A few weeks ago it was (yet another!) significant birthday. To celebrate we’d decided on a family trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park followed by a meal in Wakefield.
It had been some time since we’d last been to the YSP – we’d visited back in March 2020, the week before everything locked down and not been since. It was time to put that right. There had been some changes in the way they operate. Previously entry was free, but there was a fairly hefty car parking fee. Now they charge per person but parking is included. I reckon for a couple visiting that probably makes little if any difference, but with four of us it was more expensive than it would have been in the past. But given the amount here is to see, it’s still more than worth the trip.
The exhibition in the Underground Gallery, and the grounds in the immediate vicinity of the building, featured the work of the American artist, Robert Indiana.
There were a couple of smaller exhibitions in the main visitor centre and one in the Weston Gallery, but there was nothing showing in the Old Chapel or the Longside Gallery. Just as well as we spent the whole afternoon looking around the exhibitions and wandering round the grounds where we spotted several new works along the Lakeside – and we didn’t explore all the extensive grounds.
The Weston Gallery opened in 2019 and leading up to the entrance from the car park is the Walk of Art2, which incudes J’s name. Our daughter was living in the Netherlands when it was installed, so this was both a chance for her to see it for the first time and for us to see how it had weathered and changed
The small gallery was showing A green and pleasant land (HA-HA), an exhibition of very bright and colourful paintings and textile works by Lakwena Maciver
The artist was inspired by the landscape at the YSP which used to be part of a private estate owned by landed gentry and coal owners, which restricted access to the hoi poloi. In the past we wouldn’t have been able to wander around here. She also references the “right to roam” which , in England and Wales, is under threat, particularly given the recent legal case which has outlawed wild camping on Dartmoor, so now it’s illegal throughout England and Wales
Thinking historically and politically, themes of power, ownership, access, control, boundaries, and division all come to mind, and this is the impetus for the work.
But we are now able to wander at will through the grounds (providing we’ve paid the entry fee, of course!) and that’s what we did, checking out some favourite works of art on the north side of the lake,
and discovering some new ones
Hazmat Love (2017) by Tom Friedman
Mind walk (2022) by Peter Randall Page
Gazing Ball (2018) by Lucy and Jorge Orta
Gazing Ball (2018) by Lucy and Jorge Orta
There were some other new works that we passed as we made our way back to the main Visitor Centre
Usagi Kannon II (2013-18) by Leiko Ikemura
Muamba Grove No. 3 and Muamba GroveNo. 4 byVanessa da Silva
Bag of Aspirations (2018) by Kalliopi Lemos
And of course we had to make sure we visited Barbara Hepworth’s Family of Man
Until 2020 we had regular days out in Liverpool but we lost the habit. Over the past 2 years I’ve only been twice – once on a solo visit to the Tate last year and then, just before Christmas for the Kate Rusby Christmas concert at the Phil. But we’re determined to get back into getting out and about in our local cities and a couple of weeks ago we caught the train into Liverpool for a day out.
Leaving Lime Street station we made our way to the Pierhead and the Tate Gallery/ I was keen to see the Turner exhibition and the show devoted to the four artists who were candidates for the Tate Prize last year. Bowland Climber had been there and reading his post about his visit had whetted my appetite so I’d been keen to find an opportunity to get over to the Gallery
First of all the Turner exhibition.
Waves breaking against the wind (c 1840)
Dark Waters was a relatively small scale exhibition in just two rooms with only a limited number of seascapes – some unfinished works – together with sketchbooks and works on paper. One of his most famous works, The Fighting Temeraire, depicts a ghostly battleship being towed by a steam tug over a placid sea during a blazing sunset. He clearly was fascinated by the sea and painted many seascapes, in many cases depicted savage, stormy seas, some of which were included in the exhibition.
Turner is a favourite artist of mine, but there are two sides to his work. Some of his masterpieces reflect the conventions of the day – Elysian landscapes and mythological and historical subjects. The other side is the one I like and admire. As he got older his paintings became much wilder and impressionistic – almost abstract in some cases, particularly his later works. In many ways he could be considered to be the first Impressionist, although the French would probably disagree. However, the Impressionists must surely have been influenced by him.
