{"id":19662,"date":"2025-12-31T14:42:58","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T14:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/12\/31\/review-the-stars-we-do-not-see-at-the-national-gallery-of-art\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T14:43:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T14:43:00","slug":"review-the-stars-we-do-not-see-at-the-national-gallery-of-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/12\/31\/review-the-stars-we-do-not-see-at-the-national-gallery-of-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: \u201cThe Stars We Do Not See\u201d at the National Gallery of Art"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Amrita Hepi, Scripture for a Smokescreen, Episode 1 \u2013 Dolphin House<\/em>, 2022. Two-channel video, color, 15 minutes, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Purchased with funds donated by Craig Semple, 2023. \u00a9 Amrita Hepi\/Copyright Agency, 2024<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Welcome to<\/i>\u00a0One Fine Show<\/i><\/a>, where Observer highlights a recently opened exhibition at a museum not in New York City, a place we know and love that already receives plenty of attention.<\/i><\/p>\n

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Indigenous art has been having a moment at fairs<\/a>, museums<\/a>, gallery shows and biennials. As with all trends, several elements in the zeitgeist contribute to this popularity. We\u2019re in a post-Zombie Formalism, post-post-internet, post-post-2017 holding pattern where no one big idea has emerged. These older traditions are time-tested and underrepresented, so they\u2019re hard to argue with. Last and most importantly, most art critics and consumers are not familiar with the traditions behind this kind of art, which allows them to set aside their preconceptions and simply appreciate the works on their own merits. Each show is equally educational for all of us.<\/p>\n

A new show at the National Gallery of Art brings a host of impressive artworks to the nation\u2019s capital that are foreign in every way. \u201cThe Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art\u201d presents nearly 200 works from a period spanning the late 1800s to the present, drawn from the National Gallery of Victoria\u2019s collection. This exhibition will soon travel around America and represents the largest presentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art ever shown outside Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s challenging to speak generally about these works, as they aim to represent a \u201cvisual thread connecting more than 250 nations across 65,000 years,\u201d according to the press release. However, most of them are abstract and, as with all good abstractions, feel as though they could have only emerged from a certain unique context. The exhibition takes its title from the cosmological teachings of Gulumbu Yunupi\u014bu (1943-2012), also known as \u201cStar Lady,\u201d who is renowned for her paintings that feature a unified field of crosses and white dots. These negative star clusters, seen in works like Garak (The Universe)<\/i> (2008), feel arranged in an organic way. Drawn from many nights sleeping outdoors, Yunupi\u014bu demonstrates both the vastness and subjective nature of interconnectivity; though made by hand, her canvases could continue for miles if she wanted them to.<\/p>\n

Yunupi\u014bu\u2019s work emerged from the bark painting tradition of Yol\u014bu cosmology and another work in the exhibition demonstrates the grandness of that tradition. G\u00e4na (Self)<\/i> (2009-18) by Nyapanyapa Yunupi\u014bu (1945-2021) uses sixteen bark paintings and nine hollow log coffins known as larrakitj to stirring effect. (\u201cYunupi\u014bu\u201d is a common last name for many Yol\u014bu.) The installation confounds and impresses to the point that the self becomes lost. This is reflective of the artist\u2019s own journey as it marks the point at which she turned away from figuration.<\/p>\n

More contemporary works in the show include the video Entr\u2019acte<\/i> (2023) by Hayley Millar Baker<\/a> (b. 1990), which captures a woman\u2019s facial transition from rage to grief. Though Baker\u2019s Aboriginal heritage informs her practice, it\u2019s bold of the museum to include a work so different in this show. It asks what these themes of integration with the universe might look like today. For similar reasons, I must confess a weakness for the video Scripture for a Smokescreen, Episode 1 \u2013 Dolphin House<\/i> (2022) by Amrita Hepi<\/a> (b. 1989). Via choreography, it explores the 1960s NASA-funded project to talk with dolphins in the hope that it might facilitate extraterrestrial communications. This exhibition offers work drawn from under-shown traditions but offers even broader context to visitors who take seriously its advice about stepping outside of the self.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/b>The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art<\/b><\/a>\u201d<\/b> is on view at the National Gallery of Art through March 1, 2026.<\/b><\/p>\n

More exhibition reviews<\/b><\/h3>\n

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