Dots from the Desert
Fifty years ago, in a tiny desert town in the middle of nowhere, Australia, a core group of Aboriginal artists from various tribes collectively began painting with acrylic paints on board. They had been removed to the impoverished settlement by the government—sound familiar? Painting became a way to express their sovereignty, and created an economic engine for the community. Using these new materials they revived an ancient visual tradition of dot painting. We’re talking a lot of dots, millions and millions of dots of paint. The dots open up an extraordinary visual language with deep meaning for the artists of Papunya Tula—foremost to a living landscape, a cosmography shared by hundreds of First Australian tribes for 50,000 years.
From the Australian Desert: Contemporary Aboriginal Painting is an exceptional introduction to the powerful paintings that have emerged from Papunya Tula, now on view at Norman’s Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art through March 14, 2027. Working with what they had access to, first generation Papunya Tula artists painted dots on cardboard, linoleum and Masonite. They used thinly applied paint surfaces built up meticulously in detailed, highly abstract compositions. The accumulation of dots created optical effects among the organic geometric forms, often linked concentric circles in vibrating earth tones: browns, ochres, red and orange, blacks and whites. Among the 120 works, now from multiple generations of male and female artists, are many, many dazzling, beautifully rendered examples.
Papunya Tula artists understandably began winning awards and soon rocketed right into the heart of the contemporary art world. Soon they began painting on canvas, at a larger scale, with works that can be read as pure organic abstraction to a ravenous art market. To suss out deeper meanings however, one must embrace the sacred and ceremonial knowledge depicted in the paintings. The exhibition highlights Aboriginal concepts that unlock the spiritual map-like functions of the paintings. Try pronouncing “Tjukurrpa.” It roughly translates to “Dreamings,” a belief system made up of the stories, songs and ceremonies of their ancestors and their presence on the land. At once ancient and contemporary, the art of Papunya Tula expresses a sense of past and present dwelling together. Well worth the trip down under.
That Rodeo Rush
What do you do after retirement? How about when you’ve been half of one of country music’s greatest permanent duos? For onetime Tulsa native Ronnie Dunn, the answer is hanging out at rodeos with a camera. Turns out Mr. Dunn is a quick draw with his telephoto lens. In his new exhibition at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum entitled the same rush, Dunn presents 16 photographic images largely captured at the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo, a summer staple of Western culture. Dunn likens the adrenaline rush of performing to a live audience to that of the rodeo athlete. His jaw-dropping images make his point. Tight cropping and shallow depths of field bring us right into the high-speed action.
Dunn apparently gained access to the rodeo arena floor, because several images are taken from ground level POVs—which really brings home the danger and daring of these athletes. There’s nothing like a hard cowboy landing with an agitated beast literally breathing down your neck. Talk about decisive moments; in one extraordinary image Dunn captures a bronc rider fully laid out across the arched back of an aerial bucking bronc like a cowboy Pietà, except he ain’t dead yet. We don’t need to see how that ride ended and can linger at the thrill of the throw.
Guessing from Dunn’s other pictures in both black and white and color, the roughstock usually has the upper hoof. Other death-defying moments read as pure bodily ballet, choreographed ejections influenced by gravity and animal fury for eight seconds at a time—if they’re lucky. Experience the excitement of the bronc bursting out of the gate, the acrobatic crash landing that rivals a Raygun headspin, a rider flipped in a flurry of mingled mane and flying fringe. These riders and wrestlers ain’t no two-jump-chumps either, they really put their necks on the line. Additionally, the same rush coincides with the reopening of the National Rodeo Hall of Fame on Nov. 13.
Little Known Modern Master
War is hell. No less for the artists on the other side. Neither WWI, nor the Nazis, nor WWII stopped Otto Neumann from fulfilling his artistic destiny. The little-known German artist was the son of a prominent academic and grew up among the intellectual elite of Heidelberg. Neumann had thorough training in fine art, and over his long, productive career he frequently changed styles, media and subject matter. Many of his shifts reflected profound interests in classical literature and mythology, though his aesthetic choices mirrored several great 20th-century artist peers like Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso or Henri Matisse.
1515 Lincoln Gallery hosts Otto Neumann: Modern Artist with 20 works on paper from the artist’s mature postwar period from 1952-1969, a time of tremendous change in the art world. After WWII, Neumann abandoned painting in oil or watercolor, instead concentrating on exquisite drawing and printmaking, especially unique monotypes as seen in this exhibition. The artist was labeled “degenerate” by the Nazi regime; refused to divorce his Jewish wife; and suffered personal family tragedy. Despite the adversity, his postwar work was influenced by Greek mythology … including some tale about a dude called Odysseus.
Neumann was fond of the monotype process, drawn on inked sheets of glass then printed as unique images on paper. His work of the 1950s features elongated, enlarged human figures often in timeless frieze like compositions absent any backgrounds. The forms are enhanced by his masterful continuous line drawing, sometimes with robust modeling; other times flat on flat. Things take a turn in the late 1960s when the forms become more layered, hard edged, semi-transparent silhouettes. Like overlapping Venn diagrams, the figures acquire sculptural solidity through his layering of shapes in brown, black and red inks. The artist is a rare 20th century modern master with a neoclassical bent.
This article appears in Fall Flavors.