WEBVTT - Alchemy 0:00:00.670 --> 0:00:04.370 A quick heads-up: in this series we talk about drug use, mental 0:00:04.370 --> 0:00:06.359 health issues, and there's a bit of swearing. 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:10.789 Welcome to the Brett Whiteley Studio. Have you been here 0:00:10.789 --> 0:00:11.360 before at all? 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:20.290 I'm Fenella Kernebone and this is 'Art, life and the other thing'. I'd like to acknowledge 0:00:20.290 --> 0:00:23.349 the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast 0:00:23.350 --> 0:00:27.330 was made, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. In this 0:00:27.330 --> 0:00:30.540 series I sit down with some of Australia's most exciting 0:00:30.540 --> 0:00:34.250 contemporary artists and curators at the Brett Whiteley Studio to 0:00:34.250 --> 0:00:37.960 talk about his work and how it's impacted their own careers. 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:43.730 In each episode so far, we've focused on one of Brett's artworks, 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.850 and by looking at that work, we've unpacked bigger issues 0:00:46.860 --> 0:00:51.470 about the wider Australian arts landscape. Well, in this final episode, 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.400 we're talking about one of Brett's greatest works and one 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:57.200 of his biggest, and I mean in scale, but also 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.880 in terms of ambition, intention and legacy. It's a piece 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.400 that he had several attempts at over the years, and 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:05.830 it took him a long time to finish what we 0:01:05.830 --> 0:01:09.470 now see hanging in his Surry Hills studio. I'm talking 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:10.780 about 'Alchemy'. 0:01:10.790 --> 0:01:13.420 This is a painting that's so large it actually goes 0:01:13.420 --> 0:01:17.060 around the corner of the gallery space. It's a very 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:19.350 ambitious painting. 0:01:19.740 --> 0:01:22.539 This is Anne Ryan, curator of Australian art at the 0:01:22.540 --> 0:01:24.470 Art Gallery of New South Wales. 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:27.940 It's the painting of a young artist in his thirties 0:01:27.950 --> 0:01:34.729 who is really of the belief that art can change 0:01:34.740 --> 0:01:39.070 the world. He'd just come back to Australia after living 0:01:39.069 --> 0:01:41.140 in New York for a period of time where he 0:01:41.140 --> 0:01:46.130 had tried to paint a similarly ambitious painting that failed. 0:01:46.140 --> 0:01:51.070 It was a personal and artistic point of crisis for him. 0:01:51.070 --> 0:01:54.680 It ended up with him retreating from the great art 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:59.610 centre of New York, coming back to Australia and having 0:01:59.610 --> 0:02:04.060 to recalibrate and reassess. 0:02:04.540 --> 0:02:07.830 The painting is made up of 18 separate wood panels. 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.660 It's big - 16 metres long in total. And it's full 0:02:11.660 --> 0:02:16.060 of Brett signature, confident flowing brushstrokes along with an assortment 0:02:16.070 --> 0:02:20.430 of symbolic ephemera. To see the piece online, go to agnsw.art/bwspodcast. 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:30.980 Like much of his work, it's really very much about him, 0:02:30.990 --> 0:02:36.160 and it's autobiographical. It's read from right to left, but 0:02:36.740 --> 0:02:40.380 equally you could read it from left to right. So 0:02:40.389 --> 0:02:45.720 it's a painting that you can journey along and find 0:02:45.730 --> 0:02:50.919 all sorts of stories. It's not just a painting. Of course. 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:55.550 There's all sorts of elements in this picture, including stuffed birds, 0:02:55.940 --> 0:03:01.840 magazine collage, electric lights. There's even a little window containing 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:05.950 some of his own hair. If you read the work 0:03:05.950 --> 0:03:12.310 from right to left, we have a blue, watery world 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:17.380 and an image of conception, of a carnal image, of 0:03:17.389 --> 0:03:22.120 the beginnings of human life, right through to the end, 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:29.270 where we end up with an ethereal, abstract, white, almost winged-like 0:03:29.620 --> 0:03:36.060 form on a golden background, quite 'Oriental' looking in aesthetic. 