Ashtray, 2015, Michael Cook
Inkjet print on archival Hahnemuhle cotton paper, 100cm x 70cm
Provenance: Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne.
Of Bidjara heritage, Michael Cook is a photomedia artist who reimagines colonial focused histories into contemporary Indigenous portraits. Reversing historical discrimination, he works to disrupt traditional racial and social expectations. Cook invites viewers to speculate Indigenous cultures living at the forefront, even a majority, rather than manipulated to live within the confines of a white man’s world. Cook’s work has been acquired by institutions including the British Museum, National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales and Art Gallery of Western Australia, as well as displayed during the 56th Venice Biennale (1).
Part of the Object collection, Ashtray continues Cook’s exploration of colonial contradictions. Capturing immaculately dressed Indigenous Australians in authentic period costumes of authority within a civilised interior, Cook juxtaposes them against a naked white woman. Object uses this confronting reversal to depict the historic interracial inhumanity once routinely practised - a black person “owned” by a white. In this series Cook evokes lives, homes and attitudes at a time when slavery was commonplace throughout the world (2).