Georgia O’Keeffe, Tate Modern, London (6 July-30 October 2016)

From the Faraway Nearby (1937)

If, like me, you thought you knew what to expect from an exhibition of work by Georgia O’Keeffe (flowers shaped liked vaginas, animal bones and deserts), the first two of the thirteen rooms in Tate Modern’s retrospective of the artist will come as an unexpected surprise and are alone worth the price of the admission.  They concentrate on O’Keeffe’s early mature works, beautiful minimal abstract works which demonstrate how skilful the artist was with handling colour even at the beginning of her career.  The perception of heat emitting from Red and Orange Streak (1919) is simple, yet stunning and contrasted effortlessly against the cool white tones of Abstraction (1921), which is equally sublime. 

Red and Orange Streak (1919)

Abstraction (1921)

Featuring more than 100 works, this is the largest ever exhibition of Georgia O’Keeffe  (1887-1986) held in the United Kingdom.  Regarded as a giant of American 20th-century modernism, with the inclusion of more of her early (and later) work than those “iconic” flower paintings, this show seeks to redress widely held interpretations (from male art critics of the time and then later re-appropriated and celebrated by some feminist artists) that such paintings were depictions of female genitalia, interpretations which the artist always refuted.  The curatorial decision to show more works from the rest of her oeuvre in order to demonstrate that O’Keefe had far more to offer as an artist than this one interpretation, is a clever one and makes this exhibition far more interesting and engaging than I was expecting it to be.  The Cubist-inspired abstract paintings such as Line and Curve (1927) displayed in Room 2 is one of many examples of how O’Keeffe tried to shake of such essentialist views about her work, from the outset of her career. 

 

Top: Line and Curve (1927)  Bottom: Radiator Building Night New York (1927)

Between 1924-1929 O’Keeffe painted quintessential Art Deco views of New York, but for me these appear too stylised and stilted compared to the more organic and free-flowing abstractions of the paintings she made during the same period when she holidayed at Lake George in upstate New York.  With works such as From the Lake No 3 and From the Lake No 1 (both 1924), both O’Keeffe’s brushwork and colour palette are emancipated.

Left: From the Lake No 3 (1924)  Right: From the Lake No 1 (1924)

The artist’s colour palette changed once more, back from warm to cool, when she made her fist extended visit to New Mexico in 1929.  For O’Keeffe the desert landscapes, discarded animal bones and skulls she discovered became her true iconography, and it this body of work which positions her as a foundational figure in the history of American modernism.

What struck me most about this exhibition was not only how strong and capable O’Keeffe’s late work was (something which in my opinion rarely occurs as an artist ages), but also how contemporary these later canvases appear.  Work such as Front of the River – Pale (1959) and It was Blue and Green (1960), painted when the artist was in her seventies, could easily hang among landscapes by emerging artists today and not look remotely out of place.

Left:  Front of the River - Pale (1959)  Right:  Blue and Green (1960)

Georgia O’Keeffe’s career spanned more than seven decades.  The work included in Tate Modern’s exhibition aims to present a view which emphasises the pioneering nature of her career rather than the clichés it has previously attracted.  I think such clichés will always remain, but this exhibition has definitely provided a platform from which to appreciate O’Keeffe with fresh eyes and wider expectations.

Sky Above the Clouds III / Above the Clouds III (1963)

Making & Unmaking, Camden Arts Centre, London (19 June-18 September 2016)

 Making & Unmaking (installation view)

I am a huge fan of textile art, from Ghada Amer’s sexually explicit needlework canvases, Louise Bourgeois’s fabric works and soft sculptures, through to Sarah Lucas’s Bunny and Nuds series.  On reading that Camden Art Centre’s summer exhibition “Making & Unmaking” was to feature a collection of work including painting, tapestries, traditional fabrics and ceramics and with Dorothea Tanning, Wangechi Muti and Sheila Hicks among the sixty artists featured, this was an exhibition which I was determined not to miss.

