AustLit

'This article investigates the first exhibition of Aboriginal art to be shown in a state art gallery, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, in 1957. The curators were anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt. The exhibition was held when there was a growing interest in Aboriginal art, its links to national identity and the need to exhibit it to educate viewers about the art. The legacies of this exhibition are various including that it signalled a museological shift from anthropological modes of curating Aboriginal art to an aesthetic approach, and it began a conversation between curators, anthropologists, and art historians, and more recently with First Nations curators, about which approaches to employ in presenting Aboriginal art.' (Publication abstract)