On entering the gallery and having our membership cards “zapped”, the first works we saw were sketches and drawings, ideas for possible larger scale works. Turner certainly knew how to draw and a few lines and squiggles portrayed boats, ships, people and the sea.
The stars of the show, though, were the paintings. The exhibition emphasises the influence of Dutch marine art.
Van Tromp Returning after the Battle off the Dogger Bank exhibited 1833 Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775-1851 Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N00537
But Turner developed his own approach with dramatic, swirling, stormy seas
Stormy Sea with Dolphins c.1835-40 Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775-1851 Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N04664
Some of the paintings were unfinished I’d still love to have one on the wall above the fireplace at home.
Two electronic audio installations, Resounding Water 2022, and Life and Death by Water 2021 by Lamin Fofana, an electronic music producer, DJ, and artist. He grew up in Sierra Leone and Guinea before moving to the US when he was a teenager. He currently lives in Berlin. The music was, rather like Turner’s paintings, abstract, rather than melodic, but created an ambient atmosphere that complemented the works. Both pieces included “field recordings” taken in Liverpool, Freetown, Sierra Leone; New York, and Berlin, reflecting the “triangular route” of the Atlantic slave trade. Life and Death by Water also included a hummed melody from Rivers of Babylon – the most well known versions by the Melodonians (a Reggae group) and Boney M – but originally a biblical hymn expressing the lamentations of the Israelis taken captive by the Babylonians.It represents the suffering of Africans taken into slavery and other displaced peoples over the ages.
The exhibition closes at the beginning of June but I hope to visit again before then.
After a brew and a snack in the cafe we went up to the top floor to visit the exhibition of works by the finalists of the 2022 Turner Prize.
Each of the four finalists had a room to show their work. The prize wasn’t specifically judged on these displays but took into account their body of work. Nevertheless, they gave a good insight into the artists’ work, style and approach.
The first room was allocated to a multi-media artist, Heather Phillipson. We entered through a short, narrow corner and was immediately dazzled by the video images of the eyes of various animals, clipped from nature documentaries, shown on screens lining both walls.
We passed into the larger room, lit with a bright electric blue light where there were more moving images of storms and swans projected onto the walls and on video screens. Earphones hung from the ceiling where visitors could listen to an audio commentary.
A not so subtle message about the environment, the use of whizz bang technology certainly made an impression.
The next room showed the work of the winner of the 2022, prize Veronica Ryan. It couldn’t have been more different than the previous room. It was much more low key with small scale works representing natural forms including fruit, beans and seeds as well as fabricated containers and lightbulbs.
My first reaction was surprise that this was the winner’s exhibition as it was so low key with the room only sparsely filled with the sculptures and with a number of then hanging from the ceiling in string bags. However, checking on my phone I realised that she had been awarded the prize for her work in general, including her Windrush memorial of giant sculptures of Caribbean fruits displayed on a street in Hackney, east London.
Sin Wai Kin’s work in the next room was a return to flash-bang multimedia with video images, mannequins and cardboard cutouts. The focus was the artist himself playing different characters. The Tate website tells us that these
exist across the spectrum of femininity and masculinity and reappear in different contexts, creating new constellations in the artists’ expanding universe
I wasn’t keen. It was my least favourite and I found it rather pretentious. But that’s only my opinion, of course. I moved on to the final room devoted to the work of the photographer Ingrid Pollard.
The first of two rooms showed a selection of photographs, pub signs, prints and objects, created and collected over 25 years, from her 2018 exhibition Seventeen of Sixty Eight that focused on the representation of the black figure in British life. I was particularly drawn to a large pub sign. In the town where I grew up there was a pub called the Black Boy (it was near the Black Horse, a pub that had once been run by my great grandparents). As I grew up and developed more of a social conscience I had started to feel uncomfortable with the name of the pub and the plaster model of a young black boy’s head above the entrance. The title of the original exhibition The title, Seventeen of Sixty Eight, relates to the 68 pubs in the UK that have “Black Boy” in their name. No doubt many people would see this as harmless, but to me there’s a clear underlying racism that is far from harmless but reinforces a harmful stereotype. Other exhibits echo this message.
