art 5s

Funny Pages

2009-06-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

I was 21 this week. So as a tribute to youth and ageing, I am going to talk about graphic novels. Are they literature or visual art? Obviously both. But can they combine the positive qualities of both? And if so, why don't they throw the John Grishams and Dan Browns off the bestseller lists? Super archaic 18th century thinkers like Lessing have argued that art and literature are opposites, and should not be crossed. These graphic novels blow that idea out of Lessing's enlightened water, blending the two into some authorial monster, like when the Power Ranges joined to become the Megazord. I want to argue that graphic novels manage to marry word and image in a symbiotic relationship (like Spiderman and the black sludge of Venom), each bolstering the meaning of the other.

First up are two written by Alan Moore. The first, obviously, is Watchmen [1], which was illustrated by Dave Gibbons. I've mentioned it before so I won't linger, lest I start sounding like a broken record, but the amazing mix of somehow realistic fantasy, contiguously interweaving atemporal narrative progressions, and super awesome action sequences secures its place here. Moore and Gibbons have helped me to engage with his characters far more than other more conventional novelist and artists. They win the debate for me.

Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series slips in next [2]. It creates a superhero collective along the lines of the Avengers and the Justice League, but with a pretty great twist: they are all characters from 19th century literature. Jeckell / Hyde fights alongside the Invisible Man, with the aid of Captain Nemo and occasionally Auguste Dupin. In fact, the books are littered with literary references – a Dorian Gray here, a Sherlock Holmes there – throwing two fingers up at the snobbish rejection of the graphic novel as a literary form.

Another big figure is Frank Miller. Firstly, I have chosen The Dark Knight Returns, as I feel it perfectly sums up the conceptual fragmentation of the 80s [3]. Miller tells his story through a combination of first hand action, television news clips, and unnerving talk shows, expressing a thoroughly postmodern idea of dispersed communication and knowledge. Where Moore interspersed his action with posters, books and other comics, Miller prefers the constant stream of virtual media. We hear about the lead up to a murder, and then the news tells us how it happened. As in Watchmen, the other key theme is the shadow of the bomb. This bomb is so powerful when launched that it almost takes down a Rock Hudson-esque Superman. The ensuing electromagnetic wave causes a communications break down, sending Gotham into a state of primal chaos (a comment on the centrality of media?), and sending a passenger plane into the side of a sky scraper. I can't avoid the thought of this as an accidental but haunting precursor to 9/11.

At the risk of appearing favouritist, my number four is another Frank Miller extravaganza, this time in collaboration with Klaus Janson. Daredevil [4] might not have as much political commitment as The Dark Knight, but the story is engaging (his spandex babe Elektra dies!) and the art is so awesomely stylised.

My last choice is the most political. I was going to use Art Spiegelman's seminal Maus, but thought of a better list to squeeze that one into, so instead here's the next best thing: Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis [5]. It is an autobiographical exploration of growing up under the shadow of the Iranian Revolution in the 1980s. Rather than being a grim protest novel, however, it manages to approach the subject with a kind of humour and naivety that might actually give the political messages more weaponry. The film version is also excellent, as is the adaptations of Watchmen and Christopher Nolan's loose take on The Dark Knight Returns. Daredevil and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen... Not so much. Ben Affleck and Sean Connery can, er, go away.

The Art of the Photograph

2009-05-17T11:23:00.001-07:00

"All the arts are based on the presence of man, only photography derives an advantage from his absence. Photography affects us like a phenomenon in nature, like a flower or a snowflake whose vegetable or earthly origins are an inseparable part of their beauty"

André Bazin, The Ontology of the Photographic Image

With my top five list of art photographers, I want to piss all over that statement. Bazin claims that the wonder of photographs comes from the beauty of nature, and the photographer is simply a mediator between reality and image. Here are some photographers that clearly want to reclaim their status as creators rather than observers. They invent their photographs, refusing to let nature do the hard work.

First is Jeff Wall [1], the ultimate manipulator of images. Rather than leaving anything to chance (or nature), he spends hours staging these seemingly passing scenes to satisfy his mental image. Whereas Gregory Crewdson and others assert their authorship in their expensive photoshop suites, Wall prefers to undergo a long process of theatrical staging before the shutter shuts.

Next, creating equally manipulated scenes, is Bernard Faucon [2], the perpetual weirdo. Following on from surrealist freaks like Hans Bellmer and Morton Bartlett, Faucon has a thing for mannequins. Young ones, too. Posing them in strangely animated poses and situations, even combining them with real boys, he blurs the line between life and the imitation of it. In fact, this might symbolise the whole realm of photography, seemingly real but inherently artificial. To be honest - and I sort of feel like an angry mob chasing a morally naïve Frankenstein saying this - I don't know if I can look past Faucon's fascination with children (real or plastic). But either way, the photos are pretty special.

Along the line of childhood comes Sally Mann [3], who doesn't seem to need to leave her house for her art. Most of her shots are of her family, and most are taken with cumbersome wet collodion plates (which are about as versatile, adaptable and portable as Dawn French). Jessie Bites may seem natural, but it is unlikely that Mann really captured the moment directly after her daughter bit her. All the same, the bite marks in her arm look painfully fresh. Embarrassingly, the bite kind of reminds me of a scene from an unnameable teen vampire movie I was forced to watch last night. Like that film, this shot is definitely contrived, but at least Mann manages to make hers interesting and engaging without (really) resorting to pouts and smolders.

