Exhibitions That Have Moved Me
Tracey Emin: A Fortnight of Tears
6 February - 7 April 2019 White Cube Bermondsey
Tracey Emin does not disappoint. In fact she over-delivers. While some reviewers found her exhibition self-indulgent, with nothing new to add, I experienced A Fortnight of Tears as a retrospective of the many emotions Emin has experienced since her student days to the present moment and most recently a record of her loss at her mother’s death. Of course, the film on her abortion is not new but we are invited to re-experience with her, the pain she felt at the age of 23, about an experience that was deeply traumatic for her. And in her defence the film is placed right at the end of the exhibition, not at the beginning, and the viewer has the choice of watching it again or not.
At the beginning we see 50 A1 size close-ups of Tracy Emin’s face in the throes of insomnia. To anyone who is experienced even a single night of sleeplessness these photographs capture a reality that many of us face. It is also fascinating to watch the passage of time on her features: 23 in the film and at 53 in the photographs.
In further rooms Emin employs limited pallet of pink and black and white using highly gestural figures to portray events on the journey between life-and-death. Her titles are deeply emotive: ‘But you never wanted me’ (2018), ‘I could feel you’ (2018), They held me down and fucked me 1976 (2018), Bye bye, Mum(2018). Her subject matter is essentially autobiographical and a new film pans slowly and meditatively across the box of her mother’s ashes. It made me recall my own mother’s death. The framed excerpts from her sketchbooks indicate her process and also give me permission to frame and display my own 6 am paintings.
A number of gigantic bronze sculptures fill the space: ‘Mother’, ‘I lay here for you’, ‘When I sleep’ which are a celebration of motherhood and the female form. The fact that she employs text in neon to exemplify her feelings gives me an example to follow. As Jonathan Jones writes:
“(Emin’s) sculptures of women in states of rapture and longing are open and unconcealed confessions of fantasy, desire, passion. They are visions of the earth shaking love she still believes in.”
This exhibition made me think about what the public relates to. Here are autobiographical themes of love, sex, birth and death. Here is both quantity and quality, both raw emotion (the canvases) and considered carefully captured art (the photographs, the sculptures and the films). The fact that the exhibition is free to all is a tribute to the City of London which seems to believe that art is for all and not just for the elite. All in all I came away feeling full and fed in my spirit.
Bill Viola/Michelangelo: Life Death Rebirth
26th January 2019 – 31st March 2019 Royal Academy of Arts, London
Bill Viola
To say that the video work of Bill Viola moved me more than the drawings of Michelangelo is almost a travesty in terms of art appreciation. But they did. Using modern technology Bill Viola addresses the same spiritual themes as did Michelangelo and with as great a technical skill as the master himself. Viola’s art practice is informed, as mine is, by an engagement with Buddhism, Sufism and mystical Christianity, having been influenced by writers such as Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, Rumi and Chuang Tzu.
In the Nantes Triptych (1992) Viola projects both the beginning, the end and the post-end of life, looking at what happens to the soul as it is born, dies and is reborn. The Messenger (1996) depicts a naked man emerging from watery depths and rising to the surface for a few breaths of air before returning to the depths. In Viola’s work water is used as a metaphor for life and being and originated from a personal experience, when as a child Viola almost drowned. This piece references both Christian and Buddhist conceptualisations or rebirth and reincarnation. Viola is concerned with inner states of the person and in Slowly Turning Narrative (1992) there is a continuous recitation of words such as:
the one who integrates
the one who trusts
the one who withholds
the one who performs
the one who beholds
the one who exceeds
the one who repels
the one who possesses
In Man Searching for Immortality/Woman Searching for Eternity (2013) an elderly man and woman search their ageing bodies with a torchlight perhaps looking for signs of decay and death. The temporal is of profound importance to Viola. All videos are recorded in real time and then slowed down into a much longer durational plane. He thus exhorts the viewer to take time, to slow down form their busy lives and to consider questions of life death and after- death- life.
