Congratulations to PhD alumnus Danie Mellor, whose work – From Rite to Ritual – is the winning entry in this year’s $40,000 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. Read how Danie positions himself in relation to the diverse field of Indigenous art – and then read Nicolas Rothwell’s ambiguous commentary on the outcome:
“What emerges from this show is not just the familiar sense that the best art being made in remote communities rivals the best in contemporary fine art. Rather, one takes away the conviction that other artists are now equally predominant: conscious artists, indigenous artists in the flow of Australian life.”
Unwittingly, Rothwell takes a step into a theoretical no-man’s-land: he makes the distinction between indigenous work that is assured, professional, competent which, “for all their splendour, are outshone by less accomplished, more poignant works”. In this manner he opposes this tendency in the established bush art centres with the little-known urban artists “often naive in technique” – which he seems to prefer. One more step and he’ll be talking about outsider art and indigenous art in the same breath! Boom!
The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory has a virtual exhibition of the Award show.
5 comments ↓
Yes congratulations to Danie, the mixed media work Rite to Ritual he created is a clever and well crafted piece. The critical position he is claiming in ‘both camps’ is a position which theoretically can allow a discussion between the settler and indigenous Australian. I feel troubled however by claims of indigenous identity by Danie’s inclusion in such competitions and exhibitions. The political advantages of adoption of such an identity are enormous and muddy the waters of any discussion. In post-colonial Australia, I am uncertain whether such claims of indigenous identity help resolve or reconcile the horrors of settlement. Identity in this increasingly multinational country needs to be conceived of and represented in a way that doesn’t rest on an us and them dichotomy
Isn’t one of the “horrors of settlement” that many people now, like Danie, have very hybrid identities (and horrors, both public and private).
Isn’t his work, and inclusion in this prize, a way of questioning the way identity “in this increasingly multinational country” can be “conceived of and represented in a way that doesn’t rest on an us and them dichotomy”?
My comment above Nicky is because your comment reads a bit like you are playing the man and not the ball. I am sure this was not your intention and that you were probably immersed in some closely parallel PhD question which became entwined with this one.
I don’t think it’s helpful to question an individual’s connection to a cultural group in order to argue for a broader, or different, or more platforms for cross cultural discussion and practice. Particularly when you are using the proximity to trauma, in this case ONGOING settlement/occupation, as the arbiter for whether someone can represented within the group. Apart from the question of how you judge that (i.e. you can’t), this inclusion/exclusion would strengthen the divisions that you hope to erode.
I agree with you that there are not many open situations (i.e. not curated) where it is possible for artworks and artists to enter into a truly open ended discussion about where Australian cultural identity is heading. For me this is because we have unfinished sorry business and no reconciliation. Like you, I hope that the visual arts can participate in the discussion and creation of these new identities.
Rather than questioning the alignment of any person of similar heritage to Danie to a particular cultural group that may be called Indigenous, I have concerns that this is symptomatic of a persistent process of ‘othering’ that continues to exist. I was attempting to clumsily suggest that the widespread construction of a identity via a dichotomous settler-indigenous relationship does not acknowledge the real complexities of cultural interaction that exist. If the only ‘frames’ in which to place Australian art for contextual interpretation are ‘indigenous’ or ‘settler’ then this discourse in not in pace with the reality of cultural hybridity that exists- across all races and cultures in Australia.
Congratulations also to Glen Namundja who lives in Gunbalanya and with whom I had the pleasure of painting with. His skill with application of ochre with grass brush in the creation of complex rarrk is evident in his winning entry. Glen told me his skin name Nakangila, of which the name I was given, Ngalkangila is the sister skin.
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