Art is not a hundred-yard dash, but rather a relay in which one accepts the baton from behind, carries it forward, and passes it to the next generation.’1 At the essence of new art lies a close and creative kinship with the art of the past; not only building upon it but also demolishing it. As Picasso said ‘every picture is a sum of destructions’.2 The removal of past art allows for the appearance of innovations. However, if art originates and draws inspiration from the past, can the art of the past ever really be removed or obliterated? Perhaps Robert Rauschenberg had this in mind when he erased a Willem de Kooning drawing in 1953; after a month of erasing and forty exhausted erasers, evidence of the drawing still remained.
The reworking of historical art can also be a remarkably resonant form of preservation. Many contemporary artists from the Torres Strait Islands capture the essence of their cultures’ historical art forms, in some cases by removing conventional cultural techniques and materials. These artists acknowledge the degrees of undoing necessary to create new works that are startlingly active and alive. The Gallery of Modern Art’s (GoMA’s) recent exhibition ‘Land, Sea and Sky: Contemporary Art of the Torres Strait Islands’, celebrated the unique contemporary art and culture of the Torres Strait.
Contemporary art of the Torres Strait Islands is intrinsically linked with its traditional art. Even though their work takes many diverse forms and has experienced considerable change, contemporary Torres Strait artists still maintain close connections to their historical traditions and art forms. Both traditional and contemporary Torres Strait art shares a fundamental unity of inspiration—the land, the people and... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline