david shrigley at stephen friedman

Humour is not hard to find in postmodern art – a typical definition of postmodernism will probably include humour alongside parody and irony – and we are all familiar with works like Maurizio Cattelan‘s Pope Struck by a Meteorite (below), Jeff Koons‘ Rabbit and Gavin Turk‘s Blue Plaque. But this is not laugh out loud humour – or should I say nowadays lol humour – this is more like the knowing chuckle of the West End audience in a performance of an Alan Bennett play. So when we do get a work of art that we can really laugh at (presuming that we are not laughing at its awfulness) it is instinctive to ask ourselves whether this really is art or not. Surely we should not be lol-ing at proper art?

But lol I did at the wonderful David Shrigley‘s exhibition at Stephen Friedman. Shrigley of course has a big retrospective currently showing at the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank (to be reviewed later) and Friedman has taken the opportunity to use both his West End gallery spaces for a parallel exhibition. A lot of his work of course is on paper but he has broadened his output to include sculpture, animation, taxidermy and photography.

The first gallery space at Steven Friedman is taken over by the darkly humorous and rather disconcerting Bombs, an installation of black ceramic sculptures, subverting the destructive nature of a real bomb using a rather delicate material. In the next a sculptured word - writing - sits upon a small wall mounted platform, no explanation required.

A clever animation in the back room is of an artist faithfully depicting his model on canvas: the breasts are first (is that what that the artist is really interested in?), then the rest of the body and head, until finally after careful consideration, adding a smile to replace the glum expression of the model. The cynical suggestion of course is that art is there to please – the artist changing the reality to fit the expectations and commercial realities.

The most humorous works are those on paper over the road at Friedman’s other gallery space. Too many to describe and I do not have any images, but some random images below just for fun or for some more examples of his work have a look at the Steven Friedman Gallery website or better still drop in next time you are in the West End!

David Shrigley is at the Steven Friedman gallery until 10 March 2012.

Related articles

• David Shrigley: one of the cleverest, funniest conceptual artists (thetruthiswhere.wordpress.com)
• In pictures: Shrigley’s weird world (news.bbc.co.uk)
• David Shrigley: art’s White Rabbit (guardian.co.uk)
• david shrigley: brain activity at hayward gallery, london (designboom.com)
• David Shrigley: Brain Activity – A Reality Check for Modern Art (rattlingoastick.wordpress.com)

dont be seduced by s[edition]

With todays unveiling of the Elmgreen & Dragset sculpture for the fourth plinth - Powerless Structures; fig 101 - the online digital ‘art’ collecting company s[edition] is offering 5000 free ‘editions’ of the sculpture.

For those of you who haven’t heard s[edition] “is a revolutionary new way to collect art by the world’s leading contemporary artists in digital format. Experience a whole new world of art and collecting.”   Supposedly this is the way that you can suddenly ‘own’ you own masterworks of contemporary art. They boast that works “that can normally command astronomical prices can be had here [sic] for as little as 4 Euros.”  They do not mention that it is up to 500 euros – -hardly good value in my book. And who are these artists that have licenced their work? Surprise, surprise – Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and Matt Collishaw for starters, you can guess many of the rest.

Hmm – 4 Euros – spotted the catch yet? Uniquely it can only be used on digital devices accessible from your online vault. Infact all you are doing is paying to use an image. Forgive me for being cynical but wouldn’t most people just find an image somewhere on the web and use it as a screensaver? OK, officially you have to have permission to use some images but still many people will not be too concerned about using any image they find on the web for personal use (and there are plenty of royalty free images around too).

S[edition] cleverly throw around words like ‘own’, ‘collection’, ‘certificate of authenticity’. Art collecting is “instant, affordable, social and enjoyable“. And what happens if you want to sell some of these valuable ‘editions’ that you ‘own’ in your ‘art collection’. You can forget it for now – you cannot sell (or give) them to anyone else. They promise an online marketplace in the future, but don’t expect a queue of takers for those Hirst spots that you thought might look nice on the ipad.

Don’t get seduced in to thinking you are ‘owning’ contemporary art and this is somehow an art ‘collection’. This is throwaway temporary decoration. When I was younger we used to have access to instant, affordable, good value artworks – they were called Athena posters. They are of course now all valueless and discarded. If you want ‘arty’ screen-savers do yourself a favour and save some money – just browse the web!

