Editorial

It was Destiny Deacon who first used the term 'blak' in the Australian context. Deacon says the term takes the 'c' out of ‘bloody black cunts'.
'Blak on blak' is perhaps the first attempt to draw out how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts writers and curators think about our practising artists. We are compatriots, but there is a place for us to criticise their work as fellow countrymen and women.

Published March 2010

Learning to be proppa : Aboriginal artists collective ProppaNOW

Senior Research Fellow and Senior Curator at the National Museum of Australia Margo Neale presents an incisive account of the genesis of proppaNOW the Queensland collective of urban Aboriginal Artists who are making waves in Australia and internationally with their intelligent brash art.

Published March 2010

Arthur Pambegan Junior (1936-2010)

Published March 2010

History is a weapon: Fiona Foley history teacher

Badtjala woman Fiona Foley is a sculptor, installation artist, painter, printmaker, photographer, public artist, curator, lecturer and public speaker.
Her work addresses lacunae and silences in Australian history, opening wounds and drawing attention to important topics of the past and how it affects the present.

Published March 2010

Gary Lee: the outsider

Photographer Gary Lee makes work saturated with beauty and homoeroticism. His photographs of Aboriginal men are celebratory, bold and uncompromising.

Published March 2010

Gordon Hookey : Flash Gordon's message - language is a virus

Curator, artist and South Australian School of Art lecturer Brenda L. Croft gives the lowdown on Gordon Hookey's really rude and loud art that uses language and Australian animals to put the boot into racism and lend a voice to the silenced.

Published March 2010

Vernon Ah Kee - sovereign warrior

Garry Jones teaches Aboriginal Studies and Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong. Through his mother he is of Gamilaroi and Ngemba descent from Brewarrina in north-western New South Wales. In Artlink's blak on blak issue he writes at length about the subtle and anger-driven art practice of Vernon Ah Kee whose work featured in the 2009 Venice Biennale in a group exhibition of early career Australian artists at The Ludoteca curated by Felicity Fenner.

Published March 2010

Spotlight on Queensland Indigenous art

The Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency (QIAMEA) was established in 2003 to promote the export of quality Queensland Indigenous art globally and nationally.
A focal point for Queensland Indigenous art will be the 2nd Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF) to be held from 20 to 22 August 2010.

Published March 2010

Not black enough, the politics of skin

Bundjalung man, journalist and radio broadcaster Daniel Browning, guest editor of this issue of Artlink, writes about the current state of racism and Aboriginality in Australia.

Published March 2010

Artrave

Published March 2010