Becoming Art Exploring Cross-Cultural Categories [Paperback]

Thirty years ago Australian Aboriginal art was little more than a footnote to world art. Today, it is considered to be an important contemporary art movement, often promoted as being connected to a deep cultural past.

Becoming Art provides a new analysis of the shifting cultural and social contexts that surround the production of Aboriginal art. Transcending the boundaries between anthropology and art history, the book draws on arguments from both disciplines to provide a unique interdisciplinary perspective that places the artists themselves at the centre of the argument.

Western art history has traditionally regarded Aboriginal art as distanced in time and place. Becoming Art uses the recent history of Aboriginal art to challenge some of the presuppositions of western art discourse and western art worlds. It argues for a more cross-cultural perspective on world art history.

Introduction * 1. Beginnings Without End: Aboriginal Art and First Contact * 2. Hunting Art: Cross Cultural Catagories and the Discovery of Aboriginal Art * 3. Aboriginal Ar and the Concept of Art History: Art History as Cultural Praxis * 4. Inner Landscapes: Process of Abstraction and Representation in Aboriginal Art * 5. Capability Brown in the Garden of Eden: The Mobility of Yolngu Art * 6. Style and Meaning: Abelam Art through Yolngu Eyes * 7. The Anthropologist as Entrepreneur: Changing the Conception of Aboriginal Art * 8. Seeing Aboriginal Art in the Gallery * 9. Aboriginal Art in a Global Context * Conclusion