Exhibition to Nowhere: This and That and This Again

Wow, haven't written in this blog for a while, that's bad. I think I will start my new post (of many) with an exhibition I didn't even go to (it was in Berlin) yet saw through images and photos of the event. The exhibition consisted of a collaborative selection of drawings from Jon Burgerman, Ian Stevenson and Andrew Rae:

I think what draws me to the work is the light-hearted nature of the subject matter and the loose, relaxed method with which it is executed. The three illustrator's styles converge seamlessly on a range of materials in mainly ink and marker pens. Bordering on abstraction, there are only characters and motifs that playfully mingle with squiggles, lines and abstract forms which save it from decorative patterns.


I'm becoming really inspired by the playful work of Jon Burgerman right now. You're sure to see more of his stuff written about here soon, for the time being these images should quench your thirst for all things crazy!

Kuniyoshi at the Royal Academy

One of the things that most inspires and captures my interest in art, is representations of the abnormal. I respect the skill of an artist who renders perfectly the contours of apples sitting atop a table, yet I am drawn far more strongly to an image depicting something that is alien to me, something that I do not come across in everyday life. This could be as simple as an innovative exploration into the properties of paint by an early Abstract Expressionist artist such as Franz Kline, or even an otherworldy landscape by surrealist artists as Dalí or De Chirico.

Kuniyoshi's pieces have this quality. The works in this exhibition of 150 prints show portraits and scenes of a Japanese culture so detached from our own European conventions, as a western viewer, I found myself captivated by their peculiarity. Pictured above is one of my favourites from the show, a portrait of Shôki the Demon Queller. What drew me to this particular piece was a combination of things, the first of which is the depiction in the figure's drapery. Kuniyoshi uses great variation in the thickness of his line, fused with a vigorous handling of ink to produce sleeves that seem to dance about the figure's arms, accentuating the tensed muscles of the forearm and wrist. This very eastern-style depiction of muscle definition was a great means by which to show the solidarity of Shôki's grip over the demon. I was also enticed by the stern expression and heavy-set features of the face, and wanted to understand more about Shôki as a character.When I got home I read that he was a budding physician based in Shensi, China, held back only by his ugliness. He was exceptionally good, yet his dreams of advancing his career were shattered when he was rejected from government service due to his appearance. He took his own life in shame on the steps of the Imperial palace, right in front of the emperor. Overcome with remorse, the emperor ordered that Shôki be buried with the highest honors, wrapped in a green robe usually reserved for members of the imperial clan. In gratitude, Shôki's spirit vowed to protect future rulers against demons. Kuniyoshi represents skillfully both Shôki's unfortunate facial features and honourable morality through a strong pose and piercing gaze.

The exhibition held a range of subject matter, from landscapes with majestic views of Mount Fuji, to battle scenes, to female portrait, to Japanese Theatre.


Finally, one last memorable aspect of Kuniyoshi's style was the manner in which he portrayed rain. Completely contrasting from western conventions, droplets or grey washes are replaced by thin, black, vertical lines. Small details like this kept me intrigued throughout the entire show, and are the basis for my love of the collection. I would recommend it, but take a look at a few images online before comitting to a visit, just in case it isn't your cup of tea!

Picasso: A quote

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." - Pablo Picasso
I love this quote because it conjures thoughts of the human psychology: To how much of an extent are humans predestined to have a certain set of skills and how much do our experiences effect what we become good at? The quote obviously references artistic skill. It made me think of the human brain - Picasso seems to think that we are all born with a sort of map of endless routes of which artistic skill is an option. Going down this route (or at least remaining somewhat along the direction) is, in his eyes, the skill an artist has to employ in order to become great, and this in some ways can be backed up by evidence. I would be interested to hear from a biologist's point of view but I believe that the environment you grow up in to a large extent moulds the person you become. Yet when looking at some of Picasso's early sketches, I really do start to think that genetics must play a part in it. I find it hard to believe that any kid could draw as anatomically correctly as this at the age of 12:

I find this image somewhat inspirational, yet in a cold sort of look-how-good-this-guy-was-when-he-was-12 kind of way. To be fair he was brought up in a completely art-orientated education, so it would be what he was doing everyday; yet I just can't get over how realistic that graphite rendering is. In my eyes artistic skill is a product of equifinality - a mixture of predetermined genetics and the influences of your environment, and my love for the quote lies in the extent to which it made me think.

Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence: The Courtauld Wedding Chests

I rarely see my dad these days, so it was good to meet up with him again after such a while - if not just to see what he was up to. We initially aimed to visit the Picasso exhibition at the National Gallery but after finding out that there was a 2 hour wait until the next entry, we gave it a miss. My dad suggested visiting one of the churches in a book he had recently acquired - the 1000 best churches in England - of which he is trying to visit all. We ended up at St.Mary-Le-Strand just opposite the Courtauld where I noticed an exhibition concerning Florentine Renaissance painting, of which I have recently spent a week engulfing myself on my visit to Florence.

Walking into the single room of the exhibition was exciting, the last time I had been there the walls were adorned with a very blue-dominated collection of Cezanne works. Instead my eyes were met with the warm glimmer of gold; the room was filled with huge, courtly chests (or cassioni as they call them in Florence). Masterpieces in their own right, these mighty wooden pieces are often neglected and classed under 'decorative art.'

The chests often depict stories of a non-religious nature, making them a little more accessible for the wider audience. One of my favourite stories depicted was about a girl named Ginerva of Genoa. Story has it that her husband at the time, Bernabo made a bet with a sly young man named Ambrogiuolo of 5000 gold florins, concerning the chastity of his wife. Being the sneaky and possibly sexually frustrated man that he is, sneaked into Ginerva's room while she was sleeping, and took a quick peek at her naked body:


He then proceeded to relieve her of some of her finest jewellery in order to prove to her husband,Bernabo, what an unfaithful little minx she really was. Bernabo considers this ample proof to have her killed, and so sent one of his servants out to do the dirty work for him. Of course he was a useless plank of wood when it came to fighting and so got beaten by Ginerva who proceeded to dress herself in his clothing. After revealing herself to what seems to be a group of authoritative figures, Bernabo is was tied to a stake, slathered with honey and stung to death by insects as a punishment. Poor Bernabo. He got a really raw deal.

The great thing about these chests is that their humor is intended. In the cases where they seem amusing, they were probably meant to be. The exhibition was fairly limited in quantity of works, however as a student I didn't pay a penny for entry and it turned out to be quite an interesting and intimate experience with a collection of items that would otherwise rarely be exhibited.

Good stuff.

The Revolution Continues

I entered the Saatchi Gallery with no idea what to expect from the current exhibition. The Revolution Continues: New Art from China is a collection of contemporary art from a huge variety of artists each with unique styles which culminate to produce an astonishing body of work. All the Pictures featured in this post were taken by myself or my girlfriend, Debra Guo. The image above i chose to present first due to its breathtaking attention to detail, entirely rendered with lead pencil! The image, by Qiu Jie, is entitled Portrait of Mao - a play on words as 'mao' in Chinese is translated as 'cat.' The cat, in Chinese depictions, can be used to bestow a blessing, and this, along with the Calligraphic inscription drawn from Song Dynasty masterworks and cherry blossom articulation gives the work an unmistakeably distinct eastern feel which i can't help loving.


Pictured above is a detail of Zhan Wang's Ornamental Rock No.71, a seductively tactile warped mass of stainless steel that I read was made by moulding a flat sheet of metal to a natural rock formation. The abstract impression formed creates a contrast between such a seemingly malleable surface and the reality, which is of course an extremely tough and resistant work of art. The polished lobes seem almost liquid, common with the properties of mercury, imbuing the sculpture with a tense dynamism and implacing the expectation in the viewer's mind that the sculpture will at any minute disintegrate into a pool of silvery molten metal.


