Australian politics is fraught yet the Australian public is disengaged. 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. Strange to think of Gordon Bennett as an almost classical figure in contemporary Australian art. Gordon Bennett 1. Gordon Bennett (1955-2014) created the triptych Bloodlines 1993 early in his career. The Estate of Gordon Bennett. Explore a range of ideas and media within your work. The critical and aesthetic strategies of postmodernism have had significant impact on the development of his art practice. The content of the work was getting to me emotionally. The Politics of Art - Melbourne Law School This culminated in the Notes to Basquiat series in 2003. But in Bennetts painting disparate diagrams, symbols and images disrupt the illusion, presenting the landscape as a site where many ideas and viewpoints compete. After years of critiquing art-historical standards, Bennett has himself become the standard bearer. 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. Appropriation was a tool that enabled him to open up and re-define stereotypes and bias. Queensland-born Gordon Bennett was an artist who loved collapsing 'high' and 'low' art boundaries. 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. Ontological questions as to what essentially is architecture, painting, sculpture, drawing, and print elicited numerous answers in the early modern period, due in part to experimentation and development in technical, formal, and discursive practices during the Middle Ages. But this approach is central to the way many people describe and analyse his work. Bennetts distinctive visual language repositions the subject of the work, claiming the Aboriginal perspective as central to the historical moment of the original painting. 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. What legal, moral and ethical rights does an artist have to control the way their work is seen and viewed in exhibitions, books or online. The I am from Self portrait (But I always wanted to be one of the good guys) is replaced with We all are. Much of Bennetts work has been concerned with an interrogation of Australias colonial past and postcolonial present, including issues associated with the dominant role that white, western culture has played in constructing the social and cultural landscape of the nation. Narratives of exploration, colonisation and settlement failed to recognise the sovereign rights (or sovereignty) of Australias Indigenous people. But the mathematical formulation of linear perspective in the fifteenth century had a powerful influence on the representation of space in Western art from this point. What is your personal interpretation of the meaning and ideas in The coming of the light or Untitled ? 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 viewer does not confront the artist, but self. Bennett's work is held in over 100 public and private collections, including many major state institutions such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. 1 0-5-30 j RED STAR Now 35 oft on all RED STARRED SIWFMIMUIS IliMMS . "Unfinished Business: The Art of Gordon Bennett" - Artforum Australia for His Majesty King George III. As a self- portrait, the artist seems to be present everywhere within the installation but is in fact nowhere. 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. For example, Aboriginal deaths in custody was recognised as a significant issue. It is interesting to note that this same year was declared a period of mourning by Aboriginal people. The word DISPERSE was used by the colonisers to represent the killing of Aboriginal people. However, for Bennett, dot painting also became a powerful expression of the connections between nature and culture, which are integral to representation in Aboriginal art. Their confidence was rewarded when Possession Island 1991, a triptych in which each panel measured 162 x 130 cm, sold for $384,000. 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. The background colours and features of the landscape in each panel of Requiem, Of grandeur, Empire suggest a vast Australian desert . Gordon Bennett Possession Island , 1991 Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas 162 x 260cm Museum of Sydney Gordon Bennett The Coming of the Light , 1987 Acrylic on canvas 152 x 274cm Queensland Art Gallery Collection All Artworks Subscribe Submit Follow Sutton Gallery 254 Brunswick Street Fitzroy 3065 Born in 1955 in Monto, Queensland, Gordon Bennett lived and worked in Brisbane before his unexpected death in 2014. In Outsider the energy and intensity associated with van Goghs expressive brushstrokes and brilliant colour contrasts are powerfully explosive . Bennett as a cultural outsider of both his Aboriginal and AngloCeltic heritage does not assume a simplistic interpretation of identity. Throughout his career Bennett has used many different strategies to engage the viewer in his work. They are strategically and prominently placed at the centre top of each panel, each radiating an aura of light created by white dots. The focus on designer style in these interiors, the lack of human presence, and the flat areas of colour with simple black outline, creates a strange feeling of emptiness that sets them apart from Bennetts art. Media Releases - MCA, Qantas and Tate announce first series of In 2003, Bennett embarked on a series of non-representational abstract paintings, marking a dramatic shift in his art practice, formally and conceptually. Pollock was influenced by Navaho sand paintings, which were created on the ground. Today a monument exists on the site commemorating his arrival. Appropriation- moral rights - copy right Flashcards | Quizlet It has been designed for teachers and students to instigate discussion and investigation, and includes learning activities relevant to history and visual arts that can be adapted to different levels. 