A Tasmaniana Wrong'ne

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This boomerang is so wrong it is wonderful. It IS Tasmaniana nonetheless. But can you spot what is wrong? There are at least three things! Can you see any of them or more still?

Tasmanian and Iconic

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It is rather ironic, even if it is timely, that Tasmania's Aboriginal shell necklaces, are now deemed to be 'iconic'! The only thing that has changed is that it is now official, or is that a maybe? Anyway, it has been a long time coming.

These necklaces have been 'Tasmanian identifiers' since forever. It is just the case that it has taken until now for Tasmanians and the National Trust to openly acknowledge that it is so. One could argue that it might be the people that should be acknowledged rather than the objects but let's not quibble about that right now.

A cynic could be excused of finding a lot of irony in this little story but let's just celebrate the accolade with the makers and let them savor the moment.

TTN has never been in any doubt at all that the Tasmanian Aboriginal shell necklaces are quintessential exemplars of Tasmaniana. Quite possibly the necklaces' iconic status began with Duterreau and his painting of The Conciliation.

Congratulations all round!

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Notes on Duterreau – Click Here

Tasmaniana: What is it?

The first thing that needs to be said is that Tasmania is an island and its Aboriginal inhabitants represent at least a 35,000 year cultural continuum that was rudely interrupted by European colonial endeavour – and colonialism ultimately enveloped 'the place’ in its global dimension. Before November 24 1642 the island was the whole world – today it sits at its edge and in its own idiosyncratic way, it mirrors it.

“Tasmaniana” is to do with 'placedness' – the celebration of place, placemaking and placemarking. The idea defies clean definitions but when you encounter it you somehow know that you have. Rather than being a ‘concrete’ idea Tasmaniana is ‘liquid’ – it seems to seep everywhere and wet everything. Quite apart from all this, Tasmaniana is a layered and loaded idea full of cultural and social tensions.

Indeed, the so called 'Culture Wars' and 'Black Armband Politics' recently alluded to in the Australian political arena are not so far away from much of what is implied by 'Tasmaniana'.

Yes there is a Tasmaniana Library at the State Library in Hobart but that’s not the end of it and nor could it be any kind of 'Tasmaniana prescriptor'.

Tasmaniana is a somewhat elastic concept; an attitude; a sensibility. It is hardly a concrete yardstick against which to measure things. For those attuned, on the island and elsewhere Tasmaniana is somewhat ubiquitous – it’s in imagery; it can be found in a vista; it’s evident in objects; it’s in sounds and fragrances; it’s experienced; it’s to do with memory and sometimes forgetting; histories reek of it; stories reflect it; it is the kind of idea that is sometimes spiked with shame and guilt.

Tasmaniana is an idea with nuances. Some who embrace the idea do the nuanceing, most know what it is about and all are a part of it.

Tasmania proudly wears the “clean, green and clever” badge. Yet some of Tasmania’s waterways are the dirtiest in the world and many of its landscapes are being devastated while others are becoming deserts – none of which exhibits much cleverness but nonetheless it is a part of the Tasmaniana discourse.

In a kind of a way “wilderness" has come to be a characteristic ‘Tasmaniana Idea’ yet it is an enanthema to many of Tasmania’s Aboriginal people. Tasman’s telescope would be the ‘Holy Grail’ of Tasmaniana yet Tasman himself never set foot on the island and nor was it ‘made in Tasmania' – Tasman has however lent his name to the place albeit that he didn't "discover Tasmania". Tasmaniana is a complex idea – nonetheless it is one where local understandings subsume global visions.

The Benjamin Law Woureddy and Trucaninny Busts

Click on the image to link back to an earlier post with links

The Woureddy and Trucaninny busts by Benjamin Law (1835 & 1836 ) are held at:

1. A Private Collection – New South Wales;
   
2. The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery;
   
3. The National Gallery of Australia;
   
4. The Art Gallery of Western Australia;
   
5. The South Australian Museum – on loan to Art Gallery of South Australia;
   
6. The Australian Museum – on loan to Art Gallery of New South Wales;
   
7. The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery;
   
8. The British Museum;
   
9. The Musée de lHomme; and
   
10. Individual busts are held in numerous other institutions

DESCRIPTION: Patinated plaster; Executed in 1835 (Woureddy) and 1836 (Trucaninny)

Click here to see the National Gallery of Australia Woureddy

Click here to see the National Gallery of Australia Trucaninny

Tasmanian Madness – Contemporary Tasmaniana

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Tasmaniana Map

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The Benjamin Law Woureddy and Trucaninny Busts

The Benjamin Law Woureddy and Trucaninny Busts
Click on the image to link back to an earlier post with links

The Woureddy and Trucaninny busts by Benjamin Law (1835 & 1836 ) are held at:

