February 22nd, 2010 Mark Brown
Curator says first major exhibition devoted to British artist since 1988 will show that there is more to him than his female figures
Henry Moore, Britain's best known and most important sculptor, is often seen as a buttoned-up Yorkshireman whose work is as easygoing and safe as it gets. But a new exhibition opening tomorrow reveals his demons: this is a man much darker, edgier and more complex than we realise, say curators.
Tate Britain tomorrow opens the most important exhibition of Moore works for a generation. It hopes to surprise those who think they know Moore – and he is mostly known for his enormous postwar outdoor sculptures – as well as introducing him to a whole new audience.
More than 150 works, including stone sculptures, wood carvings, bronzes and drawings, have been gathered for what is also one of Tate Britain's longest exhibitions in recent memory – it will run for almost six months. A spokeswoman said it was "an experiment" and the hope was the show would attract more overseas visitors during the summer.
Chris Stephens, the show's co-curator, called it reassessment, or "a revisiting". He said the exhibition was setting out to show there is much more to the artist than his easily recognisable gently rounded female figures and abstract forms. Familiarity with the artist had almost bred contempt, he said. "We think we know Henry Moore because he is still so visible and recognisable and also still so popular."
Instead Moore was producing art that was informed by the trauma and horrors of the first world war. And when it came to sex, he was sculpting pieces that were wholly sexually driven and erotically charged. "The sort of things we accept without question about Francis Bacon or Picasso but they also run through Henry Moore's work as well."
Stephens believes Moore's first world war experiences – three quarters of his battalion died and was gassed at the battle of Cambrai – had a profound effect on his art. It brought a darkness and psychological complexity to his work.
Moore, son of a Yorkshire coal mining engineer, was always reluctant to talk specifically about what informed his art, he was from a class and generation who just did not go on about their emotions or their feelings.
After the war Moore became a superstar artist, creating huge works in places like Harlow and Stevenage that were emblematic of the new welfare state, of the reconstruction of Britain.
24 years after his death, he remains popular but not as regarded as some believe he should be. "The conundrum is that he is still incredibly popular, incredibly familiar," said Stephens, "and yet he somehow lacks a critical respect. We wanted to return to what was it about Moore that made him the most important sculptor of the modern age."
Moore may be one of Britain's greatest artists yet the last big show devoted to his work was a memorial show at the Royal Academy in 1988, two years after his death.
For exhibitions at the Tate – an institution Moore is bound up with and to which he donated a large amount of work – you have to go back to a drawings retrospective in 1977, his 70th birthday retrospective in 1968 and before that the 1951 Festival of Britain retrospective.
"It is a generation since his last major show yes and often it takes a generation," said Stephens. "You need a lapse in time sometimes, it allows you to bring new ideas and ways of looking at art."
Richard Calvocoressi, director of the Henry Moore Foundation, said: "It is no exaggeration to say that this is the most important Henry Moore exhibition in the 33-year life of the foundation. It is true that we've done exhibitions in the last three decades all over the world, in China, Brazil, the United States but this is unquestionably the most important show in the last 30 years. It is not a retrospective and it's all the more exciting and intelligent for that."
The exhibition also asserts that Moore, as Official War Artist during the second world war, produced drawings – known as the Shelter Drawings – that he claimed were made from his own observance when, in fact, they were copied from photographs in Picture Post.
While this makes it seem that Moore was a dissembler, according to Stephens the revelations enhance Moore's reputation even more. He might not have wanted it known but by reproducing the photographs he was using mechanical reproduction techniques that artists such as Bacon and Richard Hamilton used.
• Henry Moore, Tate Britain 24 February – 8 August
Posted in Art, Culture, Exhibitions, Henry Moore, News, Tate Britain, UK news, guardian.co.uk | Comments Off
February 22nd, 2010 Mark Brown
Curator says first major exhibition devoted to British artist since 1988 will show that there is more to him than his female figures
Henry Moore, Britain's best known and most important sculptor, is often seen as a buttoned-up Yorkshireman whose work is as easygoing and safe as it gets. But a new exhibition opening tomorrow reveals his demons: this is a man much darker, edgier and more complex than we realise, say curators.
