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- Place made
- Hackney, South Australia
- Medium
- earthenware
- Dimensions
- 48.0 x 45.0 cm
- Credit line
- South Australian Government Grant 1977
- Accession number
- 779C29A
- Signature and date
- painted on reverse "'Wash & War'/BISHOP 77."
- Provenance
- Created by Olive Bishop, Adelaide, 1977; (Jam Factory Adelaide); Purchased by the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 1977.
- Media category
- Ceramic
- Collection area
- Australian decorative arts and design
- Copyright
- © Art Gallery of South Australia
-
The 1960’s and 1970’s were a time of great social change. The Vietnam War caused political and social dissent and prompted a re-examining of the repercussions of war and its aftermath.
The ‘funk’ art movement emerged within this cultural context, with ceramic artists moving away from creating purely functional pieces to making objects that were non-functional, sometimes irreverent, and often carrying an underlying satirical meaning or social commentary.
As part of a generation that questioned the purpose of war, conscription, and Australia’s participation in Vietnam, this work by Olive Bishop refers to the intergenerational impacts of conflict. With over 60,000 Australian serving in the Vietnam war, the conflict became the cause of the greatest social and political dissent in Australia since the conscription referendums at the time of the First World War.
The title of this work, Wash and War, plays on the phrase “wash and wear”. To wash and wear suggests a cycle of use and re-use. Bishop questions the endless cycle of war and what purpose it serves. The shirt is clean and neatly folded, the stains of war washed away. Separated from the person who wore it, the nameless uniform could be seen as removing individuality from the human who wore it, making them a faceless cog in the war machine. What, then, did the war achieve? At what cost? And is it inevitable that the cycle of war will continue?