 Saint Louis (2015), Luis Monteiro

Taking up all three galleries as well as pieces in the central space and garden, “Making & Unmaking” was huge.  From West African textiles, Bauhaus jewellery to contemporary portraiture and sculpture and addressing themes that included portraiture, gender, sexuality, overall the exhibition explored the rituals of making that underpin an artist’s work, rather than being about textile art as a genre.  Curator and fashion designer, Duro Olowu brought his skills from both disciplines and brings together seemingly disparate artists into his eclectic vignettes, with sophisticated aplomb.  This interlacing of ideas, eras and influences (and materials) created a visually rich and stimulating mix.

Personal favourites included Étreinte (1969) by Dorothea Tanning (no surprise there) and Yinka Shonibare’s Butterfly Kid (Boy) II (2015).  I also really enjoyed Luis Monteiro Saint Louis (2015) video.

  

Top: Étreinte (1969), Dorothea Tanning    Bottom:  Butterfly Kid (Boy) II (2015), Yinka Shonibare 

However, as I walked through the galleries I started to wonder if there was too much on display and perhaps, just perhaps, the multitude of materials and textures was a little suffocating.  I found the decision to keep information on each wall of artists/works to one grouping at the end of each, rather than providing a sheet you could walk around with, very frustrating.  I think having to constantly return to one source of information while viewing definitely contributed to the premature arrival of gallery fatigue (along with the intense heat in the galleries themselves), which I haven’t felt for a long time at an exhibition.

Despite this, I would still recommend this exhibition.  Oluwo’s vision and passion have brought together rarely seen work in an ambitious format with surprising juxtapositions, which (labelling and temperature issues aside), Camden Art Centre excels at giving a platform to.

Making & Unmaking (installation view)



Mona Hatoum, Tate Modern, London (4 May-21 August 2016)

Over My Dead Body, 1988

Mona Hatoum was born in 1952 in Beirut.  During a visit to London in 1975, civil war broke out in Lebanon and Hatoum was forced into exile in the UK.  She stayed in London, training at the Byam Shaw School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art between 1975 and 1981.  Themes of confinement, constriction and surveillance re-occur in her work, from early performances to sculpture and large scale installations.  Grids, boxes and crates become cages and cells.  This major retrospective at Tate Modern features examples of all these mediums from her thirty five years of artistic engagement while she has lived and worked in London.

I had very high expectations of this exhibition, having frequently referenced Hatoum’s work when I was studying and then being mesmerised by her mini-retrospective at Parasol Unit in 2008.

Homebound (2000) is a standout piece here.  In fact, it has an  omnipresence throughout the entire exhibition.  The installation consists of a variety of furniture and objects (tables, chairs, cots, toys, kitchen utensils, lights, birdcage) connected to each other with electric wire through which a live current runs.  A barrier of steel wires separates the viewer, but as the objects light up in turn the sound of the whining current surges round the room.  The amplified sound of the electrical current can be heard throughout the exhibition instilling a sense of general foreboding as you walk through the galleries and into room Homebound is installed. 

Homebound, 2000

This sense of foreboding is part of the overall experience of visiting this exhibition.  Light Sentence (1992) is equally disconcerting.  The title is a play on the idea of a lenient prison sentence.  A single light bulb hangs in the middle of a structure made of square wire mesh lockers, stacked to create a three-sided enclosure.  The light bulb moves slowly up and down casting constantly moving shadows in the room, which creates a sense that the room itself is moving.  It is very unnerving (I actually started to feel a little motion sick), but it is also very striking.

Light Sentence, 1992

Hot Spot (2013), is another striking sculpture with an equally menacing message.  Here, the play on words in the title refers to a place of military or civil unrest.  By lighting the whole planet in red neon, Hatoum reflects wide and very contemporary fears.  For me, what makes Mona Hatoum a "must see" contemporary artist whenever she exhibits, is that she has the rare ability to present strong ideas in a sensuous fashion.  Her understanding of how different materials can affect people makes the conceptual side to her work very strong.  

Hot Spot, 2013

This can even be seen in the collection of smaller sculptures, models, samples and source materials contained in the exhibition.  A small selection of brightly coloured hand grenades from Nature Morte aux Grenades (2006-2007) made from Venetian glass and arranged like sweets, both appeal and repel.

Nature Morte aux Grenades, 2006-2007

 

Detail from Interior/Exterior Landscape, 2010

Hatoum's menancing sculptures and installations are driven by political concerns but never shout too loudly to diffuse them of their power.  This combination of her ability to juxtapose materials to their greatest visual impact with dark and unsettling narratives, are still as mesmerising for me as when I first encountered her work.  This exhibition is disturbing, but most definitely not disappointing.

