På bildet ser du skulpturen som nå står i gården utenfor The Royal Academy i London. En 15 meter høy stålskulptur av 75 kuler som reflekterer omgivelsene – i det uendelige. Den er laget av Anish Kapoor.

Han ble født i India i 1954. Flyttet til Storbritannina tidlig på 70-tallet og bosatte seg der. I høst har han stilt ut på The Royal Academy. Nå er det bare en uke igjen av utstillingen. Jeg var der forrige fredag. Det var lang kø, tok en time å få billett. men det var verdt det!

Kapoor utforsker skulpturens muligheter. Form og formløshet, konkav og konveks, hard og myk, grov og fin, innside og utside, overflate og dybde, bevegelse og stillstand, illusjon og virkelighet. På utstillingen er det noen arbeider fra 80-tallet, enkle geometriske former dekket med pigment. Her er “non-objects” – stålskulpturer vi kan speile oss i. Skulpturer som manipulerer vår visuelle oppfatning. Vi overraskes stadig over hva som faktisk blir reflektert.

I verket “Shooting into the corner” blir en kanon avfyrt hvert 20.  minutt og en blanding av rød voks og maling sprutes ut mot galleriveggen. Det er en performance som ved hjelp av tid og tilfeldigheter endrer og utvikler seg i løpet av utstillingen.

Et annet hovedverk er “Svayambh” (sanskrit for “self-generated”). En enorm form på 40 tonn – også den av rød voks og maling – beveger seg på skinner gjennom 5 rom. Den er så stor at den såvidt kommer gjennom åpningene mellom rommene. Den gnir seg inntil kantene når den passerer og etterlater seg rødt “kliss” på vegger og gulv. Den beveger seg så langsomt at det tar en time å passere alle rommene. Det er overr seg veldende!

Og så er det rommet med en salgs sandslott laget av former i sement. Former som er som klemt ut av en tube og som kveiler seg og bukter seg. Noen ser organiske ut mens andre ser ut som rester av en sivilisasjon. Britiske aviser har hatt begeistrede anmeldelser,her bl.a.  Guardian og Times. Se også fra utstillingen og intervju med Kapoor på Youtube. I Norge er Kapoor bl.a. representert i skupturparken på Kistefossmuseet.

(Independent)

Tracey Emin’s latest work deals with the threat of climate change, but she admits she is a “bad advert” for action on the issue. Unveiling her embroidered images of flowers, insects and birds for a Royal Academy exhibition on responses to climate change, Emin, 46, said: “I think man makes a major contribution to climate change. We have to slow down. One day a week turn down the energy … saying that, it is really hard to do that when you are living in the 21st century, it’s a fast lifestyle.”

She admitted: “I’m not a good person. I’m a bad advert. I take too many planes … I keep my heating on all day and night because I get really cold and I’m scared of the dark so I sleep with the light on. I do try to make other compromises in other areas of my life. I don’t have lots of clothes for example. I’m not contributing to the clothes mountain.”

The exhibition also features a shattered diamond made from a polar bear’s leg bone, a giant cage-like globe and glass representations of jellyfish, all inspired by climate change.

GSK Contemporary Earth: Art of a Changing World runs at the Royal Academy from tomorrow until 31 January 2010

Hi guys,

There is an exhibition at the Royal Academy regarding climate change, it would be good to get down there sometime, on our own or as a group. You can see a little article in the metro on it or click this link..

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/inconvenient-art-contemporary-artists-weigh-in-on-climate-change-1831975.html

Ben

 If you haven’t been to the Royal Academy of Arts in a while then chances are you’ve missed some fantastic work by renowned sculpter Anish Kapoor.  Best known for his large scale works of art in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall and in Chicago, Kapoor is the first living artist to have a major solo exhibition at the Royal Academy.  I’m coming a bit late to this exhibition as its been at the Academy for a few months now, but i’m so glad I found it last weekend.

If you haven’t seen the exhibition yet, then I have one word for you…HURRY!   Its only on until the 11th December and then it packs up and moves on.  Even if you don’t have time to see the exhibition in its entirety then just pop down Picadilly and take a look at the fantastic sculpture “Tall Tree and the Eye” that sits in front of the Royal Academy in the Annenberg Courtyard.  It is this sort of work that Kapoor is perhaps best known for and this new scultpure is certainly drawing the crowds in London.  I’m really hoping that when the exhibition closes this sculpture finds a permanent home in London as a piece of public art.

