3233, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 33, Gordon Bennett & Chris McAuliffe, Interview with Gordon Bennett in Rex Bulter (Ed.) 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. That's probably why he is hardly a household name, despite the cognoscenti referring to him as a powerfully influential figure in contemporary art. The imagery in this painting focuses on binary opposites, including the Aboriginal figure and various symbols of European and Indigenous art and culture . I was certainly aware of it by the time I was sixteen years old after having been in the workforce for twelve months. 2 February 2021. Picassos sizable oeuvre grew to include over 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures,ceramics, theater sets, and costume designs. 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. Literally opening up this black skin of paint are the words cut me. Once again, the arena of self- portraiture becomes a vehicle to take over and challenge stereotypes. This influence is seen in the rhythmic movement of Bennetts Notes to Basquiat series. He used weapons or gum tree branches as props, to construct an image that reflected European ideas of Aboriginal types. But in Bennetts painting disparate diagrams, symbols and images disrupt the illusion, presenting the landscape as a site where many ideas and viewpoints compete. * February 4, 2015 The Institute of Modern Art announces its 2015 exhibition program Institute of Modern Art 420 Brunswick Street Fortitude Valley Brisbane QLD 4006 Australia T +61 (0) 7 3252 5750 ima [ at ] ima.org.au www.ima.org.au In just three generations, that heritage has been lost to me. while Bennett may have attempted, in recent years, to disconnect from the politics of his earlier practice, there is also a sense within these paintings, of the impossibility of such a task. Opens in a new window or tab. Jackson Pollock is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. I didnt go to art college to graduate as an Aboriginal Artist. He was born in New York, May 10th 1841 and died 4 days after his 77th Birthday in Beaulieu near Nizza/France. 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 Nearby homes similar to 2719 NE 21st Ter have recently sold between $824K to $1M at an average of $565 per square foot. Queensland-born artist Gordon Bennett (1955-2014) was deeply engaged with questions of identity, perception and the construction of history, and made a profound and ongoing contribution to contemporary art in Australia and internationally. Mondrian aspired to create a form of pure abstract art based on the grid and a controlled use of art elements, including primary colours. Fri. 10-9, Sat. 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. Collection: Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums The Estate of Gordon Bennett Collection: Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums An Anthology of writings on Australian Art in the 1980s & 1990s, IMA Publishing, 2004, p. 273, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, Ian McLean & Gordon Bennett, The Art of Gordon Bennett Craftsman House, 1996, p. 58, Kelly Gellatly, Citizen in the making, p.18, Kelly Gellatly, Citizen in the making, p. 17, John Citizen artist profile, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne http://www.suttongallery.com.au/artists/artistprofile.php?id=39 accessed 29/11/07, Conversation Bill Wright talks to Gordon Bennett, in Kelly Gellatly with contributions by Bill Wright, Justin Clemens and Jane Devery, Gordon Bennett (exhib. This was common practice among young Aboriginal girls and women. At the heart of all human life is a concept of self. Pinterest. Bennett handed over command of his division and left the island. In Malevichs work the black square is seen as having a strong and even spiritual presence. * *Collection: Museum of Sydney on the site of the first Government House, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales. It was no accident that Bennett used Pollocks Blue Poles: Number 11. 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. The grid and perspective lines are another recurring symbol in Bennetts work. Comparisons between Basquiat and Bennett often focus on the artists similar backgrounds and experiences. In images such as these, Aboriginal people are often absent or relegated to the background. James Gordon Bennett, Sr., a Scottish immigrant, founded the New York Herald in 1835, building the paper from the ground up. 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. He serves as a counterpoint to Gordon Bennetts Other, and yet we are the one and the same. 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. Queensland-born Gordon Bennett was an artist who loved collapsing 'high' and 'low' art boundaries. Amidst the chaos and confusion of dots and slashes of colour he remains imprisoned by the grid, reduced to servitude. 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. 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. 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. Roundels relating to symbols that denote significant sites in Aboriginal Western Desert dot painting also appear. Egyptian painting or relief sculpture, Chinese scroll paintings, Aboriginal painting of the Western Desert. 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. The triptych form of painting is most commonly associated with the altarpiece paintings made for Christian churches. 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. Choose a selfportrait by Gordon Bennett that interests you. The purchase of this artwork by the Whitlam Labor Government (19731975) was fraught with controversy. 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. People tend to focus on the emotional aspect rather than the conceptual when interpreting my work, and that bothers me. Another reason was to make people aware that I am an artist first and not a professional Aborigine. The dresser draw labelled self is closed while the drawers for history and culture are ajar. Gordon Bennett, an Australian Aboriginal artist, demonstrates this theory through his work. 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. Possession Island (1991), for example, presents shadowy renditions of Captain Cook and his party against a watery blue ground, overlayed with . These binary opposites insider/outsider, black/white, primitive/civilised have had a powerful influence on perceptions of European and Indigenous people and culture. In The coming of the light, 1987 the high- rise buildings that frame the white faces are represented as grid-like forms. Possession Island (Abstraction), Gordon Bennett, 1991, Oil paint and acrylic paint on canvas. Gordon Bennett 3. 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. Different members of the class could be assigned different cultural traditions to research and then prepare an illustrated presentation for the class. 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. 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. Discuss different approaches/ideas evident in the way each artist uses dots in their work. From the beginning of his career, John Citizen had had a complex relationship with Gordon Bennett. Fundamentally, he deconstructed history to question the truth of the past. Gordon Bennett (1955-2014) created the triptych Bloodlines 1993 early in his career. The figure is dressed in tattered western clothing. From a distance the figure resembles a sculpture of a heroic Classical figure. This contemporary questioning and revision of the traditional, narrow euro-centric view of history reflects a postcolonial perspective. 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. Mixing of pure blood with European blood was feared by Europeans, authenticity was at risk and identity diluted. Gordon Bennett 1. In Notes to Basquiat (Jackson Pollock and his other) 2001, Bennett confronts these issues within a global context. 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. 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. Altarpiece paintings traditionally occupied a central position in a church. Include in your discussion reference to Bennetts appropriation of The nine shots 1985 by Imants Tillers. Such accolades and critical recognition are keenly sought by many artists. Traditional ideas about an artists individual or signature style are further confounded in Bennetts art practice by the his appropriation or sampling of the distinctive styles of other artists, including Jackson Pollock (191256), Margaret Preston ( 18751963) and Piet Mondrian (18721944). What typically Australian qualities are associated with these characters? On each corner of the grid are the letters A B C D . This image is based on a photograph by JW Lindt (1845 1926). Do you agree? 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 Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007. Here Bennett raises questions and matters about the stories that define us personally and culturally, and about the complex relationship that has existed between the Christian church and Indigenous cultures through history. Even when the starting point for a work is an emotive one, I believe I conceptually examine the ideas behind the emotion and extrapolate from there Gordon Bennett1. The I am from Self portrait (But I always wanted to be one of the good guys) is replaced with We all are. In the past Quadroon, was a socially acceptable term used to label Indigenous people as a way of establishing genetic heredity. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island (Abstraction), 1991. Gordon Bennett 3. 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 is uttered by all good Muslims before a good deed. 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. Gordon Bennett did not describe himself as an appropriation artist.