Exhibition Chinwag is the original segment of the podcast where Joana invites professionals from other fields to visit and discuss the work of an artist through their solo exhibition.
Guest: Emily Harding the OG Exhibitionistas co-host!
Surprise Guest: John McDonald, Art Critic.
The artist: Emily Kam Kgnwarray at Tate Modern until 11 January, curated by Kelli Cole.
What can you paint at the end of your life? How does it change if you come from an Aboriginal culture? + Emily's impressions of the Tate exhibition of the great painter and artist of the Northern Territory!
Check out images referred to in the episode here.
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Key themes:
Painting; children in art; painting the body; the representation of the body, Jenny Saville
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Hello exhibitionistas. Welcome to another episode of
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the podcast with me, your host Joanna Pianevis.
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Today we have the OG format of exhibitionistas, so if you're
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new here or if you've been distracted, we have segments
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now. So we have different types of
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episodes in this podcast, but we started the first season with
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one single format that is now called exhibition Chinwag, and
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it was a very simple formula that was incredibly satisfying
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to record. And apparently you enjoy it as
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well, which is me, the dusty specialist inviting a guest who
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doesn't work in the industry and who discusses an exhibition with
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me. Emily Harding was my Co host.
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She was the non art specialist, the exhibition goer as she
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called herself during the whole of the first season.
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So today is the OG format. But I would say that today is
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the OG of the OG because my guest is precisely the one and
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only Emily Harding, back by popular demand.
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And this time we visited the exhibition together.
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Why visit the exhibition separately?
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So now is the time to tell you what exhibition we are going to
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talk about. If you haven't read the title of
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the episode, it can happen. Sometimes you're playing a
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podcast episode, then another one follows and you don't know.
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So we are going to talk about Emily came Naray, who is or was
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she passed away in 1996 an Aboriginal artists.
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And for that reason precisely, I decided to invite someone from
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Down Under. John McDonald, an art critic
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from Australia, hopped into the episodes and contributed with
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his side of the story. Because I'm I don't know John.
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We've never met in person, we've never talked beyond or before
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the episode. But I read a text of his on Sup
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stack and it was the first article.
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I was investigating this episode and it was the first article
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where I learned something beyond what everyone says about Emily
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Nare. For example, one of the first
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things that John says in his article is that he knows from a
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pretty reliable source that the spelling of Emily Kame Nare's
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name was changed by a linguist against the wishes of Emily Kame
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Nare. And he makes an interesting
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point, which is, Can you imagine if you decided to spell Agnes
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Martin by replacing the I with AY?
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You would not do that. But because she is from a very
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specific community, because she is not white, because she
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doesn't have power that was changed against her will.
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The idea of this episode is precisely to empower you, my
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dear, dear, dear listener, and also ourselves, our
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professionals and my guests to enjoy exhibitions regardless of
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what we know about the artist, what we know about the
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exhibition and also to then re evaluate the experience through
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the knowledge acquired across the episode.
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The knowledge is not to shatter the first impression, it is just
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an additional form of relating to the work, sometimes expanding
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the satisfaction and other times providing an insight into
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certain issues regarding curating for example, or
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institutional conditions of programming, for instance.
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The more you know, the more you enjoy.
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And also, if you lose a tiny bit of your innocence, I think you
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acquire something else, which is the expansion and the solidity
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of your experience. But it will always be a personal
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relation with whatever you know. In this episode, we are really
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going to be faced without reality because the three of us
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have very different relationships with this
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exhibition and with the artists. So it was really interesting to
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listen to John and you can also check his page.
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He has really interesting and very, very thought provoking sub
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stack page called and I am checking as I'm talking to you,
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everything the art world doesn't want you to know.
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Another thing I wanted to tell you is for you artists out
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there, particularly those who draw or whose practice is
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centered around drawing, there is a really interesting
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residency. So this is a shout out to Atuli
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de Zak, which is in France and have a call for applications at
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the moment for a drawing research residency.
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So this is really interesting because in most residencies you
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are there for three weeks, six weeks, you have to produce
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something. And so this particular residency
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is really interesting because it's a research residency, you
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do not have to produce anything. So the dates of the residency
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are from the 3rd to the 30th of September 2026.
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The deadline for applications is the 12th of December, midnight
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Central European time. But beware, the call is open to
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professional contemporary artists of all ages, but they
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have to be based or come from the Oxytani Pyrene Mediterranean
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region. So if you subscribe to the
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newsletter already, you will have a link for the application
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there if you want to go straight to the website.
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So it's atelier. So atelier as you spell atelier
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plural DES ARQUE s.com and you will have on the residences, I
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think the call for applications. It's the first text that you see
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when you click on it. We will be talking about Emily
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came nares work. It's at Tate Modern, curated by
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Kelly Cole and this is an exhibition that travelled from
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Australia from the National Gallery of Australia and that
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exhibition was curated by Kelly Cole, Waramungu and the Richer
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Peoples and Hetty Perkins Herente and Kalkadun Peoples.
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So the exhibition is open until the 11th of January. 1 of the
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things you can do is to watch the podcast instead of listening
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to it on Spotify. So Spotify has video.
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I always do a video episode that you can listen to so you don't
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have to watch it. You can just do the audio
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version. You can watch it on YouTube as
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well. And another thing you can do is
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subscribe to the newsletter, because usually I always post
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when particularly exhibitions Chinwag, I do a newsletter, but
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then I post another article only with images of the artist's work
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and with the little text accompanying it.
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So the last one was about Jenny Savile.
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So what I want to say about the work is that it is incredibly
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proliferous and it starts with these very dense layers and over
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layers of paintbrush dots. She had a very particular way of
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working, so she sat on the floor and she would hover over the
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canvas that wouldn't be stretched.
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So she would just work on the canvas almost as if she was
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working on a piece of fabric, a rectangular piece of fabric.
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But she was very precise about backgrounds.
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Sometimes she asked for the canvas to be prepared beforehand
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so that she could paint over it. And there are many, many
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variations of this very free use of the brush.
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There's a huge phase where there were these paintings with very
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sinuous lines. Then with sinuous lines were
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these sorts of under layers, with shapes that could be quite
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curved, where you could also see paw prints, animals, little
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lizards, the emus. So the animals that were
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important for her culture and that she communicated about.
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Then you have other works which are composite or groups of
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paintings on the wall, as as usual with her work, and they
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are quite atmospheric. So they associate these areas of
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different colors that are applied with quite a lot of
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freedom, as always. So there's a lot more that I
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could say and that I could describe, but so that, you know,
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there is this incredible freedom.
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It was always her hand. Her hand guided her, the song
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she had in her. The paintings were very much
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related to singing and to women ceremonies.
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So the way the body was painted, so the body lines were painted
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from shoulder to shoulder, these sort of curved lines that would
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accompany the breasts, for example, all of those in some
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ways find themselves on the paintings, but they are
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completely reinterpreted. So you're not going to find the
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same motifs applied to canvases or the canvases seen as bodies.
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Actually, when you think about it, there's lines, there's dots,
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there's these shapes of colors. So the variation wouldn't seem
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to bring as much variety and as much invention as it does.
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If it's not the color, it's the shape that's going to bring
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something new. So it's quite exciting,
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incredibly warm. And when it's not warm, it's
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very emotional. So there's something always very
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vibrant in the paintings. Some of them are more subdued,
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but even those ones which are more in terms of brown, they are
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so dense. There's a density, there's an
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energy that is contained or released in the paintings.
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It's a very, very peculiar exhibition to be experienced, to
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be in front of her work and to stay with it.
