AUSTRALIA'S first continuous survey of contemporary indigenous art, which opens in Canberra today, will tour to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington under a deal signed this week.
"The world is interested in Aboriginal art, but they do not necessarily have a particularly accurate view about Aboriginal art," the National Gallery of Australia's director, Ron Radford, said yesterday.
"They get an idea that all indigenous art should be either dot paintings or it should be bark paintings. I think this show demonstrates how different reality is."
The inaugural indigenous art triennial, Culture Warriors, sits Owen Yalandja's traditional carving alongside Danie Mellor's mosaic taxidermy. It is an in-depth study of contemporary indigenous art comparable to an Aboriginal Documenta.
"I went to a symposium on Venice Biennales," the triennial's curator, Brenda Croft, said. "And I thought this is just a Club Med that exists for these kind of directors who go from doing show to show to show selecting each others' artists. There's a bigger world out there."
Every three years the show will take the temperature of Aboriginal art. Unlike its peer, the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, it will be assembled by a guest curator and accompanied by a detailed catalogue.
"In the Telstra award [works] were put out and then the judges come and select which one they like and put the tags on," Dennis Nona, whose large bronzes won this year's award, said. "That's a different kind of presentation, whereas here it is kind of carefully [thought out]."
Nona said his elders drew pride from his work being shown in places such as the National Gallery. He reflected positively on the influence of contemporary practice on indigenous artists.
"We can't cut the trees in the city because there are new laws now … . What we can do is join the rest of the other mainstream artists, what materials they use," he said. "But then we as indigenous people use our traditional stories or interpretations and put it into that new art form, the new medium we taste in the cities."
The National Gallery has bought three-quarters of the works in the show, adding to a collection of about 8000 Aboriginal works.