65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art at The Potter Museum of Art

An ambitious exhibition at the University of Melbourne’s Potter Museum of Art, 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art, brings together more than 400 artworks and cultural objects. The exhibition explores the evolution of Indigenous art from marginalisation to global prominence in the contemporary art world, while interrogating the ongoing effects of colonisation.

The ironic name is a nod to shifting institutional views on Indigenous art. Once thought “primitive” by Western critics and ethnographers, it’s now recognised for its aesthetic representations of the world’s oldest continuing civilisation, depicting aspects of society, religion and Country. With its 65,000-year scope, covering myriad materials, objects and forms, the exhibition also addresses the tendency to see works that deviate from Western traditions as predominantly political statements. Instead, it confirms that Indigenous artworks are embedded in a distinct and evolving artistic heritage that stretches back well beyond colonisation.

Among the works on display are rarely seen Indigenous art and cultural objects from the University of Melbourne’s historical collections, plus 193 loans from 77 private and public lenders. More recent pieces include six new commissions, and the 2020 work Ngangkari Ngura (Healing Country) by Pitjantjatjara artists Betty Muffler and Maringka Burton.

The exhibition’s curators – associate provost and distinguished professor Marcia Langton AO, senior curator Judith Ryan AM and associate curator Shanysa McConville – worked in consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and custodians of art traditions to ensure 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art highlights the brilliance of Indigenous artists and celebrates their truth-telling, knowledge and agency without shying from the brutality of Australia’s colonial history.

Langton and Ryan have also co-edited an accompanying book, which offers new insights into Indigenous Australian art across time, media and language groups by 25 leading thinkers from a range of disciplines and generations.

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with the Potter Museum of Art.