Revisioning Australia's War Art: Four Painters As Citizens Of

humanities

Essay Revisioning Australia’s War Art: Four Painters as Citizens of the ‘Global South’

Lyndell Brown 1, Charles Green 1, Jon Cattapan 2 and Paul Gough 3,*

1 School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Melbourne VIC 3010, Australia; [email protected] (L.B.); [email protected] (C.G.) 2 Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Melbourne VIC 3006, Australia; [email protected] 3 College of Design and Social Context, RMIT University, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +61-408-131-505

Received: 29 January 2018; Accepted: 12 April 2018; Published: 17 April 2018

Abstract: This essay discusses the recent artistic depictions of contemporary war by four artist-academics based in Australia. The families of all four have served in some of the twentieth century’s major conflicts and, more recently, each has been commissioned in Australia or the UK to serve as war artists. Collaboratively and individually they produce artwork (placed in national collections) and then, as academics, have come to reflect deeply on the heritage of conflict and war by interrogating contemporary art’s representations of war, conflict and terror. This essay reflects on their collaborations and suggests how Australia’s war-aware, even war-like heritage, might now be re-interpreted not simply as a struggle to safeguard our shores, but as part of a complex, deeply connected global discourse where painters must re-cast themselves as citizens of the ‘global South’.

Keywords: contemporary art; Ofﬁcial War Artists; Australian War Memorial; painting; photography; global South

1. Locating War Art within World Pictures In 1928, Australian painter Will Longstaff’s celebrated large, black painting, Menin Gate at Midnight (1927), toured Australia to stupendous acclaim and astonishing scenes of public reverence. The painting—immediately purchased and donated to the emergent Australian War Memorial—depicts the moonlit Menin Gate memorial that had opened in 1927, ten years after the horrific battles near Ypres in Belgium during which thousands of young Australians were killed or maimed. It represents the vision that possessed Longstaff during a night walk along the Menin Road in which he ‘saw’ (under ‘psychic influence’) the ghosts of the dead marching in endless lines (McQueen 1979, p. 98). But Menin Gate at Midnight neither conformed to traditional expectations that war art should depict acts of martial heroism or portray heroes, nor was it artistically experimental, by which we mean that, like almost all the Australian war art painted after World War One, it ignored the modernist art that had long been produced all across Europe and which, by 1927 and most famously in Weimar Germany, had resulted in savage experiments in form and language, triggered by the same horrors that had inspired Menin Gate at Midnight. This same modernist art would come to relegate works like Longstaff’s to deep storage, except in war museums (Anderson 2012). Longstaff’s fate could so easily have been shared by Iraqi war artist Dia al-Azzawi (born 1939) who might, until the 21st century, have been categorized as a mere adapter of Picasso. However, the wisdom of distance from New York’s hegemony permits space to absorb and appreciate the eclecticism of al-Azzawi’s great paintings of contemporary war, such as Sabra and Shatila Massacre (1982–1983). Indeed, his earlier works about conflict during the 1950s and 1960s, are arguably deliberate, abrasive and edgy, like New Yorker Leon Golub’s paintings from the same decades. They now seem as far from

