Papunya Tula: Celebrating 40 at Araluen

In addition to the exhibition at the Papunya Tula gallery, there’s a major retrospective of the company’s work at Alice Springs’ Araluen Arts Centre.  Curator Stephen Williamson has produced some spectacular shows at Araluen Galleries in recent years, including the Desert Mob exhibitions, but he may well have outdone himself this time with a show that records Alice’s own interactions with Papunya Tula Artists over the last forty years.  Here’s the description from Araluen’s website, which sums it up far better than I could.

Unique perspectives: Papunya Tula Artists and the Alice Springs Community celebrates the 40th anniversary of Papunya Tula Artists and explores the significant place this Company holds in the Alice Springs community. Developed in partnership with Papunya Tula Artists, Unique Perspectivesbrings together eighty paintings by forty-eight individual artists that have been loaned from the Alice Springs community including private collectors and local arts organisations.

This exhibition showcases works from each of the four decades of painting and the significant developments that have taken place in the arts practice across these years. It also pays homage to some of the key artists who have led this movement and contributed significantly to the national and international reputation and recognition of Papunya Tula Artists, offering viewers an insight into the development of these individual artists.

Unique Perspectives provides a glimpse into the genesis of the Western Desert art movement and the works of many of the subsequent artists to paint during the company’s history from the perspective of those who live in Central Australia. Unique Perspectives is more about the personal than the public experience of Papunya Tula Artists. It is a celebration of not only the Company’s remarkable forty years and the impressive art its artists have produced, but also a celebration of the genuine human connections the creation of Papunya Tula Artist has enabled: between artists, arts workers and the community of Alice Springs.

To accompany the exhibition a full page catalogue has been produced which includes images of all the paintings and a series of essays written specifically for this exhibition.

I haven’t yet seen the catalog, but Stephen has generously shared a selection of installation shots of Unique perspectives: Papunya Tula Artists and the Alice Springs Community with me, and they are collected into the slide show that follows.

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The Alice Springs News Online published a report on the opening ceremonies at Araluen, including remarks by Alison Anderson.