Related articles

• S[edition] Art: Collect Boldface Artists, Digitally (apartmenttherapy.com)
• elmgreen & dragset unveiled on 4th plinth trafalgar square (akickupthearts.wordpress.com)

elmgreen & dragset unveiled on 4th plinth trafalgar square

At long last the Powerless Structures, Fig. 101 by Elmgreen & Dragset - otherwise to be known as (probably!) the golden rocking horse – will be unveiled by Joanna Lumley in London’s Trafalgar Square tomorrow –  Thursday 23 February 2012. The recently commissioned competition-winning sculpture (see previous blogs linked below) is to occupy the notorious and long empty 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square.  It was a fitting winner and my runaway favourite – I cannot wait to see it in place.

Here is what the artists say: “In this portrayal of a boy astride his rocking horse, a child has been elevated to the status of a historical hero, though there is not yet a history to commemorate. As in a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, this enfant terrible’ gently mocks the authoritarian pose often found in the tradition of equestrian sculptures. His wild gesture, mimicking the adult cavalier, is one of pure excitement — there will be no tragic consequences resulting from his imaginary conquest.”

Everyone is welcome to celebrate the unveiling by Miss Lumley between 9 and 10am. I am not entirely sure what she knows about art or sculpture, but hey, who cares? – she is after all a rather theatrical fantasy figure like the statute – and ex-Bond girls are in any case allowed to do what they like!

My previous blogs on the subject:

Elmgreen & Dragset win battle of Trafalgar

The Battle of Trafalgar – the Fourth Plinth

Related articles

• Off their rockers: the artists behind the latest addition to the fourth plinth (guardian.co.uk)
• The battle of Trafalgar Square: six artists vie for fourth plinth spot (independent.co.uk)
• New Fourth Plinth sculpture to be unveiled next week (telegraph.co.uk)

whiteread at whitechapel

Bruce Nauman - The space beneath my chair

I have always been rather disappointed that Rachel Whiteread has been allowed to forge a career by simply copying an idea of  Bruce Nauman‘s from 1965 without any noticeable critical comment. I would have been much more impressed had she developed his idea much further and created something more as of course Nauman did with a truly impressive body of conceptual work.

Meanwhile, the Whitechapel gallery has just announced a commission by Whiteread for the building’s historic façade to be unveiled in June 2012 as part of the London 2012 Festival. Perhaps the similarities of name inspired the gallery to select Whiteread perhaps?

The original plans for the Gallery included a frieze which was never realised leaving a large blank rectangle above the main entrance.  The Whitechapel states that “Whiteread has drawn her inspiration from the Tree of Life motif, which is part of the terracotta building, making casts from existing features to then create clusters of gilded leaves and branches….. Four negative casts of existing Gallery windows in terracotta will be located centrally within the recessed panel area between the towers, as a formal counterpoint to the leaf elements.”

Grudgingly I think it looks quite promising – the notion of the original terracotta motif ‘growing’ into a gold ornament being quite interesting – but I will reserve judgement until I see it in place!

Related articles

• Rachel Whiteread designs ‘ostentatious’ Whitechapel Gallery frieze (guardian.co.uk)
• Whiteread to make gallery frieze (bbc.co.uk)

photographers gallery announces reopening date

The excellent Photographers Gallery, closed for a year or so now, has just announced that it is to reopen on the 19 May 2012. Put it in the diary right now! This is an important institution that I have greatly missed in recent times. It is still open by appointment and the excellent bookshop is also open but the three new exhibition spaces will bring a huge boost to photographic exhibitions in London. Furthermore it is widely involved in projects, talks and works with schools and education and its importance cannot be underestimated. Expect also for the new cafe to be a good place to drop in to an an arty place to hang out!

The Photographers Gallery is certainly the most relevant and important gallery of its kind in London, and the UK for that matter, founded 1971 in a converted Lyon’s Tea Bar. It was the first independent gallery in Britain devoted to photography and was the first public gallery in the country to exhibit many of the key international names in photography such as Juergen Teller (fashion), Robert Capa (photojournalism), Sebastião Salgado (documentary) and Andreas Gursky (contemporary art). It has also been instrumental in establishing many contemporary British photographers including Martin Parr and Julie Cockburn (illustrated below).

Additionally it has established the highly regarded annual £30k International (now Deutsche Borse) Photography Prize. Past prize winners include Andreas Gursky (1998), Juergen Teller (2003), Robert Adams (2006), Esko Männikkö (2008), Paul Graham (2009), Sophie Ristelhuber (2010) and Jim Goldberg (2011).

The Photographers Gallery is currently on the 3rd Floor at 7 – 9 William Road, London NW1 3ER. Call prior to arrange a visit.

Opening hours Tue – Sat: 10.00 – 18.00  Contact 020 7087 9320

The new Gallery will open on 19 May 2012 at 16-18 Ramillies Street W1F 7LW

art by animals – a new exhibition at ucl

Some while back I wrote about animal art (see blog). In was partly in jest, mostly because of an elaborate ‘cat painters’ hoax, but also because of dog ‘artists’ who are just trained to jab a brush at a canvas. However, in respect of chimps I am much more open-minded about potential artistic talent. I am quite willing to believe that they do have the ability to create what they conceive as visually interesting patterns (art?), viz Congo the chimp (pictured) who also actually has an excellent auction record!

I am determined therefore to visit an unusual and quirky exhibition that has just opened at UCL’s Grant Museum of Zoology. Paintings by orang-utans, gorillas, chimpanzees and elephants feature in what is believed to be the first multi species art show. Pieces includes a painting of a flowerpot created by an elephant called Boon Me, formerly involved in the Thai logging industry, and a tiny finger painting by a chimp.

From early modernists like Picasso to abstract expressionists like Jackson Pollock artists have often sought primitive influences. Sometimes it is by using outside inspiration from artwork by primitive peoples, children or even the insane and at others perhaps seeking to go internally to an unconscious or primitive self. How does this differ from the work created by the genuinely ‘primitive’ animal? If primitive or subconscious art is somehow considered more ‘real’ then is animals art not even more genuine that that of the artist? An interesting philosophical question to which I doubt there is a simple answer!

The museum says it hopes the exhibition will help answer the question of whether animal art is really art. “That’s the big question,” said Jack Ashby, the museum manager. “While elephants can be trained to always paint the same thing, art by apes is a lot more creative and is almost indistinguishable from abstract art by humans. Ape art is often compared to that of two or three-year-old children in the ‘scribble stage’. ” Co-curator Mike Tuck, a graduate of the UCL Slade School of Fine Art, said the show was an attempt to take a “broad view of the phenomenon.”

See a short clip from the BBC here.

ART BY ANIMALS  runs from 1 February to 9 March 2012, M-F 1300-1700.

Grant Museum of Zoology, Rockefeller Building, University College London, University Street, WC1E 6DE. Free.

www.zoology.museum@ucl.ac.uk

Related articles

• Can you guess which painting is by an ELEPHANT (and which is the work of a top modern artist)? (dailymail.co.uk)
• VIDEO: Art by animals goes on show (bbc.co.uk)
• In Pictures: Paintings by animals (bbc.co.uk)
• Ape and elephant art goes on show in London (telegraph.co.uk)
• Animals get arty (newscientist.com)

bonhams takes on christies and sotheby’s with contemporary one

The contemporary art auction market in London has in recent years been a bitter slug-fest between the two ‘big boys’ – Sotheby’s and Christies.  Last year Christies won on points with their total for the three sales – in February, June and October – reaching £167m, only about £3m ahead of Sotheby’s. A distant third is Phillips de Pury whose three sales grossed only (!) £36m.

The new kid on the block is Bonhams but this sounds a strange thing to say since they have been around since 1793. However it is only since 2001, when they came under new ownership that they have started expanding significantly and have steadily eaten in to the larger houses share of the auction market. Contemporary art has never been their strong suit and, following some dabbling in the contemporary market in their hit and miss Vision 21 auctions they have now launched a full-scale assault on the hegemony of the bigger houses. Following the inaugural sale by the new Contemporary Art Department last October – only grossing about £2m but largely successful and 70% sold – thay are offering another closely curated sale of 20 lots with a modest mid-estimate total of around £2.5m.

At first glance this sale could be dismissed as a sale of little importance in the London Contemporary market, but a look at the catalogue shows something more interesting. The catalogue is a beautifully and expensively produced whopper. One hundred and sixty-four pages. For twenty lots. Every lot gets loads of attention and space lavished upon it. Take a nice Alan Davie Little Tut’s Wagon (lot 5) modestly estimated at £25-35k – the artist gets a double page spread for his photo and a couple more devoted to his work, the painting has a double page plus a fold-out – the equivalent to about 8 pages! At Sotheby’s or Christies it might have got a half a page – in the day sale. There are other modestly-priced works – expect them to go well above estimate – and some very interesting higher rated works too – notably Urs Fischer’s Untitled 2006 (lot 10), Frank Auerbach‘s Head of Lucien Freud (lot 6) and Richard Prince’s Untitled (Girlfriend) (lot 15).

The modest number of lots and total value of the sale is, at least in part, deliberate. I was told that Bonhams wish to establish themselves with very successful sales of low to mid value lots, before going full tilt at the market. I wish them every luck, and with such commitment as they show here  who would bet against them becoming a major player in the contemporary market in the coming years. Meanwhile, if you have a contemporary work to sell there looks like only one sensible place to put it at the moment. With such attention and quality of presentation and, dare I venture, some negotiation of commission for good works, Bonhams will be hard to beat.

London Contemporary auction scehdule February 2012

13/14 Feb Bonhams One/Two eve/day

14/15 Feb Christies eve/day

15/16 Sothebys eve/day

17/18 Phillips de Pury eve/day

 

Related articles

• Lucian Freud drawings to go under the hammer (telegraph.co.uk)

david hockney: a bigger picture at the RA

There seems to be a certain amount of unnecessary sniping at David Hockney following the opening of this exhibition last week. Brian Sewell in the Standard said that it was ‘overblown’, ‘repetitive’ and ‘garish‘. Laura Cumming in the Guardian thinks much is ‘inert and dehumanised‘. It is all ‘Too polite and unthinkingly happy’ for Alistair Sooke in the Telegraph. Just what were they expecting? Bold new experiments in contemporary art? Perhaps Hockney has led us to expect too much following a lifetime of consistent quality?

Once we are past the excellent four seasons of Thixendale Trees of the central hall, inspired by Monet, the show is largely chronological. From some early student works (my preferred) that already show his prodigious talent, we move on to American landscapes that include the clever photographic joiner Pearblossom Highway. It is cleverer than I thought – did you realise that the right side of the picture is the drivers view, the left the passengers – all signs and instruction versus casual observation? No, neither did I.

 More, many more, landscapes follow – smaller watercolours and oils from direct observation, ‘tunnels’ of tracks and roads, Woldgate woods and the Arrival of Spring’. Perhaps too many, but undeniably showing his clarity of vision and clever observation. There is enough variation though: there are the changing viewpoints of the multi-canvas paintings that drag you right in to the landscapes; the almost surreal Hawthorn blossom paintings; clever i-pad drawings including the huge ‘how did he do that on an i-pad’ ones of Yosemite; the vivid colours of Woldgate woods where darkest winter is transformed by brilliant colours.

There is film too. Made with nine cameras Hockney’s converted vehicle trundles along country lanes whilst recording – Google street-view-like – whatever it passes, largely the landscape of course but litter, passing cars and occasional cyclist not excepted. Each film is shown side by side with another of the same location (both same and opposing views) in a different season. Here is nature in glorious close-up and it makes us look – hard, much harder than we expect. We look at the weeds and hedgerows in fine detail observing everything anew – this is Walden on wheels.  The films too reconcile his key themes – looking, time, memory, movement and change.

Of course one could be critical about some of the work. Personally I found The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate – the 32-canvas centrepiece of the exhibition – rather a disappointment and over-stylised, but really, who cares? This is wonderful exhibition from our greatest living artist and it should be celebrated that at 75 years of age Hockney has produced such a large and inspirational body of work. Forget Leonardo – this is the biggest show of the year. Whatever its flaws this is the must-see of a summer.

At the Royal Academy until 9 April 2012

Related articles

• Artist David Hockney returns to his English roots (ctv.ca)
• David Hockney’s landscapes: the wold is not enough (guardian.co.uk)
• Hockney goes back to nature (independent.co.uk)
• The wish from a dying friend that helped Hockney to love Britain again (dailymail.co.uk)
• David Hockney, national treasure (economist.com)

Emin, Hirst & Banksy – who deserves to be in the news?

It seems appropriate that three of the most notorious names of recent years have been in the news recently and have appeared there for widely different reasons. Tracey Emin has just been appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy, Damien Hirst has announced new exhibitions of his entire spot paintings and Banksy has just donated a ‘controversial’ work to the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. Only one should be meaningful to the art world.

Here are three very different artists that have taken key roles within the mass media as representatives of the contemporary art world. Their ‘notoriety’ has been neatly pigeonholed by the press. Tracey Emin for her raw and sexual autobiographical work, the unmade bed, the ‘how can this be art’ tabloid diatribe. She is the bad girl made good. Damien Hirst for his blatant money-making approach and mass-produced work – symbol of the commercialisation of art. The bad boy made rich. Banksy for his anonymous (despite the fact that everyone knows who he is – it’s just that nobody wants to spoil the game) gallery ‘interventions’ and graffiti. The naughty boy turned film producer.

The board of the Royal Academy has just appointed Emin as Professor of Drawing. Although she has been quite cosy with the RA for some years her appointment is a surprise to me. After all she is famously inclusive with her attitude to method –  she paints, draws, embroiders, sculpts, etches, assembles, works in neon and much more. She told us for her Hayward solo show that her work ‘is about words’. Her drawing is OK – if you like repeated drawings of Emin masturbating. Actually I am being overly critical – her drawing is quite good but hardly the stuff of RA professorship. This is an appointment that smacks of some combination of internal/external politics, inclusivity (she is the first female professor in RA history) and media attention.

