Etching on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/gordon-bennett-24118" aria-label="More by Gordon Bennett" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Gordon Bennett</a>
Memory
Presented by Leanne and Caitlin Bennett in memory of and admiration for Gordon Bennett 2019
<p>Bennett’s use of abstract colour blocks refers to the paintings of Kazimir Malevich. Bennett has stated that Malevich’s ‘abstract works are sometimes related to [religious] icons. However, Malevich was most certainly trying to get [...] to a kind of spiritual essence that was common to all humanity. [...] It is clear that in reality black and indigenous people [...] - trampled, enslaved, exploited and discarded [...] - were not to be joining Europeans on their great journey to that glorious sunset [...]. My intention was to imbue such commendable spiritual aspiration with a little physical realism...’.</p><p><em>Gallery label, July 2021</em></p>
paper print etching
7 June 2021 – 14 May 2023
2023-05-14
7 June 2021
2021-06-07
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2021-06-07
A Year in Art - Australia 1992
Collection based display
Memory
image: 295 × 198 mm
Presented by Leanne and Caitlin Bennett in memory of and admiration for Gordon Bennett 2019
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<p>This is one of twelve soft-ground etchings on paper that make up the portfolio How to Cross the Void 1993 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bennett-a-level-of-abstraction-p15027" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15027</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bennett-tribal-object-after-lazlo-lakner-p15038" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15038</span></a>). Two of these – Blue Retreat (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bennett-blue-retreat-p15030" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15030</span></a>) and Through the Void (Diving Board) (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bennett-through-the-void-diving-board-p15033" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15033</span></a>) – are also hand-tinted with watercolour. In each case, the image is printed on a much larger sheet of paper with wide margins all around. Although the prints are mostly figurative, some elements of geometric abstraction appear in the form of floating shapes. Handwritten annotations which were incorporated in the etching phase of the process suggest that several of the works were intended as studies or proposals for larger paintings, sculptures or installations. This preparatory intent was confirmed by Leanne Bennett, the widow of the artist, who has stated that the portfolio was based on a visual diary of drawings created during a residency in France as part of the Moët &amp; Chandon Australian Art Fellowship, that Bennett carried out between 1991 and 1992. With its programme of artist presentations, debates and international symposia, Gordon Bennett considered this residency a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity to observe, reflect, and document a plethora of ideas that would manifest into major artworks on his return to Australia’ (Leanne Bennett, email correspondence with Tate curator Katy Wan, 21 October 2018). The decision to realise and disseminate the initial drawings as a print series indicates the seriousness of Bennett’s undertaking. </p>
<p>Two of the prints correspond with larger, sculptural works by Bennett that were both premiered as part of the ninth Sydney Biennial in 1992: Created by Flux (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bennett-created-by-flux-p15031" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15031</span></a>), with its depiction of a dressing table in which the three drawers are respectively labelled ‘SELF’, HISTORY’ and ‘CULTURE’, was realised as the installation Self Portrait (Ancestor Figures) 1992 (Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney). I Too Am an Apostle of Silence (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bennett-i-too-am-an-apostle-of-silence-p15028" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15028</span></a>), which shows the proposal for a ‘profile of an aboriginal person on paper’ to be shown in a jar and exhibited in a display cabinet, became the sculptural assemblage Self Portrait (Heritage) 1992 (estate of the artist). A third print, Culture Bag (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bennett-the-real-value-of-art-culture-bag-p15032" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P15032</span></a>) developed into the sculpture The Real Value of Art (Culture Bag), and was exhibited at the thirteenth Sydney Biennial in 2000.</p>
<p>The series of prints reveals how Bennett’s conceptual practice was informed by his readings of prominent figures of both postcolonial theory and art history. The print Angels includes a quotation from the writer and academic Marianna Torgovnick’s influential book Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (1991): ‘a level of abstraction, a discourse of self and other, with which we become familiar in our books and classrooms, but which rarely feel on our pulses’. In the notes on Culture Bag, Bennett quotes the Belgian artist René Magritte (1898–1967): ‘The real value of art is a function of its power of liberating revelation. And nothing confers on the artist any superiority in the order of human work. The artist does not exercise that priesthood that bourgeois duplicity alone tries to confer on him.’ The Hungarian conceptual artist Lázló Lakner (born 1936), who was engaged in questions around the meanings of definitions of art, is referenced in the print Tribal Object (After Lázló Lakner). In invoking these individuals, Bennett gave an indication as to the anti-establishment theories he was engaged with on his residency in France, and the wider framework of interpretation through which he wished his work to be seen.</p>
<p>This set of How to Cross the Void is number twelve in an edition of twenty. Other editions are in the collections of Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide; Griffith Artworks, Griffith University, Brisbane; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; the University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane; and several private collections. The original drawings on which the prints are based have remained with the estate of the artist. </p>
<p>Further reading<br/>Gordon Bennett, ‘The Manifest Toe’, in The Art of Gordon Bennett, Sydney 1996, p.58.<br/>Prism: Contemporary Australian Art, exhibition catalogue, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Ishibashi Foundation, Tokyo 2006, pp.44–55.</p>
<p>Katy Wan<br/>November 2018</p>
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Summary
2021-11-17T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
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<p>Bennett’s use of abstract colour blocks refers to the paintings of Kazimir Malevich. Bennett has stated that Malevich’s ‘abstract works are sometimes related to [religious] icons. However, Malevich was most certainly trying to get [...] to a kind of spiritual essence that was common to all humanity. [...] It is clear that in reality black and indigenous people [...] - trampled, enslaved, exploited and discarded [...] - were not to be joining Europeans on their great journey to that glorious sunset [...]. My intention was to imbue such commendable spiritual aspiration with a little physical realism...’. </p>
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2021-07-09T00:00:00
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