Contemporary Indigenous Australian art
Encyclopedia
Contemporary Indigenous Australian art is the modern art work produced by Indigenous Australians
. It is generally regarded as beginning with a painting movement
that started at Papunya, northwest of Alice Springs, Northern Territory
in 1971, involving artists such as Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri
and Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, and facilitated by white Australian teacher and art worker Geoffrey Bardon
. The movement spawned widespread interest across rural and remote Aboriginal Australia in creating art, while contemporary Indigenous art of a different nature also emerged in urban centres; together they have become central to Australian art.
Leading Indigenous artists have had solo exhibitions at Australian and international galleries, while their work has been included in major collaborations such as the design of the Musée du quai Branly
. Contemporary Indigenous artists have won many of Australia's most prominent art prizes: the Wynne Prize
has been won by Indigenous artists on at least three occasions; Shirley Purdie
won the religious-themed Blake Prize in 2007 with Linda Syddick Napaltjarri
a finalist on three occasions. Indigenous artists, including Rover Thomas
, have represented Australia at the Venice Biennale
in 1990 and 1997. In 2007, a painting by Emily Kngwarreye
, Earth's Creation
, was the first Indigenous art work to sell for more than $1 million. Works by contemporary Indigenous artists are held by all of Australia's major public galleries, including the National Gallery of Australia
, which in October 2010 opened a new wing dedicated to its Indigenous collection.
, wood carving
, rock carving, body painting
, bark painting
and weaving
. Many of these continue to be used both for traditional purposes and in the creation of art works for exhibition and sale. Some other techniques have declined or disappeared since European settlement, including body decoration by scarring and the making of possum-skin cloak
s. However, Indigenous Australians also adopted and expanded the use of new techniques including painting on paper and canvas. Early examples include the late nineteenth century drawings by William Barak
.
, an Indigenous man at Hermannsberg Mission
, south-west of Alice Springs. His landscape paintings, first created in 1936 and exhibited in Australian cities in 1938, were immediately successful, and he became the first Indigenous Australian watercolourist as well as the first to successfully exhibit and sell his works to the non-Indigenous community. Namatjira's style of work was adopted by other Indigenous artists in the region beginning with his close male relatives, and they became known as the Hermannsburg School
or as the Arrernte
Watercolourists.
Namatjira died in 1959, and by then a second initiative had also begun. At Ernabella, now Pukatja, South Australia, the use of bright acrylic paints to produce designs for posters and postcards was introduced. This led later to fabric design and batik
work, which is still produced at Australia's oldest Indigenous art centre.
in 1971. An Australian school teacher, Geoffrey Bardon
arrived at Papunya and started an art program with children at the school and then with the men of the community. The men began with painting a mural on the school walls, and moved on to painting on boards and canvas. At the same time, Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, a member of the community who worked with Bardon, won a regional art award at Alice Springs
. Soon over 20 men at Papunya were painting, and they established their own company, Papunya Tula Artists Limited
, to support the creation and marketing of works. Although painting took hold quickly at Papunya, it remained a "small-scale regional phenomenon" throughout the 1970s, and for a decade none of the state galleries or the national gallery collected the works. However, the painting movement developed rapidly in the 1980s, spreading to Yuendumu, Lajamanu
, Utopia
and Haasts Bluff
in the Northern Territory, and Balgo, Western Australia
. By the 1990s artistic activity had spread to many communities throughout northern Australia, including those established as part of the Outstation movement
, such as Kintore, Northern Territory
and Kiwirrkurra Community, Western Australia. Since then, expansion has continued, with at least 10 painting communities developing in central Australia between the late 1990s and 2006.
Indigenous art cooperatives have been central to the emergence of contemporary Indigenous art. Whereas many western artists pursue formal training and work as individuals, most contemporary Indigenous art is created in community groups and art centres. In 2010, the peak body representing central Australian Indigenous art centres, Desart, had 44 member centres, while the Association of Northern, Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists (ANKAAA), the peak body for northern Australian communities, had 43 member centres. The centres represent large numbers of artists – ANKAAA estimates its member organisations alone include up to 5000 artists.
Indigenous art frequently reflects the spiritual traditions, cultural practices and socio-political circumstances of Indigenous people, and these have varied across the country. The works of art accordingly differ greatly from place to place. Major reference works on Australian Indigenous art often discuss works by geographical region. The usual groupings are of art from the Central Australia
n desert; the Kimberley in Western Australia; the northern regions of the Northern Territory
, particularly Arnhem Land
, often referred to as the Top End
; and northern Queensland
, including the Torres Strait Islands
. Urban art is also generally treated as a distinct style of Indigenous art, though it is not clearly geographically defined.
area, frequently paint particular 'dreamings
', or stories, for which they have personal responsibility or rights. Best known amongst these are the works of the Papunya Tula painters and of Utopia artist Emily Kngwarreye. The patterns portrayed by central Australian artists, such as those from Papunya, originated as translations of traditional motifs marked out in sand, boards or incised into rock. The symbols used in designs may represent place, movement, or people and animals, while dot fields may indicate a range of phenomena such as sparks, clouds or rain.
in the Northern Territory, men have painted their traditional clan designs. The iconography however is quite separate and distinct from that of central Australia. In north Queensland and the Torres Strait
many communities continue to practice cultural artistic traditions along with voicing strong political and social messages in their work.
who grew up in the town of Tenterfield, New South Wales
, Michael Riley
who came from rural New South Wales near Dubbo and Moree
, or Lin Onus
who spent time on his father's traditional country on the Murray River
near Victoria
's Barmah
forest. Some, like Onus, were self-taught while others, such as artist Danie Mellor
or artist and curator Brenda Croft, completed university studies in fine arts.
Textile production including batik has been important in the northwestern desert regions of South Australia
, in the Northern Territory's Utopia
community, and in other areas of central Australia. For a decade before commencing the painting career that would make her famous, Emily Kngwarreye
was creating batik designs that revealed her "prodigious original talent" and the modernity of her artistic vision. A wide range of textile art techniques, including dyeing and weaving, is particularly associated with Pukatja, South Australia (formerly known as Ernabella), but in the mid 2000s the community also developed a reputation for fine sgraffito
ceramics. Hermannsburg, originally home to Albert Namatjira and the Arrente Watercolourists, is now renowned for its pottery.
Amongst 'urban' Indigenous artists, more diverse techniques are in use such as silkscreen
printing, poster making, photography, television and film. One of the most important contemporary Indigenous artists of his generation, Michael Riley
worked in film, video, still photography and digital media. Likewise, Bronwyn Bancroft
has worked in fabric, textiles, "jewellery design, painting, collage, illustration, sculpture and interior decoration". Nevertheless, painting remains a medium used by many 'urban' artists, such as Gordon Bennett
, Fiona Foley
, Trevor Nickolls, Lin Onus
, Judy Watson, and Harry Wedge
.
. Early private gallery showings of contemporary Indigenous art included a solo exhibition of bark paintings by Johnny Bulunbulun at Hogarth Gallery in Sydney in 1981, and an exhibition of western desert artists at Gallery A in Sydney, which formed part of the 1982 Sydney Festival.
There are a number of regular exhibitions devoted to contemporary Indigenous art. Since 1984, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award exhibition has been held in the Northern Territory, under the auspices of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. In 2007, the National Gallery of Australia held the first Indigenous Art Triennial, which included works by thirty contemporary Indigenous artists such as Richard Bell
, Danie Mellor
, Doreen Reid Nakamarra
and Shane Pickett
.
Several individual artists have been the subject of retrospective exhibitions at public galleries. These have included Rover Thomas
at the National Gallery of Australia
in 1994, Emily Kngwarreye
, at the Queensland Art Gallery in 1998, John Mawurndjul
at the Tinguely Museum
in Basel Switzerland in 2005, and Paddy Bedford
at several galleries including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
in 2006–07.
Internationally, Indigenous artists have represented Australia in the Venice Biennale
, including Rover Thomas
and Trevor Nickolls in 1990, and Emily Kngwarreye, Judy Watson and Yvonne Koolmatrie in 1997. In 2000, a number of individual artists and artistic collaborations were shown in the prestigious Nicholas Hall
at the Hermitage Museum
in Russia. In 2003, eight Indigenous artists – Paddy Bedford, John Mawurndjul, Ningura Napurrula, Lena Nyadbi, Michael Riley
, Judy Watson, Tommy Watson
and Gulumbu Yunupingu – collaborated on a commission to provide works that decorate one of the Musée du quai Branly
's four buildings completed in 2006.
Contemporary Indigenous art works are collected by all of Australia's major public galleries. The National Gallery of Australia
has a significant collection, with a new wing (pictured) constructed for its permanent exhibition. The extension was announced in 2006 and opened in October 2010. Some state galleries, such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales
, the National Gallery of Victoria
, and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
, have gallery space permanently dedicated to the exhibition of contemporary Indigenous art. Galleries outside Australia acquiring contemporary Indigenous art include the British Museum
, the Victoria and Albert Museum
, and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art
. Permanent displays of Indigenous art outside Australia are found at Seattle Art Museum
, Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art and the Kluge–Ruhe Museum at the University of Virginia
.
The Araluen Centre for Arts and Entertainment
, a public art gallery in Alice Springs, hosts the country's largest collection of works by Albert Namatjira. It also hosts the annual Desert Mob exhibition, representing current painting activities across Australia's Aboriginal art centres. The National Gallery of Victoria holds the country's main collection of Indigenous batik.
and the Blake Prize. Indigenous winners have included Shirley Purdie
, 2007 winner of the Blake Prize with her work Stations of the Cross; 2003 Clemenger Award winner John Mawurndjul
, and 2006 Clemenger winner Judy Watson. The Wynne prize has been won by contemporary Indigenous artists on several occasions, including in 1999 by Gloria Petyarre
with Leaves; in 2004 by George Tjungurrayi; and in 2008 by Joanne Currie Nalingu, with her painting The river is calm.
As well as winning major prizes, Indigenous artists have been well represented amongst the finalists in these competitions. The Blake Prize has included numerous Indigenous finalists, such as Bronwyn Bancroft
(2008), Angelina Ngal and Irene (Mbitjana) Entata (2009), Genevieve Kemarr Loy, Cowboy Loy Pwerl, Dinni Kunoth Kemarre, Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarray (2010), and Linda Syddick Napaltjarri
(on three separate occasions).
Australia's major Indigenous art prize is the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
. Established by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in 1984, the award includes a major winner that receives A$40,000, and five category awards each worth $4000: one for bark painting
, one for works on paper, one for three-dimensional works and, introduced for the first time in 2010, one for new media. Winners of the major prize have included Makinti Napanangka
in 2008, and Danie Mellor
in 2009. In 2008, the Art Gallery of Western Australia
established the Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards
, which include the country's most valuable Indigenous art cash prize of A$50,000, as well as a A$10,000 prize for the top Western Australian artist, and a A$5000 People's Choice Award, all selected from the field of finalists, which includes 15 individuals and one collaborative group. The 2009 winner of the main prize was Ricardo Idagi, while the People's Choice award was won by Shane Pickett
. Wayne Quilliam was awarded the 2009 NAIDOC Artist of the Year for his many years of work on the local and International scene working with Indigenous groups throughout the world.
The sale of art works is a significant economic activity for individual artists and for their communities. Estimates of the size of the sector vary, but placed its value in the early 2000s at A$100 to 300 million, and by 2007 at half a billion dollars and growing. The sector is particularly important to many Indigenous communities because, as well being a source of cash for an economically disadvantaged group, it reinforces Indigenous identity and tradition, and has aided the maintenance of social cohesion. For example, early works painted at Papunya were created by senior Aboriginal men to help educate younger generations about their culture and their cultural responsibilities.
Fraud and exploitation are significant issues affecting contemporary Indigenous Australian art. Indigenous art works have regularly been reproduced without artists' permission, including by the Reserve Bank of Australia
when it used a David Malangi
painting on the one dollar note in 1966. Similar appropriation of material has taken place with fabric designs, T-shirts and carpets. There have been claims of artists being kidnapped, or relocated against the wishes of their families, by people keen to acquire the artists' paintings.
Artists, particularly in the remoter parts of Australia, sometimes paint for outlets other than the Indigenous art centres or their own companies. They do this for economic reasons, however the resulting paintings can be of uneven quality, and of precarious economic value. Doubts about the provenance
of Indigenous paintings, and about the prices paid for them, have spawned media scrutiny and an Australian parliamentary inquiry. Questions regarding the authenticity of works have arisen in relation to particular artists, including Emily Kngwarreye, Rover Thomas, Kathleen Petyarre, Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula
, Ginger Riley Munduwalawala
, and Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri
; in 2001 an art dealer was jailed for fraud in relation to Clifford Possum's work. These pressures led in 2009 to the introduction of an Indigenous Australian Art Commercial Code of Conduct, intended to establish "minimum standards of practice and fair dealing in the Indigenous visual arts industry".
