In 2003, while a student at New York’s Rhode Island School of Design, the artist Jordan Wolfson encountered a classical Buddhist sculpture in the campus museum. It was a simple thing, but something about it lodged deep in his consciousness and stayed there. He remembers it well: how he would visit the museum, and spend time simply looking at the unassuming figure, basking in its palpable energy. At times it appeared as if it might overwhelm him. “It was like I would hallucinate that it would come and it would, like, smash me,” he tells me. “It was a crazy feeling.
Early this month The Australian published Greg Bearup’s investigation into allegations of art malpractice in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, a vast area of sparsely populated country in the extreme north-west of South Australia. The investigation has since trailed through the newspaper as new allegations, denials and updates have surfaced.