Gordon Bennett Possession Island (Abstraction) 1991 was purchased jointly by Tate and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia with fund provided by the Qantas Foundation, 2016. Meet one of Australias most important contemporary artists, whose bold and playful works explore the politics of identity, Gordon BennettHome Dcor (Relative/Absolute) Flowers for Mathinna #2 1999acrylic on linen182.5 x 182.5cmCollection: Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2012 The Estate of Gordon Bennett. He first became aware of his dual heritage when he was a young teenager. Signed and dated u.l. 11, Paris, Nov 2013-Dec 2013, 11 (colour illus.). John Saxby (Editor), Look, 'The art that made me: Reg Mombassa', Sydney, Nov 2015, 13. (LogOut/ For example, the small painting of a black angel in the installation in the first room of the exhibition titled Psycho(d)rama (1990) recurs in Notes to Basquiat (Jackson Pollock and his Other) (2001). . The textured surface references the colonial footprint of global black slavery. Learn more. Bennett, G., quoted in Gordon Bennett, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2007, p. 212. ibid.3. tap-dance on a tightrope". Dear Jean-Michel Basquiat, back the skin and flesh to reveal the innards, ribs and skeleton, the Please check your requests before visiting. Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014 Notes to Basquiat (Death of Irony) 2002 Synthetic polymer paint on linen / 152 x 304cm The Estate of Gordon Bennett. secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names of different experience and layers that make us the individuals we are Access more artwork lots and estimated & realized auction prices on MutualArt. past efforts to "explain" myself - it reads: "Cultural identities are by Greg Tate which reads: "To be a race-identified race-refugee is to signed and dated verso: G. Bennett 8 -03-2001. title, medium and dimensions inscribed verso: NOTES TO BASQUIAT: CUT THE CIRCLE II / Acrylic on linen / 5 x 6, 152 x 182.5 cm. Gordon Bennett - Art - LibGuides at Melbourne High School (2014). Bennett claims his identity was, shaped by the historical narratives of colonialism with all its romantic illusions and factual deletions (SMH 2014). Levels 7-12. Major retrospectives of his work toured Icon and Arnolfini galleries and Heine Onstad Kunstsenter in Europe during 19992000, Australian State galleries between 20072009 and The Netherlands in 2012. Gordon Bennett - Sutton Gallery material existence, even though we may be separated by cultural context, Change). GORDON BENNETT, (1955 - 2014) - NOTES TO BASQUIAT: (AB) ORIGINAL, 1999, synthetic polymer paint on linen DIMENSIONS: 182.5 - 182.5 cm SIGNED: signed, dated and inscribed v . For example, expressionism features in the highly visceral Outsider (1988), which replays Van Goghs Starry Night. In his artists statement, composed as a letter to Basquiat, Bennett says: Gordon BennettAbstraction (Native) 2013acrylic on linen183 x 152.3cmCollection: Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2013 The Estate of Gordon Bennett. Preston, though well-meaning in her quest to create a truly national artistic style, produced works that corrupted sacred aboriginal motifs, and presented aboriginal people as little more than stylised caricatures of the noble savage.In addressing these notes, the paintings, to the departed American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, Bennett expressed what he felt was histories of shared experience, an affinity felt through mutual exclusion from a euro-centric contemporary art world. In Gordon Bennetts splendidly savage painting Notes to Basquiat: Perfect teeth 2000, his bright, biting satire sets white teeth against black skin in a retro pop-culture parody; the word mono in the centre of the canvas suggests the dominance of one colour in art and life, as well as implying what we might think of monotones (wherever found) and the assertion of a monoculture. Collection: Paul Eliadis Collection of Contemporary Australian Art, Australia Deliberately inconclusive original, archetype, manuscript, master, parent etc Notes to Basquiat: (Ab)original eloquently attests to the compelling possibilities offered by Bennetts art and its embodiment of a process being kept in play; and as he poignantly muses, Poetry doesnt seek closure on its meaning. Basquiat, New York: Merrell Publishers. He felt alienated by his Australian education and the representation of Aboriginal people in Western culture and as a result, began confronting the idea of identity in his own work. Its vintage Bennett: taking no prisoners, refusing not to be furious, making viewers confront racism in all its sly expressions. artist with Puerto-Rican heritage who came to prominence in the USA in He also wrote an open letter to the dead artist celebrating their cultural and artistic similarities, as well as their shared love of jazz, rap and . )Israel, G., Senior Artwise 2: Visual Arts 11-12, Jacaranda Press, Milton, Queensland, 2003, (illus., front cover and p. 163)Murray Cree, L., Twenty: Sherman Galleries 1986-2006, Craftsman House / Thames and Hudson, Melbourne, 2006, p. 123 (illus. come from somewhere, have histories, and like everything which is historical, Notes to Basquiat: Kwijibo 1998 Gordon Bennett, Notes to Basquiat (The Death of Irony), 2002, National Gallery of Australia, . 