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Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia

Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia

$ 50.00

Published in 2016

ISBN: 978-0-300-21470-3
228 pages; 8 x 10 ½ in.
122 color and 2 b/w illustrations

Paper over board

Published by the Harvard Art Museums
Distributed by Yale University Press

Winner:

2017 Best in Show and First Place (Exhibition Catalogues), New England Museum Association

2017 Award of Excellence, Communication Arts (Typography Annual)

2017 Print Regional Design Annual (Regional Winner), Print Magazine

2017 Acknowledgment of Excellence, New England Book Show

2017 American Alliance of Museums Publication Design Competition, Honorable Mention, Books

2016 AIGA 50 Books | 50 Covers, The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and Design Observer

 2016 Merit Award, HOW In-House Design Awards

Art Asia Pacific, Selected as one of the 10 Best Art Books of 2016 and featured in ArtAsiaPacific's Almanac 2017

An inviting showcase of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, this revelatory book explores the distinct cultural frameworks—particularly the sense of time and place—that inform the creation of these works.

Indigenous concepts of time play a critical role in the works of many contemporary Indigenous Australian artists. Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia showcases prime examples, featuring many works of art that have never before been exhibited outside Australia. The book provides a cultural framework to help understand these objects, emphasizing the importance of the land, the rich narratives that cleave to it, and the art it inspires. It is organized around four central themes: ancestral transformation, ritualized performance, seasonality, and remembrance. Six essays and sixty works highlight many of the most significant Indigenous Australian artists of the last forty years, from Rover Thomas and Emily Kam Kngwarray (both former representatives at the Venice Biennale) to the visual and performance artist Christian Thompson. Also included are examples of related historical objects and a technical examination of traditional Indigenous bark paintings. This revelatory book introduces the thematic, stylistic, and cultural diversity of contemporary Indigenous Australian art to a wider audience.

The related exhibition, Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia, is on display at the Harvard Art Museums from February 5 through September 18, 2016.

Stephen Gilchrist, the curator of Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia, is the Australian Studies Visiting Curator at the Harvard Art Museums and Associate Lecturer in Art History at the University of Sydney; Narayan Khandekar is director of the Harvard Art Museums’ Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies; Daniel P. Kirby is a conservation scientist in private practice in Milton, Massachusetts; Fred Myers is professor of anthropology at New York University; Hetti Perkins is a freelance curator and writer from Australia; Georgina Rayner is the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Conservation Science at the Harvard Art Museums’ Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies; Shawn C. Rowlands is a postdoctoral fellow in museum anthropology at the Bard Graduate Center and the American Museum of Natural History, New York; and Henry F. Skerritt is a doctoral candidate in history of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh.

Lead support for Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia and related research has been provided by the Harvard Committee on Australian Studies. The exhibition is also supported by the Australian government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Australian Consulate-General, New York. Other major support for the exhibition, catalogue, and related research has been provided by the Robert Lehman Foundation, John and Barbara Wilkerson, Debra and Dennis Scholl, the William E. Teel African and Oceanic Arts Endowment, the Dimitri Hadzi Memorial Fund for Modern Art, and the Harvard Art Museums Mellon Publication Funds, including the Henry P. McIlhenny Fund. Modern and contemporary art programs at the Harvard Art Museums are made possible in part by generous support from the Emily Rauh Pulitzer and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art.

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