Brushing aside the tempting opportunity to ridicule many frames of reference in that sentence (I mean, don't get me . The work is a copy of a copy of a copy. The installation is filled with images of his family and Constructivist-style drawings made by the artist. I decided that I would attempt to create a space by adopting a strategy of intervention and disturbance in the field of representation through my art. The first panel of Bennetts triptych, Requiem, depicts Trugannini (c. 1812 1876), a Palawa woman from Tasmania. In Outsider the energy and intensity associated with van Goghs expressive brushstrokes and brilliant colour contrasts are powerfully explosive . . Research the representation of three dimensional space in selected artforms of several different cultures (ie. The grid, with its characteristic ordered mathematical structure, appears in a range of Bennetts artworks in a variety of forms. January 26, 1988: Spectator craft surround tall ship The Bounty on Sydney Harbour as it heads towards Farm Cove while a formation of air force jets are in a fly-past overhead, part of the First Fleet re-enactment for Australias Bicentennial, A strategy of intervention and disturbance, Layering and re-defining Creating new language, Re-mixing and exchanging A global perspective, Outsider and Altered body print (Shadow figure howling at the moon), Installation of Triptych: Requiem, Of grandeur, Empire, 1989, in exhibition Gordon Bennett (2007), Visual images, forms and elements as signifiers, Art practice a multidisciplinary approach, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, International Audience Engagement Network (IAE), Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe in Ian McLean & Gordon Bennett, The Art of Gordon Bennett, Craftsman House, 1996, p. 20, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 15, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 21, These experiences are clearly reflected in the Home sweet home series 1993-4, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 27, Kelly Gellatly, Conversation: Bill Wright talks to Gordon Bennett with contributions by Bill Wright, Justin Clemens and Jane Devery, Gordon Bennett (exh. Bennett was aware of the role binary opposites, such as self/other, play in constructing personal and cultural identity. SOLD FEB 10, 2023. He probed ideas about identity, fuelled partly by his own . | Tate Images. Bennett worked in a range of art forms and with a variety of media and techniques. The dresser draw labelled self is closed while the drawers for history and culture are ajar. Particularly when academics claim that they are afraid of expressing their 'true' findings for fear of losing their careers. For many Aboriginal Australians, these celebrations were instead received as a period of mourning and a time to remember the devastating consequences of colonisation on Aboriginal people. Bennett was concerned that his identity and work was seen as coming from a narrow framework. are they representative of different cultural identities)? In Notes to Basquiat (Jackson Pollock and his other) 2001, Bennett confronts these issues within a global context. The grand Romantic landscapes of Western art were intended to inspire the viewer with their dramatic beauty and effects of illusion. Bennett presents each image with a single word, written in capitals, that boldly asserts a new meaning for them. Often describing his own practice of borrowing images as quoting, Bennett re-contextualised existing images to challenge the viewer to question and see alternative perspectives. Collect and find photographs of a wide variety of people of different ethnicities, cultures and physical appearances. It demonstrates Bennetts understanding of the power of this image. The mirror at the bottom left-hand corner of the painting represents Bennetts own shaving mirror. The Constitution is being rethought with respect to Indigenous Australians, and treaty-making is on the agenda yet the Uluru Statement from the Heart was roundly ignored by the Federal Government. This allowed him to utilise professional capture, editing and special effects software, to expand his art practice to include video and performance work. Some of Prestons appropriations however, demeaned and trivialised the way Aborigines were depicted and understood. cat. Every object is carefully and clearly painted, yet the images conceptually blur together as they intersect and interlace through the grid, across the canvas. Further reading He acknowledged that much of his work was autobiographical, but he emphasises that there was conceptual distance involved in his art making . Gordon Bennett 2. The triptych form of painting is most commonly associated with the altarpiece paintings made for Christian churches. In many images of the crucifixion, including the painting by Veneziano illustrated, Mary Magdalene is kneeling at the foot of the cross washing and anointing Christs feet in an act of devotion . In a conceptual sense I was liberated from the binary prison of self and other; the wall had disintegrated but where was I? I didnt go to art college to graduate as an Aboriginal Artist. There are many visual signs that recur throughout Bennetts artworks, including: Each of these signs brings significant meaning to Bennetts work and plays an important role in his investigation of issues and ideas related to identity, understanding and perception. He carefully staged each image in his studio, posing the sitter against a painted backdrop. He and his partner bought a house and settled in the suburbs of Brisbane like other young couples. . Gordon Bennett Possession