Undercurrent (red), 2008

Cellules, 2012-2013

Mary Heilmann: Looking at Pictures, Whitechapel Gallery, London (8 June-21 August 2016)

L: Crashing Wave (2011)  R: Renny's Right Geometry of a Wave (2011)

In general, I find geometric abstraction difficult to engage with.  From artists such as Mondrian and Malevich through to Riley et al, I usually am pretty much immune to the aesthetics of such paintings.  I prefer brushstrokes to be more animated and expressionistic.  It would seem though, that I am not entirely immune as I was unexpectedly surprised to be drawn to a number of Heilmman’s colourful canvases on display in this exhibition, the first major survey of the artist’s work held in the UK.

Johngiorno (1995) 

           

Ming (1986)

Born in 1940 in San Francisco and still very much active today, the Whitechapel describes Heilmann’s work as a playful approach to abstraction and an amalgamation of her LA beach life, 1960s counter culture and her friendships with artists, musicians and poets of the New York minimalist art scene.  Heilmann graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1962.  After studying poetry and ceramics at San Francisco State University, as well as ceramics and sculpture at University of California at Berkeley, she moved to New York where she began a career as a sculptor.  She began making paintings in the 1970s.  Her work is described as combining elements of abstraction and Conceptual Art with the bright colours, wit, and playfulness of the Pop Art.  Having just visited the Royal Academy’s annual summer and student shows, I can confirm that this is a combination which still continues to influence many art school graduates today.

L: Our Lady of the Flowers (1989)      R: Robert’s Garden (1983)

 

While many of Heilmann’s highly colourful canvases were too dazzling for me, I did find some pieces, such as Ming (1986), Our Lady of the Flowers (1989) and Robert’s Garden (1983), very compelling.  The standout piece for me was Johngiorno (1995).  In this painting, Heilmann’s practice of combining two or more favoured motifs here spots, stripes and webs, form a serene composition with subtle colourful highlights, rather than the usual cacophony of colour.  What also struck me about this exhibition, was how well Heilmann’s ceramic pieces displayed with the canvases, worked so well.  The addition of glazed ceramic dots to the very garish Good Vibrations Diptych, Remembering David (2012), significantly increased its appeal to me.  Perhaps the positioning of such work together was a curatorial device.  If it was, it was a very clever one and much appreciated by this viewer.

L: Piano (1983) [glazed ceramic]  R: Pink Sliding Square (1978)

L: Shadow Cup 2 (1985 [glazed ceramic]   R: Black Cracky (1990)

Another observation that particular struck me about this exhibition, was how confident Heilmann’s most recent work was, and almost indistinguishable from her work from the 1980s when she was considered to be at the height of her artistic powers.  This is a rare occurrence within an artist’s oeuvre, and a refreshing discovery.  The exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery features 45 paintings as well as a selection of ceramics and works on paper.  If you want to escape the gloom of the English weather and/or political climate, a visit to see Heilmann’s colourful paintings are almost guaranteed to raise the gloomiest of spirits.

Good Vibrations Diptych, Remembering David (2012)

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/

Louise Nevelson. Pace Gallery, London (8 June-16 July 2016)

Pace Gallery, 6 Burlington Gardens, London W1S 3ET

When an artist settles upon a muse, mode or material which sustains their work for the rest of his or her career, such inspiration, exploration (and sometime obsession) can either result in a formidable and extraordinary oeuvre which transcends the “isms” of the timeframe within which the work was produced, or become just a motif to constantly return to, re-hash and repeat in an attempt to reclaim the intensity and originality contained in work considered to represent the artist at his or her zenith.  Thankfully, Louise Nevelson’s wooden assemblages made from found objects (such as wine crates, parts of chairs and lengths of wood jutting with nails) she gathered from the streets around her New York studio from the 1950s, falls into the first scenario.

