Win Schubert was one of this Gallery’s greatest friends and most ardent and involved donors, gifting and supporting work that always encouraged and lifted our ambition. Win truly believed in the potential of art to touch lives, to open minds and excite the imagination. And, at its best, to bring people together in shared curiosity and wonder. I genuinely think Win understood the mystery of art, but she also knew her way around the art world.
These three works honour and continue that spirit, even if they could hardly be more different in their scale and the method of their making. Yet there are three things that bind them closely, three things that hint at the direction we hope to take as this Trust Collection grows from this beginning.
The first is that Olafur Eliasson, Fiona Hall and Tacita Dean are all mid-late career artists who have remained consistently inventive for decades. Each has represented their country at the Venice Biennale, and each is represented in some of the world’s most significant public and private collections. Their inclusion in major solo and group exhibitions is similarly deep and wide — they have built substantial and enduring reputations at home and abroad. We chose their work to form the foundation of the Trust Collection because they are singular artists of great distinction and deserved acclaim in the global art world.
Olafur Eliasson ‘Riverbed’ 2014
Toggle Caption
Olafur Eliasson, Denmark b.1967 / Riverbed 2014 (installation view) / Installed for ‘Water’, GOMA, 2019–20 / Water, rock (volcanic stones (blue basalt, basalt, lava, other stones, gravel, sand), wood, steel, plastic sheeting, hose, pumps / Installed dimensions variable / Purchased 2021. The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust / Collection: The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Olafur Eliasson / Photograph: N Harth © QAGOMA / View full image
Fiona Hall Australian set’ 1998–99
Toggle Caption
Fiona Hall, Australia b.1953 / Detail Australian set: Julunayn (Bundjalung); Bottle tree; Brackychiton ruprestis from Australian set (from ‘Paradisus Terrestris Entitled’ series) 1998–99 / Aluminium and tin / Thirteen pieces: 28 x 18 x 4cm (each, approx.) / Purchased 2021. The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust / Collection: The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Fiona Hall / View full image
Tacita Dean ‘Chalk Fall’ 2018
Toggle Caption
Tacita Dean, United Kingdom b.1965 / Chalk Fall 2018 / Chalk on blackboard / Nine panels: 121.9 x 243.8cm (each); 365.8 x 731.5cm (overall) / Purchased 2021. The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust / Collection: The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Tacita Dean / Image courtesy: Marian Goodman Gallery, New York / View full image
Second, they are artists who all have a thorough command of scale, one of art’s least well understood attributes. It shifts register from the jewellery-like intimacy of Hall’s sardine tins; to the reach of Dean’s wall-based chalk mural; to the gallery-scaled drama of Eliasson’s installation.
Looking at Fiona Hall’s work from any distance is entirely unhelpful. It’s impossible to absorb the humour with which she has defined dual zones to counterpoint erogenous body parts and botanical species, or to read the coded languages of their titles. Using a repoussé technique to work her aluminium — engraving, chasing and burnishing in the tradition of the colonial silversmith — she has cut and hammered out two astonishing series of works. Taken together with their companion series, held in the National Gallery of Victoria and National Gallery of Australia , they confirm her place in the story of contemporary art.
Watch | Fiona Hall ‘Australian set’ 1998–99 and ‘Sri Lankan set’ 1999 (from ‘Paradisus Terrestris’ series)
Fiona Hall Australian set’ 1998–99
Toggle Caption
Fiona Hall, Australia b.1953 / (left) Works from Australian set (from ‘Paradisus Terrestris Entitled’ series) 1998–99 / Aluminium and tin / Thirteen pieces: 28 x 18 x 4cm (each, approx.) / (right) Works from Sri Lankan set (from ‘Paradisus Terrestris’ series) 1999 / Aluminium and tin / Eight pieces: 28x 18 x 4cm (each, approx.) / Purchased 2021. The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust / Collection: The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Fiona Hall / View full image
Tacita Dean holds a similar place, a British artist who in 2018 had her work shown simultaneously at the London National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts. Her commanding, mural-scaled chalk drawings reach across time to summon up the sublime landscapes of JMW Turner, but expand even his imposing scale to cinematic proportions. For all their majestic grandeur, these monumental chalk drawings are intensely personal, diaristic palimpsests, of which this is perhaps the most personal of them all. Looking at Tacita Dean’s work will take distance and closeness when it debuts in ‘Air’ this coming summer.
