WEBVTT
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I'd like to pass over to our panel
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now who are gonna be talking at about our brand new
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exhibition, "Who are You?"
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It's a collaborative exhibition
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between the National Gallery Victoria
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and the National Portrait Gallery.
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And it's only just launched.
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So we really encourage all of our audiences
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online and onsite to go in and have a look
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at this amazing exhibition.
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It's bringing together both of our collections
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in such a beautiful way.
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The exhibition has such incredible impact,
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so I really do encourage you to get in and take your time
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and wander through and absorb all the amazing portraiture
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that's on display.
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It's here in Canberra until 29 January next year,
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so you have plenty of time and in the meantime,
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let's ask the curators of this particular exhibition
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to give us a little bit of an intro.
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Over to you Jo.
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Well, good afternoon everyone,
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and thanks so much for joining us
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for this discussion about, "Who are You?
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Wonderful exhibition that we have been very fortunate,
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we at the NPG, have been very fortunate to work
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on with our colleagues at the NGV in Melbourne.
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My name's Joanna Gilmore.
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I'm the Curator of Collection and Research here at the NPG
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and one of several curators who over the past few years
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have contributed to the realisation of this exhibition.
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I'm really delighted to be joined by fellow curators
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and I'll allow you to introduce yourselves
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'cause I'm likely to forget your job titles.
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(laughing)
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So my name's Beckett Rozentals,
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I'm Curator of Australian Art
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at the National Gallery of Victoria
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and began working on this project with Jo
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and then as well as Rebecca, a number of years ago now.
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And it's been a really, you know,
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wonderful collaboration between the twin institutions
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and a pleasure to work on the exhibition.
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Yeah, thank you Beckett.
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So my name is Rebecca Ray and I'm the First Nations Curator
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here at the National Portrait Gallery.
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I'm a Meriam woman, from the centre
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from the Torres Strait Islands connected
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to Mer, Mabuiag, Badu and Moa as well,
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so kind of all of the islands there.
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But yeah, it was a wonderful exhibition
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to collaborative work on.
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My first time doing such a large exhibition
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in terms of collaboration between two institutions,
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one of the biggest ones in Australia,
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or the biggest one in Australia,
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and then I guess the smallest institution as well.
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So it's been a wonderful time working
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with the curators on this show.
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Yeah, and it's interesting actually, sort of it's,
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'cause it's opened here now, obviously.
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It was in Melbourne at the NGV earlier this year
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from March to September.
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But we, Beckett and I, are kind
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of like the last ones standing really.
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So, been multiple curators working
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on it since kind of towards the end of 2019.
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2019.
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So it's really interesting.
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I'm trying to cast my mind back and try and think
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about what it was we were actually sort of talking
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about initially on and to, at the very beginning
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of the project and to see the way it's realised.
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It's really exciting.
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But also, it's been a real sort of memory jog for us.
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I guess I'll kick off, I think, by talking
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a little bit about how it feels from the Portrait Gallery's
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perspective to have worked on this exhibition.
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And I know this is something I'm probably hypersensitive
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about, but when you work in an institution
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like this one, you become very aware very quickly
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that there's a perception that portraiture
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is all about a, what someone sort of looks like
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from the outside.
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And b, that portraits are very much about the subject
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of the work.
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And that's, you know, that's all that matters.
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Whereas in fact, and a lot of people I don't think
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probably realise this when they think
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of the National Portrait Gallery.
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We have always very much been as much about the artist
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as about the sitter and very specifically
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about the choices that artists make
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when they're trying to, or seeking to represent
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an individual story or an individual life.
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And so I think from my perspective,
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remembering back to 2019 when we first started
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working on the project that became, "Who Are You?",
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I was very conscious that we create an exhibition
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that actually puts the Portrait Gallery's collection
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in conversation with the NGV in such a way
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as to bring those kind of, those more creative,
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those more sort of artistic aspects of our collection
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to light and to create an exhibition
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that is very much about, not the limitations of portraiture
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as a genre, but it's incredible capacities
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really for telling, not just what someone looks like,
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but telling their whole sort of story.
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Telling stories about place, about identity,
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about memory, spirituality,
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all sorts of aspects that come
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into the representation of a person.
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And I'm not sure if you can remember back, Beckett,
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to some of those early discussions too,
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but what we agreed on was we distilled it down,
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I suppose distilled the whole project down, into these five
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themes that we thought would allow us to explore
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this very broad church, this very kind of expansive notion
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of what portraiture is.
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Yeah, and I think that through those original
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conversations as well, we were, you know,
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also looking at two very large bodies of works
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and collections and putting those together.
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And I think in our first lookings of our checklist,
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we had over 400, 500 works.
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Yeah.
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Which, we went big, cast the net very wide.
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And then brought it in and I think for the showing
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at the NGV we had about 230 works,
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and it's 130 for here.
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And I think one of the key
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curatorial,
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which we brought to it was that it seemed,
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it might be a little obvious from this exhibition
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when she was looking at reframing the genre
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to walk into meeting the artists.
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So walking into self-portraits or portraits of artists.
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And so we shifted this around a little bit,
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beginning the exhibition with, "Person and Place"
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and reflecting on the relationship
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between the artist, sitter and the environment.
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And so that was, we felt sort of, gave a different
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start to the exhibition to what people might first expect.
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Yeah, and that of course is how the exhibition
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starts here as well.
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We might get the first slide, Hector, if that's okay?
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And Beck is going to tell us a little bit
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about this wonderful,
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fabulous painting from the NGV's collection
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by Kaylene Whiskey, which is sort of the, it's the highlight
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of the "Person and Place" section for me.
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Yeah, I think so for me as well.
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I just love Kaylene Whiskey.
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She's such a superstar,
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but this work, her work, "Seven Sisters Song",
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very much a self-portrait,
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but I guess you wouldn't really expect
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it to be a self-portrait when you first look at it.
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But again, it's very much situated in this idea
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of place and portrait and person and identity.
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So let's start off with Kaylene Whiskey first.
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She is an Aboriginal woman living out in Iwantja
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in the remote community in the APY Lands.
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And I think the title of this work is really important
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as well, so we have, "Seven Sisters Songs."
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So, "The Seven Sisters", it's a Creation Story
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that connects a lot of different regions
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across Australia through different song lines
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and through different stories of Creation
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and Ancestral Beings and all of these ideas.
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So again, it's reframing this idea of place
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and, you know, place becomes meaningful
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through these relations,
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through these storytelling
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and where the inanimate becomes really quite being important
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and personified and it, particularly in the context
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of an Aboriginal person, it speaks to a knowing
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of country and sovereignty.
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And I feel that this work really expresses
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this and in the way that Kaylene has put
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in these, in these notions of the APY Lands
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and these community places as well.
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So you have examples of bush tucker,
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you have mingkulpa, which is Native tobacco,
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that's quite it, that's in the region.
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You've also got a lot of iconography
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such as the honey ants and these type of things.
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But what's really great about the work
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too, with Kaylene Whiskey,
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she's really known for her unique visual language
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and pop culture references.
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So you can see Wonder Woman and you can see
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Dolly Parton and Tina Turner.
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And these characters really make up this idea
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of the Seven Sisters.
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And even though this is a self-portrait relating to place,
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we can see that through all of these iconographies,
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through these characters, they really talk
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about her experiences of growing up on country,
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but also the references that she grew
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up with and her history.
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So Kaylene grew up reading comic books.
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She grew up watching Rage and all of these pop figures
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and dancing and so that really informed her worldview
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as well and you can see all these wonderful motifs
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of the Aboriginal flag through the Aboriginal
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colours as well.
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And another fantastic aspect of the work
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as well is that it's actually painted on a road sign
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that says, "Iwantja Arts and Craft Centre."
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And it's almost as if it's like directing these characters
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to come to community and spend time with her.
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So it takes on more than just likeness,
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more than representation of a person,
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but it incorporates an understanding
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and knowing of country.
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It takes on characters that she grew
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up with in her childhood and very much today as well.
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So it all sort of informs her identity
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and her character as a self-portrait.
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Yeah, and I love the way that it's painted
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on an old road sign and sort of what that reference
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is terms of what people seeing a sign saying, "Iwantja".
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What they might conceive in their minds.
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And it's like, you know,
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this is like a disco.
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It's not like, no it's just such a fantastically
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powerful and uplifting work.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I couldn't agree more.
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And you can sort of just see hidden
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in there that it says, "Turn left".
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Yeah.
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And when you see it in the flesh
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as well, you can, something which doesn't come
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up when you're looking at a reproduction
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is how retro reflective elements
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flicker and shine as you look at it and change as you move
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around the work.
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So it's got that sort of like luminous quality
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to it as well which really lifts it.
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Yeah, and Beckett, you had another work
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from the "Person and Place" theme.
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Yes, the Lloyd Rees-
Yeah,
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which I think is, people aren't gonna expect
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to see when they come to an exhibition called,
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"Australian Portraiture."
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And I think that this is a really great work
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to have in this opening section 'cause that is really
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shifting that idea of the traditional portrait genre.
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And I think that it's such a wonderful work
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is that, so Lloyd Rees has taken
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the rock formations and just by the titling
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in itself of, "Portrait of some Rocks",
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it turns these inanimate objects into animated things.
