Late night art

 

It was a latish night, late informed, run to the National Gallery and our new and most expensive art work.  It was an opportune outing, actually, and much enjoyed,  not so much for the art work itself, but for the late night crew that congregated there.  I have watched the conversation on this and I feel just a little informed having seen the perforated egg outside the SA Gallery, by the same artist and I think purchased under the same director.  Putting aside the price and thinking what could have been otherwise, I enjoyed the sight at night, lonely as it was, with first up a photographer with his tripod, then another photographer who talked of photographing the security guard, then the security guard himself, then an author.  Otherwise the night was cool and still and the traffic was limited.  I heard of a probable threatened graffiti job on the work by 2 blokes who sounded a little threatening, and how the police were there at very short notice (apparently several cars are located in the Parliamentary Triangle overnight so no surprise there).  And what the 12-hour shift is like and how Canberra is a wonderful, different, educated place.  So true.  And later chatting with Daniel O'Malley about his published sci-fi trilogy starting with The Rook while I promoted my album to be released the next day and thus art breathes art.  Back to Ouroboros.  It was a pretty sight at night, but I was surprised by the rough welds and jagged cuts and obvious internal cabling especially given the regaled hours of work involved, but maybe it's inevitable with stainless steel?  I dunno.  Would I have made that choice?  Well, I wasn't on the Committee but probably I wouldn't have but I am no expert.  I wouldn't have bought the tram, either.  I wonder if those who like the Turrell pyramid would also like the Ouroboros (and maybe light rail).  Neither are bad but I don't particularly like either: they seem to me to be simple ideas expensively created by people other than the artist.  But maybe LL defined the location and size of every hole so there are complexities I don't realise and then I think of Blue Poles and how we are so proud of it now and how that story is similar.  Or maybe I am just a laggard given my claimed collection favourite is a German Renaissance triptych despite enjoying much else when I visit.  Whatever and  regardless of the art, I certainly enjoyed the late night visit and the people I met there.

The Ouroboros by artist Lindy Lee is in a public space at the National Gallery of Australia.

Lazy Sunday afternoon

Got no mind for worry, so I idled down to the National Gallery as I am wont to do.  It's often a sole experience, but somewhat different this day.  First up was the latest Know my name exhibition, subtitled Making it modern, featuring works by six significant Australian women artists from ~1930: Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme, Margaret Preston, Grace Cossington Smith, Clarice Beckett and Olive Cotton.  Linocuts, woodcuts and such prints were a major part of the production, seemingly a modern movement at the time, and also Olive Cotton's photos.  To finish there was a videostream being made of a drawing workshop.  All very busy with several people off set controlling it all, and a surreptitious guitarist.  I say surreptitious because his music was unintrusive, all sparsely spaced guitar chords with a swelling volume pedal.  It seemed so apt for this purpose, to fill audio space  around drawing being observed.  Sam Andrews is a local, involved with studio and backing work around Canberra.  Greeting to Sam!  Then off through some New York photography from 1980s by Nan Goldin, recording friends and experiences, friends and lovers, falling in and out of love, having children, violence, bar and club life: her "public diary".  The title was The Ballad of sexual dependency.  Then working back, I joined a tour group near its end.  Close to the final work was Lucien Freud After Cezanne.  Interestingly, it references a work with the same theme from Cezanne.  I asked where that work it: NGA!  I remember it now: Paul Cezanne L'Après-midi à Naples.  Then a fascinating visit to the Aboriginal Memorial (with no discussion of the Voice: NGA policy) and some final chatter.  Our host was Sally who had a US background.  We got on to Taylor Swift, somehow, and she spoke of TS buying a $17m mansion in a town Sally has connection to.  I've now investigated: it's the Holiday House in Rhode Island.  Despite guards on the property, locals apparently speak well of TS independently visiting local shops, relaxed and conversing.  So then off.  A short but interesting and chatty visit.  Oh, and that red pic, it's Audrey Flack Jolie madame: oil on canvas but nothing like any oils I've seen before.  How did she get it so soft and hazy.  Perhaps it's sprayed?

Sally is a guide at the National Gallery of Australia.  Sam Andrews was playing guitar to accompany a video drawing workshop. 

