GEORGE GITTOES ( b Australia 1949- )

George Gittoes is one of Australia’s foremost figurative painters . He has won a number of prestigious awards, and has been invited to represent Australia in major international exhibitions and artist residency programs. In 1997 he was awarded an Order of Australia for his contribution to the Arts and International Relations .

For the last decade and a half Gittoes has been working in areas which are usually the reserve of journalists. His work catches the complexity of individual circumstance, of human frailty, empowerment and survival, against a backdrop of world issues. They are images about both ‘the moment’ and ‘the big picture’.

Gittoes gives us a powerful, close up response to conflicts best known to us from the nightly news – famine and peacekeeping in Somalia, de mining after civil wars in Cambodia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Kibeho massacre in Rwanda, sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, the elections in South Africa which brought Mandela to power, eruptions to the peace process in the Middle East – together with journeys to less familiar places –China, Tibet, Bougainville, and most recently, the effects of the War on Terror in Pakistan, Aghanistan; ‘shock and awe’ in Iraq.

Taking a global approach to his work as an artist, Gittoes works from many locations throughout the world, and bases himself in studios in Sydney and New York. He presents his work in multi media exhibitions which include photography, drawings, paintings, and DVD-Video installations.

www.gittoes.com

SELECTED REFERENCES : George Gittoes

BOOKS:

George Gittoes monograph on the artist, by Gavin Fry,
CraftsmanHouse, 1998.

Modernism’s History Bernard Smith.
UNSW Press/ Yale University Press. 1998.

Australian Printmaking Sasha Grishin .
CraftsmanHouse. 1998, 2001.

Contemporary Australian Painting : Images 2 Nevile Drury.
Craftsmanhouse. 1997

Contemporary Australian Painting : Images 3 Nevile Drury. Craftsmanhouse.1999

Australian Painting NOW Laura Murray Cree & Nevile Drury
Craftsmanhouse. G & B Arts International. 2000

Australian Painting 1788 - 2000 Bernard Smith
with Terry Smith & Christopher Heathcote.
Oxford University Press. Fourth Edition. 2001

Federation. Australian Art and Society. 1901-2001.
John McDonald. National Gallery of Australia. 2001


FILM/VIDEO:

I Witness – feature documentary film on Gittoes – Produced by Don Featherstone. Broadcast by ABC Australia, Arte Europe.
Available ABC marketing www.abc.net.au

60 Minutes – Gittoes in Iraq. Television current affairs feature.
Broadcast Channel 9, Australia.June 1,2003.

CCTV China – Feature Documentary, produced by Yung Gung, during Gittoes

George Gittoes is an Australian artist who travels the globe to find his subjects. He is well known for his forays to the world’s trouble spots – Nicaragua, the Philippines in the ‘80’s, Somalia, Sinai, Southern Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, Western Sahara, Cambodia, Laos, Rwanda, Mozambique, South Africa, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Bougainville and Tibet in the ‘90’s, Timor, the Congo, Rwanda, Afhganistan, Middle East and Iraq. He has also worked and exhibited in Australia, Taiwan, China, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Yemen and the US.

Gittoes’ unique practice of going to the front line of human crisis and working face to face with both combatants and victims as his subjects, his use of cross media, his adaptation of journalistic methods of access and image gathering, interacted with an artist’s right to independent interpretation, his redirection of the realized work to a mass public, through the media, is all unparalleled in contemporary art practice.

Eminent art historian, Bernard Smith recognizes Gittoes work ?as evidence of the continuing vitality of the Neue Sachlichkeit tradition at the end of the present century – predictably the paintings that have emerged from Gittoes’ involvement possess an aggressive, but compelling visual challenge, utterly distinct from the work of artists who practice their art in the more secure, urban environments??
( Modernism’s History. Bernard Smith. UNSW Press/ Yale University Press. 1998 )