Humanities 2018, 7, 37; doi:10.3390/h7020037 www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities Humanities 2018, 7, 37 2 of 12 belated as Golub’s abrasive paintings of torturers and victims of the 1960s and 1970s, and both Golub and al-Azzawi have been similarly re-valued over the last couple of decades. But we are now in the midst of an epochal transformation of the history of art and its canon, and two key facets of this are, first, the discovery that the story of modern art is global, not concentrated first in Paris and then in New York, and, second, the emergent definition of the succeeding period of art as contemporary. The ideas of modernism and postmodernism did not explain or communicate the changes that ensued from the end of the Cold War in 1989: the era of globalization, the spread of integrated electronic culture, the dominance of economic neoliberalism, the appearance of new types of armed and terrorist conflict, and the change in each nation’s place in the world. All of this suggests the emergence of a new cultural period, and not necessarily a better one (Green 2001). From this proceeds the contention that the new and controversial terms that located art as contemporary—terms that include place making, connectivity and, for our purposes most crucially, world picturing—override older distinctions based on style, medium, and ideology that had dominated art and art theory during the modernist period. This is, more or less, the argument that has been developed most influentially by Terry Smith and Peter Osborne, each framing the contention slightly differently (Smith 2009; Osborne 2013). But this is not all: the artists have come to understand that art during the contemporary period has been indelibly marked by the conditions of war around the globe, and this situation stretches at least back to WW1 and modern art. So how to proceed? Understanding and communicating war’s increasing centrality within both the modern and contemporary periods requires a new approach to both making art and writing: it requires a bottom-up approach to local art histories, defying the tendency of art history’s most senior international scholars to expect only derivative art in distant centres and who label it according to fixed ideas of how art would develop (i.e., the canonical textbook of the modern and contemporary periods). Bois et al.(2004) is guilty of this. Instead, we must seek out transnational, lateral contacts and resonances between artists and across borders, for this is the fact, not the exception, regardless of the fact that we seem hard-wired to think nationally in increasingly redundant silos (even as nationalisms surge again). As Reiko Tomii writes, “it becomes an important task for world art historians to seek out and examine linkable ‘contact points’ of geohistory” (Tomii 2016, p. 16). She asks, how can we create transnational art histories that bridge the inevitable silo of national art history, connecting the local to the global? For a start, she answers, ‘It cannot be overstated that the more global we want to be in our investigation, the more local we need to be in our attention’ (Tomii 2016, p. 15). Connections can be obvious, but the resonances that we can retroactively find have been all too often willfully dismissed as mere evidence of belated influence by arbiters at the metropolitan centre or their local apologists (Barker and Green 2011). Instead, she offers the following method: ‘As a foundational tool, comparison of connections and resonances create contact points that puncture the established Eurocentric narrative’ (Tomii 2016, p. 22). These would be, as she argues here, the building blocks of a world art history that is truly transnational. They require re-examining moments in art history and narrating them anew. We live in the period of contemporaneity, which has succeeded modernism, and through this revised lens we can now reassess the artistic potential of war art (and Longstaff) which the artists under analysis here have participated in. Several other artists are of course addressing these concerns—Ben Quilty, Shaun Gladwell, Richard Mosse and many others—so within that larger, disparate and complex field we present our own projects as a microcosm of a globally-emergent theme, rather than through the normal curatorial and art-theoretical lenses—which are bounded by but strain at the edges of the discipline of art theory—of twenty-first century art. Working individually and collaboratively, the four artists discussed here have come together over the last few years to devise a sequence of projects that aimed to intervene in the discourse of contemporary art through the re-visualisation of war. They aimed to do this in disparate ways, and the variation of the results means that for this essay they refer to these projects and to themselves in the third person—he or she or they—even though the art historical understandings that the artists arrived at were shared. Furthermore, they deliberately eschew a detailed explanation of Humanities 2018, 7, 37 3 of 12 the topographies and iconographies displayed in their paintings and photographs, wishing to avoid the documentary role of illustrators and rejecting an artist’s inferior status to a writer. This is art. The works speak for themselves through their affect and resonance. The artists wished to convert images of the vast battles, the battlefields and the memorial sites in which Australians fought 100 years ago, into works of art that would be unequivocally contemporary and that would communicate a different (and in a different way equally respectful) understanding of the significance of Menin Gate to that of Longstaff. Their projects took, as it turned out, a deliberative, longitudinal turn. Instead of reifying the perspective that insists on the crucible of singular nationhood through war, they found a need for a longer and wider perspective that links the wars of 1917 to 2017 and which firmly placed Australia’s soldiers with their comrades from across what is now referred to as the global South—meaning sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, South East Asia, Oceania and South America, often colonized by European powers—including the hundreds of thousands of Indian troops who fought alongside Australians (men and women), and also their erstwhile foes. This is because the postcolonial and anti-colonial dimension of the great European World Wars has been an exciting dimension of war art, was often absent in its art histories, and was even largely ignored in post World War Two art histories until recently (Enwezor et al. 2016). Pankaj Mishra, who chronicles the continuous history of anti-colonial movements across Asia from the 18th century onwards, brings together the panorama of many scholars’ research currently underway on the long history of anti-colonialism (Mishra 2012). The four artists seized on and mobilized the artistic potential of two increasingly anachronistic methodologies that have been the technologies of historians and geographers, not artists. In summary, they began the process of constructing an atlas of global conflict in which Australia had been involved that links cause and effect from one theatre of conflict to another. Brown, Green and Cattapan made photographs and paintings across battlefield sites from the Vietnam War and ruined Australian bases in Vietnam, and worked at massacre sites together in Timor-Leste, which had been the site of an Australian-led United Nations intervention against retreating, genocidal Indonesian militias in 1996. That conflict, incidentally, had been the trigger for the reincarnation of the Australian Official War Artist program, reflecting long-standing Australian guilt about its responsibility for East Timorese suffering. In so doing, their project aimed to shift Australians’ understandings toward seeing a century-long and unmistakably global aftermath of war from WW1 to the present, for example in their jointly-authored large painting, Scatter (Santa Cruz), 2014, which was based on photographs and watercolours, looking across humble graves at dusk, that the trio commenced in the Dili cemetery where Indonesia troops massacred Timorese students in 1993. The intention was to create images of contemporary war’s continuous duration. The painting took a wide and long historical context, taking into account Australia’s geographical and historical position in the globe’s South. This project would help re-imagine, according to the artists, Australia’s heritage of conflict and war by imagining its residues, traces and long-lingering ghosts; the visceral veil of red paint occluding the view of Scatter’s graveyard does that. Through their reflective practices this group of painters is demonstrating that Australia’s war—even its war-like heritage—could now be re-interpreted not simply as a struggle to safeguard our shores—in portraits of soldiers or citizens—but as part of a complex, deeply connected global discourse where we, as Australians, would now re-cast ourselves as citizens of the ‘global South’ by visualizing the combinatory timelines of history that, added together, are a less-than-jingoistic and anti-nationalist portrait of Australian history. Through collaborative, practice-led research, and a more recent alliance with Gough, the artists seek to open up new perspectives on our national narrative within which the Western Front and 1917 begin to loom larger and larger.