Hirst meanwhile, as commercial as ever, will next month be showing his entire output of spot paintings at 11 Gagosian galleries worldwide when over 300 variations of the painting series that he first produced in 1988 will be shown. He announced them finished in 2008 but (his ‘factory’) continues production, currently working on a painting that contains two million spots. I hope you can contain your excitement – just one of these appalling ‘paintings’ is enough for me. Yawn.

Up in Liverpool, just in time for Christmas, the Walker has announced the permanent loan of a piece by Banksy. Entitled Cardinal Sin an 18th Century replica stone bust has had its face sawn off and glued on is a selection of bathroom tiles. The resulting ‘pixellated’ portrait is a very neat comment on the abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church and its on-going cover-up.

The one significant piece of news? Whilst Emin has become part of the establishment and Hirst regurgitates his poorest work (easiest to make?) only Banksy – who I have had mixed feelings about to date – produces something of worth. Further this is his best work to date by far – away from quaint political slogans and clever graffiti he has made a Museum quality work. As he says “The statue? I guess you could call it a Christmas present. “At this time of year it’s easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity – the lies, the corruption, the abuse.” Brilliant. Re-spect.

[ps - apologies for a prolonged absence in December - moving house!]

Related articles

• Hirst connects dots across New York, Paris, London and more (travelnews.britishairways.com)
• Tracey Emin appointed as RA’s Professor of Drawing (telegraph.co.uk)

a short tour of peckham galleries

Peckham is the new Hoxton – or at least that is what the young and enthusiastic south London art community would like us to believe, and to be fair this is certainly a hotbed of creative activity.

Step out of Peckham Rye railway station - no London Underground ’round this way – and it is a world of pound stores, ethnic wholesale vegetable shops and fake nail salons. There is an energetic, edgy and interesting vibe to the area. Slipping down a side street and ringing the bell on a nondescript doorway I was led in to the Sunday Painter, a tiny gallery effectively sponsored by the artists studios squeezed around the stairwell. A clever video installation Push-Pull from LA-based artist Pascual Sisto fills the space. Steadily flowing traffic is manipulated to flow from a seemingly never-ending tunnel whilst behind you it flows away from you on another screen.

Back across the High Road and in the back passages of a slightly dodgy light industrial estate is the Son Gallery where a loop of Takeshi Shiamitsu films – Heavy Reflections – were playing. He fuses found video material and home-made footage in a riot of images, colour and sounds which makes for quite difficult viewing.

Nearby in the same Industrial estate is perhaps the most well known of the Peckham commercial galleries, Hannah Barry. Her large space is split in to three currently showing Bobby Dowler, James Capper and Viktor Timofeev, none of which particularly caught my eye, but it would be well worth keeping an eye on her exhibitions to spot any emerging talent from the area.

Flat Time House is rather more unusual in that it is the former home and archive of post-war British artist John Latham. Without elaborating too much on his complex Flat-time theory of the cosmos his work basically ’offers an ordering and unification of all events in the universe, including human actions…’ Using glass, books, plaster, canvas and spray guns his work looks to freeze moments in time. He also equates the building to a body, with the exterior as the ‘face’ (image above). The studio is the ‘hand’ where there is a rotating series of exhibitions. The wonderful films of Motoharo Jonouchi (image below) are amongst those currently on show and feature multiple kaleidoscopic images and a distorted soundtrack which effortlessly drags you in to a strange and disturbing world.

Moca is another artist cum gallery space run by artist Michael Petry. Artist collective LuckyPDF (see them at Frieze) are next to use the intruiging glass wall that faces the pavement with a video installation running 6 to 8 pm on the 30th September.

Last but not least my charming guides Rozsa, Tom and Laura from Arcadia Missa led us to their railway-arch space, again sponsored by artist studios behind the gallery for a talk by LuckyPDF. There are many more galleries too – best found using the South London Art Map.

This is not an area of commercial galleries in conventional spaces this is a place where art is thought about, discussed and created in a diverse range of ways in any cheap and available space that comes to hand. The key words here are ones like collaboration, platform, artist-run, collective, projects, groups and artist space. I highly recommend getting down ‘sarf’ and taking a look around. It is not an easy place to get to and find your way around so to help on the last friday of every month there is an excellent ‘pay-what-you-can’ tour (£5 suggested).

Tours:  http://www.southlondonartmap.com/tours