Tim Maguire THE DOUGLAS KAGI GIFT
PUBLISHED ON THE OCCASION OF
Tim Maguire
PUBLISHER Gallery Services, Townsville City Council PO Box 1268 Townsville Queensland, 4810 Australia ptrg@townsville.qld.gov.au +61 7 47279011 © Gallery Services, Townsville City Council and the authors 2013
THE DOUGLAS KAGI GIFT
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery 28 February to 27 April 2014
EXHIBITION ORGANISED BY GALLERY SERVICES Shane Fitzgerald Manager Gallery Services Eric Nash Curator Sarah Welch Exhibitions and Collection Coordinator Michael Pope Education and Programs Coordinator Rob Donaldson Digital Media and Exhibition Design Coordinator Jo Stacey Team Leader Administration Gallery Services Holly Grech-Fitzgerald Collections Management Officer Carly Sheil Digital Media and Exhibition Design Officer Leah McManus Exhibitions Officer Nic Horton Education and Programs Officer Tegan Ollett Education and Programs Assistant Wendy Bainbridge Administration Officer Gillian Ribbins Administration Officer Breanna Capell Gallery Assistant Michelle Littman Gallery Assistant Danielle Berry Gallery Trainee
PROJECT MANAGER Shane Fitzgerald EXHIBITION CURATOR Eric Nash CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS Eric Nash / Dr Douglas Kagi PUBLICATION DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT Eric Nash ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Gallery Services would like to acknowledge the generous gift, support and assistance of Dr Douglas Kagi, the artist Tim Maguire, and Townsville City Council in realising this exhibition.
QUEENSLAND FESTIVAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY 5 Tim Maguire: The Douglas Kagi Gift will feature as part of the 2014 Queensland Festival of Photography 5. Since 2006, the Queensland Centre of Photography has held the biennial Queensland Festival of Photography; a celebration of photo media art across metropolitan and regional Queensland. To find out more about the Festival and associated exhibitions and events, visit www.festivalofphotography.com.au
Cover: Tim MAGUIRE United Kingdom b. 1958 Love of the Plants II [detail] 2007 Digital pigment print on paper 72.3 x 91.61 cm (sheet); 60 x 80 cm (image), ed. 11/35 Acc. 2012.033 Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Tech-Dry Building Protection Systems Pty Ltd as trustee for the Dr Douglas A Kagi Scientific Research Trust, 2012 City of Townsville Art Collection Photograph: Holly Grech-Fitzgerald, Gallery Services
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery Cnr. Denham and Flinders Streets Townsville QLD 4810 Mon - Fri: 10am - 5pm Sat - Sun: 10am - 2pm (07) 4727 9011 ptrg@townsville.qld.gov.au www.townsville.qld.gov.au @TCC_PercTucker PercTuckerTCC
Painting Photographs IN COLOUR AND LIGHT
Tim Maguire: The Douglas Kagi Gift provides an opportunity for the Townsville community to view a major gift of 24 digital prints, acquired in June 2012, by acclaimed Londonbased artist Tim Maguire. This extraordinary gift was made by Dr Douglas Kagi, a Melbourne-based scientist and prolific collector of international prints since the 1970s, following discussions with then Gallery Services Curator Sue Smith. In bestowing these works, Dr Kagi has not only provided the community with access to a major artist, but also re-focused the community’s attention on the impressive quality within and significance of the City of Townsville Art Collection, a treasured cultural asset of the region. The exhibition is also timed to feature as part of the Queensland Festival of Photography 5 (QFP5). At first glance this could puzzle, with Dr Kagi having a collection focus of international prints, and Maguire identifying primarily as a painter. However, with photography also playing a significant role in Maguire’s creative process, it is for this very reason the exhibition should feature as part of this year’s QFP5.