Prices fetched in the secondary market for Indigenous art works vary widely. Until 2007, the record at auction for an Indigenous art work was $778,750 paid in 2003 for a Rover Thomas painting, All That Big Rain Coming from the Top Side. In 2007, a major work by Emily Kngwarreye, Earth's Creation
, sold for $1.056 million, a new record that was however eclipsed only a few months later, when Clifford Possum's epic work Warlugulong
was bought for $2.4 million by the National Gallery of Australia. At the same time, however, works by prominent artists but of doubtful provenance
were being passed in at auctions. In 2003 there were 97 Indigenous Australian artists whose works were being sold at auction in Australia for prices above $5000, with the total auction market worth around $9.5 million. In that year Sotheby’s estimated that half of sales were to bidders outside Australia.
as "the last great art movement of the 20th century", and by poet Les Murray
as "Australia's equivalent of jazz". Paintings by the artists of the western desert in particular have quickly achieved "an extraordinarily widespread reputation", with collectors competing to obtain them. Some Indigenous artists are regarded as amongst the foremost Australian painters; Emily Kngwarreye has been described as "one of the greatest modern Australian painters", and "among the best Australian artists, arguably amongst the best of her time." Critics reviewing the Hermitage Museum exhibition in 2000 were universal in their praise, one remarking: "This is an exhibition of contemporary art, not in the sense that it was done recently, but in that it is cased in the mentality, technology and philosophy of radical art of the most recent times. No one, other than the Aborigines of Australia, has succeeded in exhibiting such art at the Hermitage".
Not all of the assessments have been universally favourable. Museum curator Philip Batty, who had been involved in assisting the creation and sale of art works in central Australia, expressed concern at the effect of the non-Indigenous art market on the artists – particularly Emily Kngwarreye – and their work. He wrote "there was always a danger that the European component of this cross-cultural partnership would become overly dominant. By the end of her brief career, I think that Emily had all but evacuated this intercultural domain, and her work simply became a mirror image of European desires". Outstanding art works are mixed with poor ones, with the passage of time yet to filter the good from the bad.
The contemporary Indigenous art movement has influenced many non-Indigenous Australian artists, particularly through collaborative projects. Indigenous artists Gordon Bennett
and Michael Nelson Jagamarra
, have engaged in both collaborative artworks and exhibitions with gallerist Michael Eather
, and painter Imants Tillers
, the Australian-born son of Latvia
n refugees. The Australian Research Council
and Land & Water Australia
supported an artistic and archaeological collaboration through the project Strata: Deserts Past, Present and Future, which involved Indigenous artists Daisy Jugadai Napaltjarri
and Molly Jugadai Napaltjarri
.
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
. It is generally regarded as beginning with a painting movement
Papunya Tula
Papunya Tula, or Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, is an artist cooperative formed in 1972 that is owned and operated by Aboriginal people from the Western Desert of Australia. The group is known for its innovative work with the Western Desert Art Movement, popularly referred to as "dot painting"...
that started at Papunya, northwest of Alice Springs, Northern Territory
Alice Springs, Northern Territory
Alice Springs is the second largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Popularly known as "the Alice" or simply "Alice", Alice Springs is situated in the geographic centre of Australia near the southern border of the Northern Territory...
in 1971, involving artists such as Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was an Australian painter, considered to be one of the most collected and renowned Australian Aboriginal artists...
and Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, and facilitated by white Australian teacher and art worker Geoffrey Bardon
Geoffrey Bardon
Geoffrey Robert Bardon AM 1940, Sydney – 6 May 2003) was an Australian school teacher who was instrumental in creating the Aboriginal art of the Western Desert movement, and in bringing Australian indigenous art to the attention of the world....
. The movement spawned widespread interest across rural and remote Aboriginal Australia in creating art, while contemporary Indigenous art of a different nature also emerged in urban centres; together they have become central to Australian art.
Leading Indigenous artists have had solo exhibitions at Australian and international galleries, while their work has been included in major collaborations such as the design of the Musée du quai Branly
Musée du quai Branly
thumb|225px|Musée du quai BranlyThe Musée du quai Branly , known in English as the Quai Branly Museum, nicknamed MQB, is a museum in Paris, France that features indigenous art, cultures and civilizations from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. The museum is located at 37, quai Branly -...
. Contemporary Indigenous artists have won many of Australia's most prominent art prizes: the Wynne Prize
Wynne Prize
The Wynne Prize is an Australian landscape painting or figure sculpture art prize. One of Australia's longest running art prizes, it was established in 1897 from the bequest of Richard Wynne...
has been won by Indigenous artists on at least three occasions; Shirley Purdie
Shirley Purdie
Shirley Purdie is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist, notable for winning the 2007 Blake Prize for religious art. Purdie was born at Gilburn, or Mabel Downs Station, in Western Australia's Kimberley region in 1948, and is a painter at Warmun community....
won the religious-themed Blake Prize in 2007 with Linda Syddick Napaltjarri
Linda Syddick Napaltjarri
Linda Yunkata Syddick Napaltjarri is a Pintupi- and Pitjantjatjara- speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region...
a finalist on three occasions. Indigenous artists, including Rover Thomas
Rover Thomas
Rover Thomas Joolama was an Indigenous Australian artist.-Early life:He was born at Gunawaggi in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. At the age of 10 Rover and his family moved to the Kimberley where, as was usual at the time, he began work as a stockman...
, have represented Australia at the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
in 1990 and 1997. In 2007, a painting by Emily Kngwarreye
Emily Kngwarreye
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. She is one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of contemporary Indigenous Australian art.-Life:Born in 1910, Kngwarreye did not take up painting seriously until...
, Earth's Creation
Earth's Creation
-The Artist & Painting:Emily Kame Kngwarreye painted Earth's Creation in 1994 at Utopia, north east of Alice Springs.She was a senior Anmatyerre woman, who only commenced painting when she was aged about 80...
, was the first Indigenous art work to sell for more than $1 million. Works by contemporary Indigenous artists are held by all of Australia's major public galleries, including the National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
, which in October 2010 opened a new wing dedicated to its Indigenous collection.
Origins
Indigenous Australian art can claim to be "the world’s longest continuing art tradition". Prior to European settlement of Australia, Indigenous people used many art forms, including sculptureSculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
, wood carving
Wood carving
Wood carving is a form of working wood by means of a cutting tool in one hand or a chisel by two hands or with one hand on a chisel and one hand on a mallet, resulting in a wooden figure or figurine, or in the sculptural ornamentation of a wooden object...
, rock carving, body painting
Body painting
Body painting, or sometimes bodypainting, is a form of body art. Unlike tattoo and other forms of body art, body painting is temporary, painted onto the human skin, and lasts for only several hours, or at most a couple of weeks. Body painting that is limited to the face is known as face painting...
, bark painting
Bark painting
Bark painting is an Australian Aboriginal art form, involving painting on the interior of a strip of tree bark. This is a continuing form of artistic expression in Arnhem Land and other regions in the Top End of Australia including parts of the Kimberley region of Western Australia...
and weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
. Many of these continue to be used both for traditional purposes and in the creation of art works for exhibition and sale. Some other techniques have declined or disappeared since European settlement, including body decoration by scarring and the making of possum-skin cloak
Possum-skin cloak
Possum-skin cloaks were a form of clothing worn by Aborigines in the south-east of Australia – present-day Victoria and New South Wales.The cloaks were made from numerous possum pelts sewn together with kangaroo sinew, and often decorated with significant incisions on the inside such as clan...
s. However, Indigenous Australians also adopted and expanded the use of new techniques including painting on paper and canvas. Early examples include the late nineteenth century drawings by William Barak
William Barak
William Barak , was the last traditional ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri-willam clan, based around the area of present-day Melbourne, Australia...
