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). 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. 4. cat. 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. 2 All that he had understood about himself and taken for granted as an Australian had ruptured. They reference the massacres of Aboriginal people in Myth of the Western man (White man's burden) (1992) and The nine ricochets (Fall down black fella, Jump up white fella (1990) and question the valorising of Captain Cook in Big Romantic Painting (Apotheosis of Captain Cook) (1993) and Possession Island (1991). Fri. 10-9, Sat. The repression of Aboriginal heritage that Bennett experienced was reinforced by an education system and society dominated by a history built on the belief in Australia as terra nullius. It recalls the way stereotypes, labels, identities and systems of thought are fixed. Possession Island (1991), for example, presents shadowy renditions of Captain Cook and his party against a watery blue ground, overlayed with . exploration: Captain James Cook, Australia landing 1770, Calvert, Samuel, etching, Captain Cook Taking Possession of the Australian Continent on Behalf of the British Crown, AD 1770. 3 Beds. I needed to change direction at least for a while. In September 2017, Bennett's 1991 Possession Island was unveiled at London's Tate Modern. Indeed, he explains that before the age of sixteen he was not really aware of his Indigenous heritage. It is appropriation of an image that has already been copied with an image that has become central in the pysche of an Australian history. Nearby homes similar to 2719 NE 21st Ter have recently sold between $824K to $1M at an average of $565 per square foot. But in Bennetts painting disparate diagrams, symbols and images disrupt the illusion, presenting the landscape as a site where many ideas and viewpoints compete. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name. His joy . Select two artworks by Gordon Bennett that interest you and discuss how the artists personal background, postcolonialism and/or postmodernism provide a framework for the meanings, ideas and/or formal qualities you find in the artworks. Nov 26, 2012 - The paintings of Gordon Bennett are loaded with graphic detail. The juxtaposition and sequencing of words and images in Untitled is unsettling. Who was Gordon Bennett? His use of the perspective diagrams to frame and contain the figure of his mother alludes to the impact the values and systems of European culture have had on the lives of Indigenous people. Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007. 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. Do you agree? Discuss with reference to one or more works by Bennett. The Politics of Art. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island, 1991, oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas, Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums; Daniel Boyd, We Call Them . ), Heide Museum of Modern Art , Melbourne, 2004 pp. Gordon Bennett 1, For an artist whose practice was concerned with how labels and systems define and confine knowledge and perception, labels and categorisations such as aboriginal artist, or urban aboriginal artist that were often applied to his work through exhibitions, books and other commentaries presented many practical as well as philosophical issues, I am very aware of the boundaries of critical containment within the parameters of Urban Aboriginal Art, and have so far worked within these boundaries to try and broaden, extend and subvert them. The final panel in the sequence of six images in Untitled is a black square. Explain how these images might have influenced perceptions of Australian identity? It confronts the bigotry and discrimination suffered by Aborigines, using a rich visual language based in both Aboriginal and Western traditions. 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. She was one of the first Australian artists to recognise the spiritual significance of Aboriginal art and the land. Bennett depicts self as a black empty vessel, coffin- like with lash markings almost disguised by a thick layer of black paint. Bennett used Blue Poles to recall this period of change. Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 27, Identities come from somewhere, have histories, and like everything which is historical, they undergo constant transformation. John Citizen had his first exhibition in 1995 at Sutton Gallery, Melbourne 2 As an alternative artistic identity, John Citizen not only alerts us to how artistic identity is constructed, it gave Bennett great freedom to be someone other than Gordon Bennett. Identity is fixed and self is understood in the context of words such as Abo, Boong, Coon and Darkie . You have to understand my position of having no designs or images or stories on which to draw to assert my Aboriginality. When autocomplete results are available use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. After years of critiquing art-historical standards, Bennett has himself become the standard bearer. 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. Gordon Bennett 1. Often the basic alphabet letters ABC also appear with Bennetts perspective diagrams, highlighting the learned and culturally specific nature of the alphabet and linear perspective. Collection: Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums Discuss in relation to selected artworks by Bennett that you believe reveal questions and complexities, rather than answers and simplicities. What is your personal interpretation of the abstract paintings? I had never thought to question those narratives and I certainly had never been taught at school to question them only to believe them. Other significant works: Gordon Bennett, Possession Island; Glenn Brown, The Day The World Turned Auerbach; Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of the Living; Glenn Ligon, Notes on the Margin of the Black Book; Gabriel Orozco, Crazy Tourist; Cornelia Parker, Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View He used his self as the vehicle to do so. With eyes closed, these heads appear as blind, mute and lifeless witnesses to the surrounding conflict and struggle. Gordon Bennett rapidly established himself in the Australian art world. It was no accident that Bennett used Pollocks Blue Poles: Number 11. Mondrian cages the figures, Preston objectifies the figures; Bennett accommodates both to grasp the intangible and dissect these limited interpretations and stereotypes. In The coming of the light, 1987 the high- rise buildings that frame the white faces are represented as grid-like forms. Our experiences in this society manifest themselves in neuroses, demoralization, anger, and in art. Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA). Bennetts art explores and reflects his personal experiences. These images include scenes featuring tall ships, the landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, and several scenes that reveal the violence and tension that often characterised the relationship between colonisers and the colonised. The impact of colonisation on Aboriginal people and culture from this point was devastating. Gordon Bennett was born on 9 October, 1955 in Monto, Australia. The title of the work itself is unsettling. Discuss with reference to a selection of at least three works, clearly identifying stylistic shifts, and evidence of conceptual unity. Preston envisioned the creation of an Australian aesthetic. Ft. 2707 Coral Shores Dr, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33306. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung People as the Traditional Owners of the land on which the NGV is built. Perhaps the most influential artist of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso may be best known for pioneering Cubism and fracturing the two-dimensional picture plane in order to convey three-dimensional space. 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. The grand Romantic landscapes of Western art were intended to inspire the viewer with their dramatic beauty and effects of illusion. 2 February 2021. Include a selection of relevant artworks by Gordon Bennett to illustrate your timeline. Eventually Bennetts mother earned an official exemption that allowed her to leave the Mission. Bennett not only used Basquiat images, but begins to paint in his style. "I want a future that lives up to my past": the words from David McDiarmid's iconic poster reverberate now, as we ponder the past year and think ah. This led him to adopt an artistic alter ego, John Citizen. As a self- portrait, the artist seems to be present everywhere within the installation but is in fact nowhere. 40 41. Once again the letters A B C D feature as a potent symbol and complete the grid. Mondrian aspired to create a form of pure abstract art based on the grid and a controlled use of art elements, including primary colours. In 1989, a year after graduating from art college, his work was included in the high profile Australian Perspect a exhibition of contemporary art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He gave several sponsorships in these fields, notably the Isle of Man Bennett Trophy races of 1900 to 1905 (subsequently a trials course on the island was named after him). The coming of the light also explores ideas, issues and questions related to the Enlightenment values central to colonialism. Here he exposes the truth of colonial occupation it was a bloody conquest. He depicts how pain transcends place and event to encompass a global consciousness. The grid, with its characteristic ordered mathematical structure, appears in a range of Bennetts artworks in a variety of forms. I have tried to avoid any simplistic critical containment or stylistic categorisation as an Aboriginal artist producing Aboriginal art by consistently changing stylistic directions and by producing work that does not sit easily in the confines of Aboriginal art collections or definitions. Comparisons between Basquiat and Bennett often focus on the artists similar backgrounds and experiences. Bennett has included the framed photograph in the panel, to the right of the painted figure. This approach to his work resists any classification or confinement according to style. The mirror at the bottom left-hand corner of the painting represents Bennetts own shaving mirror. The representation of Aborigines has been reduced to caricature. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island (1991)*. Strange to think of Gordon Bennett as an almost classical figure in contemporary Australian art. Bennett repositions the subject of the painting in other ways too, by including black footprints that diminish into the background of the composition. The other was 'Number . After working in various trades in his early life, Bennett enrolled as a matureage student at Queensland College of Art in 1986 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts) degree in 1988. 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. 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. 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. Possession Island No 2 1991 is a painting that shows the British explorer Captain James Cook and other compatriots hoisting the Union flag to claim the eastern coast of Australia for the British Crown in 1770. At the heart of the artwork of Gordon Bennett is a journey to find that self amidst the cultural and historical inequities created by European settlement in Australia. Some supporters applauded his escape but his claim that he left to pass on his knowledge about how to fight the Japanese - given his lack of success . Gordon Bennett This world is not my home 1988 Not Currently on Display Artwork Artist As a teenager, Gordon Bennett became aware of his Indigenous heritage, and art became the tool through which he could examine his identity as an Australian of both Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic descent. The viewer is made to step back and allow the eyes to form the images. John Citizen was an abstraction of the Australian Mr Average, the Australian everyman. Basquiats signature crown hovers beneath a tag-like image of fire. Bennett investigates the way stereotypes are constructed by exploring words and images in opposites. Traditional ideas about an artists individual or signature style are further confounded in Bennetts art practice by the his appropriation or sampling of the distinctive styles of other artists, including Jackson Pollock (191256), Margaret Preston ( 18751963) and Piet Mondrian (18721944). This painting combines the story of Bennetts mother, and other young Aboriginal women in the care of the government or church, with the Christian story. These images are fused and overlapped in a dynamic composition underpinned by Mondrian-style grids. On each corner of the grid are the letters A B C D . . Touch device users, explore by touch or with swipe gestures. The Whitlam Government abolished the last remnants of the White Australia policy, established diplomatic relations with China and advocated Aboriginal land rights, to name just a few of these changes. Research other artists who use appropriation and select an artist whose work interests you. She attempted to create works that reflected a sense of national identity by incorporating Aboriginal motifs and colours in her work. 