review for The Scene 2007
The Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award is probably most famous for its controversies, from the provocative t-shirt worn by one of its winners to the allegations that a winning painting was not entirely, erm, Aboriginal.
This year however it wasn’t the art, nor the winner’s t-shirt, that was in the political spotlight (although co-judge Djon Mundine did attempt a bit of t-shirt humour by wearing a slogan that read ‘Aboriginal All the Time’, officially advertising an exhibition he is curating, unofficially perhaps alluding to his questioning of the 2006 Queensland Xstrata Coal Aboriginal Art Award winner’s Aboriginality?).
The award is normally a celebratory event highlighted by Friday night’s ceremonies where the public and the art world gather on the picturesque lawns of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT), overlooking the stunning sunset, to listen to live music and applaud the winners. Everyone looks very relieved to be out of the southern winter, and to be appearing, sans winter coat (and hat, gloves and scarf), in the evening.
But this year the award was overshadowed by a dark sense of forboding. There may be tough times ahead for Aboriginal art.
Arts Minister Marion Scrymgour gave an impassioned speech at the inaugural Aboriginal Art Market, a wonderful art fair featuring twenty art centres. She told the crowd of the terrifying steps the Government was taking: removing the permit system, destroying CDEP (government funded Aboriginal workers, many of whom work in art centres) and compulsory acquisition of Aboriginal townships.
Her fury at this was echoed by her stand-in at the announcement of the Award, Deputy Chief Minister Sid Sterling, after Minister Scrymgour had to rush to Canberra to battle the proposed acts. The Chief Minister urged the crowd to ‘take a moment out from art to see politics’, and sadly, that is what may be required.
But back to art for a moment. The NATSIAA is really most famous for being Australia’s oldest and most prestigious Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art prize.
Founded in 1984 by then MAGNT Indigenous art curator Margie West, the NATSIAA (or The Telstras as it is often known) has become the most important event on the Indigenous art calendar. During a frenetic week in Darwin, artists, dealers, curators, writers and collectors gather to see who won what and to check out the many high-quality art exhibitions that abound in the galleries and rented art spaces around town. It is an exciting time, and the art world literally whips itself into a champagne and mango juice fuelled frenzy. Aside from the often excellent art, which gets everyone’s pulses racing, the week is full of long dinners where the conversation is art, art and more art, and the winning choices are debated with a passion reminiscent of one’s first great love, or perhaps, football team. Be careful what you say and to whom, as the winning artist may have ten dealers representing him or her, and before you know it you may have deeply offended a battle-scarred art dealer as much as if you insulted their children.
There are many bloodshot eyes at the openings over the following days, the result of all-night celebrations with the winners or simply partying at the mostly free events of the Darwin Festival.
This year the big prize of the NATSIAA was awarded to its youngest ever winner, 33-year-old Torres Strait Islander Dennis Nona. Nona is the first Torres Strait Islander winner of the award, and his huge bronze sculpture is indicative of its current nature, where works can be bought by collectors instead of being automatically acquired by the Museum and Art Gallery. This means that the winner gets $40,000 and is also able to sell their work, which has led to larger works being included, such as the Tjanpi Desert Weavers Grass Toyota that won the award two years ago.
Nona, who is well known as a printmaker, required $90,000 to make his 3.5 metre, 650 kilogram sculpture of a mythological crocodile and tattooed man, entitled Ubirikubiri. The work is part of a series of six works, the first of which was acquired by the National Gallery of Australia for $190,000.
There are 104 works in the prize, ranging from painting to new media, displaying the diversity and sophistication inherent within contemporary Aboriginal art.
The exhibitions that feature around the award are also significant, from the stunning master works of Bidyadanga shown at Raft and Northern Editions, to the cross-cultural exhibitions at 24hr Art.
Despite the Government’s attack on Aboriginal culture that will most definitely impact in a negative way on the Aboriginal arts industry (an industry, might I add, which turns over an estimated $200 million each year, and is hugely respected internationally), Aboriginal art is hopefully going to continue in the direction it has previously taken. A direction, as the annual Darwin events display, that has led to it becoming a major player on the world stage of art.
The 24th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award is on at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory until 18 November 2007.