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It gives them a persona, a personality,
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the little one at the front of the portrait,
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the little baby rock.
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And suddenly the way you engage
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with it in a similar way it's been titled
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and also Lloyd Rees from the 1930's,
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his whole body of work was really focused
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on land formations.
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The idea of the rock as part of the earth,
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the embodiment of the earth coming up and out.
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And so it became a motif
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which went through across all of his career,
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especially driving from Sydney South through to Berry.
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And then in his older years living in Tasmania,
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he became quite transfixed by the Organ Pipes
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at Mount Wellington.
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So I think this is a fabulous work,
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which people really will be, I guess a little bit surprised
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to see this personification of the landscape
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and it's alongside Holly Pepper's show,
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which I've probably said incorrectly just now and her works,
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which also are that sort of like, the land coming to life.
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So it's a really great section and I think
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it's really fun with the Kaylene Whiskey.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I think this idea of the inanimate becoming personified
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is really important when we start talking
283
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about the relationship with place and space
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and what happens when space becomes place.
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Yeah.
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So having introduced or started off the exhibition
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with, "Person and Place",
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we then move into a section of the exhibition
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which is, I guess, includes once again a real
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sort of diversity in terms of representation
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and the capacities of portraiture.
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It's a section called, "Meet the Artist"
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which as the name of the theme might suggest
294
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is very much about self-portraiture
295
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and specifically about that sort of integration
296
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or that relationship between an artist's
297
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own sort of self-identity and their kind
298
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of creative practise and their creative identity as well.
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So we'll move to the next slide, Hector, if that's okay?
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And this is actually one of the first works
301
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that you'll see when you come into "Meet the Artist."
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One of my easily, one of my favourite works
303
00:14:01.470 --> 00:14:03.720
from the NPG's collection.
304
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A beautiful little self portrait by Nora Heysen,
305
00:14:08.040 --> 00:14:13.040
which we acquired directly from Nora in 1999.
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00:14:13.080 --> 00:14:16.440
It was painted in 1934, so she was still only what,
307
00:14:16.440 --> 00:14:21.240
23 or so years old when this work was created.
308
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But for me it's really sort of interesting
309
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in terms of the context of other self-portraits
310
00:14:26.760 --> 00:14:28.710
that Nora was making at this time.
311
00:14:28.710 --> 00:14:33.210
So we all know that, that surname, "Heysen",
312
00:14:33.210 --> 00:14:35.263
she was of course the daughter of Sir Hans Heysen,
313
00:14:35.263 --> 00:14:38.922
a very distinguished Australian landscape painter.
314
00:14:38.922 --> 00:14:43.380
And so you can imagine as an artist kind of growing
315
00:14:43.380 --> 00:14:47.190
up in that shadow and with that reputation
316
00:14:47.190 --> 00:14:50.460
to contend with, you can understand why it was that Nora
317
00:14:50.460 --> 00:14:53.160
decided to focus on portraiture,
318
00:14:53.160 --> 00:14:56.670
particularly when she was first starting out and she made
319
00:14:56.670 --> 00:15:00.753
self-portraits throughout her long life.
320
00:15:01.650 --> 00:15:03.360
But this work is actually really interesting
321
00:15:03.360 --> 00:15:05.610
because it's not the only self-portrait she made
322
00:15:05.610 --> 00:15:07.200
when she was in her early twenties.
323
00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:09.240
There are a number of others,
324
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including one that was acquired
325
00:15:12.060 --> 00:15:13.440
by the Art Gallery of South Australia,
326
00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:15.930
which of course is where Nora was from.
327
00:15:15.930 --> 00:15:19.230
Acquired when she was still very young at art school.
328
00:15:19.230 --> 00:15:22.380
But interestingly of the portraits that she made,
329
00:15:22.380 --> 00:15:24.840
self-portraits that she made in the early 1930's,
330
00:15:24.840 --> 00:15:28.530
this one really stands out because it's just her
331
00:15:28.530 --> 00:15:30.960
kind of analysing herself.
332
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Whereas in the earlier work,
333
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she's very much presenting herself,
334
00:15:35.100 --> 00:15:36.570
consciously presenting herself,
335
00:15:36.570 --> 00:15:39.870
like performing in a way as an artist.
336
00:15:39.870 --> 00:15:41.100
You know, she's wearing a smock
337
00:15:41.100 --> 00:15:42.450
or she's seated at an easel,
338
00:15:42.450 --> 00:15:44.220
or she's holding a pallet.
339
00:15:44.220 --> 00:15:47.073
Her palette is one that Dame Nellie Melba gifted to her.
340
00:15:48.090 --> 00:15:51.690
So it's very much this kind of outward performance.
341
00:15:51.690 --> 00:15:55.020
Whereas this work is her,
342
00:15:55.020 --> 00:15:58.020
made when she was, had not long arrived,
343
00:15:58.020 --> 00:16:00.210
not long after she arrived in London.
344
00:16:00.210 --> 00:16:03.570
She'd been travelling around with her parents
345
00:16:03.570 --> 00:16:05.760
and with her sisters in Europe,
346
00:16:05.760 --> 00:16:08.370
and then they deposited her in London
347
00:16:08.370 --> 00:16:11.280
and she was gonna be there for the next few years
348
00:16:11.280 --> 00:16:12.540
studying and so forth.
349
00:16:12.540 --> 00:16:17.130
And so it's kind of like her in her little flat,
350
00:16:17.130 --> 00:16:20.550
wearing her nice warm jacket and her nice warm jumper
351
00:16:20.550 --> 00:16:22.787
and just kind of confronting herself
352
00:16:22.787 --> 00:16:25.170
for the first time in a way.
353
00:16:25.170 --> 00:16:26.940
There's no performance.
354
00:16:26.940 --> 00:16:28.125
There's no artifice.
355
00:16:28.125 --> 00:16:31.519
It's just Nora sort of thinking, "Well, this just got real."
356
00:16:31.519 --> 00:16:32.809
(laughing)
357
00:16:32.809 --> 00:16:35.280
And all signifiers of the artist have been removed,
358
00:16:35.280 --> 00:16:36.870
all signifiers of wealth or status.
359
00:16:36.870 --> 00:16:37.703
Yeah.
360
00:16:37.703 --> 00:16:40.530
Everything and brought back to that straight on
361
00:16:40.530 --> 00:16:41.940
view, which is, as you said,
362
00:16:41.940 --> 00:16:43.770
very different to those performative ones.
363
00:16:43.770 --> 00:16:47.280
And interestingly you mentioned the jumper in that as well.
364
00:16:47.280 --> 00:16:49.890
We've got a George Bell work in the exhibition, "Toinette",
365
00:16:49.890 --> 00:16:54.090
which was also painted in 1934 in London
366
00:16:54.090 --> 00:16:58.920
and is also of a similar composition of his daughter
367
00:16:58.920 --> 00:17:01.410
in the close frame front on,
368
00:17:01.410 --> 00:17:03.660
and she's actually wearing exactly the same jumper,
369
00:17:03.660 --> 00:17:05.100
but in a yellow colour.
370
00:17:05.100 --> 00:17:08.730
And I always think about this 1934 London,
371
00:17:08.730 --> 00:17:12.030
obviously that was a bit of an item,
372
00:17:12.030 --> 00:17:15.060
but just, you know, you don't really see
373
00:17:15.060 --> 00:17:17.700
it between the two works when you're looking,
374
00:17:17.700 --> 00:17:19.410
and I guess this is also the beauty of working
375
00:17:19.410 --> 00:17:21.150
across two collections where this works
376
00:17:21.150 --> 00:17:24.390
from the National Portrait Gallery and the George Bell works
377
00:17:24.390 --> 00:17:27.210
from the NGV and suddenly you don't even see
378
00:17:27.210 --> 00:17:31.500
this sort of fashion item
379
00:17:31.500 --> 00:17:34.290
or the way the portraits have been done the same
380
00:17:34.290 --> 00:17:35.970
until you put these collections
381
00:17:35.970 --> 00:17:38.010
together and you suddenly got them side by side.
382
00:17:38.010 --> 00:17:39.990
You're like, these are both 1934 London.
383
00:17:39.990 --> 00:17:41.760
And these are both the same composition
384
00:17:41.760 --> 00:17:44.100
and they're both wearing these similar
385
00:17:44.100 --> 00:17:45.690
and it's just something really fascinating
386
00:17:45.690 --> 00:17:47.403
what you get from your own collection
387
00:17:47.403 --> 00:17:50.313
viewing it in context with another collection as well.
388
00:17:51.736 --> 00:17:54.720
Having said that the "Meet the Artist" section
389
00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:57.660
includes lots of what people would traditionally
390
00:17:57.660 --> 00:17:58.560
think of as a portrait.
391
00:17:58.560 --> 00:18:02.190
There are also a number of works in "Meet the Artist"
392
00:18:02.190 --> 00:18:06.780
that are most certainly not what you would expect to see.
393
00:18:06.780 --> 00:18:08.100
We might have a look at the next slide.
394
00:18:08.100 --> 00:18:09.033
Thanks, Hector.
395
00:18:10.530 --> 00:18:13.470
Try the next one after that, we might get back to William.
