News

Saturday 20 April 2024

Creative Australia is delighted to announce that Archie Moore’s exhibition kith and kin at the Australia Pavilion has been awarded the prestigious Golden Lion for Best National Participation at La Biennale de Venezia 2024. This is the first time in history an Australian artist has received this accolade.

In kith and kin, Moore transforms the Australia Pavilion with an expansive, genealogical chart spanning 65,000 years. kith and kin is curated by Ellie Buttrose and commissioned by Creative Australia.

The artwork bridges the personal and the political. While many of the stories in kith and kin are specific to the artist’s family, they mirror narratives throughout the world. Through this lens Moore highlights our shared ancestry and humanity: through the interconnectedness of people, place and time.

Awarding the accolade, the jury of the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia said:

“In this quiet, impactful pavilion, Archie Moore worked for months to hand-draw in chalk a monumental First Nation family tree. Thus 65,000 years of history (both recorded and lost) are inscribed on the dark walls and ceiling, inviting viewers to fill in the blanks and grasp the inherent fragility of this mournful archive. The official documents drawn up by the State float in a moat of water. The result of Moore’s intensive research, these documents reflect the high rates of incarceration of First Nations people.

“This installation stands out for its strong aesthetic, its lyricism and its invocation of a shared loss of an occluded past. With his inventory of thousands of names, Moore also offers a glimmer of the possibility of recovery.”

Gennaro Sangiuliano Ministro della Cultura_Australia_Ph Andrea Avezzu

Gennaro Sangiuliano Ministro della Cultura Australia. Photo: Andrea Avezzu

On receiving this award, Archie Moore said:

“As the water flows through the canals of Venice to the lagoon, then to the Adriatic Sea, it then travels to the oceans and to the rest of the world – enveloping the continent of Australia – connecting us all here on Earth. Aboriginal kinship systems include all living things from the environment in a larger network of relatedness, the land itself can be a mentor or a parent to a child. We are all one and share a responsibility of care to all living things now and into the future.

“I am very grateful for this accolade; it makes me feel honoured to be rewarded for the hard work one does. I am grateful to everyone who has always been part of my journey – from my kith to my kin – to my Creative Australia team and everyone else back home and those of the Venice lagoon.”

Read the Golden Lion media release

Take a virtual tour of kith and kin

kith and kin’ is a memorial dedicated to every living thing that has ever lived, it is a space for quiet reflection on the past, the present and the future’

– Archie Moore

First Nations peoples of Australia are among the oldest continuous living cultures on earth; Archie Moore’s kith and kin affirms this by tracing the artist’s Kamilaroi and Bigambul relations over 65,000+ years. His choice of materials for this celestial map of names — fragile chalk on blackboard — addresses the insufficient dissemination of Indigenous histories.

The complexity of First Nations kinship systems exceeds the standard genealogical chart. Archie’s extensive drawing captures the common ancestors of all humans, emphasising our kinship responsibilities to each other. In a Kamilaroi understanding of time, past, present and future are co-present. By placing tens of thousands of years of kin on a single continuum, Archie enfolds audiences within the everywhen.

While many of the stories in kith and kin are specific to the artist’s family, they mirror narratives throughout the world. Through this lens Moore highlights our shared ancestry and humanity: through the interconnectedness of people, place and time.

Archie Moore / kith and kin 2024 / Australia Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2024 / Photographer Andrea Rossetti / © the artist / Images courtesy of the artist and The Commercial 

Archie Moore / kith and kin 2024 / Australia Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2024 / Photographer Andrea Rossetti / © the artist / Images courtesy of the artist and The Commercial 

Archie Moore / kith and kin 2024 / Australia Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2024 / Photographer Andrea Rossetti / © the artist / Images courtesy of the artist and The Commercial 

In discussion with kith and kin

Creative Australia is pleased to present ‘In discussion with kith and kin in partnership with ArtReview.

Bringing together leading artists, curators, journalists and writers from across the globe, ‘In discussion with kith and kin’ is a series of panels that invite audiences to engage in greater depth with art’s role in abolition movements and First Nations language maintenance. These themes underpin Archie Moore’s kith and kin presented in the Australia Pavilion, commissioned by Creative Australia and curated by Ellie Buttrose.

Livestream #1

Livestream #2


Australia Pavilion Launch Livestream

Rewatch the livestream on @ausatvenice below.

Watch here

Archie Moore and Ellie Buttrose are the artist and curator commissioned by Creative Australia to exhibit at the Australia Pavilion for the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Creative Australia is the commissioner for Australia’s National Participation at the Venice Biennale 2024 and the producer of the Australia at the Venice Biennale project.


Image courtesy of Creative Australia. Photo: Rhett Hammerton.

Click on the ‘+’ to read the bios.

Artistic Team Announcement: Weds 8 Feb 2024

Kamilaroi/Bigambul artist Archie Moore (b. 1970, Toowoomba) works across media in conceptual, research-based portrayals of self and national histories. His ongoing interests include key signifiers of identity (skin, language, smell, home, genealogy, flags), the borders of intercultural understanding and misunderstanding and the wider concerns of racism. 

