Rewriting the Labels

Indigenous culture is moving out of dedicated spaces and into the mainstream. Ultimately all Indigenous culture is claiming the space for experiences that have not been widely told and this broadens the space for the stories of everyone whose stories are untold.

Published June 2011

Darren Siwes: dialogue with Rembrandt

Dutch art historian Marianne Riphagen, whose PhD looked at contemporary Indigenous photo-media artists, draws togther the dark and light in the artwork of Rembrandt and South Australia-based Darren Siwes to question the Dutch Golden Age.

Published June 2011

Jo Rootsey: Painting Country

Dina Ibrahim looks at the Joe Rootsey Retrospective curated by Bruce McLean at the Queensland Art Gallery in 2010 to find an artist who in his short life achieved compelling evocations of his relationship to country.

Published June 2011

Paperartzi '11

Perth International Art Festival
Albany, WA
5 - 20 March 2011

Published June 2011

Dis-covery

Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart
25 March - 1 May 2011
Curator: Colin Langridge

Published June 2011

Exhibitions to Watch

Published June 2011

Paint every hill: Billy Benn

Billy Benn Perrurle and Catherine Peattie
with essays by Ian McLean and Judith Ryan
IAD Press RRP $34.95

Published June 2011

Rising Queensland Indigenous artists

As leaders of unique working partnerships between the Indigenous art industry and the Queensland Government, pioneers like Judy Watson, Dennis Nona, Vernon Ah Kee, Richard Bell and Sally Gabori have established strong international reputations.

Published June 2011

Torres Strait Islander watercolours

The Queensland State Library Executive Manager of Indigenous research and projects Tom Mosby writes about the Margaret Lawrie Works on Paper Collection and the role of art in the lives of Torres Strait Islanders. Between July and October 2011, the watercolours in the Margaret Lawrie Works on Paper Collection will, for the first time, be exhibited together as part of 'Strait Home' at the State Library of Queensland.

Published June 2011

Romantic Landscapes

Laura Fisher worked for three years on indigenous artists' biographies for the DAAO (Dictionary of Australian Artists Online) and is now completing a doctoral thesis on the indigenous art market at the University of NSW. Here she brings her wide knowledge to bear on representational and romantic landcape paintings by indigenous artists.

Published June 2011

CoBra and Aboriginal art at AAMU, Utrecht

Newtown fellow at the University of Cambridge Khadija La visited AAMU (the Musuem of Contemporary Aboriginal Art) in Utrecht to see "Breaking with Tradition" an exhibition curated by Georges Petitjean that hangs works by CoBrA artists together with work by Indigenous artists and Roar artists who work or worked in Indigenous art centres.

Published June 2011

Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route

Sarah Scott reviews and questions Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route exhibition at the National Musuem of Australa. She asks: "Why don’t the NMA’s collections of Indigenous material culture feature more strongly in their exhibition program? Why are both the NMA and the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) collecting the highly sought after and expensive works produced by major Papunya artists? If the commissioning of art and associated documentary material is a priority for the NMA what other Indigenous material culture may they be neglecting?"

Published June 2011