This school holidays and NAIDOC week you can treat the whole family to a trip to The Maitland Regional Art Gallery for some family viewing messages containing profanity and racist art works.
One family was disgusted by what they have seen at the art gallery after attending with their young children, but is it art or racism and vile profanity disguised as art?
We did reach out to the MRAG, Mayor Lorreta Baker and Deputy Mayor Ben Mitchell for comment on the artworks in question, but we have not received a response anyone.
The Maitland Regional Art Gallery is largely funded by the rate payers of Maitland to the tune of $32,000 per week. I believe an explanation to why racist and art works containing profanity are on display during the school holidays and NAIDOC week.
We believe the art works are from the Shadow Boxer exhibition currently on display at the MRAG.
We would like to correct the above statement that we posted originally, the artworks are from the Just Not Australian Exhibition not Shadow Boxer Exhibition. Still no one from MRAG has responded to questions which has lead to the confusion on which exhibition the artworks belonged to.
Just Not Australian brings together 20 artists across generations and diverse cultural backgrounds to deal broadly with the origins and implications of contemporary Australian nationhood. With works ranging from the late 1990s right through to newly commissioned pieces, they are united by their desire to take Australia’s ‘official’ history to task, making space for people and events that have, often wilfully, been sidelined or omitted.
MRAG
You can be the judge are these art works inappropriate or completely acceptable?