2. Locating Practice within the Arena of Public and Museum Commissions Jon Cattapan and Lyndell Brown & Charles Green (who have both worked together as one artist since 1989) (Figures1 and2) share the rare and signiﬁcant esteem of having been Australian War Artists. Brown and Green were deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq in 2007, whilst Cattapan’s tour to Timor Humanities 2018, 7, 37 4 of 12

Leste took place in 2008. Brown was the ﬁrst woman to be deployed into a theatre of active war as an

AustralianHumanities War Artist. 2018, 7, x PaulFOR PEER Gough, REVIEWa British painter and academic who moved to Australia4 of 12 in 2014, has a long association with the military. All four produce artworks (placed in national collections) and, Humanities 2018, 7, x FOR PEER REVIEW 4 of 12 as academicsin 2014, (at the has Universitya long association of Melbourne with the military. and RMIT All four University, produce artworks Melbourne), (placed in reflect national deeply (and collections) and, as academics (at the University of Melbourne and RMIT University, Melbourne), in 2014, has a long association with the military. All four produce artworks (placed in national publish widely)reflect deeply on the (and heritage publishof widely) conflict on the and heritage warby of conflict interrogating and war by contemporary interrogating contemporary art’s representations collections) and, as academics (at the University of Melbourne and RMIT University, Melbourne), of war, conflictart’s representations and terror ( Brownof war, conflict and Green and terror 2008 (Brown). and Green 2008). reflect deeply (and publish widely) on the heritage of conflict and war by interrogating contemporary art’s representations of war, conflict and terror (Brown and Green 2008).

Figure 1. Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, The Dark Wood, 2011, digital print and oil on canvas, Figure 1. 121Lyndell × 121 cm. Brown and Charles Green, The Dark Wood, 2011, digital print and oil on canvas, Figure 1. Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, The Dark Wood, 2011, digital print and oil on canvas, 121 × 121 cm. 121 × 121 cm.

Figure 2. Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, Outpost, 2011, oil on linen, 170 × 170 cm. Figure 2. Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, Outpost, 2011, oil on linen, 170 × 170 cm. Figure 2. Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, Outpost, 2011, oil on linen, 170 × 170 cm.

Since the late 1980s, war museums, most notably the Imperial War Museum in the United Kingdom, began commissioning contemporary artists who moved beyond traditional expectations that war art should depict martial action and valour. Canada, New Zealand and Australia moved in Humanities 2018, 7, 37 5 of 12 this direction, though the United Kingdom has arguably the most well-established radical agenda, having commissioned artists such as Denis Masi (who in 1984 was the first artist-in-residence at the Imperial War Museum) and Stuart Brisley (residency in 1987), as well as those who work in teams, such as Langland & Bell (commissioned in 2002) and artist Yinka Shonibare’s collaboration with composer David Lang, commissioned to commemorate the great battles and tragedies of 1914–1918 (during 2018). Similarly, museums such as In Flanders Fields in Ypres have maintained an equally innovative agenda through a program of international artist residencies. By 2007, following the reincarnation in 1996 of the Official Artist Scheme after a hiatus of several decades, the Australian War Memorial (AWM) began to commission art that was unequivocally contemporary and to seek art that ranged beyond traditionally observational painting. This commenced in 2007 with the commission of Charles Green and Lyndell Brown, (deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq), which incorporated mural-sized colour photography, and continued with the appointment of painter Jon Cattapan (to Timor Leste) in 2008, followed by video artist Shaun Gladwell in 2009, and moving by 2016 toward the idea of war art commissions by international artists, such as Turkish video artist Koken Ergun. Gough’s work has a similarly global reach and is in the permanent collections of war museums in the UK, Canada and New Zealand. All four Australian artist-academics have been deeply engaged in contemporary debates on war art. Cattapan, Brown and Green are the only Australian-born academics within any Australian university to have worked as war artists, whether they are officially sponsored or not (Green et al. 2015). Furthermore, the four artist-academics are also united by familial links with the military and are all implicated in complex webs of war: Green’s French grandfather was gassed and severely wounded on the Western Front in the Great War. In the Second World War his painter father was an army mapmaker, his commando-uncle was killed in battle, and his other uncle fought in Palestine and then in New Guinea. Cattapan’s father was an Italian soldier who hid at Castelfranco Veneto to escape German soldiers at the end of World War Two. Gough’s uncle was in a Royal Artillery battery that was evacuated from Dunkirk while he later served under General Slim in the Far East. Gough grew up in an extended army family based in British Empire garrisons across the UK, Europe and Central America (Gough 2015). This all adds up. It suggests that 1917 (and the Western Front) inhabits 2017, along with World War Two, and that the group of painters’ unexpectedly intense family experiences of war are potentially indexical of wider chronicles with world significance. This is the key framework that drives the painterly enquiry and its parallel contextual and critical framing.

3. The Practice: Works from Timor Leste, Iraq and Afghanistan Briefly Explored As Australia’s 63rd official war artist, Cattapan joined a peacekeeping force in Timor Leste in 2008. During his period on commission the country was relatively stable, though security remained high and intelligence gathering continued apace. In accepting the commission there was a clear understanding that he was not in any way expected to proselytise on behalf of the Australian Defence Forces. Indeed, he was free to produce any art that he wished, just like Lyndell Brown and Charles Green the year before. Christine Conley(2014) writing on contemporary Canadian artists embedded within the Canadian military, has explained the same frank, free instructions to artists: the Canadian war art program, like the Australian Official Artist commissions, allows their artists to work freely without any requirement to produce work that represents the Canadian military in any specific or propagandistic way. Instead, Cattapan was given license to explore contemporary soldiering through his particular predilections as an artist. This provided a rich and timely opportunity, which ultimately steered his aesthetics and social rationale for a decade. It also gave him an opportunity to interrogate ways of picturing surveillance: Humanities 2018, 7, 37 6 of 12

Humanities 2018, 7, x FOR PEER REVIEW 6 of 12 I asked for and received access to night-vision technology, I found an extraordinarily simple I asked for and received access to night-vision technology, I found an extraordinarily simple but effective way to re-cast my work through those deep luminous fields of green and but effective way to re-cast my work through those deep luminous fields of green and heightened figures captured in night-vision . . . heightened figures captured in night-vision… When you go out at night—andnight—and it’s very still and it’s very dark because there’s very little ststreetreet lighting—therelighting—there is this sensesense ofof thethe unexpectedunexpected ...… this sortsort ofof slightslight anticipationanticipation ...… Those night vision goggles ...… hadhad that that glowing glowing green green look look which which automatically automatically says to you surveillance, military … . . . covert, covert, potential potential danger danger.. (Cattapan (Cattapan 2010,2010, p. p. 2) 2) Given that Timor Leste was a ‘low-tempo’ ‘low-tempo’ deployment, Cattapan was permitted to follow Australian soldiers on night patrol. Over time, during these clandestine activities he made sequences of photographs photographs using using a makeshift a makeshift arrangement arrangement of camera of camera and night-vision and night-vision monocle. monocle. At times At random, times random,even haphazard, even haphazard, this investigative this investigative method resulted method in a resulted range of inrich a luminous range of richimages, luminous deeply images, imbued withdeeply a senseimbued of uneasewith a sense brought of aboutunease by brought the limited about field by the of vision limited that field night of vision that goggles night produce vision (gogglesBrown etproduce al. 2014 (Brown). Reviewing et al. the2014). resulting Reviewing body the of photographs resulting body from of Timorphotographs Leste, Cattapan from Timor confessed Leste, Cattapanto being taken confessed aback to by being the sense taken of aback imminent by the danger sense contained of imminent in those danger unearthly contained illuminations in those (unearthlyJohnston 2015illuminations). (Johnston 2015). This forebodingforeboding moodmood informed informed the the cycle cycle of of paintings paintings made made on hison returnhis return to Melbourne. to Melbourne. The large The largeand highly and highly significant significant triptych, triptych,Night Patrols,Night Patrols, Maliana Maliana(2009), is(2009), a compendium is a compendium work that work conflates that conflatesmany of themany patrols of the and patrols nocturnal and nocturnal places into places something into something of a spectral of a spectral gathering. gathering. We see We similar see pictorialsimilar pictorial concerns concerns addressed address in theed triptychin the triptychNight Figures,Night Figures, Gleno Gleno(Figure (Figure3). ‘The 3). paintings‘The paintings in this in thisseries,’ series,’ one one reviewer reviewer wrote, wrote, ‘are ‘are imbued imbued with with notions notions of anxiety of anxiety and and surveillance, surveillance, and and evoke evoke in the in viewerthe viewer feelings feelings of voyeurism of voyeurism and and invasion invasion of privacy.’ of privacy.’ The soldiersThe soldiers are observers are observers but are but also are being also beingobserved. observed. As they As roam they theroam benighted the benighted villages villages they too they are too being are scrutinised being scrutinised and followed and followed by unseen by unseeneyes. Luminous eyes. Luminous and larger and larger than life,than the life, soldiers the soldiers seem seem at odds at odds with with the unfamiliarthe unfamiliar land, land, with with its itsuncanny uncanny vivid vivid greens greens and and tracery tracery of of dots dots and and lines. lines. Every Every effort effort at at integrationintegration andand communication seems to be frustrated by their very alien presence, accentuated by their their virulent virulent painterly painterly difference difference (Green et al. 2015,, pp.pp. 168–73).168–73).

Figure 3. Jon Cattapan, Night Figures (Gleno),(Gleno), 2009,2009, oiloil andand acrylicacrylic onon linen,linen, 180180 ×× 250 cm.cm. Private Collection. Courtesy: Station, Station, Melbourne.

