State of Art - Summer 2006 by Flowers Gallery

I·

:::-:

MAY

••• ..,..,.

�;;i.i;;;;;�iL;i;��----

Commercial Music Performances

JUNE

4·7 8·1 0 13 14·18

BA Fashion Design Catwalk Show BA Fashion Design at Graduate Fashion Week BA Contemporary Media Practice BA Animation BA Ceramics BA Mixed Media Fine Art

23·26

BA Illustration BA Film

& TV

Production Screening

BA Photographic Arts BA Photography

SEPT

4·8 13·18

MA Fashion Design and Enterprise MA Photographic Studies

For further details please visit

www

.wmin.ac.uk/mad University C<Jllege

FALMOUTH

....

.0::

"0 (:j

� s::

.:!J "' (:j

�

Summer Shows Tuesday 27 June to Saturday

1 July 2006

The annual showcase of graduating students' work demonstrates the scope of University College Falmouth's courses in art, design and media. Venues- Woodlane Campus, FaImouth - Tremough Campus, Penry n Opening times: 10am t o 6pm, Tuesday t o Thursday; 10am to4.30pm, Friday; and 11am to4pm on Saturday.

All welcome. Admission free.

For more information: www.falmouth.ac.uklevents carol.worth@fa lmouth.ac.uk . 01326211077 University College Falmouth, Woodlane, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 4RH

GOLDSMITHS Creating change through ideas and talent

Visit the Goldsmiths student shows in June and July.

A l ive ly programme of work by graduating students in

curating. design, fine art. fine art and art history image and communication, interactive media, and textiles.

FURTHER INFORMATION www.goldsmiths.ac. uk!degree-shows/

Visit

Goldsmiths

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

-------www.goldsmiths.ac.uk

CENTR�t SAINT MA�JINS DEGREE SHOWS 2006 Fashion and Textiles Fine Art Graphic Design Interdisciplinary art and design Media Art Theatre and Performance Three-dimensional Design (Architecture, Artefact, Ceramics, Furniture, Glass, Industrial, Jewellery, Product and Spatial Design)

For more information visit www.csm.arts.ac.uk

state of art

SU M M ER 2 006

s tate3

state

STATE$1DE

manhaHan

OF ART 2006 EDITOR

CHELSEAN

MIKE VON JOEL m vj@state-of-a rt.org

DEPUTY EDITOR

MICHAELA FREEMAN m if@state-of-a rt. o rg

ORK

THE EPICENTRE OF

PUBLISHER

ART A LA MODE?

MATTHEW FLOWERS mf@state-of-a rt. org Contributors This Issue ROBERT AVERS 01 POOLE GODFREY BARKER ROBERT HELLER CLARE HENRY ALASTAIR GRAHAM BRIAN McAVERA ROWLAND THOMAS GEORGINA TURNER

Cover Image PHILIPPE LESPINASSE

COURTESY

I STll..L TAKE some slight amusement from

EDITIONS FLAMMARION

helped colonise what would become one of

Editors at Large

was the former ice factory on West 19th Street

USA CLARE HENRY FRANCE JEREMY HUNT GEORGINA TURNER IRELAND BRIAN MCAVERA SARAH WALKER

PUBLISHED BY

State

Art

PO Box52173

Lon don E2 SXR

that the Dia Art Foundation had acquired as a studio for Bob Wbitman, to whom I

visitors should note, either old bohemian

ALL MATERIAL© STATE OF ART2006

State of Art acknowledges support from Angela Flowers plc Momentum Publishing PSI (London)

evidently good for business, even if they don't contribute much to the appearance of the place. Instead of a neighborhood, Chelsea is swiftly attracting

'Chelsea' designates a very particular locale

www.st at e-of-art .org

:;;

facades in brick, steel or opaque glass are

So far as art galleries are concerned,

e dit or i a l @ s t a t e-of-art .org

STATE OF ART is an independent publication. Views expressed herein are those of the individual authors and not necessarily of the Editor or the Publishers.

:::;:::'"

The Kitchen performance space and has changed beyond all recognition. Rather like Chelsea itself.

southern and northern boundaries seem to

come in, and the longer you can keep them something.' Whatever the reason, these blank

was then apprenticed. Nowadays, it houses

- almost entirely west of Tenth Avenue and

�

in the gallery, the more likely they are to buy

�

various

sorts

tourist,

'entertainment', and up-market develop

ments. Nightclubs of all stripes, restaurants,

between 19th and 29th Streets (though those

hotels, and even apartment buildings are

opening or under construction all over the

be challenged daily). This is not, first-time

district. Walk back to the subway most evenings of the week and you will be treated

Chelsea (the famous Hotel Chelsea sits on

to the entertaining site of tuxedoed doormen

Avenues) or the attractive residential and

industrial doorways sandwiched between

23'd Street between Seventh and Eighth

manning velvet ropes in front of narrow garages and building sites. Last week I was

tourist neighborhood which nowadays sits

pretty much between Sixth and Ninth. Rather

invited to celebrate the topping off of the

it is a curious hybrid-town, and far from pretty. It still bears the appearances of being the immediate hinterland to the now largely defunct Hudson River docks, and it is home to all sorts of industrial workshops, factories and warehouses. It still has probably the

YOUR TOUR GUIDE ROBERT AYERS

highest density of taxi garages in Manhattan,

the

highest

concentration

district. Rather, galleries open or migrate here

commercial art galleries anywhere on the

for the simple reason that they will be near

planet, almost all of them

to other galleries. For anyone who wants to

showing

contemporary and modern art. The May 2006 edition of the indispensable (though

inevitably far from exhaustive)

Gallery

Guide

lists

252

see a lot of modern and contemporary art,

this is very convenient. Chelsea is awkward

New York

- though not exactly difficult - to get to by

separate

public transport, but once you're here, you

establishments in Chelsea. (By comparison there are 84 on or around 57th Street, and 57 in what is left of SoHo.)

visit to Chelsea seems to reveal another

warehouse

gone

and

hotel

under

construction. The High Line, the long directly through Chelsea, is destined to

increasing number of galleries. In fact it offers

Chelsea Arts Tower, 'a new 20-storey Commercial Condominium for the A rts Community.' It is certainly not alone. Every

abandoned elevated railway line that runs

but is now known primarily for its ever

can see dozens of exhibitions. Or, you can

attend streetfulls of openings on those

evenings when the galleries schedule them

become a city park. It will provide a pedestrian thoroughfare between the various

new developments, and into the Meatpacking District, which is also fast reinventing itself immediately to Chelsea's south. Hardly surprising then, for every individual who will tell you how wonderful Chelsea is, there is someone else who will tell you that it's a thoroughly bad thing.

to coincide, if your tastes run in that

One complaint that I often hear is that there

artificial district. It is not, by any stretch of

direction. 'Three hundred gallenes in ten

is actually too much to see. Ian Mack, a

blocks,' is, to quote one of Chelsea's most

painter who has his studio on 26th Street, puts

the imagination, what New Yorkers would

successful dealers, 'intense.'

In other words, Gallery-Chelsea is an entirely

call a neighbourhood. Once you cross Tenth Avenue

you

leave

behind

the

it like this:

'One problem from the

perspective of a viewer is that there is an

last

A nother Chelsea characteristic is that its

almost impenetrable amount of work to wade

convenience stores, delis, pharmacies, or

gallerists and their architects have not chosen

through, digest, and make sense of. I once

shops of any sort. There are no cafes,

in the main to make the external appearances

walked from 19th street to 29th street between

restaurants, or bars - other than the rather

that housed art. This was in the early days,

the burgeoning gallery scene. There are no

of these new spaces in any way attractive or welcoming. This is, at best, ironic. Given that

these galleries are, after all, places that people

doctors, no dentists, no Laundromats or copy

and even then it took me six hours - and I

visit to look at things, given that huge sums

am sure I missed some places - and by the

fancy places that have opened in the wake of

lOth and 11th avenues, visiting every space

shops. There are none of those things, in

of money are spent on creating them, and

end of it I was completely overwhelmed, both

other words, that make day-to-day life

given that many of their interiors are

physically and visually.'

tolerable. ( A nd significantly, on a rather

exquisitely designed, a lot of them don't even

different level, there isn't even a Starbucks.)

have windows on to the street. Or not ones that you can see through, anyway. There are

density, Chelsea attracts huge numbers of

two possible reasons for this. It is either because the people who run these places (and

is true for most Manhattan galleries) runs

Chelsea is home to some artists' studios,

though by comparison with the density of

galleries, relatively few. So far as I am aware, however, there isn't a single gallery here that

Still, precisely because of its scale and visitors. The Chelsea working week (and this

their visitors as well, to some extent) derive

from Tuesday to Saturday. In the middle of

pleasure from stating the exclusive 'public

the week, these visitors are often art students

developed from a studio, or a print workshop,

not-invited' nature of their business. Or, as

or a framing factory that was already in the

the director of one ground floor gallery that

"" ;;r 0

me, 'it's because if people can see the whole

show from the street, they won't bother to

the very first arts buildings in Chelsea. This

Tel: 020 7739 4078

Printed by Trinity-Mirror Group. Watford Plant

does have plate glass windows explained to

the fact that, as long ago as 1980, I actually

or arts professionals of one sort or another, but towards the weekend, increasing numbers

s: "' " ::0 "'

o · ;;r

�

,. "

�· ;;r

4state

state of art

S U M M ER 2 006

'/ <'9-0

"In the 1950s taste-making powers were held by certain really

important artists... In the 60s that shifted to critics... and then in the 70s it began to shift over to dealers and finally collectors. There was a moment in the 80s... when art theoreticians began to command interest, but now it's really lrving Sandler

the market.'

CHELSEA

of people wander from space to

were

certain really

Protetch Gallery pointed out, this

space, often in groups, happy to

important artists ... In the 60s that

proximity is 'a good thing because

have a look at

pretty much

shifted to critics ... and then in the

it adds to the transparency' of the

anything, and often not hesitant to

70s it began to shift over to dealers

art market, which she argues is a

offer an opinion. It is clearly a

and finally collectors. There was a

great step forward from the behind

held

particular sort of leisure tourism.

moment in the 80s ... when art

(Though to regard these visitors

theoreticians began to command

simply as 'tourists', as some people

interest, but now it's really the

do, is clearly wide of the mark.

market.'

anything wrong with the gallery's current location, 'apart from the

always been driven to some extent

lack of coffee.' SoHo, she recalled,

by what people are willing to buy,

could be so busy with visitors who

understanding of what Chelsea is.) "

;;:: > ;;o -< w > ;;o 0 z rn 0 0 c:

but I was slightly surprised to

were really shoppers looking for

discover that an innovator like

the next shoe store that it 'could

Zach

Feuer

was

also

CD "'

�

Zach Feuer

driven state of affairs, 'because a

Certainly, just about all of the

lot of great art gets made outside

people I spoke to who were able to

of the market, and outside of

compare Chelsea with doing their

Chelsea, and when criticism is

business elsewhere felt, like EDen

overshadowed by collecting, a lot of that work gets overlooked.'

Harris, ·Director of the Aperture Foundation, that 'there is n o downside.' Aperture moved t o

Then there is the question of the

Chelsea i n March o f last year,

'overheated' market that currently

having previously occupied a

prevails in this city and beyond (see

townhouse on 23'd Street and

the April!May issue of State ofArt).

Madison Avenue. For Ms. Harris,

As I type this, I have received word

the contrast couldn't be more

from Christie's that last night's

marked: 'We've joined the rest of

Modern & Contemporary Sale

the world, whereas we were very

made $143 million and established

isolated before. We are on the

twelve world records, including

circuit, where people will just drop

Still, I know that many people will,

almost $12 million for a Warhol

by to see what might be in our

as a consequence of the crowds,

soup can. W hether this indicates

gallery. We are near other galleries

stay out of Chelsea on Saturdays,

overheating or just good business,

so we can keep up with what's

but most of the dealers understand

there are those who would insist

going

the importance of this huge casual

that Chelsea is squarely to blame

tremendous.'

audience. 'I want everyone to see

for at least some of it. Certainly the

the shows at my gallery,' I was told

ease with which artists, visitors,

Chelsea could not have emerged

by Zach Feuer(l), one of Chelsea's

and perhaps most importantly,

anywhere other than in Manhattan.

younger and more s uccessful

dealers can compare and contrast

dealers. 'On Saturday afternoons

not only exhibitions but how they

here, we'll get 300 or 400 people

are presented, priced, and received

taste, there are plenty of other

coming in. They've become public

has encouraged competitiveness.

places to see art. The museums

�

E: � > �

rn ;;o

�

� �

� :;

�

on.

For

it's

been

One leading dealer explained to me in the last few days that he judges

work out there and getting it

the success of his own gallery by

Street and SoHo, there are galleries

e x posed.'

looking at what his neighbours

on the upper east side, and right

Morgan Lehman, who were

might be able to offer his artists that

across lower Manhattan from

established for four years in

he can't.

Tribeca to the lower east side. There are well-established scenes

On the other hand, as Josie

in Williamsburg, DUMBO, and

Browne, Director of the Max

other parts of Brooklyn. Still,

that,

anyone who does turn their back

'Ninety-nine per cent of people off

on Chelsea, for all its faults, is

the street are either artists, or

going to miss a great deal. As Ellen

interested in art, or collectors. So,

Harris told me, 'It's just fantastic.

compared to Connecticut it's

The gallery's well attended, the

amazmg.'

openings have been jammed'

Art critic and historian Irving

their last opening, and they're on

Sandler(l>, who has of course watched the development of the

the third floor), 'the education

New York art scene since the 1940s,

We're right smack in the middle of

laughed as he told me that he 'still

the art world.'

(Aperture had 1,100 visitors to

program has been at capacity.

gets to Chelsea once or twice a week,' as part of a 'cardiovascular

Robert Ayers is a British-born, Manhattan

program.' He is, however, far from

based artist He is Senior Editor of

sanguine about what he sees as a

Art!nfo. eom

significant shift in who wields

(1) Com ments by Zach Feuer and lrving Sandler were originally recorded by Artlnfo.com

artistic power in the city, which he

sees as a crisis for art criticism. 'In the 1950s taste-making powers

§> � �

Bulldrng . i5

If if'· �

lrvlng Sandler

ce 0

:;::::.

�

:Union §tluar11

'As far as art galleries are concerne d . Chelsea designates a very parti cular l o cale - almost entirely west of Tenth Ave n ue a n d between 19 th a n d 29 th Streets (th ough those southern a n d northern b o u n daries seem to be challenged daily). This is n ot. fi rst-time visitors s h o u l d n ote. either o l d b o he m ian Chelsea (the fam o u s Hotel C helsea sits o n 23"' Street between Seventh a n d Eighth Aven ues) or the attractive resi dential a n d tourist neigh borhood w h i c h sits p retty much between Sixth and Ninth.' (RA)

\�

UPTOWN

�

�"""""""'

UPPER WEST SIDE

QUEEN$

CHELSEA

aren't here, and neither are the big

'We get really interested groups of and estimates

�

The official delineati o n of Chelsea on New York City maps. but art- n i ks s h o u l d n ote that Gallery-Chelsea is a n entirely d ifferent. artificial d istrict.

auction houses. As well as 57th

Tenth Avenue last year, told me that people,'

�- Fli!tir��-��

>S' ·

,s � <?

And because it is in Manhattan, it

done, but it's about getting the

Sally M organ,

�

I � '<:'

8�ee1

.Str-et.t

means that if it really isn't to your

service days when no business gets

Connecticut before opening on

::?

give you a nervous breakdown.'

comfortable with this market

§> �

�

was hard pressed to think o f Of course it would be naive to

;ff

with Mr. Protetch on 57th Street,

imagine that artistic taste hasn't

in,

-s:

closed-doors elitism that once

either

interest

.,�zr

-;S'

prevailed. In fact, having worked

books that I have seen really shows much

�

§/

"" '

and then in SoHo, Josie Browne

None of the New York City guide

84st

ll> .s

rS .;#

�\ . I:.

\GREENWIOI VD.

;,,EAST VILLAGE LOWERI EAST

_. SI_�£.,. - 1

·� ]fUSECAt \_ll�"!.ERY �K

"·SOHO BROOKLYN

state of art

STATEO

states

S U M M ER 2006

F4RT

negotiated the temperamental tides of the

New York art world. He was helped greatly

of his ex-wife lleana Sonnabend), but the

pay-off was huge: in 1964, Rauschenberg

by his European background, born to wealth;

triumphed at the Venice Biennale. It was a

by his early experience, running a gallery in

massive breakthrough for the new American

Paris in 1939 and by his age: East 77m Street

art-and, of course, for Castelli. Back home,

opened when he was 50. Such a late, mature

too, he used links with other dealers to spread

start is rare for any successful businessman

the message around the US.

-but Castelli's motivation doesn't appear to have been money.

But by the Seventies the message was changing. The magician of Pop Art headed

comment ROBERY HELtER

He wanted above all to play intermediary

off in the opposite direction -Minimalism.

between the artists he believed in and the

His new heroes were Donald Judd, Dan

world which revolved around their work -

Flavin and RobertMorris, though he missed

the critics, other artists, the collectors, the

out on Robert Ryman, Sol Le Witt and Carl

curators. Alfred Barr, the creator ofMoMA's

Andre, to his great regret - 'but I forgive

artistic credo, and a hero of Castelli's, was

myself some blind spots'. The truth is,

also bowled over by Johns, buying three

however, that the famous touch was no

paintings from that first show. Castelli

longer so sure. In 1971, Castelli moved partly

TWO VIGNETTES WITH one hero: Leo

the willing matron. He a c h ieved this

steadily built on this success, adding Frank

to SoHo: and there he combined forces with

Castelli. The first concerns two evidently

supremacy through a power of recognition

Stella to the roster, then Roy Lichtenstein.

Mary Boone to promote another, young

wealth-laden matrons, talking on the

that fixed in turn on most of the movements

But he wasn't infallible.

pavement near to the dealer's famous East

and sub-movements that took American art

77m Street gallery in New York. 'Leo says',

away from the European tradition and created

A very eager Andy Warhol slipped through

The controversy, really, is over how so

declares the fust woman proudly, 'that I can

a dominant hierarchy of painters and

the net because Castelli thought his work too

discriminating a dealer as Castelli could

sculptors whose reputations -and prices -

similar to Lichtenstein's-which today seems

become as excited and enthusiastic about

rapidly became world leaders.

a bizarre thought. Warhol's first show

Schnabel as he felt on first seeing Jasper,

elsewhere convinced Castelli that 'I had

Bob, Frank and Roy. The new boy wasn't in

have a Jasper Johns in six months' time'.

Second vignette. One day in 1957, the dealer arr ives in Robert Rauschenberg's New York

That historic studio visit led Castelli to the

controversial artist-Julian Schnabel.

ground floor of the new art. Johns and

made a big mistake'. He made a similar error

the same league, which meant, alas, that

apartment to pick out some paintings for the

with Jim Rosenquist

neither was the later Castelli. But maybe the

artist's first show. The name of Jasper Johns

Rauschenberg deliberately turned their backs

Surrealism'). These failures, however, were

national art in general was also to blame. As

comes up -and Castelli recalls a green wax

on Abstract Expressionism, flouting the

offset by a brilliant stroke derived from

he himself remarked, the dealer, however

('too

painting that had excited him a couple of days

fashionable artistic canons of the time just

Castelli's European connections. It amounted

powerful, cannot enforce the recognition of

before. The young man's studio (he was 27)

as they rejected that day's prejudice against

to a transatlantic invasion-and in full force.

greatness.

is just a floor below. Rauschenberg makes

gay couples. Their relationship must have

the introduction, they all go downstairs and

been tested by Castelli's impetuous

Castelli formed connections with European

Looking back, Castelli saw that in one very

Castelli is 'bowled over' by 'an amazing

enthusiasm for Johns' work: 'Bob was not

dealers, according to his own account, less

important respect, he had failed to satisfy his

array of images'. He promptly offers Johns

too happy' about the meeting, Castelli says

from strength than from feared weakness.

ambition to represent every major artist and

a show.

delicately in his contribution to

Unsure of selling his young artists in New

every important movement. That respect was

The Art

Dealers <•>- but Rauschenberg got his show,

The two tales are strongly connected. For

too, one month after his lover.

decades after this historic meeting, Castelli

York, he felt (rightly) that his native Europe,

no small matter. Castelli had let the colour

lagging behind the American movements,

field artists get away; Kenneth Noland, Larry

would be more open to the new waves. He

P o o n s,

was Manhattan's supreme arbiter of taste in

That's really a third vignette, illustrating the

took a 'drastic cut' in his own commission

Frankenthaler 'and so forth' were very large

contemporary art- hence the waiting list and

charm and diplomacy with which Castelli

to sign up the foreign galleries (led by that

fish to see escape. 'Perhaps it was all to the

Morris

Louis

and

Helen

good', mused Castelli. 'Otherwise it would have been a total dictatorship'. There was never, of course, any danger of that. The real power lies with the artists. Much of Castelli's success stemmed from his ability to attract artists from other dealers and to keep them, once acquired, from making another exit. This involved putting up money to finance them, never dictating what they should do, always encouraging their new departures, and keeping them content with their positions in the pecking order: 'You see, every artist in my gallery has to compete with Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein and Warhol'. Every other dealer in New York had to face the same competition. The gallery at 18 E77m Street still bears the Castelli name and maintains the great tradition with an active exhibition pro grarume. Castelli ceased to be the same force well before his death in 1999. His rightful place, however, remains magnificent. He lies with Vollard and Kahnweiler and the other immortal midwives of great artistic births. Robert Helier is a writer on art and artists and a leading authority on international business practice.

Notes (1) The Art Dealers. by La u ra de Cop pett a n d A l a n Jones i s p u b l ished by Cooper Square Press

>' z C' �

"' <.!J.

HANS NAMUTH The Odeon, New York 1982

"' "' 0 >, "'

Hans Namuth's famous archive photograph of

� :J

Leo Castelli's 25th Anniversary Lunch

at The Odeon,

0 "

0 .s= 0..

" · -- ..

..-.....

New York, on 1st February 1982 ·-..

••

��-�- .

·.

�--..3

Standing left- right E l lsworth Kelly. Da n Fl avin. J oseph Kosuth, R i c h a rd Serra . Lawerence Weiner. Nassos D a p h n i s . Jasper J ohns. Claes Olden berg. Salvatore Scarp itta. Ric h a rd Artschwage r. Mia Westerlu n d Roose n . Cletus J o h n s o n . Keith Sonnier Seated left- right Andy Wa rhol. Robert R a u schenberg. Leo Castelli. Ed Ruscha . J a mes Rose n q u i st. Robert B a rry

state of art

6 state

REAL ESTATE

art market

•

comment

S U M M ER 2006

•

GODFREY BARKER

IT WAS ALL EYES on New York in May as Van Gogh sold at Christie's for $40m, Picasso sold at Sotheby's for $95m and the contemporary art market went wild across the board.

