Review: ‘Cineraria’ by Julia deVille at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 28th July – 22nd August, 2009

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982) 'Ruby Heart Starling' 2008 from the exhibition 'Cineraria' by Julia deVille at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne, July - Aug, 2009

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982)
Ruby Heart Starling
2008
Starling, sterling silver, black rhodium & gold plate, rubies, antique frame
30 x 35 x 18cm

 

 

This is an itsy-bitsy show by Julia deVille at Sophie Gannon Gallery in Richmond, Melbourne. Offering a menagerie of macabre stuffed animals and conceptual ideas the exhibition fails to coalesce into a satisfying vision. It features many ideas that are not fully investigated and incorporated into the corporeal body of the work.

We have, variously, The Funerary Urn/Cinerarium, The Ossuary, Skeletons, Black, Victorian Funerary Customs, Feathers, Taxidermy, Time, Eggs and Religion. We also have stuffed animals, cigar boxes, lace and silver, pelts and columns, jet necklaces and Victorian glass domes, glass eyes and ruby hearts to name but a few. The viewer is overwhelmed by ideas and materials.

When individual pieces excel the work is magical: the delicate and disturbing Stillborn Angel (2009, below) curled in a foetal position with appended sparrows wings is a knockout. The large suspended raven of Night’s Plutonian Shore (2009, above) effectively evinces the feeling of the shores of the underworld that the title, taken from an Edgar Allan Poe poem, reflects on.

Other pieces only half succeed. Piglet (2009, below) is a nice idea with its lace snout and beaded wings sitting on a bed of feathers awaiting judgement but somehow the elements don’t click into place. Further work are just one shot ideas that really lead nowhere. For example Cat Rug (2008, below) features black crystals in the mouth of a taxidermied cat that lies splayed on a plinth on the gallery floor. And, so … Silver Rook (2008, below) is a rook whose bones have been cast in silver, with another ruby heart, suspended in mid-air in the gallery space. Again an interesting idea that really doesn’t translate into any dialogue that is substantial or interesting.

Another problem with the work is the technical proficiency of some of the pieces. The cast silver front legs and ribs of The Anatomy of a Rabbit (2008, below) are of poor quality and detract from what should have been the delicacy of the skeletal bones of the work. The bronze lion cartouche on the egg shaped Lion Urn (2009) fails to fit the curved shape of the egg – it is just attached at the top most point and sits proud of the egg shape beneath. Surely someone with an eye for detail and a sense of context, perfection and pride in the work they make would know that the cartouche should have been made to fit the shape underneath.

Despite its fashionable position hovering between craft, jewellery and installation this is ‘art’ in need of a good reappraisal. My suggestion would be to take one idea, only one, and investigate it fully in a range of work that is thematically linked and beautifully made. Instead of multiplying the ideas and materials that are used, simplify the conceptual theme and at the same time layer the work so it has more complexity, so that it reveals itself over time. You only have to look at the work of Mari Funaki in the previous post or the simple but conceptually complex photographs of Matthias Koch in the German photography review to understand that LESS IS MORE!

There are positive signs here and I look forward to seeing the development of the artist over the next few years.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to Sophie Gannon Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982) 'Night's Plutonian Shore' 2009 from the exhibition 'Cineraria' by Julia deVille at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne, July - Aug, 2009

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982)
Night’s Plutonian Shore
2009
Tasmanian Forest Raven, black garnets, cotton, sterling silver, amethyst

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982) 'L'enfant (Infant Funerary Urn)' 2009 from the exhibition 'Cineraria' by Julia deVille at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne, July - Aug, 2009

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982)
L’enfant (Infant Funerary Urn)
2009
Ostrich egg, sterling silver, ostrich plumes and black garnet
35 x 12 x 12cm

 

Julia de Ville 'Cineraria' installation view at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne

Julia de Ville 'Cineraria' installation view at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne

 

Julia deVille Cineraria installation views at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982) 'Piglet' 2009

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982)
Piglet
2009
Piglet, antique lace, pins and feathers
25 x 23 x 13cm

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982) 'Cat Rug' 2008

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982)
Cat Rug
2008
Cat, glitter and fibreglass
100 x 60 x 8cm

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982) 'Sympathy' 2008

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982)
Sympathy
2008

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982) 'Silver Rook' 2008

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982)
Silver Rook
2008
Sterling silver, rubies
30 x 25 x 35cm

 

 

Cinerarium

n. pl. Cineraria
A place for keeping the ashes of a cremated body.

Cineraria
n. any of several horticultural varieties of a composite plant, Senecio hybridus, of the Canary Islands, having clusters of flowers with
white, blue, purple, red, or variegated rays.

Origin: 1590-1600; < NL, fem. of cinerarius ashen, equiv. to L ciner- (s. of cinis ashes) + -rius -ary; so named from ash-coloured down on leaves.

CINERARIA is a study of the ritual and sentiment behind funerary customs from various cultures and eras.

 

Notes on inspirations

The Funerary Urn/Cinerarium: Funerary Urns have been used since the times of the ancient Greeks and are still used today. After death, the body is cremated and the ashes are collected in the urn.

The Ossuary: An ossuary is a chest, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary. The greatly reduced space taken up by an ossuary means that it is possible to store the remains of many more people in a single tomb than if the original coffins were left as is. This was a common practice in post plague Europe in the 14th-16th Centuries.

Skeletons: Human skeletons and sometimes non-human animal skeletons and skulls are often used as blunt images of death. The skull and crossbones (Death’s Head) motif has been used among Europeans as a symbol of piracy, poison and most commonly, human mortality.

Black: In the West, the colour used for death and mourning is black. Black is associated with the underworld and evil. Kali, the Hindu god of destruction, is depicted as black.

Victorian Funerary Customs:

~ A wreath of laurel, yew or boxwood tied with crape or black ribbons would be hung on the front door to alert passers by that a death had occurred

~ The use of flowers and candles helped to mask unpleasant odours in the room before embalming became common

~ White was a popular colour for the funeral of a child. White gloves, ostrich plumes and a white coffin were the standard

Feathers: In Egyptian culture a recently deceased persons soul had to be as light as a feather to pass the judgment of Ma’at. Ma’at (Maet, Mayet) is the Egyptian goddess of truth, justice and the underworld. She is often portrayed as wearing a feather, a symbol of truth, on her head. She passed judgment over the souls of the dead in the Judgment Hall of Osiris. She also weighted up the soul against a feather. The “Law of Ma’at” was the basis of civil laws in ancient Egypt. If it failed, the soul was sent into the underworld. Ma’at’s symbol, an ostrich feather, stands for order and truth.

Taxidermy: Taxidermy to me is a modern form of preservation, a way for life to continue on after death, in a symbolic visual form.

The Raven: In many cultures for thousands of years, the Raven has been seen symbol of death. This is largely due to the Raven feeding on carrion. Edgar Allan Poe has used this symbolism in his poem, “The Raven”.

Time: Less blunt symbols of death frequently allude to the passage of time and the fragility of life. Clocks, hourglasses, sundials, and other timepieces call to mind that time is passing. Similarly, a candle both marks the passage of time, and bears witness that it will eventually burn itself out. These sorts of symbols were often incorporated into vanitas paintings, a variety of early still life.

Eggs: The egg has been a symbol of the start of new life for over 2,500 years, dating back to the ancient Persians. I have chosen egg shapes and even one Ostrich egg to represent the cycle of life, the beginning and the end.

Religion: Religion has played a large part in many funerary customs and beliefs. I am particularly interested in the Memento Mori period of the 16th-18th centuries. In a Calvinistic Europe, when the plague was a not too distant memory, a constant preoccupation with death became a fashionable devotional trend.

Julia deVille

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982) 'Stillborn Angel' 2009

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982)
Stillborn Angel
2009
Stillborn puppy, sparrow wings and sterling silver
13 x 10 x 5cm

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982) 'The Anatomy of a Rabbit' 2008

 

Julia deVille (New Zealand, b. 1982)
The Anatomy of a Rabbit
2008
Rabbit, sterling silver, rubies, glitter and mahogany
30 x 30 x 30cm

 

Julia de Ville 'Cineraria' installation views at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne

 

Julia deVille Cineraria installation view at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Sophie Gannon Gallery
2, Albert Street, Richmond, Melbourne

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm

Sophie Gannon Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Hunted and Gathered: Photographs’ from the Private Collection of Robert Flynn Johnson at Modernism, San Franciso

Exhibition dates: 9th July – 29th August, 2009

 

Many thankx to Modernism for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

Anonymous photographer. 'The Dancer, Ted Shawn, Boston Dance Theater' 1929 from the exhibition 'Hunted and Gathered: Photographs' from the Private Collection of Robert Flynn Johnson at Modernism, San Franciso, July - August, 2009

 

Anonymous photographer
The Dancer, Ted Shawn, Boston Dance Theater
1929
Vintage gelatin silver print
9 5/8 x 7 1/4″

 

Gérard Decaux. 'Abbe Lane' Rome, c. 1955 from the exhibition 'Hunted and Gathered: Photographs' from the Private Collection of Robert Flynn Johnson at Modernism, San Franciso, July - August, 2009

 

Gérard Decaux
Abbe Lane
Rome, c. 1955
Vintage gelatin silver print
10 1/4 x 8 1/2″

 

Clarence Sinclair Bull (American, 1896-1979) 'Greta Garbo' c. 1935 from the exhibition 'Hunted and Gathered: Photographs' from the Private Collection of Robert Flynn Johnson at Modernism, San Franciso, July - August, 2009

 

Clarence Sinclair Bull (American, 1896-1979)
Greta Garbo
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print, printed later
14 x 11″

 

Clarence Sinclair Bull was born in Sun River, Montana in 1896. His career began when Samuel Goldwyn hired him in the 1920 to photograph publicity stills of the MGM stars. He is most famous for his photographs of Greta Garbo taken during the years of 1926-1941. Bull’s first portrait of Garbo was a costume study for the Flesh and the Devil, in September 1926.

Bull was able to study with the great Western painter, Charles Marion Russell. He also served as an assistant cameraman in 1918. Bull was skilled in the areas of lighting, retouching, and printing. He was most commonly credited as “C.S. Bull.” Bull died on June 8, 1979 in Los Angeles, California, aged 83.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Laure Albin Guillot (French, 1879-1962) 'La Flamme (Woman's Head)' c. 1935

 

Laure Albin Guillot (French, 1879-1962)
La Flamme (Woman’s Head)
c. 1935
Vintage gelatin silver print
6 3/8 x 4 3/8″

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Acrobats' c. 1920

 

Anonymous photographer
Acrobats
c. 1920
Vintage gelatin silver print
8 5/8 x 5 5/8″

 

Pierre Nobel. 'Still Life' c. 1935

 

Pierre Nobel
Still Life
c. 1935
Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on paper
9 1/4 x 6 3/4″

 

Charles Jones (English, 1866-1959) 'Plum, Laxton Early Red' c. 1910

 

Charles Jones (English, 1866-1959)
Plum, Laxton Early Red
c. 1910
Vintage gelatin silver print from a glass plate negative
6 x 4 1/4″

 

 

Modernism presents a wonderful and intriguing selection of photographs from the private collection of Robert Flynn Johnson. Robert Flynn Johnson is emeritus faculty in the Printmaking department. He is the curator in charge of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, a position he has held since 1975.

This exhibition coincides with the publication of his second book on vernacular photography, The Face in the Lens: Anonymous Photographs (University of California Press).

