Artist Eye Talk at the National Art Gallery – 4th Nov 2011

Creativity is based on inspiration, and artists are inspired in many ways: some by nature, some by relationships, some by pain… and some by the masters of the past.

At the Artist Eye Talk last week, Michael Landy was invited to talk on one masterpiece of his choice of the National Art gallery: Les Grandes Baigneuses (about 1894-1905) by Paul Cézanne. Landy is best known for his monumental installation/performance artwork Break Down (2001) whereby he systematically destroyed all of his possessions in a former department store on Oxford Street, London, as well as Semi-Detached (2004) which consisted of replicating his parents’ home inside Tate Britain. Then, what is it that drew him to a painting artwork as Les Grandes Baigneuses, which is obviously far from his medium of expression?

nationalgallery.org.uk

When asked that question, Landy humourously said, ‘Money’. In fact, it was the purchase order of a friend to make a replica of this painting. Landy explained how that he was that type of artist who makes innumerable sketches of the proposed drawing and he said that this is one of the best ways for understanding a painting. As a result he now has quite a few ink and pencil sketches based on Les Grandes Baigneuses, and this even ended upon being an inspiration for a large-scale drawing he exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer 2011 Show, Bathers after Cezanne no.3. Thence we notice how the simple interconnectivity of the eye and the skill of the hand, draws contemporary artist Michael Landy to the old master, Paul Cézanne.

Coming to the painting itself, we notice the architectural tone that dominates the background, the lack of perspective and lack of detail in terms of tints and shades; it is all to do with texture and the overall feel of the artwork. Landy described how this semblance of the foreground merging into the background caught his attention. Indeed there is nothing delineating the two, be it the gradual toning down of colour intensity that we find in painting during the Renaissance period, or perspective. 

Moreover, we do feel a certain presence of water beyond the nude figures though we do not see it. Again it all comes down to Cézanne’s painting technique. Cézanne treats the outer section of the bodies with a certain warm, earthy feel which gradually converges into a cooler, bluish tint in the treatment of the further, inner section of bodies. That bluish tint gives the hint of a cooling presence beyond, maybe the reflection of water. The painting follows a long tradition of nude paintings by Titian and Poussin but Cézanne’s interpretation of it is what makes it unique.

We saw how Landy became inspired by Cézanne and now understand how artists may be inspired by other artists in a multitude of ways. By the end of the talk, I realised that to understand a painting simply seeing it live might not be enough; drawing it might be the better way of doing so.

And I hope you realised it too.

At the Folies-Bergère

Along the Strand and pass the main archway entrance of Somerset House, into the furbished, elegant Courtauld Gallery on the right, up a couple of staircases, through the halls dedicated to Renaissance and the subsequent flow into Impressionist period, and lo, there’s the painting, reclining majestically against the wall as one of the most well-known masterpieces of Edouard Manet: A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.

Las Meninas
mystudio.com

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is primarily an Impressionist painting, and it is this technique which brings the viewer onto a level of real experience. First and foremost this painting has been described as a modern rendition of Velasquez’s Las Meninas. The latter’s masterpiece was executed in such a way as if it was actually capturing a filmic scene and as a result the viewer gets the feeling that he/she is indeed stepping into an intimate family setting. The same effect is achieved with A Bar at the Folies Bergère, though this time instead of making us feel that we are misplaced, Manet draws us to it and creates an invisible connection between portraiture and the audience.

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère 
impressionist-art-gallery.com

Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe
seelvage.com

As for the very technique of impressionism, the dry thick strokes of colour create texture and induce an intense sensory experience. As such the visual becomes enough to evoke a feel of ‘synaesthesia’; we want to touch it, we feel the atmosphere, we experience it. The blurred figures in the ‘mirror’ background are enough to impart the shimmer, the frolic and the intoxicated bliss of Paris nightlife at the Folies-Bergère. Yet, it is the foreground which is of main concern. The display at the bar is equally intensely sensual, and thus Manet seems to be showing how the visual in our consumerism society lures us to indulge. It’s all about what we see and, in the words of Marshall McLuhan, ‘it is never the content that counts’. Then, we may question, what about the bar maid? Her depiction is also very visually arresting, decorative and sensual. Is she on display too? Is she also an object of desire? Since portraiture is very much to do with emotion and identity, this is what we might think. She is melancholic, obviously not happy with her situation. In this way the idea of prostitution is subtly raised and maybe even condemned. This reminds us of Manet’s other work which was controversial during his own time, the Dejeuner sur l’herbe. In that painting Manet flouted the traditional idealized version of female nudes and showed a crude reality that could be said to be hinting at prostitution.

