A Reification of History Painting within an ‘Colonial Expanded Ghost Field: Story’ an ‘Bunyip, exegesis Gothic, parenthesised the by Panto’. exhibitions, and Graham Cheney An exegesis submitted for the Degree of Masters of Fine Arts College of Fine Arts University of New South Wales December 2011 2 COPYRIGHT STATEMENT 'I hereby grant the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstract International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only). 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Any contribution made to the research by others, with ave whom I h worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged. Signed Date A Reification of History Painting within an Expanded Field: An exegesis parenthesised by the exhibitions, ‘Colonial Ghost Story’ and ‘Bunyip, Gothic, Panto’. 3 (Banjo Paterson. Waltzing Matilda, 1895) “And His Ghost My be Heard……………..” 1. Cheney, Asphodel Meadows. 2008. A Reification of History Painting within an Expanded Field: An exegesis parenthesised by the exhibitions, ‘Colonial Ghost Story’ and ‘Bunyip, Gothic, Panto’. 4 Table of Contents (i) Statement of Original Authorship Abstract 4 Introduction Part 1 5 1.1 Pluralism and the Expanded Field 7 1.2 Painting in the field Expanded 10 1 .3 Affine spaces 12 1.4 The Snap and Shot the History Painting 14 Background Part 2 21 2.1 The Garden 22 2.2 Idealised Classicism 24 2.3 Documenting Colonial visions 26 2.4 Finding Elysium 29 2.5 Fauns and Eucalypts 29 23. .6 Part Australian 3 Gothic beginnings 34 3.1 Evil industrial machines 35 3.2 Zeitgeist: Spirit of the Age 37 3Part .3 Australian 4 Gothic Fiction 38 4.1 Historical re-­‐enactments and pantomimes 41 4.2 Doppelganger Dundee 42 Conclusion Bibliography 43 44 List of Images 45 A Reification of History Painting within an Expanded Field: An exegesis parenthesised by the exhibitions, ‘Colonial Ghost Story’ and ‘Bunyip, Gothic, Panto’. 5 Abstract A R eification of History . Painting A Reification of history painting; is an exegesis that contextualizes a series of painted -­ re enactments, using published, non-­fictional and fictional examples of Australian Gothic literature as their originating subject matter. By modifying Krauss’s model of the expanded field model painting can be broadened to provide an agency that includes among other additional qualifiers the dualities of history, politics, fantasy and documentation. This adapted model provides schematic locations that are able to accommodate instances of a multiple, concurrent subjective historiography. Each year Australian historical societies gather to act out significant historical events; The Battle of Vinegar Hill in Sydney’s North West is one of these. In -­ this re enactment, ordinary people take on the roles of the early colonists who took part in the original battle. The event and its telling isn’t diminished because some of the people playing the roles are the wrong height, weight, gender or simply have poorly made costumes. Similarly my historical narrative paintings allow for flexible, participatory approaches to reengagements with key historical events. The series of paintings that accompany this exegesis cast contemporary figures acting out the events of each story, like a backyard pantomime within the context of an allegory. These stories become narratives and dramas set in uncanny historical landscapes. A Reification of History Painting within an Expanded Field: An exegesis parenthesised by the exhibitions, ‘Colonial Ghost Story’ and ‘Bunyip, Gothic, Panto’. 6 Introduction Adapting Krauss’s concept of the expanded field enables framework the elaboration of a in which real magined and i examples of Australian Gothic literature can be included as the subjects of history painting. While not entirely Wikipedia’ a documentary account of events, an argument can still be constructed for the paintings of the age of exploration to be considered as a form of historical account in the age of ‘ or a time when fiction becomes fact. The reification of History painting is an exegesis proceeding from exhibitions, ‘Colonial ghost story’ and ‘Bunyip, Gothic, Panto’ and selected previous projects which similarly were engaged with -­‐ the re staging of historical events such as the Dismissal (Blacktown Regional Gallery, 2004) This paper will look at how the Australian psyche has developed with regards oloni to C al Gothic Literature and raises the possibilities of the narrative weight of fiction to added to the accumulative weight of history as a perimeter fence around any future expanded field of History Painting. Consequently, he t works from se the exhibitions take examples of writing from colonial authors who were articulating a New World, geographically, but also a New World with regard to the topography of the imagination. The colonists written about were tested not only against the landscape of alien enemies, but their ‘characters’ were repositioned by significant alterations in the cultural landscape resulting from rapid technological and societal change. In this I have proceeded from the assumption that similar transformative forces of adaptive renewal exerted pressures on Krauss’s theorising. And hat t comparable overlapping historical circumstance of technological and societal change made possible a convergence in the defining attributes of the, Expanded field Sculpture and any Gothic subsequent Expanded field of History Painting. I intend to show how styles primarily associated with Europe were adapted by antipodean authors when writing about the unprocessed experiences of eighteenth century Australians in a manner that prefigures both the strategy and outcomes of my adaption of Krauss’s canonical model. I will commence with a compendium of terms that Reification: are central to my process: To reassess with regard to the fixed properties or defining attributes of among History other Painting: things a genre or a theory. History Painting is usually considered to be a genre in painting defined not so much by formal or stylistic signifiers, but rather a relationship to the construction Narrative Painting: of history as a sequence of narrative highlights. Narrative painting is a visual methodology based around the central role of storytelling to perceived relationships between subjects – individuals and groups, within the field of representation in any given painting. It engages with codes and Diaristic signifiers Art as Practices: an integral part of its visual vocabulary. The use of discrete, personal events and figures as surrogates, which enable diaristic art, practices to use the framework of the ‘everyman’ as a default setting Australian in History: the construction of narrative. Gothic Literature: The totality of antipodean memory, actual and creative. th A stylistic category of writing prevalent from the 1700’s to the late 19The century, Expanded which Field: has a romantic hero, overcomes significant pluriform obstacles. A Reification of History Painting within A term an Expanded that transcends Field: An singularities exegesis parenthesised in cultural by the exhibitions, ‘Colonial Ghost Story’ and practices. ‘Bunyip, Gothic, Panto’. 7 The following chapter looks at Painting within the Expanded Field of Art, and examines how the works from the exhibitions Colonial Ghost stories and Gothic Panto Bunyip, (including selected previous examples) form part of contemporary Australian History Painting. Part 1 1.1 Pluralism and the Expanded Field. In the expanded field of art, it is possible to include iterature Gothic L as a source for History Painting, by constructing an appropriate overlapping field around its instances and those of History Painting. This field would have History Painting as its inert or neuter term within the boundaries of a pluralist art world where one or more sources of authority fiction co-­‐exist. becoming The aim fact being to construct at a field th can accommodate all points where documented Gothic Literature, is interchangeable with events as recorded, an instance of . Through the metaphor of a labyrinth or alist maze, poststructur authors such as Jose Luis Borges and Umberto Eco are able, in text, to refer to the postmodern condition of experiencing information via multiple pathways and alternate roads, in much the same way as the connectivity of the Internet. In taking a pluralist look at history painting, rather than through valence or sense of historicism, one can woodchip the ‘Sculpture linear tree in of thehistory expanded , permitting field’.