2017

January, 2017

National Gallery's Quinquennial Announced

National Gallery's Quinquennial Announced

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 05.01.17

On 5th December, the National Gallery of Australia quietly announced its program for 2017 – so quietly that I (and, I suspect, most other journalists) totally failed to notice the revival of their series of Indigenous Triennials. As these exhibitions...» Read More

Fate of AAMU and its Collection

Fate of AAMU and its Collection

Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 11.01.17

The AAD has had an opportunity to interview Dr Georges Petitjean, AAMU Curator. Our first question to him was, what will happen to the AAMU Permanent Collection? GP: We hope to find another museum or institution to take over the...» Read More

ART & POLITICS

ART & POLITICS

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 12.01.17

Two major art exhibitions have opened in Sydney – one by a Western art-trained Aboriginal artist and one by an untrained Sri Lankan-born criminal – and both turn for their success or failure on politics. For, of course, Myuran Sukumaran...» Read More

THE SEASON

THE SEASON

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 13.01.17

Readers of AAD should be familiar with the evocative photos of Ricky Maynard, the Tasmanian Aboriginal who introduced us to the world of Birding – the annual tradition of heading for the Bass Strait islands (where many Tassie Aboriginal people...» Read More

1967 CELEBRATION

1967 CELEBRATION

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 18.01.17

As mentioned in my commentary on Vernon Ah Kee's 'Not an Animal or a Plant' exhibition, this year's Sydney Festival is taking early advantage of the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Referendum which officially acknowledged Ah Kee's humanity – and...» Read More

WHAT BLOODY MAN IS THAT?

WHAT BLOODY MAN IS THAT?

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 23.01.17

To be honest, I thought I was going to hate this show – being greeted by a hearty drag queen, his language ripe and his ear-rings glittering. This act continued from the stalls for a while, telling a distinctly queenie...» Read More

Kudditji Kngwarreye Dies

Kudditji Kngwarreye Dies

Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 24.01.17

Kudditji Kngwarreye died yesterday in Alice Springs after a long illness. Born in the 1920's, Kudditji Kngwarreye was half-brother to the famous Emily Kame Kngwarreye (dec. 1996). An Anmatyerre Elder and custodian of many important Dreamings in Utopia, including the...» Read More

February, 2017

BAYALA

BAYALA

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 06.02.17

“Language is the one thing that underpins our culture as a race”, declared 'Uncle' Stan Grant Snr at a key talking session during the Sydney Festival. And Bayala means 'speak' in the local Sydney language bayalaed by the various groups...» Read More

Japanese 'Didg' Star in Sydney

Japanese 'Didg' Star in Sydney

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 07.02.17

News Source: Press Release Japanese artist and musician, Hiroki Morimoto, more popularly known as the artist Goma, is being brought to Sydney for the first time by The Japan Foundation for a special performance of his didgeridoo music for one...» Read More

Warlpiri Act of Memory

Warlpiri Act of Memory

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 09.02.17

Today, the UNESCO 'Memory of the World' Australian Register has accepted on to a list of just 57-precious items a collection of drawings made by Warlpiri people in the 1950s. It consists of 169 crayon drawings collected by noted anthropologist...» Read More

KATTER'S LAW

KATTER'S LAW

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 14.02.17

Yesterday independent MP Bob Katter introduced a private bill to the Federal Parliament which he hopes will stop non-Indigenous people - including foreigners - from exploiting and profiting from the "oldest culture on earth" through the sale of fake Aboriginal...» Read More

FURTHER THOUGHTS ON KATTER'S BILL

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 16.02.17

The generally positive reception for Bob Katter MP's introduction into Parliament of a Bill to prohibit “unfair practices in supplying and trading in Indigenous art and merchandise”, about which I wrote on Tuesday, lead me to think further and recall...» Read More

Local Aborigines Back SA Windfarm

Local Aborigines Back SA Windfarm

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 20.02.17

Despite massive controversy in Canberra about the benefits of renewable energy and its effect on statewide blackouts in South Australia, the irony has emerged that Parliament House's lights are actually going to be powered in future by the wind blowing...» Read More

QUICKSILVER

QUICKSILVER

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 24.02.17

Nicolas Rothwell surprises, delights...and frustrates. The premiere writer about Indigenous culture in the country has written a book (though it's advertised as a collection of essays) which is poised on the brink of being a definitive study of the relationship...» Read More

National Indigenous Art Gallery for Alice Springs?

National Indigenous Art Gallery for Alice Springs?

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 26.02.17

The relatively new Northern Territory Labor Government’s $50 million election commitment to build an Iconic National Indigenous Art Gallery is a major step closer with the announcement of two prominent Aboriginal Central Australians as Co-Chairs for the project's Steering Committee....» Read More

March, 2017

JASPER JONES

JASPER JONES

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 07.03.17

Is this new Australian film an Aboriginal film? It's a good question. For it's named after the “mixed race outcast” (played by Aaron McGrath from the excellent 'Gods of Wheat Street' and 'The Secret River' on TV) and is directed...» Read More

MR TIMMS PASSES

MR TIMMS PASSES

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 07.03.17

Senior Gija artist Mr Timms (Ngarrmaliny) passed away unexpectedly last week at Halls Creek, bringing to an end one of The Kimberley's longest and most prestigious art careers. Mr Timms was a founding member and Chairman of Jirrawun Arts, a...» Read More

50,000 YEARS IN A HAIR

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 11.03.17

Here is how the prestigious international magazine, 'Nature' announced one of the most fascinating scientific projects revealing Australia's extraordinary Indigenous past on March 8th: “Aboriginal Australians represent one of the longest continuous cultural complexes known. Archaeological evidence indicates that Australia...» Read More

INDIGENOUS STORIES IN CLAY

INDIGENOUS STORIES IN CLAY

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 14.03.17

When a gallery that specialises in three dimensional art – whether in glass or clay – puts its mind to the Indigenous realm, then the result is likely to be pretty comprehensive. Anna Grigson from Sydney's Sabbia Gallery used to...» Read More

Hector Burton

Hector Burton

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 23.03.17

It is with great regret that AAD reports the death of one of the great men of the APY Lands – Hector Tjupuru Burton: Red Ochre laureate, artist, traditional elder, Christian pastor and polemicist. It has to be recalled that...» Read More

NATIONAL INDIGENOUS ART GALLERY FOR ALICE PROGRESSES

NATIONAL INDIGENOUS ART GALLERY FOR ALICE PROGRESSES

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 24.03.17

The Northern Territory Government’s vision to build an Iconic National Indigenous Art Gallery in Alice Springs has received a major boost with a host of prominent industry experts joining the project Steering Committee. The Co-CEO of Hobart’s world-renowned Museum of...» Read More

Tracey Goes over the Horizon to Venice

Tracey Goes over the Horizon to Venice

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 24.03.17

Indigenous photographer and film-maker, Tracey Moffatt has revealed just a few hints (and one image) of her contribution to this year's prestigious Venice Biennale. Called 'My Horizon', she has used a studio in the National Parks complex on Middle Head,...» Read More

Zach's Ceremony

Zach's Ceremony

Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 29.03.17

A documentary film which featured at the Sydney Film Festival last June, and which Jeremy Eccles reviewed, is now hitting cinemas around Australia. We're re-running his review so he can you why it's well worth the outing. (Note: Zach's Ceremony...» Read More

Milingimbi's Auction

Milingimbi's Auction

Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 29.03.17

In August of last year, AAD writer Jeremy Eccles wrote a review of an exhibition then headed for the Art Gallery of NSW to showcase the work of artists from Milingimbi from the 1950s. In it, he wrote that Milingimbi...» Read More

April, 2017

A PARTING OF THE WAYS

A PARTING OF THE WAYS

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 04.04.17

To own so much art that you can hold not one but three auction sales of it – the latest of more than 150 works - may seem a tad excessive. But any time spent with Liz Laverty – widow...» Read More

ALL IS REVEALED IN THE WEST

ALL IS REVEALED IN THE WEST

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 05.04.17

The annual Revealed Exhibition this weekend in Perth features works by more than 75 new and emerging WA Aboriginal artists from 23 art centres all over the state, showcasing the diverse and vibrant condition of contemporary Aboriginal art in the...» Read More

The Indigenous Art Market - An Insider's Observation

The Indigenous Art Market - An Insider's Observation

Posted by Ralph Hobbs | 05.04.17

About the Author Ralph Hobbs is a giant of a man, looking more like a gym instructor than an art dealer. His Sydney CBD business - Nanda/Hobbs - is as imaginative in its ways of dealing art as the surrounding...» Read More

Biennale of Sydney Artists Announced

Biennale of Sydney Artists Announced

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 06.04.17

Mami Kataoka, Artistic Director of the 21st Biennale of Sydney, today revealed the first group of 21 artists selected for the Asia Pacific’s leading contemporary art event. With around 70 artists expected to be included in the 21st Biennale, this...» Read More

CAIRNS FAIRS UP

CAIRNS FAIRS UP

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 14.04.17

Now in its eighth year, the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF) is a celebration of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts cultures of Queensland. It's also one of the town's biggest drawcards, attracting a record 51,000 people to its...» Read More

THE NATIONAL

THE NATIONAL

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 20.04.17

What is conjured by a title like 'The National'? For Poms, it's a horse race at Aintree; for the writers in the opening stanza's catalogue, it's an opportunity to consider whether Australia actually is a nation; for the art punters...» Read More

Yulparitja Rugs

Yulparitja Rugs

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 21.04.17

The Yulparitja artists of Bidyadanga near Broome have used their agency with that town's Short St Gallery to supply their art to Sydney company, Designer Rugs to produce a set of substantial floor-coverings. Five masters of Yulparitja art - Weaver...» Read More

2017 NATSIAAs

2017 NATSIAAs

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 27.04.17

The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) is excited to announce that 66 artists have been selected from 300 entries to be part of the country's most prestigious national Indigenous art awards, the Telstra National Aboriginal and...» Read More

May, 2017

PARRTJIMA 2.0

PARRTJIMA 2.0

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 18.05.17

The NT Government has announced the appointment of Rhoda Roberts AO as curator of the second annual Parrtjima – A Festival in Light event in Alice Springs, running from Friday, 22 September to Sunday, 1 October 2017. Roberts has a...» Read More

Blak Douglas Finds Home at the NGA

Blak Douglas Finds Home at the NGA

Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 21.05.17

1. You already have one artwork in the National Gallery of Australia Collection, now the NGA has acquired The Lucky Country series too. I'm elated to have had the highly provocative suite of digital prints titled The Lucky Country acquired...» Read More

BRIAN ROBINSON WINS HAZELHURST WOP

BRIAN ROBINSON WINS HAZELHURST WOP

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 21.05.17

On Friday, Sutherland Shire Council announced Torresian Brian Robinson from Cairns as the winner of the Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award 2017 for his work entitled 'Land Sea Sky – Charting our place in the universe' (2016). Brian Robinson has...» Read More

Indigenous Art Curators Off to Venice

Indigenous Art Curators Off to Venice

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 22.05.17

The Australia Council for the Arts has announced that nine established Aboriginal Art Curators are taking part in an international exchange program at the 57th Biennale in Venice. Ozco's Executive Director Strategic Development and Advocacy, Dr Wendy Were explained that...» Read More

Dr. Gumana, AO 1935-2016

Dr. Gumana, AO 1935-2016

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 22.05.17

AAD is delighted to offer this eulogy delivered at Gangan Homeland in Arnhemland on 18 January 2017 by Barbara Spencer, former Executive Officer of the Aboriginal Cultural Foundation, as a tribute to the inspirational Dr Gumana. With her partner, the...» Read More

Leah Purcell Wins Prize for Playwriting & Book of the Year

Leah Purcell Wins Prize for Playwriting & Book of the Year

Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 23.05.17

Leah Purcell has been awarded the Nick Enright Prize for Playwrighting ($30,000) in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, and also the Book of the Year ($10,000), for The Drover's Wife. It's hoped that the play (which ran at Sydney's Belvoir...» Read More

NGA QUINQUENNIAL 2017

NGA QUINQUENNIAL 2017

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 27.05.17

Oh, so many words, but so little new art that really excites! Let's start with the National Gallery's curator Tina Baum's mantra for the whole event: We defy: By existing; By determining our identity; By asserting our histories; our culture;...» Read More

Red Ochre for Ken Thaiday

Red Ochre for Ken Thaiday

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 28.05.17

The delightfully modest Ken Thaiday Snr from the Torres Strait has taken out Indigenous culture's most important award – the 2017 Red Ochre. Selected by his peers and managed by the Australia Council, no Torresian has been recognised since 2005,...» Read More

June, 2017

Barks Bigger than Ben Hur

Barks Bigger than Ben Hur

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 05.06.17

The bark paintings of Australia's Aboriginal North, so easily put into the shade by the brilliant acrylics of the Deserts, are coming out into the sun. As a foretaste, the Queensland Art Gallery is bringing out Masterworks from the Janet...» Read More

Grayson Perry Going Indigenous?

Grayson Perry Going Indigenous?

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 07.06.17

Remember Grayson Perry, the out-spoken English artist who featured at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2015 and 16 with his Hogarthian commentaries on contemporary UK life in the form of pots, tapestries, sculptures and paintings. Well, one of his...» Read More

THAT BIG FELLAR UP THERE

THAT BIG FELLAR UP THERE

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 12.06.17

“That Big Fellar.....” is none other than the Southern Cross, the 5 stars that grace the sky in the Southern Hemisphere, and feature on our national flag (or flags, if you're a devotee of the Eureka flag). Well, that's what...» Read More

Ghost-Nets Straddle the World

Ghost-Nets Straddle the World

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 13.06.17

There are three spin-offs from last year's exhibition, Australia: Defending the Oceans at the Heart of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art, held at the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, currently viewable around the world. And the most exciting is at...» Read More

Art for the Environment

Art for the Environment

Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 14.06.17

The Environmental Defenders Office of the Northern Territory (EDO NT) is again holding an online Aboriginal art auction to raise funds for its important work (advising and acting for individuals, traditional owners, community groups and conservation groups seeking to protect...» Read More

COUNTRY COMES TO SYDNEY

COUNTRY COMES TO SYDNEY

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 20.06.17

After the wit, imagination and depth of traditional story-telling in Warwick Thornton's opening night film at the Sydney Film Festival, it was always going to be hard for other Indigenous film-makers to compete. Works that I saw include the new...» Read More

Blak Markets at Barangaroo

Blak Markets at Barangaroo

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 23.06.17

The Blak Markets will return to Sydney’s spectacular harbour headland park, Barangaroo Reserve, with an Aboriginal art market on Sunday, 2 July. Taking place at the beginning of NAIDOC Week, the family-friendly event will be a celebration of Australia’s rich...» Read More

JIMMY CHI

JIMMY CHI

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 27.06.17

The Broome-based playwright who wrote the wonderful Australian musical play, Bran Nue Dae, later turned into a popular film, has died. Jimmy Chi passed away in Broome Hospital yesterday afternoon aged 69. Chi was born in 1948 to a Chinese/Japanese/Anglo-Australian...» Read More

July, 2017

BENNELONG

BENNELONG

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 02.07.17

“Bennelong is in all of us, as we navigate the ancient and modern elements of our lives”. These words of choreographer Stephen Page in the program for his latest dance biography of the man who probably called himself Wollarawarre, but...» Read More

TJUNGUṈUTJA - from having come together

TJUNGUṈUTJA - from having come together

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 05.07.17

“The efflorescence of imagery that struck in the hothouse conditions of the Men’s Painting Room will never be repeated, for these works were created at the moment when the epic songlines that connect Aboriginal Australia were unveiled”. John Kean should...» Read More

ART ACROSS THE COUNTRY

ART ACROSS THE COUNTRY

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 11.07.17

Major Indigenous art exhibitions and/or art fairs are opening this month in Queensland and Western Australia – two, in fact in Queensland, headed by the annual Cairns Indigenous Art Fair this weekend. As I wrote earlier, CIAF is exploring the...» Read More

