Cross Pose Body language against the grain

1 Cross Pose Body language against the grain

Dr Sally Butler

Gordon Bennett Notes to Basquiat: In the future everyone will know their place and be content 1999 synthetic polymer paint on linen 183.0 x 183.0 cm Collection of The University of Queensland, purchased 1999. Reproduced courtesy of the artist’ estate and Milani Gallery, Brisbane.

2 3 Introduction

Cross Pose – Body language Cross Pose focuses on Indigenous against the grain brings together perspectives, featuring artists Australian artworks from The who explore the complex terrain University of Queensland Art of their subjectivity within Collection that use the human frameworks created by the self body as an expression of and others. The artworks both complex subjectivity and visual declare and contest standpoints politics. The exhibition explores of individual and collective how artists map the socially identity, and negotiate alternative and politically regulated body approaches to national subjectivity and push back against this and sovereignty. Bodies in these control. Bodies in these artworks artworks collectively assert a adopt a pose to intervene with politics of self-determination. The conventional political thought, non-Indigenous and collaborative investing it with new forms of artworks included in the exhibition association. The body’s sensory provide a historical context to language helps to shape the this snapshot of the politics of political in ways that differ from Indigenous subjectivities. the spoken and written word.

cover: Darren Siwes Marrkidj Wurd-ko (Cross Pose) Group 2011 from the series ‘Dalabon Dalok (Dalabon Woman)’ Giclée print on pearl paper, edition 5/10 120.0 x 90.0 cm Collection of The University of Queensland, purchased 2011. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and GAGPROJECTS/Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide.

left: Luke Roberts Australian Gothic (Couple) 2009 from the series ‘Australian Story’ camera: Kevyn Chase Giclée print on paper, edition 2/5 image 174.5 x 103.0 cm; sheet 190.0 x 130.3 cm Collection of The University of Queensland, purchased 2010. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane.

4 5 left: Tony Albert No place warrior 2009 watercolour on Arches paper image/sheet 76.0 x 57.0 cm Collection of The University of Queensland, purchased 2010. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Sullivan & Strumpf, Sydney.

following page: Alick Tipoti Kuyku Garpathamai Mabaig 2007 linoprint on paper, edition 3/45 image 204.0 x 120.0 cm; sheet 239.0 x 139.0 cm Collection of The University of Queensland, purchased 2008. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Aboriginal Art Network, Sydney.

6 7 The body in art and world politics

The problems that currently haunt world politics, from terrorism to poverty, are far too serious not to employ the full register of human intelligence to understand and deal with them.

Roland Bleiker 1

The figure of the human ‘a more open-ended level of body has loomed large over sensibility about the political’.4 contemporary art since the 1960s. International fascination The body in art has played a key with abstract art abated at this role in expressing these open- time in deference to the more ended political sensitivities. explicitly political overtures of Gesture, stance, demeanour, conceptual art, and performance and a whole sensory repertoire art in particular. Artists of this of body language in art era engaged with a global engage us in ideas about what society conditioned by two world constitutes the self and how wars and what increasingly we understand ourselves as evolved in the twentieth century subjects – particularly as political as the ‘theatre of bloody subjects. This subjectivity is conflicts among identities’.2 Cold determined by ways in which the War power structures seemed body is regulated and framed to explode into an infinite by external influences. The self horizon of unpredictability is never purely a self; it always and kaleidoscopic political involves others. Philosopher subjectivities. Spurred by Jean-Luc Nancy calls this a improved media communication, condition of ‘being singular an unwieldy global image of plural’.5 contested ethnic, cultural, national and religious identities Amelia Jones’s influentialBody grew in visibility and scope. art/Performing the subject Scholarly discourse responded (1993) was the first sustained to this volatile image of global study of the political potential politics with a concept of political of body art’s capacity to enact aesthetics.3 The manner in complex subjectivity.6 Jones which political ideas presented focused on feminist performance themselves through artistic art of the late-twentieth century expression provided a method to argue that the body did not for understanding unprecedented represent subjectivity so much political plurality and uncertainty. as it performed the subject In Aesthetics and world politics, through a process of dynamic Roland Bleiker argues that art subject formation. Performance offers alternative insights to art exemplifies the body’s conventional political analysis, ability to place subjectivity and a capacity to cultivate in flux. During performance

8 9 Christopher Pease Noble Savage 3 2014 Robert Dowling oil on canvas Werrat Kuyuut and the Mopor people, Spring Creek, Victoria 1856 65.0 x 100.0 cm oil on canvas Collection of The University of Queensland, purchased 2014. 52.0 x 108.5 cm Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Gallerysmith, Melbourne. Collection of The University of Queensland. Gift of Marjorie Dowling, 1952.

