This week, we're talking about Bell's Theorem...here is a quick lowdown on the topic.

Aboriginal art is not controlled by Aboriginal people.

It is effected by the following:

Western Art (example - Picasso's Les Demoiselles D'Avignon and the African masks).

Spirituality (non-Aboriginal "experts" and incorrect or incomplete interpretations).

Art Centres (a way for the government to control the industry that caters for Aboriginal art).

Two kinds of false experts of Aboriginal art - BINTS (Been In Northern Territory), bookees (who learn everything about Aboriginals from books).

Urban Aboriginal people "...have been consigned to the dustbin of history. Still we survive."

The Regional system (the classification of art based on geographical areas erected and maintained barriers between Aboriginal people).

The Native Title Act

Paternalism (Land rights).

Appropriations (Rights of an image - cultures are not for sale).

Anthropologists (knowledge - or lack of knowledge - about a culture they aren't part of).

Exploitation (of artists, culture, and traditional imagery).

Regulation (lack of; issues of the middleman when dealing art).

Stereotyping of Indigenous people (as drunks, homeless, useless).

Although I can't say that I'm terribly surprised to hear about all of these things, it still shocked me to see the extent of the exploitation that many Aboriginal artists are put through - this is a subject that has yet to grace the news in other countries (or at least, where I lived before moving to Australia), and which I believe needs to be known about. There are a lot of ways that some Aboriginal artists get screwed out of the money coming from their artwork, and it seems like there is little to no respect in some cases.