GoMA level 3: Galleries 3.1, 3.2 & Media Lounge

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Gallery of Modern Art: Gallery level 2

Shinji Ohmaki Liminal Air – descend – 2007 (detail)

Choe Yong Sun The construction site 2005

Pacific Reggae: Roots Beyond the Reef: Marcel Meltherorong in performance at Fest Napuan, Vanuatu 2009

Pacific Reggae: Roots Beyond the Reef

Marcel Meltherorong in performance at Fest'Napuan, Vanuatu 2009

Image © Marke Lowen

Media Lounge, Level 3, GoMA

Reggae music is everywhere in the Pacific. It is a neighbourhood sound that booms from backyards, bars and cars, and is an established element of island life. Pacific Reggae: Roots Beyond the Reef considers the ongoing appeal of reggae rhythms across the region – from Port Vila to Port Moresby and from Honiara to Honolulu – and the vital connections that musicians make with reggae culture. In the Pacific, reggae music adopts structures similar to Jamaican roots music – ‘one drop’ drumbeats, steady bass lines and chopping guitar – while introducing local instrumentation, such as bamboo flutes, ukulele and log drums. Its distinctive sound is made all the more unique through the combination of these local instruments with tight vocal harmonies and a mix of electronic beats with traditional rhythms.

Pacific Reggae: Roots Beyond the Reef is a focused exploration of the narratives inherent in this musical form. Songs range in content from social and political issues, historical and environmental events to songs about the everyday, including gossip and romance. The parallel developments of home-recording studios and a proliferating music-video industry in the region have enabled a reggae scene to flourish and assert a distinctive style. Music videos have become an important format for Pacific musicians to distribute their work: many artists make video clips before they release an album, which they then circulate through sites such as YouTube and MySpace, broadening their audience reach and propelling these tunes into a global forum. Pacific Reggae is a snapshot of what flows ‘beyond the reef’.

Shinji Ohmaki

Liminal Air – descend – 2007

Nylon string, fluorescent light, glass | Installation view, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa | Image courtesy: Tokyo Gallery + BTAP | Photograph: Tadasu Yamamoto

Gallery 3.2, GoMA

Shinji Ohmaki’s installations create absorbing environments from everyday materials to surprising effect. He has previously used flour, correction fluid and thread in a skilful deployment of repetition and scale. Inspired by the formal aesthetic structures of Japanese architecture and Zen gardens, Ohmaki transforms space, where boundaries between interiors and exteriors are blurred. Liminal Air – descend – 2007–09 combines over 100 000 strands of knotted thread with the effects of artificial light, and the Gallery’s architectural right-angles provide a counterpoint to Ohmaki’s contrasting approach to minimalism. Using simple fibres in which countless knots have been tied, the immersive installation proposes both a surface (masses of threads give the appearance of vaporous waves) and an interior dimension (within the permeable structure of soft fibres), at once inviting a sense of gravity and weightlessness. The sheer labour involved in producing the accumulations of delicate strands and knots is understated in the overall work, which seems to evoke ideas of infinity and reverie, transforming the gallery into a contemplative space.

Choe Yong Sun

The construction site 2005

Linocut on paper | 65.5 x 52.5cm | Collection: Nicholas Bonner, Beijing

Gallery 3.1 , GoMA

This selection of contemporary art is the first in-depth presentation of contemporary art from North Korea, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), to be held in Australia. Developed collaboratively with Beijing based filmmaker and collector Nicholas Bonner, artists from Pyongyang’s Mansudae Art Studio and curatorial staff from the Queensland Art Gallery, the project includes a series of new works commissioned for APT6, and a selection of prints and paintings from Bonner’s private collection.

The art studio has a central place in the creation and distribution of art in the DPRK. Established in Pyongyang in 1959 by former leader Kim Il Sung, the Mansudae Art Studio is an official studio (changjaksa), employing over 1000 artists across the disciplines of oil painting, ink and portrait painting, printmaking, embroidery, sculpture and mosaic art. Mansudae Art Studio is credited with the production of major mosaic and sculptural works, in Pyongyang and at various historical sites around the country.

The Gallery’s commissioned works from the Mansudae Art Studio explore a range of subjects, styles, media and scale, and were realised through direct consultation with studio artists, providing an opportunity for them to experiment with style and scale. The nature of individual work and collectivism, the processes of collaboration, and the fundamental role played by state-run art studios in the development of artistic practice in the DPRK are key themes in this presentation. Earlier works from Nicholas Bonner’s collection reveal the artistic language of Socialist Realism, characteristic of much art from this country in the past 50 years as well as brush-and-ink painting styles, which reveal a range of artistic and historical influences. Together, these works reflect the rich cultural heritage associated with artistic production in Korea.