Review of Art Exhibition
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31.10.2024 - 31.08.2025 Discovering Art in Frankfurt: 'Country bin pull 'em!'
Frankfurt hosted on October 31st both the opening of the Discovery Art Fair at the Messegelände and the opening of the exhibition 'Country bin pull 'em!' at the Weltkulturenmuseum. The former is a commercial contemporary art fair 'to present young, fresh art ... for (new) collectors and art lovers', whereas the latter shows contemporary artworks from a remote Australian region (the Kimberley, in northwest Australia) together with photos and sketches brought back to Frankfurt by the Frobenius Expedition 85 years ago, detailing rock art of the Kimberley. On the one hand, this showed an extraordinary contrast of themes by urban artists (from Frankfurt or indeed from Tokyo) with those portrayed by artists from a very remote region of Australia. On the other hand, both sets of artists were responding to themes present in their everyday lives. For the artists of the Country of the Woddordda, Ngarinyin and Wunambal people, that includes saving their heritage.
Exhibition Review
Could the contrast be greater? The Discovery Art Fair is a kind of speed-dating of galleries or artists with a trendy public; the Weltkulturen Museum exhibition shows a slow-growing common understanding between German ethnologists in Frankfurt and the artists and elders of a northwestern Australian community today. What did the two events have in common for visitors? A deep curiosity in the hearts of the arts-interested visitors and some whiplash in their minds due to flipping rapidly between multivarious concepts and media.
Firstly, Discovery Art Fair lived up to its reputation of 'affordable art', knowledgeable gallerists, and some despondent artists, tired of watching crowds of people wander past with glazed or squinty eyes and mostly ignoring their creations. The sculpture in the foreground below is by Frank Leske and was not being ignored.
There was a vast range of media, much talent, and also some quite banal or disgusting results. That's art: a window into another world, but sometimes you just want to close the curtains.
Talking with the artists/gallerists can draw one into conceptual spaces outside your comfort zone. At a gallery from Tokyo, I found a small, beautiful artwork, 'Proof of Life' by Rie Suzuki, which I completely failed to understand (even with the help of a kind translator), and therefore – as is traditional – labelled it as 'abstract'. It went home with me – you don't have to understand art to love it (but it helps).
Discovery Art Fair, October 31st, 2024. Painting at right 'Buy Art Save a Crazy Person' by Erich Schobesberger (see link)
On the other hand, the exhibition 'Country bin pull 'em!' at the Weltkulturenmuseum, required the visitors to do more digging, more bi-cultural translation, and considerably more squinting.
Weltkulturen Museum exhibition entry-panel and the start of a tour by the curator Matthias Claudius Hofmann and co-curator Leah Umbagai (based at Mowanjum Arts Centre in Derby, Australia)
The exhibition results from collaboration across many years between staff of the Frobenius Institute, the Weltkulturen Museum and the artists in Derby, Australia. The initial huge undertaking was to compare surviving notes (70% were destroyed during World War II), photos and artists' sketches of paintings on rock walls in areas to the north of Derby with the surviving works (some rock art has been vandalised, some has deteriorated). The heart of the exhibition, however, is to compare those old records with the modern ideas and some modern artworks by contemporary artists in the region. The 'Wanjina' motifs, visible in photos of the rock art, still (often) inspire some of today's artists of the local Mowanjum Arts Centre. The 'Wanjina' motifs are very important to the cultures of the Woddordda, Ngarinyin and Wunambal people who have lived in that region 'forever'. Some of the locations showing rock art have been dated back tens of thousands of years. [1] The Weltkulturen Museum staff could select from the modern artworks to add to their collection and enliven the historical materials of the exhibition.
One challenge for the ethnologists in Frankfurt was to analyse what the Frobenius Expedition – which was extraordinarily pernickety and whose members were empathetic to the local people – got right concerning the designs, purposes and also the 'artistic license' behind the rock art, and where did they totally miss the point? For today's local people collaborating from the Kimberley, in Australia, the challenge was to explain concepts that are not easily translated and that are phrased differently today than by their grandfathers' generation. One example is the distinctive Wanjina figures, with a broad fringe around the top of the head, two large eyes but no mouth. In the expedition records, these are referred to as mythological heroes from heaven; for today's people, they are explained as symbolising the energy of storms, renewal of growth, the changes of the seasons, etc.
One challenge for museum visitors in Frankfurt is to ignore some of the expedition's aspects, undertaken at the height of National Socialism, and focus on facts, photos and designs. For the co-curators from Australia, one challenge is to ensure that the information is true, but also does not contain ideas that should never have been exposed outside the community. The museum has, therefore, censored/blackened some lines of text in some documents on display.
