On the Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri Retrospective
"These stories are part of my religion . . . I cannot tell you the whole story or you and I would die."Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri "I change 'm all the way along. Gatta be different."Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri "In the art context for which Clifford Possum produced his paintings, it is vital that the signs continue to be read 'Two Ways'."Vivien Johnson(1)
"These stories are part of my religion . . . I cannot tell you the whole story or you and I would die."Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri
"I change 'm all the way along. Gatta be different."Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri
"In the art context for which Clifford Possum produced his paintings, it is vital that the signs continue to be read 'Two Ways'."Vivien Johnson(1)
Before Papunya and the dot painting, Aboriginal art was rarely associated with any famous name (Albert Namatjira being a remarkable exception). With this recent exhibition of his work, Clifford Possum becomes, as Ron Radford eagerly declares, the first Papunya Tula artist to receive the honour of a comprehensive retrospective 'at a major institution'. The claim is startling because one might have assumed that such a retrospective had occurred long ago. Well before his death in 2002, Clifford Possum had become a renowned and celebrated artist; Radford describes him variously as the 'first recognised star' of the Western Desert artists and 'one of Australia's most distinguished painters of the late twentieth century'.(2)
All this serves as a reminder of the sudden and unexpected transformation of expectations concerning Aboriginal art that Papunya Tula has prompted over the past two to three decades (both within their own communities and externally). It also reminds us that the unprecedented attention befalling Papunya Tula has primarily centred upon its collective identity as an indigenous art movement and it is precisely this group identity that has been the focus of countless exhibitions both within Australia and internationally.
Happily, this retrospective represented one of those (increasingly) rare occasions in which a major exhibition has toured widely in Australia.(3) While the task of a retrospective... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline