Petelin 1

Indigenous Australian Art and its conditions of reception in the New Millenium
George Petelin
Australian indigenous art, that is to say art produced by Australian Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people, enjoyed an immense increase of national and international interest oer the
last two decades of the second Millennium! I will not speculate here what was responsible for this
phenomenon! "ather I want to address the #uestions$ did indigenous art change or did critical
reception change% And what are some conse#uences of this for art% The phenomenon itself, I will
argue, is a comple& of both processes! The art has changed and so has its reception! The
conse#uences are many! Not the least of these are the economic conse#uences of 'critical( success
for Aboriginal artists! )ut what I want to deal with primarily is the conse#uences for two things$
'Western conentions of reception and the 'authenticity( of Aboriginal culture!
Art criticism in the *est has long been predicated on notions of '#uality(! The critic(s pose
has been to judge with their e&pert eye whether an artist or a form of art is worth admitting into
the canon of *estern culture! *hat do we do when we come up against wor+s which either defy
conentional criteria of artistic #uality or find them irreleant% And what do we do when, on other
criteria, wor+s can be argued e#ual or een superior to that canon despite apparent technical and
conceptual naiet,% These dillemmas are precipitated for the critical reception of art by the
remote communities such as Papunya and for the more recent phenmenon of '-rban( Aboriginal
art respectiely!
The first recognition of Aboriginal art was entirely anthropological! As .udith "yan /01123
notes$
)efore the 0142s the major collectors were anthropologists researching Aboriginal
mythology, ritual and +inship systems who were primarily interested in the
relationship of art to ceremony and what it reealed about Aboriginal culture!
/p!053
6en when Negro and Pacific Island arts became recognised for their formal #ualities and e&erted
an influence on Modernism, Australian Aboriginal art defied being categorised aesthetically! Some
of this was perhaps due to a reciprocal reaction of the Aboriginal artists to anthropological
interest! As Philip .ones /01773 obseres$
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There is little doubt that Aborigines responded creatiely to the intense interest in
their culture displayed by fieldwor+ers and collectors! The moties of these
indiiduals, furthermore, may hae been aried, but the result was often the same$
an efflorescence of artifact production which sometimes een inspired new forms
of Aboriginal art! / pp! 04890443
This appears to hae been a classic case of both 'colonialist influence( and of research altering its
object of study, for .ones adds$
As a rule, though, the collectors had fi&ed ideas about what they wanted to
obtain!!! There is no doubt that particularly in the nineteenth century, this bias
reflected *estern preferences as well as patterns of production by Aborigines for
the *estern mar+et! /p!0443
*hat the anthropologically inclined collectors wanted from the Aborigines was 'a
proportionally greater numbers of utilitarian artifacts /weapons and tools3 than ornaments or
decoratie pieces( /.ones 0177, p!0443! This was eidently out of the nineteenth century
collectors( desire to affirm a :arwinian notion of human eolution /.ones 0177, pp!04;90413
within which Aborigines were considered to occupy a crucial position! The Aborigines obligingly
complied by staging a mini9'arms race( not for use, but for a 6uropean mar+et! The alue placed
on Aboriginal creatiity thus became dependent on an 'authenticity( which amounted to a
correspondence with a particular regime of truth manufactured almost entirely by a colonial
hegemony!
Not a dissimilar critical error occurs in relation to 'Toas(<waymar+ers featuring little
figures, feathers, and other decorations said to coney information about a camping site for the
benefit of subse#uent isitors literate in their code! It seems these too were a 'recent( inention!
*ally =aruana, /01183 curator of Aboriginal art at the national Gallery of Australia writes that
the first recorded e&ample of innoation in desert art intended for sale appeared in
0128!!!More than four hundred toas were made between 0128 and 0124 in
response of the wish of the missionary, Pastor .ohann "euther, to build a collection
of Aboriginal artefacts to raise funds for the mission! The toa collection was
ac#uired by the South Australian museum in 012;, but it appears that their
production ceased when Pastor "euther left the mission in 012>!!!The popular
belief that Aboriginal culture was static encouraged the iew that toas were a
traditional form of sculpture!/p!0203

A similar charge has been made about Aboriginal )ar+ Painting! )ar+ Painting became the
first artifact to be collected for more or less aesthetic reasons although none9the9less predicated
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on an authenticity which, ironically, again precipitated a form of inauthenticity! .udith "yan
reports that the earliest 'bar+ paintings( were remoed from bar+ shelters! Their lean9to rooes
were originally decorated with sgrafitto 'doodling( when they became blac+ened from the
campfire! Predominantly these featured secular and mundane images such as ?9ray
representations of food animals! @ne could imagine an Aborigine whiling away an afternoon
scratching the fishbone outlines of the remains of their dinner! )ut under the influence of
6uropean critical selection, these had to become representations of something more profound!