In the next room ‘Bow Down and Very Low’ was inspired by a film from 1944, ‘Springtime in an English Village’, which included a young black girl who had been installed as a village May Queen. It centred on an image of the girl curtseying, copies of which were displayed.
The image was interpreted as a representation of how black people were subjugated – forced to bow, curtsey or otherwise show deference. I felt that the same analysis could be applied to other groups, including the working class in general.
The display included three kinetic sculptures made from found objects, developed in conjunction with with artist Oliver Smart. The central sculpture bowing as if subjugated by the one of the right which wielded a baton. The one on the left, which included a saw and wasn’t operating due to safety concerns.
This video shows the sculptures in operation. The one on the left making a rather loud grating sound as the saw scrapes against the metal strip as it flexes.
Initially I’d been seduced by the dynamic display of flashy visual images by Heather Phillipson, but having spent time looking closely and talking to room custodian about the work I left feeling that Ingrid Pollard’s lower key work was my favourite section of the exhibition.
We made our way down the rest of the building, we visited the other rooms. There had been some changes in the displays since our last visit.
We’d spent a few hours in the gallery and had enjoyed it, but the day wasn’t over. We made our way along the waterfront, first of all to visit the Open Eye Gallery on Mann Island – always a good bet – and then had a look around the Museum of Liverpool Life.
It’s good value and the food is good so it’s very popular. It was busy when we arrived but we were early enough to get a table. People were queuing outside as we left to catch our train back to Wigan.
It seems forever since I took a week off work but it was only 3 weeks ago. Such a lot has happened since then. The weather at the beginning of that week hadn’t been so great but by the Thursday things had brightened up and we decided we’d drive over to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, A new exhibition had just started and we wanted to see how J’s name had weathered on the new “Walk of Art”.
It was bright and sunny when we arrived, but very windy. It continued like that for most of the day, and it was very muddy underfoot, so we didn’t spend as much time as we’d have liked walking around the grounds (in fact, the paths around the lake were closed off due to the strong wind). However, there was plenty to see in the Underground Gallery and the more sheltered areas close to it.
We parked up by the new Weston Gallery, Restaurant and Shop so we could take a look at the Walk of Art. The plates installed last summer had weathered and oxidised, blending in with the ones that had been installed earlier that year.
We set off battling against the wind across the muddy fields of the parkland over towards the old chapel and the Underground Gallery.
We called in to the Chapel to look at the exhibition Something About Paradise by Saad Qureshi, that was due to close a few days after our visit. More about that in another post
The new main exhibition, which had only opened a few days before our visit, features works by the Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos. As has been the case several times during visits to the major exhibitions at the YSP, I hadn’t heard of this feminist artist. The exhibition website tells us that she
creates vibrant, often monumental sculpture, using fabric, needlework and crochet alongside everyday objects from saucepans to wheel hubs. She frequently uses items associated with domestic work and craft to comment from a feminist perspective on national and collective identity, cultural tradition and women’s roles in society.
I think that sums up what we saw very well.
The first of her works that we saw as we walked across towards the main visitor centre was this giant ceramic cockerel Pop Galo [Pop Rooster] (2016) which was inspired by the image of the Portuguese rooster.
The sculpture is over nine-metres-high and is covered by 17,000 glazed tiles. It also includes 15,000 LED lights which are illuminated at dusk while a composition by musician Jonas Runa is played. As we’d left well before dusk we weren’t able to see and hear that – perhaps we’ll have the opportunity towards the back end of the year – assuming we’re let out by then!
The large scale nature of this, and many other of her works, means that they’re necessarily a collaborative effort. The role of the artist is more of a designer than craftsperson – rather like that of an architect during the construction of a landmark building.
Moving inside the Underground Gallery the first works we saw this statue of the godess Diana covered by a cotton crotchet
and three ceramic animal heads, similarly adorned.
Moving into the first gallery there were several large works including this giant pistol made of 168 old style telephone handsets with the sound of a modern electro-acoustic composition by Jonas Runa playing. A number of the works in the exhibition incorporate music.