Next, Gerhard Vormwald [4] makes strange sci-fi stills, ignoring Bazin's cries by unnaturally freezing dynamic and explosive scenes. In this shot, the Patrick Wolf-like figure is suspended without gravity, and as cool as it would have been if Vormwald had taken his model into space, it seems more likely that he is hanging on invisible wires. Boring. But interestingly, this eerie stillness might be a symbol for the act of photography; the unnatural freezing of time. The image obviously steals elements from nature, but it explicitly removes all the natural transience from them.

Lastly, Wolfgang Piertzok [5] takes art photography to a new level. He gets naked bodies to writhe around in paint, along the lines of Yves Klein. The bodies are then printed on glass as if they are against the camera lens itself. And the inky paint replicates something of the chemical moment of photography. Yet unlike most photographs, when the figures move and the moment passes, the paint will remain. It's an art geek's wet dream, or perhaps the studio shower's worst nightmare. As for Bazin, who knows?

Neo-Pop Sensations

2009-04-26T10:19:00.001-07:00

Pop art seems to be one of those movements that just won't give up. It has been revisited so many times, probably the only way to progress now would be to make knock-off episodes of Spongebob, without any of the illusions of high art. All the same, I do like these five newish neo-pop artists.

One of the founding second generation popsters was Sigmar Polke [1], who dragged Litchenstein's 60s pop style through a more 70s critical field. Combining the silk screen comic imagery of his dated predecessor with a rougher, more painterly series of backgrounds, Polke further collapsed the shaky plasterboard walls between avant-garde and kitsch. To be honest, this image smells a little of bad graffiti, but it is just about rescued by its interesting opposition between harshly neat outlines on the figures and the disorderly kaleidoscope that shows through their transparent forms.

Jeff Koons joined Polke in this rediscovery of pop. His metal sculptures somehow manage to replicate the bouncy plasticity of modelling balloons, despite being sizeable and solid [2]. I went on a Norfolk Line ferry recently, and their idea of entertainment was a pervy clown making balloon animals. By animals, I mean swords. And by swords, I mean one long balloon with a shorter one tied on near the bottom. Jeff Koons seems to reference the ridiculousness of such an activity, expanding the little bouncy shapes into neon-kitsch monsters.

I know I've mentioned him before in a very similar setting, but really Takashi Murakami has to come in here. The figurehead of I guess the third generation of pop, this Japanese art machine managed to breath new life into a dying style. Though much of his stuff is mechanically pristine, I have chosen one of his messier, and, interestingly, more valuable canvases, 727-727 [3]. Just like Polke, he combines polished pop with expressive abstraction, creating a commercial monster from two of the most financially successful genres of the 20th century. The cartoony comedy of his Mickey Mouse type figure (cutely called Mr. Dob, apparently) is given a weirdly aggressive edge by the saturated oil slick of the background.

Zooming even closer to the art of the moment, Anthony Micallef is next [4]. Again, I've overdone him, but he fits so perfectly it'd be deceptive to my tastes to ignore him. The pop characteristics are prevalent enough here for me to leave it to you to consider them. As your interest is probably sagging as much as my eyes, I'll leave Micallef there.

Finally, I've chosen the Russian artist Gosha Ostretsov, whose show at Paradise Row I am dying to see. He is probably the most interesting here, adding a heavy tone of ice Cold War politics to the often hollow genre of pop. Take that, Filthy Capitalist is a fascinating exploration into the conflict between east and west [5]. And by taking up the form of yank comic style pop art, the visual herald of 1960s American capitalism, it manages to undermine a materialistic ideology through its own material quality, whilst at the same time providing a funny commentary on art's relation to popular culture. Irresistible.

Unfinished Business

2009-04-13T03:41:00.000-07:00

The title is not necessarily an intentional White Lies reference, although it is definitely not exclusively not one either. A convenient parallel, with all the signs of plagiarism but none of the inventive reinterpretation. Anyway, what I really want to focus on is unfinished art. Whether deliberately left or abandoned out of disinterest, these are the works that rejected polishing and post-production. They are the art world's Franz Kafkas and Orson Welles, its Towers of Babel.

Leonardo's Battle of Anghiari [1] is perhaps the greatest unfinished painting ever to have temporarily existed. Renowned for his sporadic (Clueless reference?) movement between multiple works at once, be they artistic or scientific, Leonardo is the classic procrastinator. He began the Battle of Anghiari on a wall in the Florentine town hall, but left it in the mid stages, after which it was allegedly white-washed by a shameless Renaissance vandal, so we now only know it by this pretty special sketch by Rubens. Whether old Leo stopped out of laziness, or because he felt overshadowed by Michelangelo's battle scene on the opposite wall (which in hindsight looks like a pool party at Michael Barrymore's house), this seems a fitting start to my catalogue of incompletion.

