Symposium: Remembering Forward
Symposium on the occasion of the exhibition Remembering Forward: Australian Aboriginal Painting since 1960 (20.11.2010 – 20.03.2011) at the Ludwig Museum, Keulen, Germany.
The starting point of the symposium is the cultural irritation that occurs when contemporary art, especially painting, by Australian Aboriginal artists is shown in a European art museum. This irritation stems from a fundamental tension between the works and the location of exhibition: their ostensible affinity to works of Western abstract painting on one side, and on the other, the cultural difference that is apparent even in the ‘white cube’ of the art museum. Their presentation is thus equally marked by nearness and distance, accessibility (along the lines of abstraction, for example) and strangeness (through their cultural foreignness). Exhibitions of contemporary Aboriginal art thus present both art historical and curatorial challenges. The symposium will explore these challenges though historical and systematic approaches, seeking answers in a dialogue that is interdisciplinary as well as international.
Organized by the Museum Ludwig in cooperation with the Institute of Art History of the University of Basel.
Program
Thursday, 17 February 2011, 7pm
Keynote address
Howard Morphy, Director, Research School of Humanities and the Arts, Australian National University
‘Moving the body painting into the art gallery: a critical perspective from the recent history of Yolngu art’
Friday, 18 February 2011, 9am
Kasper König, Director, Museum Ludwig, Cologne: Greeting
Claus Volkenandt, Institute of Art History, University of Basel: Introduction
(1) General frameworks: between art and culture, between depiction and expression 9:15am – 12:45pm
Moderated by Claus Volkenandt
Fred Myers, Silver Professor of Anthropology, New York University
Showing too much, showing too little: the art and agency of Aboriginal acrylic painting in circulation
Alexandra Karentzos Centre for Postcolonial and Gender Studies and Art History, University of Trier:
Exclusions from the art institutions: postcolonial remarks
Coffee break (30 minutes)
Wilfried van Damme, Institute for Cultural Disciplines, Leiden University:
Not what you expect: the nineteenth-century scholarly reception of Aboriginal art in Europe
Response: Larissa Foerster (IK Morphomata, University of Cologne)
(2) Museum presentations as places for aesthetic experience and political reflection 2:15 – 5:30pm (Moderated by Falk Wolf)
Sally Butler (Senior Lecturer in Art History, University of Queensland): Curating Before Time Today, Reinventing tradition in Aurukun Aboriginal art
Friederike Krishnabhakdi-Vasilakis (University of Wollongong): Sharing the space with Kandinsky: bringing Aboriginal art out of the glass cabinet, onto white walls
Coffee break (30 minutes)
Jean-Hubert Martin (freelance curator, Paris): Evolution and politics in Aboriginal art
Response: Kasper König
Saturday, 19 February 2011
(3) The art historical conflict: modern without Modernism?
9:00am – 12:30pm (Moderated by Emily Joyce Evans)
Margo Neale (Principal Advisor to the Director and Senior Curator [Indigenous], National Museum of Australia): The impossible modernist: the genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye
Terry Smith (Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory, University of Pittsburgh): Indigenous abstraction: the contemporaneity of Aboriginal art
Coffee break (30 minutes)
Georges Petitjean (Curator, Museum of contemporary Aboriginal art, Utrecht): Nomads in ageorge petitjert´
Response: Anne-Marie Bonnet (Department of Art History, University of Bonn)
(4) Turning back to Australia: recognition through art?
2:00 – 4:30pm (Moderated by Claus Volkenandt)
Franchesca Cubillo (Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, National Gallery of Australia): The Art of Aboriginal Australia
Chrischona Schmidt (PhD candidate, Australian National University): Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s legacy and its influence on the Utopia art movement
Coffee break (30 minutes)
Response: Christian Kaufmann (Honorary Research Associate, Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich)
5 – 5:30pm
Ian McLean (Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, University of Western Australia, Perth): Closing remarks
The symposium is preceded by a workshop:
“Australian Aboriginal art – materialisation and transformations of knowledge” with Fred Myers and Howard Morphy
17 February 2011, 10am – 4pm (with lunch break)
Contemporary Aboriginal art /
Network
Margo Neale
Senior Research Fellow, Adjunct Professor