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It, it was really an intriguing and thought provoking and
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challenging in some ways experience to them.
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Think about the exhibition. Experiencing the exhibition was
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marvelous. And then of course, thinking
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about all the intricacies and the complexities of what it
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means to bring a culture onto the contemporary Art Museum.
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That's a whole other kind of worms, if I may say so myself.
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I hope wherever you are that you experience the exhibition
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vicariously through US and if you have the opportunity to come
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to London or to see Emily Kamena Rey's work in any other way, I
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hope you take that opportunity, seize it, because as far as I'm
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concerned, it is completely worthwhile.
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Now on with the episode. Thank you for sticking around
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and thank you for being a faithful listener and welcome if
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you are new here. Hello and welcome to Exhibition
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Chinwag, which is a segment that emulates the first season of the
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podcast, where Emily Harding and myself had really wonderful
00:13:31
chats about solo exhibitions. And that's exactly what's going
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on today. And precisely with that person.
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Emily is back. It's so good to be back.
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I'm great. Thank you.
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It was, it was so nice to, you know, be back in the habit of
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seeing a big show like this. And this is like, since doing
00:13:50
the podcast more regularly, I feel like there has been sort of
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a missing link in my life in terms of, you know, seeing art.
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So I've obviously seen bits and pieces here and there.
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But. But yeah, it was really lovely
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to go back and lovely to go with you, which we didn't normally do
00:14:07
before. So shaking things up.
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That's it. We completely changed the rules
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because why visit exhibition separately?
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There's so much to say about art anyway.
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We it was a bit naive of me to think that we would exhaust the
00:14:25
conversation right there and then.
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Exactly, exactly. You and me both.
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Do you know that this segment is called Exhibition Chinwag?
00:14:34
And you were the one who introduced me to the word
00:14:37
chinwag, ah? Right.
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Nice. Which still feels like something
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dirty and sexual to me, but OK, you know, something you would
00:14:48
have to agree to with your partner, you know what I mean?
00:14:52
I'm not. This word does not gel with me,
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but I find it so funny. Would it?
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Would it? Would it require a safe word?
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Something like that. That's my feeling.
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Yeah, yeah, that's funny. Good old chin, my good old
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ladder, as they say here. It's so good to have you back.
00:15:15
So the exhibition we're going to talk about is Emily Kamay
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Naray's exhibition at Tate Modern.
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Naray is Aboriginal artist who passed away in 1996, so she is a
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20th century artist and we thought we could use a little
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bit of a perspective from down Under.
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So John McDonald and our critic from Australia, from Sydney is
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going to join us later because we felt that and you're going to
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understand why that we could use an input from someone who's over
00:15:49
there. I think I wanted to also kind of
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give everyone who's listening a heads up.
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We are going to be very approximative with the
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philosophies behind the paintings because it's such a
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huge tradition. It's a different language and I
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think they did that really well in the exhibition where we are
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confronted with a lot of words that we don't know how to
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pronounce. And that was done on purpose.
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And it's a way of thinking and living the the land that we can
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only kind of try to approach. So I thought of looking at the
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map of Aboriginal Australia first, because I think that's
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one of the things that I looked for first, to kind of have a
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sense of how many peoples were there, how were the First
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Nations distributed? And so I put it in our document
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that can you see it? Yeah, yeah.
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So it is quite different than the Australia map that we were
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used to seeing. It is a phenomenal number of of
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different regions and areas that represent different peoples.
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And the way that it kind of cuts across the continent of
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Australia is, yeah, is very different than the way you'd
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normally see it. But also very representative of
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her work because she has lots of that section, that big sections
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that represent different pieces of land and, you know, kind of
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how different parts of the land join up to one another's.
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It felt a little bit resent, representative of of some of the
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work that she's doing. Yeah, I'm, I'm really astonished
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with the number of peoples. So it looks like a quilt with
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very small bits that kind of make up the whole fabric of it.
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And so you have an incredible number of peoples and you have
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all these little colors. It's very colorful.
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And you have all these names of communities that lived in
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specific areas of the whole continent.
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I was really taken by this map because I thought I don't know a
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single word in here. And just to situate you, so
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Emily Si Kame Naray is from the NT, but not the bit that goes up
00:18:04
to Darwin and then the the coast.
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She's more from the inland. So the Sandover area of the NT
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specifically Alalkire in the Sandover area of the NT and she
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was born around 1910. We don't have a specific date.
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She then lived in a place called Utopia in the NT and she passed
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away in Alice Springs, which is probably the biggest city in
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that area, on the 3rd of September of 1996.
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But there's also something that is really important to her, and
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that's why I wanted to have a look at the map, is that she is
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also part of the Anmatiere Central Desert Region language
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group. One of the things that also
00:18:52
defines a community is the language they speak.
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So this language goes across those different borders that you
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see in in that Aboriginal map of Australia.
00:19:04
I clearly saw two very distinct narratives coming up.
00:19:10
So let's let's take the the Tates that there's a video on
00:19:14
the website in the presentation of the exhibition.
00:19:17
There's a, you know, Tates that always does these short films.
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And so the Tate film starts with a voice.
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We presume it's Emily talking about her way of life.
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And so she says that they lived behind wind breaks.
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Sometimes in caves they would make shelters with grass many
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years ago. So you have these views of the
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landscape. So the landscape of the NT is
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very orange, very dry with it's the Bush.
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You know, it really is kind of very specific landscape.
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And this is in the olden times. So the idea of the olden times
00:19:55
is presented and at 2nd 27, so this is a a 7.27 minute video,
00:20:02
you know, pops up this archival footage and this voice, this
00:20:06
television voice saying Naray's work has broken record prices.
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Her work has, and, I quote, become too costly for even big
00:20:15
public galleries to acquire these days.
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Pyong Waare was around 80 years old when she first put brush to
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canvas. She moved.
00:20:28
On an isolated central Australian community.
00:20:31
This to enormous distinction while the world's major.
00:20:34
Artists. Emily Norwari.
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So it's immediately the greatness 2.1 million he's
00:20:43
thrown at you. Just like the highest amount of
00:20:45
woman has ever been paid for a piece of art.
00:20:48
Is that right? Something like that.
00:20:49
Well, no, because in auction sales you're not paid.
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That's sales between owners of work.
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So if, if, if it had been through her gallery, then she
00:21:00
would have seen the money. But if it's in an auction sale,
00:21:05
then it's a sort of a, you know, it's the speculative side of the
00:21:08
market. Another thing that is said quite
00:21:11
quickly is that she started painting at age 80.
00:21:14
So she became a full blown artist when most people are not
00:21:19
only retired but also kind of, you know, leaving the space for
00:21:26
the juniors, you know. Yeah, exactly.
00:21:28
Yeah, they're not. They're not starting their
00:21:30
passion projects typically at AD.
00:21:33
My mom is turning AD in November.
00:21:36
And who knows, I mean, maybe, maybe there's a painter in her
00:21:40
that will blossom from this, but.
00:21:44
I think she's going to stop making installations with old
00:21:47
CD. ROMs. Or she could just kind of
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continue with her Tuesday card games and, you know, kind of her
00:21:54
normal course of, you know, octogenarian life.
00:22:01
So then you are. So the history then comes up,
00:22:04
obviously. So the name Utopia, we're told,
00:22:07
came from white settlers. It is quite a startling name, I
00:22:11
thought. Wow.
