From the beginning of his career, John Citizen had had a complex relationship with Gordon Bennett. Bennett painted his version after Australias bicentennial celebrations in 1988. They became a potent symbol of the celebrations. Amidst the chaos and confusion of dots and slashes of colour he remains imprisoned by the grid, reduced to servitude. 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. 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 had identified with the experience of the fair complexioned, African-American conceptual artist Adrian Piper, who wrote: Blacks like me are unwilling observers of the forms racism takes when racists believe there are no blacks present. Gordon Bennett 3, Bennett married in 1977. What aspects of Bennetts works might viewers focus on as emotional? Victorious soldiers triumphantly and ceremoniously paraded under such arches, sometimes accompanied by their captives. As a shy and inarticulate teenager my response to these derogatory opinions was silence, self-loathing and denial of my heritage. Why? James Gordon Bennett Bennett used 9/11 and its global impact three months after the event as the stage for his discourse on cultural identity. Clear visual divisions are created with distinct black areas as well as large white areas. 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. Collect a range of images (both art and media sources) that depict characters that are perceived or presented as typically Australian. The dresser draw labelled self is closed while the drawers for history and culture are ajar. Finally, Ive never been one to make art about art before. The Stripe series of abstract paintings represents a kind of freedom for me as an artist. 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. But in Bennetts painting disparate diagrams, symbols and images disrupt the illusion, presenting the landscape as a site where many ideas and viewpoints compete. What strategies have been used to communicate and explore these themes and ideas in the book/film? Bennetts art practice was interdisciplinary and encompasses painting, photography, printmaking, video, performance and installation. 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. Such accolades and critical recognition are keenly sought by many artists. Collect and find photographs of a wide variety of people of different ethnicities, cultures and physical appearances. Ian McLean 2. Who was Paul Keating? . In Possession Island, 1991, Bennett meticulously photocopies and enlarges Calverts image so that it can be projected, cropped and copied onto the canvas. It was no accident that Bennett used this event to question the way history is written and interpreted. From a distance the figure resembles a sculpture of a heroic Classical figure. 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. Discuss in relation to selected artworks by Bennett that you believe reveal questions and complexities, rather than answers and simplicities. For Mondrian the grid became the essence of all forms. The juxtaposition and sequencing of words and images in Untitled is unsettling. In Altered body print (Shadow figure howling at the moon) Bennett focuses more explicitly on binary opposites and the associations they trigger. Another reason was to make people aware that I am an artist first and not a professional Aborigine. Our experiences in this society manifest themselves in neuroses, demoralization, anger, and in art. Pollock was influenced by Navaho sand paintings, which were created on the ground. This image also translates to mean: In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Gordon Bennett 2. What values or ideas characterise the postKeating era in Australia? Lichtenstein 19231987). Discuss with reference to a selection of at least three works, clearly identifying stylistic shifts, and evidence of conceptual unity. 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. Gordon Bennett 2. James Gordon Bennett Many a good newspaper story has been ruined by over verification. The focus on reason, scientific learning and progress that characterised the Enlightenment (suggested by the measuring marks on the torch) lead to many significant discoveries and new ways of understanding the world. Is this response informed by Bennetts work? How have these sciences influenced the perception and understanding of Indigenous people and cultures? His joy . Gordon Bennett did not describe himself as an appropriation artist. The pair of outstretched arms and the diagrammatic outline of a cross- like form in the central panel of Triptych: Requieum, Of grandeur, Empire, 1989 alludes to the figure of Christ crucified on the cross, a common subject in Christian art. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung People as the Traditional Owners of the land on which the NGV is built. Bennetts pictures leave us with questions rather than answers, with complexities rather than simplicities as if the origins of truth, identity and ideology are in metaphors and signs rather than in things, and hence are layered and relative Ian McLean 1. The grid, with its characteristic ordered mathematical structure, appears in a range of Bennetts artworks in a variety of forms. Discuss with reference to the same works. The Other is clearly marked out as not only different but by necessity inferior. He was born in New York, May 10th 1841 and died 4 days after his 77th Birthday in Beaulieu near Nizza/France. 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. 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. What key themes and ideas are explored in the book/film? Bennett continued to work in new ways with materials, techniques and images throughout his career. What does this interpretation add to your understanding of the artwork? Bennett handed over command of his division and left the island. The left explodes with images of 9/11, the devastatingly unforgettable attacks in the United States, including New York. 