Tracey Moffatt's Complete Archive Finds a Home at Chau Chak Wing Museum

Award-winning artist Tracey Moffatt's complete works have found a home at the Chau Chak Wing Museum in Sydney, with the acquisition of her entire archive by an anonymous donor.

The collection includes an edition of every photographic work, film, and video produced by Moffatt since 1985, showcasing her four-decade career as a renowned Australian artist.

A Childhood of Art and Mischief

When Tracey Moffatt was five years old, she won a children's art competition and was asked to donate her winning entry to the local children's hospital. The problem was, it wasn't Moffatt's work. "I stole the painting from a boy who was a better artist than I was," the award-winning artist tells Awaye!. "In those days we'd make our paintings and put them outside on the concrete to dry in the sun," she says, thinking back to her childhood in the outer suburbs of Brisbane in the 1960s. "I picked up Johnny's [painting] because he had run home. [My teacher] was so delighted with the picture. The next thing I know, it's entered in a child's painting competition and it won."

Moffatt is not proud of her "childhood shenanigans". In fact, she calls the request to donate the painting her "letter of shame". Still, it proves even from a young age she had an eye for art. "I knew what was good," Moffatt says.

A Career of Storytelling and Narrative

Moffatt turned to photography and filmmaking due to her "complete and total lack of the ability to paint or draw". Over her career, her work has been recognised in acquisitions and exhibitions by major art institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, the Tate Modern in London, the Guggenheim and Dia Center for the Arts in New York.

Moffatt's sustained focus on creating highly staged images is a deliberate rejection of the notion of capturing or documenting reality. Instead, she uses her extensive knowledge of early printing processes and cinematic history to create something entirely new. "I know that [a piece] is working when I feel I haven't seen such an image before. If an image suddenly resonates with me, that's when I know. There's no formula," she says.

The Archive and its Significance

The donation of Moffatt's archive to Chau Chak Wing Museum is the first of its kind in Australia, and will see an edition of every photograph, film, and video she has put her hand to since 1985 housed "neat as a pin" in the museum's newly appointed Tracey Moffatt Archive room.

"I'm so honoured by the idea of my archive being held by Chau Chak Wing Museum for safe keeping and eventual display. An artist couldn't want for anything better," Moffatt says.

Moffatt also contributed a donation of her own, in the form of Andy Warhol-inspired "time capsules" of ephemera, test prints, newspaper clippings, old scripts and costumes, as well as personal photographs.

Display and Future Plans

Moffatt suspects the archive will entice the academics who've always been interested in her art. "Students call me nonstop, and I'm studied not only here, but around the world. So this is a place where students can study if they're interested in my work," she says.

"It's also somewhere scholars that write about my work can come in and drag out framed pieces they might've missed out on previously."

Moffatt has no intention of being involved in any of the curatorial decisions about how or when her archive is displayed, and will instead focus on making new works. "I have commissions. I've got a big new piece I've made for the National Gallery. And then I have other commissions for next year, and I am working on a new photo series. So I've got a lot on my plate," she says.

There is one small caveat to Moffatt's hands-off approach. She's asked that the museum refrain from "a big Tracey Moffatt show" and instead look for creative ways to incorporate her series into themed exhibitions.

"It's all about letting go. Let it go and let it go. I've always been like this. My work has crossed borders. It's gone out into the world. I just have this thing of 'set it free'."

"I've made it, and I'm happy to let it go."