The National Gallery of Art: The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art -- Introduction

 From a wee taste of culturally adjacent art at the Baltimore Gallery of Art, to a full fledged multi-coarse banquet!  

The biggest mistake we make regarding "art" is that it is somehow meant to be an eye-pleasing representation of some aspect of the actual world.  A painting of a flower, A portrait, a photograph of a canyon, a symmetric vase with a bird on it...  That things which are not so overt, are not art, but artsy and somehow unrelatable.  

Art is so much more, and so completely relatable if we just get the image of the bunny drawing on the refrigerator out of our heads!  I know most of you already know this.  

Art is transcendent.  Art connects images, ideas, patterns across millennia.  Art touches hearts and opens minds.  Art creates communities, and communities create art.  

A visit to the exhibition "The Stars We Do Not See" at the National Gallery of Art is a celebration of art as not only community, but also culture that connects generations across millennia.  The images and formats speak to something profoundly spiritual, a faith in the ineffable, the unexplainable, and the universally intimate human condition.  

You enter the massive atrium of the East Building and as you prepare to descend to the ground floor you are immediately confronted by this amazing construct suspended from the ceiling.  A tapestry of native grasses, woven by commission of a Fish Net.  It is used as a traditional way of capturing fish from the local river--however, this version is, as a commission, more elaborate than most.  It is the work of a collective of aboriginal women.  A parallel might be the quilting bees of North America: women coming together to use the media at hand to create something both artistically stunning and yet immensely utilitarian, too.

A video accompanies the installation and allows us to listen to the voices of the women, hear their commentary, and follow their process.  We see just how spiritually connected they are to the land, to its resources, to the work of creating these Fish Nets.  The experience sets you up for what's to come.  This is not an exhibit that you can take lightly.  It is not an opportunity to see famous or unknown works by familiar artists.  It is rather an astounding invitation to see a world that feels both familiar and exotic.  To consider ideas that are both comfortable and unnerving.  And finally, it is a retrospective on the evolution of a culture.  One that cannot escape the influence of modernity.

Buckle your seat belts, Cobbers; and peel back your eyes, your hearts, your minds to join me on this Bonza look at ART from the Indigenous People of Australia!

"Mun-Dirra (Muningrida Fish Fence)," 2021

Freda Ali, Freda Wayartja Ali, Cecille Baker, Michelle Baker, Bonnie Burarngarra, Gabriella Garrimara, Doreen Junggarrabarra, Lorna Jin-Gubarrangunyja, Indra Prudence, Jennifer Prudence, Zoe Prudence, and Anthea Stewart. (ages 69 to 31)

Burrarra Women's Collective