National Gallery of Victoria takes First Nations art to world

More than 200 key works by about 130 First Nations artists from the National Gallery of Victoria’s collection will be showcased in a ‘landmark’ exhibition in Washington next year.

National Gallery of Victoria director Tony Ellwood with some of the First Nations art that will feature in an upcoming exhibition in Washington. Picture: Tim Carrafa / NGV

The largest international exhibition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art will involve some of Australia’s finest masterpieces being showcased at one of America’s top galleries during its premier season, in what is expected to be a “real coup” for Australia’s Indigenous artists.

More than 200 key works by about 130 First Nations artists from the National Gallery of Victoria’s collection will be exhibited at the National Gallery of Art in Washington next year before being toured across the US and Canada.

NGV director Tony Ellwood said the “landmark” exhibition was “a great opportunity to hopefully educate a broader audience about the complexity of First Nations culture and also the beauty and importance of it globally”.

“There’s never been a work of this scale shown of Australian First Nations artists anywhere in the world,” Mr Ellwood said.

“The fact that it is presented alongside the National Gallery of Art in Washington in their premier season … is a real coup for our artists.

“I’m hoping that there are many, many ways in which artists will, from this exposure, be able to benefit in many future projects.”

Mr Ellwood said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, and Australian art more broadly, had not received the international exposure it deserved.

Gana (Self) by Nyapanyapa Yunupiŋu, a collection of pieces created using earth pigments on stringybark bark. Picture: NGV

Mr Ellwood said while international galleries had previously “shown interest” in Australian First Nations art, it was “never to the degree that they’re prepared to take on a really major exhibition”.

But he said the director of Washington’s National Gallery of Art, Kaywin Feldman, a good friend of his, had been “extremely supportive” of the “incredibly ambitious” project from day one.

“She wanted to do something that was going to be a bit of a game-changer for her community and for America, and something that really introduced a new art history, and I suggested that we should do this,” Mr Ellwood said.

Senior NGV curator Myles Russell-Cook said the exhibition would showcase an “incredible diversity of art”.

“What it attempts to do is a slightly impossible task, which is to capture the extraordinary breadth and diversity of Indigenous art from Australia, which is over 250 different language groups and 65,000 years worth of history,” Mr Russell-Cook said.

“The number-one takeaway that I would hope American audiences have from this is to understand that Indigenous people have been in Australia making art forever, and that we are as diverse as the continent of Europe.”

Among the “absolute showstoppers” will be Emily Kam Kngwarray’s Anwerlarr Anganenty (Big Yam Dreaming) and Nyapanyapa Yunupingu’s Gana (Self), which Mr Russell-Cook described as an “exhibition within itself”, comprised of about 15 suspended bark paintings and nine sculptural poles.

“Everything in the show is a total masterpiece,” Mr Russell-Cook said.

The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art will debut at the National Gallery of Art next October before heading to the Denver Art Museum in Colorado, the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts and the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada.

Mr Ellwood confirmed he was also working towards arranging a “major exhibition” at the NGV from the National Gallery of Art’s collection as part of the cultural exchange between the institutions.