Gangsters of Art Installation Image

“In Tennant Creek Aboriginal men have been stereotyped into figures of notoriety and disrepute – made to live on the edge of two worlds – a place they have learned not only to inhabit but to ride. They are NIRIN, and this is their biennale: a biennale embodied in them, and in turn, emboldening them to speak their truth.

In ‘Gangsters of Art’ the Brio mark their territory: obsolete pokies from Tennant Creek’s old Shaft Night Club are refigured and juxtaposed against jettisoned screens and signage. In a ventriloquist performance, an anarchic assemblage of technology, chance, and power sends-up and repurposes the dominant cultures machinery of alienation – financial, cultural and psychological."

The Tennant Creek Brio is an artist collective who navigate their individual practices through a collective spirit of energetic, experimental and transformative working, captured by their name brio, an Italian word meaning mettle, fire, or vivacity of style or performance. This installation showcases a central aspect of their practice, re-working found materials to enliven their multi-layered social commentary. Tennant Creek is known as a place of confusion and negotiating complex spaces due to post-mining and post-cattle industries. This story is not alone in some Aboriginal communities where colonisation and theft of land has left many communities devastated even 250 years after British invasion. The legacy is intense, though the expression in working together is empowering for change.

Rupert Betheras
Born 1975 in Melbourne, Australia
Lives and works in Alice Springs; Tennant Creek; and Melbourne, Australia

Fabian Brown
Born 1968 in Alice Springs, Australia
Lives and works in Tennant Creek, Australia
Language group Kaytetye, Waramungu, Warlmunpa and Warlpiri

Marcus Camphoo
Born 1994 in Katherine, Australia
Lives and works in Tennant Creek, Australia
Language group Kaytetye

Jimmy Frank (Jupurrula)
Born 1981 in Alice Springs, Australia
Lives and works in Tennant Creek, Australia
Language group Warumungu

Matthew Ladd
Born 1970 in Epenarra, Australia
Lives and works in Tennant Creek, Australia
Language group Alyawarr

Lindsay Nelson
Born 1974 in Ali Curung, Australia
Lives and works in Tennant Creek, Australia
Language group Warlpiri

Clifford Thompson
Born 1980 in Tennant Creek, Australia
Lives and works in Tennant Creek
Language group Kaytetye

Joseph Williams
Born 1978 in Darwin, Australia
Lives and works in Tennant Creek, Australia
Language group Warumungu

Simon Wilson
Born 1987 in Tennant Creek, Australia
Lives and works in Tennant Creek
Language group Alyawarr and Kayetye

Left to Right: Tennant Creek Brio, Gangsters of Art, 2020. Presented at the 22nd Biennale of Sydney with generous support from the Australia Council for the Arts, and generous assistance from Fondation Opale. Courtesy the artists and Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre; and Taqralik Partridge, apirsait (tuttuk), 2019, apirsait (tiriranniaq), 2019, apirsait (aiviq), 2019, apirsait (tulugak), 2019, apirsait (nanuq), 2019. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous assistance from the Office for Contemporary Art Norway. Courtesy the artist. Installation view for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020), Artspace.