00:22:12
Yeah, it's very specific. It has a very resonant, kind of,
00:22:17
it's a resonant word utopia. And I think especially for that
00:22:21
area, you know, it's like, you know, as you were describing,
00:22:24
like it's a desert. It's harsh, you know, you, you,
00:22:27
you know, you're sleeping behind wind breaks and you know, you
00:22:31
know, it's not an easy life as we would imagine an easy life.
00:22:35
And utopia definitely chimes that, you know, that that
00:22:39
meaning for us of like, oh, the easy life, It's beautiful.
00:22:43
So I like, I like the juxtaposition of it.
00:22:46
We learned that that juxtaposition, I think that's a
00:22:48
great word, came from white settlers.
00:22:50
So what happened is that Aboriginal community settled
00:22:54
there to find work and ended up so this was a pastoral region.
00:23:00
So you had cattle stations that were established by white
00:23:06
settlers and the Aboriginal communities stayed there.
00:23:11
It is said in the video for work and so we learned that Naray
00:23:16
work there as a cattle. It is said also camel handler
00:23:23
and. I saw that too, actually, yeah.
00:23:26
Listen, we don't know, perhaps even minding the children of
00:23:30
white families, we don't quite know, but it's kind of a
00:23:34
hypothetical idea of what she may have done.
00:23:38
And we also learned that she witnessed the fights for the
00:23:40
aboriginal rights to the land. And then we move on to what was
00:23:46
the really pivotal moment in Naray's life, which was to find
00:23:52
out about the batik technique with the groups, the group of
00:23:56
women she was with as part of a women's education program.
00:24:01
And that kind of, as I was saying to Emily before we
00:24:04
started recording, there's a Portuguese expression.
00:24:06
I I have a flea behind my ear. Which?
00:24:09
Means a sort of a nagging impression of.
00:24:11
Bummer, you need to get some spray for that girl.
00:24:15
So that kind of, I thought, education program, what does
00:24:18
that mean and why we're in the middle of Utopia 1988, Naray did
00:24:23
her first painting on canvas called MU Woman, which propelled
00:24:28
her into the art scene. That painting was it was seen,
00:24:33
it was adored and that marked a period into painting for her
00:24:38
that allowed her to create for eight years.
00:24:41
So she produced about 3000 works, more or less.
00:24:45
Yeah. Give or take, right?
00:24:47
Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, and that I just love the
00:24:51
fact that there was a women's education program because it's
00:24:54
like, you know, we were talking about before we started
00:24:57
recording kind of all of the differences that are taking
00:25:00
place in terms of the US and values around the Smithsonian
00:25:06
etcetera and part. Of the part of.
00:25:08
Yeah. Part of what's been cut though
00:25:11
is like USAID and kind of, you know, those kind of development
00:25:15
programs that would have had, you know, that would have
00:25:19
supported stuff like this. I mean, the British Council does
00:25:22
it here and, you know, you look at what came from one of those
00:25:26
programs. Not that the point of it is to
00:25:28
have somebody like Emily who is artworks win lots and lots of
00:25:33
money. That's not necessarily the point
00:25:35
of it. But but, you know, the fact that
00:25:38
you know, it, it's generative of so much and so much of the batik
00:25:42
work in general, you know, has come through those programs.
00:25:45
And yeah, anyway. And aside to today's politics
00:25:50
and how it's how it's undermining the next Emily Noir.
00:25:55
And we have batik pieces in the exhibition.
00:25:58
Was quite extraordinary, yeah. It is said in the exhibition
00:26:03
that her works are centered around Ankara, the emu.
00:26:07
So emu woman or Iwelia, which is a body paints but also a term
00:26:14
that more or less means women's ceremony.
00:26:16
So this is the narrative, one way of looking at it, which is
00:26:21
that there's an ancestral way of life.
00:26:25
There's records breaking prices in auction sales.
00:26:30
There's this announcement of the greatest Australian artists who,
00:26:34
by the way, started painting at 80 years old and who by the way,
00:26:37
is a woman, which very uncommon things.
00:26:40
So a sort of a phenomenon that comes a bit ex nilo into the art
00:26:46
market and the, let's say, the art fields.
00:26:49
She worked as an animal handler, started with batik, and she was
00:26:53
inspired by body paint and is surrounded by a group of women,
00:26:58
which to me is kind of what I gathered immediately when I went
00:27:02
into the exhibition. Of course, I was a bit shocked
00:27:06
with this idea that you could start an artistic career at 80,
00:27:10
although it's not the she's not the first one.
00:27:12
But as you were saying, exceptions exist, but that's not
00:27:15
obviously the rule. So for me, it is a narrative
00:27:20
that is a westernized cultural narrative, which is my culture.
00:27:23
You know, it's kind of the way I'm going to approach very
00:27:26
naturally. If I don't second guess myself,
00:27:29
I'm going to very naturally approach the narrative in this
00:27:33
way. So we learned that locally, her
00:27:37
work was discovered and minded by a few people.
00:27:41
Sorry, can I just just about that kind of looking at her
00:27:47
within a Western narrative, you wonder if aboriginal in
00:27:52
Aboriginal cultures, maybe they were like, well, of course, you
00:27:56
know, you do the most important things when you're old in life.
00:27:59
You know, I mean, you know, we're, you know, we're, I'm, I'm
00:28:03
totally unsurprised by my mom, you know, having her regular,
00:28:07
you know, coffee clutch in the morning and her card games and
00:28:10
things like that. That seems normal.
00:28:11
But maybe, you know, in that community, it's like, well, of
00:28:14
course, you manifest all of your wisdom and you manifest your
00:28:18
talents. And you know, it's not a it's
00:28:21
not a slow roll down the hill. It's like a slow roll up a hill.
00:28:27
And in a way, or I don't know, that's probably the wrong
00:28:30
analogy, but you know what I mean.
00:28:31
It's you wonder in your script, in your script for the for the
00:28:36
episode, you have those, you know, bullet points of ancestral
00:28:39
way of life and all the things that you just talked about
00:28:42
worked as a animal handler, started with fatigue.
00:28:44
The thing that really defines her work is that notion that she
00:28:51
is in and of the land that she is.
00:28:55
Even when she's making the works, she's sitting down on the
00:28:58
land and you get the sense that everything around her is being
00:29:03
infused into it. And, and that is so different
00:29:07
than aesthetics, which is the Western way of engaging with
00:29:12
things. And she has, you know, as I was,
00:29:15
as I was kind of reading about her and looking at things, you
00:29:20
know, it, it just struck me as like, can a, can a piece of art
00:29:23
be wise? And I think her art can be wise
00:29:27
because it's less about aesthetics.
00:29:31
And oh, I'm going to try it this way because I think the dots and
00:29:34
the lines look interesting and this but it's she is she is like
00:29:39
transmitting knowledge through her work.
00:29:43
She is this is a history book and a celebration.
00:29:47
And it is so much more than aesthetics.
00:29:51
I mean, you know, before I knew, I didn't know anything really
00:29:53
about her before the exhibition. And when you look at the
00:29:56
adverts, you know, you think Jackson Pollock like that's not.
00:30:00
And, you know, I mean, I think a lot of people who don't know her
00:30:04
might think, oh, this is sort of like, you know, abstraction,
00:30:07
what have you expression and and she's figurative.
00:30:15
You know, that's what the, you know, I don't think I, I went in
00:30:18
with a certain mindset thinking that it was going to be, you
00:30:22
know, wow, she's kind of like modern without having known
00:30:26
about the school and all of that kind of stuff.
