Gouged into the skin like a tattoo, these markings will never heal or fade away. 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. 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. Looking closely at the central panel we realise that the luminous sky is described with the dots that Bennett used in early works to signify Aboriginal art. 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. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 182 x 182 cm. It is said that as a concession to Ireland ( because racing was illegal on British public roads) the British adopted shamrock green as their racing colour. EUR 7,81. Gordon Bennett Possession Island - Free download as Word Doc (.doc / .docx), PDF File (.pdf) or read online for free. In The coming of the light, 1987 the high- rise buildings that frame the white faces are represented as grid-like forms. The critical and aesthetic strategies of postmodernism have had significant impact on the development of his art practice. Get this The Morning News page for free from Friday, July 7, 1972 Q90 wSu Fairfax Shopping Center Doily 10-6. Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007. He has written of his approach to his work: Bennetts practice include painting, printmaking, drawing, video, performance, installation and sculpture, and challenges racial stereotypes and critically reflects on Australias history (official and unacknowledged) by addressing issues relating to the role of language and systems of thought in forging identity. 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. Gordon Bennett rapidly established himself in the Australian art world. The resource provides frameworks for exploring key issues and ideas in Bennett's art practice. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island (Abstraction), 1991. You have to understand my position of having no designs or images or stories on which to draw to assert my Aboriginality. Altarpiece paintings traditionally occupied a central position in a church. The works I have produced are notes, nothing more, to you and your work Gordon Bennett 1. 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 cat. Sutton Gallery. He was in a sense all things to all people. 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 status as an artist has been elevated to hero with his contribution to Action Painting. 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. At the same time his work demonstrates great conceptual unity and interconnectedness. You might consider, scale, materials and techniques, perceptual effects. Pinterest. Perhaps a re-writing of history? 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. 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. . Bennett as a cultural outsider of both his Aboriginal and AngloCeltic heritage does not assume a simplistic interpretation of identity. 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. Discuss with reference to a range of artworks by Bennett. 3233, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 33, Gordon Bennett & Chris McAuliffe, Interview with Gordon Bennett in Rex Bulter (Ed.) An understanding of self in the context of family is not enough. 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. Gordon Bennett 2. Queensland-born Gordon Bennett was an artist who loved collapsing 'high' and 'low' art boundaries. | Tate Images. Gordon Bennett, born on 16 April 1887 at Balwyn, Melbourne, was Australia's most controversial Second World War commander. While 2007 was a brilliant year for Bennett's secondary market results, with eight works sold of which . His bold and humane art challenged racial stereotypes and provoked critical reflection on Australia's official history and national identity. Possession Island (Abstraction), Gordon Bennett, 1991, Oil paint and acrylic paint on canvas. Gordon Bennett 1. Bennett compels the viewer to engage with and question the values and ideas of the artists he appropriated. Include a selection of relevant artworks by Gordon Bennett to illustrate your timeline. 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. In the context of the other panels, which are all figurative, this black square could be seen as an absence, and possibly a representation of the oppression of indigenous voices by history. 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. Read through the profiles and market analysis for the top 200 Indigenous artists Opens in a new window or tab. That was to be the extent of my formal education on Aborigines and Aboriginal culture until Art College. Acutely aware of the frame, I graduated as a straight honours student of fine art to find myself positioned and contained by the language of primitivism as an Urban Aboriginal Artist. Bennett used 9/11 and its global impact three months after the event as the stage for his discourse on cultural identity. Gordon Bennett's painting Possession Island (Abstraction) 1991 is based on an image of Captain Cook claiming the eastern coast of Australia in 1770. The mirror at the bottom left-hand corner of the painting represents Bennetts own shaving mirror. These are paintings about painting. It recalls the way stereotypes, labels, identities and systems of thought are fixed. In the third panel of Bennetts triptych, Empire, a Roman triumphal arch frames a stately figure. From 2003 Bennett worked on a series of non-representational abstract paintings that mark another significant shift in his practice. [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. 