Lecture 5: Felicity Fenner reading and 'Aboriginal Modernism'

After the debate in tutorial this week over the statement: "Appreciation of Aboriginal art by non-Aboriginal people is pointless because they can never know the true meaning of the work.". I think the debate began to raise serious questions and issues about the validity of our appreciation of art and our understanding of its 'true meaning'. The debate was centred around felicity Fenner's essay which points out that our collection and showcasing of Indigenous artwork is still questionable and has political and philanthropic undertones. Supporting this argument, Fenner outlines the differences between Western art and Indigenous art, where Indigenous artists paint to keep a culture and tradition alive in contrast to western art where the artist is motivated by personal or intellectual motivation. On top of this Fenner argues how this application of Indigenous art and culture into normal Australian culture has been based on unbalanced cross-connections between Indigenous and 'Western-art'. Where non-Indigenous artists who have the luxury of travelling took a Western and modern approach and used Aboriginal painting as an influence, where as Indigenous painters don't have this luxury and in fact have been denied in some cases exposure to contemporary international art.

After thinking about this reading, and tutorial discussion, I came across the essay Designs On Aboriginal Culture by Steve Miller who argues and brings up some very good points that supports that of Fenner's. Miller's main argument being that the modernist art and design of Australia has used and disrupted the work by Indigenous artists in an effort to preserve an Australian culture and heritage. Where the term 'Aboriginal Modernism' is applied but contradicts the tradition and nature of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Art as well as our past colonial encounters with Indigenous people. Miller uses many examples to back this up like the boomerang which was embraced in the Australian modern era by designers because of its geometric form. Amongst these other Indigenous artefacts and handcrafts became re-produced for the tourist trade as a result of Indigenous communities still making initial contact with westerners during a time of change of socio-political awareness of Indigenous people. The manufacturing and fashioning of Indigenous motifs then completely missed the point and was often instead how non-Indigenous designers thought they should be like.

Another example Miller uses is an exhibition held in a david Jones department store in Sydney in 1941 called Australian Aboriginal Art and its Application. In this exhibition artists like Margaret Preston featured work that advocated for the inclusion of Indigenous Symbolism to take presence in a 'National Art' and be recognised. Again this was a naive attempt, as Indigenous curator Hetti Perkin's explained in response to the work: "to aboriginal eyes... reads as a scrambled orthography of vaguely familiar works, or a discordant symphony where the notes don't quite ring true. Preston's passionate attempts, while well intentioned, were doomed to fail ultimately because they are meaningless to Aboriginal people-not unlike the contemptuous government policy of assimilation.".

It's through these examples I am convinced that the initial tutorial question about non-Aboriginal people never knowing the true meaning of the work I think is justified and correct. The result is, as Miller explains, products, artefacts and works that were mainly being made by non-Indegeous Australians during the Australian Modern era as an attempt to make a tribute to Australia's 'natives', but that in fact isn't recognised by Indigenous people and doesn't support why they make art. And in doing so calling Aboriginal art by Aboriginal artists 'modern' or expecting them to be appreciative of it inspiring the work of non-Indigenous artists, as Fenner and Miller state respectively, is I think also inappropriate and does need to be considered. However I feel that to say it's pointless for non-Aboriginal people to 'appreciate' the work is incorrect. Whilst we can't 'appreciate' Aboriginal and Torres Straight islander Art on the same level as an Indigenous person may be able to, that's not to say a non-indigenous person can't make the effort to understand and acknowledge the work. I feel though when it becomes used and made to promote false meanings and suite a kitsch Australian image, a true appreciation becomes lost.

Australian Home Beautiful Magazine article "Stone Age legends in modern design",
showing the 20th century attitudes to Aboriginal culture.

References:

• Felicity Fenner, "Thinking Beyond Abstraction", Contemporary Visual Art + Culture Broadsheet 38.2 (2009): 133
• Steve Miller, "Designs on Aboriginal Culture", in Modern Times: The untold story of Modernism in Australia, ed. by Ann Stephen, Philip Goad and Andrew McNamara, 30 (Sydney: Powerhouse Publishing, 2008)