Dear All,

Here’s a big fat apology from us. We are, as we hope you are well aware, in the midst of finishing up courses for our MA. Between easter holiday, volcanic ash, and a very brief trip to Art Brussles Fair (fabulous, by the way… more on that later), we’ve taken a hiatus from updating this little blog. We hope to entertain you with a few posts in the very near future. Thank you for your patience…

The London Art News Blog Team

The opportunity to watch an artist as they create works of art is rare. Thankfully, the film River and Tides (2001), a documentary on the land artist Andy Goldsworthy, offers the opportunity to do so.

The viewing of the documentary took place at The Horse Hospital in Russell Square, as one of this month’s Love Art London event  (See post 01 March for more details or check out their website: www.loveartlondon.com). An appropriate venue to say the least: built in the late 18^th century originally stables for sick horses, it is now a Grade II listed building and a staple to the contemporary London art scene. (Check it out athttp://www.thehorsehospital.com/).

The documentary follows Goldsworthy around the globe as he creates site-specific works in Canada, the U.S. and Scotland. It offers an intimate view of the artist’s emotional relationship with his works of art. On the beach, the audience shares Goldsworthy’s frustration as a stone sculpture falls apart multiple times. The audience also shares his pleasure when an ice sculpture he creates is hit by the rising sun at such an angle that it is illuminated in gold. He works in extreme weather conditions of the early mornings – through hard rain and snow.  But, he explains, “Good art keeps you warm.” 

Intertwined with site-specific works, the audience is privy to watch Goldsworthy on his farm in Scotland where much of his experiments in nature take place. There, he learns how to work with different materials to determine how they react to his touch. His materials are very much alive and in order to work with them, he explains, he must understand them.  Close-up shots of bruised nails and bandaged fingers illustrates the constant contact he has with nature.

So much of Goldsworthy’s work is fleeting: rock sculptures by the shore will be taken by the tide, the ice sculpture will melt with the rising sun. Some of this ‘destruction’ is filmed in detail, but, as Goldsworthy explains,  he took the materials from their space, given them a new purpose, and then the earth will reclaim those objects as she deems fit.

The danger of a documentary like this is that the filming feels forced or the artist rehearsed. Director Thomas Riedelsheimer accomplishes the film with great sincerity and captures Goldsworthy’s complex relationship with nature. 

 Turner Prize winner Steve McQueen took part in The Art Fund’s ‘Artists in Conversation’ series at the National Portrait Gallery on 25 March 2010, where the artist discussed his latest work, Queen and Country, with critic Adrian Searle in front of a live audience. The work remembers British casualties of the Iraq war from 2003 to 2009 through postage stamps bearing the portraits of different soldiers. The sheets of stamps are encased in a simple cabinet which viewers can open and sort through. The artist took no political stance in his conversation nor did he opine anything regarding the war; instead he argued that the greatest thing the public could do to honor those who gave their lives for “Queen and country” was to interact with their images through not only art but objects which we interact with mundanely and frequently (McQueen 25/3/10). The artist articulated that he chose to honor the soldiers on postage stamps because “you can be proactive with the images and not just be bombarded with them,” and that he wants the art “to circulate through people’s fingertips” (McQueen 25/3/10). Likewise, McQueen made it clear that he wanted to “bypass the idea of that stone statue in that stone square in London that no one else in the country will see” (McQueen 25/3/10). As the official war artist for the UK in Iraq, McQueen spent a week in desert getting to know soldiers and observing their daily routines and their bonding rituals. The humanity of the soldiers was what the artist most gleaned from the experience, hence his latest work which presents the dead soldiers in such a way that the public is forced to become familiar with their faces for as long as the stamps would circulate. McQueen has been on campaign for the Royal Postal Service to realize the stamps as commemorative editions, but to no avail as his requests have been continually denied. The National Portrait Gallery and The Art Fund both provide petition post-cards for visitors to sign and send to the Royal Postal Service if they so choose.

Queen and Country is on exhibit at The National Portrait Gallery until 18 July 2010. Admission is free.

-Kristin Panasewicz

Image courtesy of The National Portrait Galery

Picasso’s ‘Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto (The Absinthe Drinker), 1903

The “exceptionally important and highly celebrated” Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto, also known as The Absinthe Drinker, will go on sale in London in June, auctioneers Christie’s announced yesterday. It is being offered with a pre-sale estimate of £30 - £40 million, the highest for any work of art ever offered in Europe.

Whit such an estimate, the masterpiece could possibly break the world record price for a work of art at auction, which was set at Sotheby’s earlier this year by the Giaccometti sculpture L’Homme Qui Marche I. The Giacometti fetched over £65 million, from a pre-sale estimate of £12 million - £18 million. This eclipsed the previous mark set by another Picasso, Garçon à la Pipe.