Next I have chosen one of Egon Schiele's self-portrait sketches on paper [2]. I am not as fond of his later oil paintings, mostly because they look overwrought, taken beyond a suitable level. These simpler works, only partially coloured and sketched, seem to have been halted at the perfect moment. Here, the lack of body makes the creepy, gnarled hands more striking, and the sparsity of colour helps give focus to the bizarrely Milhouse-esque hair. It may look unfinished, but I wouldn't add a thing. And if you remember that excellent Are You Afraid of the Dark episode called The Unfinished Painting, it is sometimes better to leave art in the mid stages, lest some creepy (yet mildly attractive) old lady locks you inside the work on completion.

My third choice is a Gerhard Richter portrait of his son Moritz [3], which I assume is not meant to be a complete expression. Despite the exposed canvas (or maybe because of it), this was one of my favourite paintings at the National Gallery exhibition of his work. I think the lack of finality actually emphasises the soft undefined face of the boy. Also, it helps unravel the enigmatic techniques used to create such seamlessness, revealing the hands behind the brushstrokes. We see the Dr. Manhattan of the art world back in his Jon Osterman lab coat.

Next, this Chris Ofili sculpture entitled Annunciation uses unfinished aspects in a most deliberate and effective way [4]. The dark, rough hewn figure stands in jarring opposition to the polished gold finish of its counterpart. The Rodin-like texture of the surface becomes more poignant in this juxtaposition, perhaps presenting themes of purity in the Virgin Mary figure and a strangely rough sexuality in the Angel Gabriel, as he performs the 'immaculate conception' (ahem). Ofili distorts a biblical theme, exploring the inherent paradoxes of religion. It has also been suggested that he Africanises the angel figure, moving it from its traditionally white associations, and using an unfinished texture to subvert our preconceptions about purity and divinity.

To end, I have included the infamously unfinished Chris Buchel installation at MOCA [5]. Apparently, this artist failed to complete the work on schedule, so the gallery temporarily exhibited it in this mid-way state. The resultant outrage of the artist shows the sanctity of completion – though his final touches might have made little difference to casual viewers, without his seal of completion the work loses his deified approval. I still can't decide whether Buchel was being a pre-madonna and MOCA were right in opening on time, or whether the work was just a mashup of random objects without him officially completing it. And then we get into the territory of whether an artist's approval really changes much in the nature of the work. But I'll leave that to people with less episodes of Lost to catch up on.

Divine Conception / Innocent Experience

2009-04-02T02:42:00.000-07:00

Rather than delving fully into the baffling depths of traditional Conceptual Art (contradiction?), I want to focus mainly on conceptual installations and happenings. I was going to write about the happenings separately, but I felt like a bit of a fraud spending too long on such experience-based artworks in such a picture-based blog.

Joseph Beuys comes first, with his famous endurance piece I Like America and America Likes Me [1]. For this, he travelled from his native Germany to JFK, and was then literally carried to a secluded New York gallery where he spent three days with only a (rather frightening) coyote for company. Apparently, the coyote was all he wanted to see of America. If I were him I would have popped down to the Lower-East Side or perhaps Union Square, but that would probably defy the point. I think his concept was to decompose the dominance of America as a modern social force by only experiencing a peculiarly un-Americanised Native American symbol of the nation.

Chris Burden's Shoot is an equally maniacal endurance artwork [2]. Actually, allowing a friend to shoot you in the arm from five metres seems much more insane. A typically 70s act, Burden's performance was meant as a protest against the ready availability of firearms in the US, as well as a parody of the futile violence of the Vietnam conflict. This is true dedication to a concept. I once played and lost a game of paint-balling, and the wounds I sustained seemed bad enough. I can't decide if Burden was being a moron or a martyr. Both, probably.

The next work is less about the artist's experience and more about that of the viewer. In 1974, Gordon Matta-Clark cut a house in two, and partially removed some of the foundations so that half of it tilted, leaving a monumental fissure down the middle [3]. Casting aside any metaphorical readings of broken homes and divided families, the wonder of this work surely came in walking through the house; experiencing the destabilisation of a traditionally comfortable space. As with the others, this was a largely temporal work (it was quickly demolished) and only photographic evidence remains. So for us unfortunate nineties children who've yawned through the YBAs, we can only imagine how fun and weird GM-C's house would have been.

Another big conceptual Space Subverter (go to the Whitworth Gallery show!) is Gregor Schneider, a kooky post-surreal surrealist. In the same vein as Matta-Clark, his Dead House looks like it would truly unsettle the visitor [4]. With its winding passages, I can imagine getting very lost and confused; one reviewer says when inside it feels like you'll never get out. Sort of like the house in The Haunting, although at least in Schneider's house you would be spared from pre-depression Owen Wilson. I really wish I could visit and experience it myself. In fact, writing from the comfort of my Ikea swivel chair, this whole exercise is starting to feel slightly pointless.

