Snapshot of a Culture
A conference about Indigenous arts and crafts was held in 1999 and was a useful sounding board for issues from the new Label of Authenticity and copyright, to the new Goods and Services Tax and art in cyberspace.
More from this Issue
M.N. Tjapaltjarri
A tribute to Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri born c.1926 in Pintupi country and who died in 1998. He lived in Papunya and was encouraged by Geoff Bardon to start painting and was a member of the Papunya Tula Artists Company. By 1991 when he won the National Aboriginal Art Award his works were being acquired by national collections and many other collectors.
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.
Boomalli: Fact or Fantasy: you decide!
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.
Snapshots of Contemporary Sound, Movement and Words from Broome
Broome is a town in WA with a long history of many cultures living and working together. It is the home of a vibrant Indigenous music industry, its most famous sons being the Pigram brothers and Jimmy Chi, author of the musicals Bran Nue Day and Corrugation Road . Magabala Books is flourishing, and the Stompen' Ground Festival is gaining in strength and reputation.
The Art and Craft Centre Story
Review of The Art and Craft Centre Story Volume I by Felicity Wright and Frances Morphy. This is an exhaustive survey of Indigenous art centres examining every aspect of their operations. The appalling conditions under which the staff of these centres work bely the extraordinary success of these centres. The authors recommend adoption of a policy of coordinated help with human resources.
Queenie McKenzie
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.
Art in Warmun community
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.
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
Challenging boundaries: Indigenous Art in Three Dimensions
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 .