The Great Australian Art Exhibition, while a visual feast, is surely one of the most idiosyncratic exhibitions ever to be drawn under the spectre of a survey of Australian art. Daniel Thomas· preface to the book, Creating Australia, while presuming to set out the very strict parameters which guided the show is in fact an apologia for it.
Few would question the difficulties inherent in drawing a representative selection from 200 years of art but there is a basic problem with this exhibition which lay within the entire concept of "Creating Australia" tied as it is to Australia's self-imposed identity crisis which the bicentennial seems only to have exacerbated.
There is an uneasy juxtaposition between preconditioned notions of "art ... by which Australia was invented and created" (if indeed any art can be said to have done so) and that which is displayed. We are assured that "peculiarly Australian images have been favoured" but what peculiar images some of them are; ranging as they do from morbid curiosities such as Trucanini's necklace through to the more whimsical pieces such as Lorraine Jenyns, Baboon with Banana, and certainly more Augustus Earle's than anyone should ever have to look at in one day. It is almost as if Mr Thomas is attempting to "recreate" Australia all over again only this time nearer to his heart's desire.
The exhibition attempts to cover many of the concerns which plague a guilt-ridden Australia with aborigines, women and multiculturalism each attaining their own level of tokenism. However it is the use made of aboriginal art which is by far the most disturbing aspects and one suspects that this art is used for the sole
Napier Waller, Christian Waller with Baldur, Undine and Siren at Fairy Hills, 1932. Oil on canvas on board. Australian National Gallery.