Call Center (2014-16)
In the next gallery you couldn’t miss these gigantic high heel shoes made of stainless steel saucepans. The work was created for the Milan fashion show
Marilyn (2011)
and hanging from the ceiling was this massive work, inspired by the Valkyries of Norse legend, made from fabric and crocheted panels
Valkyrie Marina Rinaldi (2014)
Another large crocheted work in the 3rd gallery
Finisterrra (2018)
Moving outside, there were a number of large scale works on display.
This massive mask, constructed from Baroque style mirrors, was on the lawn facing the Underground Gallery.
I’ll be Your Mirror ~1/7 (2018-20)
I wouldn’t mind a tea pot as big as this one! Although being made of wrought iron “lace work” it wouldn’t be so good for holding the tea.
Pavilion de The (2012)
and, similarly, this jug wouldn’t be so good for storing your wine
Pavilion de Vin (2016)
This gigantic ring, perched at the top of the lawn above the Underground Gallery, is made of hubcaps with a diamond made of whiskey glasses is a statement on consumerism and the greed for material possessions and wealth.
Solitario (2018)
The final work outdoors, sited near to Barbara Hepworth’s Family of Man, was this oversized ice cream cone constructed of plastic sand moulds of apples, pears, strawberries and croissants.
Tutti Frutti (2019)
As is usually the case with exhibitions at the YSP, this one merits another visit. Unfortunately the park is closed now for the foreseeable future.
Back in 2016, the Irish Museum of Modern Art secured a five-year loan of 50 works by Lucian Freud. To house these works, the IMMA set up the Freud Project in the Garden Gallery in the grounds of Kilmainham Hospital, which has previously been used for temporary exhibitions. The project involves presenting
a series of different and exclusive Lucian Freud related exhibitions, with a new programme of events and openings each year.
I went to see the inaugural exhibition in this series in March 2017 and enjoyed having the opportunity to view 30 of his works. This week I’m back over in Ireland with work and caught the early boat over on Sunday to spend the afternoon visiting the IMMA as I hadn’t been there for a while. During my visit I decided I’d take a look at the latest Freud Project exhibition – Life above Everything: Lucian Freud and Jack B. Yeats – which, as is clear from the title, features works both by Freud and one of my favourite Irish artists, Jack B Yeats. As is usually the case with these types of exhibition, no photos were allowed, so the images in this post are taken from other sources.
The IMMA website describes the objective of the exhibition
Exploring the affinities and interconnections between these two artists, this exhibition draws the work of these two stubbornly individual painters into dialogue, placing them side-by-side for the first time in 70 years. While Lucian Freud’s work has been exhibited in the past in group exhibitions alongside other artists from the ‘School of London’, Life above Everything is one of the few exhibitions to date in which Freud has been shown with a single other artist.
Jack Butler Yeats was the brother of the famous poet, William Butler Yeats. He was born in London and spent his childhood between London, Dublin, and Sligo, eventually returning to live permanently in Ireland in 1910. He began his artistic career, in the 1890s, as a black and white journalistic illustrator for various publications before eventually becoming a professional artist. He initially painted in watercolour, but about 1906 he began painting regularly in oil. His early paintings were rather conservative in style but in the 1920s there was a major change in his approach. He started to use bright colours and he began to paint with extremely free and loose brushstrokes with the paint thickly applied. The paintings became much more interesting, over the years becoming more and more abstract and Expressionist in style.
Although Freud and Yeats could both be considered as figurative painters, their styles were very different – particularly when referencing Yeats’ later works. So pairing the two artists in this way isn’t a particularly obvious thing to do. But it was interesting to have the opportunity to “compare and contrast”.
Apparently Freud
had a lifelong interest in the Irish painter’s work, holding a deep admiration for its force and energy. He did not cite Yeats as an ‘influence’ but instead seems to have felt a common purpose with his originality and independence, his continuous searching observation, and his sense of the connection between painting and life. A pen and ink drawing by Yeats, The Dancing Stevedores (c.1900), hung beside Freud’s bed for over 20 years.
IMMA website
The exhibition includes 33 paintings by Freud and 24 by Yeats on two floors of the Garden Gallery, with a good selection of drawings and works on paper by both artists in the basement.
