Epitomising an Era: Blumenfeld Studio at Somerset House

100 colour prints detailing the career of one of the fashion world’s highest ever paid photographers have finally emerged, after years of dispute over ownership – a relic of Blumenfeld’s many lovers and complex family life. Constructed mainly from those shots deemed not quite perfect enough for the front pages of Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Cosmopolitan etc. Blumenfeld Studio is an insight into the artist’s commitment to, and zeal for, his medium; endless photographs which evidence that he really did “always keep working up to the climax of what was visualised in the first place”.

What is most fascinating about Blumenfeld’s process is that it’s not the clothes, make up or often even the pose of the models which changes – but instead his background, cropping and props. The ever-present direct gaze of his models remains unchanged, perhaps a hand moves from chin to neck, but really it is Blumenfeld’s careful scenic arrangements which decide which piece of film becomes a cover and which remains unprinted.

Having produced the wrappings of US Vogue for more than a decade, Blumenfeld is chiefly recognised for having depicted, and forever framed, 1950s America as the ultimate era of sharp, effortless glamour. However, his most pioneering work was catalysed by a more artistic vein – his acquaintance with Dadaism and the Surrealists. His methods were anarchic, famously explaining that “if the film says to keep it cool, I boil it; if it says you should always keep it above a certain temperature, I freeze it”. This innovative approach to photography could be result of Blumenfeld’s introduction to the medium: he did not train in a studio under a master, but instead discovered a darkroom in the Amsterdam leather shop he owned in 1932, and, bored with the steady life of a businessman, began experimenting.

His highly technical experiments were endless: solarisation, warping with chemicals and hands-on manipulation, cutting, cropping, silhouettes and a range of completely bizarre uses of light and shadow. Many of the resulting images can be seen at Somerset House, and stand somewhere between psychedelia, painting and dream; in these intense pieces Blumenfeld’s affection for women is patent.

Although Blumenfeld’s career began with a spell simply photographing his Amsterdam shop’s prettiest customers – a marketing scheme of sorts – his work is far more complex than just good looks. His women have power, their direct gaze is absolutely piercing – at times eyes are even manipulated to become bright white negatives; haunting and penetrating. He called his obsession with women “platonic erotomania”; accurate, as these images are regal and never crude, but bear the mark of a photographer in touch with his model’s sexuality.

Whilst the editorials of many fashion magazines can be made bland by the hand of the Art Editor (or “arse editor” as Blumenfeld preferred), the work of Blumenfeld studio often retained its artistic integrity, part due to the photographer’s friendship with US Vogue’s Art Editor Alexander Liberman. The numerous Vogue covers currently exhibited at Somerset House are a snapshot of the 1950s and of a time when magazines were plastered with something more enlightening than just a high-res photograph of a model in clothes. Nothing as imaginative as Blumenfeld’s carefully cut double-images, projections onto nude skin, or even, after the war, political statements, deck the magazine racks of today.

Still, Blumenfeld’s work is eternally inspiring, and often mimicked; his iconic “doe eye” photograph, his sensual campaigns for Chesterfield cigarettes, tactile Woman in Silk, and precarious example of model-balancing for On the Eiffel Tower. However, what cannot be reproduced, and what is missing from the austere fashion photography of today is sensitivity; of course this is partly due to technicality, partly due to style, but chiefly due to the photographer itself. It has been said that “a woman who wasn’t previously beautiful, became beautiful if Blumenfeld though them so”; his models clearly felt confidence and pride in working with him, and the strength of this shines through in glowing, vital pieces. In every photograph there is the tiniest discernible edge of a smile in the corner of a lip, or eye – a result of Blumenfeld’s final, most mysterious trick: “To soften my models, before I start shooting, I ask every one of them ‘will you marry me?’” 

Blumenfeld Studio, Somerset House East Wing Galleries

23 May–1 September 2013

Miles Aldridge: Carousel

Film-maker turned fashion designer Miles Aldridge has delivered seductive sirens silk-screened in an electrifying palette to the forefront of the fashion world for 15 years. In a whirlwind three-day show, Mayfair gallery Brancolini Grimaldi presents 32 lithographic and silkscreen prints. Entitled Carousel, this show utterly submerges its audience into the compellingly false and alluringly flawless, dreamlike world of Miles Aldridge. His works are uncanny cinematic fabrications saturated in grotesque decadence, ever masked by a deceptive curtain of kitsch femininity.

   See the full review here…

GAIETY IS THE MOST OUTSTANDING FEATURE OF THE SOVIET UNION

One can just envisage a wry smile lighting up the face of the art world’s most infamous rich kid as he came up with the title of this new show, supposedly featuring the greatest of Russia’s contemporary cultural offerings.

Lightness however, is an element scarcely present within Saatchi’s latest exhibition -instead chiefly memorable for endless murky images of poverty and depression – until, that is, you reach the top floor. Up here spotlights bounce off slick oil paintings which hang proudly in the top floor galleries, waiting to be appreciated – if you ever make it there. 

