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A different flame for Athens

Victoria Kyriakopoulos

5 July 2004 - A major exhibition of Australian indigenous art, which opened in Athens last week, will give visitors to the summer Olympics a confronting insight into Aboriginal art, culture and history.

Our Place: Indigenous Australia Now, a Victorian-NSW initiative being held at the Benaki Museum, provides a social and historical context to Aboriginal art and contemporary cultural expression.

It is the first indigenous Australian exhibition in Greece and forms part of the official Cultural Olympiad program.

Exhibits include Lin Onus's powerful life-size sculpture called They Took the Children Away (about the stolen generation), protest footage from the 1972 Aboriginal tent embassy in Canberra and a precious collection of boab nuts painted by Jack Wherra showing attacks by white settlers.

Curator Steve Miller from Sydney's Powerhouse Museum says the aim was to challenge people, not to present predictable stereotypes or traditional art displays, although there are significant pieces by some of Australia's leading Aboriginal artists.

"I don't think it is very controversial, but it certainly deals with issues on all sides in some of the works because that's become part of our culture now and our art," Miller says.

"History and culture are very much a part of who we are and it is very much an exhibition about that, though there are art elements. We have tried to do something that gives a broad sweep of our incredible diversity."

More than 250 pieces have been gathered from the collections of the Museum of Victoria and the Powerhouse Museum, as well as significant works from major institutions and private lenders.

"With two museums presenting this, and the richness of their collections, we were more able to deal with the social history rather than being an art gallery show," Miller says. "We did not want to do one of those sorts of exhibitions."

The $1.5-million exhibition reciprocates Greece's gift of the 1000 Years of the Olympic Games exhibit that was held at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney during the 2000 Olympics.

Designed by Alison Page, the exhibition focuses on five themes: spirit, country, conflict, family and cultural renewal. All these stories of survival, joy, sadness and ultimately triumph are told around a campfire.

"It's our place and our story," says Miller.

"All the curators are Aboriginal, which is a significant achievement. It's Aboriginal people speaking for themselves: that's the most significant thing about the show."

Urban and rural artists from every state are represented in the exhibition, which includes precious artefacts, painting, weaving, multi-media and video installations and music by contemporary artists.

While there is an Olympic theme from the former host cities, Melbourne and Sydney, some of the exhibits chosen had special resonance for Greece.

One is an interview and images from the photo archives of Alick Jackomos, a Greek immigrant who travelled around Victoria with his Aboriginal wife Merle, taking photographs of Aboriginal life.

Another is part of a work based on the family tree of Kalliope Koumalatsos, a Melbourne-based artist who is of Greek and Aboriginal descent. The work includes images of her maternal, Aboriginal, Lutheran grandmother in north-western Victoria and a photo she took of her paternal grandmother in Samos 20 years ago.

Koumalatsos was delighted to be in Greece for the exhibition opening.

"Dad is so pleased I am back here," she says. "It's actually a bit strange being brought up with two very strong cultures."

The exhibition is at the new temporary exhibition gallery of the Benaki Museum, one of the finest private museums in Greece.

Several hundred people attended Thursday's opening, which included performances by the Albert David dancers and singer Emma Donovan, as well as a video greeting from Cathy Freeman. The torch that Freeman carried to light the cauldron at the Sydney Olympics is part of the exhibit.

Museum of Victoria director Patrick Greene concedes the exhibition presents the many difficult and painful issues that have confronted Aborigines since European settlement.

"Australia is a country which is prepared to deal with both the difficult issues and wonderful achievements. 'Identity', 'pride', 'reconciliation' are words which museums are able to embrace as part of their social purpose," Greene said in Athens last week.

Our Place: Indigenous Australia Now runs until August 30.

Source: The Age

Aboriginal art debuts in Greece

10 July 2004 - An exhibition focusing on the art of indigenous Australians opened recently at the New Building of the Benaki Museum, situated on Pireos Street. At the new Benaki wing, the new exhibition joins the “Periplous” photography exhibition and the “Ptychoseis — Folds & Pleats” exhibition — all three shows will remain on display throughout the summer.

The “Australia: Indigenous Australia Now” exhibition is jointly organized by the Cultural Olympiad, the Powerhouse Museum and the Museum Victoria, and is the first exhibition of its kind to be organized in Greece. The show also has an element of exchange, since Greece had organized an exhibition of antiquities during the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

Featuring the art of the Aboriginal peoples, it aims to highlight one of the oldest existing civilizations in the world. At the exhibition’s opening on July 1, events also included music and dance by an Aboriginal dance group, coupled with a performance by singer Emma Donovan.

The exhibition, which will run to August 31, includes 250 items — including paintings, sculptures and other objects — on loan from Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum and Melbourne’s Museum Victoria. It also features objects from Sydney’s Maritime Museum and a number of pieces on loan from private collections. The curators, who are Aborigines, chose not to focus solely on the past, but to also present contemporary artwork in order to stress the continuity in a civilization that has already been in existence for thousands of years.

At the same time, the exhibition’s contemporary items demonstrate the Aboriginal population’s struggle to gain equal rights with the European colonists; it shows the indigenous peoples’ efforts to become part of society and to come to terms with their identity, without feeling like second-class citizens.

One of the most moving exhibits on display is the torch which Aborigine Olympic medal-winner Kathy Freeman used to light the altar at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics, a special moment for a significant part of the Australian population (350,000).

Visitors have the opportunity to see striking baskets, textiles, objects of daily use, carved fruit from trees and many other interesting items. The exhibition is divided into six thematic units on the population’s mentality, life in the countryside, social conflicts, family and cultural rebirth and revival.

Benaki Museum, New Wing, 138 Pireos Street. The exhibition runs to August 31.

Source: Ekathimerini (Greece)

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