Anthropologist Fred Myers and art critic Terry Smith are joined by curator Maia Nuku to discuss six Papunya paintings featured in a 2022 exhibition in New York. They draw on several discourses that have developed around First Nations art—notably anthropology, art history, and curating as practiced by Indigenous and non-Indigenous interpreters. Their focus on six key paintings enables unusually close and intense insight into the works’ content and extraordinary innovation. Six Paintings from Papunya also includes a reflection by Indigenous curator and scholar Stephen Gilchrist, who considers the nature and significance of this rare transcultural conversation.
brought to you in collaboration with the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, the Department of Anthropology, the Department of Art History, the Grey Art Museum, and the Institute of Fine Arts