The forthcoming exhibition We Were Lost in Our Country, which takes its name from the Tuan Andrew Nguyen film of 2019, tells the story of the Native Title championing Ngurrara Canvas II of 1997, made by Western Desert artists from the Walmajarri, Wangkajunga, Mangala and Juwaliny communities and language groups.
Gathering at the Pirnini station near Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley, the group determined that by co-authoring a painting they would be able to prove ownership and long association with the land. Monumental in scale, the painting is effectively a memory map charting 40,000 years of direct connection with the land.
The success of their Native Title bid has acted as a model for the understanding and creation of political autonomy, culture and identity.
‘We Were Lost in Our Country explores questions of personal agency, inherited trauma and intergenerational transmission, through a conversation among ancestors and descendants,’ says Nguyen who uses his film to document the continuance of the painting’s meanings.
The film will be shown with works by artists from the Western Desert, some of whom were involved in painting the Ngurrara Canvas II, such as Jimmy Pike, Ngirlpirr Spider Snell, Mawukura Jimmy Nerrimah, and Tommy May Ngarralja. Others of significance to also be included in the exhibition include Eubena Nampitjin, Christine Yukenbarri, Rosie Nanyumi and Queenie McKenzie.
Moreover, some of these are part of the Dennis and Debra Scholl gifted collection, which has recently been joined by another gift to the Nevada Museum of Art – the Kaplan Levi Collection of Contemporary Aboriginal Art (Margaret Levi and Robert Kaplan).
‘Our romance with Australian Aboriginal art began more than 30 years ago,’ says Robert Kaplan. ‘Both of us grew up with art in our lives, thanks to mothers who believed in owning it and in supporting the institutions that displayed it. Both of us had collected contemporary art prior to our marriage in 1990, and Margaret had already acquired a small collection of Australian art during her regular visits to universities there. Our common commitment emerged during our first joint visit to Sydney in 1991, when we bought two pieces… [That year] we committed ourselves to developing a museum-quality collection.’
The Kaplan Levi Collection is well-known with both the Seattle Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Washington DC) having displayed work from the holding.
The Dennis and Debra Scholl donation of 2017 is testament to the Miami-based couple’s ongoing commitment to Australian First Nations art, which they have been collecting since the early 2000s when advised that Australia’s best contemporary art was that of Aboriginal artists. In 2017, half the collection, comprising around 400 museum quality pieces, was equally distributed between the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami and the Nevada Museum of Art, which is now home to one of the largest public collections of Aboriginal art in the US.
The donations included works by Paddy Bedford, Nonggirrnga Marawili, Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri and Gulumbu Yunupingu. In 2022 the Scholls were acknowledged as Members of the Order of Australia for their efforts to collect, donate and promote contemporary Aboriginal artworks.
However, it is the ability of these collections to give gravitas to the Museum’s already excellent body of First Nation art that gives these gifts such resonance. ‘The addition of these works will deepen the exploration and study of the Greater West. This is a gift of substantial importance that adds significantly to the breadth and depth of the Museum’s permanent collection,’ says David B Walker, CEO of the Nevada Museum of Art, explaining the impact of the more recent Kaplan Levi gift.
Read: A plethora of gallery activities
Effectively, these gifts build on the foundational strength of the Museum to host diverse and engaging exhibitions such as We Were Lost in Our Country.
The exhibition opens on 29 June 2024 and is on display until 23 March 2025.
For more information on the Nevada Museum of Art, visit nevadaart.org or follow the Museum on Facebook and Instagram @nevadaart
The writer visited Reno as the guest of Travel Nevada.