“When I am asked what it takes to become an accomplished collector, it is not the qualities of knowledge, judgment or that elusive term “taste” that comes to mind. Instead, it is the ability to be curious that is the crucial element in the makeup of a true collector – the ability to ask questions, to learn, and to get answers regarding works of art that catch your eye and move your emotions,” Robert Flynn Johnson said.

He added, “For more than thirty-five years I have followed my curiosity in passionately seeking out photographs that have stirred my imagination. Some of them have been by great artistic masters of the medium, while others have been anonymous photographic orphans that have nothing going for them but the image itself. Both types of photographs are included in this exhibition.”

“I have made a varied, and some may say eccentric, selection of images. From a heart-stopping snapshot of acrobats posed in a three-man handstand perched on the ledge of the 108th floor of the Empire State building, to a tender portrait of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio that captures the instant before their lips meet in their first kiss as a married couple, They these pictures are a true reflection of my collecting philosophy that is attracted to profound, beautiful, humorous, and absurd aspects of life and art.”

“Nevertheless, I hope they these works convey some of the visual surprise and delight to you that I felt when I first saw each and every one of them.”

Oscar Wilde once said that the only person that liked all art equally was an auctioneer! I do not expect viewers to appreciate all the photographs in this exhibition, but through my visual curiosity in collecting them over time, I did, and that is why they are here together today.

Text from Artdaily.org website

 

Carelton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'San Francisco' c. 1868

 

Carelton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
San Francisco
c. 1868
Vintage albumen print
8 x 12 1/8″

 

Mammoth-plate photograph of San Francisco taken from the top of Telegraph Hill showing the Golden Gate in the background.

 

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
'Landscape, Environs of Paris (Étang, Ville-d'Avray)' 1917

 

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Landscape, Environs of Paris (Étang, Ville-d’Avray)
1917
vintage albumen print
7 x 9 1/4″

 

Anonymous photogapher (Czechoslovakia). 'Train' c. 1930

 

Anonymous photographer (Czechoslovakia)
Train
c. 1930
Vintage gelatin silver print
9 1/4 x 11 5/8″

 

Anonymous photographer (United Kingdom). 'Train' c. 1930

 

Anonymous photographer (United Kingdom)
Train
c. 1930
Vintage gelatin silver print
9 1/2 x 11 1/2″

 

Sasha. 'Archer Leaping Through the Air' c. 1930

 

Sasha
Archer Leaping Through the Air
c. 1930
Vintage gelatin silver print
7 3/8 x 9 3/8″

 

Leopold Hugo (American born Poland, 1866-1933) 'Craters of the Moon, Idaho' 1920

 

Leopold Hugo (American born Poland, 1866-1933)
Craters of the Moon, Idaho
1920
Tinted vintage gelatin silver print
7 3/8 x 9 3/8″

 

Anonymous. 'Acrobat Piroska at the Latin Quarter (Published in Life Magazine)' c. 1945

 

Anonymous photographer
Acrobat Piroska at the Latin Quarter (Published in ‘Life Magazine’)
c. 1945
Vintage gelatin silver print
9 5/8 x 9″

 

Felix Bonfils (French, 1831-1885) 'Woman in Burka' c. 1870

 

Felix Bonfils (French, 1831-1885)
Woman in Burka
c. 1870
vintage albumen print
8 3/4 x 6 5/8″

 

 

Modernism
724 Ellis Street
San Francisco, CA 94109

Opening Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 5:30pm

Modernism website

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Review: ‘Intersections’ by Sarah Amos at Gallery 101, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 22nd July – 15th August, 2009

 

Sarah Amos (Australian, b. 1965) 'Red Walk' 2009 from the exhibition 'Intersections' by Sarah Amos at Gallery 101, Melbourne, July - August, 2009

 

Sarah Amos (Australian, b. 1965)
Red Walk
2009
Collagraph and Monoprint

 

 

An interesting exhibition of Collagraphs (a type of collage printmaking)1 and etchings is presented by Sarah Amos at Gallery 101, Melbourne, work that is full of delicate coloured layering, topographical mapping and nodal, rhizomic and Spirogyra-type structures.

The ‘flux’ of the work, it’s musical cadence if you like, is the fusion of palimpsestic markings as viewed from the air – the dotted contours, the ploughed fields, the beautiful spatial layering that has an almost Kandinsky-like effect – with the aesthetics of Japanese paper, matt black colour (that subtly glistens on close inspection) and the tactility of the surface of the work. These intersections produce images that have some outstanding resonances: vibrations of energy that ebb and flow around the gallery space. These works are captivating!

For me the simpler images were the more successful especially the series named Intersections with their muted tonalities, shifting colours and topographical structure. They also reminded me of the black and white aerial landscape photography of Emmet Gowin (see below).

While I am unsure of the validity of the ‘landscape’/’urban lens’ ‘urban temperature’ references (which I found unnecessary and slightly irrelevant) these works and their synaptic interfaces must be experienced. For the viewer they hold a strange attraction as you stand before them drawn, inexorably, into their penumbral spaces. Recommended.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to gallery 101 for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

1/ “A Collagraph print is a collage printmaking technique and is a form of Intaglio printing. The collagraph plate is printed in the same way as etchings, but also include the basic principle of relief printing and can be printed either as intaglio or relief.

The term collagraph refer to a collage board where the materials are assembled on a flat base or plate (matrix) to form a relief block with different surface levels and textures.

Collagraph plates are created by sticking and gluing materials like textured paper or fabric onto the plate and then coat it with varnish or acrylic medium afterwards to protect the materials.

Anonymous. “Printmaking: Collagraphs/Collage Blocks,” on the ArtistTerms.com website [Online] Cited 03/08/2009. No longer available online

 

 

Sarah Amos (Australian, b. 1965) 'Storm Loading' 2009 from the exhibition 'Intersections' by Sarah Amos at Gallery 101, Melbourne, July - August, 2009

 

Sarah Amos (Australian, b. 1965)
Storm Loading
2009
Etching and hand drawing on Shiramine Japanese paper

 

Installation view of 'Intersections' by Sarah Amos at Gallery 101, Melbourne

Installation view of 'Intersections' by Sarah Amos at Gallery 101, Melbourne

 

Installation views of Intersections by Sarah Amos at Gallery 101, Melbourne
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Harvest traffic over agricultural pivot near Hermiston, Orgeon, 1991' 1991

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Harvest traffic over agricultural pivot near Hermiston, Orgeon, 1991
1991
Gelatin silver print

 

Sarah Amos (Australian, b. 1965) 'Intersections 8' 2009

 

Sarah Amos (Australian, b. 1965)
Intersections 8
2009
Collagraph with gouache

 

 

“(Flux) – where a total electric or magnetic field passes through a surface.”

 
My work is a fusion of both land and cityscape. I am interested in interpreting spatially dynamic, real and half forgotten landscapes through an urban lens. New to this body of work is my interest in the visual graphics of scientific diagrams in which dynamic and informative landscapes are drafted into linear minimal lines. I have absorbed this distilled language, translating it into an architectural and organic landscape where the intersections of line, volume and space are constantly in flux. This obscure knowledge is pared down, simplified and ordered into a clean analysis ready for instant translation.

The Australian landscape is central to my work and influences my use of colour, idiosyncratic marks and open space. These works are personalised maps of accumulated information, like printed histories, that record the duelling intersections where the weathers of the landscape and the urban temperature have begun to take on new and vital immediacy.”

Sarah Amos, 2009

Text from the Gallery 101 website [Online] Cited 01/08/2009. No longer available online

 

Sarah Amos (Australian, b. 1965) 'Lute' 2009

 

Sarah Amos (Australian, b. 1965)
Lute
2009
Collagraph

 

 

Gallery 101

This gallery is no longer open.ppp

Sarah Amos website

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Review: ‘John Brack’ retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria, NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 24th April – 9th August, 2009

 

John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The chase' 1959 from the 'John Brack' retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria, NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne, April - August, 2009

 

John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
The chase
1959
Oil on composition board
100.2 x 121.8 cm
Grishin, o94
Private collection, Melbourne
© Helen Brack

 

 

“One either has a subject, or one has not.”

John Brack

 

This is a solid retrospective of the work of the Australian artist John Brack (1920-1999) presented by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. John Brack is, quintessentially, an Australian and more specifically a Melbourne artist. Melbournians have a love hate relationship with his work – loving the earlier paintings that view the working classes of 1950s Melbourne through a nostalgic, humorous, sardonic lens (when originally the popularity of the work in the 1950s/60s was, as Robert Nelson has observed, mistakenly identified with ridicule of the subject matter)1 while finding the later work of massed pencils, postcards, deities and wooden people mystifying, cold and elusive.

Brack saw his paintings of suburbia as honest portrayals of the new milieux. His sparse, graphic style evidenced the emotionally distanced relationships between space and people in the new cityscapes and best suited his cerebral approach to the subject matter. Men become mannequins with skeletal faces that hover menacingly behind the barmaid in The bar (1954, above), an amorphous mass of brown-suited humanity. Two women are portrayed in all their high-collared stiffness in the painting ‘Two typists’ (1955, above), their stylised faces, black hat and hair surmounted by hanging, disembodied legs at the top of the painting. These two women then reappear at bottom right in one of Brack’s most famous paintings, Collins St, 5p.m. (1955, above) subsumed into the two lines of people wearily trudging home from a day’s work at the office.

Brack’s early paintings are full of stylised metaphor – for example the clinical emptiness of space, the implied threat of hanging ‘instruments’ in ‘The block’ (1954, above) or the decapitated bird-like alienation of the fish head in The fish shop (1955, above) – offer comment on the nature of suburban life: ordered, dead, soulless surfaces, facades behind which life seethes. Brack recognises the slightly macabre beauty of these industrial spaces, their form and purpose, where no one had recognised them before. There are oversized teeth (The veil, 1952), large hands, the fleshy pink of faces (The barbers shop, 1952) and the tribal mask of a face in Man in pub (1953) where man becomes fragment. Above all there is a simplicity and eloquence in line and form grounded in a limited palette of ochres, yellows, greys, blacks, whites and browns. These are the colours of the early cave painters and it’s poignant that Brack uses them so effectively to anchor his subject matter both in history, memory and the present of contemporary life, a life we still recognise intimately over fifty years later.

Here is the ‘Human Condition’ writ large (with capitals!), the humility of professions such as butchers, seamstresses, typists and barmaids (with their limited control of the environment) portraying the body of the worker, as in Satre’s ‘Nothingness’,2 living the tedium of suburban life whilst wanting to flee the anguish of this existence into the desirable light of the future toward which man projects himself. This a theme that Brack develops in the later paintings with their stilted, cerebral investigation of existentialism. These paintings offer a more general contribution to a view of the human condition – love and hate, we, us, them, pros and cons – a view originally grounded in the suburbs of Melbourne but elevated to the ethereal, paintings that seem to lack material substance but offer a hyper-refined conceptual aesthetic.

Sticks and Stones Will Break My Bones But Pencils Will Never Hurt Me

As early as Knives and forks (1958) and The playground (1959) we can observe the beginnings of the spaces of his later pencil paintings with their uniting of form, line and plane (think the planes of Cezanne). The later work is literally much colder, the palette now blues instead of the warmer ochres and yellows and this change is very obvious when you walk around the exhibition. There is an emotional distance here – from human contact and the warmth of company. Ronald Miller observed in 1970 that Brack’s work is about the rituals of life, about states of uneasy poise and vulnerability, about realities behind facades but in the later work the paintings become the facades: gone are the ambiguities and vulnerabilities to be replaced by an altogether different ‘order’ of existence.