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:39.540 But as you journey through the picture, you see all 0:03:39.540 --> 0:03:44.260 these little clues as to the things that made him tick. 0:03:44.740 --> 0:03:49.470 There are artistic references to artists that were meaningful to him, 0:03:49.470 --> 0:03:55.980 such as Vincent van Gough, Francis Bacon, Hieronymus Bosch - a great 0:03:55.980 --> 0:04:01.710 Flemish painter who's endlessly fascinating. You can find references to 0:04:01.710 --> 0:04:06.290 the Australian landscape, the landscape beyond the Blue Mountains - the 0:04:06.300 --> 0:04:09.920 area where he went to school around Bathurst - that sort 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:17.130 of yellowy dry, grassy, rural landscape of Australia. You can 0:04:17.130 --> 0:04:23.060 see references to musicians, politicians. There are so many little 0:04:23.060 --> 0:04:30.419 clues throughout this work to the key ideas and influences 0:04:30.420 --> 0:04:34.849 and obsessions that drove his work, particularly around this time. 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.720 Painted over 11 months in 1972, this is very much 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.510 an autobiographical work. Wendy Whiteley points out that even the 0:04:43.510 --> 0:04:46.050 baby in 'Alchemy' looks like Brett. 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.870 It's a kind of portrait of Brett's life, really. There's 0:04:49.870 --> 0:04:56.080 the conception, there's, you know, the birth, which is obviously him being born 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.570 with a red, little, red-headed baby. Though if a baby had 0:04:59.570 --> 0:05:02.150 been born with all that hair, it would have been remarkable, 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:07.350 and then we just go through it. It's a painting that needs 0:05:07.350 --> 0:05:10.160 to be looked at from a distance first and then 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.299 to be moved right in close up to it so 0:05:13.300 --> 0:05:16.060 that you start to see all that. The details, which 0:05:16.060 --> 0:05:20.420 are often quite surreal in the sense of being very 0:05:20.420 --> 0:05:24.250 influenced by Bosch's 'The Garden of Earthly Delights'. Little things from 0:05:24.250 --> 0:05:27.779 the mind, references to people Brett either admired or hated, 0:05:27.870 --> 0:05:31.049 another self portrait, but of the little door that gets covered up. 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:35.330 There's a plug, which implies the whole thing could go 0:05:35.330 --> 0:05:39.250 down the plughole at one stage. However, it's an extraordinary picture 0:05:40.029 --> 0:05:42.060 and I think the more you look at it, the 0:05:42.060 --> 0:05:45.780 more you get involved in the actual what's going on 0:05:45.790 --> 0:05:48.760 in it. When you get up close, the more you're 0:05:48.770 --> 0:05:52.330 able to like it. You know, it's really it's a trip. 0:05:52.339 --> 0:05:57.270 It's an organised excursion. He had a theory that the 0:05:57.270 --> 0:06:00.300 best way to have a life story told would be 0:06:00.300 --> 0:06:04.620 for him as an artist to have a three-mile-long gallery . 0:06:04.620 --> 0:06:06.810 So he just started at the beginning of a life 0:06:06.810 --> 0:06:09.190 and went to the other end. This is a kind 0:06:09.190 --> 0:06:12.160 of smaller version of that idea, and it's interesting to 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.599 watch people actually walking along the front of it and 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.610 what catches their attention and what draws them into it, 0:06:18.620 --> 0:06:22.150 like a magnet to peer very closely at what goes 0:06:22.150 --> 0:06:25.909 on with it. So you can see people actually living 0:06:25.910 --> 0:06:29.800 the experience as well, which is interesting because everything it 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.230 refers to is still going on today and went on 0:06:32.230 --> 0:06:35.330 thousands of years ago, and will go on forever. It's 0:06:35.380 --> 0:06:40.930 love hate, the beauty of the landscape, the fears of 0:06:40.940 --> 0:06:44.750 everything going on in one's personal life and relates to everybody. 