10 11 art, the body is always ‘in the moment’, and in a constant state of transformation. But it is the effort to document the body’s performance in all kinds of media that underpins what Jones defines as the ‘body/subject’. Jones argues that the ‘body/ subject’ in photography, film, video, and even text, becomes a ‘complex extension of portraiture’ that does not fix subjectivity, but rather anticipates it, rendering it open-ended. Art’s inscription of the body as a performed subjectivity is centrally at stake here, as Jones writes:

…it is precisely the relationship of these bodies/subjects to documentation (or, more specifically, to re-presentation) that most profoundly points to the dislocation of the fantasy of the fixed, normative, centered modernist subject and thus most dramatically provides a radical challenge to the masculinism, racism, colonialism, classism, and hetero-sexism built into this fantasy.7

Michael Cook Majority Rule (Bus) 2014 inkjet print on paper, edition 3/3 140.0 x 200.0 cm Collection of The University of Queensland, purchased 2014. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane.

12 13 The body/subject in Australia

Moving forward several decades, The body/subject is arguably we encounter a new generation most effective when it executes of the body/subject’s challenge interventions such as those seen to the fixed, normative subject in Siwes’s series of photographs. in the Dalabon Biyi/Dalabon A similar intervention is visible Dalok (2011) series by Australian in the documented Maiwar artist Darren Siwes (1968–). performance (2014), the result of These photographs, which a collaboration between American involve Siwes’s Dalabon kinfolk artist Dave Hullfish Bailey (1963–) adopting poses within metal and Sam Watson (1952–). frames that reference Leonardo Watson, of Birri Gubba Aboriginal da Vinci’s (1452–1519) Vitruvian heritage, is a renowned activist man (1490), present a political for Aboriginal social justice and challenge that is global in scale. civil rights and playwright. He Da Vinci’s image is regarded as an was one of the founding members icon of Western anthropocentrism of the Black Panther party in but, in Siwes’s photographs, Australia and is the author of The Western methods of subjectivity Kadaitcha sung (1990), Black and regulation are forced to man down (1996) and Oodgeroo confront an Aboriginal worldview. – Bloodline to country (2009). Dalabon men and women Bailey is an artist with Native decentre the singularity of the American ancestry who lives Vitruvian mindset and displace in Los Angeles. His research- (white) man as being the centre based conceptual art practice of ‘his’ world. As the Dalabon involves highly experimental and figures shift through a series of innovative collaborations and poses, they collectively perform ‘interventions’ into everyday life the multiplicity and complexity across the world. Like Siwes’s of the body/subject. Set in the photographic series, Bailey and landscape of Dalabon homelands, Watson’s series of collaborative Western constructs of the subject performances displace normative negotiate an Indigenous politics structures of control over of people, place and time. While Indigenous subjectivities. Dalabon subjectivity manifests as Their performances involved variable and complex, it remains unannounced ‘deflections’8 to the Darren Siwes Marrkidj-ngan (Star Pose) Group 2011 grounded in a politics of land regular route of the CityCat ferries from the series ‘Dalabon Dalok (Dalabon Woman)’ Giclée print on pearl paper, edition 5/10 rights, sovereignty and self- on the Brisbane River, a deviation 120.0 x 90.0 cm determination. sanctioned by the Brisbane City Collection of The University of Queensland, purchased 2011. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and GAGPROJECTS/Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide. Council.

