The/ ART of the Politics POLITICS of Art

Fiona Foley, an artist and adjunct professor at Queensland College of Art

This article is written in 2006 - so the information may not be as acurate for today. Foley writes about the catagorisation and containment of 'natives' and their art. Debilitating Indigenous art, it is put into the catagories of traditional, urban and intelectual.

I found it interesting and informative reading about how the establishments see Aboriginal art is seen primarily in its asthetic values and the traditional and religiously sacred symbolism is smoothed out with cultural terms such as 'abstract' -- denying the deeper values. This is a determining point in how the non-indigenous art audience process Indigenous art, uninformed and void of the totality of the works.

Foly also observed the passive resistance to the voices of Indegenous art - through authorities withholding oppertunities from them.

"The power remains with the dominant white art bureaucracies, a point scathingly made in the insightful painting by Richard Bell, 'scientia & metaphysica (Bells Theoram)...Bells Theorem states that 'Aboriginal art, its a white thing', a clasiification brought on by the Western need to sort and catagorise everything. Bell argues that European and more recently American traditions in visual art have been imposed as global movements. And until there is a shift towards diversity and away from the uniformity of the present Bell's Theorem remains valid."

1. Foley, Fiona. The art of politics / the
politics of art [Rant. Paper in: Better than the Real Thing, Carsley,
Gary (ed.).] [online]. Photofile, no.77, Autumn 2006: 80.
Availability:

ISSN: 0811-0859. [cited 17 Oct 11].