Art by the Yard

 

Detail fashion textile with design by Pablo Picasso (1960’s)

After the Second World War, the attitudes to art changed. The idea that art was the privilege of the wealthy began to fade. Many artists looked for ways to make their work less elitist and more appealing to a broader audience. They discovered design as a means to achieve this. Like graphic design and book illustrations, printing their designs on fabric was a logical step.

Joan Miró, roller-printed cotton fashion textile, 1955

Salvador Dalí, fashion textile, 1950’s

In the post-war era, an enthusiasm for modernity and new ways of living permeated the American society, and nothing showed a commitment to modernity more clearly than an association with modern art.

Pablo Picasso with his second wife Jacqueline Roque. She wears a dress made from Picasso’s textile ‘Notes’ for Fuller Fabrics, ca.1955.

Saul Steinberg – ‘Paddington Station’ – roller printed cotton textile, 1952

In the mid-1950s, an ambitious collaboration between the New York-based Fuller Fabrics company and several artists produced a line of prints by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Fernand Léger, Marc Chagall and Raoul Dufy. Consumers were given access to a Joan Miró dress or a Salvador Dalí tie.
Even Pop artist Andy Warhol turned his hand to textiles.

Marc Chagall – “Belle Fleurs”, screen printed cotton and rayon textile, 1956

Dress made with ‘Melons’-screen printed cotton textile designed by Andy Warhol, 1956.

In 1956, the sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi and the photographer Nigel Henderson started the art collective Hammer Prints in Essex, UK. Together with their wives, Freda Paolozzi and anthropologist Judith Stephen, they collected images from advertisements, cartoons, ethnographic and other scientific sources and translated these into patterns which they screen printed on fabric, tiles, wall paper etc. They produced some of the most innovative and influential designs of that time in Britain.

Eduardo Paolozzi and Nigel Henderson – ‘Barkcloth’, screen-printed by the artists themselves on cotton twill furnishing textile, 1955.

The distinction between fine and applied art started to blur in the 50’s and that’s beautifully illustrated in this exposition “Artist Textiles-Piccaso to Warhol” at the Textile Museum in Tilburg (The Netherlands) till 14 Sep 2014. All the pictures shown were taken in the exposition.

Louvre Lens – for kids

 

On an overcast day I took my kids along to Louvre Lens in France. It was a hit, not necessarily for the splendid art works exhibited in the Galerie du Temps but mainly for the mobile multimedia guide which comes free with your ticket (kids till 12 yrs get a free ticket). The white device was immediately baptised as ‘iPhone’ by the kids and they loved it.

On the multimedia guide they can select adventure tours specifically designed for kids. A tour playfully guides them along 10 artworks: they have to search them, they listen to a story about the work and then there is a question to answer which requires careful observation of the work. At the end of the tour they can see how many ‘treasure boxes’ they have discovered (one for every first time right question). It kept them absorbed for more than an hour. But even days later, they still mentioned things they learned from their visit.

The multimedia guide has 3D immersion and content is available in 3 languages: Dutch, English and French.
For adults there are themed commentaries (Myths and Legends, Arts and Religions, etc.) in which specialists on the collections of the Louvre Museum guide you in your exploration of the artworks on display.

In the Galerie du Temps not only are works from the collections of the Louvre museum presented, they are exhibited in a new way: the artworks are chronologically presented in a single 120m long gallery without any divisions. In this way, instead of stressing what divides and distances them, the Louvre-Lens will stress what brings civilisations together and what unites artistic practices.
And all that provides a very nice visiting experience, for kids and parents alike!

Dear Louvre Lens, just one more thing. How about a playground in the beautiful park?

 

 

Venice Biennale Revisited – Prabhavathi Meppayil

Prabhavathi Meppayil, Untitled, 2011 – copper wire embedded in lime gesso panel, 122×183 cm

The Venice Biennale provides an amazing art overload for the visitor and so I thought it would be nice to take the time to revisit the 2013 edition which i visited in September 2013. Which works left a lasting impression? Which artists were googled after coming home?

In Massimiliano Gioni’s exhibition “The Encyclopedic Palace”, the works by Prabhavathi Meppayil created for me a place of meditation, openness and concentrated concentration. Her nearly achromatic works could blend into the white wall. Seen at close range, however, the lines on her pale panels reveal their materials: copper (or gold or silver) wire embedded in heavily gessoed surfaces. The “Untitled series” brings together the artist’s exploration of the language of minimalism.

Prabhavathi Meppayil, Untitled CU3, 2011 at Venice Biennale 2013

Meppayil works mainly with lime gesso panels. Her creative process is a kind of marking; she scratches and breaks open the surface of these panels.  “Physical involvement is vital to my work, so the ‘time’ that the work contains. The process of working is repetitive, intense and at the same time liberating, it has no beginning or end.”

Prabhavathi Meppayil was born in Bangalore, India, in 1965. And that’s where she still lives and works . Her own roots – she comes from a family of goldsmiths – can be found as traces in her artistic practice. The works – made in a goldsmith’s workshop – bare traces of the same materials and tools as the jewellery makers. Her metals are melted in the same crucibles and stretched with the same clamps. Meppayil’s works suggest that tradition remains in motion, guided equally by the history of a craft and the hands through which it passes.