Zheng Guogu animates a structure of metal supports and calligraphy scripts by adorning it with copious quantities of wax that seems to almost be in the fleeting moment of cascading downward. The piece, entitled Waterfall, also bears an intense tension between two concepts - permanence and temporality. The monumentality of the framework and etheriality of the wax drips are together described as generating a 'cyclical purity,' enhanced by the pure white of the wax. This photograph, as well as the others in this post really does convey the exceptional abundance of space within the gallery itself. The very tall, open rooms are lit fantastically, and allow the viewer to experience a work of art in its own space rather that cluttered up with various other pieces either side of it. It is for this reason that the exhibition worked so well, and I was able to appreciate everything for what it was.

Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian

After an enthusiastic recommendation from one of my Art History teachers, i found myself in the Renaissance Faces exhibition in the National Gallery where i found a star-studded array of iconic portraiture. Several very highly acclaimed works were dotted throughout the show amongst some less well known that I had not yet come across before, but was happy to have found. Having studied the Medici family in depth, i was surprised to see in front of me the bust of Francesco Sassetti (sculpted by Antonio Rossellino and pictured above), who happened to be the manager of the Medici bank. This very important role i felt conveyed exceptionally though the stark expression and piercing eyes of the figure, which I was led to discover were accentuated through the use of small lead discs inserted into the pupils. There is a sense about this sculpture of incredible restraint and unerring reserve, which is a reflection of not only the core values of the Medici family, but their style of patronage as well.


There was an extraordinary collection of painting, a portrait of Il Tagliapanni (The Tailor) by Giovanni Battista Moroni, pictured above, is a great example of the gravitas and intensity of gaze that so many of the images in the exhibition had about them. The black silk he is holding would have been highly valued at the time, the depth of colour only achieved by a laborious process of dyeing several times, suggesting the work to be self commissioned, as the tailor is shown to be dealing with very expensive and sought after materials. What drew me to this portrait was the way that the subject's face and hair almost looks contemporary, and would probably have been slightly odd for the time. This however allowed me to experience a somewhat greater affiliation with the tailor, in a sense it was less like looking eyes of a man in the past and more like looking into the eyes of a man standing in front of me. It is a sensation I find hard to describe but one that I felt the need to try and convey as it was one of the reasons I came away from the exhibition in the satisfied state I did.


This bust, depicting Niccolo Strozzi, a very wealthy and powerful yet somewhat greedy member of the Florentine Strozzi family, shows quite graphically his obesity, with beautifully sculpted cheeks that you almost want to grab! Somewhat different from the depiction of Francesco Sassetti, Niccolo Strozzi swaps an intimidating and piercing expression for a glazed-over, blank gaze. The astoundingly shallow depth of carving on the robe adorning Niccolo's torso reflects not only Mino da Fiesole's skill but also the wealth of the family, in being able to afford such exquisite damask silk. Again here, what i was interested to see was that the sculpture reflected the style of patronage- the Strozzi family, famous for commissioning Gentile da Fabriano's San Marco Altarpiece, have their lifestyles reflected in the opulent and extravagant depiction of the Adoration of the Magi scene of the Bible. I do find it hard spending more than about an hour and a half absorbing portraiture, and so i was pleased to have rounded off the exhibition with a few sketches studying sculptural drapery.

Design Cities

William Morris, Marcel Breuer and Zaha Hadid were all featured in the Design Museum's exhibition: Design Cities. Pictured above is a selection of hanging lamps that featured in the exhibition by Tom Dixon, a series called 'Beat.' I'm a sucker for sleek, smooth, minimal design and so these hand beaten lamps enticed me.

This selection of Alessia Bettini cutlery also caught my interest, i was especially impressed with the slight bend in the spoons that would enable right handed users of the product easier access to the head of the utensil. I have to say i was much more intrigued by the contemporary design over the older that was on show, however i still appreciated some of the older English design concepts. The exhibition covered 150 years of design from several design capitals of the world in their hay day. One quote i did pick out from the older section was from Owen Jones' The Grammar of Ornament (1856) where he writes- "The more closely nature is copied, the further we are removed from a work of art." This, for me, is a pretty interesting quote, that would bode well with Matisse who once wrote in magazine La Revue Blanche (1908)- "I cannot copy nature in a servile manner."