PS, Sally if you see this, here's the link to my recorded

music (Bandcamp; all welcome)
The Pots > https://thepots1.bandcamp.com/
Musica da Camera > https://musicadacameracanberra.bandcamp.com/

Women too

This was Part one of Know my name: Australian women artists 1900 to now at the National Gallery.  In the words of the NGA, "Know My Name celebrates the work of all women artists with an aim to enhance understanding of their contribution to Australia’s cultural life ... that addresses historical gender bias".  There's more with Part two later this year.  I got to a first view, then a quick revisit to catch some details and themes and especially a quote that impressed me.  It's in words, so more obvious than the visual art "use your culture in your own defence".  The full quote was "female culture is in the minds, hearts and secret dialogues of women. use your culture in your own defense. use soft aggression".  I was struck by the line about using your culture, meaning influence from a place of your own strength.  This was from Lip magazine (1976) from the Lip Collective, published in Victoria, initially with some government monies which were later denied due to its perceived suggestiveness.  See the original on display and you'll understand.  It's clever, amusingly described as "a delightful play on the pornographic centrefold (art historian Louise Mayhew).  There were many works that dealt with feminist issues, but not only.  One room stunned with three huge feminist works that I'd seen before whole or in part: Tracey Moffat, Anne Ferran, Julie Rrap.  Our own eX de Medici had a fabulous piece called The Wreckers, on civilisational destruction and perhaps hinting at a natural recovery.  In another room I was intrigued by Jenny Watson Self portrait as narcotic and somewhat perplexed by one commentary by Marie Hagerty, fascinated by just how Marie Hagerty managed her Flight research photos.  Once again I enjoyed pics by Carol Jerrems.  I noticed some challenging music accompanying a video and it was by Roger Frampton.  I liked the early works with their traditional skills: portraits, self-portraits, nudes, too.  I do enjoy those skills.  As for up-to-date, there was a museum-like presentation by Janet Laurence called Requiem made in the wake of the 2019/2020 bushfires and hail storms.  She notes in her piece that "Australia is on the WWF's list of global deforestation hotspots - the only one in the developed world".  I dare say it's because we just got to the destruction later than others, but that's no excuse.  There were numerous other names of interest, some known, many less so and various other themes and artists: Indigenous, posters, dissenters.  I liked the bedraggled, disintegrating Aussie flag commenting on Howard's core and non-core promises.  And Barbara Campbell's Dubious letters (likely fake) used to implicate Mary Queen of Scots in the death of her husband in the form of a skirt.  I chatted with some knowledgeable women who said it had originally been worn by the artist.  And there was feminist fashion and associated exhibitions on Patricia Piccinini and Tjanpi desert weavers and the Body electric ("includes works with adult content").  Some great stuff there.  Well worth a visit or several.

Part 1 of the exhibition Know my name: Australian women artists 1900+ runs at the National Gallery to mid-2021.  Part 2 follows in July.

The pic is detail from eX de Medici The Wreckers (2018-2019), now in the collection of the NGA

Rivalry

They are big names to have here in Canberra, at our NGA, Matisse and Picasso, but I was surprised at just how much came from our own collection. I recognised a few of the works but not all that were ours, maybe because they were mainly prints, interestingly a few times in book form, so perhaps not quite so memorable. And there was a mix of other works from overseas collections - Tate, MOMA, Paris Picasso, Baltimore, Minneapolis - and local - Sydney and Melbourne and a few private collections. We'll never get masses of these works on loan (not like the modern gallery in Cologne with its collection of 900 Picassos) but this was decent while not too big, with various periods and various influences outlined back and forth. The key theme was how both these artists watched and were influenced by each other through their careers. Picasso has to remain the more challenging or more intellectual of the two with his cubist distortions and extrapolations and minotaurs. At first sight, I preferred the more sensual simplicity of Matisse (not to deny Picasso!). Nice, too, to see costumes from both of them designed for the Ballets Russes. But it was in the last room that I got the most telling vision. It was an opened book with a few whispy, squiggly lines from Matisse (excuse my pic) that so clearly described a woman's body (very few men appeared in this display!). I was stunned by the effectiveness of so little and the required craft to carry it off and the desire that obviously underlaid it. It was the old "my kids can do that" moment blown out of the water. Just a revelation.

The Matisse & Picasso exhibition is at the National Gallery of Australia until 13 April.

