For the Renaissance enthusiasts out there...

LOOK ---------->    http://uglyrenaissancebabies.tumblr.com/

VIVA CATALONIA! (Kitty went to Barcelona)

Barcelona. Culture capital of Spain. Birthplace of Modernisme.

So back in November, I went to Barcelona with my History of Art class.
Sadly, upon arrival, I realised I didn't charge my camera, so these are my friend Amy's photos.

Barceloneta

Casa Batllo/Sagrada Família

The wonder of Gaudí: a true original, this guy. By using an industrial medium like concrete (in a building like Casa Batllo), but marrying it with elements of nature, he emulates forces like the sea by pouring the concrete instead. The result: an incredibly smooth, flawless facade with a playful side - notice the bone-like mullions in the windows and balconies. The colourful, broken pieces of glass and tiling (trencadise - his trademark) gives a wonderful, dragon scale-like effect that glints in the sun.

And, of course Sag Fam. I felt insanely tiny standing underneath this gargantuan building. It's such a shame, Gaudí didn't get to see his life's work completed in his own lifetime. Even more shameful that it's been under construction non-stop since 1881, with political interruptions to the construction due to the Spanish Civil War. There have been offers for it to be converted into a train station (absurd) - after all this construction, why change its original function?

Miró Foundation

Top: The view from MNAC
Below: Can't leave without a bit o' flamenco...

Parc Guell

In Catalan spirit, here's a drawing of Catalan artist Dalí I drew in Summer 2010

Tracey Emin: Love is What You Want

"Art is an extended act away from the being, art is something else. Not everything can be art, and just because you're an artist doesn't mean everything you touch is art. You have to decide and know what is art, and you have  to be separate from yourself."

-Tracey Emin -1st August 2009-

Well said, Emin.

The problem with contemporary art nowadays is that it can be irritatingly quotidian, or wants to draw attention to itself or it comes with an invisible 'SHOCK HORROR' banner. As are the Tracey Emin's works: exposed and autobiographical. As Emin so eloquently said 'Not everything can be art', how can we approach her works as pieces of art?

Her recent exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, 'Love is What You Want' spans through every aspect of her artistic career, exploring all media; paintings, drawings, memorabilia, needlework, photography, neons, films, expressing a spectrum of sentiments resulting in an equally wide spectrum of works.Works which of course have a sprinkling of her light-hearted playfulness, ironic wit and frank nature:

My natural childish impulse meant that I found myself sniggering in the dark corridors where these were displayed...with other people. Neon has its seedy parallels, but our Tracey finds them 'sexy' and 'pulsating'.

Questionable is her section about her abortion, in which she openly talks about the procedure, her thoughts on motherhood in 'How it Feels' of 1996. This provides the sugar coating to the 'memorabilia' around it; her used tampons in particular (though shrivelled they are) saw many wrinkle their nose is disgust and disapproval (I chuckled again, obviously.)

The films cover themes of tragedy and comedy, (see above, 'Why I never became a dancer' of 1995, shows her free-spirited dance after recalling being rejected for dancing. The music in her low-tech videos play a key part.

Wild, public drunkard though she may be (or was now, I believe Emin has shed her skin) Tracey Emin does heavily consider what people think of her (yes, SHOCK-HORROR), although most of the time it appears she does not take herself seriously. She is, vulnerable and longing and motherly; something I discovered in her section on abortion. She's not what we all thought.

I am angry. The BP Portrait Award @ The National Portrait Gallery (Unfinished)

I confess I've never been to the BP Portrait Prize before, and from all its high praise and esteem from those who have been and told me, I had this preconception that it would indeed be this shiny and mind-blowing exhibition.

'Just to Feel Normal', Ian Cumberland

In 3rd place was Ian Cumberland with 'Just to Feel Normal'. I am amazed at the utter honesty in which Cumberland decided to paint in. It's incredible: every facet, every surface goes unmissed, the man's face is strangely illuminated in a sickly silvery light which give his skin a veiny, marble effect. His exhaustion takes shape in the form of two orange patches around his asymmetric eyes. In effect, this portrait shouldn't work aesthetically, but with its honest hyper-realism, it does. It works so well.

The runner-up was Louis Smith

W/ the altarpiece framing

'Holly', Louis Smith

What an innovation! This 8ft canvas (altarpiece?) shows the recreation of the story of Prometheus, who was bound to a rock after stealing from Zeus and left to be eaten to death by an eagle. The model here looks up at the supposedly approaching eagle with a calm submission. She is depicted beautifully with a similar chiaroscuro to Caravaggio's dramatic paintings (although not as dark and plenty of contextual background). The crowd was always -surprisingly- flocked around this particular painting. 

