Wolverhampton Art Gallery

Went up to Wolverhampton to see the Art Gallery there for the first time. It was a bit 'between shows'. Andy Warhol Paintings, Posters and Screenprint exhibition starts later this month and was in preparation. Another gallery was closed for some reason, so there was nothing in any of the lower galleries. I seem to have a knack of visiting galleries between shows - my most famous trip was to New York specifically to visit MOMA to find it was in the middle of refurbishment and closed for the duration. I know, I should look these things up before I start out on the big adventure.

The upper floor had a hands-on sculpture exhibition that was crawling with school children making the most of the sign that said all exhibits can be touched! After fighting my way out of the melee, I found the Utmost Fidelity exhibition featuring the work of husband and wife artists Adrian and Marianne Stokes. The Madonna and Child (1907-8) by Marianne Stokes (above) is famous for having been chosen as Christmas postage stamp in 2005. I particularly liked the fact that they had no children, a private income and were able to travel widely. My own 'lead weights' keep me busy and poor! However, envy apart, I enjoyed a lot of the work - more Marianne's for the luminosity of her subjects and the gorgeous costumes and colours- many were Hungarian villagers from the area they stayed on their painting travels and looked as fresh as if they were painted yesterday. It is a portrayal of an idyllic world, rosy-cheeked children, young women sewing their wedding outfits but the quality of the work speaks for itself and it all felt a refreshing change from the surfeit of gloom-laden, hand-wringing, politically correct and on-message exhibitions that are de-rigeur at the moment. Some days you just feel grateful to rise above the misery.

I would have liked an exhibition book but the £35 hardback in the shop was prohibitive.

Too Much Art?

"Art does not die because there is no more art, it dies because there is too much". Jean Baudrillard

An interesting and probably increasingly important question - no, not because I just asked it but because I wonder about my place as an artist and where all this self-expression is leading me/us? I believe art is a power for good in a social context, life enhancing, embracing, worthwhile for society and should be valued as such. Without the 'arts' we lose the the best that we can achieve as a civilised society.

The article (link below for full text) by Matthew Nash is I think, as relevant to students and artists in the UK as anywhere else. The making of art may well be deeply satisfying but often a frustratingly lengthy process from concept to fruition and artists like everyone else need to survive, have bills to pay and student loans to think about and that is increasingly difficult in a saturated market.

James Elkins states:

Art department fliers... usually list the famous artists who studied in their department or school. It might be more honest and thought-provoking to go ahead and list famous graduates in the college brochure, but to preface the list with a disclaimer - something like this:

Although these artists did study at our school, we deny any responsibility for their success. We have no idea what they learned while they were here, what they thought was important and what wasn't, or whether they would have been better off in jail. We consider it luck that these artists were at our school.

In general we disclaim the ability to teach art at this level. We offer knowledge of the art community, the facilities to teach a variety of techniques, and faculty who can teach many ways of talking about art. But any relation between what we teach and truly interesting art is purely coincidental. Such a flier might add, in the interests of full disclosure:
We will not discuss this disclaimer on school time, because our courses are set up on the assumption that it is false.

James Elkins is a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago

I dropped in to see the Waterhall Modern Art Gallery in Birmingham yesterday on the way back from Ikon. It all seemed a bit disconnected. Some of the work was very good and some not so good. The comments left by visitors echoed this impression. It all seemed a bit hit and miss in a major city gallery. The Art Market is a big puzzle to me!


http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/retrieve.pl?issue=issue48&section=article&article=IS_THERE_TOO_4175731

Review - Ikon Gallery, Birmingham

There are two Ikon Galleries but one is closed until the Spring. A good excuse for a further trip.

I thought New Zealand Artist Darcy Lange's exhibition of 'Work Studies in Schools' was going to leave me cold. A room full of school desks with video screens showing a picture of school life in Birmingham of the 1970's with recordings of lessons and feedback from pupils and staff. His studies of Oxfordshire schools (1977) compared art, history and science teaching in private and state schools.

However, as soon as I sat at one of the desks and put the headphones on I was hooked on many levels and enjoyed flitting between desks to catch the next class and assess whether the member of staff was Mr Nice or Miss Nasty. The link to your own education is obvious and any comparison is made from that social, historical and political opinion. The digitally reworked videos are a great social history of the area and documentary film-making as a genre. It was interesting to see teachers' own opinions or political views being stamped on young minds with the eyes of an adult and the realisation of how much good or damage can be done to our children, often unwittingly but also by design. Fascinating stuff.

The Roumanian artist Victor Man's exhibition 'Attebasile' required a lot more serious reflection and I felt quite lost at first in the stark space containing untitled artefacts, black and white with shades of grey . The paper handout made little sense of the exhibits and I found it annoying trying to match one with the other. The work had a sense of darkness and was embedded in a cultural context that was at first difficult to interpret. Roumanian folk art, politics and fear expressed through lovingly crafted little sculptural pieces. It was helped by the curator-video tucked away at the back and I revisited the work with a different perspective. I couldn't help feeling that I needed to see this work in Victor's house - it was more personal narrative than commercial venture and although the curator was keen to tell us that he had developed a close working relationship with the artist, I left with more questions than answers.

Oh, and there's a nice little Spanish Restarant/Cafe in the gallery.

For information:- http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk/

Review - New Art Gallery Walsall

I visited The New Art Gallery in Walsall recently, which holds a really impressive collection in a great space. Road signage is good and parking in the town is easy (pay & display).

The gallery holds the Garman Ryan Collection - given to Walsall in 1972 by Kathleen Garman, Jacob Epstein's wife. It includes work by Van Gogh, Lucien Freud and Picasso. Until 14th October contemporary artists' work has been added alongside in the 'Fresh Out of the Box '- exhibition with Martin Creed, Christopher Le Brun, Marc Quinn, Gavin Turk, Hew Locke and Catherine Yass, amongst others. The whole exhibition was well-curated and the additions to the standing collection were sensitively placed to enhance but not intrude.

The top floor held an exhibition (until 25th January) of 'Outsiders' art- those artists working outside the mainstream. 'Post-graffiti' art is the description in the gallery guide. Conor Harrington's vast mural work painted onto the gallery wall is monumental in scale and questions the spurious nature of men's power. The transience of the work makes you consider your own attitude to work - why you make it, what you do with it once it is finished, ownership in general and the overblown value of much art in the market today. What happens to it at the end of the exhibition, is it painted over? Street Art is by definition left behind for the public to admire or tut at, depending on your standpoint. Selfish or selfless? And what does it become as it moves into the mainstream and gallery space and no longer 'Outsider'?

(Link below to Conor Harrington website. Try Google search for his blog - it does not appear accessible through his website.)

www.conorharrington.com/

Review - Steffan Jones-Hughes Exhibition

Link below to the review written for a-n artists journal for Steffan's exhibition 'I lie awake at night and listen to the birds singing' at The Oriel Gallery, Wrexham

http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviewers/single/60206