00:30:29
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, there's a lot about,
00:30:33
there's a lot to say about the painting, right, in terms of our
00:30:36
own categories to talk about it and and we're getting there.
00:30:39
So just to finish with the this idea of the market.
00:30:43
So there's a market for Aboriginal art that starts kind
00:30:47
of coming up and becoming really established at the end of the
00:30:51
70s. And then from there on, Emily
00:30:54
came. Narre is not the only Aboriginal
00:30:57
artist in the market, but she's definitely the special 1.
00:31:01
So for example, collector and dealer Hank Ebbs in the YouTube
00:31:06
video says and describes her in those terms that I have just
00:31:11
laid down. So quote, she was a Stone Age
00:31:14
nomad. She'd never sat in a car before
00:31:17
she was 50. So that's kind of the vision he
00:31:21
has of her. And then he tells the story of
00:31:25
her grandson of hers that came to him because the grandson felt
00:31:30
that Aboriginal artists were being exploited and he wanted
00:31:35
someone trustworthy to take care of the work.
00:31:37
And so Ebes recognized obviously Naray's name, and he said, OK,
00:31:43
I'm going to look into this. He started dealing her work, but
00:31:47
also others and also collecting it.
00:31:50
So there's this established market and there's also this
00:31:54
idea that the family that I wanted to introduce as well,
00:31:58
that the family participates in this and we're going to see how
00:32:02
and, and why. So this is not a situation where
00:32:06
the white person comes, takes the work and then puts it in the
00:32:09
museum. It's, it's a more complex
00:32:12
situation. And you very rightly pointed out
00:32:15
to the women's program. And there's a lot to do with
00:32:18
that. There's a role that it it plays
00:32:20
in there. And so he also says, and I'm
00:32:22
quoting him, she's an artist with a pedigree of 40 years.
00:32:27
Yeah. So the idea of the pedigree and
00:32:31
the idea of the timelessness really brings home this notion
00:32:36
that Aboriginal peoples don't have a history.
00:32:39
They're static. And we have a progression, you
00:32:43
know, conversely, in not only in history, but also in
00:32:49
contemporary, modern, classic, etcetera, art terms.
00:32:54
And so he believes Eve's that and he says this in the video,
00:33:00
had she lived the 100 years before, she'd have done exactly
00:33:03
the same thing. So there's this idea that the
00:33:06
Aboriginal person carries this truth or this aesthetic and just
00:33:11
put it puts it out there. So this is really the Western
00:33:15
narrative that is kind of doubled by a praise, a sort of
00:33:20
praise for her modernity that is almost seen like a coincidence.
00:33:25
So we have met through a sort of preference historically.
00:33:31
And so the Art Gallery of NSW in 2022-2023 established or curated
00:33:40
this exhibition called Affinities of Lewitt's later
00:33:43
works. And when you look at them,
00:33:45
they're real squiggles and kind of undulating lines with very
00:33:50
different colors than what he started with in the beginning,
00:33:53
which was no color than primary colors.
00:33:56
And here there's a real mix of very unexpected colors for for
00:34:00
Lewitt. And then the exhibition is in
00:34:03
dialogue with a wall of Anne Matier.
00:34:07
So this language group, artists Nare and Gloria Tamerae Pitiare.
00:34:14
And so there is this idea that there's a modernism and a sort
00:34:18
of a dialogue going on in the work and in the same museum.
00:34:26
The way the artist is presented is, and I quote as a leading
00:34:31
figure in Eastern amateur ceremony.
00:34:35
So that already tells us something.
00:34:37
The ceremonial aspect is really important.
00:34:40
Naray was also the artist in whose work many white
00:34:44
Australians first felt the. Force.
00:34:47
Of an Indigenous art that could be seen to negotiate a space
00:34:52
both with the aesthetics of Western abstraction and the
00:34:55
timeless precepts of our Aboriginal cultural traditions.
00:34:59
And again, we have this idea of timelessness and this idea of a
00:35:06
resonance that is also a dialogue between both cultures.
00:35:11
And she's also presented as having a strong relation to
00:35:14
country. And thank you, Emily, because
00:35:15
you did say that earlier on and that is true.
00:35:20
And the way it is described is again in Western terms.
00:35:24
So in there's a the description of a work called untitled
00:35:29
allocate and maybe we'll get to the reason why it's called like
00:35:32
this later on from 1992. And the description is that it
00:35:37
has been quote, perceived as a lyrical mapping of country, a
00:35:41
poeticizing of the desert in bloom or simply as a spectacular
00:35:46
abstract painting, UN quote. And so in the Tate film, we also
00:35:51
talk about thin boundaries between the worlds of the
00:35:53
spiritual and the material in her work.
00:35:56
And her work is explained as the way these two elements were
00:36:00
planes interconnect or inter relate.
00:36:04
And you can see that really well in the first room of the
00:36:06
exhibition as you go in and you see the dotted paintings of the
00:36:11
beginning. So pre 90, I think where there's
00:36:16
this sort of really strange effects of like you say, pull up
00:36:23
from the far, but then you see it's just dots.
00:36:26
And then you have, we were talking about it when we visited
00:36:29
the exhibition, which there's layers and layers and layers of
00:36:33
dots, and at a certain point you feel like you're embedded in
00:36:37
them. I don't know if you did you have
00:36:39
that. Yeah, yeah.
00:36:40
No, I mean, it's, it's it, it felt both like being embedded in
00:36:46
it, like you can't see the wood through the trees, you know,
00:36:50
like you're really in something. But then also hovering above it
00:36:54
like when you kind of step back and look at some of the the
00:36:58
shapes. They're almost an integral part
00:37:02
of the dots, but at the same time they're they're also an
00:37:04
underlying layer and you have lizards and geckos and these
00:37:11
these little animals embedded in them.
00:37:13
Right. Yeah.
00:37:14
Yes. By the way, did you look up
00:37:16
emos? Have you seen that emos?
00:37:19
Do you know I haven't? They are the most adorable
00:37:23
things. So they're one of the biggest
00:37:25
birds in the world. Like they're the third biggest
00:37:28
bird in the world and they're flightless.
00:37:30
So I mean, and, and to me, like the notion of a flightless bird
00:37:34
is just so endearing. You know, it's like, we'll give
00:37:38
you wings, but they're not going to be good for the good stuff,
00:37:41
you know, so they, they're enormous.
00:37:43
They have these tiny little 6 inch wings that are basically
00:37:48
just there to cool themselves off and they heat and they, but
00:37:51
they have these really long legs and knees that are almost kind
00:37:54
of right by their hips. So they could run up to 30 miles
00:37:58
an hour and they they can, you know, they can, they can take
00:38:02
steps as big as like 9 feet in full stride.
00:38:05
But but and their little faces are so cute.
00:38:08
So I can see why she she she was enthralled.
00:38:13
I'm, I'm feeling yeah, Emily on that one.
00:38:17
Yeah. Well, yeah, it is a really
00:38:19
important but for her and there's we're going to see
00:38:24
there's different elements for her that are really important.
00:38:28
So another element of the exhibition, as soon as you get
00:38:31
into the second room, you see an image of country, which for us
00:38:37
is an image of the NT where. So the central parts of the NT
00:38:43
where Emily Kame Naree grew up and lived.
00:38:48
She moved a lot in that territory, by the way.
00:38:51
That's why there's a reference of her nomadic ways.
00:38:54
And some people do say that she moved quite a lot.