America

is the main 'fact' about

the art market in 2006 and it has been for 100 years. Until 1990, America and the mighty dollar had only one role on stage, as the world's number one buyer. But in the 21" Century, America has become a seller too. This is not because Americans are poor, but because the US art buyers, who had the

S ci o n s of th e almighty dollar TOP: Andrew Carnegle, Henry Huntlngton, J Plerpolnt Morgan

market to themselves from 1910 to 1980, are dying and their descendants are selling.

AB OVE: Mlchael Ovltz, Steve Case, Davld Geffen

LEFT: Henry Clay Frlck : generous ben efactor to the American p e o ple

So at the top of the world league table, the .$95mPicasso portrait of Dora Maar au Chat came from..the collector Ian Woodner in

lifted towards the price of Raphael by the

mechanic in blue overalls that is Picasso's

Chicago. The $104.1mPicasso

big New York andPittsburgh buyers between

dearest

the Wars. Those swagger portraits of lost

world record-breaker the Garcon avec Pipe? Or pay it for the Van Dyck which the

pictUre at auction, came from the estate of

British ancestors lent snob value and social

Philadelphia subway builder Peter Widener

status to the East and West Coast millionaires

made the world's most expensive painting

Portrait of Dr Paul

of coal, steel and railways. When Henry

for $500,000 in 1906, the Portrait

Gachet which is now relegated to third slot,

Grimaldi-Cattaneo ?

Garcon avec

Pipe, which is currently the world's

Mr John Hay Whitney in Massachusetts. The $82.5m Van Gogh

of Elena

came fro� the estate of Lola Kramarsky in

calculation of the art trade in London and in

New York. America dominates buying and

twenty Western countries.

unequalled since Great Britain was the

Yes, Americans buy selected European

world's supreme art power from 1760 to

painters up to 1980. They buy Van Gogh,

1880. Guessing where American taste will

Picasso,

French

Huntington paid £148,000 to the Duke of Westminster in 1921 for Gainsborough's Blue Boy, he paid a price close to £8.8 million in 21" Century money. That stellar market we may never see again. The current record for Gainsborough at auction in 2006 is down to a humble £2.86m. Because of American

head in the 21" Century is a leading question

Impressionists, Cezanne, Modigliani. They

withdrawal, British art 1600-1960 has

for a r t dealers and f o r art collectors

are selective about Matisse. They tend not

become the bargain basement of the art

another level, it's a country where infinitely

everywhere.

to buy Leger, Schiele, Kandinsky, the

market in our time. Will America go back to

Niarchos, Paul Alien, Steve Wynn, Steve Cohen, Michael Ovitz, SI Newhouse and Steve Case are still most likely to park dollars

selling on the art market with a weight

Cezanne,

all

the

For me, it's a tough call. At one obvious level, the US is turning into a country of gated communities and exclusive golf and country clubs in which the rich have and evidently want less and less contact with the poor. At rich art buyers like David Geffen, Philip

German Expressionists (Ronald Lauder and

the British? Will it ever again embrace art

a discerning handful are an exception to this);

that was written off after the War as cold,

complete somersault. In the 1910s and

Surrealism and Europe's post-war painters.

grand, remote, snobbish and disdainful, as

1920s, the generation of Pierpont Morgan,

Their interest in Old Masters is fractional to

zero to do with 20m Century democratic

PAB Widener, Henry Clay Frick, Henry Huntington and Andrew MeDon made 17m and 18m Century British painting the most expensive school of art in history. After 1980

what it was. With contemporary artists,

America and its values? Will it go back to

dispossessed.

Americans buy their own but are slow to

Old Masters across the board (it already pays

Calling it right on American taste is the story

cross borders. Bacon, Freud and Hockney

high for 17m Century Dutch and Flemish)?

of the art market in the first half of the 21"

Since 1900, American buyers have done a

images of, or

by,

the p o o r a n d

Century. After that, it's probably over to

have a broad-based following in the US but

buyers, led by WendeD Cherry, Fred Koch

Auerbach has not, while Darnien Hirst and

Is America in the 21" Century destined to be

and the Getty Museum, elevated French

the YBAs are still off-message for most US

more radical and contemporary in its tastes,

calling it right on China and India.

Impressionism, Van Gogh,Picasso and early

collectors, despite the eye-catching $12m

or more elite and historical? If you had to

20m Century Europeans to the summit and

paid by the Starnford, Connecticut, hedge

guess, is it most likely that an American will

market and contributor to many newspapers including

ensured that on the auction houses' current

fund king Steve Cohen for the Hirst shark

pay $104.lm in 2050 for that Parisian

the Wall StreetJoumal and Art+Auction.

list of The Top 100 Pictures Ever Sold, no

in January 2005

(1).

fewer than 92 are works since 1870. When Sotheby's and Christie's assemble It is the Americans who dumped Old Masters to lift high the Modern Movement on the art

market. And not just modern. It is the US

sales from worldwide sources, they are extremely cautious in using the New York market to sell the more 'difficult' Europeans.

which led the millionaires' surge into

'More difficult' does not simply mean rude

contemporary art after 1980, with its

or 'not famili a r ' . It means not visual.

discovery that America had its own art and

America likes appeal to the eye. So the

that genius sat upon its own doorstep - in

auction houses quite ruthlessly sift out the

the form of Pollock, Rothko, Johns and

more intellectual forms of 20m Century art

Warhol. Some surge. The top price for a US

(or more intellectual Van Goghs) and send

living artist at auction in 1980 was $200,000

them across the Atlantic for sale in London.

for Willem de Kooning. By 1988, the top

Sotheby's and Christie's have no problem at

price was $20.7 million - also for de

all in identifying what will sell in NY and

Kooning. It is the Americans who financed

what here. It wasn't a New York picture is an

this 10,444% rise for US living artists in the

epitaph I have heard three dozen times from

1980s and did so with minimum assistance

London dealers like Ivor Braka, James

from the rest of the world.

RoundeD or Thomas Gibson on paintings that failed to make it at auction in the Big

When our grandchildren inquire into what the art market was about in the second half

(1) There a re some exceptions to this ge neral attitude. Peter Brandt and the Rubell family a re adventurous collectors a n d Damien H i rst was 100% pre-sold at Gagosian recently. The overheated results at th e recent conte m porary art a u ctions a re still open to interp retation as regards a serious. long term collecti ng policy.

ADVERTISE. FOR PRICES AND SIZES GO TO

www.state-of-art.org

Apple. You only survive in the art business

if you understand What Americans Want.

of 20m Century, they will reply: America. The rest of us were there but had walk-on parts.

Goclfrey Barker is a writer on the international art

What they did want, but don't any more, is

American dollars and American self-belief

older British Art. Americans went cold on it

are the overriding facts of life for art in our

after 1940. Before then, Gainsborough, Van

time. So What Americans Want is the major

Dyck, Reynolds, Romney and Hoppner were

STATE OF ART - SIX ISSUES A YEAR MORE EYEBALLS FOR YOUR DOLLAR

state of art

state7

SUM M ER 2 006

IT IS A WONDER how the same writers and the same editors (people switch jobs) working with the same material can produce quite different magazines. Yet somehow they do, and this is certainly a strength of America's leading art publications. Even though they overlap in some areas, more often they supplement one another. Each magazine has carved out a niche for itself.

the

advent

LTB

Media

(Art+Auction, Artinfo. com, Culture & Travel, Gallery Guide, Gordon's, Hislop's Index, Modem Painters, Museums Magazines, Somogy) and Louise Blouin McBain, with all the frisson of anticipation, there has been very little change. No apparent synergy among her various publications and this may well be for the best. Art+Auction, for instance, remains what it always was. Judd Tully, its auction maven and Soren Melikian, its insightful and opinionated master of the past, are still leading lights.

The oldest, ARTnews, founded in 1902, specialises in investigative journalism. It has exposed a number of important stories, most notably those dealing with the restitution of art stolen by the Nazis. Many of these have been quite daring and influential;

Many other publications dot the landscape, including Art on Paper,

however, others have simply been repeat performances, securing the magazine's claim to the territory.

Bomb, Sculpture, Art & Antiques and Art Nexus, along with lots of regional magazines. Art & Antiques, likeArt+Auction, aims at

ARTnews has been presided over

a high-end reader but is more

by Milton Esterow since 1972. He is owner/publisher/editor and

object than art-oriented. Art Nexus is devoted to Latin American and

continues to keep a tight hold on the magazine. When he took the magazine over from Newsweek, it

Hispanic art and appeals to a wide audience of collectors and art world professionals. Sculpture s beat is contemporary and includes reviews

was under the editorship of

and discussions of technical matters and new materials. Bomb has a literary attitude, in subject matter and writing, with artists, writers and musicians often

Thomas Hess, and was a lively intellectual playing field for the avant garde. Its writers and critics included the New York School poets - John Ashbery and Peter

interviewing one another.

Scheldahl. Esterow, who'd previously been a reporter on the culture desk of the New York Times, brought his news perspective to the magazine with its focus on object ivity and clarity. Complicated ideas

numbers too, like the low-key and tasteful Art on Paper, which began long ago as The Print Collector s

Newsletter. It has expanded to

�portant writers, like Konstantin Akinsha, who breaks investigative stories from Russia and Europe, and Hugh Eakin, as well as photography critic Richard Woodward. Plus a cast of inter nationally based correspondents. In its Looking at Art column, noted academics and curators such as

cover artists' books. As borders blur, and works on paper are considered less sexy (translation: less lucrative) publications often forget their constitution and trespass on populist turf. General interest magazines cover much the same terrritory: the New Yorker, New York magazine, Time etc.

steers clear of theoretical discussion and keeps provocative opinions - as well as serious ideas - to a minimum.

Art in America, while also accessibly written and edited, and almost as venerable - founded in 1920 - is more studious, and closely focused on art itself. It includes long, thoughtful articles on artists and issues in the field and often, simply long articles. U nflashy in every way, though clearly and beautifully designed, Art in America tends to list toward the overly earnest. Art in America is in the hands of Elizabeth Baker, who had been deeply embedded in the contemporary art scene of the 1960s and '70s, and has run the magazine since the '70s. Important writers have included Michael Brenson, Richard Vme, Eleanor Heartney and Rafael Rubenstein, among many other reflective voices. Little has changed over the years, but its serious intelligent approach is often welcome. Less

" � 0

include photography and art in general and is one of the few to

t the newsstand JUNE BERNSTEIN

Spanish-art scholar Jonathan Brown and Met curator Gary

Carefully edited so as to be accessible to a wide audience, it

Loulse Blouln McBaln p rint m og u l with a n keen eye o n a rt p u blicatio n s i n b o t h the US a n d U K

There are more modest speciality

wouldn't play well in the country's mid-section. But, that said, he brought in and nurtured some

Tinterow are often asked to write on a pet interest. ARTnews 's purview is otherwise broad- news, reviews, profiles, travel, design.

Charlle Finch fe a r a nd loath i n g on the gallery c i rcuit. Ta k i n g no prisoners w h a ts o ever a t Artnet.

appreciated is its usually quite belated publication of reviews and other time-sensitive features. Where

ARTnews addresses and

keys its language and ideas to a n a tionwide and worldwide audience- including collectors, art world professionals, artists and the general public - Art in America speaks primarily to an audience that

the truth is that the magazine is the most adventurous of the bunch. Artforum s less-predictable stable of writers may include everyone from philosopher/art critic Arthur Danto to artist/critic/Newsweeker Peter Plagens; to novelist A.M. Homes. Publisher Anthony Korner has maintained a gen erously non-intrusive stance allowing his writers and editors

is highly educated and a trifle more studious than that of the other publications. Contrary to its name,

Art+Auction was founded some 26

At the other extreme, Artforum targets a hipper, younger inter national crowd, covering contemp orary culture in general- art, film,

years ago. Even though it does cover much of the same ground except for gallery and museum reviews, and it does that with a more sophisticated, sometimes edgy voice - it remains true to its

its turf is deterrnindly international.

music, and anything that might seem, even remotely, connected and in language that is sometimes clear, other times not. Occasionally plain, often pretentious. With its striking layout and design, which make the ads and content equal in visual impact, the magazine is immediately compelling, but its diversity and sheen also make it a slippery read - often more to be looked at than read in depth. That may be unfair. In fact, Artforum has been an easy target for critics, but

considerable freedom.

name, appealing to a high-end art and decorative-arts-buying reader ship. While authoritatively covering news, books and artist profiles, it nevertheless remains focused on market matters. Notable in its so-called Power Issue are still numerous rich men in striped snits. Increasingly, contemporary art has been appearing in its pages in addition to the more traditional art and antiques. That is what has been driving the market- and therefore, what powers the magazine. Despite

What may well be giving the art magazines a run for their money is Artnet, the internet site whose news and gossip section has been presided over for years by the intrepid Waiter Robinson. He, together with his outrageously unedited henchman Charlie Finch, creates what is really the only controversial, often hilarious, and most widely debated of artworld commentaries. What most magazines in the United States tend to share of late is a cautious tone, one designed to appear objective and inoffensive, hoping it

will please audiences and advertisers alike. Everyone begs for boldness, except when it concerns them. A subject of general debate today at panels and conferences is the nature of art criticism, its role, its potential and finally its power to influence an artist's career- and a galley's too, by extension. People lament that art critics don't have the credibility they once had, that they seem compromised- afraid to take a critical, that is negative, stance. They also argue that it is the collectors not Critics who wield the most power in this regard - as though this were something the critics could actually prevent. But the truth is things haven't really

..... 3 s �

'< G)

;;;

� (!) c:: u, (!)

CJ :::> 0. (!) u;

Milton Estero w t h e gra · n d o l d m a n of US a rt p u blish i n g. M D o f Artnews

changed that dramatically in recent years. Audiences seem to be reading the same kind of reviews they always did- the kind that try to explain art, the gushy send-ups of friends, and t h e lively vituperative exercises. Slaving away for all these publications is a cast of relatively low-paid staff, freelance writers and editors, who must work at top speed to remain prolific and cobble together a living, often taking shortcuts to communication by foraging among popular platitudes and cliches. How many times can we read about 'evocative' shows, with no clue as to what's being evoked? These tendencies a ren't endemic t o American publications. Lack of humor and a suspicion of real ideas may be the safest way to go in an uncertain world.

ARTnews (c.85,000*) : sub 11@$39.95 www.artnewsonline.com

Art in America (c.80,000) sub 12@$29.95 www.artinamericamagazine.com Artforum (c.unknown) : sub 10@ $46

artforum.com Art+Auction (c.23,000) : sub 12 @$80

artandauction.com

*all circulation figures uncorroborated data

""'

sstate

state of art

THERE ARE AT least a dozen British art

STATE$1DE

dealers in New York. After y o u have conquered London, where else is there? The

S U M M ER 2006

about Art. We are in the end of days and the

manhaHan

Brits are the courtjesters to distract the court - lest anyone notice the treasury has been

American art market is like no other; buyers

ransacked - we are damn stylish courtiers

are thick on the ground. Some are very, very

though.

rich; others merely wealthy. But even average

Have you seen the news recently. Irish,

people buy art here. It's the thing to do.

Italian, Eastern European politicians trying to legislate the borders. The USA is an

Michael Goedhuis and Matt Flowers make no bones about the enormous potential in the US for sales and investment in art coupled with the deep pockets and keen interest of collectors.

BRITISH DEALERS IN

Like everything, NY's British dealers come

NEW YORK GALLERIES

American?

What does that mean?

invention and it is invented by whoever has the power to decide what it is.'

in all shapes and sizes: young, old, new,

established. Most feature blue chip and

report CLARE HENRY

cutting edge art but several specialise. Some

FLOWERS, New York After a decade of exhibiting at US art fairs including Art LA and Art

Chicago, Flowers

opened their first American space in Santa Monica, Los Angeles in 1998. Three years

are in Chelsea, others on the Upper East Side.

ago, they moved to New York's famous, well

Some dealers have been transatlantic for

heeled Upper East Side, across from the

quite some time.

Frost & Reed first

Whitney. Its address, 1000 Madison Ave,

traded

here in 1884, and are back again after a long

work of our artists, exhibit their work in solo

Tate Turner Prize in 200 1 and Jeremy Deller

break. Women are often more adventurous

shows both in our gallery and with galleries

in 2004. Brown also looks after such

Carolyn Alexander came in 196 5 ; Penny Pilkington of P·P·O· W in 1982 and Lucy Mitchell-Innes in 19 83, while Rebecca Reeve, the baby of the group, arrived in 2002 via St Martins and Sydney because 'I like to live in new places' .

and museums in other countries; to give them

luminaries as Elizabeth Peyton, Peter Doig

makes it easy for taxis to find ! Run by Matthew Flowers, whose easy-going charm quickly captivated New Yorkers, it shows

the ability to develop their work. We

& chef-artist Rirkrit Tiravanija. His gallery

only British artists, and despite the fact that

participate in the dreaded art fairs - Basel,

cricket score is Brits 9, Americans 8, plus 2

these include some big gun s : Heron,

Miami-Basel, Armory and ARCO, and our

Thai, one Swiss and one German. Brown's

Paolozzi, Tom Phillips, Hicks, Currie,

artists are regularly invited to show in

gallery is a big success. How he fmds time

Howson, Bellany, Josef Herman, it would, I

Biennales such as Venice, Sao Paulo, Sydney

to have 3 children as well, I don't know.

think, be a good thing for both gallery and introduced sometime soon.

etc. We have always been interested in a very

artist s , if an international note was

Having parents as art dealers i s obviously a

international group and of the 20 artists we

He moved to NY in 1988 to attend the

big help - but both Paul Kasm.in and Penny P chose to go-it-alone in Manhattan rather than rely on family. Matt Flowers has the

represent, many are non-north-American,

Whitney Independent Studio Program and

like Eugenio Dittborn from Chile; Willie

best of both worlds as he· travels to and fro.

Argentina; Mona Hatoum from Lebanon;

Sean Kelly came to NY to run an East Coast branch of LA Louver, (run by another

German Stefan Kiirten; Englishman Michael

Doherty, N. Ireland; Victor Grippo of

Landy and Doris Salcedo of Colombia. '

worked at the

Odeon and Canal Bar, then at

Pat Hearn, Brooke Alexander, 303 Gallery and, he admits, 'many other galleries wrapping art, painting walls etc. I also painted many apartments !' He then organized

The story is always best from the horse's mouth, so here's Matt's explanation: 'The choice of LA was twofold: I had family connections there through my now ex-wife and we had a LA based financial backer. We

longtime Brit, Peter Goulds, in California) . Some bring wives and family; others acquire partners here. Maxwell Davidson's wife and partner Mary is another Brit who plays an important day-to-day role in their Fifth Avenue gallery which specialises in sculpture, especially the kinetic kind. Occasionally dealers move anti-clockwise. The well-respected James Cohan went east to work for Anthony d 'Offay in London from

1992-96. Both his children were born in London, his wife Jane worked as an RCA research fellow and as she says, 'I don't know if that gives us the privilege of honorary Brits, but knowing what Spotted Dick is, probably does. Also, at this rate, the kids will soon be running the gallery - and they

are

Brits ! ' NY i s such a cosmopolitan city that being a non-American is not at all note worthy almost the entire population of Manhattan ,.,

seems to come from somewhere else, be it

Sean Kelly

Rebecca Reeve

Ted Bonln

Mexico, Colombia, Ru ssia or Eastern

�

Europe. That is its charm. However be it old

group shows in various spaces including

also had a large number of existing LA

� &

or new money, it's still the WASPs who can

small rented offices, his own apartment, ICA

be seen at the auctions and trawling the

London and Chelsea's 303 Gallery. In 1993,

collectors and felt confident we would be well received. The gallery ran for 5 years in

galleries in Chelsea or the Upper East Side!

he organized a Peyton drawing show at the

a be autiful 3500 sq.ft warehouse-type

�

� ·;:: <( Q)

� c:

E "' .t::: "0

�

"0 c: <( "' "' c:

3:: e

CXl c: ·;; "' (.!) ..

ALEXAN DER AND BONIN

Chelsea Hotel; the following year he opened

space. I visited from London about once a

his own gallery on Broome St, moving to

month, which took its toll, despite sunshine

Chelsea in 1997. A busy bee, in 1999, he also

at the end of the flight. In mid 200 1 we were

Since 2003,

in a position to buy out our backer, and by

was established i n 1995 b y Brit Carolyn

opened a bar called

Alexander and American Ted Bonin with the aim of representing a select group of international contemporary artists. In 1997, Alexander and Bonin moved to a three storey building in Chelsea with a program of solo and group shows. Carolyn has been a

he's been based in Greenwich St.

2003, ready to try a bigger market. Opening

Gavin Brown maintains that he's in New York 'because I happened to just stay here and also because the UK is very closed.' I asked him to elaborate on this but he didn't. The email sent from his BlackBerry, said: 'What?? What about Respect? Seduction? I may be a whore but I am still a human being - not a column inch. Call me tomorrow. ' Eventually this diatribe arrived from the boy from the Home Counties: 'UK is closed because it always has been; that is the way it does business. Class structure is in our DNA: Either makes us feel inside or outside. If you

mine, but the logistics never seemed

a gallery in NYC had long been a dream of

transplant since 1965 when she came to New York to work for

Marlborough

(having

worked for them in London). She left in 1967 to start Brooke Alexander Gallery with Brooke Alexander. She was a partner there (1968-1995) and Ted Bonin, after working at MoMA, was gallery director ( 1 9 82-

1995). In 1995,

Brooke Alexander

changed

focus, so they decided to open their own

Passerby.

Gavln Brown (In actor guise*)

GAVIN BROWN

right. Our London gallery board saw our LA success and green-lighted a move to NY. My longtime LA gallery manager was also ready to move back to her family in NY. Our small second floor space on Madison Ave is near several contemporary galleries I had long admired. We also had many clients in the immediate vicinity,

and it seemed a

manageable base from which to get the lay of the land. Our space is intimate and warm, and happily has been immensely productive. It is going so well we have no choice but to

came to household name prominence with

are talking about power, Britain has none.

the Brooklyn

show/

We are the poodles, the lapdogs to a bunch

city. I'm looking at having an additional large

Mayor Guliani row in 2000. As Chris Oflli's

of criminal proto-fascist colonists who are

project space somewhere more downtown

in SoHo and then moved to Chelsea,' Carolyn

dealer, Brown, elephant dung and the

seizing power. We are like the ancient Greeks

where we are not so limited by space and

explains. 'There is a huge range in the work

Catholic Church made headlines in every US

Empire.

Decoration.

could get a different traffic. Although

of the artists we show. We are foremost

newspaper and beyond. He got another spot

Democratic but decorative.

Turner Prize?

