Thanks for Sam Friedlander for bringing this to my attention.  So awesome! Art by Zeger Reyers.

A better view is on VIMEO at this link, but I cannot imbed that into WordPress.  Stupid WordPress.

http://vimeo.com/7887463

FACEBOOK GROUP

JOIN MOOGEE’S CRUSADE AGAINST MEDIOCRITY

http://www.facebook.com/groups.php#/group.php?gid=181984094372

Name:
School of MOOGEE V School of Saatchi
Category:
Entertainment & Arts – Fine arts
Description:
JOIN THIS GROUP IF YOU BELIEVE THIS IS SIMPLY PR FOR SAATCHI NOT ART AND THAT CONTEMPORARY ART IN THE U.K. HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A SUCCESSION OF PR STUNTS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE CREATORS.

X-FACTOR FOR ART?

Artists bid to catch Saatchi’s eye

(UKPA) – 17 minutes ago

Six hopefuls are aiming to be the next big thing by being granted the tutelage of art world supremo Charles Saatchi in a new TV talent search.

At stake is the chance to be given exposure on the international scene by art industry “kingmaker” Saatchi by featuring in one of his exhibitions.

The virtual unknowns – Suki Chan, Matt Clark, Eugenie Scrase, Saad Qureshi, Ben Lowe, Samuel Zealey – have been whittled down from an initial 12 who will be seen starting the series in the first episode of School Of Saatchi, broadcast on BBC Two.

Despite lending his name to the series and making the final judgment on the winner, publicity-shy Saatchi is not actually seen on screen.

Expert panellists in the show, including Tracey Emin, art collector Frank Cohen and the critic Matthew Collings, helped to advise Saatchi during the selection process

The six artists – chosen for their raw talent and creative edge – will be seen attending a unique art school, established just for them, where over the course of ten weeks they were able to develop their skills.

Collings said: “Opportunities like this do not arise every day and in most people’s lives they never arise. These artists have got to come up with something that’s got to be impressive so there’s a great deal of pressure that Saatchi is putting on them.”

Saatchi will eventually choose one of the artists to exhibit their work at Newspeak: British Art Now, his exhibition at The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.

Also at stake is a free studio which the winner can use for three years.

(read less)
JOIN THIS GROUP IF YOU BELIEVE THIS IS SIMPLY PR FOR SAATCHI NOT ART AND THAT CONTEMPORARY ART IN THE U.K. HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A SUCCESSION OF PR STUNTS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE CREATORS.

X-FACTOR FOR ART?

Artists bid to catch Saatchi’s eye

(UKPA) – 17 minutes ago

Six hopefuls are aiming to be the next big thing by being granted the tutelage of art world supremo Charles Saatchi in a new TV talent search.

At stake is the chance to be given exposure on the international scene by art industry… (read more)
Privacy type:
Open: All content is public.

Pink Moon, 2008 Jantje Fleischhut

Contemporary studio jewelers often discuss the intimate relationship between jewelry and the body. Lately I’ve been thinking about how conceptual jewelry sometimes subverts that relationship with jewelry that rests uneasily, awkwardly, or painfully on the body.  More recently I’ve been focusing on the relationship between jewelry objects–how disparate materials suggest an exploration/refutation of cultural values. What, for example, is Jantje Fleischhut communicating through her brooch, Pink Moon?   The very idea of a pink moon, as opposed to the greyish-white moon of our physical reality, suggests a playful, childlike, alternate reality where whimsy and imagination rather than empirical knowledge is the driving force of rationality.  Fleishchhut’s juxtaposition of “low” value  industrial materials and “high” value precious materials suggests an interrogation of binary values of worth and desirability in a consumerist society. The stag figure represents the relationship between nature and the built environment; while the pastel colors clashing with the earthy brown colors represent the dualistic symbiosis of feminine/masculine and the hierarchical colonial relationship between “civilized” (European) nations and “uncivilized”  (non-European) nations.

