[andy popp]

I'd really like to see that.

[SA Chris]

Me too. Private Dancer is a great album.

[tomtom]

Me too. Private Dancer is a great album.

Very funny Chris - you're simply the best.

[SA Chris]

Please don't make out that I'm all that great, we don't need another hero.

[Dr T]

A commercial gallery rather than a public one but if anyone here is a fan of street inspired art - affordable too - it might be worth popping by a little place called art schism if you're down south Brighton way.
Mrs T and myself are fans and have been parted with cash there - as has Jr T who spent his Christmas money on a crochet monster!

[andy popp]

I'm incredibly excited for 'Rembrandt: The Final Years' that will be opening at the National in October - I will definitely be making the effort to get down to London for this one.

[fried]

Sadly, I won't get to see this. Highly recommended if you like that sort of thing. I saw his 'Monumenta' exhibition a good few year's back, I'd been a fanfor year, but the first time seeing the works for real was 'wow' moment.

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/anselm-kiefer

[SA Chris]

http://artofthebrick.co.uk/the-exhibition

I'd love to go see this. The kids might like it too.

[tomtom]

Mondrian at the Tate Liverpool is smallish but very good...

Matisse at Tate Modern (London) is superb - their most popular exhibition to date and well deserved.

Both are very good as they reveal alot about the life and modus operandi of both artists. Piet Mondrian with his OCD style room / apartment of squares of colour - his paintings were almost more part of a larger work of art rather than individuals. in particular his early work where he was insipired by a half falled down building opposite his window show how his blocks of colour evolved from his early cubist ideas... Matisse is fascinating in how they are all made of small cuts of paper (initially) pinned on the wall. There is a fascinating video on loop of an old Matisse ordering his young assistant as to where to place the cuts of paper with a stick...

Thats it for me art wise... Anyone here been to the Hepworth in Wakefield? Worth a look?

[andy popp]

I must see the Mondrian before it closes.

I totally stumbled on a small but really wonderful Whistler exhibition currently on at the Bluecoats (Liverpool) - more than worth an hour of anyone's time, and its free (not sure how much longer its open).

[Sloper]

A small but balanced exhibition of Bacon & Freud at Manchester at the moment, well worth a visit.

[andy popp]

Sounds wonderful - is that at the central gallery?

[Sloper]

Yes.

[andy popp]

Falling Down and I went to the 'Rembrandt: The Late Works' show at the National Gallery yesterday. Just astounding; powerful, humane, moving - the best exhibition I've ever seen. If you get a chance, go. It's open until Jan 15th.

[Falling Down]

Yes, if anyone's in London and interested in art, you would really enjoy it.  It's really quite something.

[Rocksteady]

Falling Down and I went to the 'Rembrandt: The Late Works' show at the National Gallery yesterday. Just astounding; powerful, humane, moving - the best exhibition I've ever seen. If you get a chance, go. It's open until Jan 15th.

I went with the missus to Rembrandt on Sunday. I thought it was one of the best curated exhibitions I'd been to in ages. Brilliant, so glad I caught it.

On the flipside, went to see the Ming Exhibition in the British Museum on Friday. I thought this was poorly curated. The exhibits were beautiful but the way they'd been laid out meant that the enormous crowds obscured the view of most of them unless you waited ages (by which time they began to seem underwhelming). I also found the exhibition pretty 'dumbed down'. It just dropped tantalising little bits of information and went no further, so you were really left with more questions than answers. It didn't really fill in the gaps with what (little) I know about Chinese history. Most of the information was crammed into a 2 minute video at the start. Maybe it was all in the e-guide thing they flog you for an extra few quid (which I hate as I like to take the exhibition at my own pace rather than waiting for the audio).
I thought the Viking exhibition at the British museum earlier in the year was also a bit poor. It's something I know a little more about having studied Viking literature a bit at Uni and thought they missed out some of the key figures of the age. I guess it's inevitable that you make choices about what to show, but they only made one passing oblique reference to Snorri Sturluson, whose Poetic Edda and Prose Edda were the sources of much of the information they'd displayed elsewhere and much of the information we know at all about Viking culture. Just seemed a particularly glaring omission to me.
 

[Falling Down]

Went to the RA today for the Abstract Expressionism exhibition. Wow. The big beasts Rothko, Pollock & De Kooning alongside the equally as good but less well known Clyfford Still, Adolph Gottlieb and Arshile Gorky. All alongside one another in the UK for the first time in 60 years.  It's really amazing.  BBC review here  Go if you can.   

[jfdm]

Agreed went the other week, the chief curator David Anfam gave a talk about the art in the exhibition. Some great things to see and experience in the flesh, especially if you are a painter.

I would ignore any negative reviews, I enjoyed it and would love to go back and see it again.

But I have two thoughts, not about the exhibition but the movement itself.
Do you think the abstract experionists would be famous if they were not American?
Secondly the murky role the CIA played in helping this movement grow.
Anfam from what I remember didn't say much about these two questions.

