Richard Bell: Uz Vs. Them

Richard Bell has established a significant reputation as a political commentator and ‘enfant terrible’ in Indigenous art over the past two decades. This stunningly illustrated catalogue features more than 26 colour plates of his provocative and often humorous works. With their bold use of images and text, they force viewers to face the troubling issue of racism in Australia. Bell’s inspiration is complex and multi-layered. He is an avid appropriator, borrowing from other artists, periods and cultures, including Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollock, and Aboriginal painter Emily Kam Kngwarreye, among others. He works across a wide range of media, including painting, performance, and video, producing powerful messages that confront and unsettle: about Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians’ relationship to each other, about their country’s history and about art itself. Accompanies the first travelling exhibition dedicated to Richard Bell’s work in the United States. Organized by the American Federation of Arts, it opens at the Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, Massachusetts in September 2011