Literature in our Collection
(M-Z)

McLean, Ian: White Aborigines. Identity Politics in Australian Art, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK) 1998, ISBN 0521584167

Table of Contents        ¦         Cover Text        ¦         Book Review

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations -vi-

Preface -vii-

Acknowledgments -x-

Ocean and the Antipodes -1-

Artful Killings -17-

The Art of Settlement -34-

The Bad Conscience of Impressionism -52-

Aboriginalism and Australian Nationalism -74-

The Aboriginal Renaissance -98-

Aboriginality and Contemporary Australian Painting -120-

Painting for a New Republic -134-

Postscript: The Wandering Islands -149-

Notes -167-

Bibliography -187-

Index -197-

Cover Text

'White Aborigines' is an investigation of how identities have been constructed in Australian art fom 1788 to the present. Beginning with a discussion of the ways in which Australia was imagined by Europeans before colonisation, Ian McLean traces the representation of indigenity - both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal - through the history of Australian art. In doing so, he tells the story of the invention of an Australian subjectivity. He argues that the colonising culture invested far more in indigenous aspects of the country and its inhabitants than it has been willing to admit. McLean considers artists and their work within a cultural context and also provides a contemporary theoretical and critical context for his claims. He proposes strikingly original readings of the practices of several Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artists, concluding with a detailed discussion of the work of Gordon Bennett.