Archie Moore: Founding Fathers

Archie Moore’s work is intriguing for its personal and political engagement. He is winning hearts and minds in exhibitions across two states and a territory, planning work for The Commercial in Sydney later this year and contemplating the launch of a new record with his ‘sub-tropical Goth’ band – ∑gg√e|n. His latest show, ‘Founding Fathers’ on at The Walls from 1 to 15 July, promises to spin the didactic function of monuments on their heads.

Moore re-introduces the objects that prop up a specific history and ongoing memory as a way to, in the artist’s words, “Consider the possibility of incommensurable historical and human realities; that idealisation and demonisation are not so far apart, the faults, gaps and blemishes that ‘our’ narratives encompass, particularly to Indigenous Australians, are as old as the monument itself… It overwrites the already overwritten, inscribing a new narrative on what was the erasure of Indigenous memorials through the imposition of colonialist monuments on a space that was construed as empty.”

To communicate this he will stage nine small porcelain figurines of doll size proportions at The Walls, a not-for-profit contemporary art space on the Gold Coast. Also in the room visitors will find a 170cm tall concrete figure. The tiny bodies will sit atop a Romanesque column, “easy to topple over and smash into many pieces”, he quipped. Viewers can now literally be eye-to-eye with, or look down on these relics. ‘Founding Fathers’, explores the experience of and revisionism of history, how it is told by the victors then sometimes inches toward a clearer picture with the voice of the oppressed, only to risk reinterpretation again. As Moore concludes, the oppressor is known to “try to downplay the unsavoury aspects of their history by introducing an Indigenous ‘eye witness’ or some other interlocutor who happened to be present at the time… these events in the past do have repercussions into the future with ongoing political power plays.”

Moore’s visual vocabulary is emblematic and immediately recognisable. The caveat is that his message is anti-authority. His flags, on view now at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Canberra, take leave of the tri-colour Aboriginal design by Harold Thomas. Each swaps out the yellow sun for other symbols, such as the Communist party’s hammer and sickle, questioning how plausible it is that Aboriginal people can feel represented by a single flag. Also at the NGA his taxidermy sculpture Black Dog (2013), is a self-portrait that underscores the artist’s experience of racism and depression. Elsewhere his interest in representation and perception is echoed in Bogeyman (2017), a sheet painted white that appears billowy but is set solid over a wooden stand, in the group show ‘Material Politics’ at Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. It could be encountered as the fabrication it is, but with references to crucifixion or the KKK we can also meet it as a volatile object.

But, what happens to Moore’s rich political and personal symbolism if not understood in context? He countered, “I’m sure people do all the time. I think the general public is fairly ignorant of Aboriginal history and definitely unaware of my personal history. My personal experience isn’t very unique – it is something many other Aboriginal people have experienced. I enjoy all different readings no matter how far off the mark. I like the power of authorship to be removed. There is both direct message and purposeful dislocation in the artist’s work, perhaps wedded to his awareness of ‘the impossibility of knowing whether another has the same experience as you. This being a metaphor for the failure of reconciliation.”

The Walls
1 to 15 July, 2017
Queensland