PDF - State Media

05 | HOT & COOL ART
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Sentinels, 2011, Oil on canvas, 113⁄4 x 113⁄4 ins / 30 x 30 cm
J e f f e r y C a m p – P e t alle d F ig u re s
20 April – 18 May 2012
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Michael Richardson Contemporary Art
www.ar tspacegaller y.co.uk
mail@ar tspacegaller y.co.uk
Rinat Voligamsi, 1.5. 2011, Oil on canvas, 80 × 100 cm
84 St Peter’s Street, London N1 8JS
Tel: 020 7359 7002
PAST, PRESENT
& FUTURE
Past, Present & Future is a group exhibition conceived in support
of the Gift of Life foundation / Podari Zhizn,
from which 30% of the proceeds will be donated
to help children with cancer in Russia.
12 APRIL  28 APRIL
8 BERKELEY STREET
LONDON W1J 8DN
www.givelifenow.co.uk
MONDAY – FRIDAY
10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
SATURDAY
10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
020 7499 7861
LONDON@ERARTAGALLERIES.COM
ERARTAGALLERIES.COM
>> I N T H I S I S S U E
COVER
IMAGE
KEIICHI MATSUDA
Augmented City 2010
3 Working from London and Tokyo, the 27-year-old designer
and filmmaker creates innovative videos that blend architecture,
virtual reality, social networking and sci-fi, offering a glimpse
into how augmented reality could play out in the coming years.
His two most recognised films, 'Augmented (hyper)Reality:
Domestic Robocop' and 'Augmented City', have racked up
thousands of views on YouTube.
08 |
MACH SPEED
12 |
WAL-M-ART
Who Says Size Doesn’t Matter?
10 |
HORSE HOSPITAL
16 |
UNREAL REALITY
20 |
EUROSTATE: LILLE
The Counter-Culture Flourishes
HOT & COOL ART
EDITOR
BUREAU CHIEFS
Michaela Freeman
Lyle Owerko
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NEW YORK
Anne Chabrol
PUBLISHER
PARIS
Karl Skogland
David Tidball
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BERLIN
THE
MAYOR
GALLERY
ARMANDO 47 bolts
BERNARD AUBERTIN Works from 1958 - 1989
1 March - 5 April 2012
ANTONY DONALDSON | JOE GOODE
“Twice as Many”
18 April - 18 May 2012
OTTO PIENE
23 May - 27 July 2012
22a Cork Street, London W1S 3NA t: +44 (0) 20 7734 3558 f: +44 (0) 20 7494 1377
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EDITORIAL
DIRECTOR
William Wright
Mike von Joel
SYDNEY
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Elizabeth Crompton
DESIGN DIRECTOR
MELBOURNE
Tor Soreide
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& SUBSCRIPTIONS
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Seeing Is Believing
Julie Milne
AD EXECUTIVES
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18 |
KEIICHI MATSUDA
Seeing the Future
STATE MAGAZINE is available through selected
galleries, libraries, art schools, museums and
other art venues across the UK.
Amidst all the bad news, a recent report published by Deloitte Luxembourg,
summing up their 2011 research, predicts bright future for the art market.
Totally free, STATE is about new
manoeuvres in painting and the
visual arts – combined with f22,
a supplement on developments in
the fusion of art & photography.
It is not a review magazine –
it is about PEOPLE worth serious
consideration; PLACES that
are hot and happening; and
PROJECTS developing in the
international art world.
To apply to stock STATE Magazine, please mail
Julie Milne: jm@state-media.com
Public + Private = Success
THE REASON is that art, as part of a group of
assets jointly called SWAP (silver, wine, art and
gold), has gained more credibility as a viable
investment over the last 10 years.
EDITORIAL
Michaela Freeman
Deloitte’s worked with a company, ArtTactic,
interviewing private banks and investment funds,
as well as 140 international art professionals
(galleries, auction houses and art advisors) and
48 top international collectors. The economic
uncertainty apparently generates more interest in
tangible assets. Also, China has now become the
second largest art market (after the UK) and
buying art turns out to be much easier –
with a plethora of online auctions and virtual
art fairs (e.g. VIP Art Fair).
What is so attractive about investing in art is
that, if you are lucky, the value could – possibly
– increase a thousand-fold. But, just as with
stocks and shares, that value might plummet if,
for example, a particular artist’s work floods the
market. And this is exactly what the string of
criticism of Deloitte’s report points out – art is
very unpredictable. What does set it apart is the
enjoyment and contemplation you get from the
investments, something that should come
without a price tag on.
www.state-media.com
www.state-media.com STATE 06
|5
sculpture on the Trafalgar Square’s forth
plinth. Designed by a the Scandinavian
double act, Elmgreen & Dragset, it’s
intended to celebrate ‘the small everyday
battles’.
{
3 CHILD ROCKING on a horse is the latest
‘You have to look at it as if the
artist is an architect, and we
don’t have a problem that great
architects don’t actually build
the houses.’
DAMIEN HIRST
explaining the creation of
his dot paintings
Sheer Genius
CARTIER, the French jeweller and watch
manufacturer, have produced L’ Odyssée de
Cartier, a brilliant short fantasy film following the brand’s symbolic panther on a journey around a virtual world, as he encounters
key events in Cartier history. Created with
top advertising director Bruno Aveillan, a
60-strong team on location and over 50
special effect technicians, the video has
been promoted via Cartier’s Facebook page,
where users can like the page in order to
access the film plus behind-the-scenes
footage and pictures – or go direct:
www.odyssee.cartier.co.uk Just don’t miss it!
‘You have to remember that
all collectors are sociopaths’
American art collector
DON RUBELL
to Charlotte Sinclair in the FT
‘They have these opinions they
like to foist on to people… some
artists don’t even know how
annoying they are.’
Turner Prize winner
JEREMY DELLER
Home on the Range
LOUYRE: This Our Still Life by Andrew Kötting, on a DVD to coincide with his exhibition at the
blackShed gallery. Filmed over 20-years, depicting secluded family life in Kötting’s crumbling
Pyrenean home (shared with his partner and disabled daughter Eden) and mixed with lush
shots of local landscape changing throughout the seasons and various radio soundtracks.
to the Culture Show
Musical Chairs
• Sheena Wagstaff (ex Tate) has moved to
the Big Apple to take up a Chairman position
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
‘You need three things for
painting: the hand, the eye, and
the heart. Two won’t do.’
Polymath
DAVID HOCKNEY
to Andrew Marr on BBC2
• Tate have selected Colombian curator
José Roca to be the new Estrellita B. Brodsky
Adjunct Curator of Latin American Art.
Sheena Wagstaff
Stephanie Dieckvoss
• Art Council England has appointed
Simon Mellor (ex Manchester International
Festival) as their new Executive Director.
• Art Fairs London Ltd will launch Art13
(international Modern and Contemporary Art)
at Olympia’ s Grand Hall, 1-3 March 2013.
Stephanie Dieckvoss (ex Fair Manager at
Frieze) has been appointed Director.
It’s in the Bag
Independent Curators International (ICI)
organise events, create international
networks and new forms of collaboration.
