a b i a n n u a l m a g a z i n e f o r c o l l e c t o r s o f m a t e r i a l c u l t u re
FOLK ART ACROSS THE CONTINENTS FRESH PERSPECTIVES
ART IN IRAN INSIGHTS INTO A COUNTRY, ITS HERITAGE AND CHALLENGES
PLANNING A COLLECTING EXCURSION TO THE UK WHAT TO EXPECT AUGUST 2009 - FEBRUARY 2010 ISSUE 77 AUSTRALIA $16.95 NZ $20.95 SINGAPORE $20.00 UK £7.00 US $13.00 €10.50
RECENT RELEASES ESSENTIAL ADDITIONS TO A COLLECTING LIBRARY
Contents ACQUISITIONS
DECORATIVE ART AND DESIGN
130
70
132 134 135 136 138 140 142 144 146 148
Bugla ma’a’agll, prehistoric stone mortar National Gallery of Australia South Indian or Sri Lankan Female figure, c. 18th-19th century Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Joseph Hoffmann, Vase, c. 1919 National Gallery of Victoria Li Lihong, McDonald’s M, 2007 Hamilton Art Gallery Hunt & Roskell, Presentation Vase, 1864 Queensland Art Gallery Cabinet card portraits, c. 1900 National Gallery of Australia Sir William Dargie, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Second, 1954 National Museum of Australia Karl Bertsch, Table and armchair, c. 1910 National Gallery of Victoria Penleigh Boyd: Three watercolours Australian War Memorial Historical movie poster, c. 1928 Australian National Maritime Museum Iso Rae: art behind the front lines, 1915 Australian War Memorial
78 84 106 124
4
56 74
168
ART 26 32 48
102 112
62
66 116
Trompe l’oeil: art as illusion Annamaria Giusti Contemporary art in Iran Helen Musa The Conversation Piece: fashionable life in the 17th and 18th centuries Desmond Shawe-Taylor Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy of Arts Elspeth Moncrieff Preparing an exhibition: a personal appreciation Ian A C Dejardin
The North-West Passage Claire Warrior National Art Gallery for Singapore Helen Musa
INDEX OF ADVERTISERS
LIBRIS
AROUND THE AUCTIONS Auction highlights from the major houses
EDITORIAL
HERITAGE
12 152
American folk art in Britain Laura Beresford The renaissance of contemporary jewellery in Britain Corinne Julius Marine ivory and scrimshaw Christopher Proudlove Chanukah lamps from North Africa Melody Amsel-Arieli The Thomson Collection of ship models Simon Stephens
Hand written illuminated prayer books from Bohemia and Moravia Jana Vytrhlik The art of book conservation Julie Sommerfeldt Book Review: The Art and Life of Josef Herman Andrew Lambrith
Recent Releases 119 120 121 122 123
China at the Court of the Emperors: Unknown masterpieces Van Dyck & Britain A Journey into the World of the Ottomans: The art of Jean-Baptiste Vanmour (1671-1737) Voices of Contemporary Glass Medals of Dishonour
PHOTOGRAPHY 10
John Gollings, New Guinea Suite, 1973-74 Gael Newton
EXHIBITION REVIEW Venice Biennale 2009 Vivienne Sharpe and Tim McCormick
ARTNEWS
COVER
82
A review of the UK’s arts fairs Duncan Phillips
88
A selection of international events to diarise
John Gollings (Australian b. 1944), New Guinea suite, 1973-74, ed 1/3 printed 2006-07; 60 colour photographs, colour pigment inkjet on paper, 61 x 100 cm. National Gallery of Australia. Gift of John Gollings 2008
167
CONTRIBUTORS
2 WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART
photography
John Gollings
New Guinea suite, 1973-74 Gollings’ photographs of Papua New Guinean 1973-74 annual cultural shows called ‘sing sings,’ were artistic interpretations of the traditional songs, music and dance, ceremonial clothing and body decorations, rather than ethnomusicological research images.