0:06:44.750 --> 0:06:47.820 I think it's both very intensely personal, but it also 0:06:47.820 --> 0:06:51.370 relates to most people looking at it. It's a language 0:06:51.370 --> 0:06:58.060 that's understandable in the end. 0:06:58.740 --> 0:07:03.560 Barry Pearce, the former curator of Australian art at the 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.659 Art Gallery of New South Wales, once wrote that Brett 0:07:06.660 --> 0:07:10.600 Whiteley was envious of the power of pop musicians, and 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:15.110 he dreamt of 'Alchemy' reaching a mass audience. Currently, the 0:07:15.110 --> 0:07:18.360 piece is on display in the corner across two walls 0:07:18.370 --> 0:07:21.580 at the Brett Whiteley Studio in Surry Hills; it needs a 0:07:21.580 --> 0:07:25.300 big space to exhibit it, but Barry Pearce says 'Alchemy' 0:07:25.300 --> 0:07:27.550 should in fact be displayed on a curve. 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.450 I'm burning for that painting to be shown in a 0:07:30.450 --> 0:07:34.140 proper way. Because, you see, he was on about endlessness-ism 0:07:34.860 --> 0:07:37.980 and what is the place of infinity in our way 0:07:37.980 --> 0:07:42.670 of thinking about life and art. And he painted 'Alchemy' 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.390 on an arc, on a curve. He was on about 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.920 [Albert] Einstein's theory of relativity that if you go out into space, 0:07:49.930 --> 0:07:52.540 you don't follow a straight line, you actually go on 0:07:52.540 --> 0:07:55.870 a curve. And what happens if you stay on the 0:07:55.870 --> 0:08:00.030 path of a curve for a long, infinite, but a 0:08:00.030 --> 0:08:03.350 long time you come back to where you started. And 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:07.020 what he wanted to do with 'Alchemy' was have a narrative 0:08:07.020 --> 0:08:10.720 going from birth to death and enlightenment. On the left 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:14.000 you see the sexual thing, the birth pains, and on 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:18.780 the other end it's based on [Yukio] Mishima, a Japanese painting about enlightenment. 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:22.740 And when we're through and done, we see gold, the 0:08:22.740 --> 0:08:25.620 gold of enlightenment all around us. It's like a view 0:08:25.620 --> 0:08:28.560 of heaven, I suppose. But if they hung it like 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:32.610 it was meant to be on a curve, then if 0:08:32.610 --> 0:08:35.969 you follow that line at either end - either end in 0:08:35.970 --> 0:08:41.470 your imagination - will meet again. So and that's infinity and 0:08:41.470 --> 0:08:44.760 it's endless and that's what that painting is all about. 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.380 What are you seeing in 'Alchemy', what is he trying to convey? 0:08:50.390 --> 0:08:53.390 Well, it's like the [Charles] Baudelaire idea that you know to 0:08:53.390 --> 0:08:56.709 get to heaven, you have to go through hell. Baudelaire said, 0:08:56.710 --> 0:09:00.699 you know, flowers grow from shit like, and so it's 0:09:00.700 --> 0:09:03.800 about all the pain and the violence in the world, 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:06.420 and you go through it and you go through it. And finally, 0:09:06.420 --> 0:09:08.870 if you can get through it, if you can get 0:09:08.870 --> 0:09:11.550 your way through it, you come out into enlightenment and 0:09:11.550 --> 0:09:14.300 a peaceful view. It's a very, I suppose, a traditional ... 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:20.609 It's like a kind of religious picture, in some ways. But a kind of a 0:09:20.610 --> 0:09:27.800 secular religious picture, if you can, if that's possible. It's a journey, and 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.910 the journey of the painting as a painting is that 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.160 the beauty of it is you can go back and forth. 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:35.990 Either way, you don't have to start with birth and 0:09:35.990 --> 0:09:38.960 and finish up with the end, the end of days. 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.230 I suppose it is through all the nightmare and the 0:09:42.230 --> 0:09:47.150 pleasures and everything in between. You can actually track back, 0:09:47.150 --> 0:09:52.520 and it tells us that Brett thinks history has much to 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:53.060 tell us. 