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. These qualities expose some of the complications that arise from understandings built on binary opposites. That was to be the extent of my formal education on Aborigines and Aboriginal culture until Art College. Nearby homes similar to 2719 NE 21st Ter have recently sold between $824K to $1M at an average of $565 per square foot. Bennetts art practice was interdisciplinary and encompasses painting, photography, printmaking, video, performance and installation. Who was Gordon Bennett? 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. Collection: Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums The Estate of Gordon Bennett 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. Why? In Altered body print (Shadow figure howling at the moon) Bennett focuses more explicitly on binary opposites and the associations they trigger. Gordon Bennett . Often the basic alphabet letters ABC also appear with Bennetts perspective diagrams, highlighting the learned and culturally specific nature of the alphabet and linear perspective. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island #2, 1991. As far as pinning down who John Citizen actually was, Im not interested in doing that. This painting combines the story of Bennetts mother, and other young Aboriginal women in the care of the government or church, with the Christian story. As a self- portrait, the artist seems to be present everywhere within the installation but is in fact nowhere. If God cannot be contained, can humanity be contained by stereotypes and labels? It is a monument that also unintentionally signals the subsequent dispossession of Aboriginal people from their homeland. 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. Gordon Bennett, The Manifestoe, Ian McLean & Gordon Bennett. Picassos sizable oeuvre grew to include over 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures,ceramics, theater sets, and costume designs. 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 What strategies have been used to communicate and explore these themes and ideas in the book/film? 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. With eyes closed, these heads appear as blind, mute and lifeless witnesses to the surrounding conflict and struggle. But in Bennetts painting disparate diagrams, symbols and images disrupt the illusion, presenting the landscape as a site where many ideas and viewpoints compete. His identity must remain fluid. The Notes to Basquiat series takes appropriation to yet another level within Bennetts art practice. This image also translates to mean: In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. From 2003 Bennett worked on a series of non-representational abstract paintings that mark another significant shift in his practice. The circular forms in the sky are inspired by the brilliant bursts of light in van Goghs Starry night. The impact of colonisation on Aboriginal people and culture from this point was devastating. Australia for His Majesty King George III. The juxtaposition and sequencing of words and images in Untitled is unsettling. She attempted to create works that reflected a sense of national identity by incorporating Aboriginal motifs and colours in her work. The final panel in the sequence of six images in Untitled is a black square. Bennetts art is not always easy to look at. 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. 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. 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 only clearly defined part of Possession Island is the black skinned male figure in the centre. (2nd Edition), What is Appropriation? An understanding of self in the context of family is not enough. 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. cat. 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 Narratives of exploration, colonisation and settlement failed to recognise the sovereign rights (or sovereignty) of Australias Indigenous people. . Bloody handprints are stamped across the walls. Bennett adopted several strategies to resist the narrow framework through which he as an artist and his work were viewed. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island (Abstraction), 1991. Van Goghs original bedroom evokes a feeling of peace and harmony. This was common practice among young Aboriginal girls and women. . 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. This allowed him to utilise professional capture, editing and special effects software, to expand his art practice to include video and performance work. 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. For Mondrian the grid became the essence of all forms. Gordon Bennett (9 October 1955 - 3 June 2014) [1] was an Australian artist of Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic descent. He carefully staged each image in his studio, posing the sitter against a painted backdrop. 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. 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. Investigate the theories and ideas associated with anthropology, ethnography and phrenology. 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. What aspects of Bennetts works might viewers focus on as emotional? Possession Island No 2 is representative of Bennetts wider practice, which explores issues of post-colonisation and Aboriginal identity. He was in a sense all things to all people. One of the longterm goals for my work is to have my paintings returned to the pages of text books from which many of the images in them originated, where they may act as sites around which a more enlightened kind of knowledge may circulate; perhaps a knowledge that is understood from the outset as culturally relative Gordon Bennett 4. Bennett repositions the subject of the painting in other ways too, by including black footprints that diminish into the background of the composition. The persistence of language references the way language controls and defines how we understand ourselves and our world. 27 oct. 2018 - Dcouvrez le tableau "GORDON BENNETT" de Bibishams sur Pinterest. Experiment with enhancing or diminishing different layers to create a distinctive character. Gordon Bennett 1. 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 title of the work itself is unsettling. Research references to existing images in Gordon Bennetts The nine richochets (Fall down black fella, jump up white fella) 1990. Although there are many forms of Aboriginal art, dot painting is widely seen as synonymous with Aboriginal art since the late 1970s, when the dot painting of the Western Desert attracted unprecedented national and international interest in Aboriginal art. 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. 