Michelangelo
Both Bill Viola and Michelangelo set out to capture the un-representable in visual form,, 4 centuries apart. There is little need to extol the virtues of Michelangelo because he is so well known. What I was touched by was his beliefs, his poetry and his life. He believed in the immortality of the soul and that the divine can be apprehended by humans, still living in the material world. Not just this, he believed that the divine could intrude upon and interrupt human life on a daily basis. Michelangelo’s work for the church brought him into regular contact with theologians and this enriched his inner spiritual life. He repeatedly depicted the Lamentation, the Resurrection and the Crucifixion. In later years as his own death approached he returned over and over again to Christ’s death on the cross. In 1562, 2 years before he died at the age of 87, he elected to carve out of wood the Crucifix depicted in the second picture of the grid. He worked on the Rondanini Pieta till within a few days before his death in 1864. All of his life he had used painting and sculpting to quieten his soul, as do I, but as he approached death he wrote:
‘My life’s journey has finally arrived, after a stormy sea, in a fragile boat, at a common port, through which all must pass to render an account and an explanation of their every act, evil and devout…Neither painting nor sculpting can quieten my soul, turned now to that divine love which on the Cross, to embrace us opened wide its arms.’ Pg. 34 Catalogue
This, to me, was important because it enabled me to recognise that even for the greatest of all artists there is a God shaped void in the human heart which art alone cannot fill.
RI 2019 Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours The 207th Exhibition
3rd-18th April 2019 Mall Galleries, London.
I went to this exhibition because of my own history with water based mediums in particular the bamboo pen and ink paintings that I have done in the past and have recently taken up again. When I looked at the prize-winners my heart sank in dismay. The work, all of it was so delicate and fine and detailed, unlike my own.
From left to right in the gallery above was the Winsor and Newton Award winner Tianya Zhou called Tibetan Ama, then Varsha Bhatia’s St Johns College Gate, Cambridge, next Yellon Ran Huang’s The City You and I live in which won the Frank Herring Award, Lisa Graa Jensen’s Starry River, Archie Niven’s Rotation. There were one or two looser paintings, but only two won awards: Zi Ling’sBridge (the Cass Art Award) and Paul Murray’s Hillside Thaw (the Schmincke Prize). The latter two did indeed raise my spirits.
However, having viewed this exhibition I have determined to be more delicate in my pen and ink works.
Claudette Johnson 1st June to 8th Sept 2019 I Came to Dance
An inspiring exhibition by a black artist who is roughly my age. She is finally getting the exposure she deserves. She has continually questioned the limits placed upon black women, asking her sitters to ‘take up the space in a way that is reflective of who they are’. I was fascinated by her use of drawing and painting in combination, her use of large pieces of paper and her use of untouched space in her drawing-paintings. This is very similar to what I am doing and I am encouraged perhaps to try some larger works. And perhaps to experiment with chalk pastels and paint.
Jeff Koons 7th Feb-9June 2019 The Ashmolean, Oxford
Initially I found the art of Jeff Koons fairly repulsive. But having visited the exhibition I have made slight changes to my original opinions. The inflatable figures exemplify Jeff Koons fascination with the breath, the letting in of it and the letting out of it. And the craftsmanship involved in getting steel to look like ballons must indeed be considerable. Also the finely hand painted dots that replicate digital reproductions is a tribute to his craftsmanship or that of his assistants (See below). The glass mirror spheres on garden fountains did little to excite me. All in all I am encouraged to put more finesse into my art.
Beyond this, I personally find little to commend this work.
A List of Exhibitions that Have Influenced My Work
Allbright Knox 2016, Clifford Still and Mark Bradford: Shade, Buffalo, USA.
Ashmolean 2019, Jeff Koons, The Ashmolean, Oxford.
Barbican 2018, Modern Couples, Barbican, London.
BBC 2 2019, Sean Scully: Unstoppable, BBC 2, London.
Benesse House 2019, Permanent Collection, Benesse House, Naoshima Island, Japan.
Bethlem Museum of the Mind 2016, Xavier White: Youtopia:Vision of the Past, Present and Future, Kent.
Blain/Southern 2018, Sean Scully, Blain/Southern, London.
British Council 2017, Phyllida Barlow: Folly, Venice.
Camden Arts Centre 2018, Amy Sillman: Landline, Camden Arts Centre, London.
Collyer Bristow 2018, In the Future, London.
Drawing Room 2018, Everything we do is Music, London.
Dulwich Picture Gallery 2017, Sargeant: The Watercolours, London.
Elephanta Caves 2018, Hindu and Buddhist Sculptures, Elephanta Caves, Mumbai.
Flowers 2018, Jason Larkin: Past Perfect, London.
Flowers 2018, Nadav Kander: Dark line: The Thames Estuary, London.
Fold Gallery 2018, Michaela Zimmer and Peter Welz: After White, London.
Frieze 2018, Frieze, Frieze, London.
Hepsibah Gallery 2017, Sally Hunter Fine Art, London.
