Issues

Issue 37:2 | June 2017 | Indigenous_Trans Cultural
Indigenous_Trans Cultural
Issue 37:2 | June 2017
Issue 12:4 | December 1992 | Naive & Outsider Art
Naive & Outsider Art
Issue 12:4 | December 1992

Articles

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The Masque Ball of Tracey Moffatt

One of Tracey Moffatt’s lasting cinematographic memories, as she told me, is of films with harbour scenes, of working ports, rough workmen, the coming and going of exotic people, fogs, and foghorns. Tracey Moffatt’s photographic and film work commissioned for the Australian Pavilion in Venice responds to this landscape of cinematic time.

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Into the Transpocene: The future of Indigenous art

Black is the New White is Nakkiah Lui’s romantic comedy commissioned by the Sydney Theatre Company for the May/June 2017 season. It milks laughs from a stereotypical narrative of a privileged young black woman bringing her inappropriate boyfriend home to meet her parents. The twist—although not much of one these days—is that the boyfriend is white. Black is the New White is also the name of the 2007 autobiography by African American comic genius Paul Mooney. We can reach further back to the early 1990s: to Gordon Bennett’s sweet watercolours of black angels and his more ghoulish messenger between worlds, the large scarified Altered Body Print (Shadow Figure Howling at the Moon) (1994) with its mashed binaries and grotesque white/black, male/female, human/animal totemic‑like monster. Before Bennett there was Tracey Moffatt’s sweet black angel Jimmy Little on the royal telephone to heaven, an ironic serenade to her grim horror film, Night Cries (1989), which unsettled normative understandings of black/white relations with chilling effect.

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Emily Kame Kngwarreye: The impossible modernist

Art critic Robert Hughes made the assessment that Aboriginal art was the last great art movement of the twentieth century. It started at the Aboriginal community called Papunya, in which Aboriginal men had been painting on canvas for the outside market with great success since the 1980s. The Papunya art style, as it became known, sometimes compared to forms of Western modernism—from abstract expressionism to minimalism and even conceptual art—presented a comparison that was rarely taken literally, although some critics of the 1987 Dreamings exhibition in New York did wonder if the Aboriginal artists had been appropriating New York art. But when it came to the late paintings of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, critics really did start to question the relationship between modernism and Western Desert painting, ascribing to her the genius and expressive freedom associated with the masters of Western modernism. 

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Collisions: The Martu respond to Maralinga

On the cross‑cultural collaborations of filmmaker Lynette Wallworth working with Nyarri Nyarri Morgan and Curtis Taylor

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Down Under World: Christian Thompson at the Pitt Rivers Museum

An emerging history of transcultural engagements in recent years is evident in the growing number of projects by Australian Indigenous artists working with collections held by British cultural institutions. From Judy Watson’s research at the British, Horniman and Science museums in the 1990s, to Daniel Boyd’s residency with the Natural History Museum and projects by Brook Andrew and Julie Gough at the Cambridge Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, these Australian Indigenous artists have negotiated complex histories of colonial collecting practices, contemporary modes of museum display, issues of cultural ownership and repatriation, as well as the role of the artist as a new kind of researcher and interpreter of archives and cultural heritage. 

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Indigenous perspectives on museum collections

I can remember the first time I was taken into a museum storeroom. I remember it being still, organised, open and unashamed. I could see countless rows of shelving stretching from the floor to a ceiling so high that the optical illusion it created masked its vastness. The air was unmoving, the smell musty and organic. When my eyes adjusted to what lay on these shelves I had trouble taking it all in: wood, feathers, stone, bark, ochre worked in countless combinations. I searched for the clues which would guide me to material from north‑western New South Wales, to my Father’s country, and my ngurrambaa (Yuwaalaraay) or “family land”. 

