The Age: Firey Passions by John McDonald

August 27, 2011

Excerpt:

“Ironically, the real enemy did not seem to be the hated whiteys but those blackfellas who question the Aboriginality of the artists. Ah Kee said he tells such people: ''You're not more of a blackfella than me. You're just the most documented. You're the favourites of the white man.'' This was reminiscent of those radical left-wing groups who reserve their greatest scorn for other radical left-wing groups.

One of the most incredible statements in this self-regarding blather was when Richard Bell said we need more criticism of Aboriginal art and suggested that white critics are afraid of being called racists if they speak out. Well, there was hardly a moment on this forum that was not riddled with racist assumptions. For instance, if you've had the misfortune to be born white, ''you should be so ashamed that you'd want to leave this country''.

<Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/fiery-passions-20110825-1jao3.html#ixzz1c2AzroHl>

McDonald’s article on the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair- or more significantly, on the undercurrent of racial tensions at the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair highlights just how heated these tensions have become. Members of artist- or agitator-collective ProppaNow fueled the dialogue about racism with show BlackSee – criticizing both white and black Australians. Questioning the ‘Aboriginal-ness’ of popular Indigenous artists, as well as their motives- Ah Kee’s annoucing- ''If there are blackfellas that aren't angry then I'm suspicious of them,” the tensions surrounding the issue of Indigenous art and culture are disturbingly complex.

While ProppaNow’s BlackSee could easily be dismissed as purposefully inflammatory and intentionally controversial, the issues they have addressed should not be ignored. Fighting over the ‘authenticity’ of Indigenous art, such as the criticism Emily Kame Kngwarreye encountered from other Indigenous Australians and members of her community for her less traditional, individual style, as well as the criticism Indigenous Artists who have been brought up in Urban areas with Urban experiences receive from ‘traditional’ Indigenous artists, is an issue that continuously surfaces.

As Indigneous Australians continue their cultural practice of story telling through their arts works, and as the Indigneous Australian continues to change in both georgraphical location, experience and exposure to different forms of art and lifestyle, this issue of 'authentic' Aboriginal art will only continue to be more complex, and more controversial...

Indigenous Male Model

Saw an interview with Indigenous Australian male model Jake Gordon that again referenced these complex ideas around being an Indigenous Australian- although he has had the Indigenous Australian experience- bring brought up by his Indigenous Australian mother in Central NSW and works to raise awareness about the issues faced by young Indigenous Australians, who come in ‘all shapes, colours and sizes,’ as he says himself in an interview with The Morning Show, he faces scrutiny and some confusion in the modeling world about his Aboriginal-ness- due to his more fair (but still very tanned) skin tone- passed on by his European Australian father. Gordon is good-natured when discussing this, laughingly explaining how when Americans see his mop of thick hair, they exclaim “Oh no he is Aboriginal! His hair looks just like the kid from that movie Australia.”

I found this personally interesting as my father is Samoan, and I have faced this sort of ‘oh but why are you so white’ attitude- such as being asked if that’s actually my step father, ‘why is your dad black,’ etc.

But it goes to show these attitudes about what is stereotypically or ‘authentically’ ‘Indigenous’ are rampant not just in the art world but are also faced by young Indigenous Australians who identify themselves as Indigenous. Ingrained ideas about race and what defines people culturally needs to be seriously rethought.

Regional Styles

I personally found the Regional Styles lecture fascinating- I had always been aware of these different Aboriginal Art styles but had never considered the reason behind the variation- which is so obvious!  The Desert styles- particularly the Western Desert regional style, and the work coming from Utopia (Emily Kame Kngwarreye's spectactular work a real eye opener) have greatly captured my interest.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye's works are easily appreciated in the sense of abstract art, but in a cultural context resulted in many problems for Kngwarreye amongst her community. With her work selling for over a hundred and fifty thousand a piece by 2000, and then over a million by 2007, Kngwarreye faced much pressure from the white community to paint in a certain, ‘more successful’ way.

Bush Yam 1995
Acrylic on Canvas

Thinking Beyond Abstraction

Felicity Fenner’s Thinking Beyond Abstraction takes into account the undeniable influence Aboriginal art has had on Australian artists, and explores the position of Aboriginal art within the context of the modern gallery. Fenner notes that that while non-Indigenous artists’ works are unequivocally enhanced by their exposure to Aboriginal art, Indigenous artists face the complex issues of ‘authenticity,’ with Aboriginal art works painted on non-traditional medium such as a canvas having been excluded from museums until the controversial 1981 Perpecta exhibition. Fenner also considers that the desire to own Aboriginal art is linked with ‘unresolved issues around reconciliation,’ as well as the desire for ownership and authority.  However, it is this issue of ‘authenticity,’ that I find most significant and challenging. There seems to be an underlying conflict as to what is ‘authentic’ – being produced in the traditional way of expressing and passing on traditional stories in an effort to maintain traditions that are ’otherwise threatened by assimilation,’ and what is commercialized, or ‘bad’ Indigenous art...     

                                        .....A whole new complicated can of worms, if you ask me.

'Today there is a related paradigm in advanced art on the left: the artist as ethnographer. The object of contestation remains, at least in part, the bourgeois institution of autonomous art, its exclusionary definitions of art, audience, identity. But the subject of association has changed: it is now the cultural and/or ethnic other in whose name the artist often struggles.’

Foster, Hal, "The Artist as Ethnographer?" in The Traffic in Culture : Refiguring Art and Anthropology, edited by George E. Marcus and Fred R. Myers, Berkeley: University of California Press, (1995): (p.304).

Opal Field Gems Mine and Museum

Visited the Opal Field Gems Mine and Museum located at 33 King William Street after noticing the large ‘Aboriginal Art Gallery’ sign featured on the front of the store while on the way to Uni. This was to be my first visit to a gallery specifically to view Aboriginal art for the purpose of keeping this blog- my previous experiences with viewing Aboriginal art very limited- only briefly glancing over some Aboriginal works on my way through galleries and gift shops on the way to other art forms or items.

Having never really known much about Indigenous Australian art besides being able to recognize the dot pattern paintings as Aboriginal, the course lectures and subsequent conversations in tutorials have opened my eyes to the complex issues surrounding Aboriginal art. One Indigenous Australian student had voiced his opinion that ‘there was no such thing as Aboriginal art,’ that white man had called and commercialized the cultural practice of recording the ancestral stories and dreaming’s  into ‘art’ in order to simply make money from the Aboriginal people. He questioned what right white man had to ‘teach’ the students about Aboriginal ‘art.’ These controversial points were raised after the very first lecture in which the long history of the Aboriginal people was concisely summarized, and really sparked my interest in learning more about such a controversial and divisive subject.

The Opal Field Gems Mine and Museum presents a confusing picture when looking at the Aboriginal art works. Incorporating both large hand crafted Indigenous Australian arts works alongside tourist memorabilia such as tea towels and post cards featuring what appears to be Aboriginal arts works the commercialization of Aboriginal art can be easily identified. However, the further introduction of a collection of Aboriginal artifacts such as a Didgeridoo, digging and gathering tools further confuses the conversation between the tribal artifact- or ethnographical art- and the role of Aboriginal art within a modern or ethnographical context. While the divide between ethnographical and contemporary art continues to shrink as traditional artifacts, or artworks, are reexamined in relation to both contemporary and historical life; such as the Art Gallery of South Australia’s move to incorporate Indigenous Australian art with pre-colonial, colonial and twentieth century Australian art- having previously segregated the collections, a distinct division still remains.