1992 exhibition at the Whitney. Attending to form as much as content enables a different view of Bennetts oeuvre and critical purpose. I guess it spoke to me of the traces Bennett is commenting on the devastating effects of colonialisation on Australias indigenous population. Forms and styles of representation recur, transmute and metamorphose across his oeuvre in a dizzying fashion. Notes to Basquiat Untitled, 1999 [picture] / Gordon Bennett 1999, Bennett, Gordon. Notes to Basquiat:(ab)Original 1998 and the histories of shared experience and levels we can relate to each In Bennetts most anthologised article, acerbically titled The Manifest Toe, he describes his approach to art using an expression that is often used in critical rather than art theory: the politics of representation. Here we get to the crux of Bennetts contribution. Bennett updates this image in Possession Island (Abstraction) by concealing the indigenous servant beneath the abstract and conceptual style of Kazimir Malevich. At first glance, paintings from the Interior series appear similar to the work of Patrick Caulfield and look like a brightly coloured pull-out from a lifestyle magazine. Griffith University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU. of your drawing of the human figure. This painting emanates from the 'Notes to Basquiat' series of paintings, where the artist takes appropriation to a new level within his practice. His paintings are not expressionist. within, the narratives of the past.". An artist who builds houses and swings and cares a lot about community, A discussion with Amandla Stenberg, Mars and Lorna Simpson about the youth-led movement #ArtHoe and how it relates to Simpsons work, Bennett was born in Monto, Queensland, in 1955 to an indigenous Australian mother and an Anglo Celtic migrant father. Susan Best receives funding from the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australian Research Council . Not only is art about political content, form is also at stake. In the upper left-hand corner, a Margaret Preston stylised female figure tumbles, caught in a modernist lattice reminiscent of the work of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian. Gordon Bennett: Illuminations or a season in hell | Artlink Magazine A critically and politically engaged artist, Bennett presents alternative historical narratives of Australia and of contemporary world events, creating provocative works that place identity politics front and centre. Bennett directly referenced the work of many other artists throughout his career, including Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich and Vincent Van Gogh. Georges Petitjean, Kitty Zijlmans and Ian McLean, Outsider/insider: the art of Gordon Bennett, Ghent, 2012, 50 (colour illus.). We acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of the Country on which the Art Gallery of NSW stands. You need Flash player 8+ and JavaScript enabled to view this video embedded. Inscriptions: "G. Bennett Nov. 1999 / Notes to Basquiat: Untitled"--On verso. The art and legacy of Gordon Bennett (1955-2014), one of Australia's most influential contemporary artists, will be on show at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) from 7 November 2020 to 21 March 2021. Write an article and join a growing community of more than 163,400 academics and researchers from 4,609 institutions. I confess I used to think so, but seeing this exhibition has made me reconsider. On the opposite corner, however, a pair of heads labelled Caucasian and black/abo stare blankly into the void. 38.0 x 53.5 cm . In 1998, ten years after his death, Bennett wrote an open letter to Basquiat that explained his motivations: To some, writing a letter to a person posthumously may seem very tacky and an attempt to gain some kind of attention, even steal your crown. Underlying this dialogue with Basquiat Bennett's need to re-contextualise the issues that he has explored throughout his artistic career, confronting them within a global context. the 1980s. Notes to Basquiat: Perfect Teeth comes from the important extended series, Notes to Basquiat, which was a major theme in Bennetts work throughout the 1990sa selection of works on paper from this series was included in The Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT3) in 1999. 152: GORDON BENNETT. Gordon Bennett, an artist who scaled the heights of the art world, Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/arts/blog/arts-desk/Gordon-Bennett-artist-who-scaled-heights-of-artworld/default.htm, National Gallery of Victoria. Notes to Basquiat Untitled, 1999. The strange row of heads depicted in the very early work, The Coming of the Light (1987) forms part of the background of this same image. Get the best price for your artwork or collection. Art, Australian -- 20th century -- Pictorial works. The first African American artist to be internationally acclaimed, he was in many ways a model of the exotic success favoured in the rapacious celebrity stakes of the New York art world as much for his ethnic origins and youthful beauty as for his undoubted talent. Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014. Accordingly, in the present Notes to Basquiat: (Ab)original, 1999, the experience of race and life generally in the northern and southern hemispheres is both differentiated and conflated through Bennett's highly sophisticated mimicry of Basquiat's spontaneous urban style. 'Unfinished Business: The Art of Gordon Bennett' celebrates the Queensland-based artist's globally recognised contribution to . I was drawn once again to the semiotic born 1955. Bennett not only borrows images from the work of American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, but also begins to mimic Basquiat's spontaneous and gestural urban style of painting, reflecting his involvement in the graffiti culture of the United States. Works | NGV | View Work Gordon Bennett (1955 -2014) was an Australian artist of Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic descent. "In the late 1990s Bennett responded to the personal experiences and practice of Puerto-Rican Haitian-American artist Jean-Michael Basquiat by producing a series of paintings that referenced the style and appropriated motifs of Basquiat's own art. He felt alienated by his Australian education and the representation of Aboriginal people in Western culture and as a result, began confronting the idea of identity in his own work. is inspired by the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Haitian-American Brnice Geoffroy Schneiter, Le Journal des Arts, 'Art premier: La cration aborigne repense', pg. Please also be aware that you may see certain words or descriptions in this catalogue which reflect the authors attitude or that of the period in which the item was created and may now be considered offensive. Gordon Bennett's series Notes to Basquiat is inspired by the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Haitian-American artist with Puerto-Rican heritage who came to prominence in the USA in the 1980s. GORDON BENNETT (b. Gordon Bennett Notes to Basquiat: Modern Art, Sherman Galleries, exh. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Gordon Bennett Notes to Basquiat (911) 2001 synthetic polymer paint on linen 182.5 x 304.0 cm, http://www.abc.net.au/arts/blog/arts-desk/Gordon-Bennett-artist-who-scaled-heights-of-artworld/default.htm, Psycho-social and psychological perspectives on religious violence (week4). history, culture and power. NOTES TO BASQUIAT: CUT THE CIRCLE II, 2001 - Deutscher and Hackett View Scale Rotate. . your book, a reference to Stuart Hall which I have included in my own Collection: The Estate of Gordon Bennett. Collection: Paul Eliadis Collection of Contemporary Australian Art, Australia Synthetic polymer paint on paper Moreover, Bennetts work is aesthetically similar to American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Of the latter four, Bennett is most easily understood as a critical postmodernist. His artwork resist and debate racial stereotyping and is critical of Australias colonial history and postcolonial present. His colourful and thought provoking conceptual paintings, prints, performance videos and installations draw on many different sources and styles. Yours Sincerely, Writing in his Manifest Toe in 1996, Bennett said: If I were to choose a single word to describe my art practice it would be the word question. The University of Queensland, Brisbane Acquired with the Assistance of the Visual Arts and Crafts Board of the Australia Council, 1989, The Estate of Gordon Bennett Collection: The University of Queensland. Free entry, Find out what you need to know before visiting, Untitled (reference to Colin McCahon's 'Valley of the dry bones'), Myth of the Western man (White man's burden), Outsider/ insider: the art of Gordon Bennett, Mmoires vives: une histoire de l'art aborigine, Australian art and the Russian avant-garde. Copyright or permission restrictions may apply. that make us the individuals we are and the histories of shared experience Digital master available National Library of Australia; Request this item to view in the Library's reading rooms using your library card. Look more closely, however, you can see paintings by the 'real' Bennett displayed on the walls. Bennett makes art that questions accepted versions of history, often taking historical artworks as his starting point. In the late 1990s, he embarked on two consecutive series of paintings, the Home Dcor series, and Notes to Basquiat. Bennett's art practice is interdisciplinary and encompasses painting, photography, printmaking, video, performance and installation. Gordon Bennett was an Indigenous Australian artist whose work primarily conveyed indigenous identity struggles, particularly through the subject of colonization and racial injustice. (2014). Artists suggestions based on your