Prague: Mucha and Dali

During my weekend visit to Prague I managed to steal away to a little gallery on the Old Town square which was holding a Mucha and a Salvador Dali exhibition. I originally ventured in excited to see Mucha's work, always beautiful and elegant and so distinctive in style, but was actually very taken with the lesser seen Dali works; his self portraits (black and white photographs), his smaller drawings and lithographs I find to be much more intriguing than the Google favourites. Yes, the paintings are interesting in the respect of the sub conscious in the typical Surrealist sense but they are flat, awkward. The drawings however show an immediate and sometimes hurried approach to getting his thoughts down on the page and I love the inclusion of fairytale characters.

What an interesting fellow.

BP Portrait Award 2009

Broken Heart by Donald Macdonald

This year's Portrait Award certainly showed a range of styles and abilities, some successful, some not so much. What was surprising was the selection of works chosen for prizes. I cannot see a coherent logic to the judging. Some works looked as though they'd popped straight out of A-Level including the winning painting Changeling 2 by Peter Monkman. No doubt a certain degree of technical ability is due some acknowledgment but I still find the piece unconvincing: there is something lacking in the work, in the face of the artists daughter (the changeling). I understand the concept behind it, the child changing as they grow older, and we can possibly extrude some feeling of the father's inability to connect with his daughter through the detachment felt when observing the figure but this, for me, does not make for a successful portrait.

There were a couple of works, however, that really beautifully described the human form and condition. Firstly, Portrait of my Mother by Hector M. Hernandez, is an adequately named depiction of the artist's mother as she sleeps on the sofa in the glowing evening light: A very loving and heartfelt portrait that appeals to the best in us. But, Broken Heart by Donald Macdonald would be my selection for first prize. The painting of his future father in law shows him exposed just after open heart surgery. It took a number of sittings and has taken on such a strong emotional aura through the relationship built with the subject. Macdonald had intended for the work to portray a man enduring the physical aspects of surgery but said ‘the painting became as much about the emotional effects of losing his wife in 1987’, something that could only be found and seen through a portrait.

Galleries in Barga and Bruno Cordati

During my Italy trip I stayed in Barga in Tuscany; there they had a lot of lovely little galleries, the most interesting of which was actually part of a very old house. As I walked through past the classic oil paintings I suddenly stumbled into a room where an elderly lady was sat listening to jazz on the radio, seemingly completely unaware of my presence. Beyond her was a grand piano, a libraries worth of books and the studio within which the artist worked and then the exhibition continued. The space was light and airy and the worked was displayed around interesting features of the house including an old kitchen sink. This place was called Casa Cordati and holds the work of Bruno Cordati, a local artist who passed away in 1979. His work is still celebrated and admired by Barga and its visiters.

This place was one of the most amazing exhibition spaces I have seen. The building was grand but not intimidating and had a quality of being discovered rather than imposed. It would definitely be the sort of place I would like to display my own work.

Trip to Italy: Florence and the Uffizi

I have visited the Uffizi once before this year around Easter time. The Gallery was very quiet; the only visitors were school children and the odd American. At this time I was disappointed with the presentation of work and the information available, some signs had bits scribbled out in pen and corrected! The lighting was dull, and glass covering the more famous works made it impossible to see for my own reflection. A lot of works were missing and some building work was going on so I put these mistakes down to it being the off season. However, I was happy to browse at my own leisure without the battle to the front of the crowds.

When I returned in August I could no longer see the beautiful architecture and sculptures, which line the streets of Florence, for the tourists. Also on returning to Uffizi, this time with family and friends, I was sorely disappointed again. It seems that Florence has become complacent with its history and heritage merely displaying the works for profit rather than pride.

