The Indigenous Visual Arts Industry: Issues and Prospects for the Next Decade

Cover of The Indigenous Visual Arts Industry: Issues and Prospects for the Next Decade
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Foreign returned: Between expatriate and repatriate in Mumbai
Feature
Balamohan Shingade

Published 01 September 2018
1.126
Human flow in Melanesia: Taloi Havini's artefacts and habitats
Feature
Nicholas Thomas

Published 01 September 2018
1.122
Living and dying under surveillance: Xu Bing's Dragonfly Eyes
Feature
Sasha Grbich

Published 01 September 2018
Artlink Subs Promo
1.122
Inhuman flow: Censorship and art in the two Chinas
Feature
Darren Jorgensen and Tami Xiang

Published 01 September 2018
1.124
Sublime Plight: Richard Mosse, Ai Weiwei and the social turn
Feature
Wes Hill

Published 01 September 2018
1.3
YARN: The art of conversation
Feature

Coby Edgar interviews Warren Roberts, CEO of YARN Australia

Published June 2018
Artlink Promo
1.126
Editorial: Kanarn Wangkiny/Wanggandi Karlto (Speaking from Inside)
Feature
Clothilde Bullen with James Tylor

Published 01 June 2018
1.276
Katie West: Living well
Feature
Katie West

Published 01 June 2018

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.

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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
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
The House of Aboriginality
Feature
Vivien Johnson

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.

Published March 2000
Rover Thomas
Tribute
Kim Akerman

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.

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
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
Looking at the Stolen Generation
Feature
Christine Nicholls

The government policy of separating Indigenous children from their parents was still in force until the 1970s in some states. Indigenous artists who have recently begun depicting these events include Julie Dowling, Gordon Syron, John Packham, Rea and Brenda Croft. Their work has been part of the uncovering of the hidden history of these children of which many non-indigenous Australians were quite ignorant until the mid 1990s.

Published March 2000
Remote Area Computer Art: Multi-Media Talent Emerges in Yuendumu
Feature
Sue Angel

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.

Published March 2000
Judy Watson's etched zinc wall at Bunjilaka
Feature
Gaye Sculthorpe

Queensland artist Judy Watson spent three months in Melbourne on a commission for a zinc wall around 50 metres long for the Bunjilaka gallery at the new Museum Melbourne. Watson used motifs relating to Aboriginal material culture in the etched panels of this work.

Published March 2000
Lin Onus
Tribute
Margo Neale

A tribute to the celebrated artist Lin Onus who died prematurely in 1996 aged 47. Onus had a remarkable career, from motor mechanic and political activist to maker of marvellous, witty and original paintings and sculptures. He was also widely loved and respected for his compassion and willingness to lead the cause of Aboriginal advancement. He was a cultural terrorist of gentle irreverence who bridged divides in a way in which very few are able.

Published March 2000
Polemic: From the 21st Century and Through the Telescope
Feature
Janet Maughan

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

Published March 2000
Y.Y. Gibson Tjungurrayi
Tribute
Richard (Dick) Kimber

A tribute to the Pintupi painter Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi born c.1928 in the region of Kintore and died in 1998. He was a strongly traditional man and after migrating to Papunya he was encouraged by Geoff Bardon to take up painting. His works, mainly the Tingari stories to do with the ceremonial stories of ancestral men, were acquired by collections in Australia and internationally.

Published March 2000
 
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