To mark 35 years in business, they have
released a limited edition cowhide tote bag
– created by Californian conceptual artist
John Baldessari and NY designer Monica
Botkier. $300. curatorsintl.org
{
Rocking Horse Winner
QUOTEUNQUOTE
.......................................................................................................
Forger Wolfgang Beltracchi was sentenced
to six years in prison last autumn. He now
claims his counterfeiting was more than
PABLO PICASSO
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The Last Laugh
merely 14 paintings by artists such as
Heinrich Campendonk, Fernand Léger and
Max Ernst – an estimated €34 million
(£28 million) in sales. The 61-year-old
has admitted to creating phoney works by
‘about 50’ different artists and that due
to high demand, he could have easily put
‘1,000 or 2,000’ forgeries onto the art
market, duping eager collectors including
American comedian and art collector,
Steve Martin. Beltracchi was undone by
using modern titanium white in error for
one Campendonk forgery.
Source: Der Spiegel
{
‘The world today doesn't make sense,
so why should I paint pictures that do?’
Film still from This Our Still Life
STATE 06 www.state-media.com
1960’s, she came into contact with artists including Donald Judd, Andy Warhol, Joseph Cornell
and Claes Oldenburg. Since 1977 Kusama has lived voluntarily in a psychiatric institution, and
much of her work has been marked with obsession and a desire to escape psychological
trauma. A spectacular exhibition by Japan’s leading artist.
LINKS
EDITIONS
TECHNOLOGY
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6 |
3 YAYOI KUSAMA at Tate Modern (until 5 June 2012). At the centre of the art world in the
......................
Over 400 stolen artworks by Dutch
20th-century expressionist painter, Karel
Appel, have been found in Britain a
decade on. A warehouse was bought by a
UK storage and logistics company before
Christmas who found numerous boxes
dumped in the building. A manager took
some 30 drawings to Bonhams to be
valued and was told they were on the Art
Loss Register's (ALR) computerised database of ‘most wanted’ stolen art. Appel
was a painter, printmaker, sculptor and
ceramist and leading member of the
CoBrA group (1948-51). The collection
disappeared in 2002 en route from his
studio to the newly created Karel Appel
Foundation in Amsterdam. A settlement
was reached, with the company agreeing
to release their claim to the artworks –
they declined to be identified.
Source: The Guardian
RESTATE: don’t miss...
© Greater London Authority (GLA)
UK – Crime Capital of Europe
T.S. ELIOT
Lucy Dawkins/Tate
Marina Abramovic has selected Rem
Koolhaas, the Dutch architect, to convert a
former tennis centre in Hudson, New York,
into her Center for the Preservation of
Performance Art. The ambitious project
will require $8million to realise but will
be the first place to specifically train
performance artists in endurance pieces.
{
‘The progress of an artist is a continual
self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.’
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Photo: Joe Schildhorn/BFAnyc.com
A place for
‘Abramovic method’
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Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei. Film Still. Bird's Nest - Herzog & de Meuron in China ©2008 by T&C Film AG
Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei are
to collaborate on this year’s Serpentine
Gallery Pavilion. Being the twelfth such
commission for the gallery’s temporary
summer structure, their design
remembers the previous pavilions with
11 columns and the twelfth one holds a
floating platform roof filled with water.
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An archaeological approach
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RESTATE
AN ART
NEWS
MONITOR
Treason Season
Well-timed for the Jubilee celebrations,
a Chelsea College of Art & Design student,
Claudia Gardner-Pickett, uses Tumblr to
collect art made with traditional Machin &
Wilding stamps depicting the Queen’s head,
resulting in some inspired defacing. This
should match the national mood perfectly!
defaceherface.tumblr.com
Tap Dance
An online non-profit arts network,
IdeasTap, assists young creatives with
career development and funding for
projects. The core of the activity is to
match individuals (50,000 members so far)
with opportunities for partnerships with
organisations such as Sky Arts, Magnum
and the BFI.
www.ideastap.com
HOT&COLD
3 TELEVISION
3 TECHNOLOGY
SKY ARTS
TWEETING TWATS
Becoming essential viewing
Minds turning to mush
to maintain output
3 EXHIBITIONS
LATIN AMERICAN ART
Cleverly inventive galleries
3 MIXED METAPHORS
ART LEADS
FASHION
Karl Lagerfeld inspired
by Czech Cubists
3 FAITH DEALING
GOD SQUADDIES
No child is ever born religious
3 SELF ABUSE
ARTISTS
DRESSED UP
...as Dealers
3 SELF ABUSE
3 DUMB DOWN
IMAGE-BASED
BLOGGING
MUSEUM LABELS
As seen at pinterest.com
Simplified to appeal
to children
www.state-media.com STATE 06
|7
A STATE OF THE ART
AVID MACH aims for
big impact with brash,
bombastic, often beguiling
works; embracing
controversy, relishing
debate, delighting in publicity, attracting
audiences worldwide. His globe-trotting
itineraries: 100 plus solo shows, over 150
group exhibitions from Paris to Warsaw,
New York to Tel Aviv, Rome to Seoul,
were crowned last year with a blockbuster
at Edinburgh's International Festival
plus a major sculpture in the V&A's
Grand Entrance. But life is not simple
for Mach. ‘I need to make some real
money. Much of my past work has been
installation: temporary and ephemeral.
You can't sell it. We worked on
Edinburgh's show for 3 years. It cost
around a million. The bank wouldn't
loan, so I made my own publications, and
funded it myself.’ He plans that Precious
Light will recoup its costs by touring ‘to
the four corners of the globe’.
Tall, wiry, awash with ideas, energy,
commitment and charisma, David Mach
8 |
STATE 06 www.state-media.com
1
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MACH SPEED
D
1
David Mach, Royal Academician,
sculptor, performer, showman, international
art world star, thinks big. TEXT CLARE HENRY
David Mach with The Last Supper collage. Photo: Alan Laughlin
never fails to surprise and enthral. No
marble or bronze for him. Using raw
materials in bulk – old tyres, surplus
magazines, telephone directories, bottles,
postcards, coat hangers, matches –
Mach transforms them into memorable,
massive, wacky, crowd-drawing public art.
1
The Agony and The Ecstasy Precious Light
Edinburgh's Precious Light employed
coat hangers and collage. In his largest
show ever, seventy works were exhibited
across five floors of the capital's City Art
Centre. Each piece, be it sculpture or
collage, celebrated the 400th anniversary
of the King James Bible. ‘And this is just
the start,’ says Mach, ‘I'm not religious
but I'm going to make many more pieces
inspired by the Bible. It has such great
stories: The Flood, Crossing the Red Sea,
Plague of Frogs, Walking on Water! The
King James Bible holds as pertinent a
mirror up to our human failings as it did
when first published in 1611. In an age of
mass communication we still have wars,
famines, bigotry. The richness of biblical
imagery is as fine a subject as I can wish
for to explore the hypocrisies of the
contemporary world.’
Things have changed for Mach in the last
few years. Like Christo/Jeanne Claude,
Oldenburg/van Bruggen, his wife Les
worked hard on every project, but is
long-term seriously ill. As a result,
his peripatetic lifestyle has stopped.
