Art & Photography

Wednesday, 18 March 2015

History is Now - Hayward Gallery

Bloodhound Mark 2 Surface-to-Air Missile and Launcher, c1965-66

History is Now: 7 Artists Take On Britain is at the Hayward Gallery until 26 April 2015.
This was potentially a wonderful exhibition - but it's got problems.
The following artists were invited to curate sections of an exhibition responding to perceptions of post-war and contemporary Britain: John Akomfrah, Simon Fujiwara, Roger Hiorns, Hannah Starkey, Richard Wentworth and Jane and Louise Wilson.
As Adrian Searle observed in his (generous) review 'artists can make good curators'; in this instance Richard Wentworth proves himself to be an outstanding one; however, unfortunately, Roger Hiorns and, to a lesser extent, John Akrofuma, prove to be disastrous ones. Hiorns has accumulated a vast, indigestible mass of information about BSE; Akomfrah has curated a very interesting selection of films from the Arts Council collection - but, he has chosen no less than 17 films requiring some 9 hours viewing time! I had allowed an afternoon for the whole show - it is simply frustrating and irritating to be confronted with so much material.
As for the other artists: Fujiwara's selection begins strongly with a massive piece of coal which neatly evokes both Britain's proud industrial heritage and the shameful trauma of Thatcher's destruction of that industry. However, the rest of his display is less compelling - and I really didn't want to watch a video of the 9 year old Fujiwara's school perfomance of Mary Poppins!
Jane and Louise Wilson's section is an interestingly idiosyncratic take on recent history, encompassing Northern Ireland, Greenham Common and the new town development of Peterlee involving artist Victor Pasmore; Hannah Starkey has raided the Arts Council photography collection and selected some great, if largely familiar, material.
The saving grace of the whole show is Richard Wentworth's characteristically witty and imaginative take on post-war Britain, responding to the 1946 'Britain Can Make It' exhibition, the founding of the National Health Service (1946), the Festival of Britain (1951), the onset of the Cold War and the burgeoning consumer society. Wentworth's selection ranges from a modest box of pebbles collected by Henry Moore to the spectacle of a 1964 Bloodhound Surface-to-Air missile, looking dissarmingly at home on the Hayward's roof terrace. Work by Hepworth, Nicholson, Moore, Nash, Paolozzi and others combine in an evocative and aesthetically engaging representation of British culture.
All the images below are from Wentworth's section.
Red reviews by Adrian Searle, Alastair Sooke, Waldemar Januszczak, Michael Prodger and Sarah Kent.

Henry Moore, Stringed Figure, 1939

Paul Nash, Battle of Britain, 1941

L.S. Lowry, July, the Seaside, 1943

War Office: briefing model - part of Juno and Sword beaches (D-Day), 1944

Barbara Hepworth, Reconstruction (Hospital Drawing), 1947

Ben Nicholson, November 11-47 (Moushole), 1947

Ben Nicholson, Festival of Britain Mural, 1951

Henry Grant, Londoners Relax on Tower Beach, 1952

Eduardo Paolozzi, from Bunk (Improved Beans), 1947-52

John Bratby, Still Life with Chip Frier, 1954

Reg Butler, Working model for The Unknown Political Prisoner, 1955-56

Nigel Henderson, Head of a Man, 1956-61

Eduardo Paolozzi, The Frog, 1958

David Hockney, Going to be a Queen for Tonight, 1960

Tony Cragg, Britain Seen from the North, 1981

Installation of Bloodhound Mark 2 Surface-to-Air Missile, c1965-66, onto Hayward Gallery roof terrace

Monday, 16 March 2015

Richard Diebenkorn - Royal Academy

Richard Diebenkorn, Berkeley #57, 1955

Richard Diebenkorn is at the Royal Academy of Arts until 7 June 2015.

I had looked forward to this exhibition: I was not disappointed. In fact, my expectations were exceeded: this is a terrific show.

