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Conflict and Compromise: Australia’s Official War Artists and the “War on Terror”

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The Palgrave Handbook of Artistic and Cultural Responses to War since 1914

Abstract

Amidst Australia’s contentious involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Australian War Memorial began to select high-profile contemporary artists for its Official War Artist scheme. Sent to Afghanistan and the Middle East, artists Shaun Gladwell (2009) and Ben Quilty (2011) dealt with difficult issues such as soldiers returning with post-traumatic stress disorder and the ethics of drone warfare. Yet critics have questioned the independence of Official War Artists. Unofficial war artist George Gittoes argues these artists are cosseted and restricted in what they can create. This chapter considers Gittoes’ travel in the 1990s to war zones where the Australian military were involved, such as with Australia’s peacekeeping mission to Rwanda in 1995, and examines the problematic issues that arise from now embedding contemporary artists with troops in an official capacity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Kit Messham-Muir, “Two Artists Go to War,” The Conversation, August 1, 2014. https://theconversation.com/two-artists-go-to-war-shaun-gladwell-and-ben-quilty-29901.

  2. 2.

    Unpublished Facebook posts, 2014.

  3. 3.

    Kit Messham-Muir, Double War: Shaun Gladwell, Visual Culture and the Wars inAfghanistanandIraq (Port Melbourne, Victoria: Thames & Hudson Australia, 2015).

  4. 4.

    Fayen D’Evie, “Let’s All Go to Iraq,” un Magazine 2, no. 1 (2008): 46.

  5. 5.

    D’Evie, “Let’s All Go to Iraq,” 47.

  6. 6.

    Amelia Douglas, “The viewfinder and the view,” Broadsheet 38, no. 1 (2009): 204.

  7. 7.

    Ibid.

  8. 8.

    Ryan Johnston, “Recalling History to Duty: 100 years of Australian war art,” Artlink 35, no. 1 (March 2015): 12.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., 15.

  10. 10.

    Ben Quilty, “The Art of War,” public gallery panel discussion, Cell Block Theatre, National Art School, Paddington, Sydney, 2013.

  11. 11.

    Ibid.

  12. 12.

    “Defence & Security| Middle East: Iraq War,” Lowy Institute, accessed November 6, 2017. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/issues/iraq-war.

  13. 13.

    Georges Gittoes in “George Gittoes as an army artist for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) and the United Nations Operation in Mozambique (ONUMOZ), 1994–1995, interviewed by Dr Peter Londey,” The Australian War Memorial, Canberra, accessed November 2, 2017. https://www.awm.gov.au/index.php/collection/C29590.

  14. 14.

    George Gittoes: I Witness, ed. by Claire Armstrong, 17–23 (Gymea: Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, 2014), 118.

  15. 15.

    Stephen Matchett, “The Art of War,” The Weekend Australian Review, April 25, 2009, 6–7. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/the-art-of-war/news-story/c0dfbf415f230cfd0a0dd37bbbac6d22.

  16. 16.

    Johnston, “Recalling History to Duty,” 12.

  17. 17.

    Susan Cahill, “The Art of War: Painted Photographs and Australia’s ‘War on Terror’,” RACAR: revue d’art canadienne 39, no. 2 (2014): 74.

  18. 18.

    Johnston, “Recalling History to Duty,” 15.

  19. 19.

    Ibid.

  20. 20.

    Ibid.

  21. 21.

    Catherine Speck, “The Australian War Museum, Women Artists and the National Memory of the First World War,” in When the Soldiers Return: November 2007 Conference Proceedings, ed. Martin Critty (Brisbane: School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, University of Queensland, 2009), 278.

  22. 22.

    “With one voice, the world says no,” The Age, February 17, 2003. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/16/1045330468978.html.

  23. 23.

    “Ledger weighs up the war,” The Sydney Morning Herald, March 25, 2003. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/24/1048354546635.html.

  24. 24.

    Johnston, “Recalling History to Duty,” 16.

  25. 25.

    Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, “Extracts from artist statement, 2007: Framing Conflict: Iraq and Afghanistan – Lyndell Brown and Charles Green,” The Australian War Memorial, Canberra, accessed November 6, 2017. https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/exhibitions/framing/statement.

  26. 26.

    Messham-Muir, Double War.

  27. 27.

    “Vale,” Department of Defence, accessed June 8, 2017. http://www.defence.gov.au/vale/.

  28. 28.

    Ben Quilty quoted in Laura Webster, “After Afghanistan,” Ben Quilty: After Afghanistan (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 2013), 8.

  29. 29.

    Ben Quilty in “Kit Messham-Muir: Interview with Ben Quilty, artist, Robertson, Australia, 26 January 2013,” StudioCrasher. https://youtu.be/j606Xg1j8zs.

  30. 30.

    I explore this in greater depth in Kit Messham-Muir, “Conflict, Complicity and Ben Quilty’s After Afghanistan portraits,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art 18, no. 1 (2018).

  31. 31.

    Shaun Gladwell in “Part 2: Interview with Shaun Gladwell, artist, Venice, Italy, 3 October 2013,” StudioCrasher. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry-blg70hRk.

  32. 32.

    Quilty, “The Art of War.”

  33. 33.

    Ben Quilty in “On The Warpath – Transcript: Monday, 25 March, 2013,” Australian Story, ABC TV, Sydney, accessed May 25, 2017. http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2012/s3723112.htm.

  34. 34.

    George Gittoes quoted in Jeremy Elphick, “A Conversation with George Gittoes, July 22, 2014,” 4:3 film, accessed November 1, 2017. https://fourthreefilm.com/2014/07/a-conversation-with-george-gittoes/.