.
Early contemporary art initiatives
In the 1930s, artists Rex Battarbee and John Gardner introduced watercolour painting to Albert NamatjiraAlbert Namatjira
Albert Namatjira , born Elea Namatjira, was an Australian artist. He was a Western Arrernte man, an Indigenous Australian of the Western MacDonnell Ranges area...
, an Indigenous man at Hermannsberg Mission
Hermannsburg, Northern Territory
Hermannsburg is an Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory of Australia, 131 km southwest of Alice Springs. It is known in the local Western Arrernte language as Ntaria....
, south-west of Alice Springs. His landscape paintings, first created in 1936 and exhibited in Australian cities in 1938, were immediately successful, and he became the first Indigenous Australian watercolourist as well as the first to successfully exhibit and sell his works to the non-Indigenous community. Namatjira's style of work was adopted by other Indigenous artists in the region beginning with his close male relatives, and they became known as the Hermannsburg School
Hermannsburg School
The Hermannsburg School is an art movement, or art style, which began at the Hermannsburg Mission in the 1930s. The most well known artist of the style is Albert Namatjira...
or as the Arrernte
Arrernte people
The Arrernte people , known in English as the Aranda or Arunta, are those Indigenous Australians who are the original custodians of Arrernte lands in the central area of Australia around Mparntwe or Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. The Arrernte tribe has lived there for more than 20,000 years...
Watercolourists.
Namatjira died in 1959, and by then a second initiative had also begun. At Ernabella, now Pukatja, South Australia, the use of bright acrylic paints to produce designs for posters and postcards was introduced. This led later to fabric design and batik
Batik
Batik is a cloth that traditionally uses a manual wax-resist dyeing technique. Batik or fabrics with the traditional batik patterns are found in Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, China, Azerbaijan, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and Singapore.Javanese traditional batik, especially from...
work, which is still produced at Australia's oldest Indigenous art centre.
A contemporary Indigenous art movement begins
While the initiatives at Hermannsburg and Ernabella were important antecedents, most sources trace the origins of contemporary Indigenous art, particularly acryclic painting, to Papunya, Northern TerritoryPapunya, Northern Territory
Papunya is a small Indigenous Australian community of about 299 people roughly 240 km northwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, Australia...
in 1971. An Australian school teacher, Geoffrey Bardon
Geoffrey Bardon
Geoffrey Robert Bardon AM 1940, Sydney – 6 May 2003) was an Australian school teacher who was instrumental in creating the Aboriginal art of the Western Desert movement, and in bringing Australian indigenous art to the attention of the world....
arrived at Papunya and started an art program with children at the school and then with the men of the community. The men began with painting a mural on the school walls, and moved on to painting on boards and canvas. At the same time, Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, a member of the community who worked with Bardon, won a regional art award at Alice Springs
Alice Springs, Northern Territory
Alice Springs is the second largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Popularly known as "the Alice" or simply "Alice", Alice Springs is situated in the geographic centre of Australia near the southern border of the Northern Territory...
. Soon over 20 men at Papunya were painting, and they established their own company, Papunya Tula Artists Limited
Papunya Tula
Papunya Tula, or Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, is an artist cooperative formed in 1972 that is owned and operated by Aboriginal people from the Western Desert of Australia. The group is known for its innovative work with the Western Desert Art Movement, popularly referred to as "dot painting"...
, to support the creation and marketing of works. Although painting took hold quickly at Papunya, it remained a "small-scale regional phenomenon" throughout the 1970s, and for a decade none of the state galleries or the national gallery collected the works. However, the painting movement developed rapidly in the 1980s, spreading to Yuendumu, Lajamanu
Lajamanu, Northern Territory
Lajamanu is a small town of the Northern Territory in Australia. It has a population of 669 , of which a significant amount are of Aboriginal origin...
, Utopia
Utopia, Northern Territory
Utopia is an Aboriginal homeland formed in November 1978 by the amalgamation of the former Utopia pastoral lease with a tract of unalienated land to its north. It covers an area of 3500 square kilometres, transected by the Sandover River, and lies on a traditional boundary of the Alyawarra and...
and Haasts Bluff
Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory
Haasts Bluff, also known as Ikuntji, is an Indigenous Australian community in Central Australia, a region of the Northern Territory. The community is located in the MacDonnell Shire local government area, west of Alice Springs...
in the Northern Territory, and Balgo, Western Australia
Balgo, Western Australia
Balgo is a small Aboriginal Community in Western Australia which is linked with both the Great Sandy Desert and the Tanami Desert. The Community is in the Shire of Halls Creek, off the Tanami Road . It has a petrol station, supermarket, Catholic Parish, School Adult Education Centre, Clinic and...
. By the 1990s artistic activity had spread to many communities throughout northern Australia, including those established as part of the Outstation movement
Outstation movement
The Outstation movement refers to the relocation of Indigenous Australians from towns to remote outposts on traditional tribal land.As described in the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody a range of problems faced Aboriginal people living in towns.During the 1980s a number of groups...
, such as Kintore, Northern Territory
Kintore, Northern Territory
Kintore is a remote settlement in the Northern Territory of Australia, located approximately 530 km west of Alice Springs and close to the border with Western Australia. At the 2001 census, Kintore had a population of 691, of which 95% identified themselves as Aboriginal...
and Kiwirrkurra Community, Western Australia. Since then, expansion has continued, with at least 10 painting communities developing in central Australia between the late 1990s and 2006.
Indigenous art cooperatives have been central to the emergence of contemporary Indigenous art. Whereas many western artists pursue formal training and work as individuals, most contemporary Indigenous art is created in community groups and art centres. In 2010, the peak body representing central Australian Indigenous art centres, Desart, had 44 member centres, while the Association of Northern, Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists (ANKAAA), the peak body for northern Australian communities, had 43 member centres. The centres represent large numbers of artists – ANKAAA estimates its member organisations alone include up to 5000 artists.
Styles and themes
Central Australia
Central Australia/Alice Springs Region is one of the five regions in the Northern Territory. The term Central Australia is used to describe an area centred on Alice Springs in Australia. It is sometimes referred to as Centralia; likewise the people of the area are sometimes called Centralians...
n desert; the Kimberley in Western Australia; the northern regions of the Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
, particularly Arnhem Land
Arnhem Land
The Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...
, often referred to as the Top End
Top End
The Top End of northern Australia is the second northernmost point on the continent. It covers a rather vaguely-defined area of perhaps 400,000 square kilometres behind the northern coast from the Northern Territory capital of Darwin across to Arnhem Land with the Indian Ocean on the west, the...