When artists such as Fleischhut aptly employ the use of layered meanings through an awareness of material consciousness, with skill and subtlety, they broaden the discourse on the location of jewelry in the contemporary art world and the role of the conceptual jeweler as object maker and commentarian.

Kelli Connell came to Kendall College of Art and design November 10th for an artist talk at her show opening in Kendall’s gallery. Her show entitled “Double Life” . My Review:

Kelli Connell: Kendall College of Art and Design

Kelli Connell, full time professor, full time artist, full time inspiration. Connell came to Kendall College for an artist lecture Nov. 10th 2009, she spoke about her show being featured there, “Double Life”. All of the images for the show, which only included a select few from the series, were created from 2002-2009. The series revolves around the idea of a double self, the different sides of a person, and how we learn about ourselves through relationships with others. The images bring up subjects about preconceived notions and identity. I was especially interested in her work having shot something of a twin series, or dual identity themed work myself. Her subtle work in Photoshop was very impressive as a believable reality. 

The model who acts as a double, is a friend Connell made in college, she describes her as bold with a contagious laugh. Connell remarked that her model is very different from herself. Yet Connell uses her as a double or “an other” almost to create a self portrait using someone other than herself. This was an entirely new concept to me and very interesting. Using this “other” Connell is able to explore memories, agonies, dreams, and recreate images and situations that she has read about or witnessed that inspire her. She talks about the psychology of her work. Could there be a secret self? Or a double identity? She lets the viewer decide.

            I agree that some of her work could be viewed in this manner, as an exploration of a single self. However upon viewing other images from the series I feel that the series is more about a relationship between two women, more about two separate women taking on certain roles. I feel this way because of the sexual tension or romantic tension portrayed in the series. Many of the shots in some way or another are about these women, or this woman, as an equal and opposite lover. For instance, the Cadillac kiss, in my mind, this is two women, and about the relationship between them. I do not see it as a single person, or self exploration. I can understand what Connell says but I do not completely understand this image and many others like it in the series that seem to suggest the love between two persons. The only way I could rationalize it is as love of self in a narcissistic manner. A part of the definition of narcissism is “a psychoanalytic theory, where emphasis is placed on the element of self-directed sexual desire in the condition” (Microsoft® Encarta® 2007. © 1993-2006 Microsoft Corporation). This is not something Connell ever mentioned, it’s just me trying to rationalize these images, and see how they lend to her overall concept.

            The show on a whole was very beautiful. The mounted digital C prints shown like colorful jewels beneath their plexi masks. In creating effortless moments in time Connell runs her shoots very much like a movie director. She watches eye contact, and scrutinizes the real quality of the image, as it is the same person twice. I was most intrigued that she posses in the image as the opposite character to give the model someone to act against. In a way Connell is always there, we just never get a chance to see her. The scale of the pieces is fantastic; I enjoyed her describing them as cinematic, I agree with her completely.

One thing I mentioned to Connell was the obvious aging of the model, asking her if this was lending to the closing to the series. She responded with a not really and that the reason was only that the fire was dwindling and her desire to continue in this direction no longer drove her to create. What I did notice and never got to say is how the newer images have a very somber and still feeling to them in comparison to earlier images that tend to be light and energized. A perfect example (of the more matured feeling images) would be the two photographs to the left of the gallery entrance (I believe one is entitled This Morning). They are both very somber, both very still, even the subdued color palette speaks of an aging or perhaps of an understanding. Maybe this is a mirror into Connell’s own life, where she is now, and possibly where she’s going.

Oh my love. If you’ve followed my blog since, oh say, last January, you will know my love for Eero. (Yes, we’re on a first name basis) I studied him for four months for my senior thesis of my bachelor’s of arts, and I have this crazy obsession with anything and everything mid century-modern. So, one of my Twitter friends (thanks @nycarl07) posted an update this morning about this article in the New York Times Design Review, about a new show called “Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future” on at the Museum of the City of New York, showing through Jan. 31

See the full article HERE

Details
Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue, at 103rd Street; (212) 534-1672; mcny.org.