Olafur Eliasson’s work, moreover, has already featured in ‘Water’, which we presented over the 2019-20 summer. Like Dean’s and Cai Guo-Qiang’s Heritage before it, it is a meditation on the impact of climate change, as it has affected the artist’s home in Iceland and as it continues to affect the world. By staging a reimagined landscape at 1:1 scale in the museum, Eliasson asks us to reconsider how we think about both nature and culture, precisely as Hall has done. This time, looking requires walking into and through the work itself.
Thirdly, the thing common to each of these works is the beautiful and surprising way in which they reveal their mystery through the most basic of materials. As Hall lifts sardine tins and drink cans to new aesthetic and iconographic heights; Dean pushes white chalk far beyond its mundane purpose; and Eliasson recasts the natural world. There is for each, expressed in their conceptual approach and revealed through the humble materiality of their work, a belief in the power of artistic alchemy.
For this announcement, we were delighted to receive video messages from Olafur Eliasson and Tacita Dean, and to be joined in person at the Gallery by Fiona Hall, and to hear each artist speak about the ideas and processes behind these important works of art.
This is an edited excerpt of a speech given by QAGOMA Director Chris Saines CNZM for the announcement of the inaugural acquisitions for The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust Collection at the Queensland Art Gallery on Friday 27 May 2022.
Watch | Tacita Dean ‘Chalk Fall’ 2018
Tacita Dean, United Kingdom b.1965 / Chalk Fall 2018 / Chalk on blackboard / Nine panels: 121.9 x 243.8cm (each); 365.8 x 731.5cm (overall) / Purchased 2021. The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust / Collection: The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Tacita Dean
Watch | Olafur Eliasson ‘Riverbed’ 2014
Olafur Eliasson, Denmark b.1967 / Riverbed 2014 / Water, rock (volcanic stones (blue basalt, basalt, lava, other stones, gravel, sand), wood, steel, plastic sheeting, hose, pumps / Purchased 2021. The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust / Collection: The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Olafur Eliasson
Stories highlights delivered to your inbox
Related Stories
Amata community is located in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands in north-western South Australia. In the 1970s, Amata women were encouraged to learn batik, natural dyeing, spinning, weaving and leatherwork techniques. Minymaku Arts (meaning ‘belonging to women’) was set up in 1997, but in 2005 the centre was renamed Tjala Arts, with both men and women painting abstract imagery adapted from traditional symbols and concepts.
Tjala Arts is now a hub of activity in the Amata community and a leader in the vibrant Western Desert painting movement reinvigorating contemporary Australian art. The art centre is a roomy industrial shed with a high, raked roof, keeping it fairly cool, though conditions can be extreme. The centre is adjusted for temperature, however, so that the artists can work in comfort. On an attractively paint-spattered cement floor, on vinyl-covered cushions, the women sit to paint each day (the men prefer to stand, with tables supporting the canvases on their side of the art shed). Focusing on their brilliantly coloured paintings in a silent bubble of intense concentration, the women’s connection with country is so deeply felt that they mentally ‘inhabit’ it as they work. Country is always with them: it was clear when I visited a local Seven Sisters creation site that their imagery is often directly linked with the ochre paintings that adorn the cave walls there.
‘Seven sisters’ 2011
The women who painted these seven works span three generations. Tjampawa Katie Kawiny is the most senior, and is a traditional owner of Tjurma country. For Seven sisters 2011, she and her daughters painted an important creation story about the constellations of Pleiades (the sisters) and Orion (Nyiru, an evil man who wants to marry the eldest sister). The seven sisters travel between the sky and the earth to escape Nyiru’s unwanted attention, but he always finds them. In an attempt to catch them, Nyiru uses magic, turning himself into tempting kampurarpra (bush tomatoes) and the most beautiful Ili (fig) tree for them to sleep under. Aware of his magic, the sisters go hungry and run through the night to avoid being caught. Eventually they fly back into the sky, reforming as the constellation we see today.