Tate Britain tomorrow opens the most important exhibition of Moore works for a generation. It hopes to surprise those who think they know Moore – and he is mostly known for his enormous postwar outdoor sculptures – as well as introducing him to a whole new audience.
More than 150 works, including stone sculptures, wood carvings, bronzes and drawings, have been gathered for what is also one of Tate Britain's longest exhibitions in recent memory – it will run for almost six months. A spokeswoman said it was "an experiment" and the hope was the show would attract more overseas visitors during the summer.
Chris Stephens, the show's co-curator, called it reassessment, or "a revisiting". He said the exhibition was setting out to show there is much more to the artist than his easily recognisable gently rounded female figures and abstract forms. Familiarity with the artist had almost bred contempt, he said. "We think we know Henry Moore because he is still so visible and recognisable and also still so popular."
Instead Moore was producing art that was informed by the trauma and horrors of the first world war. And when it came to sex, he was sculpting pieces that were wholly sexually driven and erotically charged. "The sort of things we accept without question about Francis Bacon or Picasso but they also run through Henry Moore's work as well."
Stephens believes Moore's first world war experiences – three quarters of his battalion died and was gassed at the battle of Cambrai – had a profound effect on his art. It brought a darkness and psychological complexity to his work.
Moore, son of a Yorkshire coal mining engineer, was always reluctant to talk specifically about what informed his art, he was from a class and generation who just did not go on about their emotions or their feelings.
After the war Moore became a superstar artist, creating huge works in places like Harlow and Stevenage that were emblematic of the new welfare state, of the reconstruction of Britain.
24 years after his death, he remains popular but not as regarded as some believe he should be. "The conundrum is that he is still incredibly popular, incredibly familiar," said Stephens, "and yet he somehow lacks a critical respect. We wanted to return to what was it about Moore that made him the most important sculptor of the modern age."
Moore may be one of Britain's greatest artists yet the last big show devoted to his work was a memorial show at the Royal Academy in 1988, two years after his death.
For exhibitions at the Tate – an institution Moore is bound up with and to which he donated a large amount of work – you have to go back to a drawings retrospective in 1977, his 70th birthday retrospective in 1968 and before that the 1951 Festival of Britain retrospective.
"It is a generation since his last major show yes and often it takes a generation," said Stephens. "You need a lapse in time sometimes, it allows you to bring new ideas and ways of looking at art."
Richard Calvocoressi, director of the Henry Moore Foundation, said: "It is no exaggeration to say that this is the most important Henry Moore exhibition in the 33-year life of the foundation. It is true that we've done exhibitions in the last three decades all over the world, in China, Brazil, the United States but this is unquestionably the most important show in the last 30 years. It is not a retrospective and it's all the more exciting and intelligent for that."
The exhibition also asserts that Moore, as Official War Artist during the second world war, produced drawings – known as the Shelter Drawings – that he claimed were made from his own observance when, in fact, they were copied from photographs in Picture Post.
While this makes it seem that Moore was a dissembler, according to Stephens the revelations enhance Moore's reputation even more. He might not have wanted it known but by reproducing the photographs he was using mechanical reproduction techniques that artists such as Bacon and Richard Hamilton used.
• Henry Moore, Tate Britain 24 February – 8 August
Posted in Art, Culture, Exhibitions, Henry Moore, News, Tate Britain, UK news, guardian.co.uk | Comments Off
February 19th, 2010 Sean Michaels
For one night only, the feral indie crew are to transform the esteemed art institution into a 'kinetic, psychedelic' jungle
Animal Collective are to take over New York's Solomon R Guggenheim museum, transforming the art gallery into a "kinetic, psychedelic" installation. The Brooklyn trance-pop gang will collaborate with artist Danny Perez for a one-night-only exhibition, Transverse Temporal Gyrus.
The 4 March event is part of the Guggenheim's 50th anniversary celebrations. After gigs by Yeasayer and Paul Banks last autumn, and one whole day with free museum admission, the gallery will now see its rotunda turned over to the architects of Merriweather Post Pavilion. Their creative partner, film-maker Danny Perez, worked on the band's videos for Who Could Win a Rabbit and Summertime Clothes, and directed their new art-film, ODDSAC.