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. It was no accident that Bennett used this event to question the way history is written and interpreted. Bennett adopted several strategies to resist the narrow framework through which he as an artist and his work were viewed. Why? 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. EUR 99,99. dresden-de (52.329) 100%. The distorted and exaggerated features of the form incorporate qualities that appear animal and human, male and female. 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. 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 representation of Aborigines has been reduced to caricature. 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. Further reading I was certainly aware of it by the time I was sixteen years old after having been in the workforce for twelve months. scale, format), Ian McLean Gordon Bennetts existentialism in Ian McLean & Gordon Bennett, The art of Gordon Bennett, Craftsman House, Roseville East, 1996, p. 69, Ian McLean Gordon Bennetts existentialism, p. 71. Other aspects of the image, including the flat, stylised shapes of the head, reflect connections to both Western abstract art and Indigenous art traditions. The coming of the light also explores ideas, issues and questions related to the Enlightenment values central to colonialism. This is evident in many of his works, including Outsider. Why do artists such as Gordon Bennett and Tracey Moffatt (b.1960) systematically decline to participate in exhibitions of Aboriginal art? This work reflects our contemporary obsession with creating the perfect home filled with the latest must have designer style and material items. Create an illustrated and annotated timeline of the history of Australia since settlement. . Different members of the class could be assigned different cultural traditions to research and then prepare an illustrated presentation for the class. ), 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. However, he offers more than one interpretation of the grids use, which is indicated by the sampling of works by Australian artist Margaret Preston . The juxtaposition and sequencing of words and images in Untitled is unsettling. 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 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. Gordon Bennett (9 October 1955 - 3 June 2014) [1] was an Australian artist of Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic descent. European history has stipulated that being Australian has required anyone that does not fit into such a Eurocentric category is different, other and therefore unworthy. 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. He quotes directly from this image, which is in fact a copy of a copy, as Samuel Calvert copied this image of Captain Cook landing in Botany Bay from an image by Gilfillan, which is now lost. Gordon Bennett (1955-2014) created the triptych Bloodlines 1993 early in his career. When Gordon Bennett was labelled an Aboriginal Artist he was othered as an Aborigine and all the preconceptions that entails. It confronts the bigotry and discrimination suffered by Aborigines, using a rich visual language based in both Aboriginal and Western traditions. The circular forms in the sky are inspired by the brilliant bursts of light in van Goghs Starry night. Self portrait (Ancestor figures), 1992 deals with broader issues of cultural identity as well as personal identity. It was no accident that Bennett used Pollocks Blue Poles: Number 11. What does Bennetts goal for his work suggest to you about how he views the role of art? Strange to think of Gordon Bennett as an almost classical figure in contemporary Australian art. ww2dbase Henry Gordon Bennett was born in Balwyn, a suburb of Melbourne, near the close of the nineteenth century. A long-distance hot-air balloon race (The International Gordon Bennett balloon race), which still continues, was inaugurated by him in 1906. In the Christian tradition light is associated with goodness and righteousness while darkness is associated with evil. In her lifetime, Trugannini witnessed the systematic and often violent destruction of her culture and people. Bennett handed over command of his division and left the island. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island (1991)*. She attempted to create works that reflected a sense of national identity by incorporating Aboriginal motifs and colours in her work. 2 All that he had understood about himself and taken for granted as an Australian had ruptured. Six years after his death at the age of 58, his Research other artists who use appropriation and select an artist whose work interests you. More broadly, it recalls the lives of many young Aboriginal women who followed a similar destiny. possession island Nearby homes similar to 2719 NE 21st Ter have recently sold between $824K to $1M at an average of $565 per square foot. One reason is that I felt I had gone as far as I could with the postcolonial project I was working through. Cooee Art Auctions works with artists bi-annually across two separate departments - Indigenous Fine Art and Modern & Contemporary Fine Art. Bennett was concerned that his identity and work was seen as coming from a narrow framework. 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.