Henry Moore Institute
Newsletter New Exhibitions Our 2011 season of exhibitions launches with Henry Moore: Prints and Portfolios, an exhibition demonstrating Moore’s draughtsmanship and printmaking skills. Curated by David Mitchinson, this selection of over one hundred works highlights Moore’s connections to literature, to other artists and to the Yorkshire landscape. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of talks by contemporary artists who have drawn on both Moore’s work and his mythologised status, a subject also tackled in the concurrent exhibition in the Sculpture Study Galleries, Dear Henry Moore: Connections and Correspondence. This changing display examines some of the letters and correspondence Moore received - both welcome and unwelcome - and his exchanges with other artists. Alongside these two exhibitions, we will be showing Moore’s ‘Bird Basket’, a key work made in 1939, inspired by the mathematical models shown in the Science Museum. Prints and Portfolios is the first exhibition devoted to Moore’s work to be held at the Henry Moore Institute, and overlaps with exhibition of Moore’s sculpture and drawings in Leeds Art Gallery (4 March – 12 June), organised by Tate Britain, where it was shown last year. The Institute itself is supported by The Henry Moore Foundation, which was set up by Moore in 1977 to encourage appreciation of the visual arts, in particular sculpture. Throughout 2011 we will test and examine the ways in which sculpture might be understood today through solo exhibitions of Jean-Marc Bustamante, Mario Merz, Darrell Viner and Phyllida Barlow, as well as a group exhibition, United Enemies, looking at once incompatible understandings of sculpture made in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. Our conference and lecture programme and Research Fellowships this year will open new perspectives on how we might rethink definitions of sculpture, while our ever-expanding Library and Archive operate as unique resources for the study of sculpture today. Lisa Le Feuvre, Head of Sculpture Studies
Henry Moore: Prints and Portfolios Main Galleries, 3 February – 3 April Printmaking formed an increasingly important part of Moore’s output from the 1970s, when he collaborated with specialist printers and publishers to meet a growing international demand for his work. For Moore, printmaking gave an opportunity to experiment with subjects, colours and forms that he could not realise in three dimensions. He made 719 prints between 1931 and 1986. These were documented and illustrated in a four volume catalogue raisonné of his graphic work, published by Cramer, Geneva. Last year, a new book, Henry Moore: Prints and Portfolios, written by David Mitchinson and published by Cramer, was produced with over 800 illustrations to tell the stories behind the prints – particularly the 363 that appeared in 73 deluxe books and portfolios. Mitchinson, who worked alongside Moore on the production of his graphics from the late 1960s until the artist’s death in 1986, retired as Head of Collections and Exhibitions at The Henry Moore Foundation in 2010.
February/March 2011 Issue No. 94
This book, and the exhibition that accompanied it at Perry Green in 2010, was Mitchinson’s last major project for the Foundation. A new version of the exhibition, re-curated specially for the Institute’s galleries, comprises a selection of etchings and lithographs taken from the 73 deluxe books and portfolios, and includes items of source material, drawings and preliminary proofs; it also explains some of Moore’s working methods. The prints found in book or portfolio format were conceived for a variety of reasons: to accompany the work of selected poets – W.H. Auden or Lawrence Durrell, for example – or to illustrate texts by writers such as William Shakespeare or André Gide. Others were assembled as part of group tributes to artists, including Picasso, Max Ernst and Mark Rothko. In some cases they were dedicated to exploring subjects more personal to the artist: Elephant Skull, Sheep, Stonehenge, Sculptural Ideas, and Mother and Child.
