Title
Untitled (heads or tails), from the series Untitled (head or tails)
2009
Artist
Jonathan Jones
Australia
1978 –
Language groups: Kamilaroi, Northern Riverine region, Wiradyuri, Southern Riverine region
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Details
- Other Title
- Untitled (domestic heads or tails)
- Place where the work was made
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Sydney
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New South Wales
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Australia
- Cultural origin
- Kamilaroi/Wiradjuri
- Date
- 2009
- Media categories
- Installation , Sculpture
- Materials used
- powder-coated steel, fluorescent tubes and fittings, electrical cable
- Edition
- y/z (25/26) of 26 + 1AP
- Dimensions
- 62.0 x 40.0 x 40.0 cm each unit
- Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
- Credit
- Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program by anonymous 2012
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 9.2012.2.a-b
- Copyright
- © Jonathan Jones
- Artist information
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Jonathan Jones
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
The forms and patterning of light tubes in the installation series 'Untitled (heads or tails)' 2009 are derived from the traditional Aboriginal carved trees of inland New South Wales. This is a pairing of works from the overall installation of 26 objects.
As the artist has written of this work:
"'Untitled (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 tucks. 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 (heads or tails)' also references Roman and Grecian columns, drawing a connections between traditional cultures, Indigenous Australia and classical Roman and Greek culture."
As with all of Jonathon 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.
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Places
Where the work was made
Sydney
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Exhibition history
Shown in 2 exhibitions
Untitled (heads or tails), Artspace, Woolloomooloo, 29 May 2009–27 Jun 2009
Octopus 9: I forget to forget, Gertrude Contemporary, Fitzroy, 31 Jul 2009–29 Aug 2009
Octopus 9: I forget to forget, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra, 08 Aug 2009–30 Nov 2009
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Bibliography
Referenced in 3 publications
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Natasha Bullock and Alexie Glass, Parallel collisions: 2012 Adelaide Biennial of Australian art, 'The artist's works', pg. 9-140, Adelaide, 2012, 68 (colour illus.), 317.
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Stephen Gilchrist, Octopus 9: I forget to forget, 'I forget to forget', pg. 14-16, Melbourne, 2010, 2 (colour illus., detail), 3 (colour illus., detail), 14, 20, back cover (colour illus., detail).
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Lily Hibberd, Column 5, 'Jonathan Jones: Untitled (heads or tails)', pg. 78-85, 2010, 78-85.
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