Thinking about these two presentations of the indigenous self, shown within the context of the commerical galllery, I wonder how different they are. I consider that both reveal a romanticised, nostalgic view of indigeneity. One present the process of producing a traditional craft artifact, wearing maybe a traditional costume, that one could be sure is not usually worn to paint. The other reveals what maybe is a combination of story and anedote to promote an ‘exclusive’ attachment to land . Both present a form of ‘otherness’ that has its origns in colonial constructions of identity and problematically this is for sale back to the settler. Who is catering to what market and what is being politically promoted as a notion of indigineity.
I would assume the artists’ own desire to share culture and the importance of the occasion to them and their community prompted the wearing of ceremonial dress. The Gallery context is awkward being away from country and removed from the natural and social forces integral to meaning, but the experience would be highly valued by the artists I’m sure. I believe our arts industry is a positive force in indigenous communities as it promotes cultural pride and a means for self-sufficiency within the capitalist economic system imposed or encroaching on remaining hunter/gatherer economies. Finding a place within it that maintains culture has to involve both art and environmental industries. My own economic self-sufficiency is also based on participation in arts and environmental industries, and cultural exchange is its most important feature. As both exhibitions demonstrate, sharing/ learning and ‘exclusiveness’/ ‘otherness’ are experienced simultaneously in indigenous/non-indigenous cultural exchange. But there is always the potential for building deeper relationships and knowledge exchange. We can only hope that those involved have honest intentions.
Nice juxtaposition. I imagine Vernon would approve. The bottom image appears to critique the top image in a way which sits well with Ah Kee’s (and other proppaNOW artists’) position on the colonial control (and primitivising) of Aboriginal art/people?
I thought I’d add that Ah Kee and other proppaNOW artists (Bell) are also well known for their questioning of the place and potential complicity of other Aboriginal people in the staging of ‘culture’ for colonial consumption, especially where they seemingly fail to challenge the control exercised by non-Aboriginal people in the process. I feel that this comes to the fore here.
Thanks Garry. Yes, that “comes to the fore”, and is certainly the political agenda of the proppaNOW group, but to what extent does that create its own dilemma? Is a kind of cultural segregation the goal? To whom might it apply? On whose authority? And how would a critical analysis of the art thus produced then proceed? Appropriation (whether post-modernist, re-appropriation, counter-appropriation, however it might be framed) is a limited resource for an artistic strategy of this kind. Surely at its core is a kind of dependency, whether expressed as style, or convention, or references, to the complex historical modes of representation to which the art refers, and from which it derives its status as “art”. Without the latter, the former loses its political bite. Yes?
Thanks Nigel, you’ve given me a feast for thought here. I don’t know anything about the art of Omie and read the image with respect; for those pictured and those picturing. I want to imagine that what is being framed here is a positive demonstration of Indigenous cultural autonomy and authority, whatever the motivation; and maybe by extension a positive development in cross or inter-cultural awareness and understanding. I don’t subscribe to the proppaNOW agenda, which I think is flawed, precisely on the grounds that you raise above: who exactly might it apply to and on whose authority? Ah Kee’s work seems to hanker for a radical urban ‘black power’ movement after the American civil rights activists Malcom X (and later Louis Farrakhan); it challenges ‘whiteness’ wherever it resides. In this case I think that advocating for greater Indigenous political consciousness, in order to resist colonial violence is a worthy responsibilitym, whether activated on the street, in the courts, or through art. However, I wonder if the critique is proposing to simply replace one form of oppression with another.
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TRANSIT LANE is the Australian National University School of Art's Visual Arts postgraduate blog. Every week it brings up to date news of events within the Visual Arts Graduate Program, and highlights the activities of current students and alumni.
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8 comments ↓
Listen and learn from the first one like children and accept the second one like adults
Uncritically? Interrogate the framing devices of the first, I suggest, and all of the second…
Thinking about these two presentations of the indigenous self, shown within the context of the commerical galllery, I wonder how different they are. I consider that both reveal a romanticised, nostalgic view of indigeneity. One present the process of producing a traditional craft artifact, wearing maybe a traditional costume, that one could be sure is not usually worn to paint. The other reveals what maybe is a combination of story and anedote to promote an ‘exclusive’ attachment to land . Both present a form of ‘otherness’ that has its origns in colonial constructions of identity and problematically this is for sale back to the settler. Who is catering to what market and what is being politically promoted as a notion of indigineity.
I would assume the artists’ own desire to share culture and the importance of the occasion to them and their community prompted the wearing of ceremonial dress. The Gallery context is awkward being away from country and removed from the natural and social forces integral to meaning, but the experience would be highly valued by the artists I’m sure. I believe our arts industry is a positive force in indigenous communities as it promotes cultural pride and a means for self-sufficiency within the capitalist economic system imposed or encroaching on remaining hunter/gatherer economies. Finding a place within it that maintains culture has to involve both art and environmental industries. My own economic self-sufficiency is also based on participation in arts and environmental industries, and cultural exchange is its most important feature. As both exhibitions demonstrate, sharing/ learning and ‘exclusiveness’/ ‘otherness’ are experienced simultaneously in indigenous/non-indigenous cultural exchange. But there is always the potential for building deeper relationships and knowledge exchange. We can only hope that those involved have honest intentions.
Nice juxtaposition. I imagine Vernon would approve. The bottom image appears to critique the top image in a way which sits well with Ah Kee’s (and other proppaNOW artists’) position on the colonial control (and primitivising) of Aboriginal art/people?
I thought I’d add that Ah Kee and other proppaNOW artists (Bell) are also well known for their questioning of the place and potential complicity of other Aboriginal people in the staging of ‘culture’ for colonial consumption, especially where they seemingly fail to challenge the control exercised by non-Aboriginal people in the process. I feel that this comes to the fore here.
Thanks Garry. Yes, that “comes to the fore”, and is certainly the political agenda of the proppaNOW group, but to what extent does that create its own dilemma? Is a kind of cultural segregation the goal? To whom might it apply? On whose authority? And how would a critical analysis of the art thus produced then proceed? Appropriation (whether post-modernist, re-appropriation, counter-appropriation, however it might be framed) is a limited resource for an artistic strategy of this kind. Surely at its core is a kind of dependency, whether expressed as style, or convention, or references, to the complex historical modes of representation to which the art refers, and from which it derives its status as “art”. Without the latter, the former loses its political bite. Yes?
Thanks Nigel, you’ve given me a feast for thought here. I don’t know anything about the art of Omie and read the image with respect; for those pictured and those picturing. I want to imagine that what is being framed here is a positive demonstration of Indigenous cultural autonomy and authority, whatever the motivation; and maybe by extension a positive development in cross or inter-cultural awareness and understanding. I don’t subscribe to the proppaNOW agenda, which I think is flawed, precisely on the grounds that you raise above: who exactly might it apply to and on whose authority? Ah Kee’s work seems to hanker for a radical urban ‘black power’ movement after the American civil rights activists Malcom X (and later Louis Farrakhan); it challenges ‘whiteness’ wherever it resides. In this case I think that advocating for greater Indigenous political consciousness, in order to resist colonial violence is a worthy responsibilitym, whether activated on the street, in the courts, or through art. However, I wonder if the critique is proposing to simply replace one form of oppression with another.
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