The final panel in the sequence of six images in Untitled is a black square. Possession Island (1991), for example, presents shadowy renditions of Captain Cook and his party against a watery blue ground, overlayed with . Oil and acrylic on canvas, 182 x 182 cm. It is reproduced in flat, bold and black line work. Gleichzeitig war es das erste Jahr ohne Stadt-zu-Stadt-Rennen, die nach dem Todesrennen" Paris-Madrid . 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. The viewer does not confront the artist, but self. Explain how you believe Bennett communicates and presents questions and complexities in his work. 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. What systems and/or conventions are used by each culture to represent three dimensional space? So, painting in an overtly abstract manner was a way to go silent on the issues involved and yet still keep painting. Many Indigenous Australians saw this appropriation as further evidence of a justification of colonisation and a Eurocentric interpretation of Aboriginal culture. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island (1991)*. The strategy of word association subverts the values and meaning traditionally associated with the image. Today. 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. His art attempts to depict the complexity of both cultural perspectives. That was to be the extent of my formal education on Aborigines and Aboriginal culture until Art College. The grand Romantic landscapes of Western art were intended to inspire the viewer with their dramatic beauty and effects of illusion. 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. They communicated important Christian stories to the congregation. What evidence can you see in this self-portrait of Bennett linking issues of personal identity with broader issues related to history and culture? Gordon Bennett Possession Island , 1991 Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas 162 x 260cm Museum of Sydney Gordon Bennett The Coming of the Light , 1987 Acrylic on canvas 152 x 274cm Queensland Art Gallery Collection All Artworks Subscribe Submit Follow Sutton Gallery 254 Brunswick Street Fitzroy 3065 Celebrations continued throughout the year and gave renewed focus to traditional images and stories of the nations settlement history. 40 41. The graphic detail in these images, including mutilated, tortured bodies, continue to confront viewers today with the realities of human behaviour and suffering in war. Gordon Bennett 1. It alludes to ownership and territory. His father, born in Scotland in 1795, emigrated to the US to become a journalist and subsequently founded the 'New York Herald' in 1835. He described this knowledge as a psychic rupturing. Bennett confronts and questions the appropriateness of this borrowing. Blood is a potent symbol and has historically been a measure of Aboriginality. Well-known Australian and international artists whose works are referenced in different ways in Bennetts work include Hans Heysen, Margaret Preston, Imants Tillers, Vincent van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, Colin McCahon and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The works I have produced are notes, nothing more, to you and your work Gordon Bennett 1. 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. Choose a selfportrait by Gordon Bennett that interests you. The performance that forms an integral part of this work shows a tall indistinct figure (Bennett) prowling around a stage- like setting illuminated by a rapidly changing pattern of images, text, light and colour. The timeline could be presented in hardcopy for display in the classroom, or as an ICT project incorporating images and audio. It is based on a newspaper photograph of Bennetts mother and another young Aboriginal woman, dressed in crisp white uniforms, polishing the elaborate architectural fittings in a grand interior of a homestead in Singleton. Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? 4. How have these sciences influenced the perception and understanding of Indigenous people and cultures? This led him to adopt an artistic alter ego, John Citizen. This education resource accompanies the retrospective exhibition Gordon Bennett (2008) which showcased 85 works by this internationally acclaimed Australian artist. This contemporary questioning and revision of the traditional, narrow euro-centric view of history reflects a postcolonial perspective. As a self- portrait, the artist seems to be present everywhere within the installation but is in fact nowhere. Finally, Ive never been one to make art about art before. Why? Gordon Bennett (1955-2014) is one of Australia's most important contemporary artists, and his works have received increasing critical acclaim over the past years - culminating with his retrospective exhibition at the QAGOMA in Brisbane, 'Unfinished Business: The Art of Gordon Bennett'. In this work Bennett directly references historical British sources, namely Samuel Calverts (18281913) colour etching Captain Cook Taking Possession of the Australian Continent on Behalf of the British Crown AD 1770 c.185364 (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne), which is itself a copy of John Alexander Gilfillans (17931864) earlier, now lost, painting of the same title. The circular forms in the sky are inspired by the brilliant bursts of light in van Goghs Starry night. Once again the letters A B C D feature as a potent symbol and complete the grid. The impact of colonisation on Aboriginal people and culture from this point was devastating. 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. He can be anything the viewer wants him to be: white, black or any shade in between, as was true of Australian citizens in general in our multicultural country. Black angels replace traditional white cherubs. James Gordon Bennett Many a good newspaper story has been ruined by over verification. I was certainly aware of it by the time I was sixteen years old after having been in the workforce for twelve months. Include a selection of relevant artworks by Gordon Bennett to illustrate your timeline. 