'primary' gallerists; our mission is to sell the

in the limelight when Martin CI:eed won the

Who gives a flying fuck. No one gives a fuck

gallery. 'We spent two years working out of a space

Museum/Sensation

the

Roman

figure out how and where to expand in the

we gave up our LA space for NY

(I would

have had to clone myself to oversee London,

state of art

state9

S U M M ER 2006 NY, and LA) we've managed to keep most of our LA collectors and visit them regularly, often collaborating with other southern Californian galleries. Right now I spend about 70% of my time in the States, most of that in NYC. It's tremendously rewarding on all levels seeing our artists go from strength to strength in the US. '

FROST & REED

were founded in 1808 and are known for their commitment to flowers, horses and dogs, so their current makeover plus launch of a contemporary gallery after their takeover of London's Blue Gallery, will be very interesting.

Carolyn Alexander

They opened in New York in 2002 in the Upper East Side in an elegant townhouse just off Madison Avenue at 21 East 67th Street. Gallery manager, Rebecca Reeve, is a one man band but says she loves to travel, so volunteered to leave cosy St James for the throb of Manhattan. In endearing fashion, director Giles Baker-Smith says, 'We are in a state of flux. It's a beautiful space but far too big and people go past, not in. We don't have a cogent identity yet - but soon we will be curating shows and sending them transatlantic; more streamlined, leaving $e dogs and cats behind.' For the last 120 years, Frost & Reed has traded in the US. Since 1 8 84, the gallery regularly toured exhibitions across North America, later participating in major art fairs in New York and Palm Beach. With their new Big Apple home, Frost & Reed have swopped an area of famous tailors, wine merchants, cigar retailers and gentleman's clubs for female haute couture. Watch this space for more about their re-launch as the gallery nears its bicentennial.

Mlchael Goedhuls

Matthew Flowers

MICHAEL GOEDHUIS is a pioneer in promoting Chinese con temporary art. He opened Goedhuis Contemporary in London in 1995 and New York in January 2002, after spending two decades specialising in early Asian art. This Old Etonian, trained as an economist, initially became an investment banker. After a change of heart, and studying at the Courtauld under Anthony Blunt, he worked with the Rothschild art investment company before setting up Colnaghi's Oriental Department. By 1 982, he had his own company deali.J:ig in Islamic, Indian, Japanese and Chinese art. Among the first to recognize the gathering momentum of global interest in Chinese contemporary, especially from American museums and collectors as well as Asia, he now focuses on solo shows by established and emerging artists of Chinese origin whether from mainland China or based in New York, Paris, Berlin, London, Taiwan or Hong Kong. To help spot current artistic trends in today's fast-changing Chinese reality, new offices were established in Beijing and Shanghai in 2002. Unlike other dealers, Goedhuis is very open about his focus on investment. 'There is enormous potential in the US for Chinese contemporary art in terms of price level as well as access. We believe China is the dominant reality today. Right now her culture is going through a pivotal and particularly creative phase, because artists are involved in creating a new pictorial language to express the momentous changes currently convulsing China. Our 'slant' is to represent its leading talents. Chinese artists have gained self-confidence in the last few years and are now less interested in emulating Western styles than in creating a new language which takes account of China's rich cultural past, and their experience of the transformation of China's society and the

" :::y 0

�

;;IJ (1) (1) c.. :A

§;

"'"

Paul Ka smln

country's new relevance to world culture.' Goedhuis, pronounced 'Goodhouse' in NY, is a veritable enthusiast of his chosen area of expertise. 'It's a fascinating market, both commercially and• culturally. ' He also produces beautiful, scholarly catalogues. One of my favourites, Ink, from 2005, features the work of 1 2 artists including the. famous Xu Bing who got a MacArthur Foundation grant in 1 999. His current summer show is Some Days: black & white tableau photographs by Wang Ningde where all the participants have closed eyes, reflecting the Chinese saying: 'The whole world is drunk; I alone am sober.'

PAUL KASMIN I first met Paul Kasmin as he was hanging out of a top floor bedroom window at London's famous Chelsea Arts Club. He was pretending danger; luckily I knew there was a ledge under his feet. And as the son of the legendary John Kasmin of Cork Street who of course discovered Hockney - the ledge has metaphorically continued to be there. Growing up among artists could have been a turnoff. Not for him Luckily Paul obviously loves his j ob, and his very Englishness endears him to all Americans. He is at home in the art world and his Peter Panish-diffident confidence pays off. His roster of artists, some inherited from dad, is very impressive: Hockney, Frank Stella, Olitski, Twombly, Morris Louis, Anthony Caro, B arry Flanagan, Robert Indiana, Kenny Scharf. Always ready to surprise, this Spring he hosted a fabulous William Nicholson show. .

He began by collecting, then selling photographs. His first gallery opened in 1989 in a small space on Broadway with a Brancusi photo show. 'I always had connections with American art through the Americans at my father's gallery. But also the market in photographs was always much bigger in the US. Americans have always appreciated photography more than Europeans, so I began coming here and eventually stayed.' In 1993, Kasmin moved to a larger space on Grand Street. The Chelsea gallery opened in

1999 and he expanded in 2004 with a space at 5 1 1 West 27th Street, where the shows are always immaculately installed. Paul learned quite a lot at his father's knee.

SEAN KELLY founded his gallery in New York in 1 99 1 , soon becoming one o f the most respected of contemporary US dealers, establishing an international reputation for his gallery's commitment to significant artists whose work is often challenging. His mostly female staff, including his wife Mary and director Cecile Panzieri, have played their part in this powerhouse. Sean KeUy represents Brits: Gorrnley, Turk, Julie Roberts, Callum Innes, Christine Borland plus the starry Marina Abramovic, Laurie Anderson, Ann Hamilton, Kosuth, Lorna Simpson, Rebecca Horn, and the Kabakovs. He's also nabbed the Mapplethorpe estate. A Cardiff Art College graduate, Kelly worked as an artist and lecturer before becoming curator at Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea. I remember him from his stint as Visual Arts Director of Bath International Arts Festival in the 1980s. In 1 989, he fled to New York as east coast director for the LA Louver Gallery. When this didn't work out, he opened his own gallery in 1995 on SoHo's Mercer Street. By 200 1 , as the gallery grew, it moved to a stunning 7,000 sq. ft location in Chelsea. KeUy works hard, co-ordinating hundreds of exhibitions on behalf of his artists at leading museums worldwide. It's an impressive list: Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Centre Pompidou; Irish Museum of Modern Art; Jerusalem, Berlin, Montreal, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Japan; Sweden, Sydney; New York's MoMA, Guggenheirn, Whitney; Reina Sofia; Tate Gallery; Hermitage, and Eindhoven's van Abbemuseum. In the past decade, eight gallery artists were chosen for the Venice Biennale: Abramovic (Golden Lyon Award, 1997), Borland & Roberts (Aperto, 1993), Casebere (Campo, 1 996), Hamilton (American Pavilion, 1 999), Kosuth (Menzione d' Onore, Hungarian Pavilion, 1993), Sarmento (Portuguese Pavilion,

state of art

S U M M E R 2006

p.p.o.w

NEW SPACE ge1a owers llery a ches a ew v1ew g space & June •

•

SCULPTURE NEW WORKS

by gallery sculptors Gnenys a no John Gibbons icol ICks C �ole Hodgso e r1es m �8WIS 81 r1a Wall a

•

7 - 17

June

ARTIST OF THE DAY 19 June - 1 July VICKY HAWKINS 5 - 30 July

Flowers Central 21 Cork Street London W1 S 3LZ Tel : 020 7439 7766 Fax: 020 7439 7733 central @ flowerseast.com

was opened in the East Village in 1983 by the pioneering Penny Pilkington and Wendy Olsoff. They were both working with other galleries and had talked often about showing their choice of younger artists rather than working for other people. 'We started on a shoestring in a storefront in the East Village at just the right time. P·P·O· W opened, then Pat Hearn and the whole scene just exploded,' explains Penny. 'We wanted the gallery name to be something timeless as we hoped to stay in business for a long time. The name is our initials backwards P·P·O· W : Pilkington Penny, OlsoffWendy' Mary Davidson Olsoff worked in New York and Pilkington

1 997). Recent highlights include Abramovic's notorious, award winning 12day performance of House with the Ocean View. Sean Kelly has made a big impression in New York while not losing any of his understated British sangfroid- which is not the same at all as 'cool.'

in London, meeting when both worked for Theo Waddington on Madison Avenue in 198 1 . Pilkington then traveled across the US as a sales rep for her parents, Godfrey and " �

� �

0 0> " 0> a. 0> '"

M ITCH ELL-INNES & NASH

Maybe it's the hyphen that does it, but theirs is definitely a blue chip gallery. Founded in 1996 by New York's power couple, both ex Sotheby directors, Mitchell-Innes & Nash has a reputation for experience, excellence and expertise. Their roster of artists is small but includes Lichtenstein, de Kooning, Rauchenberg and Kossoff.

r CD CD

Lucy Mitcheli-Innes arrived in NYC in

1 9 8 3 via the Courtauld, Henry Moore Foundation and good old Air & Space, and rose to b e S enior Vice President and Worldwide Director of their Contemporary Art division. She left Sotheby's first, in 1994 after 13 years, to set up her own business as private dealer and art advisor. In 1996, she was joined by her husband, David Nash. He has 35 Sotheby years plus, and member of their board, under his belt, so between them, they know everyone. Their uptown Gallery oversees big names while their new-last-year Chelsea space, run by American Jay Gomey, shows weird work by emerging artists. Happily they are currently featuring the well known German, AR Penck. Lucy has a strong relationship with the Lichtenstein Estate which has expanded her reach and, so they say, 'has given her greater access to collectors and institutions' . David Nash moved to New York in the Swinging Sixties, 1963 to be precise, as head of the newly formed Impressionist Department. He sat on the Art Advisory Panel for the IRS for 14 years and retired from the board in 2001 . He now serves on the Board of the Art Dealers Association of America. He has been involved with every Impressionist and Modem paintings auction held at Sotheby's in New York and London and has been responsible for the sale of more than one billion dollars worth of Impressionist art in New York alone. He has long-standing relationships with many major collectors, museums and dealers in the area of 19th and 20th century art. At M-I&N, he continues to handle the sale of important works from this period by private treaty and to do appraisals for museums and private collectors in this specialist field.

LINKS

Penny Pllklngton

Eve Pilkington of London ' s famous

Piccadilly Gallery which opened in 1953 in the Piccadilly Arcade, then Cork Street, and after half a century are still in business in Dover Street. Their daughter has earned similar respect for professionalism in NYC. In 1990, P·P·O· W moved to SoHo and in 2002 relocated to its present Chelsea location on West 25th. Since its inception, the gallery has remained true to its early vision, showing contemporary work in all media. There is a commitment to representational painting and sculpture and artists who create work with social and political significance. Photo graphy is also an integral part ofthe program. Their first exhibition was a group show of yonng artists from New York; followed by Sue Coe's political paintings and drawings. Today artists are mostly American, like C arolee Scheemann, with some Dutch, Spanish, Japanese-Brazilian and the Vietnamese Dinh Q Le, plus Paloma Munoz and Waiter Martin - a Spanish/American couple who work as a team. Clare Henry is a Manhattan based writer and contributor to the Financial Times, London

Alexander and Bonin Gavin B rown Flowers Frost

www.alexanderandbonin.com

www.gavinbrown.biz

www.flowerseast.com

& Reed www.frostandreed.co. u k

M i chael Goed h u is Pau l Kasmin

Mon - Fri 1 0-6 Sat 1 0-2

Sean Kelly

www. flowerseast. com •

P · P ·0 ·W

www.goedhuisco ntemporary.com

www.paulkasmingallery.com

www.skny.com

Mitchell-lnnes

& Nash www.miandn.com

www.ppowgallery.com

state of art

STATE$ 1 D E

state 1 1

SUM M ER 2006

c helsea

launched Hasted Hunt Gallery on West 20th Street last October, and

truly done its job. Photographs are

orary photography, it is not yet

no longer regarded as some strange

necessarily the epicentre for

graphy. Their current show,

Paulo Ventura s War Souvenirs, presents

"other", and are exhibited and

vintage material.'

large-format colour photographs of

painting, sculpture, video, et al. '

and

occupied Italy. Paulo Ventura crafts miniature period settings, and peoples them with customized figures. The resulting images are dark, often melancholy, tragic dramas. There is a general feeling amongst

the younger, emerging galleries

continues to re-invent itself and the

experimenting with new concepts.

vibrancy and energy of the city is

This diversity caters for different

reflected

audiences and markets, giving an

the

rapid

and

unprecedented transformation of a

energy to the area that is bubbling

number of commercial areas into

with creativity.

Clamp explains, 'While Chelsea is truly "ground zero" for contemp

often

diverse

fictional World War II narratives in

IT IS TRUE TO say New York

alongside the market for work in other media. Postrnodemism has

provocative contemporary photo

promote

report Dl POOLE

collected on the same level as

Clampart i s currently exhibiting

late 1960s vintage prints by Arthur

Tress, based on one of his most celebrated series Open Space in the Inner City. It i s a unique opportunity to see original works that have been hidden away in boxes in Tress's studio. Not only is this an interesting and rich show,

The recent period of globalisation resulting from the economics of free trade, privatisation and deregulation has also opened up new opportunities to look at art and photography from different parts of the world. Yossi Milo's stunning exhibition of photographs by Sze

Tsung Leong reflects this new trend. The large-format prints

the Chelsea photography dealers

revealing Tress's developments

capture the dramatic urban chabges

that the photography scene has

towards surrealist tendencies that

that have transformed the cities of

developed hand-in-hand with the

were later to become his recognised

China; particularly the destruction

style, it also goes some way in

of traditional neighbourhoods,

contemporary art scene. Brian

Clamp, who established his photo graphy gallery Clampart in 2000 explains: 'The photography scene in Chelsea has grown right

demonstrating how Chelsea i s

which once formed the unique and

maturing and deepening i n terms

historical identities of China's

of the cross-section of works being

cities , and are rapidly being

exhibited. However, as Brian

superseded

the

mass

fashionable and affluent residential

construction of new urban environ

locations. Chelsea is one such area,

ments. The Yossi Milo Gallery,

having been transformed over the

established in a small second floor

last ten years from a run-down

space on West 24th Street in Chelsea

commercial district comprising

in 1997, amongst the first galleries

industrial and warehouse premises

to be located in the neighbourhood.

to one of the world's largest centres

In March 2005, the gallery moved

for

contemporary

art.

Now,

to its current ground floor space on

harbouring more than 300 galleries

West 2 5 'h Street.

within its borders, 'Art Chelsea'

enthuses: 'Chelsea is vital to the

stretches from West 13th to West

contemporary art scene in New

29th Streets; from 1Qth Avenue to the

York. Our gallery is dedicated to

West

Side

Highway,

Yossi Milo

and i s

contemporary art, specialising in

expanding exponetially eastwards.

photography. We show artists that push

If one looks at contemporary art

the

boundaries

of the

medium.'

today in New York and elsewhere, it

ignore

It seems quite pertinent that

photography; you only have to visit

impossible

Aperture, a not-for-profit arts

some of the major art fairs, not least

institution dedicated to advancing

the

fme photography, founded in 1952,

realise how photography has been

moved its headquarters to Chelsea

Annory Show

An Easel,

embraced by the contemporary art

in September 2005. They moved

scene. However, photography's

for various practical reasons and to

authority as an art form is taken for

obtain greater space but perhaps

granted now; and photographers no

most importantly to be amidst the

longer have to fight to be recog

acti on. Aperture 's executive

nised within the artistic sphere.

director, EDen Harris, explains "If

Prices for photography are also

you have a gallery, you want to be

rising fast, Sarah Basted of

on the gallery circuit, and there are

Hasted Hunt Gallery recently

300 plus galleries within a ten

observed

block radius in Chelsea . . . we need

that

she has

been

'representing photography for 20

to be near galleries in order to see

years,

that

the latest of what's being done in

photography is fetching at auction

photo graphy. Lastly, we want

and

the

prices

is so fantastic now, we are no

people in the field as well as the

longer the stepchild of the art

general public to perceive that we

world.' It is thus hardly surprising

are a part of this dynamic world,

that when visiting Chelsea, a great

accessible and collaborativ e . '

proportion of what you see is

Aperture currently have on view an

photographic work.

ambitious exhibition entitled

Exploring Chelsea for the first time

emerging photographers from

reGeneration, is also an exciting experience. The

across the globe. With digital

neighbourhood is fairly remote;

photography dominating, the wide

you pass a carwash or gas station,

range of styles and techniques

and crumbling buildings are

adopted demonstrates the endless

juxtaposed with new develop

possibilities open to young photog

ments ;

raphers today. This show, perhaps

advertisements

hang

overhead on the old elevated 'high �

a selection of 50

more than any other, demonstrates

line' railroad. It is therefore a

In the main, the movement of

the

surprise when you walk down one

galleries has been from SoHo,

international contemporary photo

current

strength

the

of the long, wide streets to be

which dominated the contemporary

confronted by row upon row of art

art scene in the 1 990s. Sarah

important contemporary galleries in

galleries, a few of which lean

Basted, previously a director of Ricco!Maresca Gallery, further

Midtown and on the Upper East

explained how they moved to

Side, Chelsea is currently the location

towards the large, glass frontages that allow you to peer into the huge open

graphy market. Although there are SoHo, on the Lower East Side, in

spaces within. Entering Gagosian on

Chelsea in 1997 due to escalating

West 24th Street through weighty,

rents in SoHo: 'when we moved

contemporary galleries and is likely to be so for many years to come.

imposing doors is certainly a

into the neighbourhood, there were

humbling experience as the museum

like space unveils before you, akin

only two restaurants and a handful of other galleries. Now there are

to entering a church or temple. What

hundreds and they are converting

is most exciting, however, about the

the highline railroad above Chelsea

Chelsea gallery scene is

into a park.'

the

astounding diversity; just as you have the big names, you also see

Sarah Basted and partner Bill Hunt, also previously a director of Ricco!Maresca ,

of the highest concentration of

Paulo Ventura The Painter AS. found hanged by the Caretaker. Courtesy Hasted Hunt Gallery. NYC

Matthlas Bruggmann On Highway 80 From t h e series Iraq, 2003 Cou rtesy Aperture. NYC

1 2 state

state of art

S U M M ER 2006

M ajor N ew Titl es i n Art and Photograp hy APERTURE Teun Hocks Essay by Janet Koplos 96 pages

•

54 illustrations hardcover with jacket

ISBN 1 -93 1 788-78-2

•

£22 · Apri1 2006

Teun Hocks is the forst Engfish-language volume devoted to the internationally acclaimed Dutch artist. Each Hocks image is a one-man story. starring the artist as an amusingly flawed 'Everyman' struggling to survive and persevere in an ever changing. often absurd world.

The Transportation of P lace Photographs by And rea Robbins and Max Becher

& Lucy Lippard

Text by Maurice Berger 1 56 pages

1 30 colour illustrations

•

hardcover with jacket

ISBN 1 -597 1 1 -0 I 0-8

•

£27.50

•

May 2006

And rea R.obbins and Max Becher's images bring a touch of humour. pop culture. and surreaJism to traditional travel and documentary photography.

SKI RA Christo and Jeanne-Ciaude Edited by Rudy Chiappini 208 pages hardback

•

I 00 colour & I 00 b/w illustrations

ISBN 88-7624-625-8

•

£34.95

•

April 2006

This volume is an extensive exhibition catalogue dedicated to the work of Christo and Jeanne-Ciaude. and the work on which they have collaborated together for over 40 years.

BRIAN WALL

Chris Stephens INTRODUCT I O N BY S UZAAN B O ETTG ER M o m e ntum 228pp, over 260 i l l u s

The Keith Haring Show

H b £30 P b £20

Edited by Gian n i M e rcuric and Demetrio Paparoni 420 pages

•

520 colour

hardbackiSBN 88-7624-476-X

•

Signed Lim ited edition with p r i nt £100

& 70 b/w illustrations £50

•

BARRY M U N ITZ

February 2006

Keith Haring is one of the most celebrated artists of the late 20th century. He forst gained attention in the late 1 970's with his drawings that appeared on the walls of the New York subways

FLAM MARI O N

Introducing the new Flammarion Contemporary Series Flammarion Contemporary is a new series of individual publications that provides an informative and visually evocative reference on the work of contem porary artists and the issues and trends that drive the art world today.

Jean-Marc Bustamante Jacinto Lageira, Ulrich Loock

Christine Macel 2 1 6 pages

I SO colour illustrations

•

ISBN 2-0803-05 1 5-8

•

£25

•

hardback

February 2006

Bustamante is transforming art appreciation from a passive to an active experience by creating works that revolve around a reciprocal relationship between artist and spectator:

Pierre Bismuth

I SO colour illustrations

•

ISBN 2-0803-05 1 4-X

£25

•

There is a simpli city, even a n asceticism, a bout Wa ll's work. Whatever the size of the piece, he i s never bom bastic. The sculptures are made with the greatest economy of means: the fewest elements of the n arrowest ra nge of size and gauge, constructed with the lightest of touches. They have nearly always been painted a

John Armleder

single colour - w h ite, bl ue, red, orange, yellow but most commonly black - or,

Lionel Bovier 0

2 1 6 pages

r. ,-·. r

•

I SO colour illustrations

ISBN 2-0803-05 1 6-6

•

£25

•

hardback

February 2006

�----

Internationally acclaimed Swiss artist John Armleder defoes the limitations of style and media..

T H E A B OVE T I T LES ARE J U ST A FEW H I G H LI G HTS OF A S U P E R B RAN G E OF ART A N D P H OTO G RAP HY B O O KS P U B LI S H ED

Distributed by Thames

BY A P E RT U RE, FLAMMARI O N A N D S K I RA

Hudson, London WC I V

(1) Dr Chris Stephens is a special ist i n modern British a rt with a particular interest in the a rtists of St Ives and sculpture. He works as Curator of British Art from 1900 a n d Head of Displays at Tate Brita i n .

hardback

Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

volume.

February 2006

Pierre Bismuth is the first contemporary artist to win an academy award, which he received for co-authoring EternaJ

j· .- � ·

lr�

•

courageous transformation of aesthetic space. For anyone interested in the broad exploration practised by an artist at the top of his craft, or even someone committed to their own harmonious beauty, this splendid study of Brian Wall will become a treasured

With remarkable impact, Wall has repeatedly tested the boundaries of contemporary visual art, with a daring and playful experimentation that juxtaposes architectural patterns with the

Raimar Stange, Thierry Davila and Michael Newman 2 1 6 pages

IT IS HARD to understand why relatively little has been written about Brian Wall' s contributions to modern sculpture, particularly since he has had such a dramatic impact upon the field, his colleagues, and global audiences. Happily, we now have a brilliant analysis for both professional and introductory readers, which captures splendidly the ambitious spirit and the lyrical creativity ofBrian Wall. This is the first major study of his work, and it is long overdue. Chris Stephens' <•> volume is an elegant synthesis of theory and process, combined with a careful explanation of Wall ' s viewpoint and consistent use of materials. With glorious links that range from painting to poetry, the craft and the values of Brian Wall are presented with a purity and simplicity that mirrors the creative refinement of the sculptural works themselves.

