The artist has effectively communicated his beliefs on the suppression of Aboriginal culture by combining confronting imagery with the concepts of Vincent Van Gogh, Francisco Goya and Classical art. 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. Explore. What aspects of Bennetts works might viewers focus on as emotional? Ian McLean 2. Who was Paul Keating? In The coming of the light, 1987 the high- rise buildings that frame the white faces are represented as grid-like forms. This is the second of two works entitled Possession Island that Bennett painted following Australias bicentennial celebrations in 1988. How ideas might be encountered from different places and events interest him. 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. Citizens more recent work includes a series of interiors inspired by the decorator and home magazines that circulate widely in popular culture. It recalls the way stereotypes, labels, identities and systems of thought are fixed. Bennett used it to question notions of self. What evidence can you find of Bennett conceptually examining the ideas behind the emotion, and extrapolating from there? At the same time I have resisted being positioned as a spokesperson for my people since I do not have nor do I seek, such a mandate by declining to speak about my work. While personal experience has had a significant influence on Gordon Bennetts art practice, the autobiographical aspects of his work are framed by bigger ideas and questions that have relevance and significance beyond Bennetts own experience. 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. In September 2017, Bennett's 1991 Possession Island was unveiled at London's Tate Modern. Further reading This central motif governs the composition which, similar to Calverts original etching upon which the painting is based, is largely reduced to a schema of black and white forms. Australian politics is fraught yet the Australian public is disengaged. In contrast to earlier artworks, where titles often provided a starting point for exploring ideas or issues, Bennetts abstractions are titled with numbers that relate to the order in which they were made. Born in 1955 in Monto, Queensland, Gordon Bennett lived and worked in Brisbane before his unexpected death in 2014. 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. Voir plus d'ides sur le thme toile de lin, basquiat, art australien. For example, placing the word DISPLACE under the image of Captain Cook coming ashore at Botany Bay focuses attention on the dispossession of Aboriginal people rather than on the discovery of Australia. Bennett handed over command of his division and left the island. Here he is concealed under blocks of black, red and yellow, the colours of the Aboriginal flag. These paintings reflect Bennetts belief that after the Notes to Basquiat series of 2003, I had gone as far I could with the postcolonial project I was working through1. Celebrations continued throughout the year and gave renewed focus to traditional images and stories of the nations settlement history. 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. This includes a focus on the role and power of language, including visual representations, in shaping identity, culture and history. In the Christian tradition light is associated with goodness and righteousness while darkness is associated with evil. Bennett intentionally fuses this iconic style of Western painting with the famous Aboriginal white dot painting of the Western Desert, reproducing the mix in Possession Island. In Possession Island No 2 this figure is concealed and transformed into an abstract totem or geometric monument coloured with the signature black, red and yellow of the Aboriginal flag. Mondrian cages the figures, Preston objectifies the figures; Bennett accommodates both to grasp the intangible and dissect these limited interpretations and stereotypes. In Untitled, 1989 Bennett works with a selection of images associated with the familiar story of the discovery and settlement of Australia. Create an artwork in a medium of your choice that highlights how the meanings, values and ideas associated with these binary opposites influence perception and understanding. The Bicentenary celebrations triggered increased activism, protests and public debate related to Indigenous issues. Jenna Gribbon, April studio, parting glance, 2021. Bennett employs this system using diagrams often labelled with acronyms, such as CVP (central vanishing point), that refer to key features of the system. Include in your discussion reference to Bennetts appropriation of The nine shots 1985 by Imants Tillers. The emphasis on making art about art which was the focus of his non-representational abstract paintings, contrasts clearly with the focus on social critique that was integral to Bennetts earlier work, and was intended also to make people aware that I am an artist first and not a professional Aborigine.2 In this respect, Bennetts non representational abstract works, despite their overt emphasis on visual concerns, may be seen as reflecting his engagement with questions of identity, knowledge and perception. Our understanding of the meanings associated with visual signs is linked to cultural codes, conventions and experience. Curated by Zara StanhopeThe intelligence and passion of Gordon Bennett's politically committed post-appropriation art struck a chord with the postcolonial ambitions of the 1990s. These signs can also be read as evidence that disputes the claim that Australia was discovered terra nullius or nobodys land. What strategies have been used to communicate and explore these themes and ideas in the book/film? Many Indigenous Australians saw this appropriation as further evidence of a justification of colonisation and a Eurocentric interpretation of Aboriginal culture. This education resource accompanies the retrospective exhibition Gordon Bennett (2008) which showcased 85 works by this internationally acclaimed Australian artist. How do these systems/conventions reflect values and ideas important to that culture? Roundels relating to symbols that denote significant sites in Aboriginal Western Desert dot painting also appear. ), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 2007, p. 101, Gordon Bennett, Conversation Bill Wright talks to Gordon Bennett, p. 97, the visual qualities and symbolism of art elements such as colour and shape, the symbolism and representation of subject matter/content (including text), the appropriation of the work of other artists, the presentation of the artwork (ie. 