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. The juxtaposition and sequencing of words and images in Untitled is unsettling. 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. 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. For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, this was a time to mourn the devastating consequences of 200 years of colonisation. His father, born in Scotland in 1795, emigrated to the US to become a journalist and subsequently founded the 'New York Herald' in 1835. . Perhaps a re-writing of history? Gordon Bennett 2. Jackson Pollock is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Bennetts use of the grid in these and other artworks suggests questions and ideas. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island (1991)*. Collect and find photographs of a wide variety of people of different ethnicities, cultures and physical appearances. 'One of the most important Australian artists of the late 20th century At the heart of all human life is a concept of self. It demonstrates Bennetts understanding of the power of this image. Gordon Bennett Response - Art Phantom For example, at the time Gordon was born she still had to carry her official exemption certificate with her, and she lived in fear of her son being taken from her . Gordon Bennett | MCA Australia Kelly Gellatly 5, By the mid 1990s, Gordon Bennett came to feel he was in an untenable position. Would you include work by Gordon Bennett in a text book on Australian history. Read through the profiles and market analysis for the top 200 Indigenous artists In The coming of the light, 1987 the high- rise buildings that frame the white faces are represented as grid-like forms. The grid and perspective lines are another recurring symbol in Bennetts work. 1 0-5-30 j RED STAR Now 35 oft on all RED STARRED SIWFMIMUIS IliMMS . Such accolades and critical recognition are keenly sought by many artists. Collection: Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums The Estate of Gordon Bennett Nearby Recently Sold Homes. Blood is a potent symbol and has historically been a measure of Aboriginality. The process of translation from one version to the next mimics how history is endlessly translated and transformed by the vagaries oftime and by individual perspectives. This was common practice among young Aboriginal girls and women. 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 Altered body print (Shadow figure howling at the moon) Bennett focuses more explicitly on binary opposites and the associations they trigger. 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. Art Guide Australia January/February 2021 - Issuu The Other is clearly marked out as not only different but by necessity inferior. 'Bloodlines' Gordon Bennett 1. Based on your understanding of Bennetts motivations for the abstract paintings, outlined in the quote in the text, suggest what may have interested Bennett about the work of these artists. James Gordon Bennett Bennett simultaneously obscures and draws attention to the Aboriginal man standing next to Cook, overlaying an abstract geometric shape which recalls constructivist art and the Aboriginal flag. Image credit: Gordon Bennett - Possession Island (1991). 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. Our experiences in this society manifest themselves in neuroses, demoralization, anger, and in art. 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. 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. Theosophy means god wisdom, the belief that everything living or dead was put together from basic blocks that lead towards consciousness. Its like images become part of the Australian unconscious. 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. Different members of the class could be assigned different cultural traditions to research and then prepare an illustrated presentation for the class. Neither had I thought to question the representation of Aborigines as the quintessential primitive Other against which the civilized collective Self of my peers was measured. There are a number of reasons why I began painting abstract paintings that focused on overt visual phenomena, as opposed to explicit visual content. 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. This approach involved a flattening of the picture surface and often the use of disparate visual elements or styles borrowed or copied from different sources. The simplicity of I AM suggests a universality of thought. The distorted and exaggerated features of the form incorporate qualities that appear animal and human, male and female. Bloody handprints are stamped across the walls. This world is not my home - Gordon Bennett - QAGOMA Learning One of the most heroic and well-known images of Australias past is Captain Cook landing in Botany Bay in 1770. Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 27, Identities come from somewhere, have histories, and like everything which is historical, they undergo constant transformation. These binary opposites insider/outsider, black/white, primitive/civilised have had a powerful influence on perceptions of European and Indigenous people and culture. Bennett used perspective diagrams and visual symbols in Triptych: Requiem, Of grandeur, Empire . . Queensland-born Gordon Bennett was an artist who loved collapsing 'high' and 'low' art boundaries. The work is a copy of a copy of a copy. Our understanding of the meanings associated with visual signs is linked to cultural codes, conventions and experience. Bennett lodges this image in layers of dots and slashes of red and yellow paint that refer to other artists and images. Gordon Bennett Possession Island (Abstraction) 1991 Oil paint and acrylic paint on canvas 1 843 x 1845 mm Tate and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, purchased jointly with funds provided by the Qantas Foundation 2016 Estate of Gordon Bennett CZ: A lot of the featured artists have also created work since 1992. cat. GORDON BENNETT SOLO IN QUEENSLAND at News Aboriginal Art Directory Collection: Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums ww2dbase Henry Gordon Bennett was born in Balwyn, a suburb of Melbourne, near the close of the nineteenth century. This culminated in the Notes to Basquiat series in 2003. But the oppressive and restrictive laws that governed the lives of Aboriginal people in Australia until the late 1960s continued to impose on her life. 