Tony Albert: Remark

Community, connection and collaboration are at the forefront of Tony Albert’s practice. As a cherished cultural leader, he is dedicated to mentoring upcoming artists and to remaining connected to Country and community. In August this year, he began mentoring two students through the City of Gold Coast Professional Placement Program. Students Lyle Duncan and Mikaela Evans sat down with Tony to chat about his upcoming solo exhibition.

Tony’s highly anticipated solo exhibition Remark will launch the new S+S Melbourne gallery in November this year. 2022 has been a momentous year for the artist with two major public art commissions announced including a monumental 15-metre-long floating botanical sculpture, Inhabitant, which will welcome visitors at the entrance of the transformed Queen’s Wharf in Brisbane, and The Big Hose, an iconic outdoor play sculpture for QAGOMA which is being made in collaboration with artist Nell. Also unveiled in 2022, was Albert’s major commission for the new Allianz Sydney Football Stadium, a culturally informed design and artwork for the stadium’s seating.

Remark continues Tony’s interrogation of the problematic use of Indigenous Australian iconography in domestic design and decoration. Incorporating fabric from his extensive collection of ‘Aboriginalia’, the new body of work sees Tony expand on his acclaimed Conversations with Margaret Preston series, critically engaging with the textiles in his own right.

‘Like the fabric of Australian society, the appropriated Indigenous imagery printed on souvenir tea towels intertwines in a complicated web of national identity. These are not images by Aboriginal people and our voices and autonomy continue to be silenced through the object’s inauthenticity’.

As a country we must reconcile with these objects’ very existence. They are painful reminders of a violent and oppressive history, but we also cannot hide or destroy them because they are an important societal record that should not be forgotten.

(TOP LEFT) Tony Albert, Remark Still Life #5 | (TOP RIGHT) Tony Albert Remark Still Life #8 (BOTTOM LEFT) Tony Albert Remark Still Life #4 | (BOTTOM RIGHT) Tony Albert Remark Still Life #2, 2022, acrylic and vintage appropriated fabric on canvas board 51 x 40.6cm

Photo: Mark Pokorny

The work comes from a very personal place, reflecting who I am and where my work is going. I feel there is an exciting evolution and growth in this show.

Mikaela Evans (ME) / This is your second iteration of the Preston concept. You seem to have pushed the ideas further than the last show, would you say this is correct?

Tony Albert (TA) / Yes, I think the first Preston show gave me a lot of confidence to look at the idea of appropriation and where this body of work could lead to. Not just now but also in the future. I felt there was a need to continue and push further.

Lyle Duncan (LD) / There is a sensitivity attached to the appropriation of indigenous imagery that comes across in your work. Is this because of a new contemporary context?

TA / We are so saturated by visual iconography. When I started this journey, I ended up having a lot more empathy and understanding about what Margret Preston was trying to achieve. I gained more insight into her thoughts and feelings. I wanted to be critical of the idea of appropriation while still paying homage to someone who I believe was an incredible artist, thinker, and person.

Tony Albert, Remark Christmas Bells, 2022 acrylic and vintage appropriated fabric on Arches paper 154 x 104cm

ME / There has been a bigger push of abstraction within this series. Do you feel you have discovered a sense of freedom with the imagery?

TA / That’s interesting, in terms of the idea of ‘freedom’ there was something in the process of making these works that became a lot more playful. Under the concept of ‘Remark’, I used the fabric more intuitively, cutting out and assembling the textiles in a unique way. The work comes from a very personal place, reflecting who I am and where my work is going. I feel there is an exciting evolution and growth in this show.

LD / It seems you use the past and reference ideals and visual iconography as a way of shaping today and tomorrow. Would you agree?

TA / Absolutely, one of my favourite quotes is from the late Charles Perkins ‘We don’t live in the past but the past lives within us’. I always think about how dynamic that is and how important it is for everyone to reach back into the past when looking forward into the future. The opportunity to do that within Australia, in the context of its colonial history, means that we get to reconcile with objects of the past. This is not only an important part of my practice but is an important part of both metaphorically and holistically moving forward, not just in an artistic way, but in life.

Tony Albert, Remark Wheel flower and Gumnuts, 2022, acrylic and vintage appropriated fabric on canvas 300 x 200 cm

Photo: Aaron Anderson

ME / Having the opportunity to engage with you in the studio and being able to see your studio practice has been so interesting. The abundance of your ‘Aboriginalia’ astounded me. Can you tell me more about the fabrics?

TA / My collection of Aboriginalia is extensive! I started it as a child. The number of objects often overwhelms people and the amount of ephemera in which Aboriginal imagery has been recreated is quite startling. The COVID-19 lockdown gave me the opportunity to go through my collection and engage with the abundance of fabrics. There is a fragility to the fabric which means I haven’t previously incorporated it into large installation works.

During lockdown, I was able to experiment with new ideas especially around the theme of appropriation. As a collector there is something very cathartic about utilising all the objects within my practice and I’m so grateful the fabric has found its way into my work.

LD / Mikaela and I had the opportunity to see some of your work at Sydney Contemporary and noticed there is an incredible conceptual shift when work leaves the studio and is hung within the framework of a commercial gallery. Do you think about how each work will be experienced by audiences?

Tony Albert, Remark Abstract I (detail), 2022, acrylic and vintage appropriated fabric on canvas 200 x 300 cm

Photo: Aaron Anderson

TA / It’s a bit of a double-edged sword for me. Over the years, I have found it’s better not to dwell on things you can’t control, so the moment an artwork leaves the studio it also leaves me. Focusing on the future home of an artwork can become convoluted or difficult. In saying that, the presentation and representation of my artwork is important to me. I am often involved in the commercial presentation of the works, but I have generally learnt to relax and know there are other people whose job it is to complete that side of the practice. By keeping this in mind, I have become far more open to relinquishing control of the works.

LD / Given the conceptual push in this exhibition, do you have any thoughts or ideas about the continuation of appropriation in your work in the future?

TA / Since 2015 and having travelled internationally, I’ve looked back conceptually at a lot of my work that I don’t feel was quite as resolved as I would like it to be. I think there are ideas that I would like to push further. I now have the confidence to go back to those ideas and look at them again. In the early stages of my career, I was compelled to transform my work with every show and try something new. Whilst I don’t think anything is ever over in my practice, I have a lot more comfort in teasing things out to their extremity. So, I don’t think this is quite over for me, but I am always looking at different ideas for the future.

EXHIBITION: TONY ALBERT, REMARK, 10 NOV – 10 DEC 2022, S+S MELBOURNE

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