February 12th, 2010 Jonathan Jones
The legacy of modernism is all around us. But to find the true power of modern art, we have to look to the past ...
Modern art. I used to know what those words meant. Modern art began with Manet and the discovery of flatness as a value in painting. It reached a new clarity of purpose with Cézanne and exploded into full existence in Picasso's 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon... or, if I remember The Shock of the New, it began with the Eiffel Tower and the motor car ...
I am talking, of course, about modernism – the art movement, or constellation of art movements, that is widely held to have ended in the 1960s. When I was a student, the fashionable term for what came afterwards was postmodernism. That fell with The Late Show. And now? Well, we all say "modern art" and mean anything from Duchamp to Ryan Gander.
When I realised a few years ago that people no longer had any reference to the history of modernism in mind when they said "modern art", I was shocked. I blamed it on Tate Modern for adopting such a grand name and then filling its opening displays with the brashly new back in the early noughties. But since then it has become clear that modern art, in its current sense of the art of today and its direct antecedents, is here to stay. It's understandable when we are so obviously living in modern times, in a world hurtling towards a new future every day. This is tomorrow. If modernism dreamt of a utopia, it's here.
But, when I personally say "a great modern artist", I still probably mean an artist who worked before 1960. We may have modern art, but modernism (RIP) still sets the bar higher than most of our own moderns dream of.
And this is the problem that dogs the art critic in the 21st century. Our glibly high evaluation of today's art, casually calling it "modern art" as if it could ride roughshod over the achievements of the last century, and we could cherry pick modernism's history to find phoney lineages for whatever we want to plug, is a massive lie. The arts in the period between 1880 and 1920 reached heights of achievement unseen since the Renaissance. The avant garde in its prime was all greatness, all glory. With the best will in the world, and however much we find to admire and to hope for, our time is mannerist in comparison. Modern art? I wish it would come back.
Posted in Art, Art and design, Blogposts, Culture, guardian.co.uk, Modernism, Pablo Picasso, Tate Modern | Comments Off
January 27th, 2010 Jonathan Jones
How can London be the capital of global art when our celebrity culture makes it such a miserable place for artists to live and work?
Chris Ofili, whose retrospective has just opened at Tate Britain, is just one of the British artists who have chosen to live abroad to get away from the madness of art's celebrity culture – including such serious figures as Tacita Dean and Steve McQueen.
So here's a paradox. Constantly, the media tell us that London is this century's Manhattan or Paris, that Britain is the world's leading art capital. Yet I believe that in Manhattan in the 1960s you would actually have found artists living and working – and if Picasso had fled back to Barcelona, the Musée Picasso wouldn't have been in Paris. Art capitals are traditionally places where artists thrive. But what kind of artist really thrives on our brand of instant celebrity?
As a critic, you forget what celebrity means. It's seeing people coo over someone who seems very ordinary to me, such as Grayson Perry – someone I've sometimes been rude about, sometimes praised, but certainly never mistaken for the kind of artist I, personally, would go weak at the knees to meet.
Celebrity is such a small thing compared with real fame. For me, a famous artist is one whose works have secured them a true place in art history, whose talent is mysterious and personality elusive. Jasper Johns is famous; Perry is a celebrity.
A celebrity is someone who is "like us" – just watch all those talent shows on TV – which by definition limits their genius. A celebrity, to have democratic appeal, really has to be a bit second rung, a bit ordinary. It's quite a contradiction. You have to catch the eye and yet you can't intimidate people with supreme abilities.
The purest expression of modern Britain's celebrity art culture, and its logical conclusion, was Antony Gormley's participatory artwork on the Fourth Plinth. Here was the mediocrity of the celebrity culture made monumental – everyone an artist, everyone a star, not a trace of imagination in sight.
No wonder the real artists run for their lives.
Posted in Antony Gormley, Art, Art and design, Blogposts, Celebrity, Chris Ofili, Culture, Fourth plinth, Grayson Perry, guardian.co.uk, Jasper Johns, Pablo Picasso, Steve McQueen | Comments Off
January 27th, 2010 Homa Khaleeli
Professional art restorers can work marvels with damage such as the 6in tear in Picasso's The Actor
An art student fell into Picasso's The Actor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York this week, creating a 6in tear. How can it be fixed? Modern-paintings specialist Michael Robinson, from conservators JH Cooke and Sons, explains.
There are many ways to repair a painting, but everything must be reversible: retouching will alter in colour at a different rate and over time the repair can grow obvious. The gallery would use a modern adhesive to join the tear, which is easy to use and non-aqueous (water can shrink a canvas).
This glue would be applied carefully by hand, with a very fine tool – maybe even a dental pick. The area would be under magnification so the restorer can see this delicate work. Or they might reweave the canvas; the individual threads twisted back together, under microscopic conditions – almost like doing surgery.
A suction table [which holds the picture down by creating a vacuum, and controls humidity] could be used if the tear stretched the canvas. This stretch could be "sweated out" on a suction table by turning up the humidity.
If the paint has crumbled it could be re-adhered with Isinglass – fish glue – under a magnifying glass, or a heat-activated adhesive. The tear may need support. You could line the whole of the back of the canvas but for such a special painting it's more likely to be patched. A piece of synthetic sail cloth would work.
To retouch the damaged area we would use a pure pigment in resin form, which is reversible – we can't use oil paints.
I have seen worse damage than a 6in tear – one man picked up a painting from us, and his child fell right through it. He handed it straight back. I think they may display this Picasso under glass from now on.
Posted in Art, Culture, Features, Pablo Picasso, The Guardian | Comments Off
January 25th, 2010 Art and design: Art | guardian.co.uk
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art says a Picasso painting damaged by a visitor will be repaired in time for its exhibition of his work in April.
The Actor, from Picasso's rose period, now has a 15cm (6in) tear in the canvas's lower right-hand corner after a woman lost her balance and fell on the painting on Friday during an art class.
The restored painting will be displayed as planned in the exhibition of 250 Picasso works drawn from the museum's collection, which will run from 27 April to 1 August. The museum has owned the painting since 1952.
Posted in Art, Art and design, Culture, Museums, New York, News, Pablo Picasso, The Guardian, United States, World news | Comments Off