{"id":4388,"date":"2012-08-09T17:28:23","date_gmt":"2012-08-09T17:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=4388"},"modified":"2022-07-09T10:47:00","modified_gmt":"2022-07-09T10:47:00","slug":"recent-exhibitions-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/recent-exhibitions-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Exhibitions concat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A list, sometimes annotated, of various exhibitions and installations I have seen and wish to remember:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Raphael.&nbsp; National Gallery London, June &amp; July 2022.<\/li>\n<li> Women War Photographers.  Musee de la Liberation de Paris, France, April 2022.<\/li>\n<li> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgallery.org.uk\/exhibitions\/past\/thomas-cole-eden-to-empire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Thomas Cole:  Eden to Empire.<\/a>  National Gallery London, September 2018.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sidneynolantrust.org\/centenary-2017\/unseen-works-from-the-sidney-nolan-trust-collection\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Unseen<\/a>: &nbsp;Works from the collection of the Sidney Nolan Trust, Australian High Commission, London, May 2017.<\/li>\n<li><em>Video ergo sum<\/em>,&nbsp;video art of Peter Campus, Jeu de Paume, Paris, April 2017. Contained one sublime&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/2017\/04\/wave\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">video<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Australia&#8217;s Impressionists, National Gallery, London, March 2017. The 1886 painting<em> Allegro con Brio: Bourke Street<\/em> by Tom Roberts was included: it is remarkable for the absence of any tree, shrub or plant. I preume it is a true depiction of Melbourne at the time.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.royalacademy.org.uk\/exhibition\/revolution-russian-art\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932<\/a>, Royal Academy, London, March 2017.<\/li>\n<li>Major exhibition of abstract expressionist art at the Royal Academy, London, December 2016. The room of Jackson Pollock paintings was impressive and masterful, and included the sublime &#8220;Blue Poles&#8221;. &nbsp;Likewise the room of Rothko, although these paintings are not easy to contemplate when the gallery is busy. Little of interest among the rest, with the exception of a handful of proto-minimalist works: Jack Tworkov&#8217;s &#8220;Idling II&#8221;, which imitates grey rain dribbles on a window, and Barnett Newman&#8217;s &#8220;Midnight Blue&#8221;, which contains a light blue vertical stripe on a dark blue field. &nbsp;Two others caught my attention: Mark Tabey&#8217;s &#8220;Parnassus&#8221;, which brought to mind the art of Ian Fairweather in gestures that look like scripts, and Sam Francis&#8217; &#8220;Summer #2&#8221;, with its blue and white patches.<\/li>\n<li>Exhibition of abstract expressionist art from the Peggy Guggenheim collection, ING Gallery, Brussels, Belgium, December 2016.<\/li>\n<li>Theo van Doesburg: &nbsp;Palais des Beaux-Arts (Bozar), Brussels, Belgium, March 2016. Seeing so much De Stijl work in one place made me realise how Calvinist this art is: all squares and rectangles; initially only right angles, although some 45 degree angles later (at least the Russian constructivists allowed 120 and 30 degrees); only primary colours; and all the furniture comprising only flat planes and hard surfaces. Who could have sat for long in any of Gerrit Rietveld&#8217;s chairs, for instance? This was art for moral improvement or character-building discipline, not for pleasure. How far this aesthetic was from the sensuousness of Brazilian tropicala minimalism or the opart of (say) Bridget Riley.<\/li>\n<li><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalacademy.org.uk\/exhibition\/radical-geometry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Radical Geometry<\/a>:&nbsp; Modern Art of South America from the Collection of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros: <\/em>Royal Academy, London, July-September 2014.&nbsp; The exhibition was arranged by geography:&nbsp; Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuala.&nbsp; With a couple of exceptions, only the works by Brazilian artists detained me.&nbsp; Odd that visual art that most people would see as being very similar and of the same style evokes completely disparate reactions in me.&nbsp;&nbsp; The geometric abstraction of Brazilians is very good and worth going back to, while the rest is just awful.<\/li>\n<li><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalacademy.org.uk\/exhibition\/17\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Australia<\/a><\/em>: A review of Australian art at the Royal Academy in London, September 2013. What a pleasure to see so many old friends here, starting with Sydney Long&#8217;s 1897 imagist <em>&#8220;The Spirit of The Plains&#8221;<\/em> (now in the Queensland Art Gallery), whose vertical trees, musician and landing brolgas trace an enchanting curve.<\/li>\n<li><em><a href=\"http:\/\/qagoma.qld.gov.au\/exhibitions\/current\/portrait_of_spain_masterpieces_from_the_prado\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Masterpieces from the Prado<\/a><\/em>, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Qld.