Indigenous Australian art invites a dialog between cultures
Published: Friday, Dec 22nd 2023, 09:50
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"High five!" is the title of an exhibition at the Fondation Opale in Lens near Sierre VS. What makes it special: For five years now, the foundation has been home to a collection of contemporary Aboriginal art - and now invites visitors to question social constructions.
For the "High Five!" exhibition, 26 personalities were invited to select an Aboriginal artwork from the Fondation Opale collection and propose another, mirror-image work that belongs to them or that they have created. The result was mostly colorful duos. These encounters between works - some only a few centimetres in size, others larger-than-life installations - are the focus of the exhibition.
"Some of the duos are linked by their aesthetics, others by the theme or the sentiment," Bérengère Primat, founder and president of the Fondation Opale, told the Keystone-SDA news agency. The foundation is dedicated to disseminating the art of Aboriginal Australians in Europe.
Among the personalities who have chosen the couples are artists such as Bernhard Lüthi, John Armleder, Sasha Huber and Namsa Leuba, director Claude Barras, director of the Grand Théâtre de Genève Aviel Cahnle, director of the Musée d'Art Brut Sarah Lombardi, fashion designer Kevin Germanier, actress Noémie Schmidt and neuroscientist Pierre Magistretti.
In the mirror of society
According to the exhibition catalog, works of art often reflect the societies in which they were created, their beliefs, attitudes and values. Art enables the respective community to "express its identity". And so "High Five!" with its 60 works from different areas does not invite comparison. Rather, the Fondation Opale hopes that its fifth anniversary will bring about a "critical and profound" dialog between cultures.
In order to stimulate such a dialog, mirrors were set up at various points in the exhibition to reflect both the works and the visitors: "What do we project, what image or images of ourselves do these works reflect back to us?" asked Gautier Chiarini, Director of the Foundation. The actual theme is these reflections, "these invisible threads that are created between the one and the other".
High Five!" is complemented by the "sharp eye" of Daniel Browning. He is a journalist and artist from the Aboriginal communities of Bundjalung and Kullilli. And he asked most of the 26 Swiss personalities to explain their duo. He commented on the results, which can be read in the exhibition catalog.
The Fondation Opale opened its premises in Lens in Valais in December 2018 and has welcomed around 85,000 people since then, according to founder Bérengère Primat. The building was redesigned and enlarged to mark the anniversary. The foundation now has a new storage room for the collection, an auditorium, a meeting room and a media library dedicated to contemporary Aboriginal art. The exhibition "High Five!" can be seen until April 14.
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