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.