"One of the things that you notice almost immediately in the jungle are the birds," Animal Collective wrote about the installation. "What are they saying? Does each variation serve a purpose? Why are there repetitions? Is there a pattern or is that just your imagination?" Over the course of Transverse Temporal Gyrus – and across space and time! – the group aim to provoke similar questions. To this end they will use video projections, costumes, props and original recorded music.
"As New Yorkers we are all familiar with the everyday noise around us – the car alarms, the subway trains braking, the music in bars ... Do we not realise how these sounds are affecting us? How they make us feel or act? With this in mind we wanted to create an environment where people could take some time to listen to other kinds of sounds and get away from those familiar sounds of the city. Keeping in mind the birds of the jungle, we've created an array of sounds with Animal Collective's music that is seemingly random – or is it?"
Visitors to the exhibition will be free to explore the group's "mysterious hideaway", wandering over the museum's ramps and across its open spaces. All this, Animal Collective promise, will help to "to unite [our sounds] with the inside of your brain". We just hope it doesn't hurt.
Tickets to the exhibition go on sale this morning at 10am EST.
Posted in Animal Collective, Art, Culture, Indie, Music, News, Pop and rock, guardian.co.uk | Comments Off
February 18th, 2010 Mark Brown
Exhibition by trailblazing Israeli-born designer, architect and artist opens in London, his hometown for more than 35 years
There are bookshelves that bounce and roll, cutlery that pirouettes, a chandelier that you can text and chairs. Lots and lots of chairs. In what may be one of the most comfortable exhibitions of recent years, Britain's first major Ron Arad retrospective opens tomorrow.
The Barbican's art gallery in London is following up major shows it has held on Corbusier and Alvar Aalto by devoting three months to a designer, architect and artist still very much alive and working. Arad, who was born in Israel but has been based in London for more than 35 years, said he hoped anyone "interested in things" would visit.
The head of art galleries at the Barbican, Kate Bush, said: "We want to pay tribute to Ron Arad's very special place in the world of design. He is an incredibly important figure and this exhibition lays out his vision and his process as it has evolved over 30 years."
The show is divided into sections with names such as Volumising, Rolling, Superforming and Scavenging, where one of Arad's most celebrated chairs – the Rover chair, which uses a car seat salvaged from a scrap yard – is exhibited.
Then there is the Failing section, displaying designs that weren't taken up, or were misconceived. That includes the "table that eats chairs" in which chairs can be folded underneath the table top. "I think it was too complicated for the manufacturer," said the show's curator Lydia Yee, "but Ron's still confident that someone will come along."
There have been recent Arad shows at the Pompidou in Paris and Moma in New York, but the one in London was completely different, said its curator, Lydia Yee. "Ron wanted to do something new in his home town and we wanted … to show his interest in new materials and in new technologies."
There is a crystal chandelier called Lolita which has more than a thousand embedded LED lights and its own mobile number to which one can send texts, which are then displayed.
Arad and his studio have also created mechanical tricks to show off some of the pieces such as a long moving platform for bookshelves called "reinventing the wheel". The idea is that you can roll your bookshelves where you would like them – perfect for the indecisive – but there is a wheel within the wheel so the books remain upright.
For many, Arad will be best known for his chairs, many of which are on display and which are most definitely not for sitting on. A large section of the gallery will, however, contain chairs where visitors can take the weight off their feet and – should they wish – play table tennis on a stainless steel ping pong table designed by Arad to suit his game.
Posted in Architecture, Art, Art and design, Culture, Design, Exhibitions, Installation, Life and style, News, Sculpture, The Guardian, UK news | Comments Off
February 17th, 2010 Mark Brown
London gallery displays finest of Renaissance artist's drawings for his friends, with loans from the Vatican and the Queen
Some of the most magnificent drawings ever executed – physical manifestations of Michelangelo's love and infatuation for a handsome and intelligent teenage boy – will on Thursday go on display as a group for the first time.
The groundbreaking show at the Courtauld gallery in London, with loans from the Vatican and the Queen, is essentially a joyously gay love story.
The drawings were done by Michelangelo when he was about 57. In the winter of 1532 the artist met Tommaso de' Cavalieri, a Roman nobleman celebrated for his dreamboat good looks, his superior intellect and his gracious manners, and fell head over heels in love with him.
Stephanie Buck, the show's curator, said it was, at heart, an extraordinary romance. "These drawings were meant to be looked at and studied, people looked at them with magnifying glasses and mirrors for hours and hours. With these drawings you can't reach higher."
The exhibition is built around The Dream of Human Life (Il Sogno, or The Dream) which was bequeathed to the Courtauld in 1978 by one of the century's most important collectors, Count Antoine Seilern. It is considered one of the finest of all Renaissance drawings. In it Michelangelo focuses on the beauty of the body, depicting a nude young man being roused from sleep, and human vices, by a winged spirit.
Buck is in no doubt The Dream is one of Michelangelo's "presentation drawings" made for Cavalieri in 1533. Others on display include The Punishment of Tityus, The Fall of Phaeton, The Bacchanal of Children, and The Rape of Ganymede. They would have been seen by the pope and the Medicis and on one level were teaching Cavalieri how to draw, and perhaps offering moral guidance. But they were also expressions of the artist's consuming love for the boy.
Michelangelo as an artist was at the height of his powers and fame, and almost deified. The quality is indisputable. In 1568 his biographer, Giorgio Vasari, called the works "drawings the like of which have never been seen".
Buck said it was unclear how old Cavalieri was when Michelangelo fell for him. The Courtauld research put him at between 16 and 17, she said.
The exhibition also shows that it was more than just physical infatuation. Michelangelo clearly held Cavalieri's intellect in high regard. Alongside The Fall of Phaeton is an earlier and different version on which the artist writes, saying that if the sketch does not please Cavalieri he should say so.
"The point is," said Buck, "that Cavalieri, although he was so young, must have played quite a role in the making of it because he was able to criticise it and send it back."
The Vatican has also lent for the exhibition Michelangelo's original poems, which he composed in the early stages of the friendship. Again there is little doubt as to how he felt. One reads:
"You know that I know, my lord, that you know that
I come here to enjoy you nearer at hand, and you
know that I know that you know who I really am: why
then this hesitation to greet each other, even now?
If the hope that you give me is true, if the great desire
that has been granted me is true, let the wall raised
up between these two be broken down …"
The Courtauld show is already attracting considerable academic interest, and it represents the first time that The Dream has been exhibited alongside the other presentation drawings. The last time they were together (without The Dream) was in 1988 for exhibitions in Paris and Washington.
The debate about Michelangelo and his sexuality continues. He never made any secret of his love of male beauty – just look at David – but he always maintained it was a celibate love, a platonic love. That goes, too, with Cavalieri.
Buck said: "The whole idea, which he repeats in his letters and poems, is that he doesn't want to chase Cavalieri off. He speaks of his physical desire but it is a chaste love and he is not approaching him in a manner that would make it difficult for Cavalieri."
Having said that, Buck believes Michelangelo was certainly gay and that he would have slept with men. But Cavalieri was from such a high-ranking family in papal Rome that the two of them going to bed was never going to happen. Yet Cavalieri, who later married and had children, was clearly honoured to be held so highly in the affections of Michelangelo; they stayed close friends. He was with Michelangelo at his deathbed and was later instrumental in ensuring unfinished projects were completed.
Of course the one question that wants to be answered is what did the boy look like, how handsome was he? "We know there was a portrait of Cavalieri but it is lost," said Buck. "Unfortunately."
Posted in Art, Art and design, Culture, Exhibitions, Michelangelo, Museums, News, The Courtauld Institute of Art, The Guardian, UK news | Comments Off
February 16th, 2010 Audrey Gillan
Tower Hamlets council has been accused of trying to force through a controversial sculpture against the wishes of locals
It is synonymous with curry and trendy bars, nightclubs and art venues. Now a plan to mark the entry points to London's cosmopolitan Brick Lane with giant arches in the shape of headscarves or hijabs has been condemned as offensive to Muslim women and a waste of £1.85m of public funds.
