ProppaNOW

George Petelin
The term Movement must be one of the most ambiguous words in art writing. It has
been used to describe massive trends that developed over more than a century such as
Modernism, it has been used to refer to styles such as Expressionism, to choices of
media such as Performance rt and Earth rt, and to discrete groups such as the
!urrealists. "ately, the term ustralian boriginal Movement has been used to
describe the output of a whole culture.
To do that culture no disservice, it is important to now distinguish among the distinct
schools of thought within boriginal visual culture according to the more precise
discrete meaning of the term movement. It is not sufficient to distinguish #rban
boriginal rt from $emote rea boriginal rt nor, in view of the debates and
politics associated with %authenticity&, is it productive to differentiate between
%traditional& and %non'traditional& art. (owever, there is arguably a whole range of art
practice by boriginal people living in cities. !ome of this practice arises out of
na)ve un'taught talent. nd some of this practice adopts features of remote art, with
different degrees of understanding of its protocols. *ther branches of this practice
draw on European methods and techni+ues, with an e+ually broad range of success.
To constitute a %movement&, in the stricter and more enlightening art'historical sense,
one of these tendencies would need to mobilise a distinct group of members with a
common philosophy and stylistic similarities.
!ocial movements in general are characterised by the sharing, in response to some
form of deprivation or alienation, of an interest in promoting social change. These
circumstances patently obtain for most boriginal people. The rise of a movement,
however, occurs when some support becomes available from a sector of the very
society the movement wishes to change and resources emerge for its members to
networ, and enact their point of view. They become a movement when they have the
infrastructure to ideologically frame their discontents and advance a coherent attac,
on the status +uo.
In the industrial era, movements increasingly characterised by urban alienation
became ,nown as avant-garde. #rbanisation appears to be a ,ey re+uirement for this
phenomenon in more ways than one. The Metropolis facilitates social interaction
whether by means of a cafe society or an underground networ,, the resources for
production, and, through its sheer population, the possibility of finding an audience
for unconventional artistic products. s $enato Poggioli points out, %the experience of
the avant'gardes was primarily a metropolitan one&. Moreover, he argues, an avant'
garde %can exist only in the type of society that is liberal'democratic from the political
point of view -and. bourgeois'capitalistic from the socioeconomic point of view&. /o
sooner had $ussian 0uturist movement&s %utopia& arrived than that movement faced
its demise. 1apitalist cities thus provide both the alienation and the resources to
criti+ue this alienation. vant'gardes are at once the symptom of urban social ills and
their proposed cure.
2espite fashionable claims that the notion of an avant'garde is irrelevant in the post'
modern era I would li,e to examine in what sense ProppaNOW can be thought of as
an avant'garde movement 3 the cutting edge of a particular type of boriginal art
that negates other -particularly boriginal. art practice and promises to redefine or
reshape its artistic form, alter its social reference, and influence its distribution and
reception in a manner comparable to that of previous avant'gardes.
Peter 45rger&s view that an institutionalised avant'garde is automatically no longer
%authentic& needs to be criti+ued from a trans'institutional viewpoint. $ather than
consider art to be a single, monolithic, institution we should see within its malleable
and permeable borders the play and contest of multiple sub'institutions. (owever, the
condition that "yotard called %the post'modern sublime&, the attraction of %playing
with fire&, that is, threatening to extinguish the institution that feeds you, I will argue
still pertains and continues to characterise even an boriginal avant'garde.
s I have already suggested, an avant'garde is most li,ely to arise in an urban
context. 4ut what distinguishes Proppa/*6 from other urban boriginal artists as a
potential avant'garde7
Town'based boriginal art has precedents that go bac, as far as Tommy Mc$ae,
Mic,ey #lladulla, and 6illiam 4ara, in the mid'89::s. In the ;:th century, it
features outstanding individuals such as Trevor /icholls, "in *nus, Gordon 4ennett,
Tracey Moffatt, 0iona 0oley, and <udy 6atson. 4ut neither they nor their
predecessors constitute a movement in the terms I have outlined. The first city'based
indigenous artist'run space, Boomalli, founded in 8=9> by a group of ten artists based
in !ydney, brought together art'school trained and self'taught urban artists to exhibit
regularly, and was driven by a general boriginal urban disaffection, but fulfilled
neither the condition of forming a coherent philosophy and style nor of a stable
limited membership. !imilarly, the Campfire Group, an organisation established in
4risbane after the ground'brea,ing Balance 199 exhibition at the ?ueensland rt
Gallery that brought together urban and remote area boriginal art and selected non'
aboriginal artists, did not achieve an aesthetic coherence throughout its membership
nor formulate a firm aesthetic direction.
