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February 2011

21st Century: Art in the First Decade
until 26 April
Mitra Tabrizian | Iran/England | City, London 2008

Mitra Tabrizian | Iran/England | City, London 2008
Type C photograph | 122 x 250cm | Purchased 2010 with a special allocation from the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

BRISBANE. TO MARK the end of the first decade of this millennium, the Gallery presents ‘21st Century: Art in the First Decade’.

‘21st Century’, the largest exhibition of contemporary international art ever staged by a single Australian art institution explores the impact of recent global political, economic, environmental and technological issues through works by artists born in the 1920s through to the 1980s at the same time challenge ideas about contemporary art and the art museum today.

‘‘21st Century’ showcases art works from this decade from Africa, the Middle East, Europe, the Americas, Asia, the Pacific and Australia, across the full variety of contemporary media and engaging in unique ways with the contemporary world.

‘Included are works by leading contemporary artists such as Ai Weiwei (China), Louise Bourgeoi (France/United States), Martin Boyce (Scotland), Tracey Emin (England), Leandro Erlich (Argentina), Romuald Hazoumè (Benin), Yayoi Kusama (Japan), Rivane Neuenschwander (Brazil), Rirkrit Tiravanija (Thailand) and Ricky Swallow (Australia).

Recent acquisitions being unveiled for the first time include a work in neon by Tracey Emin (England), sculptures and photographs by Romuald Hazoumè (Benin), playful sculptures of camp dogs by Arukun artists including Arthur Pambegan Jr and Craig Koomeeta (Australia), powerful photographs by Mitra Tabrizian (Iran), Guy Tillim (South Africa) and Olaf Breuning (Switzerland), a suite of drawings by Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (Ivory Coast), and striking video works by
SUPERFLE X (Denmark) and Sharif Waked (Palestine).

‘‘21st Century’ is a multi-platform experience that includes ‘21st Century Kids’, 12 interactive projects and a summer festival, supported by the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation; the Internet Meme Project, a curated program of 250 screens featuring viral internet content; three Australian Cinémathèque film programs kicking off with ‘A New Tomorrow: Visions of the Future in Cinema’ from Boxing Day; and a range of public programs including a symposium in March,’ according to Mr Ellwood, Queensland Art Gallery Director.

Artworks by Middle Eastern artists on display:
Mitra Tabrizian
b, Iran
Lives in England

Mitra Tabrizian’s large-format photographs combine techniques from documentary photography and highly stylised mise en scene to capture her subjects and settings with meticulous attention to detail and lighting.

In City, London 2008, Tabrizian invited the senior staff of JP Morgan to be photographed in the lobby of the company’s headquarters in London’s financial district. The work alludes to the global financial crisis that began in 2007, rated the worst international economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The GFC saw the dramatic collapse of large financial institutions, the bailout of banks by national governments and significant drops in stock markets. The accompanying news stories, however, often rendered the link between the world of the financial sector and the actuality of people who were losing their livelihoods, their homes and their sense of hope, as an abstraction. Tabrizian constructs the corporate environment in the stasis of the aftermath, in the tradition of history painting. While the architecture’s solid pillars and marble surfaces suggest permanence and prosperity, the bankers appear disconnected, disorientated in their surroundings and self-absorbed in their predicament.
decolonizing.ps
(Alessandro Petti; Sandi Hilal; Eyal Weizman)
est. 2007

The collaborative project decolonizing.ps intertwines art, architecture, politics and ecology to envision new possibilities for the structures of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Their output can take the form of plans, maps, data or published documents, as well as physical interventions in built structures. Their work has been characterised by its integrity, rigour, and combination of conceptual precision and political engagement.

The Book of Migration 2009 highlights a contested site near Bethlehem. Evacuated by the Israeli army in 2006, the hilltop fortress of Oush Grab is an important refuge on the migration routes between Europe and Africa for over five hundred million birds. Twice a year, tens of thousands of birds land there and draw to the site a micro-ecology of predators and other wildlife. Since the evacuation, Oush Grab has seen confrontations between settlers, the Israeli military and Palestinian organisations; access to the summit is denied as it commands a view of the approach road to a new settlement.