The proposed arches, part of a "cultural trail" through the street – immortalised in Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane – have been criticised as "misconceived" and "excluding". Locals have said they risk ghettoising a community that considers itself tolerant and diverse. Tracey Emin, who lives just off Brick Lane, is one of a number of residents in the east London area who claim that Tower Hamlets council risks inflaming racial tension by trying to force the "hijab gates" – as they have become known – through without proper consultation. After an outcry, the council has extended the deadline for complaints to 22 February.
One local Muslim woman has told the council that the stainless-steel, illuminated arches "create a stereotypical image of Islam, and endorse the practice of the veil that not all of us are happy with. It is a divisive image and one that in the present climate is highly inappropriate. Tower Hamlets should be seeking to bring communities together at this moment." Another, a hijab wearer, said that to call the gates anything other than a hijab was "just semantics". She said: "It is a huge waste of money. There has been enough conflict and tension since Brick Lane started developing after the yuppies moved in. This looks to me like a tool of aggravation and is taking a step backwards."
The Spitalfields Trust, which helped to save many of the historic Huguenot silk weavers' houses that abut Brick Lane, has urged the council to abandon its "misconceived" idea.
The cultural trail through the area is aimed at celebrating the various migrant communities – including Huguenots, Jews and now Bangladeshis – that have settled there across hundreds of years.
Using planning-gain funds paid to the council following the development of Bishops Square and Spitalfields market, the trail is intended to bring more tourism into the area and smarten it up. But locals complain that the focus has been too much on the Bangladeshi community, which makes up a third of the Tower Hamlets population.
At the centre of the trail is a 29 metre high minaret that has been attached to the Brick Lane mosque, a grade II listed building originally built in 1742 as a Huguenot church, then converted into a synagogue and now the Brick Lane jamme masjid [mosque]. Tower Hamlets council says the structure "is not a minaret" but a "large steel art sculpture".
Brick Lane and its side streets are also home to artists such as Emin, Gilbert and George, Jake Chapman, the actor Samantha Morton, as well as architects, designers, planners, poets, musicians and others. Many were shocked to learn only recently that the council planned to erect the veil-like structures. Some say that given the high concentration of artists in the area, the design should have been open to competition.
In a letter to the council, Emin wrote: "I sincerely object to these proposals … the proposed material has no relevance to the heritage of the area or its future. I understand that the Jewish East End Celebration Society does not approve the concept overall and neither do the Spitalfields Trust nor the Spitalfields Society, as stated in the review of the consultation. I am shocked to learn that the scheme is budgeted at £2m and I strongly feel that rubbish collections, vermin control, education and improved policing are more important to resolve."
Broadcaster John Nicolson, who lives off Brick Lane, said: "Throughout history numerous groups have passed through here and made it home. That's what makes Spitalfields so special. It belongs to all of us – atheists, Muslims and Christian, homosexuals and heterosexuals, men and women. The council's latest wheeze – metal arches in the shape of headscarves – is exclusive and excluding. They'd never dream of crucifix-inspired gates – nor should they – so why an arch that is both Islamic and representing a specifically conservative form of Islam?"
A spokeswoman for the council said the concept behind the arch was "loosely based on the sculptural form of a headscarf, reflecting the many cultural backgrounds that have occupied and sought refuge in and around Brick Lane over the centuries".
She said headscarves were worn for a variety of purposes, "such as for warmth, for sanitation, for fashion or social distinction; with religious significance, to hide baldness, out of modesty, or other forms of social convention", and not only by Muslims.
"Observant married Orthodox Jewish women, for example, are required to cover their hair, often employing scarves for the purpose, and Jewish men will use a kippah or yarmulke to cover their heads for religious purposes." She went on: "Many men and women currently wear headscarves or bandannas as a fashion statement, and with Brick Lane being a cultural melting pot both historically and now at the start of the 21st century, this design reference seems appropriate and fitting."
