Australian art show in London - 'inadequate' and 'tokenistic'

Australian art show in London – the reviews are in

Critics scathing about highly publicised exhibition at the Royal Academy, labelling it 'inadequate' and 'tokenistic'

Helen Davidson

A highly publicised and much-anticipated exhibition of Australian art at London's Royal Academy is notable for many things: it is the first major survey of Australian art in London for 50 years; its 200 works include exquisite paintings by Sidney Nolan; and it is introduced by Antony Gormley.

But in Britain it has become famous for the reviews, which have ranged from lukewarm disappointment to a hatred so strong that the rarely used phrase "cascade of diarrhoea" makes an appearance.

The Royal Academy's exhibition Australia opened in London this week. The academy described it as shedding light on "a period of rapid and intense change; from the impact of colonisation on an indigenous people, to the pioneering nation-building of the 19th century through to the enterprising urbanisation of the last 100 years".

But the Sunday Times' Waldemar Januszczak called it "tourist tat". The reviewer described a piece by John Olsen as evoking "the sensation of standing under a cascade of diarrhoea".

He lamented the lack of Indigenous art and said the examples included were "problematic and tokenistic". He also labelled Frederick McCubbin's The Pioneer as "poverty porn" and said Fred Williams "splatters the delicate emptiness of the desert with thick cowpats of minimalism" – but he did find praise for Albert Namatjira and Sidney Nolan.

Whether or not Australians care that British press aren't taking kindly to the exhibition was questioned by the BBC's former Australian correspondent Nick Bryant, who tweeted on Monday: "Interesting cultural moment for Australia: will UK trashing of art exhibition be met by spasms of cringe or collective shrug of shoulders?"

Most reviewers were disappointed by the Indigenous works in the exhibition. "For these examples of contemporary Aboriginal work are so obviously the stale rejiggings of a half-remembered heritage wrecked by the European alcohol, religion and servitude that have rendered purposeless all relics of their ancient and mysterious past," wrote theEvening Standard's Brian Sewell, who later labelled the entire exhibition "inadequate".

The Independent noted that not much Australian art beyond Nolan, Williams and Arthur Boyd had been covered in Britain – and that's Australia's fault.

"You can partly blame the Australians themselves for the lack of appreciation. More than most countries, it has carried a baggage of hyper-sensitivity about its place in the world," wrote Adrian Hamilton.

The elevation of Aboriginal art during the past 20 years in Australia had "an element of penance", the reviewer said.

He described the exhibition as more of "a survey of Australian landscape rather than its art as a whole. That leaves some glaring gaps in figurative art. William Dobell is noticeable by his absence, as are painters such as Clifton Pugh and Constance Stokes."

The Guardian was slightly kinder. Adrian Searle wrote that "the last 60-odd years of Australian art history are treated in a hurried, piecemeal way".

He wrote: "However enlightening parts of the earlier sections are, the show fails to give a sense of any of the more recent art except in a tokenistic way."

Emily Kame Kngwarreye's Big Yam Dreaming was "startling" and an 1803 watercolour by English artist William Westall was "a strange and haunting record", he said.

The Telegraph's Adrian Sooke was the most positive, saying the exhibition made "a pretty good fist" of trying to "encapsulate the art of an entire continent".

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/23/australia-art-london-reviews-roundup