For over twenty years, Cattapan has has been evolving evolving his his painterly painterly technique technique of of dots dots and and lines, lines, trails, tracks and registration marks. They represent codes, maps, or systems of unknown data. In the ‘war‘war paintings’paintings’ thethe spider web of lines were copied copied from from contour contour maps maps of of Timor Timor-Leste-Leste and the nearby nearby border country. This calligraphic language seems ideally suited to the heavily codified codiﬁed and calibrated space of the militarised lan landscape.dscape. Yet Yet these rich paintings of Timor also speak of a tension between knowing and unknowing, hinting (as the curators of the Australian War Memorial acknowledge) at the ‘complex problems faced by peacekeepers as they try to communicate with people and integrate into their surroundings’. They describe a tense vision of potential danger and covert movement.

Humanities 2018, 7, 37 7 of 12 the ‘complex problems faced by peacekeepers as they try to communicate with people and integrate into their surroundings’. They describe a tense vision of potential danger and covert movement. One year earlier, in March 2007, collaborative artists Lyndell Brown and Charles Green were embedded for six weeks in a succession of war zones across the Middle East, Afghanistan, and the PersianHumanities Gulf as 2018 Australian, 7, x FOR PEER Official REVIEW War Artists sponsored by the Australian War Memorial.7 of 12 There, in large, mural-sized colour photographs, they recorded the activities and experiences of the Australian One year earlier, in March 2007, collaborative artists Lyndell Brown and Charles Green were troops in a range of military bases, which were often part of larger US operations and compounds. embedded for six weeks in a succession of war zones across the Middle East, Afghanistan, and the BrownPersian and Gulf Green as Australian have beenOfficial creating War Artists paintings sponsored and by photographicthe Australian War works Memorial. together There, since in 1989. Seizinglarge, thisunique mural-sized opportunity colour photographs, to collect they and recorded later paint the activities images and of contemporary experiences of the history, Australian they wrote of theirtroops encounters in a ran andge of impressions military bases, in which Iraq: were often part of larger US operations and compounds. Brown and Green have been creating paintings and photographic works together since 1989. WeSeizing were lookingthis unique for opportunity landscapes to ofcollect globalisation and later paint and images entropy. of contemporary We thought hi thisstory, is whatthey wrote it must beof like, their and encounters it was. and Military impressions bases in are Iraq: a study in grey and vastness. It’s worth remembering, of course,We were that welooking aren’t for documentarylandscapes of globalisation photographers and entropy. nor is thatWe thought our task, this even is what though it our work mightmust be resemble like, and that. it was. We’re Military artists, bases and are our a study only in responsibility grey and vastness. is to our It’s worthown artistic conscience.remembering, Gradually, of cou werse, know that thatwe aren’t other documentary images from photographers different times nor is and that places our task, will creep back in.even For though the moment, our work might though, resemble this portraitthat. We’re of artists, force, and of theour hardonly responsibility edge of globalisation, is to is whatour possesses own artistic us. conscience. (Brown and Gradually, Green we 2007 know) that other images from different times and places will creep back in. For the moment, though, this portrait of force, of the hard edge of Their responseglobalisation, to their is what period possesses in and us. ( aroundBrown and the Green ‘front’ 2007 line) was a suite of contemplative, realist paintings and,Their by response contrast, to painterlytheir period photographs in and around of the the ‘front’ paraphernalia line was a suite and of infrastructure contemplative, ofrealist a nebulous new warfare—hugepaintings and, bases,by contrast, hardware painterly technologies, photographs fleets of the of paraphernalia armoured vehicles,and infrastructure soldiers of preparing a for patrol.nebulous In one new painting warfare a— troupehuge bases, of American hardware drone technologies, pilots fleets high of in armoured the Afghan vehicles, mountains soldiers proudly showedpreparing off their for weird patrol. craft; In one in anotherpainting a troupe squadron of American of attack drone helicopters pilots high isin neatlythe Afghan parked mountains inside a huge proudly showed off their weird craft; in another a squadron of attack helicopters is neatly parked inside a huge compound, immortalized in The Dark Palace 1, 2011 (Figure4). At the intersection of landscape, culture, compound, immortalized in The Dark Palace 1, 2011 (Figure 4). At the intersection of landscape, culture, and technology,and technol theseogy, these gravely gravely quiet, quiet, almost almost frozen frozen fragments fragments of conflict of conflict were, as were, the artists as the noted, artists ‘a noted, ‘a portraitportrait of force, of force, of theof the hard hard edge edge ofof globalisation’ (Brown (Brown and andGreen Green 2008). 2008 ).