1. A Private Collection – New South Wales;
   
2. The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery;
   
3. The National Gallery of Australia;
   
4. The Art Gallery of Western Australia;
   
5. The South Australian Museum – on loan to Art Gallery of South Australia;
   
6. The Australian Museum – on loan to Art Gallery of New South Wales;
   
7. The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery;
   
8. The British Museum;
   
9. The Musée de lHomme; and
   
10. Individual busts are held in numerous other institutions

DESCRIPTION: Patinated plaster; Executed in 1835 (Woureddy) and 1836 (Trucaninny)

Click here to see the National Gallery of Australia Woureddy

Click here to see the National Gallery of Australia Trucaninny

Tasmaniana Postcard – Hobart & South

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Tasmaniana Postcard – Cataract Gorge Launceston

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Tasmaniana Postcard – Postcardman

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Hobart : Collins Street Circa: 1910
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French chart showing discoveries made in the South East of Tasmania as far as the year 1802.
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Port Arthur, Dead Island,
Click here to go to the Postcardman's Tasmaniana Website

Thylacine Image Research Network

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As is the way of things this image was rescued during a deceased estate clearup. The story goes that the 'artist' was apparently a little bashful and didn't rate his darkroom effort all that highly. The image was found tucked away and so far as anyone knows it was made but not shown to anyone. We think that it is a great image!

The Thylacine Image Network Collection may well prove of interest or of use to Tasmaphiles wherever they are and possibly a researcher or two as well. If you have a Thylacine Image please register it with TTN.

• Wilfred Batty and his Tasmanian Tiger – Click Here
• Wikepedia Commons Tasmanian Tiger – Click Here
• Tasmanian Tiger Images Tas. State Library – Click Here

There are a lot of image on the internet but we are looking for those quirky, left field or idiosyncratic images that only Tasmaniana collectors are ever likely to know about. Think about it and register your images soon!

For more information eMail: tasmaniana@7250.net

Tasmaniana Postcard Research Collection

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Postcards contain layers of information and if it were otherwise they wouldn't be so collectible. TTN aims to establish networks of collections of 'Tasmaniana Material' to facilitate various yet unidentified research projects. The postcards here so happen to be the first to fall into place.

If you collect Tasmanian postcards please email a sample of your collection to be posted on the site to give future researchers a taste of what you have. Alternatively, if you have your collection documented on a website somewhere please for the URL for the site so as a links can be made.

For more information eMail: tasmaniana@7250.net

RACISM OR ART AT SOTHEBYS: Not The Last Word

Yet another Tasmaniana story was unfolding as the auction date loomed for the sale of the two Benjamin Law Woureddy and Truganini busts in Melbourne August 25 2009. Backstage at Sothebys the temperature rose appreciably during the course of events. Tasmania’s Aboriginal community was applying the blowtorch to the auctioneers, ‘government’ and whoever else might have had a finger in the cultural pie.

In the end the whole affair looked more like a spin doctors' picnic than the art sale it purported to be – albeit one where the stakes were very high. Spin is an inexact science and when it gets out of kilter, and in unanticipated ways, always expect the unexpected. And, when the spin and rhetoric comes from all perspectives things are likely to get very tetchy.

On the face of it the vendor’s decision to sell the busts was a pretty innocuous one – well this pair of busts are but one of many. Likewise, as art dealers, Sotheby’s represented their client well – and they seemed to be advising them appropriately too. The research backing the sale was exhaustive, exemplary and laid out in context – albeit that this turns out to be the issue at the root of things.

Enter stage left the activists with a task in mind and you have a paradigm shift. Without doubt there are plenty of unfulfilled missions in Tasmania on so many fronts. Almost without wonder at the eleventh hour the vendors ‘pulled the plug’ as they say and the busts were withdrawn from sale.

For certain, cultural theorists, historians of every category, social activists and journalists searching for something to expose will feed on this affair for some time to come. Why? Simply because there is something in this story for them all – and not much of it is to do with reconciliation. What might pass as ‘truth’ in this saga is but putty in the hands of the various bit players – there is possibly a Hollywood style movie in this story somewhere.

At times like this almost anyone might be forgiven for thinking that Tasmania is that part of Australia where the 'colonial nerve' is most sensitive and most exposed. They are also the moments when the ‘Australiana idea’ looks relatively benign in comparison to the 'Tasmaniana idea'. In terms of cultural production the concept of Tasmaniana has a special currency – and the 'Truganini myth' is deeply embedded in it.

Whatever else we might expect we can assume that the contested ‘ownerships’ of these two Benjamin Law sculptures – TRUCANINNY 1836 & WOURADDY 1835 – is now ineradicably ensconced in the cultural discourse to do with Tasmania and Tasmaniana. Not that there was ever much doubt about it, their ‘Tasmaniana status’ has been elevated to CLASS A – with five star angst. Somehow it no longer really matters if the objects themselves continue to exist or not as is it their image that is so poignant both in and out of context – rubbing that out of the cultural consciousness is hardly a possibility.

This story is a symbolic carcass that holds all the promise of feeding the vultures indefinitely.