And the 1st prize:

'Distracted', Wim Heldens

I am so angry. Well, more disappointed. It took me forever to find this painting, and after seeing a sharp crescendo in Cumberland and Smith's work, I was expecting 1st prize to surpass them (I am not saying however that it needed to be so inexplicably amazing). Frankly, this is a portrait that I would walk past, in fact, I almost did on the way out, had it not been for the loud orange sign. In its defence, the curating did not help; as a visitor, I would have liked a more linear procession towards the 1st prize, and that would have been satisfied if this was placed in the back room. It's predictable, I know. But let's face it, predictable works. Instead it was placed on the most obscure wall near the front.

To balance out my negativity, it does have a nice context; Heldens is depiciting 25-year-old Jeroen, Helden's father figure. The NGP's director and chair of judges stated his work was 'a quiet but evocative study'. Yes, after standing in front of it for half a minute, I did feel a sense of quiet dignity and childish pride for someone they admire creep in. Quiet confidence is always a dark horse. I feel a little guilty now. But only a little.

Gilded Romance vs. Eroticism and Sexuality: The two sides of Gustav Klimt

Klimt is one of my favourite artists; and I think it's a feminine thing. Let's be honest - I have yet to come across a girl/woman who doesn't love him!

There's something about his golden canvases that draw in women like magpies to a shiny objects; they are mesmerising, higly romanticised, sensual - particularly because most of his subjects are women. Maybe that's why women love his paintings; they can relate to them, identify with them.

Water Serpents II c. 1907

Judith and the Head of Holofernes, 1901

But little did I know about his drawings of male and female nudes and sexually inspired themes:





"Several of the works, including two of women masturbating, would be hard to hang on a domestic wall. "They were made for the artist's pleasure, and kept for the collector's private pleasure," Mr Pylkkanen said. Some of them are preparatory drawings for known paintings, but most are works in their own right. They include a coloured chalk drawing of Ria Munk, a Viennese society beauty. Klimt painted her several times, completing a portrait that was commissioned by her parents, and another of her lying on her death bed - made in 1912, a year after she committed suicide at the age of 24. "
(The Guardian, 10th October 2001)

Indeed, Klimt has addressed the taboo of sex and pleasure quite clearly; these works are exposed, striking. The exquisite delicacy of his execution he conveys, better than any other book, that image fragile and complex, but deeply expressive, that Klimt built of women, their theme par excellence.

Louisa Chase/Disney's 'Fantasia', 1940/The Futurists/Kandinsky

What do they all have as common ground?
Music.

I'll explain in the form of a flow chart:

LOUISA CHASE, 'EMERALD SEA'

(photo from book)

I described this painting as an 'orchestra of colours and marks', which then led me to...

WALT DISNEY'S 'FANTASIA' 1940 (FILM STILLS)

Galaxy

Violin bows

The orchestra in this selection of stills (the rest are in my book) are visualised through similar marks found in 'Emerald Sea' - franticly organised, like the notation of music itself.
This then led me to...

FUTURISM: 'MUSICA', RUSSOLO

Like musical notation, the orthogonals are almost like staves, ribboning and meandering across the canvas in the form of a blue line. The title 'Musica' is so called because Futurists were obssessed and gripped by the notion of evoking sound in their paintings.

This finally led me to...

'IMPROVISATION 28', KANDINSKY

Kandinsky was also known for his interest in combining music and art: it is no wonder why his pieces like 'Improvisation 28' were also called compositions. Kandinsky is one of my favourite artists because of this (as a musician), his works are almost like graphic scores, bursting with a sensation of freedom and deep expression.

My Kandinsky page (from Guggenheim gallery page, part of New York pages from my book)

RCA Workshop: Helen Murgatroyd, 4th February 2011

"Inspired by Royal Mail sorting offices, kitchen utensils and the ideals of cottage industries, I invent tools and workstations to allow the duplication of my drawings. Motivated by a search for self-sufficient printmaking my practise combines the home kitchen with the print workshop, attempting mass-production on a domestic scale. Repetition is my subject yet the humanness of the processes I invent ensures that each picture is unique. I am interested in the space between drawing and printmaking where editions of one-offs are a possibility.
My practice is driven by a compulsion to make, while being firmly rooted in observational drawing."

----->  http://www.helenmurgatroyd.co.uk/

Helen's low-key method of printing goes to show that you don't need state-of-the-art, artsy-farsty, wishy-washy technology to get down-to-earth, great-looking prints. In fact, doing it with your own hands is more satisfying than to have a machine laser-cut it out for you.
We started out with quick, 10-second sketches of batches of vegetables to base our prints from; it was 'go, go, go' from the second the charcoal glided onto the paper. Then, using card, cardboard and some stanley knives, VOILA: in about 15mins we were ready for printing.
Printing = pressure via hands. It was great.

(Based on an onion), making the print board

Testing prints

Combination prints: joint with the prints of two other people

(from left to right) Me, Indy and Suzanna w/ our composition 

'French bar', April 2010, Helen Murgatroyd

'Fruit bowl' , Helen Murgatroyd



'Teapot', Helen Murgatroyd

Dec 2009
'A tool made for duplicating an image of a bowl of fruit. Made of a series of removeable templates and instructions the image is built up colour by colour.'
Helen Murgatroyd