The Seventh Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

APT3 (1999) featured the work of three Aboriginal artists: Gordon Bennett 5 , Karen Casey and Michael Nelson Jagamara — each pushing the boundaries within their genre (postcolonial, experiential and contemporary desert painting, respectively). The Utopia Batik artists from the eastern Northern Territory, in collaboration with the Brahma Tirta Sari Studio from Yogyakarta in Indonesia, were also included in APT3 in the ‘Crossing Borders’ component. These works were diverse: Gordon Bennett’s ‘Notes to Basquiat’ series took inspiration from Jean Michel Basquiat’s exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, to ‘create links between the iconography of American racism and stereotypes of Aboriginal people’, and to express the complexity of identities. 6 Karen Casey’s Dreaming Chamber 1999 was a visceral installation incorporating image and sound which ‘entice[d] viewers on a journey to reveal the mysteries of “self”’, while invoking quantum field theory and Aboriginal concepts of the dreaming to comment on perceptions of time and space. 7 Michael Nelson Jagamara’s ‘action’ paintings merged the Papunya style of painting with extrapolation and techniques at once linked to Abstract Expressionism and Aboriginal ground painting; his huge, seemingly abstract creations were based on traditional iconography in a ‘gelato’ palette that broke boundaries between traditional Aboriginal art and the Western canon. 8 The collaboration between the Utopia Batik artists and Brahma Tirta Sari was framed by a spiritual framework — the Altyerr or dreaming of the Anmatyerre and the Javanese Tribowono — highlighting possibilities for the ‘coalition of spiritual paths across these two cultures’. 9 Michael Riley was the lone Aboriginal representative in APT2002. Only 16 artists were shown in the fourth Triennial, allowing for substantial surveys of major artists. Riley’s iconic works — Sacrifice (portfolio) 1993, Empire 1997 and cloud (portfolio) 2000 — illustrated his seniority and his mastery of narrative through photographic and video media. Although Riley avoided prescriptive explanation, his bold and beautiful works told of loss, sadness, survival and strength — each reflecting on Wiradjuri stories and histories — at the same time as introducing us to endless Wiradjuri skies. As noted by curator Avril Quaill: ‘His is an enduring and poetic expression of indigenous struggle and human sensitivity’. 10 APT5 (2006), the first in the new Gallery of Modern Art, witnessed a significant Indigenous presence with four artists featured — Djambawa Marawili, Dennis Nona, Beck Cole and Stephen Page. Djambawa Marawili’s monumental hollow log poles and large-scale bark paintings — remarkably, the first exhibited in an APT — were in a new style known as Buwayak (invisibility), a metaphor for works overpainted in white that partly camouflaged elements of the designs. This technique highlighted contrasting ideas of sacredness and revelation, as well as the distinct values of the secular art market and Yolngu art, culture and religion. Dennis Nona’s two large linocuts, Baidam (Shark constellation) 2006 and Ara (Boxing waves during strong current) 2006 signalled a shift in the medium — one favoured by Torres Strait artists — by freeing the works from storybook-style depictions of complete creation narratives; instead, Nona depicted important aspects of traditional knowledge, essentially retelling stories of subsistence and survival in the Torres Strait. For APT5, GOMA’s Australian Cinémathèque enabled the inclusion of stage performances and curated film programs; a suite of four shorts by filmmaker Beck Cole highlighted the complexities of contemporary Aboriginal existence through the lives of four characters. Her works speak particularly to central Australia and use the landscape to reinforce connections between people and place, both strained and strong. A specially commissioned short performance from Stephen Page, artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre, Kin 2006 brought together three generations of his family to tell a story of youth, culture and social history. Kin was told through the eyes of seven young Aboriginal boys at a critical junction in their lives, as they turned to their culture to overcome difficulties facing Indigenous youth today. In 2009, APT6 featured the work of Tracey Moffatt. 11 Moffatt speaks with the seductive and often humorous voice of the postcolonial insider: the ‘Plantation’ series 2009 depicted mysterious events set in archetypical tropical locales, with culturally resonant tensions, while Other 2009, a funny, dramatic and sexy six-minute montage, riffed on the portrayal of ‘the native’ in mainstream cinema. This year’s Triennial sees the greatest ever representation of Indigenous Australian artists. Five out of seven Australian artists in APT7 are Aboriginal — Shirley Macnamara, Lorraine Connelly-Northey, Timothy Cook, Daniel Boyd and Michael Cook. This illustrates the continuing vibrancy and relevance of Aboriginal art in an international context, with all artists making a significant contribution to exhibition dialogues. Daniel Boyd’s series of ‘dot’ paintings use the technique as a lens through which we can view an abstracted world — one in which our access to information is reduced and impaired, leaving us to ask questions of what still remains. Boyd links Aboriginal stories to Pacific narratives, through the double-edged sword of colonial endeavour, and various deprivations — of information, culture, language, land and history. However, he provides a redemptive glimmer in the information left behind, which we must find and use to recreate 47