“Asia Society Museum presents Maḏayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala, the first major exhibition of Aboriginal Australian bark paintings to tour the United States. On view from September 17, 2024, through January 5, 2025, the exhibition comprises more than 70 modern and contemporary masterpieces from the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia and other major museums and private collections in the United States and Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Museum and Gallery of the Northern Territory, and the University of Melbourne.

Conceived, developed and curated by leaders of the Yolŋu people of northeastern Australia, Maḏayin places Indigenous voices at the forefront, reinforcing the important role of Indigenous artists in global contemporary art and curatorial practice.” — Asia Society

“The land has everything it needs. But it couldn’t speak. It couldn’t express itself. Tell its identity. And so it grew a tongue. That is the Yolŋu. That is me. We are the tongue of the land. Grown by the land so it can sing who it is. We exist so we can paint the land,” Djambawa Marawili, Yolŋu leader and artist, explained.

Maḏayin is one of the first exhibitions of Aboriginal Australian art in New York City since Asia Society’s seminal 1988 exhibition Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia and subsequent exhibition The Native Born: Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Ramingining in 2003–2004. “The Dreamings exhibition marked a major turning point in the international reception of Aboriginal art as fine art and has been credited with inspiring John W. Kluge to begin building his collection, leading to the creation of the Kluge-Ruhe Collection,” says Yasufumi Nakamori, Director of Asia Society Museum and Vice President for Arts and Culture. “It is therefore especially fitting for Asia Society to host Maḏayin, one of the largest and most important exhibitions of Aboriginal Australian art mounted in the Western Hemisphere in over 30 years.”

Maḏayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala was organized by the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia in partnership with the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre in Australia.

Title image: Detail of Narritjin Maymuru. About 1916–1981; Maŋgalili clan. Yiŋapuŋapu (Sand Sculpture for Yirritja Mortuary Ceremonies). Before 1972. Natural pigments on eucalyptus bark. H. 38 3/8 x W. 21 in. (97.5 x 53.3 cm). Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia. Edward L. Ruhe Collection. Gift of John W. Kluge.