Challenges to the Authenticity in the Aboriginal Art Market
Challenges to the Authenticity in the Aboriginal Art Market Conference Paper
Art Crime: Protecting Art, Protecting Artists and Protecting Consumers
- Author(s): Adler, Christine
- Published: 1999
- Publisher: Australian Institute of Criminlogy
Abstract: Over the past two or three years the Aboriginal art market has been the subject of considerable media attention which has raised questions about the authenticity of Aboriginal art. Such challenges are of significant concern for a number of reasons. First, they challenge the integrity of Aboriginal artists and others involved in the Aboriginal art market. Second, they threaten a significant source of economic resources for many Aboriginal communities. And third, they threaten the Australian international art market of which Aboriginal art forms a significant component. However, several of the questions that have been raised in relation to Aboriginal art in Australia have in fact bedevilled philosophers and art historians about art more generally for centuries. At the same time, Aboriginal art does presents us with some further complexing issues. Today I want to begin this session by outlining some of the different ways we might think about the authenticity question. In raising these issues I am drawing upon the research Ken Polk and I have carried out over past 2 years, and in particular in the first half of this year. We are very grateful to the many art gallery owners, art centre co-ordinators and may other interested parties who talked and spent time with us. There are too many to list individually here, but we will be acknowledging them all for their invaluable contribution to this research when we publish a more detailed report of our overall findings. When a buyer is about to buy a piece of Aboriginal art there are probably two general questions in relation to authenticity about which they might be concerned. The first is the general question that would be an issue for the purchaser of any form of fine art, that is, whether or not the named artist is responsible for the work? The second question relates more to the purchase of a piece of Aboriginal art, and that is whether or not the piece is an authentic Aboriginal product? Both of these questions however present us with further dilemmas that we now want to examine in a little more detail.
- Urls: https://web.archive.org/web/20160326014622/http://aic.gov.au/media_library/conferences/artcrime/alder.pdf
- Publisher Location: Sydney
- Keywords: copyright, art market threats