A STUDY GUIDE BY MARGUERITE O’HARA http://www.metromagazine.com.au ISBN: 978-1-74295-496-7 http://www.theeducationshop.com.au STUDY GUIDE Overview Australian stand up comedian Hannah Gadsby is a closet Closet art-critic and art scholar. Armed with a rapier wit and desire to pick beneath the paint, she travels across the continent on a stand-up comedian mission to debunk the myths of the Australian Identity as defined by our art canon. If our great works are to be believed, the average Aussie is a bloke in a hat who is Hannah Gadsby hell bent on conquering our gum-tree infested landscape singlehandedly. Why has this mono-vision of Australia is on a mission to persisted for so long? debunk the myths Surely there is more to us than our most famous artworks suggest? From first settlement to Federation to post-mul- ticulturalism, Hannah will forge an irreverent new image of of the Australian who we think we are through a re-examination of Australian art history. By digging a bit deeper and uncovering often- identity perpetuated ignored histories and artists, Hannah will take on these painted white/male clichés to show us a more colourful and by our national art. feminine vision of Australia. Knocking on the studio doors of some of this country’s most interesting contemporary artists, Hannah will engage with a new generation who are determined to break open the ideas of what it means to be Australian. Many of these artists’ works speak directly to our historical canon, chal- lenging its point of view and re-interpreting it to ignite the SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 © ATOM SCREEN EDUCATION issues still haunting our political and cultural landscapes. Hannah Gadsby’s Oz is a documentary series of three half-hour episodes that looks at how Australian identity has been represented in our art. As Hannah says, ‘if you’re not a white man in a hat you might struggle to see yourself in the Australian art story’. 2 Curriculum Guidelines Hannah Gadsby’s Oz takes a refreshingly clear-eyed, origi- nal and humorous look at what Australian art really says about Australian identity, challenging many of our precon- ceptions. The construction of a single national identity is complex and probably ultimately pointless because of the diversity of our ethnic, religious and cultural makeup. While there has never been so much discussion about what it means to be Australian, equally there have never been so many varied responses to this question. However, many people seem to have a view about what is ‘un-Australian’. The outback, the bush, the slouch hat, ANZACs, wool, documentary specials for Artscape, Hannah Gadsby Goes wheat and gold are not the only images and historical Domestic (2010) and The NGV Story (2011). touchstones in the construction of identity although a sur- vey of Australian art from white settlement to the latter part Gadsby grew up in the small town of Smithton in Tasmania, of the 20th century might well suggest this. The chang- the youngest of five children, and graduated from the ing subject matter and styles of art in Australia tell a story Australian National University in 2004 with a Bachelor of Art about who had the power and how they thought Australian History and Curatorship. identity should be identified, imaged and understood. Inter- rogating the validity of these images is important. She quickly rose to prominence as a stand-up comedian after winning the national final of the Raw Comedy The program would be suitable for middle and senior competition for new comedians in 2006. She has toured secondary students studying Australian History, Culture internationally and appeared on Australian and New and Society, Visual Arts subjects including Art History and Zealand television including the ABC’s Spicks and Specks. most importantly Philosophy where fundamental questions Most recently she has worked on Adam Hills’ television about how we construct identity can be explored. Hannah program Adam Hills Tonight, contributing her own laconic Gadsby is an excellent guide and makes artworks acces- take and observations on the guests and topics discussed. sible and interesting. Hannah Gadsby’s performances are often described as ‘self-deprecating’, a rare quality in any performer. Who is Hannah Gadsby? Who’s telling the story? Hannah Gadsby’s website describes her as ‘Comedian/ Writer/Art Lady’. Although Hannah is best known for her We rarely recall events from our past in similar ways. How comedy work, she also combines her comedy talents with your best friend remembers the events on a day a few her art qualifications (she has a degree in Art History and years back when you went out together may well be quite Curatorship) by presenting comedy art tours in conjunction unlike your memories. Who’s telling the story, who to and with the National Gallery