What are You Looking at?

[Serial_Apologist]

Last Chance To See The Matisse Cut-outsat Tate Modern, London

This week is the last chance to see this life-enhancing exhibition of work from Matisse's final years when he could no longer hold a brush with confidence and took to creating wonderful cut-outs which were then fixed and moved to the background until he was satisfied.

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/henri-matisse-cut-outs

The similarities between this cut-out work in the 1950s with scissors and paper and Hockney's Yorkshire landscapes today with his iPad are remarkable. Both men made use of devoted younger assistants to help them to achieve their vision. The sheer volume and diversity of their output is staggering and a constant joy, witness the low murmurings of delight and broad smiles to be seen in each room of the Matisse exhibition.

And delight of delights there is some work from Matisse's period in Vence when he was dying, drawings for the stained glass windows & chasubles that he created for the nuns who were looking after him and the final piece, some of the atained fglass.

What better time to see these masterpieces than during an English Indian Summer : winkeye:

A big thanks for the reminder, ams! As happens I am hosting a couple of ladies for lunch this Thursday who may not have been, one of them coming down from Huddersfield, and this has prompted me to email her a proposal to go.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

:

A big thanks for the reminder, ams! As happens I am hosting a couple of ladies for lunch this Thursday who may not have been, one of them coming down from Huddersfield, and this has prompted me to email her a proposal to go.

It is a phenomenal show, S_A: my interest teased by Zucchini's Post from a couple of weeks ago, a very generous pal with a Tate Membership card invited me down to see it last week. I had seen some of the original prints before, but, as can be seen at the exhibition (where the prints and originals are placed next to each other) the originals are so much more vibrant in colour, and the collage of the different layers (giving the images a 3D aspect) is lost in the prints, too. The joy of these images - the sense of fun and zest for life they exude - isn't to be missed (and the defiance they demonstrate as his physical frailty gets worse) (and the fascination of watching him struggle to create the first of his four "Blue Nudes" - and then he can suddenly do it; and can't stop! Like watching a child learn to walk.) I wasn't able to sleep for a couple of nights afterwards, and my mood is still fizzing with the energy from this exhibition - a celebration of life, imagination, creativity and communication.

Mind you - I did get a couple of images "wrong". One of the rooms had a picture of a white face with black eyeballs and what looked like Musical staves emitting from the mouth. It was next to the room called "Jazz", so I thought "Aha! It's a black Jazz singer, and those are the Music he's singing. Good old Henri; he's made an image like a photographic negative, making a socio-political comment on racial segregation in the States."

And then I looked at the title of the picture.

Sword Swallower!


A small child next to me stood gazing at it for some time before asking Mum: "Is he eating chips?" Closer than I got, love!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Malevich

Anyone missing the Matisse Exhibition (or with time to spare after seeing it) might investigate the Malevich exhibition at Tate Modern on the floor above. The combination of these two exhibitions is cleverly planned, as the works complement each other wonderfully - whereas Matisse is curved, flowing organic shapes, Malevich is geometrical; Matisse is rich in vibrant colour, Malevich monochrome or with sparse use of primary colours; Matisse is completely himself in this concentration on his late cut-out work, Malevich is seen developing slowly from his early work (one painting is "a Cezanne", another "a Matisse", another "a Gaugin", then he discovers Cubism, etc) through to his own "individual" Supremicist work and then onto the Stalin-era Social Realism works (and the "undercover" images that harken back to his earlier work).

On its own terms, this work is fascinating and captivating in its cool ferocity: and how marvellous to encounter two versions of the Black Square - both much smaller than I'd imagined - another example of how book illustration lets down the originals: the velvet-like textures and shadowplay is completely lost in those reprints - and the purely white sculptured pieces anticipate what Ben Nicholson was to do thirty years later. Best of all (for me) were all the pencil sketches and tiny drawings that he produced throughout his career: intricate and meticulous pieces. "Worst" were the portraits he produced in the last decade of his life - following the Social Realist dictat, they are superficially "lifelike", but the characters (including the self-portraits) are dressed in costume from the Italian Renaissance, and their eyes and faces are frozen in waxwork gazes, determined not to let real feeling escape: scary stuff.

It's a brilliant show, rewarding in its own terms; and anyone interested in Russian History in the first thirty years of the Twentieth Century will find much to inform their interest - not least, too, the video of a performance of his Opera (Music by Matyushin - of whom previously I had never ... ) Victory Over the Sun: bonkers as a box of frogs!

[amateur51]

Anyone missing the Matisse Exhibition (or with time to spare after seeing it) might investigate the Malevich exhibition at Tate Modern on the floor above. The combination of these two exhibitions is cleverly planned, as the works complement each other wonderfully - whereas Matisse is curved, flowing organic shapes, Malevich is geometrical; Matisse is rich in vibrant colour, Malevich monochrome or with sparse use of primary colours; Matisse is completely himself in this concentration on his late cut-out work, Malevich is seen developing slowly from his early work (one painting is "a Cezanne", another "a Matisse", another "a Gaugin", then he discovers Cubism, etc) through to his own "individual" Supremicist work and then onto the Stalin-era Social Realism works (and the "undercover" images that harken back to his earlier work).

