The expansion of the Opale Foundation lends new resonance to Aboriginal art worldwide

For over twenty years, Bérengère Primat has traversed the vast Aboriginal territories to meet artists, both unknown and renowned, all bearers of ancestral knowledge. Sometimes difficult to access, the clans populating these distant lands have granted her the privilege of entering their world to understand better the one they paint on their canvas or bark. Witnessing a rite is not something one requests. It is a rare mark of trust that the Aboriginal people bestow. Yet, Bérengère Primat, a French native who settled in Geneva with her family in childhood, did not study fine arts but developed a passionate interest in this art through a chance encounter in a Parisian gallery. Since then, she has been collecting works as encounters with artists. Today, more than 1500 pieces constitute one of the largest collections of contemporary Aboriginal art in private hands, visible at the Opale Foundation. She encourages audiences, institutions, and artists to come and discover within its walls what is now considered the last major art movement of the 20th century.

Recently, the foundation has expanded significantly, complementing its exhibition halls with a dedicated library, conference auditorium, and extensive storage and conservation space. The current exhibition, HighFive, celebrating the institution's five-year anniversary, offers a rich and multidisciplinary interpretation of Aboriginal art through the perspective of 26 Swiss cultural figures and the cross-examination by an Aboriginal journalist. The result is simultaneously fascinating, unique, and universal. Each offers their insight, their intimate understanding of the chosen artwork from the hundreds held by the Foundation, inviting the visitor to find their own connection to this artistic universe at the edge of the world, yet central in what binds us to our origins and the earth. In the heart of the Swiss Alps, contemporary Aboriginal art has found its gravitational center. Meet Bérengère Primat, President and patron of the Opale Foundation.

Can you describe the emotion that gripped you when you discovered Aboriginal art in 2002?

I felt an inexplicable sense of reunion. I was both fascinated and moved by the artworks, which I felt resonating within me, akin to when one looks at cave paintings, awakening the universal dimension of humanity. Aboriginal art has been uninterrupted for 60,000 years, consisting of ephemeral painting, song, and dance.

What makes this art form so different?

Every Aboriginal person has the right and almost the duty to paint since they receive their education partly through this art, from a very young age, from the elders who transmit knowledge through ritual. Each clan has the right to paint certain things, often related to the land. This duty is accompanied by a responsibility to care for it. Every Aboriginal person gains a perfect knowledge of their land, the animals and inhabitants that populate it, as well as the landscape, the stars just above, and the underground. Seeing the world in its entirety and mapping it is deeply ingrained in their culture. Most paintings are topographical representations seen from the sky, pathways from one sacred site to another, or represent the underground and the movements and journeys that the ancestors undertook to create the landscape.

Aboriginal art has evolved into other mediums, such as photography, for example. Does this relationship with such a codified art also evolve?

I feel that this relationship remains the same, namely a profound respect for the land and the laws given to humans, but in a different form, as in the current HighFive exhibition at the Opale Foundation. Two Aboriginal works catch the eye upon entry. There is a canvas depicting a landscape painted by a great-grandfather and a self-portrait created by his great-grandson. Both tell the same story because painting a landscape is to paint oneself. As one artist explained, "My country is my body." They are rooted in this land, an integral part of the territory, which does not change, but the way of representing it evolves through photography or video.

This art form that has fascinated you for 20 years, has it profoundly changed you?

Yes, imagining living without this art seems impossible to me. My collection did not start in a structured or planned manner; I simply wanted to keep memories shared with the Aboriginal people, to remember the dances, songs, or stories told while they were at work. And then, I realized that it was becoming a real collection, mainly guided by my encounters with the artists and my personal choices. The more time I spent with them, the better I understood their culture and the more I learned to shape my perspective.

I read that you don't like to consider yourself a collector?

