‘PROTECTING INDIGENOUS ART FROM T-SHIRTS TO THE FLAG’

The unauthorised use of Indigenous artworks is a global industry that damages cultural integrity and harms the livelihoods of artists and their communities.  While the western idea of private or individual ownership can be at significant odds with tenets of Indigenous ownership and control, copyright remains one of the primary tools available to protect Indigenous visual artists from fakes, cultural threat and appropriation.

In Protecting Indigenous Art, leading intellectual property barrister Colin Golvan AM KC provides a privileged insight into how legal protection of Indigenous art offers unique opportunities to empower Indigenous artists and their communities.

There is the country non-Indigenous people can see, and then there is the country Indigenous people see that the rest of us can barely comprehend, but glimpse through the vivid colours, shapes and imagery of their artworks, and their visual recounting of ancient stories and settings.

Purchase the publication here.

The diverse artworks in this publication celebrate contemporary Aboriginal artists and their continuation of Ancestral knowledge. The artworks shown are accompanied by commentary and analysis unpacking complex issues related to First Nations art-making and culture-making.

A guiding theme is the creative practice of Maree Clarke (Mutti Mutti/ Wamba Wamba/ Yorta Yorta/ Boonwurrung).  Maree’s talent for collaborations and passion for reclaiming and reviving arts practices over almost forty years has seen her recognised as a leading southeast Australian artist, with invitations to work in France, Italy, Japan, Cuba, UK, Canada and the USA.

Pre-order the publication here.

Officially launched at the University of Melbourne earlier this week, 65,OOO Years: A Short History of Australian Art stares into the dark heart of Australia’s brutal colonial history and offers new insights into the first art of this country.

Featuring new writing by 25 leading thinkers across generations and disciplines, this publication further examines an extraordinary body of artwork that will be displayed in the upcoming landmark exhibition of the same name set to open in mid-2O25 at the University of Melbourne’s revitalised Potter Museum of Art.

Both the publication, edited by Professor Marcia Langton AO and Ms Judith Ryan AM, and the exhibition, curated by Professor Langton, Ms Ryan and Ms Shanysa McConville, feature over 4OO artworks that celebrate the longevity and brilliance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art despite a difficult history of colonialism and scientific racism.

Pre-order the publication here.

Opening next weekend, Borrowed Landscapes features the work of artists exploring and connecting with the Australian landscape and telling stories that have been previously overlooked.

Featuring beautiful scenes from the Australian landscape, artists James Tylor, Amanda Williams, Hayley Millar Baker and Peta Clancy amongst others interrogate the grand narratives of colonial history through images that are questioning, unsettling and uncovering culture, connection and knowledge that has been lost.

Hear James Tylor, along with Simone Douglas and Alana Hunt delve into the ideas and techniques involved in their exhibited work at the artist talks being held at Mosman Art Gallery next Saturday, 19.1O.2O24 from 11am – 12pm.

Borrowed Landscapes
Exhibition dates: 19.1O.2O24 – O2.O2.2O25
Artist talks: Saturday, 19.1O.2O24 from 11am – 12pm
Mosman Art Gallery
1 Art Gallery Way
Mosman NSW 2O88

Image: Hayley Millar Baker, Untitled (The best means, of caring for, and dealing with them in the future) 2O18, 😯 x 1OO cm, inkjet on cotton rag.

Public Galleries Association Victoria and Australian Museums and Galleries Association have announced the shortlist for the 2O24 Victorian Museums and Galleries Awards.

Amongst the finalists in the First Nations Project of the Year category are Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA)’s Between Waves exhibition, featuring significant commissions by Maree Clarke and Hayley Millar Baker; Counihan Gallery x Blak Dot Gallery’s Future River: When the past flows exhibition, presenting Maree Clarke’s extension of her Long Journey Home series; and Bunjil Place’s ngaratya (together, us group, all in it together) exhibition, including Kent Morris’s commissioned original karta kartaka (pink cockatoo) series.

Winners, including those of the Individual Awards, will be announced at the Awards Ceremony, held at Science Gallery Melbourne and hosted by comedian and broadcaster Sammy J.

This event, the sector’s night of nights, offers a unique opportunity for our community to come together in celebration of the people and organisations whose passion, resilience, and creativity underpin the renown of the Victorian museum and gallery sector.

2O24 Victorian Museums and Galleries Awards
O1.1O.2O24, 6 – 8.3Opm
Science Gallery Melbourne
114 Grattan St
Parkville VIC 3O52
Book tickets here

Image: Maree Clarke, now you see me: seeing the invisible #1 2O23, 297 photographic microscopy prints on acetate, 3O x 3O cm each. Image courtesy of Andrew Curtis.