Brian Wall. p h oto by Adri a n Flowers 1 9 61

7QX

Tel: 020

7845 5000

sales @ thameshudson.co.uk

more recently, the raw steel has simply been waxed. Without compromising their three-d imensiona l ity or their non-representatio n , one might compare them to drawi ngs in which a form m ight be suggested by the s lightest marks of the pencil. Throughout his career, Wall has been interested in Zen Buddhism and Japanese culture and comparisons can easily b e made between his sculptures and the simple i mmediacy of Japa nese ca l l igraphy and the harmonious purity of the Zen gardens of Kyoto. Crucially, the most Zen-like quality of Wa ll's approach is his belief in a sculpture that is nothing more or nothing less than itself. For fifty years, he has

been seeking a s i mple, instinctive 'rightness' in sculpture. A sculpture which cannot ' be read and does not say a nything other than what it is.

JOHN BERGER

on 30, 000 years of drawing ART CZAR

N E K C HA N D

the Rise & Fall of Clem ent Greenberg

rock garden specta cular

3 ., "" Cl>

and the animal jumped ship to make permanent home with the Picasso family. Using this amusing event as a peg, here is a volume of original and personal photographs of Picasso and Jacqueline [Roque] at their Villa La Californie. S o enamoured was the great man with the dog that it appears in numerous

® "

� 0: "

"" 0 c:

� "

" c:

paintings, drawings and prints, notably the series reworking Velasquez' s Las Meninas. With Duncan ' s diary notations and memoirs of the occasions recorded serving as an adj unct to the photographs, this picturebook adds a u seful and most human dimension to one of the leading figures of the 20th century.

� . H..ttoot1

;'l:�!'... �l..v:

The book of the season is without doubt Visiting Picasso The Notebooks and Letters of Roland Penrose by Elizabeth Cowling.

A Spaniard

in the Works

only original and scholarly works on blo Picasso deserve an audience today

�

THE MALAGA born painter Pablo Picasso died in 1983. Already a

welcomed and dismissed with equal passion. And still the Picasso

waits with keen anticipation for John Richardson's third volume of

legend which had been - during his own lifetime - metamorphosed into · gargantuan myth. One can almost

mill grinds, except that now the chaff has been blown to the four winds the residue is something

Picasso's Life, but there is no sign

imagine the surprise on the 92 year old artist's face as he confronted

worth considering. On Picasso the artist there can surely be nothing more to say, much greater minds

death, when he discovered he was, after all, only human. Picasso had lived and excelled through a tumultuous period in the art of painting and sculpture, unprece dented in its history. In his own lifetime he witnessed the never ending avalanche of texts and catalogues about his work, analysing, theorising - hagiog raphies by the wagon l o ad. Validations by the women in his life who had arrived and departed; friends who had come and gone,

than this humble scribe have addressed the enigma and been found wanting - but there is a strong case for the personal recollection, the 'I was there' form of documentary, archival text. As the lives of those who had an opportunity to relate to Picasso on any sort of equal basis (this necessarily exempts his children) draw to a close, these authentic texts are likewise becoming limited editions. The art world certainly

Lump The Dog thatAte a Picasso David Douglas Duncan Thames & Hudson Hb £12.95 Visiting Picasso The Notebooks & Letters ofRo/and Penrose Bizabeth Cowling Thames & Hudson Hb £25 Surrealist Picasso Anne Baldassari Aammarion Hb £40

as yet of its imminent arrival. There are, however, some new pub lications of real merit on the artist that critic Robert Hughes claims

introduced the fable of pure creative genius to an uncritical public - an illusion that has corrupted modern art ever since. Firstly, a slight but nevertheless fascinating private study of Picasso at home: Lump The Dog that Ate a Picasso ( 1 00pp; 19 col illus; 89 duotones. T&H £12.95 Hb). Don't be put off by the title, all dogs have silly names - unless you are their owner. Lump is/was the dachshund chum of legendary photographer David Douglas Duncan, award winning Life magazine photo correspondent (Korea and Vietnam wars) and friend of Picasso. A regnlar visitor to the French Riviera and Picasso's villa there, he took his dog along one day in 1957 -

(408pp; 72 mono illus. T&H £25 An absolute triumph for Ms Cowling who is doubtless due

Hb)

another award for this trawl through a million or more words, handw,ritten by the admirable Penrose, a British artworld aesthete of the old school. Penrose's father had been a successful portrait painter and Roland grew up in a Quaker family at Watford. He lived from 1922 in France where he met and married his first wife, the poet Valentine Boue. During this period he met with Picasso, Ernst and most of the leading Surrealists. He returned to London in 1 936 to organise the London International

Surrealist Exhibition and sub sequently opened the London Gallery on Cork Street, where he promoted the Surrealists as well as friends Moore, Hepw orth, Nicholson and Gabo. By 1 939, Penrose had begun his relationship with the effervescent American photographer Lee Miller; they later married. In 1 94 7 , Penrose eo founded the Institute of Contemp orary Arts with the art critic and writer Herbert Read. He then organised the inaugural I C A

ITiTi�

state of art

publications

the soft estate

active

Philip Napier I Mike Hogg

sales

6th May - 1 st July 2006

touring

Golden Thread Gallery

��

Brookfield Mill 333 Crumlin Road Belfast BTI4 7EAt.+44 (0)2890 352333

exhibitions 40 Years ofModem Art

exhibition of the same name at the

Years of Modem Art

Beyeler Foundation in Basel (this

is the catalogue). Flammarion

associated with the ICA for the next

produce outstanding books on art

30 years. He produced a number

and this is no exception, the detail

and indeed continued to

of books on his friends: Picasso;

and cross referencing of archival

Ernst; Miro; Man Ray and Tapies.

information by B aldassari is

The basis of this book is Penrose 's

analysis of the complete works of

notebooks, created between 1954

Picasso between the years 1 935-40.

and 1 972. Elizabeth Cowling is

The Flarnrnarion format of adding

under no illusions that RP was

a chronology of events is a simple

fixated, quite literally, by the

device yet so effective and useful,

Spaniard and obsessive in his

one is surprised to find it is not

dealings with him. Picasso by

universal to all publishers. In Paris,

return could be offhand and cruel,

Picasso's early involvement with

but Penrose continued to have a

what might be loosely termed, the

privileged access to the painter for over 40 years, despite the unequal

Apollinaire<1> circle, introduced

him to writers, critics, artists, poets

Pica s s o ' s

oeuvre

in a lecture

delivered in Barcelona in 1922'.

basis of their relationship. This

and performers. At this period

Werner

might be not entirely undue to the

Picasso involved himself with

Baumelle; Marie-Laure Bemadec

fact that Picasso had a fondness for

theatrical design, probably as a

(Louvre);

Phillippe

Lee Miller and, as Cowling points

response to these varied influences

(Beyeler)

and Etienne-Alain

out, things went a little more

but, typically, stayed remote from

Hubert (Sorbonne) proffer schol

smoothly

Spies;

Agne

the intercine wars that developed

arly texts on Picasso's approach to,

as his

engagement with and escape from,

guardian Jacqueline Roque appears

groupings that would later be

the

to have liked the bohemian

deemed maj or movements in

Baldassari

American and Miller 's photo

Modern Art. Apollinaire first

defmitive reference work on this

graphic records of these encounters

coined the term

was

fractured into

milieu

Surrealist has

ethic.

produced

are an invaluable addition to the

programme notes for the ballet

place amongst the key works of

events recorded. Ever the supp

Parade ( 1 9 1 7 - Picasso

Picasso bibliography. (MvJ)

licant, Penrose avoided any hint of

the backdrop, costumes and sets).

criticism in his published writings

In 1 9 24, another ballet with a strong Picasso input appeared.

the eyes of John Richardson, but

Mercure was deemed to embody a

in his private notebooks (the whole

'manifesto' of Picasso's art and

source for this tome) he allows

provoked much debate amongst the

these

' shadows' to be recorded.

cafe orators of Paris. Perhaps the

Not a biography of either man,

most significant response was from

is just that, a

Andre Breton, who declared the

unique time capsule, offering an

Surrealist movement to be his own

Visiting Picasso

eyewitness account of a giant of art

and formally claimed the term. One

history by a significant other. Its

of the most interesting aspects of this

strengths and weakness are those

whole study is the juxtaposition of

of Penrose, the vision is his own.

events. Whilst the various avant

But with some 72 personal and

garde circles argued on the fmer

intimate photographs to support the

points of creativity, only a few miles

decisive and often bittersweet

away the Great War raged with its

records, this is a truly tremendous

incessant slaughter. Later, as the

and singular achievement by

Spanish Civil war devastated his

Elizabeth Cowling, a Reader in Art

homeland, Picasso remained aloof,

History at Edinburgh University. It

it was a pattern ofbehaviourrepeated

is warming to see the book

throughout every

dedicated to artist John Golding

experienced and is generally

and the incomparable, and sadly

credited to his pacifist position.

missed, Joanna Drew.

conflict he

Braque (and others) considered cowardice more likely. Whatever,

A very real contender for 'book of

he led a charmed life and was left

the season' is an excellent offering

alone by fascists and patriots,

from Flarnrnarion on a crucial ten

invaders and defenders alike.

year period of Picasso's career and charting his involvement with

Picasso was an inquisitive (and

Breton's Surrealist movement. The

acquisitive) butterfly, flitting

Surrealist Picasso (256pp. 100 col illus. Flarnrnarion £40 large format Hb) comes from an impeccable source. Author Anne Baldassari is the curator of the Musee National Picasso in Paris and co-curated the

between evolving stylistic move ments with ease. Here, a range of original

texts

examine

his

relationship to Surrealism and his reverse impact on the Surrealists: ' . . . he [Breton] formally praised

0 0

=;. "'

� "'

�

period, which will naturally take its

on the great man, a fatal fault in

Visit to Klee in 1936, mentioned by Groh mann, happened when h e had gone t o Switzerland for s o m e affa ir t o do with Paulo. H e called on Klee who, he says, was a 'homme magnifique' very dignified and demanding respect for his attitude and his work. H e was a l ready rather i l l but greeted P. with great friendliness. Frau Klee was there also and P. seems to remember that she played to them. The studio was pleasant and well arra nged but more like a laboratory than a studio. P. denies that he ever said the remark quoted by Grohmann - 'You are the master of le petit format, I am master of the la rge? At the same time he admires greatly h is work. Epoque Dora Maar should also be called epoque Kasbec.' He says there were two dominating themes i n his po rtraits then, Dora & Kasbec, they a lternated.

Anne

sur-realism in his designed

w. www.gtgallery.fsnei.co.uk

Buttner

attendance. Even the formidable

she

e.info@gtgallery.fsnet.co.uk

fbx Tm.:<::L '• b:. 017 1f

10 April 1956 : Life at Dinard was very unlike l ife on the coast He was there alone with Olga & Paulo. I n 1922 Olga fel l very ill and had to be brought back to Paris w ith ice on her belly to be operated. Paulo was sick all the way in the car. Paulo was born in the apartment at rue La Bo etie. They went to Fontainebleau afterwards to escape the heat

staggering and encompasses an

when

gtGa l l e ry !J� 0 (1.-----'Pfhc 0.

exhibitions

and 40, 000

S U M M ER 2006

�

)> " "" :;:· "' @

:;! "'

;;u 0 '"

:::< 0.

NOTES (1) Pen-na m e of G u i l l a u me Apo l l i n aris de Kostrowitzky. He was probably born in Rome as the illegiti mate son of a Pol ish adventurer and a Polish girl. At 20 Apo l l i n a i re settled i n Paris where h e worked for a t i m e f o r a b a n k . He contributed to such periodicals as La Revue blanche. La Plume a n d Le Mercure de France. In 1903 h e fo u n d ed h i s o w n magazine. L e Festin d'Esope. Although Apo l l i n a i re wrote poetry he was more known as the advocate of modern painting. He brought Picasso a n d Braque togeth er. a n d hel ped orga n ize the Cubist room 41 at the Salon des lndependants in 1911. When Cubism h a d become a powerful force. Apo l l i n a i re p u b lished The Cubist Painters. which explored the theory of cubism a n d a n a lyzed psychologically the chief cubists a n d th e i r works. H e met Jacquel i n e Kolb, whom h e married i n 1918. I n 1911 h e had been deta i n e d for a week on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa (Picasso was a lso s us pected because he had once u n knowingly bought some sto len scu l ptures) - as a reacti o n h e took out French nati o n a l ity and enlisted i n the infantry. H e fought on the front u ntil 1916. when h e received a head wou n d . Weakened by this. Apo l l i na i re died of infl uenza i n the great epidemic of 1918.

-c "' :::<

fi "'

Lee

Miller, COte d'Azur, France

'" 2 o· :::<

1937

M o nday 15 Ap. Went at 3.0 with Lee to La Californie. Found h i m at work in the d i n i ng room on one of the large plates he is d ecorating with birds. Duncan was hovering round ticking off his cameras in his usual u nobtrusive style. P. sto pped and welcomed us. Very soon he asked Lee if she was taking pictures, which gave the clue for her to say that she had come armed to take his picture for my book. H e at . once accepted and asked where he should pose. I n spite of the fact that Duncan had sent 2000 shots to be developed yesterday h e welcomed t h e idea o f a posed portrait and cooperated all t h e time. H e has recently had given him a n African xylophone made of split wood and gourds. it is a modern piece strongly made i n traditional style and with very sweet tone. Picasso enjoys playing it. He improvises with an excellent sense of rhythm and enjoys the most unexpected sequences of notes. He played to us while the photographers on a l l sides, Jacqueline joining i n , clicked away a t h i m . Rosenbergs. Leonce not so clever a dealer a s P a u l b u t first t o take i nterest in Cubists. After Kahnweiler's departure he took them a l l . Paul, w e l l esta blished, took P . later as a n innovation, n o tt h e others. Paul had sent his fam i ly to Biarritz when Paris was menaced. M m e. Errazuriz, a rich Chilea n , had also retreated to Biarritz. P. & O[lga] went to visit her Sept. '18. She wa nted later to remove the frescoes he painted on her walls to sell them, but it was not possible.' In consequence she had them copied and sold them to P ierre Loeb as originals. P. found them there and so as to avoid a scandal a n d save Pierre from embarrassment he bought them from him.

Visiting Picasso : Notebooks of Roland Penrose

state of art

? �

2 �

;;:: 0 ::>

11iTif:S.&II•

S U M M ER 2006

THERE WAS A time when the

the two in A

Painter of Our Time,

publish art-related projects that

existence of a British art culture

purporting to be the discovery of a

they fmd of particular interest and

was inconceivable without John

missing Hungarian artist's diaries

value. As the name suggests, they

Berger. Kenneth Clarke might have

- it was so detailed on the practice

publish as and when they have the

bridged the void between the

of painting as to convince some

means to do so.

generally interested public and the

readers it was for real. Of late,

aficionados, but it was Berger who

B erger has been focused on the

was an essential ingredient to an

'plight' of his neighbours in the

art

the

rural French Alps as he charts the

cognoscenti. The intervening years

inevitable destruction of their

have done nothing to dispel the real

traditional peasant existence.

world

inhabited

John Peter Berger (b. Nove m ber 5. 1926) a rt critic. novelist. p a i nter. a n d a uthor. Atten d ed St Edwa rd's School in Oxford: served i n the British Army from 1944 to 1946: then e n rolled i n t h e Chelsea School o f Art a n d the Central School of Art i n Lo n d o n . While teaching drawing (from 1948 to 1955). Berger beca m e an art critic. p u b l is h i ng m a ny essays a n d reviews i n t h e N e w States m a n . H i s n ovel G . . won t h e Booker Prize i n 1972. h e m a d e a point o f donating h a lf his cash award to the Black Panther Party in Brita i n , a n d reta i n i ng half to supeort his work o n t h e study o f m igrant workers that beca me A Seventh Man. i nsisting on both as necessary pa rts of h i s p o l itical struggle . His studies of si ngle a rtists i n c l u d e most prom i n e ntly The Success and Failure of Picasso. a s u rvey of the m odern ist's career: and Art and

loss to England when, in 1 962, Berger left these shores in disgust

This is a real (and well deserved)

for a new life in France. His

coup for the Occasional Press and

milestone 1972 series for the BBC,

typical of Berger to champion a

reintroduced him

small publishing project run by two

briefly to a fresh, new audience but

artists with little or no funds. Here,

Ways of Seeing,

today, he is a half remembered

1 6 texts from over 50 years of

figure - if at all - for the young.

Berger's involvement with making

The irony is that artists like Berger

and writing about drawings are

(he has always painted) embody all

balanced with a collection ofletters

the ingredients so disastrously

exchanged with eminent American

absent

scions

historian, James Eakins. John

today.

B erger recounts many and varied

epitomises the enquiring mind, the

experiences including a descent

the

contemporary

art

reasoned argument, the original

into the Chauvet Cave (in the

thought,

Ardeche region) to examine

and

the

precisely

articulated opinion - to be ably

drawings some 3 1 ,000 years old,

defended as and when necessary.

juxtaposed with observations from

Berger's own facility with the

between him and his artist son

the present and an exchange plastic arts is supported by a

Yves. Only available direct from

rigorous intellectual codex, which

the OP via their own website

has evolved over the years in

www. occasionalpress.net.

response to a sus tained self

worth your support!

Revolution: Ernst Neizvestny,

Well

Endurance, and the Role of the

on the Soviet d issident scul ptor's aesthetic a n d political contributions. Berger has three c h i l d ren. Yves (his son by h is second and current wife, Beverly). Katya ( a writer) a n d J a c o b (a d i rector).

Artist.

interro gation. Originally, his Marxist philosophy and dynamic

opinions on Modern Art made him

The

Occasional Press

was set up

by David Lilburn and Jim Savage,

a controversial figure, and his

artists living and working in

political commitment was as

Ireland: Lilburn in Limerick and

vociferously stated as his critiques

S avage

of painting. His first novel married

Occasional Press

BERGER ON DRAWING

C o . C ork.

With

they aim to

J o h n Berger 160 p p . P b . Occasional Press Eur 23.50

M I KE VON JOEL 0 :::7 "" "'

::>

�

-< :::7

;;; "'

� :::7 �

When my father died recently, I did several drawings of him in his coffin. Drawings of his face and head. There is· a story about Kokoschka teaching a life class. The students were uninspired. So he spoke to the model and i n structed h i m to prete n d to colla pse. When he had fa llen over, Kokoschka rushed over to him, listened to his heart and a n n o u nced to the s h o cked students that he was dead. A little afterwards the model gotto his feet and resumed the pose. 'Now draw him,' said Kokoschka, 'as though you were aware that he was alive and n ot dead!' O n e ca n i m agin e that the students, after this theatrical exp e r� e n ce, d rew with m o r e verve. Yet to draw the truly dead involves an ever greater sense of urgency. What you are drawing will never be seen again, by you

or by anybody else. In the whole course of time past and time to come, this moment is unique: the last opportunityto draw what will never again be visible, which has occurred once and which will n ever reoccur. Because the faculty of sight is contin uous, because visual categories (red, yellow, dark, thick, thin) remain constant, and because so many things appear to remain in place, o n e tends to forget that the visual is always the result of an u n rep eata b l e , m o m e nt a ry encounter. Appearances, at any given m o m e nt, a rc a con structio n e m e rging from the debris of everything which has previously a pp e a r e d . lt is s o m eth i n g l i ke this that I u nderstand in those words of Cezan n e which so often come back to me: 'One minute in the l ife of the world is going by. Paint it as it is.' B e s i d e my fath e r ' s coff i n I

summoned such skill as I have as a d ra ughtsman to apply it directly to the task in hand. I say directly because often skill i n drawing expresses itself as a manner, and then its application to what is being drawn is indirect M a n n e ri s m - in the gen e r a l rather than art-historical sense comes from the need to invent urgency, to produce an 'urgent' drawing, instead of submitting to the urgency of what is. Here I was using my small skill to save a likeness, as a lifesaver uses his much greater skill as a swimmer to save a life. People ta l k of fres h n ess of v i s i o n , of t h e intensity of seeing for t h e first time, but the i ntensity of seeing for the last tim e is, I believe, greater. Of a l l that I could see only the drawing would remain. I was the last ever to look on the face I was d rawing. I wept whilst I strove to draw with complete objectivity.

Private auction on

29 June 2006

@ the Chelsea Arts Club of bespoke :l.ntUJ ;u s �oes adorned b'/

�

,.,..

Alien Jones, Srr Peter Slake. .;;,,.+r:..RI,...;; 'eter Edwards, Christia n Davld Shrigle.y, Oily a Suzi, Richard Evans, Oon Smfth,

marcus campbef( We specialise in out of print, second-hand and rare books on 20th Century art, especially modern British art. We frequently acquire libraries and collections and undertake archival work and valuations. Located opposite the main entrance to Tate Modern. Open 1 0.30 - 1 8.30 Monday to Saturday and 1 2.00 - 1 8.00 on Sunday

Phctogaph: Stod:lai

43 Holland Street London SE1 9JR T +44 (0) 20 7261 0 1 1 1 F +44 (0) 20 7261 0 1 29 info @ marcuscampbell.co. uk www.marcuscampbell .co.uk

l1iTir::tw['11

state of art

S U M M ER 2006

opposite top

N e k C h a n d S a i n i in 2005 C h a n d ' s a rtistic creatio n c a n not be divorced from the idea of repetiti o n . w h i c h u n d erl ies h i s w h o l e oeuvre.

Arranged in gro u ps. h o rdes of s c u l pted h u m a n a n d a n i m a l figures l i n e up o n raking stages. The p a ra d e i n cl u des a n extra o rd i n a ry bestiary comp osed of oxe n . m o n keys, e l e p h a nts. dogs. l i ons. a n d b i rds. The 2.352 statu es peer u n b l i n ki n gly i nto the vistor's eyes . top left

Women ca rrying water b e n eath the great cascade top right

Bird Reinforcing steel, cement, and ceramics

left

S o l d ie rs Reinforcing steel, cement, crushed brick, stones and ceramics

far left

Q u eens l eavi ng t h e i r bath Reinforcing steel, cement, crushed brick, glass bangles, and shells

opposite lower

Schoo lgi rls Reinforcing steel, cement, glass, stones and ceramics

Photos by Philippe Lespinasse

from

Nek Chand's Outsider Art: The Rock

by Lu c i e n n e Peiry. Pa ris: Ed iti o n s Fl a m m a rion.ďż˝ Garden of Chandigarh

state of art

.-rmr::r'II"JJ

S U M M ER 2006 THERE ARE two sorts of people

in the world. Those that have heard of Nek Chand's 'garden' and those

that have not. Reputedly the second most visited site in India after the

were all done by hand in Nek

apparatchniks took against the rise

Chand's spare time.

that political factions of local

of this immigrant celebrity (Nek Chand

originally

fled

northern Lahore, now in Pakistan,

tenacious creativity, and the

was a different place to today.

it was decided to drive a road for

the bloody partition with Pakistan,

during partition violence). In 1990,

one

Those who have tried to equate

the Subcontinent. And yet outside

aneous activity in the Western Art

to be met spontaneously with a

pride

isolation and primary concerns of

grew to over a 1000 individuals.

