Holidays
I started writing this post while I was on holiday, but I only had my phone with me & typing a blog post from my phone turned out to be a nightmare! So a little later than planned, here goes:
Rocks at Port-Coton, the Lion Rock, Belle-Ile, 1886 - Claude Monet
Cambridge
Our first stop was Cambridge, where I had hoped to visit Kettles Yard Gallery, but it was closed for refurbishment. We did have a lovely day admiring the architecture of all the colleges though and we visited the Fitzwilliam Museum.
It was good to see a couple of Monet's works that I hadn't seen before, one of which was a seascape - very apt for our topic of World of Water. Not my favourite I have to say - I find the composition very odd with the top of the cliff being level with the horizon - if I had painted it I would have moved so that the line was staggered from my point of perspective, but hey - I'm not Monet & who am I to judge him?!
Rocks at Port-Coton, the Lion Rock, Belle-Ile, 1886 - Claude Monet
It was fascinating to see it close up though to see how he had applied the paint - so thickly (impasto) and rather than mixing paints on a palette, he appears to have just dipped his brush in blue, green and white and swirled them together on the canvas in the foreground creating movement, but the colours are more mixed and flatter in the background, creating distance. It gives a great depth to the water and brings it to life.
Whilst there were many more works of art that I admired, the only other one really relating to World of Water was this Exotic Fish Vase designed by Edouard Stellmacher for 'Amphora' porcelain factory, Bohemia, 1900-1904.
I'm not sure I like it (I think it's the huge fish eye that freaks me out!), but I admire the craftsmanship! I like the way the seaweed lifts off the vase and curls back down onto it again at the top, creating loops, but then is simply painted on at the bottom so it seems like at the bottom it's a fairly normal, functional porcelain vase that is evolving as you go up - the higher up you go, the more it comes to life. I like the muddy Prussian blue/burnt umber wash that gives it a murky feel, with the iridescent paint effect highlighting the scales and fins and tail of the fish and the seaweed suggesting light & reflection. The organic subject and 'whiplash' curves of the seaweed make this piece easily identifiable as Art Nouveau even without checking the date!
After Cambridge, we travelled on up to Yorkshire, passing Hull on the way. In February we had been staying near Wadebridge and had decided to make the trip down to St Ives to visit the Tate St Ives gallery, only to find it was closed for refurbishment (I was sure I had read somewhere that it had re-opened but I got the dates the wrong - we were a month early!), then in Cambridge I had hoped to go to the Kettles Yard Gallery, but again, that was closed for refurbishment! And as we were heading to Hull, I saw that the Turner Prize was being held at the Ferens Gallery this year, then I saw that it started the day after we were passing through!!! Arrrrrrghhh!!!😡😡😡 So we carried on up to Yorkshire and made plans to go back down later in the week.
I took lots of photo's of rockpools, shells, lobster pots, ropes, boats reflected in ripples on the water and sunrise over the incoming tide (over 500, so I will just share a few that have inspired further work here!)
In 'Last House' I get the sense of a dark evening jungle with a little pocket of yellow-orange light coming from under the canopy where a family might be sitting by the fire having their evening meal and chatting about their day & settling down for the night. All from a few yellow/orange highlights in the midst of a dark green/blue jungle-scape. My imagination takes me beyond where the artist left off, he has only suggested this by the warm light and the title of the piece, my mind fills in the blanks.
Ascension was my favourite piece in the whole exhibition. It's just beautiful and fills me with peace. The colours, the fluidity of the dripping white watery washes, the effervescence of the splodged leaves - it makes me feel like I'm meditating in a spa! I see all sorts of things in it - you could be seeing a fleeting glance of bright moonlight through the canopy or it could be rippled reflections in a pool of water - the title suggests climbing up through the canopy, or maybe the dripping white watery washes represent souls ascending to heaven, I'm not sure but I could spend days gazing at it.
Then we move on to the 'Peters Sitters' series. Having researched the series once I got home, I can now see that they are about the arrival of Caribbean immigrants in the 1950's - the deep blue representing the colour of the Caribbean ocean they have left behind and the oddly clinical shapes inside the barbershop representing a feeling of displacement. I didn't really get that, but then as a child of the 70's and not having emigrated, I guess I missed that connection.
What I did get was the sense that the barber was concentrating on the customer in front of him - the detail in the nape of the neck and the cape compared with the stark background suggesting where his focus lay. I also loved the detail of the washy impression of a left leg and the crisp black and white of the right leg, giving depth - you can see that the left leg is pushed forwards into the painting and the right leg is pulled back, coming out of the painting toward us. I also found the way he had dealt with creases and folds in the heavily patterned fabric fascinating.
I loved his work & hope he wins! I have a lot less to say about the rest...
