ABSTRACT

The agency gained from sincere expressions of spirituality in Aboriginal art keeps it cosmologically at odds with the secular fine-art world. Contemporary global art after the postcolonial turn is often imagined to be embracing a promise it seems to offer Aboriginal artists of an escape from always being cast in the realm of the primitive subject of anthropology. In this chapter, I analyse the negotiations of old and new practices in both art worlds and the conundrums it creates for contemporary Australian artists through the Koori Possum Skins Cloak project. Koori is the name south-eastern Aboriginal people used to refer to themselves, and, to me, the title Skins Cloak refers to an inflexible barrier built up around an identity that is buttressed by the exclusion of influence from other skins – from those who are not kin.