Art13 Art Fair: A bite-size Frieze bursting with talent.

Happy Mothering Sunday everybody, hope you’re all surviving the home front.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to secure a press pass for Olympia’s answer to Frieze, Art13.

The fair was much more manageable, varied and less commercial or hectic than Frieze – a breeze to wander through and absorb talents both new and old.

Most memorable were works from Ged Quinn, William Kentridge, Polly Morgan and the entirety of London’s Lazarides stand which included pieces by Doug Foster and Conor Harrington.

A short, sharp, sweet experience compared to the lengthy glutton of Frieze; I eagerly await next year’s show.

See the full review here:

http://onestoparts.com/article-art13-london

Enjoy!

Breather, Doug Foster

Conor Harrington & the full Lazarides stand-cum-squat

 

 

Losing my Saatchi virginity…

Ok, so that’s not entirely true – although this is the first time I’ve ever bothered to go all the way with the Saatchi gallery, i.e. stay long enough to see all of the works on show. Usually I give up by about gallery 6, which is not very good going for an art gallery with fourteen rooms.

The current exhibition: Korean Eye, shows the latest work  flying out of Korea into the international arts scene – and it’s impressive! A huge range of mediums, subjects and styles but all still identifiably Eastern.

As usual for the Saatchi Gallery most of the artwork is large scale and powerful; however usually when I visit Saatchi the work seems to be powerful just because of this vast scale – the same cannot be said for Korean Eye, and even some small paintings have snuck in!

These works are by Bae Joonsung, who is actually a man – that sounds like an odd thing to say, but usually artworks give a clue about the artist’s gender, you can usually just tell, and these pieces are overwhelmingly feminine. It’s fantastic to see some really accomplished painting being appreciated – especially in an institute like Saatchi which is usually quite edgy, and has featured ‘artworks’ like cling film hanging from the ceiling.

Joonsung paints these multi-layered compositions with the aid of lenticular – as the name suggests this is a type of lens which can also be printed over images using an oversized lithographic press to create a transformative effect.

His interest in Lenticular began with a plastic writing sheet, which to Joonsung ”were something with an importance beyond that other kids could imagine. (-) Of the precious sheets, the paramount was the so-called “transforming plastic sheet”- a yellow smiley face flaunting itself right in the center, now smiling, now crying. That was my first encounter with lenticular in my childhood.”

He combines this lenticular with masterful oil painting and digital photography, overlaid with oils for an uncannily real moving effect: it’s a brilliant combination of classical imagery and techniques, with a little of the new, softly added.

Sometimes it’s just nice to see something beautiful and completely inoffensive in a contemporary gallery, and especially to have good draughtsmanship appreciated – as if you’ve ever read a couple of my posts before, you’ll know how much I hate – nay, loathe – ‘naive’ aka bad painting. There’s just no excuse!

Before the title of  each of Joonsung’s ‘Lenti + Canvas’ paintings comes the phrase The Costume of Painting, which

 ”signifies a certain layer derived through eyes of the artist. I have always believed that when an artist paints, with his or her eyes caressing over the model, the painting created through eyes of the artist brings birth to another model. However, the model painted or created, hovering somewhere around the artist’s free will, demands in turn that the artist paint again. This demand springs from the physical and mental time of the artist’s painting. In the end, the phrase,”the costume of painter”, implies not the costume painted by artist, but what suddenly happens to the artist while painting the costume.” – Bae Joonsung

More artists should include notes on their websites, there’s something about having the work directly explained to you by the maker.

So, get over to Saatchi to see some real-life moving paintings – just like Harry Potter! There’s much more to come from me on the subject of Korean Eye, but firstly I felt that Joonsung deserved his own post and secondly I am yet again very ready for bed.

 

Surrealism Sunday… Man Ray’s Muse.

Happy Mothers’ Day!

I’ve discovered someone fascinating today and it’s all down to my good ole Mum. I was going to write a post on her favourite artist, being the doting daughter I am, she umm-ed and err-ed before saying “oh, I just remembered, have you heard of Lee Miller..?”

I had not, but now I’ve looked into her life and she was an absolutely fascinating model, muse, photographer and Surrealist.

Miller by Man Ray.

The reason Mother mentioned her is that the house she came to settle in for the last thirty-something years of her life is just up the road from us in East Sussex, near Lewes and it’s open to the public from the 1st of April.

Lee Miller and Surrealist writer and second husband Roland Penrose came to Farley Farm House in 1949, and it became an unlikely meeting place for many leading Modern Artists such as Picasso, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Joan Miro, Richard Hamilton…the list goes on… The house is permanently filled with works of art by these and many other big names, and has been preserved “as if Miller has just popped out to gather some vegetables”.

A model for Vogue in 1927 at just twenty years old, leaving New York for Paris at twenty-two to become Man Ray’s assistant-come-muse, Elizabeth Lee Miller began her artistic career  at the centre of the Surrealist movement. She moved back to New York in 1932 at  the age of twenty-five to open her own studio and went on to be a portrait, travel and war photographer.

In 1937 on a trap to Paris, Miller met Roland Penrose and began to attend the Surrealist group, becoming a model for Pablo Picasso, as well as her already close friend Man Ray.

In 1947 after three harrowing years spent as a photojournalist in Second World War Germany and Eastern Europe, Miller finally married and settled with Penrose in England where she contributed to his  biographies of Man Ray, Miro, Picasso and Tapies.

Here are a few beautiful photographs taken of Miller by Man Ray and for Vogue, followed by her own works…

‘Lee Miller’s Neck’ by Man Ray.

‘Lee Miller in Hitler’s Bathtub’ controversial image for Vogue.

Picasso by Miller.

Charlie Chaplin by Lee Miller.

Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning - have a look at her, personally I think she was an absolutely incredible painter – by Lee Miller.

Women with fire masks, Downshire Hill, London, 1941, Lee Miller.

Woman with hand on head, 1931, Lee Miller.

Nude Bent Forward, 1930, Lee Miller.

…You can tell from ‘Nude-’ that she worked with Man Ray, just look at the similarity in their works….

 So anyway, I now have one trip planned for Easter, I’m going to avoid the London crowds and instead head to a lovely farmhouse to see some world-renowned artists.

Not only can Miller and the Surrealists’ work be seen at the house, this year the first exhibition, Two Painters and a Sculptor, features the wonderful abstract painter David Armitage, emerging Spanish artist Samuel Paradela and Michael Cooper who works with bronze, silver, marble and stone. Plenty!!

Stunning photographs and an amazing life: Lee Miller, Man Ray’s secret muse.

Pick Me Up again please…

I may have mentioned this a few posts ago, but Pick Me Up is back this year! Somerset House will be absolutely jam packed with illustrations, typography, graphic design, animation, film and installation from the most exciting up and coming artists based in the UK. It’s big enough to be amazing value for money but small enough that you don’t get exhausted (and if you do, last year there were giant bean bags in the film room to collapse on), there’s work to buy from just a tenner and, the best bit, I don’t think last year’s show contained one piece of boring art. Not one!

This year it’s on from the 22nd March until the 1st of April so I shall be pottering through at some point during my Easter break.

Last year, however, I went down on St Paddy’s day, so unfortunately my photo album ‘Pick Me Up’ is more of a record of every beverage served in every pub in East London – plus a curry – than a decent representation of the art fair. Anyway, I did manage to salvage these few piccies, if you like then head to Somerset House for an Easter outing. It’s only a fiver for a little cultchaaa, a LOT of inspiring material and for all that educational hard work you can surely reward yourself with a belated St Paddy’s bevvie!

I’m afraid I don’t have the names for every artist featured, but I’ve tried to hunt down a few.

The above image is by Seiko Kato, seriously amazing paper collage artist, and next up is Polly Becker, assemblage maker and ink illustrator.

