2020
February, 2020
The Red Centre's Festival of Light
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 04.02.20
Update: Parrtjima has been rescheduled to 11-20 September 2020, in light of the measures the Federal Government has introduced to slow down the spread of COVID-19. If you're not busy visiting the fire-affected tourist destinations in Australia - or if...» Read More
WADJUK IN THE BLACK
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 25.02.20
There was a time when Indigenous performance was anathema to the market. Worthy, but not exactly a fun night out! Two Aboriginal festival directors – Stephen Page in Adelaide and Wesley Enoch in Sydney – have toyed with First Nations...» Read More
March, 2020
The Ephemeral and the Ineradicable
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 02.03.20
The recent reopening of the Hyde Park Barracks in central Sydney was greeted as a great Indigenous event for the 2500 square metre courtyard was transformed (briefly) by Wiradjuri artist Jonathan Jones into a First Nations statement. Some optimist even...» Read More
EMILY v CLIFFORD
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 03.03.20
Who will emerge from the next couple of weeks as the dominant figure – Emily Kngwarreye or Clifford Possum? This pair of the greatest, now-dead Aboriginal artists could not have imagined such a competition; but circumstances in New York and...» Read More
Indigenous Arts Infrastructure
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 06.03.20
A surprising article in 'The Australian' recently told me that the independent federal advisory body, Infrastructure Australia (IA) was telling the government that an investment in Indigenous art facilities was an excellent idea. And, as the federal government is currently...» Read More
Entries to Blake Prize Closing Soon
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 12.03.20
Time is running out to enter one of Australia's longest-running and most prestigious (and unpredictable) art prizes, the Blake Prize. Open to artists exploring the wider experience of spirituality, religion and belief, the Blake Prize engages artists nationally and internationally....» Read More
LAURIE NILSEN
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 13.03.20
Laurie Nilsen, the father of the barbed-wire emu, has died on March 6th at the age of 66 from cancer after a 40 year career in art. That is currently being celebrated with a retrospective at his Fireworks Gallery in...» Read More
BIENNALE OF SYDNEY 2020
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 19.03.20
Biennales come and go and are often remarkably forgettable. Every second artist – whatever their cultural roots – seems to live in Berlin. The sort of globalisation that has brought us the coronavirus invariably flavours each show – art passed...» Read More
Another Coronavirus Crisis
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 22.03.20
As the NT Government sensibly closes off access to remote Indigenous communities in response to the Coronavirus crisis, the foresightful academic, Jon Altman, working with Francis Markham of the ANU is concerned for the financial consequences as well as the...» Read More
Out on Country!
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 26.03.20
I recently encouraged online art buying directly from community art centres in order to keep the Aboriginal art world from falling in a hole. Here's a splendidly positive example of art centre proactivity in this pandemic world: In the...» Read More
Arts Activism
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 27.03.20
After yesterday's hopeful example of Aboriginal artists in the East Kimberley going 'On Country' to avoid any chance of being exposed to the coronavirus, today offers a potent case of the arts industry standing up for itself - as, so...» Read More
April, 2020
the dickens boy
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 03.04.20
In these troubled times, a good read may be almost as good as a vaccination! And the venerable 84-year old Tom Keneally has pretty much always offered a rattlin' good read over an incredible fifty volumes. Intriguingly, his last two...» Read More
ON & OFF IN ABORIGINAL ART
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 06.04.20
We do need an uplift at this trying time of our lives. First Nations art and its artist creators are no different. So, credits go to Dallas Gold of, as far as I can tell, the still-open Raft Gallery in...» Read More
Marginally Good News
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 10.04.20
In the shadows of the A$130 billion JobKeeper funding that emerged from Parliament on Thursday, a tiny amount of $27 million was added for the arts. $7m of that is dedicated to First Nations artists. In a statement that morning,...» Read More
Nothing Revealed
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 15.04.20
From the Editor in the interests of full disclosure: The Australian Government funds Art Centres, and indeed, Revealed. The actual amounts are listed in a post from last year, Funding for Indigenous Art. The cancellation of the hugely successful 2020...» Read More
Kulinmaya! - Keep Listening!
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 16.04.20
Is there anything new under the sun??? I imagine that the late Mumu Muke Williams would have been well aware that there wasn't. And I'm beginning to think likewise having discovered that Williams's very special book – 'Kulinmaya! - 'Keep...» Read More
CIAF 2020
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 20.04.20
It's been a trying 3 months for us all – perhaps none more so than the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, CIAF. In January we learnt: “Following last year’s watershed 10th-anniversary celebration, CIAF will return in July 2020 with a contemporary,...» Read More
NATSIAA Pre-Selections Revealed
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 23.04.20
It's the time of year for excitement and despair amongst the Indigenous art-making community as the Museum Art Gallery of the NT (MAGNT) announces its selection for the big Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. 67 Aboriginal...» Read More
Mrs Ngallametta
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 24.04.20
One of Australia’s most successful Indigenous artists, Mavis Ngallametta, has a wonderful tribute show just opened at the Queensland Art Gallery, a little over a year after she died aged 75. Ngallametta died on her Country, Aurukun, as she had...» Read More
Cooked???
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 29.04.20
Today it's all about Captain Cook – though it may have been yesterday as the Botany Bay/Kamay Memorial of his landing dates it as 28th April; and, of course, he was but a Lieutenant at the time. But what an...» Read More
May, 2020
Boomerang Back to the Start
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 07.05.20
Bad news (in a time of almost exclusively bad news); hopes for a law that would have made amendments to the Australian Consumer Law to ban the sale or supply of Indigenous ‘style’ products unless they were produced by or...» Read More
BIDYADANGA CLOSE-UP
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 11.05.20
In 1999, a young Daniel Walbidi entered Short St Gallery in Broome. He shyly declared that he lived out at Bidyadanga, a coastal Aboriginal Community 180 kilometres south of Broome, and that he would like to become an artist. Daniel...» Read More
'Truganini – Journey Through the Apocalypse'
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 14.05.20
“In doleful monochrome, they seemed so desolate I couldn't bear to look at them. It was a melancholic requiem for the disappeared that reeked of regret without responsibility”. Author Cassandra Pybus is describing photographs of “the last Tasmanians” in Hobart's...» Read More
COOKED 2
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 18.05.20
I celebrated the Cook 250th earlier on this site with a delicately balanced piece attempting to find a line between those that see him as a founding father of contemporary Australia and those who see only the man who claimed...» Read More
The War in Mparntwe
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 20.05.20
Do we have a solution or do we have war in Alice Springs over the long-contended National Aboriginal Art Gallery (NAAG)? The NT Labor Government has finally stamped its feet, in the fighting words of Tourism and Arts Minister, Lauren...» Read More
Media Muddles Aboriginal Politics
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 21.05.20
A fascinating study of 45 years' media coverage of important Indigenous issues, beginning with the Larrakia Petition in 1972, concludes that, at last, “Aboriginal people appear to be effectively shaping the media discourse on Aboriginal issues”. But it's been a...» Read More
First Nations Arts Awards
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 27.05.20
The annual recognition of cultural heroes in the Indigenous world took place online tonight as COVID denied the event its usual physical form in the Sydney Opera House. It also took on board the new normal in nomenclature for the...» Read More
The Beach
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 31.05.20
No, not Leonardo DiCaprio in Thailand or Ava Gardner 'On the Beach' in Melbourne as the world ends – nothing as exciting as that! Just a blackly hirsute Warwick Thornton on a patch of sand somewhere north of Broome in...» Read More
June, 2020
RIP Malu Gurruwiwi – Custodian of the Banumbirr
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 02.06.20
It is with great sadness that the Vivien Anderson Gallery has announced the passing of Malu Gurruwiwi, custodian of the Banumbirr - Morning Star ceremony. He lived from1942 to 2020 as a proud member of the Galpu and Djapu Clans. ...» Read More
“An Archive of the Industry”
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 03.06.20
Incredibly this is my 600th report, critique, commentary or essay for Aboriginal Art Directory. It all began in 2007 when the site was set up privately to assist remote art centres enter the digital market for their artists' product. At...» Read More
ARTISTS HONOURED
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 09.06.20
The Queens Birthday Honours may have hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons – too many politicians going “over and beyond” in backstabbing and power-grabbing, for instance – but it's been a bonza year for remote First Nations artists...» Read More
ONLINE SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 09.06.20
In a foreshortened and online film festival, the normal Sydney winter feast is a comparatively muted affair this year as a result of the COVID crisis. Sadly, only two First Nations films have made the cut, two docos that tackle...» Read More
The Gambay Language Map
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 19.06.20
Ever wanted to speak just a little of the language of the artists who created your artworks? Or even just to find out what language or languages they do actually communicate in? Well, First Languages Australia has now developed an...» Read More
Desecration in the East Kimberley
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 25.06.20
According to Elders from the art community of Warrmun, supported by the Kimberley Land Council, sites of cultural significance in the East Kimberley have been destroyed by large-scale granite mining operations, despite breaching Section 17 of the Aboriginal Heritage Act...» Read More
Fashion Goes Indigenous
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 26.06.20
Everywhere you turn at this time there's news of some new venture in First Nations fashion. The ladies fashion mags are full of it, the museums are leaping on the bandwagon and now, being Australia, we have to have a...» Read More
July, 2020
Yiribana
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 02.07.20
"The Art Gallery of NSW has long been recognised for the excellence of its collection of classical bark paintings", noted the AGNSW's then Public Programs Curator, Terence Maloon in 1994; going on to say, "It is also regarded as a...» Read More
Kaurna Shield Comes to Adelaide
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 08.07.20
The Federal Government has announced $100,000 to support the acquisition of a rare 19th century Murlapaka (also spelt Mulubakka) shield, attributed to the Kaurna people from the Adelaide Plains, by the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA). Minister for the...» Read More
Repatriated Art at Auction
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 15.07.20
Coincidentally, two substantial foreign collections of Aboriginal art have been returned home in COVID-time to be sold at auction. Tonight, online, Deutscher & Hackett offer the Peter and Renate Nahum Collection from London. And on 22 July in Sydney, Bonhams...» Read More
The Convict Valley – The Hunter
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 27.07.20
Commandant James Wallis emerged for me – though not perhaps for Mark Dunn,The Convict Valley's author – at the symbolic epicentre of this history. Have you ever heard of him – or of Wallis Plains, named in his honour, also...» Read More
EMILY v DOROTHY
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 30.07.20
What a year for the women! Major exhibitions are currently on (with serious catalogues) for Mavis Ngallametta (QAG), Nyapanyapa Yunupingu (MAGNT) and Destiny Deacon (NGV); earlier this year Emily Kngwarreye had significant sales in Sydney and New York on the...» Read More
August, 2020
MR R PETERS 1935-2020
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 03.08.20
The outstanding philosophical thinker of the Gija people in the East Kimberley, Rusty Peters has died in his 86th year. This long tall, thin and reticent man let his painting do the talking after he joined the Jirrawun group of...» Read More
Art Is Fashionable
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 06.08.20
The inaugural National Indigenous Fashion Awards were handed out last night in Darwin (ie online) courtesy of the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair (also online), which has been promoting this sub-branch of First Nations art for a few years now. And...» Read More
The Salon, 2020
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 06.08.20
For the first time in umpteen years, I haven't been in the balmy night in Darwin attending the opening of the Salon des Refuses - Aboriginal art's response to the 19th Century French Impressionists' rebellion against rejection by 'official' art...» Read More
“The Art of the Nation”
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 07.08.20
“Thank you mob in Darwin for this business. Thank you. At last. I feel proud. I’ve been trying all my life, all the time second, fourth, last, sometimes nothing. But I got it now, today. My day, my time this...» Read More
Fairs Fare
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 12.08.20
The two biggest First Nations art fairs are both either on or about to be. So, if you've a sense that these devastating times are just the right ones to support Indigenous artists in the most direct way, then this...» Read More
Art Fairs Exit - and Entrance
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 24.08.20
The online art fairs are over for 2020. Still no sales figures from either Darwin (See Below) or Cairns though an examination of their websites suggests that sales at the lower price end were pretty good, but a $2000 barrier...» Read More
Tarnanthi 2020
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 25.08.20
The Art Gallery of South Australia has announced that this year’s Tarnanthi Festival, its annual celebration of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, will highlight how the creativity of First Nations women artists forms a vital cultural link in...» Read More
Aboriginal Art is “An Exceptional Art Form”
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 26.08.20
Many Australians are sharply divided as to whether they prefer more traditional genres of art like landscapes or more contemporary and abstract visual forms. And these divisions relate to differences in age, class and education. But Aboriginal art bucks this...» Read More
Goodies from Canberra
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 27.08.20
Just three years from its last iteration, the National Gallery of Australia has announced a new National Indigenous Art Triennial – its 4th – though it won't actually occur until the end of next year. As the others occurred in...» Read More
September, 2020
Consulting the Industry
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 02.09.20
The Ministers for the Arts and Indigenous Australians this morning jointly announced that they will develop an Indigenous VisuaI Art Action Plan to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, and their cultural and economic interests. Yet more consultation, you...» Read More
LONG JACK PHILLIPUS 1932-2020
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 08.09.20
Kumantjayi Long Tjakamarra, the last of the founding painters at Papunya, has died. An era has come to an end. The 88-year-old Warlpiri man, who lived on independently in Papunya after his Pintupi painting colleagues left for their Countries further...» Read More
SUNSHINE SUPERGIRL
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 17.09.20
Just about everyone knows Evonne Goolagong Cawley AC, MBE is the greatest Aboriginal tennis player that Australia has ever produced. But how many know she's Wiradjuri? Mind you, it's even possible that this specific identification didn't matter that much to...» Read More
Why not the Wynne?
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 17.09.20
“The global debates about race and ethnicity are reflected in the prominence given to Indigenous artists in this year's prize”, was the reflection of Sydney Morning Herald critic John McDonald after the launch of this year's Archibald, Wynne and Sulman...» Read More
Movement at the Station
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 25.09.20
It all seems to be happening in the fraught matter of building one or more Indigenous cultural institutions for Australia and the world to gain greater context and appreciation of the complexity of our First Nations cultures. Not all of...» Read More
Archie Has First Aboriginal Winner
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 25.09.20
Well, I was pretty right about the Wynne Prize - giving Hubert Pareroultja the guernsey for his brilliantly-coloured, outsize Hermannsburg work in acrylics, as his illustrious forebear Albert Namatjira would never have attempted. But I was dead wrong about the...» Read More
October, 2020
Maliwawa Rock Art
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 02.10.20
For more than decade, Paul S.C.Taçon, Chair in Rock Art Research and Director of the Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit (PERAHU) at Brisbane's Griffith University has been investigating a style of Aboriginal rock art in Arnhemland that may...» Read More
Wonnangatta
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 02.10.20
Back to the theatre! Yipee!! But not quite as I remember it so fondly. For the Ros Packer Theatre in Sydney's Rocks is a big place and normally packed out with chattering theatre-goers. But, with only between 5 and 8...» Read More
Hunter Valley Indigenous Cultural Hub and Museum Set to Go
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 06.10.20
Hunter Valley tourism and hotel entrepreneur, Dr Jerry Schwartz, will provide land in Cessnock for the construction of a cultural hub and museum celebrating the heritage of the local Wonnarua Indigenous community. The development is being facilitated by a $6.3...» Read More
New Art Gallery to Open in Granville
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 06.10.20
The newest gallery for Sydney is the Granville Centre Art Gallery which announced today it will open to the public on November 5 with its inaugural exhibition titled Ngaliya Diyam, meaning We are here. Darug are here, Aboriginal peoples are...» Read More
First Nations Poets in a Dedicated FB Event
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 08.10.20
Adelaide Festival Centre is celebrating contemporary First Nations poetry with OUR WORDS: Spoken word from First Nations artists – an online initiative running from today until November 26. OUR WORDS is a collection of eight original poems performed on camera...» Read More
Sun Shines on the Wiradjuri Festival
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 12.10.20
Refreshed after almost a week in the NSW country, I am excited about the Wiradjuri cultural revival that's going on in the Western Riverina. For the Yarruawala Festival taking place in Griffith, Narrandera, Leeton and Darlington Point displayed a seriousness...» Read More
The Ebes Collection
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 13.10.20
Back in May 2013, I wrote enthusiastically about the opening of Melbourne's 'Emily Museum', celebrating, of course, the career of the woman its owner, Hank Ebes called “Australia's greatest artist”. As he continued at the time, “There is no influence...» Read More
SE Aboriginal Arts Market at Carriageworks
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 19.10.20
Carriageworks, Australia’s largest contemporary multi-arts centre, today announced it will present its fourth annual edition of the SOUTHEAST Aboriginal Arts Market over four days from (5pm AEDT) 26 through to 29 November 2020. The event is being curated by the...» Read More
David Rathman to Promote SA Museum
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 23.10.20
A great leader and advocate for South Australia’s Aboriginal communities has been appointed as ambassador for the Aboriginal Art and Cultures Centre (AACC), now in development for the Lot Fourteen global innovation precinct in Adelaide. South Australian Premier, Steven Marshall...» Read More
Ambassador Appointed for SA Culture Centre
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 23.10.20
David Rathman AM has been appointed as ambassador for the Aboriginal Art and Cultures Centre (AACC) in South Australia. Rathman's LinkedIn profile reads: "Commercial broadcasting was part of my life journey and doing voice overs for documentaries in recent years....» Read More
Jutta Malnic 1924/2020
