The Pages of Bangarra
In August 2009, I sat down with Stephen Page to review his 20 years running the Bangarra Dance Theatre. After another 13 years, Page has announced that he will finally Read More
GULPILIL PASSES
Sadly, but just as he predicted, actor, dancer, painter and troubled Yolngu man, David Gulpilil's spirit has returned to the billabong at Gulparil from which he was born in 1953. Read More
Dancing at Dubbagullee
It sometimes seems as though the gulf between the remote northern Indigenous cultures of The Kimberley, Arnhemland, the Deserts and the Torres Strait are further removed from urban Blak cultures Read More
Timothy Cook Wins Disability Award
The$50,000 Australia Council National Arts & Disability Award for an established artist this year has gone to Tiwi superstar, Timothy Cook Timothy Cook is one of Melville Island's most decorated Read More
SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL
“We're still waiting to be understood” says a plaintive Ruby Hunter in the warm-hearted documentary 'Wash My Soul in the River's Flow'. And in a sense, the three First Nations Read More
The Last of the Manambarrany
I'm going to indulge myself here. Just as William Mora and D'Lan Davidson in Melbourne are opening the last ever show of market-fresh paintings by the late great Paddy Bedford, Read More
The View from There
Over East, we may feel that the isolationists of Western Australia are missing out on the Freedom that we've just been granted. But Here, as they like to think of Read More
Rhonda Sharpe Sculptor
Eight Hundred and Forty Four entries and Tangentyere artist from Alice Springs/Mparntwe, Rhonda Sharpe emerged today as the proud winner of the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize. So far from the Read More
Another National Art Centre?
It's really weird. Just at the moment when we (in NSW and Victoria anyway) should be relishing the reopening of galleries giving us access to real art for the first Read More
National Indigenous Visual Arts Action Plan 2021-2025
“Indigenous art centres provide a useful gauge of the health of the whole sector. Until the COVID-19 pandemic, art centre sales had been growing for almost a decade. Between 2011 Read More
A Purple House for Balgo
Balgo/Wirrimanu is in the news in a number of places currently. While the earliest work from the community – lost for many years – has just gone on show at Read More
Mrs N Yunupingu 1945/2021
Sad news from Yirrkala, where the Buku Larrnggay Art Centre has announced the death of Mrs N Yunpingu, and is closed for Sorry Business. Last year, the very distinctive artist Read More
Adelaide’s Time
What is increasingly being recognised as Australia's most important event in Indigenous art, Adelaide's Tarnanthi Festival, has just opened. How does it compare with the annual Telstra NATSIAAs and the Read More
‘Ancestors, artefacts and empire’
There's a map at the beginning of a newly launched book by the British Museum which pinpoints all the institutions in Britain and Ireland that hold objects made, used or Read More
A Special Gallery
In the small north-west Victorian town of Sea Lake there's a tourist attraction called Lake Tyrrell. And until Covid it drew a large number of Chinese tourists - each attracted Read More
NT Slapped over the Wrist
Yet another twist in the lengthy saga of a National Aboriginal Art Gallery (NAAG) for Mparntwe/Alice Springs. If you recall, the Territory's Labor government in Darwin has been determined to Read More
Two Long Lives
Two ambivalent lives long spent in the Indigenous sphere came to an end this month. One made indispensable ethnographic films that became politically unfashionable at his peak; the other lived Read More
Papunya Tula Celebrates
Just as the SH Ervin Gallery in Sydney surprised me earlier this year by celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Papunya Tula Art movement a year early, so the PTA Read More
‘Culture is Life’
There's no doubt that Wayne Quilliam can take fabulous images of his fellow First Nations people. The lutruwita man from Tassie's Central Highlands has been at it for 30 years, Read More
Kilgour Prize-winner is Noongar
West Australian Noongar artist, Lori Pensini has celebrated a breakthrough win in the prestigious Newcastle Art Gallery portrait prize with an intimate reflection on inter-racial relationships and her own family Read More