00:38:58
But as you say, there's this idea and this notion that
00:39:02
puzzled me a little bit, which was that very quickly it is
00:39:07
introduced to you and very well done, by the way, very well
00:39:10
explained that each painting is country and it is everything she
00:39:16
says. She said often this is
00:39:19
everything. And so we were talking about how
00:39:22
the paintings were the land and there is no dissociation between
00:39:26
country, land and dreaming. So the dreaming or country.
00:39:31
And they seem to, like you were saying, like you seem to be
00:39:34
hovering above the land. And so very usefully so you have
00:39:39
images pasted onto the wall, these very massive expanses,
00:39:44
photographic expanses of the land.
00:39:46
So you have a sort of a direct equivalence between the
00:39:50
paintings as expressions of that landscape.
00:39:55
But Emily Caminare, I'm pretty sure she never took a plane or a
00:40:00
helicopter. She's never seen it from above.
00:40:03
So it's so interesting to see what kind of mapping is this.
00:40:07
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I guess, I guess
00:40:09
from those high points she could have seen, you know, quite a bit
00:40:13
of the country, even if she hadn't been, you know, in a
00:40:15
plane or, you know, kind of above it in that sense.
00:40:19
I I think, you know, in her relationship to country, you
00:40:24
know, she's always looking down. She's not looking up, you know,
00:40:28
there's, there's no references to Sky that I can think of.
00:40:32
I saw some references to consolations and and looking
00:40:37
upwards in some text that I read, but that didn't come
00:40:41
across in the exhibition. Yeah.
00:40:43
But, I mean, and I thought that was interesting that, you know,
00:40:46
there, you know, there is a very distinct relationship with the
00:40:49
ground, with the underground, with the lay of the land.
00:40:53
She's a landscape painter in some respects, yeah.
00:40:56
Yeah, yeah, continue. Yeah, So absolutely.
00:41:02
That there's a does it? Yeah, that you are.
00:41:05
That's so true. There's a real kind of like
00:41:07
lowering of onto the ground on on in her paintings.
00:41:11
So when we got out, we picked up a few books and I bought this
00:41:15
book called Song Lines by Margot O'Neill and Lynn Kelly, The
00:41:20
Power and Promise. And Margot O'Neill actually
00:41:23
organized one of the first exhibitions of Emily Kamenare in
00:41:30
QLD. So she describes a little bits
00:41:34
what this Aboriginal set of beliefs and histories and
00:41:42
relationships to land. And so she starts by saying
00:41:47
everything starts. And so I'm quoting here.
00:41:50
Everything starts and ends with Country in the Aboriginal world
00:41:54
view, yet there are no endings in this worldview, nor are there
00:42:00
any beginnings. Time and place are infinite and
00:42:03
everywhere. Everything is part of a
00:42:06
continuum and endless flow of life and ideas emanating from
00:42:10
Country, which I'm referred to as the Dreaming.
00:42:14
In the Dreaming, as in Country, there is no separation between
00:42:19
the animate and inanimate. Everything is living people,
00:42:24
animals, plants, earth, water and air.
00:42:28
We speak of sea, land and sky. Country creator ancestors
00:42:33
created the country and its interface, the Dreaming.
00:42:37
In turn, Dreaming speaks for country which holds the law and
00:42:42
knowledge. Country has.
00:42:43
Dreaming Country is dreaming. It is this oneness of all things
00:42:49
that explains how and why Aboriginal knowledges belong to
00:42:53
an integrated system of learning.
00:42:55
And so later on, she says, Country holds.
00:42:58
So I'm quoting here again. Country holds information,
00:43:02
innovations, stories and secrets from medicine, engineering,
00:43:06
ecology and astronomy to show social Morris on how to live and
00:43:11
social organization including moiety, division and kinship
00:43:15
systems. It is the wellspring from which
00:43:18
all knowledge originates and gives rise to the expression our
00:43:21
history is written in the land. By history we mean all
00:43:26
knowledge, science, sciences, humanities, and ancestral
00:43:30
knowledge, not only what is compartmentalized as Western
00:43:33
history. If country holds all knowledge,
00:43:36
then country is clever. And then she goes on to say, as
00:43:42
our knowledge system encompasses a concept of time that talks of
00:43:45
the enduring, present and eternal time, the Western
00:43:48
divisions of past, present and future, or historical and
00:43:51
contemporary are not particularly relevant, though
00:43:55
they are useful at times. This recycling of time is
00:43:58
embodied in the expression when you look behind you, you see the
00:44:02
future in your footprints. And so here we have not really a
00:44:08
notion of timelessness, but a different relationship with the
00:44:13
very idea of history, this idea that everything comes from land,
00:44:17
everything comes from country, but not just the sort of
00:44:21
mystical relationship to country, but very specifically
00:44:24
technical relationships and answers for problem solving
00:44:29
basically like engineering and ecological systems and knowledge
00:44:33
of the country. So Lynn Kelly is really
00:44:36
interesting because she explains that she didn't know anything
00:44:40
about Aboriginal history. She complaints that at school
00:44:43
she was never taught Aboriginal history.
00:44:45
And the idea that she had was that there was no history and
00:44:48
there was no science. But when she finally had to
00:44:51
study a particular kind of crocodile, I think so she was
00:44:54
looking at an animal. She went to her colleagues,
00:44:57
tried to find out things about this species, and 10 or 12 were
00:45:04
known. And the only people who actually
00:45:06
knew 100 or more specimens and behaviours et cetera about the
00:45:12
animal were the Aboriginal people.
00:45:14
I mean, I think that's so, you know, looking at looking at the
00:45:18
work in the way that she worked, you know, again, that's sitting
00:45:24
on the ground doing the work. It has a real meditative
00:45:27
quality. You know, you get the sense that
00:45:29
she is someone who has been, even though she hasn't been
00:45:32
painting until she was 80 years old, She was she had this deep
00:45:36
observation that comes from actually really being in a
00:45:40
place, you know, when you are really in a place and you know
00:45:43
it intimately. You see the various varieties of
00:45:46
crocodiles, you know what I mean?
00:45:48
And that's just not, you know, again, to your point of, you
00:45:51
know, the the differences in approach and understanding and,
00:45:56
you know, defining what is, you know, there's that very lab
00:46:00
scientific, you know, go out and find approach and there's the
00:46:05
live observe embodied approach that she seems to have with the
00:46:12
work that she's done. And so one of the things that
00:46:15
you learn in this book, and that's why it's called song
00:46:17
lines, is that there's a very clear articulation between the
00:46:22
movement of making those sinuous lines, for example, and these
00:46:28
these lines are very close to the gestures of applying paint
00:46:32
for the ceremonies, for the women's ceremonies.
00:46:35
But there's also another aspect, which is the voice and the and
00:46:38
the song. And so country is also song and
00:46:41
those lines and those these paintings are also sunk.
00:46:45
And so sometimes, apparently, Emily came.
00:46:48
Narai was notoriously silent about the works and so she
00:46:53
didn't explain the work, but she would sometimes touch a painting
00:46:57
and and sing it. I saw that.
00:46:59
Yeah. That's so cool.
00:47:00
And she. Yeah.
00:47:01
So. So it was hard to get names of
00:47:04
any of the paintings out of her. So that that's apparently why so
00:47:07
many are called country is just because she would just, yes,
00:47:11
say, repeat that again and again.
00:47:12
Country is, is what it is. Country is everything.
00:47:15
Yeah. Although there were some great
00:47:16
names like Wild Potato. Potato.
00:47:19
Dreaming and there's like Bush potato dreaming and.