Manet intentionally avoids fixed point perspective to create a two-way traffic with the viewer. The bar maid is improperly reflected into the mirror as in the mirror she seems to be addressing a man. This could however hint at a past situation which led to that melancholic expression in the frontal portrait. From another perspective, given the blurry man is a reflection of what is in front of the bar maid, and what is in front of her is us, Manet seems to make that figure a portrait of us, the viewer. What is that man asking from the bar maid? Could it be some sensual favours? In other words, Manet makes us part of his artwork and exposes us as the ones who are lured by modern society’s visual culture.

At the end of the day, we cannot but awe at the ingenuity of the presention of ideas through this unconventional use of perspective.

And as we move onto the next painting in the hall, we do feel that, yes, we’ve just left the Folies Bergère.

Tacita Dean's 2011 film: A prelude

Are you in the Tate Modern’s massive Turbine hall? And you just went down the hall from the main entrance to the other extremity – a dark space – past the flight of stairs leading to the first level, only to find a big screen showing a mute, mostly visual film, right? Well that’s it; you have just had your first encounter with Tacita Dean’s 2011 film.

As part of the Unilever series, Tacita Dean’s artwork is in fact an installation; it is not solely the film but the whole setting that she makes use of. Firstly, the darkness around simply enhances the grayscale and colour frames of the film, hence making the whole experience visually riveting.

The screening of the film is in the portrait format, a vertical depiction which takes the whole of the wall, thus playing with the viewers’ gaze: from top to bottom and from bottom to the top. This ceaseless refocusing of our attention pulls us to review the film again and again, to try and discern the other visual details of the different tableaus if not the very meaning of their intended symbolism; hence Tacita Dean’s proper idea of keeping it a continuous screening.

One poignant feature of this installation is the use of the old.  Marshall McLuhan himself said, ‘The medium is the message’ and here Tacita Dean is paying tribute to a dying medium. She makes use of the very basic mechanics of film-making and on the wall found just before the installation area, we read, ‘I physically splice the print and stick it together with tape. It these days of solitary and concentrated labour which are at the heart of that creative process…’ The intended result of the whole artwork is to create something which is being lost in face of digitised technology.

Tacita Dean
Foley Artist 1996
Installation views of Art Now Exhibition, Tate Britain
© Courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery. Photo: Tate

 In this light we find another enlightening phrase from McLuhan - ‘We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us’. We have become so enamoured by digital technology that whatever preceded its invention now sparks an interest in us and thus becomes ‘art’. We find this trait in Tacita Dean’s Foley Artist (1996), where she is honouring the skill of the foley artist which consisted of creating the sounds of people’s footsteps, punches, kisses and movements by using clothes, shoes, props and pits filled with varying amounts of grit and stone. It is a skill no longer practiced in the making of cinema, but Tacita Dean re-evoked it as an artwork. So this is what the artist conveys to us, again, with her use of anamorphic film, large front projection, projection booth, free standing screen, loop system and even seating arrangement.

By the end of the 11 minutes film, one thing we are definitely sure of: we are faced with the undeniable opposition of digital versus analogue cellular technology. As for figuring out the content and symbolism of the film, we’ll leave that to your own personal interpretation, shall we?

As it is often said ‘Proof lies in the experience’.

A piece of nature: analysing it the Bauhaus way

A seemingly insignificant dried part of a flower bed, but, very much detailed and intricate.

The bauhaus way of observing nature was not only to watch and replicate on paper, but to also understand the feel of the object by using our sense of touch to in turn give a more convincing observational study based on real experience.

Being a dried piece of nature, it had sharp pointy edges. And I tried my best to impart that feel in the sketches.

Artist’s Eye Talk at the National Art Gallery – 14 Oct 2011

Art, like anything else in this world, is continuously evolving, with artists searching new means of expression and thus move further on the path of innovation. Yet, we find that what was old serves as an inspiration for the new, whatever was before becomes the basis of the new. And indeed, that’s what the Artist’s Eye Talk at the National art gallery, every month tries to bring to our attention.

