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| Australian dotscape from above |
The red heart of Australia is covered with dots. This is what it
looks like from above, red earth and many dots of many colours: light
brown, dark brown, almost black, greyish green and – when the rain
falls – also vivid green. When the rain falls the riverbeds are
full of water and on flat areas temporary lakes appear, riverbanks
turn green and frogs crawl out of mud. All this doesn't last long,
after some days the water either dries out or disappears underground,
frogs dig themselves deep into the mud to sleep and the vivid green
dots turn greyish again. In some places water stays underground but
one cannot see it, it is hidden in places where ancestors hid it.
People have lived among these dots for millennia. They know where the
water is hidden because the ancestors left them dreamings that tell
them about it. The ancestors left them dreamings that have to be told
and danced regularly so the next generations know how to live. For
example how to find water hidden underground, how to share it and how
long it will last. In some places there is water hidden in the ground
but not too much of it, for a family bivouacking there it may last
for a few days. It cannot be used for washing, this would be wasting
a precious resource. In the old days there was no need to wash
clothes because the desert people walked around naked. On special
occasions they painted their bodies with coloured ochres, one has to
look good on special occasions after all. They painted their bodies
in stripes, dots or circles, there was a specific design for each
occasion. There was the whole art of body painting that was passed
from generation to generation. It was used only on special occasions,
normally people of the desert walked around the desert naked. This
was a rational behaviour. A rational use of what nature gave to those
people.
The ground on which the dreamings were danced had to be specially
decorated. Each dreaming was connected to a place and a design
representing this place was created on the ground. Each dreaming was
a property of a family, it could not be danced by just anybody.
Dreamings were passed from generation to generation in the families,
who looked after the places given to them by the ancestors. This was
the ancient law.
About two hundred years ago people who didn't know
the ancient law came to Australia. They had a different law which
said that a man can buy land for money and then the buyer can do
whatever he likes on his land. He could cut all the trees, shoot all
the animals, drill a hole in the ground and suck all the water hidden
in it. That water hidden in other places may then also disappear was
not his concern. Anyway these newcomers didn't buy land from the
people who had lived there for millennia, they bought it from their
own queen. How could they buy land from people who roamed in small
groups and stayed at one waterhole for only a few days? From people
who walk around naked, don't wash, don't build houses and in general
are incredibly primitive.
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| Batik design by Emily Kame Kngwarreye |
The newcomers weren't primitive, anything but. They could navigate
the whole world in their great ships. They could produce tools of
iron and use those tools to cut down forests. In their own country
they cut down all the forests so they could raise sheep. They kept
sheep because in their own country they didn't walk around naked but
made themselves clothes from hair stolen from animals. Sheep were
perfect for that because they had warm fleece so their owners
regularly fleeced them and used the hair for their own garments.
Moreover, they could sell the hair so they wanted to keep as many
sheep as they could. When they cut down all the forests in their own
country they moved to Australia, where they even didn't need to cut
forests because in the big part of the country there were no forests,
only grass. They bought land from their queen and brought their sheep
there.
The newcomers didn't have a custom of body painting, clothing made of
animal hair was more important for them. As the Aborigines painted
the right designs for the right occasions so the newcomers had
various kinds of clothing used on various occasions. They also had
dreamings that instructed them what to do in life, although their
dreamings said nothing about where to find water (which is little
wonder as their country is drenched in rain most of the time and
finding water is no problem at all). They also had pictures to
illustrate their dreamings, although they didn't create them on the
ground but on wooden boards or on canvass stretched on a wooden
frame. These pictures were later placed vertically in special
buildings made of stone. Those buildings were erected especially for
ceremonies connected with dreamings.
Those vertically placed pictures weren't destroyed after the end of
the ceremony, they were kept in the same place for a long time, many
years. Some of those pictures were very beautiful, they became famous
for their beauty and people would come from afar to see them.
Sometimes they would travel for many days just to see a particular
picture. In time, creators of the most famous pictures became famous
themselves and would receive orders to create other pictures,
sometimes connected with dreamings and sometimes not. For example,
they would be asked to paint portraits of people who sold a lot of
animal hair and as a result had a lot of money. When those persons
died their family would hang those portraits in their houses to
remind of moments spent together. When more and more people lived in
cities, some wanted to have portraits of beautiful landscapes of
countryside to remind them of beautiful moments spent there.
The world of the white man changed because he was inventing something
all the time. Machines to make clothes from animal hair were invented
so the clothes could be produced much quicker and so demand for that
hair grew. As a result demand for land where those animals could be
kept rose, too. A machine that could paint a portrait of a person in
a few seconds was also invented, a machine that could paint more
accurate portraits that those made by hand. Then some painters
started painting in a new, different way. One group of painters
started painting landscapes not quite in focus, with visible brush
strokes, very different from anything a machine could do. Those
painters were controversial, much was written about them in papers,
this way they became famous. As they became famous, more and more
people wanted to buy their pictures and so prices of those pictures
rose. Next generation of painters, seeing that controversy paid off,
started painting pictures representing not distorted landscapes but
simply nothing, and they called those paintings “abstractions”.
If as a result they became controversial and consequently famous, so
the price of their pictures rose. As the prices rose, it became
fashionable to buy them and in the end on the walls of houses of rich
people pictures representing nothing appeared.
