City Gallery Wellington | Te Whare Toi

Deane Gallery: 20 November 2010–16 January 2011

Curated by Reuben Friend

In 2010, City Gallery Wellington mounted a major showcase of art from the collection of US American arts patrons David Teplitzky and Peggy Scott. The project, entitled Roundabout°, involved collecting and commissioning art from established and emerging artists from Australasia, the Pacific, Asia, the US, the Middle East, Europe, and Russia— with a strong focus on BIPOC artists.

As part of the Roundabout° project, I was fortunate to curate two solo art exhibitions by Aboriginal Australian artists Vernon Ah Kee (25 September–14 November 2010) and Tony Albert (Pay Attention, 20 November 2010–16 January 2011). Ah Kee and Albert belong to the super star artist collective Proppa Now based in Brisbane, Australia. The collective consists of Richard Bell, Shannon Brett, Megan Cope, Lily Eather, Jennifer Herd, Gordon Hookey and Warraba Weatherall.

Tony Albert’s project saw the collective come together with a number of other invited artists to each paint letters for the installation PAY ATTENTION. As a collaborative piece, the installation called attention to stolen generations of Aboriginal Australian children and women who were orphaned and/or adopted into European-Australian families as part of a forced assimilation strategy implemented by the government. As the title directly states, the installation is a call to attention for acknowledgement of these atrocities, demanding reparations and an apology, while also acting as a highly visible and public memorial to generations of victims and their descendants who were abducted, raped and forced to assimilate.

Albert has spent the majority of his life in Brisbane, but has strong family connections further north to the Girramay and Kuku Yalanji people of the rainforest region. In 2004 he completed a degree in Visual Arts, majoring in Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art, at Griffith University.

PAY ATTENTION: Tony Albert

Mana Takatāpui: Taera Tāne

Vernon Ah Kee