From "Primitive" to "Indigenous": Some comments on the history of Inuit and Aboriginal arts.

Abstract

In recent years, the term “Indigenous art” has become increasingly popular among the artist community as well as in archaeology, anthropology, and art history. Broadly speaking, this notion is used to refer to the artwork of different Indigenous communities from all around the world. With reference to the case of Inuit and Aboriginal people from Australia, we review the history of the idea of “Indigenous art.” To begin, we situate the origins of this concept in the category of “primitive art” that, since the nineteenth century, amalgamated thousands of images and objects created by Indigenous peoples worldwide under a single term. This label remained popular until the 1970s and 1980s, when s..