Andrea Buttner
I'm sorry - I know I should be learning to appreciate and understand all art but there is nothing I like about this and I have no clue what it's about. Apparently it is based on the artist’s observation of an intimate moment between a disguised couple of lovers begging in a pedestrian zone in Frankfurt?
These are prints of finger swipe marks from her mobile phone. Interesting abstract shapes I guess and a commentary on the current tendency to be obsessed with our mobile phones.
Of Le Rodeur: The Lock. “Rodeur” (“stalker”), Lubaina Himid says: it is the name of a slave ship that set sail for Guadeloupe from the Bight of Biafra in 1819, carrying 22 crew and 162 slaves. Her work is about the “traces of a terrible incident” in which everybody, with one exception, went blind (an eye disease that spread like fire). The captain, in hope of insurance compensation, threw 36 stricken slaves overboard. The story is taken from an economic historian’s report. “When they arrived in Guadeloupe, indigenous people offered them herbs. Some got their sight back but many Africans were lost.”
Here, she paints on articles from the Guardian written about black people. Mainly sports or gangs or US shootings - a comment on press coverage of black people. The paintings are almost doodles - some of knives, a campervan, a snake but mostly abstract patterns.
Of 'A Fashionable Wedding', Lubaina Himid says: “It is the countess’s morning levee after she has slept with her lover, the lawyer. She has a castrato singing, her hairdresser, a young girl and two black servants listening. They are all disguising the fact she is making another arrangement to see her lover while the count is away. In my cut-out installation, she is Mrs Thatcher, her lover Ronald Reagan, the people are mostly from the art world: the critic, the dealer, 1980s artists, eager feminists…” A virtuoso piece, it is brazen in its details. Not far from the bride is written: “The white of a plot.”
Whilst there were many more works of art that I admired, the only other one really relating to World of Water was this Exotic Fish Vase designed by Edouard Stellmacher for 'Amphora' porcelain factory, Bohemia, 1900-1904.
I'm not sure I like it (I think it's the huge fish eye that freaks me out!), but I admire the craftsmanship! I like the way the seaweed lifts off the vase and curls back down onto it again at the top, creating loops, but then is simply painted on at the bottom so it seems like at the bottom it's a fairly normal, functional porcelain vase that is evolving as you go up - the higher up you go, the more it comes to life. I like the muddy Prussian blue/burnt umber wash that gives it a murky feel, with the iridescent paint effect highlighting the scales and fins and tail of the fish and the seaweed suggesting light & reflection. The organic subject and 'whiplash' curves of the seaweed make this piece easily identifiable as Art Nouveau even without checking the date!
After Cambridge, we travelled on up to Yorkshire, passing Hull on the way. In February we had been staying near Wadebridge and had decided to make the trip down to St Ives to visit the Tate St Ives gallery, only to find it was closed for refurbishment (I was sure I had read somewhere that it had re-opened but I got the dates the wrong - we were a month early!), then in Cambridge I had hoped to go to the Kettles Yard Gallery, but again, that was closed for refurbishment! And as we were heading to Hull, I saw that the Turner Prize was being held at the Ferens Gallery this year, then I saw that it started the day after we were passing through!!! Arrrrrrghhh!!!😡😡😡 So we carried on up to Yorkshire and made plans to go back down later in the week.
I took lots of photo's of rockpools, shells, lobster pots, ropes, boats reflected in ripples on the water and sunrise over the incoming tide (over 500, so I will just share a few that have inspired further work here!)
On the Wednesday we went back to Hull to the Ferens Museum for the Turner Prize Exhibition.
I won't go into too much detail - you can read all about the Turner Prize and this years nominees on the Tate website (link above). I will just relate my thoughts on the work. There was a very clear theme amongst the nominees of immigration and area's of conflict.
Hurvin Anderson
In 'Greensleeves', I was drawn to the abstract mark making - the dreamy, dripping form of the main part of the tree, merging into blue on the right hand side where the shadows would fall, with just a few blobs of glossy colour to denote leaves in places, and the detail of a few branches on the left hand side bringing that part into focus. It's a very balanced, harmonious feeling piece that gives a sense of cool tranquillity. (my husband particularly liked the section in the third photo which he decided was a koala!)
In 'Last House' I get the sense of a dark evening jungle with a little pocket of yellow-orange light coming from under the canopy where a family might be sitting by the fire having their evening meal and chatting about their day & settling down for the night. All from a few yellow/orange highlights in the midst of a dark green/blue jungle-scape. My imagination takes me beyond where the artist left off, he has only suggested this by the warm light and the title of the piece, my mind fills in the blanks.
Ascension was my favourite piece in the whole exhibition. It's just beautiful and fills me with peace. The colours, the fluidity of the dripping white watery washes, the effervescence of the splodged leaves - it makes me feel like I'm meditating in a spa! I see all sorts of things in it - you could be seeing a fleeting glance of bright moonlight through the canopy or it could be rippled reflections in a pool of water - the title suggests climbing up through the canopy, or maybe the dripping white watery washes represent souls ascending to heaven, I'm not sure but I could spend days gazing at it.
