Dreaming Art
Back when I first visited Sydney, I had the opportunity to see a show of Aboriginal art. I’d seen small, commercial knock-offs of one thing or another, usually boomerangs and tourist trinkets, all using the motifs and techniques of the paintings I saw in the museum gallery. The difference was that these pieces, work produced as singular, artistic efforts, rather than as mass-production commodities, had that mysterious, compelling quality that makes us call something art. They dots and lines captured my gaze as if I could make sense of it, decode the message, if I looked long and deeply enough; a hypnotic quality that’s often lost in modern and contemporary art (although I think Rothko’s color blocks often do something similar). We own a couple of small pieces, and they’re beautiful and strange. Now it appears the art world has discovered Aboriginal art, and it’s hit the big time: auctions at Sotheby’s. And just when we were hoping to buy a few pieces ourselves.