The proposal by decolonising.ps for the site, intervening in the struggle for the hilltop, is a ‘project for obsolescence’ to accelerate the decay of the existing infrastructure and to return the hilltop to nature. This includes making perforations in walls to provide nesting sites for birds. Legally, they are making a claim for the site against the military’s civil administration and settler organisations, not on behalf of people but on behalf of the birds and the ecology of the area. The photographs, architectural models and drawings in The Book of Migration are also documents in a legal strategy; the project points out that legal proceedings involving animals have been known in Europe since the Middle Ages, when animals were held accountable for damage they caused and sometimes condemned to be hanged. The Israeli military remains undecided as to how to respond to such a challenge.
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
b.1924 Iran
Lives and works in Tehran

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian has forged a distinguished career spanning over 50 years. Inspired by the traditions of Islamic geometry and pattern and by techniques such as reverse glass painting, mirror mosaic and relief sculpture, Farmanfarmaian has revived and transformed these forms to create startlingly original works.

The mirror mosaic that characterises her most celebrated works draws on an Iranian decorative form known as aineh-kari. This technique dates back to the sixteenth century, when pieces of mirrors broken in transit from Europe to Persia were incorporated by mosaic craftspeople into decorative architectural panels. Farmanfarmaian’s work Lightning for Neda 2009 was created using this technique: over 4000 mirror shards per panel activate myriad patterns within its glittering, sublime surface. The six sides of the hexagon, which provide the underlying structure, are expanded and elaborately rendered. An important shape within Islamic geometry, the hexagon also has mystical connotations, representing the six directions (up, down, forward, backward, left, right) and the six virtues of generosity, self-discipline, patience, determination, insight and compassion, symbolically activated in this work.
Parastou Forouhar
b.1962 Iran
Lives and works in Frankfurt, Germany 
   

Parastou Forouhar grew up in Tehran, and was one of the first students enrolled at Tehran University’s Academy of the Arts after it reopened in 1984, following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. While there, Forouhar explored the tradition of Persian miniature painting as a structure within which to test new ideas. In 1991, she left Iran to continue her studies in Germany, where she found her identity shift from Parastou Forouhar into an ‘Iranian artist’. 
The central figure in Swanrider 2004 is a chador-clad woman, played by the artist, riding a gigantic white swan on the calm waters of the River Lahn at Bad Ems in Germany.  The work makes reference to the myth of Leda and the swan, to Hans Christian Anderson’s tale of the ugly duckling transformed into a beautiful swan, to Richard Wagner’s opera ‘Lohengrin’, which features a knight carried on a boat drawn by a swan. Wagner, who was notorious for his anti-Semitism and views on race, was a regular visitor to Bad Ems, and Forouhar appropriates the composer’s rendition of this myth, to invoke the cautionary nature of fairytales and their possible misuse. The work’s playful use of clashing cultural references and contrasting black and white shapes emphasises what the artist views as the importance of moving beyond ‘such opposites as good and evil, fortune and misfortune, the beautiful and ugly’.
Emily Jacir
b.1970 Palestine/United States
Lives and works in Ramallah and New York

Based in both Ramallah - the Palestinian city on the West Bank - and New York, Emily Jacir works across diverse media to make art that addresses the plight of the Palestinian people, and which encompasses geopolitical issues as well as deeply personal stories. As a United States citizen, Jacir is able to travel with relative freedom between Israel, Palestine and the rest of the world. Her experiences in these places and engagement with the friends, family and strangers she meets there are an ongoing source of inspiration for her work.

Jacir’s series Where we come from 2001-03 takes as its point of departure a question posed by Jacir: ‘If I could do something for you anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?’ Using the freedom of movement granted by her US passport, Jacir attempted to carry out the wishes of those with restricted access in their own country, documenting the results in text, photography and video. The works include requests from Palestinians such as ‘Bring me Arak (an aniseed liquor). Arak is not available in Gaza, and as a Gazan I am not permitted to leave Gaza, so I cannot get it myself’ to requests from Palestinians living in exile, such as ‘Go to Jaffa and find my family home and take a picture. As a refugee, I am denied a visit to my country by the Israelis, who control all borders, in defiance of UN resolutions’, to ‘Spend a day enjoying Jerusalem freely. I always wanted to go there without any fear, without feeling that I might be stopped and asked for my I.D. . . . just enjoy Jerusalem as much as you can. I need special permission to go to Jerusalem and if I go without permission I will be fined and imprisoned’.
Sharif Waked
b.1964 Palestine/Israel
Lives and works in Haifa and Nazareth