396
00:18:13.470 --> 00:18:16.005
Yeah, so this is a fabulous work by Jenny Watson
397
00:18:16.005 --> 00:18:20.400
which I'm also gonna ask Beckett to tell us about.
398
00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:22.350
Looking at self-portraits, I mean,
399
00:18:22.350 --> 00:18:25.300
self-portraits are a particularly fascinating
400
00:18:26.490 --> 00:18:30.330
facet of portraiture because it's that, uniting the artist
401
00:18:30.330 --> 00:18:34.388
and the sitter and of course what an artist,
402
00:18:34.388 --> 00:18:37.740
the self-portrait is a genre
403
00:18:37.740 --> 00:18:42.450
which gives this promise of intimate access
404
00:18:42.450 --> 00:18:43.680
into the artist's psyche.
405
00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:46.290
But at the same time, what an artist might choose
406
00:18:46.290 --> 00:18:49.140
to present about themselves can be highly orchestrated,
407
00:18:49.140 --> 00:18:52.050
as we were saying with the Nora Heysen.
408
00:18:52.050 --> 00:18:54.690
You might choose to place yourself,
409
00:18:54.690 --> 00:18:57.180
depict yourself in the role of the artist
410
00:18:57.180 --> 00:18:59.820
holding the paintbrush or the paint palette.
411
00:18:59.820 --> 00:19:04.290
And you might choose how you show that you know
412
00:19:04.290 --> 00:19:06.570
what sort of artist you are or you know
413
00:19:06.570 --> 00:19:08.190
something about yourself.
414
00:19:08.190 --> 00:19:11.400
But there are a couple of works in this section
415
00:19:11.400 --> 00:19:16.400
which really show, I think, the performance element
416
00:19:17.310 --> 00:19:19.710
of portraiture, self-portraiture.
417
00:19:19.710 --> 00:19:22.380
For instance, this work by Jenny Watson
418
00:19:22.380 --> 00:19:25.950
and it's this combination of image and text
419
00:19:25.950 --> 00:19:30.300
and it's written, I feel like, I can't quite read
420
00:19:30.300 --> 00:19:32.017
it off of the top of my head.
421
00:19:32.017 --> 00:19:36.690
"I feel like when my father used to brush my hair."
422
00:19:36.690 --> 00:19:40.770
And it's almost like reading a page from her diary,
423
00:19:40.770 --> 00:19:42.660
but it's paired this conversation,
424
00:19:42.660 --> 00:19:45.360
this memory of her father brushing her hair,
425
00:19:45.360 --> 00:19:48.960
with this image of a woman with a fake horse hair,
426
00:19:48.960 --> 00:19:52.590
horsetail of her hair, dressed as this Playboy Bunny.
427
00:19:52.590 --> 00:19:56.430
But holding a toilet brush next to the toilet.
428
00:19:56.430 --> 00:19:59.560
And with this, it puts together a really
429
00:20:01.170 --> 00:20:04.290
it's fetish, domesticity,
430
00:20:04.290 --> 00:20:08.640
performance and how performance, clothing and dress
431
00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:13.640
can influence how we perceive ourselves and each other.
432
00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:19.110
And it's just such a curiously fascinating work.
433
00:20:19.110 --> 00:20:20.430
All the stuff which she's managing
434
00:20:20.430 --> 00:20:22.800
to get into, especially with that use
435
00:20:22.800 --> 00:20:26.724
of that paired text panel with it really activates
436
00:20:26.724 --> 00:20:29.040
the portrait itself.
437
00:20:29.040 --> 00:20:32.103
And speaking of performance, with the next slide,
438
00:20:34.380 --> 00:20:35.490
this is one of my-
Yeah.
439
00:20:35.490 --> 00:20:36.884
This is fascinating, this.
440
00:20:36.884 --> 00:20:39.510
It's one of my favourite works in the exhibition.
441
00:20:39.510 --> 00:20:43.890
It's petite, it's a small work on paper by Napier Waller
442
00:20:43.890 --> 00:20:48.890
and it's, "The Man in Black, 1925."
443
00:20:49.230 --> 00:20:54.230
Now in 1917, Napier Wallow was, joined the war.
444
00:20:55.740 --> 00:20:58.650
He was in the Australian Imperial Force
445
00:20:58.650 --> 00:21:02.580
and he was involved in active service in France,
446
00:21:02.580 --> 00:21:05.520
and he was severely injured.
447
00:21:05.520 --> 00:21:09.090
And the result of this was the amputation
448
00:21:09.090 --> 00:21:11.523
of his right arm from the shoulder.
449
00:21:12.600 --> 00:21:14.190
While in convalescence,
450
00:21:14.190 --> 00:21:18.000
the right-handed Napier Waller had to reteach himself
451
00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:20.730
how to write, how to draw.
452
00:21:20.730 --> 00:21:22.260
His whole artistic practise.
453
00:21:22.260 --> 00:21:24.690
He had to reteach himself to do it left-handed.
454
00:21:24.690 --> 00:21:28.563
And so he's done this while recovering from the surgery.
455
00:21:30.210 --> 00:21:35.210
This work he's completed many years after this amputation.
456
00:21:35.430 --> 00:21:38.280
But what he's done is in this work, he's dressed himself,
457
00:21:38.280 --> 00:21:43.280
the debonair artist, the black suit coat, the top hat.
458
00:21:44.370 --> 00:21:49.170
And behind him another sort of thing you do as an artist
459
00:21:49.170 --> 00:21:50.160
when you're doing a self-portrait,
460
00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:53.130
it's like, "Look at me, this is something I've done before."
461
00:21:53.130 --> 00:21:55.530
It's the cartoon of his work
462
00:21:55.530 --> 00:21:57.960
for the State Library in Melbourne.
463
00:21:57.960 --> 00:21:59.520
So this is a great thing to do
464
00:21:59.520 --> 00:22:00.690
if you're doing a self-portrait.
465
00:22:00.690 --> 00:22:02.790
It's like, "This is me and here's an example
466
00:22:02.790 --> 00:22:04.080
of something I can do.
467
00:22:04.080 --> 00:22:05.820
Here is me and here is my work."
468
00:22:05.820 --> 00:22:07.920
But what's so curious about this work
469
00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:09.483
is, and it's that thing,
470
00:22:12.186 --> 00:22:14.070
that cross through the centre of the painting,
471
00:22:14.070 --> 00:22:15.000
centre of the work.
472
00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:18.390
And it's at the point of his hands
473
00:22:18.390 --> 00:22:21.150
where he has completed himself as whole, again.
474
00:22:21.150 --> 00:22:23.940
As intact as prior to this horrific injury
475
00:22:23.940 --> 00:22:25.830
which resulted in the loss of his arm.
476
00:22:25.830 --> 00:22:28.350
And it's this moment of performance,
477
00:22:28.350 --> 00:22:29.340
this is his self-portrait,
478
00:22:29.340 --> 00:22:32.430
it's how he's choosing to show himself.
479
00:22:32.430 --> 00:22:36.510
Is it this validation of himself as a man or as an artist?
480
00:22:36.510 --> 00:22:39.600
This idea, or is it, "This is my self-portrait
481
00:22:39.600 --> 00:22:42.180
and I can complete myself again."
482
00:22:42.180 --> 00:22:46.230
And so it's a, I think a really fascinating work to look at.
483
00:22:46.230 --> 00:22:49.950
It's this idea of self-portraits and performance
484
00:22:49.950 --> 00:22:54.950
and how one chooses to present and what they choose
485
00:22:55.020 --> 00:22:57.870
to include or omit from an image.
486
00:22:57.870 --> 00:22:59.700
So it's a great one to have in.
487
00:22:59.700 --> 00:23:03.420
Yeah, and in light of that, maybe John Nixon's component
488
00:23:03.420 --> 00:23:04.560
(laughing)
489
00:23:04.560 --> 00:23:07.409
which I think is possibly the work that will confuse
490
00:23:07.409 --> 00:23:10.620
most visitors to the exhibition
491
00:23:10.620 --> 00:23:14.250
and it's almost like, if he can get the opposite
492
00:23:14.250 --> 00:23:17.370
of what Napier Waller was doing with his self-portrait.
493
00:23:17.370 --> 00:23:20.250
You've got John Nixon pretty much just kind of reducing
494
00:23:20.250 --> 00:23:25.250
himself to a gesture, which he used very frequently
495
00:23:26.190 --> 00:23:28.230
in his abstract painting.
496
00:23:28.230 --> 00:23:29.850
So, yeah.
497
00:23:29.850 --> 00:23:31.380
And could we skip back just briefly?
498
00:23:31.380 --> 00:23:33.030
We, missed William Yang.
499
00:23:33.030 --> 00:23:35.280
Sorry, Hector, I put them in the wrong order.
500
00:23:36.210 --> 00:23:39.360
So once, we were talking a little bit with Jenny Watson
501
00:23:39.360 --> 00:23:40.620
about that sort of relationship
502
00:23:40.620 --> 00:23:44.190
between text and portraiture.
503
00:23:44.190 --> 00:23:45.990
And this is a fabulous example.
504
00:23:45.990 --> 00:23:48.390
This is a work which is from our collection
505
00:23:48.390 --> 00:23:49.500
although when it was in Melbourne,
506
00:23:49.500 --> 00:23:52.800
you displayed your print of the same work.
