It was recently announced that the Australian government has added an old ochre mine to the Australian National Heritage List. The National Heritage List sets out the places which are considered to be of outstanding heritage value to Australia and includes places such as Uluru and Kakadu National Park. These places are protected under the Australian Government's national environment law — the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).The mine in question, the Wilgie Mia ochre mine in Western Australia is the largest and deepest underground Aboriginal ochre mine in Australia. Ochre of different colours has long been used by Aboriginal people throughout Australia in Aboriginal art, as well as in Aboriginal law, traditional ceremony and healing rituals. The mine has provided red, yellow and green ochre to Aborigines for thousands of years and is regarded by some as the best ochre in Australia. It has all the features found in traditional Aboriginal mines: large open-cut pits, excavated caverns and underground galleries that follow ochre seams, and there is reportedly a considerable amount of rock art in the vicinity.
Sample piece - Ochre on Canvas
Rainmaker Wandjina by Lily Mindindil Karadada, 2006
The Australian Northern territory Supreme Court in Alice Springs has recently denied an application from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) to strike out an Aboriginal art dealer’s defamation claim.
The case relates to a television programme which examines exploitation in the Aboriginal art industry. This is not a new subject, Bruce Chatwin describes the Aboriginal art industry with a mixture of humour and, at times, quiet anger in his classic Australian travelogue: Songlines. But Bruce Chatwin never faced a defamation claim. Unfortunately for ABC, despite the fact that the Claimant, Mr Nibbs, refers to himself as the "original carpetbagger" in the programme he is now claiming that what he in fact said was that others have referred to him as a carpetbagger.
Unsurprisingly, Mr Nibbs didn’t like the whole of Australia to believe he was a “carpetbagger” and alleged that viewers of the program have been led to believe he is unscrupulous in his dealings with Aboriginal artists, paying the artists inadequately for paintings produced under oppressive conditions.
As with all defamation claims, the very fact of bringing a claim has led to far wider coverage than might otherwise have happened. It also raises the importance of the artist-dealer relationship and how crucial this is for both parties.
For more information on Aboriginal art, see here.
Source: ABC news
Sample piece - Ochre on Canvas
