The Sacred and Profane in Aboriginal Art

In January 2013 Fred Myers, Silver Professor of Anthropology at New York University, gave a paper at the International Symposium on Australian Aboriginal Anthropology on the Western Desert art movement. The symposium was held in Paris—an appropriate time and place for what he had to say, as an exhibition of Western Desert art, Tjukurrtjanu: The Art of the Western Desert, originally held at the National Gallery of Victoria, had been at the Musée du Quai Branly for the previous three months. In the paper, titled “Paintings, Publics, and Protocols: The early paintings from Papunya”, Myers is concerned with the problematic nature of exhibiting paintings containing images of sacred ritual practices and objects. For traditional Aboriginal people, such images are only allowed to be seen by initiated men, and the viewing of them by women, children or the uninitiated can lead to severe punitive repercussions.

Myers attempts to balance these traditional protocols surrounding the…