507
00:23:52.800 --> 00:23:55.710
Beautiful self-portrait by William Yang
508
00:23:55.710 --> 00:23:58.980
in which he has taken a photograph of himself
509
00:23:58.980 --> 00:24:03.690
as a little boy and inscribed onto it his memory
510
00:24:03.690 --> 00:24:06.900
of discovering his Chinese heritage.
511
00:24:06.900 --> 00:24:10.440
And he tells a little story about how he was a little boy,
512
00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:14.199
he grew up near Cairns in far north Queensland
513
00:24:14.199 --> 00:24:18.720
and grew up in family who kinda repudiated
514
00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:21.480
their Chinese heritage simply because they were trying
515
00:24:21.480 --> 00:24:23.433
to desperately sort of fit in.
516
00:24:25.140 --> 00:24:27.240
And yeah, he went to school one day
517
00:24:27.240 --> 00:24:32.100
and one of his classmates so called
518
00:24:32.100 --> 00:24:34.750
called him Ching Chong Chinaman, born in a teacup
519
00:24:35.610 --> 00:24:39.216
and he went home to his mum having experienced
520
00:24:39.216 --> 00:24:42.060
this and said, "Mum, we're not, I'm not Chinese, am I?"
521
00:24:42.060 --> 00:24:43.977
And she said, "Yes, you are."
522
00:24:43.977 --> 00:24:46.410
And that was how he found out about his heritage
523
00:24:46.410 --> 00:24:51.000
and he's inscribed this onto his image.
524
00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:55.170
And when he speaks about this, his mother's reaction
525
00:24:55.170 --> 00:24:58.930
and response to him, it's like, he's like this realisation
526
00:25:00.932 --> 00:25:05.280
that it was, she put it like it was coming
527
00:25:05.280 --> 00:25:07.230
across as a curse, it was a bad thing.
528
00:25:07.230 --> 00:25:08.880
And he really struggled with this.
529
00:25:08.880 --> 00:25:12.480
And also that his parents' shared language was English
530
00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:15.180
and they both had different, came from different areas
531
00:25:16.020 --> 00:25:19.720
from China and so it was that really odd
532
00:25:22.680 --> 00:25:25.860
internal struggle for William as a child.
533
00:25:25.860 --> 00:25:28.500
Their shared language at home is English,
534
00:25:28.500 --> 00:25:30.930
feeling different and feeling like this difference
535
00:25:30.930 --> 00:25:34.050
and never, ever, and the beautiful piece you wrote
536
00:25:34.050 --> 00:25:37.170
for the catalogue of just what advice would you give
537
00:25:37.170 --> 00:25:40.410
yourself as a, to your teenage self?
538
00:25:40.410 --> 00:25:44.430
And it's just like, something along this, you're beautiful,
539
00:25:44.430 --> 00:25:46.110
you are perfect the way you are.
540
00:25:46.110 --> 00:25:49.320
And it's just so touching this sort of self-reflection
541
00:25:49.320 --> 00:25:51.300
of what is the one bit of advice you would give
542
00:25:51.300 --> 00:25:52.650
yourself who was struggling.
543
00:25:52.650 --> 00:25:55.470
So, yeah.
544
00:25:55.470 --> 00:25:58.225
No, it's a really fantastic section of the exhibition.
545
00:25:58.225 --> 00:26:02.190
I think you could spend hours just in, "Meet the Artist"
546
00:26:02.190 --> 00:26:03.903
itself, but we need to move on.
547
00:26:06.300 --> 00:26:09.007
The next theme we chose was one called,
548
00:26:09.007 --> 00:26:11.730
"Intimacy and Alienation."
549
00:26:11.730 --> 00:26:16.050
And I guess that whole idea of intimacy,
550
00:26:16.050 --> 00:26:19.620
of a relationship, is something that's as old
551
00:26:19.620 --> 00:26:23.250
as portraiture, is essentially certainly one of the things
552
00:26:23.250 --> 00:26:25.830
I first learned when I started working here at the NPG
553
00:26:25.830 --> 00:26:28.740
was to test the strength of a portrait
554
00:26:28.740 --> 00:26:32.700
was to try and get a sense of the strength
555
00:26:32.700 --> 00:26:37.260
of that connection between the artist and the sitter.
556
00:26:37.260 --> 00:26:41.310
And for most, well, for all of portraiture's history,
557
00:26:41.310 --> 00:26:44.100
really, it's more often than not portraits
558
00:26:44.100 --> 00:26:47.400
have been made because of some kind of a relationship.
559
00:26:47.400 --> 00:26:48.810
You make them because you love someone,
560
00:26:48.810 --> 00:26:52.320
because you miss someone, because someone's passed away,
561
00:26:52.320 --> 00:26:54.180
et cetera, et cetera.
562
00:26:54.180 --> 00:26:57.480
And this, I think is another work from the NGV's collection,
563
00:26:57.480 --> 00:27:00.280
fabulous painting by Hugh Ramsay
564
00:27:01.668 --> 00:27:04.170
of his little sister, Jessie.
565
00:27:04.170 --> 00:27:06.423
This is made in 1897,
566
00:27:07.994 --> 00:27:11.880
so a few years before Ramsay himself went overseas
567
00:27:11.880 --> 00:27:14.433
to study in Paris,
568
00:27:15.330 --> 00:27:19.890
but just such a gorgeous work
569
00:27:19.890 --> 00:27:21.690
on all sorts of levels.
570
00:27:21.690 --> 00:27:24.960
And of course, I guess the sad thing about Hugh Ramsay
571
00:27:24.960 --> 00:27:28.260
is that, as you know, he went to Paris,
572
00:27:28.260 --> 00:27:30.120
he lived there for a number of years
573
00:27:30.120 --> 00:27:32.310
and literally was that sort of, almost that sort
574
00:27:32.310 --> 00:27:34.860
of stereotype of an artist kind of starving, you know.
575
00:27:34.860 --> 00:27:38.640
Garrett, pretty much, he was short on funds.
576
00:27:38.640 --> 00:27:40.320
I think the only reason he got a square meal
577
00:27:40.320 --> 00:27:42.720
occasionally was 'cause he was living up the street
578
00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:46.470
from George Lambert, another Australian artist
579
00:27:46.470 --> 00:27:50.160
who he met on the ship going out from Melbourne
580
00:27:50.160 --> 00:27:51.933
to the UK.
581
00:27:53.070 --> 00:27:56.220
So yeah, and he went, while he was in Paris,
582
00:27:56.220 --> 00:27:59.688
he contracted tuberculosis
583
00:27:59.688 --> 00:28:04.688
and basically once he came home from overseas,
584
00:28:06.090 --> 00:28:10.680
he pretty much, he could only really had had access
585
00:28:10.680 --> 00:28:15.680
to his family and close friends as portrait subjects.
586
00:28:15.690 --> 00:28:20.690
And while this painting predates Ramsay's illness
587
00:28:21.090 --> 00:28:22.980
and Ramsay's time in Paris,
588
00:28:22.980 --> 00:28:26.070
its still, I think very sort of speaks,
589
00:28:26.070 --> 00:28:28.560
speaks very much to that kind of aspect of his practise
590
00:28:28.560 --> 00:28:32.667
and that very kind of intimate inflexion
591
00:28:33.630 --> 00:28:36.870
that's throughout all of his portraiture.
592
00:28:36.870 --> 00:28:40.980
And sad of course too, because once Ramsey
593
00:28:40.980 --> 00:28:45.467
came home with TB, Jessie, his sister,
594
00:28:45.467 --> 00:28:49.110
was one of his main carers.
595
00:28:49.110 --> 00:28:50.610
She nursed him.
596
00:28:50.610 --> 00:28:52.590
And so not only did Hugh Ramsay die
597
00:28:52.590 --> 00:28:54.690
at a tragically young age,
598
00:28:54.690 --> 00:28:57.840
Jessie contracted the disease from him
599
00:28:57.840 --> 00:29:00.630
and passed away too as a young woman.
600
00:29:00.630 --> 00:29:03.187
So incredibly powerful.
601
00:29:03.187 --> 00:29:06.930
And I think how Ramsay was 27 when he passed away.
602
00:29:06.930 --> 00:29:07.808
Yeah.
And you just think
603
00:29:07.808 --> 00:29:10.860
about just how young
604
00:29:10.860 --> 00:29:14.757
and the quality of his youth,
605
00:29:16.400 --> 00:29:19.470
of his paintings just then and just the tragedy
606
00:29:19.470 --> 00:29:22.467
of passing it on to his sister and his carer.
607
00:29:22.467 --> 00:29:25.290
And it's just such a beautiful work
608
00:29:25.290 --> 00:29:26.913
and you just see in it so much.
609
00:29:28.980 --> 00:29:29.813
Yeah.
610
00:29:31.830 --> 00:29:33.240
Okay.
611
00:29:33.240 --> 00:29:34.073
Next one.
612
00:29:36.180 --> 00:29:38.373
Oh, this beautiful work.
613
00:29:39.210 --> 00:29:41.820
Naomi Hobson, "Warrior without a weapon."
614
00:29:41.820 --> 00:29:44.190
Now, am I correct in thinking that this is part
615
00:29:44.190 --> 00:29:45.780
of, "Inner Worlds, Outer Selves?"