Figure 4. Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, The Dark Palace 1, 2011, oil on linen, 151 × 151 cm. Figure 4. Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, The Dark Palace 1, 2011, oil on linen, 151 × 151 cm. Private collection. Private collection. The enormous weight of military might, its unimaginable scale alongside the absence of a Thediscernible enormous front weight-line, combined of military with the might, numbing its repetitiveness unimaginable of the scale machineries alongside of war, the made absence a of a discernibledirect front-line, impact on their combined normal habits with theof representation. numbing repetitiveness As a result, their of method the machineries became to work of war, with made a

Humanities 2018, 7, 37 8 of 12 direct impact on their normal habits of representation. As a result, their method became to work with a near-documentary objectivity, creating what appeared to be ‘neutral’ photographs of silence and stillness, and a suite of literal and extremely austere paintings. The entire cycle of paintings, prints and photographs shows Brown and Green tending toward unconnected vignettes, sequential formats, and a near-static sense of display. However, the compositions are never single-dimensional. Superimposed and lain over their strange configurations are the cultures and histories at the heart of the conflict. There is a significant discourse that explores the topographies of emptiness in militarized spaces. Gough has explored this phenomenon in his paintings, publications and recent photo-montages, tracing its articulation Humanities 2018, 7, x FOR PEER REVIEW 8 of 12 beyond 1918 when the British writer Reginald Farrer stared across the lunar face of No Man’s Land and recogniseda near that-documentary it was wholly objectivity, misleading creating what to appeared regard to the be ‘neutral’ ‘huge, photographs haunted solitude’of silence and of the modern battlefield asstillness, empty. and ‘It a is’ suite he of argued, literal and ‘more extremely full austere of emptiness paintings. ... an emptiness that is not really empty The entire cycle of paintings, prints and photographs shows Brown and Green tending toward at all’ (Farrerunconnected 1918 , p. 113). vignettes, sequential formats, and a near-static sense of display. However, the compositions are never single-dimensional. Superimposed and lain over their strange configurations Severalare painters, the cultures most and histories famously at the Paul heart Nash,of the conflict. adopted There and is a significant extended discourse Farrer’s that explores reading of the new facetheof topographies war, and of posited emptiness the in militarized notionof spaces. a ‘Void Gough of has War’ explored as a this means phenomenon of re-determining in his the invertedpaintings, spatiality publications of and the recent modern photo- battlefield.montages, tracing Nash its articulation and others beyond embraced 1918 when this the spatial British writer Reginald Farrer stared across the lunar face of No Man’s Land and recognised that it inversion:was populatingwholly misleading its emptinessto regard the ‘huge, with haunted latent violence,solitude’ of the marveling modern battlefield at its awesome as empty. ‘It potency, and depictingis’ he argued, it as‘more a full place of emptiness… haunted an by emptiness sublime that is qualities. not really empty (Gough at all’ (Farrer 2017 1918,) As p. 113). Brown and Green hadSeveral seen inpainters, Iraq, most the famously militarised Paul Nash, terrain adopted is notand extended so much Farrer’s a landscape reading of the as the same, uncanny ‘paradoxnew face of of war, measurable and posited the nothingness’ notion of a ‘Void of of World War’ as War a means 1 ( Weirof re-determining 2007, p. 43).the ‘Our aim’, inverted spatiality of the modern battlefield. Nash and others embraced this spatial they have written,inversion: populating ‘was an apparentits emptiness neutrality with latent violence, and objectivity marveling at its as awesome the means potency, for creating a powerful visionand depicting of overall it as a place clarity haunted and by sublime focus qualities. (but not (Gough necessarily 2017) As Brown the truth)and Green in the midst of chaotic ruination’had seen in Iraq, (Green the militarised et al. terrain2015, is p.not so 170). much Thisa landscape aim as is the manifest same, uncanny in very recent ‘paradox of measurable nothingness’ of World War 1 (Weir 2007, p. 43). ‘Our aim’, they collaborativehave paintings written, ‘was such an apparent as Spook neutrality Country and (Maliana) objectivity as(Figure the means5). for In creating contrast, a Afghan National Armypowerful Perimeter vision Postof overall with clarity Chair, and Tarin focus Kowt,(but not Uruzgan necessarily Province, the truth) in Afghanistan the midst of , 2007–2008 (Figure6), showschaotic aruination’ guard ( postGreen at et al. the 2015 edge, p. 170). ofan This enormous aim is manifest base in very in therecent mountains collaborative of southern paintings such as Spook Country (Maliana) (Figure 5). In contrast, Afghan National Army Afghanistan.Perimeter The photograph Post with Chair, wasTarin takenKowt, Uruzgan in late Province, afternoon Afghanistan with,raking, 2007–2008 warm (Figure light 6), throwing the scene intoshows sharp a guard focus. post at But the the edge view of an is enormous one of base highly in the composed mountains of decay southern and entropy: a guard postAfghanistan. made of The old photograph shipping was containers; taken in late afternoon broken with office raking, chairs warm like light sculptures throwing atop the the scene into sharp focus. But the view is one of highly composed decay and entropy: a containers;guard jagged post blue made mountainsof old shipping from containers; which broken the office Taliban chairs probe like scul theptures base’s atop the edges; a war zone out ofcontainers; control jagged thatwas blue mountains to revert from to Talibanwhich the controlTaliban probe the momentthe base’s edges; that a Western war troops evacuated azone few out years of control afterwards. that was to revert to Taliban control the moment that Western troops evacuated a few years afterwards.