00:47:24
Yeah. We did have were pretty choice,
00:47:27
you know we. Had a moment there with the wild
00:47:29
potato dreaming. We just kind of stood there kind
00:47:33
of like, wow, that's gorgeous. So her role was to learn its
00:47:38
ancient history and all the physical characteristics as well
00:47:42
as responsibilities associated with maintaining the continuity
00:47:46
of the land. So for her, these paintings are
00:47:51
a transmission, and you use this word, and it's a very, very good
00:47:55
one because as we will see, there's really this relationship
00:48:00
with communication with another side of the country and other
00:48:07
people. So what we learn as well is that
00:48:15
her people were forced to work for pastoralists.
00:48:18
So she worked at Wood Green station looking after domestic
00:48:22
animals and also LED camel trains and even worked in the
00:48:26
mine, the Wolfram mine in return for Russians.
00:48:31
And so she was a ceremonial leader.
00:48:33
She was also active, I learn in this text, in the land rights
00:48:38
movement. And another question that I had
00:48:42
was why batik? What happened?
00:48:45
Why were there only women? Well, so to go back, So the
00:48:48
women's programs were built by someone who was there, who saw
00:48:54
women waiting for the children when they went to school.
00:48:56
So and she thought, why not try and do something with them?
00:49:01
And so they started by doing tie dye, which was kind of this
00:49:04
remnant of hippie culture. And the women took to these
00:49:07
things. The women took to this culture
00:49:10
and to these traditions because they had this practice, this
00:49:13
artistic practice for ages. So they had this knowledge of
00:49:16
mark making and line making and pattern making, and they loved
00:49:20
tie dye, but they loved batik even more, which is an
00:49:23
Indonesian technique. And I was kind of baffled.
00:49:27
Why Batik? Yeah, me too.
00:49:29
Yeah, and it's really difficult, but take, I mean, it is not, you
00:49:34
know, I didn't really realize that the process of it was so
00:49:38
involved. You know, I think it's
00:49:41
interesting that, you know, her batiks, Emily's batiks, a lot of
00:49:46
the same themes you can see obviously in the early paintings
00:49:49
in particular. But just like from an aging
00:49:52
perspective, it's like, you know, you can see her age
00:49:56
through her, through her work. It's like that really.
00:49:59
She did batik for 10 years before she started painting.
00:50:03
And that's, you know, you've got to stretch it across your legs
00:50:06
and then you've got to, you know, make the Marks and then
00:50:09
there's a whole process. Melted wax, exactly.
00:50:12
Yeah. So you have to build the fire?
00:50:14
Yeah, to melt the wax. And then, you know, she moves to
00:50:18
paint, and it's this really intensive process where you see
00:50:21
all these little dots and you know that that is, you know, not
00:50:25
easy either. It's like, you know, that's
00:50:27
reasonably laborious, less laborious than batik, but then
00:50:30
you see her kind of move from dots to more of the sinuous
00:50:34
lines of the, you know, of the yam roots or what have you.
00:50:38
And and I just love the fact that, you know, someone who is
00:50:42
that expert at batik could think, man, this is too hard for
00:50:46
me now I'm old and really kind of stick there, you know, and be
00:50:50
like, oh, I'm really going to grieve the fact that I can't do
00:50:52
batik anymore. But she just plowed on like this
00:50:55
woman just moved forward with such force.
00:50:59
I mean, she was obviously, as you said, 3000 paintings and
00:51:03
eight years plus probably, probably even more than.
00:51:07
But there is just no kind of hesitation.
00:51:09
And it was like, oh, well, I can't do this anymore.
00:51:11
Then I'll do this. Then I'll just push it to the
00:51:13
next thing and and see what works for me as a human being
00:51:17
where I am right now. And I found that really
00:51:20
inspiring as someone who just had their 50th birthday.
00:51:23
It's like. Yes, happy birthday, Emily.
00:51:26
Well, there's so in that story and then that real progression.
00:51:31
So there's an aspect that this text kind of sheds, sheds light
00:51:35
on, which is that all of these materials were brought to these
00:51:39
women. So there's a group of women.
00:51:41
First of all, this is communal. And the reason why the batik
00:51:44
started being made was that this was also a way for the group of
00:51:49
people, for this community to be sustainable.
00:51:52
So it was supposed to be marketed and sold and for them
00:51:55
to make money. And the way money was made was a
00:51:59
person, one of the artists would sell work and then the money
00:52:04
would arrive. It would be shown to everyone
00:52:06
and sheds amongst everyone. So Emily Caminare became this is
00:52:11
this artist who was a provider because Christopher Hodges, he
00:52:17
was he had a gallery, I think Utopian Art Gallery is called or
00:52:24
Utopia Art Gallery. But he was also an artist.
00:52:27
He explains that what was absolutely incredible is that
00:52:31
you would have this shop with, you know, a hodgepodge of
00:52:34
things. Then one of Emily Kame nares,
00:52:38
batiks and connoisseurs, non connoisseurs, people be drawn to
00:52:42
that batique. She really had a vibrant quality
00:52:47
to her work even and and we saw that in the exhibition in the
00:52:50
batique works. And so she started selling quite
00:52:54
a bit and she started being really, really successful.
00:52:58
And so she moved on to painting. One of the reasons is basically
00:53:02
what you were saying, she was tired, but she had stuff in her
00:53:05
she that had to come out somehow.
00:53:08
And so another thing much so that in 1992 she received an
00:53:13
Australian Arts Creative Fellowship, which is a huge
00:53:17
recognition of her work as someone who brought an enormous
00:53:22
contribution to the culture for Emily at the time. 1992 was I
00:53:28
had the creative fellowship, I was recognized.
00:53:31
I'm a senior now. I want to pass on my knowledge
00:53:35
to the youngsters. I'm I want to retire.
00:53:38
She was tired, but she couldn't do it because of the month of
00:53:41
the community and the family never made this possible because
00:53:45
she was the great provider. There's no notion of the
00:53:49
solitary genius time. For a short break to let you
00:53:54
into the exhibitionist, the studio, Look around you.
00:53:58
There is a computer, a good mic, the software in the computer,
00:54:04
which is a sort of virtual space through which you and I meet
00:54:10
with a time and space delay. Then there are my books and two
00:54:15
perfectly round Flintstones. All the magic happens here.
00:54:21
I've been talking to a university whose students need
00:54:24
placements and I could use some assistance with production and
00:54:29
research while also mentoring the future professionals of the
00:54:35
field. And that's where you come in.
00:54:38
Do you know how much a membership costs?
00:54:42
A mere £25 a year. Which means that you pay £2 a
00:54:48
month. 25 lbs for a whole year. When you buy a catalog, that's
00:54:56
the average price for one single book with two texts.
00:55:01
If you become a member of exhibition esters through a
00:55:04
platform called Sub Stack, you not only get to support
00:55:09
exhibition esters, but you also receive on average about 18 more
00:55:14
texts minimum that I will have written about many, many, many
00:55:20
fascinating topics of contemporary arts, philosophy of
00:55:24
art, and many other subjects. There's a little bonus that I
00:55:30
added, which is getting to ask me questions.
00:55:34
If you have a question about contemporary art, about the
00:55:37
field, about the market, about studies in contemporary art, I'm
00:55:42
very very happy to do the research for you or to dig into
00:55:47
my little well of knowledge and put the information out there
00:55:50
for you. I can name you or you can be
00:55:53
anonymous so you get to put me to work as long as the questions
00:55:59
and the prompts you give me are within my abilities.
00:56:04
Otherwise you can go to donor box in the description notes.
00:56:08
If you have 1 LB to spare, you can just donate one time.
