Djon Mundine OAM is a Bandjalung curator, writer, artist and activist. Between 1979 and 1995 he was the art adviser at Milingimbi and Ramingining in the Northern Territory. Together with Ramingining artists he conceived the Aboriginal Memorial, which has been on virtually continuous display at the National Gallery of Australia since 1988. Mundine has held curatorial positions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Queensland Art Gallery, among others. In 2005–2006 he was research professor at the National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku) in Osaka, Japan. His exhibitions include Tyerabowbarwarryaou – I Shall never Become a Whiteman (with Fiona Foley, 1994) for the Havana Biennale and the Museum of Contemporary Art; The Native Born (1996) at the Museum of Contemporary Art; They are Meditating: Bark Paintings from the Museum of Contemporary Art's Arnott's Collection (2008); and the touring exhibition Bungaree: The first Australian (2015–2016). Mundine won the Australia Council's 2020 Red Ochre Award for Lifetime Achievement and is an independent curator of contemporary Indigenous art and cultural mentor.
Michael Riley, a Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi photographer, filmmaker and video-artist, was one of Australia's most influential Aboriginal contemporary artists. This image of Mundine was first exhibited in Riley's solo exhibition, Portraits by a Window in 1990, representing the vibrant urban-based Indigenous arts community in Sydney.
Purchased 2013
© Michael Riley/Copyright Agency, 2023
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