Australia’s most talked about contemporary artist and a figure of increasing international stature, Richard Bell describes himself as “more an activist than an artist,” and indeed much of his work is politically charged, addressing issues such as the racist Australian culture within which he finds himself. Didactic yet humorous, Bell’s vivid and provocative paintings and videos signal an important and powerful voice in contemporary art. His work is included in major public and private collections and has been represented in a number of notable contemporary exhibitions, both in Australia and overseas, but this is the first mid-career survey in the U.S. of the work of this important Aboriginal artist. The guest curator is Maura Reilly.

Among Bell’s American corollaries are Emory Douglas, Jimmie Durham, James Luna, Daniel Martinez, Kara Walker, and Carrie Mae Weems, all of whom have taken “identity politics” as their subject, appropriating popular imagery to subvert its often inherently derogatory message—be it slavery, the subjugation of indigenous Americans, and so forth. Bell invokes the formal aesthetics of Aboriginal desert painting (with their dot matrixes and expressionist drips) while usurping the mainstream Pop art styles à la Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein. He began his practice of pop appropriation around 2001, as is most visible in his brightly colored Lichtenstein series, of which there are multiple examples in the exhibition, including a Ben-Day dot painting of the Sydney Opera House, as well as the The Peckin’ Order (2007), a well-known work in which a young woman cries out, “Thank Christ I’m Not Aboriginal.”

Bell is probably best known for his “theorems,” a series of paintings with declarative pro-Aboriginal statements. Among his most famous is Aboriginal Art—it’s a white thing (2002), in which he accuses the contemporary art world of manipulating and exploiting indigenous art while he himself ironically utilizes in the work an earthy palette and brushstroke derived from traditional Aboriginal desert painting. Another in the exhibition, Wewereherefirst (2007), which features a multi-colored Jasper Johns target in the center, speaks to a universal indigenous voice in the struggle against the continued colonialist stronghold. In his most recent “theorem,” Pay the Rent (2009), Bell demands back rent from the colonizers as restitution for what they owe to the colonized Aborigines since “the invasion” in 1788.

Likewise, in the provocative video Scratch an Aussie (2008), Bell overturns political and social norms by charading as a black Sigmund Freud who psychoanalyzes racist white Australians. The exhibition debuts Bell’s new video Broken English (2009), in which the artist plays chess with indigenous politics, asking white and black Australians why Aborigines appear to lack a vision of their own future, often encountering strongly contradictory views. The exhibition also includes The Dinner Party (2010), a new video work that completes his trilogy Imagining Victory.

Published by the AFA in association with D Giles Limited, London, the fully illustrated catalogue includes a foreword by critic and scholar Eleanor Heartney, an essay by Aboriginal curator Djon Mundine, an interview with the artist by Guest Curator Maura Reilly, and a piece by Bell titled “Scratching an Aussie.”

Exhibition Itinerary: Tufts University Art Gallery (September 8–November 20, 2011); University of Kentucky Art Museum (February 12–May 6, 2012); Victoria H. Myhren Gallery, University of Denver (September 13–December 9, 2012); Indiana University Art Museum (March 7–May 12, 2013)

For more information, contact Michelle Hargrave, Curator, at 212.988.7700 ext. 225 or mhargrave@afaweb.org.