Dear Henry Moore: Connections and Correspondence Sculpture Study Galleries, Mezzanine, 3 February – 26 June In addition to Prints and Portfolios, there will be an exhibition in the Mezzanine Gallery (curated by Sophie Raikes) looking at Henry Moore’s associations with a younger generation of sculptors, including Reg Butler, Ralph Brown, Anthony Caro, Geoffrey Clarke, Hubert Dalwood, Bernard Meadows and Isaac Witkin, for whom Moore was, as the critic Herbert Read described, ‘in some sense a parent’. Many visited him, worked for him, used him as a referee for art school and teaching positions, exhibited alongside him, and initially defined their work in relation to his. Through papers, correspondence, cartoons, drawings and sculptures, drawn principally from our own archive but also from other collections, as well oral history accounts, the exhibition explores these artists’ connections with Moore. It includes life drawings by Caro from the early 1950s corrected by Moore; sketches by Butler which show the development of his early sculpture from reclining figures and heads influenced by Moore to more linear work; a sketch by Clarke, in which he contrasts his own work with that of Moore and carves his initials into a ‘Moore-ish’ reclining figure; sculptures by Caro, Brown and Dalwood, amongst the few by other artists purchased by Moore for his own collection; and an early carved work by Isaac Witkin made whilst he was serving as Moore’s studio assistant. Sophie Raikes, Assistant Curator, Collections
Future Newsletters As we are increasingly using email as a means of keeping in touch, Issue 95 (April/May 2011) will be the last Newsletter to be sent out by post. If you would like to continue to receive the Newsletter electronically, please confirm your email address to Gill Armstrong (gill@henry-moore.org / 0113 246 7467). The new format will be printable on receipt; paper versions will be available on request for a £5 annual subscription.
Events
Displays
Contemporary Artists on Henry Moore
Construction and its Shadow
Henry Moore Room, Leeds Art Gallery, 6pm To coincide with the Henry Moore exhibitions at the Henry Moore Institute and Leeds Art Gallery, on Wednesdays in March we are staging a series of talks by contemporary artists with longstanding interests in Moore’s work.
Gallery 19, Leeds Art Gallery, to 5 June This display draws on the collections of Leeds Museums & Galleries and the Arts Council Collection to look at both the Construction and Systems groups of British artists who came to prominence in the 1950s and 60s. It has been organised by the artist Andrew Bick, and is an outcome of his Henry Moore Institute Research Fellowship in 2007.
9 March 16 March 23 March 30 March
Simon Starling Bruce McLean Paul McDevitt to be confirmed
Booking is not necessary and entrance is free, though seating is limited. Simon Starling’s talk has been organised in collaboration with the CICA Research Project, and introduces the second CICA workshop – see below.
CICA: Changing Identities & Contexts in the Arts Artistic Research as the New European Paradigm for the Arts; an EU Culture Grant Project, September 2010 - July 2011 The Artist as Researcher: Artistic Research Now Workshop, Henry Moore Institute, 9-11 March The project promotes international dialogue among European artists and professionals in the field of art and culture; it is founded on the belief that creating new knowledge on artists’ and art’s position in the 21st century will be best achieved through intercultural communication – in discussions, through reflecting on artworks, and in interest-generating public seminars. Participating Institutions: KUVA Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki (project coordinator), Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki, University of Leeds, Centre for Practice-led Research (CePRA), Henry Moore Institute, Project Space Leeds, Gothenburg University: Faculty of Fine, Applied & Performing Arts, Gothenburg Centre for Contemporary Art. Booking essential. Contact: Roger Palmer, Professor of Fine Art, University of Leeds, r.b.palmer@leeds.ac.uk
Sculpture in University Collections Study Day, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, 15 April, 10.30am-4.30pm Thanks largely to the vision and judgement of its first director, Thomas Bodkin (1887-1961), supplemented by some judicious later purchases, the Barber Institute has the core of an excellent, if little-known, collection of sculpture, including fine 17th-century Italian and 19th-century French bronzes and an outstanding terracotta bust by Roubiliac. These are gathered together for the first time, with sculpture-related paintings and works on paper, in the exhibition Carved, Cast and Modelled: Sculpture from the Barber Collection (11 February - 2 May). To mark this occasion, the Barber Institute is holding a special study day exploring the theme of sculpture in UK university collections. Speakers including Victoria Avery (Fitzwilliam Museum), Katharine Eustace (formerly Ashmolean Museum), Andrea Fredericksen (UCL) and Robert Wenley (Barber Institute) will examine the history and range of some of the key historic and modern university collections and their current and future function. Booking essential. Contact: education@barber.org.uk / 0121 414 7335. £35/£25 (Friends/over-60s) / £15 (students).