The Frobenius Expedition returned to Germany in 1939, convinced that the Indigenous people would die out, dragged down by disease, the annexation of their lands, multiple forced relocations, hard labour conditions on farms, and addiction to tobacco or alcohol. Two of the leaders wrote and later published long, sad books (Helmut Petri, 1954, 'Sterbende Welt in Nordwestaustralien'; Andreas Lommel, 1969, 'Fortschritt ins Nichts'). The Woddordda, Ngarinyin and Wunambal people in the area are, however, adamant: 'Always was, always will be' is the way they see their Country, their people, their strength. The title of the exhibition alludes to this, that the living land and Country is what 'pulled' the scientists from Frankfurt across to the other side of the planet, to Australia, to learn about a different way of living, of art.
This is indeed part of the role that many Indigenous contemporary artists accept, to teach and explain their living culture and the depth of their history, as well as how they view the modern world. The artist and co-curator Leah Umbagai, seen in the background of the above photo, has spent decades, in parallel with her art career, teaching about her culture and collaborating with everyone from children to professors. [2] For example, in 2004 she was one of 6 artists commissioned to make a cover design for an Australian journal about pregnancy and health, [3] whereby the painting included the main Wanjina called Wallungunde, with two Gyorn Gyorn (Gwion Gwion) figures as pregnant females. This was a radical re-portrayal of well-known designs, chosen to emphasise ideas of health and renewal: modern art from a living culture. Concerning the Frobenius Expedition documentation, she co-authored in 2016 a long article [4] about the role of art in her society, including the themes shown in this exhibition.
As Leah Umbagai notes in the exhibition brochure [5]:
We do not just paint anything like Aalmara [the white people] do because, as artists … we have other responsibilities. By repainting images from the Country and from our dreams, we are honouring our Law and culture, our ancestors and our Country. […] we are refreshing all of those relationships and our relationships with all Wanjina Wunggurr people. When we refreshen them, we are bringing them back to life; we are not forgetting our heritage and our future.
In conclusion, how can the art at the two events in Frankfurt be compared? On the one hand, there was the extraordinary contrast of themes portrayed by urban artists (from Frankfurt or indeed from Tokyo) with those portrayed by artists from a very remote region of Australia. On the other hand, both sets of artists were responding to themes present in their everyday lives. For the artists of the Country of the Woddordda, Ngarinyin and Wunambal people, that includes saving their heritage.
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[1]
Sue O’Connor, Anthony Barham, Donny Woolagoodja, (2008): 'Painting and repainting in the west Kimberley'. In: Australian Aboriginal Studies, Issue 1, 2008, S. 22–38, URL: https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.254464209496268
[2]
Acknowledged by authors of [1]
Acknowledged by David Throsby and Katya Petetskaya, (2016): 'Integrating art production and economic development in the Kimberley'. Report to Commonwealth Department of Communications and the Arts, Macquarie University, URL: https://apo.org.au/node/252696
Acknowledged by Frederick Baker (2016) in 'Prähistorischer Minimalismus. Pitoti-Felsgravierungen auf der Schwelle zwischen Analogem und Digitalem'. In: Texte zu den Felsbildern der Sammlung Frobenius, 2016, S. 107–117, URL: https://www.academia.edu/download/58251483/2_-_Pitoti_-_German_language_version.pdf.
Acknowledged by Prof. Martin Porr in 'Ethnographische Sammlungen neu denken/How to move on with Humboldt'’s legacy? Rethinking ethnographic collections’, November 28th 2017, https://blog.uni-koeln.de/gssc-humboldt/overcoming-distances-and-boundaries/
Acknowledged by Mike Jones, Ann McGrath, Ben Silverstein, Amy Way, (2023): ‘Marking Country: Mapping Deep Histories’. In: ANU Historical Journal II, Issue 4, 2023, S. 161–178, URL: https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/informit.481259660874231
[3]
The painting was by Mabel King, Leah Umbagai, Marjorie Mungulu, Sandra Mungulu, Gudu Mungulu and Sahreea McKenzie and was called 'The Spirit of the Wandjina'. It was published as the cover of O & G Journal, 2004, by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. See [1] page 9.
[4]
Kim Doohan, Leah Umbagai, Janet Oobagooma, Martin Porr, K. H. Kohl, R. Kuba, H. Ivanoff, B. Burkard, (2016): 'Produktion und Befugnis. Über Presentation, Repräsentation und die Zusammenarbeit mit den traditionellen Besitzern der Felsmalereien der Kimberley-Region, Nordwestaustralien'. In: Kunst der Vorzeit. Texte zu den Felsbildern der Sammlung Frobenius, 2016, S. 92–105, URL: https://www.academia.edu/download/42826613/Doohan_et_al_2016_Frobenius_Katalog.pdf
[5]
'Country bin pull 'em', Brochure for the exhibition of the Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt am Main, October 2024, p.19.