We see in paintings such as Souvenirs (1976), We, Us, Them (1983), The pros and cons (1985) and Watching the flowers (1990-91 – see all below) how the canvas has become a stage set replete with turned up edges, spaces of ritual performance containing generalised metaphors for the nature of human existence, metaphors with universal themes. In his investigation of the universal Brack looses sight of the personal. His towers made of playing cards, his thrusting planes, the military precision of his opposing armies of goose-steeping pencils lack empathy for the thing that he was searching to be attuned with: the nature of existence, the human condition.

As Sartre observed,

“To apprehend myself as seen is, in fact, to apprehend myself as seen in the world and from the standpoint of the world. The look does not carve me out in the universe; it comes to search for me at the heart of my situation and grasps me only in irresolvable relations with instruments. If I am seen as seated, I must be seen as “seated-on-a-chair,” … But suddenly the alienation of myself, which is the act of being-looked-at, involves the alienation of the world which I organise. I am seated on this chair with the result that I do not see it at all, that it is impossible for me to see it …”3


This is the point that John Brack reached: through his desire to paint universal themes he was unable to visualise and apprehend himself as seen in the world from the standpoint of the world. It feels (yes feeling!) that he was alienated from the very thing he sought to portray – how the personal and the universal are one and the same.

Brack’s ‘failure’ as an artist (if indeed it can be called that) is not, as Robert Nelson has suggested, “because he didn’t talk enough or wisely enough to negotiate his way out of a misunderstanding” (that his work was sardonic). On the contrary I believe his ‘success’ as an artist is that he painted exactly what he wanted to paint in the time and place that he wanted to paint it. His later work might strike some as cold and impenetrable but if one looks clearly, with a steady eye, there still beats a heart under that chill exterior, a heart grounded in the life of suburban Melbourne. In the end Brack returns to the beginning, still exploring, still searching.

As T.S. Eliot wrote in one of The Four Quartets,4

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

 Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the NGV for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

1/ Nelson, Robert. The Age newspaper. Melbourne, Friday 24th April, 2009

2/ “We learn that Nothingness is revealed to us most fully in anguish and that man generally tries to flee this anguish, this Nothingness which he is, by means of “bad faith.” The study of “bad faith” reveals to us that whereas Being-in-itself simply is, man is the being “who is what he is not and who is not what he is.” In other words man continually makes himself. Instead of being, he “has to be”; his present being has meaning only in the light of the future toward which he projects himself. Thus he is not what at any instant we might want to say he is, and he is that towards which he projects himself but which he is not yet.”
Barnes, Hazel. Introduction to Jean-Paul Satre’s Being and Nothingness. London: Methuen, 1966, pp. xvii-xix

3/ Satre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. (trans. Hazel Barnes). London: Methuen, 1966, p. 263

4/ Eliot, T.S. “Little Gidding” from The Four Quartets (1942)

     

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The barber’s shop' 1952 from the 'John Brack' retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria, NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne, April - August, 2009

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The barber’s shop
    1952
    Oil on canvas
    63.7 × 76.3 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Purchased, 1953
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Two Typists' 1955 from the 'John Brack' retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria, NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne, April - August, 2009

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Two typists
    1955
    Oil on canvas
    51.0 × 61.5 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Collins St, 5p.m.' 1955

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Collins St, 5 p.m.
    1955
    Oil on canvas
    114.8 × 162.8 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Purchased, 1956
    © National Gallery of Victoria

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The bar' 1954

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The bar
    1954
    Oil on canvas
    97.0 × 130.3 cm irreg.
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Purchased with the assistance of Peter Clemenger AM and Joan Clemenger, Elena Keown Bequest, Spotlight Foundation, NGV Foundation, Ross Adler AC and Fiona Adler, Bruce Parncutt and Robin Campbell, Marc Besen AO and Eva Besen AO, the Bowness Family, Lindsay Fox AO and Paula Fox, Dorothy Gibson, Rino Grollo and Diana Ruzzene Grollo, Ian Hicks AM, the NGV Women’s Association and donors to the John Brack Appeal, 2009
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The conference' 1956

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The conference
    1956
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The block' 1954

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The block
    1954
    Oil on canvas
    59.0 × 71.5 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by Dr Joseph Brown, AO, OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 1999
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The fish shop' 1955

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The fish shop
    1955
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The new house' 1953

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The new house
    1953
    Oil on canvas on board
    127.0 x 55.8 cm
    Private collection, Brisbane
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Self-portrait' 1955

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Self-portrait
    1955
    Oil on canvas
    81.4 × 48.3 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Purchased with the assistance of the National Gallery Women’s Association, 2000
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The unmade road' 1954

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The unmade road
    1954
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Subdivision' 1954

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Subdivision
    1954
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Nude in an armchair' 1957

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Nude in an armchair
    1957
    Oil on canvas
    127.6 × 107.4 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Purchased, 1957
    © National Gallery of Victoria

     

     

    “What I paint most is what interests me most, that is, people; the Human Condition, in particular the effect on appearance of environment and behaviour… A large part of the motive is the desire to understand, and if possible, to illuminate …”

    John Reed, New Painting 1952-62, Longmans, Melbourne, 1963, p. 19.

     

    Opening 24 April, the National Gallery of Victoria will present a major retrospective of the work of John Brack, the first in more than twenty years. This exhibition will survey John Brack’s complete career, incorporating over 150 works from all of his major series. John Brack will bring together a significant body of the artist’s paintings and works on paper, including pictures that have developed ‘icon status’ and others that have rarely, if ever, been seen publicly since they were first exhibited.

    Kirsty Grant, Senior Curator Australian Art, NGV said that more than any other artist of his generation, John Brack was a painter of modern Australian life.

    “John Brack painted images which explored the social rituals and realities of everyday life. Long considered the quintessential Melbourne artist, Brack’s images of urban and suburban Melbourne painted during the 1950s drew attention for their novelty of subject and instantly recognisable references. His work is much broader however and in this exhibition we will see the continuity throughout his career of his fundamental interest in people, human nature and the human condition,” said Ms Grant.

    Frances Lindsay, NGV Deputy Director said John Brack was widely considered one of Australia’s greatest twentieth century artists.

    “The NGV has enjoyed a long association with John Brack: he worked as an assistant frame maker at the gallery in 1949, became head of the National Gallery School in 1962, and the NGV was also the first public institution to purchase one of his works. Brack’s iconic works are certainly the highlight for many visitors to the Gallery. We are thrilled to be continuing this special relationship by presenting this important and timely retrospective.”

    The exhibition will be displayed chronologically, beginning with some rare early student works. Each phase of Brack’s practice will be explored, from his well-known urban scenes of the 1950s to the highly symbolic paintings from the 1970s. Many of Brack’s most familiar paintings are included in the exhibition such as Collins St, 5p.m, The bar and The Old Time.

    Brack produced compelling pictures which captured the essential characteristics of his subjects involved in everyday activities and, in some of his most engaging series, he depicted the characters of the racecourse, children at school and professional ballroom dancers. Throughout his career Brack also painted the nude, still life subjects and portraits, both of family and friends – including artists Fred Williams and John Perceval – as well as commissioned subjects, such as Barry Humphries as his alter-ego Edna Everage. During the 1970s Brack replaced the human figure with an assortment of everyday implements including cutlery, pens and pencils which he used as metaphors for the complexities of human behaviour and relationships.

    Press release from the NGV website [Online] Cited 26/07/2009. No longer available online

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Inside and outside (The shop window)' 1972

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Inside and outside (The shop window)
    1972
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Latin American Grand Final' 1969

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Latin American Grand Final
    1969
    Oil on canvas
    167.5 x 205.0 cm
    National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
    Purchased, 1981
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Portrait of Fred Williams' 1979-1980

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Portrait of Fred Williams
    1979-1980
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The pros and cons' 1985

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The pros and cons
    1985
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)' The Battle' 19181-1983

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The Battle
    19181-1983
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'We, Us, Them' 1983

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    We, Us, Them
    1983
    Oil on canvas
    183.4 × 122.4 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of Mr Philip Russell, Fellow, 1983
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Kings and Queens' 1988

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Kings and Queens
    1988
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Souvenirs' 1976

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Souvenirs
    1976

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Watching the flowers' 1990-1991

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Watching the flowers
    1990-1991
    Oil on canvas

     

     

    The Ian Potter Centre:
 NGV Australia 
Federation Square
    Corner of Russell and 
Flinders Streets, Melbourne

    Opening hours:
    Everyday 10am – 5pm

    National Gallery of Victoria website

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    Exhibition: ‘Beuys is Here; Sculpture Object Action Revolution’ at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, England

    Exhibition dates: 4th July – 27th September, 2009

     

    All photographs are of work in the exhibition. Many thankx to the De La Warr Pavilion for allowing me to publish the photographs and art work in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

    Dr Marcus Bunyan

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) 'Untitled (Sun State)' 1974 from the exhibition 'Beuys is Here; Sculpture Object Action Revolution' at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, England, July - Sept, 2009

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    Untitled (Sun State)
    1974
    Chalk and felt-tip pen on blackboard with wood frame
    47 1/2 x 71 1/8″ (120.7 x 180.7cm)

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) 'I like America and America likes me' action 1974 from the exhibition 'Beuys is Here; Sculpture Object Action Revolution' at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, England, July - Sept, 2009

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    I like America and America likes me action
    1974

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) Überwindet endlich die Parteiendiktatur - Poster, N070815SE_118_098 - Overcome Party Dictatorship Now 1971

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    Überwindet endlich die Parteiendiktatur – Poster, N070815SE_118_098 – Overcome Party Dictatorship Now
    1971
    Print on paper
    278 x 395 mm
    ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
    Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008

     

     

    German artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) is widely recognised as one of the most influential and extraordinary artists of the twentieth century.
 Artist, educator, political and social activist, Beuys’s philosophy  proposed the healing power and social function of art, in which everyone can participate and benefit. The works in this exhibition provide an opportunity to experience this expanded concept of art as he understood it. Collectively, the exhibition presents the ‘constellation of ideas’ central to Beuys’s practice, revealing his ideas on zoology, ecology, homeopathy, economics, politics, social activism, teaching and learning. Beuys incorporated into his work various materials such as felt, fat and metal, selected because of their inherent properties such as insulation, conduction and protection which all have associations with Beuys’s ideas.

    The exhibition is largely selected from the ARTIST ROOMS collection and brings together well-known sculptures, drawings, vitrines and a remarkable selection of posters recalling live actions and events. Works include Fat Chair (1964-1985) and, in Gallery 2, a single major work Scala Napoletana (1985) is shown for the first time in the UK. In addition nearly twenty notable multiples are included within the exhibition selected from National Galleries of Scotland. The multiple was a form of communication for Beuys – a means by which he could share and distribute his ideas beyond the confines of the artworld.