The display traces a thread through this complex legacy with a selection from the work of this early generation of artists, and those who followed them, alongside younger artists emerging today who engage with the working methods of Construction and redeploy some of the forms of Systems art in their current practice. Featured Artists: Eva Berendes, John Carter, Cullinan Richards, Norman Dilworth, Adam Gillam, Christine Hatt, Anthony Hill, Germaine Kruip, Gareth Jones, Peter Lowe, George Meyrick, Kenneth Martin, Mary Martin, Victor Pasmore, Achill Redo, Jean Spencer, Jeffrey Steele, Gillian Wise, Gary Woodley. A symposium, co-hosted by the Henry Moore Institute, will take place on Wednesday 11 May 2011, 12-30pm-7pm with contributions from some of the participating artists and critics and art historians associated with ideas around Construction and Systems. For further information please contact Sarah Brown, 0113 247 8277.
Henry Moore Institute Bookshop The Institute bookshop now stocks a selection of monthly art periodicals: Frieze, Art Monthly, Artforum, Art Review, Aesthetica, Tate etc and Cabinet, as well as Corridor8 published annually. For the duration of The Royal Academy’s Modern British Sculpture exhibition (curated by Penelope Curtis and Keith Wilson, on show 22 January – 7 April) we are stocking RA Magazine which includes Richard Cork’s overview of the show. We also have a few remaining copies of the latest issue of The Journal of Modern Craft, guest edited by Jon Wood (Henry Moore Institute) and Jyrki Siukonen (Finnish Academy of Fine Arts) and featuring articles by Krysten Cunningham (artist in the Institute’s recent Undone exhibition), Tomas Macsotay (Henry Moore Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Leeds), Ann Compton (Project Director, Mapping Sculpture project) and Edward Allington (Slade School of Fine Art).
Spring 2011 Jean-Marc Bustamante: Dead Calm Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 4 February - 3 April Henry Moore Institute, 21 April – 26 June The Institute has collaborated with the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh on developing the first UK solo exhibition of the work of French artist Jean-Marc Bustamante. Since the 1970s Bustamante has been investigating the slippages between sculpture and photography, architecture, drawing and painting. A complementary exhibition opens in February at the Fruitmarket Gallery, coinciding with a publication that features commissioned and newly translated texts, as well as images of Bustamante’s artistic practice. Curated by Penelope Curtis, the exhibition opens in Leeds in April.
Fellowship Reports Robert Morris’ ‘Hearing’ put in perspective – Concepts, Contents, Contexts, Consequences During my stay at the Henry Moore Institute I was able to finish a project that has to do with Robert Morris’ work ‘Hearing’ (1972). This work has two parts: a platform with metal furniture (a chair made of copper, a table made of zinc and a bed made of lead) on it and a tape recording of a fictive hearing lasting more than three hours. Morris’ script for this tape was never edited and published. My stay at the Institute not only helped me to finish the editing of this script but also made it possible for me to finish an extensive essay on this particular work which has not attracted much attention since it was first shown in the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1972. As I am arguing in my essay, however, a sustained analysis of this work can open far reaching perspectives which include connections to recent art works that are usually not seen in relation to Morris’s ‘Hearing’ although this work was part of his retrospective in 1994. Prof. Dr. Gregor Stemmrich Freie Universität, Berlin
Alexander Archipenko and avant-gardism in the United States My project at the Henry Moore Institute was part of a broader research on the paradigm shift from Alexander Archipenko’s practice in the European avant-gardes to avant-gardism in the USA, focusing on Archipenko’s production in the 1930s and early 1940s. I aimed to place this investigation within the wider context of transatlantic artistic practice and of the cultural network of ‘modern art’ in the USA. Existing literature has barely touched on Archipenko’s production in this period. Significantly, terracotta then became his preferred medium. He worked in it, almost, exclusively and produced over eighty sculptures. This group of work, abstractions of the human figure, is varied in terms of structure, colour, textures and themes. Archipenko experimented with different ways of treating the terracotta surface, creating sculptures that were built out of two tones, polished, covered with