Australian Artists in the Contemporary Museum

In Australia, the artist’s engagement with the museum is traditionally regarded as having an important role in the colonial project but, as times have changed, the post-colonial viewpoint has come to the fore. The authors of Australian Artists in the ContemporaryMuseum propose that the artists’ engagement has moved from politically informed critique taking place in museums of fine art, towards a critique of the creation of knowledge taking place in non-art museums, assuming new forms, including the artist acting as curator, art interventions that highlight the use of taxonomic modes of display and categorization, and the engagement with the aesthetics of collections to suggest different readings of objects and artefacts. This project has been assisted by the Australian government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.