40 41. They powerfully describe pain and violence. The grotesque also interested Bennett as a means of disrupting conventional ways of seeing and understanding. Identify other artists who have used dots in their work (ie. The central figure is based on a monoprint made from the artists body. 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. From his father, a Scottish . While the conceptual framework underpinning Bennetts art remained remarkably consistent, his art practice was characterised by some dramatic stylistic shifts over twenty years. How do the key themes/ideas and strategies in the book/film compare to those used by Gordon Bennett in early work such as. Calverts image becomes one of the layers of the painting. Lichtenstein 19231987). Ft. 2707 Coral Shores Dr, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33306. 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. The facial features reflected in the mirror are blurred and distorted by roughly painted words typical racist remarks about Aboriginal people. Another reason was to make people aware that I am an artist first and not a professional Aborigine. Gouged into the skin like a tattoo, these markings will never heal or fade away. Discover Gordon Bennett's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Like many others at that time, Bennett was inspired by the work of the historian Henry Reynolds. Discuss different approaches/ideas evident in the way each artist uses dots in their work. The work is a copy of a copy of a copy. In Unassailable heroes (Sweet Damper) Famous since Captain Cook, 1996 the motifs and symbols suggest issues and questions related to history and representation that concern Bennett. Roundels relating to symbols that denote significant sites in Aboriginal Western Desert dot painting also appear. 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 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. Celebrations continued throughout the year and gave renewed focus to traditional images and stories of the nations settlement history. Pollock was influenced by Navaho sand paintings, which were created on the ground. 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 Bennett continued to work in new ways with materials, techniques and images throughout his career. The critical and aesthetic strategies of postmodernism have had significant impact on the development of his art practice. 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. Das Jahr 1904 brachte mit dem Gordon-Bennett-Rennen in Deutschland und dem Vanderbilt Cup in den USA einen weiteren Aufschwung des Motorsports vor allem auch auerhalb Frankreichs, wobei fr das Rennen in New York erstmals europische Fahrer und Rennstlle nach bersee gereist waren. These binary opposites insider/outsider, black/white, primitive/civilised have had a powerful influence on perceptions of European and Indigenous people and culture. Would you include work by Gordon Bennett in a text book on Australian history. The images include historical footage of Indigenous people and details of some of Bennetts own paintings. 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. Such imagery has often been used by artists to unsettle the viewer and present new perspectives on familiar subjects. 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. Bennetts distinctive visual language repositions the subject of the work, claiming the Aboriginal perspective as central to the historical moment of the original painting. Discuss with reference to examples in at least two works by Bennett. The grid and perspective lines are another recurring symbol in Bennetts work. She was one of the first Australian artists to recognise the spiritual significance of Aboriginal art and the land. The background colours and features of the landscape in each panel of Requiem, Of grandeur, Empire suggest a vast Australian desert . 1 0-5-30 j RED STAR Now 35 oft on all RED STARRED SIWFMIMUIS IliMMS . Buildings and planes collide. James Gordon Bennett Quotes - BrainyQuote American - Editor May 10, 1841 - May 14, 1918 I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming that I have never made one. 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 While these may indicate the way maps are constructed to find different locations, they also represent the first letter of racial slurs. 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. . A fleet of tall ships sailed around Australia as part of the commemoration of settlement. Both artists have an affinity with Jazz, Rap and Hip Hop music. Research the representation of three dimensional space in selected artforms of several different cultures (ie. Bennetts art engages with historical and contemporary questions of cultural and personal identity, with a specific focus on Australias colonial past and its postcolonial present. These images include scenes featuring tall ships, the landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, and several scenes that reveal the violence and tension that often characterised the relationship between colonisers and the colonised. The grotesque in art is generally associated with bizarre, ugly or disturbing imagery. This contemporary questioning and revision of the traditional, narrow euro-centric view of history reflects a postcolonial perspective. 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. When Gordon Bennett was labelled an Aboriginal Artist he was othered as an Aborigine and all the preconceptions that entails. This was soon replaced by a cooler, more conceptual approach. Gordon Bennett Possession Island (Abstraction) 1991 In Tate Modern Level 3: A Year in Art: Australia 1992 Level 3: A Year in Art: Australia 1992 Artist Gordon Bennett 1955-2014 Medium Oil paint and acrylic paint on canvas Dimensions Support: 1843 1845 mm Collection Tate Acquisition Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? This approach to his work resists any classification or confinement according to style. These sources included social studies texts. Gordon Bennett Possession Island - Free download as Word Doc (.doc / .docx), PDF File (.pdf) or read online for free. These images are fused and overlapped in a dynamic composition underpinned by Mondrian-style grids. The strategy of word association subverts the values and meaning traditionally associated with the image. This work reflects our contemporary obsession with creating the perfect home filled with the latest must have designer style and material items. Using a painting technique, create a finished artwork based on one or some of these experiments. These are paintings about painting. 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. 