The approach to AGWA from the north retains the spaciousness originally envisioned by Polish-born architect Kazimierz (‘Charles’) Sierakowski. The new external elevator that allows direct access to AGWA’s redeveloped rooftop – sculpture walk, gallery, and bar/café – has been judiciously integrated into the minimalist design of the late Brutalist building, a stark contrast to the current trend towards decorative ‘skins’ and garish lightshows. Gerhard Marcks’s Der rufer (The caller, 1967), which once stood at ground level, can now be glimpsed from behind the rooftop’s parapet, hands cupped to mouth as if summoning Perth’s citizenry to The View from Here. It’s an arresting sight for those who care to look up.

That first day, I decided to ignore the grand sweep of the concrete staircase leading up to AGWA’s first floor and start at the top. I took the internal elevator. Decorated in a scene from Tim Meakins’s Muscle Beach (2021), a mirror covering the wall opposite the elevator’s doors confronts visitors with their own image and transports them into Meakins’s fun-park world. The doors open on more of his gargantuan tubular bodybuilders and cartoonish plastic cut-outs. His intention may be playful, but the figures’ pasted-on, toothy smiles exude a sense of menace. Not all is as it first appears.

From the rooftop, the 360-degree views of Perth and its surrounding suburbs are impressive, but the café’s ill-conceived concrete tables and benches are baking hot, even on a mild day. Targets (2021), by Noongar artist Christopher Pease, is a monumental thirty-four-metre-long, printed-metal piece that wraps the rooftop gallery’s exterior with a panorama reproduced from Frederick Garling’s Swan River – View from Fraser’s Point (1827). Symbolic of the devastation wreaked by European invasion, the red perforated targets that cover Pease’s bucolic landscape are particularly spectacular at night when the perforations are backlit. The aestheticisation of catastrophe is a vexed issue that recurs throughout The View from Here, whether artists are addressing colonialism, racism, disability, or climate change.

Christopher Pease, Targets, 2020, (detail) ink and polymer coating on aluminium and LED lighting fifty-six panels: 483 x 3,471 cm (overall), State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through The Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2021 (photograph by Jessica Wyld)

Regrettably, I didn’t spend enough time in Collective Ground, the pièce de resistance of The View from Here. The exhibition of some sixty works selected from 129 First Nations artists purchased through the AGWA Foundation’s $1.5 million Covid-19 stimulus package was open for only two weeks. By the time I returned, packing crates blocked the first-floor walkway in preparation for an exhibition of Indigenous art from the National Gallery of Australia. In contrast to the rest of the gallery’s relatively clinical display, the space dedicated to Collective Ground had been transformed. Artworks shone jewel-like against black painted walls. The colours of complex, multilayered paintings, such as Manyjilyjarra artist Jakayu Biljabu’s Minyipuru (Jakukyukulyu, Seven Sisters, 2015) or the stunning Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters, 2020) by the Spinifex Women’s Collaborative, seemed to vibrate against the dark background; Timo Hogan’s expressive sandy-white brushstrokes in Lake Baker (2020), his Telstra Award-winning painting, appeared to glow. Although Collective Ground will return in 2022 as part of a major First Nations gallery-wide event, the disruption is disappointing.

From Perth Station, the approach to AGWA is unprepossessing. Public space has been fenced off and boasts signage promoting ‘The Delicious Business of Food’. Visitors to The View from Here must run the gauntlet of a line of portaloos before they reach AGWA’s entrance. In the foyer, Noongar/Torres Strait Islander Tyrown Waigana’s first large-scale mural work, Overgrown, reflects his graphic design and animation background. An octopus-like creature waves green tentacles through the gaping mouth of a ghostly face, a surreal greeting that signals AGWA’s commitment to providing a venue for Western Australian creatives to expand their practice.

On the ground floor, Within, Around showcases new acquisitions and key pieces from the gallery’s collection. It makes for some interesting bedfellows. 100 Vandals, which displays a hundred pages from the sketchbooks of Perth’s graffiti and street art community, is opposite prints by the Australian Centre 4 Concrete Art (AC4CA); calligraphic curlicues and explosions of colour offer a striking contrast to the hard-edge designs for AC4CA’s commissioned wall murals. Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont’s collaborative photographs (In their dash to victory the runners circle the main stadium, 2009) draw inspiration from Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda films, transplanting her representations of the heroic onto images of Australian sportswomen. In his sun-bleached Cup City series of photographs (1986–87), Kevin Ballantine captures Western Australia’s isolation and emptiness. Rodney Glick’s extraordinarily realistic wooden sculptures are made in collaboration with Balinese carvers and painters. His life-size sleeping man dressed in camouflage gear (Imagine you know what you are doing, 2017–20) has the same ‘aha’ effect as Ricky Swallow’s intricate wooden still lifes.

Balancing Act exhibits works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists that include traditional bark painting, contemporary dot painting, prints, and sculptures. Among them, Amanda Bell’s glorious pink neon sign ‘Moordij’, a Noongar word meaning ‘awesome’ (From our lip, mouths, throats and belly, 2021), casts a rosy glow over senior Wankjona/Walmajarri artist Nagarralja Tommy May’s laser-cut brass clouds. Connected to earth and rocks by shimmering chains, the work speaks to the importance of water on this dry continent. Paintings from Sandra Hill’s Home-maker series place traditional Aboriginal women into classic 1950s scenes of white domesticity and speak to the cultural alienation and displacement experienced by Indigenous peoples. One of my favourite works from the gallery’s collection, Karla Dickens’s installation The Native Institute (2013–15), bristles with quills, bones, feathers, string, lace, and artificial flowers. Bibles, crucifixes, and images of Christian iconography are transformed into fetish objects that address the ‘good intentions’ of missionary colonialists.

Sarah Bahbah, Silence, 2021, colour photographic print, 127 x 127 cm (courtesy of Artist Sarah Bahbah)

Between, Beyond brings together artists of diverse cultural backgrounds. Two of Muslim artist Abdul Abdullah’s oil paintings are richly textured seascapes: We didn’t see the fire (2020) has a pair of cartoonish wrestling figures painted over roiling waves; And the Portuguese and the Dutch (2020) sports the sign ‘GO HOME BRITISH SOLDIER’. Both speak to the jingoistic tendencies of closely guarded borders and Australia’s policy on illegal immigration. Palestinian/Jordanian/Australian artist Sarah Babah’s frankly sexy photographs of herself and various models are undermined by captions in English and Arabic. Please leave me alone so I can overthink in silence (2020) reveals the vulnerabilities of the beautiful woman lying in a bathtub smoking a hookah. A bikini-clad woman reclines beside a sumptuous outdoor pool. Despite the seemingly available figure, the caption – I am not available for the emotionally unavailable (2020) – says otherwise, challenging viewers to examine themselves with her unblinking stare. Iranian/Australian artist Saleheh Gholami addresses the experience of refugees in Australia’s mandatory detention centres. In TO BLUE (2019), a man seems to hover above an empty street, a folding chair and a ceiling fan beside him. His bent neck and the position of his figure, apparently hanging from a curved street pole, allude to the emotional impact of cultural displacement.

The more than 360 artworks exhibited in The View From Here range in perspective from the local to the global, from introspective to outward-looking. Diversity and inclusivity are key. For once we should be grateful to the pandemic for the imposed self-reflection that prompted this momentous celebration of Western Australian art and artists.

The View From Here is showing at the Art Gallery of Western Australia from 6 November 2021 to 31 January 2022.

This review is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.