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Tarnanthi is breaking out of Adelaide, with the Art Gallery of South Australia’s annual exhibition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heading out for a national tour from July.
The touring exhibition follows on from Too Deadly, the 10th anniversary survey that took place last year, and includes more than 30 works from the past decade of the festival, including many that were conceived for Tarnanthi and have not been seen outside of Adelaide.
Ranging over paintings, installations and moving image works, Tarnanthi on Tour: Too Deadly will visit six regional galleries in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia over the next two years.
Tarnanthi on Tour – quick links
Tarnanthi at a crossroads
AGSA Director Jason Smith said Tarnanthi has served as a nexus for First Nations artists from across Australia over its history. ‘Now, AGSA will celebrate 10 years of Tarnanthi by taking their stories on the road, connecting audiences around Australia with Tarnanthi’s nation-leading approach as a platform for conversations, deep listening and important cultural sharing.’
The South Australian Minister for the Arts Kyam Maher described the event as a ‘mainstay of South Australia’s cultural calendar’ and AGSA reports it has drawn an audience of 2.2 million since 2015. Yet that success now brings Tarnanthi into a new chapter.
Last year’s anniversary survey marked a time of change for Tarnanthi, with the festival’s long-serving Artistic Director Nici Cumpston working to hand over the reins. The Barkandji artist, writer and curator has since departed to take up the role of Director of the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection in the US, and the recruitment process to appoint the festival’s next artistic director is now underway.
With the future direction of Tarnanthi still an open question, Tarnanthi on Tour: Too Deadly offers the chance to cement Tarnanthi’s legacy to date, while also expanding its audience and impact.
Expanding the Tarnanthi conversation
It’s not the first tour to come out of Tarnanthi. Earlier presentations include the international tour of Kuḻaṯa Tjuṯa (Many Spears), the regional South Australian and Moroccan tour of Naomi Hobson’s Adolescent Wonderland, and the nationally touring exhibitions John Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new and Vincent Namatjira: Australia in Colour.
Tarnanthi on Tour will run through to 2028, visiting Rockhampton Museum of Art in Queensland before heading to Maitland Regional Art Gallery and Ngununggula in New South Wales, then back north to Caboolture Art Gallery in Brisbane and onwards to Geelong Gallery in Victoria and Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery in Perth.
Tarnanthi on Tour is drawn from last year’s Too Deadly, which ArtsHub described as both ‘survey and story’. As Gina Fairly wrote at the time, it was an exhibition that spoke to ‘how sustained support can lead to profound creative outcomes. From bold early commissions to intimate moments of cultural maintenance, the exhibition reveals what can be achieved through long-term relationships between artists, communities and institutions.’
She added: ‘There is just so much history on these walls and yet it does not feel heavy or ostracizing. Rather, Too Deadly offers a moment to revisit and recontextualise these works today … This edition is almost like an effort to take stock, and an affirmation to still find strength in Aboriginal voices.’
ArtsHub: Too Deadly review: looking at 10 years of Tarnanthi at AGSA
Highlights from Tarnanthi on Tour
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Reko Rennie, OA_RR, 2016-17. Detail, 4K three channel digital video, PAL, stereo sound, 7 min, 47 seconds. Collection of Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Courtesy: the artist and AGSA, Adelaide. -
John Prince Siddon, Australia: Mix it all up, 2019. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 120 x 240cm. Collection of Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Courtesy: the artist and Copyright Agency. -
Janet Fieldhouse, Little Sister (Charm), 2022. Buff raku trachyte clay, raffia, wire, 76 x 37 x 22cm. Collection of Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Courtesy: the artist and Vivien Anderson Gallery. -
Vincent Namatjira, Albert Namatjira, Slim Dusty and Archie Roach on Country, 2022, Indulkana. Synthetic polymer paint on linen, 167 x 198cm. Collection of Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Courtesy: the artist and Copyright Agency. -
Bugai Whyoulter, Wantili (Warntili, Canning Stock Route Well 25), 2021. Synthetic polymer paint on linen, 152 x 152cm. Collection of Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Courtesy: the artist and Copyright Agency.
One of the highlights of Tarnanthi on Tour will be John Prince Siddon’s large-scale work Australia: Mix it all up (2019). A monumental and kaleidoscopic installation, it combines paintings on canvas and kangaroo pelts with a painted bullock skull, all set against wallpaper that uses elements from the artist’s paintings.
Also calling up past and present is Tony Albert and Alair Pambegan’s collaboration Frontier Wars Bone Fish Story Place (2014). With bullet-shaped bone fish hanging in a suspended sculpture, it references both traditional story and the violence of colonisation.
Reko Rennie’s three-channel video OA_RR (2016-17) deals with colonial wealth, and features the artist driving a Rolls-Royce patterned with his distinctive camouflage designs. A symbolic return to Country, it sees the Kamilaroi, Gamilaroi and Gamilaraay artist travelling to the area where his grandmother was born and lived before she was taken from her family and enslaved on a pastoral station.
Tarnanthi on Tour also presents the work of Tony Albert, Bugai Whyoulter, Judy Watson, Sally M Nangala Mulda, Marlene Rubuntja, Garawan Waṉambi, Janet Fieldhouse, Vincent Namatjira and Mumu Mike Williams.
The first stop of Tarnanthi on Tour: Too Deadly is the Rockhampton Museum of Art in Queensland, where the exhibition runs from 25 July to 5 Oct 2026.
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