Left: Tim MAGUIRE United Kingdom b. 1958 Berries and Sky 2009 Digital pigment print on paper 120 x 181 cm ed. 5/12 Acc. 2012.031 Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Tech-Dry Building Protection Systems Pty Ltd as trustee for the Dr Douglas A Kagi Scientific Research Trust, 2012 City of Townsville Art Collection Photograph: Holly Grech-Fitzgerald, Gallery Services
By featuring an exhibition of digital prints, executed by a painter who has utilised his own and sourced photographs and painting techniques, the exhibition highlights the blurring of boundaries between traditionally segmented techniques which is being fuelled by progressive contemporary artists. This is far from a criticism; rather it is a celebration of this progression, and of an artist pushing boundaries within his own practice to achieve an instantly identifiable aesthetic. Fascinated by the luminosity of the digital image, Maguire’s printing/painting process has been developed in order to achieve a comparable radiance, with the artist stating;
“The colours we can now achieve are almost fluorescent, much closer to the intensity of digital photography and to what I see on screen and that is very attractive to me.” 1 To achieve the works, Maguire begins by taking or sourcing photographs, most recognisably macro or closely cropped images of flora. These digital images are then separated into Cyan, Magenta and Yellow layers, with the artist mirroring to a large degree the CMYK four colour printing model, also known as process colour. Once separated, the artist prints each layer individually as a vibrant translucent hue onto the pristine sheets of white paper. Along the way, Maguire casts dashes of solvent over the semi-dry surface, and then runs a dry brush over the work to reveal the ‘dots’ of striking colours underneath, a form of pointillism where the colours are resolved by the viewer. The realisation of Maguire’s techniques hasn’t happened overnight, but through a career of consistent experimentation. Born in 1958 in Chertsey, United Kingdom, Maguire has held over 80 solo exhibitions since 1984, including shows in New York, Paris, London, Munich, Lucerne, Rotterdam, Berlin, Auckland, and all over Australia. A winner of numerous awards, including the 1993 Moët and Chandon Fellowship which prompted his relocation to Europe, Maguire’s practice shifted dramatically in the 1990s due to his increasing interest in the possibilities of digital technologies. The artist explains; “For some time I’d been making lithographs and monotypes with Franck Bordas, [a master printer] in Paris. After some initial successes, I had begun to feel frustrated by these traditional forms of printmaking, wanting more control, more precision. The range of tones and the subtleties of colour that arose out of the colour separation process I’d adopted in my painting were often lost when I tried to adapt them to lithography. There was too much slippage through the transference of the drawn image to a plate and then onto paper.”
“One solution was to take that ‘drawn image’ (actually painted-on film) and transfer it onto a virtual ‘plate’ – within a computer – by digital scanning. The image can then be printed digitally. Such reproduction is much more exact than that of an image transferred onto an actual plate, then inked up. Well, that was the initial impulse. When I first started working with Franck, his studio was almost entirely set up for lithography. I’d only recently moved to Paris, and the whole set-up was very attractive, massive old presses, rows of litho stones, a glass-roofed 18th century atelier surrounded by cabinet makers and the like… Franck had only just purchased a digital printer with the hope of using this new technology in his collaborations with artists. I was in one corner of the room, ink all over my hands, feeling frustrated, Franck in another with ink all over his hands, looking for a way beyond lithography.” 2 The main subject matter explored in Tim Maguire: The Douglas Kagi Gift is the same as that explored in the artist’s traditional oil paintings; striking macro or closely cropped visions of flowers. Due to the scale of the works, these delicate forms take on a heightened power and mesmerise the viewer. However, as with his paintings, the subject matter itself is simultaneously of great and little importance. Laurent Boudier wrote; “The subject means nothing. Tim Maguire is well aware of this and his tulip is no exception…One can comprehend the interest in a subject that has been so utterly exhausted: the flower devoid of any further pretensions, merits its rehabilitation as a perfect expression of both difference and indifference.” 3 While the floral subject may not be of huge importance, it provides the artist a perfect vehicle and the freedom to explore his true interests – colour and light – in the hope of providing a new vision of this ‘exhausted’ subject matter. These interests are played out through his process, but also in the images selected, often featuring prominent shadows. Maguire states; “Poppies are fantastically translucent, vehicles for light. That’s why I was so interested … the way the light fell on them and shone through them. The petals are skins of light.” 4
And so the link to the second body of work – three of Maguire’s ethereal snowflake prints – becomes clear, stating that; “Snowflakes are similar, the way they catch the light and glint. Translucency belies the physicality of the subject. It’s not like some cogent three-dimensional form that has light, dark, shadow and mass. A translucent object is flattened when the light shines through it, so that it becomes more abstract.” 5 Unlike the floral works, the snowflake prints are composites of images the artist has ‘found on the web’, overlaying the images to achieve the desired density, size and balance of snowflakes in the composition. The works are also less painterly and the artist’s hand less evident.