616
00:29:45.780 --> 00:29:47.520
It is in that section of the exhibition.
617
00:29:47.520 --> 00:29:48.847
So we've got a section of the exhibition called,
618
00:29:48.847 --> 00:29:50.487
"Inner Worlds, Outer Selves".
619
00:29:52.626 --> 00:29:54.810
Guess there's lots of works in the exhibition
620
00:29:54.810 --> 00:29:56.430
which could fit into-
621
00:29:56.430 --> 00:29:58.117
I guess there's like many categories.
622
00:29:58.117 --> 00:29:59.850
Any number of different categories.
623
00:29:59.850 --> 00:30:01.500
I think when it was in Melbourne,
624
00:30:01.500 --> 00:30:04.300
we had it in, "Intimacy and Alienation", I think it was.
625
00:30:06.037 --> 00:30:07.638
But I mean, obviously things can have a natural fit
626
00:30:07.638 --> 00:30:09.660
in a number of different sections.
627
00:30:09.660 --> 00:30:10.710
Yeah, absolutely.
628
00:30:10.710 --> 00:30:15.603
So yeah, I think they fit both in either one really.
629
00:30:16.560 --> 00:30:20.070
But yeah, "Warrior without a Weapon" by Naomi Hobson
630
00:30:20.070 --> 00:30:21.960
is such a beautiful work
631
00:30:21.960 --> 00:30:25.620
which I really do think speaks very much to this idea
632
00:30:25.620 --> 00:30:26.880
of inner selves and outer world.
633
00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:28.920
So how we perceive ourselves,
634
00:30:28.920 --> 00:30:31.596
and then also how the world perceives us.
635
00:30:31.596 --> 00:30:35.070
And I guess, I think if we talk about it in a context
636
00:30:35.070 --> 00:30:37.320
of possibly a First Nation's perspective,
637
00:30:37.320 --> 00:30:40.380
we can also lean into this idea of double consciousness,
638
00:30:40.380 --> 00:30:42.540
where we've got how people view us
639
00:30:42.540 --> 00:30:44.940
and then how people or, how we view ourselves.
640
00:30:44.940 --> 00:30:49.050
And I feel like this work with Naomi is very much leaning
641
00:30:49.050 --> 00:30:53.370
into that, in this idea that it's really trying to challenge
642
00:30:53.370 --> 00:30:57.150
and it's really about the, challenging the negative
643
00:30:57.150 --> 00:31:00.450
portrayals of indigenous men
644
00:31:00.450 --> 00:31:02.670
through both a historical context,
645
00:31:02.670 --> 00:31:06.033
but also within contemporary media today.
646
00:31:07.170 --> 00:31:11.520
And what we have is this really beautiful and stunning
647
00:31:11.520 --> 00:31:15.270
portrait of a Coen community member.
648
00:31:15.270 --> 00:31:18.180
So Naomi Hobson is from the remote community of Coen
649
00:31:18.180 --> 00:31:21.813
up in far north Queensland up in the Cape area.
650
00:31:22.800 --> 00:31:27.800
And he is showing a real sense of vulnerability
651
00:31:29.520 --> 00:31:33.460
and a lovable sort of intimate approach
652
00:31:34.440 --> 00:31:35.643
to his personality.
653
00:31:36.570 --> 00:31:40.590
And not only that, but it also really positions
654
00:31:40.590 --> 00:31:43.770
again, and I guess like in terms of landscape too in place,
655
00:31:43.770 --> 00:31:47.610
it's really positioning him in the region of Coen
656
00:31:47.610 --> 00:31:51.220
in the Cape York area due to these flowers in his beard
657
00:31:52.230 --> 00:31:54.620
that signify sort of ceremonial act as well
658
00:31:54.620 --> 00:31:56.823
as that originates from that region.
659
00:31:58.110 --> 00:32:00.840
And I think it's such a beautiful, intimate portraiture,
660
00:32:00.840 --> 00:32:02.250
or portrait, sorry,
661
00:32:02.250 --> 00:32:04.890
also in terms of the relationships we have with artists
662
00:32:04.890 --> 00:32:09.890
and the sitter and collaboration was a big part
663
00:32:09.900 --> 00:32:13.410
of this portrait and of the series and then the way
664
00:32:13.410 --> 00:32:18.360
it came to fruition, understanding First Nations men's
665
00:32:18.360 --> 00:32:22.980
experiences of this negative stereotyping
666
00:32:22.980 --> 00:32:25.380
and hearing those stories and understanding
667
00:32:25.380 --> 00:32:28.050
how can we change that through a visual media,
668
00:32:28.050 --> 00:32:31.020
through portraiture and what maybe what does that look like?
669
00:32:31.020 --> 00:32:33.540
And I feel that this work really,
670
00:32:33.540 --> 00:32:36.977
really sums that up for me.
671
00:32:36.977 --> 00:32:39.843
Yeah, and for me, that whole sort of,
672
00:32:41.070 --> 00:32:42.570
one of the things that comes across really,
673
00:32:42.570 --> 00:32:45.120
really strongly for me in the exhibition
674
00:32:45.120 --> 00:32:46.350
and particularly I think with the work
675
00:32:46.350 --> 00:32:48.300
of some of the First Nations artists who are represented
676
00:32:48.300 --> 00:32:51.120
in the show, is the way some
677
00:32:51.120 --> 00:32:53.497
of the best works in the show
678
00:32:53.497 --> 00:32:58.497
are where artists have kind of reclaimed
679
00:32:58.650 --> 00:33:03.650
a visual code or a language in which case photography,
680
00:33:04.380 --> 00:33:07.680
which historically speaking initially was very much used
681
00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:09.270
to sort of document-
Yeah.
682
00:33:09.270 --> 00:33:12.510
And classify First Nations people
683
00:33:12.510 --> 00:33:16.590
and these artists have really sort of twisted
684
00:33:16.590 --> 00:33:19.516
it and turned it on its head.
685
00:33:19.516 --> 00:33:20.426
Yeah.
686
00:33:20.426 --> 00:33:22.950
It's just a reclamation of that, of the gain of a tool
687
00:33:22.950 --> 00:33:27.150
that was used to continue colonialism really.
688
00:33:27.150 --> 00:33:28.440
Yeah.
689
00:33:28.440 --> 00:33:31.293
And reject ethnographic lenses, I suppose.
690
00:33:32.370 --> 00:33:34.020
And one of the, actually one of my favourite works
691
00:33:34.020 --> 00:33:35.730
in the, "Meet the Artist" section, is the Vernon Ah Kee.
692
00:33:35.730 --> 00:33:38.040
Oh, that portrait, yes.
693
00:33:38.040 --> 00:33:40.050
Which we haven't got a slide of unfortunately,
694
00:33:40.050 --> 00:33:41.610
but that's from the NGV's collection.
695
00:33:41.610 --> 00:33:46.053
And Vernon Ah Kee also from Queensland,
696
00:33:46.920 --> 00:33:48.450
you're probably familiar with his work,
697
00:33:48.450 --> 00:33:51.870
but he's made a number of these amazing portraits.
698
00:33:51.870 --> 00:33:54.270
They're like these huge drawings on canvas,
699
00:33:54.270 --> 00:33:55.830
they're so gorgeous.
700
00:33:55.830 --> 00:34:00.830
But based on anthropological photographs
701
00:34:00.840 --> 00:34:05.840
taken in the 1920's by a guy called Norman Tindale
702
00:34:06.240 --> 00:34:08.280
who basically photographed First Nations people
703
00:34:08.280 --> 00:34:12.210
as specimens and sort of divorced them completely
704
00:34:12.210 --> 00:34:16.350
from their identities and even their names.
705
00:34:16.350 --> 00:34:18.720
And it turns out that a lot of those people that Tindale
706
00:34:18.720 --> 00:34:22.410
photographed are Vernon's forebears,
707
00:34:22.410 --> 00:34:25.680
and in sort of recreating these portraits,
708
00:34:25.680 --> 00:34:28.053
including this wonderful self-portrait himself,
709
00:34:28.941 --> 00:34:33.941
he's kind of taken that very negative representation
710
00:34:35.010 --> 00:34:39.713
and reinstated, if you like, the sort of power of image.
711
00:34:39.713 --> 00:34:43.230
I think it gives a voice and an identity to a person
712
00:34:43.230 --> 00:34:46.710
that was nameless and that was historically
713
00:34:46.710 --> 00:34:49.830
being spoken for or being named and labelled.
714
00:34:49.830 --> 00:34:53.490
So there's a real power in that giving
715
00:34:53.490 --> 00:34:55.113
somebody back their identity.
716
00:34:55.980 --> 00:34:57.480
Yeah, absolutely.
717
00:34:57.480 --> 00:34:59.370
And then once again, we can't show them unfortunately
718
00:34:59.370 --> 00:35:01.920
for copyright reasons, but there's a couple of fabulous
719
00:35:01.920 --> 00:35:03.300
works by Tracey Moffat.
720
00:35:03.300 --> 00:35:04.133
Oh my goodness.
721
00:35:04.133 --> 00:35:06.840
The fantastic self-portrait from our collection
722
00:35:06.840 --> 00:35:08.490
and also that really fantastic picture
723
00:35:08.490 --> 00:35:10.860
of David Gulpilil from 1986.
