AustLit

'The task of adequately describing what we call "Aboriginal art" in Australia seems impossible. Whether through the disciplines of art history, anthro-pology, or any of the shifting fields of visual, critical, or postcolonial studies, the challenge is one of the greatest that might be conceived from within the traditions of the humanities and social sciences. Indeed, the idea of assem-bling such a multiplicity of cultural expressions from across vast and diverse historical and geographical dimensions into a coherent whole may seem even more absurd if approached through the epistemologies of Indigenous traditions. It may be argued to be more about imposition than exposition. Yet, this would appear to be the challenge that Ian McLean has set himself with Rattling Spears.' (Introduction)

'‘The crucial starting point of this book’, art historian Ian McLean states in his introduction to Rattling Spears, ‘is that Indigenous art has a modern history; it is one of the many modernisms produced from modernity’s global reach’ (8). The book is not a compendium of definitions and interpretations for the general reader, or an anthropological account of Indigenous art, or an attempt to situate it within an Australian art historical narrative. Instead, it is founded on the concept of transculturation – of cross-cultural pollination, influence and exchange, enabling a stimulating and sometimes challenging reading of key figures in the field. McLean’s text makes an important departure in identifying and foregrounding the agency of Indigenous artists in their encounters with colonisers and in their contact with the modern world, presenting a ‘history of how Indigenous artists engaged with, and responded to, this meeting with modernity and in the process became modern artists’ (11). In short, it is not the history of this subject but a history, a thoughtful study which insists on resisting the inclination to interpret the output of Indigenous artists as being somehow diminished for having been created post-contact, demonstrating instead the inventiveness, resilience and defiance intrinsic in ‘contact art’. The rattling spears of the title, McLean explains, ‘is a chilling sound that calls ancestors from their sleep. It is also a strategic manoeuvre to reclaim authority’ (130).' (Introduction)