Time to cheer up with one of the most heart-warming pieces of Conceptual Art I have come across (thanks to Andrew Hennlich). A collaborative work by Liz Diller and James Scofidio, Blur Building is an artificial cloud floating above a Swiss lake [5]. A metal structure uses small pumps to vaporise water from the lake, thus shrouding itself in a dense mist. And best of all, the visitor gets to walk through it, provoking all the sensual reactions of a cloud without the necessity of magic-carpet-esque levitation. As if that wasn't enough, visitors are given raincoats that are both functional and enjoyable: they process results of a pre-taken personality test and then change colour when you come into the proximity of another visitor with similar tastes and quirks. A kind of erudite speed-dating, practised not in a seedy bar but a heavenly cloud. Who says conceptual art has to be polemical and intimidating?

Cinematic Art

2009-03-21T13:23:00.002-07:00

By this I don't mean great films, rather artworks that are most definitely not cinematic in the moving sense, but share the same compositional and mystical wonders.

First there is Caravaggio [1], often hailed as the inventor of the visual style of cinema almost 300 years before the Lumière brothers made their first, slightly pointless moving pictures. And no, this painting isn't included here as a homage to the Passion of the Christ. I couldn't possibly put Caravaggio and Mel Gibson in the same class. The former may have murdered one person, but the latter has done a lot worse to a lot of movie goers.

Next I jump to Edward Hopper [2], who I admittedly disliked until recently. I still think his paintings are a little tacky, but they definitely have cinematically visual and psychological compositions, and refuse to restrain their narrative within the physical boundaries of the frame. Hopper probably wouldn't have existed (well, have been famous) without film, and perhaps many films might not have existed without him (Psycho seems the most obvious example).

In terms of medium, the closest artist to cinema I have chosen is Gregory Crewdson [3], the endlessly popular photographer who creates Hollywood-cinema-type scenes in stills. There is so much to be read into these images, we almost want to see the full movie version. Until we realise, this is it. In a way the scenes themselves are meaningless, it is our imagination that creates the stories behind the characters. The stillness allows an element of subjectivity that is largely absent from cinema. And we don't have to worry about being disappointed by an overly long ending (Lord of the Rings 3) or an unnecessary plot twist (Hancock). Also, check out this hi-res version: the equivalent of IMAX, it helps you immerse.

Next is a Jonathan Wateridge [4] painting, with the same cinematic composition and psychological openness. To be honest, the main reason I like it is because it reminds me of Lost, and I am full of Lost love. People seemed to forget it after the first season, but season five looks to be the best so far: Time travel. This particular scene reminds me of the bit where a plane, carrying mountains of heroin concealed in ceramic Madonna icons, crashes on the island, much to the delight of Dominic “Merry the junky Hobbit” Monaghan.

And finally, there is Dave Gibbons's Watchmen [5] artwork. The best graphic novel of all time? I don't know, but I am a bit of a fan when it comes to the art, in all its panoramic glory. And seemingly a few others have loved the cinematic qualities as much as me, enough to convert it into an actual film (a very good one, at that). Just to note – I am not cheating, I am ignoring the film and purely looking at the visual drawings. Honest.

Material Values

2009-03-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

These are artworks that follow the idea of Truth to Materials. I'm not talking about William Morris deliberately leaving the wood-grain exposed on his big ugly chairs. Rather, I want to discuss the monster that theorists like Clement Greenberg unleashed, or at least plumped up, when they decided modern art should embrace the material from which it was created, rather than focusing on petty things like subject matter. The concept is that if you put an emphasis on the structures from which the art is made (the canvas, the paint, etc.), then the art will truly become Art in its own right. I disagree fully, but I like some of the products connected to this idea.

In theory I should start with an American Abstract Expressionist as they pretty much inspired the whole idea. But seeing as I've already used up most of the abstract artists I like, I am going to start in Paris after WWII with two artists, both called Jean. Sort of like the pairing of Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, or maybe the Two Ronnies. Except I'm not sure Jean Dubuffet and Jean Fautrier got on too well, so perhaps it's a little more Ryan/Bryan Adams. They both reacted to the horrors of war in different ways – Fautrier by expressing suffering and anguish, Dubuffet by creating fantasy ideals to escape from the toils of reality - but what unites them is an emphasis on materials, and a desire to provoke sensual reactions as a result. The thick, coarse, and pretty unappealing texture of Fautrier's Hostages series [2] might provoke a discomfort in the viewer that goes a small way towards helping them empathise with the subjects. Differently, the vomitous surfaces of Dubuffet's paintings [1] give the scenes an almost primal, earthy simplicity. Dubuffet wants to return to essential existence, Art Brut (not the band), and a life without modernity.

Sorry, got a little intense there. I wont even touch on the Holocaust themes in the work of the next artist, Anselm Kiefer [3]. For now, let's stick to the visuals. My interest in Kiefer comes sprinkled with nostalgia, mainly inspired by the two works from the Tate Modern – the first time I saw them was my first experience of mimetic paintings being truly unpainterly. I thought: artists are allowed to use barbed wire on flat canvases? Why did no one tell me! Or something along those lines. I won't even bother explaining why he fits in here.

The fourth artist, Gerhard Richter, may seem an odd choice, and I will admit that his primary concern is hardly material, but this seemed like a nice niche to try and squeeze him into. Even if it feels a bit like the whole “square shape in triangle hole” syndrome. I am very excited about seeing his exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, but here I have chosen one of his abstracts [4]. The texture and quality of the paint is so important, especially in the dragged bits that look like they were applied with a screen printing kit, or maybe a strigil (I doubt it, but a great word). This canvas sort of reminds me of the results of one those children's magic spin-art kits we've all grown out of (well, all except Damien Hirst).