The blue-period paintings, of which there are relatively few, represent Picasso’s first radical phase. Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto, painted in 1903, shows Picasso’s dissolute artist friend in a café with a pipe and an oversized glass of absinthe. His features are distorted and hypnotic. Jussi Pylkkänen, president of Christie’s Europe, Russia and the Middle East calls it “a portrait of 20th-century decadence.”

All proceeds of the sale will benefit Lloyd Webber’s charitable foundation. An attempt by Lloyd Webber to sell the portrait in 2006 was aborted after lawyers for the German academic Schoeps claimed the painting had been sold under duress to the Nazis in the 1930s. The Lloyd Webber Art Foundation disputed this and a court ruled in its favor, saying that the foundation could not be sued by Professor Schoeps because he was not appointed to represent his relatives’ estate.

— Ilaria Peloso

Photo courtesy of http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/arts/photos/2006/11/07/picasso-christie-cp-11059270.jpg

INSIDE ART

Creative Responses to the Collection by Young Offenders 

Tucked away in The Learning Gallery of the National Gallery is a tricky to find but well worth the hunt exhibition of artworks created by youth offenders incarcerated at HMYOI Feltham, a juvenile prison. Inside Art is an outreach programme which offers art courses inside the facility to participants, aged 15 to 21. Using the National Gallery’s collection as a basis for teaching art history and studio technique, art instructors guided the students in creating sculpture, self-portraiture, gilding, and print-making. Although the participants were unable to visit the exhibition in situ, they were shown photographs of their works on display in the gallery and encouraged to have family and friends attend. The exhibition explains that

“[f]eedback from the young men involved in Inside Art 2009 reveals that looking at paintings and creating art helped them to develop their knowledge and skills, use their imagination and gain a better understanding of themselves and other people. All of these insights can help to reduce the risk of re-offending.”

The programme received funding from The LankellyChase Foundation for three years between 2009 and 2011.

Inside Art is one of several outreach programmes that employs art forms in the rehabilitation process. Though many in the art world brand this type of art “outsider art,” Inside Art proves that the value of art goes far beyond a commercial price tag. Too easily do we forget why many of us were attracted to art in the first place— for the freedom and expression that the creation or appreciation of a work allows the soul. The power of art is often strong enough to change our perspectives, cognition, behavior, and emotions, and has proven to be a useful tool in correctional facilities with regards to raising self-awareness and relieving stressors or environmental pressures. The act of creating a work of art—something beautiful and personally significant— offers individuals an alternative mean of expression to violence, drugs, or vandalism, and can be the catalyst to changing one’s behavior and re-establishing self-esteem. Some of the comments printed in the exhibition from Inside Art participants confirm these theories:

“It helped me to be calmer and taught me new ways of expressing myself.” 

“I enjoyed the relaxing feeling and becoming more patient.” 

“The project gave me more ideas for what I would be able to do or pursue when I am released.” 

Admittance to Inside Art is free and is on exhibition in The Learning Gallery until 25 April 2010.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/inside-art

-Kristin Panasewicz

Image courtesy of the National Gallery, London

Modest and reserved, it seems unlikely that the Henry Moore would be one of the most influential sculptures of the 20^th century. A lifetime of his bold and eclectic achievements is currently on exhibition at the Tate Britain.

It is, no doubt, difficult to curate an exhibition of Moore. How does one encourage viewers to see his works with new eyes? With over ten thousand works created by the artist, crafting an exhibition which feels articulate and personal is near impossible. Spanning from 1920s to the 1960s, the exhibition at the Tate Britain exposes an artist suffering severe emotional pain. Separated into six exhibition categories – World Cultures, Mother and Child, Modernism, War Time, Post War, and Elm – Moore’s eyewitness accounts of World War II are captured in his drawings and the sadness of his wife’s seven miscarriages seem frozen in his sculptures of reclining female nudes. By exhibiting his drawings alongside his figures, a certain depth to the works is discovered. The works on paper perhaps reveal what the stone and wood carvings do not: The simplicity of Moore’s sculptures are effectively complicated by the intricate and sometimes violent sketches.

Moore was experimenting with new materials and techniques to create works that captured the simplicity of the archaic and the bold contours and representational shapes associated with modernism. The exhibition at the Tate challenges viewers to examine such simplicity in relation to Moore’s personal life and the tumultuous era in which he lived.