I have, until now, had little opportunity to see Diebenkorn's work: despite his high standing in the US and his place in the histories of modern art (see, eg, Robert Hughes' Shock of the New (1980) pp159-60) he is, I believe, represented in the UK only by a single print in the Tate. Perhaps, for this reason his unfamiliar work seems so fresh.

As this modestly scaled exhibition makes clear, Diebenkorn began as an abstract painter, turned to figuration, and then turned again to abstraction and to what is generally regarded as the apotheosis of his career: the Ocean Park series. Somewhat to my surprise I particularly liked the middle period figurative work. However, all the work is marked by a finely tuned judgement, a precise balance of colour and form. Beautiful.

Read reviews by Laura Cumming, Richard Dorment, Jackie Wullschlager and Robin Greenwood.

Click on images to enlarge.

Richard Diebenkorn, Albuquerque #4, 1951

Richard Diebenkorn, Seated Man, 1956

Richard Diebenkorn, Woman by the Ocean, 1956

Richard Diebenkorn, Girl on a Terrace, 1956

Richard Diebenkorn, Seawall, 1957

Richard Diebenkorn, Scissors, 1959

Richard Diebenkorn, Cityscape #1, 1963

Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park #43, 1971

Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park #79, 1975

Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park #116, 1979

Sunday, 15 March 2015

Richard Long - Alan Cristea Gallery

Richard Long, Fingers on Fire, 2014 (2 panel carborundum relief)

Richard Long: The Spike Island Tapes is at Alan Cristea Gallery until 2 April 2015.
This is exciting. Richard Long has made a series of big prints, many in uncharacteristically vibrant colours. They are carborundum relief prints - as I understand it, a carborundum paste is (in this case) spread by hand onto 4 x 8 foot aluminium plates, sometimes with areas masked out; the paste dries to a rock hard textured surface which is inked, then wiped so that the ink remains within the texture; prints are then taken onto damp watercolour paper. The large sheets are then hung, sometimes combined to form 2, 3 or 4 panel pctures. Impressive stuff.
Click on images to enlarge.

Richard Long, Honky Tonk Women, 2014 (single panel carborundum relief)

Richard Long, Missippi River Blues, 2014 (4 panel carborundum relief)

Richard Long, Black Mountain Rag, 2014 (3 panel carborundum relief)

Richard Long, Simple Twist of Fate, 2014 (2 panel carborundum relief)

Richard Long, Sweet Old World, 2014 (Single panel carborundum relief)

Richard Long, The Spike Island Tapes, 2015, installation view)

Richard Long, Guitats, Cadillacs, 2014 (2 panel carborundum relief)

Frank Stella - RA Courtyard

Frank Stella's Inflated Star and Wooden Star is on display in the Royal Academy's Annenberg Courtyard until 12 May 2015.
Stella's 7 metre high, teak and aluminium sculpture is a recent work (2014) by one of the major artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Now 79, Stella was, in 1970, the youngest artist ever to be accorded a retrospective by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. A major lifetime retrospective will be held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in the autumn of 2015.

Saturday, 28 February 2015

Marlene Dumas - Tate Modern

Marlene Dumas, Evil is Banal, 1984

Marlene Dumas: The Image as Burden is at Tate Modern until 10 May 2015.
Marlene Dumas is one of the most interesting painters working today, and this is the first opportunity to see a substantial exhibition of her work in the UK.
Dumas' style is very distinctive: her oil paintings, principally of faces and bodies, typically worked from photographic sources, have the delicacy of watercolours, at once ethereal yet forcefully present. As Adrian Searle puts it, The images coalesce out of almost nothing. Her themes are intimate and compelling: sex, death and politics, love and shame. However, the pictures are not weighted with earnest messages, rather they intrigue and disturb. Exciting stuff.
Read an article by Rachel Cooke and reviews by Adrian Searle, Laura Cumming, Karen Wright, Alastair Smart, Martin Gayford, Waldemar Januszczak, Emily Spicer, Jackie Wullschlager, Ben Luke, Roderick Conway Morris. Watch a short video of Dumas in conversation with Adrian Searle and of Dumas taking about Rejects.
Click on images to enlarge.