School of Art - Theses
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ItemAboriginal art: creative responses to assimilation( 2003)This thesis argues that the interpretation of significant aspects of Aboriginal art. especially the movement. Urban art - here renamed Revolutionary art - in the light of the effects of assimilation, breaks new ground. This approach reveals common characteristics and themes, which reflect an interest in shared histories, cultural heritage, and individual and communal directives. In the broader sense it points to fresh ways of unraveling and understanding the Aboriginal collective experience. The thesis begins with an analysis of the history of the approach to Aboriginal art, examining in particular, the convergence of anthropological and art historical frameworks, which contributed to the interpretation of Aboriginal art throughout the last century. An analysis of assimilation and its effects in relation to artist Albert Namatjira (1902-1959) follows, together with an examination of the categorisation and thematic approaches of Urban or Revolutionary artists. The analysis of the historical approaches to Aboriginal art of Namatjira's world, and of the issue of categorisation and its relationship to the themes of Revolutionary art, from the perspective of assimilation, is complemented and expanded in three specific case studies, which demonstrate individual and collective creative responses to assimilation. The artworks of Leslie Griggs (1958-1993) were produced between 1984 and 1989; a short, yet important period for the artist. Griggs used art as a medium to give voice to his experience of enforced separation from his family as a consequence of assimilation processes. Removed at the tender age of two years, Griggs grew up in the environment of the institution, separated from the Gunditjmara cultural heritage and people to which he belonged. Art was to become the vehicle through which he could later establish cultural and personal reconnection with this background. The artworks of Another View Walking Trail, 1994-1995, provide an opportunity to study a collective response to the silencing processes of assimilation. Since their installation in 1995, Another View artworks have undergone certain changes. Natural damage caused by environmental conditions, workplace accident and vandalism, have contributed to this. This thesis analyses the original and complete works of Another View in the condition they were in at time of installation. It also discusses the implications relating to the censorship of several of the artworks originally planned for the project. The artworks of Lin Onus (1948-1996), an artist deeply conscious of the need to respond to his sense of loss caused by assimilation processes, reveals a different creative response from that of Griggs. Onus reaches out to another Aboriginal group for cultural sustenance. He chooses an assimilatory experience of his own, inspired by the desire to revitalise his creative work and life by his adoption into the Yulungu family of Jack Wunuwun. Onus's art developed alongside a heightened consciousness of the duality of life in relation to cultural traditions and contemporary cultural contexts. This thesis studies a selection of paintings and sculptures by the artist, which demonstrate how conscious re-assimilation of traditional Aboriginal knowledge can assist in a creative response to losses brought about by assimilation. In arguing that the individual, artistic expressions of Leslie Griggs, Lin Onus and the collective, collaborative work of Another View Walking Trail, can be interpreted as creative responses to assimilation, the thesis indicates a positive way forward both in the interpretation of Aboriginal art and in cross-cultural understanding.
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ItemTraces of torture: women, murder and representation( 2005)This thesis examines the excess of discourse that is produced when women kill - or are accused of killing - and suggests that these narratives function as part of a disciplinary process that attempts to reassert control over 'unruly' women and regulate constructions of femininity. While murder narratives are commonly structured by their search for murder's origins within the murderers themselves, this thesis argues that when women are associated with murder the generic scrutiny of the criminal is compounded by the historical construction of femininity as an enigmatic, 'dark continent.' That this convergence between the conventions of genre and constructions of gender has resulted in an insatiable desire to 'know' the female offender is revealed in the recurring metaphor of the mask, which has consistently underpinned her production within discourse. Analysing the representation of women as diverse as Myra Hindley, Aileen Wuornos and Phoolan Devi, this thesis demonstrates that the impulse to 'unmask' the female offender, evident in the aggressive practices of examination and classification, exposes the entangled relationship that exists between investigation and punishment. Repeatedly reinscribing these 'unruly' women as 'unknowable' in order to facilitate further scrutiny of them, I argue that these narratives trap the female offender within a space of perpetual punishment and, so, reveal the 'traces of torture.' Following Michel Foucault's assertion that we must use history to dispel the 'chimeras of origin,' the second part of this thesis contains in-depth analyses of two female murder narratives; the Parker Hulme matricide in 1950s New Zealand and the Chamberlain case in 1980s Australia. The discursive construction of these historically significant episodes reveals that rather than extract the 'truths' of their female subjects, murder narratives are instead inscribed with the deepest anxieties of the cultures in which they were produced.