preferences, Filter by media, style, movement, nationality and activity period, Overall performance of recent notable sales, Upcoming exhibitions at your preferred locations, Global snapshot, top performers and top lots, Charts on artist trends and performance over time, ready to export, Get your artworks appraised online in 72 hours or less by experienced IFAA accredited professionals. Synthetic polymer paint on paper Open from 12 noon Anzac Day Closed Good Friday, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, Queensland Art Gallery Board of Trustees 2023, See Kelly Gellatly, Citizen in the making: The art of Gordon Bennett, in, Stanley Place, South Brisbane, Queensland 4101 Australia. Fred Hoffman (2005) writes that, as an African American, Basquiat utilized political and social commentary in his artworks to reveal the racial and class systems of injustice in America (Mayer 2010). Impossible aims, such as this one, often underpin and drive the work of major artists; an achievable aim after all would be quickly satisfied. Others are held in regional, state and national collections (National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales) as well as international collections including Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam.LUCIE REEVES-SMITH, Important Australian + International Fine Art, Gordon Bennett, managed by John Citizen Arts Pty Ltd. The works I have produced are notes, nothing more, to you and your works, posthumously yes, but importantly for me - living in the suburbs of Brisbane in the context of Australia and its colonial history, about as far away from New York as you can get - these are also notes to the people who knew you and your works, those who carry you with them in their memories and perhaps in their hearts.1. 152.0 x 182.5 cm. Explainer: what is postmodernism? Gordon Bennett was one of the leading artists of his generation and received widespread recognition internationally for his striking . Open daily Collection: Paul Eliadis Collection of Contemporary Australian Art, Australia Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. Bennett's series works across both Australian and American cultures, with wider historic references to the radical and the marginalised. Bennett conversed about his conceptual painting practice as 'based on the semiotics of style and paint application, images and text, historical and contemporary juxta-position'. Mayer, M. This included abstract expressionism and a dot aesthetic inspired by the Papunya Tula art movement of the Australian Western Desert. His playful yet powerfully political artworks borrow images from other artists and mix and re-contextualise elements from Western and non-Western art history. Notes to Basquiat: Australiana 1998 We will contact you if necessary. Bennett's view of a shared cultural and lived-experiences led to his 'Notes to Basquiat' series (1998-2002), inspired by the work of American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-88). of history and culture - not an essence, but a positioning. 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 Bennett's global perspective. The, In the late 1990s Bennett responded to the personal experiences and practice of Puerto-Rican Haitian-American artist Jean-Michael Basquiat by producing a series of paintings that referenced the style and. Notes to Basquiat - Big Shoes - 2002. ), 31, Gordon Bennett was a painter of history and histories. The diversity of Bennetts work is another striking feature. author unknown. Copyright 20102023, The Conversation US, Inc. Both series used a conspicuous sampling of other artists work, re-contextualising these images into symbols of the wider exclusion and disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples. 'One of the most important Australian artists of the late 20th century Search the catalogue for collection items held by the National Library of Australia. The Estate of Gordon Bennett, Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art. The work Notes to Basquiat: Female Pelvis by Gordon Bennett was auctioned at Christies in Melbourne in November 2003. 120 x 80cm 120 x 80cm Gordon Bennett, Notes to Basquiat: Totem Lesson 2 - Annette Larkin signed, dated and inscribed verso upper left: G.Bennett 9-6-2000 / Notes to Basquiat: Liberty / acrylic / 152 x 188cm. Gordon Bennett 'Notes to Basquiat' (911) 2001 synthetic polymer paint on linen 182.5 x 304.0 cm. With the invitation to exhibit in a contemporary art fair at New Yorks Gramercy Hotel as catalyst, in 1998 Bennett embarked upon his celebrated Notes to Basquiat series paying homage to the work of Neo-Expressionist painter Jean-Michel Basquiat the first African American to receive international art world acclaim who also shared a similar preoccupation with semiotics and visual language as instruments of marginalisation. Sold for $98,182 (inc. BP) in Auction 65 - 10 November 2021, Melbourne. They reference the massacres of Aboriginal people in Myth of the Western man (White mans 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). 