Power+Colour is a handsome and weighty volume that revels in the pattern, shimmer and colour of recent Indigenous painting. This is Corrigan’s second collection book – the first was New Beginnings (McCulloch&McCulloch, 2008), a curated selection of his post-2000 collection of contemporary Aboriginal painting, which included 95 paintings by 55 artists. Power+Colour is an extension of that, publishing an update on this collector’s journey, with 129 works by 77 artists.
While both have Corrigan in common, this second book has a different ambience reflecting the change in publisher, designer, and author. Significantly, it also reflects the change in Corrigan’s collecting journey since 2008, with few works from the Central Desert. The recent focus has been on outlying areas – work from Mornington and Bentinck Islands and the Lockhart River (QLD), the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia, with paintings from the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) and Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands in both publications.
Where New Beginnings included texts by Emily McCulloch, Ross Gibson and a foreword by Margo Neale, Power+Colour is solely authored by Jane Raffan, with two essays. The first, ‘Corrigan The Collector’, extends what has already been written about him. His enthusiastic approach to visual art has seen him create collections of lead soldiers (at four years), 78 RPM records (at 15 years), and since, contemporary Australian photography, ex libris book plates, Australian art books, and contemporary Australian art more generally. His engagement with the industry, its artists and individuals is strong and Raffan’s essay notes his philanthropy and profile within the industry – the Archibald portraits, the exhibitions, the donations – and includes photographs of Corrigan with arts luminaries from Rosella Namok to James Morrison and Ken Done. It captures the peripatetic energy of the man.
The second essay, titled ‘Power+Colour: Law and Country’, acknowledges the inspiration of Judith Ryan’s Colour Power: Aboriginal Art Post 1984 exhibition, shown at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2004, and Corrigan’s pursuit of new painting that radiates power: the interconnected power of law and country’[i]. In its identification of power (Tjukurpa or Aboriginal law) and the colour which describes country, the essay explores the cultural and political significance of Aboriginal painting – the importance of visual art in recent developments in Aboriginal native title, changes in art relating to granting of native title rights (and the return to homelands), and the increasing prominence of Indigenous rights protocols. The ‘Colour’ section of Raffan’s essay looks in more detail at the complexity of culture, its intrinsic relationship to country, and the role of colour in evoking the sensory richness of these Aboriginal connections.
The paintings are reproduced in large format, no more than one per spread in the dominant ‘The Paintings’ section, giving scale and scope to the imagery. Laid out in alphabetical order, with an illustrated and annotated list of works that follow, this is a picture book on a grand scale. The pleasure is in the looking, and its layout speaks to Corrigan’s motivation to ‘share the joy’. Corrigan’s collecting journey is habitually rapid and energetic, and Raffan adds context to the image-making of a cultural industry that continues its rapid evolution. The book draws those synergies together and extends the journey of Corrigan’s collection and ownership into new territories.
Power+Colour: New Paintings from the Corrigan Collection of 21st-century Aboriginal Art
By Jane Raffan
Hardback (300mm x 240mm), RRP $125.00, 368 pages
ISBN 9781921394744
Macmillan Australia
