Inside the Art World - Gilbert and George

You can read this article in the December 13 issue of Pi

Gilbert and George are probably two of the most interesting 70 year olds you will probably meet. Seven years ago they held the biggest ever retrospective at the Tate Modern, and they are still creating work even now. Having studied at St Martins university in London many year ago, where they first met, they embarked on one of the most unusual artists careers of the time, claiming themselves to be ‘Living Sculptures’, as, even to his day, they refuse to disassociate themselves from their art.

The White Cube gallery is currently holding talks with significant players in the art world, as a way of opening young people to the different areas of the art world, and I recently got to go to see Tim Marlow in conversation with Gilbert and George. It was eye-opening, interesting and even a little controversial, and I’ve officially decided Gilbert and George are my favourite over 70’s gentlemen.

The most interesting thing about an artist is their quirks, right? Gilbert and George have a lot. They are constantly dressed in matching suits, which they justified by saying “you can always get a table in a restaurant and never get searched at airports”, and they famously don’t have a kitchen, because they don’t want to clutter their minds with unnecessary things. They literally want to focus all their attention onto their art, and for that reason they have dinner at the same restaurant every night. And they have the same thing, because looking at a menu is classed as clutter too.

As the talk initially focused on start ups and beginnings, Gilbert and George explain how mainly their beginnings stemmed from luck and intense advertising of their first show – they used badges, megaphones, sweets, everything they could, to get people to come and visit their first ‘Living Sculptures’ show at the Nigel Greenwood Gallery in 1970, and it worked. From the word go, they decided that they’re motto would be ‘Art for All’, and this becomes exceedingly obvious when we bring their views into consideration.

After letting us know that Darwin was their inspiration due to being so controversial in his time, Marlow wades into the murky area of censorship and wayward themes. “I went to a funeral the other day, and there were 500 people there who were all so happy to have been the ‘elect’ few of God. It’s bad” explained George when talking about religion, “the conceit of religious people is cruel. They believe they are above the law and they only listen to God. I never want to go near a church”. Gilbert and George’s strong views transfer into their work, they believe that having strong subjects like religion, money and sex show that art has meaning behind it, but it is also a sign of the changing times.

“When we were young, money, sex and religion weren’t polite topics. Even in countries like Russia, Chine, Africa, Arab countries, it is still not polite.” Gilbert went on to talk about a pieces of art they recently made called ‘Islam’ and ‘Mosque’, which included slanderous words against Islam, which addressed Arab culture in a western light, and has controversially been on show in Doha recently. These artists problem with art now is that whilst it seems ‘appropriate’ to criticise Christian religion or Judaism or sex, artists steer clear of Islam due to the extreme nature of the religion itself. Understandable, seeing as Gilbert and George are two gay men who live in the East End and have Muslim extremists next door, yet they are brave enough to break through that barrier into the dangerous. “Ban religions”, was their final note on religion.

Other major changes that they have noticed in the art world are both the size and the fame - “In the late 60’s and early 70’s, the art world was the tiniest thing in the world. Paris, New York, London, they barely had any galleries and everyone knew each other. The only artists people knew were long dead. Now everyone knows the name of a living artist.” It is true that the art world has exploded massively in the last 50 years, becoming a big economic player, and it has affected their work too. The advance in technologies used in art, and the increase in gallery spaces has had a massive effect, opening their world up to greater audiences and allowing them to ‘do anything’.

Having lived and worked together for so long, Marlow asks them if they ever argue. “The whole world is a battle – stabbings, murders, wars. It’s a painful screaming world” is their justification for not arguing, and it makes sense. All they do is address these issues in their art which must be quite humbling for them – there are such large issues in the world that their simple lives seem quite trivial.

The part of the talk that sums up Gilbert and George to a tee has to be the end. Marlow asks “did you devise any rules for being an artist?” The answer seemed to be YES when they started reeling off rules such as ‘always be smartly dressed and polite’, ‘make the world believe in you’, ‘never worry or criticise, stay calm’, ‘make use of sex’, ‘reinvent life’, ‘give something back’, and their final piece of art for all aspiring artists? “Fuck the teachers”. 

HART magazine

If you click here you can see my 'UNITITLED' piece published in the UCL History of Art magazine.

Go to page 11 to see the story :) 

FRIEZE 2013

Frieze is one of the most mentally and physically tiring days of the year, the vastness of this years art fair is extraordinary, with many adjoining parts like the sculpture garden or Frieze projects. It is a challenge in itself to even be able to see all of the art on display, as each gallery space seems to flow into something else and before you know it your systematic ‘I’ll just walk down each row’ mantra is lost.

