Aboriginal Paintings

Background: "On March 5, 1994, while in New York to give a talk at New York University, I had the opportunity to video tape an interview with Professor Fred Myers, a cultural anthropologist who had worked with Australian Aboriginal people since 1973. Without much time to prepare, I turned on the camera and started to ask questions which were informally and eloquently answered. The result is a very rich account of Aboriginal paintings (especially by the Pintupi people of the Northern Territory) done while standing in front of paintings and other art objects that Myers had been collecting over the years. Since then, Myers has written and published a wonderful book, Painting Culture (Duke University Press), that tells the story of the social life of Aboriginal paintings in the contemporary art world."

A. Duranti