The Australian Government has acquired Archie Moore’s kith and kin. Commissioned by Creative Australia and curated by Ellie Buttrose, it was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the La Biennale de Venezia 2024.
kith and kin is being acquired by the Australian Government to be gifted to the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane who, along with their acquisition partner Tate, in the UK, will see two of the world’s leading art museums ensure its enduring legacy on the global stage.
In kith and kin, Moore charts his First Nations Australian connections spanning more than 2,400 generations and 65,000 years in a vast hand-drawn genealogical chart. As a memorial it confronts how the ongoing legacies of Australia’s colonial history – with a focus on the overincarceration of First Nations peoples – sever familial connections. kith and kin represents the expansiveness of First Nations Australian history, whilst speaking to the universality of the human family.
Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and Tate’s connection with kith and kin is implied by the artwork itself following maternal First Nations (Kamilaroi/Bigambul) and paternal convict (British/Scottish) lines and along a complex terrain that defines and connects Australia and the United Kingdom as nations.
The gift of kith and kin to these public art museums ensures the act of First Nations truth-telling that kith and kin forcefully and poetically presents will remain on a global platform, continuing to increase international awareness of Australia’s first histories, languages and cultures and foster action for the issues facing First Nations Australians.
Following its display at the Australia Pavilion, Venice, kith and kin will be presented at Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane from August 2025.
On the news of the gift and acquisition, Archie Moore said:
“I am so grateful for this generous donation that enables kith and kin to be seen both here in Australia and overseas, in the near and distant future.”
Leading Indigenous scholar and curator Stephen Gilchrist notes:
“Through the unfolding of a single-family tree, Moore's work kith and kin pushes ancestral memory into the present and immerses audiences into the fullness of Indigenous time. Moving from the personal to the cosmic, it visualises Indigenous understanding of the interconnectedness of all things and all people and questions what it means to encounter the world on these terms. Honouring the life force of 2400 generations, this significant shared acquisition amplifies the power of Indigenous presence and politics globally.”
Australian Government Minister for the Arts, the Hon Tony Burke MP, said:
”kith and kin is a great Australian story first exhibited in Venice, but now comes home.”
Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Director, Chris Saines CNZM, said:
“Encountering Archie Moore’s kith and kin at the Venice Biennale was a spectacular and moving experience that resonated with the weight of history and ancestry. In its unimaginable endeavour to map a personal genealogy through more than two thousand generations, Moore has summoned up an extraordinary image of human connection through deep time. kith and kin has that rare power to still you into silence and reflection. We are profoundly grateful to be the joint custodians of this historic work and we look forward to showing the project, curated by QAGOMA’s Curator of Contemporary Australian Art, Ellie Buttrose, in Brisbane from August 2025.”
Queensland’s Minister for the Arts, the Hon Leeanne Enoch MP, said:
“Through his award-winning work kith and kin, Queensland-based Kamilaroi/Bigambul artist Archie Moore has encapsulated tens of thousands of years of First Nations stories in a stirring and ambitious installation.
“The recognition of Archie Moore’s work at this year’s Venice Biennale has highlighted the powerful stories and creative talent of First Nations artists in Australia, and the country’s leadership on the global contemporary art scene.
“The Queensland Government is thrilled that kith and kin will be part of the state’s Art Collection, with its potent message of truth telling also to be shared with wider audiences through the joint acquisition with the Tate.”
Tate Director, Maria Balshaw, said:
"Archie Moore's kith and kin is both highly personal and political, and it offers a powerful meditation on humanity's interconnections stretching back into deep time. Sharing this great work with QAGOMA also reflects the ever-stronger ties between Tate and our fellow art museums in Australia. I'm very grateful to Creative Australia and all our friends and colleagues in the region who have helped make these relationships blossom."
Notes to Editors:
Exhibition details
Australia Pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia
Address:
Australia Pavilion, Giardini di Castello 30122
Exhibition dates:
20 April – 24 November 2024
creative.gov.au/venicebiennale
kithandkin.me
@kithandkin_2024
@ausatvenice
Artwork credit line:
kith and kin 2024
Ink on polyester, water, composite board, paint, aluminium, steel, pigment and clay crayon, methyl acetate
499.8 x 1588 x 1498cm
Artwork courtesy of the artist and The Commercial
Photo credits:
Archie Moore / kith and kin 2024 / Australia Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2024 / Photographer Andrea Rossetti / © the artist / Images courtesy of the artist and The Commercial
Press images: here (via dropbox)
For international media enquiries, please contact:
Rel Hayman | Pelham Communications
t: +44 (0)20 8969 3959
e: rel@pelhamcommunications.com
Phoebe Dunfoy | Pelham Communications
t: +44 (0)20 8969 3959
e: phoebe.d@pelhamcommunications.com
For media enquiries within Australia and New Zealand, please contact:
Claire Martin | Articulate
t: +61 (0) 414 437 588
e: claire@articulatepr.com.au
Jasmine Hersee | Articulate
t: +61 (0) 451 087 196
e: jasmine@articulatepr.com.au
More information:
Background on the acquisition:
- kith and kin is executed afresh each time it is exhibited and realised in accordance with the artist’s instruction.
- As is common with many major contemporary international artworks, kith and kin is a set of artist instructions rather than a physical object that needs to be stored. This means that it can easily co-exist at two institutions (one in Australia and one outside Australia) at any one time with no additional expense, shipping, conservation or storage costs.
- The genealogical drawing in kith and kin exists as a digital capture of Moore’s vast hand-drawn studies and research created during the intensive 12-month period leading up to the Venice Biennale and builds upon two earlier artworks that he created in 2021 and 2018.
- The first version of Family Tree was exhibited at Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane, in Moore’s survey exhibition in 2018. It was drawn directly onto the wall and painted over at the end of the exhibition.
- Moore’s 2021 Family Tree, a precursor to kith and kin is currently on display at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra hanging alongside the 1988 Aboriginal Memorial.
- Moore’s 2021 Family Tree drawing is 24 square metres. The kith and kin drawing, produced three years later, is 354 square metres.
Background on Archie Moore’s family:
- Moore’s mother’s people are Bigambul and Kamilaroi from South-East Queensland and Northern New South Wales — close to where QAGOMA stands.
- Archie Moore’s paternal great-great-grandfather, William Moore, was born in London — where Tate stands — in 1803 and was sentenced to death at the age of 16 for stealing cloth from a tailor. The sentence was changed to transportation to the colony of New South Wales, arriving on Gadigal land in 1820.
- Nine years after William Moore, Archie Moore’s great-great grandfather, arrived in Australia as a convict, he was given a ‘ticket of leave’, and by the age of thirty-two he was pardoned and able to ‘acquire’ land, under British law, in Wollombi, New South Wales, the lands of the Darkinjung, Awabakal and Wonnarua Peoples.
- Moore’s Grandfather, also called William Moore, won a land ballot in 1900 for a parcel of land in Coolatai, NSW on Kamilaroi country — the land of Archie Moore’s mother’s people.
Read more about the artwork on the Creative Australia website.
Contact details:
For international media enquiries, please contact:
Rel Hayman | Pelham Communications
t: +44 (0)20 8969 3959
e: rel@pelhamcommunications.com
Phoebe Dunfoy | Pelham Communications
t: +44 (0)20 8969 3959
e: phoebe.d@pelhamcommunications.com
For media enquiries within Australia and New Zealand, please contact:
Claire Martin | Articulate
t: +61 (0) 414 437 588
e: claire@articulatepr.com.au
Jasmine Hersee | Articulate
t: +61 (0) 451 087 196
e: jasmine@articulatepr.com.au
