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    contemporary art, religious, sculptural portraiture

    Oliviero Rainaldi, Conversazione, 2011

    February 27, 2013

    conversazione

    Everyone loves a good car crash in the art world where no one really gets hurt. Last year we thrilled to the saga of Beast Jesus. The previous year this statue of Pope John Paul II became infamous.

    Critics said it looked like Mussolini. The artist reworked it to produce the version you see here. But then critics said it looked even more like the Italian dictator.

    It seems that in Italy, papal portraiture comes under a similar level of scrutiny to royal portraiture in this monarchical island of ours. Who will ever forget the first official picture of “Kate”?

    What the photos don’t prepare you for is the location of this high profile piece of public art. It is out front of an unlovely bus station, more of a municipal than an ecclesiastical gesture.

    Personal first impressions of the work were not too bad. The former pontif looks kindly at least. His robe is embracing. It welcomes you as surely as the arm-like colonnades of St Peter’s Square.

    But if you stop to consider it, there’s a mysterious darkness behind the drapery. We cannot avoid the impression of secrecy, the hint of that horrendous cover up of which many accuse the church.

    An awestruck visit to the Vatican does much to dispel any accumulated cynicism, mind you. Here you will find evidence of an ongoing patronage of the arts without which Catholicism might not be what it is.

    The expression broad church surely comes to mind as the tiny state’s museum includes a study for Francis Bacon’s screaming pope and more than one statue to the Egyptian god Thoth.

    In the ethnography department, you come across a photo of John Paul II with a koala no less. A previous holder of the highest office in this faith could not look more cuddly if he tried.

    But had Rainaldi chose this image, it would surely have been hailed as the epitome of religious kitsch. So he went for something abstracted and paid the price.

    You realise it would have taken some miracle to escape from Michaelangelo and Bernini in this city. They too are waiting in the heavily draped wings here, casting their shadow over the present.

    You can read more about the unenthusiastic reception of Conversazione in Huffington Post here.

    chess, Dada, modern art

    Marcel Duchamp, Portrait of Chess Players, 1911

    February 26, 2013

    duchamp

    Unlike a piece of writing or a piece of art, it is easy enough to get started with a game of chess. The game of kings offers a limited number of openings. You might never use more than a couple.

    For this reason, and several others, most creative people should envy Marcel Duchamp. He turned up, changed the course of art history, and well earned his retirement in the finite maze of chess*.

    What might surprise many to his current exhibition at Barbican is the casually mentioned fact that Duchamp was so good at playing chess, he represented France on the international stage.

    But the rumour that he gave up art turns out to be an exaggeration. As you can see from the painting above, chess could not completely satisfy even the most cerebral and conceptual of artists.

    Having said that, unless we be grandmasters ourselves, it is no easy matter to explain Duchamp’s fascination for the game, beyond such vague notions of strategy, lack of chance, competition.

    One of the exhibits is a travel chess board which he made himself so it might after all be fair to say he loved the game as a means of passing time, perhaps of killing it altogether.

    Musician and artist John Cage was not much of a chess player. He asked Duchamp for lessons and the older man humoured him by playing him off against his wife Teeny. Nice move.

    There is little room for creativity in chess. Even the longest or strangest games are little more than an all-consuming puzzle. Why then does this engagement of Duchamp capture the imagination?

    Perhaps, because the artist draws you or me into a dizzying world of gambits, forks, sacrifices and checks. The beauty lies in the patterns of endless play, not in the appearance of the board.

    Other artists have dabbled in chess: Yoko Ono, Alighiero Boetti. During the cold war it was perhaps the perfect expression of geopolitical realities which are now more various.

    But in rising to the top of two chosen fields, Duchamp outplays everyone. We emerge from the show in London, like Cage et al, as satisfied as any defeated opponent.

    Portrait of Chess Players can be seen in The Bride and the Bachelors: Duchamp with Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg and Johns showing at Barbican, London, until 9 June 2013.

