Art and life attitudes: Audience responses to Jason Wing’s Australia was stolen by Armed Robbery

It has been observed that art is a communicative tool, a way of acting in the world in order to express opinions, attitudes and ways of knowing. The expressive power of art was a recurring theme raised by many of the Aboriginal artists, from New South Wales, who have collaborated with me. Here, artists positioned their work as a communicative tool via which they were able to educate, challenge and connect to their audiences, particularly regarding loaded, complex or sensitive political or personal issues associated with their experiences of being an Aboriginal person in contemporary Australia. In view of the communicative aim of such artists, this article focuses on the various responses - excitement, distress, pleasure, anger - of audiences to the works of Aboriginal artists. Taking as its case study the responses of various commenters on social media, including Herald Sun journalist Andrew Bolt, to an award-winning work by multidisciplinary artist Jason Wing and Wing’s counter-response, the article will explore the way public responses to Aboriginal artworks, articulated online and via print and social media, offer a sometimes unnerving insight into particular iterations of Australian attitudes regarding art, nationality, history, race relations and identity.