White Aborigines: Identity Politics in Australian Art

by Ian McLean

• ISBN13: 9780521584166
• ISBN10: 0521584167
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-07-13
• 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

List of Illustrations	vi	(1)
Preface	vii	(3)
Acknowledgments	x
1 Ocean and the Antipodes	1	(16)
2 Artful Killings	17	(17)
3 The Art of Settlement	34	(18)
4 The Bad Conscience of Impressionism	52	(22)
5 Aboriginalism and Australian Nationalism	74	(24)
6 The Aboriginal Renaissance	98	(22)
7 Aboriginality and Contemporary Australian Painting	120	(14)
8 Painting for a New Republic	134	(15)
Postscript: The Wandering Islands	149	(18)
Notes	167	(20)
Bibliography	187	(10)
Index	197