Is the TAC going to pay the asking price for these busts? If not, where do they get the authority to demand they be handed over to a group of people who determine their own aboriginality?  If so, where do they expect to get the money to pay the price? From the Australian taxpayer once again?  TAC could sell some of the many government funded cars sitting in their carpark in Launceston, that should help a bit.  These busts are privately owned and have always been so; they are only pieces of sculpture and nobody but their owners have any right to say what should happen to them.  Hopefully they’ll be taken out of Australia and sold on the overseas market where, maybe, TAC can’t reach them. The arrogance of this organisation is breathtaking and should be curbed. With the considerable amount of funds they get let them do something about the real problems in the aboriginal community instead of constant, individual, self promotion.

That both Sotheby’s and Nick McKim have been swayed by the bullying of Michael Mansell appears to be a prime example of the attitude that if something involves aboriginal culture it is a subject beyond reasoned discussion. Mansell’s bluster does nothing to generate sympathy for the indigenous cause.

His claims are no more reasonable than if the white community were to demand that Ricky Maynard hand over all of his photographs that included white people on the grounds of “cultural sensitivity”.

This is a nasty idea and should not be treated with any respect at all. Will Mansell be demanding the “return” of the paintings of John Glover? Or the sketches of Nicolas Martin-Petit from the Baudin expedition? The list goes on.

It is a hideous notion that those who would claim some sort of affinity with the subject matter of a work of art see it as their right to seize that work of art as their own property. That is taking the ‘delusion of entitlement’ into the realm of the psychiatric ward.

Nick McKim was way off the mark in voicing support.

There are apparently forty copies of these busts, two of which are already in Tasmanian museums. What are these people demanding, that we collect them all up and donate the lot to them?

Looks like a grab accompanied by a bit of moral blackmail. If they want them, let them bid, hopefully using their own money.

Perhaps it is time to remind Nick McKim of the definition of political correctness:
“Advancing the proposition that it is possible to pick a turd up by the clean end”

Perhaps a private fund raising drive could amass the required cash to purchase the busts… and then present them to the Elders of Lia Pootah.

I would be happy to make a contribution….and even happier to see the expression it would elicit from that fool Mansell.

If Mr. Mansell is so keen to acquire images and sculpture of indigenous australians made by non-indigenous australians, presumably in some misguided attempt to ‘reclaim’ aboriginal culture, then I can happily offer to the TAC a nice pair of statues of aborigines, (albeit made of concrete), that stand in my garden. They have had a few new coats of paint over the years, but have not lost the aesthetic or cultural appeal of such artistic treasures so much sought after by Mr. Mansell.

Brian.M - I’m rapt that some still have Nevilles in the garden :)