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Exhibitions
Ancestral Modern:
Australian Aboriginal
Art from the Kaplan
& Levi Collection
January 26–April 22, 2018
Ancestral Modern introduces audiences to indigenous Australian painting and sculpture, which
has blossomed since the 1970s. It contains approximately fifty artworks, including paintings on
bark strips, hollow logs, and canvases, and a small selection of sculptures. In many cases, the
artworks include motifs from traditional art forms, such as rock and body painting, that have
been translated to media that can be more easily shared with viewers around the world.
In the late 1960s, decades of grassroots activism resulted in increased power and visibility for
Aboriginal people. The years that followed marked the start of an artistic renaissance in the
world’s oldest continuous artistic tradition, fueled both by the end of government policies that
demanded assimilation into white society a