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

New displays at Pitt Rivers Museum

In 2009 eight new case displays were added to the legendary 1884 Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. Indigenous art scholar and lecturer Susan Lowish examines how Aboriginal art fared in this rejig of history.

Published June 2011

Remembering Forward at the Museum Ludwig

Curator at AAMU Georges Petitjean describes the 'Remembering Forward' exhibition at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne in detail, how it came about, what surrounds it and what it might mean.

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

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

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

Euraba Paper Company, Boggabilla

Associate Lecturer at the College of Fine Art in Sydney Tess Allas writes about when she was NSW Regional Indigenous Cultural Officer and first met the women of Boggabilla who formed the Euraba Paper Company which won the Parliament of NSW Aboriginal Art Prize in 2010.

Published June 2011

Why is there a donkey in that painting?

The painting is by Madigan Thomas of her first contact with pastoralists. She painted her family watching – for the first time – whitefellas traverse donkeys through her country.
ANU PHD candiate Cate Massola who worked at Warmun Art Centre for a year describes the way art and education complement each other in Gija country.

Published June 2011

Exhibitions to Watch

Published June 2011

John Barbour

John Barbour (1954-2011), a complex, intelligent and much loved South Australian artist and academic, was in the prime of his life and at the height of his career when he died on Sunday 17 April 2011.

Published June 2011

Ken and Julia Yonetani / Janet Tavener

Still Life: The Food Bowl: Ken and Julia Yonetani
Artereal Gallery, Sydney, June 2011
Mildura Palimpsest #8, 9-11 Sept 2011
GV Art, London, October 2011

Melting moments: Janet Tavener
Incinerator Art Space, Willoughby
2 -27 March 2011

Published June 2011

Aboriginal art at the Vatican

The National Museum of Australia's Margo Neale writes in depth about the curation of a 100 year old collection of Aboriginal art at the Vatican in Rome. She asks: "How do Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, previously captive to the anthropological gaze and to unequal power relations, not only interrogate the histories that defined them as ‘other’ and ‘lesser’, but also regain their voice and agency over historic cultural objects that reside in collections around the world?"

Published June 2011