First Nations artist Reko Rennie to present his largest exhibition ever in debut retrospective

Phoebe Blogg Published October 11, 2024 at 6.30am (AWST)

culture

Reko Rennie Initiation_OA_RR 2021. (Image: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2023 © Reko Rennie)

First Nations artist Reko Rennie will present his largest presentation of work to date in his new REKOSPECTIVE: The Art of Reko Rennie, exhibition.

Featuring a 15-metre-wide light sculpture and a Rolls Royce covered in bold pink and black camouflage, as well as recent acquisitions and never-before-seen bodies of work - the exhibition of more than 100 works charts Rennie's more than two-decade long career, inviting audiences to explore his powerful responses to specific histories, cultures and materials.

Introduced to graffiti culture at a young age, Rennie is globally renowned for his distinctive style and visual language that integrates street art principles with contemporary art forms and traditional Kamilaroi designs in his practice.

By fusing Kamilaroi diamond-shaped designs, hand-drawn symbols and repetitive patterning with contemporary mediums, such as print making, sculpture, video, painting and neon, the artist seeks to subvert romantic ideologies of Aboriginal identity.

Rennie has exhibited both locally and overseas having showcased his work in locations across Australia, Asia, the United States and Europe - including in Personal Structures: Crossing Boarders at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015 and with the 2016 XIII Biennale de Cuenca in Ecuador.

Rennie committed to his art practice full-time in 2008, and in the same year received the prestigious Victorian Indigenous Art Award, going on to have work held in major state collections and receive significant public art commissions across Australia.

"Starting out as a street artist, Reko Rennie is today one of Australia's most respected contemporary artists. Over the last two decades, Rennie has developed an instantly-recognisable signature style that amalgamates his Aboriginal heritage with a bold contemporary point of view. We are delighted to be sharing the work of this renowned Melbourne-born artist in his first-ever retrospective at an Australian public institution," said AM, Director, NGV Tony Ellwood.

While the exhibition is set to include numerous highlights, one of the more notable pieces of work is the NGV debut of REMEMBER ME, 2020 - a monumental text-based light work spanning more than 15 metres. Commissioned by Carriageworks and acquired by the NGV, REMEMBER ME responds to the 250th anniversary of Lieutenant James Cook's first landfall at Botany Bay, and is considered a present-day memorial in recognition of the frontier wars, during which many Aboriginal communities experienced massacre, displacement and dispossession.

Also on display is the three-channel film, Initiation OA_RR, 2021, in which a pink 1973 Holden Monaro cruises the urban landscapes of Rennie's youth in Melbourne's west. At an open tarmac, he puts the customised Monaro through a series of burnouts, referencing 'Westie' drag-racing culture, First Peoples initiation practices and the traditional sand engraving motifs of the Kamilaroi/Gamilaroi people. The film is further accompanied by an original operatic score composed and performed by Yorta Yorta woman, composer and soprano, Deborah Cheetham AO.

REKOSPECTIVE represents the full scope of Rennie's artistic career, from a selection of his earliest paintings to works charting the development of his distinctive Original Aboriginal camouflage designs.

The exhibition includes early bronze sculptures, prolific steel totems and new works employing marble and light, further displaying his ability to create across various mediums.

Largely autobiographical, Rennie's practice explores his own lived experiences navigating contemporary society, art spaces, politics and culture as a First Nations person.

His practice also contributes to, and advocates for the relationship between First Peoples identity and contemporary art, encouraging broad yet nuanced discussions surrounding the legacy of Australia's colonial history.

REKOSPECTIVE: The Art of Reko Rennie is on display from the 11th of October 2024 to the 27th of January 2025 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Fed Square. Entry is free.

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