Living Cities

Wandering around in the fabulous Tate Modern in London I walked into a small but interesting exhibit Living cities.

The displayed works from artists around the world examine the modern city using a range of materials including leather and couscous.

Some of my personal favourites are below.

Damian Ortega (°1967 Mexico, works in Mexico and Germany) has replicated floor plans of modernist apartment buildings from around the world using cow leather. The resulting cut-outs are installed as hanging sculptures. Each work’s title gives the name of the building, its date of completion, architect and location.These residential apartments were conceived to replace existing ineffective city housing with egalitarian structures. Ortega’s soft sculptures offer a gentle critique of modernism’s promise to transform how we live.

Damian Ortega, Skin, 2007

Damian Ortega, Skin, 2007 – (floor) plans of the 3 modernist buildings

Damian Ortega, Skin, 2007 – Detail

Skin, Przyczolek Grochowski Estate, LCS, 1963, Oskar Hansen, Warsaw, Poland 2007.

Skin, Centro Urbano Prsidente Aleman C.V.P.A. 1950, Manio Pani, Mexico City, Mexico 2007.

Skin, L’Unité D’Habilitation à Berlin, 1956-1958, Le Corbusier, Berlin, Germany 2007.

The large-scale collage below by Mark Bradford (°1961, USA) included materials found by the artist on the streets around his studio in Los Angeles. The collage is constructed entirely from paper fragments which the artist believes ‘act as memory of things pasted and things past. You can peel away the layers of papers and it’s like reading the streets through the signs.’

Los Moscos, 2004 by Mark Bradford (mixed media on canvas)

It was lovely to see the work ‘Ghardaïa’ by Kader Attia (°1970, France) in person. On the table is a model , made entirely of couscous, of the ancient Algerian city of Ghardaïa. The prints next to it show a photograph of architect Le Corbusier who has visited Ghardaïa in 1931 and adapted elements of the buildings in his own designs. There is also a photograph of Fernand Pouillon, one of Le Corbusier’s followers, who drew upon these ideas to design the social housing project in suburban Paris where Attia grew up as a child of Algerian parents. The artist’s own history and the wider post-colonial relationship between Algeria and France come together in this work.

Ghardaïa (2009) by Kader Attia (cooked couscous on wooden table and digital prints on paper)

Ghardaïa by Kader Attia – detail

Next of Kin

Biljana Kroll – from the poster series “Next of Kin”

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has an online collection of fine art. But what is rather genius about them is that they support creatives of all fields by allowing and encouraging the public to download the high-res images of their various collections and create new art with it.
And that’s what Biljana Kroll does. She thankfully uses the richness of these digital scans as a starting point for her designs.

I was immediately charmed by her latest poster series “Next of kin“. In that series she  creates floral collages combining florals from 16th century floral still-life paintings with the abstract finger paintings of her toddler son. How cool is that? I’m always in for mother-child art co-operations!

Biljana Kroll’s fingerpainting sessions with her toddler son

Biljana Kroll – from the poster series “Next of Kin”

Biljana Kroll – from the poster series “Next of Kin”

Biljana Kroll – from the poster series “Next of Kin”

Biljana Kroll – from the poster series “Next of Kin”

 

Biljana Kroll – from the poster series “Next of Kin”

See more of Biljana Kroll’s portfolio on her website.

 

Blind spots – Jackson Pollock

“I like to use a dripping fluid paint… The method of painting is a natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than to illustrate them. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.”
J. Pollock 1951

Jackson Pollock – Convergence: Number 10, 1952 (oil on canvas)

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) is one of the most influential and provocative American artists of the 20th century. Between 1947 and 1950, Pollock perfected his revolutionary drip technique: he poured, dripped and flicked paint from the end of a brush or stick over a piece of canvas stretched out on his studio floor. For the work Yellow Islands (below) Pollock poured black paint onto the canvas over which he added areas of yellow and crimson with a brush. He then lifted the canvas upright while the paint was still wet, allowing it to sag and run.

