- Publisher
- Thames & Hudson
- Published
- 2003
- Shelf
- culture: Australia
- ISBN
- 9780500204160
Australia
Aboriginal Art
Wally Caruana
Australian Aboriginal art across bark, body, sand and acrylic, read as a continuing tradition rather than a movement.
Why read it
Caruana's core point is that the paintings are country: a design is owned, inherited and tied to a specific place and story, and the acrylic boards of the 1970s are a new medium for a very old system rather than a new art. It reframes what a pattern can even be.
Why own it
It is the standard introduction and it takes attribution seriously, artists, language groups and communities named throughout, which matters more here than in almost any other field. A reference to check yourself against before borrowing a visual language.
Who it is for
Anyone tempted to borrow a visual tradition without knowing whose it is.
Opens a search on AbeBooks, a network of independent and antiquarian sellers, which is where a good part of this shelf has to be found, because it is out of print.
Read next
Chosen because they argue with this one, not because a machine noticed they share a category.
Also on the·culture shelf