Some Relationships Between Pacific Art and Western Culture Susan Cochrane University of Wollongong

University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 1995 Becoming art: some relationships between Pacific art and Western culture Susan Cochrane University of Wollongong Recommended Citation Cochrane, Susan, Becoming art: some relationships between Pacific ra t and Western culture, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, , University of Wollongong, 1995. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/2088 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact Manager Repository Services: [email protected]. BECOMING ART: SOME RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PACIFIC ART AND WESTERN CULTURE VOL II by Susan Cochrane, B.A. [Macquarie], M.A. (Hons.) [Wollongong] '•8KSSSK LIBRARY 409 CHAPTER 8: ART AND ABORIGINALITY1 Tyerabarrbowaryaou (I shall never become a white man) Pemulwuy2 The circumstances of urban3 Aboriginal artists and the nature of their art, discussed in this chapter, make some interesting contrasts with those of urban-based Papua New Guinea artists. But the chapter's main objective is to identify how individual artists, displaced from their cultural traditions, have undertaken the search for their own Aboriginal identity through art. 'Aboriginally' is explored in a number of ways. As well as identifying an individual's desire to unite with their Aboriginal background and culture, Aboriginality has also come to mean the power to influence others to recognise the effects 1 Sections of this chapter were published as 'Strong Ai Bilong Em' in Dark and Rose (eds) 1993. 2 Pemulwuy was a leader of the Eora people (Aboriginal tribe of the Port Jackson area) who led the resistance against the first colonisers in the 1770s-1780s (Willmot 1987). The phrasctyerrabarbowaryaou, is attributed to him and was also the title of a major exhibition of 'a constitution of images that record the experience of history by a minority' curated by Djon Mundine and Fiona Foley for the Museum of Contemporary Art 1992 (Mundine 1992:7). 3 Without seeking to categorise all marginalised and dispossessed Aboriginal artists as urban dwellers, this term merely reflects the fact that most artists discussed here live in cities or towns and have grown up in urban environments. 410 of dispossession and reveal the 'black history of Australia'. As Jennifer Isaacs writes their power to direct attitudes and reoccupy and re-control their country and thus their collective lives depends largely on their power to influence - and in this art plays a major role, particularly for dispossessed Aborigines of the eastern and southern states: Murris of Queensland, Koories of New South Wales and Victoria, Nungas of South Australia and Nyoongahs of Western Australia (Isaacs 1989:9). Death, dispersal and dispossession resulted from the impact of European colonisation, particularly on the Aboriginal peoples of eastern and southern Australia. Anger and grief at these injustices are still felt by the descendents of the Aboriginal tribes worst affected, and their lost heritage is a subject for many of urban and rural artists today. 'We have survived' is another essential message, as Aboriginal artists who have shared the history of dispossession continue to fight inequalities and social injustice. This art has a political purpose; as Ruth and Vincent Megaw put it, 'to teach whites about Aboriginal society and history, to demand justice, and to preserve past traditions, while adapting to current circumstances' (Megaw and Megaw 1988:10). Therefore, for many urban Aboriginal artists, Aboriginality is a matter of pride in identity; in terms of their art it carries a conscious social purpose which cannot be ignored. This is demonstrated below in the discussion of some individual artist's works and the Sydney urban Aboriginal artists' collective, Boomalli. Some of the chapters in this thesis have discussed traditional art forms which are an integral part of life and 411 practised or shared by a high percentage of communities in remote areas. It has also given instances where, following the introduction of new materials and some degree of instruction in processes and techniques, exciting new artforms have arisen from peoples' knowledge of their own art and their creativity with new materials. In contrast, for the urban Aboriginal artists discussed in this chapter, Western materials and art training have often been the only means available to them. This has not prevented them from asserting their Aboriginality, challenging the status quo of the art world and asserting their place in Australia's history. Many urban Aboriginal artists, including Fiona Foley, Gordon Bennett, Judy Watson, Bronwyn Bancroft, Kerry Giles and Richard Bell, have successfully completed tertiary arts