Whenever there's an uproar over art, when an artwork or an exhibition gives serious offense to people, it's a kind of measure of the tenor of the times -- what is and isn't okay to say and show, what is and isn't tolerated.
At the Wollongong City Gallery, an exhibition of paintings opened earlier this month that was subsequently closed down, temporarily, because of protests that it was racist and offensive to Indigenous Australians. The exhibition's called No Country for Dreaming, and the artist is Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan lives in Thirroul and he's regarded as one of the Illawarra region's leading artists.
After the opening of the show, and before this controversy erupted, the artist left for Bali with his Indonesian wife.
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