- Hannah Van Susteren

Henry Moore

24 February - 08 August

Tickets: £12.50 (Concession: £11)

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/henrymoore/default.shtm

Photo courtesy of

http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/exhibitions/2010/michelangelo/index.shtml

Michaelangelo’s drawings of The Dream on exhibition at the Courtland Institute are thought to have been for a book that would be dedicated to the artists’s lover, the nobleman Tommaso de ‘Cavalieri’.

The renaissance drawings of the nude heroes are complimented by love poems handwritten by Michelangelo to Cavalieri..The Michelangelo dream drawings offer an intimate relationship between viewers and the lines drawn by his hands. The numerous studies of Phaeton’s Fall, for example, become more and more intense in each version.

Although it is a small exhibition, it is well incorporated in the permanent collection which worth the journey to Somerset House. It is the first time that the drawins have been united for such an exhibition.

Advice: Relax in the café at the lower ground where you can have a British scones and tea while discussing the exhibition.

-Angelique de Lannoy

The Courtauld Gallery

First Thursday in East London always promises the opportunity to see cutting-edge art at some of the city’s newest galleries.

Lokal_30 is no exception.

Opened in autumn 2009, the one-roomed gallery is unpretentious and fresh. It’s current exhibition, Magdalena Abakanowicz UNRECOGNISED pokes fun at Poland’s newest international sensation. Abakanowicz was recently ‘unveiled’ at Tate Modern and her artwork prices have already begun to appreciate. One of her newest installations, called ‘Unrecognised’ features 112 permanent sculptures in Pozan Citadel, Poland.

Polish artists Maciej Kurak and Max Skorwider have effectively uprooted her installation by ‘stealing’ one of the human-like figures from the landscape, and bringing it to London. At the centre of Lokal_30 stands the sculpture, framed by a film of the steal and two photographs of Abakanowicz’s work.

The installation at Lokal_30 is a humorous portrayal of the art market. In essence, Kurak and Skowider entice the public by using Abakanowicz’s name in their installation and thereby point out just how random the art market validation process is.

Next time you wander into the East London, do yourself a favor and step off Vyner Street and stop into Lokal_30.

- Hannah Van Susteren

Magdalena Abakanowicz UNRECOGNIZED, Lokal_30

12 February-07 March

29 Wadeson Street, E2

www.lokal30.pl/lokaina

Image courtesy of http://lokal30.pl/london

Shunt Vault: Such a strange mix of art and clubbing is inside a tunnel of London Bridge Station. Every week Shunt Vault features a new curate. You can see anything from drama, music, artist installation, photography, etc. This huge, dark and dusty space just reopened after hurtling funding problems. It provides a curatorial view of projects through mixed mediums.

Last weekend was an installation with airplane seats facing a video projection. The film is unclear due to poor lighting. Headphones were provided and streamed sound, speech and music about dance and joy. In addition to the film installation, there was a small exhibition of abstract, tree root-like photographs at the entrance.

-Angelique de Lannoy

Advice:

- Good luck finding the venue.

- Entrance is £10 but drinks are cheap. If you know somebody who works there you get in for free with a photo ID.

-  Do not dress up.

Shunt Vault

Joiner Street SE1

Open Fridays and Saturdays

http://www.shunt.co.uk/

Photo courtesy of http://www.shunt.co.uk/

Psychopomp is Marcus Coates first retrospective in a public UK gallery and includes early film pieces, sculpture, sound, costumes, photographs and also some of his newer work.   The show is definitely as eccentric as you would imagine, as Coates is one of Britian’s most original (and strangest) artists. Often times in Coates work he assumes the identity of an animal and simulates its’ appearance (enacting habits, appropriating language, etc).  It was definitely He beleives he can communicate freely with animals in their language…I guess you’d say he’s fluent in rabbit, pretty good badger, and passable deer…and the noises he makes are eerily life-like, while at the same time quite entertaining. Such humour can be seen in a film such as Goshawk in which a telephoto lens picks out a tree top in which Coates himself is perched. In Finfolk he assumes the identity of a seal and emerges from the sea speaking a made-up seal language.  However, Coates has also trained as a shaman and the exhibition includes films of his rituals, where “he achieves a trance-like state and communes with the animal kingdom to address social issues”. Wearing an array of costumes such as a badger’s hide, a stuffed horse’s head, a blonde wig and a necklace of money (all of which are on display), Coates has addressed issues including prostitution, regeneration and swine flu for communities worldwide and most recently in Israel, Japan and Switzerland.

This show is definitely worth checking out to see Coates extreme ways to commune with wildlife.  Amazing what he can get away with!

—Sydney Townsend

Marcus Coates, Milton Keynes Gallery

900 Midsummer Boulevard

Milton Keynes MK9 3QA

http://www.mk-g.org

Image courtesy of Milton Keynes Gallery