724
00:35:10.860 --> 00:35:15.690
So this wonderful reclamation of a medium that was formerly
725
00:35:15.690 --> 00:35:18.210
used in very negative ways.
726
00:35:18.210 --> 00:35:19.380
Actually I think the Michael Riley
727
00:35:19.380 --> 00:35:20.970
is also a really good example of that.
728
00:35:20.970 --> 00:35:23.530
He's probably the next slide, I think.
729
00:35:23.530 --> 00:35:24.363
Oh it is.
730
00:35:24.363 --> 00:35:26.850
Yeah, this absolutely gorgeous photograph
731
00:35:26.850 --> 00:35:31.850
from our collection by Michael Riley.
732
00:35:32.310 --> 00:35:36.270
This one, the sitter's name is Maria,
733
00:35:36.270 --> 00:35:37.740
also known as Polly.
734
00:35:37.740 --> 00:35:40.770
She's Michael's cousin.
735
00:35:40.770 --> 00:35:45.770
They grew up together out in Dubbo in New South Wales.
736
00:35:46.130 --> 00:35:48.870
And when Michael became an artist
737
00:35:48.870 --> 00:35:52.500
he moved to Sydney in the early 1980's
738
00:35:52.500 --> 00:35:55.860
and started taking photographs.
739
00:35:55.860 --> 00:35:58.680
Maria was one of his models for a whole series
740
00:35:58.680 --> 00:36:03.090
of photographs that Michael took in 1986.
741
00:36:03.090 --> 00:36:06.090
And they included people like Tracy Moffatt actually,
742
00:36:06.090 --> 00:36:09.330
and a number of other First Nations women
743
00:36:09.330 --> 00:36:13.650
who've since become leaders in cultural spheres
744
00:36:13.650 --> 00:36:15.810
and all sorts of other areas.
745
00:36:15.810 --> 00:36:19.410
But this work along with others in the series
746
00:36:19.410 --> 00:36:22.008
that Michael created in 1986 were exhibited
747
00:36:22.008 --> 00:36:26.220
in this incredibly sort of seismic exhibition
748
00:36:26.220 --> 00:36:29.400
in Sydney called, "NADOC '86."
749
00:36:29.400 --> 00:36:32.100
And it really is an example, very similar
750
00:36:32.100 --> 00:36:34.590
to what Tracey Moffat was doing around about this time
751
00:36:34.590 --> 00:36:36.990
as well, where they've taken, once again,
752
00:36:36.990 --> 00:36:41.250
taken photography and instead of using it to photograph
753
00:36:41.250 --> 00:36:43.530
First Nations people in these very sort of static,
754
00:36:43.530 --> 00:36:47.763
very staged, very sort of artificial settings,
755
00:36:49.980 --> 00:36:54.980
just really show these people as these incredibly,
756
00:36:56.370 --> 00:36:59.920
amazing and powerful individuals.
757
00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:04.920
And there's just, this work is installed actually on a wall.
758
00:37:05.310 --> 00:37:09.030
There's a whole lot of women all just wearing
759
00:37:09.030 --> 00:37:11.193
some kind of a neck piece.
760
00:37:12.130 --> 00:37:13.200
We've got the Queen with her pearls.
761
00:37:13.200 --> 00:37:16.120
We've got the beautiful photograph by Atong Atem
762
00:37:16.120 --> 00:37:19.050
of Adut wearing a fantastic necklace.
763
00:37:19.050 --> 00:37:21.210
There's the beautiful breast plate.
764
00:37:21.210 --> 00:37:25.800
So it's just the whole sort of,
765
00:37:25.800 --> 00:37:27.650
the whole wall really kind of, oh and there's the one
766
00:37:27.650 --> 00:37:29.723
of Rubinstein as well
767
00:37:29.723 --> 00:37:33.420
by William Doubell, fabulous painting from the 1950's.
768
00:37:33.420 --> 00:37:38.010
So yeah, I think by stripping the images
769
00:37:38.010 --> 00:37:42.090
down and stripping them back and really focusing
770
00:37:42.090 --> 00:37:44.220
on one particular motif in the image,
771
00:37:44.220 --> 00:37:47.563
you get a really completely different sense
772
00:37:47.563 --> 00:37:50.610
of some of these works.
773
00:37:50.610 --> 00:37:54.930
Yeah, and we found in our hang of those works,
774
00:37:54.930 --> 00:37:58.920
we had the Queen, Polly Borland's "Queen"
775
00:37:58.920 --> 00:38:01.590
and Michael Riley's "Maria" next to each other
776
00:38:01.590 --> 00:38:06.590
and normally in NGV we hang everything at 1600,
777
00:38:08.250 --> 00:38:11.400
which is the tradition, you hang at the centre at 1600,
778
00:38:11.400 --> 00:38:13.080
that's where you get your line.
779
00:38:13.080 --> 00:38:16.830
Except we found, part of our reason for putting
780
00:38:16.830 --> 00:38:19.140
Michael Riley and Polly Borland's works
781
00:38:19.140 --> 00:38:22.260
next to each other was to be able to have this conversation
782
00:38:22.260 --> 00:38:27.260
about hierarchy and trying to, looking at the two necklaces
783
00:38:27.630 --> 00:38:29.220
together and trying to get rid of that.
784
00:38:29.220 --> 00:38:32.190
Except when we were installing it at 1600,
785
00:38:32.190 --> 00:38:35.370
the Queen's eyes actually sat above Maria's,
786
00:38:35.370 --> 00:38:36.840
which suddenly felt really like,
787
00:38:36.840 --> 00:38:38.070
'cause they were right next to each other,
788
00:38:38.070 --> 00:38:40.170
we felt that we actually redid the hang
789
00:38:40.170 --> 00:38:42.810
to bring it up so their eye-levels were the same.
790
00:38:42.810 --> 00:38:44.430
And I don't think one person would've gone
791
00:38:44.430 --> 00:38:45.357
in and gone, "Oh, this way."
792
00:38:45.357 --> 00:38:47.280
But I think if we had have left it off,
793
00:38:47.280 --> 00:38:48.780
everyone would've noticed.
794
00:38:48.780 --> 00:38:51.660
But we had to bring it back up there just to like to,
795
00:38:51.660 --> 00:38:54.510
because the whole point was to level
796
00:38:54.510 --> 00:38:56.910
and then suddenly just because of the sizings,
797
00:38:56.910 --> 00:38:59.550
it came off and so that was that interesting thing
798
00:38:59.550 --> 00:39:00.720
which happens when you're installing
799
00:39:00.720 --> 00:39:01.740
an exhibition and when you're trying
800
00:39:01.740 --> 00:39:04.980
to make a point through a dialogue or juxtaposition
801
00:39:04.980 --> 00:39:07.088
between two works, having to actually
802
00:39:07.088 --> 00:39:09.150
reshape the way it was hung
803
00:39:09.150 --> 00:39:11.250
to actually get that vision across as well.
804
00:39:11.250 --> 00:39:13.650
So yeah, I mean we loved it so much in Melbourne
805
00:39:13.650 --> 00:39:15.168
that we repeated it.
806
00:39:15.168 --> 00:39:17.418
(laughing)
807
00:39:18.690 --> 00:39:19.523
I think we're at 150,
808
00:39:19.523 --> 00:39:22.080
that's what we tried to put the centre
809
00:39:22.080 --> 00:39:23.383
of the works, at 150.
810
00:39:23.383 --> 00:39:24.590
We've got very high roofs.
811
00:39:24.590 --> 00:39:26.757
We have very high walls.
812
00:39:27.810 --> 00:39:29.730
Oh, and just for reference's sake,
813
00:39:29.730 --> 00:39:33.890
a lot of people will have seen the reproduction this work
814
00:39:33.890 --> 00:39:38.430
somewhere in the last few weeks for obvious reasons.
815
00:39:38.430 --> 00:39:42.123
But yeah, seeing this work by Polly Borland,
816
00:39:43.020 --> 00:39:44.220
the result of a shoot,
817
00:39:44.220 --> 00:39:47.640
a five-minute shoot that she had with Queen Elizabeth II
818
00:39:47.640 --> 00:39:52.640
at the end of 2001, seeing it next to the Michael Riley work
819
00:39:53.670 --> 00:39:56.970
is, it's really powerful.
820
00:39:56.970 --> 00:39:58.270
How are we going for time?
821
00:40:01.470 --> 00:40:03.989
I've completely lost track of time.
822
00:40:03.989 --> 00:40:04.931
Oh yeah.
823
00:40:04.931 --> 00:40:06.481
Well, how much time do we have?
824
00:40:07.901 --> 00:40:09.109
Two 40?
825
00:40:09.109 --> 00:40:10.851
We might move on to Vincent Namatjira maybe.
826
00:40:10.851 --> 00:40:11.684
Oh, yeah.
827
00:40:11.684 --> 00:40:13.830
Oh, sorry, I didn't introduce this theme, did I?
828
00:40:13.830 --> 00:40:15.510
This is called, "Icons and Identities",
829
00:40:15.510 --> 00:40:17.581
this section of the exhibition
830
00:40:17.581 --> 00:40:21.177
which is the largest section of the exhibition
831
00:40:21.177 --> 00:40:25.050
and I think one of the most powerful ones for me.
