Australian indigenous art has developed dynamically since the modern movement of acrylic painting on canvas began in 1971. Contemporary works are vibrant, rich in colour and pattern and, most intriguingly, illustrative of a different connection to country. This is, arguably, the most powerful artistic movement Australia has yet witnessed. The industry, however, is a largely underground world to which most do not gain entry quickly. Now, everything you need to know (and were perhaps afraid to ask) has been made available by former art critic Susan McCulloch, who is the publisher of McCulloch and McCulloch Australian Art Books. Having traversed Aboriginal art territories for decades, McCulloch, with daughter and fellow publishing director Emily McCulloch Childs, has written and published the 2008 edition of McCulloch’s Contemporary Aboriginal Art, launched in Alice Springs in September 2008.
The enormous variety of lively and poetic work, in increasingly new styles and media, is one aspect of the complex world detailed in Contemporary Aboriginal Art (CAA). The 2001 edition featured three regions and 22 communities—this 2008 edition covers the expansion of the industry to nine regions and over 80 art centres and other places where art is produced. The overwhelming number of artists, Aboriginal names and regions become familiar with repetition and the background provided by CAA.
This book takes head-on the change inherent in such a rapidly developing artistic movement. There are dispassionate accounts of the many scandals and controversies, including the combative story of art centres versus private art studios and dealers (at times referred to disparagingly as ‘carpet baggers’), the edges of which have been the subject of newspaper articles and most recently an ABC Four Corners report