Past works include 85 freight containers
as a base for Leith's Temple at Tyre; in
Paris a coy cherub supported a red
Citroen car; for Glasgow's Year of Culture
he created 12 monumental classical
columns 30ft high from 100 tons of
newspapers; in 1990 giant bonsai trees
for the Venice Biennale; in 1994 for
Darlington a 36m brick Train (then
the UK's largest contemporary public
sculpture); and a colossal 30m seamless
wrap-around landscape montage of
250,000 individual photographs
submitted by the public crowned the
Millennium project. Russia inspired
two 25ft fibre-glass Sumo Wrestlers,
which later travelled to Poland and
London's Euston Station. Epic
sculptural events all.
'I need to make some
real money. Much of my
past work has been
installation: temporary
and ephemeral.
You can't sell it'
So how has Mach, now 55, maintained
this torrent of new ideas, his ‘hard graft
of 14 hours physical work a day – like
mining’, ever since graduating from
Dundee's College of Art in 1979.
‘Fucking bloody-mindedness,’ is the
answer.
angry, menacing spikes, a by-product
of the mundane coat hangers. Never
have these been put to better use.
Not content with this, Mach invited
more controversy when he set fire, first
to The Devil (thousands of red yellow
and black matches made into a life-size
mask) and later to Christ's head. The
process of burning is used by Mach as a
creative, transformative, metamorphic
force, the end result having the tonalities
of a tribal mask. It makes for good
performance art. ‘You want your work
to have this enormous effect. You want
Take Precious Light. The ground floor
was dominated by a colossal Golgotha
tableau, the three figures suspended from
huge steel beams. A fourth crucifixion
was installed outside Edinburgh's St Giles
Church. The crucifixions bristle with
Top: Die Harder (detail) - coat hanger sculpture Photo: Richard Riddick
Above: Train – Darlington, 1994 The largest sculpture in the UK at the time
people to write about it, applaud it,
love it, buy it.’
Mach is used to the limelight. His
first appearance, post Royal College
and Lisson solo, in the Hayward
Gallery's British Sculpture '83, was
dramatic. A big, black, silent 220ft
Polaris replica constructed from 6,000
rubber-tyres on the South Bank terrace
was set on fire, killing the arsonist. A
truly fatal nuclear accident, which did
not deter him. Nominated for the
Tate's Turner Prize in 1988, 101
Dalmatians attracted record crowds,
while several million prime time
BBC TV viewers watched him create
a sculpture.
With Mach, performance and personality
always play their part. ‘Because I often
work on the spot, I talk to lots of ordinary people – that helps.’ In the past he
worked in many unconventional venues:
on a moving tube train; underwater in an
Amsterdam swimming pool, up a snowy
Swiss mountainside. At that stage he still
preferred the ephemeral. ‘If it's a good
idea it shouldn't matter how long it lasts,
five minutes or forever.’ But times
change. For Edinburgh he transferred his
London studio plus team to the top floor
of the Art Centre, and for 2 months
worked in public, created his 24ft long
version of The Last Supper, the Apostles
made up of the directors of vente-privee,
a French mail order company. Suitably
blasphemous. Typically Mach!
NOTES
Die Harder
Southwark Cathedral
22 February to 6 April.
LINKS
www.davidmach.com
www.state-media.com STATE 06
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P STATEMENT
7
Roger Burton Photo: Ed Sykes
1
The Horse Hospital – Screening and exhibition
5
The Horse Hospital
Underground culture, occasionally hijacked by the art establishment,
has a London home that is anything but mainstream.
INTERVIEW MICHAELA FREEMAN | PORTRAIT ED SYKES
T
the Sex Pistols, The Great Rock'n'Roll
Swindle, which coincided with the rise
of the New Romantics – centred
around The Blitz Club and bands like
Duran Duran, Boy George and Spandau
Ballet.
Temple asked Burton to collaborate
on music videos for these new groups.
‘In the early 1981, I didn't even know
what a music video was; MTV hadn’t
started yet.’
1
The Horse Hospital
Roger Burton has been running the space since 1993 and
its ethos and cross-disciplinary programming is intertwined
with his life-long passion for vintage clothes and fashion.
He’s the original Mod who grew up on a farm and whose
interest in vintage was ignited by seeing Bonnie and Clyde,
Arthur Penn’s 1967 movie about 1930’s gangsters.
Burton’s first venture, a wholesale Art Deco clothes shop
in Leicester, initially did well until ‘punk came and killed
the whole vintage business’. Following a move into London
and selling at Portobello and Camden markets, he opened
a shop specialising in rock'n'roll clothes, first on Chelsea’s
King’s Road, and later in Covent Garden, right after it
ceased selling fruit & veg. The progressive shop window
attracted a lot of attention, displaying a CCTV monitor
instead of the goods, Dutch and German leather coats,
riding boots and forage caps.(1)
A 1978 invitation to supply costumes for a film about
1960’s Mods kick-started Burton’s involvement with the
industry.(2) Julian Temple had just finished his movie about
10 |
STATE 06 www.state-media.com
Fast forward 10 years and 150 music
videos, and into the recession of 1991. Looking for
somewhere permanent to store his substantial clothes
collection, Burton came across the Horse Hospital,
totally derelict at the time. After he secured a good deal
and fixed it up, Burton felt there was a potential for the
building beyond mere storage. The programme took off
with a well attended fashion exhibition of Vivienne
Westwood and Malcolm McLaren (both just beginning to
be collectable and the show travelled to Tokyo’s Shiseido
Gallery) followed by a group of students from Chelsea
College of Art.
‘We were very diverse, and tended to attract a distinct
type of person, who wasn’t into mainstream art. I realised
there was a group of individuals out there that hadn't been
through the university system but were driven to create
something, be it a photo, painting or whatever.’ Burton
himself was making short films and found there was no
platform for filmmakers to present their work. A friend,
Paul Smith from Mute, helped to buy a projector and the
film nights started in 1994. ‘We realised the film side was
very complimentary to our art events and the word spread.’
They wanted to support minority groups but – significantly
– ‘not anyone in particular’.
It wasn’t until the initial 10-year lease expired and the
owners tried to evict Burton that he set out to investigated
the history of the building, with doubts of it ever being a
‘horse hospital’. Months of rummaging through dusty
paperwork at the Metropolitan Archive paid off. He
discovered the mews did belong to a series of veterinary
doctors soon after it was built in 1797 – by Roger’s
namesake, the famous, influential and prolific builder,
James Burton.(3) Based on these findings, English
Heritage duly listed the building thus saving it from
being converted to a posh split-level restaurant. For the
time being it continues to cater for art, albeit making
it difficult for Roger to make any improvements. But
having just a single old toilet is a small price to pay
for survival!
{
‘There was a group of
individuals out there that
hadn’t been through the
university system but
were driven to create
something...’
{
URN INTO
a mews tucked
behind the bustling
Russell Square
underground station
and you discover
the Horse Hospital, a place where
the avant-garde and underground
art is alive and well – and one of
London’s best kept secrets. Step
inside, down the stone-covered
ramp, and you are hooked on the
atmosphere.
