The alchemy of Western Arnhem Land art
Binocular
Looking closely at country
These two exhibitions, one of work from the Western Desert, the other from Western Arnhem Land, afforded a clear overview of recent developments in the two dominant traditions of Aboriginal Art. 'Binocular' was more contemporary in focus, whilst 'Crossing Country' was a survey of around two hundred years of art from the West of Maningrida. Since the early 1980s, when Aboriginal art entered into the 'fine art' sphere in earnest, Indigenous artists have insisted that they are as responsive to change as any Western artist. The exhibitions were a testament to this, while 'Crossing Country' also gave a fair impression of how such change revolves around the mainstays of ancient tradition.
There is, however, a discernible difference between how Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists consider 'change' in art. For the latter, change is largely conceived of as the subjective relationship to upheavals and stagnations in politics and fashion; the inevitable turn of the temporal wheel. This of course also pertains, to a greater or lesser degree, to Aboriginal artists, except that the artists who work on the land are constantly responsive to alterations in the land, from the changes in atmosphere in a day, or as a result of millennia. What is always so refreshing about such Aboriginal art is its preeminently unsentimental attitude to the natural world. Whereas Western eyes view nature as separate and external, for Indigenous artists, nature is an extension of their own body, hence anathema to the nature-culture binary. The changes in the land are always seen together with cultural and personal change. The closed, or hermetically concentrated, nature of their compositions are thus reflections of this seamless and internally driven continuity. Western tradition is as