832
00:40:25.050 --> 00:40:25.920
Yeah, absolutely.
833
00:40:25.920 --> 00:40:28.530
I think it's, oh, I kind of like it all actually.
834
00:40:28.530 --> 00:40:29.571
It's hard to say.
835
00:40:29.571 --> 00:40:32.181
I like one and then I change and then I come back to it.
836
00:40:32.181 --> 00:40:34.350
There's lots of works in this section
837
00:40:34.350 --> 00:40:36.703
of the exhibition that I wish we owned and not the NGV.
838
00:40:36.703 --> 00:40:37.819
Very true, very true.
839
00:40:37.819 --> 00:40:40.440
(laughing)
840
00:40:40.440 --> 00:40:43.980
Yeah, so we have Vincent Namatjira's work here.
841
00:40:43.980 --> 00:40:46.620
I find this work to be quite interesting actually,
842
00:40:46.620 --> 00:40:50.850
compared to a lot of his other works and his practise,
843
00:40:50.850 --> 00:40:52.952
particularly in terms of colour palette here.
844
00:40:52.952 --> 00:40:56.430
You know, he's so known for his vibrant and really rich
845
00:40:56.430 --> 00:41:01.353
and bold colour and works big scales and things,
846
00:41:02.370 --> 00:41:04.653
also always with a cheeky humour to it.
847
00:41:05.580 --> 00:41:07.333
But this work, it's in black and white.
848
00:41:07.333 --> 00:41:09.510
And again, the title of the work
849
00:41:09.510 --> 00:41:12.450
is actually called, "Australia in Black and White"
850
00:41:12.450 --> 00:41:14.650
and talking on our icons and identities
851
00:41:15.750 --> 00:41:20.730
here we, Vincent has, he's painted several people
852
00:41:20.730 --> 00:41:22.710
that are makeup I suppose.
853
00:41:22.710 --> 00:41:25.920
A lot of the Australian, or so called Australia's
854
00:41:25.920 --> 00:41:28.560
political landscape in some parts.
855
00:41:28.560 --> 00:41:31.650
So we have people like Pauline Hanson, Julie Gillard,
856
00:41:31.650 --> 00:41:35.190
we also have Cook among others,
857
00:41:35.190 --> 00:41:37.020
but then we've also, he's also sprinkled
858
00:41:37.020 --> 00:41:40.860
in other really significant figures as well.
859
00:41:40.860 --> 00:41:43.320
So we have Eddie Mabo and we have Adam Goodes
860
00:41:43.320 --> 00:41:45.810
and he is also painted in his great-grandfather,
861
00:41:45.810 --> 00:41:47.313
Albert Namatjira as well.
862
00:41:48.270 --> 00:41:51.870
And I think this idea of black and white
863
00:41:51.870 --> 00:41:54.000
and titling it, "Black and White", is this idea
864
00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:56.070
that there is a black and white history of Australia.
865
00:41:56.070 --> 00:42:00.030
And why do we talk about some characters or icons
866
00:42:00.030 --> 00:42:01.680
or identities within Australia,
867
00:42:01.680 --> 00:42:02.880
but maybe not so much others?
868
00:42:02.880 --> 00:42:04.260
And what does this conversation mean
869
00:42:04.260 --> 00:42:06.630
by having them altogether?
870
00:42:06.630 --> 00:42:08.640
And there's quite this sort of like,
871
00:42:08.640 --> 00:42:10.680
these are my heroes and these are my icons
872
00:42:10.680 --> 00:42:13.200
up against these other icons as well.
873
00:42:13.200 --> 00:42:14.880
And I think it's like Gina Rinehart as well.
874
00:42:14.880 --> 00:42:15.713
Yeah.
875
00:42:15.713 --> 00:42:18.167
You know, in dialogue with each other.
876
00:42:19.277 --> 00:42:23.130
Sorry, I guess again, with this humour, this wit to it.
877
00:42:23.130 --> 00:42:26.910
It's really quite an interrogation of black and white
878
00:42:26.910 --> 00:42:29.250
relations in Australia.
879
00:42:29.250 --> 00:42:31.500
And I think it's really quite clever using
880
00:42:31.500 --> 00:42:33.450
such a stripped back pallet to really just talk
881
00:42:33.450 --> 00:42:38.310
about, there are alternative narratives in Australia.
882
00:42:38.310 --> 00:42:41.070
There are different identities and different icons
883
00:42:41.070 --> 00:42:43.350
that make up what we know it does today.
884
00:42:43.350 --> 00:42:45.300
Yeah, and that's always the wonderful thing
885
00:42:45.300 --> 00:42:47.610
about Vincent's work for me is there's this kind of joy
886
00:42:47.610 --> 00:42:49.050
about it, he's laughing.
887
00:42:49.050 --> 00:42:52.020
But it's also really insightful.
888
00:42:52.020 --> 00:42:53.941
Politically engaged, yeah.
889
00:42:53.941 --> 00:42:55.083
All the time, yeah.
890
00:42:55.083 --> 00:42:56.343
It's fantastic.
891
00:42:58.290 --> 00:43:00.150
And that whole idea of icons,
892
00:43:00.150 --> 00:43:03.630
I mean the relationship between a national portrait gallery
893
00:43:03.630 --> 00:43:07.350
and the whole sort of idea of icon and iconography.
894
00:43:07.350 --> 00:43:10.200
It's what, one of the reasons why I love this section
895
00:43:10.200 --> 00:43:12.000
of the exhibition so much is once again,
896
00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:16.500
it really kind of does away with any sort of expectation
897
00:43:16.500 --> 00:43:19.152
that you might have.
898
00:43:19.152 --> 00:43:20.580
Yeah, absolutely.
899
00:43:20.580 --> 00:43:21.900
I couldn't agree more with that, Joanna.
900
00:43:21.900 --> 00:43:25.413
Yeah, and likewise the TextaQueen work.
901
00:43:26.414 --> 00:43:28.860
This is another really favourite section of the exhibition.
902
00:43:28.860 --> 00:43:31.470
So there's the beautiful, once again,
903
00:43:31.470 --> 00:43:34.470
a kind of a grid of works by Julie Dowling.
904
00:43:34.470 --> 00:43:36.120
And then there's the Vincent Namatjira's
905
00:43:36.120 --> 00:43:39.360
and then there's this fabulous portrait of Gary Foley
906
00:43:39.360 --> 00:43:44.360
by TextaQueen, in which TextaQueen has asked,
907
00:43:45.570 --> 00:43:49.140
and it's part of a series once again, in Gary's case,
908
00:43:49.140 --> 00:43:53.310
he's called his portrait, "Creature from the Black Platoon".
909
00:43:53.310 --> 00:43:55.650
So it references, and this is a work
910
00:43:55.650 --> 00:43:59.070
which is very close to our hearts in more ways
911
00:43:59.070 --> 00:44:02.790
than one because the setting for it is just a couple
912
00:44:02.790 --> 00:44:05.160
of hundred metres away across King Edward Terrace,
913
00:44:05.160 --> 00:44:07.290
where the Tent Embassy is.
914
00:44:07.290 --> 00:44:10.563
And Gary Foley, of course, was one of the integral people
915
00:44:10.563 --> 00:44:14.670
to the foundation of the Tent Embassy in 1972.
916
00:44:14.670 --> 00:44:18.600
So you've got Mount Ainslie in the background.
917
00:44:18.600 --> 00:44:23.600
Yeah, it's a really fantastic work on multiple levels,
918
00:44:23.730 --> 00:44:28.440
but part of a series wherein TextaQueen invited
919
00:44:28.440 --> 00:44:31.350
their citizen, like I say, it's part of a series
920
00:44:31.350 --> 00:44:36.350
to kind of come up with their own B-grade movie language
921
00:44:37.890 --> 00:44:42.240
to tell their story and to present an aspect
922
00:44:42.240 --> 00:44:44.130
of their history and their identity
923
00:44:44.130 --> 00:44:46.080
as they wanted to be seen.
924
00:44:46.080 --> 00:44:49.680
And I love the fact that Gary Foley has chosen
925
00:44:49.680 --> 00:44:53.730
to portray himself as this kind of gun toting,
926
00:44:53.730 --> 00:44:58.290
ripped warrior against centuries of racial oppression.
927
00:44:58.290 --> 00:45:00.870
And there's that wonderful little sort of vignette
928
00:45:00.870 --> 00:45:02.670
underneath the text in the centre.
929
00:45:02.670 --> 00:45:05.850
It's a reproduction of a black and white photograph
930
00:45:05.850 --> 00:45:08.947
with a chap holding a placard saying,
931
00:45:08.947 --> 00:45:11.400
"Pardon me for being born into a nation of races."
932
00:45:11.400 --> 00:45:14.790
So yeah, it's a really powerful work
933
00:45:14.790 --> 00:45:18.520
and once again, I think another really wonderful
934
00:45:19.410 --> 00:45:22.890
and playful appropriation of an existing visual language
935
00:45:22.890 --> 00:45:27.890
that we turn into, the artist has used to very powerful
936
00:45:28.530 --> 00:45:33.530
but humorous and also very subversive effect.