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. 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. As an Australian of both Aboriginal and Anglo Celtic descent, Bennett felt he had no access to his indigenous heritage. Gordon Bennett 1. It is a monument that also unintentionally signals the subsequent dispossession of Aboriginal people from their homeland. 2,038 Sq. These are paintings about painting. Consider what dates/events should be included in your timeline and why. The mirror at the bottom left-hand corner of the painting represents Bennetts own shaving mirror. Mondrian, a Dutch De Stijl artist and a Theosophist, used art to search empirical truths and their source. In images such as these, Aboriginal people are often absent or relegated to the background. Lindt created many photographic portraits of Aboriginal subjects. Bennetts grid formations seem to imprison the figures within the canvas. What evidence can you find of Bennett conceptually examining the ideas behind the emotion, and extrapolating from there? Bennett adopted this alter ego to liberate himself from the preconceptions that were often associated with his Aboriginal heritage and his identity and reputation as the artist Gordon Bennett. Queensland-born, 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. Nearby Recently Sold Homes. 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. Include in your discussion reference to Bennetts appropriation of The nine shots 1985 by Imants Tillers. Against the background of the illusionistic representation of the landscape they capture our attention, alerting us to the fact that there are other ways of representing and understanding the landscape not just the European perspectives that have dominated our cultural history. 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. It is interesting to note that this same year was declared a period of mourning by Aboriginal people. Once again, the arena of self- portraiture becomes a vehicle to take over and challenge stereotypes. He carefully staged each image in his studio, posing the sitter against a painted backdrop. 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. Gordon Bennett did not describe himself as an appropriation artist. Typical of Bennetts early work, the painting appropriates an existing picture, in this case an historical painting, and transforms the content with carefully considered signs of Aboriginal identity. 148339 AK Gordon-Bennett-Rennen 1904 Cup Motorsport Usingen Weilburg Limburg. Bennetts art practice was interdisciplinary and encompasses painting, photography, printmaking, video, performance and installation. They became a potent symbol of the celebrations. In 2003, Bennett embarked on a series of non-representational abstract paintings, marking a dramatic shift in his art practice, formally and conceptually. Dots have been an important element in many of Bennetts paintings as a powerful signifier of Aboriginal art, for example Triptych: Requiem, Of grandeur, Empire. Kelly Gellatly 5, By the mid 1990s, Gordon Bennett came to feel he was in an untenable position. 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. Like words, visual images, forms and elements are powerful signifiers of meaning. Comparisons between Basquiat and Bennett often focus on the artists similar backgrounds and experiences. I am that I am, Exodus 3:14 is God naming self. For example, Aboriginal deaths in custody was recognised as a significant issue. It acts as a question with many possibilities and answers. Gordon Bennett is an Australian artist of Aboriginal descent. This canvas is loosely divided into three parts. That's probably why he is hardly a household name, despite the cognoscenti referring to him as a powerfully influential figure in contemporary art. This includes a focus on the role and power of language, including visual representations, in shaping identity, culture and history. You might consider, scale, materials and techniques, perceptual effects. Gordon Bennett (1955-2014) created the triptych Bloodlines 1993 early in his career. He and his partner bought a house and settled in the suburbs of Brisbane like other young couples. Bennett used this symbol because: What emerges for all who take part in this piece is in fact an examination of the self. Gordon Bennett 3, Bennett married in 1977. Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 27, Identities come from somewhere, have histories, and like everything which is historical, they undergo constant transformation. This is a Tate Images licensable image titled 'Possession Island (Abstraction)' by Tate Images. The titles of Bennetts artworks reflect the artists awareness of the power of words/language to suggest meaning. 2 All that he had understood about himself and taken for granted as an Australian had ruptured. For many Aboriginal Australians, these celebrations were instead received as a period of mourning and a time to remember the devastating consequences of colonisation on Aboriginal people. Basquiats signature crown hovers beneath a tag-like image of fire. More broadly, it recalls the lives of many young Aboriginal women who followed a similar destiny. He holds a large whip with which he regularly lashes out at a black, coffin- like box. Bennett has continued to work in new ways with materials, techniques and images throughout his career, resisting any classification or confinement according to style. 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. Gordon Bennett 3. Lists of words draw the viewer into a game of word association. He was born in New York, May 10th 1841 and died 4 days after his 77th Birthday in Beaulieu near Nizza/France. 