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. 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. He depicts how pain transcends place and event to encompass a global consciousness. At art college Bennett discovered how Australian identity was built on a subjective writing of history. 4 While artists often have limited control over how their work is exhibited after it has been sold, Bennett also refused to exhibit his work in Aboriginal art exhibitions, preferring: to be conceived as a contemporary artist who just happens to be indigenous and whose work encompasses an investigation of aboriginality and the construction of identity within a broad range of complex and interconnected issues. The Stripe series of abstract paintings represents a kind of freedom for me as an artist. We would like to hear from you. The resource provides frameworks for exploring key issues and ideas in Bennetts art practice. Narratives of exploration, colonisation and settlement failed to recognise the sovereign rights (or sovereignty) of Australias Indigenous people. Bennett lodges this image in layers of dots and slashes of red and yellow paint that refer to other artists and images. 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. Today a monument exists on the site commemorating his arrival. Gordon Bennett was born on 9 October, 1955 in Monto, Australia. The Classical style and pose of the figure in the panel Empire, and the draped animal skins and weapons, reflect a stereotype of the noble savage that was widely influential in how people viewed Indigenous people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Captain James Cook arrived there in 1770 and claimed ownership of the entire eastern coast of Australia in the name of King George III. Why? Lichtenstein 19231987). If God cannot be contained, can humanity be contained by stereotypes and labels? 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. Gordon Bennett 1. Explain how you believe Bennett communicates and presents questions and complexities in his work. He and his partner bought a house and settled in the suburbs of Brisbane like other young couples. The circular forms in the sky are inspired by the brilliant bursts of light in van Goghs Starry night. For given the artists own history of engagement, these works are not considered simple abstract paintings, but abstract paintings by Gordon Bennett; coloured or even tainted by, the history, concerns and associations of the artists earlier work. (2nd Edition), What is Appropriation? Literally opening up this black skin of paint are the words cut me. Layers of images superimposed with words. While Bennetts art is grounded in his personal struggle for identity as an Australian of Aboriginal and AngloCeltic descent, it presents and examines a broad range of philosophical questions related to the construction of identity, perception and knowledge. The Estate of Gordon Bennett. Using a painting technique, create a finished artwork based on one or some of these experiments. Bennett investigates the way stereotypes are constructed by exploring words and images in opposites. These images are fused and overlapped in a dynamic composition underpinned by Mondrian-style grids. While some people may argue this has been a quick road to success, and that my work is authorised by my Aboriginality, I maintain that I dont have to be an Aborigine to do what I do, and that quick success is not an inherent attribute of an Aboriginal heritage, as history has shown, nor is it that unusual for college graduates who have something relevant to say. Bennett only used two colours, symbolically, red and black. There was always some sense of social engagement. Against the background of the illusionistic representation of the landscape they capture our attention, alerting us to the fact that there are other ways of representing and understanding the landscape not just the European perspectives that have dominated our cultural history. 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. That was to be the extent of my formal education on Aborigines and Aboriginal culture until Art College. The background colours and features of the landscape in each panel of Requiem, Of grandeur, Empire suggest a vast Australian desert . Gordon Bennett (1955-2014) voraciously consumed art history, current affairs, rap music and fiction, and processed it all into an unflinching critique of how identities are constituted and how history shapes individual and shared cultural conditions. 3233, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 33, Gordon Bennett & Chris McAuliffe, Interview with Gordon Bennett in Rex Bulter (Ed.) Finally, Ive never been one to make art about art before. Within the Home dcor series Gordon Bennett escalates the sampling and quoting of other artists and works to develop a pastiche. Theosophy means god wisdom, the belief that everything living or dead was put together from basic blocks that lead towards consciousness. Do you agree? This painting is based on Samuel Calverts 19th-century etching Captain Cook Taking Possession of the Australian Continent on Behalf of the British Crown, AD 1770, itself a copy of a lost painting by John Alexander Gilfillan. [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. He serves as a counterpoint to Gordon Bennetts Other, and yet we are the one and the same. As far as pinning down who John Citizen actually was, Im not interested in doing that. This was soon replaced by a cooler, more conceptual approach. 