DREAMTIME, in terms of quantity (over 290 works) and above all the quality of the works proposed, offers itself as the most complete exhibition ever presented in Italy on contemporary Australian Aboriginal art. So articulated that it will be proposed at the MAN in two subsequent “episodes”: the first, entitled “The spirit of Aboriginal art” can be admired from 11 February to 1 May 2011. It will be followed, from 6 May to 28 August, by the second part entitled “Archaism and abstraction. The language of Aboriginal art”.
From February 11th to August 28th therefore, Aboriginal art will “contaminate” Sardinia, in a game of rebounds which, starting from the MAN, will ideally reverberate to the archaeological sites and ethnographic museums of the island.
The project makes use of the highest institutional collaborations on the Italian and Australian side and has as its “quality guarantor” the Koorie Heritage Trust, the only internationally recognized body for the valorization and study of Aboriginal cultures.
“For DREAMTIME, the curators underline, the KHT directly selected the works, thus certifying their provenance. All the essays intended for the Marsilio catalog were written by KHT experts and certified from an anthropological, social and cultural point of view: a guarantee never before offered for any international exhibition. It should be highlighted that what will arrive in Sardinia will be the largest collection of Aboriginal works that has ever left Australia, works that cover a vast area from the State of Victoria to Queensland, a provenance that allows us to show the profound differences between cultural groups ”.
If only for this reason, DREAMTIME would enjoy the character of exceptionality among the exhibitions dedicated to Aboriginal culture outside the southern continent. But what will certainly fascinate the Italian public the most will be the originality of the expressive language, the hypnotic colours, the archetypes that have continued unchanged for 40 thousand years, from the Time of Dreams to today.
The exhibition includes renowned artists such as Clifford Possum, John and Luke Cummins, Trevor Turbo Brown, Craig Charles and emerging artists who are establishing themselves on the international scene. This selection authentically presents contemporary Aboriginal art in its current state of evolution and does not provide a static vision of the stereotypes that are often attributed to these cultures.
“It is a sort of childhood of history – underlines Cristiana Collu – which brings the contemporary, the present time closer to our roots, with a strong push towards discovery, creation, invention, respect, recognition and finally the sense of belonging to places that have shaped and shape our vision of the world.
The painting of the first civilizations is perhaps the most fascinating artistic expression for today’s viewer. In addition to the human figure, she is in fact able to tell us something about her relationship with the environment that surrounds her and conditions her: her peers, animals, nature. And it does so in the formal language characteristic of each culture and above all, suggestively, with colours. The second stage in the genesis of figurative art, a reflection of mental creations, occurred when man began to translate his own inner reality into graphic expression. Art was certainly born from an intellectual need just as, some time before, the tool appeared for a vital (existential) need, and since the human being is both biological and social, the use of the image has since ensured the cohesion of the two aspects and ultimately a certain public and collective cohesion.
The iconographic strength of the works on display, the primitive and archaic symbolism, determine a series of analogies with the primitive, archaeological, traditional and identity-based Sardinian culture, creating a great play of references and resonances which from the apparently other as the art coming from a continent at the antipodes (which however has always had a condition of insularity, not only geographically) brings us back to the evidence and riches of the territory we inhabit”.
The exhibition is a project of the MAN_Museo d’Arte della Provincia di Nuoro, in collaboration and with the patronage of the Sardinia Region, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Italian Embassy in Canberra, the Australian Embassy in Rome, the Italian Institute of Culture, the Consulate of Melbourne.