Possibly more Miss Becker….

Julien Roure….

I’m afraid I’m not sure who the star sign etchings are by, I’ve been googling away but to no avail!

Last but not least, an alphabet illustration by Jessica Hische - her website is VERY nice. Worth a snoop.

Pick Me Up: most interesting art fair I’ve ever been to and all for the price of a Pret a Manger salad, can’t argue with that!

xxx

Henry Darger… extraordinary escapism.

This is possibly one of the most fascinating tales I’ve ever come across…

Set on a large planet around which Earth orbits as a moon, inhabited mostly Christian people, a species called the Blengigomeneans, gigantic winged beings with curved horns who occasionally take human form, and the evil Glandelinians, is the longest illustrated novel in history written by one solitary janitor in a single room in Chicago, over a half century period.

A Blengigomeneans or Blengian, winged creatures who aid the Vivian Girls in their rebellion.

Henry Darger was a recluse who settled in a second-floor room of an apartment building in 1930, it was here that he stayed for the last 43 years of his life to finish The Story of the Vivian Girls:What is known as the Realms of the Unreal,of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. With fifteen volumes totalling 15,145 pages it is possibly the longest novel ever written, and it contains several hundred colour illustrations and paintings – some up to 10ft long. The book follows the adventures of seven princesses of the Christian nation of Abbieannia, the daughters of Robert Vivian, who fight against an evil regime of child slavery imposed by the Glandelinians.  Darger had worked all of his life to protect children, relating to them better than adults, he even tried to adopt a child at one point but a history including spells in several mental institutions meant that any applications were rejected.

The girls are sometimes represented as hermaphrodites, and behave like men, while the scenes themselves range from cheerful and innocent to much darker imagery.

Darger couldn’t fully communicate with the outside world and so was shunned, it was only in his books that he could live freely and created an alternate identity: General Darger.

Darger spent most of his life alone, only to be seen regularly searching bins for old newspapers and magazines from which he took some of his inspiration. It was never expected that he was turning these into art.

His life works which included the Vivian Girls, an autobiography and several other small volumes were found in his one-room apartment after his death in 1973.

For more info, Jessica Yu made a documentary in 2004 about the life and works of this elusive artist – here’s a trailer…

I’m going to go to university now and scour the library for this DVD, outsider art – they love that stuff!

Darger’s works are now held by the American Folk Art Museum in New York which also runs The Henry Darger Study Centre in which the books themselves can be flicked through.

A tragic story but these amazing works are a little silver lining at least…

Anselm Kiefer at White Cube… colossal canvases in a gargantuan gallery..

This post sort of ended up as an advertisement for one of my great loves, Mr Anselm Kiefer, I’ve been a little bit obsessed with him since I was seventeen and this is the first time he’s taken a UK gallery all for himself!

Il Mistero delle CattedraliTh or ‘the mystery of the cathedrals’  is Kiefer’s largest ever UK exhibition and for it he has taken over White Cube’s huge new Bermondsey site, there’s only seven days left to catch it so if you’re a bit of a Kiefer disciple like me then go go gooo!

As always these works reflect Kiefer’s obsession with past mythologies and histories, mystical and political systems, but focusing in particular on his fascination with the transforming nature of alchemy.

The man himself explains that…”The ideology of alchemy is the hastening of time, as in the lead-silver-gold cycle which needed only time in order to transform lead into gold. In the past the alchemist sped up this process with magical means. That was called magic. As an artist I don’t do anything differently. I only accelerate the transformation that is already present in things. That is magic, as I understand it.”

Magic!

I’ve always loved Kiefer’s works because of their vast scale and weight; Kiefer builds up layers and layers of shellac and plaster on which tin planes balance precariously and metal struts jut out supporting huge iron hooks, scythes and satellite dishes. Every piece begins as a landscape which is then worked on rigorously, left out to the elements, oxidised and dissolved, and worked over again and again until it has the cracking, crumbling but still completely overpowering and domineering appearance that characterise Kiefer’s works.