silver, chromed, gilded, painted polychrome and with inlays. He used creative tools from his Cubist past, such as colour, as well as a combination of traditional and highly modern media and techniques. Conceptually, he emphasised the spiritual in art in contrast to the contemporaneous materialistic society. This was influenced by the artist’s strong reconnection with Bergsonian philosophy, which he also employed in his pedagogy to redefine his understanding of creativity. Using references from the Institute’s library I placed Archipenko’s practice in the context of American sculpture of the 1930s and 40s, including ceramic art, design and architecture. I also became engaged with the theoretical discussions and thoughts on the boundaries and hierarchies in art (in particular between the applied arts and art). Archipenko too obliterated these boundaries like so many artists of the modernist generation. At the end of the 1930s he exhibited his new work with the support of several advocates of modernism including Katherine Kuh, Karl Nierendorf and Curt Valentin. At the same time, he experienced a strong demand for his earlier ‘Cubist’ works by other promoters of modernism such as Alfred H. Barr Jr.
It became clear that Archipenko’s new production did not fit with the requirements of the cultural and institutional art market in the USA, leaving him with a sense of disconnection. Towards the end of my fellowship I began to expand my study by looking at the artistic practices of other exiles and émigrés in the USA and I am currently engaged in this research. Alexandra Keiser Courtauld Institute of Art, The Archipenko Foundation
Crafting Dissent: Politics and Handmade Textiles in Contemporary Art My current research examines how US and UK based artists in the last several decades use knitted, crocheted, and woven techniques to propose alternative economic and political models of making. Many contemporary artists have taken up conventional textile techniques not as a nostalgic return to the mark of the artist’s hand, but to make diverse and timely statements. In my research, I ask how this polemical textile work challenges traditional notions of craft as domestic, private, or aesthetically conservative. While much has been made of the presumed hierarchy between the fine arts and craft, many contemporary artists actively erode the binary between hands-on materiality and conceptual critique. Beginning in the late 1960s with the feminist movement and the re-evaluation of women’s handicraft, the procedures of knitting, crocheting, weaving, and quilting have come to signify a particularly gendered form of art-making. Crafting Dissent begins in this moment, starting with Harmony Hammond’s ‘floorpiece’ sculptures of the early 1970s, and moves forward to discuss more recent grassroots activist initiatives like the AIDS Quilt. This project builds upon my interest in questions of labour, class, and gender in recent art production. Drawing connections between artistic forms and social movements, Crafting Dissent speculates that textile crafting, because it is so often public and communal (as in ‘stitch and bitch’ collectives and sewing circles), might play a vital role in the public sphere. With knitting groups like London-based CastOff hosting ‘knitting for peace’ campaigns, crafting has the potential to be a somewhat unregulated place of protest. I investigate how craft has long played a significant role in the formation of national identities, especially in times of political turmoil or war. These links are made explicit in much craft-based work today, such as US artist Sabrina Gschwandtner’s collective social sculpture ‘Wartime Knitting Circle’ (2006), which engages with public audiences regarding the historical role of women knitting for ‘the war cause’ as they discuss the ongoing war in Iraq. The relationship between crafting and radical alternatives to capitalism has important historical precedents - primarily William Morris, and I am interested in how his legacy has been updated and transformed given current economic conditions. As a result, I have welcomed the opportunity to spend six weeks amidst the resources of the Henry Moore Institute. As a senior fellow here, I am looking at influential British rhetoric that connects handmaking to radical world-making, such as Morris. I am also making use of the library’s excellent resources in order to think through the history of handicrafts as an unstable political method of making. And, in the wake of global economic shifts, I am busy exploring the city of Leeds itself as a former textile centre. Julia Bryan-Wilson Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History University of California, Irvine
