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Earth and Elsewhere | Contemporary Works from the Collection 9
8 Earth and Elsewhere | Contemporary Works from the Collection
Di rector ’ S foreword
The development of our Collection is among this Gallery’s
most important and enduring works. By drawing out its various
strands, of which contemporary Indigenous art, and Australian
and international art of the Asia Pacific region are among the
strongest, we can see how artists often delineate the prevailing
social or cultural condition, helping us to see things for what
they are or what they might be.
Public galleries are secular institutions, however, there are
moments when different parts of a collection are drawn
together in ways that unexpectedly ignite our imagination,
invite contemplation and perhaps even elicit a sense of spiritual
engagement. ‘Earth and Elsewhere: Contemporary Works from
the Collection’ is such a project.
Essentially, this exhibition looks at how contemporary artists
play with history and nostalgia, and in turn create objects and
images that generate their own memories or associations.
It is an exhibition that explores the space between history and
memory, between the evident and the unseen.
Artists such as Brisbane’s Eugene Carchesio, whose
watercolour series
Dead leaves ofTokyo
records a leaf collected
for each day of a residency, subtly and privately allude to
the fragility of life. More overtly, Tracey Emin’s fluorescent
script articulates a confessional declaration, like a neon
advertisement for private remorse.
Other artists speak of a collective memory: Latifa Echakhch’s
À chaque stencil une révolution
(
For each stencil a revolution
)
co‑opts the material used to create the political protest flyers
of the 1960s, in a sublime allusion perhaps to a fading of
collective memory; while the artists from west Arnhem Land
depict the Mimi spirits that live in Aboriginal communities and
pass on knowledge of ceremonies, songs and hunting to their
living kin.
The Gallery holds one of the country’s finest contemporary
collections, particularly of Asian and Pacific art. This collection
has grown in tandem with our flagship exhibition series, the
Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT), and many of
the works included here were acquired through the agency
of that ongoing project.
Over time, the Gallery has developed close relationships with
APT artists, including Dadang Christanto, who returns for the
opening of this exhibition to recreate a performance he first
presented here, with extraordinary power, during APT1 (1993).
So while this exhibition is about relationships with the past, it is
also a celebration of contemporary art and the artists who are
inextricably bound to our future.
Twenty years on, the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of
Modern Art is fortunate to be able to draw on a deep well
of knowledge and expertise consolidated through its deep
commitment to the APT, including that held by a group of
young curators who have been closely engaged with this
triennial. Their proximity and intensity of engagement with the
contemporary art of our region has had a discernible influence
on their work.
Dadang Christanto
/ Indonesia b.1957 /
Manusia tanah (The earth human)
1996 / Oil, lead pencil, ink and oilstick on canvas / 130.5 x 110cm / Acc. 1998.060 / Purchased 1998.
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant