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draftresearchlp-blog · 8 years

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GENERAL RESEARCH NOTES / FLOW SO FAR:

CULTURAL TRANSLATION: ABORIGINAL ART IN WESTERN CONTEXTS

Primitivism - the tribal art of oceania - the classification itself is a western interpretation. —> Art that is broadly, closer to nature.

MoMA Primtiivism in the 20th Century. 150 tribal pieces juxtaposed with 200 western pieces “ However, tribal objects were selected by contemporary art standards in order to more visibly suggest the formal links between modern and tribal art”

Vlaminck, was the founder of primitivism

JUNGS LANGUAGE OF COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUS

I am aware of the potential issues that may arise through framing my understanding of aboriginal art through western writings, but I will have to employ these writings and translate them as best as I can when interpreting Aboriginal Art as the critical writing from the area is sparse and incomparable to the intellectual status of western writings on primitivism.

—> Very interested in notion of the SELF in portraiture - it doesn’t exist in aboriginal art? Is it purely a modern, western fascination with the self rather than the other? But portraits have been around for a very long time - especially in 19th century, as displays of wealth and prestige.

THE SELF AND PORTRAITURE IN ABORIGINAL ART

take from : http://www.portrait.gov.au/magazines/46/indigenous-portraiture

" In 2006, Weaver Jack in Lungarung was selected as a finalist in the Archibald Prize for portraiture. Framed against the rigours and rules of the western art canon, this would have been unacceptable, but in the Indigenous art-land-law-identity nexus, the collapsing of boundaries such as these is the norm. “ “ The inclusion of Weaver Jack’s portrait of her birth country in the Prize is testament to a more mature critical understanding of Aboriginal contemporary art at work in the establishment. “

Ancestral Modern - exhibition in seattle 1988

“ Ancestral Modern was co-curated by the NGA’s former senior curator of Aboriginal art, Wally Caruana. Leading a tour through the exhibition space, Caruana was at pains to distinguish European portraiture as identity – based on physical features – from an Aboriginal idea of cultural connectedness, explaining that portraiture can encompass clan designs, enacting an ancestral role though dance, or identifying with an animal totem represented on canvas."

JULIE DOWNING - Portraits : https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Julie+Dowling%E2%80%99s+Portraits&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjq_brBvq_PAhWKJsAKHZ2gCj8Q_AUICCgB&biw=1250&bih=656

Representation of deceased people In many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, the reproduction of a deceased person’s name and image is offensive to cultural beliefs. Consult with the deceased’s family or community so that the appropriate protocols are observed.10 All Oxfam Australia communications with images or names of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should have the following warning displayed in a prominent position: “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this document/website may contain images or names of people who have since passed away.” Remove any references to deceased people from the public arena (eg. websites, photographic databases, publications, community service announcements, etc) as soon as you are alerted to their passing. If you wish to use the name, image or voice of a deceased person, you must seek permission in writing. Include reference to the permission having been granted for this particular use in a highly prominent position. -

http://www.reconciliation.org.au/raphub/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/respect-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-protocols-oxfam-australia.pdf

South Australian artist Yhonnie Scarce, and photographer, video and performance artist Christian Bumbarra Thompson, of central Queensland Bidjara heritage - neither pride nor courage, 2006 - anthropological drawing/documentation approach - the final of the triptych, frontal view is of his son - hints to notions of lost generation.

ARTICLE: http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/depictions-of-aboriginal-people-in-colonial-australian-art-settler-and-unsettling-narratives-in-the-works-of-robert-dowling/

Robert Dowling - NCV (1856)

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/sep/27/louis-theroux-the-condition-of-australias-indigenous-people-is-massively-fascinating?CMP=soc_567

Richard Broome argues that Colonialism is also strangely creative as well as being destructive … Many [Aboriginal people] have voyaged into the new cross-cultural world, exploring the possibilities and flexibilities of the Aboriginal-European interface to create new cultural forms.12

#findingtheflow #topic

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draftresearchlp-blog · 8 years

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NOTES // SEEING ABORIGINAL ART IN THE GALLERY (HOWARD MORPHY)

Inclusion in the gallery involves 3 factors:

“the critique of the concept of ‘primitive art’

an associated change in conceptions of what can be called ‘art’

an increased understanding of art as a commodity

“the anthropological myth that classifying works as ‘art’ imposed a Western categorisation upon them”

the desire to be on the right side of the post-colonial/colonial divide - perhaps an anxiety of taking it out of an ethnographic discourse and placing it into an industry in which it is seen as a commodity. are these concerns justified given the quasi-religious status of the art and the practice of creation to the indigenous people?

placing the pieces in the ethnographic discourse and keeping them there “often motived by a desire to increase the understanding of the significance to the producers of the objects” - I agree with this statement, and sympathise with the issue of its inclusion into the western Art industry

however, it provided a great source of income for local indigenous populations.

gave them a voice and perhaps urged a deeper global understanding as to their rights in reclaiming aborigine land.

“viewed as… a license for misinterpretation, through the imposition of universalistic aesthetic concepts”

(8) - inclusion in gallery

RONALD BERNDT ?

