School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemBoundaries between individual and communal authorship of Aboriginal art in context of Clifford Possum’s Tjapaltjarri’s art and the case of RvO’Loughlin (2001)( 2019)ABSTRACT This research concerns the oeuvre of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri in the context of art fraud. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was an Anmatyerr man (c.1932 – 2002). His art was the subject of Australia’s first criminal law prosecution for fraud over Aboriginal art: R v John Douglas O’Loughlin (2001) unreported NSWDC, 23 Feb 2001. The research examines boundaries between individual and communal authorship of Aboriginal art in the context of this case. The case is used to highlight changing boundaries around authorship of Aboriginal art. Communal art practiced in the Papunya region changed with the birth of the Western Desert art movement. Individual authorship became prominent in attribution. Artists such as Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri became famous in their own right. In 2004, at the National Gallery of Victoria, Clifford Possum was celebrated with the first retrospective of a Papunya Tula artist in an Australian public gallery, an exhibition spanning thirty years of his work. This research claims that the cultural tensions for individual artists such as Clifford Possum, raised by this change, have been seldom noted and are highlighted especially by art fraud. The boundaries between individual and communal authorship are measured by looking at representation of those boundaries by the artist, his community, museums, the art market, and the law. With the development of contemporary Aboriginal art, I argue that the art market and also public galleries have insufficiently acknowledged the communal basis of traditional Aboriginal art, at least up until the present decade. Fred Myers’ pivotal text ‘Painting Culture’ (2002) and Vivien Johnson’s art histories on Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Western Desert art are central to this project with Myers’ work providing the key intellectual leadership on the topic. I look at recent writing drawn from an Aboriginal perspective, for example by curators Luke Taylor and Hetti Perkins. The work of anthropologists Elizabeth Coleman and Eric Michaels also provides an important topic-specific context on art fraud surrounding Indigenous art in Australia and links concepts of authenticity with critical theory. Literature on authorship, including by Foucault, is consulted although not designed as a key framework for this thesis. The conclusion was that although boundaries around individual and communal authorship of Aboriginal art may have changed, the O’Loughlin case failed to acknowledge the two modes of authorship, and further to this, current Australian law is lacking in protecting Indigenous cultural property and collective authorship around Aboriginal art.
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ItemThe artist and the museum: contested histories and expanded narratives in Australian art and museology 1975-2002( 2004-10)This thesis explores the rich and provocative fields of interaction between Australian artists and museums from 1975 to 2002. Artists have investigated and engaged with museums of art, social history and natural science during this period. Despite the museum being a major source of exploration for artists, the subject has rarely been examined in the literature. This thesis redresses this gap. It identifies and examines four prevailing approaches of Australian contemporary art to museums in this period: oppositional critique, figurative representation, intervention and collaboration. The study asserts that a general progression from oppositional critique in the seventies through to collaboration in the late nineties can be charted. It explores the work of three artists who have epitomised these approaches to the museum. Peter Cripps developed an oppositional critique of the museum and was intimately involved with the art museum politics in Melbourne during the mid-seventies. Fiona Hall figuratively represented the museum. Her approach documented and catalogued museum tropes of a bygone era. Narelle Jubelin’s work intervened with Australian museums. Her work has curatorial capacities and has had real effect within Australian museums. These differing artistic approaches to the museum have the effect of contesting history and expanding narrative within museums. Curators collaborated with artists and used artistic methods to create exhibits in Australian museums during the 1990s. Artistic approaches are a major methodology of museums seeking to contest traditional modes of history and expand narrative in their exhibits. Contemporary art has played a vital, curatorial, role in the Hyde Park Barracks, Museum of Sydney, Melbourne Museum and Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, amongst other museums. While in earlier years artists were well known for their resistive approach to the art museum, this thesis shows that artists have increasingly participated in new forms of representation within art, social history, and natural history museums. I argue that the role of contemporary art within “new” museums is emblematic of new approaches to history, space, narrative and design within the museum.
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ItemOn being a woman artist: glimpses into the lives of four women working in Victoria between 1930 - 1950( 1992)Adapting the words of Judith Allen, in order to understand the present for women artists we need to look at the lives of women artists in the past. (Allen, 1986, p.173) For reasons explained in the preface the period I have chosen to explore is between 1930-1950. Glimpsing aspects of the lives of specific women artists can enable us to see where conditions and opportunities have changed. As Weedon suggests in the above quote how we live is dependent on existing social conditions. As a background to the words of the women I interviewed, my first aim is to set out the historical and social conditions in which they lived their lives. This will be done by giving a general background of life in Victoria during the 1930s and 1940s. This is followed by an impression of the art world during this era, the art organizations that already existed and those that were founded and had a significant effect on the time. Discussion will cover changes in attitude that were occurring towards what was called Modernism during this time. This will lead into an overview of the position of women artists during this period, together with a review of other writers who have written on this topic. The place of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors in the Melbourne art world at this time will also be described. The fourth section briefly introduces the four women artists whose words form the basis of this paper, including how and why they were interviewed. The chapter ends with an exposition of the purpose of this thesis. My position is that as human beings we are socially produced. My present concern as a feminist is with the position of women. Hester Eisenstein and Nancy Chodorow reinforce this theory and they also consider, as I do, that we can alter our conditioning and circumstances. (Eisenstein, 1984, p.xiv) In this study I show how these four women artists lived their lives and how they were influenced and constrained by the social conditions of their day. Acknowledging these women’s lives can help women artists today continue the process of change in their own lives. (From Introduction)