Then we move on to the 'Peters Sitters' series. Having researched the series once I got home, I can now see that they are about the arrival of Caribbean immigrants in the 1950's - the deep blue representing the colour of the Caribbean ocean they have left behind and the oddly clinical shapes inside the barbershop representing a feeling of displacement. I didn't really get that, but then as a child of the 70's and not having emigrated, I guess I missed that connection.
What I did get was the sense that the barber was concentrating on the customer in front of him - the detail in the nape of the neck and the cape compared with the stark background suggesting where his focus lay. I also loved the detail of the washy impression of a left leg and the crisp black and white of the right leg, giving depth - you can see that the left leg is pushed forwards into the painting and the right leg is pulled back, coming out of the painting toward us. I also found the way he had dealt with creases and folds in the heavily patterned fabric fascinating.
In 'Is It Ok To Be Black' I just loved this section of the painting of Marcus Garvey - a few dabs of white paint revealing a whole face! It feels like the barbershop paintings again with the Caribbean blue walls, but where the posters were blank squares, some of these have been revealed. Malcolm X & Martin Luther King are the most well known and most clearly depicted, whilst the rest are vague and you have to guess at. I'm pretty sure I can make out Muhammad Ali in there! You can imagine the barber chatting with the clients about these icons of Black History, how far we have come and how far we have yet to go. The bottles and potions along the bottom almost look like a
city scape with skyscrapers.I loved his work & hope he wins! I have a lot less to say about the rest...
Andrea Buttner
I'm sorry - I know I should be learning to appreciate and understand all art but there is nothing I like about this and I have no clue what it's about. Apparently it is based on the artist’s observation of an intimate moment between a disguised couple of lovers begging in a pedestrian zone in Frankfurt?
These are prints of finger swipe marks from her mobile phone. Interesting abstract shapes I guess and a commentary on the current tendency to be obsessed with our mobile phones.
Now the beggar series of woodcuts I loved - such basic, simple black and white lines and shapes yet they express so much - the sense of shame and desperation from the hooded posture and the outstretched hands.
The Simone Weil: The Most Dangerous Disease display I don't really get. If it's intended as an introduction to Andrea's thinking behind her work, it takes up an awful lot of space - half of the area! Although it does obviously link to her beggar woodcuts - the need for roots and a sense of belonging etc... But if it's meant to be a work of art in it's own right then how is it hers? The philosophy is that of Simone Weil & the Photo's are by Ansel Adams and others. The whole thing is set up like a school class project display, hand written copies of Simone Weils writings and prints of photo's pinned to notice boards. Don't get me wrong - I loved the philosophy and the photography and thoroughly enjoyed it, I just don't get how it's hers or what it's supposed to be. I guess linking back to my research into post-modernism then it's post modernist art...not my thing!
Lubaina Himid
Lubaina Himid taught my sister-in-law when she studied for her Foundation Diploma and Degree in Preston. As such, I had hoped to like her work, but I really didn't!
The Swallow Hard - the Lancaster Dinner Service has pretty obvious connotations. Her mother was Lancastrian and her father from Zanzibar - the contradictions of her mixed race upbringing literally on a plate. The dual meaning of the word Service, the beautiful English dinner service pieces that would have been on the table of the slave traders, painted with the images of slaves and slave trading.
Of Le Rodeur: The Lock. “Rodeur” (“stalker”), Lubaina Himid says: it is the name of a slave ship that set sail for Guadeloupe from the Bight of Biafra in 1819, carrying 22 crew and 162 slaves. Her work is about the “traces of a terrible incident” in which everybody, with one exception, went blind (an eye disease that spread like fire). The captain, in hope of insurance compensation, threw 36 stricken slaves overboard. The story is taken from an economic historian’s report. “When they arrived in Guadeloupe, indigenous people offered them herbs. Some got their sight back but many Africans were lost.”
Here, she paints on articles from the Guardian written about black people. Mainly sports or gangs or US shootings - a comment on press coverage of black people. The paintings are almost doodles - some of knives, a campervan, a snake but mostly abstract patterns.
I guess she has a lot to say, but I found some of it too obvious, some too obscure and I just don't like her style of painting.
Rosalind Nashashibi
Finally we have Rosalind Nashashibi. I only managed to see one film - Electric Gaza, as we had run out of time and the other film was so popular there was a one in, one out system and a long queue!
I didn't take any photo's in the cinema, so here's the introduction to the films before we went in. There's not a lot I can add to that really - it was interesting, but didn't evoke the same emotional response that I had to the films of John Akomfrah or Bedwyr Williams in the Artes Mundi 7 exhibition last year.
So there we are, I am sure you are as sick of reading as I am of typing, so I shall potter off and do some practical arting! Toodle pip 😁
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