Black prints* @ Cicada Press

Cicada Press is a research group within the School of Art at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales (COFA UNSW). For the past six years Cicada Press, with Tess Allas from the School of Art History and Art Education, have been working closely with a number of Aboriginal artists from across the country.

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Testing Ground

Curator: Julie Gough Artists: The 1491s, Ólöf Björnsdóttir, Trudi Brinckman, Darren Cook, Rebecca Dagnall, Sue Kneebone, Nancy Mauro-Flude, Jeroen Offerman, Perdita Phillips, r e a, Keren Ruki, Christian Thompson, Martin Walch, Siying Zhou Long Gallery, Salamanca Art Centre, Hobart 14 March – 28 April 2013

Amy Jackett

Let's be polite

Editor Daniel Browning interviews artist Vernon Ah Kee who discusses the lack of criticism of Aboriginal art and the abundance of 'mass production' Aboriginal art emanating from remote communities seen by some as 'real Aboriginal art' but in the eyes of Ah Kee simply and uncritically playing into false romantic notions of the lives of Aboriginal people.

Vernon Ah Kee and Daniel Browning

The limits of criticism

Anthropologist John Carty casts his eyes over the last ten years of writing on Desert art, mostly in newspapers, and finds many cliches and inconsistencies. He asks: "Where are the fine-grained localised art histories, the rich biographies of our most interesting and important individual artists? Where are their voices?" And replies: "They are still waiting in the Desert."

John Carty

The (white) elephant in the room: Criticising Aboriginal art

Does Aboriginal art exist in a critical vacuum?

Maurice O'Riordan

tough(er) love: art from Eyre Peninsula

Curator: John Neylon Flinders University Art Museum 28 February – 28 April 2013

Eleanor Scicchitano

Rainforest identity (past and future)

Napolean Oui is a Cairns-based, mid-career, Djabugay artist and a proud advocate of the rainforest art style unique to Far North Queensland. 2012 was a breakthrough year for him, he did a residency at Studio PM with Paul Machnik and others in Montreal, developed new work at Djumbunji Press for a solo show at Kickarts Contemporary Arts in Cairns during the Art Fair, AND sold work to the National Gallery of Australia.

Beverley Mitchell and Napoleon Oui

Tracking Bluey Roberts

Troy-Anthony Baylis

The dearth of criticism

Some artists are often heard to complain about the lack of honest criticism of Aboriginal art. But in such a limited sphere, criticising an Aboriginal artist in formal or aesthetic terms, or at a deeper level, is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. Too often, critics play the man and not the ball. Can we handle the truth?

Daniel Browning

In the Shadow of the Past, this World Knots Tight

Venn Gallery, Perth 29 March – 10 May 2013

Sheridan Coleman

Louise Bourgeois: Late Works

Curator: Jason Smith Heide Museum of Modern Art 21 November 2012 – 11 March 2013

Caroline Phillips

The road to Pormpuraaw

Filmmaker Peter Hylands writes about a recent visit to the remote Pormpuraaw Art Centre in Far North Queensland. Here he talks with artist Sid Bruce Short Joe who speaks nine languages, the ninth is English.

Peter Hylands

Savanhdary Vongpoothorn: The Beautiful as Force

Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney 7–31 March 2013

Prue Gibson

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