213 SIX GODWIT BOAT PANEL by GUY TAPLIN

MESSUM GALLERY, CORK STREET until March 16th

Carved and painted driftwood, 94 x 142 x 33cm

It is a brave artist who puts flying birds on walls. Remember Mike Leigh's coruscating play Abigail's Party (1977), a suburban situation comedy of manners and a satirical attack on the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class? Am I the only one with a flight of vividly painted plaster ducks tucked affectionately away in a cupboard somewhere? 

 But Guy Taplin is a magician. Also in the 70s, while caring for the ornamental waterfowl in Regent's Park and training to become a Buddhist monk, on a whim he started to whittle in wood decoy-like models of ducks and geese.Now his work is in collections all over the world: curlews, sanderlings, terns, plovers, owls... In his Six Godwit Boat Panel he has given us  dream birds, which capture wildness but for the moment are poised against the ravishingly lovely blue of the boat.

Below Joanna Lumley, standing beside the artist,  has in her hands a single bird, an egret. In the introduction to the catalogue she describes herself as a collector who's 'enslaved to (Taplin's) skill in imagining birds in all the old bits and pieces he finds with his magpie eye'.

 

And here are four egrets, not confined to a hand this time, but achingly poised like ballet dancers, fragile yet tough, utterly still but pulsating with energy, with just a hint of a beautiful nightmare to remind us that these are no saccharine plaster dummies.

Carved and painted driftwood, Four Winged Egrets 103 x 85 x 43m

www.messums.com

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-21257824 

 

Bird on a Wire: the Life and Art of Guy Taplin  by Ian Collins (Studio  Publications)

212. DANCING SOUL by MARIA INES AGUIRRE

The history of decorated keyboard instruments ranges from harpsichords with Arcadian scenes to a painted piano by Damien Hirst. But when, in 2010, the Argentinian artist María Inés Aguirre (Mia) went into Steinway and Sons in Marylebone with a proposal to transform a piano into a colourful three-dimensional work of art, something very special happened. .

There was at the time a Model D concert grand for sale, one on which Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia and Andras Schiff have performed. Steinway gave Mia the go-ahead to paint it. The only conditions were that she must do the work at Steinway Hall and not let a single drop of paint fall on the soundboard. So part of the showroom became a studio and Mia spent seven months turning a black Steinway Model D into Dancing Soul. She was supported and encouraged not only by the world's best piano makers but also by someone said to be one of the world's best paint-makers, Michael Harding, whose oils are used by artists such as Howard Hodgkin and David Hockney.

Months later, when the paint was dry, the piano was taken to Kings Place where five outstanding pianists, Alexandra Silocea, Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva, Juan Gallego-Coin and Julian Joseph brought it to life with the excellence of their music. Dancing Soul is now safely back in Steinway's window. 

As a child, Mia spent many hours painting at home while her mother, an artist and gifted pianist, played Mozart. Mia's feeling for the relationship between music and painting is deep-rooted. The brilliant light and colours of Argentina and the fusion of music, dance and visual art created by Diaghilev and Les Ballets Russes were further inspirations..

In his foreword to a forthcoming book about Dancing Soul, the critic Edward Lucie-Smith writes Rather than looking for ways to decorate an instrument...she has looked for ways to express its inner spirit...the colours and forms she has discovered clothe this superb instrument express the soul of the music  that is performed on it. 

The spontaneity and luminosity of Mia's work attracted the attention of the late Pierre Restany, co-founder with Yves Klein of the Nouveau-Realiste movement. In 2003 he wrote We have become too intellectual in our ways of experiencing things. The dominance of rational thought over activities based on feeling prevents us from understanding the fullest dimension of any concept...for Mia emotion is colour and colour is the virtual expression od emotions. 

STOP PRESS Mia is featuring a brand-new piano festival, It's All About Piano! (22-24 March) For more information click here:
http://www.institut-francais.org.uk/itsallaboutpiano/whats-on/dancing-soul/

www.mariainesaguirre.com
www.steinway.co.uk

www.michaelharding.co.uk/ 

 www.alexandra-silocea.com

www.charlesowen.net/ 

www.katyaapekisheva.com 

www.gallego-coin.com/ 

www.julianjoseph.com

211. TULIPMANIA 1 and 2 by GORDON CHEUNG

Tulipmania 1 ©Gordon Cheung. Courtesy Alan Cristea Gallery. 

