Georges Petitjean – författare

Following on from the success of the exhibition Before Time Began,Fondation Opale is taking on a new challenge with a show that juxtaposes contemporary Aboriginal art with prominent examples of contemporary art created in a Western and Asian tradition. This beautifully illustrated catalogue includes more than eighty works by over 54 artists from two separate collections, both of which are outstanding in their own right: the collection of Aboriginal art belonging to Bérengère Primat and the contemporary art collection amassed by Garance Primat. The works play off each other with powerful effect. Insightful pairings suggest an underlying unity, a merging of mankind, heaven, earth, and the whole cosmos.The Aboriginal artists represented include: Rover Thomas, Gulumbu Yunupingu, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Judy Watson, Sally Gabori, Emily Kame Kngwarrey, Paddy Bedford, Nonggirrnga Marawili, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, and John Mawurndjul. The artists working in the Western and Oriental traditions include: Jean Dubuffet, Kiki Smith, Anselm Kiefer, Sol Lewitt, Yayoi Kusama, Giuseppe Penone, and Anish Kapoor.Published to accompany an exhibition at Fondation Opale, Lens - Crans Montana, 14 June 2020 - 4 April 4 2021.

Why are these specific artworks the subject of this first monograph? Produced in 2018, the sumptuous paintings, aa is the Kulata Tjuta Kupi Kupi installation, are collaborative artworks. They are reminiscent of the collaborative production process of art in Aboriginal Australia. These major works, in which a variety of Dreaming stories that define the region converge, form cornerstones of the collection that lies at the heart of the Fondation Opale. The Fondation Opale, and its founder and driving force Berengere Primat, has a particularly strong and active relationship with the art centres and the artists of that region of Australia. Several journeys were made to the APY lands in Central Australia. Both paintings, to which respectively several senior women and men collaborated, were commissioned by Berengere Primat and the painting process abundantly documented. These magisterial paintings are testimony to the continuum of culture and intimate knowledge of the land through art.Kupi Kupi, an iteration of the ongoing Kulata Tjuta (many spears in the Pitjantjatjara language) initiated in 2010, is a contemporary and monumental art installation consisting of 1500 spears. It is a metaphor for contemporary Anangu society and the unpredictable direction in which it is moving.All these artworks are testimony to the renewal and relevancy of Aboriginal art in contemporary times.Text in English and French.

For a large part of his life, Jackie Kurltjunyintja Giles Tjapaltjarri (ca 1935-2010) led a nomadic existence, travelling across large tracts of and later spending time in small communities in Australia’s vast Western Desert region. Jackie Giles was renowned as a man of great erudition and a powerful healer, Maparnjarra in his native Ngaanyatjarra language. The powers of these traditional healers include the gift of seeing into the bodies and even the spirits of others. In the 1990s, Jackie Giles started painting with acrylic on canvas. Mr Giles, as he was often called, combined an intimate knowledge of his land with his own oneiric visions to build what became a significant personal oeuvre. These paintings celebrate the Tjukurpa (Dreaming), which pervades the land and is a cornerstone of its identity. Built around labyrinthine patterns and monumental shapes, these dynamic, rhythmical compositions allude to the esoteric, sacred subject matter of the Dreaming. The intense, striking works that make up this awe-inspiring oeuvre manage to link two dimensions: Ngaanyatjarra cosmology and the rapidly changing modern world.Text in English and French.