Mid Century Modern-Aboriginal Corroboree | 2016 | pigment print on paper | 50 x 50 cm, edition of 2 + 1AP
Image courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf.

Tony Albert’s art practice interrogates contemporary legacies of colonialism in a way that prompts the audience to contemplate elemental aspects of the human condition. Mining imagery and source material from across the globe, and drawing upon personal and collective histories, Albert questions how we understand, imagine and construct difference. Certain political themes and visual motifs resurface across his oeuvre, including thematic representations of the ‘outsider’ and Aboriginalia (a term the artist coined to describe kitschy objects and images that feature naive portrayals of Aboriginality). Albert’s ‘Mid Century Modern’ series uses hundreds of collected vintage retro ashtrays and tablecloths depicting Westernised stereotypes of Aboriginal culture, assembling them to create a vibrant and relentless photographic series that examines cultural appropriation and the erasure of Aboriginal racial and cultural identity.