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. your book, a reference to Stuart Hall which I have included in my own Identities By quoting from a range of cultures and artistic styles, he questions and undermines colonial history and racist stereotypes. 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). Gordon Bennett, Notes to Basquiat: Totem Lesson 2 - Annette Larkin I guess it spoke to me of the traces GORDON BENNETT (1955 - 2014) NOTES TO BASQUIAT: CUT THE CIRCLE II, 2001 synthetic polymer paint on . Bennett makes art that questions accepted versions of history, often taking historical artworks as his starting point. body to expose both pain and anguish and a common humanity. Notes to Basquiat was named for the American Jean-Michel Basquiat (196088), a precocious young artist of Puerto Rican and Haitian-American heritage, originally a graffiti artist, whose star flamed brightly in the energetic international art world of the 1980s; Perfect teeth riffs on Basquiats own paintings. This painting emanates from the 'Notes to Basquiat' series of paintings, where the artist takes appropriation to . Gordon Bennett: Be Polite - Galleries West Notes to Basquiat Untitled, 1999 [picture] / Gordon Bennett 1999, Bennett, Gordon. 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. ; Signed; . Notes to Basquiat: Unreasonable facsimile 1998 I guess it spoke to me of the traces of different experience and layers You lost your balance. Born in 1955 in Monto, Queensland, Bennett was unaware of his mother's . An Aboriginal man is inserted into the picture whose exploding head is turning into stars. Susan Best receives funding from the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australian Research Council . Gordon Bennett. Ewen McDonald (Editor), Biennale of Sydney 2000, Sydney, 2000, 39 (colour illus. Typically, this is the style of contemporary art associated with ideology critique, unveiling systems of discrimination and oppression like racism and sexism. This echo is surely intended as Butler claims that Bennett's last decade of work (post-Notes to Basquiat, [after 2002]) resorted 'to an easy irony' - a 'cynical postmodernism' - as if he 'may be running out of inspiration.' However, farce does have its [2] lessons and perhaps speaks more truthfully to our age. "A Short Note to Basquiat" Representation itself is political. 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. In Abstraction (Native), from the Abstraction series of 20102013, Bennett imposes the face of Australian politician and social activist Peter Garrett (formerly the front man of Australian rock band, Midnight Oil) onto an abstracted human figure. This critical orientation is particularly evident in Bennetts history paintings, displayed in the third room of the exhibition. the points of identification, or suture, which are made within the discourses Lot 5: GORDON BENNETT, (1955 - 2014) - NOTES TO BASQUIAT - Invaluable It is anything but. Sold for $44,400 (inc. BP) in Auction 3 - 29 November 2007, Melbourne. 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. time, space and death. These works, like Basquiat's, use images of the The work also relates to Basquiat's paintings, following the same principles as his graffiti, signifying the existence of a more basic truth hidden within a given event or thought"--Information from acquisitions documentation. 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. Ultimately betraying Bennetts highly idiosyncratic vision however, is his characteristic engagement of the viewer here through his thesaurus inspired word-play designed to activate the complex web connecting sight, speech and thought, and thus highlights the links between history and meaning established in his oeuvre. on exhibition catalogue front cover), Aulich, A., Visual Arts, The Melbourne Review, Melbourne, issue 21, July 2013, pp. Appropriation allowed Bennett to refer to both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal art, and situate his painting in a fluid area between these two overlapping forms of contemporary art. Professor of Art Theory and Fine Art, Griffith University. In Notes to Basquiat (Death of irony) 2002, Bennett astonishingly knits a homage to Basquiat with Islamic patterns and calligraphy into a coherent composition . View NOTES TO BASQUIAT (2001) By Bennett Gordon; synthetic polymer paint on linen; 152.0 x 182.5 cm ; Signed; . Looking through the exhibition, this internal language becomes insistently present as the resonances between works start to sound. 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. NOTES TO BASQUIAT: CUT THE CIRCLE II, 2001 - Deutscher and Hackett cat., 2001, front cover View artist profile Add to wishlist. I already knew Bennett was in dialogue with other artists and their distinct painterly idioms: Mondrian, Margaret Preston, Thomas Bock, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jackson Pollock to name just a few. (2014). Bennetts series works across both Australian and American Bennett died in 2014, aged 58. Bennett directly referenced the work of many other artists throughout his career, including Jackson Pollock, Bennett makes art that questions accepted versions of history, often taking historical artworks as his starting point. Notes to Basquiat: one tense moment, Bellas Milani Gallery, Fortitude Valley, Jun1999Unknown, Biennale of Sydney 2000, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, 26May200030Jul2000, Outsider/ insider: the art of Gordon Bennett, AAMU, Museum of contemporary Aboriginal art, Utrecht, 21Jun201209Dec2012, Mmoires vives: une histoire de l'art aborigine, Muse dAquitaine, Bordeaux, 16Oct201330Mar2014, Australian art and the Russian avant-garde, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 29Jul201729Oct2017, Carnivalesque, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 23Jun201828Oct2018, Jrme Bellay (Editor), Le Journal du Dimanche, 'L'art aborigne, la croise des mondes', pg. Copyright 20102023, The Conversation US, Inc. Griffith University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU. Open daily Provenance. Estimate: $40,000 - 50,000. 