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. I did drawings of tools and weapons in my project book, just like all the other children, and like them I also wrote in my books that each Aboriginal family had their own hut, that men hunt kangaroos, possums and emus; that women collect seeds, eggs, fruit and yams. Bennett's 'unfinished business' was to encourage a great sensitivity and action in terms of these conditions," said Ms Stanhope. Altarpiece paintings traditionally occupied a central position in a church. 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. Bennett employs this system using diagrams often labelled with acronyms, such as CVP (central vanishing point), that refer to key features of the system. ), 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. With reference to at least two artworks, identify and explain some of the strategies and techniques you believe Bennett has used to engage the viewer. Read through the profiles and market analysis for the top 200 Indigenous artists Bennett layered these two distinctly different artists with his own work work previously appropriated from yet another context. These qualities expose some of the complications that arise from understandings built on binary opposites. 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. . Bennetts referencing, appropriation and recontextualisation of familiar images and art styles challenges conventional ways of viewing and thinking and opens up new possibilities for understanding the subjects he explored. 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. Investigate the theories and ideas associated with anthropology, ethnography and phrenology. 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. These binary opposites insider/outsider, black/white, primitive/civilised have had a powerful influence on perceptions of European and Indigenous people and culture. 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. John Citizen is an artist for our times: he reflects back to us citizens the white Australia of the postKeating era. 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 is an Australian artist of Aboriginal descent. The imagery in this painting focuses on binary opposites, including the Aboriginal figure and various symbols of European and Indigenous art and culture . 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. Gordon Bennett: Selected Writings $45.00 Quantity Edited by Angela Goddard and Tim Riley Walsh A co-publication from Power Publications and Griffith University Art Museum Paperback with dust jacket RRP $45.00 AUD ISBN 978--909952-01-3 66 images, including colour plates 216 pp 297 x 210 mm 890 gms 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. 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. He lived and worked in Brisbane. 2,038 Sq. Sell with Artsy Artist Series Portraits of Artists and Sculptors 113 available Inspired, Pollock removed the canvas from the easel and worked with it flat on the floor, using movement and gesture to flick and drip paint onto the canvas. Discuss with reference to Possession Island. His bold and humane art challenged racial stereotypes and provoked critical reflection on Australia's official history and national identity. 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 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. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island (1991)*. 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. 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. 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. 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. Some of Prestons appropriations however, demeaned and trivialised the way Aborigines were depicted and understood. 3233, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 33, Gordon Bennett & Chris McAuliffe, Interview with Gordon Bennett in Rex Bulter (Ed.) Gordon Bennett, Possession Island, 1991, oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas in two parts. These images are fused and overlapped in a dynamic composition underpinned by Mondrian-style grids. The impact of colonisation on Aboriginal people and culture from this point was devastating. Gordon Bennett 1. Who was Gordon Bennett? What evidence can you see in this self-portrait of Bennett linking issues of personal identity with broader issues related to history and culture? His art attempts to depict the complexity of both cultural perspectives. Self portrait (But I always wanted to be one of the good guys), 1990 questions how stereotypes create a sense of identity. He is not disturbed by slashes of paint, but painted carefully and outlined by the precise grid behind him. 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. 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. Image: Gordon Bennett, Australia 1955-2014, Possession Island, 1991. 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. If God cannot be contained, can humanity be contained by stereotypes and labels? Such imagery has often been used by artists to unsettle the viewer and present new perspectives on familiar subjects. . This was soon replaced by a cooler, more conceptual approach. I didnt go to art college to graduate as an Aboriginal Artist. 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 I am from Self portrait (But I always wanted to be one of the good guys) is replaced with We all are. Discuss with reference to selected artworks by Gordon Bennett. Would you include work by Gordon Bennett in a text book on Australian history. Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007. 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. He acknowledged that much of his work was autobiographical, but he emphasises that there was conceptual distance involved in his art making . 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? Since his first major solo exhibition in 1989 his work has been at the forefront of contemporary Australian art and has been recognised internationally for its innovative and critical engagement with ideas and issues of ongoing relevance to contemporary culture. 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.
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