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ROBERT MACPHERSON
MURRANJI 15 OCTOBER - 8 NOVEMBER 1998 curated by Ingrid Perez Robert MacPherson's exhibition Murranji was a mini-survey that included major works created over twenty years, occupying two venues. At the University of South Australia Art Museum, two major works from the 1970s were installed. In the large gallery space, MacPherson's Filled Gestures 1977 covered the walls. The organic nature of the Filled Gestures was echoed by the triangular forms repeated in wood, watercolour and photography in Souvenir of Marlene Deitrich: Hand Rituals: (13 Simple Gestures) 1977-78. These pivotal works made clear that MacPherson's brand of conceptualism includes a powerful degree of humanism. These works were gentle, gestural, even erotic. A different, but no less human sense of concept was evident in the works from the 1990s at the EAF. Murranji: 15 Frog Poems, a Keening 1996-97, from which the exhibition took its title, was again enveloping. This time the softness and chromatic warmth of fifteen blankets surrounded the viewer. Also at the EAF were five groups of drawings made under the alter-ego of Robert Pene, a fourth grade pupil at St Joseph's convent. Of particular note to Adelaide audiences was the work 23 Famous Kidman Drovers 1993-94, referring to Kidman, an Adelaide-based cattle drover who travelled the Birdsville Track. There was a certain warmth to this group of works by MacPherson. The materials and narratives of the works enabled viewers new to MacPherson's work to understand his concern with particularly Australian languages and histories. |
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installation view L-R: 78 Ringers'Hats for Mick Mckinlay; Murranji: 15 Frog Poems, a Keening; 184 Boss Drovers |
Documentation Photography by Stephen Gray |