From the Age:
Dot paintings from the indigenous community of Papunya are heading to the heart of Beijing.
In an exercise in cultural diplomacy, packers at the National Museum of Australia spent yesterday sliding paintings from its successful 2007 exhibition into crates marked for the National Art Museum of China.
The exhibition, Papunya Painting: Out of the Australian Desert, will be the biggest collection of Aboriginal art to show in the Chinese capital.
”They were quite hungry for knowledge about Aboriginal culture,” curator Michael Pickering said.
The temporary export was initiated by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
China will reciprocate by sending an exhibition of its own.
Initial talks between the two institutions may lead to the arrival of a recently hung exhibition of Chinese revolutionary art.
The Aboriginal collection, made up of 48 artworks and 18 ethnographic objects, tells the story of the Papunya Tula art movement between 1974 and 1981. The movement established Australian indigenous art in the contemporary art world. It created big names such as Clifford Possum and Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri.
