The Renaissance - A Fresh Perspective

My favourite art historian/critic Waldemar Januszczak is at it again.  Following on from his excellent series on the Rococo and Baroque, he now turns his attention to the Renaissance in his latest series The Renaissance Unchained.  Given the mountains of material that has trawled through this period of history, you have to wonder what fresh perspective could Januszczak offer.  

He challenges the accepted line put forward by the world's first art historian Giorgio Vasari that the Renaissance began in Italy and that Michelangelo was at its centre.  Januszczak argues that being the first to put pen to paper on these matters meant Vasari's views "could harden quickly into art historical certainties that were passed from generation to generation.  And these weighty certainties were not easy to challenge."   So Januszczak makes a case for the Renaissance having its origins in Flanders and Germany.

Given that the series Rococo was not screened on either the ABC or SBS, I assume the same will apply this time around too.  I am only discovering these series by checking out the BBC4 website - rather sad really.

A Dazzling Sun In A Gallery

I would have loved to have witnessed this first hand.  Olafur Eliasson's The Weather Project installed in the 150 long turbine hall of Tate Modern in 2003.  

In his preparatory work, Eliasson encouraged active involvement of gallery staff in the project from the beginning.  He distributed a questionnaire asking staff about their everyday engagement with the weather.  Eliasson also engaged the representatives of various gallery departments, as well as the Tate director and the museum architect, in discussions that examined issues such as representation, experience, interpretation and display.  

 He was involved in press releases prior to the opening claiming research was being carried out in the Turbine Hall, which was described as a place apparently capable of forming meteorological conditions of its own. The Weather Project has been described as bringing out the full potential of Tate Modern and, by extension, of museums in general, as places of encounter and aggregation. Spontaneous meetings took place in the hall, celebrations, people embracing or reveling in the artificial light, or lying on the floor to gaze at their own reflections in the ceiling. The Weather Project has been credited with reaffirming the social role of the museum.   An edited essay by Marcella Beccaria, Chief Curator Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Italy. 

How To Handle Criticism

The Vatican went ballistic in 1990 when German artist Martin Kippenberger unveiled his 4 foot sculpture of a frog on a crucifix.  Kippenberger claimed the sculpture was a self portrait of the artist in a state of angst.  In 2008 Pope Benedict condemned the sculpture as blasphemous when it was exhibited at a gallery in Bolzano in Italy.  What , I wonder, would Kippenberger (who died in 1997) have made of the child sex scandal currently embroiling the Catholic church?

Throughout his frenetic career, Kippenberger was constantly pushing the boundaries of taste and embarrassment.  And he received much adverse criticism including indulging in "drunken cynicism".  His response was the work below called "Martin, Into the Corner, You Should Be Ashamed Of Yourself".

Art And Sport

Who says art and sport don't mix?  Some years ago, Spanish artist and prankster Maurizio Cattelan came up with a large black granite monolith listing the results of every match lost by the English national football team between 1874 and 1998.  Measuring 3 metres in width, it was clearly a swipe at the fraught relationship that has existed for years between the English and their national team.

Last year it sold at Southeby's London for $840,000AUD to an anonymous buyer from France - it figures.

Unemployed Arts Graduates; Are Universities To Blame?

Author Alain De Botton says yes, they are.  In an article posted online he argues the world seems to have forgotten what the humanities, including art and culture are for.  So we have scores of arts graduates finding the world has no demand for their specialized skills and interests.  Instead, they spend their time dispensing coffees and waiting tables - if they are lucky, with years of expensive study in their chosen field seemingly going to waste.

De Botton argues that universities seems to be almost apologizing for having a humanities faculty, fearing they can't compete with science and technology, economics etc.  He says the way humanities are taught is dry, arcane and irrelevant to the needs of society.

"This represents a gross neglect of what the humanities are really for: they are for helping us to live and to die. The humanities are the closest things we have to a replacement for religion. They are a storehouse of vitally important knowledge about how to lead our lives". 

So he proposes that universities be completely reconfigured to include a department for relationships, and institute of dying, a department for self-knowledge, centres for raising children, reconnecting with nature and dealing with illness.  Given that we don't seem to be able to manage relationships too well, raise kids effectively and look after the environment and are terrified of death, there seems to be a massive untapped market for study in these areas. The key point here is that study in the humanities, if correctly targeted can have a therapeutic affect on society, which we desperately need in these increasingly troubled times.

Shadowy Figures in Degas's Ballet Classes

In his excellent series The Impressionists, critic and art historian Waldemar Januszczak discusses at some length the stunning and innovative ballet studies of Edgar Degas.  But he left out a major aspect of his work, which is surprising given how thorough his research seems to have been overall.  Appearing in some of Degas's paintings are dark shadowy figures watching the "ballet rats" as the students were often referred to, with some interest.

These "patrons" were welcomed by the ballet schools as they were an important source of income.  But it is well documented that rooms were set aside at the rear of these schools for "extra curricular activities".  Many mothers sent their daughters along to these schools knowing this was happening and because it was happening, in the hope their daughters could bring home some cash that might keep the rest of the family alive.   This is the 19th Century and poverty was endemic in inner Paris.  

When Less Is More And The Value Of Disappointment

In an interview with "The American Reader", photographer Gregory Crewdson discusses his motivations and objectives.  His photos are often cinematic in scale and haunting - maybe even unnerving.  Crewdson has a very unique relationship with the figures in his work: "I don’t want to know them well. I don’t want to have any intimate contact with them. For all the talk of my pictures being narratives or that they’re about storytelling, there’s really very little actually happening in the pictures. One of the few things I always tell people in my pictures is that I want less—give me something less."  Thus his work is open to the widest interpretation, he is giving the viewer the opportunity to project their own narrative into the picture.

Later in the interview, Crewdson speaks of the inevitable disappointment of translating an image in his mind into the final product.  "Yes. I think that’s the nature of representation. No matter what it will disappoint, it will fail in some way.  But that’s also part of the magic of art. If every picture met my expectation in exactly the right way, there’d be no mystery; there’d be no gap between what’s in my head and the picture I make. So it’s necessary. But it sure disappoints you. It’s also what propels you to make the next one."

He argues this is the case for just about every visual or performing artist.  The desire to make something perfect, exactly right.

James Casebere

The eerie imagery of the American photographer James Casebere.  In the 1990's Casebere constructed large models of buildings on a layout table and then inserted small light sources before photographing the results.  His work had quite an influence on me early in my career. There is an other worldliness to his work of this period which I admire.