Photo via New York Times//Librado Romero

THE ARTS

Review:  “Herman Trunk, Jr.: Catholic Modernist”

Herman Trunk and the Modernist Still Life is on view at Endicott College, Beverly, MA from October 15-December 18, 2009. For opening times and directions see the Endicott webpage.

The catalogue, Herman Trunk, Jr.: Catholic Modernist (Emmanuel College, 2009), is available at Lulu.com.

By Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard

Crucifix (ca. 1930); Pencil with wax on paper; 10 x 14 in.; Collection of the family of Herman Trunk, Jr.

With the advent of the modern world came an accompanying theory of secularization.[1] Enlightenment philosophers held that a developmental model of civilization demands that with modernization (read: rationalization) religion would necessarily decline.

Religion, of course, (in its broadest sense, including individual spirituality) has never left art or culture, and in a post-9/11 world I would suggest that even the most cynical critics would agree that life continues to be saturated with religious sentiment—spoken or unspoken.

In the visual arts, the period known as “Modernism” (the period from the turn of the last century until the 1960s) has been long associated with a firm commitment to individualism, iconoclasm and break with traditional institutions. This perspective became the mainstream means by which art critics and art historians came to measure successful art of the period.

In part, this perhaps explains why artists such as Herman Trunk, Jr. (1894-1963), a devout Roman Catholic who often imbued his paintings with overt symbolism, was exiled to the margins of American art history. This seemingly blind disregard for his work has recently impelled two Boston-area art historians, Cynthia Fowler and Dena Gilby, to reassess his religious and still-life works as masterful pieces in the Cubist and near-Surrealist styles. Fowler serendipitously discovered the artist in the process of researching her forthcoming book on hooked rugs designed by American modernists during the 20s and 30s.

The two scholars put together companion shows of Trunk’s work this Fall at their respective colleges: Fowler’s at Emmanuel in Boston (from 9/8-10/22) and Gilby’s at Endicott in Beverly (from 10/15-12/18). Fowler also organized and hosted a day-long symposium dedicated to the artist (“Religion and Modernism in American Art of the 1920s and 30s”
 on 10/3) and produced a handsome catalogue, Herman Trunk, Jr.: Catholic Modernist (Emmanuel College, 2009).

The catalogue contains essays by Fowler and Gilby, and also by Trunk’s nephew, Joseph (“Greg”) Smith. Smith grew up with the artist and his article sheds valuable light upon the man and anecdotes from his personal life, much of which was lived in Brooklyn, NY. Smith’s family photos and stories help to flesh out the biographical and iconographic picture painted by Fowler in her introductory and main essays. Fowler’s essays and show loosely cover Trunk’s figurative and landscape works, while Gilby’s are focused upon his still-lifes and flower pieces.

The artist that emerges from the well-illustrated catalogue is a complex and—at times—contradictory figure. Contradictory, perhaps, because of our own (aforementioned) inherited bias about what constitutes a Modern painter in the abstract style. We do not usually imagine, for example, a dedicated family man who sentimentally paints his wife’s Valentine’s chocolates, or the interlocking “Sacred Hearts” of Jesus and Mary in order to grieve the loss of his mother in visual terms.[2]

Sacred Hearts (1930); Watercolor and gouache on board; 20 1/2 x 17 1/2 in.; Collection of the family of Herman Trunk, Jr.

It is Trunk’s return, perhaps, to tried-and-true symbols of traditional Christianity that sets him apart from his contemporaries such as Arthur Dove and Georgia O’Keeffe: artists with whom he was shown side by side at the Biennials of the Whitney Museum of American Art and Venice in his heyday.

Viewed in-person, the works are astounding for their rich color-sensibility and harmonies of geometry. Many are in either watercolor or gouache media, with only a couple in oil. According to Gilby,[3] during the Depression and war years the artist worked full-time in his family’s print shop, and often painted after-hours. Thus, this choice may have been due to monetary constraints, reasons of convenience, or both.

Luckies (1925); Oil on board; 10 x 8 in.; Collection of the family of Herman Trunk, Jr.

