Artist or monster? Mammoth new Gauguin show reckons with colonial legacy – to limited success
![Artist or monster? Mammoth new Gauguin show reckons with colonial legacy – to limited success](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4816e1b3f8e0d8d0bda947af56f1335661b4f47e/0_0_1200_720/master/1200.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=07aa0993d5bfb0105b0fb3d0bad25735)
The National Gallery of Australia’s exhibition Gauguin’s World: Tōna Iho, Tōna Ao acknowledges the French master’s misdeeds in the Pacific – but just as easily omits or distracts from them
What to do with a problem like Paul Gauguin? The 19th-century French master’s radical experimentations with colour, space and syncretic symbolism have made him a canonical artist. Yet it is “Gauguin the monster” – not “Gauguin the artist” – who takes up the most oxygen in discussions today. It is Gauguin – purveyor of primitivist fantasies, emblem of French colonialism in the Pacific, and paedophilic, syphilitic sex tourist who took child brides as young as 13 – who looms large in the public consciousness.
The National Gallery of Australia has clearly grappled with this legacy in the lead-up to its winter blockbuster, titled Gauguin’s World: Tōna Iho, Tōna Ao. This is the first major exhibition of Gauguin in Australia, with more than 130 works by the artist being pulled from collections from around the world.
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