Apt quote:

From week six's reading by Hetti Perkins:

"At odds with a premise of modernity- to erase the old with the new- is the apparent conundrum of the world's oldest continuous culture being the wellspring of a dynamic contemporary art movement. Australian Indigenous art resists interpretation outside of its historicity and continues to elude definition in terms relevant to Western art theory."[1]

The apparent 'conundrum' is not easy to escape, given that the historicity could be in danger of being destroyed if contemporary Indigenous art continues to flourish to the point of dominance over more traditional forms. Yet why should this be feared? Westerners do not mourn the diversification of their art forms over the last few thousand years; we embrace them, and gather them all up into a melting pot of cultural history that allows us to inform and progress our societies. This exploration by Urban artists is a welcome addition to Indigenous culture, and should be recognised as such by the more stubborn in their communities.

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[1] Perkins, Hetti. One Sun One Moon. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, pp11-14, 2007.