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:58.609 Considering where Brett fits within the culture or the pantheon 0:09:58.610 --> 0:10:01.170 of Australian art, where do you think he sits within 0:10:01.170 --> 0:10:02.560 our cultural landscape? 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:07.560 He delivers us very brave ideas about what it means 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:11.319 to be alive, and the, you know, the pleasure and pain 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:15.380 of life. And I think there are artists who can 0:10:15.380 --> 0:10:19.390 give us the pleasure in small things, and if you're lucky, 0:10:19.390 --> 0:10:23.020 you can bring them both together. Brett had this romantic 0:10:23.030 --> 0:10:26.240 kind of idea about painting that if you, if you 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:30.030 are bold and you have a serious purpose, you can 0:10:30.030 --> 0:10:32.860 achieve something that's good for the world, good for people. 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.339 In that sense, what the challenges he faced and he 0:10:36.340 --> 0:10:39.420 had the guts to do it even against a lot 0:10:39.420 --> 0:10:43.000 of hatred and envy for me puts him up very 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.050 high in the pantheon. He persisted. 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.160 He did persist. But as we've spoken about already in 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:52.730 this series, it came at a cost. To understand more 0:10:52.730 --> 0:10:54.839 about what was going on in the background for Brett 0:10:54.850 --> 0:10:58.160 at the time of making 'Alchemy', here's Anne Ryan again. 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:01.800 He is an artist trying to change the world, and he thought 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.150 he could do that throughout. And a lot of artists - 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:09.550 especially young artists - think that that's possible. They think that 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.929 art has the potential to change the world. Most of 0:11:13.929 --> 0:11:18.410 the time it doesn't, but you can't fault the ambition 0:11:18.410 --> 0:11:23.400 of this work, and to sustain something over such a 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:28.160 scale is enormously difficult, So the thing that comes out 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:30.390 of this is not just the ambition but also the 0:11:30.390 --> 0:11:34.559 raw talent of this artist and the kind of hard 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.610 work and thought that went into an object like this 0:11:37.620 --> 0:11:41.910 is fascinating. 0:11:42.330 --> 0:11:45.490 Why was he so impacted do you think at the time to 0:11:45.490 --> 0:11:47.830 want to create a work such as this? What was 0:11:47.830 --> 0:11:49.860 really going on for him at the time? 0:11:51.140 --> 0:11:55.910 Brett Whiteley made this work having had his wings clipped 0:11:55.910 --> 0:12:01.679 a bit. He got success internationally, very young. He was 0:12:01.690 --> 0:12:06.370 extremely talented, but he was also extremely fortunate in being 0:12:06.370 --> 0:12:08.390 at the right time and meeting the right people and 0:12:08.390 --> 0:12:11.050 having the right personality to get his work in front 0:12:11.050 --> 0:12:15.709 of an audience that for Australians at that time really 0:12:15.710 --> 0:12:20.740 mattered and that was in England. And his work got picked up 0:12:20.750 --> 0:12:24.589 by institutions really early. It was collected by the Tate, 0:12:24.590 --> 0:12:28.710 which is the big, important contemporary collecting institution in London 0:12:28.710 --> 0:12:32.760 at the time, in his early twenties, almost unheard of. 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:38.370 So he had a start, unlike most other artists as 0:12:38.370 --> 0:12:41.350 a young man, and I imagine it would have really 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:46.240 boosted his confidence at a time when he was still 0:12:46.250 --> 0:12:49.750 trying to work stuff out. So he had this moment 0:12:49.750 --> 0:12:53.400 of great success and great creativity a great flourishing of his 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.840 voice, a kind of development of his voice. And he goes 0:12:55.840 --> 0:13:00.110 to New York thinking, 'Okay, I've made it in London. 