2,038 Sq. However, while apparently recognising and presenting these motifs/symbols as signifiers of meaning, Citizen does not appear to have the same interest as Bennett in interrogating the systems and values these motifs represent or the role they have played in shaping identity, history and understanding. Bennett continued to work in new ways with materials, techniques and images throughout his career. The triptych form of painting is most commonly associated with the altarpiece paintings made for Christian churches. Include reference to specific examples in your discussion. List some of your own qualities and attributes. Symbols such as these highlight his awareness and use of visual images, forms and elements as signs. Possession Island (Abstraction), Gordon Bennett, 1991, Oil paint and acrylic paint on canvas. Research references to existing images in Gordon Bennetts The nine richochets (Fall down black fella, jump up white fella) 1990. Gordon Bennett Possession Island (Abstraction), 1991 Kevin Gilbert Christmas Eve in the Land of the Dispossessed, 1968; 1992 KEY ARTIST ONE- VERNON AH KEE Born 1967, Innisfail, Queensland. I needed to change direction at least for a while. This work reflects our contemporary obsession with creating the perfect home filled with the latest must have designer style and material items. At the heart of all human life is a concept of self. Who was Gordon Bennett? Create an illustrated and annotated timeline of the history of Australia since settlement. 2 All that he had understood about himself and taken for granted as an Australian had ruptured. The grotesque in art is generally associated with bizarre, ugly or disturbing imagery. The absence of the Aboriginal servant and the scuttling footprints in Possession Island No 2 suggest the physical dispossession that was to follow once the British claimed ownership of the land. Bennett depicts self as a black empty vessel, coffin- like with lash markings almost disguised by a thick layer of black paint. The word DISPERSE was used by the colonisers to represent the killing of Aboriginal people. What values or ideas characterise the postKeating era in Australia? Queensland-born Gordon Bennett was an artist who loved collapsing 'high' and 'low' art boundaries. But this approach is central to the way many people describe and analyse his work. Basquiats signature crown hovers beneath a tag-like image of fire. He used strategies such as deconstruction and appropriation to present audiences with new ways of viewing and understanding the images and narratives that have shaped the nations history and culture. He drew on and sampled from many artists and traditions to create a new language and a new way of reading these images. His identity must remain fluid. Bennetts use of the grotesque is evident in Outsider, 1988, which makes reference to two paintings by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh (1853 1890) Vincents bedroom in Arles 1888, and Starry night 1889. Collect and find photographs of a wide variety of people of different ethnicities, cultures and physical appearances. It speaks of colonial violence and the consequences of being on the 'wrong' side of history, purchased in 2019, this powerful and sobering work is a major acquisition for the QAGOMA Collection. Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007. Bennett was in possession of all four, all of which will become evident upon a glance at a summary of his life. 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. His work also includes performance art, video, photography and printmaking. RM 2JEMG56 - A rare old photograph of the 1903 Gordon Bennett trophy race, Ireland - In the 'pits' attendants are cooling down an overheated vehicle with a bucket of water. 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. 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. Gordon Bennett 2. Gordon Bennett did not describe himself as an appropriation artist. Particularly when academics claim that they are afraid of expressing their 'true' findings for fear of losing their careers. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island, 1991, oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas; two parts, 162 x 260cm (overall). 4. Art about art seems appropriate for the time being. Bennett attempts to destroy the stereotypes to question notions of identity. Bennetts interest in adopting a strategy of intervention and disturbance in the field of representation manifests in many different ways in his art. Gordon Bennett Possession Island - Free download as Word Doc (.doc / .docx), PDF File (.pdf) or read online for free. Dates/events to consider and research include the 1967 Australian Referendum, the 1992 Mabo and 1996 Wik Native Title court cases, Paul Keatings 1992 Redfern address. 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. Explain. These joint acquisitions by MCA and Tate include two large video installations, one by Susan Norrie (Transit 2011) and another by Vernon Ah Kee (tall man 2010), two paintings by Gordon Bennett (Possession Island (Abstraction) 1991 and Number Nine 2008) and an artist book by Judy Watson consisting of sixteen etchings with chine coll (a . I didnt go to art college to graduate as an Aboriginal Artist. 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. Read through the profiles and market analysis for the top 200 Indigenous artists Bennett was acutely aware that his own success paralleled the growing contemporary interest in Indigenous art and culture. Thousands of dots fill the canvas. 