On Planting a Native

On Planting a Native was created in response to the removal of a Tony Coleing’s (b. 1942) installation of black gnomes by the Art Gallery of South Australia. According to Allen, Coleing had consulted local Aboriginal people prior to installing the work, however a visiting Aboriginal writer publicly objected to the piece whereby it became a major issue in the local press. In response, Allen systematically destroyed a small gum tree with a knife, chainsaw, shears, axe and an oxy-acetylene torch. Once the tree was completely taken apart, Allen taped its components to the wall, reconstructing it in a perfectly regular, geometric fashion. Throughout the performance Allen described and reflected upon his actions via a megaphone strapped to his chest.

“On Planting a Native posed a generatively ambiguous relationship to its source. On one hand it assumed an ambivalent distance from the act of removing Coleing’s work from public display (and the strange mix of interests operating in support of that action ranging from sectors of an indigenous community through to a conservative ‘talkback’ radio local constituency refusing to see the work as ‘art’ through to the host institution itself); and on the other re-staged an act of desecration which could itself have been both (and at once) any act of public representation of the European genera ‘native’ (irrespective of political intent) and the denial or evasion manifested in its censorship.” --- French, “Jim Allen,” p. 43.

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