    *I have a conversation with friend Simon Kirkham to thank for this observation.

    aggregation, contemporary art

    Found Objects 25/02/13

    February 25, 2013

    Sorry for lack of postings of late. I’ve been on a short break in Rome. Keen observers will find this reflected in my first two chosen links of the week:

    • In any other country he would surely be unelectable. Not so in Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy, from where Der Spiegel recalls the following gaffes.
    • As luck would have it, the Sistene Chapel was still open. It’s beyond amazing, as are the Raphael frescoes in the rest of the Vatican Museum.
    • Back on these shores was an opening of Lichtenstein at Tate Modern. Laura Cumming hails the visual ingenuity of the man
    • This is hilarious even if your French is as basic as mine. Marcel Broodthaers interviews a cat about art.
    • This too is very funny, and certainly basic: a new strain of teenage bvehaviour known as gallon smashing. Animal NY compare the kids involved to Marina Abramovic
    • The tasteful folk at Pipe blog compiled their ten favourite films. Here are the top five; more under ’older posts’.
    • The Telegraph have an exclusive slide show from what looks to be the V&A’s biggest ever show: a look back at the visual world of David Bowie.
    • Smithsonian blog about photographer Thomas Shahan who does PR work for arthropods. Seriously.
    • How to catch an art thief: offer them a plum job in a gallery. Another one from the Telegraph.
    • Finally, prepare to be charmed by a time lapse film about the staging of a new Murillo show at Dulwich Picture Gallery. Not to be missed, it seems (via @mbadeane).

    20th century, contemporary art, installation art

    Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Celebration? Realife, 1972-2000

    February 11, 2013

    celebration blog

    Throwing a party, like making art, is one of those activities we can attend to when all of our most basic needs have been satisfied. Food, shelter, art – that is surely the order.

    But if we are to suppose that ancient people ever let their hair down, who would decorate the cave? With a bit of help from the shamans, you could say those private views got out of hand.

    In latter times, say the last 500 years, art has sobered up but celebration has never fallen out of fashion. It could apply to, say, the reading of a mass in church.

    By the by, the first recorded use of the word in English is in a 1580 in love poem, Arcadia by Sir Philip Sydney: “He laboured…to hasten the celebration of their marriage.”

    Central to this piece is indeed a plastic bride and groom such as you would find atop a cake. They pose for a strobe flash surrounded by the residue of their bash.

    If it is theirs… Other cues lead elsewhere.Pierrot hats and animal masks feature in few weddings. The discarded beach ball suggests that even the honeymoon is already over.

    But the party is kept going by a revolving glitter ball and changing filters on a spot light. Strings of fairy lights animate the scene long after the guests have left. It is a lonely sort of installation.

    What sets the defining tone for this celebration is a psychedelic and glammy rock soundtrack which beckons you into the party from the moment you step into the gallery.

    Most poignant is when Bowie’s Five Years comes across the speakers. This now sounds like a party for the end of the world, or at the very least, glancing at a portrait of Lenin, the end of history.

    What can it mean to go home after a party like that, the very last of its kind. In 2013 it looks like Chaimowicz’s empty piece is the celebration of a celebration. Realife (sic) has caught up.

    Celebration? Realife can be seen in Glam: The Performance of Style, at Tate Liverpool until 12 May 2013. See gallery website for more details.

    Uncategorized

    Found Objects 06/02/13

    February 6, 2013

    Does rock count as art? If so there can only be one major story this week. Here it is along with all the others:

    • Said rock band My Bloody Valentine release first new album for 22 years and Pitchfork give it a rare 9.1 out of 10
    • Syliva Plath also made headlines this week. London Review of Books tears into the girly cover of the 50th anniversary edition of The Bell Jar
    • Old news, but still headline worthy. Jean Paul Sartre visits Andreas Baader in jail and Der Spiegel carries newly released transcript
    • Art Info asks how Banksy built his brand and reports from the dead end this “mysterious’ figure now finds himself in
    • Pedro Velez is tired of “friends curating friends” and explains in Newcity Art that the situation is endemic in Chicago
    • Ubu web posted an album of music by, among others, Mike Kelley, above which Jean Baudrillard reads poetry. If only my French was better…
    • The Guardian reports on a missing blank cheque which is drawing crowds to the public gallery in Milton Keynes. They sound bemused.
    • Aerial photos of Ducth Tulip fields look like a software glitch. Stunning shots courtesy the ever-stimulating Animal NY
    • After the End interviews Liam Scully as the artist plans to sell off all his old work in a liquidation sale. Makes perfect sense
    • Hyperallergic profile Ragnar Kjartansson whose clowning about sounds like just what the art world needs right now (along with a new MBV album).