; and northern Queensland
Far North Queensland
Far North Queensland, or FNQ, is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. The region, which contains a large section of the Tropical North Queensland area, stretches from the city of Cairns north to the Torres Strait...
, including the Torres Strait Islands
Torres Strait Islands
The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands which lie in Torres Strait, the waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea but Torres Strait Island known and Recognize as Nyumaria.The islands are mostly part of...
. Urban art is also generally treated as a distinct style of Indigenous art, though it is not clearly geographically defined.
Central Australia: desert art
Indigenous artists from remote central Australia, particularly the central and western desertWestern Desert cultural bloc
The Western Desert cultural bloc or just Western Desert is a cultural region in Australia covering about 600,000 square kilometres, including the Gibson Desert, the Great Victoria Desert, the Great Sandy and Little Sandy Deserts in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia...
area, frequently paint particular 'dreamings
Dreaming (spirituality)
The Dreaming is a common term within the animist creation narrative of indigenous Australians for a personal, or group, creation and for what may be understood as the "timeless time" of formative creation and perpetual creating....
', or stories, for which they have personal responsibility or rights. Best known amongst these are the works of the Papunya Tula painters and of Utopia artist Emily Kngwarreye. The patterns portrayed by central Australian artists, such as those from Papunya, originated as translations of traditional motifs marked out in sand, boards or incised into rock. The symbols used in designs may represent place, movement, or people and animals, while dot fields may indicate a range of phenomena such as sparks, clouds or rain.
The Top End
In Arnhem LandArnhem Land
The Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...
in the Northern Territory, men have painted their traditional clan designs. The iconography however is quite separate and distinct from that of central Australia. In north Queensland and the Torres Strait
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...
many communities continue to practice cultural artistic traditions along with voicing strong political and social messages in their work.
'Urban' art
In Indigenous communities across northern Australia most artists have no formal training, their work being based instead on traditional knowledge and skills. In southeast Australia other Indigenous artists, often living in the cities, have trained in art schools and universities. These artists are sometimes referred to as 'urban' Indigenous artists, although the term is sometimes controversial, and does not accurately describe the origins of some of these individuals, such as Bronwyn BancroftBronwyn Bancroft
Bronwyn Bancroft is an Aboriginal Australian artist, notable for being the first Australian fashion designer invited to show her work in Paris...
who grew up in the town of Tenterfield, New South Wales
Tenterfield, New South Wales
Tenterfield is a town in New South Wales, Australia. It is located in the New England region at the intersection of the New England and Bruxner Highways. Tenterfield is a three-hour drive from Brisbane, 2.5 hours from Byron Bay, two hours from Armidale, New South Wales and 10 hours from Sydney....
, Michael Riley
Michael Riley (artist)
Michael Riley was an Australian Indigenous photographer and film-maker, and co-founder of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative. A significant figure in Contemporary Indigenous Australian art, Riley's work is held by many public art institutions including the National Gallery of Australia.-Life...
who came from rural New South Wales near Dubbo and Moree
Moree, New South Wales
Moree is a large town in Moree Plains Shire in northern New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the banks of the Mehi River in the centre of the rich black-soil plains....
, or Lin Onus
Lin Onus
William McLintock Onus was a Scottish-Aboriginal Artist of Wiradjuri descent from Melbourne, Australia.-Early life:Born Lin Burralung McLintock Onus, his father was political activist and businessman, Bill Onus...
who spent time on his father's traditional country on the Murray River
Murray River
The Murray River is Australia's longest river. At in length, the Murray rises in the Australian Alps, draining the western side of Australia's highest mountains and, for most of its length, meanders across Australia's inland plains, forming the border between New South Wales and Victoria as it...
near Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
's Barmah
Barmah, Victoria
Barmah is a town in Victoria, with the distinction of being located north of the southerly border with New South Wales. At the 2006 census, Barmah had a population of 201....
forest. Some, like Onus, were self-taught while others, such as artist Danie Mellor
Danie Mellor
Danie Mellor is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist and the winner of the 2009 National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award...
or artist and curator Brenda Croft, completed university studies in fine arts.
Media
Anthropologist Nicholas Thomas observed that contemporary Indigenous art practice was perhaps unique in how "wholly new media were adapted so rapidly to produce work of such palpable strength". Much contemporary Indigenous art is produced using acrylic paint on canvas. However other materials and techniques are in use, often in particular regions. Bark painting predominates amongst artists from Arnhem Land, who also undertake carving and weaving. In central Australian communities associated with the Pitjantjatjara people, pokerwork carving is significant.Textile production including batik has been important in the northwestern desert regions of South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
, in the Northern Territory's Utopia
Utopia, Northern Territory
Utopia is an Aboriginal homeland formed in November 1978 by the amalgamation of the former Utopia pastoral lease with a tract of unalienated land to its north. It covers an area of 3500 square kilometres, transected by the Sandover River, and lies on a traditional boundary of the Alyawarra and...
community, and in other areas of central Australia. For a decade before commencing the painting career that would make her famous, Emily Kngwarreye
Emily Kngwarreye
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. She is one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of contemporary Indigenous Australian art.-Life:Born in 1910, Kngwarreye did not take up painting seriously until...
was creating batik designs that revealed her "prodigious original talent" and the modernity of her artistic vision. A wide range of textile art techniques, including dyeing and weaving, is particularly associated with Pukatja, South Australia (formerly known as Ernabella), but in the mid 2000s the community also developed a reputation for fine sgraffito
Sgraffito
Sgraffito is a technique either of wall decor, produced by applying layers of plaster tinted in contrasting colors to a moistened surface, or in ceramics, by applying to an unfired ceramic body two successive layers of contrasting slip, and then in either case scratching so as to produce an...
ceramics. Hermannsburg, originally home to Albert Namatjira and the Arrente Watercolourists, is now renowned for its pottery.
Amongst 'urban' Indigenous artists, more diverse techniques are in use such as silkscreen
Screen-printing
Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate...
printing, poster making, photography, television and film. One of the most important contemporary Indigenous artists of his generation, Michael Riley
Michael Riley (artist)
Michael Riley was an Australian Indigenous photographer and film-maker, and co-founder of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative. A significant figure in Contemporary Indigenous Australian art, Riley's work is held by many public art institutions including the National Gallery of Australia.-Life...
worked in film, video, still photography and digital media. Likewise, Bronwyn Bancroft
Bronwyn Bancroft
Bronwyn Bancroft is an Aboriginal Australian artist, notable for being the first Australian fashion designer invited to show her work in Paris...
has worked in fabric, textiles, "jewellery design, painting, collage, illustration, sculpture and interior decoration". Nevertheless, painting remains a medium used by many 'urban' artists, such as Gordon Bennett
Gordon Bennett (artist)
Gordon Bennett is an Australian artist of Aboriginal and Anglo-Gaelic descent. Born in Monto, Queensland, and now working in Brisbane, Bennett is a significant figure in contemporary Indigenous Australian art.-Biography:...