‘Mingkiri Tjukurpa (Mice Dreaming)’ 2011
Also very senior in Anangu law and culture is Wawiriya Burton, who is revered as a ngangkari (traditional healer). She started painting in 2008, but originally specialised in baskets and punu (wood) carvings. Her paintings depict Dreaming stories from her father’s country near Pipalyatjara, west of Amata, where she was born. With her daughters, she has painted Mingkiri Tjukurpa, a sacred story from Western Australia about the small female mice found in the desert. In Mingkiri Tjukurpa (Mice Dreaming) 2011, the mice are pregnant and, after giving birth to many babies, they must journey to the surrounding rock holes in search of food and water to feed their young. The dotted lines represent the mice tracks in the sand.
‘Ngayuku ngura (My country) Puli murpu (Mountain range)’ 2012
‘Puli murpu (Mountain range)’ 2011
Ruby Tjangawa Williamson, along with Wawiriya Burton, is a senior law woman committed to fostering traditional culture, storytelling, dancing and painting. Punu 2011 marks the first time these two important artists have collaborated. Williamson began painting in 2000 at Minymaku Arts (now Tjala Arts) and her distinctive works have received increasing attention. Here, they have depicted two trees — ultukumpu and kalingkalingpa — from the country where they were born, near the Irrunytju community in Western Australia. For Ngayuku ngura (My country) Puli murpu (Mountain range) 2012, Williamson, her daughter Nita and granddaughter Suzanne Armstrong have painted Puli murpu — their mountain country near Amata, where women engage in ceremonial business. The different colours and designs represent variations in the landscape. Puli murpu (meaning ‘mountain range’, ‘rise’ or ‘ridge’ in Pitjantjatjara language) is one of Williamson’s main subjects. She also paints ultukunpa (honey grevillea), sand goanna, bush foods and the bush cat. Puli murpu (Mountain range) 2011, also a collaborative effort by these three artists, depicts the Musgrave Ranges behind Amata where they live. The dark areas are the mountains seen from the side and above, the blue in the middle represents kapi tjukula (rock holes) where water collects after rain, and the frond-like elements at the edge of these are ultukunpa (grevillea juncifolia), a‘honey plant’ that grows six metres high.
‘Punu’ 2011
‘Waturru Nganampa Ngura (Waturru Our Country)’ 2012
From the Ken family of painters, sisters lluwanti Ken and Mary Katatjuku Pan have contributed Waturru Nganampa Ngura (Waturru – Our country) 2012, which depicts their country, Waturru, and some of the animals found there. Anangu women always respect the important lessons that animals impart — here, the animals teach them how to be good mothers: the birds and lizards show the women how to fight for their children, and how to protect and feed them.
And, finally, for Seven sisters and Tjala Tjukurpa (Honey Ant Dreaming) 2012, Paniny Mick and her daughters collaborated for the first time to depict two important stories: the Seven Sisters Dreaming and Tjala Tjukurpa, which tells of the ancestral honey ant whose tracks wind through the valley where Amata lies.
A unique aspect of this project has been the collaboration between senior artists, their daughters and granddaughters, which is very important to the Amata people. In all, 18 women were involved in making these paintings. Inspired by the commission to paint for ‘the special place’ (the Queensland Art Gallery), they have created works to be treasured for many years. The Gallery has forged a close bond with the Amata community that will endure for generations to come.
Diane Moon is former Curator, Indigenous Fibre Art, QAGOMA
‘Seven sisters and Tjala Tjukurpa (Honey Ant Dreaming)’ 2012
The Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Gallery stands in Brisbane. We pay respect to...
Australia has roughly 8000 islands within its maritime borders. While many are sites of difficult histories, they also maintain their unique identities through song, stories, dance and visual art, often in environments characterised by isolation and significant external influences. Here is an overview of the Indigenous Australian artists and projects from Tasmania, Arnhem Land, the Torres Strait and the Pacific — who combine their geography and creative talents to honour their island heritage.
Island life is often likened to living in ‘paradise’. Though this is rarely true, island life offers numerous Indigenous Australians opportunities for creativity and continuity. Of the 8000 islands within Australia’s maritime borders (both offshore and in mainland rivers), many are renowned for their Indigenous artists.
Many Australian islands are sites of difficult histories. Due to their isolation, Indigenous Australians have, at times, unwillingly harboured misfits and mercenaries and had wrong-doers incarcerated in their midst. Similarly, their enclaves have been commandeered to enact cruel control over their own people. Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders have also endured the exploitation of their rich marine resources. They have been forced to provide safe ports for trade ships, to engage in border and quarantine protection, and to perform governance and administrative roles for the mainland.