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Arts Project Australia: Creativity, marginality and the politics of difference
Naive & Outsider Art
The Chronic Population
Art Brut is that manner of making something whereby all of the individual is.
Naive & Outsider Art
Outsider Art: Flavour of the Month
Looks at the art market and the great beast of commercialism.
Naive & Outsider Art
Captain Oates' Last Words
Art institutions are beginning to welcome Outsiders in. But there seems to be a little uncertainty in the art world as to the specifics of the Other guest list: enterprises such as this Artlink special issue are a means of establishing the canon, of packaging the concept.
Naive & Outsider Art
The Boundary Riders: The Art of Everyday Life
The diversity of work found in the art of everyday life transgresses many of the implicit boundaries about art practice laid down by the art world. Other art meets all the criteria by which we usually evaluate art works such as skill, commitment and self-expression yet is rarely seen in a gallery context. In order to recover meaning and value for the art of everyday life the question must be asked: why have these artists been marginalised by the art world?
Naive & Outsider Art
Nothing if Not Innocent
Artists of the modern era have always been fascinated by the primitive, be it the obsession of the surrealists, futurists and modernists for the art of the Negro, the passion of a handful of British in the 60s for the work of the Cornish primitive Alfred Wallis or Jean Dubuffet's exploration of children's art and the art of the asylum which he termed Art Brut.
Naive & Outsider Art
From Stone Henge to Post-Feminist Creatures
Tattoo in Aotearoa/ New Zealand Tattooing is not 'Outsider' or 'Other' art. To suggest this is to fall once more into the tiresome quagmire of Western art definitions. Looks at an exhibition 'Tattoo' 1993.
Naive & Outsider Art
Disposable Icons
Tattoos
Naive & Outsider Art
I just had this Inkling...
Interview with Tazz a tattoo artist in South Australia.
Naive & Outsider Art
The Australian Collection of Outsider Art
Outsider Artists in Australia? Of course. The phenomenon is universal.
Naive & Outsider Art
Anthony Hopkins
Looks at the works of Anthony Hopkins.
Naive & Outsider Art
Mental Disturbance and Artistic Production
The popular understanding of the so-called 'insane' artist cannot be summarised better than in the schmaltzy lyrics of 'Vincent' written and sung by Don McLean in the 1970s. He plaintively chides those who misunderstood the living Van Gogh and charges them with the responsibility for his suicide.
Naive & Outsider Art
Nyungar Landscapes: Wetern Australia
In a remote corner of the south west of Western Australia, a school teacher who had never trained in art, was the catalyst for a school of landscape painting reminiscent of the style of Namatjira. Everything about this story was remarkable, not least that this happened over 40 years ago and that the average age of the artists was 10. The place was a tiny settlement known as Carrolup, now known as Marribank near Katanning.
Naive & Outsider Art
Foils for the Silver City
Disillusioned with the contemptible familiarity of our environment in the South Australian School of Art a group of fellow students and I decided to take our art somewhere else. So, displaced and gung-ho, our controversial creations in tow, we set off to Broken Hill, the self proclaimed art capital of Australia.
Naive & Outsider Art
Blue Bush, Blue Sky and Silver
Book review Blue Bush, Blue Sky and Silver Guide to artists and galleries of Broken Hill.
Naive & Outsider Art
Naive Archive
A national survey of Australian Naives - short biographies by various contributors as well as the artists themselves and images many in colour. Artists include Bernard Jeffery, Hugh Schulz, Bill Yaxley, Sam Byrne, Maitreyi Ray, Pam Bartley, Roma Higgins, Phyl Delves, Alison Vodic, Gwen Mason, Reny Mia Slay, Stella Dilger, Del Luke, Muriel Smith, Elfrun Lach, Susan Wanji Wanji, Miriam Naughton, Gwen Clarke, Selby Warren, Malcolm Otton, Harold Kangaroo Thornton, Ivy Robson, Lorna Chick and George Deurden.
Naive & Outsider Art
Masterminded Masterpieces: Legendary Art
Mrs Iris Frame is going to be bigger than Elvis Presley. She told the author so herself. Her dream is to establish a museum of her life's work on her property just like Gracelands.
