What's Driving the Rise of the Aboriginal Art Market in the U.S.

This has been a record year for Aboriginal art in New York City. In January, Salon 94 mounted the first solo exhibition of work by Yukultji Napangati in the U.S. The artist’s canvases feature close-set, autumn-hued lines that appear to pulse and ripple: They conjure the best of Op art , without that movement’s synthetic edge. In March, Olsen Gruin mounted a group show featuring indigenous women artists from the southern Australian collective, Tjala Arts. Then, in the biggest whammy of all, Gagosian Gallery launched a major, non-selling exhibition, “Desert Painters of Australia,” which included lush, virtuosic canvases by artists including Emily Kame Kngwarreye , Makinti Napanangka Makinti Napanangka Australian First Nation, 1930–2011 Follow Makinti Napananagka first began to make paintings using acrylic and canvas in 1995, as part of the artistic project Kintore/Haasts Bluff. Her aesthetic is … , and Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri . Filled with transfixing dots, labyrinthine lines, and masterful color, their abstractions evoked topographic maps and the night sky in brilliant color palettes—tangerines, marigolds, and crimsons. Actor Steve Martin, a major collector who loaned work to the show, is in talks with an as-yet-unnamed museum about mounting an exhibition of his Aboriginal art collection.

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-driving-rise-aboriginal-art-market