A Bigger Splash

Due to the 'severe' weather conditions around the UK this weekend, I had the oppurtunity to visit London earlier than expected, so took the oppurtunity to see the exhibition on action painting 'A Bigger Splash' at Tate Modern. I was lucky enough to recieve a National Art Pass as a Birthday gift last month, so got to see the exhibition for only £4.25 rather than the standard £10, an absolute bargain!

The exhibition itself was organised room by room, each containing a different section of the action painting genre. The first room contained the piece that gave the exhibition its name, Hockney's 'A Bigger Splash' alongside Pollock's abstract piece 'Summertime'. Whilst Hockney's work was displayed conventionally alongside a film depicting the artist and his Californian inspirations, the Pollock was displayed on the floor, as the piece would have been created, with a film by Namuth and Falkenberg of the artist creating the piece, giving the viewer a clear idea of how the painting was created, if this was not already clear from the appearance of the canvas splattered with paint.

So far, so conventional, however, as you move through the exhibition, the works and artists become more obscure, moving away from the recognisable Hockney, Pollock and Klein to lesser known artists from Vienna, China and Korea. The works themselves too became more avant garde, moving from painted canvas to photography, video art and installation pieces.

Room 5, which had a focus on 1970's works challenging ideas of conventional beauty for both men and women, was a particularly interesting topic. There were many works with a feminist theme from artists such as Helena Almeida and Elanor Antin, as well as a focus on drag and the so called development of 'queer politics' - topics that undoubtedly provoke a reaction in the viewer as we see the artists 'transformed' with the use of cosmetics and costume, still relevant in today's society that is arguably even more obsessed with image and appearance.

This exhibition is excellent for those wishing to see a wider variety of little known names and unusual works and look further into the genre of action painting, where the gestures needed to create the works are as important as the pieces themselves. However, the large volume of photographic works, with little or no explanation were somewhat overwhelming, with many of my fellow gallery-goers not giving these pieces more than a passing glance, instead focusing on the more traditional painted works.

Modern Interpretations

I cannot wait to go and visit this piece having seen in on Dazed Digital. I am really interested in modern interpretations of images taken for the history of art. The modern interpretations seen in the new pieces often brings attention to the original by reinventing it in modern idiom or media, potentially making it more relevant to society today. This piece, the image of Ophelia by Millais, is ingrained into our minds as a culture, from both an artistic and literary perspective.

This video piece by Japanese artist Mihara Yasuhiro and photographer Paolo Roversi is emotive, centering in on the iconic image, including movement and sound, bringing the piece to life. It gives the piece an almost mediative quality the sound and movement combining to create a sombre, haunting atmosphere appropriate for the meaning of the image. 


I plan to visit the Tate Britain (where it is currently on show alongside the original pre-Raphaelite piece) in the Christmas holidays, which aren't far away! 

For now, you (and I) can enjoy the video on Dazed Digital using the link below, and compare with the original image above.



http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/15235/1/ophelia-has-a-dream

Paris - Part One

Its been a while since my last post, and with the flurry of UCAS applications there hasn't been a spare weekend for many gallery visits, bar one to the Chanel Little Black Jacket exhibition at London's Saatchi gallery in October. However,a surprise trip to Paris for my 18th birthday seemed worthy of a post, two days of art and culture, good food and wine. After departing from St. Pancras at 6 am on Saturday morning we arrived in Paris to crisp winter sun. A wander round the famous Notre Dame to take in the beautiful Gothic architecture was followed by a whistle-stop viewing at the Louvre, a thoroughly enjoyable, if slightly overwhelming experience.

Dinner on a Moroccan themed barge ended the day, with a fantastic view of Paris' most famous landmark lit up, which I enjoyed with all the cheesy excitement of any tourist on their first (proper) trip to France's capital city.

On day two we travelled to the north of the city to the famous flea market. After attempting to barter for some unusual items of taxidermy (stuffed bird with a baby crocodile head and a cat with a fish head!), and failing, we took a cab, quite a feat at lunch hour in France, to the Pompidou centre. We headed up to the top floor, enjoying the view on the way, for lunch at the George restaurant. Watching the waiters and waitresses, who were all supposedly models and actors, preen and prance around the restaurant had to be some of the funniest moments of the trip! The internal architectural pods were reminiscent of Dali's anthromorphic shapes, which were on view at the exhibition on show below. 

Unfortunately the weekend had to come to an end, however, a return trip scheduled for Feburary, with school including trips to see the Dali exhibition, the recreated Brancusi studio and the collection of 20th century art works at the Musee D'Orsay.