She is marked in my memory as a very interesting discovery at the Venice Biennale 2013!

 

Meret Oppenheim – Play as Artistic Strategy

“Freedom is not given to you, you have to seize it.”
Meret Oppenheim

Meret Oppenheim, 1985

Meret Oppenheim went from being viewed as a scandalous muse of surrealism to a major artist of the movement. She was born in Berlin in 1913. At the age of 19 she moved to Paris to study art where she was introduced to the surrealist circle by Hans Arp. One year later she started exhibiting with them.

Meret Oppenheim, Fur bracelet, 1936

She would have turned 100 years last year (she died in Paris in 1985). A retrospective is showing her amazingly diverse art works in Museum LaM in France till 1 June 2014 .

Meret Oppenheim – X-Ray of M.O.’s skull (1913-2000), 1964

One of the themes in the exhibition which I especially enjoyed is ‘Play as Artistic Strategy’. Play is omnipresent in Oppenheim’s work which she shares with the avant-garde movements, such as Dada and surrealism in particular, in an attempt to overturn traditional conceptions of art.

Meret Oppenheim – Genevieve’s Mirror, 1967

In the exhibition you can see examples of the collective game of ‘Cadavre exquis’: the players write or draw on a sheet of paper one after the other, folding the paper after each turn so as to conceal previous contributions. Oppenheim also practised this game with found objects (anything interesting but no longer than 40 cm). The ‘objets trouvés’ were assembled into fantastical hybrid creatures with the help of her friends. Looking at these playful works just made me want to go out and do the same.

Meret Oppenheim – The King Has Fallen into Relativity, 1971, Cadavre exquis, in collaboration with Anna Boeti and Roberto Lupo

In the case of Meret Oppenheim, inspiration comes from dreams, nature, the invisible, poems, eroticism, the everyday, Jung, … everything really. Through her art, an incredible complex and creative personality is rendered visible. A great discovery!

Meret Oppenheim – Spiral-Snake in Rectangle, 1973

Pictures in this post are from the excellent catalogue with lots of information on her art and lifetime.

Walker

There is more to life than increasing its speed.
Ghandi

Born in Malaysia in 1957, Tsai Ming-liang is one of the most prominent filmmakers of the new cinema movement in Taiwan. I was introduced to his work by a friend who took me to the video installation Walker, currently showing in Brussels at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts.
Walker is a compilation of six films inspired by the life of the Buddhist monk and traveller Xuan Zang (b. 602). Tsai Ming-liang started to work on this project in 2012 filming Lee Kang-sheng’s slow walk, cooperating with various cities and organisations.

I found it breathtaking; the meditative pace of the images, the colours, the soundscape and not at the least the unique venue of the installation in the dark cellar of cinema Galeries in the heart of Brussels.

In the words of the filmmaker himself:
“With this series Walker, I want the viewer to think about the following question: Seeing a man who walks this slowly, without really having a goal, not moving or talking, is that a cinematographic work? These movies make the viewer think about how he deals with time and space in his daily life. They allow you to stand still and absorb the environment you live in and determine the rhythm of it yourself.”

A preview of Walker can be found on Vimeo but nothing compares to the meditative experience seeing the video installation at the always remarkable Kunstenfestivaldesarts (which also features a retrospective of his films).

Venice Biennale Revisited – Joana Vasconcelos

The Venice Biennale provides an amazing art overload for the visitor and so I thought it would be nice to take the time to revisit the 2013 version which i visited in September. Which works left a lasting impression? Which artists were googled after coming home?

Joana Vasconcelos, Trafaria Praia, 2013

A Lisbon ferry was brought to Venice by the Portugese contemporary artist Joana Vasconcelos to address what Lisbon and Venice have in common in their history: water and navigation. The sides of the boat were covered with blue and white tiles depicting a contemporary view of Lisbon’s skyline and on the deck a textile and light installation was shown for the 55th Biennale visitors.

Joana Vasconcelos is currently showing in the Manchester Art Gallery till 1st  of June (‘Time Machine‘) and it all looks extremely colourful and exuberant. She basically takes over the whole space, inside and outside, to offer a highly personal critique on contemporary society by highlighting issues such as the status of women, class distinction and national identity .

Joana Vasconcelos, Britannia, 2014

The highlight of the exhibition is the world premiere of a new textile work that has been commissioned as a site-specific installation for the gallery’s staircase. ‘Britannia’ is a fabric patchwork that weaves together knitting and crochet with fine silk, cotton velvets, recycled clothes and industrially produced textiles embellished with Portuguese tassels, crystals and beads.

Joana Vasconcelos, A Noiva [The Bride], 2001-2005

Also her stunning sculpture ‘The Bride’ – a 5m high chandelier made of 25,000 tampons – which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2005 looks stunning in this majestic gallery space.