I’d seen most, if not all, of the works by Freud previously during my visit to the inaugural exhibition back in 2017 – and Manchester City Art Gallery had loaned a painting I’ve seen many times before, Girl with a Beret (1951-52). However, although I’ve seen the sizeable collection of Yeats’ paintings at both the Irish National Gallery and the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, I was particularly keen to have a good look at his works included in this exhibition, most of which I’d never seen before. Many were from his later period painted in his wild, colourful expressionist style where the figures of people and horses are almost just suggested. I wasn’t disappointed.
Paintings I particularly liked included one on loan from the Tate
the curiously named ‘Left, Left / We Left Our Name / On the Road / On the Road / On the Famous Road / On the Famous Road / On the Famous Road / Of Fame.’ and several paintings which included horses, a favourite subject of the Irishman, including The Flapping Meeting (1926) and White Shower(1928).
I doubt I’d have paid the entrance fee to see the Freud paintings again, but it was worth it to see those fantastic paintings by Jack B Yeats.
Last Saturday we travelled over to Liverpool to take a look at the latest exhibition at the Tate on Albert Dock. It’s had a lot of good reviews so I wanted to see for myself what the fuss was about. I didn’t know a great deal about the artist, Keith Haring, but had seen some of his works, probably most notably his large canopy was hanging in the ceiling of the stairwell in the grand hallway of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam during a visit last year. He’d painted it for a solo exhibition at the museum in 1986.
So, the extensive Tate retrospective was a good opportunity to find out more about the artist. The exhibition was busy (but not crazy busy like some of the blockbusters held in London), so it was clearly popular. But there was plenty of space to allow us to take time to look at the paintings and reflect on them.
The Tate exhibition website tells us
A part of the legendary New York art scene of the 1980s, Keith Haring (1958–1990) was inspired by graffiti, pop art and underground club culture.
Haring was a great collaborator and worked with like-minded artists such as Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. All were interested in creating art for the many. Haring designed record covers for RUN DMC and David Bowie, directed a music video for Grace Jones and developed a fashion line with Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. In doing so, he introduced his art and ideas to as many people as possible.
The exhibition covered the whole of the top floor of the Tate and there were a large number of works on display from the whole of his career, including these two early works when he was influenced by Walt Disney cartoons. And cartoon like figures and symbols were prominent in his work throughout his career. Unlike most Tate paid exhibitions photography was allowed.
When he moved to New York, he became known for chalk drawings he produced on the black paper on empty poster spaces in subway stations; drawing quickly as people walked past and stopping to watch him. There was a video in the exhibition of him doing just that and then getting arrested! The pictures became popular that they were taken away almost as soon as they were finished. There were a few examples in the exhibition, although they were difficult to photograph due to reflections in the glass protecting them.
He’d paint on almost anything he could lay his hands on, like this Yellow Taxi bonnet (or “hood” as our American friends would say!)
and quite a few works on display were painted on tarpaulins – a lot cheaper than canvas.
A number of icon like symbols recur throughout his works, including a crawling baby, a dog, a figure with a whole in its stomach, a cross, computers and some others. Most of his work contain one or more. There’s a good discussion of the symbols and what they represent here, and the Tate provide a key in the free booklet you’re given as you enter the gallery.
He was a political artist and many of his works carry a message, whether about nuclear energy, South African Apartheid, gay rights, racism or drugs.
And, as a gay man living in New York in the 1980’s, he used his art to raise awareness of AIDS. He himself was diagnosed with the disease in 1988. His poster Ignorance = Fear refers to the challenges people who were living with AIDS faced.
Here’s a few more examples of his work
Before the visit, I was a little sceptical about the exhibition. I knew about his cartoon like paintings and thought it would be fun, but that I’d have tired of it after seeing a selection of them. But that wasn’t how it worked out. Despite the apparent simplicity of his style, there was a lot more depth and complexity than I expected.
There was a lot to see – besides the paintings there were a number of videos about his life and work – so there was too much to take in in one visit. One advantage of being Tate Members is that we can hopefully go for another look before the exhibition finishes in November.