Island (Abstraction) 1991 Oil paint and acrylic paint on canvas 1 843 x 1845 mm Tate and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, purchased jointly with funds provided by the Qantas Foundation 2016 Estate of Gordon Bennett CZ: A lot of the featured artists have also created work since 1992. Explore a range of ideas and media within your work. Captain James Cook arrived there in 1770 and claimed ownership of the entire eastern coast of Australia in the name of King George III. Compare and contrast Possession Island with one or more of the following artworks: What does this comparison reveal about the relationship between visual images, culture and history? Bennett has included the framed photograph in the panel, to the right of the painted figure. Lichtenstein 19231987). It was upon entering the workforce that I really learnt how low the general opinion of Aboriginal people was. An orphan from a very young age, she was raised on Cherbourg Aboriginal Mission in Queensland, and later trained as a domestic at Singleton. These images are fused and overlapped in a dynamic composition underpinned by Mondrian-style grids. Gordon Bennett . Create an illustrated and annotated timeline of the history of Australia since settlement. The timeline could be presented in hardcopy for display in the classroom, or as an ICT project incorporating images and audio. Include in your discussion reference to Bennetts appropriation of The nine shots 1985 by Imants Tillers. Bennetts earliest works, including The coming of the light, 1987, reflect a raw and expressive style. You might consider, scale, materials and techniques, perceptual effects. Comparisons between Basquiat and Bennett often focus on the artists similar backgrounds and experiences. This is the second of two works entitled Possession Island that Bennett painted following Australias bicentennial celebrations in 1988. Discuss with reference to examples in at least two works by Bennett. They became a potent symbol of the celebrations. These geometric forms also refer to the early 20th-century abstract artist Kazimir Malevich. In this way, Bennett effectively exposes and questions the constructed and value-laden nature of language and history, and how they shape our understanding of the world. Sutton Gallery. Bennett also includes copies and samples of his own work, such as Possession Island and Big Romantic painting (The Apotheosis of Captain Cook) 1993, with other found images. Home Dcor (Algebra) Ocean, 1998 synthesises the work of Piet Mondrian(18721944), Margaret Preston (18751963) and later in the series, JeanMichel Basquiat(19601988) among others. The incorporation of Blue Poles calls to mind an era of great reform in Australian politics. The inclusion of Pollock helps build these cross- connections. SOLD FEB 21, 2023. I needed to change direction at least for a while. Bennetts use of the grid in these and other artworks suggests questions and ideas. Bennett confronts and questions the appropriateness of this borrowing. possession island . Mixing of pure blood with European blood was feared by Europeans, authenticity was at risk and identity diluted. 3 Beds. From 2003 Bennett worked on a series of non-representational abstract paintings that mark another significant shift in his practice. Kelly Gellatly 3. How does this work compare with conventional self-portraits? For example, the association between the colour red and blood or violence is strongly influenced by the many representations and descriptions we are exposed to in Western culture, in which blood or violence is described/represented using the colour red. For example, Aboriginal deaths in custody was recognised as a significant issue. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island, 1991, oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas; two parts, 162 x 260cm (overall). More broadly, it recalls the lives of many young Aboriginal women who followed a similar destiny. Eventually Bennetts mother earned an official exemption that allowed her to leave the Mission. * *Collection: Museum of Sydney on the site of the first Government House, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales. Possession Island (Appendix 1) 1991 and Notes to Basquiat (Jackson Pollock and his Other) (Appendix 2) 2001 will be discussed in relation to Henri's statement. This is evident in many of his works, including Outsider. Throughout his career Bennett has used many different strategies to engage the viewer in his work. The linear diagram that frames the kneeling figure of Bennetts mother in the central panel of Triptych: Requiem, Of grandeur, Empire, and the diagrams in the lower sections of the two side panels, are typical of illustrations that explain the principles of linear perspective. The Constitution is being rethought with respect to Indigenous Australians, and treaty-making is on the agenda yet the Uluru Statement from the Heart was roundly ignored by the Federal Government. That is not my intention, I have my own experiences of being crowned in Australia, as an Urban Aboriginal artist underscored as that title is by racism and primitivism and I do not wear it well. Queensland-born artist Gordon Bennett (1955-2014) was deeply engaged with questions of identity, perception and the construction of history, and made a profound and ongoing contribution to contemporary art in Australia and internationally. Like words, visual images, forms and elements are powerful signifiers of meaning. The content of the work was getting to me emotionally. 