So, a slight zooming back to the talk on Friday 14^th October 2011, is due.

www.bbc.co.uk

Well known artist Christopher P. Wood explained how Sassetta’s Saint Francis panels for the San Sepolcro Altarpiece (made in egg tempera on poplar, during the 13th century) was an inspiration for him. Imagination – a main theme of his own artworks – is according to him something central to these panels. He explained how Sassetta creates the imaginative and makes it look real – not in terms of technique, but as an overall work of art. We see how Sassetta, like Giotto, introduces the language of sculpture into painting; it is not totally realistic but enough to demarcate it from the medieval paintings before his time.  There is this absence of the shadow of the human figures in the paintings. So this not-so-close-but-close-enough approach to realism becomes a proper backdrop for presenting the imaginary in a believable way. For example we find the flying castle in Saint Francis and the Poor Knight, and Francis's Vision (right) as being credible in context of the painting as we find that dominance of a very modern, very uniformly coloured and strictly constructed architecture throughout; it’s as if the strict construction lines were being repeated in perspective.

common.wikipedia.org

These very delineated and calculated lines of the architecture are quite modern and bring into play the perspective of Sassetta’s work, like we find in Saint Francis before the Sultan (left). The use of colour in the architecture is almost graphical and thus modern: the one shade is uniform (not a gradual degradation of tone) and separated from the other shade of the same colour.

common.wikipedia.org

One other important part of Sassetta’s work is the notion of time and space. In the panels, time and space become one, hence creating a visual narrative. In Saint Francis and the Poor Knight, and Francis's Vision, at the same place we find two scenes involving the same person, Saint Francis. This reminds us of another painting by Sassetta where three scenes are depicted, with perspective introducing the time element: The Meeting of Saint Anthony and Saint Paul (far right).


In a nutshell, what is ancient doesn’t necessarily have to be set under the ‘old-fashioned’ banner. It could still open new ways for today’s art. And Christopher Wood is living proof of it.

THE SAATCHI GALLERY - THE SHAPE OF NEW THINGS TO COME: NEW SCULPTURE

The Shape of New Things to Come: New Sculpture is very much – as the title of the exhibition itself might suggest – a kind of harbinger to our future. As such, these works of art seem to underline the essence of this sentence from Marshall McLuhan,

“The artist has the power to discern the current environment created by the latest technology.”

(Through the Vanishing point, 1968, Preface)

The artists’ works are numerous but my analysis of a few of them will help to showcase the essence of the exhibition.

iType (2005) by Wiyoga Muhardanto, is such a work which goes to the heart of our present day technological feat and luxury, even so in a very simple way. The work comprises of a vintage typewriter inserted within an 88 x 39.5 x 39.5 box made of plywood and plexiglass, and embossed with the Apple logo. The very first look of it is sleek, clean, smooth, and tingling to our sense of touch, recreating in a way our current love syndrome for the Apple appliances which flood the market. Though at the time the artwork was made (2005) it was only to do with Apple’s new laptop and the latter was not so established as it is now, nevertheless, the work remains thought-provoking.

Muhardanto induces a play of contrasts as he includes a vintage typewriter into the ‘Apple’ setting. It is all nicely set and tidy as if it were part of the appliance itself and this has, for a moment, a trompe l’oeil effect upon the viewer; one may think it’s a genuine Apple product there. Simple but striking, this visual juxtaposition of the old and the new seems to indicate to us a reality – just as the typewriter no longer matters once new technologies have emerged, the now glorified ‘Apple’ technologies will one day become obsolete in face of other technologies and become the ‘typewriter’ of a future age. Hence iType becomes an irony in itself and even puts into questions our notion of technological luxury, a notion which is always in flux.

Then there is David Altmejd’s shocking work, The Healers (2008). The work comprises of nude figures all around, in erotic poses, conveying sexual pleasure. The work is complicated, so much so that the viewer knows not who is seducing whom or who is victim or aggressor. Having an overall dimension of 239 x 367 x 367, the figures are all crude –being made of foam plaster, burlap, wire and paint – and the colours have a repelling and cold effect (instead of the usual warmth of the passion associated with sexual activity). Technically speaking, Altmejd’s use of colour is intense for the middle figures and it gradually drains and recedes into blank whiteness. The same goes for the sculpture arrangement: it’s a central peak which flows downwards. This suggests intense passion which slowly fades until it is no more than an act without sentiment or concern; it becomes carnal and nothing more.

 Each figure seems to be linked to one another by some sexual act or the other, suggesting, maybe, the uncontrollable sexual urge and infidelity of the modern era. The metamorphosis aspect of the work – the winged figure and the innumerable hands creeping all over – gives off a wild feeling. Furthermore there is the motif of hands which is dominant, enhancing this sense of touch which is the basis of sex. A multi-partner union – ghastly but a union nonetheless – is formed. Altogether there is this altercation of freedom and a clinging sex life. In the end, we muse, are The Healers really healers?

Hence we find how these two artists have been successful in creating strong works which mark us, though their mediums of doing so, styles and concerns are very different. But what brings both works on the same track is the fact that both sculptures are indicating to us ‘the shape of new things to come’.