Today I accept it, but for a long time, I struggled with the idea of collection, which, in my eyes, amounted to mere accumulation. This feeling was mostly related to the artists and the infinite respect I hold for them and had nothing to do with a general critique of the process. However, I now embrace it because I realize that having a collection also entails the responsibility to display it and take care of it, a process that involves scientific research on the works. Today, more and more museums contact us and show interest in this art. We realize the influence and impact that the Opale Foundation can have. Since the pandemic, the connection to nature has become essential again, and Aboriginal art can shed light on it.

How has the art world's perception of this art form evolved?

Just five years ago, contemporary Aboriginal art lacked understanding, often reduced to an ethnographic discourse, even though the contemporary Aboriginal art movement actually began in 1971. It is precisely dated to when an English teacher teaching in the Papunya community in Australia asked his students to reproduce on paper the motifs that the elders traced in the sand with their fingers. The children refused, explaining the prohibition imposed on them, as they were not yet initiated. The elders agreed to reproduce it for the first time on the exterior walls of the school. Thus, the first non-ephemeral artwork was born, marking the beginning of what art critic Robert Hughes describes as the last major art movement of the 20th century.

Can one be non-Aboriginal and initiated into this art?

I am not initiated, nor am I Aboriginal, of course. I believe there have been a few examples, but it remains somewhat taboo. I had the chance myself to participate in a few ceremonies to which the Aboriginal people invited me. It was in northern Australia, during a funeral rite. At death, a first ceremony is organized, and then for a year, it is forbidden to pronounce the name of the deceased or to keep personal belongings. Everything is destroyed. The body is buried. Then, during the second ceremony, one to two years later, people gather, pronounce the name again, cry, and return to the place of death. This ceremony allows the soul of the deceased to depart and life to resume.

Are all these rites the "Dreaming," this constitutive concept of Aboriginal art?

Yes. It is very complex to explain what the word "dreaming" means. In the West, we talk about it through a notion of time, but the word "Everywhen" does not exist in French. Aboriginal people live in multiple space-times simultaneously. They are their ancestors and those yet to come.

What are the dangers that can alter these traditions and consequently alter their relationship to their art?

The modern world sometimes affects the desire of younger individuals to participate in initiations, which are often physically demanding. Even if they continue to follow the teachings, the impact on their culture is difficult to decipher. Their openness to the world and to a broader understanding of their universe is a way to perpetuate their art. In Aboriginal communities, even the most remote ones, there is a dedicated center, a cooperative managed by locals, where paints and canvases are provided, and it is also this cooperative that contacts galleries for exhibitions. In Australia, Aboriginal art has been recognized for about a decade.

How does it evolve in its market value?

Some artists stand out, like Emily Kame Kngwarreye, who achieved success from the outset. The National Gallery of Australia in Canberra is currently exhibiting a major retrospective of the artist, one of whose works is visible in our HighFive exhibition. She surpassed one million Australian dollars for work. Recently, another artist, Sally Gabori, experienced great success thanks to the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain. As soon as there is interest and research on an artist, their value increases. The quality of provenance is important because in Aboriginal art, there can be very bad ones, with some artists possibly being confined and forced to paint for others. This is what may have scared off some galleries.

What is your ambition at the Opale Foundation today?

The idea is to create a center of resources and knowledge on contemporary Aboriginal art and to be a platform for Aboriginal artists. A place where they can come and express themselves, talk about their art in complete safety, and advise us on how to showcase their art. We would like to set up a residency for Aboriginal curators and allow non-Aboriginal artists to exchange ideas with them.

Your HighFive exhibition precisely brings together the Swiss cultural milieu with this art.

Yes, you have both the stylist Kevin Germanier, the writer Metin Aditi, and the artist John Armleder among the 26 Swiss cultural figures who offer their vision and their relationship to an Aboriginal artwork chosen from the foundation's collection by proposing a mirror work. While it's not always easy to attract audiences to Lens, I am convinced it belongs there. Its location, in the mountains, resonates with Aboriginal art.

What is your next dream?

I have many, but I dream of organizing an off-site exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, like the one I organized at the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakech, which is ending soon. Bringing arts into dialogue is the best way to understand them.