Snapshot of a Culture

Cover of Snapshot of a Culture
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Risky business: Engaging adolescents at the Art Gallery of South Australia
Feature
Kylie Neagle

Published 01 September 2019
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MCAD Manila: Learning, sharing and conversation
Feature
Joselina Cruz and Paula Acuin

Published 01 September 2019
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Museum MACAN: Critical conversations through art
Feature
Aaron Seeto

Published 01 September 2019
Artlink Subs Promo
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Falling in love (Or is the curatorial a methodology?)
Feature
Tara McDowell

Published 01 September 2019
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Being an artist and an art teacher
Feature
Henry Ward

Published 01 September 2019
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Trying to be at home in the world: New parameters for art education
Feature
Gert Biesta

Published 01 September 2019
NAVA
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Choose your own immersion: Art schools as a site of creative becoming
Feature
Una Rey

Published 01 September 2019
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Vanishing into action: Art beyond the contemporary
Feature
Alasdair Foster

Published 01 September 2019

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.

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More from this Issue Full Issue Contents

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
Tribute: Lin Onus
Tribute
Margo Neale

Lin 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. 

Published 01 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
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
M.N. Tjapaltjarri
Tribute
Richard (Dick) Kimber

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.

Published March 2000
Emily Kame Kngwarray
Tribute
Jenny Green

A tribute to Emily Kame Kngwarray the celebrated painter from Sandover near the central desert community of Utopia, who died in 1996 after a meteoric career during which she produced 3,000 works in 8 years. Although her concern was to paint and thus protect her country (her main subject was the pencil yam after the seeds and flowers of which - kam - she was named) she was acclaimed by some as a major abstract painter of the 20th century. She won a major creative fellowship and was posthumously shown at the Venice Biennale.

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
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
Contemporary Voices: Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery in the SA Museum
Feature
Franchesca Cubillo

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

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
Bush Toys
Feature
Liesl Rockchild

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.

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