Yesterday I went to see this exhibition at the UEA, Norwich.  In the main it consists of two collections of small, ancient humanoid figurines from Japan and from the Balkans, two areas which were never in contact but which, in this instance, produced remarkably similar artefacts.  There are several ancient specimens from other cultures which reinforce the point that the making of such figurines was a pretty universal human activity.

The figurines are of varying degrees of complexity in both imaginative and technological abilities.

All this is very interesting in various spheres.  It might well interest the archaeologist, the historian, the ethnologist, the sociologist, even the technologist and the craftsman.  Well and good.  But with typical obtuseness the exhibition seeks to point out non-existent links with (gulp) modern Art.  So one of the exhibits is this:

I think it's by the Chapman Brothers (Jake and Dinos) and I think it's called "Dead Guys" - but I'm open to correction here.  Anyway, it's supposedly inspired/based on one of Goya's macabre etchings of body parts hanging in a tree.

But what on earth does it have to do with the rest of the exhibition?  It's not alone in its inappropriateness - there's a sort of Barbie Doll presented in a glass case, and a 1960s Japanese plastic toy featuring small figures of an Emperor and a concubine.  It's part of this loony desire to establish modern Art as the inheritor of a hundred thousand years of human creativity.  But these ancient figurines are a mystery.  We do not know what they were for, what purpose they were created to fulfil.  We do not even know whether all the old artefacts in this exhibition were created for similar purposes.  We cannot know this.  We do not know how the creators of these artefacts and their societies functioned on a physical level, let alone the intellectual or spiritual context in which they were made.

But we can be sure of one thing: the creation of these ancient figurines was not attended by the cynical money-grubbing of the modern Art World.  And the shaping and firing of the simplest of the figurines required a great deal more technological sophistication in the manipulation of materials than that needed for sticking a few bits of Lego together.  Or putting a barbie Doll in a plastic case. 

(Originally published 09/08/2010)

Election News 2010

Well, Tracey Emin has come out for the Tory Party.  That should scupper their chances.  Well done, Trace!

Oh, in case you've forgotten, here's one of her "artworks" complete with used condoms and blood stained pants.  Very life enhancing.

(Originally published on 11/04/2010)

A S Byatt - The Children's Book; Lenny Henry on Pollock

I'm currently reading this - about halfway through the 600 odd pages at the moment - and I'm amazed by the relevance of the story to the main obsession of this blog.  Loosely based on the lives of several late 19th/early 20th century British artists, writers and connoisseurs (E E Nesbit, Eric Gill, D H Lawrence etc) and their families, A S Byatt has written a gripping tale which highlights the centrality of skill and craftmanship in Art.  Very much worth reading.

And then there was a programme on Radio Four this week which featured Lenny Henry trying to come to terms with Jackson Pollock's work, with the help of a couple of critics, including Brian Sewell who concluded that Pollock's dribble paintings would make good designs for linoleum.  Let's see:

Hmmm.

(originally published 24/01/2010)

Conceptual Art is just a con . . .

All the expressive arts have groups of practitioners who push the boundaries of their art form. 

In music the avant garde were experimenting with dissonance and strange time signatures from the beginning of the 20^th Century, pushing the boundaries until we arrive at “found” music on one hand, and John Cage’s 4’33”, three movements for any instruments the players choose to bring, as long as they don’t play a single note for the duration of the piece.  Music could go no further out.  The boundary had been reached.  Most composers currently working are back to producing music for an individual or a combination of instruments, including electronic devices, and no matter how inaccessible it may sound to the average MOR fan, it is recognisably part of a continuing tradition.  

In English literature we had “found” poems; we had BS Johnson publishing a loose leaf novel that the reader could tackle in any order they chose; but in many ways the boundaries were reached much earlier with “Tristram Shandy” by Sterne, published in the decade from 1759, with its totally black page, its concentration on the hero’s conception and birth, its learned references, and a concentration on the minutiae of domestic life and its mishaps – all foreshadowing Joyce.  Joyce could be said to have pushed at the limits with “Finnegans Wake” with its reinvention of the actual language.  But there has been a retreat from the extremes and currently esteemed practitioners generally produce accessible work which can be understood and appreciated by almost every literate person.

But the avant garde in the Visual Arts, having reached the limits with “found” pieces such as Duchamp’s “Fountain”, with the dribblings of Jackson Pollock et al, with reductionist sculptures such as Caro’s painted girders, with the use of collage by such as Richard Hamilton, still insist that the boundaries can be pushed further, until anything can be “Art” if the artist says it is.  And anyone can be an “Artist” if they say they are.  They don’t actually have to produce anything.  It has been suggested that all that’s needed is for the “Artist” to think a work.

By that definition I’m the best visual artist in the world . . . . . because I say I am.

 (That's not me, BTW!)

(Originally published 24/10/2009)

From The Times

Rachel Campbell-Johnson doesn't think much of Damien's little show either:

"Hirst has been painting. And by that he doesn’t mean employing a team of assistants to produce the paint-by-numbers-type canvases familiar from recent shows. Hirst has been alone in his studio working with palette and brush.

"The result is No Love Lost — a show of 25 pictures. Seen from a distance they don’t look too bad. Their dark expanses are seductively presented in traditional gilt frames. They fill the galleries with an eerie blue Insect-O-Cutor-style glow.

"But take a step farther and a pale, silk-papered boudoir transforms into what feels more like a teenage boy’s bedroom. You can almost smell the brooding odours of existential angst.

"Here are all Hirst’s familiar obsessions: the skulls, the shark’s jaws, the ashtrays, the spots with the odd iguana or little O-level, “still life” lemon added to the mix. Hirst floats his images on the dark surface of the canvas, mapping out their spaces and relationships with a mesh of perspective lines.

"These works are utterly derivative of Bacon (give or take a dash of Giacometti), but they completely lack his painterly skill. And their metaphors are as ham-fisted as the application of pigment.

"Look to the end of the galleries and you will see Poussin’s Dance to the Music of Time. Hirst appears to hope that his heavy handed memento mori will make him part of the line-up of art historical tradition. But the artist who has made his reputation with shock now produces works that are shockingly bad. And who knows, maybe this is his trick. Is his brand so strong that we can’t resist turning up to look — even at works on which we know no love will be lost?"          (The Times, 14th October 2009)

Here's the Poussin:

and here's one of the Hirsts, called "Requiem: White Roses and Butterflies 1":

It makes you want to weep, doesn't it?  But not in the way Damien wants you to . 

(Article first published on 18/10/2009)

The critics on Hirst

Utterly hits the spot:

Sewell on Hirst

Thanks to Nick for pointing me at this.

Does no-one love Damian any more?  Peter Conrad in The Observer doesn't:

Conrad on Hirst

(Article first published on 17/10/2009)

A pic to make you sick?

Yes, that's Nick Serota, Director of The Tate Galleries, schmoozing with the sainted Damian.  The best comment on his relationship with the YBAs is Charles Thomson's 2,000 painting  

"Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision":

 

(Article first published 15/10/2009)