T
his work is from the National
Communication between villages
Gallery of Australia’s recent
The quest for an interpretative,
developed through yodelling requests,
animated and dramatic realisation would
acquisition of John Gollings’ New
directions, commands and challenges,
shape Gollings’ subsequent career,
Guinea Suite, photographs of Papua
yodelled back and forth by men across a
almost four decades of photographing
New Guinean 1973-74 annual cultural
ravine or a ridge, without visual contact,
ancient and modern architecture across
shows called ‘sing sings,’ that
using vantage points such as atop the
Australia, Asia and America. Sally Ingleton’s
dramatically capture traditional songs,
men’s houses, captured by Gollings.
documentary, John Gollings Eye for
music and dance, ceremonial clothing
Traditional items displayed include men’s
Architecture launched at the Melbourne
and body decorations. Gollings, an
wigs of human hair, elaborate
International Film Festival in August.
architecture student turned professional
headdresses decorated with feathers and
photographer, acting on suggestions by
shells, body painting using local dyes
his former lecturer Professor Neville
mixed with pig fat, pig tusk jewellery,
Quarry, went to Papua New Guinea to
holding stone axes and digging sticks.
photograph the dance styles and body decorations at sing sings. Gollings stayed with parents of Quarry’s Papuan students, seeing their preparations and travelling with them to the shows. The ‘shows’ are an artificial construct of Australian patrol officers in the 1950s, as a method of integration and pacification. They continue to be massive, well attended events. The theatricality and vitality of ancient cultural practices manifest in the performances inspired Gollings. Using an array of camera and film technologies he imparted an edgy, expressive and interpretive character to images rather than detailed ethnographic reportage. Melpa people have a patrilineal culture, living in highlands villages separated by valleys and steep mountain ridges.
10 WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART
1
1 John Gollings (Australian b. 1944), New Guinea suite, 1973-74, ed 1/3 printed 200607; 60 colour photographs, colour pigment inkjet on paper, 61 x 100 cm. National Gallery of Australia. Gift of John Gollings 2008
libris 1
1 Spiritual Treasure or Catholic Prayers‌, 1760, 19. x 12.2 cm, 160 pp. This is an example of an original approach to decoration, not influenced by printed work
Rescued from obscurity: hand written, illuminated prayer books from Bohemia and Moravia
Unique to rural Bohemia and Moravia was the tradition of hand transcribed miniature prayer books. Undertaken by nonprofessionals and translated into Czech and German, a significant collection dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries provides important insights into folk art traditions of the region 12 WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART
JANA VYTRHLIK
lluminated manuscripts have a long
I
history in European culture. Scriptoria
(scribe’s workshops) flourished at the end of the fourteenth and early fifteenth century in and adjacent to monasteries. The richly decorated miniature Catholic
art
Art in Iran:
Fajr festival and conference at the TEHRAN MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
1
Attending a conference and festival in Tehran marking thirty years of Islamic revolutionary art was always bound to throw up a few conundrums and mysteries, and so it proved to be during February when I joined a group of Australian, French, and German writers to present a paper at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art’s Fajr celebration of contemporary art. The aspirations of Iranian artists now seem all the more elusive following post election unrest.
HELEN MUSA
T
now joins the Fajr International Film
One thing that strikes you
he word Fajr carries its own
Festival and the Fajr International
immediately in Iran is a deeply-
mystery. It literally translates from
Theatre Festival to make a
embedded love of culture and the arts
triumphant triumvirate.
that goes back to the Achaemenid
Farsi and Arabic as ‘dawn,’ the dawn of the Revolution. Metaphorically, it
Not that there was a vacuum before
Empire and far beyond. The average
indicates the awakening of a national art
the Ayatollah Khomeini stepped off the
Iranian can be relied upon to throw
movement in Iran. The newcomer in a
plane from Paris thirty years ago to
stanzas from the poets Hafiz and Rumi
group of such arts festivals, this one
spearhead the Islamic revolution.
into a casual conversation—this is one
32 WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART
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