The combination of Kiefer’s looming canvases, gigantic sculptures and the huge white expanses of White Cube, Bermondsey will make you feel like a tiny tiny ant…go see. Sometimes it’s good to feel insignificant.

Brown Eyed Girl…

I made a fool of myself on Sunday. I ended up eyelash to eyelash with either Ayo or Oni Oshodi.

Brown Eyed Girl is part of the Midland Art Centre’s Their Wonderlands, curated by They Are Here, provided with only a tiny torch I blundered about the darkened gallery and when I came to this eerie little portrait I just had to have a closer look. I was convinced it was a film installation, a screen hidden behind the painting – but no, it’s the eyes of artists themselves which blink in place of this ghostly girl’s. It took me a good…3 minutes…to work this out.

Oh well, I hope Ayo or Oni enjoyed playing opticians with me.

Surreal House at the Barbican

Pottered off to the Barbican yesterday in search of something to get the arty juices going and I think I found it!

I'd say it's a brilliantly curated exhibition filled with some rare never seen before gems all set to an eerie soundtrack created by a medley of sound and video pieces.

I wasn't sure if it was really my thing when I got into the first room: the CONCEPTUAL ART alarm bells were ringing and as partial as I am to the occasional bizarre readymade, there's a lot more to surrealism than that. Surreal House covered all the areas: painting, photography, sculpture, video, illustration, etching etc etc etc…..

My all time favourite parts were seeing the 1930s editions of the Parisian periodical edited by Andre Breton and Pierre Mabille entitled Minotaure and the genius films made by Jan Svankmajer…however they deserve full blog posts all to themselves and I need to get some research done there!

"I shall live in my glass house where you can always see who comes to call, where everything hanging from the ceiling and on the walls stays where it is as if by magic, where I sleep nights in a glass bed, under glass sheets, where the words who I am will sooner or later appear etched by a diamond."

This was said by the great Mr Breton and this exhibition includes a video of his home at 42 rue Fontaine which is said to be the archetypal surrealist home – filled with books, deities, totems, stuffed animals…all manner of things you expect to find in a surrealist illustration. One of the strange things about this exhibition is that you're surrounded by so many odd and dream-like things that you become accustomed to it, so after the first couple of rooms strange feels normal. So when the camera pans around Breton's study to focus on the window, looking out at that ordinary Parisian street you're suddenly brought back to reality and it hits you how bizarre and eccentric a home it is: a surrealist's haven away from mundane everyday life.

….i tried to find a video of it on the net but can't – oh well you'll just have to go see the exhibition!

The first quarter or so of the exhibition focuses on the Freudian idea adopted by the Surrealists in the 1930s of the home as a reflection of the body, and Breton's home is certainly a reflection of his own mind. 

Goes to show how important an artist's surroundings are to the nature and success of their work.

The exhibition is divided into sections such as Femme Maison, Panic Space and Haunted House and all explore slightly different areas of surrealism and the home or the body. There's plenty of big names such as Louise Bourgeouis, Francis Bacon, Breton, Duchamp etc etc and also some other artists, particularly photographers that I hadn't heard of before.

Claude Cahun is one of these, a Parisian writer and political theorist in the 1920s and '30s, it turns out she's a pertty fascinating woman. Her work explores gender ambiguity (she herself changed her name from Lucie to the more androgynous Claude)and the self, she made several self portraits using disguises and costume but never exhibited any of these works as they were meant for self-discovery rather than to be shown. Tate Modern only had a few on show in Surrealism Desire Unbound in 2002 so this is a rare opportunity to have a look!

Francesca Woodman is another photographer whose works are on display, she began taking photographs at 13 and produced over 800 images before her suicide at just 22. Not part of the 1930s Parisian circle, she produced work in the 70s but the images work alongside the earlier pieces.