Gittoes’ work and practice have been widely acknowledged:
‘Like the great social humanists and expressionists of earlier centuries…Gittoes engages with the technologies and the discourses of his time… Following on from such artists as Goya, he feels the need to declare “This I saw, as I was there “ Sasha Grishin
Sasha Grishin. Canberra Times. May 28,1999. Review. (critic. Canberra Times ),
‘Now, when so much art professes concern for those without public voice or recognition, Gittoes’ direct contact and reportorial veracity is especially effective .’ Robert Berlind
Robert Berlind. Art in America. April. 1993. Review (critic. Art in America ),
‘The mediums used by Gittoes are conventional. His experience is not.’ Silke Muller
Silke Muller. art spezial , Documenta x, June, 1997. Review. ( critic. art spezial, Documenta 10 )
‘He travels, he witnesses, he creates. With driving curiosity, he crosses genres and eludes both the aesthetic and political stereotypes. The result is commanding art.’ Ihab Hassan
Ihab Hassan. Monograph on George Gittoes. Pub. Craftsman House. 1998. Preface. (Cultural Theorist. University of Wisconsin )
‘Gittoes has reached into himself at the same time as reaching into the murkiest corners of the late 20th century geopolitics‘. Bruce James
Bruce James. Sydney Morning Herald. July 5, 1996. Review.
(critic . Sydney Morning Herald).

Principally a figurative artist, Gittoes is also renowned for his early work in holography and stereograms as an art form, is an award winning photographer and filmmaker, and has made his mark as a performance artist. His mature work is principally figurative paintings and notated drawings exhibited in large installations with photography, and media coverage of his unusual artist’s journeys.

Emerging as a young artist in the ‘60’s, Gittoes was invited to New York by Clement Greenberg. He arrived in the US in 1968 in the aftermath of the Kennedy and King assassinations. His Hotel Kennedy series created at this time marks the profound international effect of these events of American history. Gittoes rejected the formalist theories of Greenberg which promoted the flat non figurative picture plane. Recognizing a need to formulate a language to deal with the social and political currents of contemporary history, he was drawn to and greatly influenced by the work of Afro Americans dealing with the civil rights movement. His visit to the US at such a pertinent time was a pivotal influence, it focused Gittoes on making art rich in metaphoric social/political comment with intention to address a mass audience; it gave him a strength of commitment to work beyond art market forces and curatorial trends.

Gittoes uses gallery exhibitions as a springboard to reaching wider audiences through the tools of the media. He has recognized that far more people will experience his art through media reproduction than through viewing the works ‘live’ in a public gallery. He considers his actions, as an artist who moves into the places where the news takes place, a part of his art form. A populist, he believes ‘art is hard enough to understand, without making it more difficult or obscure. I endeavor to make my work readable to a wide public. Some of my work is quite difficult, but by placing them in the context of media coverage – the interconnecting visual communication of our age – I am using the public familiarity with it, to facilitate a deeper interest in the art I make from the same source.’

Gittoes acknowledges his journey is one into the heart of human darkness. He has become a witness. “ I believe there is a role for contemporary art to challenge, rather than entertain. My work is confronting humanity with the darker side of itself.”

Gittoes believes he is possibly one of the few people in the world to have been present at so many contemporary conflicts. With uncanny timing he has been present during such major flashpoints as: the height of the contra conflict in Nicaragua; the major clashes in the Philippines between NPA and Government forces; joined the Australian and US peacemaking operations in Somalia; witnessed the first democratic elections in Cambodia; the Kibeho massacre, Rwanda; the Hebron Mosque massacre, Israel ; the conflict between Hezbollah and united South Lebanese and Israeli forces in Southern Lebanon; riots on the Gaza strip ; racial tensions and confrontations in the Aboriginal land rights issues in Australia; the cease fire between Polisario and Morocco in Western Sahara; the violent events leading to Mandela’s election in South Africa; the breaking of the siege of Sarajevo, Mostar, Grozda and Bihac; reconstruction of an undivided Berlin; violent forcing of protestant marches in Northern Ireland in the year prior to the signing of the peace agreement; negotiation of the first peace treaty in Bougainville, the Chinese occupation of Tibet; the controversial construction of the dam on the Yanzi China, the secession of Timor from Indonesia, peace negotiations Middle East, War on Terror, US and Afghanistan, Shock and Awe, Iraq.

‘Gittoes dons the night vision goggles of artistic perception, to pierce the darkness, where world news slips out of view. Electronic global glow has become a currency, a need-to know events as-they-happen ensures delivery . Little time for digestion between sound and image byte, means consumption is quick. It is in this zone, that the artist has stepped in, to rearrange our on going free lunch of images into something tactile and lasting. Laid out before us this way, it’s value is altered, it’s existence made permanent, it is resistant to banishment by electronic remote control. Our humanity is searched.’
(Gabrielle Dalton. biographer. 1999)

Gittoes continues to work in the field, 2003 – Afghanistan, Iraq.

Text by Gabrielle Dalton. Copyright. 2000.