Inclusion of the 14 Tiwi artist poles from Arnhem Land “shattering the anthropological paradigm” (40)

the error is in the polarisation of ART/ETHNORGAPHY - post-colonialism un-necessary dived - links perhaps well to bhabha’s HYBRIDITY? (28) quote from Luke Taylor.

Howard talks about kant's theory of universal aesthetic and viewing being hand in hand and you cannot separate one from the other.

Howard argues that when viewers come into an art gallery they already have an understanding of the narrow western art discourse that they are exposed to (in films, tv books etc) and their viewing is not purely an “universal appreciation of aesethicis” but has some basis in a predisposed notion of what art is. Where as their encounters with aboriginal art is different from this and that they “must also have access to its history and significance.” (43)

“That is why the inclusion of non-european art continues to generate such opposition: it insists on a different kind of art history that threatens to disrupt pre-existing values” (44)

A short history of inclusion:

Didn’t enter too quickly as most of it was TEMPORAL

“much aboriginal art could however more easily find its place in the later slots created by conceptual art, minimalism, performance art and even abstract expressionism” (44)

BARK PAINTINGS Maloon describes as “most analogous” to western art forms in their “pectoral representation.”

TUCKSON —> the aesthetics of aboriginal art (book)

ART AND LAND 1986 SAM

Ruth Philips writing on Native American Art:

“the scholarly apparatus that inscribers the inauthenticity of commoditised wares [is] a central problem in the way that art history has addressed Native art. The authenticity paradigm marginalises not only the objects but the makers, making of them a ghostly presence in the modern world rather than acknowledging their vigorous interventions in it” (30)

(31) —> the collection of bark paintings viewed suspiciously in 50’s-60’s by ethnographers.

Between 1940-80’s aboriginal art moved from non-art to the art category without passing through the stage of being considered as primitive art (pg. 45) “Aboriginal art became art partly through the process of its commercialisation.”

“clearly produced products whose form was influenced by interaction with the market” (pg.46)

Aboriginals used art as “a means of persuading outsides of the value of their way of life as well as a means of earning a living in the post-colonial context” (pg.46)

MISSED THE PRIMITIVE SHIP - notions of Primitive art were being challenged in the 70’s-80’s saw a “breakdown of categories within Western at in general as the hegemony of the Western canon has come increasingly under challenge from non-western and indigenous arts”

“Contemporary aboriginal art emerged as a category in Aus during 70’s and 80’s (32)”

Tourist Art

overtly political art that challenged western notions of “representational spaces” (chapter 8, empires of vision)

Western Desert paintings - newly developed art that employed european materials - became “unproblematically avant-garde” and BARK PAINTINGS which used techniques and materials the were “independent of European art” were accepted into the category of “primitive art.” Yet the two occupied the same space. Thus “simultaneously” avant gaurde and primitive.

“An anthropologically informed art history is needed to provide the historical, art historical, social and cultural information, not only for those artistic traditions where background cannot be taken for granted but, it could be argued, for the Western art tradition as well.” ( pg. 49)

#research #topic #essaynotes

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draftresearchlp-blog · 8 years

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NOTES//ON THE RECEPTION OF ABORIGINAL ART IN GERMAN ART SPACE:

This essay could provide me with a good outline in which to begin my research - a similar topic, looking at similar issues with institutionalising aboriginal art in europe - only using the specific case studies of Germany.

Increased divide between European and other :

IMPORTANT - I will have to mention a similar issue in my Abstract - as am using Western concepts. Interesting to note the emphasis of ORALITY in aboriginal traditions - how has this been translated into the museum space?

Cultural sensitivities regarding language: ABORIGINAL (being a colonial term) / INDIGENOUS

Germany aboriginal art is largely excluded from academic discourse - which is very much the opposite to its position in australian museums and academia.

EMPAHSIS on ethnographic and museological discourse being based predominantly on the WRITTEN.

—> Outline institutional spaces in which one can encounter aboriginal art in the UK - FOCUS it down on the PUBLIC spaces rather than semi-public as to narrow and refine research parameters

“Art as a transcultural device used in the post-colonial era”

Contemporary spaces only allow for aboriginal art that has been modernised, or adopted conventional modern standards - this will allow them to penetrate the art market.

ART COLOGNE 1994 - scandal - calling contemporary aboriginal art “folk art” and not “authentic aboriginal art” therefore was rejected a space in the exhibition. (ARTICLE POSTED IN - A Snub for Aboriginal Art, SMH, 5th August 1994)

WESTERN MEDIA (post-contact media) vs ARNHEMLAND PEOPLE - bark paintings etc.

MoMA NY, Primitivism in 20th-century art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern (1984)

“Art history in such a hierarchical mode of representation reflects the spatio-temporal relationship of culture” ( Panofsky, Idea, 98)

MORPHY - argues that there is no evidence that anthropology created the notion of Otherness that prevails understanding and interest in aboriginal art in Europe.

SAID, Edward - articulated the notion of Otherness in Art and Literature

BOAZ, Franz - 20th century writer - reluctant to rank primitive art as inferior to European art.

PENNY, Glen - argued that the Pitt Rivers museum main objective was ‘Diffusionism’

Emphasis on Aboriginal connection to land.

The 1980’s saw a visible post-colonial shift in the display and reception of aboriginal art.

KEY EXHIBITIONS:

Documenta 9 and 11

Magiciens da la Terre

#essaynotes

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