Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Larissa Behrendt, Madman Entertainment.
“I’m an activist masquerading as an artist.” – Richard Bell
Here’s a chance to learn about the 50 years of First Nations activism in Australia through the lens of this contemporary Australian Aboriginal artist and provocateur. Viewing You Can Go Now is an enlightening experience.
Living in Brisbane, Bell works across a variety of media including painting, installation, performance and video. One of Australia’s most significant artists, Bell’s work explores the complex artistic and political problems of western, colonial and Indigenous art production.
His experience reflects the marginalisation, discrimination and powerlessness experienced by many First Nations people. He is a prolific and provocative visual artist whose activism has helped shape modern Australia’s understanding of indigenous history.
This documentary tracks the life, work and writings of this First Nations artist. It can be a confronting and discomforting experience. It reveals the ‘two Richards’ – ‘Richie’ the provocateur and enfant terrible of the art world who challenges its whiteness and the Richard who spent his childhood living in a tin shed, learnt his politics on the streets of Redfern and is known in his own community as an activist.
The film does not evade Australia’s history of exclusion and prejudice, tracing years of Aboriginal activism, and First Nations’ fight for sovereignty and land rights.
As director Larissa Behrendt states: You Can Go Now is an important, compelling story and personal profile of an Indigenous icon. “Richard Bell is a rock star, a larrikin a provocateur – a larger than life personality jumps off the screen to engage, entertain and astound a broad audience. But what I find most compelling about him as a subject is his fierce intellect. His art is a provocative polemic on society, colonisation and Indigenous political ambition.”
However, You Can Go Now is so much more than just a biography about an important artist.
- You Can Go Now is screening in cinemas