Jenny Saville Modern Art Oxford

A rather late post, as the exhibition is now over, but I thought that it was worth reviewing regardless. I have long admired Jenny Saville's work and the opportunity to see a large selection of her recognisable work alongside new pieces was unmissable. Her work needs to be seen in the flesh as it were, in order to fully appreciate the range of colour and textured brush strokes that characterise her work. Although some pieces in the exhibition were almost uncomfortable to look at, due to the nature of the subjects, one purportedly drawn from a victim of gun crime from police records, the work is technically beautiful. A particular favourite of mine was the portrait of a blind woman, the colours used were beautiful and conveyed the blindness hauntingly. The bodies depicted may not be what is now conventionally beautiful in out society, and Saville claims not to be seeking for us to accept these bodies, but there is a certain intangible beauty in the works. Her choice of colour palettes ranging from selections of blues and mauve alongside pieces composed entirely of violent shades of red, often give the impression of abuse of the subject.

Although I found these colossal paintings fascinating, it was the display of new works that I found most engaging. This work comprised of charcoal drawings on the theme of mother and child as well as references to works from the renaissance, the images overlaid creating a feeling of motion - particularly effective in the mother and child images as it accurately conveyed the awkward movement of the young child in the images, their arms and legs flailing wildly.

A trip to the gallery's cafe after seeing the exhibition was also a treat, I can highly recommend the homemade soups! This gallery is well worth a visit.

Edinburgh History of Art Trip - Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Picasso

 (Sculpture by Nathan Coley)

On the 7th of August, having just arrived back from Barbados the previous afternoon, I packed my bags and boarded a train to Edinburgh with the two other girls in my History of Art A level group on a trip partially funded by our school's PTA. The main purpose of the trip was to visit the galleries that Scotland has to offer, with some stellar exhibitions currently on show at the National Gallery and at the Modern Gallery in Edinburgh. The exhibitions I am about to talk about, the Van Gogh to Kandinsky - Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880-1910 and the Picasso and Modern British Art, were the highlights of the trip despite having seen a street performer balance on a ladder whilst juggling machetes...

When we arrived after an endlessly long train journey and a confusion caused by maps that didn't show that Edinburgh is built as two levels of city, we dropped our bags off at our hostel and made our way to the National Gallery to see the Van Gogh to Kandinsky exhibition.

The building that houses the galleries is beautiful in itself, an ode to classical architecture with ionic capitals on slim pillars in a gorgeous milky yellow stone. However, this was secondary to the beauty captured in the landscapes shown in the exhibition.  I walk around exhibitions noting down on the notes section of my iphone any piece of art that catches my eye, and I don't think it would be possible for me to talk about every piece that I liked as there were just too many! Symbolism was a movement that I had not studied other than a very brief overview and so I was keen to understand more about it. The tortured emotions that are common in symbolist painting, seen in artists such as Munch's work, translate well to landscape - the sky being a particularly good means of expressing emotion. 

 I love colour in art, not garish bright colours, but the right combination of muted tones in many of these pieces by well known artists such as Van Gogh, Monet, Kandinsky, Munch and Whistler alongside those of lesser known artists. A particular favourite piece in the exhibition was one by an artist of whom I had never heard (and whose name I could not pronounce!). The pieces were called 'Sparks 1 2 and 3' by Lithuanian artist Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis, and are shown below (image courtesy of Irkm.lt) I loved the blended peach and lilac tones of the piece, despite my usual aversion to typically 'girly' colours.

 

Another piece that I loved because of the artists use of colour was 'Calm Before The Storm' by Hans Thoma. The vibrant yellow of the field is countered by the brooding grey of the sky and deep green of the trees which break up what would be a harsh divide between horizon and sky the grey developing into swirling brown tones of the clouds. The colours seem at odds with one another creating a sense of unease and tension, and relating the artist view of the calm before a storm perfectly. (image courtesy of kunstmuseenkrefeld.de)

These pieces were my two favourites from the exhibition, I invested in the exhibition guide so that I can continue to look at all the beautiful works and learn more about symbolism, which I had not studied in depth. This exhibition was beautifully curated, the pieces grouped according to certain themes, with a room with works drawing on Greek Mythology being of particular interest. I can recommend it to anyone, it will certainly be appreciated by those who enjoy looking at landscape paintings, but with the added depth of meaning.