But Will Palin, secretary of Save Britain's Heritage, and a local resident, said: "The headscarf motif is undoubtedly faith-specific to Islam and therefore does not represent the breadth and richness of the borough's history."
At the Beigel Bake, a few metres from the site of one of the proposed arches, Sammy Minzly had been unaware of the proposals.
He said: "I have been here 50 years, and they haven't even told me about it. This used to be a Jewish area, and all my life I have been here. It is disgusting that they have not shown us the respect to ask us what we think."
Posted in Art, Art and design, Communities, Culture, Heritage, London, Monica Ali, News, Sculpture, Social history, The Guardian, Tracey Emin | Comments Off
February 16th, 2010 Audrey Gillan
Tower Hamlets council has been accused of trying to force through a controversial sculpture against the wishes of locals
It is synonymous with curry and trendy bars, nightclubs and art venues. Now a plan to mark the entry points to London's cosmopolitan Brick Lane with giant arches in the shape of headscarves or hijabs has been condemned as offensive to Muslim women and a waste of £1.85m of public funds.
The proposed arches, part of a "cultural trail" through the street – immortalised in Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane – have been criticised as "misconceived" and "excluding". Locals have said they risk ghettoising a community that considers itself tolerant and diverse. Tracey Emin, who lives just off Brick Lane, is one of a number of residents in the east London area who claim that Tower Hamlets council risks inflaming racial tension by trying to force the "hijab gates" – as they have become known – through without proper consultation. After an outcry, the council has extended the deadline for complaints to 22 February.
One local Muslim woman has told the council that the stainless-steel, illuminated arches "create a stereotypical image of Islam, and endorse the practice of the veil that not all of us are happy with. It is a divisive image and one that in the present climate is highly inappropriate. Tower Hamlets should be seeking to bring communities together at this moment." Another, a hijab wearer, said that to call the gates anything other than a hijab was "just semantics". She said: "It is a huge waste of money. There has been enough conflict and tension since Brick Lane started developing after the yuppies moved in. This looks to me like a tool of aggravation and is taking a step backwards."
The Spitalfields Trust, which helped to save many of the historic Huguenot silk weavers' houses that abut Brick Lane, has urged the council to abandon its "misconceived" idea.
The cultural trail through the area is aimed at celebrating the various migrant communities – including Huguenots, Jews and now Bangladeshis – that have settled there across hundreds of years.
Using planning-gain funds paid to the council following the development of Bishops Square and Spitalfields market, the trail is intended to bring more tourism into the area and smarten it up. But locals complain that the focus has been too much on the Bangladeshi community, which makes up a third of the Tower Hamlets population.
At the centre of the trail is a 29 metre high minaret that has been attached to the Brick Lane mosque, a grade II listed building originally built in 1742 as a Huguenot church, then converted into a synagogue and now the Brick Lane jamme masjid [mosque]. Tower Hamlets council says the structure "is not a minaret" but a "large steel art sculpture".
Brick Lane and its side streets are also home to artists such as Emin, Gilbert and George, Jake Chapman, the actor Samantha Morton, as well as architects, designers, planners, poets, musicians and others. Many were shocked to learn only recently that the council planned to erect the veil-like structures. Some say that given the high concentration of artists in the area, the design should have been open to competition.
In a letter to the council, Emin wrote: "I sincerely object to these proposals … the proposed material has no relevance to the heritage of the area or its future. I understand that the Jewish East End Celebration Society does not approve the concept overall and neither do the Spitalfields Trust nor the Spitalfields Society, as stated in the review of the consultation. I am shocked to learn that the scheme is budgeted at £2m and I strongly feel that rubbish collections, vermin control, education and improved policing are more important to resolve."
Broadcaster John Nicolson, who lives off Brick Lane, said: "Throughout history numerous groups have passed through here and made it home. That's what makes Spitalfields so special. It belongs to all of us – atheists, Muslims and Christian, homosexuals and heterosexuals, men and women. The council's latest wheeze – metal arches in the shape of headscarves – is exclusive and excluding. They'd never dream of crucifix-inspired gates – nor should they – so why an arch that is both Islamic and representing a specifically conservative form of Islam?"