[Falling Down]

Agreed went the other week, the chief curator David Anfam gave a talk about the art in the exhibition. Some great things to see and experience in the flesh, especially if you are a painter.

I would ignore any negative reviews, I enjoyed it and would love to go back and see it again.

But I have two thoughts, not about the exhibition but the movement itself.
Do you think the abstract experionists would be famous if they were not American?
Secondly the murky role the CIA played in helping this movement grow.
Anfam from what I remember didn't say much about these two questions.

Great post jfdm (This is why I love UKB) I'm guessing that you're a painter.  I bet the talk was brilliant.

Answer to Q1 - Yeah I do think these works would stand up as great works of art and the painters would be famous even if they weren't American.  They were deeply connected to European art and the opening exhibits tie them directly to Cubism, Surrealism and what was going on in Europe.  Guernica (the painting) and the Spanish Civil War are obviously a huge influence, probably even more so than WWII. Motherwell's entire works on Spain are a great example alongside the subtle influences in De Kooning's (he was Dutch mind) Woman series as an exploration of what Picasso was doing.

When we were walking up to the RA I said to my GF that I really love this stuff as it's like Jazz and Minimalist music expressed in a visual form and there was really close connection between Europe and America in the 50's and 60's in all forms of art, literature and music.  There was a real creative period during the post-war period in the US across all art forms.

That said, the second question is really interesting one.

Answer to Q2 - I'm really surprised that Anfam dodged this or didn't talk about it.  It's one of the more interesting back stories to the whole movement.  The artists themselves were oblivious to where the funding was coming from and the CIA had a very long leash when it came to providing money and had a very hands-off policy to any influence of what was being done and who was doing it.  There's a great article on it all here from the Independent twenty years ago.

I'm still buzzing from the Rothko's, the massive Pollock and all the Still's.  Amazing stuff.  Will probably go back.

[andy popp]

They are great questions! And they are deeply intertwined - CIA promotion was undoubtedly influential and took part has the whole balance of the world, the centre of gravity - political, economic and cultural - finally and definitely shifted from the old world to the new. The 1950s and 1960s were the very high point of the American century and cultural exports were almost as important to cementing as other more tangible exports. Abstract expressionism, alongside Jazz, was probably the first artistic movement the US could claim as wholly its own.

But I don't think that diminishes the work - standing in front of Rothko's Four Seasons murals has to be one of the most powerful cultural experiences I've had. They came to Liverpool twice in the time I was there and the first time I saw them was astonishing.

I'm jealous!

[T_B]

This has got me psyched to get down to London. The Rothko exhibition at the Tate (2009?) was one of the most mind blowing things I've ever seen.

[jfdm]

Thanks Andy and Falling Down for these insights regarding the Abstract Expressionist artists. And finding the time to reply to my questions.
The exhibition was the best thing I have seen in a good number of years.
Regarding the CIA had a quick flick through the catalogue.
No real mention of the link so can't have been that important.

Came across this article regarding gallery/museum numbers falling.
In particular school visits dropping quite drastically.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/feb/02/british-museums-art-galleries-hit-by-2m-fall-visitors

As an art teacher I know the ball ache that goes along trips.
But still find it incredible that last year there were nearly 2 million fewer visitors.
Maybe galleries/teachers should be doing more?
Or is it the case that we are doing something wrong.

On a positive note Art History ALevel is back on the cards.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/dec/01/art-history-a-level-saved-from-being-axed-after-high-profile-campaign

[tomtom]

Given the recent economic figures it seems like we're spending more time in the shops instead :-/

[cjsheps]

I really enjoyed the Warhol exhibition at the Whitworth Gallery (Manchester). I ended up re imagining Warhol not just as a pop-art money-maker, but as a darkly satirical artist. Some of his self-portrait prints in particular were almost a bit disturbing. 

[moose]

I really enjoyed the Warhol exhibition at the Whitworth Gallery (Manchester). I ended up re imagining Warhol not just as a pop-art money-maker, but as a darkly satirical artist. Some of his self-portrait prints in particular were almost a bit disturbing.

I had the same experiencce when I visited MOMO in San Francisco (and later, a Tate Modern exhibition).  I had become desensitised to Warhol (15 minutes of fame... blah, blah, blah) but when I saw his works at full size and "in the flesh" I found them quite eerie (strange how creedly a lifesize cut-out of Elvis can be!). 

For me though the most extreme contrast of reaction between seeing the reproduction and the original was the Rothko Seagram murals.  Although, I suspect fore-knowledge of their history was critical to my reaction.  Rothko was commisssioned to paint them for the Four Seasons restaurant in  New York but then became agonised and returned his advance due to misgivings about decorating an expensive restaurant where the patrons would spend “obscene amounts of money” and pay no attention to his work. Rothko supposedly said “I accepted this assignment with strictly malicious intentions. I hope to ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who ever eats in that room.”  He held back the murals and they were dispersed around the world.  I saw an exhibition of them at the Tate and it was a transendentally gloomy experience.