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| Emily Kame Kngwarreye |
The Aboriginal culture also changed, partly as a result of what the
newcomers did. When the newcomers bought land from their queen and
moved in with their sheep, the Aborigines had to flee. The sheep ate
all the grass and the kangaroos, which was staple food for the
Aborigines, had nothing to eat and vanished. The government of Her
Majesty didn't want to be cruel and was prepared to feed the landless
Aborigines, special settlements were built for that purpose. The
Government also wanted to civilise these wild people, send the
children to school. The first meeting of the two cultures happened on
a school yard. I mean the first real meeting, not just watching each
other from afar.
The first of those meetings took place in 1971 in a settlement named
Papunya a few hundred kilometres west from Alice Springs. The art
teacher in the school there, whose name was Geoffrey Bardon, asked
the children to paint traditional patterns. A surprising response
came from the children's fathers, who said the children cannot paint
them but they, the fathers, can. Bardon kept encouraging and the men
in Papunya painted patterns used normally for dreaming ceremonies,
but this time they painted them in acrylic on canvas. This caused
controversy because other Aborigines claimed these pictures revealed
secret patterns that women weren't supposed to see. These pictures
shouldn't be publicly exhibited. The controversy was completely
incomprehensible for white men, for them the paintings looked like
abstractions that could be hanged on walls in houses of rich people.
However, the controversy meant that papers wrote about it, the
painters became famous and prices for their pictures rose. The most
famous painters from Papunya, like Clifford Possum or Johnny
Warrankula, sold their pictures for tens or even hundreds thousands
of dollars.
The second meeting took place in a settlement called Utopia situated
a few hundred kilometres north-west from Alice Springs. There the
teachers in the school noticed that Aboriginal mothers brought
children to school and then waited the whole day on the school yard
for the children to come out. Perhaps a program for mums could also
be organised? Perhaps they could do something they could sell? If
they could, they would be less dependent on government benefits. They
could for example make batik designs on T-shirts. A few women took
part in such a program with some enthusiasm and created fantastic
designs. Later the T-shirts were sold to tourists in Alice Springs.
Rodney Gooch, the manager of the shop in Alice Springs, thought that
the designs were good enough to make an exhibition and show it in the
cities on the coast. It would be better, though, if they could be
made on lengths of silk rather than T-shirts. The project has been
discussed, materials given to the participants and in 1988 the
exhibition was ready. The designs that appeared there were, of
course, dreamings. The exhibition was a success, it was shown not
only in Australia, but in America and Europe as well. But this was
not the end.
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| A picture by Emily Kame Kngwarreye |
Rodney Gooch wanted to use the momentum. The Papunya painters (whose
pictures shouldn't be shown to women) were already well known,
thousands of dollars were paid for their pictures. As it happens, in
the white man's world batik is not considered art. It is mere craft,
even though it is more difficult to produce than a picture painted
with acrylic paints. Acrylic painting is considered real art and
could be sold for much more even if it represents the same thing.
Batik is not a traditional craft of Aborigine women, it was only
suggested to them a couple of years earlier. Why not give them
acrylics to work with? Next travelling exhibition could be made up of
paintings of Utopia women.
The effect of the project was amazing. The trail had been cleared by
dads from Papunya so for the organisers it was not a complete
surprise, but it must have been for the participants. For a mum who
doesn't know what to do with her time when her children are at school
to become an internationally famous artist in a short time, must have
been a bit of a culture shock.
Owners of art galleries in the cities on the coast started coming to
Aborigine settlements and brought canvas and paints with them. The
canvas was spread on the floor and the artists were putting their
dots in the same way as when they created a sand dreaming picture for
a ceremony. When the picture was finished, the gallery owner
stretched it an a frame and sold it for thousands to some well off
city people. For thousands, because if the fame was international,
the price had to be appropriate.
Emily
Kame
Kngwarreye
took part in activities of
the batik group from the very beginning. Her batik dreamings appeared
on the group exhibition of 1988. She started painting a year later,
when Rodney Gooch brought paints to Utopia. She was about 70 years
old at the time, although her exact date of birth is not known. From
that moment until her death in September 1996 she painted a few
thousands pictures. These are pictures covered in dots and strokes,
like all the pictures by Aborigine artists. Emily's pictures have
something which cannot be defined but which draws one's attention to
them like a kind of magic. Soon she became the most famous of all the
Aborigine artists. Here are the dates of her breathtaking career:
1988 – the first group exhibition of batik.
1989 – the first group exhibition if acrylic paintings,
1990 – the first solo exhibition in Sydney, followed by many
exhibitions both solo and as a part of a group.
1997 (posthumously) exhibition at the Biennale in Venice
History goes in circles, ethnology sometimes as well. In 1970s white
enthusiasts gave the Aborigine artists painting materials and the
paintings thus created sold well. Later gallery owners looked for
Aborigine artists to sell their pictures in the cities. Today those
dot paintings are so popular that they are almost perceived as
traditional folk art of Aboriginal Australians. Galleries in Alice
Springs and in the tourist town at Ayers Rock are full of them.
Pictures in the galleries cost thousands but wherever tourists come,
some Aborigines from a nearby settlements come as well. They come in
their old cars, sit on the ground and sell similar dot pictures for
less than a hundred bucks.
How could one miss such an opportunity? Especially as one can then
take a selfie with an Aborigine.
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| A Selfie with an Aborigine |
You will find this article, and many others, in my book "ART ETHNO".
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