Jeremy Eccles looks at Beyond Sacred. Quoted from the article:
It’s a crucial time for Aboriginal art. We should be sitting up and admiring the maturing of the most dynamic art movement in the country from a condition of amateur disorganisation, dogged by bad news stories about the exploitation of artists, to a professionalised ‘industry’ that is brave and confident enough to face its critics “ whether aesthetic or practical. For the Federal government is poised to take action on last year’s Senate Report and has to seriously consider both professionalising the remote art centres and giving spine to the NAVA Code of Conduct.
Yet there’s resistance in the heartland. Even as the WA Government launches a new, bigger indigenous art prize, the current benchmark, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award finds its silver jubilee endangered by what can only be called a boycott by some Desert art centres against others.
