Chair

Vanessa Merlino (D’Lan Contemporary)

Panellists

Helena Oliveira (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice); Jane Eckett (University of Melbourne); Arjmand Aziz (SOAS University of London); Marion Bertin (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Ethical Complexities in Assessing Value: Indigenous Australian Art within Legal Art Market Frameworks

Helena Oliveira (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

The Indigenous Australian art market is a complex and multifaceted industry with various cultural, economic, and ethical considerations. As the demand for Indigenous art and cultural products grows, so do the ethical issues surrounding their production, distribution, and marketing.

One of the key challenges faced in the Indigenous Australian art market is the issue of authenticity. Remote locations and cultural distinctiveness have been exploited for marketing purposes, with the perception that the authenticity of art and music is tied to the Indigenous communities they come from. This has led to a focus on remote areas and the representation of traditional Indigenous cultural practices, reinforcing stereotypes and sometimes marginalizing contemporary Indigenous artists and their creative expressions. Additionally, there are concerns about the exploitation and underpayment of Indigenous artists.

The legal framework surrounding the Indigenous Australian Art Market involves navigating complex issues of cultural ownership, intellectual property rights, and the appropriate compensation for Indigenous artists. These legal frameworks aim to protect and support Indigenous artists, but they also raise questions about who has the authority to determine what is "authentic" or "legitimate" Indigenous art and who benefits financially from its sale.

Therefore, assessing value within this legal art market framework becomes an ethically complex process. It requires considering the cultural significance, authenticity, and fair compensation for Indigenous artists while also addressing the potential exploitation and commodification of Indigenous culture.

The objective of this article is to analyze the ethical complexities surrounding the Indigenous Australian art market. By examining the perspectives and experiences of Indigenous artists, the aim is to shed light on the challenges they face in terms of exploitation, underpayment, and pressure to cater to the tourism market rather than expressing their cultural identity. Overall, the study aims to address the ethical complexities that arise when assessing the value of Indigenous Australian art within legal art market frameworks.

Taking stock: authorship and cross-cultural mediation in the Australian Aboriginal art market

Jane Eckett (University of Melbourne)

The recent controversy in South Australia concerning the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Art Centre Collective (APY ACC), in which a white art centre manager was filmed “juicing up” the work of a senior Pitjantjatjara artist, summarised in the press as “white hands on black art”, caused profound difficulties for the artists involved who felt their integrity, livelihoods, families, and art to be “under sustained attack” (APY ACC artists’ statement, ABC News, 2 August 2023). The episode highlighted several core issues of concern in the industry not least of which, as Quentin Sprague put it, is the ongoing issue of “white privilege and black disadvantage” (The Monthly, 21 April 2023). For this paper, however, I want to focus on the issue of authorship as it intersects with the market. Some curators and dealers framed the white art centre workers as transgressing an unpoliced boundary between assistance and interference, casting into doubt the authorship of certain artworks. APY ACC artists and their supporters, however, were quick to note the double standard relating to the input of assistants in non-indigenous studios versus Aboriginal art centres, maintaining they retain full artistic control and authority for Tjukurpa that underpins their art. In this sense, they mediate between community elders and non-indigenous art workers as well as the wider art market.

To gain some historical perspective on this key issue, I want to cast back to the mid-1990s when the Aboriginal art market was gaining increasing national and international and momentum. In 1996, as part of the Second Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery, members of the Brisbane-based Campfire Group staged a remarkable performance-based installation titled All Stock Must Go! From the back of a deconstructed flatbed truck, parked outside the gallery and painted all-over with dots and motifs familiar from Western Desert painting, the Campfire Group ran a pop-up shop from which they sold a deliberately scrambled selection of Aboriginal ‘fine art’ and ‘tourist art’. Anonymity blurred with ‘star’ artists, parodying the market’s reification of a select handful of artists whose works were highly valued at the expense of others, particularly those working with bark, textile, or fibre. Members of the collective urged passing members of the public to “buy, buy, buy” using the marketing terminology of the street hustle, dripping with blak humour, while a closed-loop video link conveyed the whole carnivalesque proceedings to visitors inside the gallery. Curator Margo Neale, who facilitated the staging of the work, aligned herself as one of the collective and saw it as undermining the Aboriginal art market’s institutional supports.

Perhaps the least commented-on aspect of All Stock Must Go! was the role played by non-indigenous members of the Campfire Group, notably the group’s founder Michael Eather. The egalitarian spirit of the collective and its overarching goal of cross-cultural collaboration arguably renders such distinctions mute. However, I suggest that Campfire Group’s practices can help reframe the APY ACC debate, offering a more nuanced model of cross-cultural mediation between communities and between parallel art markets.

London, the art market and contemporary Indigenous Australian art: the case of the Rebecca Hossack Gallery

Arjmand Aziz (SOAS University of London)

This paper explores the London art market and contemporary Indigenous Australian art through a close examination of the Rebecca Hossack gallery (RHG) over a thirty-year period (1988-2020). By investigating available private gallery archives, published catalogues, evidence of collecting histories and public lectures, the RHG reveals a specific set of aesthetic drivers which form a key part of metropolitan British taste. The paper presents specific insights for Australian First Nations artists about assessing the complex aesthetic, economic and cultural idiosyncrasies of this particular place of consumption in a market context.

Bringing the Objects Home: New Caledonian Institutions as Agents in the Art Market

Marion Bertin (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Along the colonial process, museums have been created in Oceania since the 19th century. While these museums were building collections that included Indigenous cultural goods, these same Indigenous cultural goods were exported and commoditised by the international art market world. he art market for Indigenous goods still persists today in international centres such as Paris, London or New York, and in cities in the Paciic islands. Nevertheless, since the 1970s, Indigenous cultural affirmation have been growing with consideration to the objects collected and exported from the Oceanic islands. Now in museum or in private collections, some of the objects are claimed for repatriation by Oceanic Indigenous people and/or by governments. At the same time, museums in the Paciic islands are being transformed to give more roles to Indigenous communities. Collections of indigenous cultural goods are central in this process. Some of these museums also play a role in bringing objects to their original territory, by acquiring objects from dealers or auctions houses.

My paper will explore the role of museums in Oceania as agents in the art market, with a focus on a few museums in New Caledonia and their acquisitions of Kanak objects. My case studies will include the acquisitions led by the Musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie and those by the Direction de la Culture de la Province Sud, both located in Noumea. First, I will give an overview of the history of the museums and the circulations/exportations of Kanak cultural goods from and to New Caledonia. I will also present the laws that prevent and regulate the traffic of Kanak goods, as well as the laws for heritage and museums in New Caledonia. hen, I will focus on the two institutions and their acquisitions of Kanak objects since the beginning of the 21st century. I will present what these Kanak objects are, their numbers and their provenances. hese acquisitions will show the different roles of collectors and donors, as well as the difficulties for New Caledonian museums to acquire objects on the art market. As a conclusion, I would like to open the discussion to the economic inequalities and the inancial issues for museums in the Paciic islands, with regard to the growing prices of the Indigenous cultural goods from Oceania since the 1980s.

Thus, my paper will address a few topics of the CFP: provenance, collecting, museums andthe art market; agents in the art market and the role of museums; cultural activism and cultural identity; clashing cultures and the plural values of Kanak cultural goods; professional ethics and laws; economic and historical developments.