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. It confronts the bigotry and discrimination suffered by Aborigines, using a rich visual language based in both Aboriginal and Western traditions. He is not disturbed by slashes of paint, but painted carefully and outlined by the precise grid behind him. Image: Gordon Bennett, Australia 1955-2014, Possession Island, 1991. Physically, the kitsch Aboriginal motifs copied from Preston are trapped. It recalls the way stereotypes, labels, identities and systems of thought are fixed. Such imagery has often been used by artists to unsettle the viewer and present new perspectives on familiar subjects. While the conceptual framework underpinning Bennetts art remained remarkably consistent, his art practice was characterised by some dramatic stylistic shifts over twenty years. Bennetts art explores and reflects his personal experiences. 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. 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. Nov 26, 2012 - The paintings of Gordon Bennett are loaded with graphic detail. Possession Island 1991 was recently purchased by the Historic Houses Trust of NSW. His work is layered and complex and often incorporates images, styles or references drawn from sources such as social history text books, western art history and Indigenous art. The incorporation of Blue Poles calls to mind an era of great reform in Australian politics. Who was Gordon Bennett? The other was 'Number . ww2dbase Henry Gordon Bennett was born in Balwyn, a suburb of Melbourne, near the close of the nineteenth century. List some of your own qualities and attributes. Fri. 10-9, Sat. 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. But this approach is central to the way many people describe and analyse his work. The grid and perspective lines are another recurring symbol in Bennetts work. 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. There is strong symbolism associated with the placement of the figure beneath the Roman triumphal arch. 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. Bennett lodges this image in layers of dots and slashes of red and yellow paint that refer to other artists and images. Gordon Bennett 2. The persistence of language references the way language controls and defines how we understand ourselves and our world. January 26, 1988: Spectator craft surround tall ship The Bounty on Sydney Harbour as it heads towards Farm Cove while a formation of air force jets are in a fly-past overhead, part of the First Fleet re-enactment for Australias Bicentennial, A strategy of intervention and disturbance, Layering and re-defining Creating new language, Re-mixing and exchanging A global perspective, Outsider and Altered body print (Shadow figure howling at the moon), Installation of Triptych: Requiem, Of grandeur, Empire, 1989, in exhibition Gordon Bennett (2007), Visual images, forms and elements as signifiers, Art practice a multidisciplinary approach, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, International Audience Engagement Network (IAE), Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe in Ian McLean & Gordon Bennett, The Art of Gordon Bennett, Craftsman House, 1996, p. 20, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 15, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 21, These experiences are clearly reflected in the Home sweet home series 1993-4, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 27, Kelly Gellatly, Conversation: Bill Wright talks to Gordon Bennett with contributions by Bill Wright, Justin Clemens and Jane Devery, Gordon Bennett (exh. However behind the neat facade and pleasantries of suburban life, Bennett was haunted by racism and the same derogatory opinions of Aboriginal people that he quietly endured in the workforce. exploration: Captain James Cook, Australia landing 1770, Calvert, Samuel, etching, Captain Cook Taking Possession of the Australian Continent on Behalf of the British Crown, AD 1770. Sell with Artsy Artist Series Portraits of Artists and Sculptors 113 available Portraits of Artists and Sculptors What does this comment suggest to you about the purpose of Bennetts questioning of history? 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 your discussion consider meanings and ideas associated with, Compare your interpretation and analysis with others related to this artwork (this could be an interpretation by someone else in your class, or in a commentary on the work in gallery, book, catalogue etc. What aspects of Bennetts works might viewers focus on as emotional? Gordon Bennett Possession Island (Abstraction), 1991 Oil and acrylic on canvas 71 7/10 71 7/10 in | 182 182 cm Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) The Rocks Get notifications for similar works Create Alert Want to sell a work by this artist? Van Goghs original bedroom evokes a feeling of peace and harmony. John Citizen is an artist for our times: he reflects back to us citizens the white Australia of the postKeating era. [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. Gordon Bennett an Australian Aboriginal artist demonstrates this theory through his work. Gordon Bennett an Australian Aboriginal artist demonstrates this theory through his work. In her lifetime, Trugannini witnessed the systematic and often violent destruction of her culture and people. In the Home dcorseries Bennett used gridded compositions that refer to the paintings of Dutch artistPiet Mondrian (1872 1944). He states: The traditionalist studies of Anthropology and Ethnography have thus tended to reinforce popular romantic beliefs of an authentic Aboriginality associated with the Dreaming and images of primitive desert people, thereby supporting the popular judgment that only remote fullbloods are real Aborigines. How does Bennetts use of appropriation reflect an interest in some of the moral and ethical issues associated with this practice. Appropriation was a tool that enabled him to