A spokeswoman for the council said the concept behind the arch was "loosely based on the sculptural form of a headscarf, reflecting the many cultural backgrounds that have occupied and sought refuge in and around Brick Lane over the centuries".
She said headscarves were worn for a variety of purposes, "such as for warmth, for sanitation, for fashion or social distinction; with religious significance, to hide baldness, out of modesty, or other forms of social convention", and not only by Muslims.
"Observant married Orthodox Jewish women, for example, are required to cover their hair, often employing scarves for the purpose, and Jewish men will use a kippah or yarmulke to cover their heads for religious purposes." She went on: "Many men and women currently wear headscarves or bandannas as a fashion statement, and with Brick Lane being a cultural melting pot both historically and now at the start of the 21st century, this design reference seems appropriate and fitting."
But Will Palin, secretary of Save Britain's Heritage, and a local resident, said: "The headscarf motif is undoubtedly faith-specific to Islam and therefore does not represent the breadth and richness of the borough's history."
At the Beigel Bake, a few metres from the site of one of the proposed arches, Sammy Minzly had been unaware of the proposals.
He said: "I have been here 50 years, and they haven't even told me about it. This used to be a Jewish area, and all my life I have been here. It is disgusting that they have not shown us the respect to ask us what we think."
Posted in Art, Art and design, Communities, Culture, Heritage, London, Monica Ali, News, Sculpture, Social history, The Guardian, Tracey Emin | Comments Off
February 16th, 2010 Haroon Siddique
50 landscape and abstract paintings by Silence of the Lambs actor go on show at Mayfair's Gallery 27
The first British exhibition of paintings by the Oscar-winning Welsh actor Sir Anthony Hopkins opens in London tomorrow . The 50 landscape and abstract paintings by the Silence of the Lambs actor, who has exhibited throughout the US, will be displayed at Gallery 27 in Mayfair, central London, until Saturday before moving to The Dome in Edinburgh for four days on 2 March. Hopkins began painting in 2002, paints every day in his Malibu studio and "takes his art very seriously", according to exhibition promoter Jonathan Poole. Five limited-edition prints will be available for purchase.
Posted in Anthony Hopkins, Art, Art and design, Culture, Exhibitions, Film, London, News, The Guardian, UK news | Comments Off
February 15th, 2010 Tom Phillips
The earthquake that killed so many also demolished the island's galleries and destroyed thousands of paintings
Number 18 Rue Bouvreuil was once a mecca for lovers of Haitian art. Outside the Musee Galerie d'Art Nader, perched on a hillside overlooking Port-au-Prince, a sign greeted visitors. "On top of the town, top in the arts," it boasted. Inside, the walls were plastered with thousands of paintings recording nearly a century of Haitian history.
Now the three-storey art gallery is gone, reduced to a dusty heap of rubble and torn canvases. Broken picture frames from irreplaceable local masterpieces poke from the gallery's ruins.
"My dad has about 12,000 paintings here and we are trying to save what is left," said Georges Nader, the son of Haiti's best-known art collector and the owner of the gallery, as he scanned the debris. "We have only been able to save about 2,000 of them."
The human cost of Haiti's worst earthquake in more than 200 years – at least 150,000 lives lost – has been well documented. But the disaster also struck a knockout blow to the heart of Haiti's vibrant arts community.
Several galleries were destroyed and thousands of paintings lost under the rubble of flattened government buildings and art museums.
The Cathédrale Sainte-Trinité, built in the early 1920s, was almost completely destroyed, taking with it a series of celebrated 1950s murals depicting scenes from the life of Christ. A painting by Guillaume Guillon Lethière, the 18th century French neoclassical painter, is thought to have been destroyed when the presidential palace collapsed.
"There are paintings from 1905 that have been lost," said Cedoir Sainterne, an artist from the city's Pétionville district. "It's terrible. We are going to have to start all over again."
Nowhere was the destruction greater than at the Musee Galerie d'Art Nader, Haiti's largest private collection of Haitian and Caribbean art.
