In the last meeting of the Amsterdam Reading Group we read Fred Moten's text 'Sound in Florescence (Cecil Taylor Floating Garden)' (1997) on the free jazz pianist and poet Cecil Taylor, and a chapter from Claire Bishop's Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship (2012) which considered contemporary art projects that have appropriated pedagogic forms. As part of our discussion we discussed how meaning was made in the production and reception of a work, and issues surrounding representation and engagement with other people.

For this session we will pick up on some of these ideas and continue to think about appropriation in relation to different cultures through the Australian context. In particular we will do this through a consideration of Aboriginal art. The first text 'Bad Aboriginal Art' (1987) is by the visual anthropologist Eric Michaels. The text questions how value is ascribed to Aboriginal art and the implications of this through various case studies.

The second text 'Bell's Theorem: Aboriginal Art - It's A White Thing' (2002) is by the Aboriginal artist Richard Bell who often uses appropriative strategies in his work for political effect. This text provides an Aboriginal perspective on these issues.