The Agile Art World
Being agile and pivoting are words long associated with innovation and the tech world. However, they are now commonly being used in the art world to describe the quick responses …
OAS Journal | Online
Massim canoes in the Milne Bay Province,Papua New Guinea
by David Payne The traditional canoes of the Massim region of the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea (PNG) are colourful, stylish, and sophisticated. These traditional wooden canoes are …
Man Who Cannot Die – Phantom Shields of the New Guinea Highlands – Book launch talk
Chris Boylan These shields are from the New Guinea Highlands and a major feature is their colour. This is very much part of the New Guinea tradition to have colourful …
Man Who Cannot Die – Phantom Shields of the New Guinea Highlands
2021, 296 pages, Edited by Jonathan Fogel, with contributions from Chris Boylan, Bruce Cree, Hubert Langmann, Kevin Patrick, and Jessica Lindsey Phillips. Sydney & Toronto: Boylan and Phillips. Reviewed by Noelle …
Georgina Beier 1938 – 2021
By Keith Jackson Georgina Beier, called the ‘founding mother’ of contemporary art in Papua New Guinea, died in Sydney on Sunday 11 July 2021 aged 82. Her husband, Ulli Beier …
The Whole Picture
Image: George Nuku, 2021, The red wall, lithographs of the Atlas du voyage de l’Astrolabe, reworked and polystyrene frame at Musée Hèbre Rochefort, France. Photograph: Clémentine Débrosse. 2020, 304 pages, Alice Procter, Cassell Books, …
Diverse Studies of Individual Oceanic Art Objects
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 …
Travels of the Lily: from Lake Sentani to the National Gallery
by Crispin Howarth Main image caption: Le Lys as currently displayed in the exhibition ‘Emotional Bodies’ next to works by artists including Miro, Epstein and Modigliani. Image courtesy National Gallery of …
Solomon Islands carved coconut used in the practice of teeth blackening
Clémentine Débrosse In 1568, Álvaro de Mendaña y Neira was the first European to visit the Archipelago now known as the Solomon Islands. At the time, Mendaña y Neira was …
Djalkiri-Yolŋu art, collaborations and collections
2021, 320 pages, Edited by Rebecca J. Conway, Sydney University Press Reviewed by Lindy Allen and Louise Hamby Djalkiri-Yolŋu art, collaborations and collections is an elegantly designed book produced to coincide …
Creatures: Ochred, Pokered, Carved & Twined
Main image caption: Yibiyung Roma Winar, Noongar Language, Mountain Devil, c.1998. Perth, Western Australia. Emu Egg, 9.5 x 15 x 8.5 cm. Berndt Museum of Anthropology Collection [1998/0058] Presented by the Berndt …
Harry Beran | Tributes received by the OAS
Main image caption: Dr Harry Beran interviews residents of Egum Islet in Milne Bay in October 2017. Photograph: Luke Wong, ABC. Reproduced with permission of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Scholar, author …
War Art and Ritual: Visit to Bill Evans’s Shield Collection
Reviewed by Bill Rathmell Whenever I go to an art gallery or museum show, I buy the catalogue (or I don’t) on the basis of the “wow” factor of the …
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 …
Ambassadors and embassies in the new Chau Chak Wing Museum
by Matt Poll Image: Djon Mundine OAM. The easiest way I could describe the Ambassadors exhibition is that I am using the protocols of an acknowledgement of country as a framework for …
An Important Addition to the Sculptures Known to be from the Kiwai area
by David Ferguson This article describes a remarkable and previously undocumented female ancestral sculpture carved in the round in a fully conceived naturalistic style (Fig.1) which appears most closely related …
Introducing CASOAR
by the Members of CASOAR In the Summer of 2017, a group of friends studying at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris who specialised in the Arts and Anthropology of …
Evarne Coote
by Eric Coote On 5 January 2021 we lost Evarne Coote, a long time friend of the OAS and the world of tribal art collectors. Evarne spent her life serving …
The Stranger Artist:
Life at the edge of Kimberley painting 2020, 278 pages, Quentin Sprague, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne. Reviewed by Margaret Cassidy The rise of the Aboriginal art industry in the 1980s …
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 …
Creating change for a quarter of a century: The Oceanic Art Society
by Crispin Howarth The Australian-based international Oceanic Art Society (OAS) is celebrating its quarter of a century recognising and appreciating non-western arts of Australia and the Pacific. It began with …
Oh boy… 25 years already!
by Anthony Meyer I remember the inception of the Oceanic Art Society when Harry Beran first mentioned the idea in the early 1990s. We discussed it face to face during …
Comments on the Oceanic Art Society
by Michael Hamson I have been a part of the Oceanic Art Society for so long I cannot remember ever NOT being a member. In fact, I don’t even ever …
A Bird-Headed Kanak club in Norwich
by Carolina Gallarini While objects from Oceania can be viewed in several museums in the United Kingdom including the British Museum in London, the National Museums of Scotland or the …