Indigenous Works mustered for Japan
The Australian Financial Review
26th of March 2009
Katrina Strickland
The National Museum of Australia hopes to build on its successful 2008 Emily Kame Kngwarreye show in Japan by taking another big show there in coming years.
Director Craddock Morton will visit Japan soon to firm up touring dates for a116-strong collection of items associated with the Canning Stock Route.
The collection is the outcome of an innovative two-year project instigated by West Australian cultural organization Form and sponsored by BHP Billiton Iron ore, which took more than 60 artists from nine remote Aboriginal art communities on a six-week tour of the route in 2007.
From that trip they created paintings, oral histories and other items about the stock route, named after white pioneer Alfred Canning, who in 1906 wanted to drove cattle from the Kimberley down south. It is the first comprehensive portrayal of the route and how it affected communities along its 2000 kilometre length, from an indigenous perspective.
I see it as a good successor to the Emily show and Im talking to people in Japan about exhibitions going both ways, Morton says.
The Kngwarreye show was seen by more than 100,000 people in Japan. Morton says the Museums recent Papunya Tula show, and an upcoming show on the Irish in Australia, could also be suitable for touring.
It depends on the budget and quality of the shows but Id like to try to take something [overseas] every two or three years, he says.
The eight-year-old institution is also having success with its Charles Darwin exhibition, sourced mostly from the American Museum of Natural History in New York in collaboration with other US institutions. The show finishes this weekend and has been seen by close to 50,000 people double expectations.
Darwin coincided with Degas at the nearby National Gallery of Australia, and the opening of he new National Portrait Gallery. Such collaborative programming helped swell attendances, and Morton hopes the three institutions work more closely together in the future.
The NPG has already reached the 250,000 visitors it had hoped for in its entire first year, only four months into its life. Degas was seen by an estimated 153,000 visitors, just above target.