Tai Shani is an artist who’s helped to run the space for the
last six and half years. Apart from 6-7 exhibitions a year,
they host about 4 events on average every week. Some of
these are private hire events. A compromise? Not really,
because together with Burton’s vintage clothes business on
the first floor (Contemporary Wardrobe Collection) they
not only help to fund the non-profit art events, but also
provide a very significant (in numbers) curious and often
engaging ‘secondary audience’ for the exhibitions.
‘I don't like private views but I do like coming to other
people’s events here and watching people discover the art,’
says Burton.
A monthly Salon night, a free platform for people to
bring and discuss their work in any media, ran for five
years and brought together a group of people diverse in
regards of both nationality and background, from artists
and filmmakers, to writers and surgeons. Now external
curators and groups organise regular eclectic, cross-disciplinary
events at the Horse Hospital, such as the Light & Shadow
Salon, primarily about film, but also art and music. Niche
film festivals take place here too: London Underground Film
Festival, London Animation Festival, and bi-annual Fashion
in Film (founded and run together with Central Saint
Martin’s). A recent exhibition of photographs by Gina
Glover, Playgrounds of War, depicted deserted army bases.
A subject rather personal to her as that’s the environment
she grew up in, with a father in the secret service. Next up
is Richard Stone’s ‘strange little sculptures’.
What keeps Roger Burton going? When he spots a new,
young, creative soul amongst the visitors. Having people
come down to the Horse Hospital is like ‘inviting people to
your front room... it's lovely to see faces engrossed in what
they encounter’. That gives him faith.
Richard Stone’s exhibition is at Horse Hospital 24 March - 14 April
LINKS
www.thehorsehospital.com
NOTES
1) In 1981, Burton was commissioned to design Vivienne
Westwood’s World's End shop with ‘pirate, buccaneers stuff for
glamorous kids’ after she closed down her punk enterprise.
2) He supplied costumes for a number of movies including
Contagion (2011), Leatherheads (2007), Vigo (1997), Hackers
(1994) and Mona Lisa (1985).
3) James Burton was said to have enough people working for him
that he could have raised an army to protect what he’d built.
www.state-media.com STATE 06
| 11
A STATESIDE
7
Crystal Bridges at Dusk
1
Martin Johnson Heade Cattleya Orchid, Two Hummingsbirds and a Beetle ca.1880 Oil on canvas
1 Arshile Gorki
Composition: Still Life 1936-1937
Oil on canvas
D
EEP IN THE BACK
of beyond, in the
foothills of the Ozark
Mountains of Bill
Clinton’s home
state of Arkansas is Bentonville, the
unlikely location for Crystal Bridges,
a new Museum of American Art.
Bentonville, home to Walmart – the
corporation everyone loves to hate –
is also the childhood home of Alice
Walton, a Walmart heiress whose
overriding passion is American art.
The museum is her gift to
Bentonville.
12 |
STATE 06 www.state-media.com
An active collector with an extraordinary
eye – according to Don Bacigalupi,
Executive Director of the museum –
Alice Walton has, for many years, been
buying works for the museum which
trace, through art, the history of the
United States of America. Whereas the
foundation of European art is in telling
the story of Christianity, American art
traces and celebrates the development and
expansion of the country, its culture and
epic landscape. The history of American
art is fully embraced by Crystal Bridges
Museum, from the colonial era on into
the 21st century.
It is difficult for some, but necessary for
all, to separate Alice Walton’s collection
and gift from the Walmart Corporation.
She persuaded the Walton Family
Foundation, a private philanthropic
fund, to give the 120 acres within which
Crystal Bridges is built, and the striking
series of buildings designed by Moshe
Safdie. Its setting encompasses and
incorporates the natural habitat of ravine,
stream, woodland and walking trails
where art is integrated into the landscape
through sculpture as diverse as a
traditional Shore Lunch (Dan
Ostermiller, bronze, 1999) and the
TEXT: FELICIA HALL
brilliant skyscape installation, The Way
of Color (James Turrell, stone, concrete,
stainless steel and LED lighting, 2009).
Approximately a dozen corporations
support the museum’s library,
publications, educational and scholarly
programs. Additionally, Walmart
Corporation’s $20,000,000 gift ensures
free admission ad infinitum.
Don Bacigalupi, formerly at the Toledo
Museum of Art, at which he shepherded
through a major capital building
campaign, had not thought to leave
Ohio. He was persuaded by Alice
contemporary artists Roxy Paine, John
Baldessari, Nick Cave and Devorah
Sperber, among others.
The curatorial staff, working alongside
Don Bacigalupi, determines what should
be acquired. He brings their findings to
the art committee, of which Alice Walton,
‘Whoever we are,’ he says, ‘we can find
chair of the Board of Trustees, is a member.
something to draw us in.’ He believes
She conducts herself as any member of
that only through
an art committee
access is passion
should, he insists: as
‘ The history of American art is fully embraced
ignited, the passion
one voice among many.
that he, himself,
‘We debate and discuss
by Crystal Bridges Museum, from the colonial
exhibits for art genrecommendations by
era on into the 21st century.’
erally and for Crystal
the curators,’ he says,
Bridges in particular.
‘there is no single
He has gathered a knowledgeable staff
voice, no veto power…’
Crystal Bridges, the High Museum of
recruited throughout the country, many
For Don, who says it was thrilling
Atlanta (Georgia), the Terra Foundation
of whom never expected to live in
to bring her back, there is a sense of
for American Art (Chicago) and
Arkansas yet are glad of the opportunity
redemption in exhibiting Ruth Asawa’s
the Louvre, launched a four-year
offered by Crystal Bridges. They have
untitled sculpture of tied bronze wire.
collaboration. The first rotation, at the
shared in the statement of what Crystal
It is simple and exquisite. Ruth, as a
Louvre, explores the birth of American
Bridges is about and the director considers
Japanese American teenager from San
landscape painting.
Francisco, was interned with her family
them – presently 165 staff plus 950 trained
at a camp in Arkansas during WWII.
Crystal Bridges is committed to
volunteers and 5,500 initial members –
‘The internment was the first step on a
searching for and exhibiting emerging
as ‘stakeholders’ in the enterprise.
journey to a world of art that profoundly
artists in the contemporary world who
changed who she was and what she
are communicating about our present
‘We want to share; we want to borrow;
thought was possible in life.’(2) Her work
and future, ‘much like canaries in the
we want to loan; we want to have really
coal mine’, says Don Bacigalupi.
active partnerships with museums
now has a permanent home in Arkansas.
In addition to 21st century artists
worldwide,’ Alice Walton told the
NOTES
represented by the permanent
New York Times.(1)
1) New York Times June 16, to Carol Vogel
collection, Wonder Works is a temporary
Asher B. Durand’s Kindred Spirits, an
2) www.ruthasawa.com
installation that exhibits work by
iconic 19th century landscape painting
crystalbridges.org
which caused a tremendous outcry when
purchased from the New York Public
Library and thus removed from the
East Coast, was promptly loaned to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York. Currently, six local Arkansas
institutions exhibit artifacts describing
regional history in a shared gallery at
Crystal Bridges. In January 2012,
DOES CRYSTAL BRIDGES
RIVAL THE GETTY?