Indeed, the watercolors and gouache seem to be more adroitly handled than the oils, but the oil medium seems to have allowed the artist to work up thick impasto in order to gain sculptural effect and depth that challenge the two-dimensionality of the surface. The same insistence on delving into space is found in his beaverboard piece, “Artist’s Palette” (n.d.; Oil on board), where the artist incises geometric shapes into the surface, outlining his color passages and allowing the wood grain to show through. This treatment is reminiscent of Picasso and Braque’s experiments with Synthetic Cubism and work-a-day materials, and may have been learned during Trunk’s time at the Art Students League.

Interestingly, Gilby has also included a long vitrine in the Endicott show housing one of Trunk’s notebooks as well as some personal correspondence and family photographs. This archival material is an advantageous corollary to the still-lifes and landscapes. Further testament to continued strong family-ties among the Trunks, it was also brought to my attention that the frames for many of the works were hand-fashioned for the exhibitions by the artist’s nephew, including the attractive multi-layered bronze-colored frame surrounding “Black-Eyed Susan.”[4]

Far and away the greatest contribution made by the catalogue essays is that they frame Trunk’s work not according to his experimental style—as was done in a Hirschl and Adler Galleries retrospective in 1989[5]—but, rather through the lens of his Catholic faith. This faith is expressed in his use of traditional symbolism as well as his imagery redolent of nature as God’s creation.

The authors take great pains to explain how devout Trunk, his wife Irene, and indeed the whole Trunk family were. There are images of the local parish, stories about faithful trips to morning mass, and accumulated evidence of attention paid to traditional Biblical narrative, Catholic iconography as well as the imbuing of everyday objects with personal, devotional significance.

True, there are passages in the writing where one might wish for more in-depth analysis of the iconography of the works: for example, greater discussion of the floral and fruit symbols like roses and oranges most often associated with Mary, mother of Christ; or the use of jewel tones and thick outlines reminiscent of stained glass; or the use of metallic paint which calls to mind a long history of gilt panel altarpieces. However, the description of “Trees” (Cat. 6, c. 1930-35, watercolor and pencil on paper) as cathedral-like is enticing, as is the likening of the oft-mentioned tenets of mysticism in the vein of Kandinsky to those of “conventional faith.”[6] Overall the essays serve as an even-handed, valuable introduction to the artist and his unique milieu.

The catalogue and exhibition are highly recommended to those interested in Modern art, religious iconography, or a reconsideration of how the two might be considered more fruitfully in tandem.

________________

Addendum:

Since the original publication of this article, Dr. Gilby has brought to my attention that the title of the Endicott Show differs from the one I first listed here, the one published on the catalogue overleaf, in fact.  I have fixed this above, correcting the title to read “Herman Trunk and the Modernist Still Life,” instead of “Modernist Specters in the Still Life Paintings of Herman Trunk, Jr.” as previously stated.

Furthermore, (in personal correspondence) Dr. Gilby takes slight issue with my assertions that her catalogue essay and the Endicott show “are specifically focused on Trunk’s Catholicism.”  Though I may not have expressed with enough clarity Trunk’s many-layered connections to the worlds of Modern Art and the New York scene, I would maintain that the thread of Catholicism is readily interwoven into Gilby’s show and essay.

Agreeing whole-heartedly with Dr. Gilby, I would simply state that Trunk is a versatile, talented artist whose art is well-worth experiencing on any of a number of levels.

-Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, November 21, 2009

[2] Herman Trunk, Jr.: Catholic Modernist (Emmanuel College, 2009), pp. 28-29.

[3] In a personal conversation on 11/6/2009.

[4] Again, personal conversation with Dena Gilby on 11/6/2009.

[5] See the exhibition catalogue, Herman Trunk (New York: Hirschl and Adler Galleries, 1989.)

[6] Herman Trunk, Jr.: Catholic Modernist, pp. 23, 25.

_____

Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, Ph.D., is an editor of Bread and Circus Magazine and an Independent Scholar of Art History, specializing in Northern Renaissance and Baroque. Click here to send her email.

