ABDUL ABDULLAH, CHERINE FAHD, SHANNON FIELD, VINCENT NAMATJIRA & JOAN ROSS
WITH PORTRAITS FROM THE USU COLLECTION, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES & SYDNEY UNIVERSITY MUSEUMS
’PORTRAITS OF MEN’
CURATED BY SÎAN MCINTYRE
29 JUNE – 29 JULY, 2017
Portraits of Men, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: From the left, there are is a colourful abstract painting. On the corresponding wall there is a traditionalist style portrait of a middle aged man in a robe with a wooden frame. In the middle of the space there are two abstract sculptures on cement bricks, one a vibrant green the other a neon pink. Behind these sculptures is a projected portrait of a middle aged man with a robe on. On the right there is a photographed portrait of a person with a white mask on with a white suit, holding a piece of fluffy cream coloured material.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
Hanging in the Great Hall as of 2017, the entry and exit point for all Sydney University students, there were 21 paintings, 4 busts, and 2 statues. Of these, 2 were women and 25 were men. There were 16 portraits in Maclaurin Hall - 12 paintings, 2 plaques. Of these 1 was a woman and 15 were men. Another portrait of a woman was installed on July 19. In the reading room of the Holme building, where the majority of the paintings exhibited here have been sourced, there were 6 paintings and one bust, of these 1 was a woman. The vast majority depicted white men and women over 50.
These portraits do not necessarily function as decorative art pieces; rather, they act as tributes to significant members of the University of Sydney community, people who have been integral to the development and success of the university and community at large. As such, they are shown in places of ceremony, positioned above the heads of students, to inspire and remind us of the potential capacity in us all.
Portraits of Men, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: On the left hand forefront, there is a traditionalist portrait painting of a middle aged man wearing a black and gold robe, posing in a chair. In the far middle of the room there are four portraiture paintings across the gallery, with a screen as the last portraiture on the wall. In the right hand forefront, there is a traditionalist style portrait of a middle aged man holding a red object with a yellow background. To the far right, there is a portrait of a person with a beard, black short hair and a black t-shirt.
Here at Verge Gallery, five portraits from the University of Sydney Union art collection were presented with captions reflecting the achievements of each subject and were hung at the eye level of an average woman. Awkwardly low, the viewer could address these exalted figures eye to eye, shifting the relationship from inspiration to conversation. These five portraits were accompanied by one bust from the Sydney University Museums art collection, photographs from the Sydney University Archive and a slideshow of 125 of the portraits of men held in the Sydney University Museums art collection at the time.
Exhibiting these portraits of men from varied university collections alongside contemporary artworks aimed to, as anthropologist Paul Rainbow suggests in essay by Clementine Deliss “...present historical elements in a contemporary assemblage such that new visibilities and sayable things become actual inducing motion and affect”.
Portraits of Men, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: On the left hand forefront, there is a traditionalist portrait painting of a middle aged man wearing a black and gold robe, posing in a chair. Next to it on the right, there are two abstract sculptures, one pink and one green, on cement bricks with glass shells over them. In the far middle of the room there are six portraits paintings across the gallery, with a screen as the last portraiture on the wall.
New visibilities were present in Cherine Fahd’s video portrait of Matthew, placed alongside the portrait of A.N. Balls by Norman St. Clair Carter. In regimental uniform, Balls is painted with crossed arms, meeting the audience with a determined stare. Fahd’s video portrait was part of a wider photographic portrait series titled ‘You look like a… ‘, which examined the politics of ‘appearing’ Arabic and what this signals in a western context like Australia. Fahd’s work ‘You Look Like a… (youme)’ was the only portrait (albeit camouflaged) of a woman in the exhibition. The video showed the artist's face layered with numerous beards sourced from her ‘You Look Like a…’ series. The beards immediately transformed the feminine features of the artist into a figure of power, with striking and unwavering gaze to match those of Alexander Cambitoglou AO and Lt. Col. Charles Bickerton Blackburn positioned beside and opposite the screen. Strangely, the bearded features that imply threat in ‘You Look Like a… Matthew’ became comical when attached as a slideshow onto Fahd's face, inverting the stereotypes that she examined in the series.