Full review to follow here:

http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/blog/review-of-gaiety-is-the-most-outstanding-feature-of-the-soviet-union-london/

An exhibition saturated with gloom, yet spattered with a few vibrant splashes of hope and, actually, even a little gaiety.

Today began with a TED Talk.

I’m not sure why I wrote this the other day, but I did, and I missed the IdeasTap Columnist competition so here it is. It also completely trails off at the end so it’s probably a good thing that I missed the deadline. But here: happiness, some accidental indulgent self-analysis, and a bit of art chat.

We artists are a grumpy bunch, but things will all work out in the end if we just smile, and don’t cut our ears off either.

Today began with a TED Talk: Happiness ‘expert’ Dan Gilbert on synthesising the one emotion that we treat as an item, a commodity to be had. Happiness has become the ultimate Thing in our materialistic society, and we accumulate other things in the hope that the sum of these equals utter unbounded happiness.

However, as Gilbert affirms, happiness cannot be sought and accrued as it is (not too sound too new age) a state of mind: how we regard what we have. These are not only the items that we have, but family, friends, our talents; elements which we are fully aware that we take for granted – when reminded of them replying with “yes, but I’m not successful”, “yes, but it doesn’t matter”, “yes, but…”

This may sound like a sweeping statement, but during a recent bout of CBT (I’m a hypochondriac, always have been) I began to look into this dismissive attitude and found that it is widely true for young creatives – a genre which encompasses most of my friends, colleagues and acquaintances. This “yes, but…” attitude is so very damaging as it cannot be opened up to the good, as it already recognises and immediately disregards it.

Gilbert talks about synthesised and true happiness: the first is a result of instructing ourselves to enjoy life; the second is the result of achieving the ultimate goals that we believe will give us happiness. True happiness is seen as The Thing, whereas synthesised happiness is simply a meagre replacement for this. However, as true happiness is measured by success – an immeasurable and entirely subjective idea – perhaps synthesised happiness, forcing ourselves to be content, is actually The Thing as it is both realistic and achievable.

Unfortunately, young creatives are not a much of a realistic breed. Most of the young artists seen at private views flouncing about in their Barbour jackets and Toms or heavy heels and impractical headwear, have at some point had a destructive seed planted in their mind: you can have success, and you can have it now. The comments which water this seed will have been made with supportive intentions, but they can inadvertently set expectations.

So if ‘true’ happiness is the result of achieving your goals, does this mean that many of us – perhaps artists in particular – are doomed to a life of misery?

Of course not: happiness can be something intangible that we wait to materialize when that piece of work sells, a particular paper publishes an article, or that gallery commissions a show, or instead it can be something we construct, force even. Every emotion has a cause; our society is saturated with professionals whose job is to identify exactly what makes us sad, so why not instead seek out exactly what can make us happy? Of course this varies slightly as we are all wired up differently, but only to a point.

One of the oldest theories of happiness is Maslow’s Pyramid: a five tier hierarchy of human needs, which should result in happiness when fulfilled in the allocated order. First are physiological needs such as food and water; next comes safety; third is belonging; fourth is esteem; and the final tip, the icing on the cake, is self-actualisation: that imagined success, The Thing.

Maslow’s pyramid is just a theory, but when put into practice reveals why us artists can be such a discontented crowd: we’re trying to climb straight to the top without even laying down the first few bricks; squeezing icing straight onto the table without baking the cake first (which itself alone is a tragedy).

Gilbert and Maslow’s theories are not similar: Gilbert identifies an easily achievable version of happiness, whilst Maslow explains how we become satisfied. However what both scientists do is bring the idea of happiness down from its pedestal and convert it into something concrete, discussing happiness as it is: a physiological state which has a set of definite causes. If we stop fantasising about how happy we could be, stop the “yes, buts”, and instead look objectively at what we have – which for most of us at least includes two rows of Maslow breeze blocks – then maybe we will find that we already have The Thing.

….the pictures are all from found film stills, the happy times of strangers..

 

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.

 

Yoko Ono: The original Tracey Emin.

Yoko Ono: TO THE LIGHT

19th June  - 9th September 2012

Way back at the end of June I went along to the Serpentine Gallery – and accordingly co ordinated a maze of Olympic barriers – to see Yoko Ono’s TO THE LIGHT. The woman made famous for ‘destroying the Beatles’ appears on reflection to have been far more of an artist, activist and peace-maker than any sort of home-wrecker type – and the most startling comparison I drew from the whole thing is that she is the original Tracey Emin (just a whole lot prettier!)

The exhibition features work ranging from her bizarre acid-trip films from the late ’60s to her Wish Trees standing out front, from the glass structure Amaze to suspended army hats filled to the brim with puzzle pieces – it certainly is a retrospective, some of the work over fifty years old, but the same themes are withstanding throughout her work: pure, potent ‘flower power’.

