Good news from Cairns, where various events around the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair – itself postponed until November – are able to go ahead after 4pm today when the city’s lockdown is lifted. These include ‘Where’s Your Permit?’ at the Tanks Art Centre, a platform for truth-telling curated by CIAF’s Artistic Director Janina Harding; three exhibitions at NorthSite Contemporary Arts including Tommy Pau celebrating 150 years of Christianity in the Torres Strait and a show of Mornington Island art; and ‘Ritual‘ at the Cairns Art Gallery curated by Julietta Park, Cape York artist Teho Ropeyarn and Kylie Burke, involving artists from both Australia and the Asia/Pacific.

News from Darwin is headlined by this being the last day to shop online at the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair. It’s a great, user-friendly site – individual art centres and then individual artists from each centre.

Of course much of the rest of the art in that sunny city is physically available for those lucky enough to be there. The Telstra NATSIAAs 2021 are all there at the Museum & Art Gallery of the NT – and my thoughts on the selection and the winners are here https://aboriginalartdirectory.com/2021/08/06/art-of-the-nation-2021/

The commercial gallery team behind the Salon des Refuses has no fewer than six physical exhibitions around town, including a prescient solo for the Big Telstra winner, Timo Hogan. Here’s a link to all of that excellence:
https://aboriginalartdirectory.com/2021/08/03/oh-to-be-in-darwin/

And here are my thoughts on the actual Salon show, usually at the CDU, but now online: https://aboriginalartdirectory.com/2021/08/05/2021-salon-des-refuses-in-darwin/

Time to wallow in some of the first art in the world!