Here comes the neighbourhood …
We recently gave you a preview of the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, but now it’s open and everyone can revel in this major summer blockbuster – that’s free to all.
If you’re not keen on inviting the neighbours over during the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, you may change your mind.
We’re talking about our regional neighbours.
They have a lot to teach us and share with us, as this blockbuster exhibition makes abundantly clear. Spread across the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) and the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), this show is the jewel in QAGOMA’s crown.
I love that it’s so inclusive of our neighbourhood, with art from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Timor Leste and others in our region.
Turns out it’s a pretty big region when you factor in places such as Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia, newcomers to the APT. All the artists impress, but the work of our near neighbours is a bit special.
Much as I love GOMA, I reckon you should start your APT11 experience at QAG where you will be bowled over by the colourful extravaganza that is Haus Yuriyal, a vibrant multi-art project by a collective of 28 artists living and working in Jiwaka/Simbu Province in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
Haus Yuriyal working with ground paints on Kuman (shield) designs, Jiwaka Province, Papua New Guinea, August 2023 / © Haus Yuriyal and Digine Dickson. Photo: Digine Dickson
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Most of us will never visit there but, not to worry, they have come to us in a project led by Brisbane-based artist Yuriyal Eric Bridgemen, who channels his PNG heritage. We see Kuman (fighting shield) paintings, carved tree fern sculptures, embroideries and a range of innovative bilum designs. These are shown alongside a video picture house (with handwoven matting floor) and a lush garden outside in QAG’s sculpture garden overseen, in a bizarre twist, by the gallery’s resident snowman in his little outdoor fridge. How funny.
This garden articulates “the centrality of subsistence agriculture to the lives and culture of the Yuri”, as the handsome APT11 catalogue explains. This is a living artwork using stands of sugar cane, cooking bananas and taro. It’s a lovely touch.
Once you have entered QAG and enjoyed Haus Yuriyal I suggest moving quite naturally to the Water Mall where you will see the work of leading Thai Artist Mit Jai Inn, whose three-dimensional installation reimagines painting and abstraction in a dramatic interactive environment. With suspended tunnels, cascading curtains and towering scrolls, the work encourages you to enter and explore the maze-like structures. The initial tunnel – draped in shredded colourfully painted canvas – is like a portal into APT11, which I have ceremonially passed through on two occasions so far when visiting the show, which continues until April 25 next year.
I intend to pass through that tunnel-cum-portal many more times before I’m done.
There is plenty to see at QAG, including a wall of works by Hong Kong artist Yeung Tong Lung, highly regarded for his nuanced portraits of daily life in the city.
One of his works is an ambitious 18-panel painting based on views from his studio in Kennedy Town at the western end of Hong Kong island. It features four panoramas joined in a long scroll-like format to create a circular view, along with 14 vignettes of an unusually quiet Hong Kong during the pandemic.
Spend some time at QAG before strolling across to GOMA where APT11 has taken over the building in the most spectacular fashion.
Speaking of the neighbourhood, the first thing you will see is a massive sculpture by Aotearoa/New Zealand artist Brett Graham. Other massive works populate the Long Gallery at GOMA, exploring themes of colonialism and warfare.
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One of his vast sculptures is a kind of little colonial fort designed to resemble Queen Victoria’s birthday cake. I think that’s a first.
Brett Graham / Ngāti Korokī Kahukura, Tainui / Aotearoa New Zealand b.1967 / Maungārongo ki te Whenua, Maungārongo ki te Tangata 2020 / Wood, synthetic polymer paint and graphite / 320 x 800 x 320cm / Courtesy: The artist and Neil Pardington / © Brett Graham and Neil Pardington. Photo: Neil Pardington
Another suite of works from across the ditch fills one of the first gallery spaces you will see while wandering into the show. AWA (Artists For Waiapu Action) is about history and the environment. The central piece in this show is the most amazing Māori fish trap that was made based on historical photos, which are also part of this installation.
The whole thing is based on the environment around the Waiapu River on the east coast of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s north island.
Projected onto the far wall in the gallery space is a video shot underwater by AWA collaborator Alex Montieth in which a hand breaks the surface of the river revealing deadly plumes of sediment that continue to choke the Waiapu river and its species.
So, the exhibition, featuring work by a number of collaborators, is a cri de coeur to protect the environment of this part of the world. This installation was getting a lot of love on opening night, attended by more than 1000 art devotees.
There are murals, videos, installations, paintings, ceramic works and other forms in this APT, which feels very solid and very warm and engaging, particularly with the participation of the neighbourhood, which has come to share culture with us in the most wonderful way.
Stay and watch the videos in the various galleries, because they are windows into the worlds of these neighbours.
There are 70 artists, collectives and projects from more than 30 countries in this 11th chapter of QAGOMA’s flagship exhibitions series which, it was pointed out on opening night by QAGOMA deputy director Simon Elliot, is free and will continue to be.
Putting it together is a huge job and QAGOMA director Chris Saines is keen to give credit to the “engine room of the triennial’s evolution”, namely the talented curators behind the show – with Tarun Nagesh as curatorial manager leading a team that includes Reuben Keehan, Ruth McDougall, Abigail Bernal and Ruha Fifita. Amazing job, guys.
While there are flashy blockbusters in other state galleries right now, they all charge to enjoy the art, which is fair enough. So its special that the Queensland Government and QAGOMA continue to keep the APT accessible to everyone.
Along with the art there’s a cinema program, events and APT Kids in the Children’s Art Centre.
Admittedly, you have all summer to catch this massive exhibition, but I would go sooner rather than later because after one visit you will want to return time and time again to take it all in.
The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, until April 27, 2025.