First Nations Telegraph

Eora Nation: UNSW Galleries is pleased to announce 'Gordon Hookey: A MURRIALITY’, from 20 July to 2 October 2022. This landmark exhibition charts three decades of artmaking and activism by one of Australia’s most respected Indigenous artists.
Gordon Hookey’s work is celebrated for its biting satire of Australian culture and politics, clever critique of racism, and exploration of oral and image-based history-making traditions.

‘A MURRIALITY’ charts Hookey’s practice in tandem with Australian political life and features a major new commission that extends his acclaimed series of protest banners. Inspired by those made for the public realm, Hookey’s eight new banners provide timely socio-political commentary while also imagining a truly empowered Indigenous future. For Gordon these works are “not the actual protest; they’re about our protest.”

Across sculpture, printmaking, video, and large-scale painting, ‘A MURRIALITY’ presents perspectives on historical and contemporary issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Through the lens of Hookey’s lived experience as a Murri person, this includes legal injustices, international conflict, cultural representations, and language.
Hookey is a UNSW Art & Design graduate and a core member of Queensland’s leading Indigenous arts collective proppaNOW. Hookey explains: ‘My contemporaries and I are making history⎯we are making culture and culture is our everyday engagement to everything.’

‘Gordon Hookey: A MURRIALITY’ is co-curated by José Da Silva (Director, UNSW Galleries) and Liz Nowell (Director, Institute of Modern Art) and developed in partnership with the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, where the exhibition will be presented from 21 October to 23 December 2022.

Following these exhibitions, the project begins a national tour in 2023 with the support of the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program. It will be presented at Caboolture Regional Gallery, Hervey Bay Regional, Cairns Regional Art Gallery, Cloncurry Shire Dr David Harvey-Sutton Gallery, Bega Regional Gallery (Sep – Oct 2024) and Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts.

‘Gordon Hookey: A MURRIALITY’ is also assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; Gordon Darling Foundation, UNSW Commissioners Circle, and IMA Commissioners Circle.

EXHIBITION DETAILS
Where: UNSW Galleries
Address: Cnr of Oxford Street and Greens Road, Paddington, Bidjigal and Gadigal Country
Tel: 02 8936 0888
When: 30 July – 2 October 2022
Opening: Friday 29 July 6.00 – 8.00pm
Hours: Wednesday – Friday (10am – 5pm) and Saturday – Sunday (12pm – 5pm)
Closed on public holidays
Tickets: Free
Website: unsw.to/galleries