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.920 Now I've got to make it in the centre.' And 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:07.010 that was New York and he failed. And he tried 0:13:07.010 --> 0:13:11.500 to make this great picture while he was there that would 0:13:11.500 --> 0:13:15.069 solve the problems of America. It would make America and 0:13:15.070 --> 0:13:18.320 therefore the world kind of figure out what was going 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.280 on and sort it out. A kind of a fool's errand, if 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:29.070 you like. The failure of that picture was concurrent with 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:32.610 difficulties in his personal life. He was married to Wendy. 0:13:32.610 --> 0:13:35.579 They had a small daughter and they were making a 0:13:35.580 --> 0:13:41.319 life over there. But he was sinking into drinking too 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:44.819 much and getting involved with stuff that wasn't helping his 0:13:44.820 --> 0:13:48.190 work and certainly wasn't helping his family life. So it 0:13:48.190 --> 0:13:53.390 was a, really, a crisis moment for him. He left, 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.220 pretty much just upped and left New York and disappeared, 0:13:56.220 --> 0:13:59.110 went to Fiji and Wendy was left to kind of 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:04.850 tidy up the life and move the family to follow him, [they] 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:09.150 had to leave Fiji and had to come back to 0:14:09.150 --> 0:14:11.839 Australia and really, I think it was at that moment 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:14.400 when he came back here and he thought, 'Right, I'm 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.040 from here, this is my place, I've got to make work 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:20.780 about this place.' And so it's kind of where he 0:14:20.780 --> 0:14:25.710 felt he had to start on a new path. And 0:14:25.710 --> 0:14:30.359 this picture is like a very loud declaration of that. 0:14:31.140 --> 0:14:34.830 We know now that Brett made it work here in Australia, artistically, 0:14:34.830 --> 0:14:39.220 at least. 'Alchemy' is firmly part of the Australian canon. 0:14:39.310 --> 0:14:41.350 But what did people think of it at the time? 0:14:41.740 --> 0:14:44.610 Well, nobody had ever seen anything quite like it. And 0:14:44.610 --> 0:14:47.130 when it was shown commercially in Sydney after it was 0:14:47.130 --> 0:14:49.790 made in 1973, it was shown with a whole bunch 0:14:49.790 --> 0:14:54.320 of other materials, notebooks and things. His thoughts, his ideas, quotations, 0:14:54.330 --> 0:14:57.870 lot of which didn't make sense. A lot of what 0:14:57.870 --> 0:15:03.210 he wrote was - for a reader that wasn't him - is 0:15:03.210 --> 0:15:06.660 hard to understand or fathom, and some of it feels 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.600 really deep and some of feels shallow, and it's because 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:12.170 he just got it all out there and wrote it 0:15:12.170 --> 0:15:15.850 all down. And he used to have ... the exhibition openings 0:15:15.850 --> 0:15:17.680 he used to have at the time were events, they 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:19.830 were happenings you know, there'd be all sorts of things 0:15:19.830 --> 0:15:22.260 going on. So, of course, people thought it was amazing. 0:15:23.740 --> 0:15:26.080 Of course, it's the kind of picture which is really, 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.790 really hard to deal with. You can't buy it for 0:15:29.790 --> 0:15:34.609 your house. You can't. You can't stick it above the fireplace. 0:15:35.580 --> 0:15:36.700 Doesn't match my couch. 0:15:36.710 --> 0:15:41.850 It's bigger than most museum walls, so it's kind of 0:15:41.850 --> 0:15:47.220 a problem as well. And so having the ability to 0:15:47.230 --> 0:15:52.330 display it in this form, in the Brett Whiteley Studio in Sydney, 0:15:52.340 --> 0:15:56.470 is a rare thing. It demands a lot of space. 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.000 Some artists kind of demand a lot of space, and 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:00.750 this picture certainly does that. 