2016
January, 2016
underSTATEd 2016
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 05.01.16
Opening on Monday is underSTATEd, NSW Parliament's biennial exhibition. And this year 44 works on paper are being shown - a collection which includes art by Badger Bates, Danny Eastwood, Roy Kennedy, Nami Maymuru, Joy Duncan and May Hinch. The...» Read More
CULTURE v POLITICS IN SYDNEY
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 07.01.16
After all the trumpeting about the two big International Art Series shows on this summer in Sydney – 'The Greats' from the Scottish National Galleries at AGNSW and Grayson Perry from Essex at the MCA – there was barely a...» Read More
Is There Anything Comparable in Australia???
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 10.01.16
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is awarding US$815,000 to the University of Virginia to create a research center for the study of the indigenous art of Australia and the Americas. The grant provides four years of funding for a proposal...» Read More
'CUT THE SKY' REVIEW
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 18.01.16
In its latest work for the Sydney Festival, the Broome-based dance theatre, Marrugeku continues with the theme of diminishing optimism for Aborigines in The Kimberley that started with their work, Gudirr Gudirr at the Festival in 2014. But, unlike that...» Read More
TIWI + JAZZ REVIEW
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 21.01.16
A wonderfully warm (well, hot actually) performance in the Spiegeltent as part of the Sydney Festival brought about the unlikely combo of a Sydney jazz band and a number of elderly ceremonial performers from the Tiwi Islands. You wouldn't know...» Read More
Indigenous artists encouraged to enter art award
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 21.01.16
With the first-ever win by an Aboriginal artist – 65-year-old Ben Ward from Kunnunurra, WA – of the $10,000 John Fries Award last year, the organisers are keen to receive even more entries from Indigenous Australian and New Zealand artists...» Read More
February, 2016
Top Job in Aboriginal Art
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 03.02.16
Senior Resource & Development Officer (Program Manager) Leadership Role in the Aboriginal Art Sector Founded in 1987, The Association of Northern Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists (ANKAAA) is a leading not-for-profit Aboriginal Corporation and the first peak advocacy and support...» Read More
Aboriginal Artworks Go Missing
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 08.02.16
Several Aboriginal artworks have been taken from a private home in Fremantle WA during the last week, part of a larger haul including international works. We have also recently received a report about an artwork taken between July and October...» Read More
AUSTRALIA DAY HONOURS
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 08.02.16
Aboriginal Art Directory is delighted to congratulate the following people, long involved in the world of Aboriginal art, on their Honours - awarded on 26th January 2016. Sadly, no painters or sculptors from the rich North seem to have been...» Read More
Art Mob's Top 20 from 2015
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 15.02.16
We don't often examine the commercial side of Aboriginal art-making much on AAD. So the initiative of Euan Hills of Hobart's Art Mob in totalling up his sales for 2015, listing his Top 20 artists and then building a 2016...» Read More
ALL OVER THE U.S.
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 19.02.16
Why is it so.....that there are more, and more considered exhibitions of Aboriginal art currently on in America than here in Australia? The recent pattern there of solid shows of collections like the Kaplan and Levi, Debra and Dennis Scholl's...» Read More
THE PASSING OF TWO GREAT LADIES
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 23.02.16
In recent days, the Australian art world has lost both Jukuja Dolly Snell from Fitzroy Crossing and Jarran Jan Billycan from Bidydanga – two women from deep in the deserts who ended up on the edges of The Kimberley, recording...» Read More
March, 2016
ONE BILLION BEATS
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 01.03.16
Romaine Moreton is a poet – her mastery of the English language (rather than her tribal Quandamooka and Bundjalung languages) is unquestioned. And she has a PhD to prove it. And it's her poetic way of thinking that gets her...» Read More
47,000 Years of Aboriginal Genomics
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 02.03.16
The first complete sequences of the Y chromosomes of Aboriginal Australian men have revealed a deep indigenous genetic history tracing all the way back to the initial settlement of the continent c50 thousand years ago, according to a study published...» Read More
2016 NATSIAAs
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 10.03.16
It's that time again – time for Indigenous artists to enter the biggest prize of them all. Here's the official announcement: "Australia’s longest running and most prestigious Indigenous art award – the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art...» Read More
Imagined Cultures
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 11.03.16
39 Oceana objects that Indigenous peoples lived with and used between 1830 and 1950 will go on show at the Bard Graduate Centre Gallery in New York later this month in an exhibition called Frontier Shores: Collection, Entanglement, and the...» Read More
Controversy in Newcastle
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 13.03.16
Adam (aka Blak Douglas) Hill and Adam Geczy are teaming up again for an exhibition at The Lock Up Gallery in Newcastle called The Most Gaoled Race on Earth. And it comes with a warning: Parental Guidance Recommended. The exhibition,...» Read More
A BIENNALE OF RINGGITJ
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 18.03.16
So – you employ a German woman who runs a major London art institution (the Hayward Gallery, conveniently closed for restoration) to come up with an international Biennale in Sydney. As with all of the far-too-many Biennales and Biennials across...» Read More
CHANGE OF MIND AT NATSIAAs
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 18.03.16
I reported earlier that we wouldn't know the names of the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award judges until entries had closed on April 1st. But today the three names are released - Vernon Ah Kee, Kimberley Moulton...» Read More
INDIGENOUS ART GAMBLES IN MONACO
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 23.03.16
Tomorrow sees the opening of a major exhibition in the rich Principality of Monaco which will link its Oceanographic Museum – once run by Jacques Cousteau – with Australia's Indigenous understanding of the sea and water resources. More than 150...» Read More
'THE MATRIARCH OF NOONGAR ART'
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 30.03.16
The best side of regionalism is recognised in the current Bella Kelly show in Albany, on WA's far southern coast. For the Vancouver Gallery (no – not in Vancouver, but named after the same British sailor who passed that way...» Read More
April, 2016
Joe Hockey Marks the Infinite
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 07.04.16
As interest in Aboriginal art continues to grow in the US, a new major exhibition of women Aboriginal artists is set to tour five distinguished museums beginning September 2016 - and it was new Australian Embassy Ambassador, Joe Hockey, who...» Read More
Raft Artspace Enters Hobart with Raft South
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 10.04.16
RAFT Artspace's Dallas Gold loved Tasmania but it took a few people, including the highly-regarded Kade McDonald (ex Yirrkala), to bring RAFT South into being. We were keen to catch up with Dallas about his entree into Hobart and what...» Read More
Ngurratjuta's Physical and Cultural Loss
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 13.04.16
Between 2013 and 2015 five senior artists from Ngurratjuta Iltja Ntjarra (Many Hands) Art Centre in Alice Springs died. Fellow Hermannsburg artist, Gloria Pannka, says, "It's a loss which is felt both physically and culturally; our generation is fragile and...» Read More
Skin and Bones in the Gardens
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 21.04.16
For the 32nd Kaldor Public Art Project, Sydney-based artist Jonathan Jones will present 'barrangal dyara' (skin and bones' ), marking the first Kaldor Public Art Project presented with an Australian Aboriginal artist and one of the largest and most significant...» Read More
Tiwi Design at Chan's Art Atrium
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 21.04.16
Art Atrium, a gallery located in Bondi Junction, is known for its guests, its narrow staircase and intimate spaces. But mostly it is known on account of its owner, Simon Chan, who happens to wear a remarkable number of hats....» Read More
Dealers v The Institutions
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 23.04.16
I recently noted that you have to go to the US these days to see considered Indigenous art shows – all in institutions, admittedly, which seem to be taking the presentation of the art more seriously than any State gallery...» Read More
SHIFTING THE BLINDFOLD
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 28.04.16
The Black Armband thrives, it seems. Not the Black Arm Band – which gets to play its 10th-anniversary concerts soon. Rather the school of historical study that hit the headlines in the 90s under the leadership of Henry Reynolds to...» Read More
Mrs Gabori's Land of All
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 28.04.16
To celebrate the significant contribution to art of the late Kaiadilt woman, Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori (Mrs Gabori), the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) will stage a major retrospective of her work to open 21 May...» Read More
May, 2016
DAVID PAGE
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 05.05.16
Tragedy has struck a second time for the Page clan with the death last weekend of David Page, composer, actor and autobiographer. David was the musical heartbeat of Bangarra Dance Theatre, composing scores for 27 of the company’s 35 major...» Read More
BILL HARNEY
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 06.05.16
A new exhibition opens today in the NT bringing to life a culture passing out of memory and one man’s remarkable journey to share the remaining vestiges of his Wardaman people with the world. 'Yidumduma Bill Harney: Bush Professor' is...» Read More
Argy-Bargy in Public
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 13.05.16
“We need to have argy-bargy in public”, insists Rhoda Roberts, the Sydney Opera House Head of Indigenous Programming, who is celebrating the 49th anniversary of the Aboriginal Referendum in 1967 with a double-bunger – the first Indigenous art on the...» Read More
The Good Life in Adelaide This Week
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 15.05.16
They say good things come in 3's and at Tandanya this week that's no exception - so if you're in Adelaide or plan to be, a visit there is a must. Here are the three exhibitions on now: Saltwater Country...» Read More
OZCO FUNDING
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 17.05.16
There's been a huge furore over the Black Friday announcement of arts-funding cuts for small and medium arts enterprises by the Australia Council. Sixty-two organisations that had previously enjoyed multi-year funding lost out – including a depressing number that prioritised...» Read More
SALLY GABORI RETROSPECTIVE
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 20.05.16
The fascinating career of the late Bentinck Island artist and senior Kaiadilt woman Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori (c.1924–2015) is explored in a retrospective exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery from tomorrow. There's a catalogue with illuminating essays, but the best...» Read More
Rohr's Remedy
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 20.05.16
Every industry has them, those bright sparks of individual determination and courage - women who manage to champion their passion against the toughest of odds. They are pioneers of sorts, like Helen Read who flew to Paris to organise an...» Read More
Artitja's Utopia with Janet Holmes a Court
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 21.05.16
An exhibition of Utopian art which was opened by Janet Holmes a Court has been a great success for South Fremantle gallery, Artitja Fine Art. Gallery Director, Anna Kanaris, says Standing on Ceremony: The Utopia Journey attracted a full house,...» Read More
From The Streets of Papunya to Papunya Tjupi
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 22.05.16
Vivien Johnson's Streets of Papunya has arrived at RMIT Gallery in Melbourne on its Australian tour. Developed to accompany her beautifully illustrated book by the same name the exhibition features paintings by the men who founded the desert art movement,...» Read More
The Life and Myths of Ann Snell
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 24.05.16
Growing up, Ann Snell heard a lot about Indigenous life and culture, particularly around the dinner table. Her father, an architect, was interested in simplifying living to complement the human condition (which he referred to as "treading lightly on the...» Read More
The Actor, Deputy Lord Mayor, Academics & Students in Newcastle
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 25.05.16
Reconciliation Week starts this coming Friday, 27 May 2016, and the Newcastle Art Gallery (NAG) are running BLACK WHITE & RESTIVE which celebrates the work of over 60 artists and their cross-cultural art practices. It will be opened by the...» Read More
FINALISTS FOR NATSIAAS ANNOUNCED
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 25.05.16
It looks as though my predictions regarding the selection of finalists for the 2016 Telstra NATSIAAs have come true with more than a quarter of the fortunate 75 finalists originating in the southern cities rather than northern communities. This is...» Read More
KOOLMATRIE WINS THE RED OCHRE
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 27.05.16
The annual awards celebrating the unique artistry and contributions of exceptional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists will be presented tonight at a ceremony at the Sydney Opera House. These prestigious awards consist of the Red Ochre, a Fellowship and...» Read More
CLEVERMAN
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 28.05.16
“There's less and less being made unless it's a superhero movie”, complained the Aussie director Jocelyn Moorehouse (The Dressmaker, Proof, etc) in the SMH last week. Well that's the opposite of the view taken by tyro Indigenous film-maker Ryan Griffen,...» Read More
June, 2016
VITAL STATISTICS
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 03.06.16
For a long time I've mocked the guesstimates which have attributed huge numbers to the 'market' for Indigenous art – a $200 million a year turnover is a common fantasy. Or is it? It was therefore intriguing to come across...» Read More
FILMS GO BACK TO COUNTRY
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 14.06.16
The Sydney Film Festival opened with an Indigenous thriller and followed up with a Black documentary that is also slated for a theatrical release. But the coincidental parallels between the two were almost as important as each film on its...» Read More
STATISTICS 2
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 16.06.16
It would seem that I'm a naïve optimist! Whereas I thought the 'industry' around Indigenous art would really like to know an honest figure for the size of the business rather than hang on to past guesstimates, and would want...» Read More
DANCING NYAPANYAPA
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 20.06.16
It was an emotional night as the Bangarra Dance Theatre - wasn't it once called Bangarra Aboriginal Dance Theatre? – opened a triple bill of dances in Sydney which will tour the country until September and then head for the...» Read More
ART INSTALLATIONS ALL OVER
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 28.06.16
Telstra is celebrating its 25-year association with National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (the NATSIAAs) by bringing the event out of Darwin with a series of installations of Aboriginal art in southern cities. It's the first time that...» Read More
PILBARA 'JEWEL IN THE CROWN'
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 30.06.16
At the beginning of May, Western Australia's 29 Aboriginal art centres received the huge boost of the opening of the $8 million East Pilbara Art Centre, home to one of the state’s most successful art groupings, Martumili Artists. We've received...» Read More
July, 2016
WHAT A WASTE!
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 04.07.16
I've written a couple of times about the pro bono project between the Australia Council and Deloitte Access Economics to attempt to establish a realistic size and shape for the Indigenous art business. I thought this a really useful advocacy...» Read More
Ken Sisters to Win the Wynne?
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 07.07.16
It's that time of year again when the Art Gallery of NSW gets down and populist with its Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes to be announced next Friday. The Archibald is the 'Big Telstra' equivalent, of course. But the greatest...» Read More
STREETS OF PAPUNYA
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 12.07.16
It's impossible to see it on the ground. You need to be in the air over Papunya to discover that, rather than being laid out like some white 'burb in the middle of nowhere, this legendary dumping place for desert...» Read More
KEN SISTERS WIN THE WYNNE!
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 15.07.16
It's that time of year again when the Art Gallery of NSW gets down and populist with its Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes announced today. The Archibald is the 'Big Telstra' equivalent, of course. But the greatest Indigenous significance this...» Read More
Michael Nelson Jagamara in Sydney
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 20.07.16
Sydney received a 'royal' visit yesterday as significant as the coincidental coming of the US Vice-President, as Michael Nelson Jagamara left his Desert home to attend the launch of a Telstra installation of his art in Martin Place. It will...» Read More
August, 2016
THE ANNIVERSARY NATSIAAs
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 05.08.16
It's a big anniversary year for the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards - aka The Telstras. As Luke Scholes, the newish Curator of Aboriginal Art & Material Culture points out, 2016 celebrates 40 years of Aboriginal Land...» Read More
EIGHTSOME REELS IN THE MET
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 18.08.16
A gift of eight Aboriginal artworks to the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has been hailed by its Director as “introducing a dynamic new dimension to The Met's global representation of contemporary art”. Wow! Arguably, this development...» Read More
MILINGIMBI ALL OVER
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 24.08.16
The unfashionable name of Milingimbi – a place that doesn't even appear in the index for the 'Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture' published in 2000 – may soon be cropping up all over. This Yolngu island off the...» Read More
September, 2016
SCHOLL'S WOMEN
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 04.09.16
America continues to be challenged and delighted by Aboriginal art in ways we've forgotten in Australia – and once again it's the Debra and Dennis Scholl Collection that's setting the pace. After their 8-man show set out from Reno, Nevada...» Read More
DESERT MOBBED
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 15.09.16
Author: Jeremy Eccles Why have I never been before??? I've experienced both the NATSIAAs/Telstras in Darwin frequently and CIAF in Cairns occasionally – both important gatherings of the Indigenous art clans, where new art is seen and sold, where remote...» Read More
Goulburn Art Gallery is Speaking Colours
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 15.09.16
While English has become the first language of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, it is far from being the only language used. A new exhibition opening this Saturday called Speaking Colours attempts to highlight how these different languages...» Read More
SKIN & BONES MAP THE GARDEN PALACE
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 16.09.16
Fourteen thousand (or is it fifteen thousand) white gypsum shields litter Sydney's Royal Botanic Garden for the next two and a half weeks. When seen them from the air, the perimeter of the once-upon-a-time Garden Palace can be seen –...» Read More
Edward Albee, Art Collector
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 18.09.16
News from America that Edward Albee, one the 20th Century's greatest playwrights, has died aged 88. I had the good fortune to meet him six years ago and talk to him - not about playwrighting - but about his art...» Read More
CLINTON NAIN : PASSIVE - AGGRESSIVE DREAM
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 20.09.16
Clinton Nain is a shape-shifter. Predictability isn't something you should expect from an artist who has been identified closely with the Torres Strait despite being born in Melbourne of mixed Ku-Ku Aboriginal, Meriam Mer, Danish and Irish ancestry and trained...» Read More
PARRTJIMA – TELLING STORIES THROUGH LIGHT
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 20.09.16
The success that has been the Vivid light festival in Sydney is about to go bush; two and a half kilometres of the West MacDonnell Ranges outside Alice Springs will light up for 2 weeks from Friday. And, just as...» Read More
WAITING FOR ALLIGATOR
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 22.09.16
A play less like Samuel Beckett's could hardly be imagined. But like 'Godot', we do spend a good part of 'The Drover's Wife' waiting for, but never meeting Alligator, the legendary dog in the Henry Lawson story that gave Leah...» Read More
October, 2016
Nganampa Kililpil: Our Stars in Gymea
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 12.10.16
A major new Aboriginal art exhibition featuring 50 new and commissioned works from across the vast APY Lands of South Australia will open at the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery in Sydney's south this weekend. Nganampa Kililpil: Our Stars brings together artists...» Read More
November, 2016
Canning Stock Route On the Move
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 03.11.16
Renowned Indigenous artists are visiting Japan for two festival days this month, celebrating the opening of the National Museum of Australia’s One Road: Aboriginal Art from Australia’s Deserts exhibition in Chiba, outside Tokyo. This is a touring exhibition based on...» Read More
MILINGIMBI MEMORIES
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 15.11.16
In August, I wrote about the ceremonial makarrata that was held on the Crocodile Island of Milingimbi, off Arnhemland that bound the 53 signatories to its final agreement to make an effort within 12 months to bring their collected art...» Read More
TARNANTHI returns
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 17.11.16
BHP Billiton, the State Government of South Australia and Art Gallery of South Australia will today announce a truly impressive $17.54 million partnership to present the TARNANTHI Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art annually until 2021. BHP...» Read More
Nyilpirr Spider Snell
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 20.11.16
Artist, dancer, teacher, and latterly, film-star, Nyilpirr Spider Snell has died in Fitzroy Crossing, the Kimberley town he settled in after a desert birth and a working life as a stockman in the 1980s. He was one of the last...» Read More
Going Tiwi in Adelaide
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 23.11.16
There's still time to attend Adelaide's Spirit Festival Presents and experience a world of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Spirit through original fashion, dance, music, visual art, creative workshops and more. At the Tandanya Art Cafe experience intimate acoustic...» Read More
A WINTER OF NEW AWARDS
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 30.11.16
Entries open today for the 2017 34th Telstra NATSIAAs. And 2017 offers opportunities to a new generation of artists with the creation of two NEW categories in the Awards. Entries close on Friday 17 March, 2017. The new Telstra Multimedia...» Read More
December, 2016
STARS THAT HAVE PASSED
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 05.12.16
The brilliance of the art of the APY (Anangu Pitjanjatjara Yankunyjatjara) Lands has been obvious to people like me lucky enough to travel widely through the Aboriginal art world since at least 2000. So it came as a surprise to...» Read More
Lost Namarari Found after 35 years
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 13.12.16
A 44-year-old painting by Papunya Tula pioneer Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri that was presumed missing after many years of searching has been discovered in the most unexpected of places. With an estimated value of $100,000 – $150,000, records of the 1972...» Read More
Melbourne Does Indigenous
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 16.12.16
Overnight, Melbourne is the centre of the Australian Indigenous universe with two substantial shows opening today - one of them a first-ever appearance of Aboriginal art at the defiantly non-Indigenous Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA). One has to ask,...» Read More
Nuclear Dating for Rock Art
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 21.12.16
A new technique, developed at ANSTO’s Centre for Accelerator Science, has made it possible to produce some of the first reliable radiocarbon dates for Australian rock art in a study just published online in The Journal of Archaeological Science Reports....» Read More
Utrecht's AAMU to Close
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 22.12.16
The only museum in Europe to focus exclusively on contemporary Australian Aboriginal art will close mid-2017 as its private funding comes to an end. Utrecht's AAMU Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art opened in March 2001 and has held two exhibitions...» Read More
