Political Theatre in Beyond the Pale

The Adelaide Biennial of Australian Artin 2000 was a survey of new indigenous art titled Beyond the Pale. This attempt to show the best of new work was staged as a series of rooms each with a different mood from baskets and shimmering paintings to rooms of confrontation where works invited viewers to be shocked by figures of authority seen in very unflattering mode.

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Rover Thomas

A tribute to the Western Australian artist Rover Thomas who died in 1998 aged around 72. After a full life spent as a stockman and an important leader of ceremonial life through the Kurirr-Kurirr dance cycle in the Warmun community, in 1982 he began establishing a new mode of painting based on Kimberly rock art. His bold and original painting depicts the land and the massacres that took place there up to the 1950s. The National Gallery of Australia accorded him a retrospective exhibition Roads Cross in 1994.

Kim Akerman

Contemporary Voices: Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery in the SA Museum

The new Aboriginal Cultures Gallery at the SA Museum has set a new standard of excellence in interpretation of historical material. The use of film, video and computer terminals carrying extensive information from songs and interviews to historical documentation adds to the rich texture of the displays. Contemporary Voices is a set of filmed interviews conducted by museum staff in the six months before the opening of the new Gallery

Franchesca Cubillo

The House of Aboriginality

The House of Aboriginality is an evolving multimedia project about the merchandising of Indigenous imageries. A CD-rom sets out the story of the circulation of this in mainstream culture through the metaphor of a house entirely furnished with products bearing Aboriginal art designs.

Vivien Johnson

Tandanya: One City and a Festival

3SPACE -C21st Indigenous Explorers was an exhibition by Darryl Pfitzner Millika, Mark Blackman and David Pearce for the 2000 Adelaide Festival. In common is their shared history as contemporary indigenous artists in Adelaide, the city which had the first indigenous art centre Tandanya, a powerful catalyst for many enterprises which without it would not have been so well presented or widely seen.

Darryl Pfitzner Millika

David Malangi

Tributes to two painters from Ramingining in Arnhem Land, George Milpurrurru and David Malangi who helped to place this region on the map. Paintings were included in the 1979 Sydney Biennale. The iconography, style of painting and the public response to their work and interaction with the wider art world is discussed. Both of these major artists died during the 1990s after careers of around four decades.

Michael O'Ferrall

Polemic: From the 21st Century and Through the Telescope

Polemic: There has been a paradigm shift in Australia with the development of Aboriginal art, which may be as consequential as that of the Impressionists. Over the last 30 years Aboriginal artists have been making their voices heard and now make up at least 25% of the country's working visual artists though they are only 1.7% of the population. Their art will go down in history as providing new perspectives with which to view the world

Janet Maughan

Charting Co-existence

Mapping Our Countries was an exhibition at the short-lived Djamu Gallery in Sydney, curated by artist Judy Watson and archaeologist Dr Paul Ta'on. They collected objects and works of art to illustrate how they relate to the idea of mapping land or sea. Mapping is done for a huge variety of reasons, for exploiting resources, for proving theories, for simply finding one's way.

Maurice O'Riordan

Remote Area Computer Art: Multi-Media Talent Emerges in Yuendumu

Donovan Rice is a young Warlpiri man who has virtually taught himself to make computer art in the remote community of Yuendumu. He is making digital images and animations which relate to his own cultural situation against the backdrop of a chronically disfunctional society. He works under the aegis of Warlpiri Media, a community-run media resource centre and TV production house.

Sue Angel

New Ways With Clay: Tiwi Pottery

The Tiwi people on Melville and Bathurst Islands just north of Darwin have a 30-year tradition of pottery. They have absorbed a range of influences from the British Michael Cardew to visiting potters from Australia or via annual workshops with a Swiss potter Claude Presset. Some pots were collaboratively done - thrown by experienced potters and decorated by local artists. Slab and coil pieces drew on artists' experience in wood carving and painting.

Margie West

The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture

Sylvia Kleinert

Bush Toys

Bush Toys was an exhibition of toys made from scraps of metal and copper wire by the male members of the Eastern Arrente tribe of Central Australia in the late 1990s. These recall the era when Aboriginal people were the backbone of the pastoral industry, as stockmen and horse trainers. There are miniature horses and riders, windmills and stockyards, and wooden 'cars' for children to push along or ride in. The toys are a source of great pride for the men who make them.

Liesl Rockchild

Black Glory: Erotica Old and New

The exhibition 'Love Magic' explored Aboriginal male erotica and reveals a little-known dimension in traditional spirituality which has been echoed by contemporary artists. Images of phalluses, couples embracing and testicles going walkabout refer to legends and stories of the Old People. This very large exhibition was a life-affirming spectacle with humour and poignancy as well as some powerful eroticism.

Gary Lee

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