Yolngu Power: The Art of Yirrkala
‘Power’ is a word with negative connotations nowadays, conjuring up images of leaders who put themselves beyond the rule of law and the will of the people. It has become a scary, selfish concept. For a completely different approach, there’s the exhibition, Yolngu Power: The Art of Yirrkala at the Art Gallery of NSW.
For the Yolngu of north-eastern Arnhem Land, power resides in the land and their relationship to it in terms of law, belief, ceremony and art. There are some 12,000 Yolngu spread out across 25 or more outstations, connected by dusty roads that criss-cross the dense, tropical bush. They are the most creative and well-organised of all the Indigenous communities, with a crop of brilliant artists that seems to be renewed every season. Buku-Larrngay, where the work is made or gathered, is Australia’s busiest and most successful art centre.
For those unfamilar with the Yolngu this exhibition will be a revelation, but having written about this art on many occasions, and visited the community, I couldn’t help thinking about all the incredible pieces that weren’t included. It would be futile to start listing them, but one wishes the AGNSW had made room for one of Gunybi Ganambarr’s large-scale etchings on aluminium board, such as Buyku, that won the 2018 Telstra Art Award. To be fair, there have been so many major pieces created over the past two decades, that curator, Cara Pinchbeck, who has done an outstanding job with this show, was simply spoiled for choice.
The exhibition opens with a show of force, in a display of Rumbal paintings – 22 barks arranged on a curved black wall, in which artists have painted their distinctive clan designs. These intricate, complex paintings on slabs of well-scrubbed bark make a huge impact, both in their beauty and as confident assertions of identity.