The rural Arkansas gallery has confounded its critics and opened to international acclaim.
1 Norman Rockwell
Rosie The Riveter 1943
Oil on canvas
{
1
Don Bacigalupi, Director CBM
Walton’s commitment to art, to art
education and the new museum. He
recognised a unique opportunity to
bring into practice the experience and
wisdom garnered from others before
him; to create in Northwest Arkansas
what he believes to be a successful
museum or collection. Bacigalupi’s
goal is not just the creation of beautiful
galleries filled with stunning works of
art, not just intellectual experience or
stimulation; but the opportunity to offer
points of access, to provide relevance, a
positive experience that will captivate
visitors regardless of their background.
}
www.state-media.com STATE 06
| 13
A STATEOFMIND
7
Left
John Cleater
Dumbo Arts Festival, 2011.
Right
KOL/MAC
Omi International Arts Center, 2011.
1
John Cleater I Must Be Seeing Things
VISION
Augmented Reality, or AR as it is known to
a small circle of cyber artists, is the latest
21st century cutting edge art world innovation.
With the advent of new technology, we all
bought into virtual reality.
But augmented reality? What's that? TEXT CLARE HENRY
14 |
STATE 06 www.state-media.com
n
DOUBLE
jumped right in, learning, experimenting,
EXPLAINS AMERICAN AR
collaborating, and developing. Shortly
enthusiast, John Cleater, a
afterwards he was busy curating a
founding member of the
pioneering outdoor exhibition Peeling
global group, Manifest.AR:
Layers of Space Out of Thin Air, sited
‘The important point about AR is
at the Omi International Arts Center in
that it is an actual visual thing to
upstate New York.
be seen in a
Exhibitors included
specific location.
such high profile names
It's almost easier
as Vito Acconci, Daniel
to say what
Libeskind, Site... and
it's not! AR is
Cleater himself.
NOT an online
medium. It's not
It was my first
net art suspended
experience of AR. Omi
on the web and
is based in 300 acres of
available anyrolling farmland with
where. It's not
1 John Cleater – Founding member Manifest.AR
spectacular views of
arrived at via
mountains and the Hudson River valley.
Photoshop or collage. It's not 2D or
Its Sculpture Park is home to around 80
3D. AR technology uses GPS to overlay
contemporary works, which I know well.
a real site, to achieve an actual visual 4D
Yet walking through a warm, wooded June
structure which you can only see – via
landscape to the top of a hill overlooking
your smart phone – at that particular
a sweep of freshly cut cornfield, I had no
place.’ The artist decides the place – be
idea what AR held in store.
it Venice, or a street corner in Brooklyn.
Cleater gave me his iPhone, and soon
I was enmeshed all round in a white
Cleater trained as an architect at
coloured web (by Leeser architects) then
Columbia University, New York and has
ripples flew (KOL/MAC) and grass grew
worked in both live theatre and exhibited
to 30 feet (Acconci). Daniel Libeskind's
as a sculptor. His recent progress into
planar slabs rose upwards before sinking
AR came by sheer fluke. ‘I went to a
underground. Real world constraints such
meditation class, the only time in my life!
as gravity, proportion and opacity become
And there I met the guy who introduced
optional considerations as SHoP's ribs of
me to AR.’
prismatic magenta arched overhead.
As Louis Pasteur once remarked: Chance
Cleater's own AR layer features spinning
visits the prepared mind. John Cleater
mercury bubbles which contain a
duplicate tree skyline at its diameter,
amid a strata of rural grass and earth.
‘When I was first introduced to AR
technology, my mind started reeling,
realising how much potential there is
for architects to use this tool so that
hypothetical or theoretical architectural
projects can be envisioned. The AR apps
also open the door for the general public
to participate in new kinds of spatial
experience.’
AR tends to have a challenging
approach. It mostly appears outside
museums and galleries: on the street, in a
public place or square. Some exhibitions
are commissioned, such as at Art Omi,
Boston's ICA, Dumbo Festival or the
Samek Art Gallery, PA. Other events can
be DIY hacker invasions like an uninvited
show at MoMA New York in October
2010 – or at last year's 54th Venice
Biennial, when Manifest.AR constructed
virtual pavilions in the Giardini and in
St. Mark's Square in order to infiltrate
and ‘challenge the conventions through
which contemporary art is viewed’.
A first, in October 2011, was AR's use
in the scenic design of a live theatre
production called House/Divided, which
premiered in Columbus Ohio and comes
to BAM, Brooklyn, New York in Spring
2012. Once again, John Cleater is
responsible and explains: ‘Dutchman
Jens de Smit at Layar helped me set up
{
‘AR technology uses GPS to overlay a real site, to
achievean actual visual 4D structure which you can only
see – via your smart phone – at that particular place.’
PorPOISe – which is a software he
created to allow me to apply interactive
actions and animations to the virtual
models I create. PorPOISe is the liaison
that communicates with the Layar
mobile phone app.’
AR is being taken seriously by many
European organisations. The Liverpoolbased new media organisation, Fact, is
currently one of eight arts and science
institutes, universities and museums
from Madrid and Paris, Karlsruhe to
Valencia, who are part of ARtsense,
a 3-year research project into A2R
(Adaptive Augmented Reality) to find
}
out how audiences and the general
public might engage with AR.
They have just commissioned
Manifest.AR to create a new art work for
Spring 2013. Money comes from FP7,
an EU funding stream which backs
research with a commercial output somewhere down the line, or more formally,
‘harnessing the full potential to help turn
novel ideas into jobs’. The commission
brief is wide open and Cleater is excited,
toying with ideas of LSD, The
Rorschach Test, and How-To decipher
abstract art for beginner, intermediate
and expert observers. The title? I Must
be Seeing Things.
If you can pick your way through
the technological jargon, ignore the
gimmicks and look ahead, AR or A2R
is the coming thing. Art in a parallel
universe. Open air sculpture or
architecture without touching a twig,
tree or park bench; gallery installations
without moving walls. AR is already
used extensively in areas such as
navigation and medicine. Needless to
say, some commercial companies are
already there. Currently the toy maker
Lego has an AR kiosk showing a 3D
Lego plane for kids.
LINKS
www.cleater.com
www.manifestar.info
7
Left
THINGS: Landingground
Right
THINGS: Pillar
www.state-media.com STATE 06
| 15
A STATEOFMIND II
A STATELINE
1 Augmented City, 2010. 'Users' of the city can browse through channels of the augmented city,
creating aggregated customised environments. Identity is constructed and broadcast, while local records
and coupons litter the streets.
A LIFE MORE TRANSPARENT?
n
SO FAR 18 FH events
have dealt with topics
ranging from the fashion
industry and the use of
neuroscience in advertising, to content
piracy, peak oil, immersive storytelling,
and 3D printing. ‘We want to uncover
the people, trends and ideas that are
reshaping our collective future, be they
in the creative industries, financial
services, environmental groups or
technology start-ups,’ says Ben
Beaumont-Thomas, who curates the
often sold out evenings together with
Jack Roberts, the director of Good
Publishing. ‘Rather than merely talk
about the innovations themselves, we
try to contextualise them and show
how they're going to reshape ordinary
people's lives.’