The great thing about it all is crazy things you see – ranging from a giant fried egg on the floor to a video following around a porn star, you’d think it’d be quite easy to be shocked, but being in there for more than 3 minutes seems to desensitise you to the completely random content. Yes, you can say that the whole fair is just a money grabbing institution and you’re probably not wrong, some of the pieces were extortionately priced, having heard one gallery tell a woman that the spray-painted mattress on the wall was £20,000. But that was just the small one. Jeff Koons’ pieces offer the capitalist view of art too, drawing the most attention at the whole fair and costing an unknown price.

Another thing to consider is that contemporary art is extremely hit and miss with almost everyone. I am almost sure that there is no one in this world who likes everything that falls under the category of contemporary art. This definitely stands for me, I love huge, colourful canvases that are little more than streaking colours, like Jorge Galindo, Joan Mitchell or Katharina Grosse. I can appreciate other things, and see the value in them, but every time I’d stumble across a colour stained canvas I’d feel a wave of relief.

The sheer volume of galleries there was great too. It’s nice to see the work that they have picked from their collections and the way they’ve displayed them too – White Cube obviously offered us a great amount of Young British Artists like Emin and Hirst, with Hirst’s work having it’s own little body guard, and I wouldn’t expect anything less from White Cube, who’s collection seem to echo London’s love contemporary, revolutionary art. Other galleries fought to put as much stuff in their space as possible, making me nervous of knocking over something very expensive, and others simply chose one thing, like the Lisson Galleries large, spiralling, glass corridor.

Frieze is SO worth going to, I can’t wait to go again next year, and I also would love to go to Frieze Masters. Maybe I could get a press pass.

Michael Landy – Saints Alive

An extremely loud exhibition to say the least, Michael Landy’s saint inspired work is something different, and in some aspects, refreshing. The main aspect of the exhibition is undoubtedly the large scale, mechanical sculptures of saints, and this generally what draws the crowd and gets the most attention, despite a frequent amount of ‘Out of Order’ signs being stuck up everywhere.

Underneath all noise and clamour of the sculptures however is the thought process behind them all, and the collage like sketches of his designs. Thin, complex fine liner drawings are framed and displayed, showing the initial brain wave for the designs, with notes written under certain figures, and aspects drawn from different angles and in different places, and these are actually the most interesting thing in the room if really looked at and considered properly. The larger and glossier final products are obviously equally as impressive, but don’t seem to have that personal edge that the smaller drawings have.

Having a contrast between the duller, more neutral toned saints that have been copied and printed again for this work, against the colourful, crayoned wheels and cogs that Landy brings to the pieces is so inviting – it feels like he is taking something that a lot of people can neglect and look over and bringing it to our attention. It is undeniable that to an untrained eye, the National Gallery can hold some very similar looking paintings, but Landy brings them to us in a refreshing new light, highlighting interesting information that are related to the saints, like how Saint Apollonia was tortured by having her teeth pulled out, or Saint Lawerence was roasted on a griddle.

Unfortunately some of Landy’s works are hard to appreciate due to the sheer height of the walls and the way the pictures have been presented. Having picture above picture above picture saved room on space but allowed us to lose sight of them, along with how brightly lit the room is reflecting garishly off the glass, making it even harder. Putting a detailed fine liner drawing at the top of the room was obviously not the best curatorial decision I’d seen before.

Despite the unflattering curation of the exhibition, it is insightful and extremely relevant to the National Gallery itself, whilst also being educational to those who don’t know a lot of saints (understandably). Landy has created something entertaining out of something unappreciated, and hopefully allowed other people to appreciate it more now.

Running until the 24 November 2013

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Facing the Modern - The Portrait in Vienna 1900

The National Gallery is currently holding an exhibition focusing on the modernisation of art trhough the portrait during the 20^th century in the turbulent city of Vienna, consisting of art from artists such as Kilmt, Schiele and Kokoschka among many others. It is an insightful view into these leading artists lives, and into the progression of artists mediums and movements in Vienna during the late 19^th century.

Curated by Gemma Blackshaw, the exhibition is split into rooms that are centred on themes, such as children, self-portraiture, middle class and the more morbid (but always present) theme of death. Whilst this way of curating gives the viewer the chance to appreciate a collection of similar artworks, it’s not necessarily the best way to present an exhibition that’s main focus is modernisation. Each room has a mix of art ranging from the mid-19^th century to the early 20^th, and the range of styles during this time makes the title of the exhibition feel insignificant.

