Modalities of Everywhen

In recent decades, Indigenous artists in Australia have produced innovative artwork on a par with that being made by artists, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, active throughout the world. Interpretations of this art have evolved since the late 1980s, when it became possible for non-Indigenous art critics and curators to see more clearly the specific contemporaneity of the art that was being offered, as a transcultural gift, by people we had colonized. 

Drawing on statements by Indigenous artists, writing by critics and curators, as well as the rich body of research and interpretation by anthropologists, this lecture will show how certain Indigenous artists within succeeding generations have replenished the modalities of vision they inherited through their people’s experience of Everywhen. Variations in figuring the spacing of beings in time by leading Kunwinjku artists from Northwest Arnhem Land, Yolŋu of Northeast Arnhem Land, and Warlpiri, Pintupi and Anmatyerre artists from the Central Desert will be mapped, as will the contributions of city-based Indigenous artists. 

Presented in partnership with the Art Gallery of NSW.