Archie Moore’s Venice Biennale Work Acquired by Tate, Queensland

A landmark artwork that won praise and an award at the Venice Biennale has joined the collections of England’s Tate museum network and South Brisbane’s Queensland Art Gallery.

Archie Moore‘s kith and kin (2024), an installation currently on view at the Golden Lion–winning Australian Pavilion, has now found ownership with those two institutions. They obtained the work via joint acquisition, meaning that they will share it.

Following the Venice Biennale’s conclusion in November, the piece will head next year to the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, where it will remain on view through 2026.

The artwork comprises a set of documents piled above a low reflecting pool. The documents, which are partly redacted, are related to First Nations people who died in custody. On the pavilion’s walls and ceiling, Moore, who is of Kamilaroi and Bigambul descent, has traced his family 65,000-year-long lineage.

Moore previously told ARTnews that the work dealt with the loss of Indigenous history and the pervasiveness of racism. “This work is asking, why is it still happening? Why is there reluctance to do anything about it?” he said.

Chris Saines, director of the Queensland Art Gallery, said in a statement, “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.”

“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,” Maria Balshaw, Tate’s director, said in a statement. “Sharing this great work with QAGOMA also reflects the ever-stronger ties between Tate and our fellow art museums in Australia.”