Necessary bewilderment: this is the first sensation one has when entering the Australian Pavilion at the 2024 Biennale, which won the Golden Lion dedicated to national participations, thanks to a monumental anthropological-artistic work by Archie Moore, of Aboriginal origin and specifically of Kamilaroi/Bigambul ethnicity.
Pavilion of AUSTRALIA: Archie Moore, “Kith and kin”, 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, photo by: Matteo de Mayda, courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
LMoore’s installation unfolds on multiple levels. A first level, astonishing for its meticulousness and dedication, is that of the gigantic genealogical tree tracing 65,000 years of settlement of native ethnicities. Endless white chalk bricks on a black wall intertwine the artist’s private genealogy with that of humanity. Indeed, by trying to read and trace back the currents of the peoples who have inhabited that continent since its origins, one reaches the dawn of the appearance of Homo sapiens on earth.
Pavilion of AUSTRALIA: Archie Moore, “Kith and kin”, 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, photo by: Matteo de Mayda, courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
The second level is that of an enormous void: the center of the pavilion is occupied by a reflective water basin that serves as a sociological document. It represents, in fact, the denunciation of the marginalization to which indigenous populations are subjected even in contemporary Australia. «We are 3.8% of the Australian population, yet one-third of the prison population. For an Aboriginal person, the prison doors open more easily for trivial offenses, such as drinking in public», Moore recently stated in an interview. The third level is that of the pile of documents that are on display in the heart of the pavilion: these are forensic registers, in police custody, concerning the deaths of 551 natives from 1991 to today. The names of the victims have been erased, in the manner of Emilio Isgrò, and as it often happens with the Sicilian artist, these interventions enhance the strength of the message.
Pavilion of AUSTRALIA: Archie Moore, “Kith and kin”, 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, photo by: Matteo de Mayda, courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
Kith and kin is the title given to this stunning contemporary memorial, the result of meticulous work lasting months. “Friends and relatives” is the first and immediate translation of this English expression, but Moore shows its subtle linguistic nuances that intertwine the personal history of descendants and the history of the entire human race. It is an ode to mutual care, to community building, to common origins, without any form of shyness the artist also shows us the derogatory meaning that ordinary words like ‘mother’, ‘woman’, ‘man’, ‘child’ can take on depending on the podium of history in which those who pronounce them reside.
Pavilion of AUSTRALIA: Archie Moore, “Kith and kin”, 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, photo by: Matteo de Mayda, courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
The incredible artistic constellation presented by Australia is an example of universal brotherhood, fully in harmony with the message underlying the entire Biennale. To not feel like strangers, we should be able to embrace and include everyone, starting with the least. Kith and kin, however, is a hymn that reveals an underlying fragility: the genealogical alphabet is written in chalk and thus can be erased irreversibly, leaving no trace. Even more so, in the succession of time there are empty spaces, caused by the violence of colonizers, absolute masters of the lives of oppressed populations, from whom memory has been taken away. Memory that Archie Moore’s magnificent installation brings back to the stage of history.
Info:
Archie Moore, Kith and kin
a cura di Ellie Buttrose
20/04 – 24/11/2024
60. Biennale di Venezia, Giardini, Padiglione Australia
GIARDINI
I am Giovanni Crotti and I was born in June 1968 in Reggio Calabria to be reborn in June 2014 in Piacenza, the city where I live. My income is guaranteed by digital consultancy, and I then spend it largely on art and letterature: I have been and am a content curator and organizer of cultural events for artists, galleries and institutional spaces, as well as a writer of exhibition reviews, creatives of every era and books.
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