Indigenous Modernisms

Abstract

Indigenous modernism is not to be confused with earlier ideas of modern Indigenous art, though they do to some extent pre-empt it. In the mid-20th century, some Indigenous artists who made or responded to Western art forms were referred to as modern. For example, in 1952 the Namatjira School of landscape painting in Central Australia was dubbed modern Aboriginal art, while Ulli Bieir made similar claims about African artists in the late 1950s and 60s. In the 1960s and 70s, emerging interest in non-traditional and tourist Indigenous art resulted in scholars and auction houses applying the terms modern and contemporary to distinguish such art from traditional works. However, the concept of Ind..