Insho Domoto Museum of Fine Art 2019, Insho Domoto, Insho Domoto Museum of Fine Art, Kyoto.
Kasugataisha 2019, Permanenet Collection, Kasugataisha, Kyoto, Japan.
Kiran Nader Museum of Art 2018, Video Art, Kiran Nader Museum of Art, New Delhi.
Mall Galleries 2019, The Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours: The 207th Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London.
Manchester Art Gallery 2019, Halima Cassell: Unity, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester.
Manchester Art Gallery 2019, Leonardo Da Vinci, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester.
Maureen Paley 2017, Andrew Grassie, London.
Michael Werner Gallery 2018, Peter Doig, London.
Museum of Modern Art 2019, Claudette Johnson: I Came to Dance, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.
National Gallery of Modern Art 2018, Permanenet Collection, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.
National Gallery of Modern Art MV Dhurandhar: Romantic Realism, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai.
National Portrait Gallery 2017, The Encounter: Drawings from Leonardo to Rembrandt, London.
National Portrait Gallery 2017, Howard Hodgkin: Absent Friends, London.
Ontario Art Gallery 2017, The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, Toronto< Canada.
Pace Gallery 2018, Adam Pendleton, Pace Gallery, London.
Palazzo Grassi 2017, Damien Hirst: Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, Venice.
Royal Academy of Arts 2019, The 250th Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London.
Royal Academy of Arts 2018, Bob and Roberta Smith, Royal Academy of Arts, London.
Royal Academy of Arts 2018, Charles I: King and collector, London.
Royal Academy of Arts 2018, Jasper Johns, London.
Royal Academy of Arts 2017, 249th Summer Exhibition, London.
Royal Academy of Arts 2017, Anthony Green: Painting Life, London.
Ryoanji Temple 2019, Sculpture, Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto, Japan.
Saatchi Gallery 2019, Draw Art Fair
, Saatchi Gallery, London.
Sakai City Traditional Crafts 2019, Sakai City Traditional Crafts, Sakai City Traditional Crafts, Osaka, Japan.
Serpentine Gallery 2017, Wade Guyton, London.
Somerset House 2017, Photo Lodnon, London.
South London Gallery 2018, Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery, London.
South London Gallery Knock Knock: Humour in Contemporary Art, South London Gallery, London.
Tate Britain 2019, The EY Exhibition: Van Gogh and Britain, Tate Britain, London.
Tate Britain 2019, Frank Bowling, Tate Britain, London.
Tate Britain 2018, Aftermath: Remembering the Great War in Britain, Germany and France, Tate Britain, London.
Tate Britain 2018, Eduard Burne Jones, Tate Brtain, London.
Tate Britain 2018, The Ey Exhibition: Impressionists in London, London.
Tate Britain 2018, Rachel Whiteread, London.
Tate Britain 2017, David Hockney, London.
Tate Britain 2017, Modigliani, London.
Tate Britain 2017, Paul Nash, London.
Tate Modern 2019, Pierre Bonnard, Tate Modern, London.
Tate, S.I. 2018, Virginia Woolf: An exhibition inspired by her writings, Cornwall.
The Art House Project 2019, Permanent Collection: James Turrell, Walter De Maria, Monet, The Art House Project, Naoshima Island, Japan.
The British Museum 2017, The American dream: Pop to present, London.
The British Museum 2017, "Hokusai: Beyond The Great Wave", .
The Chichu Museum 2019, Permanent Collection, The Chichu Museum, Naoshima Island, Japan.
The National Gallery 2017, beyond Caravaggio, Edinburgh.
The National Gallery 2017, Chris Ofili: Weaving magic, London.
The National Gallery of Art 2019, Japanese ‘New Wave: Contemporary Art of the 1980s’, The National Gallery of Art, Osaka,Japan.
The National Museum of Modern Art 2019, Permanent Collection, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.
The Sunday Painter 2018, Nicholas Pope: 7 Deadly Sins and 6 Virtues, The Sunday Painter, London.
The White Cube 2019, Tracey Emin: A Fortnight of Tears, The White Cube, London.
Venice Biennale 2017, Vive Arte Viva, Venice.
Victoria Miro 2018, Jules de Balincourt: They cast long shadows, London.
Victoria Miro 2017, Henan Bas, London.
Victoria Miro 2017, idris Khan: absorbing light, London.
Victoria Miro 2017, Tal R: Sex shops, London.
Victoria Miro 2017, Yayoi Kusama, London.
Waterhouse and Dodd 2017, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, London.