I missed the opening, but have now caught up with an extraordinary exhibition of art from the artists working through their dynamic art centre in Yirrkala: Buku Larrnggay Mulka. The show is called Yolngu Power, and is only on for a few more weeks. A beautiful catalogue with some impressive essays explains the connection Yolngu people have with their country and the intricate connections between everyone and their art and culture.
I first went to Yirrkala in 1995 to collaborate with Naminapu Maymuru White on her linocut triptych, Nyapilingu, which went on to win the Works on Paper section at the 1996 Telstra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. While I was there, Andrew Blake, the Art Co-ordinator, and I installed Buku’s new etching press and I worked with Marrnyula Munungurr and her sister Rerrkiwanga (both in this show) on the very first prints to be produced in the new space. The Print Space, 30 years later, is now a bustling print workshop where Yolngu printmakers edition linos, etchings , screen prints and collagraphs every day.
The exhibition was laid out impressively and my only gripe, when interviewed by a young researcher at the end of the show, was that the gallery labelling and publication don’t give any mention of the Balanda (non-indigenous) printers who have collaborated with Yolngu artists on many of the prints shown in the extensive print display. Diana Davidson (Whaling Road), Theo Tremblay (Editions Tremblay), Basil Hall (BHE) and Sean Smith, for example. Some of the prints, notably those printed by Davidson and Tremblay for the late B. Marika, were done quite independently of the Print Space. Naminapu’s Nyapilingu, included in the Yolngu Power exhibition has no printer attribution either. Theo and I oversaw the entire edition at Studio One in Canberra, which included cutting away the reductions on the lino after each colour and doing all the exacting printing. It is Nami’s story and cutting, and she indicated where the colours were to go, but you can’t leave out collaborators. National & State Museums and Galleries should do better than this!