Noticeboard Henry Moore Institute Visitors We are delighted that our 2010 visitor figures increased by 42% on the previous year. We look forward to welcoming you to the Institute during 2011. Keep up to date at: twitter.com/HMILeeds www.facebook.com/pages/Henry-Moore-Institute/298487094711?v=wall
The Decorated School This international research network, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, will record and begin to analyse what we have termed 'the decorated school'; those aspects of the school building and surrounds that were worked on by artists and sculptors to integrate art works intended to project ideas about education in relation to notions of local or national identities. In the past there was a deep appreciation of how the best design and art might act as a kind of educator and in England regional education officers ensured that new school buildings would contain works of beauty and excellent design. The post-war period was a time when the renewal of school buildings led to artists working collaboratively with architects and educators to decorate school interiors and grounds. The artifacts installed ranged from ceramic tiles to large scale murals and sculptures. These items were carefully considered to project a particular image of childhood, adolescence or education to a specific local audience. The research network will meet at sites where there are existing examples that have survived to date. Additionally, the research will document what has existed, and what remains, making this data publicly available through a website and publication. The project will run for two years starting January 2011. Project partners: Catherine Burke (Cambridge University), Jeremy Howard (St Andrews University) Andrew Saint (English Heritage), Peter Blundell Jones (University of Sheffield), Jon Wood (Henry Moore Institute), Ian Grosvenor (University of Birmingham), Roy Kozlovsky (Princeton University) Kirk Niergarth (Trent University, Ontario), Annie Renonciat (Institut National de Recherche Pédagogique and Université Paris) Deborah Wakely, (ARK, UK) Diane Watters (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland).
Henry Moore Institute The Headrow Leeds LS1 3AH Open daily 10.00am – 5.30pm, Wednesdays until 9.00pm Closed Bank Holidays Enquiries: +44 (0) 113 246 7467 / 9469 Located in the centre of Leeds adjacent to Leeds Art Gallery, a short walk from the rail station.
Exhibitions Guided Tours Free guided tours of the current Henry Moore Institute exhibitions are available on Wednesdays at 7.30pm and on Saturdays at 2.30pm. It is not necessary to book in advance; please enquire on the day at gallery reception. To book a tailormade tour of any part of the Institute contact 0113 246 7467.
Main Galleries 3 February – 3 April 2011 Henry Moore: Prints and Portfolios
Gallery 4 To 20 February 2011 Angkor Wat: From Temple to Text 16 March - 31 July 2011 Savage Messiah: The Creation of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
Library To end February 2011 Strange tints: the influence of the Brontës in contemporary visual art From 14 March 2011 Hair and blood: towards an amateur anthropology of primitivism
Leeds Art Gallery Sculpture Study Galleries: Mezzanine 3 February – 26 June Dear Henry Moore: Connections and Correspondence
Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951 Conference, Sackler Centre, Victoria and Albert Museum, 25-26 February The Mapping Sculpture project is the first comprehensive study of sculptors, related businesses and trades investigated in the context of creative collaborations, art infrastructures, professional networks and cultural geographies. This international conference aims to disseminate some of the project’s initial findings and initiate a dialogue with scholars, curators and students engaged in related research. Mapping Sculpture is a partnership between University of Glasgow History of Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum and Henry Moore Institute. The conference will also mark the launch of Mobilising Mapping, a new mobile interface. For more information/bookings visit www.vam.ac.uk/whatson/event/954/
Sculpture Galleries The Practice and Profession of Sculpture: Objects from the Leeds Collection Joseph Gott in Leeds and Rome
Leeds Art Gallery is open daily 10.00am – 5.00pm Wednesday 12.00pm – 5.00pm, Sunday 1.00pm – 5.00pm
The Henry Moore Foundation in partnership with Leeds City Council
www.henry-moore.org ISSN 1363-1152 Newsletter co-ordinated by Gill Armstrong. This newsletter can be provided in your preferred format, please contact gill@henrymoore.org. If you would be happy to receive it by email, please help us reduce our environmental impact by letting us know.