You can find out more information about the exhibition including ticket details at the Royal Academy’s website http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/

I sauntered around Anish Kapoor’s exhibition last Sunday at the Royal Academy, London, rather amazed and wowed by the colour and scale of it all.  However as the days have gone  by, and  now its Friday, I cannot seem to get the “red” out of my mind especially the huge leviathan that glides so slowly that you don’t even realise its moving………  Its blood, its pain, anger, anguish, sorrow and oh so SILENT.  Is it the pain and suffering in the world that we choose not to notice as we go about sleepwalking in our daily life.  Or is the red congealed petroleum jelly / wax/ blood  train shaped like a giant loaf of bread really our “daily bread”  is this what we are being fed by the media onslaught……..  Oh gosh I could go on with some totally over the top metaphors that would be unprintable here, my creative mind gone wild

I’ve done quite a lot since I last wrote here. So much so that I’m only going to give you potted highlights otherwise you will lose the will to live before you are half way through.

• I was invited to a Charity Gala dinner in London on Friday 30th October, the highlight of which was the after dinner speaker – President Bill Clinton. He spoke about the charity work he does through the William J Clinton Foundation and particularly mentioned Kiva a cause I support already and recommend (link in my sidebar).

• We mooched around Portobello Road market (as seen in the film ‘Notting Hill’) on Saturday as rather amazingly, I had never been there – great fun. We came back from London on Sunday as I had a meeting. I mention this because I then rushed back up to London on Monday morning to spend some time with my #2 son for my birthday
• He and I finally got to see the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Royal Academy – it was fabulous. Really enjoyed it.

Anish Kapoor and 'Yellow' at the Royal Academy

• We went to see Simon Lynge – a very gifted singer songwriter who comes from Greenland. It was the launch party for his new album to be released in February. He was very good indeed. See for yourself. I love this song which is his single.

• Rushed back from London (again) in time to go out for with lunch with some friends and #1 son for my birthday.
• Spent my birthday packing as I was going to Spain to stay with a friend early the next day.
• Had a wonderful holiday in Sayalonga, a small hilltop village in the mountains behind Malaga. We had several hair raising trips out along winding mountain roads tracks to visit pretty towns and to admire astonishing views.

Sayalonga

One highlight of the trip  was a visit to the Caves at Nerja – possibly the best thing I have ever seen – utterly awesome. Here is a photograph which you can click on to see a large version. They have concerts in these caves in the summer (if you zoom in you can see the seating) – definitely added to my list of things to do. Opera in these caves would be astonishing.

One thing that can now be ticked off my list of things to do, was the other highlight of my trip – a visit to the Alhambra in Granada. If the Caves at Nerja are an example of nature at it’s most magnificent, then the Alhambra is an example of how sublimely beautiful some of man’s creations can be. It’s truly breathtaking. Here is a slide show of the photographs I took.

!!!

• The weather in Spain was beautiful – cool in the mornings and evenings but in the 70s and sunny during the day. I arrived back in the UK to torrential rain and howling gales – which has continued and shows no signs of going away. Just as well that I have been thrown back into the deep end with the latest iteration of the record company book project. With only three days to work on it before it had to be packaged up and sent to Seattle and as there were major re-writes and design changes, it was a manic weekend. Fedex have given me several highly stressful moments which I could have well done without but hopefully I (and they) made the deadline.

So now I am working on a couple of websites. One, my first e-commerce site for a friend who makes jewellery will be a fun project and hopefully the experience will help me when I get round to designing my own website for selling my books and photograph albums.

If I ever have the time to do it…

I wrote here before about the advertising for the Anish Kapoor’s exhibition at the Royal Academy. Since that post I actually visited the exhibition to have a good poke around and see what this waxy cannon was all about.

The exhibition follows a basic timeline, easing you in with some brightly coloured pigment sculptures which neatly reference Kapoor’s early life in India as well as invoking other art giants such as Yves Klein before moving on to the more recent mirrored surfaces, gobs of wax and shipyard construction techniques.

Anish Kapoor - Shooting into the Corner, 2008-9

I suppose the first thing to mention  is the sexual side of the work – mostly because you’re beset by sexual organs from the start. In the very first room is a pregnant wall, then there’s the cannon ejaculating red wax and splattering the gooey mess all over the gallery walls, later is the red wax train dripping and slipping its way through gallery openings, somewhere else is Hive – a shipyard construction with a cavernous inner space – that’s followed by concrete squeezed by machines into piles of grey penis shapes and finally there’s a monstrous red fibreglass vulva.

I’ve read reviews which take this both positively and negatively. Some revel in the fun and the mess and the overtness and the luscious sensuality while others (such as Tom Lubbock writing for The Independent) think Kapoor is mostly just indulging his own vanity.

I would say that Shooting into the Corner is both at the same time. When you’re there in the crowd the noise and the mess and the nervous laughter are undeniably fun – it all feels a little wild – but after you leave that moment you are free to remember that Kapoor is, y’know, a Royal Academician. The walls he has carelessly coated with gunk are his own not those of The Man. The cannon starts to feel more like a loud garden fountain.