NLA exhibition website

Poles and the Duke

Well may you remember the stir over Blue Poles. It was purchased for $1.3m, a large amount at the time, with Gough Whitlam's approval, and made into an early run at a culture war. How could some drunk spilling paint on a canvas be other than worthless. My kid could have done better. It's a common refrain. I think sometimes it may be true. Maybe there's more concept than craft in modern art. Maybe. But Blue Poles is now worth a motza (current estimates, cited in Wikipedia, are $100-350m) but it's not for sale. It's considered Jackson Pollock's major work and, after seeing a very similar work at MOMA without the poles, I can agree. In the building its collection, the National Gallery recognised it would not afford lots of old masters, so sought the best of modern works, not least a string of American Masters of the mid-late C20th. The main works are on display together now. Blue Poles, but also names like Chuck Close, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Lee Krasner, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray, Robert Mapplethorpe, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Cindy Sherman, James Turrell, Andy Warhol from styles like Abstract Expressionism, Colour Field, Pop, Neo-Dada and Photo-Realism and Conceptual, Land and Performance Art. I remain a great lover of quattrocento / cinquecento and my favourite here has been for some time, the super realist Bob by Chuck Close. I don't warm so easily to some others (I've written before on Turrell), but it's worth the visit and least as it's free. And you can check out the Prince of Wales (Charles') watercolours on the way in. Convincing with the nature scenes if less so with more demanding forms. But then he could be doing much less admirable and much more harmful things with his time.

The National Gallery is displaying American Masters and watercolours of the Prince of Wales.

Very very real

I remember being taken by some super realist paintings at the Contemporary Arts Centre in Adelaide over 30 years ago. So now we have hyper reality and it's largely sculptural and it's on display at the National Gallery. I admire the skills of the detailed paintings and sculptures but there are some that leave me cold. There were some like that in this exhibition, even if I marvelled at the accuracy and the skin details and tone, often seemingly coloured and covered with make-up. Maybe they weren't but many looked that way. But the issue with these works is, do they say anything? There were some that were truly beautiful and realistic but also told stories of people and love and life. Like the huge naked man and equally large (in both height and belly) naked pregnant woman. And one devastatingly beautiful and touching grandmother holding baby. That was below life size but big in tranquility and love. There were a series of naked women, not least one series clinically exposed. Well, I'm a bloke and I can appreciate women's bodies but it's all over the Net and I wonder just what this was saying. That one didn't say much to me but a lovely intertwined, life-sized older couple in the corner spoke volumes. Megan joked "that's us" and we're not so far off. Then the next room had wheelchairs with old men of different dress motoring independently. We could walk through these: another example of self-drive vehicles. Patricia Puccinini (of the ACT's memorably odd hot air balloon) was represented with several life-like but unearthly creatures that drew unexpected compassion. I feel she's got a good heart. An early room was mostly detailed but obvious people-copies. A final room seemed more of cartoons or fantasy. Of those, I most enjoyed the challenges of modulating people (liminal?) moving from one state to another. And to end it all, a large theatre in the round and a fascinating, bewildering film of animals and people in various forms and roles - beautiful, detailed, oddly contrasted - from seven projectors with classical musical accompaniment. There was a little more, but these were key. I'm taken by the technique but also yearn for a purpose. To me, some had it and some less so.


Hyper Real was an exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia.

Hyper Real @ NGA

Blockie II

(Cont.) Second was Versailles. I hadn't expected to attend, but went with a Christmas visitor. I was surprised and pleased from the first objects in the first room. Plenty of sweet paintings of powdered faces, sturdy marble and lead and porphyry works in 3D, homely (if indulgent) things like lovely floral china servings and a menu that records one lunch for the king, less homely but impressive things like tapestries and huge rugs, a desperately indulgent story of failing to plumb fountains for the ill-located Palace. It all had me welcoming revolution by the end, and sure enough, to my pleasure and the gasp of a woman beside me (her comment was "it's in all the text books"), David's pen-and-ink sketch of the oath at the tennis court (Le serment du Jeu de paume / Jacques-Louis David). Wow! Revolutionary politics in superbly detailed drawing. Fabulous. And a final, lightly despairing painting of Louis XVI awaiting his fate. So goes such indulgence (as I wonder why modern Australia still has a Queen).

These were two informative and attractive exhibitions worthy of our time and monies. Versailles : Treasures from the palace is at the National Gallery of Australia.

Knowing Tom better

Recently, Tom Roberts at the National Gallery. Before that, Celestial Empires at the National Library and Encounters at the National Museum. It's a busy time. Tom Roberts was busy but not so busy we couldn't go straight in. I didn't expect too much but was well impressed by the end. His works are ubiquitous in the Australian imagination. I'd seen many or the best works in Ballarat and Adelaide and Sydney and Melbourne, but seeing them together was informative. There's Australian light and dust, some impressive portraits, an uncommon interest in Aborigines of the time (despite the proud images of [white Anglo] "Australian natives" - this was the decade before Federation), working men and presentable women, gums and grass and beaches around Melbourne and Sydney with heavily dressed people (other than three skint male painters going for a swim). There was even a country road that Megan knew well, between stately, tall gums (Tom Roberts Road, no less). I was surprised to find it so satisfying; maybe I shouldn't have been. Seeing these works up close you can see the paint dabbled and the brush strokes and the animate effects of the impressionists. Then, his big painting, Opening of the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, which I'd otherwise seen in a relatively skimpy space in Parliament House. It's a great historical record with awkward teaming layers of notables. He was a handsome man, too, from a bust in the exhibition. I was amused by an Australian Pastoral, delighted by pastels with their glowing colours, admiring of a range of very effective portraits (they were dignified in those days, despite heat and flies) and surprised at how many were such common images in my consciousness. Much enjoyed.