Jackson Pollock – Yellow Islands, 1952 (oil on canvas)

These iconic works are currently shown in the exhibition Jackson Pollock – Blind Spots at the Dallas Museum of Art. The exhibition goes on to explore the transformation of Pollock’s paintings in the following years to his ‘black paintings’ as they are often referred to. But also his explorations in other media such as drawing, printmaking and sculpture are generously shown. These ‘blind spots’ in Pollocks practice show an artist searching for expression of his ongoing inward struggle.

Jackson Pollock – Untitled (Black and White Polyptych) c1950 (Oil on canvas)

Black and White Polyptych (above), with its mini-compositions like a strip of film stills, is the earliest painting in which Pollock condensed scale, restricted his palette to monochrome, and worked in series. He continues to explores divisions in Number 7  and Portrait and a Dream (below).

Jackson Pollock – Number 7 (black paint on canvas)

Jackson Pollock – Portrait and a Dream, 1953 (oil and enamel on canvas)

Portrait and a Dream is considered one of Pollock’s last major artistic statements. During the final years of his life, as his battle with alcoholism worsened, Pollock painted only a handful of works. In this painting the face on the right has been interpreted as a self-portrait. The left half contains a black graphic of frenetic energy, which may represent the dream of the painting’s title.

Exhibition view of Jackson’s Pollock works on paper (DMA)

Jackson Pollock Blind Spots showing at Dallas Museum of Art

Blind Spots still on view in the Dallas Museum of Art till March 20, 2016.
Pictures shown are taken by me in the exhibition.

Untitled / Head

Svenja Deininger – Untitled, 2015. Oil on canvas, 53 × 43 cm

Svenja Deininger – Untitled, 2015. Oil on canvas, 50 × 40 cm

Svenja Deininger – Untitled, 2012. Oil on canvas, 27.9 × 21 cm

These beautiful abstract paintings are by Svenja Deininger (°1974) who lives and works in Vienna, Austria. I love her collage like compositions and the superb choice of colours in her work.

Her recent work is a nod to painter Phillip Guston, who named several of his works Untitled / Head during his transition in the late 1960’s from painting pure abstraction to what he called “the thing.” Deininger pushes this reference forward and explores in her new body of work how to bring an idea to physical appearance.

Svenja Deininger – Untitled , 2015. Oil on canvas, 230 × 150 cm

Svenja Deininger – Untitled, 2012. Oil on canvas, 89.9 × 64.8 cm

Svenja Deininger – Untitled , 2015. Oil on canvas, 230 × 150 cm

She has had solo exhibitions in New York City and throughout Europe.
If you wish to read more about her check out artsy.

Magic Hour

Waiting for the moonlight in front of a German house by Carola Schapals, 2015

Fleeting breath of color in front of his home by Carola Schapals, H120 x B160 cm, 2015

She finds a building, a piece of nature… and when she’s touched by an underlying mystery she paints it. Carola Schapals (°1954) is a German painter dividing her time between Bremen and Spain.
I have been admiring her paintings for some time but the works she made in 2015 are particularly gorgeous.

Scene with a sensual seduction by Carola Schapals, H 120 x B 120 cm, 2015

Her technique in her own words:
“My style of painting changes between controlled and experimental – sometimes happily flowing and then again searching in agony. Shifting between paintbrush and pens I like to draw and scribble whole partitions of my pictures. Later these will partly be painted over again. Objective parts of my paintings I dissolve into darknesses, or into continuos abstractions.”

Magic Hour by Carola Schapals, H 70 x B 100 cm, 2015

Tangonacht in Clärchens Ballhaus by Carola Schapals, H 140 x B 170 cm, 2015

Still by Carola Schapals, H 140 x B 170 cm, 2015

Decorated house before by Carola Schapals, H 100 x B 100 cm, 2015

In the middle of a place of desire by Carola Schapals, H 50 x B 50 cm, 2015

Moonlight by Carola Schapals , H 140 x B 170 cm, 2015

The exhibition “Nieuwe gezichten op Dordrecht” at Dordrecht Museum includes works by Carola Schapals. 13 contemporary artists were invited to express their vision on the city, on view from 18 Oct 15 till 21 Feb 16 in Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
All pictures from artist’s website with thanks.