"When it [the earthquake] started I said, 'What the hell is that?' And I ran out," said Nader, whose father, also called Georges, was one of the biggest patrons of the local art scene. "I was in an 11-storey building and I saw the building shaking and shaking and moving in all directions.
"The next day when I came here and I went downtown I saw everything. I don't think there is any word to explain that [what happened] to the world … You have to be here to see what is going on."
Nader's parents, both 79, survived. When the quake struck they were sleeping in the only room of the museum that emerged unscathed.
Stunned, they fled to the neighbouring Dominican Republic, where Nader says his mother suffered a heart attack. They then headed to Miami. "The first day my reaction was that anything material was not that important for me. When you see your dad is safe and your mum is safe I was OK," said Nader.
"But when I came it was very sad. My dad loves Haitian art. He lives for Haitian art. His life is Haitian art. This is a guy that won't buy a house [because] he would prefer to buy Haitian art."
Nader quickly called in some Haitian friends from New York in an attempt to save some of the collection. Several paintings by Hector Hyppolite, Haiti's most revered painter, have already been plucked from the wreckage.
At the Musee Galerie d'Art Nader dozens of men were wading through the rubble. Occasionally they emerged clasping canvases depicting scenes of rural life or voodoo ceremonies. Some of the paintings were by Alexandre Gregoire, one of Haiti's first generation of naive artists, whose work has been sold at Sotheby's in New York.
Also among the rubble was an information card from an exhibit by the Haitian artist Adam Leontus. "Leontus has taken part in many national and international exhibitions," it read in black typewriting. Leontus's paintings were nowhere to be seen.
Nader said the museum's losses, estimated at up to $30m (£19m), could not be replaced with any amount of money. "We have lost the biggest collection of Haitian art, not only in Haiti but in the world," he said, clambering down from the roof of what was once his family gallery. "There are pieces that you won't be able to find any more. This is finished."
Amid the destruction and despair, some Haitian artists are seeking inspiration in the disaster. One graffiti artist has taken to daubing a map of Haiti on walls around the city: a weeping eye looks out from Port-au-Prince's location, above the words "We need help".
Artist Frantz Zephirin has painted more than a dozen canvases inspired by the quake, showing distraught faces trapped in ruined buildings and hands reaching up through a sea of blood.
Elise Francisco, an artist who has sold paintings to Nader's father, said it was important artists registered the earthquake. "I'll paint the houses that have fallen, the buildings that are destroyed, the cracked land," he said. "We are going to show our children what happened here. This is our history."
Cultural wealth
Haiti may be the poorest country in the western hemisphere, but fans of its art say it is the Caribbean's most culturally wealthy nation.
From the intricately crafted tap-tap buses that clatter through Port-au-Prince to the explosively colourful paintings that once adorned the walls of its many art galleries, it is impossible to miss the creative spirit of the world's first independent black republic.
While there are records of art schools dating back to the early 19th century, Haitian artists only began to gain international recognition in the 1940s, following the creation of Port-au-Prince's Centre d'Art. Dozens of "naive artists", among them voodoo priests and small-time farmers, gathered there to depict Haiti's turbulent history in unmistakably colourful and often surreal paintings and patchworks of "voodoo flags".
The centre's role in promoting Haitian art is disputed. Some say it discovered and nurtured a generation of talented but untrained artists; others say it merely helped already skilled artists make contact with overseas buyers, bringing much-needed funds to the local art scene.
Through the centre, Hector Hyppolite, a one-time shoemaker and voodoo priest, became Haiti's most internationally revered artist, leading a generation of local painters whose instantly recognisable canvases featured religious imagery and scenes of the country's life.
More than 60 years after his death, Hyppolite's works fetch six-figure sums while several other Haitian folk artists, including Philome Obin and Wilson Bigaud, have become well-known. The Haitian-American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, a one-time collaborator of Andy Warhol, often alluded to his Haitian roots in his paintings, which have been sold for millions at auctions.
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February 15th, 2010 Art and design: Art | guardian.co.uk
The son of a Haitian art collector describes the steps being taken to recover paintings that survived the earthquake
Posted in Art, Art and design, Culture, Haiti, News, World news, guardian.co.uk | Comments Off