I mean that in the least whimsical sense however: it is forcefully pacifist, passionately feminist and simply raw. While the show of course communicates all of Ono’s political views, it also gives an intimate insight into her relationship with John Lennon – even displaying her work Ceiling Painting, without which she may never have met Lennon.

Ceiling Painting was one of the works in this show that put you as a visitor in a tricky position: presented with a ladder, a magnifying glass and a tiny word painted on a canvas stuck to the ceiling, the idea is that you climb up the ladder, take the magnifier and read the word ‘YES’ scrawled across the white. But in the Serpentine, where you aren’t even allowed to take tiny little iPhone photos (I’m not bitter at all), I doubt this interaction is allowed – at the entrance of the exhibition I saw a member of staff taking puzzle pieces out of those army hats and handing them to the VIPs she was taking round – but after having been told off for taking snaps on my phone, I was not about to try touching the artwork.

These intimate works such as Ceiling Painting or her text pieces, her film Cut Piece and small bronze sculptural works were the stars of the show for me; they are also political as they do discuss women’s rights, but they are powerfully personal too. This is where the Emin similarity comes in: the tiny scrawl of Ono’s carefully written one-liners and her accusatory descriptions of “the doctor who…” enjoy far less fame than the very same works by Emin.

I’ve already slated Tracey Emin a fair amount in the past, but the more I see, the more I realise how much of her work is simply ‘appropriation’ i.e. shamelessly unoriginal – just look at Clarence John Laughlin’s photograph The Repulsive Bed (Barbican: Surreal House 2010) and you’ll clearly see the roots of Emin’s Bed, her one ‘revolutionary’ artwork.

Ono, on the other hand really does seem to be an ambassador for her times, innovative, still fresh and an actual revolutionary. Although much of her work dates back to the ’60s, sadly the points they make are still relevant now: war is still bad, women still have to do things they don’t want to do, and love is definitely still good.

There are only three weeks left of this one – and Hyde Park is for two weeks not full of tourists! So pop down to the Serpentine, write a wish on a tag and tie it to a tree and go and read about free love, gain a little political education and watch John Lennon’s face spin around a screen in a kaleidoscope of LSD-induced psychedelia.

Sunday scrummy sculptures…

I’m home for the weekend so I’ve been baking…3 batches later I have finally perfected stem ginger cookies with a lemon glaze MMM! Yes, home will make me fat.

A couple of people who play with their food slightly more artistically than me are Japanese Akiko Ida and French Pierre Javelle who combine their sculpting and photography skills to produce these witty little tableaus.

Just a bit of fun for a rainy Sunday…

Sunbathing in toffee sauce?

Icky sticky heaven.

Voila! Right time to run off the ginger cookies, I’m doing Race For Life this year so if anyone is feeling charitable, or has ever been entertained by my ramblings, then please help me to help Cancer Research beat cancer once and for all!

http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/chloehodge76

I’m running in the RAIN. Come on.

Huis Clos… surreal, intimate, stunning.

This series was created by French photographers Amélie Chassary and Lucie Belarbi as an examination of our everyday habits, literally turning each subject into a personification of their daily routines. The title, Huis Clos, derives from a French play and translates literally as ‘in camera’, referring to a private conversation carried out behind closed doors; with this series, people’s privacies are exposed as they openly wear their rituals and routines on their sleeves.

Simply conducted but effective, and I think they’re pretty darn beautiful.

Painting portraits with torches… Fabrice Wittner’s Enlightened Souls.

So in a few months’ time I shall be off to New Zealand, thanks to the Louisa Ann Ryland travel scholarship! My first destination is going to be Christchurch which has recently been devastated by earthquakes costing the lives of 181 people and $30 billion in damages. 

French photographer Fabrice Wittner has been commemorating Christchurch’s losses through his lightpainting series: Enlightened Souls. Wittner combines light painting techniques, human sized stencils and long exposure photography to create these poetic yet haunting images.

After making the first Enlightened Souls series in New Zealand, Wittner travelled to Hanoi, Vietnam; his latest light stencils bring children from rural Vietnamese villages into the capital.  

Pretty amazing stuff and without that filthy photoshopping! 

Magnificent Mini Moo Cards!

New business cards!

I hope you like them

Today will be spent recovering with my housemates so I’m making this a quickie…

…apologies for the rubbish pictures, I STILL haven’t got round to replacing my camera lens so it refuses to focus properly at the moment, and Photoshop’s on the blink. A very ill-equipped blogger.

I  could’ve gone for your standard Vistaprint order of 200 free business cards, but they’re dull and big and bulky so instead I paid a little for 100 Moo mini-cards printed with sixteen different stills from one of my film pieces. I like the idea of a couple of people picking them up and comparing their cards – Chloe Top Trumps – and the cards give a little insight into what I do so no one wastes their time looking at my website only to find they don’t like my work! Phew.

Stuck a sneaky QR code on the back just to prove that I am, in fact, down with the kids.

Happy Sunday.

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