Room one gives off a very stately home vibe, with the magnolia coloured walls seeming very old fashioned along with the plain and orthodox individually lit portraiture, setting the initial scene for modernisation to grow from. The contrast between this room and the adjoining room two is striking, as room two is plain, brighter and much more modern, and the first image seen is a brightly, thickly painted Oskar Kokoschka painting, ‘Hans Tietze and Erica Tietze-Conrat’, setting us up for a refreshing modernist change, which unfortunately seems to stagnate and stay similar throughout the rest of the rooms.

The individual style of each artist also isn’t taken into consideration when curating this exhibition; I found that some works that were both made within the same time period offered me completely different appearances, one seeming to fit in with the classical side of Viennese art and others that looked almost figurative, like Schiele’s passionate, impasto based works. The whole of Vienna wasn’t modernised, but certain artists techniques were, and to say that Vienna itself was modernising is wrong too – the wall readings (which were actually very good and informative and gave a lot of context to the paintings) showed how criticised Kokoschka’s work was at the time, somewhat ironically as his work seemed to be the most commissioned of any of the artists shown, and the main artist that showed a development in techniques. 

Most of the artists shown seemed to have a defining style from the start than actually ‘modernise’ themselves, the only notable changing artist seemed to be Klimt, who starts as a conventional and classical portrait artists but ventures into more colourful and experimental ground. His half-finished portrait of Ria Munk is the first thing you see when you enter the 'death' themed room, and it’s colorful yet sad beauty is the highlight of the exhibition.

The room where the aforementioned painting hangs is the most moving part of the exhibition, showing the death masks of both Klimt and Schiele in the center of the darkly painted and dimly lit room. The wall readings are the most powerful here, giving you intense information about the high suicide rate of Jewish people, the Spanish flu epidemic which took both Schiele and his wife, and the political uncertainty of the city.

Although the exhibition seems to have a wavering focus on modernisation, it always seems to be this way with large scale exhibitions that aren’t focused on one, or a few, artists individually. Sometimes artists get lost, themes become difficult to compose and movements and artists don’t get the individual appreciation they deserve. Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka are undeniably the stars of the show, if only for following the theme of the title the best.

 

Running from the 9 October – 12 January 2014 at the National Gallery, London
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Banksy in NYC

I am currently LOVING Banksy's residency in New York. The fact that he's using the whole city to show his work is great, as there are so many aspects of New York that can be played with. The best thing about it all is I don't even have to be there to enjoy it, as his website is updated daily.

Banksy is probably one of the most engaging artists of the time - he enjoys to see the reactions by people to his work, he even has put phone numbers on some of his works for people to ring and learn more, however these 'audio tours' are normally sarcastic and almost pointing fun at people who read into artwork too much. Banksy's work is so refreshingly comedic when addressing the big issues, take animal cruelty and slaughter - instead of making an extremely moving piece of work, he puts stuffed animals in a van and sends them around New York, making their little squeaky noises (which I did particularly find a bit distressing). This resonates with people for longer as its amusing and engaging, yet still addressing the issue.

Seven Days in the Art World - Sarah Thornton

As much as I love going to art galleries and museums, sometimes I don't have the time and I feel like I'm failing as an art blogger because I'm absent most the time, so I've decided to do an art BOOK review! Exciting!

I read this book a couple of months ago and I really enjoyed it, it gives so many insights into the art world and opened my eyes to different roles. As I want to work in the art world, but have no idea which section I want to be in, it really helped.

Sections included art fairs, biennials, artists, magazines, auctions, student art crits, among others - Thornton uses real names all the way through so I became introduced to big names in various sectors of the industry, and how each part works and all the effort and stress that goes into the industry.

This book actually really inspired me to make sure I keep trying to get into the art industry because there are so many roles that need to be played - even the thought of working in an auction house seems really appealing after reading the first chapter of the book. The sheer amount of information that Thornton gives is outstanding, it's definitely a book that can be read by a newbie to art or an experienced member of the art world. I would recommend it to anyone that is studying art, history of art, or looking to get into the art world!

Banksy shooting down Dumbo

I love Banksy 

Sarah Lucas SITUATION @ Whitechapel

To read this on the PI MEDIA website click here

Whitechapel are currently holding Lucas’ first solo exhibition, which may come as a surprise to those who know their modern art – Sarah Lucas was a championing figure in the YBA’s, with Damien Hirst calling her the ‘best’ of them all. So where has she been? From the look of the exhibition, SITUATION, she’s been busy making some pretty explicit looking fruit and veg.

Anyone that knows Lucas’ art is aware of the explicit, too the point, nature of her work, whether this be a ham wearing some knickers and leaking its juices into a stained old mattress, or even the famous table with 2 lemons and a kebab on. Lucas’ ability to turn food and general inanimate objects into something sexual is something of a talent, and it does have to be said that the first room of the exhibition is extremely erotically charged. The whole back wall is wallpapered the tips of penises, very uncomfortable for those who aren’t sexually comfortable about giant penises staring out at them.

