Publisher's Synopsis
Why are these specific artworks the subject of this first
monograph? Produced in 2018, the sumptuous paintings, aa is the Kulata
Tjuta Kupi Kupi installation, are collaborative artworks. They are
reminiscent of the collaborative production process of art in Aboriginal
Australia. These major works, in which a variety of Dreaming stories
that define the region converge, form cornerstones of the collection
that lies at the heart of the Fondation Opale. The Fondation Opale, and
its founder and driving force Bérengère Primat, has a particularly
strong and active relationship with the art centres and the artists of
that region of Australia. Several journeys were made to the APY lands in
Central Australia. Both paintings, to which respectively several senior
women and men collaborated, were commissioned by Bérengère Primat and
the painting process abundantly documented. These magisterial paintings
are testimony to the continuum of culture and intimate knowledge of the
land through art.
Kupi Kupi, an iteration of the ongoing Kulata Tjuta (many spears in
the Pitjantjatjara language) initiated in 2010, is a contemporary and
monumental art installation consisting of 1500 spears. It is a metaphor
for contemporary Anangu society and the unpredictable direction in which
it is moving.