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. 40 41. Gebraucht | Gewerblich. 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. 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. Gordon Bennetts art challenges us to question the stereotypes and racist labelling of Aboriginal Australians found in some history books written for and by Europeans. The figure is dressed in tattered western clothing. The colour black and other histories: The art of Gordon Bennett 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. In The coming of the light, 1987 the high- rise buildings that frame the white faces are represented as grid-like forms. 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. The 'cancel culture' debate winds me up. On closer inspection we see it is an image of an Aboriginal man. This emphasises the works formal qualities and discourages any narrative or symbolic reading of it. Brainstorm ideas and meanings associated with these binary opposites and create a mindmap to show how they have influenced your perception and understanding of the world. Gordon Bennett explores these ideas in Self portrait: Interior/ Exterior , 1992. 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? The installation is filled with images of his family and Constructivist-style drawings made by the artist. Amidst the chaos and confusion of dots and slashes of colour he remains imprisoned by the grid, reduced to servitude. Why? The dynamic juxtaposition of images, sound and other effects made possible by video, introduced new dimensions to Bennetts investigation of issues and ideas related to identity, history and language. The viewer is made to step back and allow the eyes to form the images. Gordon Bennett 3. It was upon entering the workforce that I really learnt how low the general opinion of Aboriginal people was. What values or ideas characterise the postKeating era in Australia? The coming of the light suggests questions about the impact of Christianity on Indigenous cultures and people. Further reading 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 The strategy of word association subverts the values and meaning traditionally associated with the image. ). 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. Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007. However, Bennetts ongoing investigation into questions of identity, perception and knowledge, has involved a range of subjects drawn from both history and contemporary culture, and both national and international contexts. The representation of Aborigines has been reduced to caricature. He was in a sense all things to all people. Possession Island (Abstraction), Gordon Bennett, 1991 | Tate Images 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. The dresser draw labelled self is closed while the drawers for history and culture are ajar. You might consider, scale, materials and techniques, perceptual effects. (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 hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy Pioneering Australian Artist Gordon Bennett Dies at 58 Gordon Bennett rapidly established himself in the Australian art world. In a letter written to Basquiat after his death, Bennett writes: To some, writing a letter to a person post humously may seem tacky and an attempt to gain some kind of attention, even steal your crown. He described his upbringing as overwhelmingly Euro-Australian, with never a word spoken about my Aboriginal heritage. Six years after his death at the age of 58, his Brushing aside the tempting opportunity to ridicule many frames of reference in that sentence (I mean, don't get me . Motorsportjahr 1904 - Wikipedia The other was 'Number . Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007. While these may indicate the way maps are constructed to find different locations, they also represent the first letter of racial slurs. Black angels replace traditional white cherubs. These images are fused and overlapped in a dynamic composition underpinned by Mondrian-style grids. Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA). These images, forever forged in our minds, are boldly depicted in Basquiats graffiti- like style. ART215: Topic 10 - Urban Aboriginal Art - Pinterest They became a potent symbol of the celebrations. John Citizen was an abstraction of the Australian Mr Average, the Australian everyman. The powerful image/word I AM, while central, is accompanied by statements of opposite, I am light I am dark. Discuss with reference to selected artworks by Gordon Bennett. His use of I AM emphasises this. Unfinished Business The Art of Gordon Bennett - Queensland Art Gallery These act as disturbances. This work reflects our contemporary obsession with creating the perfect home filled with the latest must have designer style and material items. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island, 1991, oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas, Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums; Daniel Boyd, We Call Them . Conversation Bill Wright talks to Gordon Bennett, in Kelly Gellatly with contributions by Bill Wright, Justin Clemens and Jane Devery, Ian McLean, Who is John Citizen? Greenaway Art Gallery, 2006, Kelly Gellatly Citizen in the making, in Kelly Gellatly, p. 24. Bennett also had ongoing concerns about how his Aboriginal identity and his interest in subjects related to Aboriginality were framing and hence limiting the way his artistic identity and his work were perceived. 