00:56:13
It's very very small amounts. That's what I do with Wikipedia
00:56:17
once in a while. I put some money in there
00:56:20
because I use it almost daily and I want to reward people who
00:56:25
nourish me. Thank you for spending some time
00:56:28
with me here in my studio. Thank you for considering this
00:56:32
decent proposal. On with the episode.
00:56:36
We've never done this in exhibition esters to have
00:56:39
someone just popping in from down under and giving us a bit
00:56:43
of context, but it's my pleasure to welcome John McDonald to the
00:56:46
podcast. John is an art critic, has, I
00:56:50
want to say, 4 decades of art criticism in there.
00:56:55
Am I wrong in saying that? Unfortunately, you're absolutely
00:56:59
correct. It's sort of shocking how long
00:57:02
I've been doing, but it is about four decades now.
00:57:05
I've been writing about the visual arts now for about four
00:57:08
decades. I was art critic.
00:57:10
I was senior art critic for The Sydney Morning Herald at the age
00:57:12
of 23 and I'm now in my early 60s, so it's been a long time.
00:57:19
Most of that time I I wrote a weekly column for the Sydney
00:57:21
Morning Herald. I was actually cancelled last
00:57:24
year in rather, well, kind of shocking circumstances of the
00:57:30
way they did it in a very, very sort of nasty way, as if they
00:57:33
wanted me to just disappear off the planet.
00:57:36
But the problem really was not that I was doing anything wrong.
00:57:39
The problem was that I was doing my job and I was criticizing
00:57:43
things and I was taking things on and I was looking for issues.
00:57:46
I found that the last three years of writing everything, it
00:57:50
was getting messed around and when I found myself out on my
00:57:57
own, I started this website on Substack, which is called
00:58:01
Everything the Art World Doesn't Want You to Know, and it's taken
00:58:05
off like a rocket. So I can't really complain now.
00:58:08
I feel as though it's been all to the good.
00:58:10
So the Emily Show, which I, you know, I basically funded my own
00:58:13
trip to London to see the show and write about it, has led to
00:58:18
at least three pieces and one of the reasons I wanted to see this
00:58:22
show so badly and to write about it.
00:58:25
But I had seen all the other Emily shows.
00:58:28
I saw and wrote about the shows in 1998, in 2008 and the one
00:58:33
last year at the National Gallery in Canberra.
00:58:36
And at the time, I mean, I was critical of the show in
00:58:39
Canberra, not of the work itself, because I think that
00:58:42
Emily Karma and Waare is a, is a great artist at her very best,
00:58:47
you know, she's fantastic. But it was the curatorial aspect
00:58:50
of the show, the selection of works, the way it was done, and
00:58:54
the fact that, you know, an artist who really requires a
00:58:58
little bit of thought when you're putting an exhibition
00:59:00
like this together was done in a very pedestrian manner.
00:59:03
So I said all these things and I was quite explicit with the
00:59:06
criticisms even of the catalog, which had enormous clangers in
00:59:10
the catalog. Just to see whether or not the
00:59:12
Tate, when they did the show the following year, would follow the
00:59:16
NGA template or whether they would do something different,
00:59:19
whether they would at least correct the mistakes, Whether
00:59:22
they would think again about the selection of works.
00:59:26
Because this particular selection remarkably leaves out
00:59:30
Emily's biggest and something, her best work, which is Earth's
00:59:34
creation, The work shown in 2007 at the Venice Biennale by Aqui
00:59:39
en Wazoor Who? And it was a sensation for a lot
00:59:42
of people to see that big work all by itself in the Italian
00:59:45
pavilion. That's most people's
00:59:47
introduction to Emily. And weirdly, it wasn't in the
00:59:50
show. The other works which are not in
00:59:52
the show, which are absolute essentials, were the last work
00:59:56
she did, which were a group of small works that were about 24.
01:00:00
Most of them are still in with the hands of one dealer, and
01:00:04
they were omitted as well. Whereas the exhibition in 2008
01:00:09
in Osaka, which was everything in Osaka is a strange museum.
01:00:13
It's it's almost underground. On the top level, you walked in
01:00:17
and you were met with Earth's creation, one big whopping
01:00:20
padding, and all of the information you needed to know
01:00:25
about Emily, about the Utopia community, all of the
01:00:28
anthropological stuff, all of the things about the community.
01:00:31
Just giving you an introduction that so you had the knowledge to
01:00:34
take into that exhibition. Then when you went downstairs
01:00:37
and you entered the exhibition, the first thing you saw were all
01:00:41
of her last works and it was really quite stunning because
01:00:46
these works are very. Poignant.
01:00:48
Yeah. I read somewhere that the
01:00:49
curators of the show still keep an Emily Day as a sort of a
01:00:54
tradition because of the sensation that yet the
01:00:59
exhibition was and the and the audiences that it brought into
01:01:02
the museum. Oh, I thought it was like it was
01:01:05
like a typhoon. It hit them.
01:01:06
But the end result was spectacular and at the end of
01:01:09
the show they were all delighted with it.
01:01:12
And Margot Neal to do her justice also.
01:01:15
I didn't say that. Sorry my mouse.
01:01:18
It doesn't have any. I'm going to get my notes.
01:01:20
Margot Neal is. Wait, you're going to tell me if
01:01:24
that's correct? She's an Australian author,
01:01:27
historian and curator of Aboriginal and Irish descent and
01:01:31
a gum bane Giran era Judy woman. And her Aboriginal name is Ngawa
01:01:36
Gurawa. Is that so?
01:01:39
Can I ask you, because you, you talked about South, one of the
01:01:42
things that we struggle with a bit here is the culture, the
01:01:45
history, the, you know, the dreaming, the country land in
01:01:49
all of the history that is embedded in those paintings and
01:01:53
all of the knowledge that is Emily Kame Nare seems to have
01:01:57
wanted to pass on to everyone. Basically, there's there's a lot
01:02:02
of questions here in Europe about whether it's the right
01:02:05
thing to do to show her work. Is it not appropriating
01:02:09
aboriginal work? And what Kelly Cole and all the
01:02:12
other curators argue is that she knew very well where her
01:02:16
paintings were going. And this was her way to actually
01:02:19
communicate. Would you agree with that?
01:02:22
What's your what's your take on? And, and because she was
01:02:25
notoriously silent about the paintings themselves.
01:02:28
OK, that's fair enough. Emily, do you have any questions
01:02:31
for John? I mean, look, John, my role here
01:02:35
is the novice, OK? So I am not in the art world at
01:02:38
all. And so this might be a little
01:02:41
bit of a naive question, but you mentioned, you know, key pieces
01:02:46
that you felt were missing from the exhibition, the one from the
01:02:49
Venice B in LA, and these smaller works that you
01:02:51
referenced, Why? Why do you think they weren't
01:02:54
included? Do you think that was a choice
01:02:56
of the curator or were they just not able to get them?
01:03:00
Wait, sorry. The lane is the gallery that is
01:03:03
now associated with pace in the the the price.
01:03:07
Yeah, OK, Yeah. And so I'm going to have to cut
01:03:12
our conversation short unfortunately, because we don't
01:03:16
have a lot of time I want. So just one question, a very
01:03:19
quick answer. They're being discredited in the
01:03:21
sense that they're being kind of ignored and set aside or are
01:03:25
they being discredit at discredited as not being
01:03:28
original or or fakes or whatever?
01:03:33
I don't know what's the reason. It's totally ambiguous.