And finally, how much truer could you get to the materials than this Valerie Hegarty piece [5]? She takes a normal oil painting and tears, burns and mangles it so we can see its insides, its guts. The subject is no longer important; the destroyed materials of creation hold the meaning. Either that, or Jack Nicholson and his merry gang of clowns have had their fun with this one.

Turning Japanese

2009-03-01T11:54:00.000-08:00

This is a tribute to the wonderful country I've never got round to visiting, though not for lack of loving. Whilst I'm sure the reality of Japan doesn't match my ideal, any nation with a multi-storey Pokemon department store has got to be pretty incredible. Here is a top five of my favourite Japanese artistic creations.

Any list of this sort pretty much has to start with Takashi Murakami. He is the Japanese superstar who is internationally appreciated, with fans ranging from Marc Jacobs to Kanye West (both of whom he has collaborated with). I am no different; as much as I wanted to rebel, I can't help but love his manga-inspired colourscapes. Rather than choosing his most controversial, and perhaps most interesting work, I'll keep things a little more Disney. The overwhelming kitsch of this manga-esque sculptural group [1] stands in brazen contrast to the pristine 'white-cube' gallery setting that surrounds them, perfectly stomping over the line between high art and popular culture. A truly modern artist, Murakami extends the ideas of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein by focusing as much on commercial toy and product design as these more conventional 'big-buck' auctionable artworks. In fact, if anyone wants to buy me a birthday present, I won't complain.

Slightly more serious and yet equally tied to pop-culture is Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira [2]. One of the most internationally successful Anime films, this animated vision of a dystopian future Tokyo exhibits the kind of jaw-dropping graphics and heart-wrenching story lines that are the foundations of the genre. One section is particularly moving for me; at the start when Takashi watches his carer die at the hands of the faceless enforcers. I remember the first time I ever saw it was when I was 17, on one of our weekly Friday-night expeditions to Club NME at Koko in Camden. They would play Akira on the big screens, muted so everyone could happily jive angularly to Maximo Park and Boy Kill Boy. I've always had an aversion to dancing, so I stood and watched the whole section, getting rather over-emotional after a few too many sour-apple Corky's shots (only £1!). Even without the sound, subtitles, or any idea what was going on, the visuals provided enough to send me far into my own thoughts. Just to note, I can't believe they are producing an American remake, with who else but Leonardo diCaprio acting and directing. Urgh.

The next artist is Satoshi Kamiya, commonly regarded as the most talented Origami artist (I think). This is the one work that returns to more traditional Japanese values – paper folding and worship of dragons – but seems thoroughly modern in its vision and almost mechanical detail [3]. Saying that, it is of little conceptual interest, and is only mildly exciting visually. The fascination it invites comes from the skill of production. It satisfies the viewers of art who say “I could have done that myself, in fact, a bloody monkey could have” (almost a direct quote from a certain someone). And this seems to be a broad characteristic of a lot of Japanese art; whether you like it or not, in the majority of cases the skill of production it exhibits is impossible to deny, from the machine-like precision of Murakami's designs to the arduous detail of future Tokyo in Akira.

In a spirit of thorough self-contradiction, the fourth artist I have chosen creates installations of junk that fit perfectly into these 'talentless' criticisms. Turner Prize shortlisted Tomoko Takahashi collects together everyday objects and places them together in organised chaos. In a kind of retreat from commercialism, the pictured installation [4] was made only from amassed objects; nothing bought for the purpose of the artwork. She says they represent her thoughts; diverse, accumulated and jumbled. You could even interpret this further as a microcosm for the complexly chaotic yet rigorously ordered nature of contemporary Japanese society. But that is probably a bit much, especially coming from someone who has never actually been to Japan. Oh and also, though hailing from Japan, Takahashi is based in London. I imagine wondering around this installation would be a disorientating and exciting experience, although again I have never actually seen a Takahashi in the flesh, or, indeed, the junk. I think I need to get out more.

As a grand finale, I couldn't resist talking about Pokemon. In fact, my whole love for Japan emerged from my obsession with Pokemon. Since 1999 I have shamelessly bought every Pokemon game, including last year's Pokemon Pearl. It is lame, but I love the sense of ownership and progression they provide. And, more importantly, I cannot resist the diversely cute and awesome little monsters that are at the centre of the game, even the johnny-come lately additions of the fifth generation (look at Luxray!). The image I have included is of Scyther, my favourite of the bunch [5]. Those that don't see the masterful designs as artwork only need look at the worldwide acceptance of Murakami to be convinced otherwise. In this post-post-modern/structuralist-super-society, what art better sums up the times than these popular cartoons that have achieved such global cultural infiltration. After all, who doesn't know Pikachu?

Mostly Ghostly

2009-02-21T03:11:00.001-08:00

I just watched the Haunting and got inspired. So I am obviously going to talk about ghosts, and artworks that haunt me. I feel a bit sneaky here as I stole the post title from a painting by an artist called Anya Kielar, without even including the painting itself. To be honest, I like the title but find the work dull. Oh well.

