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Done's career has been the subject of more press than most - but it
is press rather than art criticism, focusing on the issues surrounding
the debate between art and design. The reason for this is not simply
that there is a weak link between art and industry in Australia and
little real dialogue between artists and designers, but more that
Ken Done is considered far more successful, in commercial terms, than
is deemed acceptable. In Australia, a sensibility seems to prevail
in the art world that artists should not have a commercial agenda.
Indeed, philosophy and the market place have been thought to be mutually
exclusive. It is difficult to believe, outside of Australia, just
how vitriolic the criticism of one of Australia's best-known artists
has been.
Ken Done's contribution to Australian art is considerable. His
company, Done Art and Design, which he runs with his family, is
a cultural, artistic and business phenomenon and is unique in terms
of the scale of its success. The company was developed in the early
1980s, at a time when Australia was experiencing a surge in national
pride and discovering a new identity, partly due to increased levels
of tourism as a result of the world's discovery of Australia
as an unspoiled paradise.
With a background in advertising, Done did not turn to full-time
painting until he was almost 40. The influences on his career are
many and varied, but what characterises his work is the independence
of his choices. While most artists in Australia travelled to Europe
after finishing their studies, Done visited Japan in 1962 and America
in 1964. His relationship with Japan, in terms of its attitude to
design and the subsequent success of his work there, reflect the
unreserved embrace of an Eastern aesthetic from a young age. After
working for J. Walter Thompson in America, Done relocated to their
London office in 1965 and then to their Sydney office in 1970.
Done's graphic work was influenced by the Pop colours and imagery
of Milton Glaser and the Push Pin Studios in California. It developed
beyond a Pop Art look, however, with the influence of Japanese design
- although Pop Art continued to inform his attitude to the role
of art in society. Done has won many awards for his graphic art,
in Australia and abroad. The second area of his design work grows
out of his painting. 'Art to Wear' takes paintings, or details of
paintings, and simplifies and adapts them for printing onto fabric
and manufacturing into clothing. This he does jointly with his wife,
Judy, fashion designer and business woman. 1
In London in the 1960s, Done encountered the media-inspired advertising
industry. Pop Art encouraged his philosophy of communicating with
a wide audience and a move away from traditional hierarchies in
art and it was during this time that Done's philosophy of a mutual
development between art and design was formed. With the culture
of Pop Art, came a renewed concern with the everyday world, especially
the consumer-oriented areas of packaging and advertising art. Pop
Art employed an imagery that was easy to identify with. Done's comments
years later, after the phenomenal success of his art enterprise,
represent the legacy of attitudes prevalent in Japan, and in London,
throughout the period in which he worked there. He has said, 'I
like art that has a wide distribution. It does not always have to
be deep and complex. In Japan they understand that simple objects
can also be beautiful. In the times in which we live it is far too
restricting to say that art can only be found in art galleries and
not touch people's everyday lives.' 2
Christopher Finch, in his important book from this period, Image
as Language: Aspects of British Art 1950-1968, observes that
in the second half of the 1950s, the arts became a subject of great
interest and controversy. This partly manifested itself in a focus
on the artists themselves, who were being treated in a manner previously
reserved for entertainers or fashion designers. Finch believes this
can be traced back to the New York artists Jasper Johns and Robert
Rauschenberg. A folk-hero status was thus accorded to British artists
such as Peter Blake and David Hockney and to the expatriate American
in London, Ron Kitaj. The cult of personality was an extension to
some degree of the 19th century romantic image of the artist, but
in a newly glamorous and materially successful world. 3 For Hockney,
the cult of personality did not obscure serious critical discourse
of his work because he was already an acclaimed artist. In contrast,
Done received media attention at a very early stage in his career
and his public image was formed before he was ready to face the
critics.
The lessons of the Pop Art movement in 1960s Britain have not,
it would appear, been carried through to the present, at least in
Australia. Christopher Finch acknowledges that Pop Art was not a
movement with 'an exclusive method of treatment or investigation.
Rather, it opened its windows on the world at large and accepted
everything that presented itself; it was an art of inclusion'.
4 Artistic experience was enlarged to include a wider range
of imagery and application. A 'close and easy relationship between
the arts and popular media in London' was nurtured by the music
industry, media links with New York and an advertising industry,
attracting brilliant and amusing writers and artists. Such a close
liaison between the music industry, media, fashion and the plastic
arts has never existed in Australia. This perhaps explains the fascination
on the part of the media on one hand and the antipathy from the
Australian art establishment on the other, towards Ken Done's unorthodox
and 'brilliant career'.
Ken Done continued to work as a painter during his career in advertising.
'Postcard from God' (1976) was painted shortly before Done left
his advertising job. It marks a turning point in his work, as it
incorporates a number of his preoccupations at that time. In formal
terms, it displays the proficient graphic devices of the highly
successful advertising artist. It also displays wit and irreverence.
The very notion that God might send a postcard - that efficient
communication of the traveller, a symbol of tourism - challenges
both religious boundaries and established form in religious art.
