A New Art History of Australian Aboriginal Art

This paper aims to contribute to the debate around a New Art History and advocate for further research on Australian Aboriginal art through the Ronald M. and Catherine H. Berndt Collection at The University of Western Australia. The gaps in research and the location of Australia as a colony within this discourse, includes the ongoing problem of inclusion of Aboriginal art within an Australian, and by extension, European art history. Even after extensive study, exhibitions and anthologies on the topic, Aboriginal art remains a parallel history, with the discourse around its inclusion unresolved. The intention behind placing Aboriginal and Asian art in focus seeks new ideas through a control such as a single collection. The fact that the Berndt Collection includes both Aboriginal and Asian art, as well as a detailed social anthropological study of the colonial impact including acculturation and assimilation on Indigenous societies across Australia and Asia, makes this a significant study that offers an opportunity to rewrite art history and expand the discourse. This paper explores the value of research on art and art history from outside a known position, into the unknown. It advocates for research on Australian Aboriginal and Asian art as a hypothesis for discovering new theory and thus contributing to the discourse. Through the Ronald M. and Catherine H. Berndt Collection at the University of Western Australia, it is proposed that new ways of thinking about Aboriginal art within a regional study may expand the field of theory and add to Aboriginal art history into the future. The Berndts‟ collected widely across Aboriginal Australia and into Asia and their collections have added value due to their work as social anthropologist in expanding knowledge on the art and culture in Australia and by extension through their work in Asia which remains relatively unknown. Here colonisation was a primary driver for their research with art