Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Art | Artlink Magazine

Cover of Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Art

Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Art

Issue 10 nos 1&2 | June 1990

Classic groundbreaking double issue. Reprinted by demand. Looks at traditions in evolution, the role of Art in the survival of the culture, the art market and legal issues, the issues faced by artists working in isolation, indigenous film, video and radio, with a wide range of individual artists profiles and discussions of art practice in remote and urban communities. A unique early documentation of the early days of Aboriginal art in Australia.

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Features

A memorial for the dead: Commemorating 200 years of loss

Djon Mundine and Howard Morphy

In 1988 the artists of Ramingining, a remote Central Arnhem Land community, were responsible for perhaps the most-moving political statement made during Australia’s bicentenary year. Djon Mundine tells UK-based anthropologist Howard Morphy, how this extraordinary monument came to be made.

Published 01 June 1990

A Playwrights Story

"In January 1989, I attended the second national Black Playwrights conference. I arrived at this conference feeling very unsure and insecure with nine small scenes which I had hoped would turn in to a play."

Published June 1990

Abie Jangala

Looks at the works of Abie Jangala from Lajamanu and the country about 500 kilometres north west of Alice Springs.

Published June 1990

Aboriginal Arts in Australia 1990

Marlene Stewart

Original dreaming. Aboriginal people believe that the spirit ancestors watch over us today to ensure the laws are kept and that punishment is inflicted if broken. Photograph of Yuendume women dancing.

Published June 1990

Aboriginal Arts Unit Australia Council

The Aboriginal Arts Board was dis-established in June 1989...the Australia Council established the Aboriginal Arts Committee to replace the Board.

Published June 1990

Aboriginal Community College - Port Adelaide

Charlie Schiavone

The broad aims of the Aboriginal Community College in Port Adelaide, South Australia, are to provide time, space, and resources to Aboriginal people that will allow them to make discoveries about themselves, their heritage and their environment, and to move in directions that they establish as relevant to themselves and/or their community.

Published June 1990

Aboriginal Music; Broome Style: Towards Bran Nue Dae

Broome, sleepy, dusty, sub-tropical country town on the north west of Western Australia, with a population of only 7,000 has at least 5 working bands including the well known bands Kuckles and Scrap Metal - a myriad of solo performers as well as traditional Aboriginal musicians.

Published June 1990

Aboriginal Rock Festival

It's now early September 1989 and Aboriginal Rock Bands from the Northern Territory and interstate are travelling by any means possible to Darwin for the Sing Loud Play Strong 2nd Festival of Aboriginal Rock Music.

Published June 1990

Aboriginal Theatre in Tasmania

"From the time that whites arrived in Tasmania and up until 1983 Aboriginal performing arts especially theatre arts, had become almost as extinct as whites would have people believe Tasmanian Aborigines were. Not so!"

Published June 1990

An Artist's Project: Banduk Marika

Margie West talks to NE Arnhem Land artist Banduk Marika about artists working in Yirrkala, an Aboriginal community. She addresses traditional ceremonies today, the appropriate use of traditional designs, payment for work, copyright, and working to redress environmental damage to the beaches and lands by regenerating native trees and plants.

Published June 1990

ANTT Aboriginal National Theatre Trust Limited

The Aboriginal National Theatre Trust Limited arose out of Forums of Aboriginal Performing Artists, Playwrights and Technicians attending the first National Black Playwrights Conference held at the Australian National University in Canberra 1987.

Published June 1990

Art After the Controversy

Stephanie Britton

Looks at the art practice in Moree in north western NSW.

Published June 1990

Art Co-ordinator: No ordinary job

Howard Morphy interviews Djon Mundine at Ramingining in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory.

Published 01 June 1990

Aurukun and Comalco

This is a critical time in the history of the wider region of Cape York Peninsula.

Published June 1990

Australia to the World

Michael O'Ferrall

In the choice of Rover Thomas and Trevor Nickolls to echibit in the Australian Pavilion at the 1990 Venice Biennale, Australia will present a combination that challenges many conventional attitudes to Aboriginal art. Simultaneously the exhibition offers an appropriate platform to two important if highly idiosyncratic contemporary painters.

Published June 1990

Balance 1990

Exhibition review Balance 1990 held at Queensland Art Gallery and curated by Michael Eather and Marlene Hall, March 1990.