CONTEXT INFORMATION

TRUCANINNY & WOURADDY, BENJAMIN. LAW. HOBART TOWN, 1836

• Australian National Gallery Cast: WOURADDY – Click Here
  

• Australian National Gallery Cast: TRUCANINNY– Click Here
  

DESCRIPTION: Patinated plaster; Executed in 1835 (Woureddy) and 1836 (Trucaninny)

PROVENANCE: Judah Solomon, Hobart Town; thence by descent through the Solomon and Benjamin families – Private collection, New South Wales

EXHIBITION HISTORY

• Art and natural history exhibition, Argyle Rooms, Hobart, 7 August - 18 September 1837
• Launceston Mechanics' Institute Exhibition, Mechanics' Institute, Launceston, April 1860, cat. 188 (lent by Henry Dowling) (another cast)
• The International Exhibition of 1862, South Kensington, 1 May - 1 November 1862, cats. 550 and 649 (lent by J. A. Youl) (another cast)
• Intercolonial Exhibition, Melbourne, 1866, cat. 719 (lent by Henry Dowling) (another cast)
• Tasmanian vision: the art of nineteenth century Tasmania: paintings, drawings and sculpture from European exploration and settlement to 1900, Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, Hobart, 1 January - 21 February 1988; Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Launceston, 16 March - 1 May 1988, cat. 76L Woureddy & 77L Tuganini (another pair)
• Creating Australia: 200 years of art 1788-1988, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 17 May - 17 July 1988; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 12 August - 25 September 1988; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 21 October - 27 November 1988; Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, Hobart, 21 December 1988 - 5 February 1989; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1 March - 30 April 1989; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 23 May - 16 July 1989 (another pair)
• Viewing the Invisible: An installation by Fred Wilson, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, 7 October - 6 December 1998 (another pair)
• Presence and absence: portrait sculpture in Australia, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, 22 August - 16 November 2003, cats. 45 and 46 (another pair)
• On loan to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (1983)
• On loan to National Portrait Gallery, Canberra (2009)

THE PRESS AS AT AUGUST 25 2009 Click on the link to read the full story

• ABORIGINAL BUSTS AUCTION CANCELLED Launceston Examiner 25.08.09
• BUSTS WITHDRAWN FROM AUCTION Mercury Tasmania 25.08.09
  
• 'RACIST' ART AUCTION HALTED Stuff.co.nz 25.08.09
• SOTHEBY'S HIT BY PROTESTERS OVER 'RACIST' BUSTS SMH 25.08.09
• PROTESTERS HALT SOTHEBY'S AUCTION OF 'RACIST' ART The Age 25.08.09
• SOTHEBY'S WITHDRAWS SCULPTURES IN OUTCRY Australian 25.08.09
• SOTHEBY'S CANS SALE OF ABORIGINAL BUSTS LABELLED AS RACIST ABC PM 24.08.09
• 1000 PAINTINGS SET TO TEST MARKET Australian (Business) 24.08.09
• ANGER OVER BUST AUCTION Mercury Tasmania 24.08.09
• BUST UP: ARTWORKS WITHDRAWN FROM SALE ABC 24.08.09
• 'RACISM NOT ART': ANGER AT TRUGANINI BUST AUCTION ABC 24.08.09
• ARTWORKS SET TO FETCH UP TO $9M Australian 13.08.09
• THE TASMANIAN GREENS STATEMENT

• LONELY PLANET SPARKS A ROW OVER ITS PICK FOR 2009'S 'HOTTEST' DESTINATION Telegraph UK 21.08.09

George Burrows Tasmaniana Shell Necklaces

The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart holds one of the most important collections of Huon pine furniture in the world – The George Burrows collection. The TMAG acquired this treasure through the generosity of Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art. The collection consists of 54 pieces of quality Tasmanian Huon pine furniture.

The collection was assembled over 30 years and is the result of a dedication to an idea. It is a truly amazing collection of ‘Tasmaniana’. It includes early classic Georgian pieces that are characteristically simple and chic. There are also elaborate exemplars of Tasmanian Victoriana. Click here for more information on the collection.

What is less known is that via George Burrows the TMAG also has a collection of 10 Tasmanian shell necklaces. George acquired all these necklaces in Launceston at a single auction in the late 1970s. It has been claimed that the necklaces "were made by Miss Stewart" whose property was being dispersed at the estate clearance sale.

Clearly these necklaces are as much ‘Tasmaniana’ as George’s Huon Pine collection. Nonetheless, this collection and another are the subject of some contemporary research that may perhaps change the ways Tasmaniana is understood. If not that, the research may be a part of what may change the ways shell necklaces are understood in Tasmania.

There is more to this story so watch this space – [LINK] – for developments and if you have any information please leave a comment OR contact the research network via Email: shellnecklaces@7250.net

George Burrows Tasmaniana Shell Necklaces

GROUP 1: The 'maireener' shell necklaces

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GROUP 2: Other shells

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Tasmaniana Logo

Tasmanian Blue Gum

• For information about the Tasmania's floral emblem Click Here
• For information about the Tasmania's Emblems Click Here