    Uncategorized

    Found Objects 29/01/13

    January 29, 2013

    Here’s criticismism’s weekly selection of art links, gathered for your enjoyment:

    • A Belgian living in Mexico with a nice line in political interventions around the world: Modern Art Notes podcast scores an interview with Francis Alÿs
    • Mark Brown from the Guardian takes a look at the new Kurt Schwitters retrospective at Tate Britain, another reappraisal of art in these isles during the 20th century
    • Meanwhile, The Telegraph reports on another fugitive from the Nazis. But Imre Goth got in hot water for painting Goering as a morphine addict (and he was)
    • Roberta Smith reviews a show on Surrealism and drawing at the Morgan Library and Museum. Sounds completely brilliant
    • Also in the Guardian was an interview with Carl Andre ahead of his show at Margate. Emma Brockes probes him about murder accusations
    • Hyperallergic blogs about the new cultural expenses being given to Brazillian workers. Expect something of a golden age in that part of the world
    • The Independent sent Tom Peck along to Lolcats – The Exhibishun, a show given over to an internet meme. He wasn’t impressed
    • The Exhibition List carries a post about the Jimi Hendrix Memorial in Seattle, a work in progress by the sounds of it.
    • Artista blog revisits Colchester for a report on the fortunes of their newbuild gallery First Site. Curved walls were always going to make curating an additional challenge
    • Slate reviews a ‘new’ Werner Herzog film about (happy) snowbound hunters living in Siberia. You can just hear the voiceover already.

    Uncategorized

    Found Objects 21/01/13

    January 21, 2013

    Welcome back to the week you’ve just lived through, but this time with premium quality links:

    • Saddest thing in the world: when an outlaw street artist is fully embraced by the mainstream. Cameron and Branson must really have it in for Ben Eine.
    • This story is weird and a bit one sided. But it’s always good value to find a Telegraph journalist frothing at the mouth over goings on at Arts Council England.
    • Long read of the week: The New York Magazine devotes an in-depth profile to gallery owner Larry Gagosian, a man for these hyper inflated times.
    • The Inependent’s tantalising In the Studio series pays a visit to that of arte povera trailblazer Giuseppe Penone.
    • Artist Nick Cave takes his Soundsuits to Grand Central in New York. Check out the video of a similar event in North Texas University. There’s a great moment about seven minutes in.
    • 150,000 animal noises have been made available online by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Check out the giant otter on Animal NY. It’s completely mad.
    • Here’s something we should have guessed. To experience some or other piece of art as sublime, you may want to watch a horror film beforehand. The Creativity Post explains.
    • Another link from Animal NY, this one a gallery of shops selling Jamaican dancehall records. It seems vinyl just never went away.
    • How well do avant garde short graphic films translate to Vimeo? Quite okay, as it turns out. Take a look at these three examples from Another Design blog
    • And finally, a feel good moment. Or feel less bad. Artist Justin Bettman has been trading bagels with the homeless in exchange for stories and photographs.

    contemporary, Denmark, Figurative painting, Uncategorized

    Weiwei-isms by Ai Weiwei

    January 19, 2013

    weiweisms

    Books come in all shapes and sizes, but perhaps the most potent format is both small and black. The collected quotes of Ai Weiwei should have come in nothing less.

    Editor Larry Warsh has trawled through some 74 interviews with the Chinese artist to bring readers in the West a meditation on his life and situation in soundbites.

    Then again, his countrymen have always liked to keep things short and snappy. Ai tells us that the quotations of Chairman Mao were rarely more than a tweet-length.

    Admittedly, China’s pictographic use of Twitter allows them 140 words rather than 140 characters, but still. Confucius can be quoted just four words at a time, says Ai.

    Since these are verbal epithets, Weiwei-isms contains a degree of repetition and odd moments of banality. A modern day Shakespeare, “might be writing on Twitter.” Really!?

    But if that obvious statement were to come true, the bard could not do better than this from Ai’s twitter feed (@aiww): “The world is a sphere, there is no East or West.”