Published June 1990

Balance Stories

Two alternative opinions on Australia's most obvious cultural exchange - Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal- was the original conception of Balance 1990 Views, Visions, Influences - a collaborative exhibition originally titled Balance 1988: Two views One Vision. Beginning by artists sitting and talking it became obvious that there were more than just two perspectives.

Published June 1990

Bangarra

Stephanie Britton

'Bangarra' is a Wiradjeri word meaing to make fire and the dance company so named has sparked enthusiasm for its performances in countries as far afield as Japan, New Guinea, the USA and Finland.

Published June 1990

Bibliography

Supplementary bibliography to the major work by Adrian Marrie 1987 'A Topical bibliography of Australian Aboriginal Visual Arts 3' ed ASTEC SA College of Advanced Education (now the University of South Australia) Underdale SA.

Published June 1990

Birrukmarri

Birukmarri is an exhibition gallery and retail outlet with a commitment to the professional retailing of Aboriginal art.

Published June 1990

Black Radio in Cairns

Margaret O+Shane

Explores Aboriginal radio in far north Queensland.

Published June 1990

Boomalli

Looks at the artist's co-operative Boomalli located in Sydney NSW.

Published June 1990

Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music

Located in the University of Adelaide in South Australia the Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music was set up in 1972 in order that many aboriginal people both urban and tribal may develp effective skills of communicating their cultural, social, political and economic feelings through music to Australian people and the world at large.

Published June 1990

Copyright and Issues of Appropriation

This is the text of the Copyright session given at the National Aboriginal Artists Forum Art Gallery of Western Australia February 1989.

Published June 1990

Country in Mind

In the 1940s the name Albert Namatjira became a household word and the skill of this Arrernte artist brought the vivid colours and beauty of the central Australian landscape into the galleries and living rooms of Australia. He and other painters who lived around Hermannsburg mission and in Alice Springs came to be known as the Arrernte watercolour school.

Published June 1990

Desert Designs

Examines the Desert Designs Company formed by Stephen Culley and David Wroth which began in the early 1980s.

Published June 1990

Designer Aboriginals

Bronwyn Bancroft

Looks at her art practice and design issues, copyright and textiles.

Published June 1990

Doris Gingingara

Article about the artist and her works from Western Australia.

Published June 1990

Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation

Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation meaning 'we of the people' is a West Australian Aboriginal organization which aims to promote dance, drama, writing, painting, sculpture, craftwork, music and any other Aboriginal art...

Published June 1990

East to West: Land in Papunya Tula Painting

Painting movement at Papunya 1971-75 one of the few positive offshoots of the Government's Assimilation Policy. Senior men began to paint on boards and made murals for the school, initially showing sacred secret material, later self-censored. Paintings use complex patterning and dotting to describe formation of land by Ancestors, natural features and travel.

Published June 1990

FAIRA: Cultural Heritage Initiatives in Queensland

The Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action is an independent Aboriginal community based and controlled organisation located in Brisbane Queensland.

Published June 1990

Flinders University of South Australia: Aboriginal Artists in Residence Programme

Describes the vital and valuable Aboriginal artists in residence program at the Flinders University of South Australia.

Published June 1990

From Yuendumu to Paris

Explores a historic trip for six traditional artists from Australia for the exhibition 'Magicians of the Earth'. This global overview was created to "reveal the force of communication" and was true to its title.

Published June 1990

Isolation: Jimmy Pike and Patricia Lowe in the Great Sandy Desert

There can be few artists who live and work in such isolation as does Jimmy Pike. His isolation is not merely geographical, though our camp on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert is two and a half hours' drive in dry weather from Fitzroy Crossing and inaccessible in dry weather, but also social and artistic.

Published June 1990

Jabiru

"I joined the Jabiru Cabaret in Cairns as one of the ten founding cast members in November 1988. The excitement for me as a performer, is to bridge the gap of understanding between various races, colours, cultures and countries. To witness the audience reaction to us as a group performing in three distinct areas makes us all feel very close to achieving the message of a minority through our art."

Published June 1990

Jukurrpa

Dorothea Philips

Jujurrpa is a Warlpri word meaning Dreaming and it is the Dreamtime stories that are depicted on the canvases of a group of Warlpri, Pitjantjatjara, Luritja and Anmatyerre women from the Alice Springs area.

Published June 1990

Jumbana Designs

John and Ros Moriarty of Jumbuna Designs in interview.

Published June 1990

Keringke Arts

Looks at the Santa Teresa Community 80 kilometres south of Alice Spring and home of the Arrernte people where the Keringke Arts Centre was established in 1987.