'outsider' art and artists, those

European ' art world' as it was

spirit

that

naturally attributes to the people of India it is not overly familiar to those

who

otherwise

themselves on a knowledge of comfortably

au fait with Simon Rodia's Watts Towers and Antoni Gaudi's work in Barcelona.

Some 40 years ago, a young road

inspector called Nek Chand Saini

was appointed to the public works department of Chandigahr in

northern

India.

The

name

Chandigahr might sound vaguely familiar, as the city had been

NC's works with other, contempor

w orld, fail to understand the a man as much removed from the

pos sible to

get. A far from

uneducated man, Nek Chand's stimuli

were

( p o s sibly)

the

traditional, illustrated texts and

architecture of Mughal literature.

Or the complex carvings that adorn

numerous temples, with their

depictions of half human, half animal Gods and · Godde s s e s . Whatever his sources, he laboured alone

and

in i solation until

handed over to Le Corbusier as an

discovered by accident by the

the new vision of a post-colonial

fortune that lndira Gandhi ruled

evocation to modernism, to match

authorities in 1975. 1t was his good

the country and as a result of her

existential Art Brut posturing by

some re-development, the site was

India.

What

got

was

responsibility-free experiment in the fashionable Franco-Swiss

architect, his only large scale public

personal interest, and following opened in 1 976 as an officially

countenanced

Rock Garden

VIPs through the centre of the site

and the bulldozers duly arrived crowd of protestors that rapidly

The subtle undermining of Nek Chan d ' s p o s ition, begun sur

reptitiously in 1988, was now being confronted head on with vociferous support from the international art

pres s . We can be proud that London's Paul Hamlyn Found

ation was instrumental in funding the Nek Chand Foundation - focusing the energy and support that eventually vanquished the real (and proven to be) corrupt local officials bent on destroying the Rock Garden. Tireless work by John Maizels, amongst others, gave the NCF real political clout and contributed greatly

to the survival and development of the site. Today it enjoys 5,000 visitors a day and has manned workshops to

produce and maintain the myriad of sculptures that inhabit the site, open

proj ect ever realised. Whilst

kingdom of Gods and Goddesses.

tandem,

started

incredible achievement was known

unwanted waste ground. This

were being bestowed on the maker

The Rock Garden of Chandigarh Lucienne Peiry, J o h n M a izels & Phillippe Lespinasse

creation of sculptures made from

menagerie of elephants, horses,

160pp, 140 col illus Fla m m a ri o n Hb £28

broken glass, all transported to the

what is, in effect, a 30 acre park

the bargain price of £28.

cascading waterfalls.

Li n k: www. nekch a n d . com

Chandrigahr developed apace, in

NEK CHAND'S OUTSIDER ART

M I KE VON J O EL

from

India in 1958, barely ten years after

indomitable

)

It will come as no surprise to learn

Taj Mahal, it is a monumental

tribute to a single vision, to a

liminary drawings, the vibrant

pieces of sculpture and landscaping

Nek

Chand

building on a piece of unused,

secret 'building' involved the

detritus, waste pottery, stones and site by Nek Chand on his pushbike.

Working without plans or pre-

this

time,

Nek

Chan d ' s

to the wider world and accolades

of fantastic figure s , and the

monkeys and birds that make up

complete with 'secret' walks and

as it is to the elements.

This is an astounding documentary,

more so to those not already familiar with Nek Chand's edifice.

It's a credit to Flarumarion that it can enable such a full colour and

expansive quality publication for

nmr:s:au•

state of art walks into the Met one day and

various characters study their

been sold a dummy. It masquerades

destroys a $ 4 1 million dollar

motives and relationship to the 'big

spiritual corruption conundrum

as a novel but is really a stageplay

Picasso. The subsequent hoo-ha

issue' at hand.

and demands of the earnest reader: do you recognise yourself ? And,

in disguise. Even if you were

and politicizing of the event by

unaware that the author is an

kultur-niks of all persuasions

The neat twist in the tale enables

with which character do you

accomplished

lauded

allows Aison to examine the fads,

Aison to examine yet another

identify ? Go on now - be honest !

screenwriter - who also has hands

fashions and obsessions of a

and

on experience as an illustrator and

society where art, money and

designer and as an art director - the

personal prestige have distilled into

paced, episodic nature of the text

bigotry and cultural fascism.

shouts it out loud. When closer It's a book for the art world army

the writer and director of three

and, one imagines, would prove to

award winning theatrical shorts -

be a little dull to a civilian

it's a fait accompli.

readership exempted as they are

In Artrage, Everett Aison offers a

posturing that predominates in

witty, erudite and intellectually

gallery/museum environs and the

from the nuances of the intellectual

incisive insight to the mores of the

art-speak that borders on gibberish.

contemporary art world. Set in New

As a stage play it has obvious

York against a backdrop of the

potential.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, a

precedents in Hollywood and snaps not a little of the choreographed

pantomime of instantly recog

'socio-political hypocrisy' when

nisable characters parade across the

Not that

is at all heavy

Tom Wolfe's Wall Street maestro

stage, avoiding outright cliche

handed. There are sneaky signs that

runs over the amateur black

thanks to Everett's easy familiarity

Aison is having a bit of fun here

mugger in Bonfire

Artrage

of the Vanities.

with the genre and the fact that

and there - a number of characters

And you may be tempted to

these pseudo-comic characters

have the surname of notable figures

suspend belief slightly when, post

actually do exist. The story has a

in art. Additionally, the story's

flimsy premise: top lawyer and

evolution during the run up to

in a well appointed ' art crime'

respected collector Mace Caslon

Mace Caslon's show trial has many

lounge complete with private

criminal act, Caslon is incarcerated

bathroom, as opposed to a cell on

ARTRAGE

Riker's Island (or, far more likely,

A novel by Everett Aison

out on immediate bail and back to his fine apartment and extensive art

228pp Pleasure Boat Studio Pb US$16.00

collection). ButAison makes some truly perceptive observations on

M I KE VON JOEL

the meaning of things as the

' M a ce . o u r d e a r p a l To ny j u st doesn't get it. He's sti l l practi cing a dying a rt form. He is great at it. but the a ct of p utti ng paint onto canvas is fast b e co m i n g a corpse. If you don't believe me. start visiting a rt ga l l e r i e s a n d s e e w h at's b e i n g exhibited a ro u n d town. " Ea c h s p r i n g t h e n at i o n ' s a rt schools gra d u ate tens of thousa nds of young men a n d women who are s u p e r b ly tra i n ed a n d te c h n i ca l ly skilled at prod ucing recycled ideas devoid of a ny origi n a l ity and visual co mp lexity. They are yo·u ng m asters of p u b l i c relations a n d m a rketing and a dvertisi ng."

i s buying conte m porary pai ntings? New rich Wall Street jerks. who want to m a ke a n i m press i o n o n t h e i r vis u a l ly u n edu cated friends. a n d the e v e r- i n c r e a s i n g n u m b e r s of t h e s u p e r r i c h , h o p i n g to g e t o n m us e u m boards a nd i ns u re their l o n g te r m i n vestm e n ts. 1 · m begi n n i ng to miss the bad old days of P h i listine repression a n d benign n e g l e ct. B a c k th e n t h e k n ow· nothi ngs were not pretentious."

To ny R i z z o . M a c e. a n d Low e l l M c Ca i n . a te n u re d p rofe s s o r of p h i losophy a n d respected art critic for a we ekly maga z i n e of pol itics and the a rts. are spen d i ng the late afternoon d r i n k i n g together i n a n u nfas h i o n a b l e local n e igh borhood b a r o n M a n h atta n ' s Lower E a st Side. " M c l u h a n saw it c o m i n g fo rty years ago.· continues McCa i n . "Who

"it's a lways been the same: a lot of s h it work is churned out a n d a few important pai nters go their own way: so what's so new a b o ut tod ay?" " T h e s p e e d of e l ectro n i cs h a s c h a nged everyt h i ng. A generati o n h a s grown u p i n a d ifferent visual environment. They look at pai ntings. p h otogra p h s . a n d m o v i es w i t h a n oth e r sense o f tim e . " a n swers M a ce

IN THE eternal battle for TV ratings, the programming

has

reached

tsunami

proportions, holding its own easily against the endless virile cop and medical tosh that media mandarins like to

think

enthralls an

impotent nation. Publishing still favours the photograph. Endless magazines proffer the the essential supplier. It's the new bride

built shack - are linked by a common

All in all, without doubt one of the better 'lifestyle' releases from this Spring's lists.

Le style c'est la vie ! C'est le sang meme de la pensee !

<ll

Thames & Hudson lead the field for

coming. As each new house owner settles

The New Country Style: England (272pp, 570 col illus. T&H £24.95 Hb) is return to formula with owners participating is the delineation of their (necessarily splendid) h o m e s . The u s u al top-notch quality

aspirational homemakers

principal - there ' s always another one

photographs are matched by comments from the proud residents who have

down to make home, the absolute necessity

stalwartly stood by while the stylists clean

is to pour over pages and pages 9f examples

up and 'en-flower' their sitting rooms and

of the job done by the design politburo. It's

Unlike the ' . . . Style' series before, the Way

design magazine archives can last before

lock the moulting Labrador in the

an addictive pastime. But it has to be

We Live . . . offers an all round experience of

every house in the world has been featured.

cameraman's Espace. One often feels that

The same cannot be said of Contemporary

card, so candid are these generous hosts.

acknowledged that the opportunity to peek

the subject. All aspects of

behind the curtains of others is irresistible,

examined: colour palettes and materials;

and anyone claiming not to fmd some form

washed

of inspiration from it is deluded. In the UK

��

McCa i n nods. i n d i cating it's h is tu rn .

passion and a seductive freedom of spirit.

graceful home and the glossy, high definition new look, the latest must-have designer, and

" G i ve me a s ign w h e n yo u ' r e through . · says Tony.

designer lair to the most elementary self

flood of ' h omes & interiors' related

()

dimension of the art/money/

BUY TillS as a novel and you've

inspection reveals EverettAison as

::< �

S U M M ER 2006

By the Sea

burglars must have a Waterstones loyalty

are

feature s ;

Natural ( 1 9 6 p p ; 3 4 5 col illus. T&H

Writer Chloe Grimshaw roams across the

architecture and boats; a long way, i n fact,

£17.95 Pb) a survey of artists and designers

UK with Ingrid Rasmussen behind the

materials

and

it is celebrated art publisher Thames &

from the pure catalogue of envy-me-interiors

whose private spaces have an accent on

lens, visiting coastal cottages, stately piles

Hudson that has cornered the market for

of yore. The only sad note in this genial romp

wood. Here, creative talents of all hues

and rural splendour and not decrying the

baroque and mirrors.

across the world's beaches is the reference

respond to that most basic and ancient of

odd deluxe B & B . J e s s i c a and Peter

to the French photographer. Gilles de

materials and the results are highly

Sainsbury found country hotels too 'stuffy

A true milestone in this field was Thames &

Chabaneix, a prominent feature of many of

personal and, of course, quite unique.

or old fashioned' so they opened their own

Hudson's ' . . . Style' series of the 1 980s and

these proj ects, apparently died before

Djibril Sagma makes found wood sculpture

it is good to see that Stafford Cliff, the mentor

publication.

in his open-air (ie. no roof and disused

of this, still at the coal face. English Style; French Style; Japanese Style etc are now

In the same format (the attractive square trade

one

does.

Cowley

Manor

(Gloucestershire) is dream destination for

factory) Senegalese studio. Aboudramane

the over tired and emotional. Greville

uses his cabinet-maker skills, honed on the

Worthington converts his abandoned

classics and much imitated, but the attractive

paperback) the ' . . . Country' series continues

Ivory Coast, to fabricate wooden artifacts

church in North Yorkshire to a modernist

square format lives on in the 'Way We Live'

with Scandinavian Country (240pp; 290 col

in his Paris high-rise home. Henrik Allert

illus. T&H £ 1 9.95 Pb). A return to familiar

left farming in southern Sweden to turn

stage where Arne Jacobsen and Victorian

series and the latest offering from the library of envy is The Way We Live ••. By the Sea

(256pp; 250 col illus. T&H £1 9.95 Hb). The

territory by

House Beautiful editor Jo Ann

sculptor, o c c u p ying b arns that were

enviable locations and equally enviable

Barwick, here a parade of desirable home

previously part of his family farm as a

relationships that have melded to realise

sea and the English are inseparable and

interiors, with explanatory guides and

studio. And the list goes on - from Iceland

often stupendous projects, these books

inordinately proud of their island status. Here

descriptions, offer a survey of Sweden,

to Tuscany; Finland to Spain; California

have no trace of snobbery. For every

the aptly named Cliff lets us meet other

Norway and Denmark as sources for

to Estonia; and yes, England too. This is

fortunate individual modernising a family

Gothick can play together.

Despite the

societies in a similar situation - but who also

inspiration. With IKEA being so popular

an inspirational book, and seeing the

inheritance with the trendiest of architects,

have the advantage of clear skies, balmy

across all strata of society, the release of this

innovative and spiritually fulfilled lives of

there is another who has created something

winds, sun and bright blue waters. Cliff has

in paperback is opportune. With accents on

the many nationalities featured here seems

unique with sixpence and a vision. And

maintained a sense of humour: here he

the clean, functional design; painted surfaces

a lot more immediate than having the right

perhaps the most inspirational aspect of

juxtaposes a Scottish fishing harbour with

and mellow wood,

Belfast sink for a

others from Sicily and the Sydney waterfont

offers no surprises and the eclectic range of

- it holds its own - but elsewhere he is hard

home styles is perhaps overly familiar.

Author

Although one cannot fault the quality of these

photographer Solvi dos S antos do their

overall story. Even the examples of the

editions, colour reproduction is first class,

subjects proud and the gamut of creative

famous beach hut are from Cape Town !

one does wonder how long these tie-ins with

individuals - from the most sophisticated

pushed to included any UK examples in the

Scandinavian Country

Victorian farm

this book is the happy couples who live

kitchen recreated in a loft in Manhattan.

within and have pulled together to make it

Phyllis

faux

Richardson

and

all happen. (MvJ)

(1) Style is l ife I it is the very l ife-blood of thought! Gustave Flaubert: Letter 1853

state of art

fli'Tit:S.&IJII

S U M M ER 2006

RECENT RELEAS ES : FI N E ART BOO KS & CATALO G U ES EDITOR ROWLAN D THOMAS

REVIEWS ROWLAND THOMAS (RT) BRIAN McAVERA (BMcA)

MICHAELA FREEMAN (MIF) M VON JOEL (MVJ) CHARLES KANE (CK)

the fluid and meditative nature of art Bustamante is internationally acclaimed; his work has been exhibited at the Tate Gallery, the Jeu de Paume, and the Documenta. In 2003, Bustamante represented France at the 50th Venice Biennial. Bustamente is another new title in Flammarion's Contemporary Collection, which looks set to rival Phaidon's Contemporary Artists series as an affordable range of texts on artists at work today. While their (rather gimmicky) perforated covers might put them ahead of the Phaidon books in terms of production values, the Flammarion books so far lack the coherent structuring of the Contemporary Artists titles. (CK)

�§

-::: :-.::- .':\.-.:..-::".::::..-;.: ::::::: =-=��=.� =::-� :..u..· �

WiTH'DOOGAiTKEN

EXPANDING THE IMAGE BREAKINGTHE NARRATIVE Broken Screen: Expanding the Image, Breaking the Narrative. 26 Conversations with Doug Aitken 288pp. 310 col 65 b&w ill us. Pb. Distributed Art Publishers £21.95 BROKEN SCREEN IS comprised of informal conversations between artist Doug Aitken and a roster of 26 carefully chosen artists, filmmakers, designers, and architects. Part guidebook and part manifesto, the book takes a fresh look at what it's like to create work in a world that has become increasingly fragmentary. Through casual and direct discussions, Broken Screen offers a detailed navigation through the ideas behind the important yet under documented visual language of non-linear narratives, split screens, and fragmentary visual planes that define the most progressive moving images today. Presented in 26 illustrated chapters, the focus here lies on the shattering of the linear narrative in the visual arts through the use of image-based work to articulate the speed and fragmentation of modern life. Perhaps best of all, Broken Screen is a unique opportunity for readers to learn the thoughts and personal beliefs of these artists in their own words and imagery, unencumbered by critical or commercial filters, and communicated in the manner of a conversation between friends. it also seeks to produce a cultural manifesto for new communication, expression, and understanding i n both the present a n d future - much as Marshal! McLuhan's Medium is the Massage did. With its accessible conversational style, forward-thinking graphic design, and over 300 high-contrast images, Broken Screen extends across many disciplines including art, film, design, and architecture, and is sure to become an important document of our time. (CK) John Armleder. Lionel Bovier and Stephanie Moisdon. 208 pages, illus. Hb. Flammarion £25.00

INTERNATIONALLY acclaimed Swiss artist John Armleder defies the limitations of style and media by mixing them in refreshing combinations. John Armleder's furniture-sculptures combine painting and sculpture, drawing liberally from traditional art references, from modernist art, modern design, constructivism; and art deco, to minimalism, op art, music, and film. The resulting images, sculptures, and installations often involve the viewer's active participation; his art is as much experienced as it is viewed. Armleder has exhibited his work extensively throughout Europe and North America. His work Untitled (FS 181) is part of the permanent collection of the M useum of Modern Art in New York. The artist also curated the exhibition None of the Above (Winter 2004-2005) at the Swiss Institute of Contemporary Art in New York. This comprehensive book charts Armleder's career through an interview, an analytical retrospective text, and 150 images, which present the artist's eclectic output from his early work to his current projects. His theoretical texts and critical pieces are published here together for the first time.(CK) Jean-Marc Bustamante. Jacinto

Lageira, Ulrich Loock and Christine Macel. 208 pages, illustrated throughout in colour and b&w. Hb. Flammarion £25.00 AFTER WORKING with American photographer and filmmaker William Klein, Jean-Marc Bustamante held his first exhibition in 1982 and met the sculptor Bazile. They collaborated for three years, which lead Bustamante to experiment with other media. He advocates a reciprocal relationship between artist and spectator, in which both parties engage in the aesthetic definition of a piece. He rejects notions of documentary and fixed aesthetics, relying instead on

relentless proliferation'. The antibody 'perverts codes, arrests normal operations, reveal latent information or meaning, executes instructions, triggers mechanisms to recognise its activity, and perseveres in memory'. The structure of the book has been inspired by these characteristics, with chapters titled Code as Muse, Deep Play, Autobotography, Designing Politics, Reweaving Co!Jlmunity, Preserving Artificial Life, Redefining Art One might not agree with the theory of antibodies as something slightly far fetched or complain that some important projects are missing (probably because they didn't fit into the antibodies theory?), still, this is an indispensable guide to digital art in the last decade, coming from a new, different perspective compared to previous titles on digital art. (MIF)

a.'

i:j s:

Max Ernst. Werner Spies (Editor) 352pp 615 illus. Hb. £35.00

At the Edge of Art. Joline Blais and

Jon lppolito. 256 pages, 580 colour illustrations. Hb. Thames & Hudson £19.95

THIS IS AN impressive survey of digital and internet art, each project with an analytical description and image. But the book goes beyond mere listing of these. lt offers a way to grasp this elusive and fluid art form, or rather, as the title of the book suggests, the numerous projects happening on 'the edge of art'. Being free from restrictions of the traditional art scene is what makes online art so appealing to both the viewers and the makers who come from a wide range of backgrounds. If we can compare the technology to the virus, then art is the antibody which offers us 'an im portant check on technology's

... _

PRESENTS A portrait of Max Ernst's life and an intellectual portrait of an entire period. These letters and notes by friends and contempor aries provide insight into the reception of his oeuvre, illustrate Ernst's own texts and shed light on his biography, and are interspersed with numerous reproductions of his work. Max Ernst draws on an unprecedented collection of source material, much of it published here for the first time, to present a compelling portrait of the artist's life and an intellectual portrait of an entire period. These letters and notes by friends and contemporaries provide insight into the reception of his oeuvre, illustrate Ernst's own texts and shed light on his biography, and are interspersed with numerous reproductions of his work, all of which recall the variety and richness of the artist's discoveries and innovations. (CK) The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Aries 368 pp. Hb. Fig Tree £14.99

FROM OCTOBER to December 1888, Paul Gauguin shared a home in Aries with Vincent van Gogh. This was, without doubt, the most celebrated cohabitation in art history: never, before or since have two such towering artistic talents been penned up in so small a space. They were the Odd Couple of art history. Predictably, the results were explosive. The denouement of their life together has entered into folk lore. Two months after G a uguin arrived in Aries, Van Gogh suffered a psychological crisis. He spent most of the rest of his life in a ·

mental institution. Gauguin fled from Aries, and they never saw each other again. But in the brief period during which they worked together a stream of masterpieces was created within the studio they shared, including Van Gogh's paintings of his own chair and Gauguin's. Meanwhile his Sunflowers decorated Gauguin's bedroom wall. Here for the first time, the full story of their life together is told. Making use of fresh research and new'evidence, Martin Gayford describes not only how they painted and exchanged ideas, but also the texture of their everyday life. As well as the great pictures, he considers the way ' these two geni uses cooked, and drank, their clothes and daily routine - and also their inner thoughts, hopes, fears and dreams. The book culminates in a persuasive analysis of Van Gogh's mental illness and the swirling thoughts that led him to slice off an ear and present it to a prostitute. This is a novel type of biography, more drama than epic. Its aim is to put you, the reader, inside the little four-roomed dwelling which these two turbulent men inhabited: the Yellow House. (CK)

Xenia Hausner: Hide and Seek

Rainer Metzger and Katharina Sykora. 128 pp. 90 col. illus. H b. Prestel £30.00 GERMAN PAINTER Xenia H a usner originally studied stage design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and at the RADA in London. The garish palette and dramatic lighting in her paintings are a clear vestige of her training in this parallel discipline, as, perhaps, is the rather anachronistic 'theatricality' of her portaits, which are steeped in the intensity of early 20th-century Expressionism. Hide and Seek a pproaches Hausner's work through the context of her creative process. Designed by H a usner herself, this book's broad, horizontal format incorporates photographs, sketches, and notes assembled like collages - to enhance brilliant reproductions of

l1iTir:s:&'irr1 her pieces. Accompanying the illustrations are essays discussing the influence of Hausner's work in the theater and on her art, and focusing on her search for motifs.

Ruscha's Full Moon.