Regularly hosted at The Book Club in Shoreditch,
fittingly close to the London’s hyped up ‘Silicon
Valley’ area of Old Street, Future Human is an
innovative series of cross-disciplinary lectures and
debates about future. INTERVIEW MICHAELA FREEMAN
» AUGMENTED REALITY
‘Augmented Reality refers to
group of emerging technologies
that are unified by their ability
to overlay physical space with
information. It is a paradigm that
succeeds Virtual Reality; instead
of disembodied occupation of
A recent FH, The Transparent Life,
focused on how modern lives are
becoming increasingly transparent,
the online presence merging with
the physical life. Especially for the
generation born ‘connected’, it was
argued, the border between the two is
certainly blurred if not absent. What
will the future look like?
This is exactly what one of the
speakers, Keiichi Matsuda, examines
in his ongoing series of films and
installations Augmented (Hyper)
Reality. They envisage a future where
the augmented reality (AR) becomes a
kind of a perpetual sixth sense. AR
might indeed creep into our lives
gradually and without much consent,
just as happened with CCTV now
monitoring almost every public space –
in the UK more than anywhere else in
16 |
STATE 06 www.state-media.com
virtual worlds, the physical and
virtual are seen together as a
contiguous, layered and dynamic
reality.’
Keiichi Matsuda
the world. In Matsuda’s vision, we turn
into electronomads for good.
MF: You studied architecture, but now
make films, how would you describe
yourself?
KM: I usually keep it simple and say
I'm a designer, albeit one with a specific
interest in the future of technology,
media and urbanism. I'm also a
director, a consultant, a writer an
speaker, and I make films, images,
interactive installations and urban
interventions, so I normally just show
people my work and hope they get
the idea. The labels we attach to
professions are becoming less important
now and the barriers for working across
disciplines lower.
When did you first encounter the
AR tool?
In 2009, while researching for my MA.
I was really excited to find a technology
that could have such a profound
influence on spatial design, and
potentially change the way we understand space and the city. Architecture is
struggling to really engage with the new
kind of ideologies that have arisen out
of the internet. AR brings all of that
information, all of those ideologies, out
into the city. It's a hugely complex
proposition, but one that architects may
be best-equipped to deal with, if we
have the courage to tackle it head-on.
It’s been suggested that AR is the next
big paradigm shift, bringing both a
disruptive technology and an exciting
vision of the future. Isn’t it just another
tech gimmick though?
The way AR is currently being used is
very gimmicky and limited, but it has
the potential to fundamentally redefine
both our physical and virtual spaces.
It’s not only AR that is part of this
paradigm shift, but a larger group of
technologies that includes ubiquitous
computing, wearable computers,
tangible interfaces, 3D printing,
location-based services and more. It's
about merging the physical and digital,
and it’s already happening. I'm not
worried so much about the public
perception of AR. Even if people think
it’s an advertising tool at the moment,
it will keep rearing its head.
You said AR may ‘recontextualise
the functions of consumerism and
architecture, and change in the way
in which we operate within it’. How
will that work?
Put simply, AR transforms space into a
form of media, with all the benefits and
problems that brings. In AR, every
space, person and action is intimately
environments. The way we experience
the city would then be linked to our
socio-economic status.
What was the visitors’ reaction when
you displayed a fake set of their
online tags and keywords in the Cell
installation? Did they find that
comfortable?
That was the very question we aimed
to address with the installation, and
the response was pleasingly mixed.
The project was intended to be a
1
‘The way AR is currently being used is very
gimmicky and limited, but it has the potential to
fundamentally redefine both our physical
and virtual spaces’
Domestic Robocop, 2010
1 Domestic Robocop, 2010. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and
architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it.
surveyed, quantified and recorded. To
give a simple example, we can use the
popular 'freemium' model from app
economics, where you can download
an app for free, but are presented
with advertisements. If we apply that
It's very important to be critical
when thinking about the future. We
buy into technologies based on their
perceived values, but generally give
little thought to their implications. Of
course, not all of these consequences are
predictable, but design fiction can be a
fantastic tool in helping us to think
about where our technologies are
leading us. Utopian minimalism doesn't
interest me; I'd rather design around
moral ambiguity and spatial
complexity.
to space, something interesting happens.
We may get to use spaces for free, but
allow advertising into our mixed-reality
environments. We may be able to live in
discounted 'ad-supported' houses. Or
pay for premium, beautifully designed
provocation, so to some extent we
were aiming to make people feel
uncomfortable. Cell was quite
conservative in what it proposed, as
most of it is happening already, but a
lot of interesting conversations emerged
from that simple idea. We started
discussing ways to filter and present the
information, and the opportunities for
collaboration and co-operation it could
present. There are of course, tangible
intrusions to privacy, but the tension
between the compromise and benefits
are exactly why these sorts of
propositional projects are interesting.
The super-saturated aesthetic in my
films may be overwhelming to some
people, but the human being has
become an incredibly sophisticated
filtering mechanism. We chat, tweet,
and browse the web while watching
films. We gather information about our
social circle through multiple channels,
and tweak and refine our own online
persona. If you showed someone from
as little as 20 years ago how we live
today, it’s likely they would see it as a
scary prospect too.
Despite your enthusiasm for AR, I find
your works quite critical. The constant
information overload you portray is a
scary prospect, don't you think?
LINKS
keiichimatsuda.com
vimeo.com/chocobaby (for videos)
www.futurehuman.co.uk
www.state-media.com STATE 06
| 17
P EUROSTATE
7 Clockwise from top:
Maurizio Nannucci Listen to Your Eyes, 2010. Photo: Ecole supérieure d’art de Metz
Henri Laurens Verre et bouteille, 1919. Photo: Philip Bernard
Maurizio Cattelan Untitled, 1997. Photo: Musée de Grenoble
A NEW AGE OF
ENLIGHTENMENT
The French show the way to de-Capitalising
the cultural imperative...
TEXT GEORGINA TURNER
A
engagement. Following the decline of its
coal mining and textile industries, there
was a major economic shift during the
1980’s towards the service sector (providing
91% of employment in 2006). But it was
when Lille became European Capital of
Culture in 2004, that its current dynamic
was launched, with the rallying cry from
the Mayor's office: L'art et la culture pour
tous dans toute la ville! (Art and culture
for all throughout the city!). The year
was deemed an all-round resounding,
spectacular success – 9 million visitors,
17,000 artists, over 2,500 events in 193
local authorities – putting Lille on the
international culture vulture's map.
N ORGANIC confluence
of art, culture and the
state has emerged ‘up
North’ in France, and its
heart beats in Lille. How
has this large, industrial
city near the Belgium border, with weather
almost as bad as England, become one of
the most fulfilling places to live, work and
be creatively endowed? By laissez-faire?
Certainly not. Its geographical position
helps: being a frontier town, it feels
European and is closer to Belgium than to
Paris. A little luck: the Eurostar terminal,
opened in 1994, has put Lille at the centre
of a triangle linking Paris, London and
Brussels. Fundamentally though, it has
been engineered by a committed and
supremely able team from the world of
politics, industry, and scientific research,
and – not least – the creative arts.
1
In 1981, the socialist President, François
Mitterrand, was elected for the first time,
launching a Golden decade of egalitarian
and democratic prosperity, not least in the
cultural sector. Britain, in contrast, was
enthralled by the intense will of Margaret
Thatcher. Mitterrand dryly noted she had:
‘the eyes of Stalin, the voice of Marilyn
Monroe’, and few bridges were built
between them, although Eurostar did
eventually see light at the end of a Channel
tunnel. Posterity is likely to remember
Mitterrand (and Helmut Kohl) for a key
role in forming the European Union
(1993) skilfully steered by Jacques Delors
as President of the European Commission
(1985 - 1994). However, Mitterrand was
also visionary in the importance he placed
on culture, both as a citizen's right and as a
means of social participation. And it was in
Jack Lang, his Minister for Culture (1981 1992), that Mitterrand found his Rousseau
and controversial performer. ‘Debate is
good,’ declared Lang. ‘I like an atmosphere
18 |
STATE 06 www.state-media.com
{
Pascal-Désir Maisonneuve La Reine Victoria, Date unknown. Photo: Philip Bernard
‘I like an atmosphere of controversy. The worst
thing is when art creates only indifference.’
JACK LANG
of controversy. The worst thing is when art
creates only indifference. When you have
struggles, it shows art is alive.’
Lang proved très engagé in making art
accessible to the people and also broadening
art to suit more popular tastes. From 2002
until very recently, Jack Lang represented
Pas-de-Calais, which has Lille as the
capital, at the National Assembly (French
Parliament). He was indefatigable in
launching festivals throughout France
(La fête de la musique in June), setting up
regional art centres (the FRACs), building
up State contemporary art collections
(the CNAP), commissioning artists,
flamboyantly defending citizen rights (e.g.
}
equality for women and homosexuality)
and voicing confirmed opinions.
Doubtless, this has coloured Lille's recent
evolution. Although perhaps not as much
as Martine Aubry who became Mayor of
Lille in 2001. The mythical Jacques Delors
is her father and supports her unequivocally.
As Minister for Labour, she spearheaded
social programmes and is considered ‘soft
with the weak, hard on the powerful’.(1)
This is in line with a sturdy socialist
tradition, Lille being the first city in France
to be led by a socialist, Gustave Delory
(1896). It also has long adopted culture as
a constructive means of socio-economic
Like big fish determined to build themselves a big pond, the Lille elect sought to
maintain and expand on this injection of
funds, goodwill and energy. The group
lille3000 was formed, Martine Aubry
as President, with the explicit aim of
embracing the future with enthusiastic
avant-gardism. Caroline David, the Visual
Arts Director, champions the cause with
verve and dexterity. As a curator, she
worked nearly ten years at the Centre
Georges Pompidou, Paris, and then, since
1990, at the Jeu de Paume, Paris.
So Bombay took over Lille for three
months in 2006 with open air parties,
installations (Subodh Gupta's God
Hungry), illuminations, elephants, poster
artists of Bombay, 1500 Bollywood
dancers, and an exhibition Le Troisième
Oeil, including 35 artists producing a
mixture of Le Corbusier, Bangalore,
Brick Lane, spirituality, kitsch imagery
and Indian popular art. Or the 2007
exhibition, Passage du Temps, of works
from François Pinault's collection of
contemporary art bigshots. The venue,
the Tri Postal, runs along Lille Flanders
Railway Station and used to be where the
post was sorted. It is a long, uncluttered
www.state-media.com STATE 06
| 19
P EUROSTATE
FOURTHESTATE
BOOKS YOU JUST HAVE TO READ
Edited by MIKE VON JOEL
1
1
5 Henry Darger 20 At Jennie Richee...
Date unknown. Photo: Thierry Bezos
20 |
SECRET DESIRES
Metropole Museum, Lille Extension by Manuelle Gautrand Architecture Photo: Colomba d'Apolito
‘Lille’s Metropole
Museum of modern art,
contemporary art, art
brut and landscaped
sculpture park – let's
call it LaM – re-opened
in September 2010
having acquired an
intelligent extension
designed by
Manuelle Gautrand.’
STATE 06 www.state-media.com
building offering 6,000m2 of exhibition
space on three floors, so that large works
such as 2,000m2 worth of illuminations by
Dan Flavin can be shown correctly. A
selection of Oriental Art works from the
Saatchi Collection followed suit, La Route
de la Soie, in 2010.
And in praise of the opening up of
Eastern Europe, Europe XXL promoted
the joys of life available in Berlin, the
Baltic States, Istanbul, Poland, Budapest,
Kazakhstan... much of it hors les murs
with La Fura dels Baus (Aerial Ball)
performing in the skies, alongside trapeze
artistry by Transe Express and the voices
of 1,000 choir singers.
Last year, Collector, presented works from
the Centre national des arts plastiques
(CNAP), curated by Sebastien Faucon.
This is the State's collection of contemporary
art bought and commissioned over the last
40 years. The determining eye behind the
exhibition has snooked accessibility over
contemplation, with exhibits vying playfully
with each other and the visitor. So the
exhibition was fun to visit even if the
cleverness is pretty skin deep, since a joke
is an epigram on the death of a feeling,
according to Friedrich Nietzsche. And then
there are exhibits that sloganise. I'd prefer
RubiCane (Ian Bruce) Zip Pencil on paper
John Giorno's Life is a Killer to read Life
is the Killer because then it could be a
momento mori rather than a sly complaint.
Nannucci's reminder to Listen to Your Eyes
works much better. For 2012, lille3000
urge us to take a walk ‘on the strange side
of the real’, beginning with the opening
parade of Fantastic on 6 October.
Lille’s Metropole Museum of modern art,
contemporary art, art brut and landscaped
sculpture park – let's call it LaM –
re-opened in September 2010 having
acquired an intelligent extension designed
by Manuelle Gautrand. Architecture that
provides a poetic contrast to the listed
original brick building by Roland Simounet.
The LaM has three collections. The
modern art collection is based on the gift
of Jean and Geneviève Masurel and is
remarkably representative of the artistic
movements in the first half of 20th century
France. It includes fine examples of
Cubism, a few trademark Modiglianis and
Leger's more abstract works, an unusual
painting by Miró; and the sculpture, Verre
et bouteille by Laurens is a compact joy to
behold for its witty planes and perspectives.
The contemporary art collection is... well,
quite French. Annette Messager in Faire des
cartes de France has the map of France
made up of soft toy body parts. The title is
the expression used during the Ancien
Regime ‘to evoke the future king's first wet
dreams, and thus his potential to ensure his
future’.(2) Christian Boltanski's work the
Venice Biennale 1938 displays images of the
art works presented at the 1938 Biennale
to disquieting effect. These provide proof
rather than an explanation or judgment,
the visitor is ‘in a situation of ambient
memory’(3). The Dominic Bozo Library is
priceless, home to over 40,000 volumes
donated by, amongst others, Jean and
Geneviève Masurel, Dominique Bozo
(former President of the Centre Pompidou)
and on art brut by Madeleine Lommel and
l'Aracine.