The Tom Roberts exhibition was at the National Gallery of Australia.

Exhibition website

Amongst the artz

Visitors out of town and quiet amongst the institutions. Megan and I took an afternoon for a short visit. Not Tom Roberts or the celestial empire, although they look great and are planned. Just to see the new thematic layout in the National Gallery and the switch of Australian downstairs and International upstairs. I liked it. I especially liked the occasional walls of profusions of artworks. These galleries have lots of painting; I'm not sure why they don't show them off to the max. They do at the AGSO and Palazzo Pitti and the like. They are touching on it here, and those busy spaces are the most inviting judged by the numbers perusing. Maybe the sex and beach theme helped in one gallery. I liked the lower ceilings for Blue poles and Hockney's Grand Canyon was hugely better hung where it now is. Perhaps a busier wall would have helped but it worked. Our local Ex de Medici gets a seriously prominent spot, as does another local, Patricia Piccinini, and there's more poignant humour with a Refugee astronaut. Not everything is moved: Asian, Indian, Aboriginal and such galleries are in place, but this change deserves a few visits. On the way, we dropped in to the National Portrait Gallery to find Dirk, Lachlan and Stewart playing and modelling in the foyer. An amusing concept. Jazz musicians play; amateur artists draw. Nice.

We visited the National Gallery of Australia. Dirk Zeylmans (tenor), Lachlan Coventry (bass, guitar) and Stewart King (guitar) were playing for live (not life) drawing in the foyer of the NPG.

NGA news

The good news first, or the bad? We visited the National Gallery, a week or so back, to check out another Indian antiquity that will return in short order. This one is the Kushan Dynasty, Uttar Pradesh, Seated Buddha of the 2nd Century. We'd caught the first notable loss, Shiva as Nataraja Lord of the Dance, just a day or two before it disappeared from display. We'd seen both before, of course, but these seedy goings-on add a mix of notoriety and distress to the visits. Both were purchased from New York-based art dealer Subhash Kapoor. I read that there may be more returns to come. Otherwise, this was just a walk in the park to while some time. Megan caught her strange favourite, the Ambum Stone of PNG, the oldest dated sculpture form the Pacific at 1,500-6,000BCE. These are unknown cultures to most of us but they are intriguing. I was surprised by several sculptures in the Middle East / Asian gallery that had Greek references. The Head of Bodhisattva (also a purchase from Kapoor) had a Medusa-like headdress and there was an Atlas (the Greek god) which is portrayed in this region with wings. These similarities speak to interactions across the Middle East from Alexander or the Silk Road or other. All strange and how fascinating. Then a temporary exhibition of sketches by Frenchman Daumier. Many were good for a laugh, like the South American (sic) kangaroo. I felt a real affinity with the cellist following his music. The good news is that the NGA now allows photography (obviously without flash). Nice, but I must pace myself.