01:03:37
It's scuttled, but it's saying it's basically implying that
01:03:40
that certain dealers are not honest and not legitimate, that
01:03:45
the works are somehow doubtful. But this is simply not true.
01:03:50
I mean, there, there are a lot of works out there which are
01:03:53
perfectly valid Emily's that simply were disqualified from
01:03:57
being in the show. And you know, the Tait I believe
01:04:01
really should have done its own research and looked into these
01:04:04
things if they want to do a, a first class Emily show.
01:04:07
What they got instead was they just took everything the
01:04:10
National Gallery did and the Tate in fact gave virtually
01:04:13
nothing back. But when I was there on opening
01:04:15
night and I looked around and it was Kangaroo Valley and wall to
01:04:18
wall Australians, they were all white faces.
01:04:22
There was nobody from Utopia. And I think that is an
01:04:24
unforgivable omission, and it says a great deal about the
01:04:28
thinking behind this show, or rather the neglect behind this
01:04:31
show. Well, thank you so much, John.
01:04:35
This was really precious to have your perspective on things.
01:04:39
Yeah, thank you. That was great.
01:04:40
I was just saying I I think I got a little peek into the
01:04:43
underworld of Paul. Thank you, John.
01:04:44
Bye, bye. Thank.
01:04:45
You. Thank you, John.
01:04:47
Thank you. Bye.
01:04:48
Bye. How do you feel about all this?
01:04:50
I think for me it makes me think of outside the arts and you
01:04:54
know, art from people who are in with different abilities with
01:05:00
autistic and and many of the mental cognition differently
01:05:04
abled people and how you manage these collections and how you
01:05:09
manage the production of these artists.
01:05:11
Yeah, I mean, to be honest, it's like how you manage an artist is
01:05:15
outside of my field of expertise.
01:05:17
I couldn't, you know, I mean, all I can talk about is the
01:05:21
exhibition and how I felt about it.
01:05:23
To be perfectly honest, I was talking about how the exhibition
01:05:26
felt very flat. And I mean, to me, it was
01:05:30
phenomenally exciting. You know, it's like, this is my
01:05:33
first introduction into her and, you know, I knew nothing about
01:05:37
her before I went in. And I thought that, you know,
01:05:41
for me is someone with novice perspective going in and seeing
01:05:46
the, the trajectory of her development, you know, and, and
01:05:53
just how much she changed and was obviously trying new things.
01:05:57
I felt, I felt that throughout. I mean, I felt like there was a
01:06:01
propulsion through it. I mean, I think after you and I
01:06:04
saw that video, which was maybe halfway through, maybe a little
01:06:07
more than halfway. Through yes it is.
01:06:08
You know, and we went into the second to last room.
01:06:12
I, after we saw that video, I thought, Oh, well, I've probably
01:06:15
seen what she does. Like she only did anything for
01:06:20
eight years. She only did painting for eight
01:06:21
years. You know, I, we've probably seen
01:06:25
the thing that she does and this will be a continuation on from
01:06:28
that. And it was just like, you know,
01:06:32
you know, diving into a whole new pool.
01:06:34
So it was interesting to hear his perspective, obviously from
01:06:38
someone who has known the work for so long and has seen things
01:06:42
that I have not seen and experienced curation from
01:06:46
someone who had such an intimate relationship with the artist or
01:06:49
a much more intimate relationship at the very least.
01:06:53
But as he was talking about the flatness, I was just like, wow,
01:06:57
I, I did so didn't experience that.
01:07:01
That's, yeah, that's really true, I think.
01:07:04
I mean, I agree with parts of what you're saying.
01:07:07
I was really happy to see the exhibition.
01:07:12
And then as you move on to the other room, there's these kind
01:07:15
of atmospheric, almost textual and almost 3D impressions with
01:07:21
incredible arrays of colours that she asked for, didn't use,
01:07:26
then use others. According to Christopher Hodges
01:07:29
that John was mentioning, she, she knew exactly what she wanted
01:07:32
to do in the moment. And then you move on to the to
01:07:36
the room where it kind of it kind of becomes again like those
01:07:39
ramifications of white lines on black.
01:07:42
And I felt I showed you I had goosebumps.
01:07:45
In. Front of a lot of paintings.
01:07:47
So this doesn't this discourse doesn't take away the fact that
01:07:51
this is an incredible experience that you should not, you know,
01:07:57
prevent yourself from having in despite all the other politics
01:08:02
that are important. And where I disagree with you is
01:08:05
that that progression I find really sterile.
01:08:09
So in some ways I found the show really flattening things in this
01:08:13
chronological order and then reserving that impact at the end
01:08:19
where I think the works were so impactful all the way through
01:08:23
and it kind of created an artificial highlights that
01:08:27
really corresponds to a modernist idea of painting.
01:08:31
I think I what I would say is to spend time with the paintings
01:08:34
that talk to you and just stay there and just, I'm definitely
01:08:38
going to go back. And I'm, I'm going to go back.
01:08:40
I mean, you know, I mean, he was talking about the batiks and how
01:08:43
they were selling the the batiks from all the women who were
01:08:47
making them. And obviously hers had a real
01:08:50
presence that drew people in. And, you know, certainly with
01:08:53
their paintings as well. It's like, I mean, while there
01:08:56
there may be different decisions that could have been made or
01:09:00
different considerations made in the curation, it is still rooms
01:09:05
full of these, you know, incredible, incredible works
01:09:09
that I, yeah, yeah. I, I, I'm definitely going to go
01:09:13
again. And yeah, me too, You know, I
01:09:15
mean, and I've told Peter you have to go because he, because
01:09:20
he was like, well, you've already been, so maybe I won't
01:09:22
go. And I was like, you have to go
01:09:24
because I'm going again as well. So.
01:09:26
Yeah, So I, I, yeah, I, I loved it.
01:09:29
Yeah. Goosebumps.
01:09:31
Yeah, me too was really exceptional.
01:09:34
And there's another element as well, which you hear the voices
01:09:38
of the group of women singing the paintings as well at a
01:09:42
certain point in the exhibition, and that is also really magical.
01:09:45
It's not done in the best way I find, but the pleasure of
01:09:51
actually having the the opportunity to listen, even in
01:09:55
an artificial setting. I think you also have your own
01:09:58
critical sense, and I fight for this idea of you being empowered
01:10:03
by your own experience of the works.
01:10:05
And it was so nice going with you.
01:10:07
That was really nice. I loved that Wagamama and a tape
01:10:11
show with Joanna. I mean, that's a, that's a good
01:10:15
lineup. That's a very good lineup.
01:10:18
They grab a friend and go see a show.
01:10:20
In the fact Wagamala wants to sponsor us, we're here and we
01:10:24
can always try to find the nearest Wagamala.
01:10:26
Museums in London. I love the hustle.
01:10:28
Joanna, thank. You so much Emily, this was a
01:10:31
pleasure. As ever, thank you, Take good
01:10:34
care of yourself. Take care.
01:10:35
Bye bye everyone. Bye Bye exhibition.
01:10:38
This is an independent podcast created and hosted by me, Joanna
01:10:42
Pierre Nevers. We have episodes every two weeks
01:10:46
and this season, season 3, is a bit of a turning point.
01:10:49
We have 5 new episode types, from more experimental art
01:10:54
travel logs or art stories to conversational formats about
01:10:59
solo exhibitions with people who are not part of the industry.
01:11:04
Because we're all both actors and spectators of art and life.
01:11:09
If you're new here, you have a whole catalog of episodes to
01:11:14
enjoy this cover them at your own pace.