________________

The Night of Horrors approaches: the days are growing shorter, the winds wilder and the shadows longer.  Hallowe’en is based on the Irish festival of Oíche Shamhna. These days it’s known as Hallowe’en (Holy Evening) the evening before All Souls Day. Irish mythology is well imbued with horrific tales, including the Bean Sí (Banshee) who gets her kicks by sitting on the roofs of houses combing her long hair, knocking on the windows of children at night and, should they answer the knocks and open the window, stealing them away. Jack O’Lanterns (carved pumpkins) were originally carved out of turnips and look creepier when the light is flickering away inside. They shrivel up with age to resemble shrunken heads.

With such a terrifying background, it’s only natural that I should look Hallowe’en artists at this time of year. Today I’ll be talking about Basil Gogos.

Greek-born and American-educated,  (several art schools including in the Art Students League of New York where he studied under Frank J. Reilly) Gogos broke into the illustration field by winning a competition for Pocket Books. His work has been mostly for mens’ adventure magazines, but he is best known for his work for Warren Publishing.

Here we get to the fun part.

His works for Warren were for the covers of a magazine named ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’. It looks like it sounds- his works for the publication are all of famous monsters and became iconic. You’ve probably seen some of them before.  He gave us the infamous Christopher Lee as Dracula (below)

Not to mention Frankenstein’s monster:

Basil Gogos, Frankenstein's Monster.

Lon Chaney as he’s never been seen before:

Lon Chaney, London at Midnight.

Technique:

Most of Gogos’ pieces are acrylic on paper. You’ll see a good deal of his works from the 90s, most of the mens’ magazine pieces are from the 60s and the 70s. The monster pieces came much later.

The good news? You can buy your own Gogos!

That’s right. Here you go.

If you’re gaga for Gogos, you can obtain a collection of his work on Amazon- ‘Famous Monster Movie Art of Basil Gogos’. Go..go!

(No monsters were hurt in the making of this pun.)

angels and DEMONS

The first of two paintings from the diptych ‘Angels and Demons’ which will participate in ‘The Elixir of Life’ exhibition at The Smithfield Gallery is a powerful depiction of a fallen down man.

The theme is so current that I cannot keep but thinking about the resonance and effects of the current economic crisis for some people.

The very unsettling and depressing feeling is something we cannot avoid but rather than passing by the painting, we keep on discovering new subjects which unveil the personality of this human being.  The picture describes a rather metaphysical state of mind which is the consequence of a series of events (look at the chain of figures in the left hand corner). The fact that this man was something and someone important is emphasized by the ladder on the right left corner, and the presence of many ‘Os’ (zero’s) is the result of his inner depreciation and downfall (I am = O). His desolation is further made apparent by the presence of a sole cloth, which resembles a modern day Christ.

Iasen explores a very painful and touchy subject of the border between human desperation and madness. Once fallen into this state and cornered by unfavourable circumstances, how do we keep sanity and pick ourselves up? The man is stretching his hand towards the ceiling as he wants to find an invisible helping hand in return. Or is he blaming someone for his misery? The duality of the human being is shown clearly by covering one of his eyes as to further fall into the darkness and sometimes symbolising the refusal to see the reality of the situation. At the same time his other eye looks towards the ceiling as he is trying to pierce the invisible bonds and reach straight to the heart of God.

In this painting Iasen goes back to his roots and his primal language, Bulgarian, which he has used to write on the walls of the cell. He is going back to his roots, back from the beginning, where lies the universal questions of ‘Who am I’, ‘Why I am here’ and even questioning the existence of ‘I’.

Art review by Elena Todorova-Stanev, Cerise Art Agency, October 2009

Elena is curating ‘Elixir of Life’ exhibition at The Smithfield Gallery in London from 22nd until 28th November 2009. http://bit.ly/1a4Hox, where you can see more of Iasen’s paintings and drawings.