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ItemFrom affliction to empathy: melodrama and mental illness in recent films from Australia and New Zealand( 2006)The subject matter of mental illness has fascinated artists and writers for centuries. Filmmakers have responded in diverse and innovative ways to the artistic challenge of portraying mental illness. In this thesis, I focus on the representations of mental illness in six recent films from Australia and New Zealand: Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989), An Angel at My Table (Campion, 1990), Bad Boy Bubby (Rolf de Heer, 1993), Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994), Angel Baby (Michael Rymer, 1995) and Shine (Scott Hicks, 1996). In each film, the protagonist is diagnosed, or treated by others, as mentally ill. Mental illness is portrayed as an affliction which the protagonist struggles to overcome. I argue that these films cultivate a relationship of empathy between the mentally ill character and the spectator. Whereas the related emotion of sympathy involves feeling sorry for someone, empathy involves feeling with that person; in other words, rather than feel for these mentally ill characters, we are invited to feel like they do. (For complete abstract open document)
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ItemJustinian and the unity of faith and empire: the continual search for compromise( 2004)The Byzantine Emperor Justinian has been praised for his major building programme, his codification of the law and his reconquest of Africa and Italy, while at the same time being criticized for the protracted campaigns involved in the reconquest and for his continual meddling in Church affairs. But since the time of Constantine the unity of Church and State had been a major developing theme in the Roman Empire, particularly in the East. As well as being heir to this development, Justinian inherited a schism between the East and the Papacy in the West, as well as doctrinal division within the East itself. For over forty-five years Justinian strove to find a doctrinal solution that would satisfy the various factions and would bind the Empire together for its Christian security and salvation. His major achievement was to work continually towards this by focussing on the elucidation and clarification of doctrine through the unremitting application of his consummate skill. His failure to achieve lasting unity was not a fault of his but was due to the intransigence of the competing factions that he sought to unify.
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ItemAn examination and assessment of the Dame Mabel Brookes Family Records of Napoleon( 2004-11)The Dame Mable Brookes Family Records of Napoleon, perhaps Australia’s most significant collection of Napoleonic memorabilia and containing over 380 items, has been partially inventoried twice but not properly catalogued and never properly researched. Although a selection of its contents is currently on display at Dame Mabel’s ancestral family home on the Mornington Peninsula, The Briars, its positioning within the complex of public collections in Victoria has remained tendentious ever since Dame Mabel Brookes gifted the collection to the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) at her death in 1975. The present thesis - which is divided into two volumes - aims to assist the current custodians in dealing with Dame Mabel’s remarkable Napoleonic collection and the peculiar issues concerning display and interpretation that it presents. Volume one opens with an historical account of Dame Mabel’s family and their relationship with Napoleon in order to uncover the special character of the collection and its formation. I then examine the particular nature of her collecting practice, applying narrative theory as a tool by which to make sense of the collection in its entirety: the stories that it tells about Dame Mabel’s family history, her ancestors’ relationships with the fallen emperor, and her motives as a collector. Finally, the narrative dimension provides a framework for analysis in subsequent chapters of the thesis, where I discuss the fate of the collection after it was bequeathed to the people of Victoria, and propose some recommendations for its future display. Volume two comprises an illustrated catalogue of the Dame Mabel Brookes Family Records of Napoleon. This catalogue details the bulk of the collection, from books and publications to documents and manuscripts, art works, decorative arts objects, furniture, musical instruments and relics. This catalogue provides a significantly more comprehensive listing of material than has been compiled previously. Through this dissertation, I intend to make a case for the collection’s significance and suggest future possibilities for it. The hope is that this study will highlight the important place this collection has as a part of Australia’s cultural heritage; and furthermore it will suggest prospects for realising The Briars’ potential as a dedicated museum space for housing Dame Mabel’s collection.
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ItemThe constructions of Marcus Agrippa in the West( 2005-05)Marcus Agrippa was the chief supporter of Octavian, the heir of Julius Caesar, in his rise to prominence as the first Roman Emperor Augustus. He also played a central role in the Augustan establishment of the new order of Empire, which replaced the late Republic. Agrippa’s land and sea victories were crucial for the success of Octavian, but it will be argued that his constructions were important instruments of change in this pivotal historical period. Consequently, all Agrippan works are investigated, whether for war or peace, and whether known from material remains or other evidence. Agrippan constructions in the West (Gaul and the Iberian Peninsula) are described in detail, and the others are described in more general terms. Previously, Agrippan constructions have either been included in biographies of Agrippa, and treated generally, or have been studied as particular works with detailed description, but little explanation. Also, constructions in towns with material remains or inscriptions have been extensively studied, but important works outside towns with fewer remains have been largely overlooked. Consequently, previous writers have represented Agrippa as a builder of monuments in towns and there has been little understanding of the nature or purpose of the totality of his works, and no proper account of them.