Untitled (late 1970s)

Nevelson’s most iconic installations are those which she painted black, and it is a selection of these which are displayed at the Pace Gallery.  The artist painted her sculptures to obliterate the past histories of the individual pieces which made up an assemblage and unify the work.  Black gave the work a new shadowy, Gothic character.  Nevelson believed that the black paint gave her works an air of greatness and regal enormity.  By divorcing things from their functions she lent them poetry.  A piece such as “Sky Cathedral – Moon Garden + One” (1957-1960)  was Nevelson's sculptural answer to the Abstract Expressionist canvases of the predominantly male artists that commanded the attention of American art during the 1950s.  Nevelson was interested in the sublime and spiritual transcendence. Sky Cathedral, like many of her wall pieces, evokes the sense of a shrine or a place of devotion. The artist wrote that in her art, she sought “the in-between places, the dawns and dusk, the objective world, the heavenly spheres, the places between the land and the sea.”^{((John Gordon, Louise Nevelson (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1967),12)}

 

(Left) Sky Cathedral - Moon Garden + One (1957-1960)

(Right) Maquette for Dawn Shadows (1976-1983)

The sculptures in this exhibition range from small assemblages to free-standing columns and monumental wall-based works.  I found all of them so exquisite, so carefully considered that to see them together as a group for the first time was a delight and demonstrated how much visceral impact can be made when artist, intent and material synergise.  Scrutinising the work up close was just as satisfying and I wished I had taken a sketchbook with me, as I could have been occupied for hours reproducing small areas of interest from the pieces.

Detail from Untitled (late 1970s)

Perhaps it was a curatorial intent to link Nevelson’s darkly metaphysical and contemplative work to colour field painting as the darkly painted gallery walls brought to mind the Rothko room at Tate Modern.  The exhibition does offers a wonderful respite to the usual Mayfair hubbub happening outside and if fact, is far more peaceful than the Rothko room which is usually crammed with tourists taking selfies.  I would highly recommend a visit to this quietly beautiful exhibition, which runs until 16 July.  Textbook reproductions of Nevelson’s work simply cannot compete with experiencing her work in such close proximity.

(Left) Cascades-Perpendiculars II (Night Music) (1980-82)

(Right) Untitled (1973)

Moon-Star Zag XII (1981)

http://www.pacegallery.com/



Performing for the Camera, Tate Modern, London (18 February-12 June 2016)

Unsurprisingly, given that it was covering over a hundred years of artistic activity in the medium, there was a lot of work on display in this exhibition.  With over five hundred images on display, an engaged viewing required a determination both helped and hindered by the gallery rooms at Tate Modern.  It was helped by my visit taking place on the last day of the exhibition, so there were few other visitors.  Progress was hindered though by the malfunctioning (or switched off) air conditioning, resulting in almost oppressive ‘dead’ air which was very, very uncomfortable.  Exploring the relationship between photography and performance from the invention of medium in the nineteenth century through to digital cameras and social media of today, from its very inception, while examining way to push the boundaries of representation within the media, artists have also strove to push the boundaries of the technology available in their time.

 

(top) Leap into the Void, Yves Klein (1960)

(bottom)  A Requiem: Theater of Gravity/Self-Portrait as Yves Klein, Yasumasa Morimura (2010)

Yves Klein’s iconic “Leap into the Void” (1960) is an early example of this.  In the photomontage Klein performs a death-defying leap from a rooftop in a Paris suburb.  In fact the image was made up of cutting two negatives – one where on the street below where a group of the artist’s friends held a tarpaulin to catch him as he fell, and the other of the surrounding scene (without tarpaulin).  These were then printed together to create a seamless ‘documentary’ photograph.  This was lovingly re-created 50 years later by Yasumasa Morimura in “A Requiem: Theater of Gravity/Self-Portrait as Yves Klein” (2010).  Klein was also a painter and experimented with various methods of applying the paint; firstly different rollers and then later sponges, created a series of varied surfaces.  This experimentalism would lead to a number of works this artist made in the 1960s which used naked female models covered in blue paint and dragged across or laid upon canvases to make the image, using the models as ‘living brushes’.  The performance/making of such paintings were also documented. 