The art brut collection was donated to
LaM by l'Aracine, an association founded
by three enthusiasts who had accumulated
3,500 works. It is a treasure trove of wild
unconsciousness. The artist in art brut is
hors norme – he is clinically mad, he is a
visionary, he is a spiritualist, he overidentifies with God. Basically, he is a very
isolated, caught out in an extreme existence.
Yet he has found a way to express himself
as a means of staying alive. This keeps the
wound open without necessarily mending
it. So art brut can be terrifying to look at.
The repetition, the megalomania, the
rambling, the passionate nonsense – it is
a challenge to the viewer. Why take a
madman seriously? Because he has delved
further into the human condition than
even a Surrealist could imagine?
How then to assess such work devoid
of history and other trusted contexts?
With Henry Darger's work there is an
obsessive quality that is both naive and
inappropriately sexual. Too many little girls
in overly short dresses, identical except for
their hair colour, like a posse of Bopeeps
stranded in fierce nature and – look! –
there's one naked. Maisonneuve's Queen
Victoria is on safer ground. Here is a skilled
tinkerer, and I can see he is not mad, not
locked within a personal hell, because that
mask actually does look like Queen
Victoria. Doesn't it?
NOTES
1) Le Parisien, 17th December 2011.
2) Nicolas Surlapierre, LaM Collections
3) Nicolas Surlapierre, LaM Collections
An artist’s eye on alternative sexuality
T
CROSSING THE RUBICON
I
1
Gerhard Richter Schädel (Skull) 1983 from This Will Have Been...
The Irreversible Cultural Dynamic of the 80’s
N ART TERMS, you might not
readily recollect the 1980’s
– so much has happened
since – but the decade’s
parameters were memorable.
John Lennon was assassinated
in November 1980; and the Berlin
Wall came down in November, 1989.
Politically, it was the decade of the
Regan/Thatcher backlash against
the rebelliousness of Punk and a
conservative paranoia derived from
the AIDS epidemic, first reported in
June 1981. This Will Have Been:
Art, Love, and Politics in the 1980s
re-examines a decade of irreversible
cultural hegemony.
The artists discussed in This Will...
were the first to mature in a social
environment infatuated with
technology. They grew up with
television in the home; witnessed
the advent of personal computers,
portable music devices, video
recorders and the power of media
advertising dedicated to one thing:
desire. The widespread schizophrenic
response to the question of personal
identity was addressed across the
culture in a wide variety of (often)
diametrically opposed ways, though
united by an appetite for change.
Dara Birnbaum appropriated
televisual imagery to reconfigure
through the emerging VCR
technology; whilst Leon Golub
would continue with large scale
(unfashionable) figurative painting
studies invigorated by a caustic
subject matter: famously scenes of
torture and abuse by militaristic
types of blindfolded and naked
victims. Keith Haring carried out
undercover painting assaults on the
New York subway; whilst the
Guerrilla Girls enacted a poster
campaign to promote gender
equality in the visual arts.
In the 1980’s, popular culture was
preparing itself to go nuclear and the
glittering prizes were going to be
available to all, not just the select,
and fortunate, few. The fraternal
innocence, that legacy of the late
1960’s art world, suddenly seemed
irrevocably defunct. It was the
decade of the preening show off, the
living works of art that cast Andy
Warhol into the shadows. Leigh
Bowery and his like populated the
alternative club scene; David Bowie
recruited his MTV chorus line from
Blitz. Against this, and as if to
illustrate the aforementioned
schizophrenic cultural impetus,
CalArts was incubating the new
generation of leading painters on
canvas: Eric Fischl combined
traditional concerns with loaded
subject matter and overtly sexual
reference.
This survey – a wide range of
artworks made by nearly one hundred
artists – curated by Helen Molesworth
(with essays by Johanna Burton,
William Horrigan, Elisabeth Lebovici,
Kobena Mercer, Sarah Schulman and
Frazer Ward) reprises the 1980’s and
it is a helter-skelter ride that captures
the energy and optimism of a decade
which ushered in the cataclysmic
eruption of art-money-meltdown that
was to define the Nineties. It is a
bravura performance by Molesworth,
the chief curator at the Institute of
Contemporary Art (ICA) Boston. An
attractive, flexi-cloth-backed format
and funky design by James Goggin &
Scott Reinhard must ensure this book
will itself become a collectors’ item.
THIS WILL HAVE BEEN:
ART, LOVE, AND POLITICS
IN THE 1980S
Helen Molesworth
Yale/MCA Chicago
Fb. 448 pp. 225 col illus. £35
ISBN: 978-0300181104
HROUGHOUT history,
sex has been a subject
that has engrossed
artists and almost all
have produced erotic
works, not necessarily
for public consumption. The debate
over erotic vs. pornographic in art
is a constant one. Whereby those
of a more conservative outlook
unfailingly tend to judge images as
pornographic more readily. Whilst
explicit sex acts in Japanese woodblock art are accepted at face value
(Utamaro, Hokusai, Shuncho,
Kunisada, Kuniyoshi, Kawanabe
etc.) similar works by such as
Fragonard, Courbet, Millet, Bonnard
and Degas are more controversial.
The critic, John Ruskin, is famously
reputed to have destroyed JMW
Turner’s overtly pornographic
drawings, appalled that his hero’s
reputation might be tarnished.
Reversely, some great names in
modern art are indelibly linked
to sexual subject matter with no
adverse effects on their status:
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Egon
Schiele being prime examples.
Young contemporary artists
incorporate sex into their works as
a matter of course, aware that its
shock value is much diminished
thanks to the internet. But
explorations into sexual deviance
(if there is such a thing) are less
apparent. Recently, this has been
examined by Ian Bruce, a young
artist more known for his work as a
portrait painter. In the persona of
RubiCane (an anagram) Bruce has
recorded a personal journey into
alternative sexual practices through
drawing. These have been collected
in a signed, limited edition book,
Souvenir, with invited texts from a
wide variety of authors with something pertinent to say. Having had a
parallel career as a musician, many
of these drawings were done whilst
on tour, executed on postcards and
on the back of hotel stationery.
Henry YP Ho has brilliantly captured
the essence of this transitory ‘note
taking’ in his design concept for the
book, hand-made by Patrick Roe’s
company, The Fine Book Bindery.
Bruce did his degree in Edinburgh
before returning to London’s
Elephant & Castle and the 12-month
adventure of travelling the internet,
armed only with a pencil, searching
for perverse images that had some
personal resonance. ‘The drawings
are question marks’, he says,
‘I asked professionals to write a
text to suggest the answers’. The
Society Club in Soho (a bookshop
and gallery) has exhibited the series
and also distributes the book, not
an easy task given its explicit
nature. It is also available to buy
online from www.foxandsquirrel.com.
Some of the proceeds Bruce will
donate to Tuppy Owens’ Outsiders
Club, an organisation dedicated
to helping disabled people realise
their sexuality and form intimate
relationships.
(info@outsiders.org.uk).
SOUVENIR
RubiCane Private Press
Hb. Large format. 168pp. £80
Limited edition 150 copies.
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