, Fiona Foley
Fiona Foley
Fiona Foley is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist from Badtjala, Fraser Island, Queensland.She studied at the Sydney College of the Arts. She has travelled as an artist internationally and to remote communities in Northern Territory...
, Trevor Nickolls, Lin Onus
Lin Onus
William McLintock Onus was a Scottish-Aboriginal Artist of Wiradjuri descent from Melbourne, Australia.-Early life:Born Lin Burralung McLintock Onus, his father was political activist and businessman, Bill Onus...
, Judy Watson, and Harry Wedge
Harry Wedge
Harry J. Wedge is a Wiradjuri artist.Prior to starting his artwork professionally, Wedge worked as a driver and fruit picker until he headed to Sydney to enroll at the Eora College....
.
Exhibitions and collections
The public recognition and exhibition of contemporary Indigenous art was initially very limited: for example, it was only a minor part of the collection of Australia's national gallery when its building was opened in 1982. Early exhibitions of major works were held as part of the Sydney Biennales of 1979 and 1982, while a large-scale sand painting was a feature of the 1981 Sydney FestivalSydney Festival
Sydney Festival is Australia's largest and most attended annual cultural event running every January since it was first held in 1977. Its program features around 80 events including contemporary and classical music, dance, circus, drama, visual arts and artist talks...
. Early private gallery showings of contemporary Indigenous art included a solo exhibition of bark paintings by Johnny Bulunbulun at Hogarth Gallery in Sydney in 1981, and an exhibition of western desert artists at Gallery A in Sydney, which formed part of the 1982 Sydney Festival.
There are a number of regular exhibitions devoted to contemporary Indigenous art. Since 1984, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award exhibition has been held in the Northern Territory, under the auspices of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. In 2007, the National Gallery of Australia held the first Indigenous Art Triennial, which included works by thirty contemporary Indigenous artists such as Richard Bell
Richard Bell (artist)
Richard Bell is an Australian artist and political activist.Bell came to the attention of the wider community after his painting Scientia E Metaphysica won the 2003 Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award...
, Danie Mellor
Danie Mellor
Danie Mellor is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist and the winner of the 2009 National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award...
, Doreen Reid Nakamarra
Doreen Reid Nakamarra
Doreen Reid Nakamarra was an Australian Aboriginal artist and painter. Reid was considered an important artist within the Western Desert cultural bloc. She was a leading painter at the Papunya Tula artist cooperative in Central Australia.Reid was born in Mummine near Warburton, Western Australia...
and Shane Pickett
Shane Pickett
Shane Pickett was one of the foremost Nyoongar artists. Combining his deep knowledge and concern for Nyoongar culture with a confident and individual style of gestural abstraction, Pickett created paintings that resonated with a profound but subtle immediacy...
.
Several individual artists have been the subject of retrospective exhibitions at public galleries. These have included Rover Thomas
Rover Thomas
Rover Thomas Joolama was an Indigenous Australian artist.-Early life:He was born at Gunawaggi in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. At the age of 10 Rover and his family moved to the Kimberley where, as was usual at the time, he began work as a stockman...
at the National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
in 1994, Emily Kngwarreye
Emily Kngwarreye
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. She is one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of contemporary Indigenous Australian art.-Life:Born in 1910, Kngwarreye did not take up painting seriously until...
, at the Queensland Art Gallery in 1998, John Mawurndjul
John Mawurndjul
John Mawurndjul is an Australian contemporary Indigenous artist. Mawurndjul's artwork is highly regarded internationally. He uses traditional motifs in innovative ways to express spiritual and cultural values....
at the Tinguely Museum
Tinguely Museum
The Museum Tinguely is an art museum in Basel, Switzerland that contains a permanent exhibition of the works of Swiss painter and sculptor Jean Tinguely...
in Basel Switzerland in 2005, and Paddy Bedford
Paddy Bedford
Paddy Bedford was a major contemporary Indigenous Australian artist from Warmun in the Kimberley, and one of eight Australian artists selected for an architectural commission for the Musée du Quai Branly....
at several galleries including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia is an Australian museum solely dedicated to exhibiting, interpreting and collecting contemporary art, both from across Australia and around the world...
in 2006–07.
Internationally, Indigenous artists have represented Australia in the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
, including Rover Thomas
Rover Thomas
Rover Thomas Joolama was an Indigenous Australian artist.-Early life:He was born at Gunawaggi in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. At the age of 10 Rover and his family moved to the Kimberley where, as was usual at the time, he began work as a stockman...
and Trevor Nickolls in 1990, and Emily Kngwarreye, Judy Watson and Yvonne Koolmatrie in 1997. In 2000, a number of individual artists and artistic collaborations were shown in the prestigious Nicholas Hall
Neva Enfilade of the Winter Palace
The Neva Enfilade of the Winter Palace, St Petersburg is a series of three large halls arranged in an enfilade along the palace's massive facade facing the River Neva....
at the Hermitage Museum
Hermitage Museum
The State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
in Russia. In 2003, eight Indigenous artists – Paddy Bedford, John Mawurndjul, Ningura Napurrula, Lena Nyadbi, Michael Riley
Michael Riley
Michael Riley is a Canadian actor and graduate of the National Theatre School in Montreal, Canada in 1984. Riley's first appearance was in the film No Man's Land...
, Judy Watson, Tommy Watson
Yannima Tommy Watson
Yannima Tommy Watson is a senior Pitjantjatjara man from Australia’s central western desert who has become a significant contemporary Indigenous Australian artist...
and Gulumbu Yunupingu – collaborated on a commission to provide works that decorate one of the Musée du quai Branly
Musée du quai Branly
thumb|225px|Musée du quai BranlyThe Musée du quai Branly , known in English as the Quai Branly Museum, nicknamed MQB, is a museum in Paris, France that features indigenous art, cultures and civilizations from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. The museum is located at 37, quai Branly -...
's four buildings completed in 2006.
Contemporary Indigenous art works are collected by all of Australia's major public galleries. The National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
has a significant collection, with a new wing (pictured) constructed for its permanent exhibition. The extension was announced in 2006 and opened in October 2010. Some state galleries, such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...
, the National Gallery of Victoria
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
, and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory is the main museum in the Northern Territory. The museum is located in the inner Darwin suburb of Fannie Bay...
, have gallery space permanently dedicated to the exhibition of contemporary Indigenous art. Galleries outside Australia acquiring contemporary Indigenous art include the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
, and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
. Permanent displays of Indigenous art outside Australia are found at Seattle Art Museum
Seattle Art Museum
The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It maintains three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill, and the Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened on...
, Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art and the Kluge–Ruhe Museum at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
.
The Araluen Centre for Arts and Entertainment
Araluen Centre for Arts and Entertainment
The Araluen Centre for Arts & Entertainment in Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory, Australia, is a cultural centre incorporating museums and a theatre....
, a public art gallery in Alice Springs, hosts the country's largest collection of works by Albert Namatjira. It also hosts the annual Desert Mob exhibition, representing current painting activities across Australia's Aboriginal art centres. The National Gallery of Victoria holds the country's main collection of Indigenous batik.
Prizes
Contemporary Indigenous art works have won a number of Australia's principal national art prizes, including the Wynne prize, the Clemenger Contemporary Art AwardClemenger Contemporary Art Award
The Clemenger Contemporary Art Award was a major, triennial, invitational art prize organised under the auspices of the National Gallery of Victoria and funded by the philanthropists Joan and Peter Clemenger. The Clemengers' gift was made in 1991 and the first award was made in 1993. The final...
and the Blake Prize. Indigenous winners have included Shirley Purdie
Shirley Purdie
Shirley Purdie is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist, notable for winning the 2007 Blake Prize for religious art. Purdie was born at Gilburn, or Mabel Downs Station, in Western Australia's Kimberley region in 1948, and is a painter at Warmun community....
, 2007 winner of the Blake Prize with her work Stations of the Cross; 2003 Clemenger Award winner John Mawurndjul
John Mawurndjul
John Mawurndjul is an Australian contemporary Indigenous artist. Mawurndjul's artwork is highly regarded internationally. He uses traditional motifs in innovative ways to express spiritual and cultural values....
, and 2006 Clemenger winner Judy Watson. The Wynne prize has been won by contemporary Indigenous artists on several occasions, including in 1999 by Gloria Petyarre
Gloria Petyarre
Gloria Petyarre is an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Anmatyerre community, just north of Alice Springs...
with Leaves; in 2004 by George Tjungurrayi; and in 2008 by Joanne Currie Nalingu, with her painting The river is calm.
As well as winning major prizes, Indigenous artists have been well represented amongst the finalists in these competitions. The Blake Prize has included numerous Indigenous finalists, such as Bronwyn Bancroft
Bronwyn Bancroft
Bronwyn Bancroft is an Aboriginal Australian artist, notable for being the first Australian fashion designer invited to show her work in Paris...
(2008), Angelina Ngal and Irene (Mbitjana) Entata (2009), Genevieve Kemarr Loy, Cowboy Loy Pwerl, Dinni Kunoth Kemarre, Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarray (2010), and Linda Syddick Napaltjarri
Linda Syddick Napaltjarri
Linda Yunkata Syddick Napaltjarri is a Pintupi- and Pitjantjatjara- speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region...
(on three separate occasions).
Australia's major Indigenous art prize is the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
The National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award is one of the most prestigious art awards in Australia. Established in 1984 by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, and awarded annually, it is sponsored by Telstra, so is commonly known as the Telstra Award.Prize-winners...
. Established by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in 1984, the award includes a major winner that receives A$40,000, and five category awards each worth $4000: one for bark painting
Bark painting
Bark painting is an Australian Aboriginal art form, involving painting on the interior of a strip of tree bark. This is a continuing form of artistic expression in Arnhem Land and other regions in the Top End of Australia including parts of the Kimberley region of Western Australia...
, one for works on paper, one for three-dimensional works and, introduced for the first time in 2010, one for new media. Winners of the major prize have included Makinti Napanangka
Makinti Napanangka
Makinti Napanangka was a Pintupi-speaking Indigenous Australian artist from Australia's Western Desert region...
in 2008, and Danie Mellor
Danie Mellor
Danie Mellor is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist and the winner of the 2009 National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award...
in 2009. In 2008, the Art Gallery of Western Australia
Art Gallery of Western Australia
The Art Gallery of Western Australia is a public gallery that is part of the Perth Cultural Centre, in Perth, Western Australia. It is located near the Western Australian Museum and State Library of Western Australia...
established the Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards
Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards
The Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards is a non-acquisitive art award established by the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 2008. It includes three prizes: an overall prize of A$50 000, as well as a A$10 000 prize for the top Western Australian artist, and a A$5 000 People's...
, which include the country's most valuable Indigenous art cash prize of A$50,000, as well as a A$10,000 prize for the top Western Australian artist, and a A$5000 People's Choice Award, all selected from the field of finalists, which includes 15 individuals and one collaborative group. The 2009 winner of the main prize was Ricardo Idagi, while the People's Choice award was won by Shane Pickett
Shane Pickett
Shane Pickett was one of the foremost Nyoongar artists. Combining his deep knowledge and concern for Nyoongar culture with a confident and individual style of gestural abstraction, Pickett created paintings that resonated with a profound but subtle immediacy...
. Wayne Quilliam was awarded the 2009 NAIDOC Artist of the Year for his many years of work on the local and International scene working with Indigenous groups throughout the world.
Benefits and costs
The flowering of Indigenous art has delivered economic, social and cultural benefits to Indigenous Australians, who are socially and economically disadvantaged compared to the Australian community as a whole.The sale of art works is a significant economic activity for individual artists and for their communities. Estimates of the size of the sector vary, but placed its value in the early 2000s at A$100 to 300 million, and by 2007 at half a billion dollars and growing. The sector is particularly important to many Indigenous communities because, as well being a source of cash for an economically disadvantaged group, it reinforces Indigenous identity and tradition, and has aided the maintenance of social cohesion. For example, early works painted at Papunya were created by senior Aboriginal men to help educate younger generations about their culture and their cultural responsibilities.
Fraud and exploitation are significant issues affecting contemporary Indigenous Australian art. Indigenous art works have regularly been reproduced without artists' permission, including by the Reserve Bank of Australia
Reserve Bank of Australia
The Reserve Bank of Australia came into being on 14 January 1960 as Australia's central bank and banknote issuing authority, when the Reserve Bank Act 1959 removed the central banking functions from the Commonwealth Bank to it....
when it used a David Malangi
David Malangi
David Malangi was an Indigenous Australian Yolngu artist from the Northern Territory. He was one of the most well known bark painters from Arnhem Land and a significant figure in contemporary Indigenous Australian art. He was born at Mulanga, on the east bank of the Glyde River.He painted on...
painting on the one dollar note in 1966. Similar appropriation of material has taken place with fabric designs, T-shirts and carpets. There have been claims of artists being kidnapped, or relocated against the wishes of their families, by people keen to acquire the artists' paintings.
Artists, particularly in the remoter parts of Australia, sometimes paint for outlets other than the Indigenous art centres or their own companies. They do this for economic reasons, however the resulting paintings can be of uneven quality, and of precarious economic value. Doubts about the provenance
Provenance
Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...
of Indigenous paintings, and about the prices paid for them, have spawned media scrutiny and an Australian parliamentary inquiry. Questions regarding the authenticity of works have arisen in relation to particular artists, including Emily Kngwarreye, Rover Thomas, Kathleen Petyarre, Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula
Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula
Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula was a Pintupi-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region...