    Text from the De La Warr Pavilion website [Online] Cited 23/07/2009. No longer available online

     

    Joseph Beuys. 'Fettstuhl (Fat Chair)' 1964-1985

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    Fettstuhl (Fat Chair)
    1964-1985
    Wood, glass, metal, fabric, paint, fat and thermometer
    1830 x 1550 x 640 mm
    ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
    Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) 'Entwurf für ein Filzenvironment [Model for a Felt Environment]' 1964

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    Entwurf für ein Filzenvironment (Model for a Felt Environment)
    1964
    Wood, glass, felt, oil paint and lead
    1840 x 1680 x 840 mm
    ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
    Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008

     

    The neat rolls of grey felt on painted wood inside this vitrine are intended as a model for an ‘environment’. Felt insulates and absorbs, representing protection but also a sense of constriction, like being suffocated. The same type of felt rolls are seen in the ‘environment’ Plight (1958/1985), now in the Pompidou Centre, in which the walls and ceiling are covered with felt to create a stifling atmosphere. Beuys used felt in an infamous ‘action’ performed the same year this model was made. The Chief saw the artist being wrapped in a felt blanket, fighting claustrophobia to lie practically still, as if in a coffin, for a nine-hour period.

     

    Joseph Beuys. 'Fettecke (Prozess) [Fat Corner (Process)]' 1968

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    Fettecke (Prozess) (Fat Corner (Process))
    1968
    Wood, glass, 2 cardboard boxes and fat
    1835 x 1680 x 840 mm
    ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
    Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008

     

    Looking inside the two boxes in this vitrine, we can see that in one, the fat has been neatly shaped into the corner to make a wedge. In the other, the shape of the fat has a disturbing biological look to it, like inner organs which have been unceremoniously dumped in a heap. Beuys used triangles of fat in both his sculptures and ‘actions’. From around 1963, he would use wedges of fat or felt to mark the boundaries of a space when performing an ‘action’.

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) 'Langhaus (Vitrine)' 1953-1962

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    Langhaus (Vitrine)
    1953-1962
    Wood, glass, felt, oil paint and paper
    1830 x 1545 x 640 mm
    ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
    Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008

     

    Langhaus can be variously translated as ‘nave’ such as one finds in a church, or ‘longhouse’, such as the dwelling house for one or several families found in early north European regions or, still today, in tribal communities in the Amazon region or the South Seas. The block of wood has a small piece of felt attached to the top, suggesting, according to Beuys’s usual iconography, the idea of protection, a connotation strengthened by the length of felt also lying in the vitrine. The walking stick lying alongside the felt is a traditional Beuysian symbol for leadership and protection, much as a shepherd looks after his flock.

     

     

    Beuys is recognised as one of the most influential artists of the late twentieth century. Adopting the roles of political and social activist and educator, his philosophy proposed the healing power and social function of art for all.

    From the 1950s onwards, many of his works are made from a distinctive group of materials, in particular felt, fat and copper. These were chosen for their insulating, conductive, protective, transmitting and transforming properties. Animals of all kinds appear in his work, but he was particularly drawn to stags, bees and hares. A childhood interest in the natural sciences remained with him throughout his life, fuelling a desire to explore themes and experiment with the properties of materials.

    Beuys produced a vast body of work that includes performance, drawing, print-making, sculpture and installation. His complex, interlocking themes cover science, myth, history, medicine and energy. Beuys’ own image and life story is inextricably linked to his work through his persona of the Shaman, shepherd or stag-leader.

    This group of works covers forty years of Beuys’s career. Included are nature-based drawings of the 1950s, images and scores recording 1960s ‘actions’ and later installations, in addition to sculptures and vitrines. The collection brings together drawings with sculpture from the 1960s like the iconic Fat Chair, and images relating to Actions and installations like Coyote and Show Your Wound. It culminates with the sculpture Scala Napoletana which was made only a few months before the artist’s death, and relates to the theme of communication with the beyond.”

    Text from the National Galleries of Scotland website [Online] Cited 23/07/2009. No longer available online

     

    Joseph Beuys with 'Rose for Direct Democracy' 1973

     

    Joseph Beuys with Rose for Direct Democracy
    1973

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) 'Pregnant Woman with Swan' 1959

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    Schwangere und Schwan (Pregnant Woman with Swan)
    1959
    Oil paint and watercolour on paper
    276 x 214 mm
    ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
    Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008

     

    The tiny swan in this painting looks as if it is swimming serenely inside the woman, replacing the foetus inside her pregnant body. The drawing combines male and female elements, with the phallic nature of the swan’s neck. Beuys had been fascinated with swans since childhood. A sculpture of a large golden swan sat on top of the tower of Schwanenburg castle (Swan Castle) in his home town of Cleves, and was visible from his bedroom window while he was growing up. With his interest in language, the artist would also have delighted in the similarity between the German words for pregnant woman (Schwangere) and swan (Schwan).

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) 'Felt Suit' 1970

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    Felt Suit
    1970
    Felt and wood
    1660 x 660 x 260 mm
    ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
    Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008

     

    Beuys began producing works in multiples in the 1960s, partly as a way to combat the elitism of the art world. This is probably his most famous multiple. It has its origins in the performance Action the Dead Mouse/Isolation Unit of 1970, where Beuys wore a felt suit with lengthened arms and legs, like the one seen here. He described the suit as an extension of the sculptures he made with felt, where the material’s insulating properties were integral to the meaning of the work. Beuys intended this concept of warmth to extend beyond the material to encompass what he described as ‘spiritual warmth or the beginning of an evolution’.

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) 'Stark beleuchteter Hirschstuhl (Brightly-Lit Stag Chair)' 1957-1971

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    Stark beleuchteter Hirschstuhl (Brightly-Lit Stag Chair)
    1957-1971
    2 works on paper, oil paint, graphite and masking tape
    1390 x 963 mm
    ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
    Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008

     

    Although Beuys began this collage in 1957, it was not finished until 1971. The chair is similar to the subject of the artist’s 1972 sculpture Backrest for a fine-limbed person (Hare-type) of the 20th Century A.D. This is a cast iron impression of a child’s plaster corset, made as a multiple. However, the striding feet of the chair in this collage give it a human aspect, making it seem almost confident and self-possessed. The curved back of the chair is echoed in the lightbulb shape at the top of the image. The stag, in Beuys’s bestiary, guided the soul in its journey to the afterlife.

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) 'Passage der Zukunftplanetoiden' (Hearts of the Revolutionaries: Passage of the Planets of the Future) 1955

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    Passage der Zukunftplanetoiden (Hearts of the Revolutionaries: Passage of the Planets of the Future)
    1955
    Watercolour on card
    295 x 490 mm
    ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
    Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008

     

    The choice of red for this painting would seem like an obvious one, reflecting both the heart and the virtues of honour and courage of the revolutionary in the title of the piece. Red also represents socialism, a belief of Beuys which became central to his later work. However, the colour red is used sparingly and symbolically in the artist’s work, and here it makes a bold statement on life, vitality and the future. The inclusion of the round shape to represent a planet brings an astronomical element into the work.

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) 'Scala Napoletana' 1985

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    Scala Napoletana
    1985
    Overall dimensions variable: 11000 x 10000 x 6000mm (room size at Bexhill)
    Ladder: 4510 x 250 x 80mm, Lead spheres: 500mm diameter each
    ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
    Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008

     

    Much of the work Beuys made in his last few years includes objects or themes which suggest death. This sculpture was originally inspired by a ladder the artist found while recovering from illness on the island of Capri in Autumn 1985, which he hung with two stones. When he visited Amalfi at Christmas in the same year, he purchased a ladder (Scala Libera) from a landlord which he used to make this sculpture. Held in suspension, it appears as if the pair of lead weights are preventing this heavy wooden ladder from soaring into the air. This is one of the last sculptures Beuys made. He died in January 1986.

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) 'Sled' 1969

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    Sled
    1969

     

    The materials used in the making of this work relate to Beuys’s experience of being rescued by nomadic Tartars when his plane was shot down during the Second World War. Fat was rubbed into his body and he was wrapped in felt to keep him warm. The sled looks as if it has been prepared for an expedition or in response to an emergency, with a survival kit strapped to it. The flashlight represents the sense of orientation, the felt is protective, and the fat is for food.

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986) 'Ohne Titel (Untitled)' 1970

     

    Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)
    Ohne Titel (Untitled)
    1970
    Gelatin silver print on canvas
    2330 x 2275 mm
    ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
    Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008

     

    Wearing his unmistakeable felt trilby hat, with his fishing vest poking through a luxuriant fur-lined jacket, this large image (over two metres square) shows Beuys at his most iconic. The clothes he wears here were part of his artist’s ‘uniform’, chosen for comfort and practicality (the multi-pocketed vest was particularly useful) but also as a way to create his image. Fittingly, he is depicted with one of his most distinctive sculptures. In the foreground is The Pack (1969), a group of twenty-four sledges. Each one has its own survival kit including fat for sustenance, felt for warmth and a torch for navigation, making the artist’s signature materials part of this image too.

    Text under images from the National Galleries of Scotland website [Online] Cited 23/07/2009. No longer available online

     

     

    De La Warr Pavilion
    Bexhill-on-Sea,
    East Sussex, TN40 1DP

    Opening hours:
    10am – 5pm, seven days a week

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    Review: ‘Tacita Dean’ at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne

    Exhibition dates: 6th June – 2nd August 2009

     

    Photographs from the exhibition are in the chronological order that they appear.

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Grobsteingrab (floating)' 2009

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965)
    Grobsteingrab (floating)
    2009

     

     

    “The subjects are connected to the medium I use. It’s all about light and time and phenomena to some extent, like a rainbow or a gust of wind or even an eclipse or a green ray, things like that. And this is the language of light. It’s not the language of binary pixels.”


    Tacita Dean1

     

    “The value of her [Dean’s] work, writes Winterson, is one of the virtues of art itself: it is an intervention into the rush of everyday life, holding up time and space for contemplation.”


    Jeanette Winterson2

     

     

    This is a dense, ‘thick’ exhibition by Tacita Dean at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne that rewards repeat viewing. The theatricality of each work and the theatricality of the journey through ACCA’s dimmed galleries (an excellent installation of the work!) makes for an engrossing exhibition as Dean explores the minutiae of memory and the significance of insignificant events: a contemplation on the space, time and materiality of the everyday.

    The exhibition starts with 3 very large floating rocks (Grobsteingrab (floating), Hunengrab (floating) and Riesenbelt (floating) all 2009) printed on multiple pieces of photographic paper, the surrounds of the rocks painted out with matt black blackboard paint (see image at top of this posting). The rocks look like mountain massif and are printed at different levels to each other; they move up and down, earthed in the sense that the viewer feels their heavy weight but also buoyant in their surface shininess, seeming to float into the void. The textuality of the rocks is incredible, the suspension of the rocks fragmented by the fact that they are printed on multiple pieces of photographic paper, the edges of the paper curling up to dislocate the unity of form.

    Opposite is the large multi-panelled T + I (Tristan + Isolde), a tour de force of Romantic landscape meets mythological journey (see image second from top). Sunshine searing through cloud lights the 25 Turner-esque black and white gravure panels that feature an inlet, fjord and ravine. Semi-legible words dot the landscape, reflecting on the legendary story: ‘undergrowth’, ‘dispute’, ‘brightening up’, ‘BLIND FOLLY’ and ‘the union involved in a manifestation(?)’ for example. Each panel is beautifully rendered and a joy to behold – my friend and I stood transfixed, examining each panel in minute detail, trying to work out the significance and relation between the writing and image. As with most of the work in the exhibition the piece engages the viewer in a dialogue between reality, story and memory, between light, space, time and phenomena.