Victoria Miro’s current Grayson Perry exhibition is an absolute must see. Not only for the acclaimed new work Walthamstow Tapestry - of which a detail appears below – but  also for its wider presentation of his ability, his ideas and his attitudes. I left this exhibition convinced that here is an artist worth noticing and taking notice of.

detail from Walthamstow Tapestry by Grayson Perry

Although I have long been a fan of Perry’s ceramics, and consider him one of the few truly worthy winners of the Turner Prize in recent times, this exhibition stood out for me as both exciting and important. This was all the more remarkable when considering I went in expecting not to like the work… neither the image above, nor the guardian’ write-up of the piece dampened my whistle one jot. To be blunt, the tapestry, whilst certainly a grower, is perhaps the least interesting work on show.

In the main space of the Victoria Miro gallery one finds a number of large crowd covered canvases, decorated with rich colours used subtley on neutral grounds. People and animals interweave across the canvas with no apparent canvas, as though seen from above in a barren field. Hoards of elephants dash across one, whilst the crowds unfurl banners of colour in another. Remarkably un-Perry like, these works appear Middle Eastern in origin, akin in composition to something like Indian manuscripts, such as the V&As Akbarnama by way of Where’s Wally?, and are joyous if somehow unwantonly restrained… nothing of Perry’s exuberance and flamboyance appears in them, yet in them we find the perfect mediator before confronting the Tapestry et al next door in the recently built extension above the neighbouring Parasol Unit.

Entering the room, one finds the tapestry stretching away to one’s left and thus somehow unremarkable, as was my first impression of meeting Picasso’s Guernica at Madrid’s Reine Sofia gallery. Its size and detail, however, make it only fully enjoyable up close and at length anyway, so any initial disappointment soon seeps away.

The work, whilst it is probaly fair to call it either obvious or overly brash in its cynical portrayal of modern society (brand names, cartoonish stereotypes, life thru death cycle depicted as an allegory remindful somehow of Victoria Wood’s creations), somehow strikes a note. The stereotypes are endearing, not to mention amusing, the pronounced evocations of birth, life and death are more palatable than, but remindful of the popularism of Beryl Cook, and the figures each tagged with the names of brands, divorced from their logos, become a fractured narrative of a day in the life of E17 by way of Bayeux…

detail from the Bayeux tapestry

…and I think this is the best way to approach the work. What at once might seem a corny, sentimental and juvenile use of brands as “bad”, employing the oft-stated and oft-disparaged that, like, we are all just brands man! (See Slipknot fans tattooing barcodes on themselves… “we’re all products of the system”) becomes instead a simple and indicative commentary on this same argument loaded heavily with sarcasm and irony.

idiot

The same is true of two more works in the same room which I enjoyed even more. Firstly and most particularly, the older work Print for a Politician, linked below to a zoomable reproduction courtesy of the Guardian, in which a Warhammer-like fantasy narrative occurs on a similarly role-play landscape in which small colonies/groups of people battle against one another whilst jostling for space and for power it would seem. The groups of standardised social sections ( journalists, communists, racists, catholics etc, through to more absurd groupings which I fail to recollect) appears divided and encumbered with fear or another whilst all gathered together on a small island contained within the image (but for the tabloids who, hilariously, fire rockets aimlessly from a ship removed from this microsociety!).  The labels could be contrived in anothers hands, but in Perry’s the commentary is both facetious and cutting. I was overjoyed to read that this work is, in fact, owned by the House of Commons.

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2006/03/31/perry_big.jpg

Another work whose title I forget makes an island of a man with Perry’s head in its apposite place, similarly delineated into groupings of conflicting parties. Humorous confrontations abound, each represented by small buildings analytical of said groups purpose. The result is a wonder to behold, and the cartographic nature of the works makes them subtley if not subconciously somehow trustworthy and informative, not to mention instructioning and inciteful.

Numerous pots enrich the exhibition, and show off Perry’s flair for juxtaposition and confrontation even within the sphere of ceramics. You will find yourself laughing heartily at his commentaries on societies both new and old.