Published June 1990

Kinship and the Dreaming

Neva Grzybowicz

Looks at a family history project beginning with the Koonibba Mission in South Australia.

Published June 1990

Letter From Arnhem Land Where All the Real Art's Supposed To Be

"How many people still think that up north or in the centre is the only place for real Aboriginal art. You know when you work with it, selling it, buying it, you hear it all the time."

Published June 1990

Maningrida: Traditions Open to Change

Maningrida Art and Craft is synonymous with the best of contemporary traditional Aboriginal bark painting and sculpture, both major individual works and important collections.

Published June 1990

Mecca for Printmakers

Looks at the Canberra School of Art Print Workshop has played a key role in encouraging Aboriginal artist to make prints.

Published June 1990

Milpatjunanyi: Recent Pitjantjatjara Women's Painting

The Pitjantjatjara share a common heritage with Anangu (Aboriginal people) throughout the vast Western desert. They use the same rich vocabulary of visual symbols that has now become well known through the work of the Papunya Tula artists.

Published June 1990

Money, Corruption and Authenticity

Whatever capital city one may visit these days, there will usually be an art gallery exhibiting works from the latest Aboriginal art movement. The demand for Aboriginal painting has probably doubled every year over the past decade and nowhere is this more evident than in central Australia.

Published June 1990

Murris' Coming Out Show

Hello. My name is Marshall Bell. I live at Inala in Queensland. My father was from the famous Jiman Tribe of Hornet Hill massacre mob. My mother was from the Kamilaroi nation Gunedah/Kooma clans. I was born at the now defunct Charleville Aboriginal reserve in the desert of south west Queensland. Having been living off my art for the last 5 years in a suppressive Queensland environment, I think I know what it is like to be living in isolation.

Published June 1990

Narrangunnawali in Canberra

Sylvia Kleinert

Narrangunnawali was an exhibition by Aboriginal artists from Canberra and the surrounding region mounted by the Canberra Contemporary Art Space 31 August - 23 September 1989.

Published June 1990

Night Cries - A Rural Tragedy; A film by Tracey Moffatt

Anne Rutherford

Two people suspended in a soundscape - a space punctuated by a stark and corrosive sound. The wail of a dingo, an owl, the grating beat of an iron lung, a gasp, a cry for breath and above all a cacophony of memory.

Published June 1990

Paddy Fordham Wainburranga

Paddy inherited his unique style of painting form his father and father before him. It is the old 'style'.

Published June 1990

Pitchat and Beyond

Until recently, Pitjantjatjara communities had very limited acces to or influence from mainstream media, communications, technology and information systems. English is still a foreign language to most of the population and functional levels of literacy are very low.

Published June 1990

Poetry in Review

Aboriginal poet Ken Canning ( Burraga Gutya) looks at the nature of poetry. 3 poems of Burraga Gutya included in the issue.

Published June 1990

Power Institute Program on Aboriginal Art in Australian Society

Stephanie Britton

The Power Institute at the University of Sydney ran a 10 week program devised by Susan Simons and Bronwyn Bancroft of panel discussions, presentations, films/videos and seminars exploring many of the issues of Aboriginal art in Australian society.

Published June 1990

Radio Redfern - The Koori Voice in Sydney

Wayne Costelloe

Located in an old terrace house in Cope Street Redfern, is the voice of the Aboriginal Community in Sydney. The terrace house is not unlike any other in the inner city. However with the Koori colours on one wall and the music of Koori bands blasting out from its speakers up on the balcony the house is fairly outstanding.

Published June 1990

Review of the Review

In 1989, Jon Altman, Chris McGuigan and Peter Yu were asked by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs to look into the viability of the Aboriginal Arts and Crafts industry, to point to ways to improve its efficiency and effectiveness and to advise which government programs could give cost effective support to the industry and to recommend managing and marketing strategies.

Published June 1990

Sally Morgan Speaks

The artist speaks about her art practice.

Published June 1990

Superstar or Generic

Should art centres cater more for the few 'Top Quality' artists that each has or should they support and encourage artistic activities by all who are interested?

Published June 1990

Tandanya: Australia's First Aboriginal Cultural Institute

Article which looks at Tandanya - Australia's first Aboriginal Cultural Institute located in Adelaide South Australia.

Published June 1990

The Aboriginal Copyright Cases

At the 1988 Conference in Broome the author spoke of the growing unlawful use of Aboriginal art by T shirt companies and the fashion industry generally.

