painting - Papunya Tula
Photograph by MagicToDooron Flickr.
This exhibition was curated by Professor Vivien Johnson and is significant in introducing the movement s impact to the mainstream consciousness. Two Papunya artists, Tommy Watson and Ningura Napurrula, are also represented painting Rajput painting in the Parisian museum, the Musee Quai Branly dedicated to indigenous art of the world. The National Gallery of Victoria did not acquire any works produced by the collective until 1987, when Judith Ryan convinced the current director that it was essential that the gallery purchase 10 of the works. In 2000, the Art Gallery of NSW held an exhibition, curated by Hetti Perkins, for the Sydney Olympic Games Arts Festival.
The derived the name tula from a small hill near Papunya, a Honey Ant Dreaming site. As their work gained in popularity, many of the spiritual symbols employed were omitted or changed for public viewing, as the community criticized the artists for revealing too much of their sacred heritage . In the late 1970s and early 80s, after the establishment of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, many of the people left Papunya, but the art cooperative persisted and continued to grow.
Prior to this defacement, however, the mural proved highly influential, leading other men to create smaller paintings of their Jukurrpa , or Ancestral stories, on any available surface, including bits of old masonite, car bonnets, tin cans, and matchboxes. The collective, originally entirely Aboriginal Australian men, formed in 1972. Papunya Tula, or Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, is an artist cooperative formed in 1972 that is owned and operated by Aboriginal people from the Western Desert of Australia.
The exhibition contains some of the most priceless and earliest works by the first generation, senior Papunya painters. The group is known for its innovative work with the Western Desert Art Movement, popularly referred to as dot painting , and is credited with bringing Aboriginal art to world attention and inspiring many other Australian Aboriginal artists and styles.
Napurrula s signature black and white motif appear superimposed on the ceiling of the administration part of the museum s building. Dreaming · Dreamtime · Mythology · Prehistory · History · Historical figures · . A few women, notably Pansy Napangardi, began to paint for the company in the late 1980s, but it wasn t until 1994 that women generally began to participate. The style of painting employed by the collective, although traditionally used in the sand and for body adornment in ceremonies, had never been painted before in Western style – that is, using acrylic paint, and a hard surface.
The company operates today out of Alice Springs and is widely regarded as the premier purveyor of Aboriginal art in Central Australia. The cooperative grew out of a decision by the Australian government to move several different groups living in the region to Papunya, 240 km northwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, in an effort to remove them from cattle lands and assimilate them into western culture. The exhibition, entitled Papunya Tula, Genesis and Genius , was the first major exhibition to look retrospectively at the cooperative. For a period of several months (27 November 2007 to 3 February 2008), the National Museum of Australia exhibited a collection of Papunya paintings from the first few years of the movement.
These displaced groups were primarily Pintupi, Luritja, Walpiri, Arrernte, and Anmatyerre peoples. In 1971, the school teacher at the community, Geoffrey Bardon, encouraged the children to paint a mural using traditional body and sand ceremonial art style. Their work was ignored for many years by the market and museums.