From where once was gold

As with all the blockbusters, Gold of the Incas was on the agenda for an early visit but we'd got to the last few days and it would be busy and we only went because a friend spoke so highly of it. It was very busy but it was also worth it. It was new to us but eye-opening and enjoyed even if it was a touch same-ish and a little doleful, given the collection was from burial remains. The displays were mostly art made from gold, silver, precious stones, textiles and ceramics. Each room displayed works of a Peruvian lost culture covering the 3,000 year period from ~1500BCE to the short-lived Incas in ~1500CE. The audio tour was the familiar voice of Phillip Adams. In the end, I gave that up and just took items at face value. What did I note? Lots of gold and beaten metal and some stone and shell in headdresses and crowns and nose and ear ornaments and pectorals. Some beautifully detailed weaving and embroidery in ruddy warm colours that would not be out of place now. The necklaces, too, would not be out of place on many modern necks. There were some delightful ceramics of animals, usually in the form of vessels. Most vessels were stirrup vessels, presumably named for the stirrup shape at top that would have been used as a carrying handle, and that was usually combined with a pouring lip. The images portrayed in these stirrup vessels were great joy. I was stunned by the realism of one male head (MOCHE culture North coast 100 – 800 AD, Portrait head stirrup vessel 100-800 AD ceramic); enjoyed the use of glazing in a feline vessel (MOCHE culture North coast 100 – 800 AD, Stirrup vessel in the form of a feline 100-800 AD ceramic); smiled at some animals (HUARI culture 600 – 1000 AD, Vessel in the form of a llama 600-1000 AD ceramic); smirked at some erotica (MOCHE culture North coast 100 – 800 AD, Stirrup vessel in the form of a couple under a blanket 100-800 AD ceramic); admired detailed and colourful fabrics (PARACAS culture South coast 700 BC – 200 AD; Mantle with flying figures 100 BC - 200 AD wool and cotton); treasured the necklaces (MOCHE culture North coast 100 – 800 AD, Necklace 100-800 AD gold, opal, quartz, emerald); laughed at the vegetable vessels (MOCHE culture North coast 100 – 800 AD, Stirrup vessel in the form of potatoes 100-800 AD ceramic); was amazed that they had deer and used platinum (VICÚS culture North coast 100 BC – 400 AD, Female figure, known as The Venus of Frías 200-600 AD gold and platinum); was confused by a oddly Greek-looking mask (MOCHE culture North coast 100 – 800 AD, Mask 100-800 AD copper, gold, shell, stone); and mused on the likely sound of the trumpet (MOCHE culture North coast 100 – 800 AD, Trumpet 100-800 AD ceramic). But perhaps the most surprising of all were the quipu (HUARI culture 600 – 1000 AD, Quipu 600-1000 AD cotton). I initially read them as strangely poor necklaces of knotted string, but the audio guide explained them as arithmetic records, perhaps for census or survey, where decimal numbers are recorded on groups of strings of different colours and placed knots. This was stunning. And then, of course, the reminders that this was a culture without the wheel, including for its ceramics. It was another world, a series of cultures over three millennia, and we can only touch on what was missed by European looting.

The exhibition, Gold of the Incas : lost worlds of Peru, was at the National Gallery of Australia and will have finished by the time you read this.

Gold of the Incas exhibition website

The images above, in order, are these. Thanks to Nick at NGA for permission to use these images.

MOCHE culture, North coast 100 – 800 AD, Portrait head stirrup vessel 100-800 AD, ceramic, Ministerio de Cultura del Perú: Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú. Photograph: Daniel Giannoni

MOCHE culture, North coast 100 – 800 AD, Stirrup vessel in the form of a feline 100-800 AD, ceramic, Museo Larco, Lima. Photograph: Museo Larco

HUARI culture, 600 – 1000 AD, Vessel in the form of a llama 600-1000 AD, ceramic, Ministerio de Cultura del Perú: Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú. Photograph: Daniel Giannoni

MOCHE culture, North coast 100 – 800 AD, Stirrup vessel in the form of a couple under a blanket 100-800 AD, ceramic, Museo Larco, Lima. Photograph: Daniel Giannoni

PARACAS culture, South coast 700 BC – 200 AD, Mantle with flying figures 100 BC - 200 AD, wool and cotton Ministerio de Cultura del Perú: Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú. Photograph: Daniel Giannoni

MOCHE culture, North coast 100 – 800 AD, Necklace 100-800 AD, gold, opal, quartz, emerald, Museo Oro del Perú, Lima,. Photograph: Daniel Giannoni

MOCHE culture, North coast 100 – 800 AD, Stirrup vessel in the form of potatoes 100-800 AD, ceramic, Museo Larco, Lima. Photograph: Museo Larco

VICÚS culture, North coast 100 BC – 400 AD, Female figure, known as The Venus of Frías 200-600 AD, gold and platinum, Ministerio de Cultura del Perú: Sala de Oro del Museo Municipal Vicús, Piura. Photograph: Daniel Giannoni

MOCHE culture, North coast 100 – 800 AD, Mask 100-800 AD, copper, gold, shell, stone, Ministerio de Cultura del Perú: Museo de Sitio de Chan Chan, Dos Cabezas. Photograph: Daniel Giannoni

MOCHE culture, North coast 100 – 800 AD, Trumpet 100-800 AD. Ceramic. Museo Oro del Perú, Lima. Photograph: Daniel Giannoni

HUARI culture, 600 – 1000 AD, Quipu 600-1000 AD, cotton, Fundación Museo Amano, Lima. Photograph: Daniel Giannoni