Jonathan Jones
(Australia 1978– )
- Language group
- Wiradjuri, Southern Riverine region , Kamilaroi, Northern Riverine region
- Title
- Untitled (heads or tails)
- Other titles:
- Untitled (domestic heads or tails)
- Place of origin
-
Sydney →
New South Wales →
Australia
- Year
- 2009
- Media category
- Installation
- Materials used
- powder-coated steel, fluorescent tubes and fittings, electrical cable
- Edition
- editions w/x & y/z of 26 +1AP
- Dimensions
-
62.0 x 40.0 x 40.0cm (each unit)
- Signature & date
- Not signed. Not dated.
- Credit
- Anonymous gift 2012. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
- Accession number
- 9.2012.1.a-b
- Location
- Contemporary galleries
- Further information
The forms and patterning of light tubes in 'Untitled (domestic heads or tails)' 2009 are derived from the traditional Aboriginal carved trees of inland New South Wales. As the artist has written of this work:
" 'Untitled (domestic heads or tails)' references Koori 'marayarrang', carved scar trees, which are incised with traditional cultural designs similar to that found on shields, boomerangs and possum skin cloaks. These designs are specific to NSW and are part an important part of Koori culture.
Many of the scar trees were cut down and sent to museum collections around Australia.
The last major grove when logged filled two trucks. A coin was casually tossed to decide which truck load of traditional cultural material would go to which museum, hence the title of this artwork.'Untitled (domestic heads or tails)' also references Roman and Grecian columns, drawing a connection between traditional cultures, Indigenous Australia and classical Roman and Greek culture."
As with all of Jones' light works, the units radiate heat and intense white light, creating a field of energy in the gallery. The formal regularity of the design of uniform industrially manufactured units recalls the light sculptures of such minimal artists as American Dan Flavin or, in Australia, Peter Kennedy. Yet Jones' work has a skein of other references alien to minimalism such as the specific reference to carved trees in this work, and in other works inspiration from natural forms found in the Australian landscape, motifs on Aboriginal shields and from patterns in domestic design. Jones synthesises these particular cultural references with the history of formal abstraction and light works in 20th century western art. His works' very muteness on the questions of identity and content that knowledge of its specific references may raise is in itself eloquent and perhaps by extension, political.
- Bibliography (2)
-
'Jonathan Jones: Untitled (heads or tails)' by Lily Hibberd, pg. 78-85., Column 5 2010, 2010.
Stephen Gilchrist (Curator), Octopus 9: I forget to forget, Melbourne, 2010, cover (colour illus.), 2-3 (colour illus.).
- Exhibition history (3)
-
Untitled (heads or tails), Artspace, 29 May 2009–27 Jun 2009.
Octopus 9: I forget to forget, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, 31 Jul 2009–29 Aug 2009.
Octopus 9: I forget to forget, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, 08 Aug 2009–30 Nov 2009.
