Tennant Creek Brio: Juparnta Ngattu MinjinypaIconocrisis

ACCA presents the first major survey of Tennant Creek Brio, an artist collective living and working on Warumungu Country. Fusing First Nations cultural traditions, the industrial materiality of the mining industry, and regional and global art influences, the exhibition asserts and re-imagines the artists’ cross-cultural identities, drawing upon the haunting wounds of post-contact histories, the renewal and remaking of cultural practices, and the collaborative resilience and audaciously punk attitude of a frontier community.

Encompassing contemporary artists from Northern Central Australia and Melbourne, Tennant Creek Brio includes key members Fabian Brown Japaljarri, Lindsay Nelson Jakamarra, Rupert Betheras, Joseph Williams Jangarrayi, Clifford Thompson Japaljarri, Jimmy Frank Jupurrula, Fabian Rankine Jampijinpa, Marcus Camphoo Kemarre, and collaborators including Eleanor Jawurlngali Dixon, Lévi McLean, and Gary Sullivan. The group first converged in 2016 when the artists initiated an outreach program at the local men’s centre, Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation.

Tennant Creek Brio: Juparnta Ngattu Minjinypa Iconocrisis references The Brio’s practice of reinscribing their experiences, cultural identity and mark making onto salvaged found materials such as oil barrels, car bonnets, solar panels, poker machines, television screens, and geological maps from the abandoned Warrego mine. Confronting the current state of polycrisis, of belief systems in conflict, and contested and scarring histories, the exhibition stresses an urgentneed for truth-telling, future-thinking, collectivity and action. Exploring themes of extraction, reclamation and collaboration, The Brio’s artworks reveal the deeply personal and complex intergenerational influences that continue to shape and entwine the artists’ lives, identities and future-thinking.

Warumungu, Warlpiri and English languages converge in the exhibition title Juparnta Ngattu Minjinypa Iconocrisis, which is indicative of the complex intercultural context of Tennant Creek, and The Brio methodology of collaborative creolisation and bricolage.Opening in Warumungu, Juparnta Ngattuconjuresnotions of ceremonial strength and power through image-making, while the Walpiri term that follows, Minjinypa, means ‘cheeky one’ or ‘trouble(maker)’. Paired with the neologism Iconocrisis, this gathering of multiple languages attests to the formal, linguistic and material collisions inherent to Tennant Creek Brio’s creative and cultural practice, while highlighting their irreverent approach to bringing images, icons, and ideologies into question.  

Alongside the presentation of significant works created over almost a decade, the exhibition at ACCA presents an ambitious, industrially-scaled scenographic assemblage that channels the power and strength of The Brio’s image-making, centring a pertinent critique on colonial extraction, capitalism, and the subsequent social, cultural and political complexities and negotiations that stem from this. The Brio’s signature-style mark-making features across a range of painterly, sculptural, installation, video, drawing and performance practices that highlight the cultural power and rebel-rousing attitude of Tennant Creek Brio’s contemporary art practice.

Since 2016, Tennant Creek Brio has exhibited widely with recent solo exhibitions including Tennant Creek Brio: Cross Section, Cassandra Bird Gallery, Gadigal Country/Sydney, 2024; Remember Now Old Man Nomad, cbOne Gallery, Naarm/Melbourne, 2023; Papulu-ku Nyinjjiki (seeing houses), OFFICE, Naarm/Melbourne, 2023; Radioactive Anomalies, Niagara Galleries, Naarm/Melbourne, 2023; Shock and Ore, Charles Darwin University, Garramilla/Darwin, 2023; and Tennant Creek Brio: The Myth Makers, Chapman & Bailey Gallery, Naarm/Melbourne, 2022.

Significant group exhibitions include Black Sky, Berndt Museum, University of Western Australia, Boorloo/Perth, 2023; NIRIN: 22^nd Biennale of Sydney, Artspace and Cockatoo Island, Gadigal Country/Sydney, 2020; Control Point: The Tennant Creek Brio, RAFT Artspace, Maparntwe/Alice Springs, 2023; King of the Roosters, Raft Artspace, Maparntwe/Alice Springs, 2023; Tennant Creek Superstars, Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Cultural Centre, Tennant Creek, 2019; and Present Tense, Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Garramilla/Darwin, 2017.

Artists
Fabian Brown Japaljarri, Lindsay Nelson Jakamarra, Rupert Betheras, Joseph Williams Jangarrayi, Clifford Thompson Japaljarri, Jimmy Frank Jupurrula, Fabian Rankine Jampijinpa, Marcus Camphoo Kemarre, and including Eleanor Jawurlngali Dixon, Lévi McLean, Gary Sullivan

Cultural Advisors
Joseph Williams Jangarrayi, Jimmy Frank Jupurrula

Curatorial Advisor
Dr Erica Izett

Curators
Dr Jessica Clark, Max Delany, Elyse Goldfinch and Dr Shelley McSpedden

TENNANT CREEK BRIO: JUPARNTA NGATTU MINJINYPA ICONOCRISIS
21 SEPTEMBER – 17 NOVEMBER 2024

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art 
111 Sturt Street, Southbank VIC 3006 
Melbourne, Australia
Opening hours: Tuesday – Friday 10am–5pm, Weekends 11am–5pm, Free entry
acca.melbourne
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For further media information:

Katrina Hall
Publicity/Communications
0421153046