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ItemThe cinematic flaneur: manifestations of modernity in the male protagonist of 1940s film noir( 2004-04)The hardboiled hero is recognised as a central trope in the film noir cycle, and particularly in the classical noir texts produced in Hollywood in the 1940s. Like the films themselves, this protagonist has largely been understood as an allegorical embodiment of a bleak post-World War Two mood of anxiety and disillusionment. Theorists have consistently attributed his pessimism, alienation, paranoia and fatalism to the concurrent American cultural climate. With its themes of murder, illicit desire, betrayal, obsession and moral dissolution, the noir canon also proves conducive to psychoanalytic interpretation. By oedipalising the noir hero and the cinematic text in which he is embedded, this approach at best has produced exemplary noir criticism, but at worst a tendency to universalise his trajectory. This thesis proposes a complementary and newly historicised critical paradigm with which to interpret the noir hero. Such an exegesis encompasses a number of social, aesthetic, demographic and political forces reaching back to the nineteenth century. This will reveal the centrality of modernity in shaping the noir heros ontology. The noir hero will also be connected to the flaneur, a figure who embodied the changes of modernity and who emerged in the mid-nineteenth century as both an historical entity and a critical metaphor for the new subject.
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ItemMirror as metasign: contemporary culture as mirror world( 2005-05)The mirror, central to traditional Western epistemology and representation, has shattered. Yet its metaphors, mechanisms, operations and poetics continue to powerfully shape and evocatively describe, contemporary Western culture. The exhibition, After Reflection, investigates realist representation in a post-mirror paradigm, through paintings, prints and projections that incorporate perceptual plays, virtual imaging and digital modeling. The dissertation charts the history of the mirror metaphor and its reconfiguration through post-modernity. It suggests that while the metaphor may be superceded it remains useful and evocative but only if considered in the form of a mirror-ball rather than as a planar mirror. The dissertation examines the mirror metaphor and its relationship to a wide selection of aspects crucial to the arrangement of contemporary Western culture, art and space. The thesis is structured as a mirror-ball, in small fragments that both reflect on and illuminate aspects of the topic. The dissertation is thus divided into various ‘Shards’ – broad subject headings derived from the primary mechanisms and poetics of the mirror. Within each shard are a varied number of ‘Rays’ – lines of illumination arising from each shard that impact on particular aspects of Western culture. The exhibition After Reflection includes further speculations around the theme of the mirror and with the arrangement of contemporary space – both pictorial and actual. It is not intended to illustrate the dissertation but to be an additional supplement that visually elaborates on issues enmeshed and parallel to those addressed in the dissertation. The works have all been completed during the period of the candidature (from March 2000) They include six oil paintings, a set of Lightjet photographs (from the “Echohouse’ series) generated from 3d modelling programs and then face-mounted to Perspex. There is an additional three larger scale Lightjet photographs from another series. Finally there are projected works. One is a self contained DVD projection and the other is Mirror Land - a large scale 3d animation covering two wall and projected in a chiasmatic arrangement. Both works feature an endless looping repetition. All the works play with metaphoric aspects of the mirror and examine the construction of space in contemporary Western culture. This space has become increasingly rationalized since the Renaissance and mirror a more general abstraction whereby the real is evermore preceded by simulations. The work looks at the mirror land and suggests a mode of realism capable of addressing the situation where the real has increasingly been reconfigured into representation.
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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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ItemIntersecting cultures: European influences in the fine arts: Melbourne 1940-1960( 2004)The development of modern European scholarship and art, more marked.in Austria and Germany, had produced by the early part of the twentieth century challenging innovations in art and the principles of art historical scholarship. Art history, in its quest to explicate the connections between art and mind, time and place, became a discipline that combined or connected various fields of enquiry to other historical moments. Hitler's accession to power in 1933 resulted in a major diaspora of Europeans, mostly German Jews, and one of the most critical dispersions of intellectuals ever recorded. Their relocation to many western countries, including Australia, resulted in major intellectual and cultural developments within those societies. By investigating selected case studies, this research illuminates the important contributions made by these individuals to the academic and cultural studies in Melbourne. Dr Ursula Hoff, a German art scholar, exiled from Hamburg, arrived in Melbourne via London in December 1939. After a brief period as a secretary at the Women's College at the University of Melbourne, she became the first qualified art historian to work within an Australian state gallery as well as one of the foundation lecturers at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne. While her legacy at the National Gallery of Victoria rests mostly on an internationally recognised Department of Prints and Drawings, her concern and dedication extended to the Gallery as a whole. Franz Philipp, a Viennese art history doctoral student, whose passage of exile was deeply traumatic, arrived in Australia on board HMT Dunera. He rose to become the 'co-architect' of the newly founded Fine Arts Department ofthe University of Melbourne, where he instituted a rigorous standard of 'continental' scholarship. Professor Joseph Burke, a graduate in Fine Arts and a British war-ti~e civil servant, was appointed to the first Herald Chair of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne in 1946. His mission was not only to establish art historical studies in the University, but also to take art into the public sphere; both these responsibilities demanded a multifarious role in the fine arts and cultural environment in Melbourne. Together with other important Europeans and Australians, these three scholars assisted in the cultural revision of the post-war period, legitimating cultural and educational paradigms and processes by establishing a more dynamic cross-cultural and international programme of scholarship and change within the arts more generally. Individually and collectively, Ursula Hoff, Franz Philipp and Joseph Burke became a seminal force in the academic, intellectual, museological and cultural environment of post-war Melbourne.