937
00:45:33.690 --> 00:45:36.300
One of my favourite works in the collection, I think.
938
00:45:36.300 --> 00:45:37.133
Me too.
939
00:45:38.190 --> 00:45:39.993
It's so hard to pick favourite.
940
00:45:42.150 --> 00:45:45.420
And then that whole idea of iconography
941
00:45:45.420 --> 00:45:49.530
and dare I say the association of Australia with sport
942
00:45:49.530 --> 00:45:50.823
and we get a lot of people saying,
943
00:45:50.823 --> 00:45:53.370
"Oh, you know, where's Donald Bradman?"
944
00:45:53.370 --> 00:45:54.978
Blah, blah, blah.
945
00:45:54.978 --> 00:45:56.931
(laughing)
946
00:45:56.931 --> 00:46:00.210
One of the, another of my favourite works in the exhibition
947
00:46:00.210 --> 00:46:02.310
and another work which I wish we owned
948
00:46:02.310 --> 00:46:04.470
and not the NGV is this.
949
00:46:04.470 --> 00:46:06.320
It is a spectacular work.
950
00:46:07.320 --> 00:46:11.190
Is this fabulous pot by Rona Rubuntja
951
00:46:11.190 --> 00:46:13.245
who's one of the artists working out of Ntaria
952
00:46:13.245 --> 00:46:16.350
or Hermannsburg, which of course is a recreation
953
00:46:16.350 --> 00:46:21.350
of the wonderful Nicky Winmar photograph from 1996.
954
00:46:21.570 --> 00:46:23.570
Beckett, you're the Melbournian
955
00:46:24.491 --> 00:46:27.320
so you'll be able to tell that story better than me.
956
00:46:27.320 --> 00:46:30.465
So the football match is, it's a first match
957
00:46:30.465 --> 00:46:35.465
of Geelong and St. Kilda playing each other since like the-
958
00:46:36.150 --> 00:46:37.080
Collingwood, wasn't it?
959
00:46:37.080 --> 00:46:38.970
Sorry, Collingwood and St. Kilda.
960
00:46:38.970 --> 00:46:41.790
And it was a Collingwood home game.
961
00:46:41.790 --> 00:46:45.270
And St. Kilda had beaten Collingwood the year
962
00:46:45.270 --> 00:46:47.416
beforehand at Victoria Park, or is the,
963
00:46:47.416 --> 00:46:49.440
I can't remember the ovals' names,
964
00:46:49.440 --> 00:46:50.670
but this was the first time
965
00:46:50.670 --> 00:46:55.140
it was on Collingwood's home ground.
966
00:46:55.140 --> 00:46:57.360
And St. Kilda had a pretty,
967
00:46:57.360 --> 00:47:02.360
there was a lot of tension in the crowd.
968
00:47:02.850 --> 00:47:07.230
And the final siren went, and St. Kilda had won.
969
00:47:07.230 --> 00:47:11.670
Nicky Winmar was near the Collingwood supporter area
970
00:47:11.670 --> 00:47:14.790
and suffered a tirade racial,
971
00:47:14.790 --> 00:47:17.910
just absolutely awful racial abuse
972
00:47:17.910 --> 00:47:20.490
and it was just horrific.
973
00:47:20.490 --> 00:47:23.790
And he stood there and he just picked, lifted up his shirt
974
00:47:23.790 --> 00:47:25.387
and started pointing at his stomach saying,
975
00:47:25.387 --> 00:47:27.240
"I'm black and I'm proud."
976
00:47:27.240 --> 00:47:32.240
And just the power of that and just Rona's recollections
977
00:47:32.875 --> 00:47:33.750
of it, you know.
978
00:47:33.750 --> 00:47:35.580
We all remember the day he did this.
979
00:47:35.580 --> 00:47:38.610
And David Hurlston, who's my former,
980
00:47:38.610 --> 00:47:40.890
who's retired now, who worked on the exhibition with us,
981
00:47:40.890 --> 00:47:42.390
he was at that match and-
982
00:47:42.390 --> 00:47:43.223
Oh wow.
983
00:47:43.223 --> 00:47:46.680
You know, each time he'd speak about it, it'd just give
984
00:47:46.680 --> 00:47:49.620
you goosebumps and the power of what it meant
985
00:47:49.620 --> 00:47:51.000
to be there at that moment.
986
00:47:51.000 --> 00:47:54.540
But also what this work shows is how far we still have to go
987
00:47:54.540 --> 00:47:56.094
in our race relations in sport.
988
00:47:56.094 --> 00:47:57.646
You know, that's just,
989
00:47:57.646 --> 00:48:00.840
it was such a powerful statement,
990
00:48:00.840 --> 00:48:02.370
but we still have so much to learn.
991
00:48:02.370 --> 00:48:06.960
And this is also from a series of pots where she features
992
00:48:06.960 --> 00:48:11.960
First Nations AFL players and key moments in their career.
993
00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:13.620
And I think that there's about seven of them.
994
00:48:13.620 --> 00:48:16.050
And you get these moments and it gives a description
995
00:48:16.050 --> 00:48:19.050
of the player and that moment which happened
996
00:48:19.050 --> 00:48:21.690
and they're just beautiful things.
997
00:48:21.690 --> 00:48:25.743
And in particular, this one's just so powerful.
998
00:48:27.240 --> 00:48:29.763
Very lucky to have this one.
999
00:48:30.630 --> 00:48:32.040
Did you acquire the whole series?
1000
00:48:32.040 --> 00:48:33.824
We've got, I think we've got seven.
1001
00:48:33.824 --> 00:48:34.740
Yeah, yeah.
1002
00:48:34.740 --> 00:48:35.573
Lucky.
1003
00:48:38.306 --> 00:48:41.373
Well, I think that brings us to the end of our slides.
1004
00:48:42.304 --> 00:48:44.433
Are we being given the-
1005
00:48:45.990 --> 00:48:48.570
I would never do that to you, Jo.
1006
00:48:48.570 --> 00:48:50.433
I could sit and listen to the three of you all day.
1007
00:48:50.433 --> 00:48:51.690
That was fascinating.
1008
00:48:51.690 --> 00:48:53.190
Thank you so much.
1009
00:48:53.190 --> 00:48:56.010
Thank you to our panellists today for joining us
1010
00:48:56.010 --> 00:48:57.720
and for giving us such amazing insights
1011
00:48:57.720 --> 00:48:59.940
into this new exhibition that we have on.
1012
00:48:59.940 --> 00:49:02.190
Once again, I encourage all of our online audiences
1013
00:49:02.190 --> 00:49:04.807
and our onsite audiences to pop into the exhibition.
1014
00:49:04.807 --> 00:49:07.890
"Who are You?" is on display here at the Portrait Gallery
1015
00:49:07.890 --> 00:49:10.200
until 29 January.
1016
00:49:10.200 --> 00:49:13.020
Please hop on our website, portrait.gov.au
1017
00:49:13.020 --> 00:49:15.450
to check out all of the things we've got coming up.
1018
00:49:15.450 --> 00:49:17.670
I'd like to draw your attention in the online audience
1019
00:49:17.670 --> 00:49:19.530
to another, "In Conversation."
1020
00:49:19.530 --> 00:49:20.610
I think it's a hybrid.
1021
00:49:20.610 --> 00:49:23.670
We can confirm or deny, there's a nod from the audience,
1022
00:49:23.670 --> 00:49:25.080
another hybrid "In Conversation."
1023
00:49:25.080 --> 00:49:27.930
So I'll get to massage the online audience
1024
00:49:27.930 --> 00:49:29.280
and the onsite audience.
1025
00:49:29.280 --> 00:49:31.440
Again, I'll get better at it, I promise.
1026
00:49:31.440 --> 00:49:34.290
Another one happening on 3 December with Pamela See,
1027
00:49:34.290 --> 00:49:37.680
who's an artist who does incredible paper cutting technique
1028
00:49:37.680 --> 00:49:39.420
and her works are on display
1029
00:49:39.420 --> 00:49:41.040
in the, "Who Are You?" exhibition as well.
1030
00:49:41.040 --> 00:49:42.210
So please join us for that.
1031
00:49:42.210 --> 00:49:44.520
It's 2:00 PM on 3 December.
1032
00:49:44.520 --> 00:49:46.410
Hop on our website for more information,
1033
00:49:46.410 --> 00:49:49.933
portrait.gov.au and follow us on social media
1034
00:49:49.933 --> 00:49:51.690
at @portraitau.
1035
00:49:51.690 --> 00:49:54.300
Once again, a massive thank you to our three panellists
1036
00:49:54.300 --> 00:49:56.842
for joining us today and for all those incredible insights
1037
00:49:56.842 --> 00:49:58.800
and to our Auslan translators,
1038
00:49:58.800 --> 00:50:00.720
thank you so much for all of your efforts today,
1039
00:50:00.720 --> 00:50:02.310
we really appreciate it.
1040
00:50:02.310 --> 00:50:04.110
Thank you, please join us online again
1041
00:50:04.110 --> 00:50:06.690
and please join us onsite again and we'll see you all soon.
1042
00:50:06.690 --> 00:50:07.657
Thank you, bye-bye.
1043
00:50:08.594 --> 00:50:11.761
(audience applauding)