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:09.330 So how does Brett Whiteley's legacy sit within Australia's contemporary 0:16:09.330 --> 0:16:13.860 art landscape? And how do Australia's contemporary artists view this legacy? 0:16:14.340 --> 0:16:16.690 Many of the artists who have spoken to in this 0:16:16.690 --> 0:16:20.050 podcast studied Brett Whiteley at school. In fact, lots of 0:16:20.050 --> 0:16:23.160 school students did, even I did when I was at high school. 0:16:23.540 --> 0:16:26.470 One of those is Abdul Abdullah, who we spoke to 0:16:26.470 --> 0:16:31.450 in episode 4. As a seventh-generation Australian Muslim, his work tackles the 0:16:31.460 --> 0:16:34.360 big themes of what it means to be Australian in 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:36.650 a contemporary multicultural landscape. 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.250 Brett Whiteley was the first artist I was introduced to 0:16:41.260 --> 0:16:45.380 when studying art in high school. He was the Australian name 0:16:45.380 --> 0:16:47.490 that we're all familiar with and we all had some 0:16:47.490 --> 0:16:49.740 idea of the type of work that he produced. 0:16:50.010 --> 0:16:52.240 And did you like his work growing up? Can you 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:55.650 remember your feelings about his work, if you had any? 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.820 I certainly had an aesthetic connection to his work. It's 0:16:58.820 --> 0:17:02.050 an interesting story 'cause that relationship has shifted and changed. The 0:17:02.050 --> 0:17:05.690 first thing that I was introduced to were his 'Zoo' series 0:17:05.690 --> 0:17:08.119 or the ink drawings, the 'Zoo' series. And I remember 0:17:08.130 --> 0:17:12.150 particularly a drawing of a, like a, it would have been a baboon, 0:17:12.150 --> 0:17:14.449 like a very angry looking baboon that I looked at 0:17:14.450 --> 0:17:17.260 in high school, and I was quite enamoured by it. And 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.560 that image has stuck with me ever since I think. 0:17:20.140 --> 0:17:22.110 What is it about the image, the fact that it's 0:17:22.109 --> 0:17:23.699 just so visceral, angry, whatever? 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:26.400 Yeah, there's a way that he painted it. I think, 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.719 in brush marks, the way it was almost a caricature of 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.480 a baboon, but it was very aggressive in the way 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.210 that the baboon was reacting, I guess. And I hadn't 0:17:35.210 --> 0:17:39.100 seen much drawing like that outside of comic books and 0:17:39.100 --> 0:17:41.209 that sort of thing. So I guess that was an 0:17:41.210 --> 0:17:43.389 appeal for me, especially like when I was, like 13 0:17:43.390 --> 0:17:44.770 or 14 when I was looking at it. 0:17:46.340 --> 0:17:49.530 Abdul's recognition in the art world has some similarity with 0:17:49.530 --> 0:17:53.700 Brett's - he's a five-times finalist of the Archibald Prize, a finalist 0:17:53.710 --> 0:17:57.400 of the Wynne landscape prize and Sulman Prize, and he won 0:17:57.400 --> 0:17:59.360 the Blake Prize in 2011. So what does he think when he looks at 'Alchemy'? 0:18:02.500 --> 0:18:05.639 Looking at it, it's sort of, it's hard not to relate it 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:08.629 to recent works that I've done. So I had a 0:18:08.630 --> 0:18:10.570 show at the Armory Show in New York at the 0:18:10.570 --> 0:18:13.750 beginning of the year [2020], which was a multi-panel work that 0:18:13.750 --> 0:18:16.490 went across three walls, sort of all encompassing in a 0:18:16.490 --> 0:18:20.179 similar way that 'Alchemy' is exhibited. And there was a correlation 0:18:20.180 --> 0:18:22.070 in the way that it was made. 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:24.500 It's interesting because if you think about 'Alchemy' and you 0:18:24.500 --> 0:18:27.710 think about some of his other works - obviously, 'Alchemy' is 0:18:27.710 --> 0:18:30.550 a case in point, you know - it has a lot of 0:18:30.550 --> 0:18:33.030 mixed mediums that is in it. He's drawn on it, he's 0:18:33.310 --> 0:18:36.740 put sculptural bits on it, the whole 'kit and caboodle', as 0:18:36.740 --> 0:18:39.070 they say, is part of it. And that's something that 0:18:39.070 --> 0:18:41.460 you also do, to a degree. 