Finally i was most captured by Zahid Hadad's design for the 2012 London Olympic Aquatic stadium, whose fluidity and simplicity of form reflect perfectly the role and function of the building. Like a Medieval church suggests divinity with its walls and an exterior packed biblical sculpture, this piece of architecture suggests the ripple of a wave as an Olympic swimmer carves through water.

Cildo Meireles

I recently visited the Cildo Meireles exhibition on the 4th floor of the Tate Modern. Cildo is a Brazilian conceptual artist with a think tank full of exceptionally quirky, humorous and powerful ideas. The exhibition itself was hugely impressive, possibly the most being the Mission/Missions (How to Build Cathedrals) (1987) where 600,000 pennies lay underneath a ceiling of 2,000 hanging bones, connected by a column of 800 communion wafers. The idea behind it is the connection of material power, spiritual power, and the inevitable consequence of the conjunction of them both - tragedy, represented by the bones. I found it quite worrying that i was instantly drawn to the sea of coins, however 600,000 small, round, shiny pieces of metal worth anything are bound to ensnare the interest of anybody over a few discs comprising of wheat flour and water.

Room one was possibly my favourite, certainly the room that contained the highest density of realised ideas. It contained pieces like Money tree (1969), a stack of Brazilian banknotes with an asking price of twenty times that of the actual monetary value, after having been objectified as an art piece by being placed upon a plinth by the artist. This piece along with the 'zero dollar bill' and 'zero cent' coin were all explorations of the idea of value, and how we perceive material object's worth. In the same room were a series of drawings backed up by four sculptures exploring space, with hallucinatory alterations to the corner at the meeting of two walls.

One thing i really enjoyed about the exhibition was the interactive ability the viewer has with many of the installations. Fontes (1992/2008) is a room with a spiral walkway whose path becomes more and more narrow as the viewer progresses inward until you reach the central area where the path dissolves into nothing and you are entirely consumed by some of the 6,000 room-height hanging rulers that make up the 'walls' or 'sides' to the path. It's fairly difficult to describe but when inside the room the is some sense of complete disorientation, as the definitions of time and space are removed. To explain, 1,000 clocks line the walls, however the numbers on the clocks are laid out at unequal and random intervals, making it impossible to tell the time. The ruler's measurements are similarly spread out and confusing, with no logical underlying structure to the placement of each increment of measurement. The idea of the room is therefore to remove any sense of time or space, and connected with the fact that you have the physical ability to become almost lost within the hanging rulers of the room, it is not only an interesting idea but an entertaining experience.

I walked into room three to find a spotlight highlighting an area of the floor in an apparently otherwise empty room. As is walked closer i saw something small and rectangular placed on the floor bathing in the spotlight and it was only when i knelt down to get a really good look at it that i saw what it actually was. A small 9mm by 9mm cube consisting of two pieces of wood somehow joined together was literally the only thing in the room. Not only was this a wonderfully intimate experience with a piece of art, that being a work of immensely small scale, there is also some very interesting ideas behind it. The inspiration for Southern Cross (1969-70) comes from Meireles' understanding of a problem in his home country.

He describes how the piece represents "the oversimplification imposed by the proselytising missionaries (essentially the Jesuits) on the cosmology of the Tupi Indians. (Who reside in southern Brazil) They reduced an indigenous divinity to the god of thunder when in reality their system of belief was much more complex, poetic and concrete matter, emerging through mediation of their sacred trees, oak and pine. Through the (rubbing together of) these two timbers the divinity would manifest its presence." The piece 'Southern Cross' is indeed fabricated from these two woods, and so the story and plight of the Tupi Indians is revealed through the viewer's inquiring interest upon finding a sculpture so small. I also like the idea that this little sculpture has the conceptual ability to burn down the entirety of its surroundings. Good stuff.