    After the small rear projected film Totality (2000) that shows the extraordinary event of a total eclipse of the sun by the moon for a period of two minutes and six seconds the viewer takes a short darkened passage to experience the major installation in the exhibition Merce Cunningham Performs ‘Stillness’ (in three movements) to John Cage’s composition 4’33” with Trevor Carlson, New York City, 28 April 2007 (six performances; six films) 2007 (see images below).

    The first thing you see is one image projected onto a small suspended screen, the rest of the installation blocked by a short gallery wall to the right. The dancer Merce Cunningham sits in studious calm and observes us. This in itself is magical but as we round the corner other screens of different sizes and heights come into view, all portraying Cunningham’s dance studio and him sitting in it from different angles, heights and distances (including close-ups of Cunningham himself). In the six screen projection the performances of Cunningham are sometimes in synch, sometimes not. The director Trevor Carlson, holding a stop watch, times the 3 movements of Cage’s musical piece 4’33” and directs Cunningham to change position at the end of every movement; his hands move, he crosses his legs and the performance continues.

    The work is projected into the sculptural space using old 16mm film projectors and their sound mixes with the studied silence of the Cage work and white noise. The mirrors in the studio make spaces of infinite recess, showing us the director with the stop watch, the windows, the floor, the markings of the dancers hands on the mirrors surface adding another echo of past presences. As a viewer their seems to be an ‘openness’ around as you are pulled into a spatial and sound vortex, a phenomena that transcends normal spatio-temporal dimensionality. As people pass through the installation their shadows fall on the screens and become part of the work adding to the multi-layered feeling of the work. This is sensational stuff – you feel that you transcend reality itself as you observe and become immersed within this amazing work – almost as though space and time had split apart at the seams and you are left hanging, suspended in mid-air.

    The next two films are my favourite pieces in the exhibition. Darmstädter Werkblock (2007) shows us the significance of insignificant markings – edges and intersections, textures, blends and bleeds, the minutiae of existence in the markings on the fabric of an internal wall (see photograph below). Here is light, wood panelling, texture and again the sound of the whirring of the film projector. Usually I am not a fan of this kind of work having seen enough ‘Dead Pan’ photography and photography of empty yet supposedly important spaces in my life, but here Dean’s film makes the experience come alive and actually mean something. Her work transcends the subject matter – and matter is at the point where these interstitial spaces have been marked by the abstract signs of human existence that constantly surround us.

    In Michael Hamburger (2007) Dean reaches the empito-me of these personal narratives that inhabit everyday life. Film of an orchard with wind rustling through the trees, clouds drifting across the sky, rotting apples on the branches, fallen fruit on the ground and a clearing with a man looking up at the trees is accompanied by the industrial sounds of clicks and pops like that of an old radio (see photograph above). The swirling sound of the wind surrounds you in the darkened gallery space much as the panoramic screen of the projection seems to enfold you. The scene swaps to an interior of a house and shows the man, has face mainly in shadow, the film focusing on the different type of apples in front of him or on the aged wrinkles of his hands holding the apples. He talks intelligently and knowingly about the different types of apples and their rarity and qualities. This is Michael Hamburger (now dead which adds poignancy to the film) – poet, critic, memoirist and academic notable for his translations of the work of W. G. Sebald, one of Tacita Dean’s main influences (and also an author that I love dearly).

    One can see echoes of Sebald’s work in that of Tacita Dean – the personal narratives accompanied by mythical and historical stories and pictures. The tactility of Hamburger’s voice and hands, his caressing of the apples with the summary justice of the tossing away of rotten apples to stop them ruining the rest of the crop is arresting and holds you transfixed. Old varieties and old hands mixed with the old technology of film make for a nostalgic combination. As John Matthews of ArtKritique has so insightfully observed in his review of this work Dean implicitly understands how objects can be elegies for fleeting lives.

    After this work one should have a break – go to the front of the gallery and have a coffee and relax because this is an exhausting show!


    The rest of the exhibition tends to tail off slightly, with less engaging but still interesting works.

    In Die Regimentstochter (2005) (the name of a Donizetti opera) Dean uses a pile of 36 found and mutilated old opera and theatre programs from the 1930s and 1940s such as Staats Theatre, Berlin, Der Tanz and Deutsche Openhaus. These programs have had portions of their front covers roughly but clinically cut to reveal the inner pages beneath (see image below) and Dean uses them to comment on the politicisation of culture in Berlin’s mid-20th century history. The top of a powdered wigged head or the face of Beethoven has been revealed when the title of the work has been neatly removed along with something else:

    “Each programme gives a tantalising glimpse of a title or a face through a small window cut into the embossed cover; we recognise Beethoven, Rossini, the face of a singer perhaps. When and by whom this incision in the cover was made, very neatly one might add, even more why these disfigured programmes were kept remains a mystery. A swift search in an archive would easily show what has been removed; most likely an embossed swastika, for these performances all happened during the Third Reich. Why they were removed is left to our imaginations; perhaps an avid theatre-goer livid at the co-option of culture by the regime, perhaps someone afraid they might be misinterpreted as fascist memorabilia, while wishing to retain the memories these performances triggered.”3

    High up on a wall opposite these programs is the film Palast (2004) in which Dean reflects Berlin’s divided history in the jaded façade of the once iconic Palast, the government building of the former German Democratic Republic.4 Shards of light hit glass and reflections are fractured in their gridded panes (see images below). A bird is seen flying, viewed through the window and we see the stains on that window but in this film things feel a bit forced. Unlike the earlier Darmstädter Werkblock there is little magic here.

    Again the minutiae of existence is examined in the final two films Noir et Blanc (2006), made on the last 5 rolls of Dean’s black and white double-sided 16mm film stock and Kodak (2006), both made at the Kodak factory in Chalon-sur-Saône before it closed it’s film production facilities (see images below). With the demise of the medium that she feels closest to Dean sought permission to film at the factory itself and both films examine that medium by turning it on itself.

    “Dean became acutely aware of the threat to her chosen medium when she was unable to obtain standard 16mm black-and-white film for her camera. Upon discovering that the Kodak factory in Chalon-sur-Saône, France, was closing its film production facility, Dean obtained permission to document the manufacture of film at the factory, where cameras have never before been invited. The resulting rear-screen projection ‘Noir et Blanc’, filmed on the final five rolls Dean acquired, turns the medium on itself. The 44-minute-long work ‘Kodak’ constitutes a contemplative elegy for the approaching demise of a medium specific to Dean’s own practice. Kodak’s narrative follows the making of celluloid as it runs through several miles of machinery and explores the abandoned corners of the factory. On the day of filming, the factory also ran a test through the system with brown paper, providing a rare opportunity to see the facilities fully illuminated, without the darkness needed to prevent exposure, and underscoring the luster of the celluloid as the dull brown strips contrast with the luminous, transparent polyester.”5

    As writer Tony Lloyd has commented, “The film “Kodak” documenting the manufacturing of film was as solemn and reverent as a Catholic mass and equally as dull and inexplicable.”6 I wouldn’t go that far but by the end of the exhibition the nostalgia for old technologies, the brown paper programs and the film strip as relic were starting to wear a bit thin, like the sprockets of an old film camera failing to take up the film.


    At her best Tacita Dean is a fantastic artist whose work examines the measure of things, the vibrations of spirit in the FLUX of experience. Her work has a trance-like quality that is heavy with nostalgia and memory and reflects the machine-ations of contemporary life. In her languorous (thank you Tony Lloyd for that word, so appropriate I had to use it!) and dense work Dean teases out the significance of insignificant actions/events and imparts meaning and life to them. This is no small achievement.

    As an exhibition this is an intense and moving experience. Go, take your time and enjoy!

    Dr Marcus Bunyan

     

    Footnotes

    1/ Dean, Tacita quoted in Bunbury, Stephen.“Still Lives,” in The Age. Melbourne: Fairfax Publishing, A2 section, Saturday June 6th, 2009, p. 20

    2/ Winterson, Jeanette, quoted in Bunbury, Stephen.“Still Lives,” in The Age. Melbourne: Fairfax Publishing, A2 section, Saturday June 6th, 2009, p. 20

    3/ Anonymous. Product synopsis from Tacita Dean Die Regimentstochter [Paperback] on the Amazon website [Online] Cited 19/07/2009

    4/ Anonymous. Description of Tacita Dean: ‘Palast’ on the Tate St. Ives website [Online] Cited 19/07/2009 no longer available online

    5/ Anonymous. “The Hugo Boss Prize: Tacita Dean”, on the Guggenheim Museum website [Online] Cited 19/07/2009. No longer available online

    6/ Lloyd, Tony. “Opnion: Tacita Dean at ACCA,” on the ArtInfo.com.au website [Online] Cited 19/07/2009. No longer available online


    Many thankx to ACCA for allowing me to publish the photographs and art work in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image

     

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'T & I (Tristan & Isolde)' 2006

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965)
    T & I (Tristan & Isolde)
    2006
    Photogravure on twenty-five sheets
    Sheet (each): 26 3/4 x 33 7/8″ (68 x 86cm)
    Installation: 134 x 170″ (340.4 x 431.8cm)
    Niels Borch Jensen Gallery and Edition, Berlin and Copenhagen

     

    Through drawings and films, Dean makes work that is frequently characterised by a poetic sensibility and fragmented narratives exploring past and present, fact and fiction. In this monumental printed work, she addresses themes of collective memory and lost history by combining the romantic legend of ill-fated medieval lovers Tristan and Isolde (whose initials give this piece its title) with the real-life tragedy of British sailor Donald Crowhurst. Dean often uses the sea and other maritime themes in her work, including the tale of Crowhurst, which has appeared in several of her projects.

    In 1968 Crowhurst sailed from England for a solo, round-the-world yacht race and never returned. In T & I Dean connects the tale of this lost sailor to the story of Tristan and Isolde – whose tragic love story also hinges on sea voyages – through her majestic depiction of a barren, rocky coastline looking seaward. This work, based on a found postcard, includes the white, cryptic notes that Dean often scribbles on her prints and drawings. Here the musings include “start” and “stage 4,” clear theatrical directions, as well as fragments of a poem by “WSG” about an artist killed in an accident. The twenty-five-sheet composition suggests a cinematic narrative sequence, while reading it as a unified image has a breathtaking, visionary impact. The rich velvety texture of the photogravure medium contributes a nineteenth-century patina that is ideally suited to the intensity and foreboding melancholy of the subject.