The earliest +nown collected bar+ was not spontaneously produced, but commissioned in 010A by
)aldwin Spencer appointed to the official goernemnt post of 'Protector of Aborigines(! Spencer
'comissioned large bar+ paintings( from @enpelli mission in Ba+adu, famous for its cae art, to be
'similar in scale and style to the roc+ paintings(! This was e#uialent to as+ing a pastrycoo+ to
reproduce =hartres cathedral, but it imbued this secular art, in 6uropean eyes, with a necessary
aura! The preparation of these for sale and the enhancement of their techni#ue became a classical
result of commodification! :espite the transformation, if not complete inention, of bar+ painting
to the form we +now it today in response to *estern presence, the alue of bar+ paintings was
calculated in terms of their perceied 'authenticity(!
The production of bar+ painting was apparently restricted initially through missionary
objection to pagan and se&ually e&plicit imagesC but from the 0182s to the 01>2s, "yan obseres,
'mission superintenednts regularly supplied bar+ paintings to collectors in the capital cities(! 'The
production of large #uantities of bar+ paintings for sale<as art not artefact<stems particularly
from the 01>2s as part of an eoling dialogue between Aboriginal and white Australians( adds
"yan!
The recognition of Albert Namatjira, who learnt '*estern( watercolour techni#ue from
white artist "e& )atterbee, posed an entirely different critical problem! Dere was someone who
seemed to blatantly discard their own 'authenticity( in order to paint li+e a whiteman! Achieing
an unprecedented recognition, Namatjira precipitated a 'school( /consisting of mainly his relaties3
which sprang around him! 'Indiidual genius( could eidently, for a while, forestall demands for
authenticity! Doweer, before long this school became tinged with an element of +itsch<
associated more with biscuit tin labels than with State Gallery collections<until recent reisionist
assessments, intent on recuperating authenticity, indicated Namatjira, claiming that he
neertheless e&pressed a #uintessential Aboriginal relation to the landscape!
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"egardless of whether Namatjira(s wor+ indeed does this, and I incidentally thin+ it does,
what I want to point out is that 6uropeans( projections of their own desires hae shaped almost
eery critical encounter with Aboriginal art! Thus Barel Bup+a /01>43 claimed to see a natural
'e&pressionism( in tribal art! And the Papunya Tula dot paintings hae predominantly been seen in
terms of 'colourfield plus pointilism( /McNeill, 011A3 by American reiewers! In many cases these
critical encounters conse#uently also influenced the production of Aboriginal artefacts or art and
do so een now! 6mily Bame Bngawarrye began her artistic career by translating :reamtime
stories into bati#ue prints! At 7;, after showing her wor+ in fashionable contemporary galleries,
although still representing aspects of her 'story(, she adopted what is arguably a
minimalistEtachiste idiom!
A reason that applying 'authenticity( as a criterion inariably resulted in apparently less
authentic products is the assumption that what ma+es an object 'authentic( is its origin rather than
its function! If we, howeer, consider art a process < a cycle of production, circulation,
mediation, e&change, consumption, and cultural reproduction<incommensurable differences
between cultures become apparent that ma+e a simple critical relation, based on authenticity or
purity of 'tradition(, to artifacts impossible!
6uropean interention necessarily commandeers a portion of the wor+(s circulation,
mediation, and consumption and, most crucially, forces a relation of exchange #uite unli+e that
e&perienced within the Aboriginal community! The @enpelli bar+s, for e&ample, were able to be
'commissioned( because this mission had already instituted an economy based on tobacco as
currency<in preparation for accustomising Aborigines to a monetary e&change system whose
complete lac+ of dependence on use alue would naturally hae been beyond their
comprehension, and, more importantly, against their cultural principles! Therefore, what obscures
the actual nature of cultural authenticity is the commodification in *estern culture that erases the
artwor+(s use alue!
)ut this one9sided e&change need not be eternally a fait accompli! *hat is particularly
e&citing at the present historical juncture is that a reciprocity of cultural e&change is being felt at
the museum end! The way 6uropean economy changed Aboriginal art, perhaps Aboriginal art can
influence the cultural economy of 6uropean Australia<at least at the points of critical mediation,
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circulation, and consumption! *hite people(s hopes that an e&change of culture to their adantage
could be effected on the leel of image production were oerly optimistic! Attempts at adopting
Aboriginal imagery hae had mi&ed results$ white Australian artists such as Margaret Preston
addressed Aboriginal culture and opened some doors for its white reception but did not
substantially change the relations of cultural e&change! More recently other non9Indigenous artists
such as Imants Tillers and Tim .ohnson hae also, in different ways, adopted Aboriginal imagery<
the former by warrant of postmodernist appropriation and the latter through a leel of negotiated
permission! Although their actions, good or ill, gie rise to some controersy, the point I want to
ma+e is that they are insignificant in relation to the real reolution that is ta+ing place around
them! Imagery is but a tiny tip of the iceberg of the 'process( or 'cycle( of art, that I refered to
earlier, which characterises and defines the difference of the colonisers( culture from the that of
the colonised! *hat is a far more important change in these terms is the start in the last two
decades of the Millennium, of actie Aboriginal interention in the Western system!