14 15 The CityCat performance required This politicisation of natural the ferry to pause in front of a rhythms flowing between small park at the end of Boundary Aboriginal women and their Street in the inner-city suburb homelands performs a profound of West End. (Boundary Street mode of sovereignty that endures gained its name from the infamous with present generations of the boundary that excluded Aboriginal Aboriginal population. Sovereignty people through a curfew from over Australian land runs in Brisbane’s colonial settlement, their blood and the politics is with similar racial exclusions noted corporeal and charismatic. As as late as World War II.9) At the Jones argues, it is not the mode riverbank site of the performance, of representation that matters Watson and the other participants, so much as how body art all of whom came from Aboriginal stimulates the sensory shapes of families long connected to thought. the Brisbane area, raised the Aboriginal flag as a symbol of Watson’s son, Sam Wagan Watson, Aboriginal sovereignty. Maiwar evokes this sensory mode of performance allowed Watson to politics brilliantly in a poem also physically intervene into the time devoted to Boundary Street’s and space of river commuters, infamy, last exit to Brisbane… In but it also invoked a sensual the poem, the city is a body with register of Aboriginal subjectivity. scars – a body that remembers. The river’s rhythms cradling the CityCat also became a site of historical Aboriginal sovereignty. Watson described it thus:

The river itself, the ebb and flow, is very connected to our women’s fertility cycles. The shape of the CityCat, the motions of the CityCat, that’s been a very powerful element. It was very evident to our performers at the first performance … they, above and following page: through their families, had had Dave Hullfish Bailey + Sam Watson Maiwar performance 2014 (video stills) longstanding relationships to single channel digital video, edition of 5 Boundary Street dating back to duration 0:12:00, looped 10 Courtesy David Pestorius Projects, Brisbane. Moreton Bay settlement.

16 17 last exit to Brisbane ... Sam Wagan Watson

Boundary St.

that forged black scratch

a vein from Southbank to West End with a tail swallowed by the chocolate river

this is the line, the limit where the dark-skin were told –

DO NOT CROSS!

a fence raised to protect the colonial domiciles of angels and gadflies

and even today, at rush hour that tar permanently keeps the scar alive and the dead languages buried to only escape in the bitumen heat-haze and fall upon deaf ears as this boundary continues to stay true to its makers denying the junkyard dingo the treasures of the city

no access to Easy St. fringe-dwelling in white-light static on the last exit to Brisbane.11

18 19 A corporeal sensual intelligence I paint pictures from my childhood is inherent in referencing the experiences, places that I have body across all aspects of seen and remember, symbols and Indigenous art and culture. art from the caves around Laura in the Cape York region. But mainly Mabel Edmund’s (1930–2010) pictures that have a legend or paintings are a case in point. story to tell, that live for me as I Edmund was a Queensland am painting it.15 Aboriginal artist/activist whose work involved a dimension of Subjectivity is habitually the body/subject. In 1970, perceived of as a state of mind, Edmund became the first but the body/subject reinstates Aboriginal woman elected to the fact of flesh in what Maurice 12 local government in Australia. Merleau-Ponty calls the mind/ Edmund particularly advocated body duality.16 The body’s political self-representation full scope of sensory organs and self-determination for her contribute to the interface people, and this spirit of self- between self and others, or where determination underpinned the self coexists with others. her art. Edmund wrote, ‘Each There is an interesting play on painting that I paint takes a co-existing subjectivity in the 13 little part of me with it.’ Her photograph by Luke Roberts paintings of Aboriginal subjects (1952–) titled Australian Gothic involve both traditional body (Couple) (2009). The image painting and more mundane shows Roberts and the artist activities, such as collecting Richard Bell appropriating the mussels. But all of her art was pose of ‘national identity’ from inspired by the artist’s frustration the famous American gothic at the dire state of Indigenous (1930) by Grant Wood (1891– society and politics in Australia. 1942). Australian Gothic (Couple) In her 1992 autobiography No differs in its deeply rendered 14 regrets, the artist describes cynicism regarding stereotypes how the inspiration to paint that regulate ethnic and gendered occurred when she experienced identity. Bell and Roberts adopt a sense of helplessness while the pose of simplistic typology. witnessing violence involving Similarly, austrALIEN (2007) Mabel Edmund Aboriginal people in Alice by Tony Albert (1981–) invokes The Goanna Men c.1992 batik on silk Springs. Edmund notes that art cynicism regarding stereotypical 100.5 x 128.5 cm became a method for expressing Collection of The University of Queensland, transferred from UQ Press, 1998. native identity with his image of Reproduced courtesy of the artist’s estate. her complex subjectivity:

20 21 a white alien posing with shield dispossession and displacement? contemporary expressions of to their art. Whether it is Craig and spears. Both artworks The white face in Albert’s work body art to haunt the stereotypes Koomeeta’s (1977–) simple effectively disorientate and refuses to define a subject and of identity and reinstate the white dots representing body alienate a conventional image instead performs a process performance of open-ended painting or the carved figures of Australian subjectivity. While of disorientation: a process subjectivity that constitutes a similarly adorned with body whiteness is in the image, it of questioning and, possibly, human sense of self. paint, the ‘skin’ is political. It is decentred and politically transformation. is the skin of self-determined re-coded. Thus, the bodies in Perhaps the most radical Aboriginal subjectivities that these images present a far more Art historian Terry Smith challenge to Western structures take shape in the event of complex Australian subjectivity. describes Dowling’s paintings of subjectivity occurs in art that engagement with ‘others’ of Aboriginal subjects as being is often inaccurately perceived through contemporary art. The exhibition’s inclusion of similar to ‘dioramas of exotic as the most ‘traditional’. The Robert Dowling’s (1827–1886) peoples being developed contemporary sculptures and Body painting’s symbolism as painting Werrat Kuyuut and the for the then relatively new painting from the Aurukun sovereign skin is a recurring Mopor people, Spring Creek, phenomenon: museums of community in Far North motif in contemporary art by Victoria (c.1856) illustrates natural history’.17 White painted Queensland are formally Indigenous Australians. In how artists have long used faces such as those depicted in inspired by longstanding cultural addition to featuring in the the body to define subjects. this painting are an expression traditions. But these forms are work of Edmund, Albert and What differs between the past of mourning in Mopor culture.18 vehicles for political expression, the Aurukun artists, this motif and contemporary work is that However, in the passing of as they are profound expressions recurs throughout the Cross the majority of today’s artists more than 150 years, the white of the body/subject from an Pose exhibition in the work of seek to leave the subject more ochre’s mourning symbolism Aboriginal perspective. Aurukun Gordon Bennett (1955–2014), open-ended and complex; expands into an entire national is the community that achieved a Christopher Pease (1969–), they resist definition. There is consciousness. After Albert’s landmark legal decision in land- and Alick Tipoti (1975–). The an interesting reversal at play white-face symbolism, the bodies rights politics. The Wik Peoples v. common tendency is to interpret between the symbolism of white in Dowling’s paintings arguably The State of Queensland (1996) the re-presentation of body faces in Dowling’s work and take on another life. They High Court decision established painting in contemporary art as that in Albert’s austrALIEN. In refuse exoticism and instead a principle that recognised co- a sign of cultural authenticity. Albert’s work, we are not entirely adopt a pose of alienation. existing pastoral and Native Title But this completely ignores the certain of the identity behind The white faces, which leases. When the decision was context of contemporary art the white-faced alien. Is the Dowling ostensibly intended as announced, several community and the point that Jones makes figure meant to symbolise white documentation of the looming members who were present about the body in art as a re- Australians being alienated from extinction of primitive ritual, celebrated in the High Court’s presentation. Within the context a sense of origin, desperately now peer down through history forecourt with dance and song. of contemporary art, the re- posing as ‘natives’? Or does the with a far more complex Their bodies performed an presentation of body painting is white face represent Indigenous symbolism that incorporates expression of sovereignty over a radical challenge to normative Australians being alienated from experiences of subjugation and their land that was partially modernist subjectivity. Artists their sense of self and belonging resistance. Dowling’s depiction recognised by this decision. such as Bennett and Pease through colonialism’s project of of white faces now unite with This sovereign body is central explicitly make this challenge,

