The eternal return of irony: Gordon Bennett (1955-2014)

While it is foolhardy to predict artists’ legacies, Rex Butler’s claim – made in an incisive review of Gordon Bennett’s retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2007 – would seem on safe ground as few artists had a greater impact on the Australian artworld in the early 1990s. However, Butler is an ironic critic who writes against the grain of his own thought. Conferring on Bennett a privileged place in the history of Australian art when the grand lineages of History have lost currency was an intentionally backhanded or ironic compliment.