January Meeting: Tjukurrtjanu Exhibition Catalogue

Mick Wallangkarri Tjakamarra Kukatja/Ngalia c.1905-96 Bush tucker story 1972 synthetic polymer paint on composition board 72.0 x 77.0 cm Hugo Le Roux Guthrie, Melbourne © artists and their estates 2011, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Limited and Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd

The next Aboriginal Art Reading Group meeting will be 16 January 4:30-5:30pm in room 106, John Medley Building, University of Melbourne.

We will be reading a number of selections from Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Art, including Philip Batty’s “‘Artefacts’ as Art: ‘Art’ as Arefact” and “Catch a Fire” by John Kean. If you have not yet seen the exhibition please try to do so before the meeting. A copy of the reading will be circulated to the electronic mailing list.

Looking forward to seeing you then!  ~ Kira

December Meeting: Chris Healy, “Chapter 3: Old and New Aboriginal Art” in Forgetting Aborigines

The next Aboriginal Art Reading Group meeting will be 19 December 4:30-5:30pm in room 106, John Medley Building, University of Melbourne.

We will be reading Chris Healy’s Forgetting Aborigines “Chapter 3: Old and New Aboriginal Art.” I will email members of the reading groups’ electronic mailing list a PDF of the reading. Looking forward to seeing you then!   ~ Kira

Old Paintings Symposium, Melbourne Museum, 28-29 November

Garrnyal Bukulatjpi and Djawa Dhaawiringu, Milingimbi, NT, September 1935 Source: Courtesy of the Thomson family and Museum Victoria (TPH363)

A symposium hosted in association with the exhibition, Ancestral Power and the Aesthetic.

This symposium presents a series of papers with a diverse group of experts from Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Paris, who are prominent in their area of Aboriginal art practice and passionate about the importance of Yolngu art from Arnhem Land, and particularly bark painting.

Professor Howard Morphy, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the Australian National University, will deliver the keynote address.

The exhibition, Ancestral Power and the Aesthetic: Arnhem Land Paintings and Objects from the Donald Thomson Collection is now showing at Melbourne Museum until 12 February 2012.

November Meeting: Ian McLean, How Aborigines Invented The Idea Of Contemporary Art: An Anthology Of Writing On Aboriginal Art 1980-2006

The next Aboriginal Art Reading Group meeting will be 21 November 4-5pm in room 106, John Medley Building, University of Melbourne.

We will be reading the introduction of Ian McLean’s recent book: How Aborigines Invented The Idea Of Contemporary Art: An Anthology Of Writing On Aboriginal Art 1980-2006.

I will email members of the reading groups’ electronic mailing list a PDF of the reading. Alternatively, you may make a personal photocopy from the copy  posted on the bulletin board outside of the photocopier room on the third floor of the East Tower of the John Medley Building.

Listen to Ian McLean and Margo Neale interviewed on ABC Late Night Radio from 9 November, 2011 here.

Conflict and Conciliation Across Empires: Objects and Performances in Historical Perspective

17-18 November 2011. 2-day Symposium: Conflict and Conciliation Across Empires: Objects and Performances in Historical Perspective. Convened by Professor Kate Darian-Smith, Dr. Penny Edmonds, and Dr. Julie Evans. Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre, University of Melbourne.

2-day Symposium: Conflict and Conciliation Across Empires: Objects and Performances in Historical Perspective

Date: 17-18 November 2011

Location: Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre, University of Melbourne

Convenors: Professor Kate Darian‐Smith (Director, The Australian Centre, University of Melbourne), Dr. Julie Evans (School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne), and Dr. Penny Edmonds (School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne) in conjunction with the Department of Indigenous Cultures, Museum Victoria.

Hosted by the Australian Centre, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne.

Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art Symposium, NGV

For more info about the exhibition, click here. For more about the symposium on 12 November click here. Info:

Tjukurrtjanu
Speakers Fred Myers, Silver Prof & Chair, Department of Anthropology, New York University; Dr Philip Batty, Senior Curator, Anthropology (Central Australia), Museum Victoria; Dick Kimber, historian & catalogue contributor; Prof Paul Carter, Chair in Creative Place Research, Deakin University; Paul Sweeney, Manager, Papunya Tula Artists; Bobby West Tjupurrula, Papunya Tula artist

A range of speakers will discuss the origins and evolution of the Western Desert Art movement.

Inaugural Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Research Symposium

Don’t miss the inaugural, multidisciplinary Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Research Symposium on 3 November.

October Meeting Canceled

We will resume again in November when I’m back from researching at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at the University of Virginia.

 

September Meeting: Bernard Smith, “Creators and Catalysts: The Modernisation of Australian Indigenous Art,” and Connal Parsley “Christian Thompson and the Art of Indigeneity”

The next Aboriginal Art Reading Group meeting will be 19 September 4-5pm in room 106, John Medley Building, University of Melbourne.

In honour of the passing of Emeritus Professor Bernard William Smith we will be reading  his 2006 paper, “Creators and Catalysts: The Modernisation of Australian Indigenous Art,” as well as Connal Parsley’s “Christian Thompson and the Art of Indigeneity,” in the first issue of Discipline.

I will email members of the reading groups’ electronic mailing list copies of both essays. Alternatively, the full text of Smith’s essay can be located in on the University of Melbourne’s Discovery Search database; and Discipline is for sale at these stockists.

Please see below for a tribute to Bernard William Smith by Dr. Sheridan Palmer.

Photo: Francis Reiss

Emeritus Professor Bernard William Smith, Art and cultural historian.
3.10.1916 —2.9.211

With the death of the art historian Bernard Smith aged ninety-four a chapter closes in Australian intellectual life. A rigorous historian of Australia’s cultural development and an astute critic of art and society, he was recognised as the father of Australian art history,

Saying No: Reconciling Spirituality and Resistance in Indigenous Australian Art

An exciting exhibition guest curated by Bindi Cole recently openned at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art in Brooklyn. For more about the exhibition click here or read below (information from their website):

On view: August 11 – November 6, 2011
Press Preview: September 22, 2011 6-7:00 PM
Opening Reception: September 22, 2011 7-9:00 PM
Guest curated by Bindi Cole

The word “No” does not exist in the majority of the over 200 Australian Aboriginal languages, and where it does exist, this powerful word is reserved for the elders and is used with great care and ceremony. As these languages reach the brink of extinction, indigenous Australian artists are using contemporary art to assert their identity and culture and say no to racism, land theft and colonialism in an urban world. With this, MoCADA announces the opening of the highly anticipated international group exhibition entitled, Saying No: Reconciling Spirituality and Resistance in Indigenous Australian Art.

The exhibition is guest curated by Bindi Cole, and will be on view from August 11 through November 6,