The Australian
National University’s exhibition, Antarctica, at ANU Drill Hall Gallery in
Canberra, from 24 May to 1 July 2012, is a contrast of images: from white to
dark, ice to snow, pure to contaminated, virgin to discovered, hidden to
exposed, inhuman to humane, fear to astonishment, fragile to forceful, humanity’s
insignificance to nature’s magnificence, and inhospitable desolation to
astounding beauty.
A range of artists
including Sidney Nolan, Jan Senbergs, Bea Maddock, Jorj Schmeissser, Anne
Noble, Philip Hughes and Chris Drury give the vastness of the landscape amazing
life. All seven artists have visited Antarctica, from 1964 to 2006, describing
it as a crystal desert, a frozen sea, and a melting landscape.
The Drill Hall
Gallery continues to celebrate the centenary of Douglas Mawson’s scientific
expedition of 1911-1914 to the Antarctic and the Antarctic Treaty signed by 12
nations, commencing in July 1961, that the Norwegian delegation declared “might
be the great stepping stone towards world peace.” Australia’s Prime Minister
Robert Menzies opened the 1961 meeting, stating that “Australians have a deep
sense of neighbourhood about the Antarctic.” The first expeditions in the 1950s
were restricted to scientists and explorers, with programs for artists initiated
from 1962.
Of the seven
artists presented in the exhibition, Sidney Nolan travelled to Antarctic in
1964 for 8 days with the United States naval and scientific bases. The journey
inspired 68 paintings, six of which are included in the exhibition. Jan
Senbergs and Bea Maddock, both former Creative Arts Fellows at the ANU, visited
under the Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship program in 1987. The
photographer, Anne Noble, travelled as an Antarctica New Zealand Arts Fellow in
2001. Philip Hughes visited under the British Antarctic Survey’s Artists and
Writers Program in 2001, and Chris Drury travelled under the same program in
2006.
One of the most
striking pieces is Nolan’s “Mount Erebus” for its portrayal of a dark,
foreboding force of nature. Jan Senbergs’ works show the high-tech modular
structures of the settlements in comparison to earlier huts used as
accommodation for scientists – including dumped machinery and discarded items
of junk. Bea Maddock presents line drawings in forty units/panels that show the
transforming shape of icebergs with poetic phrases embossed underneath each
unit. Jorj Schmeisser uses austere but intricate drawings to layer his images
until an entire scene emerges in black and white. Anne Noble photographs plumes
of floating ice showing motions and movements, as well as moments of contact between
humans and their environment. Philip Hughes typically shows the landscape at a
distance in painting form, sometimes from above. Often he depicts a horizontal
line of tents or a fractured rock ridge. Chris Drury, in his three-month
residency in Antarctica, uses a range of media, from photographs to video. In
his video, the sounds of water, wind, and ice are eerily present as close-ups
of the landscape and glacial flux appear in their starkness.
What is evident
in the collection is the continual changing landscape, its expansiveness, its
dangers and fascinations, its impact on humans, its discarded and disused debris,
and humans’ throwing light on a remote iced land.
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