If you’re scared of spiders, it’s probably best if you keep away from the Rijksmuseum Gardens at the moment! For the last few years there’s been an exhibition of works by a noted sculptor in the gardens, and this year they have works on display by Louise Bourgeois, who is well known for her bronze sculptures of giant spiders,
When we’d looked around the Tassel Museum we wandered along the canals, grabbed a bite to eat and then made our way to the Rijksmuseum. We expected that there would be an exhibition in the gardens and we knew we’d have time to have a look before we got the train back to Haarlem. And, unlike the main part of the museum, entry is free! We hadn’t checked out what was on but as soon as we spotted the first sculpture, we knew who the artist was! Luckily spiders don’t scare me, as several of the arachnid monsters are on display! !
Crouching spider (2005)
The gardens themselves are very attractive and popular on a sunny day – and the sun kept breaking through the cloud while we were there.
Louise Bourgeois grew up in a suburb of Paris, in a family of antique tapestry dealers and restorers. In 1938, following her marriage to the American art historian Robert Goldwater, she emigrated to the United States. It took a long while before her work was acknowledged, as it was quite different from the type of art popular in America at the time. and she only started to become popular in the 1970s when she was in her 60’s.
Her work often represents aspects of her life. the spiders, for example, are influenced by her protective mother who, although she didn’t spin webs, was a weaver and by the familie’s tapestry repair business.
I came from a family of repairers. The spider is a repairer. If you bask into the web of a spider, she doesn’t get mad. She weaves and repairs it
Spider couple (2003)
This was probably the only one of the 12 sculptures on display I wasn’t so keen on. It rather reminded me of the monsters that used to appear in Doctor Who in the 1970’s – perhaps that’s why!
In and Out #2 (1995-6)
This was the earliest work on display. It’s quite different from the others and rather like the works of Brancusi. It’s apparently meant to be a self portrait of the artist surrounded by her 3 children.
Quarantania (1947-53)Welcoming Hands (1996)
This rather moving group of bronze sculptures displayed on rough stone pedestals, represent friendship and solidarity. They were originally displayed in New York on a site with a view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, where immigrants first arrived in America, although they are now normally sited in the Tuilleries in Paris. Their message has a contemporary resonance with all the movement of people trying to escape war and poverty, looking for a better life. Some people show friendship and solidarity to them. Sadly, in these cruel times, too many don’t.
This sculpture of a child’s hand was particularly touching (emotionally, that is, of course)
Fountain (1999)Untitled (2004)
These two high-gloss aluminium sculptures of Untitled (2004), hanging from the branches of the great wingnut tree, refer to her father’s habit of storing chairs by hanging them on roof beams in the attic of their home
Inside the museum entrance atrium there were four seats in the form of giant eyes
My meeting in London finished earlier than expected and as I’d booked an Advance ticket on the train I had a few hours to kill before I could set off back home. I wasn’t too far from Tate Modern and as I hadn’t been there for a while decided I’d wander over and see what was on.
Taking advantage of my Tate membership I decided to have a look at the temporary exhibition devoted to a Russian artist from the first half of the 20th Century, Natalia Goncharova. Not someone I’d heard of before and I don’t recall seeing any of her works previously. The exhibition has had good reviews in the press, so I was interested to find out more.
Self portrait
Goncharova came from a family of “impoverished aristocrats”, and grew up on the family estate in Tula, 200 miles from Moscow. I don’t know what the Tate mean by “impoverished”. They were certainly considerably better off than the peasants who worked on their estate. So it’s perhaps not so surprising that although her art was radical she wasn’t a supporter of the Russian Revolution. She’d left Russia and went to Paris on April 29, 1914 Goncharova came from a family of “impoverished aristocrats”, and grew up on the family estate in Tula, 200 miles from Moscow, but they moved to the capital when she was 11. I don’t know what the Tate mean by “impoverished”. They were certainly considerably better off than the peasants who worked on their estate. So it’s perhaps not so surprising that although her art was radical she wasn’t a supporter of the Russian Revolution. She’d she left Russia Paris in April 1914, stayed there during WW1 and didn’t return after the events of 1917.
The Tate’s website tells us that
Goncharova found acclaim early in her career. Aged just 32 she established herself as the leader of the Russian avant-garde with a major exhibition in Moscow in 1913. She then moved to France where she designed costumes and backdrops for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes. She lived in Paris for the rest of her life, becoming a key figure in the city’s cutting-edge art scene.