 . Hand painted inkjet print on 335 gsm Somerset Advanced Satin paper. Image 50.8 x 40.6 cm

Tulipmania 1 and 2 are from a series of 12 prints made by Gordon Cheung, a British born Chinese artist who lives and works in London. He says that in his work he is trying to mirror 'a state of in-between-ness' which is 'more than personal', it is 'literally around the whole world’.'’.
Against a humble, self-effacing, sepia  background, the tulip stands in glorious technicolour. Embedded in the curl of the leaf there's a moment when the paint has been so thickly applied it sparkles like a jewel. Cheung says of his works 'They're meant to be artificially luminous, a metaphor perhaps for the loss of that Utopian vision of the future after the millennium bug threat, the dot com crash... the war on terror- and all before the current recession. Yet it's also meant to suggest a glimmer of hope.' 

Why Tulipmania?

Tulipmania 2 ©Gordon Cheung. Courtesy Alan Cristea Gallery. 

Tulips, so triumphant and self-contained, are the stuff that legends are made of. Once they'd arrived in Europe an early enthusiasm led to a speculative frenzy known as 'tulip mania'. Tulips were so much in demand they became a form of currency. Gardens were regularly and seriously plundered. Cheung uses the flowers to reference the golden age of  Dutch paintings of still life in the vanitas tradition - the word meaning not vanity but meaninglessness. With every stroke the artists showed their appreciation of everyday objects, including fruit and flowers, but at the same time invited us to reflect on the brevity of beauty. And how transitory and insignificant are our human concerns and achievements. In 17C Holland the tulip bubble burst. The frantic demand for tulip bulbs boosted prices to extremely high levels, then suddenly collapsed.

And just look again at that paper in the background. It is a page of  stock listings, the print so tiny as to be almost overlooked, but marking transactions of the kind which have serious consequences for the lives of every one.  Perhaps the tulip is the most un-flower-like flower, almost fleshy to touch, standing there with not so much a military but robotic precision. It can flow in wide rivers of passionate colour over fields and landscapes, but when dying it stoops and bows its head just as we do.
 www.gordoncheung.com/


watchfineartslondon.wordpress.com/tag/gordon-cheung/

www.alancristea.com

SILVER ACTION by SUZANNE LACY

The image above is of The Crystal Quilt, a 'happening' by Suzanne Lacy which took place in 1987 in Minneapolis, when 430 women over the age of 60 gathered to share their views on activism and growing older. The pattern is made by women wearing colour co ordinated clothes stting at a table in groups of four. Their movement is choreographed to produce a lively video. It still exists in the form of a video, documentary, quilt, photographs and sound piece and was on view at Tate Modern this autumn.

But on February 3rd  Suzanne Lacy is going to create our very own SILVER ACTION. Four hundred women over 60  will take part. At orientation workshops before the event they get a chance to meet and exchange experiences of trying to 'make the world a better place' in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. 
 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007qlvb
You can read more about it  the  Tate's press release:
www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tanks-tate-modern/music-and-live-performance/bmw-tate-live-suzanne-lacy-silver-action
but it has had a lot of press coverage already. You might care to glance at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/jan/29/tate-modern-womens-liberation-army
- http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/tate-day-for-women-who-made-a-difference-8459621.html

210. ISLEY STANDING by NAVAD KANDER

Islay Standing, ©Nadav Kander, courtesy Flowers Gallery, London

BODIES - 6 Women, 1Man

Flowers Gallery London

                  until February 8th                             

'Wherever I may be, my pictures seek to expose the shadow and the vulnerability that exists in all of us, and it is this vulnerability that I find so beautiful'.

Coated in white marble dust and set against the stark background of the photographer's studio, the subjects of this set of dramatic chromogenic prints tease us with references to Classical and Renaissance art. Some also resonate with what we know of religious iconography and tomb sculpture. But that is not the focus of this exhibition.

In Islay Standing she turns her face away from the viewer, with her hair tumbling and twisting like that of Botticelli's Venus. She stands revealed, yet concealed, with outspread fingers shielding her eyes from some unseen danger - or from the viewer? Below, in Audrey with Toes and Wrist Bent we see a woman reclining with toes and fingers curled and compressed in an uncomfortable and unsustainable stance.The use of the sitters' names remind us that these are real people, individuals in the here and now, and not mythological figures.

Drawing on the conventions of earlier art works, Kander is  inviting us to engage in a visual dialogue between the past and the present, between notions of 'perfection' and the  beauty of a living, breathing human being. He exposes the shadow and vulnerability that exists in everyone, unique and idiosyncratic as we are.  The result is tender, wise and compassionate. For once we escape the scarifying pressure of artificial airbrushed perfection and that of sickly sentimentality.He describes his work as 'an enquiry into what it feels like to be human' and invites us to meditate on the beauty which lies in our all-too-human vulnerability.

Zoe Pilger's review The Naked Truth in the Independent on 14.1.13, referenced below, alludes to other work by Kander, including his prize-winning Yangtze, The Long River.