For this month’s Book Club for PHOTO 2O24, curator Brendan McCleary reviews Kaantju/Umpila artist Naomi Hobson’s first photobook – Adolescent Wonderland – which features two works commissioned by PHOTO Australia and the City of Melbourne for PHOTO 2O22 International Festival of Photography.

Naomi’s Adolescent Wonderland is brimming with joy – sharing snapshots of life along the river in her hometown of Coen, Cape York in Far North Queensland.

Read PHOTO Australia curator Brendan McCleary’s reflections on the book here.

Naomi was recently in London to speak at the PHOTO 2O24 and the V&A’s symposium, Contemporary Photobooks from Australia.  The program can now be viewed online here, including a session featuring Naomi along with artists Ying Ang, Atong Atem, Zoë Croggon, Liss Fenwick, and Lisa Sorgini in conversation with curators from the V&A.

Limited edition copies of Naomi’s Adolescent Wonderland photobook are available to purchase from the gallery.

Image: Naomi Hobson, River Mermaid 2O19, from the series Adolescent Wonderland.

Congratulations to Naomi Hobson for being shortlisted in the celebrated Open Category for the 62nd annual Fisher’s Ghost Art Award.

In 2O24, the celebrated Open Award, which is acquisitive to the Campbelltown City Council Art Collection, is valued at $5O,OOO, and over the years has been awarded to some of Australia’s most respected contemporary artists.

Fisher’s Ghost Art Award 2O24
Award announcement: Friday O1.11.2O24
Exhibition dates: 26.1O.2O24 – O6.12.2O24
Campbelltown Arts Centre
1 Art Gallery Road
Campbelltown NSW 256O

Image: Naomi Hobson, Fruit-Dovetail Pigeons Feeding on the Fruits and Seeds High Up in the Forest Canopy 2O24, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 16O x 14O cm.

Officially announced this week, Maree Clarke and mentee Mitch Mahoney have been commissioned to design and deliver the monument for the City of Melbourne’s new Stolen Generations Marker alongside the Birrarung (Yarra River), set to open mid 2O26.

As an artist, curator, cultural facilitator and educator, Maree has played a pivotal role in the reclamation of south-east Australian Aboriginal art and cultural practices, and was selected to commission the Marker by an independent panel of people from the Stolen Generations and their descendants, Traditional Owners, and Stolen Generations support organisation workers.

Maree’s design focusses audience attention on the experience of the children who were forcibly removed under successive Governments’ policy. Situated in a serene and embracing, native landscape, the predominantly figurative artwork will encourage very personal engagement with the individual, emotional and psychological impact on the children and their fight to find and return home to culture and country.

“As an artist, I am compelled to create work that challenges viewers to confront the complexities of the human experience,” Maree said.

“This artwork will be a powerful reminder of the devastating consequences of displacement and the importance of empathy and compassion in our world.

“I hope that this sculpture will inspire viewers to think critically about the ways in which we treat our most vulnerable citizens – children – and to work towards creating a more just and equitable society for all.”

Image credit: Eugene Hyland

1O1 Collins Street Evolution, which features a large-scale multimedia commission by Maree Clarke (Mutti Mutti/Wamba Wamba/Yorta Yorta/Boonwurrung), has won the Rider Levett Bucknall RLB Award for Best Public Art Project.

Exhibiting acclaimed local and international artists, the suite of permanent public artworks including Maree’s Barerarerungar reflects 1O1 Collins’ past, present and future as an ardent contributor to Melbourne’s art community.

Maree’s installation, featuring photography and video, explores the customary ceremonies and rituals of her Ancestors.

“My work has a quality of timelessness, using new technologies to tell stories of past, present, and future. I would like people entering and exiting this part of the building to not just think about what they are doing and where they are going but what has been before and where they could go. Barerarerungar is representative of the five clans of the Kulin Nation. Viewed together, they visually transport visitors and passers-by to another place and time and create space to reflect on the thriving arts and culture by First Nations artists in the Southeast, long before Melbourne came to be.”

Congratulations to Erica Muriata (Girramay), who was awarded the Special Commendation Award of $2,OOO this past week for her work Recycled Jawun 2O24 in the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize.

“Because of its technical execution, whilst remaining wholly experimental, the judges unanimously selected Recycled Jawun 2O24 by Girramay artist Erica Muriata for the Special Commendation Prize” said judge Erin Vink.

“We congratulate Erica for her innovation and attempts to push the parameters of such an ancient and elegant utilitarian object.  Erica’s work strongly reinforces to its viewer that Aboriginal culture from Far North Queensland is ever-changing and alive.”

All winning sculptures, along with this year’s finalists, are now on display at the Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf.

Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize
Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf
548 New South Head Road
Double Bay NSW 2O28

Image courtesy of Wendell Teodoro.