Revitalisation of Australian Aboriginal Art

The discussion of this week's tutorial was quite interesting. It posed some real challenges in interpreting this weeks reading.

"The revitalisation of Australian Aboriginal art has been one of the great success stories of modern art."

Do you agree with this statement?

What does she mean?

In my group discussion we didn't really agree with the artist in the sense that Australian Aboriginal art has been revitalised as it has existed and has been well alive all along. It seems that its success and revitilisation is seen in a Western viewpoint of how Aboriginal art have been displayed in galleries and becoming more widely recognized in the world. Of course, it's not to dismiss that the recognition of Aboriginal art is indeed a success story - for the lives of Aboriginal people and the respect and appreciation gained towards the Aboriginal culture.

In her article, Hetti Perkins argues that Australian Aboriginal art defies attempts to include it in the western art canon? Is she right?

In regards to Hetti Perkin's chapter in the book One Sun One Moon, we believed that the word "defy"seem to connote a very strong sense that Aboriginal people are intentionally creating works of art that defy the Western art canon. Although Aboriginal art is indisputably different to that of other modern art, even it its more modern forms of abstraction and styles that are similar to Western art, their underlying meanings draws upon their historicity, we did not believe that they do so intentionally. I think its more of an automatic process because Aboriginal art in certain cases, cannot be compared to other forms of Western art because it's not only art but part of their culture, so automatically it will address back to their traditional culture. 

However, in another sense, I believe that while part of it might resist to be included in the Western art canon in the sense that contemporary Indigenous arts draw upon their historicity instead of breaking away from them, I think that some new forms of Aboriginal art, does show a more modern approach. Thus while part of it does contradict with Western art theory and others part may conform to it, I think Contemporary Indigenous visual art may be a form of modernism in its own right. 

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