ABSTRACT
The Emily Kame Kngwarreye died, the art world mourned. Following the artist's death, large cloths were draped over her works at art museums around Australia, out of respect for the customs of the Anmatyerre. Robert Hollingworth's critique of Kngwarreye in Art Monthly begins with the best of intentions. The dark space of Kngwarreye's hidden paintings remains a site of uncanny generative power, and serves as an affirmation of indigenous cultural vitality. Kngwarreye's art be meaningful in different ways for urban non-Indigenous viewers and the Anmatyerre people who inhabit Kngwarreye's Alkahere country. Drawing from Japanese writer Keiji Nishitani, Bataille and contemporary physics, his intention is to theorize an 'emphatic inclusiveness' in Kngwarreye's work. Hollingworth is a convincing writer, and is evidently committed to engaging with Kngwarreye's work in the context of contemporary art criticism. Contemporary indigenous art and its attendant industries, comprising art dealerships, galleries and souvenir businesses, emerged in the early 1970s at Papunya, west of Alice Springs.