Plainly, any 'system( is greater than its components! So for a remote community
indigenous artist to create a single art wor+ or een a body of wor+, in either complete deference
to or defiance of indigenous culture, is an a anomaly rather than a cultural change! Doweer, the
phenomenon of urban Indigenous art appears to be accomplishing something entirely different!
*hat it is doing is changing the ery criteria for inclusion in the emerging canon, of at least
Australian artC changing the form of critical relation to the wor+ that the mediators of that canon
/the critics3 hae to adoptC and, in some ways, altering the mode of reception and consumption of
the wor+!
The success of the 0170 International Papunya Tula e&hibition was followed by shows that
were as radically different from it as it was from preious shows of Aboriginal art$ e&hibitions
such as 'Boori Art '75( at Artspace, Sydney in 0175, 'Two *orlds =ollide( in 0174, and 'A Boori
Perspectie( in 0171, also at Artspace! The 0175 e&hibition prompted the formation of )oomali
Aboriginal artists( cooperatie in Sydney in 0174! These initiaties finally resulted in een State
galleries hosting e&hibitions primarily concerned with 'urban( rather than remote indigenous art$
'"ecent Aboriginal Painting( at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 0177, '-rban Aboriginal Art(
0177 at the =ontemporary Art =entre of South Australia and Flash Pictures at the Australian
National Gallery in 011A! The most radical of these was called Balance, held at the Gueensland
Art Gallery in 0112! The mode of production of these images brea+s with *estern e&pectations
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firstly by not emerging out of an art school training, professional studio production, and career
strategy! Many of these wor+s are made on a +itchen table during a social occasion with the
participation and adice of friends, relaties, children! The conditions of consumption and
e&change at the immediate leel are also unli+e those which predominate in *estern art! Pictures
are e&changed out of friendship, gien away, printed on T9shirts! In contrast with the alorised, so
called 'traditional(, wor+s, e&port is not the precondition of their productionC they are primarily
made to circulate within the Aboriginal community and conse#uently do not see+ to meet the
critical standards of the *est! *hen one of these indigenous community supported shows opens,
the whole ritual of gallery openings is transformed$ beercans replace champagne flutes, indigenous
country and western bands replace string #uartets, and whole e&tended families including children
and the ery elderly, come dressed in arious degrees of casualness or formality! *hereas western
gallery goers attend in order to be obsered as much as to obsere the e&hibit, for indigenous
people, the e&ercise is more fundamental! It is still a social ritual, but always to do with cultural
solidarity rather than with personal aggrandisement! *hereas people of 6uropean e&traction play
out their conflicts and differences priately, but try to conceal them on social occasions,
indigenous people traditionally sae disputes e&pressly for a public occasion when the whole
community can judge and intercede if necessary! Thus there can be no assurance of bourgeois
politeness at an indigenous art opening H life does not stop for art! This gies the urban
Indigenous art at the point of authentic reception, by its own community, #uite a different set of
functions and constitutes a recoery, or perhaps more correctly, reinention, of tradition!
*hen these wor+s entered 'mainstream( circulation and consumption they could not be
alued for their faithfulness to ancient tradition nor could many of them be 'appreciated( for their
resembalnce to arious forms of western abstraction! Many urban indigenous artists e&pressed the
lowest common denominator of taste within their community$ stylistic features generally
associated with amateur and commercialised images<cliche sillhouettes against a red sunset,
sentimentalised subjects, decoratie repetition which are the staple of an 'ordinary( public became
signifiers of social cohesion! The 'anthropological( stance towards indigenous art had to be
replaced by a 'sociological( one! )ut li+e the anthropological stance this #uic+ly became absorbed
into mainstream aesthetic alues! *hat had been naive +itsch became alued as uninhibited and
argued to be socially and historically more important than the jaded cynical recycling of 6uropean
s+ills by nonindigenous Australian artists that by then was being legitimated as postmodernism!
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Thus the cycle of production in urban Australian indigenous art also has to contend with a
*estern economy that underwrites its brae new e&periments in cultural recoery! The ideal,
indigenously 'internal(, relations of production and consumption I hae described are rapidly
becoming integrated into the general commercial mar+et for art! And at the close of the Millenium
and the approach of a Sydney @lympics tourist boom, there is considerable hope ested in the
financial success of this phenomenon! )ut while the Australian mar+et and museum culture hae
to some e&tent adapted to the phenomenon in a reciprocal way, it is perhaps too much to e&pect a
*orld art mar+et to do the same!

If urban Aboriginal art in the new Millenium becomes as popular oerseas as its desert
predecessor, will it be able to resist becoming alienated from its origins%
I I I I I I
*or+s =ited
=aruana, *ally! Aboriginal Art! Jondon$ Thames and Dudson, 0118!
McNeill, :aid! K"eception!K Aboriginal Art in the Public Eye, an Art Monthly Australia
upplement! Sydney$ Art Monthly, Australia, 011A! 07901!