Presentation Topic: Public galleries and museums - controlling presentation

ABSTRACT:

The paper will look at the position currently held by Indigenous Australian art both within and without Australia. How far is the category 'art' helpful or even apposite in the context of what the producers = not the consumers = consider to be the proper role of what now is widely termed 'art'. The problem = if it is a problem for any except art dealers and art historians = is not of course unique to Indigenous Australia; the situation in other Fourth World countries will also be briefly reviewed.

BIONOTE:

JVSM has for the past 25 years been actively concerned with the study of and learning from contemporary Indigenous Australian artists. In the '80s he inaugurated at Flinders a series of Aboriginal Artists' Residencies. He was also instrumental, together with his wife, Dr Ruth Megaw, in establishing the first undergraduate courses in Aboriginal art. He has also been active in establishing the Indigenous collections of the Flinders University Art Museum.