Oceanic art can be studied from a number of angles. This art can be approached from an anthropological or ethnographic aspect and from the perspective of art history or visual culture. This edition features studies of two individual sculptured objects from the Pacific that are approached from different research disciplines. Clémentine Débrosse has undertaken some […]
OAC Journal Cover Stories
New places, new ways of engaging across cultures
The summer of 2020-2021 has seen the opening of some significant new or renovated/expanded museums from the east to the west coast in Australia. Those of us in Sydney have been blessed with the opportunity to tour the refreshed Pacific gallery as well as the expanded exhibition spaces resulting from the major renovation of Australia’s […]
25 years of the OAS
Photo Caption: The 2012 OAS Forum at the SA Museum. Photo by Michelle Haywood. 2020 is a very significant milestone in the history of the Oceanic Art Society. As is outlined in former OAS President Crispin Howarth’s detailed history in this special 25th Anniversary edition, this is a remarkable achievement for the group of Oceanic Art […]
Oceanic art market in the time of COVID
This edition of the Journal features Barry Craig’s account of the Pacific collection at the new Wantok Place Museum in North Adelaide as well as Jim Elmslie’s story behind the recent sales with remarkable provenance of works from the Hermannsburg school in Central Australia. We’ve introduced a new feature, the President’s Corner, where Bill Rathmell interviewed Nick Mitzevich, Director of the National Gallery of Australia, following news reports of the deaccession of Pacific pieces from the collection.
OAS responds with flexibility during COVID-19
The worldwide virus lockdown has hit all aspects of art and culture particularly hard. Cultural spaces and gatherings are often run on a low budget and it is hard to see some of them recovering. As well, the Oceanic and Aboriginal communities that are the custodians of the art and culture that we revere are […]
Hongi Hika: The Legacy Continues
Modern research continues to reveal secrets long held in uncatalogued documents and artefacts in rich archives. The centrepiece of this edition is the story of current research to identify which of three early Maori carvings is the wooden self-portrait of rangatira (chief) Hongi Hika carved from a fencepost at the farm of missionary Reverend Samuel Marsden in […]
Curiosity Remains a Driving Force
Image: Mathias Kauage ‘Independence Celebration 1999’, Andrew Baker Collection. Image by Mick Richards. The desire to know – curiosity – has long been a motivating force in human endeavour. In this issue of the OAS Journal we see that evident nearly 200 years ago in the travels of Frenchman Dumont d’Urville in Melanesia (a term […]
The Story Keeps Unfolding
With so much information available in the modern digital age it sometimes feels that we know, collectively, almost everything. In this edition Professor Ian McNiven shows us that this is wrong and that something as simple as the geographic origin of an artefact is still a matter of research. In Ian’s thought provoking paper, Beyond Bridge […]
Times Are A Changing
In this issue of the of the OAS Journal we are fortunate to have Dr Maia Nuku, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, chart the evolution of that institution over the last 50 years, particularly in the decisions taken that resulted in its present day collections of Pacific art. Through the actions […]
Collectors and Collections: OAS Forum 2019 a Triumph
The 2019 Oceanic Art Society Forum was an intellectual and emotional odyssey. Oceanic art represents and encompasses many things: sublime beauty and irresistible mystery; cultural treasure; markers of colonial dispossession and loss, but also continuity and hope. That indeed is what Oceanic art is: objects that bind people through time; binding those who made them […]