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 26.10.20
The photographer Jutta Malnic has died in Sydney aged 95. The German-born woman is significant for her picturing of Australia's ancient rock art in two books - 'Yorro Yorro – Spirit of the Kimberley' in 1993 on which she worked...» Read More
The 'Seven Sisters' Heading for England
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 28.10.20
The National Museum of Australia’s pioneering Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters exhibition will tour to the United Kingdom in 2021. Here's what I thought of curator Margo Neale's original show in Canbarra in 2018: https://news.aboriginalartdirectory.com/2018/02/songlines-tracking-the-seven-sisters.php The joint 'UK/Australia Season' initiative...» Read More
$80K Across Seven Awards - The Big Telstra Open for Entries
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 28.10.20
It's time for First Nations artists to choose their entries for Australia’s longest-running and most prestigious Indigenous art Award, the Telstra NATSIAA. The categories are: Telstra General Painting Award Telstra Bark Painting Award Telstra Works on Paper Award Wandjuk Marika...» Read More
Cursed!
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 30.10.20
A few weeks ago I was at the Sydney Theatre Company's play, 'Wonnangatta' expecting to see an Aboriginal play because the excellent Wayne Blair was half of the cast. Silly me! Now I've been to the re-opening of the Belvoir...» Read More
Sunshine Coast Art Prize Finalists Paint BMWs
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 30.10.20
Hitting the Sunshine Coast streets now until December 11 are a BMW, Mini and BMW motorbike featuring the artwork of Sunshine Coast Art Prize 2020 finalists, Michael Nelson Jagamara, Natalya Hughes and Kent Morris - thanks to Coastline BMW. The...» Read More
November, 2020
GORDON BENNETT SOLO IN QUEENSLAND
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 06.11.20
'Unfinished Business: The Art of Gordon Bennett’ is the first large-scale exhibition of Bennett’s oeuvre since 2007. The exhibition showcases Bennett’s key series in depth, his most important and admired works, and includes many works which have rarely if ever...» Read More
Michael Nelson Jagamara AM 1946 – 2020
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 10.11.20
The death was announced in Alice Springs last night of the leading Desert artist Michael Nelson Jagamara. The Warlpiri man wasn't amongst the first in Papunya to take to the canvas when the art movement took off there in 1972....» Read More
'Nilimurra Dhuwal: Here We Are' by Guynbi Ganambarr
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 10.11.20
Ever since his first appearance at Bill Gregory's Annandale Galleries in 2004, Guynbi Ganambarr has been making waves. Indeed, Will Stubbs, his art director at the dynamic Buku Larrnggay Art Centre in eastern Arnhemland noted that even his first appearance...» Read More
Aboriginal Art Storms Online
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 17.11.20
This year has been one of terrible isolation for many people – none more so than the remote First Nations communities that produce so much of Australia's greatest art at the moment. But that very enforced isolation has a) kept...» Read More
VICTORIA OPENS!
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 25.11.20
Wonderful to report after all that State's travails, art galleries in Victoria are opening by the bucket-load – and, naturally, First Nations art and culture is taking precedence! At the NGV in Melbourne, not one but two delayed shows burst...» Read More
Putting the Cart Before the Horse?
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 27.11.20
Excitement last weekend when 'The Australian' newspaper carried a quarter-page ad for a 'Senior Director, National Aboriginal Art Gallery'. Sadly, this call for a “visionary leader capable of delivering a $180 million arts and culture precinct” turns out to be...» Read More
December, 2020
Getting Back into the Habit in Sydney
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 02.12.20
A plumply welcoming Wesley Enoch greeted me at the Sydney Festival offices, with just the hint of designer stubble on his chin. Or was he just too exhausted to shave that day? For it soon emerged that being the Director...» Read More
The Kelton Collection Heads to Switzerland
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 03.12.20
What's claimed to be the largest ever single private transfer of Australian Indigenous Art has taken place in California. The legendary Kelton Collection built up by Richard Kelton, who died last year, has sold more then 250 works to the...» Read More