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. Gordon Bennett! | English Slang Phrases - Peevish 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? His use of I AM emphasises this. The artist Gordon Bennett led a reclusive life. 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. 1. The Politics of Art | ANU College of Law Discuss with reference to the same works. Kelly Gellatly 1. 27 oct. 2018 - Dcouvrez le tableau "GORDON BENNETT" de Bibishams sur Pinterest. 2. He drew on and sampled from many artists and traditions to create a new language and a new way of reading these images. These include the tall ship and the appropriated logos featuring kitsch and racist references to Indigenous people, and the ominous juxtaposition of bags of flour and bottles of poison. The colour black and other histories: The art of Gordon Bennett Victorious soldiers triumphantly and ceremoniously paraded under such arches, sometimes accompanied by their captives. If God cannot be contained, can humanity be contained by stereotypes and labels? 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 Bennett 2. Inspired by African and Iberian art, he also contributed to the rise of Surrealism and Expressionism. Ian McLean 2. Who was Paul Keating? 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. 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. Bennetts distinctive visual language repositions the subject of the work, claiming the Aboriginal perspective as central to the historical moment of the original painting. Born in 1955 in Monto, Queensland, Gordon Bennett lived and worked in Brisbane before his unexpected death in 2014. He used familiar and recognisable images that are part of an Australian consciousness to explore and question the meaning of these images. Possession Island (Abstraction), Gordon Bennett, 1991, Oil paint and acrylic paint on canvas. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island (1991)*. Do these qualities reflect the reality of what it means to be Australian (ie. Include in your discussion reference to Bennetts appropriation of The nine shots 1985 by Imants Tillers. The purer the bloodlines, the more Aboriginal you were. Gordon Bennett an Australian Aboriginal artist demonstrates this theory through his work. The jack- in- the box is surrounded by symbols, including the grid- like buildings and alphabet blocks, of the knowledge, systems and structures that represent an enlightened, civilised society. ). He serves as a counterpoint to Gordon Bennetts Other, and yet we are the one and the same. Underlying Bennetts admiration for Basquiat was the need to re- contextualise the issues that he had explored throughout his career as an artist. Explore. Today. 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. 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. Physically, the kitsch Aboriginal motifs copied from Preston are trapped. The incorporation of Blue Poles calls to mind an era of great reform in Australian politics. The indefatigable artist has been the subject of exhibitions at the worlds most prestigious institutions, from the Museum of Modern Art and Centre Pompidou to the Stedelijk Museum and Tate Modern. Explain how you believe Bennett communicates and presents questions and complexities in his work. Bennett presents each image with a single word, written in capitals, that boldly asserts a new meaning for them. Bennett only used two colours, symbolically, red and black. Why do artists such as Gordon Bennett and Tracey Moffatt (b.1960) systematically decline to participate in exhibitions of Aboriginal art? 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. John Citizen was an abstraction of the Australian Mr Average, the Australian everyman. After 2003 he moved away from figurative language to work in an abstract idiom (see Number Nine 2008, Tate T15515). When autocomplete results are available use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. In the Home dcorseries Bennett used gridded compositions that refer to the paintings of Dutch artistPiet Mondrian (1872 1944). The timeline could be presented in hardcopy for display in the classroom, or as an ICT project incorporating images and audio. On Tuesday, the Tate unveiled Gordon Bennett's Possession Island, a provocative 1991 work that takes a 19th century etching of Cook's claiming Australia for Britain, and plants a proud abstract indigenous flag on it. The central image is a reworking of an earlier painting completed at art college, The persistence of language, 1987, painted in the style of Basquiat. Gleichzeitig war es das erste Jahr ohne Stadt-zu-Stadt-Rennen, die nach dem Todesrennen" Paris-Madrid . Alumni and Giving - The Politics of Art John Citizen had his first exhibition in 1995 at Sutton Gallery, Melbourne 2 As an alternative artistic identity, John Citizen not only alerts us to how artistic identity is constructed, it gave Bennett great freedom to be someone other than Gordon Bennett. 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. It is also a direct reference to biblical stories in the Hebrew Scriptures. In Notes to Basquiat (Jackson Pollock and his other) 2001, Bennett confronts these issues within a global context.