Free Public Forum & Book Launch at 2pm Saturday, November 15
Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, 100 Roberts Road, Subiaco
November 8, 2008” Leading Australian art commentator and writer, Susan McCulloch, and coauthor/ publisher Emily McCulloch Childs will launch two important new books and lead a panel discussion at a free public forum and book launch to be held at 2pm Saturday, November 15 at Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, 100 Roberts Road, Subiaco.
Patrick Tjungurrayi, who last week won the Western Australian Indigenous Art Award, is one of the many hundreds of artists whose works feature in these two major new books: McCulloch’s
Contemporary Aboriginal Art “ the complete guide and New Beginnings: Classic Paintings from
the Corrigan Collection of 21st Century Aboriginal Art.
Aboriginal art is Australia’s largest visual arts industry, comprising an estimated 50% of Australian artists. It has undergone vast changes and been the subject of intense debate and activity in recent times, said Susan McCulloch. Our previous edition of Contemporary Aboriginal Art, published in 2001, comprised three regions and about 20 art-producing communities. This edition comprises nine regions and more than 85 art producing communities. The growth has been extraordinary, she said.
Susan and Emily travelled throughout this vast desert region near the Western Australian border in 2007 as part of ongoing and extensive travels since 1964 through Australia’s most remote regions to document the rise of Aboriginal art.
For the forum, Susan McCulloch and Emily McCulloch Childs will be joined by leading art
benefactor and collector Patrick Corrigan, to explore the many new developments, trends and issues in Aboriginal art and Aboriginal art collecting. Held in partnership with Randell Lane Fine Art, the forum will also feature a performance and artworks by the Tjungu Palya collective from the remote south-western desert community of Nyapari. A rare exhibition of their work at Randell Lane will be opened by Susan McCulloch at 6pm Friday, November 14.
Tjungu Palya and the 15 other arts centres in the region have made it one of the most significant growth areas in Aboriginal art and this art is documented together for the first time in the new edition of Contemporary Aboriginal Art, said Susan McCulloch. In New Beginnings, Emily has also documented for the first time Patrick Corrigan’s extensive collection of post-2000 Aboriginal art masterpieces, which was originally inspired by the art of Nyapari and surrounding regions and is being formally launched on Tuesday by Thérèse Rein in Brisbane.
Susan McCulloch and Emily McCulloch Childs are directors of a unique art and publishing company McCulloch & McCulloch Australian Art Books which publishes the bible of Australian art, McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art and McCulloch’s Encyclopedia Australian Art Diary 2009 among many others.