0ormed largely of veterans of the Balance 199 show, including $ichard 4ell, 4ianca
4eetson, and "aurie /ilsen who are now members of ProppaNOW, the Campfire
Group was extremely influential. 4ut its self'designed brief, to generally promote the
development of ?ueensland boriginal art, was too eclectic and all'inclusive to
sustain a coherent aesthetic framewor,. Its role was primarily to develop a mar,et for
contemporary indigenous art and indeed for effecting a ,ind of cultural reconciliation
3not @ust between European settler culture and Indigenous culture but also within
Indigenous culture itself. 0rom the beginning, it was conceived as a broadly
collaborative affair and not suited to the focused antagonism that characterises avant'
gardes. The Campfire Group spawned numerous other art enterprisesA conferences for
boriginal artists too, place at Barrabah and at 6oorabinda, !"C#$, the ?ueensland
Indigenous 1ommittee for Cisual rts was formed and then became !"$$C, the
?ueensland Indigenous rtists& boriginal 1orporation, and ustraliaDs first
university art degree based entirely on indigenous principles, the Bac%elor of #isual
$rt in Contemporar& $ustralian "ndigenous $rt, was established at the ?ueensland
1ollege of rt, Griffith #niversity. This degree was organised and taught by <ennifer
(erd. Cernon hEee, after graduating from this degree, subse+uently also taught in
it. 4oth are now crucial members of ProppaNOW, which acted as a filter of
boriginal talent from earlier organisations.
6hile these organisations shared an boriginal ethic and certain common issues, and
even generated sometimes similar indigenous imagery criti+uing the status +uo, it was
never their mission to develop a focused common aesthetic.
6hat ProppaNOW contributes to art practice is a uni+ue negotiation of aesthetic and
ideological stumbling bloc,s and pitfalls, a refinement of aesthetic philosophy,
through a thoughtful collective process within its own ran,s that none of the
other organisations was able to pursue. Ironically, it owes this aesthetic and
ideological coherence neither to avant'garde tradition nor to boriginal
traditions of iconography but to a rigorous adherence to indigenous social
principles. ProppaNOW might legitimately be called the start of a movement
because, unli,e individual artists drawn together only to exhibit, ProppaNOW
consciously develops a philosophy and does this by means of a group
consensus, rather than a by democratic ma@ority as in white institutions. (ere is
the ironyA ProppaNOW members behave and produce according to more
philosophically authentic boriginal principles than do now many central desert
artists, and hence wield an iconography limited only by their collective
decisions rather than by mar,et perceptions of authenticity. Bet they are firmly
entrenched in a mar,eting system that currently, to their annoyance,
marginalises them in relation to the traditions of their own culture.
(owever, does using the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticise the
discipline itself, as 1lement Greenberg so famously noted, rather than subvert
it, simply entrench it more firmly in its area of competence7 *r can this be seen
more subtly in terms of 6alter 4en@amin&s %logic of destruction&, which renews
tradition by destroying or re@ecting only parts of it7
The name, ProppaNOW, derived from a collo+uial expression often used by
boriginal people, encapsulates the group&s philosophy of %approaching everything in
a proper and considered manner&. 6hat Fdoin& things proppaG in boriginal parlance
means is not to superficially imitate tradition, but to adhere to a protocol of respect
and consultation in developing that tradition. ProppaNOW does not subscribe to the
superficial rituals and symbols that now mista,enly signify authenticityH instead, it
adheres to central social processes that are profoundly boriginal. This is what allows
ProppaNOW to pursue, as their mission statement cum manifesto expresses it, a
%constantly innovative approach& and to %+uestion established notions of boriginal
rt and Identity& without at the same time @eopardising that identity. s <enny 0raser,
initially a member of Proppa/*6 expressed it, their wor, still relates to land and
dreaming stories, but %no' and in the future(.
4ut of course there is every ris, of @eopardising boriginal art3or at least
%boriginal art as 'e no' )no' it&. This then is the ProppaNOW post-modern
su*lime+ the art mar,et for boriginal art within which Proppa/*6 is categorised is
sustained by a mixture of white guilt and spiritual longing that ProppaNOW
inexorably dismantles.
2riven by a need to oppose claims to superior %authenticity& by remote area art, and
by its many tourist driven city loo,'ali,es, as well as by the desire to stand against the
colonialist traditions of 6estern culture, ProppaNOW develops a visual language that
seems to criti+ue both cultures.
Thus ProppaNOW can be defined as an avant'garde movement, not in negation of the
whole institution of 6estern art, which is one of the few European institutions to
which they have gained some access, but of the limited definition of %boriginal& art
that the 6estern art system has valorised. This is not a revolt against the bourgeoisie
per se as a 6estern avant'garde might have led, but a criti+ue of institutionalised
cultural misrepresentation.
Mass mar,eting has a corrosive influence on all products. nd not only on the
products themselves but also on their mediationH the rationale for the product becomes
publicity hype. s Theodor dorno observed3the only ones who can still criti+ue
through this mass deception are the avant'gardes. s central desert art becomes ever
more tourist'corrupted and shallow, ProppaNOW represents the ustralian art wave
of the future.
