ACUALLY DO SOMETHING?

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Today I had a rather despondent experience that made me think about the isolation and cultural separation shown in the movie Samson and Delilah, which I wrote about in my precious reflective piece. I was sitting on the bus on my way home surrounded by business men and women in suits desperate to get away for their shitty jobs, stuck in a metal sardine, can stuck in peak hour traffic when a woman hails the bus just before south terrace on our way out of the city.   The poor woman looked like she was wearing everything she owned layer upon layer even though it wasn’t cold outside. She seemed rather confused about weather or not she wanted to get on the bus.

I use public transport nearly every day so I’m fairly used to seeing people dunk out of their minds or too high to function and how they are treated, and this was different. Instead of the usual 30 seconds of grace before people yelling at them telling them to make up their minds if they want to be on the bus or that the bus driver telling them to get off, no one said anything for quite sometime. The bus driver asked the woman if she was ok, and she replied that she was fine and asked the bus driver if this was the bus to the city, to which he replied we’re in the city this bus is going out of the city the bus that goes to the city is on the other side of the road. Where in the city do you want to go? To which she said; I just want to go into the city. Why wont you take me to the city? Bus driver: we’re in the city and this bus is full of people that want to get home, please get off the bus and just walk across the road and get on one of the busses that are going the other way. Woman: (the woman at this stage is getting quite angry and leaning over the change dispenser) Why can’t you turn the bus around and take me into the city?  Bus driver: I’ve just told you, because this bus is full of people who are trying to get home… The woman cuts the bus driver off and says it’s because I’m black them starts yelling that she is a smart strong aboriginal woman, this goes on for another minuet of so. Everyone on the bus has gone from pretending the woman doesn’t exist to being extremely angry at the woman but unwilling to tell her to get off the bus like you would with any other drunk abusive person. I found it rather strange that no one said anything to her, was it because they feared her, she was after all a rather tall well built woman. Or was it that they feared that asking her to get off the bus they would be seen as racist?  If being racist is treating someone differently because of their race: isn’t not telling her to get off the bus like we would if she was white racist?  Are we all guilty because we have undoubtedly driven this poor woman to the point where she has to turn to alcoholism to deal with her problems? And if so why do we not feel so bad for a drunk white person? Why instead of making our selves feel a little better by not telling her to get of the bus do we not ACUALLY DO SOMETHING to help those aboriginal people that we chose to ignore and shun for our society? Maybe one day the woman sneering at the drunken woman over her nail as she painted them will be the one who doesn’t fit into society.  On a lighter note here is a almost completely unrelated video of how classy people are on public transport which may brighten your day.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sPKWhsBh-Zs

Ronnie Tjampitjinpa -Bush Fire

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RByDM5zXtY&list=UUyk6JFcn7hd2sM_GPM4g_OA&index=1&feature=plcp

Artist: Ronnie Tjampitjinpa
Dreaming: Bush Fire
Painted: Alice Springs 2012

Seriously don’t bother watching the whole 26 min you’ve probably seen similar videos before.

Although I have no idea of the meaning of this painting other than it is a bush fire it was almost memorizing to listen to the music as he painted line after line parallel line. There is a hilarious part at about 15 min in where Ronnie looks at the camera with what I assume is disproval/ Disdain and makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger and stares through his imaginary camera at the camera man, almost as if to say how do you like it? Piss off and let me paint in piece.  I don’t know why I chose to the most ‘abstract’ of the videos but I did so I guess I’ll try to make my own meaning out of it. The parallel lines look a lot like a burnt rows of spinifex or the black lines could be scorched tree trunks. It’s interesting that when I goggled the painting the painting that comes up looks very different painting with many more colours and cropped differently selling for $20,000 not bad considering by looking at the video it was all painted in one day.  Ronnie’s art is a good representation of the characteristic Pintupi style: repetition of forms, which are geometric, simple and bold, and pigments which are often restricted to four basic colours of black, red, yellow and white.
Ronnie also is known to experiment with other colours as well.

