Perpetual motion machine
1987-1988
Medium
oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas
Measurements
178.0 × 289.0 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented through the NGV Foundation by Beverly and Anthony Knight, Governors, 2001
© The Estate of Gordon Bennett
Gallery location
Gallery 11
Level 2, NGV Australia
About this work
Through his postmodernist aesthetic, Gordon Bennett sought to explore how markers of identity, especially ‘categories’ or ‘binaries’, function as extensions of colonial control. Bennett began making art in the 1980s, around the same time that Australian institutions began engaging with First Nations art practice ‘seriously’. However, in doing so, these institutions imposed a multitude of primitivist sanctions around what would be accepted as ‘art’. In Perpetual motion machine, Bennett illustrates an urban setting in which Mimih spirits – ancestral beings associated with Kuninjku rock art in western Arnhem Land – are toppled over by suppressing architecture. The work speaks to colonial control over language, art and perception.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Brisbane, Queensland
Accession Number
2001.175
Department
Contemporary Art
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation