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Sydney Morning Herald www.smh.com.au
April 11,2007 p.11
Aboriginal Collection To Be Split Under The Hammer As Gallery Shuts
By Paul Bibby
One of the largest collections of Indigenous art and artifacts
remaining in Aboriginal hands will be split up and sold within weeks
after the owners were forced to shut their Sydney gallery and call in auctioneers.
The Black Fellas Dreaming collection, which includes more than 2500
books, artifacts, and paintings from some of Australia's top Indigenous
artists, was set up by the artist and activist
Gordon Syron in 2002 in an effort to stop unscrupulous dealers exploiting his colleagues.
But Syron and his wife, Elaine Pelot-Syron, have struggled to keep their business afloat. In
October last year debts forced them to close their gallery in St Peters and approach the auction house Bonhams and Goodman.
With about half the collection to go under the hammer on May 9, Syron
and his wife have launched a last ditch bid to find an individual or an
organisation willing to buy the collection and
display it in it's entirety.
"We've given up hope that it ( the collection) will stay in Aboriginal hands but we are desperate
for it to stay together," Syron said from the Waterloo warehouse where much of it is stored.
"The whole thing tells a story about contemporary society from an
Aboriginal perspective - from the little kid who's
addicted to petrol sniffing to the big guy
making millions in
Double Bay."
Syron one of the founders of the contemporary Indigenous art movement in Australia, started
the collection in response to "witnessing the carpetbaggers of Kakadu".
"I watched them go into Aboriginal settlements and buy a painting for $20 and a carton of
beer and sell it for hundreds or thousands of dollars," he said. "I refuse to sell my paintings
cheaply to white galleries who make all the profit. We always make sure that our artists
received 70 per cent of the sale of their paintings and all paintings are bought direct from
the artist."
While it may be too late to save Black Fellas Dreaming, Syron is
adamant that Indigenous people must be involved in the sale as well as
the production of their art.
"If Aboriginal people were to be involved in selling their own cultural artefacts there would be
a job for every Aboriginal man and woman who wanted one," Syron said.
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