Description
This first concise overview of Australia's Aboriginal art surveys one of the world's longest and richest, yet most neglected, traditions of art. The author contextualizes Aboriginal artists within their politically volatile social and cultural history, and reinstates their place on the artistic map of contemporary world culture. He considers Aboriginal art that spans the vastness of the continent both spatially and temporally-- from Arnhem Land and the desert to the modern town and city, from stone engravings and ceremonial sculptures from the last millennia, to the politically motivated medium of print in the 1960s. The Los Angeles Times testifies to the haunting illustrations of the book as well as the persistent vitality of Aboriginal art: "The semi-abstract images display an eerie beauty that is alternately fascinating, inspiring and disturbing."