That's the thing about this exhibition, the work ranges from etchings made in the 1500s after the old master Hieronymous Bosch's drawings to work made in the last twenty years. 

All the pieces work together though as they explore the elements of madness we all have always had and always will.

Worryingly, I found this one of the easiest exhibition to relate to out of all I've seen.

Go see it. It's nice to spend a day in a dream.

hint… Metal Fucking Rats… look at the silhouette. curious? ha. 

ohh ohh and also… 1941 Clarence John Laughlin (check out the pic below) The Repulsive Bed: where Tracey Emin stole her Unmade Bed from methinks. Well kept secret…?

images: Francesca Woodman untitled and untitled, Rhode Island 1975-8; Rebecca Horn's eerie Concert For Anarchy; Clarence John Laughlin's Repulsive Bed (the original Emin).

Forget Saatchi…BP Portrait Award’s where the talent’s at.

On the tube to Leicester Square I had decided I was in love with Sally Mann's work, definitely wanted to become a photographer and would most certainly hunt down some old cameras in the local charity shops when I got home. 

Then we popped into the National Portrait for an hour and I was completely confused all over again… identity crisis much?

I've found there's definitely a flaw in doing a Fine Art course when you're indecisive and fickle, mix that with a fierce competitive streak and you end up with me: wanting to do anything and everything and be better than everyone else. Impossible and incredibly confusing.

Anyway moving on swiftly…

The best portraits entered into the BP Portrait award are on show at the NPG until the 19th September for freeeee!

They're mostly Realism and some Hyper-realist really, but the poses and subjects are all very varied and each is shown with a little plaque explaining the reasons for the painting which I think always helps you to appreciate the piece that little bit extra.

The standard is pretty spectacular and it's hard to understand how some of these people haven't been exhibited before (I googled a LOT of them). I mean, I have a thing I do when looking at portraits and I'm sure most painters do it – you stare at the piece until you can see it as a group of brush-marks rather than an image. However a couple of these I got about an inch away (much to most of the general public's irritation) and still it looked like a photograph… now that's impressive.

There's always a debate as to what makes the 'best' paintings: accuracy vs creativity. But with this lot you really do have to just appreciate the skill, patience and work that went into them rather than look for some kind of reason or concept. They're just beautiful pieces done well.

Here's a few of my favourites, none of them are winners but I preferred them as they're of ordinary people in pretty ordinary poses but are extraordinary works of art!

Sandy Watching by Alex Hanna (reminds me of my little brother staring blankly at the TV)…

and Sentinel by Lyndsey Jameson (amazing facial expression and the background is out of focus so it looks almost like a photograph taken on macro)…

and Dan by Mary Jane Ansell (I like the fact that she just chose to paint a very normal looking bloke, the technique itself is the beauty of it really).

An artist, a photographer and a fashionista take a trip!

Part One.

EXPOSED at Tate Modern.

Definitely worth the £10!

 

So yesterday two friends and I spent about seven hours looking at photography, illustration, painting, costume, architecture, fashion and jewellery…phew!

We wandered up the south bank to the Tate Modern past hoards of people queuing for the Eye and tried to avoid some bizarre looking performers.

We’d planned to make it to the Tate Mod, Saatchi, V&A and Photographer’s Gallery all in one day – in the end we managed seven hours (still pretty impressive I think!) between the Tate and V&A and then may have ended up in a pub for four more hours…

We arrived at the Tate to be greeted by the first pleasant surprise of the day – the Michael Clark Company’s dance collaborative taking place in the Turbine Hall! We stood watching twelve dancers performing a smooth warm up and practising a few steps before going to grab our tickets for Exposed:Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera. We intended to get back to the dancers as soon as we were done with Exposure but sadly we were so absorbed in the exhibition that when we finally emerged an hour and a half later the dancers had gone for lunch! Serious tragedy – so unfortunately I’m just going to have to go back!

