Tony Albert

About the work

As a new body of work that constitutes a certain risk for the artist, Forbidden Fruit is — perhaps surprisingly — numbly homoerotic. These ideograms, pictographs or glyphs of the male pubis and genitalia are literally stripped back to an exaggerated form, devoid of glistening flesh and saturated with ‘skin’ colours so improbable that they might have been synthesised by paint manufacturer Pantone.

If you flip the ideogram vertically, the triple pendant form flips the bird, giving you the extended middle finger. Is this some kind of post-Referendum blak humour? It is perhaps a 2023 version of Albert’s most confrontational work, the monumental Pay Attention, 2009-10. Instead of an exhortation to listen and be more conscious (which is how I read Albert’s declaration, based on a lithograph by Bruce Nauman) Forbidden Fruit reckons with sexuality n a straight-up way, a coming out into full disclosure in his work. It is a declarative statement that this Girramay man from the rainforest country around Cardwell in North Queensland, born blak and queer in Brisbane, will no longer excise from his work in the performative act of self-censorship. Albert’s new body of work also stakes a new claim: a refusal to accept the homophobic tenor that still prevails in many workplaces, public spaces and indeed, within some First Nations communities.

– Excerpt from exhibition essay for Forbidden Fruit by Daniel Browning.

About the artist

Tony Albert is one of Australia’s foremost contemporary artists with a longstanding interest in the cultural
misrepresentation of Aboriginal people. He is a cultural leader, both as an artist and a curator. His work is
held in all state and most regional museums across Australia, and many important private collections.
Drawing on both personal and collective histories, his multidisciplinary practice considers the ways in which
optimism might be utilised to overcome adversity. His work poses crucial questions such as how do we
remember, give justice to, and rewrite complex and traumatic histories?

Albert is acknowledged industry wide as a valued ambassador for Indigenous community and culture. He
was recently announced as the Artistic Director for the 5th National Indigenous
Art TrienniaI: After The Rain for the National Gallery of Australia. He is the first First Nations Curatorial Fellow
for the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, the first Indigenous Trustee for the Art Gallery of New
South Wales, a member of the Art Gallery of New South Wales Indigenous advisory, a board member for
the City of Sydney’s Public Art Panel and member of the Art & Place Board at the Queensland Children’s
Hospital. In January 2023 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Griffith University for his significant
contribution to the arts.

Albert was recently awarded several prestigious public commissions both within Australia and
internationally, including an installation for Public Art Fund’s Global Positioning, which debuted in January
2022 on bus shelters throughout New York City, Chicago, and Boston. He represented Australia with his
commission for Constellations: Global Reflections, a first of its kind exhibition curated by world-renowned
US based art curator Lance Fung which took place during the 2022 G20 Summit in Bali. Also, in 2022 he
was included in Prime: Arts Next Generation (Phaidon) featuring the top 100 most distinctive and innovative
young artists from around the world. Most recently, renowned Indigenous collective proppaNOW, of which
Tony is a founding member, were awarded the prestigious 2022-24 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social
Justice (USA).