Recent solo exhibitions by Archie include: Pillors of Democracy, 2023, Cairns Art Gallery; Dwelling (Victorian Issue), 2022, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne; The Colour Line: Archie Moore & W.E.B. Du Bois, 2021, University of New South Wales Galleries, Sydney; and Archie Moore 1970–2018, 2018, Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane. Significant recent group exhibitions comprise: Ever Present: First Peoples Art of Australia, 2022, National Gallery of Singapore; Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art, 2022, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; UN/LEARNING AUSTRALIA, 2021, Seoul Museum of Art; Indigenous Art Triennial, 2017, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; The National: New Australian Art, 2017, Carriageworks, Sydney; and Biennale of Sydney, 2016, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. In 2018, Archies United Neytions was permanently installed at Sydney Airports International Terminal. 

Archies artworks are held in major public collections across Australia including: Artbank; Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane; Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; Murray Art Museum Albury; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Portrait Gallery, Canberra; Newcastle Art Gallery; Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Queensland University of Technology Art Museum, Brisbane; University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane; and University of Sydney; and University of Technology Sydney. His art is also held in the collection of Fondation Opale, Lens, Switzerland. 

Archie Moore is represented by The Commercial, Sydney. 

How aesthetic debates inform the political imaginary is the subject of Ellie Buttroses curatorial projects and critical writing. 

Ellie is a Curator at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane. With Katina Davidson, Curator, Indigenous Australian Art, she co-curated Embodied Knowledge, 2022, that featured the centrepiece commission Inert State, 2022, by Archie Moore. Ellie recently curated: Living Patterns, 2023, focused on artists who deploy abstraction as a political as well as formal device; Work, Work, Work, 2019, about the entwinement of civic and artistic labour; and Limitless Horizon: Vertical Perspective, 2017, which rethought the impact of drone vision on contemporary art via the bird’s-eye view paintings of First Nations Australian songlines and the floating perspective in Chinese and Japanese landscape painting traditions. Ellie is a member of the curatorial team for The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, 2024, 2021 and 2018. 

In 2020, 2019 and 2018, Ellie was a guest curator for the Brisbane International Film Festival; she curated Material Place: Reconsidering Australian Landscapes, 2019, at University of New South Wales Galleries, Sydney, which considered how experiments with artistic media reflect changing attitudes towards the environment; and served on the curatorium for Cosmopolis: Collective Intelligence, 2017, at Centre Pompidou, Paris, that showcased artistic practices centred on knowledge sharing and the development of social fabric. 

In the media

Something Curated, April 2024: Behind the Biennale: Archie Moore Centres Aboriginal Narratives at the Australia Pavilion

Berlin Art Link, April 2024: The Australia Pavilion: An Interview with Archie Moore

Designboom, April 2024: Ultimate Guide to Venice Biennale Arte 2024

Frieze, March 2024: Roundtable: Indigenous Artists at the Venice Biennale

Art Asia Pacific, March 2024: Previews: National & Collateral Pavilions at the 60th Venice Biennale

Widewalls, February 2024: Australia’s 2024 Venice Biennale Pavilion to Center Around First Nations

Ocula, February 2024: Australia Pavilion 2024 Pays Homage to First Nations

Guardian Australia, February 2024: Venice Biennale 2024: Australian pavilion to explore colonisation, incarceration and First Nations resilience

Sydney Morning Herald, February 2024: Convicts and killers: What one man’s colourful family history tells us about ourselves

Art Guide Australia, February 2024: 10 artists to watch in 2024

Inside the Gallery Podcast, March 2023: INSIDE THE GALLERY (Australia) – ARCHIE MOORE AT VENICE BIENNALE

ArtsHub, February 2023: What Archie Moore says about heading to Venice Biennale

Contact Magazine, UQ, February 2023: Creating ripples on the world stage

ABC Radio, February 2023: ‘Presenting not representing’: Archie Moore will feature at the Venice Biennale

Sydney Morning Herald, February 2023: Venice Biennale: Indigenous artist Archie Moore to represent Australia

Gertrude, February 2023: Archie Moore announced as Australia’s representative at the 60th Venice Biennale

Art Guide Australia, February 2023: Archie Moore is heading to Venice Biennale in 2024

National Indigenous Times, February 2023: Queensland artist Archie Moore to represent Australia at Venice Biennale 2024

QAGOMA, February 2023: Queensland Artist Archie Moore and QAGOMA Curator Ellie Buttrose to Represent Australia at Venice Biennale in 2024

 

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On Thursday 1 February 224, La Biennale di Venezia announced the participation of Marlene Gilson and Naminapu Maymuru-White as part of Foreigners Everywhere – Stranieri Ovunque, curated by Adriano Pedrosa.

The two First Nations artists will present significant bodies of work, Saturday 20 April – Sunday 24 November, supported by Creative Australia investment.

Gilson and Maymuru-White will join Archie Moore and Ellie Buttrose in Venice as the artist and curator commissioned by Creative Australia to exhibit at the Australia Pavilion.

Read the media release.