    Publication excerpt from The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights since 1980, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2007, p. 269

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Banewl' 1999

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965)
    Totality
    16mm colour film
    2000

     

    16mm film projector used by Tacita Dean to project 'Merce Cunningham Performs 'Stillness''

     

    16mm film projector used by Tacita Dean to project Merce Cunningham Performs ‘Stillness’

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) ‘Merce Cunningham Performs ‘Stillness’ (in three movements) to John Cage’s composition 4’33” with Trevor Carlson, New York City, 28 April 2007 (six performances; six films)’ 2007

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) ‘Merce Cunningham Performs ‘Stillness’ (in three movements) to John Cage’s composition 4’33” with Trevor Carlson, New York City, 28 April 2007 (six performances; six films)’ 2007

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) ‘Merce Cunningham Performs ‘Stillness’ (in three movements) to John Cage’s composition 4’33” with Trevor Carlson, New York City, 28 April 2007 (six performances; six films)’ 2007

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) ‘Merce Cunningham Performs ‘Stillness’ (in three movements) to John Cage’s composition 4’33” with Trevor Carlson, New York City, 28 April 2007 (six performances; six films)’ 2007

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965)
    Merce Cunningham Performs ‘Stillness’ (in three movements) to John Cage’s composition 4’33” with Trevor Carlson, New York City, 28 April 2007 (six performances; six films) (stills)
    2007

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Darmstädter Werkblock' 2007 (still)

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965)
    Darmstädter Werkblock (stills)
    16mm colour film, optical sound
    18 minutes, continuous loop
    2007

     

     

    Take one of her best pieces, Darmstädter Werkblock 2007, which looks for most of its long eighteen minutes like an exploration of an empty room, which it is. The camera pans the space, exploring the frayed fringes of its empty, textile-clad, burnt brown walls. It settles on holes, tears, seams and faded spots marking where placards used to hang. We are formally intrigued, but also curious why we should care so much about this particular empty room in what we can vaguely sense is a museum. Perhaps we are even a little bored. Only later – not in the film itself, but in the accompanying materials – are we told that these rooms usually house the “Block Beuys”, a section of the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt arranged by Beuys himself over the decade and a half between its opening and the artist’s death. The Block is mired in controversy now that the walls, which are actually left over from when the rooms showed medieval artefacts, but which evoke and mirror Beuys’s own work, are slated for renovation.

    Text from Philip Tinari. “Meditations on time,” in Tate Etc. issue 23: Autumn 2011 on the Tate website 1 September 2011 [Online] Cited 18/03/2019

     

    Stills taken from the 16mm film Darmstädter Werkblock (2007) filmed in the seven rooms that make up Block Beuys, Joseph Beuys’s installation in Darmstadt’s Hessisches Landesmuseum. In September 2007, the museum announced that they intended to renovate the rooms, and to remove the brown jute wall coverings and gray carpet that had become such a feature of the installation. The decision caused much upset in Germany and beyond. Unable to document the rooms for copyright reasons, Dean requested that instead she might document the walls and carpet and the details of the space that surround Beuys’s work without making any visual reference to the work itself. The resulting film concentrated on the patches and the stains and the labor of those who have been maintaining the space over the last four decades – the parallel entropy of the museum space with the ageing of the work itself.

    Text from Google Books

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Michael Hamburger' 2007 (still)

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Michael Hamburger' 2007 (still)

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Michael Hamburger' 2007 (still)

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Michael Hamburger' 2007 (still)

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965)
    Michael Hamburger (stills)
    16mm colour anamorphic, optical sound
    28 minutes
    2007

     

    Continuing her recent collection of film portraits, Tacita Dean’s Michael Hamburger is a moving portrayal of the poet and translator, a resident of Middleton in Suffolk and great friend of W.G. Sebald. It represented Dean’s first commission in Britain since 1999.

    For its 28 minutes, the film quietly observes the poet in his study and among the apple trees in his garden. Sunlight dissolves the frames of the windows, the most insubstantial of thresholds between this home, only one-room-deep, and what lies outdoors; a rainbow marks its watery geometry in the sky; and the apples age upon the ground, shrunken, and yet somehow becoming more intensely themselves.

    Although Hamburger is said to have despaired of reviews of his poetry which declared that he is ‘better known as a translator’, we might detect a similar deprecation of his self, by himself, in the film which shares his name. Unwilling, perhaps unable, to talk of his past and his migrations, most especially fleeing Nazism in 1933, he talks poignantly, instead, of his apple trees, of where they have come from, and of their careful cross-breeding. Purity is dismissed, and one senses with an awkward pathos that the poet is translating himself.

    Anonymous text. “Michael Hamburger: Tacita Dean,” on the FVU website [Online] Cited 18/03/2019

     

    Tacita Dean’s portrait of the poet and translator Michael Hamburger was filmed, at his home in rural Suffolk, in the last year of his life. Set against muted autumn colours, and with Hamburger performing an evocative, anecdotal inventory of the harvest from his apple orchard, the piece is a bittersweet reminder of time’s passing that deftly captures, and quietly honours, an exemplary 20th century literary figure.

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Die Regimentstochter' 2005

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965)
    Die Regimentstochter (The Daughter of the Regiment)
    2005

     

    Die Regimentstochter is the latest in a series of projects made from material turned up in flea markets, in this case, a series of 36 antique opera programs from the 30s and 40s found in the flea markets of Berlin. Like the found photographs in Dean’s 2001 FLOH, these souvenirs remain unexplained by text. They retain the silence of the lost object, and they share a riddle: each program gives a tantalising glimpse of a title or a face through a small window cut into the embossed cover. Readers will recognise Beethoven, Rossini, or perhaps a singer. A swift search in an archive would easily confirm what has been removed, but it seems likely that the missing piece is a swastika. These performances all happened during the Third Reich. When and by whom the incision was made, and why these programs were both worth disfiguring and worth keeping, remains a mystery.

    Text from the Amazon website

     

    “Things no longer visible thus enhance our view of the past, and gaps, paradoxically, become memorials that engage the beholder’s imagination more actively than a didactic demonstration could. Merely by showing what remains, Tacita Dean not only calls up in our mind’s eye a specific historical situation and its abysses, but also erects an anti-monument to the forms customarily taken by the culture of memory.”

    Andreas Kaernbach

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Die Regimentstochter' 2005

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965)
    Die Regimentstochter (The Daughter of the Regiment)
    2005

     

    They look lined up like a modern art object. The 36 opera program books are not considered as works of art. Nevertheless, the British and Berlin-based artist Tacita Dean turned them into a work of art.

    “An incidental finding inspired Tacita Dean to her artwork,” tells the House of History. “At a Berlin flea market she discovered in the year 2000 36 opera program booklets from the years 1934 to 1942. Conspicuous were the title pages: from each of the booklets was a part cut out, including from the program of the eponymous opera “The Regimental Daughter” by Gaetano Donizetti (world premiere 1840). “Said part of the title pages of those notebooks was reserved for the swastika symbol. This was cut off by the previous owners. Why, that can only be speculated, continues the house of history. “Was it shame, the fear of being punishable or even a “private” act of resistance before the end of National Socialism? The program books in any case seem to have been of great cultural value to the former owner. “

    “Whatever the motives that made the owner or the owner of the program booklets of the Berlin opera from 1934 to 1942 come to shears in order to remove the Nazi swastikas from the cover pages of the booklets: The voices speak of the desire to conclude with a time that one does not want to be reminded of – a basic motive of German post-war history that stood in the way of an honest confrontation with the era of National Socialism for a long time, “said the Minister of Culture.

    With her work, Tacita asks Dean questions about dealing with the Nazi past. Which motive behind it and who had heard the booklets remains open until today. Tacita Dean has created a work of art from these finds, which poses subtle questions about the examination of the Nazi past – but in a way that goes beyond purely historical reflection and awakens additional associations. What does that object, created by the artist from Canterbury, say about the relationship between art and politics? “Can the opera narratives be separated from the political environment in which they were performed and played?” asks the President of the Foundation for the History of the Federal Republic of Germany, Prof. Dr Hans Walter Hütter.

    Monika Grütters continues: “The fact that the dark part of our identity does not disappear through concealment and suppression, and that it becomes visible again even where it was attempted to be eradicated, impressively shows Tacita Dean’s work Regimentstochter. That is why I very much welcome the fact that this unique work of art has a place in the collection which, in view of its significance in contemporary history, necessarily belongs to it – a place in the House of History which, unlike any other museum in Germany, presents German history from 1945 in all its facets illustrated and also devoted to the effects of National Socialism on the political and cultural life in post-war Germany.”

    Daniel Thalheim. “NS-Vergangenheit als Kunst – 36 Programmhefte aus der Nazi-Zeit im Haus der Geschichte,” on the ARTEFAKTE: Das Journal für Baukultur und Kunst website 2nd September 2015 [Online] Cited 17/03/2019 translated from the German by Google Translate.

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Palast' 2004

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Palast' 2004

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Palast' 2004

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965)
    Three stills from the film Palast
    2004

     

     

    A major survey of work by the internationally acclaimed British artist Tacita Dean will open at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) on June 6th, 2009.

    In a great coup for Melbourne, fourteen recent projects by this celebrated contemporary artist will come together in what is the largest survey of Dean’s work to ever be shown outside of Europe.

    Tacita Dean is one of Britain’s most accomplished and celebrated contemporary artists. She won the New York Guggenheim’s Hugo Boss award in 2007, was a Turner Prize nominee in 1998, and has had numerous solo exhibitions in Europe – at the Schaulager in Basel, DIA Beacon in New York, the de Pont Museum in the Netherlands, the Tate Britain, UK, the Musee d’art Moderne in Paris, France and the Villa Oppenheim in Berlin, to mention just a few.

    Dean was also recently given the highly prestigious title of Royal Academician, awarded sparingly to alumni’s of the revered London art school who have achieved greatness in their work.

    Tacita Dean was born in Canterbury in 1965, and moved to Berlin in 2000 after being awarded a DAAD residency. Early works focused on the sea – most famously she explored the tragic maritime misadventures of amateur English sailor Donald Crowhurst. Since moving to Berlin she has devoted her attention to the architecture and cultural history of Germany, a recurring theme also being the salvaging, saving and collecting of things lost. Many of her works rest on the icons of modernism, heroic failures and forgotten utopian ideals.

    Dean is best known for her work with 16mm film, although she also works with photography, print and drawing. The qualities of filmmaking itself play a central role in her works – which hauntingly capture the passing of time, space and the mysteries of the natural world.

    Her work occupies a place between fact and fiction. As British author Jeanette Winterson says, “Her genius, with her slow, steady, held frames, is to allow the viewer to dream; to enter without hurry, without expectation, and to accept, as we do in a dream, a different experience of time, and a different relationship to everyday objects.”

    Included in this exhibition is Dean’s revered film installation, Merce Cunningham Performs STILLNESS (in three movements) to John Cage’s composition 4’33” with Trevor Carlson, New York City, 28 April 2007, which was recently presented at the DIA Beacon in New York, and the 2007 work Michael Hamburger. Two new wall-based works especially created for this exclusive ACCA exhibition will also feature.

    Dean is also known for creating ‘asides’ – totally absorbing texts on the subjects explored in her work. She will contribute texts on all the projects included in the exhibition for a catalogue which will be published to coincide with this unique ACCA survey.

    The exhibition has been curated by ACCA’s Artistic Director, Juliana Engberg and follows an early 2002 exhibition of Dean’s work curated by Engberg for the Melbourne International Arts Festival.

    “Tacita’s works continue to enthral and inspire me. Not only has she rescued relics from history and restored them with a visual dignity and affection in her wonderful film projects, but increasingly she rescues the traditional art forms of drawing, print making, painting, photography and film from a digital abyss,” says Juliana Engberg. “Her works have a truth and quiddity about them, but also a playful artifice and technical tactic to bring out the tactile and material in all she deals with. Tacita is a sublime story-teller, a narrator of odysseys and attempts. She is a true artist sojourner.

    In this selection of works made since 2004 we grasp the breadth of her practice and her pursuit of the time-honoured landscape, portrait and abstract genres,” she says.”

    Text from the press release from the ACCA website [Online] Cited 17/07/2009. No longer available online

     

    Tacita Dean. 'Noir et Blanc [Still]' 2006

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965)
    Noir et Blanc [Still]
    16mm black-and-white Kodak film
    2006

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Kodak' 2006 (still)

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965)
    Kodak (still)
    16mm colour and b/w film optical sound
    44 minutes loop system
    2006

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Kodak' 2006 (still)

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965)
    Kodak (still)
    16mm colour and b/w film optical sound
    44 minutes loop system
    2006

     

    As Dean said in a Guardian article back in February: “Digital is not better than analogue, but different. What we are asking for is coexistence: that analogue film might be allowed to remain an option for those who want it, and for the ascendency of one not to have to mean the extinguishing of the other.”