23-25, Sydney, May 2017-Jun 2017, 24 (colour illus.). Notes: Title from inscription on verso. Written just three years after Bennett graduated from art school as a mature aged student, it gives a very clear sense of his early ambition and political purpose. ^ Terry Smith, "Australia's Anxiety," History and Memory in the Art of Gordon Bennett, Birmingham: Ikon Gallery, 1999, p. 17. signed, dated and inscribed verso: G Bennett 3-9-1999 / NOTES TO BASQUIAT: (ab) original / [], Sherman Galleries, SydneyGene and Brian Sherman collection, Sydney, Gordon Bennett Notes to Basquiat: One Tense Moment (episode two), Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 5 November 4 December 1999, cat. Special Collections Reading Room - Item/s may be unavailable, Brolgas at twilight, 1999 / Pamela Griffith, [Australian diaries and desk calendars 1999]. GORDON BENNETT born 1955 Notes to Basquiat: Hand of God 1999 synthetic polymer paint on linen signe. body to expose both pain and anguish and a common humanity. Notes to Basquiat: Australia Day re-enactment 1998 In the late 1990s Bennett responded to the personal experiences and practice of Puerto-Rican Haitian-American artist Jean-Michael Basquiat by producing a series of paintings that referenced the style and appropriated motifs of Basquiats own art. )Man + Space: Kwangju Biennale 2000, exhibition catalogue, Kwangju Biennale Foundation, South Korea, 2000, p. 273 (illus. 152.3 182.7 cm. Gordon Bennett explored indigenous past through his conceptual art, Retrieved August 24 2014, from, http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/gordon-bennett-explored-indigenous-past-through-his-conceptual-art-20140627-zsnql.htm. Arguing that the codes of Western art, literature, law and science introduced with European settlement have become a prison from which indigenous people cannot escape but rather, only appropriate Bennett sought to picture such manifold conspiracies, employing the deconstructivist aesthetic of postmodernism to re-present the histories and politics underlying the Australian social landscape. NOTES TO BASQUIAT: (AB) ORIGINAL, 1999 | Deutscher and Hackett It was another way for the artist to avoid being typecast simply as 'a professional Aborigine, which both misrepresents me and denies my upbringing and Scottish/English heritage'. Sold at Auction: Gordon Bennett - Invaluable Synthetic polymer paint on paper Five things to know about Gordon Bennett | Tate See opening hours Bennett died in 2014, aged 58. View upcoming auction estimates and receive personalized email alerts for the artists you follow. ^ Gordon Bennett in Gordon Bennett: Selected Writings, Power Publications and Griffith University Art Museum, 2020, p. 132. In the late 1990s Bennett responded to the personal experiences and practice of Puerto-Rican Haitian-American artist Jean-Michael Basquiat by producing a series of paintings that referenced the style and appropriated motifs of Basquiat's own art. Possession Island 1991 Gordon Bennetts series Notes to Basquiat Indeed, perhaps more directly and explicitly than any other Australian artist, he engaged in the debate on republicanism, sovereignty and citizenship in an effort to highlight the plight of indigenous people not just locally, but internationally, who have become estranged as a result of colonialism. revealed. Due to major building activity, some collections are unavailable. Eccles, J. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas and rope on wood (1990). 120 x 80cm Gordon Bennett, Notes to Basquiat: Facial Bones, 1999, acylic on canvas, 51 x 51 cm Courtesy Sherman Galleries, Sydney. ), 210. Inscription. Indeed, Bennetts extraordinary attention to visual languages, their meanings and implications, is the key revelation about his oeuvre I have taken away from the current exhibition. Michel Basquiat and the "Dark" side of Hybridity" by Dick Hebdige, in The original image shows explorer Captain James Cook raising the Union Jack flag in 1770, claiming ownership of the entire eastern coast of Australia in the name of the British Crown. View sold prices. Anchoring the composition is a confronting tortured skeletal figure, that embodies a shared stereotyping of blackness, yet more universally suggests a common humanity that beneath ones skin we are all alike underneath. At the entrance to this exhibition, there is an excerpt from the artists notebook from December 1991. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. 120 x 80cm Estimate: $80,000 - $100,000. Synthetic polymer paint on linen / 183 x 152.3 x 3.2cm, The Estate of Gordon Bennett Private Collection, Adelaide, Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014. Read more: Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007, Collection: Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums, Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014. Bennett's painting Notes to Basquiat (2001) presents . Notes to Basquiat: Famous boomerang 1998 NOTES TO BASQUIAT: MODERNITY, 1999 | Deutscher and Hackett BENNETT, Gordon; Notes to Basquiat: Perfect Teeth
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