Sharif Waked's videos, installations and paintings explore contemporary politics and history. He reflects on propaganda strategies and globalised images of conflict and reminds viewers of Islamic culture's rich heritage of literature and art.
To be continued… 2009 replicates the codes and conventions of a martyrdom video - the recording of a suicide bomber's last testimony prior to carrying out his or her operation. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, martyrdom videos became a ubiquitous signifier of terrorism. What appears in this work to be a suicide bomber's final declaration is, in fact, a famous Palestinian actor's narration of a story from The Thousand and One Nights, a classic text of the Islamic Golden Age. Here Waked points to cultural myopia and recent outpourings of irrational fear of Islam, and reinserts an awareness of a longstanding literary tradition into the circulation of martyrdom videos and images of fundamentalist madrasahs and training camps - the main representations of Islam in the media today.
Mitra Tabrizian | Iran/England | City, London 2008 | Type C photograph | 122 x 250cm | Purchased 2010 with a special allocation from the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
decolonizing.ps | est. 2007 | Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal, Eyal Weizman | The Book of Migration (detail) 2009 | Colour prints | Book Design: Diego Segatto (OpenQuadra | Photos: Francesco Mattuzzi | Photomontage: Sara Pellegrini | Special thanks to Palestine Wildlife
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian | Iran b.1924 | Lightning for Neda2009 | Mirror mosaic, reverse-glass painting, plaster on wood | Six panels: 300 x 1200cm (overall) | The artist dedicates this work to the loving memory of her late husband Dr Abolbashar Farmanfarmaian. Purchased 2009. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Parastou Forouhar | Iran b.1962 | Swanrider 2004 | Type C photograph on paper, ed. 1/2 (AP) | 160 x 160cm | Purchased 2009 with funds from Tim Fairfax, AM, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Emily Jacir / Palestine/United States b.1970 / Where we come from (Habib) 2001-03 / Laser print on paper; Type C photograph on paper mounted on cintra / Laser print: 22.2 x 28.6 x 2.5cm (framed); Type C photograph: 30.5 x 22.9 x 2cm / Purchased 2006 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Sharif Waked | To be continued (detail) 2009 | Single channel video, 41:33 minutes, ed.4/5 | SD Video: 4:3, 41:22 minutes, colour, stereo (Arabic with English subtitles) | Purchased 2010 with a special allocation from the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
About Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

The Queensland Art Gallery is Queensland's premier visual arts institution and a leading art museum nationally. The Gallery's driving philosophy is to connect art and people.

The Gallery was established in 1895 as the Queensland National Art Gallery. Throughout its early history the Gallery was housed in a series of temporary premises, and did not have a permanent home until the opening of its current architecturally acclaimed building on Brisbane's south bank in 1982.

Since opening, the Gallery's Collection, exhibitions, audiences and programs have grown in size, complexity and diversity. To cater for the community's future needs, during the 1990s the Gallery embarked on extensive research and wide consultation, resulting in the concept of a second building.

The Gallery of Modern Art, which opened in December 2006, complements the Queensland Art Gallery building. Situated at Kurilpa Point only 150 metres from the Queensland Art Gallery building, the Gallery of Modern Art focuses on the art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The Gallery's flagship project is the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art series of exhibitions, now a major event on the national and international arts calendar. The expertise developed from staging the Triennial for over a decade has led to the establishment of the Australian Centre of Asia-Pacific Art (ACAPA), to foster alliances, scholarship and publishing, and the formation of an internationally significant collection of art from the Asia-Pacific region.

Similarly, the Gallery is committed to profiling Indigenous Australian art and strengthening relationships with Queensland's Indigenous communities.

The Gallery is also recognised as an international leader in presenting innovative museum-based learning programs for children. These programs are coordinated through the Children's Art Centre.

To ensure all Queenslanders have access to the Collection, travelling exhibitions tour to regional and remote centres of the state.

The Gallery's governing body is a Board of Trustees appointed by the Queensland Government, and it is managed by an Executive Management Team.
qag.qld.gov.au