Recently on TV

There has lately been so much on for the sake of art that I couldn't resist noting ideas down. Below are some discoveries I've made as a result.

During Where is Modern Art Now?, Dr Gus Casely-Hayford introduced the artist Grayson Perry as "everyone's favourite transvestite potter". After such a comment I surely had to had to check his work out, and I must say, I'm now quite a fan. He uses more than one technique to transfer the often brutal imagery onto surfaces, immitating collage. On clay!

so far my favourite, Hot Afternoon in 75, 1999

In Ugly Beauty, Waldemar Januszczak mentioned the British sculptor Rachel Whiteread, who apparently is the first woman to have won the Turner Prize back in 1993.

I've long considered the idea of negative space intriguing. For instance, imagine that it's never you moving, but the space around you moving you.. Well, most of Rachel's work focuses on exploring negative space. Take Untitled (One Hundred Spaces), 1997, below, which is a collection of resin casts of the empty space underneath one hundred chairs!


In a more recent project she made casts of packaging objects. In his review (worth reading for more about Rachel), David Row recalls:

"When I saw Whiteread's exhibit, it was still being unpacked, so there were actual packing materials beside Whiteread's sculptures of packing materials. Talk about life imitating art."

So let the Stuckists stick to their figures, but I think this is all brilliant. Towards the end of Ugly Beauty, Waldemar Januszczak concluded with the following idea about conceptual art:

"In an over-explained world, what could be more precious than the inexplicable?"

Conceptual Art

I discovered today the existence of the Stuckist movement, which, as amusing as the name may sound, has been producing figurative work in opposition to the currently dominating conceptual art. I myself have finally come to appreciate the latter, as long as the idea conveyed in the work manages to captivate me.

You have to admit that the art of today is less and less about the skill of the work and predominantly about the idea behind it - illustrating a different attitude towards an object; experimenting with an environment; shocking the public (although the last is probably no more, since we're becoming immune to provocative and daring works).
Contemporary exhibitions are dominated by installations and performance art that will illustrate our society to future generations just as, well, Baroque art illustrates 17th century society to us.

Below are a few of my favourite pieces that the Stuckists would probably disaprove of:

Curtain by Daniel Arsham

Tee trinken by Lei Xue

Believe it or not, I find these to be just as deserving of the label 'art' as a painting by Rembrandt.

Artists by Artists

I've thought of putting together a collection of portraits of artists depicted by other artists. Works like that have always interested me particularly, for they illustrate connections and relationships you never thought existed between individual names.

Did you know for instance that there was a close group of Impressionists living and working side by side in Paris, but that Edgar Degas was never a part of them due to quarrels? I find such trivia fascinating and it's time I started recording it.

First is old friend Van Gogh drawn by my beloved Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 1887:

Observing a work like this I begin imagining how the sitting for the portrait may have taken place. The idea alone that two such talents were in the same room together excites me. There is surely a story behind it. Oh how I'd like to know every such story.

Pilot

I journeyed today to Portobello market to find a ring for my eighteenth. It's now on my finger as I'm typing, an original 19th century golden Italian cameo. Deliberately special so, for I can 'pass it on to my children', something that seemed very much on my mum's mind when she initially suggested buying one.

I decided to find out about the history of cameo - the miniature sculptural reliefs - as I wasn't at all familiar with it. I came across some interesting findings and will try to get back to this later to share them.

What sparked the start to this blog - although I've been accummulating material for a while now - happened on this very day and may at first seem an insignificant matter. I came across a stall displaying cheap scarves, and one with Klimt's Kiss caught my eye - the masterpiece was printed on a £3 scarf.

It attracted my eye at first, but I quickly seized to admire it, for it made me think of how much works of art are nowadays being exploited for people's financial benefit. I suppose you could argue that reproduction like this makes art more accessible, but there is no doubt that the value and meaning is getting lost along the way. When will we get to the point where museums and galleries are no longer needed to celebrate the valuable illustrations of history? Or will this on the contrary make a viewing of the original more significant?