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.580 Yeah, I guess I really appreciate the freeness in the 0:18:44.580 --> 0:18:46.929 way that he produces a work. Like the fact that 0:18:46.930 --> 0:18:50.280 he feels unencumbered by a particular medium and he can move 0:18:50.290 --> 0:18:53.550 across things. And what I can really appreciate is the 0:18:53.550 --> 0:18:57.000 idea of him wanting to communicate an idea and not 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:58.970 being limited in the way that he's going to communicate it. 0:18:59.180 --> 0:19:01.710 He's still working on it like a 2D surface was sculptural 0:19:01.710 --> 0:19:05.260 form but there's a freeness to the way that he works 0:19:05.260 --> 0:19:08.010 that I really like and I can really relate to 0:19:08.010 --> 0:19:10.200 in the way that I produce work. I like to 0:19:10.230 --> 0:19:13.820 have an expanded practice in terms of materials and not 0:19:13.820 --> 0:19:17.730 feel sort of tied down or totally married or attached 0:19:17.740 --> 0:19:19.770 to specifically paint. 0:19:20.740 --> 0:19:22.860 When you look at a work like 'Alchemy', it's clear 0:19:22.859 --> 0:19:25.189 that Brett is trying to get something down on the 0:19:25.190 --> 0:19:28.960 canvas or rather, a whole lot of things down. It's 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.670 his story his legacy, of course, that's now interpreted through 0:19:32.670 --> 0:19:35.889 the lens of the current cultural landscape. So as a 0:19:35.890 --> 0:19:39.210 contemporary artist, I'm curious to know where Abdul thinks Brett 0:19:39.220 --> 0:19:40.770 and his legacy fits today. 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:43.550 That's a really interesting question, 'cause I think there's good 0:19:43.550 --> 0:19:46.480 and there's bad. Aand this is only theorising again, I'm 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.170 not telling you how it is, but I don't know 0:19:49.170 --> 0:19:51.369 how it is, but I've got plenty of theories about it, 0:19:51.369 --> 0:19:54.330 and I thought about it a lot, about the legacy 0:19:54.330 --> 0:19:58.290 of an artist like Brett Whitely. And it's difficult to 0:19:58.300 --> 0:20:02.050 separate the man from the from his practice. So to 0:20:02.050 --> 0:20:04.600 isolate those paintings and go, 'This is what they're about'... 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.590 It's hard not to include his life as context for 0:20:07.590 --> 0:20:10.270 that work. But on the other hand, his legacy as 0:20:10.270 --> 0:20:12.330 an Australian artist is, sort of, that lineage has gone 0:20:12.330 --> 0:20:14.080 in all sorts of different ways through art schools and 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.629 the way that people approach... Like I have to, looking at 0:20:16.630 --> 0:20:19.180 his ink drawings of those animals, like that has still 0:20:19.180 --> 0:20:21.530 stuck with me. And every Australian artists that I know 0:20:21.530 --> 0:20:24.970 has been sort of at least, if not directly influenced, 0:20:24.970 --> 0:20:27.680 there's an implicit influence in the way that they make 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:31.170 their work as 'the Australian artist'. There's also that dangerous legacy 0:20:31.170 --> 0:20:33.840 of 'this is what an Australian artist is', this sort 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:36.070 of 'tortured genius', and 'this is what you have to 0:20:36.070 --> 0:20:40.770 be to be an artist', which I think is pretty archaic. 0:20:41.140 --> 0:20:43.239 That was really interesting. This idea that to be an 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:45.780 artist and to have legacy, you have to be kind 0:20:45.780 --> 0:20:48.100 of tortured. Tell me a bit about what your thoughts 0:20:48.100 --> 0:20:48.760 are on that. 0:20:49.340 --> 0:20:52.560 Yeah. Like thinking about the legacy of Brett Whiteley and 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.060 that perception in Australia of what an artist should be 0:20:55.060 --> 0:20:58.250 or how an artist should behave and how you have 0:20:58.250 --> 0:21:00.710 to be that tortured genius to sort of express yourself. 