Pollock becomes a catalyst for transformation. 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. What is your personal interpretation of the abstract paintings? The purer the bloodlines, the more Aboriginal you were. The word DISPERSE was used by the colonisers to represent the killing of Aboriginal people. AUSTRALIAN ART COMES TO TATE MODERN - Qantas News Room ). But, in the late 1990s, some residents . Captain James Cook arrived there in 1770 and claimed ownership of the entire eastern coast of Australia in the name of King George III. Bennett employs this system using diagrams often labelled with acronyms, such as CVP (central vanishing point), that refer to key features of the system. 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. He used his self as the vehicle to do so. possession island But in Bennetts painting disparate diagrams, symbols and images disrupt the illusion, presenting the landscape as a site where many ideas and viewpoints compete. These images, forever forged in our minds, are boldly depicted in Basquiats graffiti- like style. 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). It acts as a question with many possibilities and answers. There are a number of reasons why I began painting abstract paintings that focused on overt visual phenomena, as opposed to explicit visual content. Such imagery has often been used by artists to unsettle the viewer and present new perspectives on familiar subjects. 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. What values or ideas characterise the postKeating era in Australia? Bennett handed over command of his division and left the island. 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. 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). This event was re-enacted in many pageants and dramatisations during Australias Bicentenary in 1988, as a way of celebrating 200 years of Australian history. Possession Island (1991), for example, presents shadowy renditions of Captain Cook and his party against a watery blue ground, overlayed with . The background colours and features of the landscape in each panel of Requiem, Of grandeur, Empire suggest a vast Australian desert . The Estate of Gordon Bennett. In European tradition these are seen as a means of mapping and defining space. Collection: Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums In this way, Bennett effectively exposes and questions the constructed and value-laden nature of language and history, and how they shape our understanding of the world. Gordon Bennett | Number Nine (2008) | Artsy 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. The grid and perspective lines are another recurring symbol in Bennetts work. Celebrations continued throughout the year and gave renewed focus to traditional images and stories of the nations settlement history. He was born in New York, May 10th 1841 and died 4 days after his 77th Birthday in Beaulieu near Nizza/France. 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. 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. Gordon Bennett 3. 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 of Prestons appropriations however, demeaned and trivialised the way Aborigines were depicted and understood. Physically, the kitsch Aboriginal motifs copied from Preston are trapped. 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. Gordon bennett hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy Possession Island 1992. I am purposely not defining him only as Aboriginal because he himself does not want to be defined only as such. These act as disturbances. L120238 Gordon Bennett. 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. He serves as a counterpoint to Gordon Bennetts Other, and yet we are the one and the same. Reflecting the colours of the Aboriginal flag, splashes and drips of red, yellow and black paint across the surface of the painting quote the distinctive style of Jackson Pollock (19121956), which Bennett began to sample in 1990. This image is based on a photograph by JW Lindt (1845 1926). . He probed ideas about identity, fuelled partly by his own . Picassos sizable oeuvre grew to include over 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures,ceramics, theater sets, and costume designs. Gordon Bennett - 1352 Words | Studymode History | World Air Sports Federation How have these sciences influenced the perception and understanding of Indigenous people and cultures? These racist terms confront an Aboriginal figure represented as a jack-in-the-box, as he is violently jerked from the box that contains him. Unfinished Business: The Art of Gordon Bennett - academia.edu Gordon Bennett | Possession Island (Abstraction) (1991) | Artsy The grotesque also interested Bennett as a means of disrupting conventional ways of seeing and understanding. I decided that I was in a very interesting position: My mind and body had been effectively colonised by Western culture, and yet my Aboriginality, which had been historically, socially and personally repressed, was still part of me and I was obtaining the tools and language to explore it on my own terms. 148339 AK Gordon-Bennett-Rennen 1904 Cup Motorsport Usingen Weilburg Limburg. The mirror, a recurring symbol within his work, is not a two- dimensional illusion but a literal construct. Australian politics is fraught yet the Australian public is disengaged. Gordon Bennett 3, Bennett married in 1977. Mixing of pure blood with European blood was feared by Europeans, authenticity was at risk and identity diluted. It is also a direct reference to biblical stories in the Hebrew Scriptures. Bennett not only used Basquiat images, but begins to paint in his style. 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. The soundtrack includes digital sampling of ICE.Ts Race War. Most Australians were shocked and scandalised that public money was spent on something they neither appreciated nor understood. It is uttered by all good Muslims before a good deed. Gordon Bennett Possession Island (Abstraction) 1991 oil and acrylic on canvas 182 x 182cm Collection: Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and Tate, purchased jointly with funds provided by the Qantas Foundation, 2016 The Estate of Gordon Bennett 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. 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. The Other is clearly marked out as not only different but by necessity inferior. Australian politics is fraught yet the Australian public is disengaged. The Politics of Art. In 2003, Bennett embarked on a series of non-representational abstract paintings, marking a dramatic shift in his art practice, formally and conceptually. Collection: Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums The Estate of Gordon Bennett Image credit: Gordon Bennett - Possession Island (1991). Gordon Bennett uses self- portraits to question stereotypes and labelling. Gordon Bennett, born on 16 April 1887 at Balwyn, Melbourne, was Australia's most controversial Second World War commander. Mondrian cages the figures, Preston objectifies the figures; Bennett accommodates both to grasp the intangible and dissect these limited interpretations and stereotypes. Find out more about binary opposites and identify some binary opposites that you believe have had a significant influence on your understanding of the world. 