Richard Bell Review | Dana Lawrie

You Would Believe Me If I Was a White Man, the latest show by contemporary artist, Richard Bell, opens at Miliani Gallery as one who is versed in the Richard’s work would expect; only different. 
The downstairs gallery space is held together by Richard’s large-scale paintings, anchoring the perceiver instantly within the context of the exhibition. Text, once again, plays a major role in facilitating his concepts – allowing a secondary reading of the paintings to occur once the eye has worked beyond pure aesthetics. It is important to state that this ‘literal’ reading of written text in each work cannot be separated from the solely ‘visual’ language taking place – they exist within an interplay that, coupled with the size of each work, yields maximum impact. With textual proclamations of ‘Western Art Does Not Exist’, and titles of One Day You’ll Be Gone, one could easily argue that the size of these specific works are as relative to their conceptual foundations – the platform must equal the idea, to translate forcefully.
 In a discussion about this new body of works, Richard said he had purposefully made these four large-scale works in attempt to create a different space within the gallery – singling out the work Prelude to a Trial (Bell’s Theorem) as his favourite. Expanding on the notion behind this work as a form of prophecy, wherein Richard explains he sees the global economic situation as the driving force behind ‘successful’ art(Bell 2011, pers.comm. 6 Aug). By this, Richard asserts that art—justly considered as a commodity, collected in the way of western tradition—has it’s future outside the western paradigm; that art will follow money, away from the west.

Fig. 1. Richard Bell, Prelude to a Trial (Bell’s Theorem) (2011).

Another interesting element to this new body of work is the obvious religious undertow.  Religion has never been very far from the focus of Richard’s concepts, being as he considers ‘[w]estern dissatisfaction with Christianity’(Bell 2002) a large factor in the favoring of spiritual elements in commoditized Aboriginal art.  In this series of works, religion can be seen to serve as a recognizable moral keystone from which an understanding of Richard’s intentions might be grasped in greater earnest. Richard approaches Christian scripture by way of re-writing it, so as adapt it – placing it within his paintings and again into the previously mentioned harmonizing between written and visual language. This dual language, seen in this case, is an interesting play off the notion brought forward by Richard in his paper, Bell’s Theorem (2002), that the system of western art can be likened to an ancient religion. Perhaps more so, however, Richard’s approach to religion can be harkened back to his statement in Bell’s Theorem, which introduces the tone of the paper (and, I believe, to a greater extent his approach to art), stating:

           

‘It will be conversational, playful, serious, tongue-in-cheek, moralistic, tolerant, sermonistic, and informative.’ (Bell 2002).

To conclude, Richard Bell’s You Would Believe Me If I Was A White Man holds true to the moral and societal questioning characteristic of his previous work – provoking the perceiver out of indifference in a way that can only be summed-up by Richard himself:

            ‘My art […] is an in joke for smart people, the smart people will get it and the rest of the morons won’t.’ (Bell in Hinde 2004).

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Books:

Bell, Richard, 2002, Bell’s Theorem: Aboriginal Art – It’s a White Thing!, viewed 20 August 2011,
<http://www.kooriweb.org/bell/theorum.html>

Hinde, Suellen 2004, ‘Bell’s Art of Hate’, Northern Territory News 8 August 2004, viewed 20 August 2011,
<http://www.kooriweb.org/bell/article14.html>

Images:

Fig. 1. Richard Bell, Prelude to a Trial (Bell’s Theorem) (2011), image, viewed 20 August 2011,
< http://www.milanigallery.com.au/artwork/prelude-trial-bells-theorem>