Joana Vasconcelos, Piano Dentelle, 2008-2011

Joana Vasconcelos, Lilicoptère, 2012

 

Joana Vasconcelos,True Faith, 2014

This exhibition looks like a colourful journey into the extravagant world of Joana Vasconcelos!

Paper like skin

I looked at paper and just loved it. It is an organic material.
Almost like human skin: you can scratch it, you can mold it, it even ages.
Zarina

Dividing Line, 2001

Zarina is a printmaker and sculptor. Paper is central to her practice; she prints on handmade paper, casts paper pulp and manipulates paper with needle and thread.

I first encountered the work of Zarina in the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013 where a retrospective of her work was shown.

Pin Drawing, 1977

She was born in 1937 in Aligarh in northern India and after marrying a diplomat she lived in a number of countries before moving to the States in 1975. Today, she still lives in the same Manhattan loft she moved into in 1976.

From ‘Homes I made/A life in Nine lines’ 1997 : Watched the Seine flow by and waited for him to come home

Rootlessness, spirituality, cultural weight, the concept of home  and many more life-themes are subtly explored in the powerful works of Zarina.

From ‘These cities Blotted into the Wilderness’ 2003 : Beirut

For a conversation between the curator of the retrospective exhibition, Allegra Pesenti, and Zarina: please visit here.
Pictures shown are scans from the 2012 catalogue ‘Zarina: Paper like skin’.

Moving Textiles

What I particularly liked in the ‘Moving Textiles’ exhibition in Ronse (Belgium) is the exploration of how artists challenged each other by cross-border collaboration.

Each work of art went through several interventions, carried out by 3 to 4 artists from Belgium and/or UK. Everything in the process took place anonymously. The participants did not know who would carry out an intervention before or after them. Everything was carefully registered by means of codes.

In the works you recognize specific textile techniques such as knitting, weaving, lace, sewing, cutting, cut-offs, felt, tufting, digital printing, embroidering, etc… Interesting!
Oh, and there’s some lovely clothes inspiration for grabs too.

If you want to find out more, please check the website of Moving Textiles -Crysalis and the Metamorphosis blog.

Partition in Paris

While strolling through Paris, the works of Alberto Guzman pulled my eye to a gallery window. Striking black with white patterns scratched in cardboard. While admiring his works and chatting with the gallery owner, Mr Guzman himself walked in.

Alberto Guzman, Partition N° 6 (Acryl on carton, 2013, 140 x 100 cm)

Born in 1927 in Peru, Guzman completed his studies at the School of Fine Arts in Lima. He exhibited abstract, soldered iron sculptures as of 1953. It did not take long for him to orient his research towards marble and bronze. In 1959, a scholarship from the French Government allowed him to come to Paris where he held his first exhibition at the Galerie du Fleuve. Others followed every year, all over the world. One can see his monumental works in public places from the place Jeanne d’Arc in Paris to the Olympic Park in Seoul. Sculpture is not his only form of expression. As he could not work marble for a time, he turned towards graphic art with large format inks, as well as to small, refined drawings combining ink, gouache and black lead. He also created stage sets, jewelry and furniture.

Alberto Guzman, Partition N° 4 (Acryl on carton, 2013, 140 x 100 cm)

A truly remarkable artist who continues to produce powerful works at the age of 86!

Raw Vision

‘Art Brut’ or ‘Outsider Art’ fascinates me. Who are the creators whose works mean to us a sort of “artistic purity”? Who draw inspiration only from their own resources. The invention characteristic of their works owes only to their psychological particularities and seems to be driven by a necessity that absorbs them completely.

Since its ‘discovery’ in 1945 by Jean Dubuffet the concept of Art Brut continues to question our aesthetic perceptions, our definitions of art as well as the convictions concerning our identity. I think that is quite revolutionary so I was delighted to be able to see the exhibition currently showing at Halle Saint Pierre in Paris ‘Raw Vision, 25 ans d’art brut‘.

The exhibition celebrates the 25th anniversary of Raw Vision, the London based magazine that was the first publication to focus on Outsider Art, Visionary Art and Contemporary Folk Art long before Outsider Art emerged from obscurity and received the widespread recognition it does today. Works from 80 artists have been gathered from all over the world in a stunning showcase of Outsider Art. And the accompanying catalogue is great too.

Below are some works that intrigued me.

Dalton Ghetti (1961) started to create artworks on the tips of discarded pencils, working on the graphite using a needle and a razor blade after he arrived in the US in 1985 from his native Brazil. He never sells his works, planning to donate them to a museum one day.

George Widener (1962) was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at the age of 25. His detailed technical drawings are complemented by lists of statistics and historical facts, all recalled from memory. He often draws on found pieces of paper such as table napkins.

Scottie Wilson (1888-1972) was captivated by a particular fine fountain pen and he became intensively involved in drawing swirling sinister faces, organic forms and abstract patterns which he filled with ink. He became very successful following his acceptance by London’s surrealists and his work was collected by Picasso and André Breton.

There were many more intriguing works shown in this exhibition so you will definitely read more on Outsider Art in my fieldnotes.