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.

Memories Moulded in Midnight Ink…Bahk Seon Ghi at Saatchi

Next up on the hit list from Saatchi’s Korean Eye is Bahk Seon Ghi with his 7ft high ebony carving, Point of View.

Initially I’d seen this stack of every day objects in the dimmed upper gallery and thought I had discovered what I would call a ‘Saatchi’ – i.e. a stack of objects sprayed black, a dull, aesthetically uninteresting and contextually shallow large object.

However, I was wrong!

Instead this bluey brown tower, littered with cracks and splinters, is a masterful example of carpentry. The folds of the umbrella canopy curve softly like fabric and the snakeskin skin of the briefcase is uncannily realistic.

 It stands almost totemic, as if commemorating  belongings lost in a fire  or physical items drawn out of a black and white photograph, eerie, unnerving.

Bahk’s piece additionally conjures ideas of traditional oriental ink drawings as its colouring is not black but instead that multi-tonal darkness of Chinese ink – marking brown, blue, grey as the brush strokes have swept across the page.

Bahk’s love affair with charcoal began as a search to incorporate the cycle of nature into his work whilst still dominating a space, so avoiding the flimsiness of trees or leaves he went straight for the jagged, intense depth of charcoal. Initially he suspended tiny pieces of coal using nylon string to create floating sculptures which clearly reflect his interest in the natural world -fragile, ephemeral yet memorable – but using it to form strong structures from the inside of our homes; bringing the outside in.

Now he has stepped away from these fragmented floating ‘paintings’ and developed a much tougher, more solid style. Personally, I think Point of View is much stronger and makes more of a definite point; the hanging pieces are visually interesting but nothing we haven’t also seen from artists like Damian Ortega with his ‘explosions’ or Cornelia Parker. Suspension has become overdone, but a combination of skilled carving, nostalgia and the midnight black of Chinese ink?

That’s something quite extraordinary and I will be following Bahk Seon Ghi to see how this new venture progresses.

….and I really like the bowler….

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.

Waxy fingers and toes: Ron Mueck, much better than Madame Tussauds.

If you head over to Savile Row this Spring, you will be greeted by this rather grumpy looking lady. Standing at an ungainly four foot tall, her naked body scratched up by the bundle of twigs she’s almost straddling, it is a representation of human beings at their most inelegant. This is Aussie-born, London-based Ron Mueck’s solo show at Hauser & Wirth  in which you can also see  Drift – a mid-life crisis in the form of a bronzed man on a lilo, Still Life - a 6ft slit-throated plucked chicken, and Youth - a tiny stab wound victim.

The works on show are all very different: Woman with sticks seems to tell a story, she could have stepped out of a Brothers Grimm tale, while Drift‘s buff middle-aged sunbather with his glitzy watch and shades seems to be more a satire of society.

I like an exhibition which can change my mind, and this one did; when I first encountered Drift, I was less than impressed – a man on a lilo, so what? But close up, the craftsmanship of his little fingers and toes is really incredible. These are wax models, so I’d been expecting the calibre of those at Madame Tussauds or those dodgy historical ‘experiences’ that school used to take you to, but Mueck’s scale and facial expressions remove this association immediately. There’s none of that waxy rigidity, these strange beings look like they’ve been frozen in time and appear familiar by how real they look but completely bizarre due to their not half-size, not life size, but just-slightly-wrong scale.

At human size, the dead chicken of Still Life becomes quite a sombre image. It’s grotesque, with its gaping neck wound, but the facial expression of this chicken had me feeling very sorry for it. To me, Mueck is confronting his audience with death – the cold, hard reality of it disguised as a bit of butchery. This piece really is uncanny as it’s so precise: somehow every single texture from rope to flesh and metal to downy feathers seems completely real. It felt like we were just waiting for the poor thing’s eyes to blink open.

Finally, Youth; this piece was my most and least favourite all at once. I didn’t like the stance, and I don’t think his expression is as captivating as that of any of the other ‘characters’, however it’s the smallest sculpture and so the details are extra exquisite. I took so many photos of this man’s feet, I think the invigilator thought I had some kind of weird fetish or something, but they are actually amazing! They’re only about 20cm long and absolutely perfect. Maybe I do have some kind of weird fetish.

Anyway, I’m getting sleepy now and I’m starting to ramble. So I hope you like my slightly rubbish iPhone pics – I didn’t expect to be allowed to take photos so I did not take a camera. Breaking the Brownie pact once again (always be prepared).

Ron Mueck, Hauser & Wirth, 19th April – 26th May: much more FREE and much more INTERESTING than Madame Tussauds.

Oh AND it’s on Savile Row which gives you the perfect excuse to hit Hamleys first, then mill about and stare at people with more money than sense afterwards.

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.

Missing you Venice…Francisco Tropa at the Biennale.

I seem to be spending the beginning of this year rooting through every single sunny, blue skied photograph I have – winter blues has really taken hold!

Scenario by Francisco Tropa was one of my favourites from the Venice Biennale last year. Apparently simple but in fact each one a tiny technical masterpiece, Tropa lights up glass pipettes apparently dripping water towards the ceiling, minuscule sand timers, and dead bluebottles somehow slightly twitching and throws their silhouettes onto huge white screens. The strangest thing about the exhibition was how haphazard it seems with  screens dotted all over the room, beams and wooden planks randomly leant against them when in fact it must have been a logistical nightmare.

This Portuguese artist has got it all: brilliant little sculptures and huge ghostly projections. Very impressive.

Tropa isn’t exhibiting in the UK any time soon – he’s at the Istanbul Biennale this year but that’s a little far for most of us – so here’s a little clip instead. It’s almost like you’re in Venice, taking off your sunglasses as you step inside, shoulders warm from the baking sunshine, the taste of lemon gelato still lingering….siiiighhhhh….

Peter Callesen’s Perplexing Papercuts!

Just came across these and I liked them. I wish I had Peter’s patience…

This tower of Babel is one of Callesen’s smaller ones and its still 182cm high…impressive…

Walls of Unwritten Words

I’m thinking of casting feathers in porcelain as part my next piece for uni, possibly why these fallen feathers drew me to Callesen in the first place. Glad I found him. Enjoy

Tomorrow I will be scouring my local park for goose feathers, looking like a tramp and possibly contracting Salmonella – oh how I love Sundays!

VIBE. Bournville has more to offer than oompa loompas and a river of chocolate!

A friend of mine has just set up Vibe in Birmingham to host exhibitions around the city for the next few months – not just visual arts but music and spoken word too. He’s got a little portable gallery on the go but I can’t post any pics of it yet…I think it needs some essential waterproofing done before it’s ready to be revealed (definitely necessary for a wet winter in Birmingham!).

I was lucky enough to put a bit of work in his first exhibition which finished on Wednesday. It’s not much, just a laser cut piece of paper which I once used as a projection screen. Out of its original context it’s not my favourite piece of work, but it was hung in front of Scott Bartram’s brilliant piece Belisha Beacons so his flashy light show shone through my narration.

Check out a few pics from the first exhibition here, and there’s definitely going to be much more to come from them. I’m really excited for Vibe and it’s actually keeping me hard at work for once!

Also check out Andre De Jong, he did the flag piece and he’s just a fantastic artist.