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. Read through the profiles and market analysis for the top 200 Indigenous artists Bennett lodges this image in layers of dots and slashes of red and yellow paint that refer to other artists and images. 22-24, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, in The Art of Gordon Bennett, p. 32, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe in Ian McLean & Gordon Bennett, The Art of Gordon Bennett, Craftsman House, 1996, pp. Within the Home dcor series Gordon Bennett escalates the sampling and quoting of other artists and works to develop a pastiche. The central figure is based on a monoprint made from the artists body. These sources included social studies texts. Gordon Bennett 1. An orphan from a very young age, she was raised on Cherbourg Aboriginal Mission in Queensland, and later trained as a domestic at Singleton. John Citizen lets me take my Australian citizenship and cultural upbringing back from the netherworld of the imagined Other. "Gordon Bennett!" His art attempts to depict the complexity of both cultural perspectives. * *Collection: Museum of Sydney on the site of the first Government House, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales. In the Christian tradition light is associated with goodness and righteousness while darkness is associated with evil. The facial features reflected in the mirror are blurred and distorted by roughly painted words typical racist remarks about Aboriginal people. One of the longterm goals for my work is to have my paintings returned to the pages of text books from which many of the images in them originated, where they may act as sites around which a more enlightened kind of knowledge may circulate; perhaps a knowledge that is understood from the outset as culturally relative Gordon Bennett 4. The dresser draw labelled self is closed while the drawers for history and culture are ajar. For Mondrian the grid became the essence of all forms. The installation is filled with images of his family and Constructivist-style drawings made by the artist. Bennett adopted this alter ego to liberate himself from the preconceptions that were often associated with his Aboriginal heritage and his identity and reputation as the artist Gordon Bennett. However, the cross- like form in Bennetts painting has an image of Bennetts mother, kneeling before it, with a cleaning rag in her hand, recalling her early training and work as a domestic servant under the governments protection. I found people were always confusing me as a person with the content of my work. (2nd Edition), What is Appropriation? Gordon BENNETT "Possession Island" (1991) Conceptual Painting Art Painting Contemporary Australian Artists Neo Expressionism Expressionist Art Collage Cultural Studies Indigenous Education Gordon BENNETT "Notes to Basquiat (The coming of the light)" (2001) Aboriginal Painting Drawing Prints Drawings Image Sheet Foley Present Day Jenna Gribbon, Luncheon on the grass, a recurring dream, 2020. Bennett used 9/11 and its global impact three months after the event as the stage for his discourse on cultural identity. Image credit: Gordon Bennett - Possession Island (1991). Bennett indicates the need to be reconciled within the context of culture and history to develop a full sense of identity. In a real sense I was still living in the suburbs, and in a world where there were very real demands to be one thing or the other. These questions include how traditional characterisations of light and darkness have influenced perceptions and experience of race and culture. Bennett layered these two distinctly different artists with his own work work previously appropriated from yet another context. While the conceptual framework underpinning Bennetts art remained remarkably consistent, his art practice was characterised by some dramatic stylistic shifts over twenty years. Explain how you believe Bennett communicates and presents questions and complexities in his work. Bennetts use of dots highlights the way Aboriginal cultural identity continues to be defined and confined by Western ideas of Aboriginality. While his work was increasingly exhibited within a national and international context, the combination of his position (or as Bennett would argue label) as an (urban) Aboriginal artist, and the subject matter of his work, seemed to ensure inclusion within certain curatorial and critical frameworks, and largely determine interpretation and reception. In European tradition these are seen as a means of mapping and defining space. They act as deep welts created when tissue scars. Create an illustrated and annotated timeline of the history of Australia since settlement. 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. It is reproduced in flat, bold and black line work. The coming of the light refers ironically to a term used by Torres Strait Islanders to describe the arrival of the missionaries who brought Christianity to the Islands in 1871. 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. I didnt go to art college to graduate as an Aboriginal Artist. The artist Gordon Bennett led a reclusive life. 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. Six years after his death at the age of 58, his What is your personal interpretation of the meaning and ideas in The coming of the light or Untitled ? This is the second of two works entitled Possession Island that Bennett painted following Australias bicentennial celebrations in 1988. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island #2, 1991. Research references to existing images in Gordon Bennetts The nine richochets (Fall down black fella, jump up white fella) 1990. He found this liberating. Research the significant dates/events referenced in Bennetts artworks, including Myth of the Western Man (White mans burden) 1992 for some ideas. Like words, visual images, forms and elements are powerful signifiers of meaning. They are strategically and prominently placed at the centre top of each panel, each radiating an aura of light created by white dots. ww2dbase Henry Gordon Bennett was born in Balwyn, a suburb of Melbourne, near the close of the nineteenth century. My intention is in keeping with the integrity of my work in which appropriation and citation, sampling and remixing are an integral part, as are attempts to communicate a basic underlying humanity to the perception of blackness in its philosophical and historical production within western cultural contexts. How have these sciences influenced the perception and understanding of Indigenous people and cultures? From 2003 Bennett worked on a series of non-representational abstract paintings that mark another significant shift in his practice. * February 4, 2015 The Institute of Modern Art announces its 2015 exhibition program Institute of Modern Art 420 Brunswick Street Fortitude Valley Brisbane QLD 4006 Australia T +61 (0) 7 3252 5750 ima [ at ] ima.org.au www.ima.org.au For example, at the time Gordon was born she still had to carry her official exemption certificate with her, and she lived in fear of her son being taken from her . 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. Opens in a new window or tab. Inspired by African and Iberian art, he also contributed to the rise of Surrealism and Expressionism. Gordon Bennett 3. 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. Das Jahr 1904 brachte mit dem Gordon-Bennett-Rennen in Deutschland und dem Vanderbilt Cup in den USA einen weiteren Aufschwung des Motorsports vor allem auch auerhalb Frankreichs, wobei fr das Rennen in New York erstmals europische Fahrer und Rennstlle nach bersee gereist waren. Aim to use a variety of strategies in your work to engage the viewer in the issues and questions you are interested in exploring in relation to these binary opposites. Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? Explore. Our understanding of the meanings associated with visual signs is linked to cultural codes, conventions and experience. Gordon Bennetts Possession Island 1991, highlights the influence that visual images have on our understanding of history, and the way that visual images often reflect the values of the social / historical context in which they are made. Bennett worked in a range of art forms and with a variety of media and techniques. He and his partner bought a house and settled in the suburbs of Brisbane like other young couples. You might consider, scale, materials and techniques, perceptual effects. a moment of possession; the place where he came ashore and allegedly claimed . Bennett used it to question notions of self. Australian politics is fraught yet the Australian public is disengaged. Image: Gordon Bennett, Australia 1955-2014, Possession Island, 1991. This artwork is constructed of obvious layers: The layers of dots, reminiscent of Aboriginal Western Desert dot painting, with lines of perspective a Western tradition. Bloody handprints are stamped across the walls. Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007. Gordon Bennett (9 October 1955 - 3 June 2014) [1] was an Australian artist of Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic descent. Picassos sizable oeuvre grew to include over 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures,ceramics, theater sets, and costume designs. 35, 36. How does this work compare with conventional self-portraits? The incorporation of Blue Poles calls to mind an era of great reform in Australian politics. ). James Gordon Bennett Many a good newspaper story has been ruined by over verification. I AM is borrowed from a well known art work, Victory over death 2, 1970 by New Zealand artist Colin McCahon (19191987) . What key themes and ideas are explored in the book/film? This was soon replaced by a cooler, more conceptual approach. 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. Bennett attempts to destroy the stereotypes to question notions of identity. The background colours and features of the landscape in each panel of Requiem, Of grandeur, Empire suggest a vast Australian desert . In just three generations, that heritage has been lost to me. Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas Two parts: 162 x 260cm (overall . That was to be the extent of my formal education on Aborigines and Aboriginal culture until Art College. The effect is that they dissolve into a mass of colour, dots and slashes of paint . Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, pp. He drew on and sampled from many artists and traditions to create a new language and a new way of reading these images. It was no accident that Bennett used this event to question the way history is written and interpreted. 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. Gouged into the skin like a tattoo, these markings will never heal or fade away. I was certainly aware of it by the time I was sixteen years old after having been in the workforce for twelve months. I am that I am, Exodus 3:14 is God naming self. Discuss with reference to selected artworks by Gordon Bennett. Bennett has often used dots in his artworks as part of his investigation of issues of identity, and history. It is a monument that also unintentionally signals the subsequent dispossession of Aboriginal people from their homeland. At the time the A$ 1.3 million purchase price was the highest ever paid for a piece of modern art within Australia and the U.S. This approach involved a flattening of the picture surface and often the use of disparate visual elements or styles borrowed or copied from different sources. From early on in his successful career, curtailed by his death in 2014 at age 58, he was well-known for disrupting the status quo with his unique visual language. Since 1992 Bennett was involved in an ongoing non-performance by refusing to participate in public lecture programs in Australia. 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. It exposes the pain these stereotypes create. Include reference to specific examples in your discussion. The timeline could be presented in hardcopy for display in the classroom, or as an ICT project incorporating images and audio. In Untitled, 1989 Bennett works with a selection of images associated with the familiar story of the discovery and settlement of Australia.
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