Finally, in the upstairs space of the main gallery, a series of small floor works depicting groups of simple mundanities cobbled together, bananas, cucumbers etc if my memory serves me well, gathered inside tissue paper, and at the end of the room a wonderful pair of floor works made of splintered wood layered ontop of one another, one natural, and one painted a glowing gold only viewable from above. The simplicity is a joy to behold, and a celebration of everything playfully denigrated next door.

You never feel lectured to, but again and again, you find yourself nodding along in agreement, much like a good Charlie Brooker or David Mitchell article.

Review : Ramon Orlina’s Glass and Bronze Exhibit at the Alliance Francaise de Manille

By Frances Mae C. Ramos

Like all masterpieces, Ramon Orlina’s latest exhibit at the Alliance Francaise de Manille, “Glass and Bronze”, seems to hush viewers with a very strong message. In this case, it’s “Don’t move.”

This offhand gust of apprehension could be a reaction to both the compact, immaculately faceted hulks of green and blue glass and the cost of each sculpture. But the genteel gazes of reserved, ambling admirers do not seem to ruminate the price more than the inherent delicacy of the material and the craft.

Even the sparkling career of the architect turned glass sculptor does not restore breath. This is an artist who had broken in on the beauty of breakables, even halving a vintage Volkswagen white beetle and converting it to a stretch limo. And he had broken in, too, on crucial critics’ circles in Asia, Europe and the United States, and the approval of Swarovski that was worth a commission to work black glass and lead crystal. He had participated in countless international art competitions and reaped awards and accolades from Japan to Spain. Most notably, he enjoys local esteem in the currents of modern sculpture.

Since 1975 he has been commanding his adopted material as if it were the most naturally pliant artistic medium. The brittleness of glass is probably the most treacherous aspect of his craft, though belied by the soft, cascading curves and strict polish of outcomes such as the feminine torsos he had produced throughout his career. In this particular exhibit there are about two of these which hark back to astounding works such as Ning Ning I (1989), Multifarious Nude (1993) and Torso (1999). His human glass sculptures are exquisite for taming the hardness of glass through pioneering artistic sleights required to capture the feminine form.

At the same time, Orlina is also able to put some severity in pieces such as Gran Cordillera, which hangs quite precipitously from a white, sturdy board in the middle of Le Coude Rouge restaurant. With taut, directional lines and sharp juts along the edges, it could surely stand out as an imperious punctuation on the walls of a minimalist room. It is also one of Orlina’s homage to nature; an ardent statement of his usual thematic posture. Rarely can an artist lock in the rough elements of nature or transform the grits of Republic Glass (from where he gets his material) into something worthy of an altar.

The greens and blues of glass effectively introduce contrast with Alliance Francaise’s red motif while the weighty bronze pieces somewhat take the edge off the overwhelming viewer responsibility to be prudent in movement. However, diners in Le Coude Rouge are freely surrounded by the works which take on a more subdued luminosity indoors. This perhaps signifies that fine dining with fine art need not be so constraining.

Providing a reasonable and adequate explanation for why we have not up until now included a link to “Art Review:  The Magazine Online” is deceptively simple:  Our dog ate it.

Whether or not you feel the need to “agree” or “disagree” with whatever you may find offered therein, you surely must admit that it is, despite its start in 2006, an absolutely contemporary online magazine experience:  Simply Wondrous.

nothingisinvisible@live.fr

My father has written some wonderful poems. Indeed, he wrote an entire collection’s worth largely about my brother and I growing up… well I say my brother and I… only two were about me amongst a sea of beautiful reflections on my brothers early years, neither of which quite embody joy or happiness. See for youself:

Bottom bubbles, bottom bubbles, floating in the bath                                                                                                                                     Bottom bubbles, bottom bubbles, make my brother laugh

Daddy doesn’t like the smell and has to go outside                                                                                                                                            But I shout back after him, “Come back and get me dried!”

**

My little baby brother He likes crunchy peanut butter                                                                                                                                    He likes munchy peanut butter more than anything else.

Peanut butter sandwiches, or spread on thick brown toast                                                                                                                          And of peanut butter sandwiches, he will always make the most.

