Nina Caplan in the New Statesman suggests using theft as the organising principle for the current exhibition of Australia at the Royal Academy.
The Royal Academy has certainly underestimated Australia, similarly
trying to fit the continent into too small a space. The gallery has form
on this kind of sweeping treatment – its 1995 “Africa” show triggered
outrage – but the curators are also responding to Australian
self-deprecation, not to mention the internal incoherence of a nation
founded on theft by people who were there mostly as punishment for
stealing.
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