Posts from the ‘Comment’ Category

Dec 6

Turner Prize winner recalls the quirky originality of the modernist revolution

I adore modernism in art. Just what the genre entails is debatable, but when I think of Modernism, I think of Gaudi’s masterpieces in Barcelona, and the art nouveau of Paris, the rethinking of everyday objects to create masterpieces out of functionality, obliterating corners and straight lines, and emboldening quirky, individual designs over and above the monotonous linear structures inherent of 19^th century urban development. The free-thinking spirit of modernism barely visited the shores of England, which was too constrained by the censored expression and elaborate attention to detail embodied by the Victorian era. Then with the two world wars dampening the UK’s embrace of architectural innovation, and the second world war flattening half of the country, the architecture which followed needed to be quick and cheap. Hence the hideous 50s and 60s monsters which now litter the British horizon.

George Shaw

These depressing urban environments, many of which have now fallen into disrepair and face demolition, are the eery subject matter of one nominee of this year’s Turner Prize: George Shaw. His works, such as this one, are painted in enamel paints, akin to those used by model makers, and as a result they exhibit a strange, photorealistic finish which depresses as much as it entices. I’m glad to see that paintings have made it into the Turner prize, and skilfully painted works at that. It’s a far cry from the “readymades” of conceptual art’s previous dictatorship over the prize. But this does not alter the spirit-crushing reaction which this paintings conjure in their audience. I haven’t been to the Prize (it’s location in the far out sticks of Gateshead does not make a visit for a Londoner particularly easy) but from viewing the work online, I am most struck by the photorealistic skill which has been utilised in producing the images. So are they art? Well, there are aspects of artistic composition and balance in these canvases, from the stark tower block background, cut off menancingly mid tower, suggesting the interminable rise of these modern monsters way into the landscape, while in the foreground, light dapples almost elegantly on the stark road surface. This is artistic, and I must say, I like his works. Although I think they’re better suited to a gallery setting: Hang them in your lounge and you’ll be on prozac in no time.

Martin Boyce installation

Martels' Cubist Trees

However it is the winner of this year’s Turner Prize, announced yesterday evening, which most inspires, and for me, Martin Boyce’s take on the urban environment recalls the quirky originality of the modernist revolution. His “installation” is a quietly atmospheric, almost poetic exploration of an autumnal park landscape, a bench like structure dappled with the light which flows through a metal leafy mesh on the ceiling. There are geometic paper leaves on the floor, and further leaves suggested by the mobile structures which appear to reference the whimsical mobiles of Calder. I especially love the slanted wonky litter bin, perfectly completing the urban park environment which has been created, but which also appears, nostalgically, to reflect the spirit of modernism. This reference is concreted (excuse the pun) by the explicit reference to the concrete Modernist garden of the artists Joel and Jan Martel, first shown in the 1925 Exposition des Art Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, a picture of which hangs within Boyce’s installation. This Modernist garden included concrete, geometric trees, their angular motifs seemingly reflected in Boyce’s own structures within the installation.

Norm watering a Cubism "Martel" Tree (2011 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown)

Boyce’s work is no readymade. This has taken skill, and with it he creates undeniable atmosphere and produces a work with all the potential to trigger an emotional response from his audience. How wonderful then that with this year’s Turner Prize, we appear to be moving forward away from conceptual art which, in yesterday’s blog entry, I so bemoaned. As for the other two Turner nominees, in particular Karla Black’s painted bin bags… well, the less said about that, the better…

Karla Black's bin bags

Dec 5

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Here’s hoping: Horray for the death of Conceptual Art

I was reading an excellent article yesterday by Bryan Appleyard in the magazine Intelligent Life. There, he reports on Andy Warhol and the unsurpassed, astronomically high prices his works can achieve. The article was refreshingly honest, challenging the wider perception of Warhol as a genius of Art, questioning the integrity of the market for his work, and concluding, finally, that the world of conceptual art, which was prompted so sensationally by Warhol with his soulless soup cans and unchallenging, repetitive silk-screen printed celebrity faces, is now over. Conceptual art, that is art driven by ideas rather than sensuous, emotional engagement has, he says, had its time, its 20 year reign over the art world expired.

