Abdul-Rahman Abdullah

Human Figure, Myths and Politics

tanya.sticca@artgallery.wa.gov.au — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 06:12:56 +0000

Human Figure, Myths and Politics

Khadim Ali Untitled 1 [from the Fragmented memories series] 2017-2018. Gouache, gold leaf and ink, 170 x 214.5 cm (framed, nine individual components). State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2019.

tanya.sticca@a… Mon 06/07/2020 - 2:12pm

11 October 2019

Presenting works from 1970 to today, the AGWA Contemporary collection reveals the wide span of contemporary art practice with its diverse range of media, themes and identities. A recent collection display curated by AGWA Associate Curator of 21st Century Arts Dunja Rmandić gives particular emphasis to the human figure as a conduit of symbols, hero status, myths, cultural references, fantasies and stereotypes across different cultures. While the majority of works feature the human figure in one way or another, a recurring theme sees the subject’s eyes or faces obscured, masked or otherwise turned away, echoing the complexity of identity politics. Read on for Rmandić’s insights on some of the display’s key works.

Yes

Christian Thompson Down Under World [from the We bury our own series] 2012. C-type print, 98 x 98 cm each. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through The Leah Jane Cohen Bequest, Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation, 2015. © Christian Thompson, 2012.

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Based on a research project at the Pitt-Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford, Christian Thompson’s We Bury Our Own series looks at ritual practice and the possibilities offered by art for a kind of spiritual—if not physical—repatriation.

Thompson is very mindful of the politics and the semiotics of the gaze and in this series he positions non-Indigenous cultural materials and references into a pool of spirituality and ritual, playing with the ideas of heritage, originality and history.

Abdul Abdullah The disaffected by product of the colonies 2014. C-type print on aluminium, 155 x 110 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 2015.

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Abdul Abdullah’s provocative Siege series features the artist wearing a mask from the most recent Planet Of The Apes film as a potent symbol of ‘Otherness’ and cultural displacement. Abdullah explicitly engages with politics in his practice and has spoken about how the September 11th attacks in particular have influenced his identity as an artist.

[Abdullah] sees his brother, Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, as being an artist of the pre-September 11th period and himself as an artist of the post-September 11th period. He was a teenager at that moment, and everything changed for him. Overnight, young Muslim men were seen as terrorists, as a threat, as the quintessential ‘Other.’ When you are a minority, and regardless of who you feel you are, your identity can be determined by external factors, with no control over those perceptions and the ways that you are defined and categorized, and they were for Muslim men all around the globe and continue to be for minorities.

Abdul Abdullah Aussie icons (Kylie, Elle and Lleyton) 2013. Oil on canvas, 91 x 91 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 2015.

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Taken from Abdul Abdullah’s 2013 series Homeland, the balaclava-clad figure we see in Aussie Icons is a ‘composite face,’ featuring one eye each of Kylie Minogue and Elle MacPherson, alongside the characteristically vocal mouth of Lleyton Hewitt.

The unsettling image that results invites us to think differently about these individual’s place in the national psyche—and to what extent this is shaped by their own Anglo-Saxon heritage.

By using white cultural references and signifiers of beauty we’re asked: what would you do if you were confronted by these people in masks? We look at things differently when it’s white people underneath the masks, but they could still be robbing your home.

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Ali grew up hearing from his grandfather the recitation of the Book of Kings (Shahnama), a late 10th century epic poem composed by Firdousi that marks the beginning of modern Persian language. The poem recounts the virtuosity and shortcomings of kings from the beginning of time to the advent of Islam but also of the powerful forces beyond them, epitomised by the divs or daemons. Reflecting on the way his people, the Hazara, have been treated and persecuted since the 1920s, Ali has used the divs from the miniature paintings illustrating the epic as an allegory of the Hazara.