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. In Untitled, 1989 Bennett works with a selection of images associated with the familiar story of the discovery and settlement of Australia. Gordon Bennett, &The manifest toe, pp. From 2003 Bennett worked on a series of non-representational abstract paintings that mark another significant shift in his practice. One reason is that I felt I had gone as far as I could with the postcolonial project I was working through. "Gordon Bennett!" Gordon Bennett's "Outsider" is a highly emotive piece that conveys various ideas through appropriate symbolism. Bennett depicts self as a black empty vessel, coffin- like with lash markings almost disguised by a thick layer of black paint. The triptych form of painting is most commonly associated with the altarpiece paintings made for Christian churches. Linear perspective is a system for organising visual information. They act as deep welts created when tissue scars. The The Notes to Basquiat series,which Bennett commenced in 1998, marked a significant new direction in his art in relation to working with the style of another artist. Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas Two parts: 162 x 260cm (overall . 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 was interested in the way language and images construct identity and history, and the way this language controls and creates meaning. Bennett lodges this image in layers of dots and slashes of red and yellow paint that refer to other artists and images. Do you agree? Experiment with enhancing or diminishing different layers to create a distinctive character. The grotesque also interested Bennett as a means of disrupting conventional ways of seeing and understanding. Like many of his own and earlier generations, Bennetts understanding of the nations history was partly shaped by the sort of images commonly found in history books. What evidence can you find of Bennett conceptually examining the ideas behind the emotion, and extrapolating from there? Who was Gordon Bennett? Calverts image becomes one of the layers of the painting. Bennett used Blue Poles to recall this period of change. The Politics of Art | ANU College of Law 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. Jenna Gribbon, Luncheon on the grass, a recurring dream, 2020. I AM is borrowed from a well known art work, Victory over death 2, 1970 by New Zealand artist Colin McCahon (19191987) . Pollock becomes a catalyst for transformation. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung People as the Traditional Owners of the land on which the NGV is built. I am purposely not defining him only as Aboriginal because he himself does not want to be defined only as such. List some of your own qualities and attributes. . . Compare and contrast this artists use of appropriation with that of Gordon Bennett. Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, pp. I needed to change direction at least for a while. 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. 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. The early 'Possession Island' (Abstraction))' 1991 was one choice. Bennett simultaneously obscures and draws attention to the Aboriginal man standing next to Cook, overlaying an abstract geometric shape which recalls constructivist art and the Aboriginal flag. It demonstrates Bennetts understanding of the power of this image. 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. cat. James Gordon Bennett Quotes - BrainyQuote American - Editor May 10, 1841 - May 14, 1918 I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming that I have never made one. His father, born in Scotland in 1795, emigrated to the US to become a journalist and subsequently founded the 'New York Herald' in 1835. Bennetts use of the grid in these and other artworks suggests questions and ideas. Discuss in relation to selected artworks by Bennett that you believe reveal questions and complexities, rather than answers and simplicities. These geometric forms also refer to the early 20th-century abstract artist Kazimir Malevich. my work was largely about ideas rather than emotional content emanating from some stereotype of a tortured soul. What systems and/or conventions are used by each culture to represent three dimensional space? 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. The men also paint their bodies in red, yellow, white and black, or in feather down stuck with human blood when they dress up, and make music with a didgeridoo. The inclusion of Pollock helps build these cross- connections. Literally opening up this black skin of paint are the words cut me. However the hand in the opposite panel controls and threatens the Aboriginal figure represented as a jack- in- the- box. Include in your discussion reference to Bennetts appropriation of The nine shots 1985 by Imants Tillers. The mirror at the bottom left-hand corner of the painting represents Bennetts own shaving mirror. These sources included social studies texts. Do these qualities reflect the reality of what it means to be Australian (ie. This image also translates to mean: In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. 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 Appropriation art is an established postmodernist strategy defined as: The direct duplication, copying or incorporation of an image (painting, photography, etc) by another artist who represents it in a different context, thus completely altering its meaning and questioning notions of originality and authenticity.1. $927,000 Last Sold Price. Bennett used it to question notions of self. In images such as these, Aboriginal people are often absent or relegated to the background. Traditionally these arches were built by the Romans to celebrate victory in war. 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. In a conceptual sense I was liberated from the binary prison of self and other; the wall had disintegrated but where was I? [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.