courses and, using the skills they have acquired, are making a calculated response to the dominant Australian visual culture, challenging it on its own grounds. In style and subject material, the unique character of contemporary urban Aboriginal art draws on the artists' Aboriginality and deliberate appropriations from Western art to suit the artists' own ends. The work of urban Aboriginal artists is supported by a growing network of Aboriginal curators, including Djon Mundine, Hetti Perkins, Brenda Croft, Fiona Foley, Lin Onus, Avril Quaill, Daphne Wallace and Francesca Alberts, whose skilful curatorship and insightful writings have added to the penetrating critique of Australian attitudes in the political and artistic debates surrounding art and Aboriginality (some 412 examples are Quaill 1989, Onus 1993, Perkins 1991 &1993, Croft 1994)J Appropriation is a central concern of the present theoretical debate in Australia about Aboriginal art, in particular the appropriation of Aboriginal images by white Australian artists. This chapter explores what some Aboriginal people, from different regions and living in various circumstances, have appropriated from Western art and ideas about art, and what their intentions are in doing so. I identify in some circumstances the existence of abrogation, a move beyond appropriation. Abrogation is defined and exemplified here by the work of several Koori, Murri and Nunga artists, including Trevor Nickolls, Gordon Bennett, Fiona Foley, Kerry Giles and Richard Bell. ABORIGINAUTY Some of the reasons for the leaders and visionaries of emerging South Pacific nations seeking to formulate a modem cultural identity have been previously mentioned (see Chapters 7 and 9). But in most cases in this thesis where cultural identity has been discussed, the indigenous people making or 1 A number of Aboriginal curators are also artists, writers or arts administrators: Djon Mundine was part-time curator of Aboriginal Art at Art Gallery of NSW (1983-1990), Arts Adviser at Ramingining and widely published writer. With Fiona Foley (artist) Mundine curated the exhibitions Tyerrabarrbowaryaou I (1992) and II (1994) for the MCA; Hetti Perkins, curator at Boomalli and guest curator of the Aboriginal Womens' Exhibition AGNSW (1991), also has an established reputation as a writer on Aboriginal art; Brenda Croft, arts administrator for Boomalli is a writer and art critic; Avril Quaill (artist) curated the Aboriginal satellite exhibition for Perspecta 1991. 413 re-making it are majority populations in their own countries. Aboriginality is also a marker of identity, used by those who identify themselves as Aboriginal despite the discontinuous history of their communities. Following the insights given by Ian Anderson and Kerry Giles on the importance of Aboriginal identity to a dispossessed and marginalised people, this section focuses on some aspects of Koori identity and culture. No-one can claim to be an Aboriginal artist who is not Aboriginal. The Aboriginal community determines who is accepted as being Aboriginal by virtue of their known relationships and personal commitment to their Aboriginality. There have been a couple of incidents (known to the writer but not revealed here and elsewhere unpublicised to protect the persons' identity) where artists have faked an Aboriginal identity and the falsity of it has been discovered. Such persons are no longer accepted by the Aboriginal community. Ian Anderson, a Tasmanian Aboriginal doctor, activist and writer, explains why his Aboriginality is essential to his being: Being the children of TRU-GAN-NAN-NER we were the children of the vanquished and the gone: hybrids, half-castes, touched by the tar brush, with a bit of the splash, of the descent, coloured, dis-coloured. But it was never 'your history is black' .... The construction of the 'authentic' Aborigine mobilised essential notions of race and culture. Certain biological or cultural features were seen to be necessary features, or the essence of, Aboriginal people .... I am no hybrid. I am a muttonbird Koori . people of the coast and the mountains . The women of these mobs were taken, along with the women of the south-eastern mainland, by the Bass Strait sealers. Abducted, these 414 women lived as captive labourers, their ongoing rape producing another generation of workers .... When I talk of my community I refer to an experience of Koori people though time. This is an encounter with other Kooris, who have nurtured me, fought with me or otherwise made me who I am. It is my Koori subjectivity, as a historicised commitment to my family and community, which provides the framework to any intellectual endeavour or symbolic acts .... Recently I was on a panel at a conference and one audience member (a history

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