Aboriginal Australian art is the oldest continuous artistic tradition and has emerged as one of the world’s most important contemporary art movements. Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri, a Pintupi man, was one of Australia’s most acclaimed artists and a founder of the Western Desert art movement. Namarari’s works reveal the depth and complexity of his artistic expression as he strove to present the ancestral narratives of his desert homelands in new and innovative ways.
Join Dr. Henry Skerritt, Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Virginia and Curator of Research at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection for a lively talk about the dynamic works featured in Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri: Mysteries that Remain.
About the Speaker:
Henry Skerritt is Assistant Professor in Department of Art at the University of Virginia and Curator of Research at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia. He has curated over twenty exhibitions in the United States and Australia, including No Boundaries: Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Abstract Painting (Nevada Museum of Art and touring); A World of Relations (Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth) and Irrititja Kuwarri Tjungu | Past and Present Together: Fifty Years of Papunya Tula Artists (Kluge-Ruhe and touring). Since 2015, he has worked with Yolŋu artists and knowledge-holders to curate the exhibition Maḏayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala which is currently on display at the Asia Society in New York. Along with Wukuṉ Waṉambi and Kade McDonald, Skerritt edited the major bilingual catalogue to accompany the exhibition. Skerritt has written extensively on Aboriginal art, contributing to major exhibition catalogues for institutions including the National Museum of Australia; Harvard Art Museums; and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Skerritt holds a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Pittsburgh and a Masters in Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne.
Image:
Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri (Pintupi, 1926 – 1998), Mitukatjirri (formerly Men’s Corroboree), 1971-1972, synthetic polymer paint on composition board, 25 3/16 x 18 3/16 x 7/8 in., Gift of John W. Kluge, 1997, Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia, 1991.0021.021.