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© Donald Richardson,
December, 2006
Susan McCulloch's sequestering of Aboriginal art away from Australian
art in the European tradition in the recently-updated McCulloch's
Encyclopedia of Australian Art (Miegunyah, 2006) is a very
significant act indeed. Although, McCulloch gives no rationale
for this change in format from the previous editions of the encyclopedia,
it begs justification.
It has to be an aspect of the dilemma that Aboriginal art poses
and which has been in the minds of artists and critics for some
years now. Sebastian Smee (in The Australian, 27 November,
2006) and Robert Nelson (in The Age, 9 December, 2006)
both give it some attention, but neither suggests an adequate
solution to the dilemma. Smee characterizes McCulloch's attitude
as 'symptomatic of [an economic] bubble mentality But things
are bound to look different when the hype and cupidity die down'
Nelson takes Smee to task for his negativity and suspects him
of wishing to place western control over the genre. While recognizing
the damage the market may be doing to the genre and the artists
concerned, Nelson recommends that - instead - we should 'look
at Aboriginal art in a humbler, more curious spirit, and work
out what we can learn from it an how to assist its growth.' He
seems to be unaware that many of us have been doing this for
many years!
While both observe that Aboriginal art has not had any effect
on western-tradition art either in Australia or abroad, only
Nelson comments: 'why would it?' And herein lies the solution
to the dilemma. Rather than it being a broad social issue - as
some maintain - it may be that it is a purely aesthetic matter:
a matter of what art actually is and whether Aboriginal
'art' is 'art' in the sense the West means by the term, and has
done since at least the nineteenth century.
Apart from a few abortive tries in the early decades of the 20th
century - notably by Margaret Preston - artists in the western
tradition (in Australia, America and Europe) have, quite correctly,
regarded Aboriginal art as inalienable. Their ability to make
this distinction contrasts markedly with that of critics, curators
and academics. Actually, the dilemma is not a simple question
of whether or not - and by whom - Aboriginal art should be 'controlled';
however, it has reached a watershed and the art world must grasp
the nettle now - and both Aboriginal artists and all artists
working in the European tradition (some of whom, of course, are
Aborigines) must do it.
It is almost exclusively a problem for Australia to solve. Although
there have been considerable and significant exhibitions of Aboriginal
art in Europe and America, they have been in ethnographic - rather
than art - museums. There was a great stink in Germany in 1994
when an Australian dealer wanted to show contemporary Aboriginal
works in Art Cologne. Permission was refused on the grounds that
it is 'folk art' - a long-standing policy of Art Cologne, which
is a showcase of contemporary art. At a time when many in Germany
were coming to terms with the country's Nazi past, some condemned
this decision as 'racist'. Eventually the work was admitted,
but only after much public discussion in Germany - although not
here - and after high-level diplomatic intervention.
It would seem that only in Australia is contemporary Aboriginal
art shown alongside art in the western tradition and accepted
for - and sometimes wins - open contemporary art competitions.
So - we have to decide, first, what are the characteristics of
modern western art and, second, whether - or to what extent -
Aboriginal art fits in. This is not an attempt to hegemonize
Aboriginal expression but an acknowledgement that only western
art has a coherent theory of art to build the discussion on.
Despite the common - misguided - belief that it is impossible
to define art, there is little doubt that the key characteristic
of modern western art is that it is the personal expression of
an individual. While some art created by Aborigines passes this
test, the majority of it does not. Many painters acknowledge
the fact that their imagery is - or derives from - the communal
and traditional, not their own individuality: indeed, in some
cultural groups, individual expression is punishable by death.
And there is little discussion of the aesthetics of Aboriginal
works. The limited discussion that does occur is in terms of
the work's 'story' and - while this is clearly the motivation
for the work - it is the equivalent of a critical discussion
of Picasso's Guernica only in terms of the historic destruction
of the city by German bombers in 1936. Criticism of western works
of art goes much deeper and broader than this.
Abstraction is another characteristic of western modernism and,
even though - in the pictures of Kandinsky, Mondrian and the
Constructivists - much more is intended than the mere pattern
of coloured shapes that presents to our eyes, they have no narrative
intent. On the other hand, while many Aboriginal works appear
'abstract' because they are innocent of any understanding of
perspective, their raison d'etre is purely to tell the
artist's 'story'. It is a narrative art - for those who can read
it. The use of common materials blinds the innocent to this significant
difference.
These are aesthetically weighty matters, which must be addressed.
It is high time the Australian art world - both black and white
- decided whether Aboriginal 'art' is art or not. Susan
McCulloch, by turning McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian
Art into what is virtually a two-volume work, seems to have
made her decision: although she lists over 150 individual Aboriginal
artists, the bulk of the first volume is taken up with entries
on groups, families, galleries, researchers and writers on Aboriginal
art.
This paper should not be construed as a general criticism of
McCulloch's new book, which remains -as it has been since her
father devised the first edition in 1964 - an invaluable resource;
indeed, she is to be commended for placing the issue, however,
tentatively, on the agenda; but we need a more coherent rationale
than her sly nod to the art market.
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