&nbsp; The exceptional highlight was a 1641 painting by Antonio de Pereda y Salgado (1611-1678), entitled, &#8220;<em>Cristo, Varon de Dolores<\/em>&#8220;, of Christ holding the tree trunk that would be the cross.&nbsp; The bright red of His cloak is reflected in the drops of red blood on His shoulders, blood from His crown of thorns; and the realistic bark of the tree trunk is reflected in the wood of the crown.<\/li>\n<li><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.somersethouse.org.uk\/casa-brasil\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Casa Brazil<\/a><\/em>:&nbsp; Somerset House, London, UK.&nbsp; Billed as recent Brazilian art and design, at least a third of this exhibition was devoted to a glossy sales pitch for the Rio Olympics 2016.&nbsp; What recent art and design was included owed a strong influence to Arte Povera and traditional crafts.&nbsp; Was this representative, I wonder? &nbsp; Disappointing.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/exhibitions\/listings\/2012\/rinpa-aesthetic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Rinpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art<\/a>:&nbsp; The Met, NY.&nbsp; More information <a href=\"http:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/toah\/hd\/rinp\/hd_rinp.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.massmoca.org\/lewitt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sol LeWitt:&nbsp; A Wall-Drawing Retrospective<\/a>:&nbsp; Mass MOCA (only until 2033, so do hurry along).&nbsp; A wonderful collection of realisations of LeWitt&#8217;s various instructions for drawing on walls, many involving the comprehensive exploration of combinatorial possibilities, in manner similar to that of Alighiero e Boetti.&nbsp;&nbsp; Some superb uses of colour and line, and some reminders in shape and colour of Bridget Riley&#8217;s almond paintings.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/qagoma.qld.gov.au\/exhibitions\/past\/2011\/the_old_and_the_new_pintupi_masterworks_from_the_collection_1980s2000s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Old and the New:&nbsp; Pintupi masterworks from the Collection 1980s &#8211; 2000s<\/a>:&nbsp; Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. &nbsp; Among some very moving art, an interesting feature is the <em>optical turn<\/em> in Pintupi art &#8211; the recent use of more abstract and op-art styles, with artists deploying intense repetition, oscillation, and visual effects.&nbsp; Because Australian aboriginal art usually has mythological, argumentative&nbsp;or narrative denotation (as discussed <a href=\"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/2009\/07\/art-as-argument\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/2009\/07\/art-as-argument-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>), these optical effects may be mere artefacts of our western viewership, rather than features intended by the artists.&nbsp; It would be interesting to know to&nbsp;what extent the effects have been intended. Surely, this is something the curators of the exhibition should tell us, although doing so runs contrary to&nbsp;the prevailing philosophy of art curation to focus all attention on the finished object, while ignoring most else of relevance, such as the anthropological or theological context of its creation.<\/li>\n<li>Masterpieces of English Watercolours and Drawings from the National Gallery of Scotland:&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lowell-libson.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lowell Libson Gallery<\/a>, London 2011.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Catalog <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lowell-libson.com\/media\/libson_media\/catalogues\/Checklist-Lowell-Libson-Loan-Exhibition.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.&nbsp; &nbsp; <em>Spectator<\/em> review <a href=\"http:\/\/www.exacteditions.com\/read\/the-spectator\/2-july-2011-9042\/43\/3\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.&nbsp; This exhibition included a fine Bonington and a superb Cotman:&nbsp; <em>A Pool on the River Greta near Rokeby<\/em> (pictured in the Spectator review and below); as with all Cotman&#8217;s landscapes, the proportions of the scene&#8217;s components are masterly and well-tempered, a fine sense of proportion and partition he shared only with Bonington and Richard Wilson.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A list, sometimes annotated, of various exhibitions and installations I have seen and wish to remember: Raphael.&nbsp; National Gallery London, June &amp; July 2022. Women War Photographers. Musee de la Liberation de Paris, France, April 2022. Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire. National Gallery London, September 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-concats","p1","y2012","m08","d09","h17"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4388"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11063,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4388\/revisions\/11063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}