The Representation of the Struggle for Rights in Contemporary Aboriginal Painting
Résumé de l'exposé
Art is vital to a study of history, as monuments, sculptures, paintings and literary works of art are often the only remaining testimonials of ancient times. When dealing with modern or contemporary events, however, a greater amount of non-artistic material is available; yet art is still important to it as it can reflect the very personal view of an individual upon a particular aspect or event of his time or of the past. In the last thirty years of the twentieth century, many Aboriginal artists have worked on topics related the past of their people, in particular the oppression they underwent from European settlers for more than two centuries that emerges in the recurrent themes.
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Sommaire de l'exposé
Introduction
The theme of "deaths in custody"
Robert Campbell Junior 1987 painting entitled Death in Custody
Trevor Nickoll's 1990 Deaths in Custody
Extraits de l'exposé
[...] The painter was inspired by a photo published in a Brisbane newspaper, showing an Aboriginal man imprisoned in a cage. In the background, an image shows another Aborigine hanged against an Aboriginal flag[6] maybe this image is a reference to Campbell's painting. The prisoner seems willing to get out of his cell, probably because he feels that his fate will be the same as the hanged man's. The head of the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies in Macquarie University, Anne Cranny-Francis, states in her Introduction to Visual Culture course that in this picture, the 'confrontation with inequality is literal: [the] inmate stares at the viewer who will often be a member of the colonist community.'[7] What is at stake is the inequality of legal and penal treatment between Aboriginal and White Australians. [...]
[...] The theme of "deaths in custody" is very well represented in contemporary Aboriginal art as we can see from paintings by Trevor Nickolls (b. 1949) or Robert Campbell Junior (1944-93). But let us first deal with the facts: as Howard Morphy sums up, 'Aboriginal people are the most imprisoned segment of the Australian population, and in the 1980s there was an outcry over the number of young Aboriginal men who died in jail.'[1] Actually ninety-nine Aborigines died while imprisoned between 1980 and 1989, and absolutely no explanations were given about the causes of these deaths. [...]
[...] The Holmes à Court Collection, Heytesbury, Western Australia. From Howard Morphy, Aboriginal Art (London, 1998) p Trevor Nickolls, Deaths in custody Synthetic polymer paint on canvas; 150 x 150 cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. (Accession No: 91.685 ) From < http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/rsrch/rsrch_pp/aicn/g_act_nga.html> (19 November 2005) BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Morphy, Howard, Aboriginal Art (London, 1998) Sayers, Andrew, Aboriginal Artists of the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1994) INTERNET AIATSIS website, http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/rsrch/rsrch_pp/aicn/g_act_nga.html (19 November 2005) Anne Cranny-Francis, 'Transculturation: visual culture as creative critique', Introduction to Visual Culture (module CUL 101) lecture (11 November 2005), Department of Critical and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney. [...]