Paul Ruscha 184 pp. illus. Pb. Steidl £10.00

'THIS IS A book about the things I like to look at in-and-around my house. Things I like to study from day-to-day in an attempt to figure out why I am attracted to them; and just what about them has me wanting to be their caretaker? They have become creatures in my personal zoo.' Paul Ruscha's home is a m useum to the compulsions of collecting. Since early childhood, he has been incapable of discarding anything and has built a collection out of everything from appliances to corporate detritus: typewriters, toasters, hair dryers, cameras, cocktail shakers, coffee makers, old ink pens, baseball caps, odd pieces of wood, and press-apply stickers which adorn every inch of the cabinets in his overcrowded kitchen. One of the oldest collections is the numbered paper inspection slips that began appearing in the pockets of new items of clothing. This book is an incomplete and imprecise inventory of Paul Ruscha's collection, a collection that also includes significant paintings, sculpture and objects accumulated over the years. lt also includes texts by Ruscha, explicating the nature of his attachment to the various elements of his collection, as well as reminiscences on the artists whose work he has been collecting. Paul Ruscha works as in-house studio photographer and documentarian for his brother, the artist Ed Ruscha. (CK) Albers and Moholy-Nagy: From the Bauhaus to the New World

Achim Borchardt-Hume, Hal Foster et al. 192pp, 180 ill us, Pb Tate Publishing £24.99 AS ACHIM Borchardt-Hume states, and he is the editor and contributor to this catalogue, as well as being the main curator of the accompany ing exhibition, the six essays in the book are intended to trace the journey of both of these artists from Weimar Germany to Post-War America, where both of them subsequently became American citizens. For the editor, this means following the collective dreams and ideas of that pre-war generation from an utopian belief in a new social order to the dystopia of Nazi

state of art Germany through to the nuclear age. Both of these artists, according to the editor, abruptly converted to abstraction. Both of them had a strong crafVdesigner bias, and both of them produced key books: Albers with his Theory of Colour, and Moholy-Nagy with The New Vision & Vision in Motion. If Albers' career, as represented by his best known works Homage to the Square series, is reductionist, that of Moholy-Nagy is the reverse in every sense, in that he operated across the entire spectrum of arts and crafts, working in experimental photography, collage, painting, movies, and all forms of advertising. Ironically Albers, who criticised Van Doesburg for a 'cruel insistence on straight lines and right angles' which he considered to be 'just mechanical decoration', ended up producing endless variations on 'straight lines and right angles', though other than a belief in the spirituality of art - a belief which Moholy-Nagy did not share - we are not informed as to what caused this sea-change or why he believed that his art was not simply decoration. Even more oddly, as Clement Greenberg was a visitor to the Black Mountain College when Albers was teaching there, no opportunity is taken to relate Alber's subsequent production of the Homage to the Square series to Greenberg's theories on flatness and so forth. There are a number of interesting comments about Moholy-Nagy and his anti-individualism, or erasure of the artist's hand. Reference is made to Telephone Paintings (seemingly he telephoned instructions to craftsmen) and obviously this bears an interesting relationship to the manner in which many artists worked during the period of Minimalism and after. lt would have been useful to have this are explored in depth, and indeed to discuss in depth whether either artist produced 'art' or 'craft', distinctions which they themselves quite deliberately blurred. lt seems a bit unfair to complain about a publication in relation to these artists when there is relatively little contem porary material on them. As such one should stress that all of the essays cover interesting ground, the plates are for the most part very good indeed (and in the List of Exhibits they are cross-referenced where applicable), and that the appendices, especially the excellent Chronology, detailed notes, and solid bibliography are all admirably done. One of the practical problems of assembling a catalogue like this is the problem of repetition, and often information is repeated from one essay to another, sometimes to the factor of four. Equally often ideas or topics are raised only to be dispensed with in a paragraph or two. For instance there is little on Moholy-Nagy's Photograms - one of those areas where the artist has a major claim to originality - or on their relationship to those of Man Ray, Christian Schad, Schwitters and others. But if you want a solid, well-written, well-illustrated and often entertaining account of these two artists, then buy this. One other caveat Often works of art are discussed, but not illustrated, or else (as on page 77 for example) a work is mentioned but no page reference to the illustration is given.(B.McA)

S U M M ER 2006

SHIPLEY MAI L O RD E R SERVI CE FO R ANY ART B O O K the beginning of the book which situates the use of photography by the Bloomsbury group from the early years up until the 1930's. lt has to be said that many of the images are poorly taken in the first place, and that some are reproduced twice (different versions being in different albums) but in at least one case with different credits! But overall this is very well researched, if rather boringly designed. (B.McA)

Snapshots of Bloomsbury: The Private Uves of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell

Maggie H u m m 228pp, 200 illus. Hb Tate Publishing £25.

IT'S A SAFE bet that this book will sell well, as the Bloomsbury industry is an extensive one. lt should be said at the outset however that this book is for dedicated fans or specialists. lt consists primarily of two hundred black and white photographs, primarily but not exclusively amateur snapshots - it is leavened by some professional images which follow the classic Bloomsbury people be they at leisure, or posing for their portraits. Very few of the images are interesting as images, though they obviously have a great deal of interest for historians of all kinds. The author has spent a great deal of effort in tracking down and identifying the people in the photographs, drawing on 'diaries, letters and autobiographies' and making connections between, for example, Virginia Woolf's photographs and specific passages in her books. There is also a catalogue of the 'Monk's House Albums' which contain these images, a very substantial bibliography, and a long essay at

Visiting Picasso

The Blaue Reiter Almanac

ed Wassily Kandinsky & Franz Marc 296pp Pb Tate Publishing £12.99 ONE OF THE pleasures of Tate Publishing is their reissue of interesting but difficult to find texts, or their production of anthologies to complement an exhibition or theme. The Blue Rider Almanac is a famous document i n art history but its first edition appeared in 1914, and its second one in 1965, both of them being issued in very small numbers. In 1965, a documentary edition appeared in German, edited by Klaus Lankheit, and the translation of this was produced by Thames & H udson i n 1974. Over thirty years later, this edition

has been reprinted by the Tate. Size, typography and paper have been modernised in relation to the original editions but the sequence of texts and illustrations have been retained, though the images are now in black a n d white, rather than colour. In addition to the original essays which are mainly by Kandinsky, Franz Marc and the composer Arnold Schonberg there is a very substantial H istory of the Almanac by the scholar Klaus Lankheit as well as additional documentation, plus notes on the contributors, illustrations and musical compositions. This is complemented by an extensive bibliography by the always reliable Bernard Karpel, librarian of M aMA, NYC, though this is obviously only up to the previous 1974 publishing date. For those of you who like to ponder on the changing fortunes, or rather changing attitudes, of artists, it is instrumental to note that Kandi nsky, who has a solid claim to being one of the major figures in the development of abstract art, noted in the second edition of the Almanac 'that the question of form in a rt was secondary, that the question of art was primarily one of content'.(B.McA)

·a uniquely candid account of Picasso

at WOrk and at play'

The S u n d a y Telegraph

'Extraordinary ... as a

.L'

psychological case study, an art-historical reso urce, a ca utionary tale for biographers or simply as sheer entertainment,

Vis iti ng Picasso is hard to put down '

Hilary Spurling, The Observer

'Highly reada ble ... fascinating ... riveting'

Frank Whitford, The Sun day Times

Available from all good bookshops or on line at www.thamesandhudson.com

� Thames Hudson &

A.v. "-�rr� � ·· {""'� 'i �-

K,i1.f....l.- J"'....ry--<...

----- -- ....-�---...

Visiting Picasso The Notebooks and Letters of Roland Penrose Edited and annotated by Elizabeth Cowling

72 111ustrations 23.5 x 17.2cm 408pp ISBN 0500 512930 £25.00 hb

state of art

s tate 2 1

S U M M ER 2006 is

berg's judgements were spot on. He

book, particularly in terms of the

The Rise and Fall of Clement Greenberg, it should be

w a s , largely, accurate in h i s

wealth of newly published detail,

estimation o f artists such as

and in the often sharp observation.

more properly titled, on the

Pollock, David Smith, Noland,

For instance she points out that

evidence of the book itself, The

Frankenthaler, Olitski and so on.

abstract art was used as a tool by

Rise

ALTHOUGH

THIS

b o ok

subtitled

Their reputations may rise or fall,

the American government (touring

Greenberg. Clem Greenberg was

and

Fall

but they are firmly fixed in the

exhibitions abroad were often

one of the most famous art critics

canon

century

funded by the CIA) in terms of

of the twentieth century, the man

American art - and that is largely

promoting the idea of America as

who

due to Greenberg who championed

the

them consistently.

individualism, as opposed to the

Marquis also makes much of

society in the period.

created

framework

and

the for,

Rise

theoretical and

was

twentieth

instrumental in promoting, both Abstract

Expressionism

Colour Field Painting. This book

Greenberg' s getting work - as gifts

is a highly enj o yable, though

- from the artists (the implication,

man which entertainingly treats of his numerous sexual partners (from novelist Mary McCarthy to the artist Helen Frankenthaler) fills in

( Left to right J a ckson Pollock. u n k n ow n c h i l d . C l e m e nt G r e e n b e rg. H e l e n Fra n ke nth a l er. Lee Krasner. At the beach in 1952

deftly the somewhat poisonous

ART CZAR

American art s c ene between, roughly, 1 940 and 1990 - dealers, collectors, galleries, artists and curators - and along the way, in

freedom

and

distinctly unfree nature of Soviet

and

scarcely balanced biography of the

land

THE RISE AND FALL OF CLEMENT GREENBERG Al ice Goldfa rb M a rq u is

rather journalistic fashion, reports

on as opposed to analysing, his role

Lund H u m p h ries 322pp, 16 mono i l lus, H b £25

as an art critic and guru.

BRIAN M cAV ERA

But often her value judgements

though this is not spelt out, is that

are rather strange as when she

his judgements were influenced by

b e rat e s

such gifts), and also makes much

e s o teric

of his seemingly presumptive

unaware that many o f those she

studio visits in which he discussed

quotes, such as ' animadverted'

the artist's art and told them what

were the staple of the nineteenth

the

critic for u s i n g

w o rd s ,

s eemingly

he thought of i t . Again, the

and e arly t w e nt i e th c e n tury

impression given in the book is of

fiction upon which he, and most

a domineering critic telling the

of literate s o ciety then, were

artist what to do, and what not to

brought up. The book wants to

do. In relation to the gifts, artists

have its cake and eat it in that it

have given critics presents of work

pretends to be objective, but the

throughout

tone

the

age s ,

and

Greenberg ' s case as the author

and

the

l an g u a g e

are

anything but. So she will describe

Greenberg emerges, in this portrait,

admits herself, he worked tirelessly

the critic as b e h aving like a

as a rather unpleasant man, who by

to promote and help the artists he

petulant schoolboy - not exactly

turns

could

b o mb astic,

patronising, abusive, violent to the

both of these critics correct in their

his first marriage. All of this way

believed in, so it is not surprising,

an objective assertion or, when

and only reasonable, that they

referring to an exhibition that

Like many of Marquis's statements,

rewarded him with a painting now

and

the one about later artists being

and then.

Greenberg did was to make clear

'better-educated' is really quite

point of sadism, and uncaring in that he virtually ignored his son by

blip on the radar of art history.

assessments of Post Modernism? What

both

Rosenberg

Greenberg curated of Noland's work, she describe s Noland's wife as someone who 'gushed' to

well be true but it doesn't quite

cut value judgements. As Marquis

strange. If she means that, in terms

His behaviour in the studio is a

square

points out - but does not explore -

of art history alone, she is probably

more interesting question. In the

surprised, pleased, awed or just

contradictory evidence that i s

the fact is that although art critics

correct. But art history does not an

experience of this reviewer, artists

plain worried about the show ' s

presented, such a s how come that

in the wake of Rosenberg and

educated

B oth

are not easily cowed by critics, and

strong

throughout his life, his best and

Greenberg tended to be university

Greenberg and Rosenberg - as she

major artists rarely are. They also

'gushed' adequately describe this

with

the

mass

man

make !

Greenberg that ' artists were

impre s s i o n ' .

Does

most constant friends were women.

trained in art history and thus were

herself points out - were widely

recognize, rather rapidly, whether

quotation? It would seem that the

Clearly, the man had something . . .

supposedly 'better-educated' than

read

a critic (or a friend or anyone

biographer doesn't really like the

these men, almost none of them felt

enormous range of subjects and

interested in art) is o f any

critic - and it frequently shows.

It's quite easy, especially from the

confident enough to make value

thu s capable of seeing art in

practical use to them, and if they

Overall, this is a good 'read' but

vantage point of today, to present

judgements - and so they made a

relation to the rest of the world,

aren't, they don't get studio time.

don't be expecting any analysis

the critic as a man who failed to

virtue of the fact. What is becoming

rather than seeing it simply as

Marquis doesn't quote a single

of Greenberg's theories or any

men,

interested

adapt to his time, a lumbering

increasingly clear, in the wake of

existing

instance of an artist belittling

di s c u s s i o n as to whether h i s

bronto s aurus who hammered

daft pronouncements like those of

discipline of art history.

Greenberg's studio 'critique' but

theories a n d viewpoints were

anything he disliked or anyone he

the university professor who

she does quote a number of them

positive or negative. We are told

disliked into submission. For

stated that the Soaps were just as

Although this reviewer, personally,

writing to the critic in admiring

for instance that Greenberg ' s ideas were heavily indebted t o the

within

the

narrow

instance Marquis states that, like

'good' as Shakespeare, is that the

would take marked exception to

terms and praising his 'eye' . In

that other maj or critic Harold

wheel is turning full circle, and

much

work,

view of the acuity of his best

theories of Hans Hoffman - an

Rosenberg, his problem was an

the world of seri o u s art ( as

particularly

reductionist

writings on art, and his long

interesting insight - but not one

Greenberg ' s his

�

'inability to adjust to contemporary

opposed to the marketplace) is

mentality and his emphasis on

survival, it seems more likely that

word is produced in support of

tastes' such as Pop Art, and Post

beginning to feel the need, once

content residing in the materials of

artists found him a useful, if stern

this theory. There is another and

Modernism in general. Now this

again, for value judgements. It's

painting or sculpture, it is already

analyst of their work.

begs a whole series of questions,

the Po st-Modernist notion of

becoming clear that - like it or

the most obvious of which is: were

'value-free' attitudes that was the

lump it - a wide range of Green-

better book to be written on this formidably annoying man, but in

There is much to admire in this

the meantime, this fills a gap.

...

2 2state

state of art

STATE O F P LAY

S U M M ER 2006

baltic

Jero·m e Sans to Gateshead Baltic 'aris based maestro to reinstate ailing Baltic image?

notes G EORGINA TURNER ......

C'EST EXTRAORDINAIRE! Formidable! Baltic Director, Peter Doroshenko

has invited French art agitator Jerome Sans to join the international team at the

Baltic in Newcastle/Gateshead.

Sans told State

ofArt:

'I took the post because, well, Baltic is big - the third

biggest space in Britain. And I like the energy and vitality of Newcastle. It is a new stage in an ongoing adventure and I will do things my way: encourage permanent dialogue, interaction, involvement. If you have energy you can do

many things and at the •same time. '

ABOVE : Jerome Sans o n e h a lf of the e l e ctro n i c rock m u s i c d u o Liquid Architecture (with vocal ist Aud rey M a s c i n a ) . BELOW : fa n m a i l at the Pa l a is de Tokyo

" Faced with the plethora of poss i b i l ities, what ga me should we play?"

Jerome Sans

state of art

state2 3

SUM M ER 2006

So what should the regenerated Tynesiders expect? Control will be demagogic and democratic. Jerome Sans' style is about energy, excitement, creativity and artistic excess. It should turn Baltic into a Grand Cafe for contemporary art with midnight openings and cool vernissages. Sans is also half of the electronic rock music duo L!quid Architecture with vocalist Audrey Mascina. Their latest CD is called Revolution is Over on the Naive label and includes a song that could have been written for Baltic called Kiss Your Future. A DVD is due out to coincide with the next FIAC in October 2007.

EUROSTATE

� \. !fit\l\ ._J -

, \_ �I.: •

paris diary

Coming to a venue near you . . . Top Paris Shows transfer to UK

report GEORGINA TURNER

Jerome Sans : j ust m ight be the accepta b l e face of th e a la mode cu rator for

the h o rd es of G eo rd i es b e si eging the Ba ltic.

Co-founder and eo-director with Nicholas Bourriaud of the Palais de Tokyo site de creation contemporaine, Paris, Jerome Sans has become a cult figure within French contemporary art circles, his name paint-sprayed along the pillars outside the Palais de Tokyo - assumed to be an admirer. As such he has his detractors, is controversial, but his supporters are many and cross the social hierarchies. The French Minister of Culture and Communication, Renauad Donnedieu de Vabres, is determined to maintain the success at the Palais de Tokyo by investing heavily to restore it. And Bertrand Delanoe, the Mayor of Paris, Iias handed the directorship of the Nuit Blanche 2007 (the all night October art event) to Sans and Bourriaud.

STATEO

�RT

Balticgate - cont'd REGULAR READERS will recollect our exposure of the fiasco regarding the Baltic's involvement with the Louis Vuitton store in Paris. Here, the Baltic commissioned Chris Burden's meccano model of the Tyne Bridge which subsequently appeared at the new Espace Louis Vuitton via the Gagosian Gallery. As British taxpayers, or the Baltic, apparently received not a penny from this $700,000 transaction, it was a case of omerta* until BBC regional television got in on the act. Interviewed on camera, the Arts Council's James Bustard denied point blank that Burden's Tyne Bridge had been sold - cut to Paris and Louis Vuitton and - oli - there it was! The silly Bustard might be forgiven if one takes the overview that the Baltic, indirectly, was involving itself in a prestigious, high profile, new exhibition space (and programme) located in the centre of Paris - and interfacing with the likes of the Gagosian Gallery, the world's most successful dealer in contemporary art (© Larry Gagosian). Unfortunately, it now transpires that far from engaging in philanthropic support for cutting edge art, all that concerns Louis Vuitton (CEO Bernard Arnault) is dodging the harsh French trading restrictions on Sunday opening. The snob store, that regularly rations its very expensive ($800 to $3,000) handbags to the hordes of Japanese women who queue for hours outside, had been forced to close all day Sunday under the draconian trading regulations of Paris. However, museums and 'cultural, recreational or sportif' venues can be exempted. And so, enter Espace Louis Vuitton, constructed on the top floor of their seven storey building in the Champs-Elysees. The original 'museum space' has evolved into a 'cultural centre' and - voila - the store is now open on Sunday. Louis Vuitton boasts that its flagship emporium is the 'largest luxury boutique in the world' , with 1 ,800 square metres of retail space and an average of 6,000 customers a day. 'The cultural space is fake', claims Joseph Thouvenel, the Secretary General of The French Christian Labor Union (CFTC), Paris branch, 'If they really want to be cultural, they should just close the shopping floors and keep only the museum open,' he claims. Perhaps the most incisive quote on the matter is from Yves Carcelle, the Chairman and Chief Executive of the luxury goods firm. He says: 'Sell more handbags? Yes, that's my dream.' With support from the Baltic and British tax payers of course. Bobby Shaftoe *omerta - the mafia code of silence

BY THE END of 2006, a series of grands projets will establish an avenue of culture consisting of new and renovated museums along the right bank of the Seine. It will include the Louvre and the refurbished Musee des Arts Decoratifs leading through the Orangerie and Jeu de Paume in the Tuilerie Gardens to the Grand Palais and Petit Palais. This aesthetic promenade embraces existing museums - Palais de Tokyo site de creation contemporaine , Musee d'Art Moderne, Musee Galliera (Fashion), Musee Guimet (Oriental art) and the Trocadero cultural complex incorporating the Palais de Chaillot and the new Cite de 1' architecture et du patrimoine (Architecture and Heritage). The route then crosses the river to the new Musee du quai Branly (Ethnography), designed by Jean Nouvel. The continuing expansion of Paris' museum culture is not so unusual. On Saturday 20th May, the second nuit des musees involved 850 French museums, and 8 1 0 other European museums, which will stay open until midnight, free of charge, with specific events organised on the theme of museums and young visitors. More interesting is the revived interest in French and international contemporary art with both the public and private sectors. There is more to Paris than the Centre Georges Pompidou and the unexpected success of the controversial Palais de Tokyo - which now describes itself as the most important avant-garde art centre in Europe - has played an important part in the process of acceptance for new art initiatives. The traditional art establishment has followed the progress of the Palais de Tokyo, with initial suspicion turning into enthusiastic support. The canny French State has subsequently backed the revival of Paris' international prestige with substantial funding to support the concept of Paris as a city of contemporary creativity. Even the Grand Palais is following this revival in French creativity with a major exhibition La Force de l'Art - a new rendezvous with creation in France (to 25 June 2006). This initiative is a direct response to the quintennial British Art Show and is planned to be presented triennially to promote contemporary artists working in France. If by 2012, London aims to become the City of Sport, Paris will be the City of Culture. The French are determined to counter the American and British monopoly on contemporary art. It's an international status thing as well as a recognition of the attraction of the luxury economy to cities where art is an essential part of the tricoleur blend of culture, fashion and metropolitan living. It is no coincidence that the first French Triennial of Art -La Force de l 'Art (The Power of Art) opened at the Grand Palais as the third Tate Triennial ended in London. It is not a modest affair. The renovated Grand Palais is vast cathedral-like space. And it has a past to live up to: the FIAC (International Contemporary Art Fair) was held there until 1993 in a pre-eminent position on the international circuit. Signified by a huge erection of a Pouce by Cesar beckoning visitors at the entrance. A month later, a rivet fell from the framework of the 35-metre high nave, forcing the closure of the Grand Palais and the removal of Cesar's thumb to the corporate desert of La Defense on the western outskirts of Paris. On 9th

May 2006, contemporary art returned the Grand Palais. As a sign of how seriously matters of state and culture are intertwined, instructions came from the office of French Prime Minister to the Minister of Culture and Communication, Renauad Donnedieu de Vabres, to set up a Comite de Reflexion or ThinkTank of art mandarins. Their task was to decide how best to exhibit the what's what and who's who in French creation - the concept of art by artists working in France, though not necessarily French. () <D (!)

g�

a. a;·

� () � :::; � :;·

� � (!)

A celebrated member of the ThinkTank was cult figure Catherine Millet, media-art pundit and founder and chief editor of the influential contemporary art magazine Art Press. She caused a voyeuristic media scandal when her autobiography, The Sexual Life of Catherine M, was published in 200 1 . The book describes in dispassionate detail her penchant for random sexual encounters. Although she could name only forty-nine of her eo-respondents, she claimed a tally of over five thousand partners, predominantly masculine and mainly in multiple scenarios. The shock factor being dependent on her academic demeanour, bluestocking background and hitherto unrecognised sexual charisma. For La Force de l 'Art fifteen art experts were chosen as a cross section of the controlling art world elite and given carte blanche to organise the exhibition, each with their own dedicated space, using any cultural medium and the authority to borrow works from artists, private and public collections. The selectors included: Dominique Marches, Xavier Veilban (artists); Hou Hanru (curator); Eric Troncy, Philippe Vergne (directors of art centres ) ; Lorand Hegyi (museums) ; Nathalie Ergino (FRACs - foods regionaux d' art contemporain); Richard Leydier (ArtPress),

�

Olivier Zahm (Purple), Bernard Marcade, Daniel Soutif (editors and art critics); Paul Ardenne, Eric de Chassey, Catherine de Smet, Anne Tronche (art historians and academics).

