The success of Australia's aborigines in promoting their culture in contemporary art galleries offers lessons for Taiwan's own nascent Aboriginal art movement

  • By Vico Lee / STAFF REPORTER
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  Things Aboriginal seems to be all the rage in Taiwan. In just the last few years, we have seen the establishment of several new Aboriginal culture festivals, Aboriginal culture parks, and Aboriginal culture and history workshops. There is even a movement afoot to make Aboriginal languages "national languages" in Taiwan, giving them a status now only enjoyed by Mandarin.

  In the realm of art, works by Aborigines are still mostly viewed as artifacts or handicrafts instead of fine art. Only a couple of museum exhibitions have touched upon Aboriginal topics in recent years.

  "The Native Born: Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Australia," (圖騰大地：澳洲當代原住民藝術展) now on show at Taipei's Museum of Contemporary Art, (台北當代藝術館) may suggest to curators here some possibilities of showing works by Taiwan's own Aborigines in the context of fine art. That was the MOCA's intention when it invited the show to stop over Taipei in its tour.

  

  Garrtjambal Tail by Jacky Manbarrarra. Stylized depictions of animals such as the kangaroo ("garrtjambal') are a common theme in Australian aboriginal art.

  PHOTO: VICO LEE, TAIPEI TIMES

  The Native Born exhibition was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia in 1996. It has since toured Germany, Spain, Brazil and New York. After the show finishes in Taipei, its only stop in Asia, it will return to Australia.

  The 155 items on display were made in the 1980s in Ramingining, a small community 500km east of Darwin. Consisting of paintings, sculptures and object installations, the exhibits are structured into six environmental themes such as "Larrtha'puy: From the Mangroves" and "Diltjipuy: From the Forests."

  fine art

  

  Carved Wood Mindirr with Geckos and Yams by Dan Gundinga.

  PHOTO: VICO LEE, TAIPEI TIMES

  Bark painting, characteristic of the community, is a major medium. Four colors -- red, yellow, white and black -- make up the palette. These traditional pigments are made from ochre, pipe clay and ash. The frequently depicted animals, such as goannas, kangaroos and sharks, are stylized with an emphasis on their spiritual significance.

  "In the 1970s, aboriginal works were thought of as primitive artifacts and not fine art," said Australian aboriginal artist Djon Mundine, curator of The Native Born. Mundine has curated many Australian aboriginal art exhibitions since the early 1980s and has been a major figure in the acceptance of aboriginal art by the contemporary art world.

  "[So], I talked to some curators and managed to hang aboriginal works in fine arts museums," Mundine told the Taipei Times. "When you hang them on the walls of a fine arts gallery, they look like fine art. In fact, anything you put in a gallery, it becomes fine art. You put them in a contemporary museum, they become contemporary."

  There are more reasons why these works, made with natural materials and on themes of nature, are contemporary. "Contemporary art has to do with the issues of the society of the artist, regardless of what media they use. They may be about how people live, how people talk and so on," Mundine said. "The subjects of the works, the animals, the landscape, are in the environment of the artists today." In this way, they are contemporary.

  "Dreaming" is a common theme in these works, as is their general system of beliefs as to how their ancestors emerged and created the world. As a statement of their origins, more and more Australian aborigines, apart from traditional body paintings or ground paintings, have been painting on bark or canvas since the 1940s so that non-aborigines can get to know their culture.

  Although MOCA does not specifically point this out, all the works in the show, such as painted honey bags and hollow cherry tree logs, are made either for this particular exhibition or for general viewing instead of practical purposes. Aborigines do make similar things as utensils or ritual objects, but few outsiders would get to see them.

  "The works were made for an outside audience and an art market. They have spiritual references, just as some contemporary art does, but they not for religious use," Mundine said.

  The curator expressed hope that viewers would see the works not as artifacts of an aboriginal culture but as art, which may interest them with their particular forms or expression.

  The Native Born: Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Australia runs until April 20 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, located at 39, Changan W. Rd., Taipei (北市長安西路39號) near the Chungshan MRT station (中山站).
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