102: GORDON BENNETT born 1955 Notes to Basquiat. If I were to choose a single word to describe my underlying drive it would be freedom To be free we must be able to question the ways our own history defines us. In Gordon Bennett's 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'. That is not my intention, I have had 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. This included abstract expressionism and a dot aesthetic inspired by the Papunya Tula art movement of the Australian Western Desert. 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 was an Indigenous Australian artist whose work primarily conveyed indigenous identity struggles, particularly through the subject of colonization and racial injustice. 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 hip-hop. 152: GORDON BENNETT. What I had not realised is that he is also in an intense dialogue with himself and his earlier work. Three parts: a: 182 x 182cm; b: 182 x 61cm; Unfinished Business: The Art of Gordon Bennett - QAGOMA Blog Galtung (2009) explains in the article Cultural Violence how historical systems of racial oppression exist permanently within contemporary social consciousness. 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. Bloodlines 1993 The textured surface references the colonial footprint of global black slavery. 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. Bennett emerges as one of the most important Australian artists of the latter part of the 20th century and one we have certainly not finished interpreting. reality embodied in the idea "that we are all alike underneath" is also 'Unfinished Business: The Art of Gordon Bennett' celebrates the Queensland-based artist's globally recognised contribution to . 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. Notes to Basquiat: Myth of The Western Man, 2001 and the histories of shared experience and levels we can relate to each Sutton Galleries, Melbourne . back the skin and flesh to reveal the innards, ribs and skeleton, the Gordon Bennett | Notes to Basquiat (1999) | MutualArt Basquiat, New York: Merrell Publishers. Gordon Bennett was an Indigenous Australian artist whose work primarily conveyed indigenous identity struggles, particularly through the subject of colonization and racial injustice. Gordon Bennett - Notes to Basquiat: 911 - Search the Collection, National Gallery of Australia Here's looking at: Blue poles by Jackson Pollock. Attending to form as much as content enables a different view of Bennetts oeuvre and critical purpose. Georges Petitjean, Kitty Zijlmans and Ian McLean, Outsider/insider: the art of Gordon Bennett, Ghent, 2012, 50 (colour illus.). These shapes are coloured red, yellow and black referencing the Aboriginal flag and loss of a culture. This conversation is manifest quite literally when Bennett drafts a letter to the - then already deceased - Basquiat, outlining his reasons for emulating his style. Khaled Sabsabi, Look, 'The art that made me', pg. Gordon Bennett - Sutton Gallery Collection: Paul Eliadis Collection of Contemporary Australian Art, Australia The visually complex and layered works challenge received accounts of Australian colonial history. 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. 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. View Scale Rotate. We are developing and evolving the new Collection Online and would love to hear what you would like to see developed next by answering these questions after you've finished using the website. 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. Yours Sincerely, 1999, Notes to Basquiat Untitled, 1999 [picture] / Gordon Bennett. they undergo constant transformation. signed and dated twice, and inscribed with title verso: 16-10-1999 / G Bennett / G Bennett 1610-1999 / NOTES TO BASQUIAT: MODERNITY / , Sutton Gallery, Melbourne (stamped on stretcher bar verso)pARTners Art Collective, Melbourne, acquired from the above in July 2007, Gordon Bennett Notes to Basquiat: One Tense Moment (episode two), Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 5 November 4 December 1999, cat. Michel Basquiat and the "Dark" side of Hybridity" by Dick Hebdige, in Limited Edition Digital Works on Paper . Quoting the raw graffiti expressionism of Philip Guston and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Bennett identifies a more authentic form of modernist painting, intimately connected to notions of race, ancestry and nation scrawled in lists close-by.Playing with the flatness of the picture plane so exalted by Modernist theory, Bennetts layers of text and appropriated images jostle for prominence. Gordon Bennett, "Notes to Basquiat: To Dance on a Tightrope," 1998. private collection, Brisbane. You need Flash player 8+ and JavaScript enabled to view this video embedded. material existence, even though we may be separated by cultural context, Bennett directly referenced the work of many other artists throughout his career, including Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich and Vincent Van Gogh. and painterly fields of your work and particularly to the layered lines