  35. 35.

    Bernard Smith, “George Gittoes: Morality and Art,” in George Gittoes: I Witness, ed. Claire Armstrong (Gymea: Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, 2014), 11.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., 11.

  37. 37.

    Rod Pattenden, “George Gittoes: I Witness,” in George Gittoes: I Witness, ed. Claire Armstrong (Gymea: Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, 2014), 19.

  38. 38.

    Damien Murphy, “Artist Gittoes honoured with Sydney Peace Prize,” April 11, 2015, accessed November 8, 2017. http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/artist-gittoes-honoured-with-sydney-peace-prize-20150410-1mi61o.html.

  39. 39.

    Mayen Beckman, “This is why you were born: Gittoes and Drawing,” in George Gittoes: I Witness, ed. by Claire Armstrong (Gymea: Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, 2014), 37.

  40. 40.

    Matchett, “The Art of War.”

  41. 41.

    George Gittoes in “George Gittoes: Archive number: 2520, Date interviewed: 24 May, 2000,” Australians at War Film Archive, Canberra, accessed November 2, 2017. http://australiansatwarfilmarchive.unsw.edu.au/archive/2520-george-gittoes.

  42. 42.

    George Gittoes quoted in Matchett, “The Art of War.”

  43. 43.

    Ibid.

  44. 44.

    Ibid.

  45. 45.

    Darren Jorgensen, “George Gittoes and the Social Turn in Afghanistan,” Artlink 36, no. 1 (March 2016): 27.

  46. 46.

    Shaun Gladwell, interview with Kit Messham-Muir, Hyde Park, London, September 30, 2010, transcribed by Susan Cairns.

  47. 47.

    Gladwell, interview, London.

  48. 48.

    Ibid.

  49. 49.

    Ibid.

  50. 50.

    “Fieldstrip” YouTube, accessed November 10, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fieldstrip.

  51. 51.

    Gladwell, interview, London.

  52. 52.

    Shaun Gladwell, Field Strip, 2 channel synchronised HD video, 16:9, cinematography: Gotaro Uematsu, 8 minutes, 3 seconds, 2010.

  53. 53.

    Shaun Gladwell, interview with Kit Messham-Muir, Paddington, Sydney, April 26, 2010, transcribed by Susan Cairns.

  54. 54.

    Gladwell, interview, London.

  55. 55.

    Ibid.

  56. 56.

    Ibid.

  57. 57.

    Ibid.

  58. 58.

    Gladwell, interview, Sydney.

  59. 59.

    Ibid.

  60. 60.

    Gladwell, “Part 2.”

  61. 61.

    Lilly Wei, “Art Made in Harm’s Way,” ARTnews (April 2015): 48.

  62. 62.

    Shaun Gladwell, Traces of War Symposium, Kings College London, October 1, 2016.

  63. 63.

    Gladwell, interview, Sydney.

  64. 64.

    Julian Stallabrass, “The Power and Impotence of Images,” in Memory of Fire: The War of Images and Images of War (Brighton: Brighton Photo Biennial, 2008), 5.

  65. 65.

    Julian Stallabrass, “The Power and Impotence of Images,” 6.

  66. 66.

    Ibid.

  67. 67.

    Adrian Searle, “Last Post,” The Guardian, March 13, 2007. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/mar/12/iraq.art.

  68. 68.

    Shaun Gladwell quoted in Messham-Muir, Double War, 165.

  69. 69.

    George Gittoes in “SCA Art Talks – George Gittoes // From Yellow House to Yellow House,” filmed May 25, 2014, Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney, accessed November 2, 2017. https://vimeo.com/169780475.

  70. 70.

    Georges Gittoes in “George Gittoes as an army artist.”

  71. 71.

    Ibid.

  72. 72.

    Ibid.

  73. 73.

    Ibid.

  74. 74.

    Paul Jordan, “Art and the Trauma of War,” in George Gittoes: I Witness, ed. Claire Armstrong (Gymea: Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, 2014), 39.

  75. 75.

    Carol Ferguson in “Carol Ferguson: Archive number: 2447, Preferred name: nee Vaughan-Evans, Date interviewed: 22 May, 2000,” Australians at War Film Archive, Canberra, accessed November 2, 2017. http://australiansatwarfilmarchive.unsw.edu.au/archive/2447-carol-ferguson.

  76. 76.

    Gittoes, “SCA Art Talks.”

  77. 77.

    Jordan, “Art and the Trauma of War,” 41.

  78. 78.

    Ferguson in “Carol Ferguson.”

  79. 79.

    Warwick Heywood, Interview with Kit Messham-Muir, Paddington, Sydney, November 15, 2010, transcribed by Susan Cairns.

  80. 80.

    Ibid.

  81. 81.

    Johnston, “Recalling History to Duty,” 17.

  82. 82.

    Heywood, Interview, Sydney.

  83. 83.

    Searle, “Last Post.”

  84. 84.

    Roger Tolson, interview with Kit Messham-Muir, Imperial War Museum, London, January 20, 2010, transcribed by Susan Cairns.

  85. 85.

    Tolson, Interview, London.

  86. 86.

    Laura Brandon, Art & War (London: IB Taurus, 2009), 103.

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  1. Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia

    Kit Messham-Muir

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  1. University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia

    Martin Kerby , Margaret Baguley  & Janet McDonald ,  & 

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Messham-Muir, K. (2019). Conflict and Compromise: Australia’s Official War Artists and the “War on Terror”. In: Kerby, M., Baguley, M., McDonald, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Artistic and Cultural Responses to War since 1914. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96986-2_26

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