To mark International Museum Day, which this year explores the theme of contested histories, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) and Tate today announced the acquisition of five additional artworks in their International Joint Acquisition Programme for contemporary Australian art, supported by Qantas. The programme promotes Australian art globally, helping Australian artists reach new audiences.
These joint acquisitions by MCA and Tate include three paintings by Helen Johnson (Seat of Power 2016, Bad Debt 2016, and A Feast of Reason and a Flow of Soul 2016), an installation by Richard Bell (Embassy 2013-ongoing) and a video by Peter Kennedy with John Hughes (On Sacred Land 1983-4). In May 2016, the two institutions acquired artworks by Susan Norrie, Vernon Ah Kee, Gordon Bennett and Judy Watson.
Helen Johnson said: ‘It is an important moment for me to have these three paintings jointly acquired by the MCA and Tate. Addressing, as they do, the depredations of British colonial culture in Australia, and some ways in which we perpetuate it, it feels appropriate for these works to be entering the shared custodianship of the MCA in Sydney and Tate in London.’
Peter Kennedy and John Hughes said: ‘Specific to Australia, On Sacred Land – its subject matter and content – now has the potential to take its place in an international mainstream. Its inclusion in both Tate and MCA Collections adds significantly to its cultural value.’
Richard Bell said: ‘I’m very proud to be part of this project. I recognise the stature of Tate and the MCA and the consequences of their acceptance of my work.’
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NOTES TO EDITORS
ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL JOIN ACQUISITIONS PROGRAMME
Made possible through a $2.75 million corporate gift from the Qantas Foundation, this ground-breaking collaboration announced in 2015 is enabling an ambitious five-year joint program through which a range of major artworks by contemporary Australian artists will be acquired for the collections of MCA and Tate, owned and displayed by both institutions.
RICHARD BELL, EMBASSY 2013-ONGOING
Richard Bell was born in 1953, Charleville, Queensland and lives and works in Brisbane. He is a member of the Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman and Gurang Gurang communities and is a founding member of the Aboriginal artist collective proppaNow. Bell works across video, painting, installation and text to address contemporary debates about identity, place and politics. Embassy, for example, is an installation that includes a large military-style canvas tent, with four painted placards that include proclamations of Aboriginal land rights and a board that names the tent as the ‘Aboriginal Embassy’. Describing himself as an activist as well as an artist, Bell uses humour to highlight the serious and ongoing consequences of colonisation and its impact on race relations in Australia.
HELEN JOHNSON, BAD DEBT 2016, SEAT OF POWER 2016, AND A FEAST OF REASON AND A FLOW OF SOUL 2016
Helen Johnson was born in 1979 in Melbourne, Australia and lives and works in Melbourne. In her paintings Johnson often addresses colonial history and its ongoing impact on Australia’s political and social realities. Her work blends figuration and abstraction, by representing people, animals and objects from the past in full and in fragments or silhouettes. Bad Debt 2016, for instance, depicts layers of overlapping images, including a bedroom interior with a smashed window, non-indigenous animals, such as foxes and rabbits, and people dressed as a cat, a horse and a man. It portrays Australia as a country with an unstable and conflicted identity while also implying that representation is always partial and subjective.
PETER KENNEDY AND JOHN HUGHES, ON SACRED LAND 1983-4
Peter Kennedy was born in 1945 in Brisbane, Australia and lives and works in Melbourne. He is a key figure of the Australian avant-garde scene of the 1960s and 1970s and has worked across different media, including film, video, performance, sound art and neon light installations. John Hughes was born in 1948 and lives and works in Melbourne. His projects cross the boundaries of film, television and media art practice. On Sacred Land 1983-4 is a politically engaged and ground-breaking work of postmodern video art, which sets Australian Indigenous politics of the 1980s against colonial and capitalist history, particularly in regard to issues of indigenous rights, self-determination and Native Title disputes. It typifies the artists’ serious political concerns and pioneering approach to the moving image, combining found film footage, photographs, drawings and newly filmed scenes in an experimental collage.