Gordon Hookey
  • Gordon Hookey ‘All the Natives Laughed as the Cruel Joke Was Played on Poor Li’l Pinky’ 1997, collection National Museum of Australia, Canberra. © Gordon Hookey / Copyright Agency, 2022.⁠ Photo: Joe Ruckli.

  • 'Gordon Hookey: A Murriality', Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2022. © Gordon Hookey / Copyright Agency, 2022. Photo: Joe Ruckli.

  • Gordon Hookey 'Reiteration in Perpetuity' 2010. © Gordon Hookey / Copyright Agency, 2022.

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Gordon Hookey

A Murriality

22 October–23 December 202222 Oct–23 Dec 2022

#GordonHookey

A Murriality is the first survey of renowned Waanyi artist Gordon Hookey, charting three decades of work fusing art and activism.

Hookey is known for his biting satire of Australian culture and politics, his witty critique of racism, and his exploration of oral and image-based history-making traditions. Encompassing large-scale painting, sculpture, printmaking, and video, A Murriality presents perspectives on historical and contemporary issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples—including legal injustices, international conflict, cultural representations, and language—via Hookey’s lived experience as a Murri person.

The exhibition features a significant new commission, which continues Hookey’s acclaimed series of protest banners that draws inspiration from Hookey’s vast collection of political posters. Made for use in Invasion Day marches and rallies recognising the Aboriginal resistance fighter Dundalli, these banners offer timely socio-political commentary, while imagining an empowered Indigenous future.

 

Curated By
  • Liz Nowell and José Da Silva
Off-Site Venues
Artist Bio
Gordon Hookey

Gordon Hookey was born in Cloncurry, Queensland in 1961. He currently lives and works in Brisbane. Hookey belongs to the Waanyi people and locates his art at the interface where Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal cultures converge. Hookey’s work is informed by domestic and international events and policies that affect Indigenous communities globally, with his lived experience as a Murri and Aboriginal person at the forefront of his work. His style and approach is distinctive in its vibrancy and best known for its biting satire of Australia’s political landscape, its leaders and representatives. Hookey is a core member of Brisbane-based Indigenous collective proppaNOW alongside fellow artists including Richard Bell, Vernon Ah Kee and Jennifer Herd. His work is held in major collections within Australia including the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Hookey has shown work nationally at The National: New Australian Art, the National Indigenous Triennial, the Biennale of Sydney, the 10th Asia–Pacific Triennial and internationally at documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens.

Related Resources

The Institute of Modern Art acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land upon which the IMA now stands, the Jagera, Yuggera, Yugarapul, and Turrbal people. We offer our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first artists of this country. In the spirit of allyship, the IMA will continue to work with First Nations people to celebrate, support, and present their immense past, present, and future contribution to artistic practice and cultural expression.

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