Crux - Brian Jungen: Strange Comfort - October 16, 2009–August 8, 2010 - The National Museum of the American Indian

Crux

Crux (as seen from those who sleep on the surface of the earth under the night sky), first shown at the 2008 Biennale of Sydney, suspends five animals—a shark, crocodile, emu, sea eagle, and possum, all formed from the parts of suitcases—from an overturned rowboat. The boat was central to Crux’s creation; Jungen used it to haul supplies back and forth to a workspace in Sydney Harbor, located under the flight path of the Sydney airport. A sophisticated understanding of the movement of stars across the heavens was developed long ago by Indigenous Australians, and each animal in Crux is a figure central to their constellations, making this mobile the skyworld, flipped upside down.

Crux was acquired by the National Museum of the American Indian in 2009 and is installed in the museum’s atrium.

Crux (as seen from those who sleep on the surface of the Earth under the night sky) (detail)
2008. Suspended mobile depicting five animals. Steel, new and used suitcases, and wooden rowboat. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (26/7253). Photo: Ernest Amoroso, NMAI.