1 Bill Wrights interview with Gordon Bennett in Gellatly K with contributions by Clemens, Justin; Devery, Jane; and Wright, Bill Gordon Bennett National Gallery of Victoria exhibition catalogue, Melbourne, 2007, During his childhood in the 1950s and 60s, Bennett lived with his family in Victoria and Queensland. When Gordon Bennett was labelled an Aboriginal Artist he was othered as an Aborigine and all the preconceptions that entails. The Estate of Gordon Bennett. The reality is, however, that I have never really had much choice; and I have been faced with my work not entering some collections on the grounds of it being not Aboriginal enough, to being asked to sell my work through stalls at cultural festivalsGordon Bennett 2. Samuel Calverts engraving, Captain Cook taking possession of the Australian continent on behalf of the British Crown AD 1770, became the starting point for Bennetts exploration. Since 1992 Bennett was involved in an ongoing non-performance by refusing to participate in public lecture programs in Australia. Gordon Bennett explores these ideas in Self portrait: Interior/ Exterior , 1992. Gordon Bennett an Australian Aboriginal artist demonstrates this theory through his work. Picassos sizable oeuvre grew to include over 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures,ceramics, theater sets, and costume designs. Gordon Bennett 1. Why? There was always some sense of social engagement. Kelly Gellatly 5, By the mid 1990s, Gordon Bennett came to feel he was in an untenable position. Jenna Gribbon, April studio, parting glance, 2021. While 2007 was a brilliant year for Bennett's secondary market results, with eight works sold of which . Although there are many forms of Aboriginal art, dot painting is widely seen as synonymous with Aboriginal art since the late 1970s, when the dot painting of the Western Desert attracted unprecedented national and international interest in Aboriginal art. The Spanish artist Francisco Goya (1746-1828) used the power of the grotesque in the Disasters of war series, which depicts some of the atrocities that took place in Spain during the War of Independence (1814-18). cat. May 20, 2022 - Explore Benny O's board "Artists" on Pinterest. Once again, the arena of self- portraiture becomes a vehicle to take over and challenge stereotypes. Gordon Bennett (9 October 1955 - 3 June 2014) [1] was an Australian artist of Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic descent. Australian politics is fraught yet the Australian public is disengaged. Bennett used this symbol because: What emerges for all who take part in this piece is in fact an examination of the self. Gordon Bennett's "Outsider" is a highly emotive piece that conveys various ideas through appropriate symbolism. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island #2, 1991. Possession Island displays a photocopy of Samuel Calvert's engraving, Captain Cook . Blood is a potent symbol and has historically been a measure of Aboriginality. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Art Elements, Line, Colour and more. That's probably why he is hardly a household name, despite the cognoscenti referring to him as a powerfully influential figure in contemporary art. Bennett used 9/11 and its global impact three months after the event as the stage for his discourse on cultural identity. He quotes directly from this image, which is in fact a copy of a copy, as Samuel Calvert copied this image of Captain Cook landing in Botany Bay from an image by Gilfillan, which is now lost. The title of the work itself is unsettling. Bennett used perspective diagrams and visual symbols in Triptych: Requiem, Of grandeur, Empire . 3233, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 33, Gordon Bennett & Chris McAuliffe, Interview with Gordon Bennett in Rex Bulter (Ed.) Gordon Bennett 3. Compare and contrast this artists use of appropriation with that of Gordon Bennett. James Gordon Bennett The word DISPERSE was used by the colonisers to represent the killing of Aboriginal people. Typical of Bennetts early work, the painting appropriates an existing picture, in this case an historical painting, and transforms the content with carefully considered signs of Aboriginal identity. Collect a range of images (both art and media sources) that depict characters that are perceived or presented as typically Australian. Acutely aware of the frame, I graduated as a straight honours student of fine art to find myself positioned and contained by the language of primitivism as an Urban Aboriginal Artist. It is reproduced in flat, bold and black line work. John Citizen is an artist for our times: he reflects back to us citizens the white Australia of the postKeating era. Image: Gordon Bennett, Australia 1955-2014, Possession Island, 1991. It is based on a newspaper photograph of Bennetts mother and another young Aboriginal woman, dressed in crisp white uniforms, polishing the elaborate architectural fittings in a grand interior of a homestead in Singleton. Fundamentally, he deconstructed history to question the truth of the past. The Notes to Basquiat series takes appropriation to yet another level within Bennetts art practice. Bennetts recent abstract paintings reflect links to a range of artists including Australians Robert McPherson, Emily Kam Kngwarray and Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, and International artist Frank Stella. $927,000 Last Sold Price. Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, pp. These images, forever forged in our minds, are boldly depicted in Basquiats graffiti- like style. This was soon replaced by a cooler, more conceptual approach. Discuss with reference to selected artworks by Gordon Bennett. L120238 Gordon Bennett. Symbols such as these highlight his awareness and use of visual images, forms and elements as signs. Outsider depicts, a decapitated Aboriginal figure standing over Vincent van Goghs bed, with red paint streaming skywards to join with the vortex of Vincents starry night. Gewerblich. Theyre buried, and this is a way of bringing them back into memory, but remembered in a different way from the way that I was taught, looking at them from a different angle and looking at how they work, where they came from initially, and how these images still support contemporary stereotypes, etc. The purchase of this artwork by the Whitlam Labor Government (19731975) was fraught with controversy. Possession Island 1991 Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas Two parts: 162 x 260cm (overall) The Estate of Gordon Bennett Purchased with funds. From his father, a Scottish . Bennett attempts to destroy the stereotypes to question notions of identity. While self- portraits usually address issues of personal identity, Bennett uses this form of representation to also look at issues of identity on a national scale. JeanMichel Basquiat, crowned a black urban artist, was well known for his spontaneous and gestural paintings, which reflect the artists involvement in the graffiti culture of the United States. Possession Island (Abstraction), Gordon Bennett, 1991, Oil paint and acrylic paint on canvas. Collection: Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums In this work Bennett directly references historical British sources, namely Samuel Calverts (18281913) colour etching Captain Cook Taking Possession of the Australian Continent on Behalf of the British Crown AD 1770 c.185364 (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne), which is itself a copy of John Alexander Gilfillans (17931864) earlier, now lost, painting of the same title. Different members of the class could be assigned different cultural traditions to research and then prepare an illustrated presentation for the class. Bennett achieved critical success early in his career. The figure is dressed in tattered western clothing. In your discussion consider meanings and ideas associated with, Compare your interpretation and analysis with others related to this artwork (this could be an interpretation by someone else in your class, or in a commentary on the work in gallery, book, catalogue etc. These act as disturbances. His sudden death came just one week after the opening of the 8th Berlin Biennale, where a series of Bennett's never-before exhibited drawings from the early 1990s are currently on view. Bennetts portrait of himself as a four- year old boy dressed as a cowboy as the I is juxtaposed with images of Aborigines as the AM. In 1999 Bennett adopted an alter ego and began making and exhibiting Pop Art inspired images under the name of John Citizen, a persona representative of the Australian Mr Average. (Supplied: CGM Communications) In 1989, Bennett, Mr Lai and five other executives started Phosphate Resources Limited and got the locals to invest, raising about $3.4 million. Gordon Bennett, an Australian Aboriginal artist, demonstrates this theory through his work. She looms large over the landscape in Requiem, as she does in the post- contact history of the nation as a symbol of the devastating impact that colonisation had on Indigenous people and culture. By the late 1980s there was also a growing awareness within Australian society of the injustices suffered by the Indigenous population as a result of their dispossession. Research the significant dates/events referenced in Bennetts artworks, including Myth of the Western Man (White mans burden) 1992 for some ideas. Queensland-born, Bennett (1955-2014) was deeply engaged with questions of identity, perception and the construction of history, and made a profound and ongoing contribution to contemporary art in Australia and internationally. Bennett not only used Basquiat images, but begins to paint in his style. He states: The traditionalist studies of Anthropology and Ethnography have thus tended to reinforce popular romantic beliefs of an authentic Aboriginality associated with the Dreaming and images of primitive desert people, thereby supporting the popular judgment that only remote fullbloods are real Aborigines. 2,038 Sq. It is open to self revelation, self redemption and a myriad of rich images of self that can be built upon. They physically prevent the viewer from seeing the image clearly, but psychologically encourage the viewer to delve into the image more deeply and question: Where did these images come from that theyre relating back to in their minds in order to stage this re- enactment? Within the Home dcor series Gordon Bennett escalates the sampling and quoting of other artists and works to develop a pastiche. Both artists have an affinity with Jazz, Rap and Hip Hop music. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island (Abstraction), 1991. Neither had I thought to question the representation of Aborigines as the quintessential primitive Other against which the civilized collective Self of my peers was measured. What strategies have been used to communicate and explore these themes and ideas in the book/film? all the education and socialization upon which my identity and self worth as a person, indeed my sense of Australianness, and that of my peers, had as its foundation the narratives of colonialism. The works I have produced are notes, nothing more, to you and your work Gordon Bennett 1. In the context of the other panels, which are all figurative, this black square could be seen as an absence, and possibly a representation of the oppression of indigenous voices by history. Gordon Bennett born Australia 1955 Possession Island 1991 oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas (a-b) 162.0 x 260.0 cm (overall) Museum of Sydney on the site of first Government House, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales. How does this interpretation and analysis compare to your own? [Bennett] seeks to expose the shadows of official history, to track its doubles and contradictions, not in order to repudiate the European vision but to map a postcolonial future Ian McLean 2. His art attempts to depict the complexity of both cultural perspectives. Pollock becomes a catalyst for transformation. my work was largely about ideas rather than emotional content emanating from some stereotype of a tortured soul. He painted his most famous work, Guernica (1937), in response to the Spanish Civil War; the totemic grisaille canvas remains a definitive work of anti-war art. Bennetts distinctive visual language repositions the subject of the work, claiming the Aboriginal perspective as central to the historical moment of the original painting. This pastiche of style and image is like a D J (Disc Jockey) sampling and remixing different styles of music to create new expressions. 40 41. 20-21, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe in Ian McLean & Gordon Bennett, The Art of Gordon Bennett, Craftsman House, 1996, p. 33, Ian McLean, Towards an Australian postcolonial art in Ian McLean & Gordon Bennett, The Art of Gordon Bennett, Craftsman House, 1996, p. 99, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe in The Art of Gordon Bennett, p. 22, Zara Stanhope, How do you think it feels? in Three Colours , Gordon Bennett & Peter Robinson (exh. GORDON BENNETT AND HIS RACES From the Book: Die Gordon Bennett Ballon Rennen (The Gordon Bennett Races)by Ulrich Hohmann Sr along with articles by others.Many of his contemporaries have considered Mister James Gordon Bennett to be a spleeny American. I did want to explore Aboriginality, however, and it is a subject of my work as much as colonialism and the narratives and language that frame it, and the language that has consistently framed me. However these ideas and values simultaneously oppressed Indigenous people and their cultural and knowledge systems. Buildings and planes collide. Black angels replace traditional white cherubs. The central image is a reworking of an earlier painting completed at art college, The persistence of language, 1987, painted in the style of Basquiat. Identify other artists who have used dots in their work (ie. With eyes closed, these heads appear as blind, mute and lifeless witnesses to the surrounding conflict and struggle. Egyptian painting or relief sculpture, Chinese scroll paintings, Aboriginal painting of the Western Desert. This education resource accompanies the retrospective exhibition Gordon Bennett (2008) which showcased 85 works by this internationally acclaimed Australian artist. Discuss with reference to a range of artworks by Bennett. Like many others at that time, Bennett was inspired by the work of the historian Henry Reynolds. Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007. Other aspects of the image, including the flat, stylised shapes of the head, reflect connections to both Western abstract art and Indigenous art traditions. Bennetts interest in adopting a strategy of intervention and disturbance in the field of representation manifests in many different ways in his art. Indeed, he explains that before the age of sixteen he was not really aware of his Indigenous heritage. In the following year he was awarded the prestigious Mot et Chandon prize with his painting The Nine Ricochets (Fall down black fella, jump up white fella), 1990. His work also includes performance art, video, photography and printmaking. The pale, marble- like sculpted heads on the bed remind us of the Classical art and learning that has been privileged in Western culture above other forms of art and learning, including those associated with Indigenous cultures. Gordon Bennett (1955- 2014) was born in Monto, Queensland. This image also translates to mean: In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. These images are fused and overlapped in a dynamic composition underpinned by Mondrian-style grids. Gordon Bennett, The Manifestoe, Ian McLean & Gordon Bennett. Gordon Bennett 6, I first learnt about Aborigines in primary school, as part of the social studies curriculum I learnt that Aborigines had dark brown skin, thin limbs, thick lips, black hair and dark brown eyes. In Interior (Tribal rug), 2007 the sleek modern design of the furniture is complemented by a Margaret Preston inspired tribal rug and an abstract painting by Gordon Bennett. Bennett was in possession of all four, all of which will become evident upon a glance at a summary of his life. These visual representations of history present the colonisers as powerful figures and as the bearers of learning and civilisation in a land of primitive people who have no obvious learning or culture. During 199495 at summer school Bennett learnt to make digital videos on an Apple PowerMac computer. The process of translation from one version to the next mimics how history is endlessly translated and transformed by the vagaries oftime and by individual perspectives. The images include historical footage of Indigenous people and details of some of Bennetts own paintings. The coming of the light suggests questions about the impact of Christianity on Indigenous cultures and people.
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