Boomalli: Fact or Fantasy: you decide!

Cover of Boomalli: Fact or Fantasy: you decide!
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The Artlink Archive Project: Inside the 'Outsider' issue
Feature
Juliette Peers

Published 01 August 2022
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The SubMerge Project: Autistic embodiment and the extended bodymind
Feature
Alison Bennett and Dean Walsh

Published 01 August 2022
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Arts Project Australia: Raising the bar through collaborative partnerships
Feature
Sim Luttin

Published 01 August 2022
SALA
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Staying the distance, closing the distance: Graeae Theatre UK and DADAA, WA
Feature
Jenny Sealey

Published 01 August 2022
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Exquisite interplay: Accessible art workshops for emerging artists
Feature
M. Sunflower

Published 01 August 2022
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Other Body Knowledge: Sophie Cassar, Lara Chamas, Fayen d'Evie, Sam Petersen, Jane Trengove
Feature
Olga Bennett and Jane Trengove

Published 01 August 2022
NAVA
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What do you do at Studio A?
Feature
Emily Crockford, Guy Fredericks, Emma Johnston, Daniel Kim, Jaycee Kim, Adam Mandarano, Catherine McGuiness, Gabrielle Mordy, Meagan Pelham, Skye Saxon, Lisa Scott, Damian Showyin, Philip Sidney, Thom Roberts and Chloe Watfern

Published 01 August 2022
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Thinking without fear: Ruark Lewis
Feature
Marielle Soni

Published 01 August 2022

Boomalli, founded in 1987, enters an unlikely future where anonymous benefactors help them to buy premises in an inner city suburb, to employ curators and become independent of funding bodies. Tax-free havens are set up for indigenous artists in NSW and Boomalli members exhibit regularly at MOMA in New York.

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More from this Issue Full Issue Contents

Good Brother Working with our Kids
Feature
Tjalaminu Mia

Ron Gidgup was the first Aboriginal fashion designer in WA. Since getting the Aboriginal of the Year Award in 1997 he began to turn his skills towards helping Aboriginal youth in crisis. He runs workshops in textile and clothing design and brought many young people back from the brink of death from substance abuse. He has worked in urban and rural settings, with schools and other groups.

Published March 2000
Art in Warmun community
Feature
Susan Hartley

A new art centre at Warmun in the Kimberly of WA is a showcase for the talents of the artists of the area, some of whom used to work on big pastoral stations in this remote area. Celebrated founders of the centre were Rover Thomas and Queenie Mckenzie. There are tensions between their interests and those of white landowners in relation to access to 'country' being denied. Young people are unable to have a traditional education and are becoming westernised through videos.

Published March 2000
George Milpurrurru and David Malangi
Tribute
Michael O+Ferrall

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.

Published March 2000
Nomad to TV star in three years: Walala Tjapaltjarri meets the world
Feature
Lotte Waters

In late 1984 Walala Tjapaltjarri and other Pintupi tribespeople walked out of the Gibson desert in WA and met Europeans for the first time. Within a few years Walala adapted his traditional ground and body painting to painting on canvas and was filmed by Robert Hughes for his TV series Beyond the Fatal Shore.

Published March 2000
The Indigenous Visual Arts Industry: Issues and Prospects for the Next Decade
Feature
Jon Altman

The economics of indigenous art is analysed in detail in relation to production, collection and distribution, consumption, developments in the 1990s, prospects for the next decade, tourist art, protection of intellectual property, quality control, authenticity and leadership.

Published March 2000
Challenging boundaries: Indigenous Art in Three Dimensions
Feature
Doreen Mellor

Recent Indigenous 3-D work is regarded as both art and craft. The materials range from shell and rushes to scrap steel, grass, ceramic, glass and bull kelp; the works may be vessels, installations, necklaces, small figures etc. The works often contain explicit references to cultural or historical truths eg the figures by WA artist Joyce Winsley which recall characters from her youth in the country, or Lola Greeno's water containers made in the traditional way from bull kelp .

Published March 2000
New Ways With Clay: Tiwi Pottery
Feature
Margie West

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.

Published March 2000
Queenie McKenzie
Tribute
Patricia Vinnicombe

A tribute to the Western Australian artist Queenie McKenzie who died in 1998. She lived her whole life in the Texas Downs area and before taking up painting in old age she worked on the cattle station there and was a stalwart supporter of 'women's law business' and language. She was a confident and prolific painter mostly of her country but sometimes of social topics. When her work was recognised by the art market she shared her material success generously with her adopted family.

Published March 2000
Photography with Intent
Feature
Gary Lee

Various indigenous artists began to use photography to express ideas about their social and political position in the 1980s; the 1988 Bicentennial celebrations were a strong catalyst. Formerly they were always on the other side of the lens, as anthropological subjects. The exception was Mervyn Bishop, employed as a press photographer in the 1960s, and pioneer in the medium and role model for younger artists including Fiona Foley, Ricky Maynard, Peter McKenzie.

Published March 2000
The 'Aboriginal Art Scandals' Scandal
Feature
Vivien Johnson

A chronicle of a spate of so-called 'Aboriginal art scandals' which happened in the late 1990s, some of which involved white artists passing off work as Aboriginal. The custom amongst indigenous artists of family members working with an artist on paintings creates problems for the western art market and leads to claims of fraud. The media is often guilty of distorting and sensationalising events. The newly launched Label of Authenticity enters the scene.

Published March 2000
Black Glory: Erotica Old and New
Feature
Gary Lee

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.

Published March 2000
Printmaking Gains Momentum
Feature
Basil Hall

The first Aboriginal prints were linocuts made in jail by Kevin Gilbert. By the late 1970s Aboriginal printmaking in collaboration with print studios had begun. The Canberra School of Art, Port Jackson Press and now Northern Editions have been catalysts for the many enthusiasts at the Yirrkala, Papunya, Tiwi, Munupi, Oenpelli, Ernabella etc communities and workshops are run in remote centres at their request. Some like Lockhart River are now setting up their own facilities.

Published March 2000
 
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