Top: Tim MAGUIRE United Kingdom b. 1958 Shadows - Camelia 2005 Digital pigment print on paper 119.5 x 91.3 cm (sheet); 103.5 x 80 cm (image) ed. 23/50 Acc. 2012.053 Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Tech-Dry Building Protection Systems Pty Ltd as trustee for the Dr Douglas A Kagi Scientific Research Trust, 2012 City of Townsville Art Collection Photograph: Holly Grech-Fitzgerald, Gallery Services
The third and final series included in the exhibition again examines what Maguire calls the “phenomena of colour” 6 and stems from his snowflake experimentations. He continues; “Snowflakes are very binary, either black or white…There are greys but overall the events are more concrete, either black or a defined tone, whereas with water you get passages from light to dark. With scans of each primary colour, overlaid you get a much greater potential range of colour and tone.” 7 Again the artist’s hand is less evident in the water works, trying to keep his manipulations to a minimum and instead combining three related photos of different colours into one work, before adjusting intensity levels using Adobe Photoshop. It’s a very immediate process for the artist, and one he prefers to the protracted nature of his large-scale oil paintings, stating “I’ve always preferred a fast result over something laborious.” 8 Tim Maguire: The Douglas Kagi Gift showcases the stunning and generous gift by Dr Kagi to the City of Townsville Art Collection in its entirety for the first time. In doing so, the exhibition provides access to works by an artist that is moving seamlessly between representation and abstraction in a focussed exploration of the boundless possibilities of light and colour, and the convergence of varied art techniques. Eric Nash Curator, Gallery Services
1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Mixing Numbers: Tim Maguire in conversation with Jonathan Watkins, 2008, http://www.tim-maguire.com/essays/MixingNumbers-JWatkins_08.pdf 3 Boudier, L. 2008, ‘Tim Maguire: High Fidelity’, Translated from French by Erin Lawlor, http://www.tim-maguire.com/essays/High%20Fidelity%20an%20 essay%20by%20Laurent%20Boudier.pdf
Top: Tim MAGUIRE United Kingdom b. 1958 Love of the Plants IV 2007 Digital pigment print on paper 69.8 x 90 cm (sheet); 60 x 80 cm (image) ed. 16/35 Acc. 2012.043 Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Tech-Dry Building Protection Systems Pty Ltd as trustee for the Dr Douglas A Kagi Scientific Research Trust, 2012 City of Townsville Art Collection Photograph: Holly Grech-Fitzgerald, Gallery Services
Bottom: Tim MAGUIRE United Kingdom b. 1958 Serpentine 2008 Digital pigment print on paper 54.5 x 68.5 cm (sheet); 35 x 50 cm (image) ed. 2/20 Acc. 2012.038 Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Tech-Dry Building Protection Systems Pty Ltd as trustee for the Dr Douglas A Kagi Scientific Research Trust, 2012 City of Townsville Art Collection Photograph: Holly Grech-Fitzgerald, Gallery Services
Curator Eric Nash speaks with art collector and generous donor to the Gallery, Dr Douglas Kagi, about meeting Tim Maguire, the passage of life, and supporting the less endowed institution.
EN You mentioned that you have been to Tim Maguire’s studio – can you tell me a little about the experience? DK I visited the Franck Bordas studio in the Bastille area of Paris perhaps 10 years ago. However, Tim Maguire was not there at the time. Monsieur Bordas was working on Pierre Alechinsky lithographs at the time. Later I did have dinner with Tim Maguire in London at Pied –a –Terre restaurant where he detailed his plans to sell his house in Central London and shift to a studio near Toulouse in France in the grounds of a chateau which needed restoration. EN Your collection is focussed on prints, and you’ve amassed an amazing array of limited edition artists’ etchings, screen prints, woodcuts and lithographs. What was it that initially drew you to collecting prints? DK When I first started collecting prints in the early 1970’s I basically had no money and paintings by the same artists were too expensive for my meagre means. However this was a blessing in a way as in order to develop one’s tastes one needs to go through an iterative process where mistakes are made until one is comfortable with one’s choices. In making a choice to collect paintings then each decision is a bigger commitment and harder to reverse or store or iterate. It is known for collectors or buyers to hire a consultant and buy according to the advice given. However it is much more fun to make one’s own mistakes and live with one’s choices. However that said, I really like the surface of prints in general and in particular etchings are just so interesting and sensual as a medium. Prints and paintings are the media in which I am interested and I cannot raise much enthusiasm for video.