With over 150 international art bienniales taking place apart from the annual rota of contemporary art fairs, there is a serious and competitive edge to placing your national art brand. The three-year exhibition gap allows time for reflexion away from the flux of art activity and demand for instant gratification. At a glance, it resembles any of the current manifestation of art expo. A fairground mixture of mysterious curtained rooms showing videos out of context, overscaled objects, allegory, ....

state of art

S U M M E R 2006

metaphor, a few transexuals and the intention to provoke a reaction from the spectator. The art mantra of

invert and subvert is ever

present, and the lilac fibreglass

Mickey Mouse with an unlikely large phallus must be the obligatory pervert section. Unsurprisingly, in the selection of work by over 200 artists, there is an overwhelming feeling of pedagogy, social critique, political symbolism, academic correctness and establishment righteousness, not forgetting the legacy of Duchamp. Pavilion 13,

The Croquis de ['installation du Baron de Triqueti, curated by Xavier Veilhan, borrows pubic statuary from nine artists, including

Calder and Vasarely to classical statuary, to reflect on the nature of

1998. Etc h i ng. Edition 25 38.2 x 42.5 ems

Prunella Clough Trefoil

public art. Pavilion 5,

pour

avenir

Labatoire uncertain

(Laboratory for an Uncertain

Prunella Clough 4 May - 4 June a catalogue will be available

Future) explores the domains of memory, multi-culturlism and feminine sensitivity.

Des rats dans I' eau by Veronique Boudier shows a rather beautiful dripping puddle projected onto the floor of an empty darkened room. Pavilion 1 1 , Heimatlosl Domicile, examines the exiled artist, foreigners who work in France. Le Locataire, 2005 by The video

Gloria Friedmann

shows

pensive figure in contemporary clothes seated awkwardly on a large plain sphere. A symbol for doubt and anxiety, which echoes Daumier's image of Marianne, the feminine symbol of France, balancing on a globe representing liberation. Four life-size models of mounted British Life Guards peer above the visitor as they enter. It would be a fitting welcome for HM the Queen (who speaks fluent French) but within the Grand Palais they seem scaled down to

Cesar

Le Pouce

La D efense. Paris. pie J o h n B u rka. 2004 delegate, Helen Palmer, joint Director of the Heritage Lottery

Fund (Ill.F . ), talked more of social engineering and cultural diversity fuelled by large amounts of lottery funding (£350 million - 500 million Euros) aka the British People's Money. The latter is always a reckoning factor. Her

the size of her corgis. Cesar's

presentation showed instructive

thumb would have been more fitting.

fondly upon the gardens re-created

and explorative laboratory in the

to encourage community cohesion.

contemporary art market. Paris

There were smaller-scale projects

remains unsurpassed in its network of venues, public collections and international art fairs. More art exchange is to follow. In July, the

too, such as the re-flowering of

Glorla Frledmann L e Locataire G r a n d Palais. Paris

AFAA (Ass ociation fran�aise

Lith ogra p h a n d screen pri nt. 1970. Editi o n 100. 84 x 58 ems

Prints from the Archives I l l ..

Portfolios 9 J une - 9 July 2006

Flowers Graphics 82 Kingsland Road London E2 8 D P Te l : 020 7920 7777 Fax: 020 7920 7770 Tuesday - Saturday 1 0-6 Sunday 1 1 -5

d' action artistique), the French

centres: ICA, Bloomberg Space,

equivalent of the British Council,

Turner Oxford, MoMA contemporary, Folkestone; and

has masterminded

www.flowerseast.com

Paris Calling.

This is a London-wide celebration

itinerant venues (eg.

of France ' s

Vanessa

Russell Square, in London WCI

(£1 ,0 1 0, 100), popular amongst alumni of the Courtauld Institute, including the removal of all tall shrubs and undergrowth to deter the informal cottaging for which the park was previously used. Alas for Madame Millet... !

and

Suchar Gallery). Contemporary art

emerging contemporary artists,

in London and Paris: the game is

Georgina Turner is a writer and curator

which will be exhibited within twenty-five of the London's art

set for synergy and dialogue in

living in Paris

which vitality rules and Vae victis!

institutions. The Pierre Huyghes

- down with the defeated!

e s t ablished

exhibition, always guaranteed to be unexpected, moves from the

The French and English do though,

Musee d'Art Moderne to Tate Modern for stage two o f Celebration Park and his first solo

have some things in common. A shared love of gardens and heritage being one, and the influence and

Britain.

intervention of arts administrators

Archipeinture (Artists build Architecture) moves from Le Plateau at Buttes Chaumont, Paris, to Camden Arts Centre. The climax is in October I November 2006 with shows at the Barbican, V &A, Whitechapel; private galleries: Gasworks, South London Arl Gallery, Timothy Taylor; art

in creativity when it can get its

exhibition

g raphics @flowerseast.com

HLF

London is still seen as a dynamic

after all the Grand Palais itself was

Agile Coin Gross Decision Logic from Zero Energy Experimental Pile

the

inspired by the Crystal Palace.

for British know how is not new,

Eduardo Paolozzi.

from

Parks for People:

Battersea Park (£7,500,000) re painted ironwork on the bandstand; Lister Park, Bradford (£3,220,500) with the renovated statue of .Lord Lister looking

A pouting admiration by the French

-{"

examples programme

in -

hands on any significant funding, being the other. A recent museum museum debate at the Louvre on landscape heritage and architecture included international experts who discussed beauty and culture. But there the entente cordiale widened rather than deepened. The British

Notes : La Force de I'Art Grand Palais 2006 9th May - 25 J u n e www.culture.fr a n d www. rmn .fr

14th J u ly - 17th Sept www.ca m d e n a rts centre. org/

Archipeinture

Pierre H uyghe at Tate Modern 5th J u ly - 17th September www. tate . o rg. u k/ m ad ern/ exhibitions

La Nuit des Musees 2006 20th May www. nu itd esm usees.cu I tu re.fr

-�I'J

state of art

state2 5

S U M M ER 2006

THERE ARE MANY versions of art history

blunt truth i s that despite centuries of

which could be written about the so-called

turbulent social and political history,

Troubles. One might document all of those

Ireland's artists rarely did more than nod the

artists, at least a thousand of them, who

odd acknowledgement<6l. The first sustained

produced work - most of it not remotely

attempt to deal with the socio-political was

socio-political - during the period in hand.

made by a small number of artists based in

One might document those artists who, when

Northern Ireland. They were not a 'school'

'political art' had become fashionable,

in any sense of the word, but they were :united

proceeded to change titles and dates of work

by the nature of their responses to Northern

to give them a spurious political 'frisson',

Irish problems. Notions of a 'terrible beauty'

or who, as with one well-known artist,

with their source in the Anglo-Irish W.B .

claimed that a snowy winter scene really

Yeats were s e e n for what they were : dangerous romantic nonsense, tenable only

represented the chilly grip of The Troubles.

by fanatics. One might survey and catalogue every exhibition throughout the North, during the

This was a violent new world. Forjust as the

period, or focus upon a number of the key

tanks rolled into Prague in 1968, so too they rolled endlessly around the war-game of the

galleries. If one wished to make a partial,

CO .-.. m ,...

�

::;; � :, §?.

E "' ..c c: Q) -"' () "' a.

-"' ()

�

political point one might study The View

North, disgorging regiment after regiment.

from the Republic, addressing only those

Protection money, body searches, armalites,

artists from the Republic of Ireland who

bombs designed to maximise casualties,

made works 'about' The Troubles, or one

territorial control, and the incandescent whiff

might devote oneself to The Outsider's View

of ingrained, systematic bigotry, intolerance

of Northern Ireland, observing that a very

and brutality - conveniently shrink-wrapped

large number of artists were decanted into

as for 'God and Country' - became the daily

the North for the quick incursion and the

experience.

accompanying artworks, which claimed to For artists, this was a problem. Their training

be 'about' the situation<1l. Taking another tack, one might study the photojoumalism

and their previous daily experience did not

of the period, contrasting that produced by

equip them to deal with this new version of

the local photographers, as opposed to that

Home as Hell. The younger ones, especially

produced by the world's press; or one might

those with art-college training, who had

view only those artists who worked with a

visited London regularly, gone up and down

baseline in photography, but, distrusting the

to Dublin on a regular basis (and Dublin was

truth-telling capacities of the single pristine

swamped in internationalism 'isms ' ) , and

image, instead manipulated the photographic image <zl .

perhaps occasionally visited New York, were

Historically-minded individuals might want to explore the cartoouist's version, tracing the lineage from 1 8th and 19th century anti

awash, not just with Post-War British art, but

Iconic Images

with the New York School, with European Art Brut and Tachisme, and then with the beginnings of Conceptualism, Minimalism, Installation, and Performance Art.

Irish British propaganda, such as that in

Punch,

Therefore you had two options. The normal

to the versions produced by both

Northern Irish and English cartoonists, as

one was to ignore the problem entirely and

well as those from the Republic. Should one

do what you had always done. This was quite

wish to. explore ideological ground, one

a sensible attitude if you were already

Socio-political art in Northern Ireland 1969-1994

might produce a psychological or Marxist, or feminist, or indeed a politically reactionary study of the period. One might claim that the 'murals' were the 'political art' of the time. One might relate visual art to what was happening in Northern Irish novels, plays, television drama, cinema (what there was of it), or pop and rock music; one might relate it to the daily visual and aural

'formed' as an artist, or if you had little

interest in the socio-political, or if your daily walk to art-college from the rich, middle class, Malone Road area meant that you didn't come into contact with much in the way of The Troubles. However, if you felt that you had to bear witness, that you had to try and somehow reflect upon what was happening around you, then the problem was major. What was your apparatus? Where was

fare of television and radio news, phone-ins, documentaries, and the daily litany of the

your vocabulary? Who were your audience?

BRIAN McAVERA

newspapers.

What were your strategies? Would collectors buy your work? Would the Ulster Museum

However, in this short essay, there is no time

or the Arts Council or any other collecting

for all of that. Ironically, Northern Ireland is

agency buy your work?

one of the best-known places on earth, albeit

they produce 'serious' art? Did artists from

if you are young, or if you never experienced

known almost exclusively from a negative

all political persuasions in the North produce

the full, frighteningly-organised ferocity of

Within a very few years other problems

viewpoint. It is also one of the most

work which explored the social and political

entire extended familie s , indeed whole

would emerge forcibly. How could you

intensively studied places on earth. Go to any

situation?

neighbourhoods, being ripped apart, both

compete with the graphic literalness of

psychologically as well as literally. We were

television and the photo journalist? If you were an artist interested in narrative, how

library and you will realise that the number of books and scholarly articles on the history,

A number of the artists bore witness to what

England's Vietnam, but we were on their

politics, sociology, psychology, and anthro

happened in one of the most turbulent

doorstep, so neither party had a chance to

could you av oid illustration? As The

pology of the period alone, run into

periods of Irish history, and were largely

escape.

Troubles

thousands, not dozens; and that those on the

ignored by critics, collectors and collecting

ground

onward s ,

and

the

divisions within the society were ruthlessly

art of Northern Ireland during the period are

agencies at the time. It is a world where artists

What was the life experience of Northern

few and far between. Needless to say, those

were - to use an Al Alvarez term, 'under

Ireland? Here's a short list: the unceasing

If you were a catholic, or a protestant,

on the socio-political art scarcely exist <3l.We

pressure' , and it is now a historical period<•l.

buzz saw of daily violence; constant

living within an embattled area as opposed

know the Mexican Revolution through the

In one sense all art can be seen as political,

intimidation; unceasing propaganda; the

to a leafy middle-class suburb, and being

work of artists like Diego Rivera and we

but this is a matter of degree. From the

disintegration of the family unit; the

subjected to the relentless pressures of the

know the revolutionary politics of the

inclusive vantage point, the concept of socio

challenge to, and decline of, church

paramilitarie s , observing the sustained brainwashing of the younger generation,

prised open, other practicalities emerged.

Weimar period through the works of artists

political art can be extended indefinitely to

authority; the acceptance of hypocrisy,

like Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, George Grosz

include the politics of gender, representation,

double standards and duplicity as a norm;

never mind the older ones, how could you

and Kathe Kollwitz, but the British and Irish

territoriality, identity,_ psychological state,

the subversion of all moral values; 'truth' and

sustain an equitable view of the situation?

population, never mind the world at large,

ecology, and so forth - but this is not an

'propaganda' becoming synonymous;

More to the point, in terms of your art, how

do not know The Troubles through the eyes

exhaustive survey of all of the artists who

paranoia masquerading as normality; the

could you react, as painting in particular is

of the artists who lived here through the

might possibly lay claim to the status of

ubiquity of surveillance; fortress police

period.

'socio-political artist' in however etiolated a

stations; life on the dole; flags, emblems, and

not very good at conveying thought as opposed to impression . . . And as any artist

form. This brief study looks at a number of

infecting

with

worth his or her salt, in any media, needs to

So what did the artists do in the timeframe

the key figures who produced work

pararnilitarism; unyielding religious bigotry;

be able to develop a coherent voice, how can

1969, the onset of The Troubles, to 1 994,

throughout the period, and still do so today<Sl.

dinosaur politicians; valium.

the date of the first 'Ceasefire'? Did they

the

B ody

Politic

this be possible when the emotional, not to mention the physical and psychological

Narrative and Authenticity

In the-wake of The Troubles, notions of the socio-political have become conveniently

threaten to shape the artist, either into

seem to want us to believe? Did they

From the vantage point of 2006, The

elastic. As I have pointed out elsewhere,

propaganda, or into a warped, embittered and

propagandise for one 'side' orthe other? Did

Troubles seem a long way away, particularly

when it comes to art and 'engagement', the

unfocused version of the self?

ignore the so-called Troubles, as those who claim the wall murals as 'political art' would

pressures, are so intense that they constantly

...

state of art

2 6 state In almost all cases, this has meant a distrust

----- ----------------

S U M M ER 2006

offset by warm flesh tones, she pillories a

ofthe 'photographic' image which seemingly

portrait gallery of powerbrokers, satirising

encapsulates a 'truth' about the situation:

state officials, clergymen, politicians and

images such as the tall soldier with a rifle

employers, and contrasting them with

looming over a small, 'innocent', ragamuffin

women, often naked but by no means

to narrative, but one which is very far from

figures.

child. In consequence, this has meant a return

vulnerable, who are indomitable survival

the sentimental, anecdotal, Victorian pieties.

Early practitioners, like Brendan Ellis,

She looks, not so much at The Troubles

adapted the standard, urban, anecdotal

themselves, but at the world which has been

painting by cross-fertilising it with the

impacted upon by The Troubles, and at the

symbolic aspects of German Expressionism:

historical factors that have helped to shape

a straightforward code which was immediately explicable in terms of local

them. B arrett documents, for a later gen足

territory and tribalism. The locations are

indoctrination by Church, State and various

recognisable, as are the flags and the

factional interests, but she is only too aware

emblems, or the detritus of political posters

that we live on an insular island, insulated

or slogans. Details are often symbolic.

from the international front; and that

Noticeably, the caricatural energy acts as a

therefore the task is to yank the audience out

eration, the act of Growing Up in Ireland as

positive amidst the bleakness of the _ urban

of a blinkered monocular vision into a

surroundings, and often there is a sly parodic

binocular one. She wants to alert us to the

edge as in Mother Ireland, with its po-faced

exploitation of the average female worker

(Factory Girls), suggest the fallibility of the Judge in a Field by

send-up of the notion of Four Green Fields.

judiciary system in

For Ellis the process of making a work was 'an accumulation of observations without

stripping a judge naked and putting him in a

being illustrational' .

field, instead of in a hermetically-sealed, judiciary environment; or query unthinking Catholicism and its equivocation in terms of

Jack Pakenham, a Dublin-born painter who taught in a Loyalist area of Belfast, and whose natural aptitude for languages and literature gave him outsider status twice over,

sex and war in

Faith of Our Fathers.

Both B arrett and Una Walker have

is a recognizable development of this kind

continued a socio-political axis right up to

of narrative. A key figure, he has spent a

the present. Whereas Walker has been

lifetime developing a huge vocabulary of

continuously involved in artists ' politics,

signs, symbols and images, shifting from his

having been Chairperson of the

tableaux which give iconic status to the world

Artists ' Collective ofNorthern Ireland, Chairperson of the Artists ' Association of Ireland, and President of the International Artist's Association, Barrett has pursued research

of the North. He is a moralist in the same

into socially engaged art practice, through

earlier development of single, stark motifs (although often exhibited in blocks, thus forming a narrative) into large-scale complex

sense that Beckman or Dix, or for that matter

Tom Bevan

Diego Rivera, were. It was he, who, in

The Sensual Qualities of Weaponry

prel i m i n a ry sketch 1989

the Arts Council ' s

Commun ity A rts

Development Scheme.

She has also had a

constant involvement in international

Northern Irish terms, first articulated - and explored - the problem of how to integrate

conferences and seminars that addre ss

disparate images into a seamless vocabulary.

issues relating to socially connected ways

'I start with an image which comes to me.

of making art.

Then I let everything else happen around

Photography Does Not Tell The Truth

that. The difficulty, like that of a theatrical producer, is finding the imagery which

Artists, even those who used photography

belongs to that scenario, a process which

as a medium, rapidly realised that the single,

often takes several months to solve'<7l.

pristine image rarely told the truth. War Narrative now becomes ironic, encoded,

photography in general has always lied,

allusive, symbolic, subterranean and layered,

whether being used to misrepresent the facts,

fragmenting and regrouping, often within a

or as an ideological tool, or simply as pure

single frame. Depending upon the artist,

fakery in the search for the financial rewards

there may be a clear, structural as well as

of the 'telling' image. Notoriously, truth is

symbolic, figurative articulation which can

an irrelevance, as when a Newsnight team,

be 'read' in allegorical fashion, as with Jack

failing to get the required shot of grieving

Pakenham. In contradistinction, a Gerry

republican mother and friends, and coffm, on the steps of a church, insisted that the

Gleason, initially working small, but soon relocating to larger canvases, and sometimes in cycles, has a much more post-modernist

participants restage the event for the benefit of the cameras.

approach, fragmenting and abstracting his Governments have always been aware of the

narratives, often in a highly elliptical fashion.

Una Walker

Gleason looks to find 'visual metaphors that

Harvest

persuasive possibilities of seemingly

d eta i l of mixed media i nsta l l ation 1986

aren't photojoumalistic' . Paintings for him

are a dialogue between past, present and

documentary photographic images; their ability to change, and slowly win over hearts

future. One could describe Gleason's works

quarrying the Old Masters, or the younger

Barrett, in her early works, is closest to

and minds. The enormous advantage of most

as a stream of post-modernist narratives.

masters like Matisse and Picasso, or making

single, comic-strip, frame and format - with

photographic images is that they tend not to

Certainly the surface of the work encourages

guerrilla raids on the likes of Penck, Rothko,

the other two, it is used as an underpinning,

encourage the viewer to think, but rather, in

such readings with its seemingly endless

Basquiat, Francis Bacon or Richter, or taking

whereas for Barrett, at least in the early years,

the right hands, makes an emotional appeal

it was the actual manner of expression.

ability to incorporate a multiplicity of

the opportunity to familiarise himself, in his

stylistic, formali st, and art historical

travels to Poland or Germany for instance,

which bypasses reason, and can be used to reinforce given ideological points of view.

references. However, the densely-layered

with their contemporary art, Gleas<in has

Barrett did not arrive on the scene until the

As the Troubles wore on, this became more

paintings spring from a different source: 'I

continuously renewed himself, looking from

late eighties. Like most of them, she too felt

and more evident, with not only the Thatcher

didn't want to illustrate: I looked for visual

the outside in, as well as from the inside

an outsider. Born in Buncrana, Co. Donegal,

Government, but with the various Northern

symbols' .

outwards. Unlike Pakenham's often dour

and thus from the Republic, she spent her

Irish political parties, and paramilitary wings,

colour, Gleason's colour is often buoyant,

early childhood in Scotland before relocating

all intent on creating the right, caring image,

Pakenham's early works not only make one

and whereas Pakenham tends towards bitter

to Derry. She notes dryly that having grown

or else reinforcing a negative stereotype upon

aware of his Northern European heritage but

irony, Gleason exploration of man ' s

up in Scotland 'with a protestant friend, a

'their' opposition.

also of his absorption of southern European

inhumanity to man glitters with flashes of

minister' she came back to Ireland only to

(especially Spanish and French tachiste

humour. What both they - and Marie

be 'told the party line. I already knew too

painting as with Tapies or De Stael, not to

much. I was an outsider' . Barrett sees herself

Ireland, 'whatever you say, say nuthin"

mention Italian painting, whether classical,

Barrett - have in common, perhaps surprisingly, is the Fine Art take on the comic

as exploring 'the potential of art as a vehicle

requires a complex response, unless one is

The nature of political realities in Northern

or twentieth century as with De Chirico or

strip

(think of Roy Lichtenstein through to

for social comment and change' <8>. The moral

being a propagandist. This response is often

Morandi), and that is before one considers

the Belgian Robert Combas) in which

anger is complemented by mordant black

coded or layered, the strategy being one of a

his initial debts to American colour field

multiple narratives, bright colour, and

humour, though her strategies are different

series of manoeuvres, through which artists

painting, or Pop Art. With Gleason, the range

characters who partake of a comic-strip

from those of Gleason or Pakenham. On the

obliquely explore the problems of the

is enormous. He is, in many ways, the natural

treatment help to create the language for the

one hand, in a harsh, controlled shorthand

province. This manoeuvring takes different

successor to Colin Middleton. Whether

expression of a moral anger.

which exploits the scrake of black crayon,

forms. Willie Doherty added text onto the

state of art

S U M M ER 2006

state 2 7 Ireland is a gun culture. Bevan remembers

image (a 35mm slide blown up large); Paul

one particular neighbour of his, a policeman,

Seawright, in his early work, put the text underneath in the form of captions; Morris

who would take every opportunity to visit

him, take out his gun, wave it around, and

Hobson, simply using elastic bands stretched and wrapped around his head, created images as if of a bomb-blast victim; Tony Corey painted, stained and burnt the photographic image; Sean Hillen used photo-collage (as in Londo-Newry) while Peter Neill created

then play with the bullets. Picasso's

iconography. Bevan's equivalent, Nothing is Lost, is an assemblage of 365 boxes (mainly

witty, symbolic tableaux which he then

photographed.

glass fronted) each containing a scenario. It

is a year-long diary, running from June 22,

Although the Guardian, in one of its looruer

1989 to June 24, 1990: a slice of life in which

moments, commented that Doherty was the

the personal and the public, the political and

major art figure of the Troubles, the greatest

the pragmatic are indissolubly linked It is a

figure who uses a photographic baseline is

cross-section ofthe tribal, the psychological,

Victor Sloan<9>. Sloan, whose grandfather had been in the Orange Lodge, and who taught Seawright and Corey amongst many others, single-handedly developed an extensive visual investigation of protestant

the historical and the sectarian thematics of

the North, taking us in and out of different tribal worlds, different personal journeys, different mythologies.

culture and politics, and one which was both

Some day, books will be written charting the

directly challenges (unlike Doherty's) the

moment it is perhaps sufficient to stress that

celebration and critique. In addition, his work

iconography of this masterpiece, but for the

media preconceptions of the North. What the

the iconoclastic urge to criticise by

what Sloan observes. Taking a negative as

of the North - by ridiculing it - are more

destroying the negative aspects of the culture

media claim as 'documentary truth' is not

his baseline, working on it scratching with a

than balanced by an irrepressible positive

pin and or working with inks, he prints it up,

optimism.

often to a huge size, then works on the print

creates

space

for

compromise, a place in which all factions of

with toners and gouache, subverting the

society can be meet, and in his deliberate

surface, and exploring the subterranean.

insinuation of Catholic iconography into Protestant scenarios - like Gingles he is

He usually works in series, most of his

intrigued by Catholic symbolism - he

exhibitions being a controlled exploration of

implicitly tells us that humanity is more

example, he took on the entire siege mentality

attitudes<•o>.

part of the unionist psyche. In Drumming for

important

of the Unionist North, revealing it as a

millennia! state ofthe Apocalypse. With BiTLhes

than

sectarian

religious

It is a fact, though it is unpalatable to some

he extended his range by taking on the myths

people, that the majority of the arti!lts who

countryside- that idyllic paradise of blue skies

in the first two decades of The Troubles, were

pessimistic. He still lives in Portadown and until

determine, but it is perhaps significant that

of that most potent of Irish images, the rural

produced socio-political work, particularly

and seeming innocence. His work is deeply

men<11>. Why this should be so, others can

recently still taught at Lurgan.

the two women who did produce a significant

body of work in this area, Walker and Barrett, both considered themselves as outsiders.