Anish Kapoor - Svayambh, 2007

Elsewhere, for fans of red wax Svayambh – the red train thing that looks like a loaf of bread -  is more successful. According to a gallery assistant it started out as a rectangular block and the gallery arches which is has squeezed through have shaped it into a gigantic negative space. It is fascinating in its slowness and strangeness as well as for its physical demonstration of the establishment shaping the art.

My own favourite room was ‘Non-Objects’ – the mirrors. They were hugely engaging and the fun was infectious – watching an elderly woman waving her arms about as she disappeared and then reappeared upside down or a group of previously surly teenagers showing each other where to stand to look thinnest or perhaps hearing other people laugh as I blurted out “Mum! In this one I look tall!” The longer we spent in the room the greater my appreciation of the technical skill involved – the precise shaping that would turn some of the audience upside down, some the right way up and others disappear entirely on the same surface.

Kapoor produces some fascinating work, I just wish I knew where the hi-gloss vapid coffee-table-book-photo-op vaginas fitted into it all. The following comparison is not at all helpful in answering this query but it did make me smile:

Michelin-starred restaurant Sketch and Arts & Business Principal Member GSK are coming together in a meeting of minds with a pop-up patisserie and cafe inside the Royal Academy from the start of December, coinciding with the opening of GSK’s second annual Contemporary season.

GSK Contemporary: Art of a Changing World will feature international contemporary artists, both established and up and coming using a multiplicity of media including exhibitions, film screenings and talks concerning environment and the modern world. It mixes the political, the environmental and the cultural, creating a series of works set to inspire debate. In its first year East London’s Bistrotheque set up their pop-up restaurant in tune with the exhibition called Flash made from art storage boxes.

Sketch will also be following the ethos of GSK Contemporary by using seasonal ingredients produced solely in Britain and using recyclable materials such as recycled heavy duty cardboard for furniture. Despite the eco-friendly credentials expect this pop-up cafe to be the height of glamour and design. The Sketch restaurants themselves went over a multi-million pound makeover at the turn of the century, and have strong links to art and music. They hold exhibitions in their own gallery, the last being of Noam Gonick and his works on Queer culture and human rights abuses in August. Exhibitions change every six weeks and they engage with new media with the use of projectors in their space.  Furthermore, the space will have input from Sketch’s Artistic Director Mark Lawson Bell who has also worked with Absolut Vodka, Hendrick’s Gin and Body Shop.

Of course with the gorgeous surroundings there will be sublime food. Imagine oyster bars and creperies, along with Michelin standard afternoon tea and lunch. The outside section – where you can order takeaways – should be comfortable with the cafe providing hot water bottles and blankets.

With this event we see the finest, most chic food mixing with innovative, radical art that pushes the boundaries. The pop-up restaurant opens on December 3^rd and will be keeping the public enchanted and well fed for three months.

This month I attended the Henry Moore Textiles private view at Pallant House and then spent a few days thinking about my work on fabric.I have had the idea to reproduce my work onto textiles and then design clothes for a long, long time now, but feel more inspired than ever. Many artists have looked at me with horror when I mention thoughts about this and other surfaces in general. Unfortunately I cant help thinking that this is quite sad as out there are so many beautiful creative outlets beyond the square canvas and the white gallery walls. The moleskin sketch above is the beginning of some fabric ideas which I will be painting in watercolour and then scanning. This will then move me forward with ideas about the final fabric and the repetition of image on material. The images will be traced live on Illustrator and then fed back into my digital diary as vector graphics or I may just scan the originals to leave it more painterly and classic. The essence of everything that I produce is beauty.

A major solo exhibition of the internationally acclaimed and Turner Prize winning artist Anish Kapoor.

A must see, though try to avoid weekends as it’s a crowd puller. The crowds and the lack of explanation on the artist would be my criticisms. Otherwise it’s fun and thought provoking. Though I’m not sure the museum curators would agree with the word fun. The £2.50 exhibition guide was biggest pile of pretentious blabber I’ve read in ages.

Don’t miss the canon. I won’t spoil the surprise by telling you about it. Just go.

Royal Academy, London. Until 11 December 2009.

Royal Academy artist: Ken Howard

Today we feature British Artist – Ken Howard

Ken Howard is a Royal Academy artist with a worldwide reputation. He has exhibited extensively, both nationally and internationally. He was born in 1932 and studied art at Hornsey School of Art.

Ken Howard is a master at capturing light in both oil and watercolour paintings. Today he is known as one of the leading British Artists for his ability to fuse light and atmosphere in his contemporary paintings. The subjects for Ken’s contemporary paintings range from studio nudes to Venetian scenes and Cornish beaches.