(top) Yves Klein

(bottom) Carolee Schneemann

At around the same time, Carolee Schneemann was daubing herself with all manner of paint and other materials in her series “Eye/Body: 36 Transformative Actions” (1963).  Seeking to reclaim the female nude from artistic tradition by being both image and image maker, was extremely controversial at the time.  Her images were confrontational, primal, unashamedly erotic and far from passive.  In fact, there is a lot of naked female flesh on display in this exhibition.  This universal motif of artistic expression has unsurprisingly failed to escape the scrutiny of the lens.  From the complicit passivity of the models in Klein’s work through to Jemima Stehli’s self-activated “Strip” (1999) series over 30 years later, the use of the naked female body (particularly by female artists) still severely rankles many 21^st century feminist art historian eyes.  At the height of discourse on the issue, Hannah Wilke came under particular intensive criticism.  This exhibition features some of her most recognised work where she featured semi- naked, alongside a lesser known piece “Portrait of the Artist in His Studio” (1971) which is surely a much more effective political statement and perhaps a an influence of Sarah Lucas’s “Fight the Good Fight” (1996), which is also featured. 

 

Hannah Wilke: (top) Starification Objects Series (1974)

(bottom) Portrait of the Artist in his Studio (1971)

 

 

Fight the Good Fight, Sarah Lucas (1996)

Yayoi Kusama also kept her clothes on in the documentation of her happenings at various venues around New York in the 1960s.  Here the artist is portrayed as director of the performance, rather than participant.  However, the very inclusion of her in these photographs does in fact record her own performativity within the happenings, which may have been unintended. 

Yayoi Kusama

An air of naivety surrounds most of the work on display in this exhibition.  From some of the rhetoric by certain artists featured (for example, Jimmy De Sana insisted his nudes photographed in grubby suburban interiors where inherently un-erotic, in part due to the surroundings they were filmed in) to attempts to capture movement and dance by a static medium in the case of Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer.  The capturing of performance work by Babette Mangolte, Marta Minujin  and Stuart Brisley is similarly naïve, but epitomises an imperative to test the limits of both artist and medium.

Lives of Performers, Yvonne Rainer (1972)

 

(below) Roof Piece, Trish Brown and Babette Mangolte (1971)

As the technology became more advanced and images turned from black and white to colour, naivety is replaced by sophistication, and self-promotion goes hand in hand with self-awareness.  Erwin Wurm’s “One Minute Sculptures” (1997) demonstrate a wit and intelligence lacking from some of the more recent work in the exhibition.

 

Erwin Wurm

In the last of the fourteen rooms the 21^st century equivalent/re-boot of Schneemann’s Eye/Body series, was Amalia Ulman’s  “Excellences & Perfections” (2014) series.  Reproduced from Instagram postings, it was a four month durational performance taking place directly on her personal Instagram account.  Ulman created a fictional character whose story unfolded in three different episodes - a cute girl, sugar babe then as a fashion and style blogger.  Her idea was to bring fiction to a platform that has been designed for supposedly “authentic” behavior, interactions and content. The intention was to prove how easy an audience can be manipulated through the use of mainstream archetypes and characters they have seen before.  It is clever, provocative and problematic as such representation is still an almost endemic mode of self-expression for young women on social media who seek acceptance and praise.

Excellences & Perfections, Amalia Ulman (2014)

Rrose Sélavy (Marcel Duchamp), Man Ray (1921)

Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, Ai WeiWei (1995)

Personal highlights were Marcel Duchamp’s alter-ego Rrose Sélavy photographed by Man Ray in 1921 which I have seen reproduced many times in academic texts and Ai WeiWei's "Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995).  Also, a collection of work by Francesca Woodman, an artist I was completely unaware of, greatly moved me.  While she tread the feminist minefield of featuring young women (including herself) naked, most of the bodies were blurred due to movement and long exposure times in her photographs.  The figures merged with their surroundings or their faces were obscured.  The aesthetic considerations in her compositions were ethereal and beautiful.  Sadly, she committed suicide at the age of just 22 in 1981.  She never gained critical acclaim or attention during her lifetime, and it seems that the inclusion of so much of her work in one group exhibition, attests to a reversal of opinion since her death.

(below) Untitled, Francesa Woodman (c. 1975-1980)

  

This was an exhausting, but very thought-provoking exhibition.  Ironically at the entrance there was a “no photography” sign on the door which was clearly ignored given that there are to date over 1,000 posts on #performingforthecamera…