The article is like a fresh air in an art world which seems to me to be so inherently pretentious at the same time as being so stagnant in the putrefaction of its own closed-door confines that there is no room left for a rational spokesman standing up for the middle man, asking, challenging: is that art? Isn’t that an utter piece of rubbish? Too often we are presented with a heap of detritus/ moulding bed sheets, used condoms etc, and because it is in a gallery, we are suppose to treat it as art. It’s extremely cringeworthy when I see clearly educated people attending a gallery, speaking pretentiously between one another about the fall of the light, the emotional landscape and the artistic intention adhering to a black sack in the corner of a gallery. For all they know, it might have been abandoned there in error by the cleaners.

Nov 21

The rain in Spain… and other Spanish truisms

There is a common vernacular, made famous no doubt by the mellifluous tones of Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, that the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. I beg to disagree. The rain in Spain in fact falls on the coast, over the mountains, outside in the garden and sometimes (because the houses here really aren’t built for the rain), inside. This past weekend,

Rain flowing down the roads in Marbella yesterday

staying on the Costa del “Sol” has been like living under a power shower as the skies bucketed down in a continuous barrage of water. The Spanish tourism industry claim that the Costa del Sol enjoys an average of 300 days of sunshine per year but I doubt that average reflects current trends. Every time I come out to Spain other than in July or August, it rains, torrentially. The houses, with cool interiors and flat roofs are built for the sun, and feel damp and miserable when it’s wet outside. The road drainage is similarly built to cope with occasional showers. Yesterday my mother and I were stranded in a café as rivers of rainwater gushed down the streets, turning the roads into rivers, leaving all those who had not thought to bring wellington boots on holiday (?!) unable to cross. There is a similarly common vernacular in Spain, that all the English flood into Spain to escape “rainy” England. The tables are surely turning, no doubt as global warming takes hold, and in 20 years don’t be surprised to find a barrage of Spanish owned second homes on Britain’s south coast, as the Spanish flee the newly named “Costa del Lluvia” in search of sun! Read more

Nov 16

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In honour of Hockney: the DigiNorm

So three days into the blog and already I’m jetting off and finding the editorship of a Daily difficult to achieve away from the wireless comforts of the Daily Norm head office. So as I was sat on a flight to Spain today (a few norms in tow, playing dominoes together in my bag) playing with my iPad and finding it ever so slightly limited in airplane mode, I decided to go all Hockney and play with the application ‘Brushes’. Hockney swears by it. He creates (or can one say ‘paints’?) a new iPad painting/picture on a daily basis, sending them round to the lucky few recipients who no doubt pass them on to countless friends who can then boast of having an original Hockney in their inbox. While this poses a justifiable question mark over the value of a digital image which can be mass produced an infinite number of times, it is easy to understand why Hockney loves this new medium – the luminescence of the backlit iPad screen is something which no conventional canvas can boast, no matter how well lit from in front. Hockney recently had an exhibition of his iPad works in Paris, and more will be on show, I gather, in his blockbuster expo at the Royal Academy in the new year. Any how, it was with this in mind that I doodled myself today and have to admit, with a bit of patience, it’s a pretty cool medium, especially in this new digital age. So in advancing the spirit of the Norms’ regeneration in the digital age, I present to you my first iPad painting… The DigiNorm!

Nov 15

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Introduction to the Norms Part I: Kelsen’s Theory of Normativity

I’ve already said that my Norms first emerged from the strange depths of my imagination in a law lecture when, no doubt, I should have been focusing on other things. As even the brightest law student will tell you, it isn’t always easy to concentrate in law lectures, especially when the subject is jurisprudence, where the very idea of legal philosophy fills most budding lawyers with abject horror, and then, inevitably, boredom. One such lecture introduced us to the legal theorist Hans Kelsen, who’s Pure Theory of Law (“Reine Rechtslehre”) has become a staple of jurisprudential study and was itself a radical modernist legal theory when first published in 1934. Like most legal theorists, Kelsen was trying to establish why law is what it is, how it works, why it is obeyed, and what it says about us as a society, our moral compass and the importance (if any) of religion as a backbone to society’s legal machinery. All fairly irrelevant questions you may think: The law is what the law is and that’s that. And you may be right – it’s certainly a question that went through my mind on a number of occasions when I first started studying jurisprudence. But the subject throws up some very interesting questions which make for a fascinating dinner table conversation, even for the most unwitting philosopher. Read more