In a postmodernist sense a self-determining identity need not be possible, or socially or politically justifiable. Born of isolation, literature eschews isolation.

Though we inevitably feel excluded from the intricacies of this complex art [by Walpiri people] with its layers of polyvalent and unexplained meaning, this work will demonstrate a basic art form, which cannot be ‘got at’ through its immediate visual impact but rather in ceremonial which involves one’s whole self with soberness, deliberation and respect consistent with initiatory rites. (Page 1983:14)

If there should be only Australian contemporary art without segmentation, why do we then have NATSIA Award that promotes “vital role of art in indigenous Australia for its strength and cohesion” yet only aboriginal artists participated. And SAAB Melbourne Art Fair Awards for the Visual Arts 2007 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales was not attended only by few aboriginal artists.

Right now Australian Trade Commission promotes Aboriginal Art Tours, not Australian contemporary art tours (Forum, Art Collectors).

The Museum of Contemporary Art, which occupies the Maritime Services Board Building at Circular Quay in Sydney has two illuminated signs hanging above the front entrance and they read as follows: “200 years of white lies” and “End white supremacy”. The rooms are full of aboriginal art priced at levels of Tokyo car show. I am disgusted that a building owned by the NSW Government is being used to display such obscene diatribe which serves to divide the community instead of unite it. .

Whites refused to shake hands with them for fear of catching diseases. Blacks were seldom allowed in government cars or any white car at all (McCulloch, 2001)

Indigenous Affairs Minister Macklin plans to form a new Aboriginal Affairs body and describes the advisory body’s purpose as “to make sure we have a place where we are consulting and discussing issues with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people — that they are able to contribute views [to government]”.
Forming representative bodies on racist lines can only divide us and the indigenous art will never be just contemporary whilst such divide exists. Present tends to reward those preaching division rather than those who have integrated. It implies a lack of faith in our existing, non-racial means of representation. No wonder ATSIC became riddled with radicals and hate preachers, led by a man who looked about as white as I do but insisted he was in fact entitled to far more rights on the grounds of his “race”.

Todd says “we are placed on the edge of the dominant culture, while the dominant culture determines whether we are allowed to enter its realm of art. When we assert our own meanings and philosophies of representation we render the division irrelevant, and maintain our Aboriginal right to name ourselves. However, when we articulate the dichotomy of the traditional versus, the contemporary, we are referencing the centre, acknowledging the authority of the ethnographer, the anthropologist, the art historian, the cultural critic. We have to play ‘catch up’ to the academic and other institutions of art, and we set up an opposition within our own communities that keeps [us] in our position of ‘other’. We are caught in the grasp of neocolonialism, in the gaze of the connoisseur or consumer, forever trapped in a process that divides and conquers. (Todd 1992: 75)

Some Aboriginal artists are now living their lives as professional artists and are comfortable with being referred to as ‘artists’ not necessarily ‘Aboriginal artists’. While acknowledging their Aboriginality, also wish to be free of the stereotyping and constraints which they invariably attract, and wish to be considered simply as artists in their own right. (www.artb

Fourmile writes that in resisting non-Aboriginal peer categorization, such artists often take an internationalist approach (Fourmile 1994:77) where “Artists … tend to be interested in each other. There is an innate curiosity about different imagery, technology and lifestyle. Creativity in all art forms transcends language barriers and that interest is closely paralleled within Aboriginal Australia. (Onus 1990:14)

Gordon Bennett’s work is often referred to as ‘Urban Aboriginal’. His background of having been brought up as a white Australian then discovering as an adult his Aboriginal parentage has provoked a search in his art not for a discovery of self but an exploration to create a language which traverses these two worlds (www.artbank.ch)