Naive & Outsider Art
Now Who is Being Naive?
Naive is a tag used to describe the style of a particular artist and by inference the content of their work. In this examination of 4 contemporary artists working in what can be characterised as a naive style. the author illustrates that they are being anything but naive in the analysis of events, issues and stereotypes.
Naive & Outsider Art
Eccentric Gardens of Australia
In country towns, suburban lanes and backstreets, tucked behind barricades and fences or alternatively displayed for all to see, are the gardens and decorated outdoor spaces of many 'other' artists. These gardens or 'exhibitions' could generally be called quirky. Many coloured photographs.
Naive & Outsider Art
Frank 'Bronco' Johnson - The Poetics of Defence
He was always delighted to be fighting with someone....
Naive & Outsider Art
Ciao from Canberra
Hidden in the neat suburban streets of Canberra are the sculptures of Giacomo Rampone. Superbly crafted from steel and cement, these sculptures adorn the front gardens of each of Rampone's homes past and present.
Naive & Outsider Art
A Living Treasure: The Topiary of Jack Cashion
As a sculptor working in metal I have been interested for some time in combining plants with the hard surfaces of copper and steel. The issues involved in using shrubs and trees are many, including that the work isn't trivialised or lacking in credibility, transport and of course storage.
Naive & Outsider Art
The World in Talc
Looks at the works of Talc Alf working in Lyndhurst South Australia.
Naive & Outsider Art
Bill Sorrell
Looks at the environment of Bill Sorrell working in the small farming town of Toodyay in the Avon Valley about 80 kilometres from Perth Western Australia.
Naive & Outsider Art
Maria
Looks at the environment of Maria "Mad Mary" Hermann at her house in Leederville Western Australia.
Naive & Outsider Art
Tut's Whittle Wonders
Written with David Wood. Explores the work of Tut Ludby who whittles wood in the small town of Strahan in Tasmania.
Naive & Outsider Art
Stage Sets for Suburban Dramas
Photographs by Dianne Longley of domestic dwellings in and around Adelaide South Australia.
Naive & Outsider Art
The Dictionary of Australian Artists
Book review The Dictionary of Australian Artists: Painters, Sketchers, Photographers and Engravers to 1870 Edited by Joan Kerr Oxford University Press Melbourne RRP $200
Naive & Outsider Art
How to Hold a Festival in the Cook Islands
Make your moment in Pacific history and hang the cost. On 15 October 1992 Raratongans waited expectantly for their 2000 guests from 23 other Pacific countries to arrive for the 6th Pacific Festival of Arts.
Naive & Outsider Art
Tivaevae
Book review Tivaevae: Portraits of Cook Island Quilting By Lynnsay Rongokea Photographs John Daley Published Daphne Brussell Assocs Press Wellington New Zealand
Naive & Outsider Art
Self, Image and the Gaze: Anna Platten
Exhibition review Works by Anna Platten: Paintings and Studies 1982 -1992 University of South Australia Art Museum 30 July - 29 August 1992
Naive & Outsider Art
A Room of Their Own
Exhibition review Contemporary jewellery at the Jam Factory Leslie Matthews "Inner Vane" 13 August - 13 September 1992 Cecelia Cmielewski 15 May - 5 June 1992 Jam Factory Adelaide South Australia
Naive & Outsider Art
Desire Caught by the Tail: Jyanni Steffenson
Exhibition review it (ca) speaks...it (ca) sucks. "i(t) too was drag(g)ed into this sub-plot" Installation by Jyanni Steffensen Experimental Art Foundation Adelaide South Australia 6 August - 6 September 1992
Naive & Outsider Art
Arcanum (Extracts from the Archives)
Exhibition review Union Gallery Adelaide University South Australia 19 August - 4 September 1992
Naive & Outsider Art
MFG: A Report on the First Eight Months of Greenaway Art Gallery
Review MFG: A report on the first eight months of Greenaway Art Gallery Opened in March 1992
Naive & Outsider Art
The O/S Experience
Rediscovery: Australian Artists in Europe 1982-1992 Universal Expo Seville June/July 1992 Curator Jonathon Holmes
Naive & Outsider Art
Reflections on Being: Being and Nothingness
Exhibition review Being and Nothingness Works by Bea Maddock Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery Launceston August 1992
Naive & Outsider Art
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