The men shown in Abdul Abdullah’s images dressed in wedding finery and gazing directly at the camera, are not dissimilar to His Honor Judge Backhouse and Thomas Williams from the University of Sydney Union art collection positioned on either side. These images, from Abdullah’s ‘Coming to terms’ series reference the formal composition of portraiture, yet the faces of the grooms pictured are obscured by balaclavas, suggesting criminality and threat. Abdullah described these balaclavas as signifiers for the negative perceptions and projections placed on the imagined enemy. As the subjects eyes peer from behind the masks, there is disjuncture between the intention of wedding attire and a costume of criminality, and a resulting suggestion that these masks are not happily worn by the subject, but forced on them by a third party.
Portraits of Men, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: There is a silver head sculpture on a wooden plinth to the left. Next to it is a colourful collage of Captain Cook with a yellow and brown dog standing next to him. To the far right, is a traditionalist portrait painting of a middle aged man in a gold and black robe posing in a seat.
Vincent Namatjira created new visibility through his renderings of Captain Cook. When talking about his exhibition of portraits in the TarraWarra Biennial, Namatjira said “Having a sense of humour and a paint brush is a powerful thing,". This power was seen in Namatjira’s numerous portraits of Captain Cook. Each inverted the relationship between oppressor and oppressed, reclaiming the role of historical documentator and the right to represent history.
Revisiting historical material, Joan Ross used fluorescent colour to discuss the creeping subversiveness of colonisation. Overlaying this vibrant pigment onto digitally collaged colonial imagery in ‘I have your cake and now I’m eating it too’ , Ross represented the greed and entitlement of colonial Australia, with a standing male figure in the landscape cradling a gun in one arm and a netted butterfly in the other. ‘With a big stick’ on the opposite side of the gallery similarly obscured a colonial-esque object with fluorescent fabric. With a flaccid stick cradled between the ceramic figures arms, the headpiece almost mirrored the hat on Namatjira’s Cook portrait.
Portraits of Men, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: On the left there is a traditionalist portrait painting of a middle aged man in a black and gold robe standing, in a wooden frame. Next to it is a cartoon figure of Captain Cook, waist up, with a blue sky and sea background. In the middle of the room, there is an abstract neon yellow sculpture sitting on a stool, in front of a traditional painted portrait of a middle aged man. To the right side, there is a photograph portrait of a person in a ski mask and pink tracksuit, holding a plush object. On the far right, there is a wooden framed portrait, it is very lightly toned and has a middle aged man from chest up in a white button up shirt. Next to it is a screen with a portrait of a person with a beard, black hair and black t-shirt.
‘Lost Boys’ by Shannon Field presented the busts of explorers Burke and Wills as plasticine sculpture. Field was concerned with the questioning of heterosexual masculinity in colonial Australia, describing this masculinity as ‘intimately tied to both Europe’s historical representation of Australia as a monstrous island space and Britain’s articulation of the convict body as the perverted expression of a deviant, disfigured masculinity’. The ‘exploration’ of a country that had been inhabited for tens of thousands of years and the ultimately fatal journey of Burke and Wills through the centre of Australia in 1860-61 makes these figures rich examples of colonial Australian male sensibilities. These busts sat opposite to a bust of Professor Alexander Cambitoglou AO, but rather than being installed on a plinth, they sat atop a stack of concrete bricks in bell jars.
These works shown together aimed to reframe the collections of the university, providing spaces to reconsider the structures that we inhabit and the ways that we move through our cultural and educational institutions. By removing the portraits from their altars and thoughtfully installing them with contemporary artists who are actively reworking ideas around representation, we create a platform for wider dialogue around power, history, place, and legacy outside patriarchal structures.
As in Rainbow’s quote above, this exhibition aimed to cause motion and effect, as such, there were two public programs that were been created to accompany Portraits of Men, one, titled ‘Reframing The Collection’ featured speakers Matt Poll (Assistant Curator, Indigenous Heritage, Macleay Museum, Sydney University Museums), Joan Ross (Exhibiting Artist), Taloi Havini (Artist). The other, titled ‘The Politics of Portraiture’ featured speakers Claire Monneraye (Curator, Australian Centre for Photography), Chris Jones & Maddie Cox (University of Sydney Museums), Cherine Fahd (Exhibiting artist and academic).
Siân McIntyre, 2017.