There are layers of histories with people and countries that we in the West tend to skim over, especially in the media. Afghanistan after September 11, for example, is seen as a very two-dimensional space: a space ravaged by war and difficult people. It’s a simple formula of good versus evil, us and them, that helps dehumanise and desensitise. I think for a lot of people who come from countries where conflict has occurred, seeing that conflict portrayed as two dimensional is a very painful thing. We don’t see the beautiful things that happen in Afghanistan, or hear the success stories; or the stories of people not wanting any kind of war. And we don’t consider that people from those places value beauty, history and tradition the way we do; Ali’s works speaks to all these sentiments.

Abdul-Rahman Abdullah Big Moon 2015. Black stain, pencil, ply, 75 x 75 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 2015.

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Positioned above the display like the awe-inspiring ‘super moons’ that can be seen when the Earth’s tilt makes them appear low in the sky, Abdul-Rahman Abdullah’s Big Moon brings a sense of universality to the collection of works below it, whilst also carrying its own highly specific cultural meaning.

The moon by Abdul-Rahman Abdullah is referencing the month of Ramadan and for him the full moon represents the halfway point where, as a child, all he had to do was get through another two weeks. What I really love is that he connects the cultural, religious and scientific elements by showing the moon as a celestial object which we all imbue with meaning—a real thing in the universe as opposed to a dreamy kind of cultural symbol.

Harnessing the moon’s cross-cultural significance in this way, its prominence in the space works to unify and balance the disparate and often opposing identities featured in this striking collection of works.

Read more about the AGWA Contemporary collection here. This collection display runs until February 2020.

AGWA Collection

AGWA Contemporary

Dunja Rmandić

Christian Thompson

Abdul Abdullah

Khadim Ali

Abdul-Rahman Abdullah

Contemporary art

AGWA

Card Text

Presenting works from 1970 to today, the AGWA Contemporary collection reveals the wide span of contemporary art practice with its diverse range of media, themes and identities.

Curator Insights with Dunja Rmandić

WA Now Artists Select State Collection Works for WA Day

tanya.sticca@artgallery.wa.gov.au — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 08:31:42 +0000

WA Now Artists Select State Collection Works for WA Day

Pilar Mata Dupont The Embrace (이상적인 포옹) 2013 (detail). Single channel, high definition digital video, sound, colour, 5:04 minutes. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2014.

tanya.sticca@a… Tue 23/06/2020 - 4:31pm

1 June 2020

WA Day is a chance to celebrate everything that makes this state unique: our people, our lifestyle, our culture and our potential. Reflecting on our Aboriginal history and the diverse community that makes up this state, WA Day emphasises inclusion for everyone who has made, and continues to make, Western Australia their home. In this spirit, we’ve reached out to artists featured in AGWA’s WA Now series for a special selection of works from the State Art Collection. Since 2015, the Gallery’s WA Now space has showcased the diverse voices that comprise this State’s vibrant contemporary art scene. Together these artworks offer a thoughtful and wide-ranging view on what it means to live, and create art, in this part of the world.

Yes

Thomas Jeppe Door To A Farce, Farce To Adore 2010. Gouache on paper (diptych), 123.2 x 83.1 x 6.5 cm (each) (framed). State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2011.

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The play on the title symmetry and paired back graphic representation I love about this work. Besides resonating with my personal practice, Jeppe’s works have humour and a sense of the lighthearted, despite appearing stark and austere, they pick up on subtle messaging and deliver immediate visual punch. Disruptive, refreshing and clever are three adjectives that capture the intent behind Jeppe’s imagery.

Tom Mùller

2020 WA Now featured artist: MONOLITH SCORES

Nyaparu (William) Gardiner Jamu (Grandfather) 2017. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 177 x 148.5 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2017. © Nyapura (William) Gardiner, 2016.

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Nyaparu’s haunting paintings depict memories of his early life working on pastoral stations following the 1946 Pilbara Aboriginal Strike – a turning point for First Nations’ rights in this country. They therefore provide a powerful visual link to one of the most significant events in modern Western Australian history, but one with very little photographic documentation. In the context of WA Day, this portrait of his grandfather functions as a contemporary icon of heroic Western Australian Aboriginal masculinity.

Andrew Nicholls

2018 WA Now featured artist: Hyperkulturemia

Nathan Beard Rampai/Samniang/Ratana/Pornjit 2017. Digital print on Canson Baryta, Swarovski Elements, 35.5 x 48 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2017. © Nathan Beard.

