Fed: Indigenous arts soar in price

AAP General News (Australia)
08-24-2000
Fed: Indigenous arts soar in price

A report says indigenous art now makes up one in 10 sales on the Australian market.

And, the research report, entitled The Arts Economy, 1969-1998, says indigenous art
is grabbing record prices, with one artwork selling for almost half a million dollars.

Individual works have more than tripled in value at auctions in the last decade.

And art sales have jumped from $873,000 in 1988 to $4.5 million in 1999.

The report shows indigenous art has also overtaken non-indigenous art as the flavour
of the decade.

Non-indigenous art at Australian art auctions fell by nearly half to just more than $25 million.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Board spokesman RICHARD WALLEY says in 1988,
the value of indigenous art represented 1.7 per cent of Australian art auction sales.

He says today it represents around 10 per cent of this market.

AAP RTV lm/daw/wz/jn 2

KEYWORD: ARTWORKS (CANBERRA)

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