How Aborigines invented contemporary art

Authors

Ian A. McLean, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

77076

Publication Details

McLean, I. A. "How Aborigines invented contemporary art." Melbourne Art Fair. Melbourne: Arts Victoria, 2012. 60.

Link to publisher version (URL)

VIMEO

Abstract

Ian McLean discusses the background to his recent book How Aborigines invented the idea of contemporary art: An anthology of writing on Aboriginal Art 1980–2006 (2011), which traces the artworld's critical response to Indigenous art since it was accepted as contemporary rather than primitive art. The book focuses on the ideas that shaped this momentous response to the art, and asks what it means to call Indigenous art "contemporary art". He will address why the book, which is in the form of an anthology of writing since 1980, took the form that it did, what the often very different ideas, approaches and interpretations of Aboriginal art during this period have in common, and what their legacy is for the future of Indigenous art.