Ken Howard’s numerous art awards include: First Prize in the Lord Mayor’s Art Award in 1966; a Prize Winner in the John Moores Art Exhibition, Liverpool in 1978; first prize in the Hunting Group Art Awards; and the Critics Prize at Sparkasse Karlsruhe in 1985. He now lives and works in London or in his Venetian and Cornish studios.

Red Rag Gallery – Modern Art from British Artists , Irish Artists , Scottish Artists and Limited Edition Prints

Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy of Arts, London

A collection of cards and signed giclee prints by Joanne Webb are available to buy from the following link:

http://joannewebb.bigcartel.com/

She was irritated by the way this woman swanned about like royalty. With her feet up, she waved her hand for attention.

Anish Kapoor's Tall Tree and the Eye, Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Westminster, W1J

Who does she think she is?

Anish Kapoor's Shooting into the Corner, Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Westminster, W1J

The Queen of Sheba?

Anish Kapoor's Yellow, Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Wesminster, W1J

She was the sort of person that they had used to laugh at. And now, somehow, she had worked herself into the family.

Shooting into the Corner, Royal Academy, 2009

His little piles of powder are intensely beautiful in colour. And yet …

The reflective perfection of the mirrors is a joy to behold. And yet ..

The buzz of expectation in waiting for the cannon to eject its barrel of bloody wax is palpable. And yet …

And yet I’m not quite sure what is all adds up to. I can’t deny that there is a sense of wonder in walking around the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Royal Academy. But what I struggle to find is some lasting argument within the exhibition, some defining narrative that makes me alter how I see the world. The works are full of allusions, but have very few reference points. One can feel the exhibition, but what do you take away? It’s clear that the the body, sex, defaecation, the universe, the self and the art gallery itself are all part of the thematic make up of his oeuvre. He makes us aware that sex is ubiquitous; and that the spiritual is just the flip side of the scatological.

Svayambh, Royal Academy, 2009

Is that Kapoor stretches too far, whirring through an endless panoply of tricks, without ever stopping to work through the deeper ramifications of what he is saying. Or is that that we are tricked into such reactions? The artist’s hand is often non-existent (all metal and mirror in the larger works) and the exhibition therefore leaves a sense of dislocation between the atmosphere of philosophical eloquence and the mechanical, soulless way in which such a sensation is created. Do we yearn for a voice to shine through the light?

I doubt, of course, Kapoor will care. He may indeed point to entirely different genesis for his work, drawing on traditions far removed from the sources that inform much western art. Kapoor’s oeuvre is more closely aligned to a Buddhist world where everything and nothing is said; where life is perceived rather than interpreted. There is little of the fetishising of intellectual complexity that Christian art, and much of the western art tradition, demands. Kapoor may occasionally reference other texts or myths, but the creation of the huge abstract gestures that fill and take control of the Royal Academy galleries negate the need for such contexts.

I think Anish Kapoor is great for the art world. He produces grand, spectacular art that draws in believers and non-believers. He gets attention. He makes art exciting. Yet I would fervently insist that he is not seen as the pinnacle of achievement. There is much more that art can achieve.

'The Lilly' by British artist William Selby

Next week is the start of our next art exhibition at Red Rag. It is a mixed show of selected artists from the New English Art Club(NEAC). The NEAC is one of the leading British art societies with a number of well known artists.

One of the seven NEAC selected artists featuring in the Red Rag show is William Selby

William Selby was born in Yorkshire in 1933. A self taught artist William Selby has been painting professionally for a number of years. He paints using oil, acrylic and mixed media. His contemporary paintings demonstrate a strong, bold use of colour and vibrancy, which are developed by applying layer upon layer with painterly brushstrokes.

William Selby is particularly well known for his still life paintings. He positions everyday objects in carefully crafted suspended space producing balance and sustainable interest.

Other NEAC artists in the art show include Royal Academy artists Fred Cuming and Fred Cuming.

The NEAC art exhibition starts 6 November. For further details email the gallery or

CONTACT RED RAG NOW on 01451 832563 or outside the UK + 44 1451 832563

Red Rag Gallery – Modern Art from British Artists , Irish Artists , Scottish Artists and Limited Edition Prints

I am currently working on seven panels at once now as well as the portrait and decided this week I would invest in an electric sander. The panel paintings require lots of layering of paint and usually after I have done this I begin sanding. I strip them all back  in order to reveal detailed work from previous painting sessions.This technique has always been labored and time consuming as well as messy. I want to reveal the unexpected beauty beneath. I then paint over with another layer and providing that  a few of millimeters are of luminous colour are still intact at the end then it would have been worth all the effort. The fear that this fiery little DIY number could potentially wreck six months careful work was fairly visible with the shaking hands but once destruction was viewed as an opportunity  I surfed across the panels like it was an iron.