Regardless of the content we all knew would be in abundance, the exhibition itself is just quite awkward. It’s a tangled mess of objects that don’t really interlink very well, I found myself having to do 2 laps of the room to take in the majority of the art works whilst snaking in and out of tables, mattresses, chairs, toilet bowls and plinths, which made the whole exhibition a bit too much to take in at first. The messy-ness of the room stressed me out a bit, however the upstairs layout is much easier and calmer.

Absolute Beach Man Rubble is the name of her second exhibition room upstairs and the first thing I notice about the exhibition was the neutral, tamer colouring. Whilst SITUATION gave off a general fleshy pink vibe, the second room was more like beach, with space to move around and enjoy the golden, distorted Henry Moore-esque sculptures. Her style seemed to have developed into less of an explosive, random expression of sexuality to a move civilised, tamer reflection on society – big framed pictures of herself made from cigarette butts are hung from the walls, and her new sculptures reflect the light in a way that make it hard to look away. But when you do look away you’ll see a giant penis crushing a car. So maybe she hasn’t changed that much.

The thing with Sarah Lucas is she takes things that we see every day and turns them into something new, something erotically charged, and we’re not sure how to take it. Who would have known placing a couple of melons and oranges, a cucumber and a bucket would resonate sexually with me. Maybe she’s letting us know how dirty minded we all are.  

Au Naturel, 1994, Copyright the Sarah Lucas, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ

UNITITLED : A Short Exploration of Namelessness

Where would we be without names? How would we refer to places or people or objects? Life would be a lot harder and disconnected if we didn’t have names, however this is a reoccurring trend within the art world. Modern and contemporary art is littered with ‘Untitled’s, some artists even have Untitled 2, 4, 46 in their collections. This disconnection to their paintings is an unsettling show of the mass productivity of art, leading us to question whether or not art still carries the same passion and meaning as before.

When my parents named me, they put a lot of thought into it. Baby books where poured over, relative names were debated, and when they finally chose my name is seemed right. My mum had just spent 9 months making me and it seemed right that she gave me a name she loved. If this was not the case however, and my parents didn’t give me a name, they’d surely at least refer to me through some sort of characteristic – girl? Baby? Noisy? When you think of artists, you have a stereotypical image of someone who is undeniably passionate about their art work, puts their life and soul into everything they create, yet how can they call their work…nothing. Untitled. Every time I see an ‘Untitled’ in a gallery my heart sinks. Poor painting.

For artists now there are a few problems that bring around the need for a nameless artwork. The first of these problems is the mass production of artworks by famous artists, so much so that the paintings are repetitive and almost identical to one another. Think Mark Rothko, unquestionably a very talented artist who had his own distinct style, and since his fame everyone wanted a Rothko hanging in their house. But there are only so many Rothko’s in circulation, and when people are paying an average of $41,000 for a piece of the action, Untitled seems to be the fall back for art that has an infinite amount of brothers and sisters and is being produced to demand. The art market has reached an ever increasing peak, with fine art sales reaching $7 billion in 2012, so its unsurprising that artists would like to create as much art pieces as they can. Whilst his art is worth lots of money, we can’t purely pin point the reason for his untitled works on this. Rothko’s extensive use of vibrant colours were symbolic of religious and political experiences and through the colour he wanted the viewers themselves to feel emotions and take away their own experiences without being told what to feel. Rothko used his own opinions and emotions as his inspiration for colour, but left us to feel something of our own.

Another problem facing new art’s possibility of a name is, widely speaking, the sheer randomness of what we today can count as art. You only have to stumble into the minimalist section of the Tate Modern to come face to face with a room full of ambiguously unnamed art works. Robert Morris, Larry Bell and Donald Judd (among many others) give their work the ever so uncreative name of ‘Untitled’ – where has modern creativity gone? These artists are creating piece of art that sit in world class galleries like the Tate and the MoMa but they are so unidentifiable by name, making the viewer question if these objects had any inspiration behind them, or what the ‘meaning’ of art actually is. There are so many people in this world who look at art and say ‘that’s not art’, and for people like this a name would help them identify with a piece of art and be able to take away an intended message. Minimalism however has always had a trend of naming (or not naming) works Untitled. The lack of defining word given to the art work is to open up the experience of viewing this work to the public and let them understand how they feel best. By giving a piece of art a name in reference to a political, religious or social group or movement, the artists closes the piece of art off to other members of society.