Yet the comment on religion is not glib - the candour and innocence
of the child (an idea central to Christianity), is also represented
in this work. The written text on the painting, 'Thinking of you
always', is a subtle and personal response to the existence of a
higher order. This enlarged postcard, its message amplified to reach
a wide audience in a gallery, as opposed to an individual via the
post system, symbolises Done's receptivity to the art movements
of the 1960s and 1970s - movements that sought to extend the boundaries
of art practice. 'Postcard from God' was exhibited in the Blake
Prize for Religious Art in 1978 and while it did not win the prize,
it was reproduced on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald
(14 September 1978) and singled out for praise by its reviewer,
Nancy Borlase.
In June 1980, Done held his first solo exhibition at the Holdsworth
Galleries in Sydney. Later that year, he opened the Art Directors'
Gallery in Ridge Street, North Sydney, with a second solo exhibition.
For his second show he made 12, single colour, silk-screen printed
T-shirts. Designed as a simple promotional device for his exhibition,
the T-shirts were a great success, largely because of the enthusiastic
response they received from the staff at Vogue Australia in Sydney.
Done found ways of earning money to support himself and his family
while continuing to paint. He had acquired business skills through
his work in advertising and the running of his own design companies,
and he approached his new life as an artist with business flair
and acumen. Done did not regard his business skills as inappropriate
to the role of artist.
In Ken Done's Image Problem, Peter Anderson observes:
'For while the art world is happy to stand back at a safe distance
in order to subject popular culture to intellectual scrutiny, it
has been extremely careful to maintain its own status by keeping
the two spheres distinct and separate, with fine art, of course
firmly on top. Done's willingness to work openly and unselfconsciously
in both fields clearly undermines this hierarchy, which is one of
the reasons it seems to be so threatening.' 5 It is this
issue which reveals both Done's radicalism and his commitment to
producing and demystifying art for a wide audience. Marie Geissler
believes that it is because Done has such strong ideas that his
work is so successful in commercial terms.6 Done has achieved artistic
success by believing that what he is doing is truly necessary and
beneficial. He has a stylistic affinity with the early modernists
and a love of everyday objects, which make his subject matter accessible
rather than elitist.
The advertising industry exposed Done to the world of media, photography
and film. Yet, as an artist, he is well aware of the necessity of
adjusting the role of art as a means of communicating ideas. In
Done's view, painting, in comparison with photography or film, is
no longer the most appropriate, or effective means of conveying
political ideas. He believes that, 'A lot of painters haven't really
come to terms with the power of television and the rest of the media.
I don't use paintings in political terms, I am much more interested
in paintings which are about the beautiful things in the world but
that does not mean I want them to be shallow. There isn't one painting,
for instance about the Vietnam War that even remotely rivals the
famous photograph of the little girl running away from the napalm
attack. There isn't one painting about the student uprising in China
to compete with the television image of the man standing in front
of the tank. The power of television, putting images into homes,
has changed the role of art in society.'7
The interaction between the culture of the mass media and fine
art has played an important part in cultural life since the 1950s.
The 'direct transference of photographic imagery to canvas by mechanical
means', is not the only way in which the sensibility of the ad/mass
processed image has affected other artists. In Britain, the work
of Richard Hamilton, American-born Ron Kitaj and Eduardo Paolozzi
all approached ad/mass imagery from an analytical and critical perspective.8
For Ken Done, art in a world dominated by mass media falls into
distinct categories; design work, or art for a wide audience which
uses the means of industry and technology or painting as a primal
activity, on which human marks are tantamount. The act of painting
links human activity through the centuries, from cave painting onwards.
Since the 1970s, Australian, Aboriginal culture has become well
known around the world. No white artist working in Australia could
remain unaffected and unmoved by Aboriginal art and culture, or
by the pathos, drama and tragedy of the experiences of Indigenous
Australians since White settlement. The symbolism and formal elements
of the Aboriginal visual language have also exerted considerable
influence on Australian art as a whole. In the present exhibition,
there is a small version of the Bridge series (1996-97), one of
the works in which Done reveals his commitment to Aboriginal issues.
Using two of the great icons of Australia - the Sydney Harbour Bridge,
representing White society and Iluru, or Ayres Rock, the majestic
and profound natural form symbolising Aboriginal culture, Done presents
an image intended to inspire harmony and co-operation.9
It is appropriate that Done should be exhibiting at the gallery
of fellow Australian, Rebecca Hossack, who has run her London gallery
now for over 20 years. Hossack also has an altruistic commitment
to Aboriginal art and culture - she is largely responsible for introducing
Aboriginal art to Britain and enjoys bringing Done's radiant image
of Australia to Northern climes.
References
1. Measham T. Ken Done: The Art of Design. Sydney: Powerhouse
Museum, 1994.
2. Artist's Statement, Ken Done: Major Exhibition. Japan: The
Yomiuri Shimbun 1991: 3.
3. Finch C. Image as Language, Aspects of British Art, 1950-1968.
London: Pelican Books/Penguin, 1969.
4. Ibid, p.14.
5. Anderson P. Ken Done's Image Problem. Art Monthly Australia
1995; 85: 5.
6. Geissler M. Ken Done Design Ink. Dec 1991; 7: 20.
7. Dennis A. The two sides of an artist: Ken Done. Sydney:
Airways, 1991: 36.
8. Finch C. Pop Art: Object and Image. London: Studio Vista/Dutton
Pictureback, 1968: 115.
9. McKenzie J. The Art of Ken Done. Sydney: Craftsman House,
2002.
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