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This work by Nathan Beard has always felt like shards in my heart for the stories of homesickness and isolation felt by migrant mothers who left their families and everything familiar to begin new lives in Australia. There is love and there is happiness here, a home but not home. As time goes on the phone calls announce more funerals than birthdays. She is Nathan’s mum, she is my mum, she is the mother of so many. This work is both sadness and joy.

Abdul-Rahman Abdullah

2015 WA Now featured artist

Peter (Bagingin) Newry Moonoomoorrem 2010. Natural ochre and pigments on canvas, 100 x 280 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the TomorrowFund, Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation 2010.

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To be working as an artist in this part of the world is an immense privilege and learning experience. Moonoomoorrem by Peter Windarrwing Newry is redolent with deep time and knowledge of the land.

Gregory Pryor

2017 WA Now featured artist: Looking Glass

Pilar Mata Dupont The Embrace (이상적인 포옹) 2013. Single channel, high definition digital video, sound, colour, 5:04 minutes. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Purchased through the Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2014.

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With The Embrace Pilar Mata Dupont animates Korean reuinification monuments through a rich tapestry of contemporary cultural influences (the melodramatic over-expression of K-Drama, the heightened confectionary of K-Pop visuals), and in doing so effortlessly subverts politically timely narratives of nationalism and myth-making. The work showcases a West Australian artist operating internationally with a conceptual and technical precision that makes me feel envious and overjoyed in equal measure.

Nathan Beard

2017 WA Now featured artist

Abdul Abdullah The disaffected by product of the colonies 2014. C-type print, 155 x 110 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 2015.

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Abdul Abdullah’s body of works that deal with the depiction of the other within us shine a mirror back on the (Western) Australian ideas of our own identity; by choosing the mask from the Planet of the Apes it transcends (in our eyes) beyond notions of ethnicity and human-centric ideas of otherness and opens up a larger and universal conversation around personhood and identity.

Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr

2018 WA Now featured artists: Biomess: The Tissue Culture & Art Project

Trevor Vickers Untitled 2012. Synthetic polymer on canvas, 75.5 x 106.5 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the Sir Claude Hotchin Art Foundation, Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation, 2014.

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Much like his character, Trevor Vicker’s work has a quietly sustaining presence. There is no pressing need to show what it’s about or to seek approval. As I trust his expression of pure emotion, sensation and aesthetic intelligence, his work appears undisturbed by notions of time, place or meaning. And, just as one might experience music, it makes room for the mind to wander freely.

Eveline Kotai

2019 WA Now featured artist: Breathing Pattern

Tom Gibbons The End c1972. Synthetic polymer paint on panel, 114 cm (diameter). State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 1993.

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I love Tom Gibbon’s work The End, 1972. Part of the intrigue of the work is its ambiguity. Is it a West Australian sun setting into the Indian Ocean or a nuclear rising sun? Is it a zig-zag yellow river or a road? I choose to think of it as a road. Of the long drives up north to Karijini and Ningaloo Reef or down south to Denmark and Margaret River. Tom shared my love of cinema and literature to inform his work. His use of the text and font, reminiscent of the final credits of old movies, evokes all those Westerns I watched as a child. When it was painted in 1972 the Aboriginal flag was in its infancy, and not familiar as it is now. Tom actually based the colour scheme on his mum’s best Art Deco tea set. Today however, whether intentionally or not, the red, yellow and black colours imbue the work as a powerful statement of reconciliation. What is it the end of? The cessation of mistreatment and injustice of the indigenous peoples and a future that is inclusive and hopeful.

Graham Miller

2016 WA Now featured artist

Thank you to all of our WA Now artists who took the time to reflect on these works from the State Collection. You can take a virtual tour of Tom Mùller’s current WA Now exhibition, MONOLITH SCORES on the exhibition page.

Abdul-Rahman Abdullah

Gregory Pryor

Nathan Beard

Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr

Eveline Kotai

Graham Miller

Western Australian art