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. Curated by Zara StanhopeThe intelligence and passion of Gordon Bennett's politically committed post-appropriation art struck a chord with the postcolonial ambitions of the 1990s. Theyre buried, and this is a way of bringing them back into memory, but remembered in a different way from the way that I was taught, looking at them from a different angle and looking at how they work, where they came from initially, and how these images still support contemporary stereotypes, etc. This led him to adopt an artistic alter ego, John Citizen. How have these sciences influenced the perception and understanding of Indigenous people and cultures? What legal, moral and ethical rights does an artist have to control the way their work is seen and viewed in exhibitions, books or online. Bellas Gallery. . Mondrian aspired to create a form of pure abstract art based on the grid and a controlled use of art elements, including primary colours. Bennett layered these two distinctly different artists with his own work work previously appropriated from yet another context. Dates/events to consider and research include the 1967 Australian Referendum, the 1992 Mabo and 1996 Wik Native Title court cases, Paul Keatings 1992 Redfern address. The simplicity of I AM suggests a universality of thought. Bennett also had ongoing concerns about how his Aboriginal identity and his interest in subjects related to Aboriginality were framing and hence limiting the way his artistic identity and his work were perceived. Possession Island 1991 Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas Two parts: 162 x 260cm (overall) The Estate of Gordon Bennett Purchased with funds. While 2007 was a brilliant year for Bennett's secondary market results, with eight works sold of which . However, while apparently recognising and presenting these motifs/symbols as signifiers of meaning, Citizen does not appear to have the same interest as Bennett in interrogating the systems and values these motifs represent or the role they have played in shaping identity, history and understanding. What is your personal interpretation of the meaning and ideas in The coming of the light or Untitled ? Bennett lodges this image in layers of dots and slashes of red and yellow paint that refer to other artists and images. 1. 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. He found this liberating. 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. 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. Clear visual divisions are created with distinct black areas as well as large white areas. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island, 1991, oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas, Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums; Daniel Boyd, We Call Them . Gordon Bennett 3. She was once thought to be the last surviving Tasmanian Aborigine. 148339 AK Gordon-Bennett-Rennen 1904 Cup Motorsport Usingen Weilburg Limburg. Australian politics is fraught yet the Australian public is disengaged. 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 . This is similar to the way a Pointillist painting can only be seen effectively from a distance to bring the image into focus. 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. The emphasis on making art about art which was the focus of his non-representational abstract paintings, contrasts clearly with the focus on social critique that was integral to Bennetts earlier work, and was intended also to make people aware that I am an artist first and not a professional Aborigine.2 In this respect, Bennetts non representational abstract works, despite their overt emphasis on visual concerns, may be seen as reflecting his engagement with questions of identity, knowledge and perception. 4 While artists often have limited control over how their work is exhibited after it has been sold, Bennett also refused to exhibit his work in Aboriginal art exhibitions, preferring: to be conceived as a contemporary artist who just happens to be indigenous and whose work encompasses an investigation of aboriginality and the construction of identity within a broad range of complex and interconnected issues. Every object is carefully and clearly painted, yet the images conceptually blur together as they intersect and interlace through the grid, across the canvas. L120238 Gordon Bennett. my work was largely about ideas rather than emotional content emanating from some stereotype of a tortured soul. Bennett investigates the way stereotypes are constructed by exploring words and images in opposites. The mirror at the bottom left-hand corner of the painting represents Bennetts own shaving mirror. 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. The Notes to Basquiat: 911 series and the Camouflage series, which reflect on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the war in Iraq respectively, highlight Bennetts global perspective. It is open to self revelation, self redemption and a myriad of rich images of self that can be built upon. The other was 'Number . The incorporation of Blue Poles calls to mind an era of great reform in Australian politics. Bennetts referencing, appropriation and recontextualisation of familiar images and art styles challenges conventional ways of viewing and thinking and opens up new possibilities for understanding the subjects he explored. It was no accident that Bennett used Pollocks Blue Poles: Number 11. Research the significant dates/events referenced in Bennetts artworks, including Myth of the Western Man (White mans burden) 1992 for some ideas. This culminated in the Notes to Basquiat series in 2003. Jenna Gribbon, April studio, parting glance, 2021. The purer the bloodlines, the more Aboriginal you were. Gordon Bennett rapidly established himself in the Australian art world. ), 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. Bennetts grid formations seem to imprison the figures within the canvas. The Bicentenary celebrations triggered increased activism, protests and public debate related to Indigenous issues. The artist Gordon Bennett led a reclusive life. Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007. What evidence can you see in this self-portrait of Bennett linking issues of personal identity with broader issues related to history and culture? 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. I am purposely not defining him only as Aboriginal because he himself does not want to be defined only as such. One of the most heroic and well-known images of Australias past is Captain Cook landing in Botany Bay in 1770. At art college Bennett discovered how Australian identity was built on a subjective writing of history. Some supporters applauded his escape but his claim that he left to pass on his knowledge about how to fight the Japanese - given his lack of success . Layers of images superimposed with words. This is a Tate Images licensable image titled 'Possession Island (Abstraction)' by Tate Images.