Six Paintings from Papunya

Fred Myers is Silver Professor of Anthropology at New York University and author of Painting Culture: The Making of an Aboriginal High Art, also published by Duke University Press.Terry Smith is Andrew W. Mellon Emeritus Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Art to Come: Histories of Contemporary Art, also published by Duke University Press.

• List of IllustrationsPreface and AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. The Eternal Recurrence of OriginsKingsley Tjungurrai, Stars, Rain, and Lightning at Night, 19712. The Ceremony is the Place: The Past is the PresentShorty Lungkarta Tjungurrayi, Classic Pintupi Water Dreaming, 19723. The Icy Spirit: The Structure of PunishmentWartuma (Charlie Tarawa/Tjaruru) Tjungurrayi, The Trial, 19724. Inside and Outside: A Cave AllegoryMick Namarari Tjapaltjarri, Big Cave Dreaming with Ceremonial Objects, 19725. Stippling Plenitude: “The Water Man Does Not Get Wet-He Is the Rain Itself”Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, Water Dreaming at Kalipinypa, 19726. Dotting and WeavingKaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa (with Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri), Ngalyipi (A Small Snake), 1972Six Paintings from Papunya: A Reflection / Stephen GilchristLanguage and Person NamesGlossaryNotesBibliographyIndex

“While Fred and Terry appreciate that Indigenous art is in tacit dialogue with dominant approaches to categorization, their conversations work to reduce this determinative power. There is no desire to coax these paintings into familiar and complacent categorizations. On the contrary, they are genuinely responding to the intellectual and cultural challenges of the paintings by shaping a critical vocabulary and methodology that can best apprehend them. . . . They show us the richness of Indigenous cultural practices and the tools with which to apprehend them. Indigenous art and culture deserve nothing less.”- - Stephen Gilchrist, from the afterword “Fred R. Myers and Terry Smith’s shared knowledge of the history of Papunya painting as an art movement is invaluable. Smith’s authority as a historian and theorist is unmatched. Equally compelling is Myers’s anthropological research with the Pintupi: his writing on the reception of the art is unparalleled. Their conversations bring the reader to the gallery floor as these two great minds think through this art.” - Ian McLean, author of (Double Nation: A History of Australian Art)