Number 1 is a super painting/installation by Dirk Bell [1]. His woman stands in a spaceless abyss, a reach away from the picture plane and yet transparent, part of the eerily swirling mist. The half closed curtain makes us feel slightly voyeuristic, as if we are watching her in a steamy shower. Or alternatively, we feel like old ladies peering through net curtains at the naturist next-door neighbours. Except this nudity is all subtlety, and all death.

The second work comes from Zhang Xiaogang, China's hottest selling artist of the moment [2]. This painting is huge in scale, but somehow intimate and enigmatic. It has the kind of beauty that is enjoyable in an art gallery, but might inspire nightmares if it were hung above your bed. The face disappears out of focus, like a photographic mistake that would inevitably end up in the recycle bin rather than your Flickr “portfolio”. This boy is truly a ghost; even the boldish eyes are blackened and empty, as if that Mexican girl Maya from heroes – the one with the poison curse power - had just got really angry in a primary school.

The next image is a photograph by the wunderkind child photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue [3]. Taken at the age of 12, this photo of his younger cousin is hauntingly ghost-like. I did a silly presentation talking about how this image is a metaphor for the death of a moment when a photograph is taken, a ghost of the irretrievable past, but I don't actually believe that. I do, however, get a strange feeling, what Barthes calls “melancholy”, over seeing a photograph of a child who is now either dead or nearly dead (the image is from 1906). And, more hauntingly, the ghostly face reminds me of the effects of the evil video tape from The Ring – watch and die.

Rachel Whiteread's Ghost is the most unusual here, simply by virtue of the fact that it is a huge, solid object, ethereal in colour but hardly so in presence [4]. Whiteread poured cement (or something) into a derelict bedroom in a North London flat, then broke away the walls and windows around it. My all time favourite lecturer brought this back into my thoughts the other day. She sees it in terms of lost childhood. Not only is it a ghost of the physical room that once existed - as Lartigue's photograph of his cousin seems to be the shadowy remains of a life once lived – this is also the death of a bedroom, an enclosed space of peace. What was once cosy and insulating is now hard and impenetrable. Space and matter are reversed, leaving us all outside, a little confused.

And finally, another painting, here by Marlene Dumas [5]. It doesn't fit perfectly into the scheme, but I wanted an excuse to include her. I suppose it's visually ghostly, and the girl's presence is ethereal, although the colours render her warm and most definitely alive. Like the evil red Genie in Aladdin, she is hollow but fiery. At first glance she is the most lustful ghost on the list, but her eyes are full of innocent charm, and beyond the colour sits a fragile, ephemeral young girl.

P.S. Most of my own art seems to have emerged from these kinds of artists; in fact I had to fight a self-loving urge to put in one of my own paintings... No, I am joking. Sort of.

Pre-Fabstract Expressionism

2008-11-14T16:57:00.001-08:00

I am in two minds about abstract art. Despite its initially contentious intentions, it has become a bit diluted; an easy entry into artistic creation for the untalented. It has been embraced by pop culture as the pinnacle of mad artistic genius (thanks Pollock), from the free-spirited/hormonal teenaged painter in She's All That to the silly car advert that parallels “the artists that said no to brushes” to a conventional and ugly vehicle. This is the point of most problem for me; abstract art (pre-fabstract art?) is now all about a simple success formula, a means justifying an end, and it seems to be an excuse for ugly art. It is all very well to praise the action of painting, but 99 times out 100 spontaneous painting ends in a repulsive mess. Here I want to talk about some of the few artists who can carry off expression through abstract colour and shape without sacrificing aesthetics or dignity.

This is nice because it allows me to look at two of my favourite artists, namely Clifford Still and Robert Rauschenberg (RIP). Clifford Still somehow makes simple blocks of swirling, slicing colour seem more interesting than anything he could have taken from reality [1]. I love the sharp, tree-branch-like fingers that cut out of the black forms into the beige. Perhaps this is a slight betrayal of Still's intention; I can only express my enjoyment of his work through comparison to everyday objects (although I would prefer this to some false appreciation for the transcendental spirit of these works). This same reasoning would lead abstract-fanatics to hate my choice of Rauschenberg as my second key abstract work: his culture-based collages lean much more towards the Pop Art side of the ring [2]. For me, though, his combination of printed images and free abstract techniques in this work creates an unshakeable aesthetic effect that can stand next to any true abstract work. And also, his recent death was rather overshadowed by the passing of Yves Saint Laurent, so Rauschenberg deserves some credit, somewhere.

The next two artists are much closer to 'pure' abstraction. Cy Twombly uses grand brush gestures to create faltering forms with paint dripping from every corner [3]. For me, the effect is magnetic and, by chance, charming. I do have a slight problem with Twombly in that many young artists seem to take his works as an excuse to go crazy with a canvas for five minutes and then move on. In the hands of Twombly, such techniques might result in a work of unparalleled genius. Adopted by a class of GCSE students however, the finished product might resemble the aftermath of a Teletubbies massacre (or a Damien Hirst swirl painting). Yet I can push past this, Twombly is king. I find the undulating light-scapes of Dee Ferris equally alluring, and much less imitable [4]. Her blue, grey and white colour-fields look like what I imagine a fully content person dreams about.