Published June 1990

The Bicentenary and Beyond: Recent Developments in Aboriginal Printmaking

Christine Watson

The period of 1986 - 1989 has been epoch making for Aboriginal printmaking, not necessarily because of an improvement in the quality of the prints produced during that time but because Aboriginal prints in forums broadly motivated by the centenary has allowed them to receive the recognition they deserve.

Published June 1990

The Struggle Continues

In every area of the arts where Aborigines are participating there is an intense surge of creative vitality. Once could call it a renaissance period. When I began writing poetry, Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonucul) was the only recognised poet.

Published June 1990

Tiwi Designs

Bathurst and Melville Islands lie of the north coast of Australia about 100 kms from Darwin. They are the home to the Tiwi. As a result of the isolation of Tiwi people their culture has developed independently from others on the mainland. This is reflected in their art which is very bold.

Published June 1990

To Clean a Rusty ANCAA

The Association of Northern and Central Australian Aboriginal Artists.

Published June 1990

Two Artists from Yuendumu

Christine Lennard

Interview with Norah Nelson and Frank Bronson of Warlukurlangu Artists of Yuendumu prior to their first solo exhibition 'Our Dreaming' at the Dreamtime Gallery Perth Western Australia 18 February - 10 March 1990 Perth Festival.

Published June 1990

Utopia

Christopher Hodges

The people of Utopia have been making important visual images for thousands of years, on their bodies and ceremonial objects. In 1977 these images leapt onto lengths of silk via the batik technique and it was in this medium that the women of Utopia went on to establish a reputation for themselvs with their powerful images and distinctive style.

Published June 1990

Vocational Arts Centre Cairns

Mabel Edmund A M

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Education Centre in Cairns is a vocational school of Arts aimed at the development and realisation of Aboriginal artistic talent.

Published June 1990

Waringarri Arts Centre

Located in Kununurra Western Australia Waringarri Arts was set up for artists in the Kimberley region.

Published June 1990

Warlukurlangu Artists

Christine Lennard

Emerging from the heart of central Australia is the most exciting and dynamic development in modern Australian art. The materials are modern -acrylic on canvas. But the content is traditional - mythical and ritual.

Published June 1990

Yolngu Women Artists

If the 70s is remembered as a period of nurture for Aboriginal art, the 1980s will certainly be remembered as the decade of its dramatic development...there has been an eflorescence of community based enterprises in the remote areas of Australia.

Published June 1990

Also In This Issue

Donna Leslie

Natalie Greenwood

Looks at the art practice of Donna Leslie.

Published June 1990

Ellen Jose

The artist writes about her art practice.

Published June 1990

Gayle Maddigan

Natalie Greenwood

Looks at the art practice of Victorian artist Gayle Maddigan.

Published June 1990

Gordon Bennett: Expressions of Constructed Identity

Gordon Bennett interviewed on the development of his work.

Published June 1990

Judy Watson

Margriet Bonnin

Looks at the paintings of Judy Watson.

Published June 1990

Kurwingie

Kerry Giles Kurwingie

Article by the artist about her art practice.

Published June 1990

Les Griggs

Examines the paintings of Les Griggs.

Published June 1990

Lin Onus - Cultural Mechanic

Contemplating the work of Lin Onus the artist, the arts administrator and the panel beating mechanic.

Published June 1990

Maree Clarke

Natalie Greenwood

Looks at the art practice of Maree Clarke.

Published June 1990

Milton Budge

Looks at the art practice of Milton Budge.

Published June 1990

Mural at Port Lincoln: Kerry Giles and Melanie Howard

Felicity Wright

Kerry Giles and Melanie Howard talking to Felicity Wright about the mural in Port Lincoln South Australia.

Published June 1990

Peter Dabah

Dabah was the Aboriginal Artist in residence at the Flinders University 1989 - 1990.

Published June 1990

Robert Campbell Junior

Robert Campbell Jnr

The artist talks about his art practice.

Published June 1990

Shane Pickett

Looks at the works of West Australian artist Shane Pickett.

Published June 1990

Two Profiles from Cairns: Tatipai Barsa and Zane Saunders

Looks at the art practice of two artists from the Cairns College of TAFE and the Associate Diploma of Art.

Published June 1990

Wanjidari

Looks at the art practice of Wanjidari.

Published June 1990

Bluey Roberts: Interview

Published 01 March 1990

Barossa Arts Festival

City of Unley

NAVA

Mandorla Art Prize

Guildhouse