of Victoria. Since 2009, Gadsby has why? presented tours with themes such as paintings of the Holy Virgin, Dadaism, Modernism, Impressionism and the nude in There are many different ways to look at art and despite the art. Gadsby also gives talks on art and opens exhibitions. often repeated ‘I know what I like’ in relation to artworks, it does help to know something about the people and society Sold out for five years in a row, Hannah’s informatively hilari- (place and time) where the art was created. Interpreting a ous National Gallery of Victoria shows have developed a cult country’s history through its art including paintings, draw- following. In 2014 she remounted three of her classic NGV ings, sculpture, architecture or photography can be tricky. Art Lectures including Nakedy Nudes and Mary Contrary which was run fittingly on Easter Saturday in April, 2014. Our perceptions, responses and artistic representations You can watch Hannah’s history of the NGV program inevitably reflect our background, life experiences and broadcast on the ABCs Artscape program on the ABC education. Most art reflects the place, period and social website at: and cultural attitudes where the work was produced. In SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 © ATOM SCREEN EDUCATION societies where women and people of races other than the http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s3225814. dominant one are considered to be of little value and/or htm interest, then they are unlikely to figure large, if at all, in the country’s artworks. Sometimes they have a decorative role Before making Hannah Gadsby’s Oz but often they are simply airbrushed from visual and other she has written and presented two records. 3 KEY CREDITS DIRECTOR Matthew Bate WRITERS Hannah Gadsby and Matthew Bate those early years. At the same time the lives and achieve- ments of women rarely appear in paintings of the bush and PRODUCER Rebecca Summerton the people who lived and worked in Australia during the EDITOR David Scarborough first 150 years of white settlement, whether Indigenous or not. The purpose of art was to glorify and celebrate white SHOOTING DIRECTOR Dimi Poultiotis men’s achievements in ‘civilising’ and taming the country CINEMATOGRAPHER Nima Nabili Rad they had found and claimed as their own. COMPOSER Benjamin Speed Artistic and literary canons are as dependent on what work MOTION GRAPHICS Raynor Pettge has survived as they are on the cultural mores and views of the society at the time. Survival depends on being valued ART HISTORY CONSULTANT Lisa Slade and a bit of luck. Canons are also increasingly dependent on who is good at promoting works regarded as important, Someone from a non-Anglo background is likely to respond classical, iconic or seminal. Who will figure in a 21st century very differently to Australian art as an account of Austral- canon of Australian art? ian identity, particularly to work created in the time after white settlement, than someone from a British background. Whose history is reflected in colonial paintings from the The Director’s statement 18th and 19th centuries? Mostly these paintings are land- scapes or ceremonial portraits of men by males from an My family migrated to Australia from the North of English background. England in 1980 when I was 7. I remember cry- ing when we flew into our new home in Adelaide How far do the outback scenes of Russell Drysdale with because I felt utterly betrayed by the descriptions their desolate landscapes and sunburnt men and women I’d been given about what the place would be like. really reflect Australian identity? Is the true Aussie the Where were the blokes in cork hats called Bruce? sunburnt surfer or the Anzac? How accurately do any of Why was there a city where the desert should be? these well-known images reflect the reality of the lives of Why were there no koalas and kangaroos hopping Australians? across the tarmac as our 747 landed? Winston Churchill is credited with the observation that 33 years later I’m still bemused by Australia’s obses- ‘History is written by the victors’. While there is truth in this sion with defining itself outside of these clichés. statement in relation to who won and lost wars, it is equally The Australian art canon has done very little to help true about western colonisers’ destructive impacts on the portray Australians as anything more than bush- native cultures of the countries and continents they con- dwelling blokes called Bruce. But this series looks quered. As paintings were generally of the landscape (and to irreverently expose these canonical clichés, to sometimes of people) seen through the eyes and brushes discover the overlooked stories of artists who have of the colonists, it is inevitable that crimes against the created a more inclusive portrait of Australia.