White Aborigines: Identity Politics in Australian Art

by Ian McLean

• ISBN13: 9780521120678
• ISBN10: 0521120675
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-10-01
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This highly original book shows that Australian art, and the writing of its history, has since settlement been in a dialog (although often submerged) with Aboriginal art and culture; and that this dialog is inextricably interwoven with the struggle to find an identity in the antipodes. McLean argues that the colonizing culture invested far more in indigenous aspects of the country and its inhabitants than it has been willing to admit. He considers artists and their work within their cultural context, and in light of contemporary theory.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Ocean and the Antipodes

Artful killings

The art of settlement

The bad conscience of impressionism

Aboriginalism and Australian nationalism

The Aboriginal renaissance

Aboriginality and contemporary Australian painting

Painting for a new republic

Postscript: The wandering islands

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.