Pastels are a humble art material, frequently used for a preparatory sketch but rarely the star of an exhibition. Their appeal rests on an ability to capture the spontaneity of a moment quickly. Once created the works are fragile as the chalky pigment is not fixed by resin or varnish. Even worse, they are light sensitive – available for showing in low light for just a few months every decade.
Ugliness has its virtues. Deliberately ugly art has had many uses – a warning against sin, danger or disease. Da Vinci wanted his grotesque figures to flatter those he thought beautiful. Now ugly is its own aesthetic category and part of the canon. “Beauty and ugliness do not negate each other. [Ugly works] aren’t about pleasing anyone [but] about discomfort … desire gone awry.”
It was only realized in the 19th century that ancient sculptures had been painted in vivid colours. Once the penny dropped coloured sculpture became the vogue. Some felt that to popularize art was to debase it. But the weight of opinion was elsewhere “Coloured sculpture wasn’t just beautiful; it was part of a revolution in what it meant to make and consume art at the end of the 19th century.”
Just for fun. The Thatcher years in Britain brought significant social change. Images of partying “posho’s” at Cambridge can be viewed either as student exuberance or, as the writer thinks, a last hurrah of the privileged. Either way, few will look at these images without some self-recognition or perhaps a twinge of nostalgia. More images are here.
There are now over 300 biennales internationally. Are they at risk of become boring? Some curators think so, especially when they recycle the same few high-profile artists. Others emphatically disagree. Museum blockbusters tell us “more about what we already know” whereas biennales can focus on new ideas. If one is boring “blame the doctor, not the disease.”
Jankowski’s much postponed New York show overviews his varied work – video, painting (originals and knock-offs) and sculpture. The humorous use of other artworks is a common theme across these diverse works. “By using other people’s imagery … Jankowski exposes the spark of life that animates great art, and the craving people of all persuasions have to experience its jolt.”
Donald Judd’s boxes embody an impersonal aesthetic. The same approach produced austere pieces of furniture “no more uncomfortable than your average park bench”. Judd though of furniture as part of his art: “Art cannot be imposed upon [architecture and design]. If their nature is seriously considered the art will occur, even art close to art itself.” More images are here
It’s odd to say Brancusi “exploded” onto the art scene in 1913. He could barely sell a work and, for decades, depended on a sole American patron. Such market indifference reflects “the extent to which Brancusi was operating wholly outside the temper of his time, including [radical] Paris.” Given his stature now, this is surely one of the more remarkable transformations in all of art history.
With some irony a critic quips that “after five decades, Corse is suddenly hard to miss”. What’s also hard to miss is that over that long low-profile period Corse stayed tightly focused on one thing – “to put the light in the painting … When [viewers are] looking at the paintings, it’s an outer light, but when you relate to it, it becomes an inner light to feel” More images are here.
This Beijing show is a landmark. For UCCA, Beijing’s premier contemporary art venue, it is the first show since being acquired by new owners. And for Xu, already acclaimed outside China, it is his first local retrospective. It puts him in a global context, says the writer, and highlights his core interest – “the centrality of the written word to culture”.
Blockchain technology facilitates the decentralized, tamperproof storage of information. Technology providers want to use it to improve transparency in the art market. Implementation will not be easy – apparently few galleries are interested. However, if art is viewed as an asset class, won’t buyers want transactions efficiency comparable to that which they enjoy in other markets?
Sometimes rare talents appear one after the other. Finland had Alvar Aalto, Tapio Wirkkala and Timo Sarpaneva in quick succession, all major 20th century designers who helped create the Scandinavian design aesthetic. Why was Finland so lucky? Perhaps because it had a tradition of fine craftsmanship and “there was a great yearning for beauty after the war and suffering.”
An interesting but inconclusive discussion about badly behaved male artists like Caravaggio, Degas and Balthus. Art should be judged on its own merits rather than through the lens of the artist’s behavior. Degas, for example, disliked Jews and women intensely, yet “depicted women with more tenderness, more humanity, and more vivacity than just about any other painter of his era.”
Tiananmen Square led to explicitly political art, such as Cynical Realism. This came to be the style expected of Chinese artists. Times change and today’s younger artists focus elsewhere. Is this a result of government pressure? Rather elliptically, one observer says, “There is no Chinese contemporary art, there is just art made by Chinese artists.”