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. His father, born in Scotland in 1795, emigrated to the US to become a journalist and subsequently founded the 'New York Herald' in 1835. The dresser draw labelled self is closed while the drawers for history and culture are ajar. This rich interplay of words and images raises many questions. . This image is based on a photograph by JW Lindt (1845 1926). When autocomplete results are available use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. With eyes closed, these heads appear as blind, mute and lifeless witnesses to the surrounding conflict and struggle. Within the context of Australian art, he freed himself from being categorised solely as an Indigenous artist by creating an ongoing pop art-inspired alter ego named John Citizen. Do these qualities reflect the reality of what it means to be Australian (ie. Possession Island is a small island off the coast of northern Queensland, near the tip of Cape York, the most northerly point of mainland Australia. Gordon Bennett 1. James Gordon Bennett, Sr., a Scottish immigrant, founded the New York Herald in 1835, building the paper from the ground up. Since 1992 Bennett was involved in an ongoing non-performance by refusing to participate in public lecture programs in Australia. Such accolades and critical recognition are keenly sought by many artists. The impact of colonisation on Aboriginal people and culture from this point was devastating. See more ideas about artist, art, straight photography. Bennetts grid formations seem to imprison the figures within the canvas. Scan these into the computer using a photographic software package like Photoshop. Pinterest. Early life [ edit] 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. Bennett layered these two distinctly different artists with his own work work previously appropriated from yet another context. It was no accident that Bennett used Pollocks Blue Poles: Number 11. In Unassailable heroes (Sweet Damper) Famous since Captain Cook, 1996 the motifs and symbols suggest issues and questions related to history and representation that concern Bennett. possession island Sell with Artsy Artist Series Portraits of Artists and Sculptors 113 available Portraits of Artists and Sculptors Calverts image becomes one of the layers of the painting. 2 February 2021. The purer the bloodlines, the more Aboriginal you were. Brushing aside the tempting opportunity to ridicule many frames of reference in that sentence (I mean, don't get me . 2, I cant remember exactly when it dawned on me that I had an Aboriginal heritage, I generally say it was around age eleven, but this was my age when my family returned to Queensland where Aboriginal people were far more visible. It exposes the pain these stereotypes create. These are paintings about painting. The works I have produced are notes, nothing more, to you and your work Gordon Bennett 1. This imagery alludes to the violent suppression of Indigenous people and culture in the nations history that was thrown into focus by the Bicentenary celebrations. It is reproduced in flat, bold and black line work. 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 Australia for His Majesty King George III. Bellas Gallery. The Notes to Basquiat series takes appropriation to yet another level within Bennetts art practice. From early in his career he was inspired by theories and ideas associated with postmodernism. His "history painting," as he called his large-scale canvases at the time, provoked a radical revision of Australia's past, fueling the meteoric rise of a career that left an indelible mark on Australian art . Bennetts earliest works, including The coming of the light, 1987, reflect a raw and expressive style. I found people were always confusing me as a person with the content of my work. He was born in New York, May 10th 1841 and died 4 days after his 77th Birthday in Beaulieu near Nizza/France. 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. 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. Bennett purposefully constructed these layers to blur fixed ideas and raise questions about the way identity is constructed. 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. Blood is a potent symbol and has historically been a measure of Aboriginality. The imagery in this painting focuses on binary opposites, including the Aboriginal figure and various symbols of European and Indigenous art and culture . 2. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island (1991)*. Indeed, he explains that before the age of sixteen he was not really aware of his Indigenous heritage. In European tradition these are seen as a means of mapping and defining space. Possession Island 1991 Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas Two parts: 162 x 260cm (overall) The Estate of Gordon Bennett Purchased with funds. Bloody handprints are stamped across the walls. Born in Monto, Queensland, Bennett was a significant figure in contemporary Indigenous Australian art . Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, pp. Consider what dates/events should be included in your timeline and why. Viewed in this context, the black square in Untitled could be seen as a resilient black presence, asserting itself in the settlement narrative that Bennett deconstructed. His use of I AM emphasises this. One hand holds a torch a symbol of Enlightenment values that is also seen in The Statue of Liberty in New York that sheds light on darkness. In a conceptual sense I was liberated from the binary prison of self and other; the wall had disintegrated but where was I? Nearby homes similar to 2719 NE 21st Ter have recently sold between $824K to $1M at an average of $565 per square foot. The powerful image/word I AM, while central, is accompanied by statements of opposite, I am light I am dark. New perspectives on familiar images and stories are presented. The work is a copy of a copy of a copy. 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. are they representative of different cultural identities)? There was still no space for me to simply be. 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. Bennett adopted several strategies to resist the narrow framework through which he as an artist and his work were viewed.

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