0:21:00.710 --> 0:21:04.050 And for the audience, there is this voyeurism that's attached to it where 0:21:04.050 --> 0:21:07.869 you're seeing almost a person spiralling or act or behaving in a 0:21:07.869 --> 0:21:10.020 way that either they wish they'd want to behave like 0:21:10.020 --> 0:21:12.770 or they could behave like or just out of, like 0:21:14.340 --> 0:21:18.840 watching a rock star damage themselves, and they need to 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.840 be that damaged to create this genius work. But for me, 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:26.720 even the idea of genius is really problematic. That idea 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:31.820 of someone being elevated intellectually or otherwise above everyone else is, 0:21:31.820 --> 0:21:35.350 I think, at it's very base, kind of wrong. And 0:21:36.030 --> 0:21:38.970 as far as legacy, it's hard to say with established 0:21:38.970 --> 0:21:41.090 Australian artists but like, I've you know, spent a lot of 0:21:41.090 --> 0:21:43.620 time in different art schools, and it's funny you're seeing 0:21:43.630 --> 0:21:51.860 especially young male painters like mirroring him and the way 0:21:51.859 --> 0:21:54.860 that he painted - the craziness, the hair, everything about him - 0:21:54.859 --> 0:21:57.770 that was who they wanted to be and who they 0:21:57.770 --> 0:21:59.899 thought they had to be. But I don't know if 0:21:59.900 --> 0:22:02.140 that's necessarily the best way to communicate, and I don't 0:22:02.140 --> 0:22:06.119 know how that fits in the 21st-century context. I think 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:13.770 we are responsible - not that the people then had any less responsibility - 0:22:14.740 --> 0:22:17.050 but we are certainly responsible for everything that we're saying 0:22:17.050 --> 0:22:17.670 that we do. 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:20.659 Do you think we need to create a new legacy? 0:22:20.660 --> 0:22:23.010 And if we do, what kind of new legacy would 0:22:23.010 --> 0:22:24.770 you , could you imagine? 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:31.800 A new legacy? I think artists like Richard Bell are creating a new 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:36.330 legacy for how Australian art is seen, especially how Australian art is 0:22:36.330 --> 0:22:39.189 seen from the outside. Richard Bell is an Aboriginal artist 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:42.540 from Brisbane. He's one of the founding members of a 0:22:42.550 --> 0:22:45.359 collective called ProppaNow , which I think is the best 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:48.200 group of artists, the best group of artists in the country. 0:22:48.210 --> 0:22:51.710 He works mostly with painting, but he's also done a 0:22:51.710 --> 0:22:56.840 lot of video installation. He's travelled a tent embassy, which 0:22:56.840 --> 0:23:01.590 is an artwork but also a point of of protest. 0:23:01.590 --> 0:23:05.030 He calls himself an activist masquerading as an artist, and 0:23:05.030 --> 0:23:09.560 I really like that. His visual literacy, his visual language 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:14.870 is not something that can be copied. And I see him 0:23:14.869 --> 0:23:17.260 as a mentor, but I'm not trying to emulate his 0:23:17.260 --> 0:23:19.550 practice or his language or his style or anything like that. 0:23:19.550 --> 0:23:21.989 I just see him as sort of like someone that 0:23:21.990 --> 0:23:23.970 I could look up to in the way that in 0:23:23.970 --> 0:23:25.560 the way that he practises. And I think that he's 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:28.640 got a lot to offer to the Australian conscience. For me, 0:23:28.650 --> 0:23:31.690 he's the best. Richard's having an exhibition at the Tate 0:23:31.690 --> 0:23:35.980 Modern either next year or the year after, and Brett 0:23:35.980 --> 0:23:38.639 Whiteley was acquired by the Tate Modern, but I can't think of 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:41.220 an Australian artist who's had a solid presentation in a 0:23:41.220 --> 0:23:44.730 space like that. I even joked around with Richard that there's 0:23:44.960 --> 0:23:46.990 an Australian in Venice every two years, but there's never 0:23:46.990 --> 0:23:51.190 been an Australian at the Tate Modern. So this is for 0:23:51.190 --> 0:23:58.270 me is a rawer legacy of Australian art, what Richard represents. His life experiences 0:23:58.270 --> 0:24:03.380 and how he articulates that Australian experience and that uniquely 0:24:03.380 --> 0:24:06.639 Australian experience. I think that is really, really valuable and 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:09.800