22 23 but works by the Aurukun Watson collaboration,” unpublished artists and Edmund are no less manuscript, e-mail to the author, 31 August 2013. These CityCat political. It is naïve to think ‘deflections’ were first conceived that contemporary art simply by Dave Hullfish Bailey in 2003 presents a new space for so- and subsequently developed into called ‘traditional’ artists to be collaborative performances with Sam Watson. ‘traditional’. Art is the global 9. See H.C. Perry, Memoirs of the Hon. interface between the self and Sir Robert Philp, K.C.M.G., 1851– others for all, and the sensibilities 1922 (Brisbane: Watson, Ferguson of body language in art respond & Co., 1923), http://members. optusnet.com.au/~dbelling/ to the need to uphold the boundary.html. complexity of this co-existence. 10. Sam Wagan Watson, cited in Pestorius, “Artist biography.” 11. Sam Wagan Watson, Itinerant blues (St Lucia, Qld: University of Notes Queensland Press, 2002), 47. 1. Roland Bleiker, Aesthetics and 12. Mabel Edmund, No regrets world politics (New York: Palgrave (St Lucia, Qld: University of Macmillan, 2009), 1. Queensland Press, 1992). 2. Jean-Luc Nancy, Being singular 13. Ibid., 98. plural, trans. Robert D. Richardson 14. Ibid. and Anne E. O’Byrne (Stanford, CA: 15. Ibid., 97–98. Stanford University Press, 2000), xii. 16. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 3. See particularly Jacques Rancière, Phenomenology of perception The politics of aesthetics: The (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, distribution of the sensible, trans. 1962). Gabriel Rockhill (London and New 17. Terry Smith, Transformations in York: Continuum, 2004). Australian art: The nineteenth 4. Bleiker, Aesthetics, 2. century – Landscape, colony 5. Nancy, Being singular plural, xii. and nation Volume 1 (Sydney: 6. Amelia Jones, Body art/performing Craftsman House, 2002), 54. the subject (Minneapolis: University 18. John Jones, Robert Dowling: of Minnesota Press, 1998). Tasmanian son of Empire 7. Amelia Jones, “‘Presence’ in (Canberra: National Gallery of absentia: Experiencing performance Australia, 2010). as documentation,” in “Performance art: (some) theory and (selected) practice at the end of this century,” ed. Martha Wilson, special issue, Art Journal 56, no.4 (Winter 1997): 12, http://art.usf.edu/file_uploads/ Richard Bell presence.pdf. Uz vs Them 2006 (still) single-channel digital video, edition 2/5 8. David Pestorius, “Artist biography duration 0:02:20 of Dave Hullfish Bailey and Sam Collection of The University of Queensland. Gift of Richard Bell through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2009. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane.

24 25 Biography List of Works

Tony Albert Debbie Coombes Duncan Korkatain Dr Sally Butler is Senior Lecturer in Art History at The University of Queensland and Born Townsville, Queensland. Girramay people. Born 1979 Darwin, Northern Territory. Born 1949 Aurukun, Queensland. Wik-Alkan/Wik- a freelance curator and arts writer. Recent relevant publications include Our Way, Lives and works Sydney, New South Wales. Tiwi people. Lives and works Pirlangimpi Nathan people. Lives and works in Aurukun. austrALIEN 2007 Community, Melville Island, Northern Territory. Puch girl 2006 Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Lockhart River (2007) and Before Time Today: type C photograph, edition 2/5 Off to the Footy 2013 ochres with synthetic polymer binder on image 144.0 x 90.0 cm; sheet 153.0 x 102.0 cm ochre on linen milkwood Reinventing Tradition in Aurukun Aboriginal Art (2010), both published by University of Collection of The University of Queensland, 120.0 x 40.0 cm overall 80.0 x 24.0 x 26.0 cm Queensland Press and both books accompanying exhibitions presented at The University purchased 2008. Collection of The University of Queensland, Collection of The University of Queensland. Gift of purchased 2014. an anonymous donor, 2009. of Queensland Art Museum. love boxes 2007 mixed media on vintage playing card boxes Ray Crooke Stewart Korkatain five boxes, each approx. 9.2 x 6.2 x 2.0 cm Born 1922 Melbourne, Victoria. Lives and Born 1946 Aurukun, Queensland. Wik Ngathan Collection of The University of Queensland, works Yorkey’s Knob, Queensland. people. Lives and works in Aurukun. purchased 2008. Islanders no.2 n.d. Puch boy 2010 oil on board ochres with synthetic polymer binder on No place warrior 2009 91.5 x 121.2 cm milkwood, feathers, beeswax and grass watercolour on Arches paper Collection of The University of Queensland. overall 106.0 x 33.0 x 39.0 cm image/sheet 76.0 x 57.0 cm Collection of The University of Queensland, Collection of The University of Queensland, William Dargie purchased 2010. purchased 2010. Born 1912 Melbourne, Victoria. Lived and worked Melbourne. Died 2003 Melbourne. Christopher Pease Dave Hullfish Bailey Study for ‘Mr Albert Namatjira’ (Also known as Born 1969 Perth, Western Australia. Minang/ Born 1963 Denver, Colorado, United States of Study for ‘Portrait of Albert Namatjira’) 1956 Wardandi/Balardung/Nyoongar peoples. Lives and America. Lives and works Los Angeles. oil on oilboard works Perth. Sam Watson 46.7 x 38.2 cm Noble Savage 3 2014 Born 1952 Brisbane, Queensland. Munaldjali/ The StuartholmeBehan Collection of Australian oil on canvas Birri-Gubba peoples. Lives and works Brisbane. Art, The University of Queensland. 65.0 x 100.0 cm Maiwar Performance 2014 Collection of The University of Queensland, video, colour, sound, edition of 5 Robert Dowling purchased 2014. duration 0:12:00, looped Born 1827 Essex, England. Arrived Australia Courtesy David Pestorius Projects, Brisbane. 1839. Lived and worked Tasmania and Luke Roberts Victoria. Died 1886. London, England. Born 1952 Alpha, Queensland. Lived and worked Richard Bell Werrat Kuyuut and the Mopor people, Spring Europe 1984–1987. Lives and works Brisbane. Born 1953 Charleville, Queensland. Kamilaroi Creek, Victoria 1856 Australian Gothic (Couple) 2009 people. Lives and works Brisbane, Queensland. oil on canvas from the series ‘Australian Story’ Uz vs Them 2006 52.0 x 108.5 cm camera: Kevyn Chase single-channel digital video, edition 2/5 Collection of The University of Queensland. Giclée print on paper, edition 2/5 duration 0:02:20 Gift of Marjorie Dowling, 1952. image 174.5 x 103.0 cm; sheet 190.0 x 130.3 cm Collection of The University of Queensland. Collection of The University of Queensland, Gift of Richard Bell through the Australian Mabel Edmund purchased 2010. Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2009. Born 1930 Rockhampton, Queensland. Darumbal and South Sea Islander peoples. Darren Siwes Gordon Bennett Lived and worked Rockhampton. Died 2010 Born 1968 Adelaide, South Australia. Ngalkban Born 1955 Monto, Queensland. Lived and Rockhampton. people. Lives and works Adelaide. worked Brisbane, Queensland. Died 2014 The Goanna Men c.1992 Marrkidj Wurd-ko (Cross Pose) Group 2011 Brisbane. batik on silk from the series ‘Dalabon Dalok (Dalabon Woman)’ Outsider 1988 100.5 x 128.5 cm Giclée print on pearl paper, edition 5/10 oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas Collection of The University of Queensland, 120.0 x 90.0 cm 290.5 x 179.5 cm transferred from UQ Press, 1998. Collection of The University of Queensland, Collection of The University of Queensland. purchased 2011. Purchased with the assistance of the Visual Arts/ (untitled) 1993 Craft Board of the Australia Council, 1989. gouache on paper Marrkidj-ngan (Star Pose) Group 2011 image 65.5 x 45.5 cm; sheet 76.7 x 56.5 cm from the series ‘Dalabon Dalok (Dalabon Woman)’ Notes to Basquiat: In the future everyone will Collection of The University of Queensland, Giclée print on pearl paper, edition 5/10 know their place and be content 1999 transferred from UQ Press, 1998. 120.0 x 90.0 cm synthetic polymer paint on linen Collection of The University of Queensland, 183.0 x 183.0 cm Samantha Hobson purchased 2011. Collection of The University of Queensland, Born 1981 Lockhart River, Queensland. purchased 1999. Kuuku Ya’u people. Lives and works Cairns, Alick Tipoti Queensland. Born 1975 Waiben (Thursday Island), Torres Figure 2003 Old men met 2008 Strait Islands, Queensland. Kala Lagaw Ya people. from the series ‘How to cross the void’ synthetic polymer paint on canvas Lives and works Waiben (Thursday Island). synthetic polymer paint over UV inkjet print on 167.0 x 105.0 cm Bill Young (Printer) paper Collection of The University of Queensland. Bill Young Studio (Printworkshop) image/sheet 78.5 x 61.5 cm Gift of Michael Rayner AM through the Kuyku Garpathamai Mabaig 2007 Collection of The University of Queensland, Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts linoprint on paper, edition 3/45 purchased 2010. Program, 2014. image 204.0 x 120.0 cm; sheet 239.0 x 139.0 cm Collection of The University of Queensland, Michael Cook Craig Koomeeta purchased 2008. Born 1968 Brisbane, Queensland. Bidjara Born 1977 Aurukun, Queensland. Wik-Alkan people. Lives and works Sunshine Coast, people. Lives and works in Aurukun and Samantha Hobson Queensland. Cairns, Queensland. Old men met 2008 Majority Rule (Bus) 2014 Apelech: Young People 2004 synthetic polymer paint on canvas inkjet print on paper, edition 3/3 ochres with synthetic polymer binder on 167.0 x 105.0 cm 140.0 x 200.0 cm Belgian linen Collection of The University of Queensland. Collection of The University of Queensland, 91.4 x 61.0 cm Gift of Michael Rayner AM through the purchased 2014. Collection of The University of Queensland. Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Gift of Professor Alan Rix through the Program, 2014. Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Vivien Program, 2014. Anderson Gallery, Melbourne.

