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The Art of the Damned

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  The Art of the Damned The current gallery system functions as a modern dam built right at the headwaters of artistic creation. The headwaters are the raw, bubbling springs high in the mountains—wild, uncontainable, fed by countless small tributaries of individual vision, experimentation, failure, intuition, and obsession. This is where most serious art actually begins: in studios, bedrooms, sketchbooks, late-night arguments, personal crises, and private obsessions, long before any curator or collector ever hears a name. Once a handful of major galleries, institutions, auction houses, and their allied gatekeepers (collectors, critics, fair directors, residency programs) gain decisive influence over those headwaters—deciding which artists get early solo shows, which receive press, which enter the "right" conversations, which are anointed with blue-chip representation—they effectively place the dam. From that point forward: The flow of visibility, legitimacy, money, and audien...
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Australian cultural celebrations

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39 years ago today, Gough Whitlam made history by giving land back to Vincent Lingiari and the Gurindji people -- an iconic symbol of reconciliation and the achievements of the land rights movement. 


This is a great day for Australia to celebrate. I think this day and this image of Whitlam and Lingiari is as important as any national day Australians celebrates (despite the picture's overtones symbolising the white commander and the black controlled). 

 There are not many of these types of cultural artefacts which are outwardly promoted and celebrated as a nation. I believe this day is more important to the Australian cultural fabric than the external war campaigns Australia celebrates (why has the military machine taken over our cultural celebrations? $$ reason to buy more and more war hardware and to increase Australian Federal budget percentage). Australia readily celebrates the colonial past and empire heritage). Why can't this cultural activity gain higher status than Gallipoli?

 Unfortunately, whilst land rights was a significant phase of cultural action Australian Indigenous people continue to suffer the conditions of poverty, systemic racism, low education standards and early death. There are other powerful systemic injustices occurring.

 It is remarkable that since 1975 neither Liberals or Labour has provisioned any form of justice against those who implemented systemic human rights violations against our indigenous people. It continues to support individuals and companies who have made profit from Australian Aboriginals (our land custodians).

 As a nation, we can't even identify Australia's 1st war engagement (colonialists vs Aboriginal) within the Australian War Museum. 

 Both Liberal and Labour polices need to move from under the umbrella of intervention. Prime Minister Whitlam was the first to do so, followed by Keating and Rudd. These  cultural achievements need to be celebrated if we are to become an inclusive nation, but much much more is needed.

 Let's as a nation celebrate inclusive philosophies, knowledge, cultural activities and spiritualities rather than the atrocities that are bedded to exclusion.
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Australian cultural celebrations by jjfbbennett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


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