Goncharova’s artistic output was immense, wide-ranging and at times controversial. She paraded the streets of Moscow displaying futurist body art and created monumental religious paintings. She took part in avant-garde cinema, experimented with book designs and designed for fashion houses in Moscow and Paris.
The exhibition spread over 10 rooms and featured a wide range of paintings, sketches, costumes and other items.
The 3rd room had a large number of works from a retrospective of her work held in September 1913 in the Art Salon in Moscow. There were more than 800 works in a vast range of styles. The Tate tells us
it was the most ambitious exhibition by any Russian avant-garde artist to date
and that
The term ‘everythingism’ was coined by Larionov and the writer and artist Ilia Zdanevich to describe the diverse range of Goncharova’s work and her openness to multiple styles and sources.
These are just a small proportion of the works on display
In another room there were a number of lithographs – Mystical Images of War was published in autumn 1914 – created in response to WW1. To me they largely glorify the war (they’re certainly not critical images) and, at least to some extent, see it as a patriotic and religious “crusade”
She was clearly religious and another room was devoted to religious paintings. I wasn’t so keen on most of them, but did like these fourApostles
Like many Russian artists in the early 20th Century, she was influenced by Futurism. She developed her own approach which was known as Rayonism . This painting was my favourite from this room and probably from the whole exhibition.
Cyclist 1913
Another room featured works created while she lived in Paris. I particularly liked this painting of a Spanish woman
The final room was devoted to sketches, costumes and set designs from several ballet productions. Goncharova had worked with Russian composers, dancers and artists for Diaghilev Ballets Russes creating an ‘exotic’ vision of the east . I particularly liked the costumes on display that she’d designed for a production of Le Coq d’or
I enjoyed looking around the exhibition. Goncharova was a talented artist and although I didn’t like everything I saw, there was plenty to keep me interested. It’s always good to discover a “new” artist (well, new to me!) so I wasn’t disappointed that I had a few hours to kill before my train.
Later that afternoon I received a text from Virgin Trains to tell me my train had been cancelled. Fearing the worst – that there was major disruption – I was relieved to find that it was due to the train breaking down. Arriving at Euston a little early I was able to transfer on to the train before and managed to get home half an hour earlier than expected. So all worked out well in the end!
After a busy day on Saturday,I was up early the next morning to drive over to Holyhead to catch the boat to Dublin as I’m back over working in Naas this week. The boat arrived at the port just after midday, so I had an afternoon to do a few things rather than just spend the whole day travelling.
I decided I’d drive over to the Irish Museum of Modern Art out at Kilmainham as I hadn’t been there for a while and I quite fancied seeing the exhibition of work by the German photographer, Wolfgang Tillmans.
To reach the Tillmans exhibition I had to pass through several rooms devoted to the work of an Irish artist, Mary Swanzy . She was born in Dublin to a prosperous Protestant family – her father was a distinguished eye surgeon – and grew up around Merrion Square in the south side of the city but during her long life relocated several times and travelled widely. From viewing the exhibition it’s clear she was an accomplished artist, but isn’t well known, no doubt because she was a woman. As she herself is quoted as saying on the exhibition website
‘if I had been born Henry instead of Mary my life would have been very different’.
It was the last day of this exhibition and it was clearly popular with the Irish public as it was very busy and the catalogue had sold out. She was born in 1882 and worked right through to her death in 1978. She trained in Dublin and then in Paris and was influenced by the styles that emerged during the early 20th Century. So it was interesting to see her work having just visited the Fernand Léger exhibition at Tate Liverpool the previous day as both artists are particularly known for their Cubist and Futurist paintings, but also created works in other styles, such as Surrealism.
In her early work in Paris, she adopted a Post Impressionist style, as in this portrait of her sister
Portrait of Miss Muriel Swayzey (1907)
She later adopted the Cubist style
Young woman with white bonnet (1920)
Besides portraits, her subjects included landscapes and flowers
Cubist landscape (1928)
In 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, she left Ireland travelling through Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Hawaii and Samoa. One of the rooms was devoted to paintings from this period, which have similarities with Gaugain’s work from his time in Tahiti.