open up and re-define stereotypes and bias. $927,000 Last Sold Price. The content of the work was getting to me emotionally. The soundtrack includes digital sampling of ICE.Ts Race War. The Politics of Art. The only clearly defined part of Possession Island is the black skinned male figure in the centre. The resource provides frameworks for exploring key issues and ideas in Bennett's art practice. From his father, a Scottish . In September 2017, Bennett's 1991 Possession Island was unveiled at London's Tate Modern. Why? Collect and find photographs of a wide variety of people of different ethnicities, cultures and physical appearances. "I want a future that lives up to my past": the words from David McDiarmid's iconic poster reverberate now, as we ponder the past year and think ah. This central motif governs the composition which, similar to Calverts original etching upon which the painting is based, is largely reduced to a schema of black and white forms. John Citizen lets me take my Australian citizenship and cultural upbringing back from the netherworld of the imagined Other. The critical and aesthetic strategies of postmodernism have had significant impact on the development of his art practice. In Altered body print (Shadow figure howling at the moon) Bennett focuses more explicitly on binary opposites and the associations they trigger. Explore. Clear visual divisions are created with distinct black areas as well as large white areas. 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. Bennetts use of the grid in these and other artworks suggests questions and ideas. 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. It is open to self revelation, self redemption and a myriad of rich images of self that can be built upon. 22-24, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, in The Art of Gordon Bennett, p. 32, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe in Ian McLean & Gordon Bennett, The Art of Gordon Bennett, Craftsman House, 1996, pp. 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 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. Like many others at that time, Bennett was inspired by the work of the historian Henry Reynolds. A long-distance hot-air balloon race (The International Gordon Bennett balloon race), which still continues, was inaugurated by him in 1906. Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007. Within the context of Australian art, he freed himself from being categorised solely as an Indigenous artist by creating an ongoing pop art-inspired alter ego named John Citizen. Compare and contrast this artists use of appropriation with that of Gordon Bennett. Collection: Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums The Estate of Gordon Bennett What values or ideas characterise the postKeating era in Australia? . In the third panel of Bennetts triptych, Empire, a Roman triumphal arch frames a stately figure. 35, 36. Here he exposes the truth of colonial occupation it was a bloody conquest. 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. The purer the bloodlines, the more Aboriginal you were. SOLD FEB 10, 2023. Aim to use a variety of strategies in your work to engage the viewer in the issues and questions you are interested in exploring in relation to these binary opposites. While Bennetts art is grounded in his personal struggle for identity as an Australian of Aboriginal and AngloCeltic descent, it presents and examines a broad range of philosophical questions related to the construction of identity, perception and knowledge. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island, 1991, oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas in two parts. Possession Island 1992. He depicts how pain transcends place and event to encompass a global consciousness. The vanishing point may also be understood as the point from which these lines extend outward past the picture plane to include the viewer in the pictorial space, positioned as observer of a self contained harmonious whole. An orphan from a very young age, she was raised on Cherbourg Aboriginal Mission in Queensland, and later trained as a domestic at Singleton. After 2003 he moved away from figurative language to work in an abstract idiom (see Number Nine 2008, Tate T15515). Gordon Bennett explores these ideas in Self portrait: Interior/ Exterior , 1992. Gordon Bennett 2. Bennett was concerned that his identity and work was seen as coming from a narrow framework. At the same time his work demonstrates great conceptual unity and interconnectedness. 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. He found this liberating. Bennett repositions the subject of the painting in other ways too, by including black footprints that diminish into the background of the composition. As a shy and inarticulate teenager my response to these derogatory opinions was silence, self-loathing and denial of my heritage. Research references to existing images in Gordon Bennetts The nine richochets (Fall down black fella, jump up white fella) 1990. Bellas Gallery. Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas Two parts: 162 x 260cm (overall . This is similar to the way a Pointillist painting can only be seen effectively from a distance to bring the image into focus. John Citizen was an abstraction of the Australian Mr Average, the Australian everyman. While 2007 was a brilliant year for Bennett's secondary market results, with eight works sold of which . See more ideas about artist, art, straight photography. Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014. Bennetts portrait of himself as a four- year old boy dressed as a cowboy as the I is juxtaposed with images of Aborigines as the AM. I AM is borrowed from a well known art work, Victory over death 2, 1970 by New Zealand artist Colin McCahon (19191987) . 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.
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