Left: Tim MAGUIRE United Kingdom b. 1958 Falling Snow I 2006 Digital pigment print on paper 116.4 x 91.1 cm (sheet); 101.4 x 81.4 cm (image) ed. 4/25 Acc. 2012.033 Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Tech-Dry Building Protection Systems Pty Ltd as trustee for the Dr Douglas A Kagi Scientific Research Trust, 2012 City of Townsville Art Collection Photograph: Holly Grech-Fitzgerald, Gallery Services
Dr Douglas Kagi
EN On this ‘iterative process’, what characteristics in an artwork define your current tastes and therefore collecting criteria – that is, what traits do you look for in a work in order for you to deem it worthy of collecting? DK I operate on the Robert Rauschenberg school of art appreciation and this involves standing in front of the work and asking oneself does this image/work excite or delight you. This is mostly all there is to it. However if one does not want to lose all one’s funds it is also best to take some guidance from erudite authors of modern art books (in my case). For instance for collectability we could have taken Robert Hughes’ advice that Lucien Freud was the most important living English painter back in the 80’s. Look at what happened to his works and the interest in his oeuvre. EN Does any single artist or artwork stand out as being a favourite within your collection? DK My favourite artists in my collection are Kitaj and Nolan. Kitaj of the London School was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. His controversial show at the Tate in 1994 was a brilliant exhibition. Sidney Nolan has to be admired for his huge array of ideas shown in his output. Of course an artist unfortunately not in my collection who was a giant and whose show at the Tate in 2006 was wondrous is Kandinsky. EN Kitaj’s story is tragic, given the events surrounding what he referred to as the “Tate War” and his eventual 2007 suicide. In the aftermath of these events, it has been said that critics of his 1994 Tate exhibition were particularly challenged by the inclusion of extended captions by the artist that hinted to the literary inspiration for many of his works and, perhaps in the opinions of the critics, invaded their space by being didactic as to how to think, feel and respond to his works. What do you think is the role of the artist in explaining their work – should an element remain shrouded in mystery to afford the audience the opportunity to make their own connection? DK I think the artist should be free to do as they wish. The fuss about Kitaj being a pseudointellectual was a poor result for his efforts as he was a serious person and was trying to put his works in perspective. On the other hand if the
IN CONVERSATION
artist were to not exhibit anything but their work that is up to them. EN You have shown great generosity in gifting works to public collections all over the country, including 157 modern British prints to the Rockhampton Art Gallery in 2008. What do you see as being the value of public art collections within the community? My preferred donee institution is one which is challenged in terms of access to funds to acquire works. In the present climate one could say most institutions are finding the purchase of art difficult in terms of obtaining funds. Recently the NGV purchased a significant Picasso print from the Vollard Suite and resorted to writing to all their members to gather the funds. Of course there is now competition from private museums such as MONA in Tasmania and it has been said that Larry Ellison of Oracle and America’s Cup fame is establishing five art museums.This exemplifies the passage of life for very successful men from sport to sex to money to power then prestige of which the Art Museum is the pinnacle (of prestige). Most of my donations have been to less endowed institutions who I believe in general have been very grateful and these donations will hold them in good stead in perpetuity. Recently I donated a large collection to the NGV. This is going against my normal practice but I figured that I had lived in Victoria for 40 years ( I am a West Australian) and so it was apposite to do this. Also one can argue that this offers the opportunity to a larger number of viewers than donations to small city or town institutions. However the other counter argument is that those viewers in small towns or institutions have less access to art and some do not travel much so an institution like Rockhampton Art Gallery can eventually undertake many exhibitions based on my original donation. EN Do you feel it is particularly important to support collections based in regional and remote areas of the country? DK My favourite film is ‘O Lucky Man’ by Lindsay Anderson and the film is my guide to life; I remain somewhat anti-establishment. So it is for me particularly important to support the less endowed institutions and support collections based in remote areas of the country rather than the wealthy establishment enterprises.