Audrey with Toes and Wrist Bent, ©Nadav Kander, courtesy Flowers Gallery, London

Post Script: Some years ago at the V&A Mark Quinn's life size marble sculptures of people with disability also challenged and displaced the classical ideal of 'beauty' and the category of the heroic and perfect nude. His work was placed amid the V&A's historic collections,including two works by Antonio Canova. In 2006  his statue of Alison Lapper, naked, disabled and eight months pregnant, was mounted on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. She appeared again in glorious splendour at the Paralympic Games last summer.
nadavkander.com/
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/the-naked-truth-nadav-kander-bodies-6-women-1-man
flowersgallery.com
markquinn.com
 
BODIES 6 Women, 1 Man by Nadav Kander, published by Hatje Cantz

209. SIR ANTHONY DOWELL by PHILIP HARRIS

oil on canvas, 1995  37 3/4 in. x 16 in.   © National Portrait Gallery, London

POETRY OF MOTION at the NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

'Oh, you don't need to worry, I don't work that way'.
Sir Anthony Dowell, C.B.E.,dancer and former Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet, describes in a lively Independent article, referenced below, his fears about how much time it would take when he learned that Philip Harris wanted to paint his portrait. The artist assured him that he only needed a couple of hours to photograph him. 'I didn't even have to go to his studio; he came to my house. He wanted to photograph me in very strong light, so when he came over we went into the garden.I was photographed in blinding sunlight, and I remember thinking that the portrait would be very much warts and all'.

Sir Anthony agreed to allow Philip Harris to 'choreograph' this work. 'Because I had put myself in the hands of choreographers for years I didn't mind...It's not a known position, but it gives the sense of dance.  He also chose my outfit. He wanted ...this very stark black-and-white look. The light reflects on me and the shirt and that catches the eye'.

Two Figures Lying in a Shallow Stream, 1992
Oil on Linen, 72" x 48"

When I read that the portrait was commissioned as part of Philip Harris's reward for winning First Prize at the  BP Portrait Award in 1993,  I checked his winning entry and was delighted to see Two Figures...again. As Susan Hiller has said, 'There are certain images which once seen are part of one's imagination forever'..As you stand in front of this portrait, you are looking at a stream so real you are tempted to dip your hands into it. Beneath are the artist and his partner Louise, two bodies on a carpet of natural materials and artefacts arranged with the care and precision of a still life. Is it a trompe l'oeil? Is it surrealism? Is it radical realism, ostensibly the world but not as we know it? There's a degree of discomfort about a painting which contains within itself both the ultra real world and a dream-like other worldly character. I find it unforgettable.
www.philip-harris.com
 www.npg.org.uk › Collection
.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-sitters-tale-sir-anthony-dowell-1098520.html
 www.istd.org/staff/sir-anthony-dowell/

Norbert Lynton  -  Painting The Century 101 portrait masterpices 1900-2000, introductoin. Published by NPG (2000)
Sandy Nairne  - 500 Portraits: BP Portrait Award  Published by NPG (2011)

208 LYNN SEYMOUR by ANDREW LOGAN

Copper sheet and glass set in resin, 97 in. (2465 mm) high, Photograph © National Portrait Gallery, London

Poetry of Motion

 This image is not exactly what you see in the gallery, because the work is suspended from the ceiling high enough the viewer's head. In fact, the first glimpse is disturbing: the sculpture swings slightly as people walking round the room disturb the air. You look up and see a sharp 3 dimensional cubist depiction of a dancer, her body scooped out, her head, hands and feet making their way through the frozen folds of her hollow robe. Just who is hanging there and why?

The answer is Lynn Seymour, a distinguished actress-ballet dancer, who joined the Royal Ballet in 1959. Her dramatic gifts were the inspiration for many leading roles is such productions as Romeo and Juliet in 1965,  Anastasia in 1971 and The Two Pigeons in 1961. She left the Company in 1979 to become Ballet Director for the Bavarian State Opera.

The intention of the National Portrait Gallery in their current exhibition Poetry of Motion is to show works where artists have tackled the problem of  depicting the moving body by experimenting with new forms and new media. The hope is that a non-conventional approach captures something of the grace and vigour of their subjects, be they athletes or Olympians, dancers or choreographers.

The artist Andrew Logan is said to belong  to a unique school of English eccentrics,  challenging convention, mixing media and playing with accepted artistic values.On his web site he writes ' My reason for living is to give enjoyment and pleasure to others through quirky, humorous and extravagant mementos. I hope you will find the same pleasure and enjoyment when visiting this site'.

He said of Lynn Seymour '(she) flies, she does not dance'.
npg.org.uk
http://andrewlogan.com/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4705376/Lynns-dance-to-the-music-of-time.html -.