Figure 5. Lyndell Brown/Charles Green and Jon Cattapan, Spook Country (Maliana), 2014, oil and Figure 5. Lyndellacrylic on Brown/Charles linen, 185 × 250 cm. Private Green collection. and Jon Courtesy: Cattapan, ARC OneSpook Gallery Country and Station.(Maliana), 2014, oil and acrylic on linen, 185 × 250 cm. Private collection. Courtesy: ARC One Gallery and Station. Humanities 2018, 7, 37 9 of 12 Humanities 2018, 7, x FOR PEER REVIEW 9 of 12

Figure 6. LyndellLyndell BrownBrown and and Charles Charles Green, Green,Afghan Afghan National National Army Army Perimeter Perimeter Post Post with with Chair, Chair, Tarin Tarin Kowt, Kowt,Uruzgan Uruzgan Province, Province, Afghanistan Afghanistan, 2007–2008,, 2007 editioned–2008, editioned digital colour digital photograph, colour photograph, inkjet print inkjet on rag print paper, on rag111.5 paper,× 151.5 111.5 cm. × Collection 151.5 cm. National Collection Gallery National of Victoria. Gallery Courtesy: of Victoria. ARC Courtesy: One Gallery, ARC Melbourne. One Gallery, Melbourne. Few have defined the diffuse spatiality of the post-modern battlefield better than Australian War Few have defined the diffuse spatiality of the post-modern battlefield better than Australian War Memorial curator Warwick Heywood: Memorial curator Warwick Heywood: Brown and Green’ s abstracted, ruined world represents the obscure dimensions of the Iraq and Afghanistan Afghanistan conflicts conflicts that that exist exist between between globalised, globalised, military systems,military severe systems, landscapes severe landscapesand frontier and mythology. frontier mythology. (Heywood 2008(Heywood, p. 54) 2008, p. 54) “It is”, he he continues, continues, “a “a highly highly complex complex and and imaginary imaginary realm realm that that is is echoed echoed in in the the larger larger political, political, operational and technological dimensions of these obscure, but omnipresent, wars.” And wars whose genealogy goes goes straight straight back back to to World World War One, when manymany ofof thethe artificialartificial colonial borders now ignored within war war zones were created. In In 2017, 2017, Brown Brown and and Green Green were approached for another commission: to to create create a large a large tapestry tapestry woven woven by the by theAustralian Australian Tapestry Tapestry Workshop Workshop (ATW) (ATW) for a fornew a Sirnew John Sir John Monash Monash Centre, Centre, at Villers at Villers-Bretonneux,-Bretonneux, in in northern northern France, France, to to commemorate commemorate Australian involvement in in the the tragic tragic battles battles of of the the Somme. Somme. Their Their vast vast tapestry, tapestry, Morning St Starar (2017), evoked the experience of of arrival arrival at at a a war war and, and, in in particular, particular, of of young young Australians Australians reaching reaching the the Western Western Front. Front. With themthem werewere theirtheir memories memories of of Australia Australia and and their their departure departure from from home. home. Rather Rather than than duplicate duplicate the thepowerful powerful archaeology archaeology of war of at war the at Centre the Centre and at andmuseums at museums across the across region, the including region, including at Thiepval at Thiepvaland La Peronne, and La the Peronne, work they the prepared work they evoked prepared the soldiers’ evoked pathway the soldiers’ to the pathway Front, emphasizing to the Front, the emphasizingincongruity between the incongruity the Australia between that the they Australia remembered that they and theirremembered journey closerand their and journey closer toward closer andthe ruinouscloser tow trenches.ard the ruinous It seems trenches. to the two It seems artists to that the it two was artists essential, that it first, was toessential, conjure first, a remembered to conjure aplace remembered of freedom place and of clear freedom light—a and nearly-monochromatic clear light—a nearly-monochromatic early morning misty early bush morning landscape—and, misty bush landscapesecond, to— evokeand, second, the sea-borne to evoke passage the sea leading-borne passage to the soldiers’ leading arrivalto the soldiers’ at the Front, arrival in at two the collage Front, inconstructions two collage composed constructions of old composed photographs, of old splayed photographs, across the splayed dawn sceneacross and the all dawn translated scene intoand theall translatedpixilated remove into the of pixilated tapestry. remove Casting of an tapestry. eye back Casting to early an twentieth eye back centuryto early wars,twentieth Gough’s century drawings wars, Gough’saddress both drawings the spatiality addres ofs both commemoration the spatiality and of the commemoration epic emptiness and of the the former epic battlefieldsemptiness of across the formerEurope battlefieldsand the Mediterranean. across Europe His and recent the works, Mediterranean. completed His since recent his arrival works, in completed Australia, sincerecorded his arrivalthe decrepit in Australia, and abandoned recorded British the decrepit army bases and in abandoned former West British Germany army where bases he in and former his family West Germanywere garrisoned where he during and his the family Cold War, were and garrisoned speak of during an abjectness the Cold and War, blankness and speak which of an chimes abjectness with and blankness which chimes with fellow painters' concerns. Using frottage, rubbings and photographic collage, Gough has assembled a suite of triptych forms drawn from prolonged site