These boriginal artists don&t pretend to be na)ve primitivesH they lash out at all
hypocrisy with grim yet seductive humour. Tony lbert, for example, ma,es
ironically sweet colouring boo, images of first contactA happy blac, people who wave
to a benign 1aptain 1oo,. $ichard 4ell and Cernon hEee find humour in the many
paradoxes to which official ustralian culture has a blind spot. 4inding these artists is
a fascination with language. *ften their wor, recycles slogans and clichIs that are
either self'contradictory or ambiguous and allude wittily to the sinister implications of
these. These artists have developed a sophisticated, city'bred boriginal aesthetic in
contrast to what they call the %*oga'4ooga& mentality that see,s to cast indigenous
culture as inherently static and primitive. It is in this sense that ProppaNOW is avant'
garde. It negates the autonomy of a remote area, %authentic& boriginal culture. It
may be a neo'avant'garde in terms of 6estern culture, as 45rger would argue, but it
is a true avant'garde in relation to commercialised reified boriginality removed from
its everyday concerns.
Even the materials used by these artists carry a wry satirical edgeA for example, "aurie
/ilsen, hailing originally from $oma in central ?ueensland, sculpts indigenous fauna
out of the barbwire that threatens their existence and ndrea 0isher paints ominous
birds of prey, referring to massacres of indigenous people, on suburban windows.
nd %women&s business& gains a whole new loo, in the wor, of ProppaNOW artists
4ianca 4eetson, <ennifer (erd, and ndrea 0isher. Their art maintains a loo, of
traditional feminine gentleness but pac,s a powerful contemporary punch.
ProppaNOW began with a meeting intended to start a !ueensland ,r*an $*original
$rtists and -esigners Cooperative in 4risbane in 8==9, but was not formally
established until ;::J. $ecognising the importance of professional resources, they set
out to establish a space for urban boriginal artists to wor, together towards
exhibitions, to enhance wor,ing partnerships, and to provide mentoring to young and
emerging artists in the necessary professional s,ills that will enable them to become
successful. 0rom the beginning, they loo,ed for lin,s within the art industry both
nationally and internationally. They found such opportunities at the 4anff 1enter in
1anada and at the !an 0rancisco 4iennale -The %4ayennale&.. 4ut what is important
is that they established a space for collaborative interaction and philosophical debate
while ma,ing art. The space they established, an ex'warehouse in 4risbane&s 6est
End, for three years became a ferment of creativity. 6or,ing at the same space gave
full reign to a uni+uely productive social dynamic.
$ichard 4ell, well ,nown throughout ustralia as an outspo,en and provocative artist
who relishes a debate, was now thrown together with some challenging understudies.
Cernon hEee, no less a debater with a turn of phrase often even more subtle than
$ichard&s, @oins in avidly, while the group&s youngest member, Tony lbert, remains
+uiet until he finds an opportunity for an incisive remar, that stops the conversation.
"aurie /ilsen contributes a solid bush practicality, and, along with Gordon (oo,ey
always manages to turn the discussion towards something funny. Meanwhile, 4ianca
4eetson mixes the Kany with the sensible -her favourite colour for serious paintings is
pin,. while <ennifer (erd tends to dispense a final feminine wisdom that brings the
men bac, down to earth.
This interaction is reflected in their artwor,. ll of these artists deal with serious
issues but do that in the spirit of a conversation, with good humour and flashes of
brilliance. Bou can see the give'and'ta,e as $ichard, Cernon and Tony all play with
words as well as with visual imagery, learning from each other and sharing
suggestions but asserting their own point of view in how an idea is realised. ll the
while, <ennifer (erd and 4ianca 4eetson also assert a modern woman&s interpretation
of both so'called %blac, armband& history and of their own %expected& role in
indigenous society.
nd @ust as their discussions usually end in a @o,e, so do many of their pictures. Their
criticism of society is often chee,y and tongue in chee,. Cernon hEee&s text wor,
for example, as,s %what do you thin, of white civilisation7& and then answers %it&s a
good idea& -implying, when the penny drops, that the actuality of civilisation falls
somewhat short of the mar,..
*ne of the goals of the avant'garde, the connection of art with social life, was, again
ironically, intrinsic to traditional indigenous society. The export of %*oga 4ooga& art
of course circumvented this. ProppaNOW @umps boots and all into the social sphere
through its provocative stance but, rather than blur the boundary between art and life,
draws attention to its difference attac,ing the specific barrier that occludes indigenous
reality from mainstream awareness3precisely that aesthetic curtain they term %*oga
4ooga&. 6hat they have clarified for all of us is that art is not life, but ma)ing art is
life itselfA identity building is an active process of social transformation.
8> <anuary ;::9