But one day I saw his mummy change his nappy and it’s true,                                                                                                                    She wiped off all the nasty and revolting thick brown goo.

And guess where she put it, my craft dear old ma,                                                                                                                                            She scraped it back into the old peanut butter jar.

So you see, my father’s artistic output with relation to me is imbued and underpinned by the scatological and the profane. That isn’t all though. I hold these two poems very close to my heart. They do somehow explain something about me, or at least the young me that my dad still waxes lyrical about, the innocent me, the clueless me, the me untarnished by frustration, ennui and society’s pitfalls.

The me that, one morning before nursery, responded to my mother’s question “aren’t you taking your spectacles with you today?” with the comic genius of “aren’t they attached to my penis?”

–

So it comes as something of a surprise that Damien Hirst has been speaking about his newest Blue Paintings, on show at the Wallace Collection as though they are the first proper paintings he has succeeded with.

I did two years of absolutely rotten paintings and I wouldn’t want anybody to see them. They were just awful. For two years when I was painting them I thought, fucking hell, if I die now they’re going to come in here and go, ‘Oh, he fucked it up at the end. He was brilliant up to that point and then he did these and they’re awful.’ I was painting skulls and I couldn’t paint them properly so I put a fag in their mouth and a red jacket and it was like ‘Death having a fag’. And then I started painting the smoke and they were just awful. And then I told myself, just go back to the skull.

Has he forgotten to consider, or did he never really consider in the first place, the personal significance and the domestic magnitude of the subject matter in his Birth Paintings exhibited at the White Cube in 2007.

What’s more, did he have any involvement in these works at all. As Andrew Graham Dixon recently said of his latest works where he has now sought fit to “learn to paint”,

That Damien is trying to paint pictures now seems like a very odd thing to do, because what he has spent so much of his life doing is creating work that doesn’t require the touch of his hand or the craft of skill.

And so the paintings of his son Cyrus’ birth by caesarean section in 2005, painted without the touch of his father, showcased an unemotional, documentary-like approach to his son’s birth evocative of TV hospital dramas, all scrub green, tile white and blood red. Little of the “intense joy and deep-set anxiety we can all feel in hospitals where we are surrounded by both creation and decay” proffered in the press release can be found anywhere close to these works.

My reaction to them at the time was a heaped-on dose of contempt for an artist I find abhorrent. In these works I found an almost voyeuristic, fetishised approach to his son’s birth emblazoned across the walls in gloss paint and cartoon-strip-like banality. Moreover, I found nothing of HIM, the artist, the FATHER! Suddenly my dad’s reflections of my bowel movements appear both moving and incontrovertibly personal. They were by HIM, about ME.

These should have been moments worth learning to paint for. Worth rhapsodizing about in rhyme and meter, pen and ink, song and syntax. Worth MORE than diamonds, more than just toys off the end of his production line.

Worse still, however, in all this familial exploitation, was the works’ – and by default, the metaphorical importance of these works’ –  neglect in reviews of the time which all concentrated on addressing his DIAMOND SKULL! Outweighing and, most depressingly, out-selling these candidly repeated, aura-empty snapshots (crap as they were) of what should have been and should still be moments worth celebrating rapturously, the skull became the talking point. The skull was more sellable to a public hungry for tales of excess. The public lapped up this commercialised bullshit from the granddaddy of post-post-post-post pop-sickle-y artlessnes. Before the D-word was thought of deemed truly possible, this skull represented everything wrong with the market.

But alas, whatever history holds, Damien HAS now learned to paint…

Damien Hirst- The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth, 2009

 

 

Pale, monotonous, castrated attempts at placing himself between his forefathers. Failures. Rotters; eaked out from the pages between Bacon, Giacometti, Van Gogh, van Claesz etc etc etc, reprinted in a jizzmag between the lonely-hearts and the tits. Nothing new, nothing worth talking about.

Even now, he can’t see beyond himself, his skull (brain missing) and his carniverous, fame-hungry sharks, mouth aghast, continuing to swim around and between the points worth considering and eulogising in his life.

Life itself.