TARNANTHI IN OCTOBER

TARNANTHI IN OCTOBER

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 11.07.17

Artistic Director, Nici Cumpston has announced highlights of the program for the biennial 2017 TARNANTHI: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art , which returns to Adelaide this October. There will be a major exhibition at the Art...» Read More

YOU ARE HERE

YOU ARE HERE

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 13.07.17

Presented by actress Miranda Tapsell, the TV series of films under the title of You Are Here explores the place of Indigenous people in Australia today. Included in the series are Warwick Thornton’s We Don’t Need a Map, Erica Glynn’s In...» Read More

The End of AAMU

The End of AAMU

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 14.07.17

Sadly, the Aboriginal Art Museum of Utrecht (in the Netherlands) is no more. It was innovative, didactic in introducing the Dutch to our Indigenous cultures, it was challenging, it even had a collecting budget! I wonder whether it was ever...» Read More

Anangu Artist Wins $100,000 Prize

Anangu Artist Wins $100,000 Prize

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 17.07.17

A drawing by Aboriginal artist Peter Mungkuri has taken out the inaugural Hadley's Art Prize, which claims to be the world's richest landscape art prize. Mungkuri will take home $100,000 for his ink on Somerset-paper drawing, Ngura Wiru, which means...» Read More

APY ART DOMINATES THE WYNNE

APY ART DOMINATES THE WYNNE

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 20.07.17

After last year's triumphant win by the five Ken Sisters from Amata in the Art Gallery of NSW's annual Wynne Prize for landscape painting, artists across the Lands have got hugely competitive this year! Nine major canvases by them have...» Read More

August, 2017

SCHOLL'S NEXT MOVE

SCHOLL'S NEXT MOVE

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 02.08.17

Dennis Scholl may have fired up Aboriginal art on the US stage with his overnight Damascene discovery in 2008 of abstraction in Indigenous paintings, leading to a collection that had reached 320 works just a few years later, followed by...» Read More

ABORIGINAL ART ECONOMICS

ABORIGINAL ART ECONOMICS

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 08.08.17

At a time when the whole future of the Indigenous relationship with non-Indigenous Australia is up for discussions like last night's eloquent ABC TV 'Q&A' program, the centrality of art-making to both the cultural and economic life of remote communities...» Read More

Natsiaas 2017

Natsiaas 2017

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 11.08.17

Given the anniversaries celebrated this year - the 1967 Referendum, the Mabo verdict, etc - and the recent Uluru Statement process, it was perhaps inevitable that the 2017 NATSIAAs would feel profoundly political. And that's not just the Big Telstra...» Read More

Lighting up the MacDonnell Ranges

Lighting up the MacDonnell Ranges

Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 27.08.17

The Parrtjima Festival of Light will colour bomb around two kilometres of the MacDonnell Ranges with a light show accompanied to music for a second year. Running over 10 consecutive nights, the location (just outside of Alice Springs) attracted some...» Read More

September, 2017

Carnivale at Bundaberg

Carnivale at Bundaberg

Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 06.09.17

Bundaberg, the gateway to the Southern Great Barrier Reef, will play host to a troupe of local and touring artists, acrobats, writers, filmmakers, choir singers and Indigenous designers from 6 to 15 October for Crush Festival 2017. The 10-day festival...» Read More

October, 2017

TARNANTHI 2017

TARNANTHI 2017

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 10.10.17

The program has been published for the second Tarnanthi Festival in Adelaide. At the Art Gallery where Director and curator Nici Cumpston holds sway, no fewer than 189 artists are listed as showing their wares – 58 involved in the...» Read More

RETURN OF MUNGO MAN

RETURN OF MUNGO MAN

Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 11.10.17

The bones of Mungo Man, discovered in 1974 and studied in Canberra ever since, will return at last to Lake Mungo in far western NSW on Friday 17th November. And the Aboriginal Advisory Group (AAG) to the Willandra Lakes World...» Read More