Through all this there were some pieces that really made the trip worthwhile and their presence will stay with me for a long time. Caravaggio in particular is a favourite painter of mine. His compositions are so theatrical and the lighting dramatic that they are instantly distinctive from other painters of the time. His style of painting too, his brush strokes differ from that of the over painted, flattened style so popular in the Uffizi. The works displayed of his are Bacchus, Sacrifice of Isaac and my personal highlight Medusa. Artemisia Gentileschi's, Judith Slaying Holofernes, is possibly the most impressive work in the Gallery. It's such a strong and gory image, very imposing and very, very impressive through scale, luminance and detail. Other works I would like to mention are Leonardo da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi, and of course Michelangelo's Holy Family.

Antony Gormley's Fourth Plinth

On the 23rd July, 11-12 I went to see my friend play her part in Anthony Gormly's One and Other, a piece spanning 100 days and enrolling 2400 random people from all over the UK to take their stand on the plinth; a classic indicator of this is art! The piece presented as a cross section of Britain today whether the people decided to entertain us in some way or just sit there, simply being. In the 2 hours I was there I saw a Latin lecturer recite poetry in a ancient roman costume, my friend, a 20 year old history of art student, take photographs and then shield herself and her camera from the terrible English weather and a young man throw a giant ball back and forth to the viewers below (the ball soon disappeared).

Talking to onlookers it became apparent that everyone expected something different from their experience. Most expected a performance of some sort, forgetting that the piece wasn't another reality TV show they could have any illusion of controlling.

Documentation is something that has made this work interesting. It was filmed 24 hours a day and presented live on TV for all to see in the convenience of their own home. Participants in the project took photographs, left diaries and blogged their experiences so that now Antony Gormly has created an art work that involves a vast amount of Britain's public. In this way I think the piece was extremely successful.

Summer Exhibition 2009

The theme this year for The Royal Academy's summer exhibition was space although it looked as though the curators didn't pay much attention to any sort of theme and went with the usual mass of works crammed in wherever possible. However predictable this layout may be, I do love it. The print room is especially exciting; there are little gems of work everywhere for your eye to find amongst the masses exhibited.

A video room was added just this year as well, something I didn't see, but I did find it interesting that video has been a prominent art form for so long and yet has only just been recognised as a social art form so to speak. Something that the masses can enjoy, not just the art educated.

The New Monumentality: Henry Moore Institute

The New Monumentality showed video work based around monumental architecture of the 1960's. Of particular interest to the project is the 1960's campus at the university. The monument is something that has always been attributed with sculpture but by using creative elements from sculptural practice these buildings have created something that still rings as modern today.

Video art is not something I am usually interested in but the combination of script in and layering over of voices in one film was really quite beautiful.

Poor.Old.Tired.Horse ICA

This exhibition focused on text based works inspired by the concrete poetry of the 1960's. It's not something I've seen before but there was something about the work there that really held my attention. Concrete poetry places equal importance on the visual of the poem and it's content adding "form to syntax" (Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. Gallery Guide. p.5). It was the illustrations I found particularly interesting. David Hockney's engraved illustrations for the love poems of Conatntine Cavafy were a personal favourite along with Frances Stark's Quantity Effect and Matthew Brannon's Words on a Page. It's the black and white, thin, flat, simplicity of these images I like. They aren't pretentious or unnecessarily mysterious; the images are relevant and timeless as they will always have a context.

Classified: Contemporary Art at Tate Britain

The 'Classified' exhibition drew together contemporary works from British artists Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Jeremy Deller and Tacita Dean. Each piece made connections with human constructs and classifications. I feel the more successful works held an imposing visual through the mass of collections. It's very satisfying to see objects in their correct classifications, Damien Hirsts Pharmacy, 1992, is especially pleasing as an icon of all things clean and orderly in the world. Medicine gives us a sense of control but Hirst reminds us we don't have so much power with his God like insect-o-cutor ready to kill without mercy.

The piece I enjoyed most, however, was Tate Thames Dig 1999, by Mark Dion. The found objects categorized, labelled and displayed according to use really encapsulate the human need to rationalize and understand the world we inhabit, even down to trying to understand our own activity. The items being displayed in the 19th C display cabinet automatically set the classifications in stone; the cabinet acts as a prop for solidifying meaning and looks beautiful too.