  

The next day we got up early in order to make our way to Edinburgh's modern gallery, which according to our various different maps was a little way out of the main town. It seemed like forever walking there in the scorching heat (I know - no rain in Scotland?!) but eventually we got there. It was worth the walk. The Picasso exhibition was enthralling, with his work displayed alongside those it had inspired later, including artists such as Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore and Fancis Bacon. As someone who really does not see the excitement in Cubism, I did at first think that areas of the exhibition featuring the movement would not interest me, but seeing how the movement inspired other artists in the future and why made me appreciate the style, although I still would not want to see an exhibition of purely Cubist works. 

Francis Bacon's early works, that were inspired by Picasso, were particularly interesting to see, as the artist destroyed much of this early work, so not many pieces survive. The series of crucifixions interested me as I completed one of my AS level Fine Art projects on the theme of crucifixion and had not come across these works by Bacon in my research. These pieces have the same haunting quality of the figures in Picasso's work depicting strange figures, but has a more fluid quality, it lacks the angles seen in Picasso's figures. Bacon's work is far more to my taste than that of Picasso however, even the grotesque orange triptych 'Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion' shown below (image courtesy of alexandervanhaaften.com) The vivid orange is what first draws your eye to the piece from across the room, then taken around the piece by the contorted bodies with elongated necks. His depiction of the surrounding space is like that in Picasso's 'Guernica' and the figures are distorted, showing clearly the influence of Picasso's work on Bacon's early works.

It is worth a trip up to Edinburgh to enjoy the beautiful city and see these two fantastic exhibitions, which are engaging and eye opening. The Symbolist landscapes although melancholy at times are uplifting in their beauty, the Picasso exhibition shows the enormous influence that one man can have over the artistic styles and tastes of artists long after he has gone.  

Damien Hirst at Tate Modern

Admittedly I am a little late on the bandwagon, but I have decided to review Damien Hirst's exhibition at Tate Modern, which ends on September 9th. I visited in July before departing on a whirlwind holiday to Barbados, directly followed by a short History of Art trip to Edinburgh with two of my fellow pupils, then straight down to London for the Olympics. This meant I was unable to start my blog until now, so I am now playing catch up.

Damien Hirst is an artist who provokes a Marmite style love him or hate him reaction amongst both the press and the public, and so I was forced to drag along the boyfriend as the parents refused point blank. All are of the opinion that Hirst is no more than a glorified, albeit very successful, entrepreneur - not an artist. And, I do agree to a certain extent, though not entirely. He has created a cult following in amongst the rich world of what I would call commercial art; pieces such as the (practically mass produced) spot paintings, which are not even executed by Hirst himself, sell for millions, a nice earner if there ever was one -prompting the cynicism of the public and press.

 It is works like this, along with the piece commonly known as 'the shark in the tank' (actually called 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living') that provoke public outrage that a man can be so rich without the need of any technical skill in 'art' which is considered by most people to be an attractive representation of a person object or landscape in paint. Hirst's work is alien to those of this narrow opinion, they do not look past the exterior, to the meaning of the piece, what 'the shark in the tank' represents, they see only the sensation surrounding one of art's richest men. I would argue however that Hirst uses many references in his work that have been used throughout the artwork from across  Europe since the Renaissance and before, the type of work which many consider to be 'proper art'.

Many works, such as 'Trinity - Pharmacology, Physiology, Pathology' which is arranged as a triptych as can be seen in many altarpieces, are direct references to Christianity simply fused with a slightly morbid, cynical but throughly modern view of the world that we now live in.

 Another example of these religious references can be seen in 'Doorways to the Kingdom of Heaven', these beautiful compositions of butterfly wings and household gloss paint (used frequently in Hirst's work) in the shape of a stained glass window that would be seen in a traditional gothic church. These were my favourite pieces in the exhibition, purely for their aesthetic beauty of form and vibrant colour.

By the end of the exhibition, after having been attacked by live butterflies and wondering what the fuss was about the smell supposedly coming from the giant ashtray, I had partially converted my companion to the belief that Hirst knows what he is doing, and not only in an entrepreneurial sense. I can recommend this exhibition to anyone, whether you like Hirst's work or not; you may not be converted, but you will certainly enjoy the spectacle.

First Post

Hello and welcome to galleryphile! As I spend much of my free time in London visiting galleries (and occasionally have the opportunity to go further afield) I have started this blog to document my experiences and opinions on various current exhibitions.  I am currently studying History of Art and this will hopefully provide an outlet to explore my interests and extend my knowledge outside of my course, which in my final year of school will cover only the 20th century in terms of painting, sculpture and architecture.  I hope you will enjoy reading my blog, whether you are a fellow 'galleryphile' or an art sceptic