26 27 Acknowledgements

First published in 2015 by The University of Queensland Art Museum Curator’s Acknowledgements on the occasion of the exhibition: Cross Pose – Body language against the grain I would like to express appreciation for the knowledge about Indigenous art that I have gained from the artists with whom I have The University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, Australia worked over the last two decades. Research for this exhibition was 16 May – 9 August 2015 conducted during my Fellowship at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at The University of Queensland (UQ), for which I am most © The University of Queensland, the artists and authors 2015 grateful. Research collaborations with Professor Roland Bleiker from UQ’s School of Political Science and International Relations have been Views expressed in the publication are not necessarily those of the inspirational in developing my work in visual politics. Dave Hullfish publisher. Bailey, Sam Watson, and David Pestorius generously facilitated the loan of Maiwar performance, and Sam Watson assisted in allowing This publication is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose us to reproduce Sam Wagan Watson’s poem. As always, The UQ Art of private research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Museum staff have been instrumental in developing the exhibition, Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may and have provided a rich source of wisdom about the artworks held be reproduced by any means or process without the prior written in the University’s Art Collection. I would particularly like to thank permission of the publisher. Dr Campbell Gray and Michele Helmrich for their ongoing support and contributions to my research, and Evie Franzidis for her editorial Curator/Author: Dr Sally Butler skills. Coordinating Curator: Michele Helmrich Project Manager: Gordon Craig Editor: Evie Franzidis UQ Art Museum Acknowledgements Copyright: Kath Kerswell Catalogue Design: Brent Wilson The UQ Art Museum thanks Dr Sally Butler for guiding this project, Photography: Carl Warner, except for pages 13,14 and 24 (video stills) which stems from her research. We also acknowledge the assistance of David Pestorius Projects and artists Dave Hullfish Bailey and Sam The University of Queensland Art Museum Watson, Sam Watson for assisting with the reproduction of Sam The James and Mary Emelia Mayne Centre Wagan Watson’s poem, copyright holders, editor Evie Franzidis, The University of Queensland and all those who have contributed to the project, including our Art St Lucia Queensland 4072 Australia Museum team.

back cover: Ray Crooke Islanders no.2 n.d. oil on board 91.5 x 121.2 cm Collection of The University of Queensland. © Ray Crooke/Licensed by Viscopy, 2015.

28 29 UQ ART MUSEUM