[MSN] France to open museum which will pay homage to Indigenous culture

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France to open museum which will pay homage to Indigenous culture

The World Today - Tuesday, 30 May , 2006  12:45:00
Reporter: Sabra Lane

EDMOND ROY: From next June Paris will introduce millions of people to the
wonders of Australian Indigenous art.

On June the 23rd, President Jacques Chirac will open the city's newest
museum, the Musee du Quai Branly.

It's a multi-million dollar monument to non-western art and it will
permanently pay homage to Australia's Indigenous culture.

The museum commissioned eight artists to fill more than 2,500 square metres
of the building's ceilings, walls and facades.

Sabra Lane caught up with one of the artists and curators this morning.

SABRA LANE: Art lovers are familiar with the Louvre and the Pompidou. The
French hope the Branly will soon be just as famous.

Tucked away near the Eiffel Tower, the museum will house Indigenous art from
Oceania, Africa, Asia and Australia.

French President Jacques Chirac will open it next month.

Hetti Perkins is the Co-curator of the Australian Indigenous art component. 

HETTI PERKINS: It's a pet project of the President, Jacques Chirac, so you
know, you don't get any better credentials than that really, and what's
wonderful for us as Australians is that the architect Jean Nouvel included
in his winning proposal for the new museum the idea that Australian
Indigenous artists only would make works that would become part of the
permanent fabric of one of the buildings on the site.

SABRA LANE: While there'll be specific small pieces of Indigenous art within
the gallery, the walls and ceiling of the building have become huge
canvasses.

Two and a half thousand square kilometres of the building will be wrapped in
images from the Dreamtime, and more contemporary visions of Australia.

Eight artists were selected. Hetti Perkins had the tough job of choosing
them.

HETTI PERKINS: That was the hardest part (laughs). Selecting the artists was
a real challenge. I mean, we, as we all know in Australia, we're privileged
to share in one of the world's most dynamic contemporary art movements, as
well as being inheritors of the oldest continuous cultural tradition in the
world.

SABRA LANE: Twenty-four hours a day people will be able to marvel at the
work and be inspired.

Hetti Perkins explains what some of the work will look like.

HETTI PERKINS: It's Tommy Watson's work. His work is a series of enamelled
stainless steel panels which have been fixed to the top-floor ceiling, and
his work's very expressive and bright, the colouring's very vivid, pinks and
greens and yellows and whites.

So, in my imagination, it's almost as if people looking up to this building
during the day or night, it's almost like, I don't know, a display of
fireworks exploding in the sky of Paris.

SABRA LANE: Fifty-nine-year-old Gulumbu Yunupingu from Arnhem Land is a
relative newcomer to art. She picked up her first brush just six years ago.

Her work's been replicated on a huge ceiling in the museum. The work's
called Garak, which means The Universe - the paintings inspired from stories
handed down through the generations.

GULUMBU YUNUPINGU: It's not for myself and for my family, but for everyone.

We have this universe, all around this universe, and it's amazing to see
stars, how wonderful the universe we have.

EDMOND ROY: Artist Gulumbu Yunupingu ending that report by Sabra Lane. 

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1651068.htm