Another Saatchi artist, Caragh Thuring, creates paintings that are much closer to reality, and yet equally powerful in their abstraction [5]. This image uses a simple, exposed canvas with (inverted) dripping white emulsion as a background for a continuous line that expresses the fullnesses of the artist's motion. Here we have a contemporary work that is not afraid to use some representative forms and graphic lines to reach the destination of true visual clarity. In the words of Garth, “schwing”.

Cutting shapes

2008-08-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

Now some sculpture for diversity - I wouldn’t want any medium to feel left out. I’ll focus on mildly figurative works through the ages, not just the modern stuff. Actually, it’s mostly modern stuff, woops.

Firstly, however, back to Early Renaissance Italy with Leonardo da Vinci’s teacher, Andrea del Verrocchio. He was a man of all trades, indeed a Renaissance man, but my favourite of his works is this sculpture of Christ and St. Thomas at Orsanmichele in Florence [2]. A contemporary of Verrocchio, whose name I forget, said that his was “the most beautiful Jesus” he had ever seen. I’m not so sure about that; Katie Holmes is beautiful, this guy doesn’t even have pupils (honestly, look). But he has got great features. All smooth, and, unusually, all apparently real. The poses are pretty fantastic too. I love Jesus’ floating hand, with two straight fingers, two bent. Also great is the smooth hand of Thomas simplistically pointing (in a “brap” gun gesture?) towards the gracefully un-gruesome spear wound on Jesus’ chest.

Another older sculpture next, by Bernini. I should say I generally don’t like classically influenced bronzes and marbles. Individually most of them are cool but there is so little distinction between them all, and few sculptors have managed to make something that stands out for me (god it sounds like I want sculptors to sculpt just for me). Anyway, I think Bernini does. I’m not claiming to be the only person to love him, and the work I’ve chosen is probably his most popular but whatever, seeing Apollo and Daphne in the Borghese gallery in Rome was one of the most spine-tingling, life-changing experiences I’ve ever had with an artwork [3]. The drama, the movement, the lust, the fear, the fact that Daphne is actually in the process of turning into a tree, complete with barked legs and tiny finger branches. Oh and the faces, from Daphne’s beautifully frozen scream to Apollo’s comatose eyes, perfectly displaying his arrested trance. The story goes that the god Apollo is struck by Cupid’s arrow, then sees the nymph Daphne frolicking along happily. He passionately pursues here, and so she calls to her river-god father to save her, who, for some reason, turns her into a tree, hopefully stopping any of Apollo’s sexual advances - hopefully. Incredible.

Forward about 360 years comes Barry Flanagan. And his Nijinksy Hare shows the changes of the years [4]. It is still figurative, but only just. It’s a bloody rabbit (fine, a hare, stop splitting hares, aha) and it looks like its doing Kung Fu, or cutting a dance shape. I’m told Nijinsky was one of the greatest ballet dancers of all time, so perhaps there are hints of a pirouette in his (its?) pose, but to me he looks like Trinity in the classic lobby fight scene in the Matrix. This hare is jumping up in bullet time, ready to kick Verrocchio and Bernini out of the minds of art fans such as myself.

Moving from hares to mice I come to Barry #2, Barry Reigate [1]. I suppose they are both mice and men, somewhere between Giacometti figures and Biker Mice from Mars. The great pull of this group is the use of neon strip lights, dare I say lightsabers? Each mouse is aggressively impaled with a different coloured saber like three unfortunate Sith after a battle with the Jedi council. What with the cartoon like shoes each is wearing, this group seems to be a huge bundle of pop-cultural references, which are obviously the best kind of references.

Last but not least, some more Anthony Micallef [5]. This sculpture is perhaps a bit more conventional than Reigate’s. Though it is made from something like Aluminium, the smooth curves of the child’s body are not dissimilar to those of Bernini, and from the neck down the schoolgirl cuts a very realistic figure, with nervous knees close together. But of course, being Micallef, she has a relative armoury of AK47s and Uzis where her innocent head should be. I don’t particularly care about the political and philosophical messages here; the ready availability of firearms, the loss of childhood innocence in the contrast between the flower in the hand and the guns in the head. Perhaps it symbolises violence on the brain in our society, or something similar. Either way, I just like the way it shines, like a modern tribute to sculpture across the ages. She has a Corinthian column as a plinth in complete contrast to the guns of the head; the polar opposites of culture and violence.

Graphic Content

2008-07-26T13:05:00.001-07:00

For the second section of this minuscule blog, I have chosen to blabber about graphic art. Saying that, I'm not one hundred percent on what I actually mean by graphic art. Classically the word graphic is associated with drawing and printmaking, and to a certain extent the pictures I have chosen conform to this definition, but for me (and probably not me alone) the phrase 'graphic art' has taken on a different meaning. It reminds me of cartoons in the modern sense, with bold lines, shapes and colours creating realistic and yet thoroughly unreal images.