Humanities 2018, 7, 37 10 of 12

fellowHumanities painters 2018, 7, 'xconcerns. FOR PEER REVIEW Using frottage , rubbings and photographic collage, Gough has assembled10 of 12 Humanities 2018, 7, x FOR PEER REVIEW 10 of 12 a suite of triptych forms drawn from prolonged site visits (Figures7 and8. The suite forms a visual parallelvisits (Figures to the litany7 and of8. The memorial suite forms forms a devised visual parallel in 1917 byto the Sir litany Edwin of Lutyens, memorial which forms he devised described in as1917 a ‘stoneology’, by Sir Edwin a Lutyens, list of shapes, which dimensions he described and as textures a ‘stoneology’, that he thoughta list of mightshapes, capture dimensions the fabric and oftextures memory, that and he thought which he might consolidated capture the into fabric a four-square of memory, ‘War and Stone’, which or he ‘Great consolidated War Stone’ into that a four later- morphedsquare ‘War into the Stone’, less severe or ‘Great Stone War of Remembrance, Stone’ that which later morphed perhaps more into aptly the illustrates less severe his Stoneintention of (Remembrance,Geurst 2010, p. which 22). perhaps more aptly illustrates his intention (Geurst 2010, p. 22).

FigureFigure 7.7. PaulPaul Gough,Gough, StoneologyStoneology no.no. iii,iii, 2017,2017, charcoal,charcoal, photo-montagephoto-montage andand collage,collage, 4040 ×× 120120 cm. cm.

Figure 8. Paul Gough, Stoneology no. viii, 2017, charcoal, photo-montage and collage, 40 × 120 cm. FigureFigure 8.8. Paul Gough, StoneologyStoneology no.no. viii,, 2017,2017, charcoal,charcoal, photo-montagephoto-montage andand collage,collage, 4040 ×× 120120 cm cm.. 4. Conclusions 4. Conclusions Our contention has become that art during the contemporary period has been indelibly marked by warOur around contention the globe, has become and this that situation art during stretches the contemporaryat least back to periodWW1 and has modern been indelibly art; the marked further by war around the globe, and this situation stretches at least back to WW1 and modern art; the further we have moved into reflecting on our experiences as war artists, the more we have witnessed and weunderstood have moved this art into historical reﬂecting fact. on ourUnderstanding experiences and as war communicating artists, the more war’s we centrality have witnessed within both and understood this art historical fact. Understanding and communicating war’s centrality within both the modern and contemporary period requires a new approach to both making art and writing art history. For art historians, it requires a bottom-up approach to local art histories, defying the tendency of art history’s most senior international scholars to expect only derivative art in distant centres and to label it according to fixed ideas of how art should develop (i.e., the canonical history of the modern and contemporary periods). Instead, both artists and art historians must seek out transnational,

Humanities 2018, 7, 37 11 of 12 the modern and contemporary period requires a new approach to both making art and writing art history. For art historians, it requires a bottom-up approach to local art histories, defying the tendency of art history’s most senior international scholars to expect only derivative art in distant centres and to label it according to fixed ideas of how art should develop (i.e., the canonical history of the modern and contemporary periods). Instead, both artists and art historians must seek out transnational, lateral contacts and resonances between people and across borders, for this is the fact rather than the exception, regardless of the fact that we seem hard-wired to think nationally in increasingly redundant silos (even as nationalisms surge again). Reiko Tomii has explained this the most clearly, writing, ‘it becomes an important task for world art historians to seek out and examine linkable ‘contact points’ of geohistory’ (Tomii 2016, p. 16). She asks, how can we create transnational art histories that bridge the inevitable silo of national art history, connecting the local to the global? Her answer is, ‘It cannot be overstated that the more global we want to be in our investigation, the more local we need to be in our attention’ (Tomii 2016, p. 15). This would be not just the building blocks of a world art history that is truly transnational (as she has argued) but also the elements of a contemporary art that pictures war and conflict, re-examining moments in history and narrating them anew. In war art created or commissioned around the world—including, in Australia, the serial works of Brown and Green, the night visions of Cattapan, and Gough’s deep reflections on monuments and the iconographies of war and peace—we are now seeing the seeds of an urgent reexamination of the genre that is being mirrored in the self-reflection on artist commissions taking place in art museums that commission war art. With the art that we have been discussing, to paraphrase art historian Amelia Douglas, this re-examination brings together the creative enquiry of a quartet of artist-academics whose practice-based, research-led inquiry aims to ‘arrest and fracture contemporary history as it unfolds, revealing the profound resonance between war, entropy and history’ (Douglas 2009, p. 202).

Author Contributions: This essay was conceived by all four contributors: Charles Green and Lyndell Brown, who also practice together and exhibit as one artist, Jon Cattapan, and Paul Gough. Authorship was equally distributed across all four artists-academics. Paul Gough and Charles Green acted as corresponding authors during the final editing stages. Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

References

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