Whilst a name of a painting offers a kind of completion to a piece of work and is indisputably a powerful tool of influence on the viewer, nameless work opens itself up to the audience and makes art broader and accessible to people of all races, religions and languages.

The Strength and Vulnerability Bunker

The Southbank Centre is currently holding the annual Koestler Trust exhibition ‘The Strength and Vulnerability Bunker’, showing art by offenders, secure patients and detainees, giving an insight into the personal feelings, regrets and hopes of people in secure settings. The Koestler Trust was set up in 1962 by Arthur Koestler, who was jailed three times for political reasons – the trust was created to encourage prisoners to occupy their mind whilst building something positive out of their situation. Re-offending affects us all, and the trust was set up as a way to show offenders that they have something special and can improve their lives from it.

A stereotypical view of the art world would be one of leisure – artists creating art, wealthy people buying and displaying art, the public viewing art in galleries, the study of art history or fine art – all very pleasant and leisurely appreciations of art. However, since the mid 20^th century art has been cultivated to be used as a therapy for those with mental health issues or behavioural problems, or a way to build something positive out of jail life, and this therapy has proven to be incredibly useful when lowering depression and anxiety in the mentally ill, as well as helping us understand offenders in jails. A lot of speculation as to the effectiveness of art therapy is understandable – issues aren’t spoken about or built on in the traditional sense, yet it is used as a tool to express emotions with more accuracy than speaking can provide for certain people.

The exhibition space and work shown were chosen and curated by Speech Debelle, and the set up of the space itself is very impressive – the area is split into three different sections, the bright yellow and frenetic ‘Strength’ area which leads into the dimmer and more ominous ‘Vulnerability’ section, which then leads into the beige coloured, calmer part to represent the calm after the storm. The Strength section shows works of passion and hardship, some of them are uncomfortable to see and hold a lot of emotion, one video in particular from a mental health patient called ‘Tears on my Pillow’ includes a lot of loud wailing that echos throught the exhibition hall, which is almost disturbing, yet adds to the general feel of the bunker.

Emotions run high in the art work, and they are a startling insight into the lives and feelings of the people who have produced them, and personally I felt a great amount of sympathy for them, despite the fact that a lot of these people were offenders and had been jailed for a reason. Ironically, the theme for many of the art works is ‘forgiveness’, and this theme resulted in probably some of the most moving pictures and paintings of families and acceptance – the especially poignant ones are a set of 4 illustrations with titles like ‘How did we fail as parents?’ and ‘Daddy is working away again’, showing that these prisoners are aware of how they are viewed and that they need to address these issues.

Whilst the strength part of the exhibition showed powerful images and work, the vulnerability area moved into deeper and sadder issues of religion, hopelessness and isolation; religion seemed to be a strong theme touched on by a few of the works, a particularly strong one of a man kneeling in front of the first page of a bible whilst the moonlight creates crucifixes on the floor from the window frame. Isolation was prominent too, with paintings of people looking through windows or bars and over fences, which encourages the fact that art is necessary in these environments as a link to the outside world and a stimulating pass time from counting the minutes.

One thing in particular that I noticed in this exhibition is that whilst some of the art is clearly therapeutic, as their art works were basic but emotive, there was also a lot of talent behind others. My favourite piece was a small sculpture that had been made from bars of soap - it is exquisitely made yet addresses that in some prisons there is a lack of resources to allow offenders to cultivate art therapy. There are pieces of art made from such a wide variation of materials including blue bin bags, bread and PVA glue, chicken bones and bottle tops. However, we have to remember that physical art isn’t the only art available as a therapy, and the written word can be just as powerful. Poetry and written work were amongst the 7,300 entries that were submitted to the competition this year, and the way these have been incorporated in the exhibition is clever and striking – poems are painted on walls, looking almost reminiscent of a jail cell wall, or extracts of poems and stories are hung from ceilings. These written words are equally demonstrative of the emotions of prisoners and its clear that writing can be a release for people who find it hard to verbally open up to therapists.

The problem people may have with this exhibition is the haphazardness of the art works – some seem professionally done, some seem amateur, some are sculptures, videos, sounds, poems, paintings. It’s hard to take in so much at once, especially when there is no flowing theme between them, but if you take your time and appreciate the message and emotions behind each one there is definitely something you can take away from the exhibition. To me, this exhibition is a great show of what art therapy can produce, and the affects it can have on people who need it – by the end of the exhibition I felt like I had a deeper knowledge of emotions that I hadn’t even felt before, and I think this will resonate with me for a long time.

‘The Strength and Vulnerability Bunker’ showing until 1 December 2013 at Soutbank Centre