My first image here is by an American artist called Alex Pardee [2]. This really sums the vague genre up, with psychedelic colours, clear definition and bold humour. I am determined to get through this whole project without any mention of the dreaded G word, and though there may be some hints here of the better spray painted street murals that are so strangely popular, I see Pardee's work as thoroughly at home on paper as opposed to concrete. I love the division between the loose drips (oh yes, more drips - as Marmite tells us, you either...) and the acute ink detail rendering the twisted features of the rat unicorn and its loving master.

In the more traditional graphic sense is Ahmed Alsoudani [3], with his figures made up of graphite lines. They are bold and yet indistinct: the many figures seem to jump out, but are mangled into a mesh by loose linking lines that make them almost invisible. A limb will stand out at you, but there can be little understanding of full forms. So Alsoudani is an extreme of lines, whilst Pardee is perhaps more about form and colour. Another artist, Anthony Micallef [1, top image] uses equally strong graphite lines, but also creates cartoon like figures with bright colours and veins of wit in the vain of Alex Pardee. I love Micallef so much, I'll probably put together a top five list of just him. It's my blog, I'll indulge if I want to.

A fourth artist, Dexter Dalwood [4], comes at this style of graphic art from a different angle. In this image, he takes a classic Turner storm scene and thoroughly contemporises it with a big red wave across the front, which seems more Dexter's Laboratory than Dexter Dalwood – Fine Artist. It owes no small debt to Roy Lichtenstein, too. I see the other waves to the left of the image – the waves threatening to engulf the shed and boat – as a kind of decorative homage to Klimt and other equally decorative symbolists. Thus this image becomes a tribute to three great masters of modern(ish) art: a composition of loans combined to make a possible masterpiece of contemporary graphic art.

What exploration into the realms of graphics would be complete without some work from a graphic novel. I reckon whoever discredits comic art as comic is a bit of a joke themselves. This recent drawing of Moon Knight by David Finch [5] proves this, with its incredible draughtsmanship, frozen drama and disarming detail. When I first saw it I actually started to care about yet another nocturnal caped-crusader, despite the mundaneness of the actual character. He has no special powers; just lots of money, gadgets, marshal arts skills and crippling personal traumas (Marvel's Batman). Oh the power of some good lines and an awesome stormy background. Though it may be more narrative than masterpiece, it sums up what I love about this area of graphic art.

Vienna: A slap to the Hapsburgs

2008-07-26T13:04:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure when Viennese art really hit me. I think it was in a History of Art lesson with the loveable Mr. Orme back in sixth form. We were grazing over the more average branches of expressionism when suddenly Egon Schiele appeared, in a self portrait more twisted and distorted than Josef Fritzl's guide to basement building. At a time where to me any art before about 1970 was lame, Schiele's paintings were just cool (note: it was also a time when I used angular as a positive adjective for music). They looked great with their harsh lines, angsty expressions, and almost cartoon-like poses and features. And of course they were dirrrty.

Though I have included the first Schiele image I ever saw [2], I soon discovered that his other works were pretty great too, and so were those of his friends. Perhaps it was in Vienna, 2006, that I truly fell for, well, Vienna. For the first time I understood why Klimt was so great [1] - I learnt to look past the gaudy patterns at the lines and the figures. Oskar Kokoschka as well, for many of the same reasons, and also the fact that he has a very cool name and the signature OK slapped on most his works. I'll leave you to realise how much more there is to his paintings than that [3].

I found Kolloman Moser, too [4]. He was different, a bit more cheesy, but still loveable. His figures look suspended in their own private grottos of colour and magic. And even though his work could be seen to forshadow those dreadful magical-realist paintings that now seem to be scarred across fairground rides, gaudy 18-wheelers and the skin of the Goliaths that drive them, to me his art still seems fresh.

Oh yeah and I also like Hermann Nitsch [5], totally different and ages later but still Viennese and still cool. Some artists use drips, his art is drips. It sticks two fingers up at Jackson Pollock - I'm going to do what you did but much better. And I'll do it with blood. 20 years before the Libertines were even conceived.

As this ramble reaches its death, allow me quickly to consider what drew me to the Viennese artists, especially the earlier four. I think it was something to do with their shared sense of comradery and rebellion. I had classic 17 year old romantic delusions of the ideal metro-cosmopolitan café lives they lived. I saw them as the beatniks of their generation, unendingly cool rebels using art to show what they cared about: sex and death. And yet in reality they were all plagued with illness and social rejection, and with time their paintings release a kind of fear and dissatisfaction that becomes achingly unnerving; their greatest success.

Introduction

2008-07-26T13:03:00.001-07:00

Ever since watching High Fidelity, I've made top 5 lists for everything. I know, it's a dreadful cliché, and what's worse I am not even going to pretend I've actually read the book. Whatever, all that matters is I have this incessant urge to cement anything I like into some kind of elite collection. Why should art be different? I love it truly, madly and of course, deeply. So now it seems a good idea to try and vent my obsessive categorisation of things, and, indeed, my categorical obsession with art, all at once. In a blog, of all places (postmodern? I hate the word). I'll make top 5 lists of the best arty things in my mental portfolio: paintings / drawings / photographs / films / cartoons / pokemon. I use art as an umbrella here. You get the idea. Oh and please don't laugh, even when I sound like a lobotomised Brian Sewell.