Crossing Cultures
September 15, 2012, through March 10, 2013
The Owen and Wagner Collection of Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Art at the Hood Museum of Art
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Crossing Cultures: The Owen and Wagner Collection of Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Art installed at the Hood Museum of Art. Photo by Jeffrey Nintzel.
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Crossing Cultures: The Owen and Wagner Collection of Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Art installed at the Hood Museum of Art. Photo by Jeffrey Nintzel.
Location
Temporary Exhibitions, Hood Museum of Art second-floor galleries
About
This exhibition highlights the extraordinary Owen and Wagner Collection at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, through its display of more than one hundred works of contemporary Indigenous art from Australia. These objects are by artists from outback communities as well as major metropolitan centers and span five decades of creative activity. They also represent the many art-making practices of Aboriginal peoples across the Australian continent, including acrylic paintings on linen and canvas, earthen ochre paintings on bark, board, and canvas, and sculpture in a variety of media. While the exhibition features many influential artists who have contributed to the development of an Indigenous art canon since the 1970s, the focus is squarely on subsequent generations of artists, who are breathing new life into ancient stories and broadening the possibilities of Indigenous art. The exhibition therefore also includes contemporary paintings that recall the ancestral narratives of the Dreaming as well as photographs from urban-based artists who depict the contemporary realities of Indigenous people from Australia. Resonant with cultural memory, these objects reference and reinvigorate customary iconographies, speak to the history and legacy of colonization, and affirm Robert Hughes's statement that Aboriginal art is "the last great art movement of the twentieth century."
This exhibition was organized by the Hood Museum of Art and generously supported by Kate and Yaz Krehbiel, Class of 1991, Thayer 1992, Hugh J. Freund, Class of 1967, the Leon C. 1927, Charles L. 1955, and Andrew J. 1984 Greenebaum Fund, and the Philip Fowler 1927 Memorial Fund.
Exhibition Curator
Stephen Gilchrist
Exhibition Citation
This exhibition was organized by the Hood Museum of Art and generously supported by Kate and Yaz Krehbiel, Class of 1991, Thayer 1992, Hugh J. Freund, Class of 1967, the Leon C. 1927, Charles L. 1955, and Andrew J. 1984 Greenebaum Fund, and the Philip Fowler 1927 Memorial Fund.Related Publications
Additional Information
Related Exhibitions
- Contemporary Abstraction: Works from the Hood Museum of Art's Permanent Collection
- Dreaming Their Way: Australian Aboriginal Women Painters
- Dreaming of Country: Painting, Place, and People in Australia