Afterwards she moved to London before relocating to Dublin at the start of WW2
Her style changed over time, becoming more figurative and in some cases adopting the Symbolist
This is portion apart (group of sorrowing women) (1942) Potato Famine (1940)Female nudes with horse and viaduct (1930’s)
After the war she returned to London. The works from her later years, displayed in the final room, are quite different and difficult to classify. Many of them feature caricatures of people and animals. As the exhibition guide tells us
This strange assembly of characters make the images appear like scenes from the world of science fiction rather than deriving from an art historical lineage
One of the paintings from the 1940’s was a portrait of her sister. Quite different to the one she’d painted early in her career, really illustrating the evolution of her work.
Last Saturday we drove over to Liverpool as we wanted to have a look at a couple of exhibitions. It was a fine day and quite pleasant for walking by the waterside to the Tate Gallery on the Albert Dock.
First stop was the exhibition at the Tate of works by the Fench artist Fernand Léger (1881 – 1955) . There were over 40 works on display, including paintings, collage, book illustrations and film spanning his career. He’s an artist I was familiar with, but hadn’t seen many of his works, so the exhibition was an opportunity to learn more.
Some early works were influenced by his experiences in the First World War between 1914 to 1917 , when he fought on the front-line at Argonne and Verdun, including an abstract Cubist style painting of soldiers playing cards.
La partie de Carte (1917)
His early works were Cubist and Futurist and he had his own approach dominated by cylindrical shapes earning the moniker “tubism”. But, as with many artists, his style changed over time
Léger’s work was heavily influenced by his surroundings and his experience of modern life. Included in the exhibition are his collaborations with architects Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand. Also on display is his experimental 1924 film, Ballet Mécanique.
He dabbled with Surrealism, often combining Surrealist and Cubist styles.
Leaves and Shell (1927)
He often used bright primary colours,particularly in his later works.
Two women holding flowers (1954)
Politically on the left, fleeing the Nazis he lived in the USA from 1940 to 1945 but returned to France after the war when he joined the Communist Party. Many of his later works were influenced by his politics.
He believed the primary purpose of making art is to enrich the lives of everybody in society. In order to bring art into people’s everyday lives he worked on posters and murals as well as on the easel. His paintings depict construction workers and people enjoying leisure activities. These everyday scenes are reflected back to us in a new light and the characters are given dignity in their normality. (Tate website)
In the next room to the Leger retrospective there was a free exhibition of works by two South Korean artists Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho. It was centered on a new film commission Anomaly Strolls 2018, largely shot in deserted alleyways and pubs across Liverpool with some scenes shot in Korea.
Extending their project News From Nowhere 2009, the artists use science fiction to question the role and importance of art to our present day society. As they have said: ‘Sci-fi is always the fable of the present. By employing a way to look at the future instead of the present, we wanted to address current issues, especially in relation to what art is and what art could be.’ (exhibition website)
The exhibition also includes Moon and Jeon’s 2012 film El Fin del Mundo (The End of the World).
On separate screens, we see different points in time: a man remains committed to creating art as a global catastrophe unfolds, while a woman goes about a sanitised life in its aftermath. Documenting relics of the past, she comes across a strange object the man had incorporated in his artwork. The encounter triggers profound new emotions in the woman, and her strange discovery connects our two protagonists across time. (exhibition website)
Video installations are not my favourite type of art, but sometimes there’s a work that captures my interest. This was certainly the case with these two works. They weren’t too abstract, telling a story, and I’ve also been a fan of science fiction.
There was much more to see in the Tate, and there had been some changes to the free exhibitions since our last visit. But we moved on as we needed to grab a bite to eat and there was another exhibition we wanted to see at the Walker Gallery.
A few photos taken during our visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park last Saturday.
Black Mound (2013) by David NashLarge Two Forms by Henry Moore, in the distanceWilsis (2016) by Jaume PlensaSquare with Two Circles by Barbara HepworthAlbero folgorato by Giuseppe PenoneA new work by Peter Randall Page Envelope of Pulsation (For Leo) 2017Square with Two Circles at sunset
Down by the Dougie 