[Anthropgrad] Friday Seminar (29 Aug 08)

[Sin Wen Lau]

Anthropology Student Seminar Series, Semester 2, 2008
Milgate Room, AD Hope
29 August 2008, 3 pm

'Contested Practices: Framing Photomedia as "Aboriginal"'
by Marianne Riphagen

Questions concerning the definition and conceptualisation of art have 
always preoccupied arts professionals. A recent example is the difficult 
task of categorizing Indigenous Australian photomedia. From the 1980s 
onwards, when Indigenous artists increasingly worked in the medium of 
photographt, art cognoscenti have posed questions such as: is there an 
Indigenous photography? What defines an image as Indigenous? In which 
art historical categories do photographs created by Aboriginal artists fit?

The classification of photomedia produced by Indigenous rpactitioners 
raises political, aesthetic and conceptual questions. Several 
practitioners, amongst others Tracey Moffatt, Gordon Bennett and Brook 
Andrew, have opposed the framing of their oeuvre and themselves as 
Aboriginal. Importantly, the practice of labelling forms of cultural 
production based on ethnicity has evoked debate not only in Australia 
but globally.

Focussing on the art practice of Book Andrew, an artist well-known for 
his resistance against categorization, I examine how different art world 
participants perceive of and exercise the framing of photomedia art. 
First, I analyse five arguments articulated by Andrew against the 
characterization of his work as Aboriginal. Second, I will draw on 
Erving Goffman's 'The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life' to analyse 
classification as a consequence of the interaction between Brook Andrew 
and curators, critics, gallerists and academics. Finally, I will propose 
three explanations to answer the question: why do Australian art 
cognoscenti continue to use a contested cateogrical frame? Chiefly, I 
suggest, because they struggle to reconcile and develop language to 
describe the Indigenous cosmopolitanism that increasingly infuses 
photomedia art today.

Marianne Riphagen is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Anthropology 
of the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Her research is 
concerned with the subject of contemporary Indigenous Australian 
photomedia art. Focussing on the photographic oeuvre of artists 
Christian Thompson, Dianne Jones, Darren Siwes and Brook Andrew, 
Marianne examines the ways in which their images become meaningful and 
valuable through the cooperative activity of various actors within art 
worlds. Her research has a strong focus on the intercultural and on 
photographs as socially salient objects. At present, Marianne is a 
visiting student at the Australian National University's Research School 
of Humanities.

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Lau Sin Wen
Department of Anthropology
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT0200
Australia

Telephone : +61-2-6125-3271
Fax	 : +61-2-6125-4896
Email	 : sinwen.lau at anu.edu.au
Website	 : http://rspas.anu.edu.au/anthropology
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