    In the same text, she wrote of the difference between film and digital as “not only emulsion versus pixels, or light versus electronics, but something deeper – something to do with poetry.” This poetry is exactly what she explored in one of her landmark films, Kodak (2006), a 45-minute examination of the production process of celluloid itself at a French factory fated for early closure because of a lack of demand. A film about the making of film, it hinged on the sort of super-aestheticised conceit that has become her staple. This is a tactic which allows her to turn even time itself into a structural device, as she did in 2008 with a film called Amadeus, which depicts a 50-minute crossing of the English Channel in a small fishing boat of the same name.

    Philip Tinari. “Meditations on time,” in Tate Etc. issue 23: Autumn 2011 on the Tate website 1 September 2011 [Online] Cited 18/03/2019

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965) 'Kodak' 2006 (still)

     

    Tacita Dean (English, b. 1965)
    Kodak (still)
    16mm colour and b/w film optical sound
    44 minutes loop system
    2006

     

     

    Australia Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA)
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    Victoria 3006, Australia
    Phone: 03 9697 9999

    Opening hours:
    Tuesday – Friday 10am – 5pm
    Weekends & Public Holidays 11am – 5pm
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    Review: ‘Double Infinitives’ by Marco Fusinato at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne

    Exhibition dates: 25th June – 25th July, 2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964) 'Double Infinitive 3' 2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964)
    Double Infinitive 3
    2009

     

     

    Double Infinitives by Marco Fusinato at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne is an excellent exhibition of large UV ink on aluminium images sourced by Fusinato from the print media.

    The images are made up of a dot pattern familiar to those who have examined photographs in the print media closely. Larger and smaller clusters of dots form the light and shade of the image. As you move closer to the works they dissolve into blocks of dots and become and optical illusion like Op Art from the 1960s. Fusinato contrasts this dot structure with the inclusion of flat panels of black ink to the left and right hand side of the images. The section lines that run through the images (for they are not one single image but made up of panels) also adds to the optical nature of the work as the lines cut the conflagrations, literally stitching the seams/scenes together.

    Each image contains an individual holding a rock enclosed in the milieu and detritus of a riot; the figures are grounded in the earth and surrounded by fire but in their obscurity, in the veiling of their eyes, the figures seem present but absent at one and the same time. They become ghosts of the fire.

    Fire consumes the bodies. The almost cut out presence of the figures, their hands clutching, throwing, saluting become mute. Here the experience of the sound, colour and movement of an actual riot is silenced in the flatness and smoothness of the images. The images possess the intensity of a newspaper reality ‘blown up’ to a huge scale by Fusinato (see the installation photograph below to get an idea of the effect). The punctum of the riot, that prick of consciousness that Barthes so liked, is translated into a silenced studium of the aluminium surface; an aural history (the sound) / oral history (the telling of the story) trapped in the structure of silence.

    There is a double jeopardy – the dissolution of the image into dots and the disintegration of the body into fire. In one of the images the upraised arm and hand of one of the rioters holds a rock with what appears to be a figure on it, surrounded by fire. To me the arm turned into one of the burning Twin Towers with smoke and fire pouring from it (see the first photograph in the installation photograph below).

    My only concern about the images were the black panels, perhaps too obvious a tool for the purpose the artist intended. Maybe the needed some small texture, like a moire pattern to reference the contours of a map and continue the topographical and optical theme. Perhaps they just needed to be smaller or occasionally placed as thin strips down the actual image itself but these are small quibbles. Overall this is an fantastic exhibition that I enjoyed immensely. The images are literally ripped from the matrix of time and space and become the dot dot dot of the addendum. What Fusinato does so excellently is to make us pause and stare, to recognise the flatness of these figures and the quietness of violence that surrounds us.

    Music – Noise  – Silence
    Flatness – Advertising – Earth – Fire
    Rock – Space – Memory

    Dr Marcus Bunyan


    Many thankx to Anna Schwartz Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

     

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964) 'Double infinitive I' 2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964)
    Double infinitive 1
    2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964) 'Double Infinitive 4' 2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964)
    Double Infinitive 4
    2009

     

    A selection of images from the print media of the decisive moment in a riot in which a protagonist brandishes a rock against a backdrop of fire. Each image is from a different part of the world, from the early twenty-first century, and is blown up to history-painting scale using the latest commercial print technologies.

    Text by Marco Fusinato on his website

     

    Installation of Marco Fusinato 'Double Infinitives' exhibition at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne

     

    Installation of Marco Fusinato Double Infinitives exhibition at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne

     

     

    Double Infinitives

    “Unheard music is better than heard.”

    Greek proverb of late antiquity

     

    “That music be heard is not essential – what it sounds like may not be what it is.”

    Charles Ives, Essays Before a Sonata

     

    “The proposition of Jacques Attali’s Noise is different. He says that while noise is a deadly weapon, silence is death.”

    David Rattray, “How I Became One of the Invisible,” Semiotext(e), 1992.

     

    The explosive communal act of rioting is most commonly delivered to an audience suspended in the stillness and silence of a photographic image. Noise is not removed in this process, it is almost amplified: the sound and action that deliver this singularly captured moment into existence are infinite, as all things remain while they are imagined, before they are anchored down by express articulation.

    Photographic representation can easily be accused of subverting the truth of events, not because what is seen in the image has not transpired, but because static images leave so much space around them for multiple narratives to be constructed. The still image is totally contingent on the consciousness that confronts it. By contrast, the near-totality of videos can give too much away …

    Sourced by Fusinato from print media published in the last few years, these images of rioting all contain an individual clutching a rock, bathed in the refractory glow of a nearby fire. The image has become prototypical, so much so that it lacks the sensation of spontaneity requisite to produce a riot. (Apropos to this predictability, Fusinato would check global newspapers after every forum or conference of global financial authorities, often finding the image he was looking for).

    Double Infinitives is a succinct allegory for the reluctance to compromise comfort overpowering radical impulses. Conversations suggest this is a conflict frequently experienced by artists. Deprived of a volatile political reality, we experience radicalism through images that act as small ruptures, reminders that the world we live in might be more severely charged than our individual experiences allow. Fusinato’s works flatten these images of volatility onto a smooth slate: they are similar and radiate with the vexed beauty of sameness. A riot is a mad and brutal spectacle, a theatre that is often documented as if it were a play. Hugely expanded in scale and rendered in the suffused gloss of advertising, the real possibility of violence that these works infer deepens the layers of the fiction rather than comprising an indicator of human concern. Those things with which we come into such gentle contact that their thorns barely prick …

    Liv Barrett
    June 2009

    Text from the Anna Schwartz Gallery website [Online] Cited 10/07/2009. No longer available online

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964) 'Double Iinfinitive 2' 2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964)
    Double Iinfinitive 2
    2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964) 'Double Iinfinitive 2' 2009 (detail)

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964)
    Double Iinfinitive 2 (detail)
    2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964) 'Double Iinfinitive 5' 2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964)
    Double Iinfinitive 5
    2009

     

     

    Anna Schwartz Gallery
    185 Flinders Lane
    Melbourne, Victoria 3000

    Opening hours:
    Tuesday – Friday 12 – 5pm
    Saturday 1 – 5pm

    Anna Schwartz Gallery website

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    Exhibition: ‘Ricky Maynard: Portrait of a Distant Land’ at Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Sydney

    Exhibition dates: 4th June – 23rd August, 2009

     

    Many thankx to the MCA for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
'Coming Home' 2005

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    Coming Home
    2005
    From the series Portrait of a Distant Land
    Gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned
    37.4 × 54.1cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    I can remember coming here as a boy in old wooden boats to be taught by my grandparents and my parents. I’ll be 57 this year and I have missed only one year when my daughter Leanne was born. Mutton birding is my life. To me it’s a gathering of our fellas where we sit and yarn, we remember and we honour all of those birders who have gone before us. Sometimes I just stand and look out across these beautiful islands remembering my people and I know I’m home. It makes me proud to be a strong Tasmanian black man. This is something that they can never take away from me.

    Murray Mansell, Big Dog Island, Bass Strait, 2005

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) 'The Healing Garden, Wybalenna, Flinders Island, Tasmania' 2005

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    The Healing Garden, Wybalenna, Flinders Island, Tasmania
    2005
    From the series Portrait of a Distant Land
    Gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned
    34.0 x 52.0 cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

     

    This winter the Museum of Contemporary Art presents a major survey of photographic works by documentary photographer Ricky Maynard, encompassing more than two decades of the artist’s practice.

    Portrait of a Distant Land features more than 60 evocative and captivating photographic works, drawn from six bodies of work, which document the lives and culture of Maynard’s people, the Ben Lomond and Cape Portland peoples of Tasmania.

    The exhibition is curated by MCA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Programs Keith Munro and is presented at the MCA from 4 June until 23 August 2009. Born in Launceston, Tasmania in 1953 Maynard is a self taught documentary photographer now based on Flinders Island in the Bass Strait between Tasmania and mainland Australia.

    Maynard first came to prominence in the late 1980s with a photographic essay about Aboriginal mutton bird farmers and he has continued to document physical and social landscapes which form a visual record and representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia.

    “For me, photographs have always been personal and I hope to convey the intimacy of a diary. Photography has the ability to tell stories about the world and how the photograph has power to frame a culture,” said Maynard, describing his practice.

    The works presented in Portrait of a Distant Land survey a broad range of themes and issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people today. It includes photographs which document sites significant to Maynard’s people: ranging from serenely beautiful landscapes which follow the song lines, tribal movements and historical displacement routes of his ancestors, to the confrontational and emotionally-charged images of Indigenous people incarcerated in the South Australian prison system.

    The six photographic series by Maynard which are featured in the exhibition are The Moonbird People (1985-1988), No More Than What You See (1993), Urban Diary (1997), In The Footsteps of Others (2003), Returning To Places That Name Us (2000) and Portrait of a Distant Land (2005- ). Together these works create a form of visual diary of multiple landscapes derived from collective oral histories of Maynard’s people.”

    Press release from the MCA website [Online] Cited 05/07/2009. No longer available online

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) ‘Arthur, Wik elder’ from the series ‘Returning to places that name us’ 2000

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    Arthur, Wik Elder
    2000
    From the series Returning to Places that Name Us
    Gelatin silver photograph
    96.1 x 121.4cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    The owner of an enviable collection of antique cameras, Maynard is a lifelong student of the history of photography, particularly of the great American social reformers Jacob Riis, Lewis Hines, Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. He is interested in the power of the uninflected image – of sheer veracity – as an agent of record and change. Maynard’s images cut through the layers of rhetoric and ideology that inevitably couch black history (particularly Tasmanian history) to present images of experience itself. ‘To know the meaning of a culture you must recognise the limits and meaning of your own,’ the artist explains. ‘You can see its facts but not its meaning. We share meaning by living it.’ Maynard’s photographs are, he says, about ‘leaving proof’ – about ‘… life in passing and in complicated times’.

