School of Art - Theses
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ItemThe artist and the museum: contested histories and expanded narratives in Australian art and museology 1975-2002( 2004-10)This thesis explores the rich and provocative fields of interaction between Australian artists and museums from 1975 to 2002. Artists have investigated and engaged with museums of art, social history and natural science during this period. Despite the museum being a major source of exploration for artists, the subject has rarely been examined in the literature. This thesis redresses this gap. It identifies and examines four prevailing approaches of Australian contemporary art to museums in this period: oppositional critique, figurative representation, intervention and collaboration. The study asserts that a general progression from oppositional critique in the seventies through to collaboration in the late nineties can be charted. It explores the work of three artists who have epitomised these approaches to the museum. Peter Cripps developed an oppositional critique of the museum and was intimately involved with the art museum politics in Melbourne during the mid-seventies. Fiona Hall figuratively represented the museum. Her approach documented and catalogued museum tropes of a bygone era. Narelle Jubelin’s work intervened with Australian museums. Her work has curatorial capacities and has had real effect within Australian museums. These differing artistic approaches to the museum have the effect of contesting history and expanding narrative within museums. Curators collaborated with artists and used artistic methods to create exhibits in Australian museums during the 1990s. Artistic approaches are a major methodology of museums seeking to contest traditional modes of history and expand narrative in their exhibits. Contemporary art has played a vital, curatorial, role in the Hyde Park Barracks, Museum of Sydney, Melbourne Museum and Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, amongst other museums. While in earlier years artists were well known for their resistive approach to the art museum, this thesis shows that artists have increasingly participated in new forms of representation within art, social history, and natural history museums. I argue that the role of contemporary art within “new” museums is emblematic of new approaches to history, space, narrative and design within the museum.
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ItemConflict in Australia: shifting identities, art and self( 2009)My research aims to examine the following question: How has conflict shaped the Australian psyche and impacted on aspects of identity in Australian visual art? The written component focuses on how conflict has manifested in specific key artworks and culture, through a historical and cultural analysis. The written component examines two major influences on Australian identity. The first is the production and use of natural history painting by colonists in Australia, and how these paintings were used as a method of constructing, visually and conceptually, an image or idea of what Australia is. The second influence on Australian identity is the impact of conflict. The use of punishment by colonists, European settlers’ experience of hardship on the land, and the impact of World War 1 all contributed to the notion of the ‘Aussie Battler’, which was constructed by settlers, through their experience of conflict as a way of understanding their relationship to Australia. The use of masculine stereotypes in the artwork of Ben Quilty and Adam Cullen will be discussed, as a contemporary response to issues that have historical roots. My artwork is an exploration of personal identity through the idea of conflict in Australia both historically and contemporaneously. The paintings source images from history and from contemporary culture, in order to make links with the past and create future imaginings. The written component and the artwork both reflect issues of personal and national identity; masks are used as a symbol of identity, and of covered identity, turning an individual into a pack animal. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s theory on becoming-animal is used in relation to identity. Specific examples from the work of artists Sidney Nolan, Joy Hester, Lyndell Brown and Charles Green will be cited in the discussion of conflict. My artwork responds to present and past conflict in Australia and imagines possible futures. Some of the artwork uses army imagery and camouflage as a way of visually suggesting the impact of conflict on personal and national identity.