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. Bennett's art engages with historical and contemporary questions of cultural and personal identity, with a specific focus on Australia's colonial past and its postcolonial present. Gordon Bennett 1. However these ideas and values simultaneously oppressed Indigenous people and their cultural and knowledge systems. 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. 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. Preston envisioned the creation of an Australian aesthetic. Kelly Gellatly 5, By the mid 1990s, Gordon Bennett came to feel he was in an untenable position. Bennett indicates the need to be reconciled within the context of culture and history to develop a full sense of identity. What does this comment suggest to you about the purpose of Bennetts questioning of history? Both artists have an affinity with Jazz, Rap and Hip Hop music. Cooee Art Auctions works with artists bi-annually across two separate departments - Indigenous Fine Art and Modern & Contemporary Fine Art. From the beginning of his career, John Citizen had had a complex relationship with Gordon Bennett. I AM is borrowed from a well known art work, Victory over death 2, 1970 by New Zealand artist Colin McCahon (19191987) . It demonstrates Bennetts understanding of the power of this image. She attempted to create works that reflected a sense of national identity by incorporating Aboriginal motifs and colours in her work. 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. The Morning News from Wilmington, Delaware on July 7, 1972 52 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. Remembering Gordon Bennett, the man who saved Christmas Island The Stripe series of abstract paintings represents a kind of freedom for me as an artist. Victorious soldiers triumphantly and ceremoniously paraded under such arches, sometimes accompanied by their captives. The viewer does not confront the artist, but self. The motivation behind the abstract paintings was complex but in part it reflects Bennetts ongoing concerns about issues related to the reception of his work. Explore a range of ideas and media within your work. He described this knowledge as a psychic rupturing. It is a monument that also unintentionally signals the subsequent dispossession of Aboriginal people from their homeland. 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 POSSESSION ISLAND 1991 Titled, dated (1992) and signed by the artist on each panel and bears various exhibition related inscriptions and labels on the stretchers, and inscribed with date of completion 29.12.91 on the reverse of the right panel Synthetic polymer paint on canvas (diptych) 162 by 130 cm each panel, 162 by 260 cm overall Do you agree? Jenna Gribbon, April studio, parting glance, 2021. Six years after his death at the age of 58, his 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. 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. Gordon Bennett 1. However, he offers more than one interpretation of the grids use, which is indicated by the sampling of works by Australian artist Margaret Preston . He depicts how pain transcends place and event to encompass a global consciousness. While 2007 was a brilliant year for Bennett's secondary market results, with eight works sold of which . The mirror at the bottom left-hand corner of the painting represents Bennetts own shaving mirror. 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. He tried a career as an actuarial clerk, attending Hawthorn College after Balwyn State School. This activity could be done as a group activity with different students researching different dates/events and presenting talks to the class about their significance. He acknowledged that much of his work was autobiographical, but he emphasises that there was conceptual distance involved in his art making . 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. Many Indigenous Australians saw this appropriation as further evidence of a justification of colonisation and a Eurocentric interpretation of Aboriginal culture. After 2003 he moved away from figurative language to work in an abstract idiom (see Number Nine 2008, Tate T15515). In Untitled, 1989 Bennett works with a selection of images associated with the familiar story of the discovery and settlement of Australia. Explain how you believe Bennett communicates and presents questions and complexities in his work. (PDF) Why Art and Law | Joan Kee - Academia.edu Perhaps in this sense Citizen represents an Australian everyman who recognises the wrongs of history and racist representations, but who has no real interest in going any further in asking hard questions about why they happened and what impact they caused. He lived and worked in Brisbane. Such accolades and critical recognition are keenly sought by many artists. 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. Place each photograph on a separate layer, overlap and morph or merge all the portraits into one image. 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. But this approach is central to the way many people describe and analyse his work. Gordon Bennett: Selected Writings - Power Publications Linear perspective is a system for organising visual information. How ideas might be encountered from different places and events interest him. . You have to understand my position of having no designs or images or stories on which to draw to assert my Aboriginality. You might consider, scale, materials and techniques, perceptual effects. Create an illustrated and annotated timeline of the history of Australia since settlement. In Interior (Abstract eye), 1991 a diagrammatic grid overlays an image depicting a group of Aboriginal people in the landscape, seemingly appropriated from a social studies text. Gordon Bennett, an Australian Aboriginal artist, demonstrates this theory through his work. What aspects of Bennetts works might viewers focus on as emotional? Bennett used Blue Poles to recall this period of change. 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 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. 3 Beds. ART215: Topic 10 - Urban Aboriginal Art - Pinterest Issues ly explored in an Australian context are now examined in an international context. This pastiche of style and image is like a D J (Disc Jockey) sampling and remixing different styles of music to create new expressions. Jenna Gribbon, Silver Tongue, 2019, Price ranges of small prints by Pablo Picasso. 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. The resource provides frameworks for exploring key issues and ideas in Bennett's art practice. It alludes to ownership and territory. 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. 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. Once again, the arena of self- portraiture becomes a vehicle to take over and challenge stereotypes. 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? He found this liberating. Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007 Image: Gordon Bennett, Australia 1955-2014, Possession Island, 1991. Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? In Malevichs work the black square is seen as having a strong and even spiritual presence.