, Ginger Riley Munduwalawala
Ginger Riley Munduwalawala
Ginger Riley Munduwalawala was an Australian contemporary artist. He was born in Arnhem Land, in the domain of the Mara people...
, and Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was an Australian painter, considered to be one of the most collected and renowned Australian Aboriginal artists...
; in 2001 an art dealer was jailed for fraud in relation to Clifford Possum's work. These pressures led in 2009 to the introduction of an Indigenous Australian Art Commercial Code of Conduct, intended to establish "minimum standards of practice and fair dealing in the Indigenous visual arts industry".
Prices fetched in the secondary market for Indigenous art works vary widely. Until 2007, the record at auction for an Indigenous art work was $778,750 paid in 2003 for a Rover Thomas painting, All That Big Rain Coming from the Top Side. In 2007, a major work by Emily Kngwarreye, Earth's Creation
Earth's Creation
-The Artist & Painting:Emily Kame Kngwarreye painted Earth's Creation in 1994 at Utopia, north east of Alice Springs.She was a senior Anmatyerre woman, who only commenced painting when she was aged about 80...
, sold for $1.056 million, a new record that was however eclipsed only a few months later, when Clifford Possum's epic work Warlugulong
Warlugulong
Warlugulong is a painting by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri that in 2007 set a new price record for a contemporary Indigenous Australian artwork sold at auction. Painted in 1977 and owned for many years by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the work was sold by art dealer Frank Ebes at auction on...
was bought for $2.4 million by the National Gallery of Australia. At the same time, however, works by prominent artists but of doubtful provenance
Provenance
Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...
were being passed in at auctions. In 2003 there were 97 Indigenous Australian artists whose works were being sold at auction in Australia for prices above $5000, with the total auction market worth around $9.5 million. In that year Sotheby’s estimated that half of sales were to bidders outside Australia.
Assessment
Art historian Wally Caruana called Indigenous art "the last great tradition of art to be appreciated by the world at large", and contemporary Indigenous art is the only art movement of international significance to emerge from Australia. Modern Indigenous art has been described by leading critic Robert HughesRobert Hughes (critic)
Robert Studley Forrest Hughes, AO is an Australian-born art critic, writer and television documentary maker who has resided in New York since 1970.-Early life:...
as "the last great art movement of the 20th century", and by poet Les Murray
Les Murray (poet)
Leslie Allan Murray, AO , known as Les Murray, is an Australian poet, anthologist and critic. His career spans over forty years, and he has published nearly 30 volumes of poetry, as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings...
as "Australia's equivalent of jazz". Paintings by the artists of the western desert in particular have quickly achieved "an extraordinarily widespread reputation", with collectors competing to obtain them. Some Indigenous artists are regarded as amongst the foremost Australian painters; Emily Kngwarreye has been described as "one of the greatest modern Australian painters", and "among the best Australian artists, arguably amongst the best of her time." Critics reviewing the Hermitage Museum exhibition in 2000 were universal in their praise, one remarking: "This is an exhibition of contemporary art, not in the sense that it was done recently, but in that it is cased in the mentality, technology and philosophy of radical art of the most recent times. No one, other than the Aborigines of Australia, has succeeded in exhibiting such art at the Hermitage".
Not all of the assessments have been universally favourable. Museum curator Philip Batty, who had been involved in assisting the creation and sale of art works in central Australia, expressed concern at the effect of the non-Indigenous art market on the artists – particularly Emily Kngwarreye – and their work. He wrote "there was always a danger that the European component of this cross-cultural partnership would become overly dominant. By the end of her brief career, I think that Emily had all but evacuated this intercultural domain, and her work simply became a mirror image of European desires". Outstanding art works are mixed with poor ones, with the passage of time yet to filter the good from the bad.
The contemporary Indigenous art movement has influenced many non-Indigenous Australian artists, particularly through collaborative projects. Indigenous artists Gordon Bennett
Gordon Bennett (artist)
Gordon Bennett is an Australian artist of Aboriginal and Anglo-Gaelic descent. Born in Monto, Queensland, and now working in Brisbane, Bennett is a significant figure in contemporary Indigenous Australian art.-Biography:...
and Michael Nelson Jagamarra
Michael Nelson Jagamarra
-Biography:Tjakamarra was born at Vaughan Springs in the Northern Territory around 1949. He first saw white men at Mt Doreen station and remembers hiding in the bush in fear! Michael lived at Haasts Bluff for a time with the same family group as Long Jack Phillipus Tjakammara. Later his parents...
, have engaged in both collaborative artworks and exhibitions with gallerist Michael Eather
Michael Eather
Michael Eather is a contemporary Australian artist, based in Brisbane who helped found the Campfire Group, a significant cross-cultural artistic collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists.Eather grew up and was educated in Tasmania...
, and painter Imants Tillers
Imants Tillers
Imants Tillers is an Australian visual art artist, curator and writer. Born in Sydney in 1950, Tillers currently lives and works in Cooma, New South Wales. In 1973 he graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Science in Architecture , and the University Medal...
, the Australian-born son of Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
n refugees. The Australian Research Council
Australian Research Council
The Australian Research Council is the Australian Government’s main agency for allocating research funding to academics and researchers in Australian universities. Its mission is to advance Australia’s capacity to undertake research that brings economic, social and cultural benefit to the...
and Land & Water Australia
Land & Water Australia
Land & Water Australia was a Statutory Corporation established under the Primary Industries and Energy Research and Development Act of 1989. Its primary focus was to organise and fund research and development activities which improved the long term productive capacity, sustainable use, management...
supported an artistic and archaeological collaboration through the project Strata: Deserts Past, Present and Future, which involved Indigenous artists Daisy Jugadai Napaltjarri
Daisy Jugadai Napaltjarri
Daisy Jugadai Napaltjarri was a Pintupi- and Luritja-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region, and sister of artist Molly Jugadai Napaltjarri...
and Molly Jugadai Napaltjarri
Molly Jugadai Napaltjarri
Molly Jugadai Napaltjarri is a Pintupi– and Luritja–speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. Her paintings are held in major collections including the National Gallery of Australia.-Life:...
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External links
- Australian Art CollectorAustralian Art CollectorAustralian Art Collector is a quarterly art magazine. It primarily covers Australian contemporary and Indigenous art, but also occasionally features New Zealand and international artists.-Publication:...
magazine's Guide to Indigenous Art Centres - Papunya Collection, National Museum of Australia
- Ernabella Arts Collection, National Museum of Australia
- Papunya Painting: Out of the Desert, National Museum of Australia online exhibition