On its own terms, this work is fascinating and captivating in its cool ferocity: and how marvellous to encounter two versions of the Black Square - both much smaller than I'd imagined - another example of how book illustration lets down the originals: the velvet-like textures and shadowplay is completely lost in those reprints - and the purely white sculptured pieces anticipate what Ben Nicholson was to do thirty years later. Best of all (for me) were all the pencil sketches and tiny drawings that he produced throughout his career: intricate and meticulous pieces. "Worst" were the portraits he produced in the last decade of his life - following the Social Realist dictat, they are superficially "lifelike", but the characters (including the self-portraits) are dressed in costume from the Italian Renaissance, and their eyes and faces are frozen in waxwork gazes, determined not to let real feeling escape: scary stuff.

It's a brilliant show, rewarding in its own terms; and anyone interested in Russian History in the first thirty years of the Twentieth Century will find much to inform their interest - not least, too, the video of a performance of his Opera (Music by Matyushin - of whom previously I had never ... ) Victory Over the Sun: bonkers as a box of frogs!

Great review of a highly original show, ferney Who knew that the Russian response to Cubism was Cone-ism?

I was bowled over by his range of styles, like Matisse his preparedness to experiment, the Black Square being some 40 years before Rothko. He also attempted rather successfully to paint absence, in the sense that he painted things disappearing
almost to the molecular level.

If ENO/Opera North/anyone else ever decides to put on Victory Over The Sun I'll certainly go. It would be a fascinating double-hander with Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis (hint hint).

The Malevich exhibition runs until 26 October at Tate Modern.

[jean]

Along with the current Mondrian at Tate Liverpool, there's a stunning exhibition of work by the little-known Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi

They're both on for another month and the Mohamedi is worth the journey, if the Mondrian isn't.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Along with the current Mondrian at Tate Liverpool, there's a stunning exhibition of work by the little-known Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi

Not an Artist whose work (or even name) I'd encountered before. A sample of some of her work on the Tate Lverpool website:

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/exhibition/nasreen-mohamedi-0

... other online-available images suggest that her later work is reminiscent of Xenakis' graphic work (I see that the Tate Liverpool site refers to Malevich - yes; that's there, too).

They're both on for another month and the Mohamedi is worth the journey, if the Mondrian isn't.

?????

[gurnemanz]

We have been Tate members for quite a few years now and go to most shows. (It saves money and you don't have to queue.) The fascinating thing about many of these Tate shows like the Malevich or the László Moholy-Nagy/Josef Albers or Gerhard Richter or the Soviet Graphic Art show featuring Rodchenko & Popova, also the intriguing and witty Brazilian Cildo Meireles, is too discover work of artists about whom I at least had previously known little and to be able to trace their life through their artistic development. Likewise with better-known figures like Louise Bourgeois, Paul Klee, Roy Lichtenstein, Kurt Schwitters, Francis Bacon and the Veronese at the National a few months ago. These retrospectives are also a great opportunity for curators to "re-unite" works from different galleries that haven't hung together for centuries and may never do so again.

We also enjoy the more intimate atmosphere of the Courtauld Institute one-room shows which concentrate on one small theme or aspect like the recent Becoming Picasso, Young Dürer, Cézanne’s Card Players or last year's exhibition based around one artefact - an exquisite 14th C brass handbag from Northern Iraq.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

, gurne.

My trip to London last week was my first in nine years (I lived in Leyton for three years in the early '80s - a very different, gloomier place then) and I was delighted to reacquaint myself with how much I love London. If I lived closer to the capital, I think I'd be visiting the Tate and other venues daily!

[Serial_Apologist]

, gurne.

My trip to London last week was my first in nine years (I lived in Leyton for three years in the early '80s - a very different, gloomier place then) and I was delighted to reacquaint myself with how much I love London. If I lived closer to the capital, I think I'd be visiting the Tate and other venues daily!

Bravo ferney!!!

[amateur51]

Radical Geometry Royal Academy of London until 28 September 2014

Not exactly a snappy, enticing title but the actual exhibition was well worth catching. It's fairly small,and set in the cosy Sackler space. There's quite a bit of Mondrian-esque coloured shapes, Calder-esque semi-mobiles (by the extraordnary Gego (German refugee Gertrude Goldschmidt), and some remarkble eye-bending work with straight lines superimposed to create curves (Jesus Soto).

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/23

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jul/04/radical-geometry-review-modern-art-south-america-royal-academy

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

the extraordnary Gego (German refugee Gertrude Goldschmidt)

By coincidence, there's a retrospective of Gego's work, Line as Object currently showing until 19th October at the Henry Moore Institute (galleries 1-3) in Leeds (next door to the City Library & Art Gallery). I shall report back when I've seen it; it looks very interesting!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Malevich

Interested forumistas unable to get to the Tate Modern exhibition (and those of us who did, and want a reminder) may wish to know that there is a half-hour documentary tonight (Tues 9th September) 0n BBC4, Russian Revolutionary: Zaha Hadid on Kazimir Malevich. 10:00 - 10:30, and, I presume, thereafter on the i-Player.

[Belgrove]

Thanks for that ferney. I also note that Sunday's Words and Music at 5.30pm, entitled 'Black Square', has abstraction as its theme.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks for that ferney. I also note that Sunday's Words and Music at 5.30pm, entitled 'Black Square', has abstraction as its theme.

Big "abstraction" theme currently on BBC4.


Now, when's the six-hour season on Serialism going to be broadcast? (Or, rather, in which parallel universe? )

[amateur51]

By coincidence, there's a retrospective of Gego's work, Line as Object currently showing until 19th October at the Henry Moore Institute (galleries 1-3) in Leeds (next door to the City Library & Art Gallery). I shall report back when I've seen it; it looks very interesting!

Triffic ferney, look forward to your report.