From the  desertartcentre.com.au

“ABOUT THIS PAINTING

This Fire Dreaming artwork refers to Ronnie’s Pintupi Dreamtime ancestors.
It is a traditional custom for the Pintupi Aboriginal men to light bush fires, during ceremonial men's business.
The TINGARI Dreaming Stories are many, and also tell of the Ancestral beings transformation into creatures such as Snakes, and also representing the natural elements of Fire and water (rain).

This artwork waspainted at an out-station of Kintore Community. It is supplied with FULL HD video and multiple progress images.”

The finished painting is truly stunning even if I have no idea what it means.

Gary Lee

Photographer

Gary Lee

Gary lee’s work is somehow confronting to me, although many of his photographs aren’t necessarily of a sexual nature I find it hard to view some of the shots of body builders almost grotesque in the same way I find women who have had noticeable plastic surgery fake. I as a straight male I would much rather peruse the idea of the beauty of the female form the subtlety and smooth curves.

I find it very interesting that he chose to photograph people from a different culture (Indian/ Nepalese) rather than aboriginal people for his initial work.  I really enjoy the how unplanned and honest his fist photo’s where, just walking through the streets asking people if he could take their photo. The cultural/ language  barrier brings separation from the camera.  I feel that this is brings another level to the photo much like taking a photos on an iPhone rather than a SLR because people aren’t expecting to be photographed they are natural, rather than posing, putting a wall of lies between them and the lens.

BELL’S THEOREM

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BELL’S THEOREM

“Aboriginal Art has become a product of the times. A commodity.”

I don’t think it was really avoidable that aboriginal art was going to end up as a commodity, the art and tribal artifacts and icons of every indigenous culture that has been encountered by white settlements have been things of wonder and mystery

“Modern hieroglyphics”

I suppose that aboriginal artist that produce traditional are really just producing modern hieroglyphics for a market that want’s to but a little bit of “A dying, soon dead, culture (that) is being raked over…”

Artists like Richard Bell produce new and interesting work that is far removed from the more traditional art. I really disagree with the idea that people are “raking over the culture” by buying Aboriginal art work. Most of these artists create this style of traditional work to be sold; if the work they made was too personal or private they don’t have to sell it. Shit they could paint something that means nothing at all or pokes fun at the stupid white people buying their work and in many cases the white people who don’t get the work would be none the wiser.  It is horrible that people exploit aboriginal artists that don’t know what their work is truly worth and they should be locked up. Although I think there are many aboriginal people that benefit if not rely upon their artwork for their income. It’s just  the screwed up world we live in, everyone has to sell themselves in one way or another to get by.  

It is unwise to market Aboriginal Art from the Western Art aesthetic and attach an Aboriginal Spirituality (an exploitative tactic that suggests that the purchaser can buy some). 

“Given the above. “A dying, soon dead, culture is being raked over…”

The image of the "Noble Savage" (from whence comes the spirituality) implies a position of racial superiority (consciously or not);

“The world of music is not dominated by Western Classical music - different styles stand alongside each other with extensive cross-fertilisation from different cultures. Not so in visual art.”

I’ve never really thought about it in that way. If art was like music where someone picks up someone else’s style and simply adds their own sound art would be a lot different! We have amazing hybrid arts as the normal instead of people trying to make things that fit into one particular ‘genre of art ’. I think there would be an amazing diversity of work if we didn’t group everything.

Stevie Goldsmith

Stevie Goldsmith

This lecture was a real eye opener form me, I’d never really had much contact with anyone aboriginal that was more than a few years older than me and I was very interesting to see how his view of Australian culture was a lot more negative. I hadn’t really considered how great the impact of white culture being force upon aboriginal people, when I think about these events like the stolen generation and mistreatment of the aboriginal people it seems like it happened hundreds of years ago because it wasn’t in my lifetime just like when I think about the world wars. It was interesting to see that the emotional effects are still with people alive today. Because we are so focused on the present and future it is so easy to forget the past.