I don’t want to give away too much about Exposure but it’s definitely an incredible collection of photographs. The pieces range from images taken during the 1860s when secret-camera fever took over to some quite shocking sexually explicit and violent images to recent images from no-camera zones. We all agreed that the first half of the exhibition was the best – before we reached what we insensitively nicknamed The Death Room – and that you only really realised how amazing the first few photographs were after you’d had a chance to take them in.

Particularly amazing were the series Heads by Philip-Lorca diCorcia (see man with beard at the top there) – shot with a series of hidden cameras and automatic flashes which were triggered as the subject walked by – and the collection of secret photography devices on show that’d been devised in the early 20th Century to catch people unaware. DiCorcia’s images are incredible: they look as if they were shot in a studio, the lighting and expression impeccable. Later on in the day we visited the V&A and the photography section included some of Gregory Crewdson’s staged photographs, his works appear to be snapshots from everyday life but in fact are meticulously crafted using false lighting, actors and sets. They have to be admired as they are amazing creations, but I think that diCorcia’s works and images like this are so incredibly interesting because they are completely real. No sets, no ‘photo faces’, no poses. Crewdson’s work appears so ordinary but its creation is extraordinary, which seems to defeat the point to me. 

This is why secret photography is so amazing, even when it isn’t shocking or candid it captures people in a way they would never be photographed otherwise. While staged photographs or organised photographs capture a frozen person, secret photographs hold personality in them too.

Exposure was pretty heavy-going in some sections and pretty vulgar too so just be aware! I was pretty glad my mother didn’t agree to a family day out at the Tate when I walked into Room 5 to be greeted by a wall of women in gimp masks! A lot of the work was sickening but also horribly fascinating – a series which we all found pretty disturbing was The Park by Kohei Yoshiyuki, documenting a group of voyeurs who crawl through Japanese parks late at night trying to get as close as possible and eventually touch unsuspecting couples. A shocking, grotesque and perverted ‘hobby’ exposed by secret photography!

We noticed trends in the photographs throughout the ages: sex, violence, humiliation, condemnation. The earliest paparazzi photographs are like a black and white version of Heat magazine, obsession with other people’s lives is an eternal human interest – seeing other people’s dirty laundry makes our own seem cleaner! 

The three of us travelled through from secret cameras, early paparazzi photos and images that exposed grim fetishes and prostitution and then ended up in Room 9. We all agreed if we were to see the show again we’d stop at Room 8 and make a quick turn back to those lovely images of Marilyn and Jackie Kennedy! The images of violence, war, lynchings and capital punishment were of course interesting but the exhibition should have really come with a warning as to be honest, us three girls are all complete wimps.

I faint at the sight of blood, our resident photographer felt too sick for lunch and my fashion student friend propped herself up on my shoulder when she followed me quickly out of Death Room. But despite how horrifying the images are, I’m glad I saw what I did and I admire those photographers for the bravery they show in exposing such atrocities. The photographs are actually fascinating, so fellow wimpy girls: be brave and have a look. 

Room 11-14 were all a bit lost on us as after the celebs, sex and death of the first 10 or so rooms, images from surveillance cameras don’t quite cut it. Exposure hits a climax of such powerful images which could easily reduce a person to tears – in fact I think the reason we didn’t cry is that you can hardly believe some of it is real – and so the ending is a little disappointing. Thinking back though, we were so dumbstruck by the the pornographic and violent images that if we’d been released into the middle of the Tate we wouldn’t have known quite how to recover. As it was we were still flailing about aimlessly and repeating things like “did you see.. with the window?” “oh my god yeah I did’t realise what it was until…” “wow.” even after a few rooms of much calmer – but in some ways more technically impressive – images.

I was intending to do an entry about the whole day but I’ve now spent about an hour on just Exposure. Goes to show how much of an impact it had on me! 

To sum up: An astonishing collection of incredible works but it could have been four shows rather than one. I guess a tenner for four shows isn’t bad then!

Next up…I’ll actually start on the four hours we spent in the V&A.