Related: Beacons of hope
Despite these incursions and ongoing restrictive government policies, many Indigenous island cultures maintain their unique identities, and enrich the spectrum of Australian life immeasurably through song, stories, dance, visual art, and a poetic and practical understanding of the natural world. Four of Australia’s largest islands include Bathurst and Melville in the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory, and Mornington and Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria. All are known for their art. Consciously engaging with the arts and creating celebratory occasions to memorialise their histories are acts that provide residents with social cohesion that nourishes and inspires, and also opens pathways to the wider world.
Lutruwita (Tasmania) in the south is, of course, Australia’s largest isle. Tayaritji (Furneaux Group) to the north-east of Lutruwita is made up of remnants of an ice age land bridge that connected to the southern tip of Victoria. Growing up in Tayaritji on Cape Barren and Flinders Islands, Palawa woman Lola Greeno enjoyed a rich community life surrounded by the cool, clear waters of Bass Strait, where she learnt the ways of collecting and preparing shell species to make exquisite necklaces, as practised by generations of her ancestors.
In her twenties, Greeno moved to mainland Launceston with her family and studied the ancient art further with her mother. Together, these women played an important role in an intergenerational movement responsible for a vibrant reworking of shell necklace making. The opalescent beauty of the necklaces commands world attention, and Palawa artists continue in the spirit of ‘waranta takara milaythina nara takara’ (‘we walk where they once walked’), ever mindful of honouring their ancestral heritage.
Disturbingly, though, the formerly pristine marine domain of the artist’s home is altering, making even the most common shells difficult to source. Changing weather patterns and climatic disturbances are causing radical environmental damage to the shell beds on the ocean floor. Even one degree of the water warming can kill kelp forests and marine flora. On Tasmania’s east coast in early 2018, Greeno and her family were shocked to find tonnes of sand, dumped by freak wave action, burying the penguin shells they were to collect. Sadly, too, the magnificent king maireener shells, once plentiful, are now rarely found.
Stay Connected: Subscribe to the QAGOMA Blog
In the far north of Australia, Margaret Rarru and Helen Ganalmirriwuy have spent most of their lives on their tiny island home of Langarra in the Arafura Sea. The sisters now live on nearby Milingimbi (Yurrwi), the largest of the Crocodile Islands. Milingimbi’s richly layered histories are marked by remnants of its bombing by the Japanese during World War Two, and subsequent occupation by the Royal Australian Air Force. In addition, groves of ancient tamarind trees remain after hundreds of years of seasonal occupation by the Macassans from south Sulawesi, who came in their large wooden perahu to collect and process trepang (sea cucumber) for sale to the Chinese. Macassan history is celebrated on Milingimbi in colourful ceremonies, songs and dances that recall their knives, swords, pottery, textiles, palm-flower wine and sailing vessels, as well as the trade winds that enabled their journey to and from Marege (Australia). Intermarrying and sharing language cemented their connection, with over 1000 ‘loan’ words now incorporated into the Yolngu languages. In pre-Macassan times, only rock, clay and charcoal pigments were used to colour weaving fibres; however, the cooking pots they introduced were used by Yolngu to boil plant materials, producing a larger range of colours. In a process they hold secret, Rarru and Ganalmirriwuy (both master weavers) experimented with local leaves to find the rich black dye that now distinguishes their remarkable works.
Always open to new influences, pop icon Madonna — whose music rang out from boom boxes and discos in north-east Arnhem Land in the 1980s — and her corset like costumes inspired Rarru to make her ‘Madonna bras’: simply two small conical baskets bound together with a woven string harness. These days, the music is more likely to be by Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu (1971–2017), the revered Australian musician who grew up on nearby Galiwin’ku (Elcho Island).
Erub (Darnley Island) is the furthest Australian territory to the north-east. In 1871, English and Kanak missionaries sailed across the Coral Sea from Lifou in the Pacific’s Loyalty Islands to introduce Christianity. The faith spread from Erub throughout the Torres Strait, and elaborate annual ceremonies mark the ‘Coming of the Light’, a melding of Christian and customary beliefs in contemporary island life.
Many of the Lifou missionaries stayed on Erub and lost contact with their families; however, an emotional reunion in 2011 between distant relatives sparked new connections. The resulting project explores bloodlines, heritage and spiritual connections with the land...