'One of my students was tortured and killed,

by his own side . . . In the wrong place at the

Walker noted that 'her father was a convert

wrong time ... [It] does come home to you

Marle Barrett

Magherafelt was kidnapped, tied to a car seat

assembled the contents of his boxes. All of

journeying in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan,

an outsider as well, viewed with suspicion

centre. Thank God it didn't go off'. When

transform their materials, whilst still adhering

for a time in the pottery town of Safi in

primary school there was the sense of not

'I was very conscious that people were afraid to talk about The Troubles in case they jinxed

acquisition. Tom Bevan, using assemblage

context

a flexible

of dislocation between the North and the

myths and symbol-systems of Islam and

her feeling 'neither fish nor fowl' . The notion

as well as the Contemporary.

though her angle of approach is different

every now and again. My cousin in

and told to drive a car-bomb into the town

asked how he felt, post 1994, he responded:

them, to a greater rather than a lesser degree,

to the authenticity of their geographical

techniques, also brings to bear the skills of

Congested District mixed m e d i a on p a p e r

1990

India, and North Africa (where he worked

Morocco), developed an overarching cultural which

gave

him

iconography which could encompass the

it . . .felt there was a pressure to start painting

the ceramicist, the sculptor, the woodcarver

took it off the walls for a while. Everybody

objects, and objects which he adds to, takes

down everybody knows there won't be peace.

of a specific thematic arena.

With his use of colour and decoration, often

other one wants the province without any

Una Walker, the installation artist, creates structures from discrete materials which can be disassembled, but also incorporates

the dour, 'black' North a life-enhancing

flowers ! To hide the work! Even at home we plays along with what's happening but deep

One section wants the island of Ireland; the Catholics . . . .'

Restoration of the Shattered Mirror: The Holistic Approach By nature Assemblage, Installation and the Box are additive media, different points on

the same spectrum of activity which often encourage a responsive from artists of a

holistic frame of mind. All three lend themselves to a mixed-media approach. All three, when handled by Northern Irish artists

responsive to socio-political pressures, can provide what one might call sociology of the

North, in which all those elements which an

artist might come across when 'out and

about' acquire an interest, validity and an authenticity which is beyond the quotidian or the mundane. It may be a scrap of a poster,

peeling from a wall, a piece of graffiti, an

election handout lying in the street, or a

discarded toy-soldier, a broken tooth, a bullet

casing, or even a piece of wood from a rotted

Guemica is a controlled scream of

pain, articulated through a personal

flag post.

However, none of the artists involved are

interested in the mere act of assemblage, in the sense in which, say, Joseph CorneD

and the modeller, combining both found away from, or casts with, all in the service

drawings, sculptures, sound systems, music,

and found objects into Installations which are mapped out with mathematical rigour and

precision. On the other hand, Graham

Gingles builds boxes which, although they may incorporate found objects which can

range from body-parts to beach combed

treasure trove, nevertheless crafts intricately made containers in which scenarios are

formed by means of discrete elements which

may be carved, cast in a variety of materials from lead to plaster, modelled, incised upon steel, or even painted.

To understand Bevan as an artist one needs

Christianity, of East and West, of Pre-history

of an Islamic kind, he explicitly brought into

traveller's freightage of reference. Extensive THE

FULL

'If we think of Patrick Pearse and the notion

ofthe blood sacrifice, and then of my interest

that] I was trying to figure out, literally, what

commentary, part sociological and political,

the people of Ireland need Ireland, but that

transformed into

a kind

of running

kingship, and the pact with the land [I realise

'Ireland' means. At one point I did think that

part ironical, satirical or humorous, part

Ireland - the land - didn't need the people.

act of assemblage in Bevan's case can be seen

me to be the very basis of The Troubles'

experience of Northern Irish society, but also

attachment to place. It's not intellectual.

under the impact of The Troubles.

to live in the countryside [thirty miles south

quotidian, casually allusive and factual. The

That attachment to territory, which seems to

as an antidote, not only to his childhood

conflict, is a very ancient, emotionally-baSed

to the fracturing and splitting of that society,

Some realisation of that arose from coming

of Belfast] , from getting to know this little (mixed

bit of land . . . some knowledge of how the

of nine, wooden, roughly life-size semi

extremes . . . Ireland . . . the land, is identified

The Sensual Qualities of Weaponry

media 1 989) is witty case-in-point. It consists

and fragments of the original fabric still

decorated, using glass, paint, additional

tacks, pin-up girls on beer cans and the like, thus making an equation between the allure

of guns and the allure of sex. Northern

VERSION OF THIS ESSAY IS AVAILABLE IN BOOK FORM. PUBUSHED BY THE GOLDEN THREAD

GALLERY. BELFAST : Icons of the North Brian MeAvera.

of land, of territory, is central to Walker

'old order' of their original meanings, being

remain. Their surfaces however are highly

virtually every day' . The second is his

South, the two becoming 'out of sync ' , with

in those rituals connected with sacred

explicitly, his found objects disregarded the

is that of his upbringing as an Ulster

and restrictive', one in which he was 'beaten

confirming; of not fitting it' . She felt a sense

colour, vivacity and vitality. Equally

automatic guns which were made from the ·frames of abandoned armchairs: joints, tacks,

protestant which he categorises as 'cold, rigid

by inward-looking Northern people. In

from that of Marie Barrett.

to realise that there are two crucial shaping

spirits which are at war within him. The first

from Protestantism to Catholicism. And

because my mother· was from Dublin, she was

48pp. Col

illustrations Hardback. ISBN

0·9549633·3·4

attachment to place could drive people to

as female: mother, hag and the like. It's not

just some symbolic personification. This

little island is complete unto itself. A lot of that is explored in the work' .

Walker works predominantly in the mode of

installation. One earlier mode of work utilised installations which plugged into the

cyclic processes of history, usually for the

purposes of placing current society within a

longer perspective, as in At The Back of the North Wind where the stuffed effigy of a man,

2 sstate

state of art

coiled as if asleep amidst a tepee-like structure, functioned both as

Bog Body and

---------�----

Homo LudensCUJ, the serious game player, extended his playing strategy. You are always

as a contemporary victim of a paramilitary

aware of Him, the orchestrator, the theatre

bloodletting.

director, the string puller of the marionettes,

It's particularly difficult, for exhibition

manipulating, controlling your responses,

purposes, to deal with an installation artist

hiding crucial elements from your prying

The specialist agency that finds staff for the Lo ndon

lurking somewhere in the bowels of the box,

as the majority of them survive only in documentation. However, in a number of

S U M M ER 2006

art

eyes. If Bevan, on the surface, has the sunny

world.

accessibility of Folk Art, Gingles has the

cases Walker transformed elements of her

apparent inaccessibility of an alchemist's

installations by turning them into sculptural

formula for transmuting lead into gold.

boxes. Some of these present swaddled or mummified babies, some are treated as icons,

Indeed, this is the strength of so much of the

complete with gold background, and some

art that has been produced during the period

depict angels. However, as with Bevan, or

of The Troubles. It is easy to draw a body

Gingles, albeit the other way around, this is

lying in the road, or a helicopter in the sky.

no simple use of Christian iconography, for

It is easy to create a straight forward

just as many churches were built on pagan

propaganda picture for 'us' or 'them' - and

sites, so in Walker's work the Christian and

indeed, for so many artists coming into

the Pagan intermingle in a decidedly

Northern Ireland from the outside, this was

unnerving, surreal choreography. What these

precisely what they did do.

F I N E

artists, as with Gleason, Pakenham and 1 _ .>-

Barrett, have in common, is the implication

one which the art market was only too aware

degenerated to the level of the Pagan. The

of. Thus for example, Anthony Gormley, on

skulls, animal parts, bones, regalia, casket

Technicians - Researchers - Salespeople

the basis of a supposed family link to Ireland,

shapes and so forth are a reminder that

and a few days spent in Derry, produced one

survival is a dangerous business and that

of his typical cruciform works for Derry's

death really is only around the corner.

walls. This, according to the artist, was

For all gallery, museum and auction house staffing requirements, from Old Master to Contemporary.

supposed to heal divisions. Yet a necklace If B evan likes the macrocosm, Graham

of burning tyres marked its public reception.

Gingles opts for the microcosm. He builds boxes, creating alternate worlds which gleam and gloom uncannily, perversely, as if to remind us that the act of the imagination, in its darkness and light, is mirrored by the acts

Gormley had failed to realise that his

of the real world. For him, living outside

cruciform iconography, complete with 'balaclava' style head, would outrage the protestant community, being 'read' as the ideology of the catholic church supporting Republican nationalism.

Belfast, 'not really being part of the Belfast of

The publicity farrago however, emanating

osmosis . . . also, coming from my unionist

from the artist and the art market was such

background made it an interesting, soul

that this piece was, and still is, perceived as

Troubles . . .

[has]

been a pro cess

searching time. In the early seventies, driving

a 'successful' work about The Troubles - the

into Belfast, I was waved down a side street

reality has been deliberately elided from

by the police and army. Great, I thought: no

historyC13l. This, ironically, is one of the

cars - free parking! Then a bomb went off

reasons why political art in or about Ireland

on the other side of the street, all of the

has become fashionable. If you have a certain

windows came out - they had bombed the

kind of artist who fits in with the international

Youth Employment Exchange behind the

logo art of the moment, but who happens to

Technical College. I remember looking at my

use politics as his supposed subject matter,

ex wife, disbelief on our faces. We went off

the advertising world that is now the art

shopping, which is why we had come to

market can sell it. In the North h o w ever, there was a conscious

www.

s op hi e m a cp h ers o n . co m

It is easy to make a quick incursion, complete

Alvarez. Al. Pengu i n . 1965.

with a potted history of Ireland's troubles, a

5) There are many a rtists whom I hope to do justice.

few collectable and promotable artist's anecdotes about the dangerous North, and a political and social conscience worn upon one's sleeve. Next step: produce a work about The Troubles. None of the artist's in this essay did this. They all bore witness. They still do.

Belfast, and around the corner at Divis Flats, snipers were at work . . . '

R E C R U I T M E N T

Gallery Managers - PAs - Curators

Of course this was a marketing strategy, and

that both Catholicism and Protestantism have

A RT

avoidance

simplistic

As Gingles and most of the other artists point

notations, of both the illustrational and the

out, they had a duty not to work in an

pr.opagan d i s ti c .

Art

w as

not

about

at another time. 6) See Art, Politics and Ireland. o p . cit. 7. U n less otherwise acknowledged. a l l q u otations . are taken from interviews with the artists. by the author. over the period 1982 to the present. 8) Artist's statement for 'Troubled' exhibition. Pitshangar G a l l e ry. London. 2000. 9) Wh i l e Dohe rty may be the most vis i b l e figure. at the m o m e nt. i n relation to Northern Irish art - a n d there a re various reasons f o r that - i n m y view he i s

NOTES

n o t a m a j o r figure. His very e a r l y work had a s i m p l e .

1) For more deta i l s o n a n u m b e r of these scenarios.

i m a ge a n d text. but since then he had constantly

resonant. a n d l u mi nous inter-relationship between see McAvera. Brian. Art, Politics and Ireland. O p e n

repeated h imself.

Air. D u b l i n . n.d. (1989).

10) I am indebted to Rachel McAvera's extended

2) See. for exa m p le. Creative Camera (Special Issue

essay o n 'Nothing is Lost' for the International

illustrational manner. Television, newspapers

assuming an ideological position; was not

and magazines were daily pouring out literal

about having one's content - as with the

by Brian McAvera entitled 'Strategies: Photoworks

Bacca l a u reate (1997. Lagan College Library, Belfast)

images, often horrifying ones like that of a

wall murals - dictated by a committee, or,

from Northern Ireland". No 4. 1988.

for a n u m b e r of insights.

policeman sweeping away the remains of the

also with the wall mural s , reinforcing

bodies outside Oxford Street Bus Station, in

established sectarian positions. Rather it

the aftermath of a bomb. Gingles doesn't

was about the slow, dangerous process of

avert his eyes. Gingles abstracts in every

d i s c overy;

sense. Only in the very early boxes did the

absorbing, reflecting and trying to make a

literalism of dead flies and extracted teeth

personal response in the midst of a bruised,

rule the game. As time squelched onwards,

constantly changing world.

of opening oneself out,

3) The first exhibition su rvey, with a su bstantial

11) Always thi rty years later. no-one has been a b l e

catalogue. was M cAvera. Brian. Directions Out.

to point t o a f e m a l e a rtist that t h e author missed

Douglas Hyde G a l lery, D u b l i n 1987. See also

out. who was within the parameters ofthe

McGonagle. O"To o l e a n d Lev i n . Irish Art Now: From

exhibiti o n .

the Poetical to the Political. Merrell Hoberton/

12) The reference i s t o the remarka ble book Homo

I n dependent Curators Internati o n a l . New York/

Ludens. by the Dutch h istorian J o h a n H uizanga.

IMMA. D u b l i n . 1999.

P a l a n i n . London, 1970.

4) See the study of Eastern

European a rtists a n d

intellectuals who worked i n Com m u n ist countries by

13) See. for exa mple McAvera. Brian. 'Men of ·Iron '.

Stroll 4/5. New York. 1987, p p.15-17.

Victoria Achache at GALLERY 286 JUNE 6-30

� :->

� "

286 EARL'S COURT ROAD LONDON SW5 9AS

viewing by appointment T: 020 7370 2239 E: jross@gallery286.com www.gallery286.com

state of art

S U M M ER 2006

STATE OIF M I N D

....,

wormwords

TH EM E : Oscar Wilde

Answers below

lHJ;: S'lo f:L'I( So .

R E :rscnot-.�. tN Hox-roN 5QUARE. rorz.Go-r-r-� N. , O U R - 14 E. R.O f.\AS SPOTIED AN. 6PPO R1UM I TYTo

CA-N

ACROSS 1. Who's a fan (4,10) 4. "The root of all ugliness" (8) 6. Beerbohm, an undergraduate admirer (3) 7. Parisian star of Salome (5,9) 12. Final resting place, Paris (4-8) 14. 1mportant boyhood home (7,6) 16. OW's collected fairy stories (3,5,6) 17. Pet name for Ellen Terry (5) 18. His picture is in the attic (but not 36 down) (4,8) 20. OW's publisher before disgrace (4) 21. Thrice Wilde's defence counsel (6,6) 24. "All Art is quite -" What? (7) 27. OW's first school (7 ,5) 28. The definitive Wilde biographer (7) 32. Wilde's first French literary hero (6) 34. Ell en Terry's first husband - a painter (5) 35. Noted photographer of OW's US tour (6) 37. Wilde's birth month (7) 39. A great American poet - visited by OW during his US tour (4, 7) 41. Fellow Irish playwright (4) 42. The famous novelist who married 44 down (4,6) 45. First London room-mate (you are never alone in the Strand?) (5,5) 46. Family home - his Chelsea address (4,6) 47. First port of call afterflight from prison (6) 48. French master of letters who fell asleep during OW's visit in Paris (6,4) 49. Celebrated illustrator of Sa/ome (9)

� 0 0

(()

>w _I CL I (f) >-

(() (f)

(iJ � <! z

� <!

(f) w _I <! (f)

ed. Krystof/Morgan, Tate £16.99

@} 0 0 (;) @ 0 (D @

Lukacher, T&H £40.00 Morandi's Legacy: Influences on Btitish Art Coldwell, Ab bott Hall £20.00 Gothic Nighbnares: Fuseli, 8/ake etc Myrone/FraylingjWarner, Tate £29.99 Dada: Zurich Betfin Hanover Cologne NYParis Dickerman, T&H £35.00 Masters of American Comics Cart in, Karasik & Walker, Yale £25.00 Making Waves: Artists ofSouthwold Collins, Black Dog Publishing £30.00 Matisse the Master: A life Vol2: 1909-1954 Spurling, Hamish Hamilton £25.00 Egon Schiele Price, Prestel Publishing £37.00 Displaced Person Marcus Reichert Ziggurat £9.95

N E l G-� B O W R.-

PDlNT 1H E:: WAY

DOWN 1. Marquis of Queensberry's third son (4,6,7) 2 . Author of Tlle Tlia/s( 10,4) 3. His Mother (4) 5. Wildean hero,literary executor & loyal friend(6,4) 8. The Sphinx (3,8) 9. OW's tomb designer (5, 7) · 10. "The artist has to educate .. -'' ? Who? (3,6) 11. His Father (7 ,5) 13. Starring Edith Evans as ... ? Who? (4,9) 15. Mrs Oscar Wilde (9) 19. Second Reading Gaol governor, a liberal major (6) 22. First published in German in 1905 (2,9) 23. Mother's literary nom de plume (8) 25. Editor;owner of Saturday Reviewand both friend and foil (5, 6) 26. The " curse of the drinking classes " (4) 29. OW's alias in disgrace (7) 30. Wilde poem - winner of Newdigate Prize (7) 31. OW became editor in 1887 (5,5) 33. First born son (5) 36. His picture is in the attic (6,4) 38. Wilde's father's medical specialisations (3,3,3) 40. "I can resist everything except ... "? What? (10) 43. Husbands all should be ?(5) 44. Miss Balcombe, OW's first love (8)

a.\3 p u e Je3 "8E

@ Joseph Gandy: An Architectural Visionary

NEW

IN - C R O W!> - .

51. Trooper hanged at Reading Gaol (10)

·vv · sv uo1•e•d wa1 · ov

0 0 z 0 _I

COOL

TH E

52. OW's Oxford college (8)

1eap1

0 Martin Kippenberger

TD I N

50. "Nothing except ... " Famous quip (2,6)

a�uaJO I::J

F AR . . . . .

A8J<) Ue!JOO "9 E IUKJ "EE PI JOM s,Apel "lE e u u a�etJ ·os

4l0WI 8 V'J "6(; �JOM "9 Z: suJeH � u eJ::J ·sz: ezueJads

· s z:

SlpU n>OJd 80 "(;(;

UOS I 8 N "61:

a�UelSUO::J "S"J:

1 1 au��eJg ,\pel · s1: 8 P I!M w e 1 1 11M ·n �ll i J :) 8 41 "01: u 1 a,sd3 qo�er

U OSJ8�8l ep';l SSOtJ lJ8qOtJ auer 8PAH AJ8WO:i!,UOV'J se1:i!noa paJ>I\1 pJol

·6 "8

·s ·z: .,

NMOO

·z:s allp!JPI OOM ""J:S ua1eplleV'J

smua<J .\V'J

·os

.\a 1 spJeas "617

o:i!nH JOP!/1 " 8 17 adda !a ·Lv ,aaJlS am ·9v sa1!V'J � u eJ::J ·sv Ja�o•s weJs ·z:v Me4s ·n ueW'!4M 'I eM " 6E Jaqopo "LE AUOJe S "SE

·v s · z: s u u e w 113 ·8z: sneM � e z1 es

�

l eAOtl eJOlJOd ·a ssa1asn ·vz: a�Jei::J pJeM P3 -,z: a u el

· oz:

pJeMII e H I ISeg "81: AI I 8 N "H

a�uud .\dd e H 841 "91:

a J e n b s uouJaV'J

·v"t:

as!e4�el-aJad ·z:"t: WJ e 4 u J ag 4eJes

·1

xeV'J

·9

AJls n p u 1

·v .,

aJa WJ a p U IM .\pel

SSOtl::J\1

I so

ItS I

CH fLS EA

FO R.

ALF

. ..

rrs At<.1 ! . . Al--l D

THE PREVIOUS ADVENTURES OF ALF HART IN WONDERLAND ARE AVAI LABLE AT STATE ON LINE

rrs

Lr f=E ! �

TO BE CONTINUED

�

'),: ,.._ I

"''"'-'--'--'-----"�....:..

V> -

;;:I u

;

Derek Hlrst Alhambra 1971-73 Cryla on Relief Pa p e r. 188 x 122 em s

DEREK H I RST 1 930 - 2006 SELECTED WORKS

Flowers East

82 Kingsland Road London E2 SDP Tel: 020 7920 7777 Fax: 020 7920 7770 gallery@flowerseast.com

and RACHEL H ELLER

Tuesday - Saturday 1 0-6

www.flowerseast.com

JULY - 5 AUGUST

Sunday 1 1 -5

::- . 1

....

Freya Payne Stranger Song

Flowers East

82 Kingsland Road London E2 SDP Tel: 020 7920 7777 Fax: 020 7920 7770 gallery @flowerseast.com

9 JUNE - 9 JULY

Tuesday - Saturday 1 Q-6 Sunday 1 1 -5

III'W.IIo W werseat.c:•

...,. ""-

�

...

. ...

-·

...- ,

�

',<