    The ultimate power of this book lies not in the words, however, but in the free-wheeling attitude they represent in one of the most restrictive societies on the planet.

    “Expressing oneself is like a drug. I’m so addicted to it,” says Ai, who has indeed found the most dangerous and least legal narcotic in China.

    As has been much publicised, in 2011 he was busted and spent 81 days behind bars. “During the days in detention I thought most about the moon,” he says, incorrigibly.

    Ai’s belief in free speech makes interview-giving an important part of his role in the art world. Along with the social media usage, one wants to call it a practice, but that word sounds too academic.

    Which this tweet certainly isn’t: “Overturning police cars is a super-intense workout. It’s probably the only sport I enjoy.” This allies him with rebel artists Voina in Russia, who did just that.

    Artists in the West have always taken risks, be that earning the displeasure of the church, rejection by the Paris Salon or simply the derision of the gallery going public.

    But on the whole making art is a legitimate enough business. Ai meanwhile is risking his neck and this gives his art another dimension. Call it a sort of realism.

    Despite our relative freedoms, his little black book really is a manifesto. Ai may be kicking against the pricks, but he makes it look easy, irrestistible, even enjoyable. So join him.

    Weiwei-isms (pp125) is edited by Larry Warsh and published by Princeton University Press. Available in all good bookshops, and this bad one.

    Uncategorized

    Found Objects 14/01/13

    January 14, 2013

    Top stories of the week include a portrait of a future queen and the new single by a former one. Read on…

    • There was much derision heaped upon Kate Middleton’s first officical portrait. My favourite was this example by Mark Hudson in the Telegraph
    • Bowie records an album in secret. But hold on, wasn’t this the subject of his so called golden tweet a few years back. Anyway, L-Magazine looks forward to the release
    • Mark Landis is a prolific art forger who gives away his work and calls it philanthropy. Meet this strange customer on the Daily Serving
    • The New York Times reviews a major Nam June Paik show at Smithsonian American Art Museum and finds the Korean artist worked best when he kept things “on screen“
    • Charlotte Higgins provides a write up of the 2013 Catlin Guide complete with some entertaining quotes from director Justin Hammond
    • This is too sad. Jorge Selarón, who designed an iconic flight of steps in Rio, was found dead on his most celebrated artwork
    • Art21 posted a film about and with artist Richard Serra. The sculptor talks about the importance of process in making any sort of visual art
    • Writer, musician and performer Paul Dutton has insightful things to say about the businessification of the arts. Check out his piece in impressive new magazine Wild Culture
    • I hought Art on the Underground was impressive but it seems in Stockholm they take Metro art to another level. Check out the gallery on Beautiful Decay
    • Finally but not leastly, Ralph Steadman’s longstanding friend Robert Chalmers makes a compelling case for the artist’s greatness, with support from Johnny Depp.

    Uncategorized

    Found Objects 07/01/13

    January 7, 2013

    Well, here’s your regular pick of the best art links around:

    • Art Observed report on a fine looking Sol LeWitt show at Marian Goodman gallery in Paris
    • Contemporary Art Daily also have pictures from what seems like a cracking show: Judith Bernstein at the New Museum
    • ArtInfo carry a short film about Russian art world star Aidan Salakhova, currently showing at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art
    • You know you’re getting old when the features on aging begin to appeal. But the Atlantic reveals how artistic talents can bloom as other parts of your brain die (Thanks Amy Riley)
    • It’s lengthy but the Guardian’s Rachel Cooke will tell you all you need to know about Kurt Schwitters in advance of his show at Tate Britain this year
    • The same paper asks why Schwitters fan Damien Hirst has parted ways from his worldwide gallery Gagosian. Because he can, seems to be the answer
    • Artist Omer Fast was apparently threatened by the FBI for making his fictionalised film about a drone pilot. That just makes his piece Five Thousand Feet is Best even better
    • The Casual Optimist blog carried a link to an interview with the late Robert Hughes. 50 mins long but time in his company is highly recommended
    • On the subject of critics @FisunGuner linked to this witty sculpture of said profession by Jasper Johns. Now that’s a bad review
    • Hyperallergic make a case for welcoming thoughts, feelings, opinion and occasional bouts of ignorance from beyond the art world. Hey, why not?