    The word ‘Wik’ has come to denote a historic decision of the High Court of Australia rather than the name of the Indigenous peoples from the western Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland. In his intimate portraits of elders from these communities, Maynard aims to unpick this abstraction. Etched on each face is the complexity of an unspoken life story, delineated, one imagines, by hardship, perseverance and the burden – and wealth – of an extraordinary living memory. As he wrote in his artist’s statement for the exhibition Returning to Places that Name Us in 2001, ‘… I wanted a presence and portraits that spoke, and through this process to present an idea, rather than preach messages’. In this series, Maynard achieves his aim of capturing meanings that no other medium could convey.

    Hannah Fink in ‘Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia’, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2004

    © Art Gallery of New South Wales. Text from the Art Gallery of New South Wales website [Online] Cited 14/03/2019

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) 'Gladys Tybingoomba' 2001

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    Gladys Tybingoomba
    2001
    From the series Returning To Places That Name Us
    Gelatin silver photograph
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) 'Custodians' from the series 'Portrait of a Distant Land' 2005

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    Custodians
    2005
    From the series Portrait of a Distant Land
    Gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned
    43.0 x 41.2cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) 'Vansittart Island' from the series 'Portrait of a Distant Land' 2007

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    Vansittart Island
    2007
    From the series Portrait of a Distant Land
    Gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned
    33.9 x 52.1cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) 'The Spit' from the series 'Portrait of a Distant Land' 2007

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    The Spit
    2007
    From the series Portrait of a Distant Land
    Gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned
    41.8 x 50.4cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) 'The Mission' 2005 From the series 'Portrait of a Distant Land'

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    The Mission
    2005
    From the series Portrait of a Distant Land
    Gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned
    43.0 x 41.2cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    Maynard is a lifelong student of the history of photography, particularly of the great American social reformers Jacob Riis, Lewis Hines, Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. Maynard’s images cut through the layers of rhetoric and ideology that inevitably couch black history (particularly Tasmanian history) to present images of experience itself. His visual histories question ownership; he claims that ‘the contest remains over who will image and own this history… we must define history, define whose history it is, and define its purpose as well as the tools used for the telling it’.

    In Portrait of a distant land Maynard addresses the emotional connection between history and place. He uses documentary style landscapes to illustrate group portraits of Aboriginal peoples’ experiences throughout Tasmania. Each work combines several specific historical events, creating a narrative of shared experience – for example The Mission relies on historical records of a small boy whom Europeans christened after both his parents died in the Risdon massacre. This work highlights the disparity between written, oral and visual histories, as Maynard attempts to create ‘a combination of a very specific oral history as well as an attempt to show a different way of looking at history in general’.

    Text from the Art Gallery of New South Wales website [Online] Cited 14/03/2019

     

     

    Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA)
    140 George Street
    The Rocks, Sydney, Australia

    Opening hours: 10am – 5pm daily

    MCA website

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    Review: ‘Morphed’ by Emma Davies at Craft Victoria, Melbourne

    Exhibition dates: 19th June – 25th July, 2009

     

    Emma Davies (Australian, b. 1968) 'Sekai' (be humorous') 2009

     

    Emma Davies (Australian, b. 1968)
    Sekai (meaning ‘be humorous’)
    2009

     

     

    A stimulating exhibition by Emma Davies at Craft Victoria of polypropylene industrial netting and packaging that has been heated, moulded, sculpted and literally morphed into these fantastical sculptures, inspired by the artist’s experiences when visiting Johannesburg in South Africa as part of the South Project. Davies evokes the mysterious and the bizarre in her figures, making the commonplace into something uncommon, taking her themes from the relics of bush medicine present in the street markets: the medicine market of Johannesburg full of dried animal bones, skulls, skins and bottles of alchemistic objects.

    Despite their comforting South African names (translated into English as ‘hope’, ‘faith’, ‘quiet, tranquil’, ‘lady’, ‘chief’, ‘prince’ for example) these extremely individual figurative ‘presences’ have a powerful melancholic affect on the viewer. Their elongated long legged and armed, no necked forms create dark eyeless creatures that crouch in rusted boxes or sit on wooden posts with their legs and arms hanging, folded. They seem lonely and sad despite their titles, perhaps reflecting the harsh realities of a life of poverty on the streets of Soweto.

    Two figures on wooden blocks seem to walk aimlessly, placed on large rough industrial tables with huge wheels while another figure sits up a rusted ladder propped against the wall. A group of figures are clustered together on top of large wooden posts of different heights, some with arms round each other for comfort, others with black or red feathers sprouting from shoulders, legs or wearing a red feathered skirt. These creatures create a marvellous group of contemplative wandering minstrels while behind them their eerie shadows fall on the gallery wall.

    The crystalline nature to the surface of the creatures, like sparkling coal, reminds me of the work of William Kentridge, his white industrial protagonist Felix haunted by images of black workers deep underground mining coal (see Mine (1991) where his coffee plunger goes down into the ground through the bodies of black people). Some of the figures bat like ears also bring to mind the work of Francisco de Goya and specifically his work Los Caprichos (The Whims), plate 43 from the series of 80 etchings published in 1799 titled The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters. The artist described the collection as an exposé of “the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilised society, and from the common prejudices and deceitful practices which custom, ignorance, or self-interest have made usual.”

    As Goya began to sympathise with the suffering of the peasants so Davies seems to have been transformed by what she saw around her during her visit, trying to make sense of a foreign culture, dreaming the sleep of reason but surrounded and invaded by a world in which the natural and unnatural has fused and morphed.

    I really liked this exhibition and the presence of these figures. I am obviously not alone as the show is almost sold out. A visit to these disturbing, enfolding creatures is recommended.

    Dr Marcus Bunyan


    All photographs courtesy of Craft Victoria (thankyou Amy Brand!) and taken by their photographer Alexia Skok. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

     

     

    Emma Davies (Australian, b. 1968) 'Tariro' (means 'hope') 2009

     

    Emma Davies (Australian, b. 1968)
    Tariro (meaning ‘hope’)
    2009

     

    Emma Davies (Australian, b. 1968) 'Rutendo' (detail - means 'faith') 2009

     

    Emma Davies (Australian, b. 1968)
    Rutendo (detail – meaning ‘faith’)
    2009

     

    Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Los Caprichos', plate 43 from the series 'El sueño de la razón produce monstros' 1799

     

    Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
    Los Caprichos plate 43 from the series El sueño de la razón produce monstros
    1799
    Etching and aquatint
    Height: 21.3cm (8.3″)
    Width: 15.1cm (5.9″)
    Museo del Prado, Madrid

     

    Emma Davies (Australian, b. 1968) 'Zola' (detail - means 'quiet, tranquil') 2009

     

    Emma Davies (Australian, b. 1968)
    Zola (detail – meaning ‘quiet, tranquil’)
    2009

     

    Emma Davies (Australian, b. 1968) Group with from left to right: Enitan (person of story), Ntombi (lady), Kgosi (chief), Nkosana (prince), Lucky and Alaba (second child after twins)
2009

     

    Emma Davies (Australian, b. 1968)
    Group with from left to right: Enitan (person of story), Ntombi (lady), Kgosi (chief), Nkosana (prince), Lucky and Alaba (second child after twins)
    2009

     

    Emma Davies (Australian, b. 1968) 'Nkosana' (detail - means 'prince') 2009

     

    Emma Davies (Australian, b. 1968)
    Nkosana (detail – meaning ‘prince’)
    2009

     

     

    Craft Victoria
    Watson Place, off Flinders Lane,
    Melbourne 3000
    Phone: 03 9650 7775

    Opening hours:
    Tuesday – Friday 11am – 6pm
    Saturday 11am – 4pm

    Craft Victoria website

    Emma Davies website

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    Exhibition: ‘Gilbert & George: Jack Freak Pictures’ at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

    Exhibition dates: 16th June – 18th September, 2009

     

    Artist duo George (left) and Gilbert (right) pose in front of their work "The Church of England" in Berlin, Germany

     

    Artist duo George (left) and Gilbert (right) pose in front of their work “The Church of England” in Berlin, Germany

     

     

    That pair of agent provocateurs are at it again!

    Marcus


    Many thankx to Arndt & Partner for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

     

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'Dating' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    DATING
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'BRITISHISM' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    BRITISHISM
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'JESUS JACK' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    JESUS JACK
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George. 'ROUND FLAG' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    ROUND FLAG
    2008
    Mixed media

     

     

    As the international tour of the last Gilbert & George retrospective (2007-2009) did not include Berlin, Arndt & Partner are now presenting a solo exhibition of the celebrity artist duo in its gallery rooms behind the Hamburger Bahnhof. It is the first Gilbert & George solo show in Berlin for 14 years. The exhibition features a selection of 20 large-scale pieces from the Jack Freak Pictures, the largest Gilbert & George group of pictures to date. The thrust of the content is given by the colours and shapes of the Union Jack flag that dominate the bulk of the pictures as well as the recurring motive of medals, emblems and trees. In the Jack Freak Pictures the artist duo explores aspects of nationhood and of the sentient individual in the nets of society. In his essay published in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition the British writer Michael Bracewell describes these pictures as “the most iconic, philosophically astute and visually violent works that Gilbert & George have ever created …”

    Gilbert & George, who met as students of sculpture at St. Martin’s School of Art in London 42 years ago, embarked on a joint artistic career that was to encompass a wide range of media from drawing to video and their trademark pictures. Further, the pair revolutionised the concept of sculpture by presenting themselves as “living sculptures” dressed in the quintessentially British tailored suit, shirt and tie. But it was their monumental trademark pictures composed of a grid like array of smaller images which they began to create in the early 70s that first brought them international fame. Figures, cityscapes, symbols, plants, bodily fluids, excrements and text interlock in pictorial messages as visually powerful as their content is provocative. The pictures, which started out in black and white and later assumed increasingly luminous, bold colours, generally also depict portraits of the artists themselves and seize on taboo subjects like sexuality, race, religion and national identity with a brash and fearless candour.

    The Jack Freak Pictures again feature the bodies and/or faces of the artists. In these compositions, their bodies function as stylised representatives of the individual in society, whose relationship to social norms and categories, to national, religious and sexual identification processes is relentlessly explored and commented upon. Departing from their earlier oeuvre, some of their new pictures split the raw images into much smaller fragments before merging them into new forms. The result is a fascinating kaleidoscopic mix of the monstrously grotesque with an intricate ornamental structure reminiscent of sacred art. In ever new variations, Gilbert & George order the signs and fragments of social life they find in their neighbourhood – the multicultural East End of London – where solidarity and friendship are as visible as intolerance and marginalisation.

    Press release from the Arndt & Partner website [Online] Cited 04/07/2009. No longer available online

     

    Gilbert & George installation photograph of their exhibition 'Jack Freak Pictures' at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

    Gilbert & George installation photograph of their exhibition 'Jack Freak Pictures' at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

    Gilbert & George installation photograph of their exhibition 'Jack Freak Pictures' at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

    Gilbert & George installation photograph of their exhibition 'Jack Freak Pictures' at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

     

    Gilbert & George installation photographs of their exhibition Jack Freak Pictures at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'JESUS SUITS' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    JESUS SUITS
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'CHURCH OF ENGLAND' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    CHURCH OF ENGLAND
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'POSTER DANCE' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    POSTER DANCE
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'REALM' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    REALM
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'SPIDER' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    SPIDER
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'UNION WALL DANCE' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    UNION WALL DANCE
    2008
    Mixed media

     

     

    Arndt Fine Art

    This gallery has now closed.

    Arndt website

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