tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/exhibition-26760/articles
Exhibition – The Conversation
2024-03-19T18:17:42Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224556
2024-03-19T18:17:42Z
2024-03-19T18:17:42Z
Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence at V&A reintroduces Indian and Ghanaian pioneers of the style
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580770/original/file-20240308-22-2gtl2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3811%2C2144&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Legislative Assembly/Chandigarh-Duncid and Independence Square in Ghana.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons </span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/tropical-modernism-architecture-and-independence?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA6KWvBhAREiwAFPZM7l2B8bPetmVYtGJiuonIMljqeZ4K8Scca1xkzgkLnPDikSo2WlquBRoCnisQAvD_BwE">Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence</a> exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum showcases the legacy of tropical modernism in Ghana and India.</p>
<p>The architectural style was developed specifically for tropical climates, so its key design consideration was optimal ventilation and minimal solar heat gain. Elaborate building forms and abstract ornamentation later became characteristic of the style. </p>
<p>Although the movement began with colonial architects after the second world war, it was redefined by newly independent nations of the 20th century, who wanted to create an identity detached from their colonial past. The V&A exhibition spotlights India and Ghana’s nation-building projects following their independence from Britain in 1947 and 1957 respectively. </p>
<p>It begins with the early work of British architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew in Ghana. Until a few decades ago, European and colonial architects’ designs <a href="https://journal.eahn.org/article/id/7484/">dominated the historical narrative of tropical modernism</a>. This narrow viewpoint is currently <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Third-World-Modernism-Architecture-Development-and-Identity/Lu/p/book/9780415564588">contested</a> and extensive research on post-independence architecture and non-European architects is being conducted. </p>
<p>The V&A exhibition attempts to redress this Euro-centric story. It centres around the lesser known architects whose input has been historically overlooked or erased. It celebrates their contributions to tropical modernism and the impact of independence projects on local architectural education. </p>
<h2>The architecture of a new nation</h2>
<p><a href="https://architectuul.com/architecture/city-of-chandigarh">Chandigarh</a>, a planning project for Punjab’s new capital after India’s partition, is one of the architectural works featured in the exhibition. The city is a famous <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203481561-25/chandigarh-india-modernist-experiment-nihal-perera">example</a> of 20th-century modern architecture and urban planning. It was led by European architects Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew.</p>
<p>While the story of Chandigarh tends to be <a href="https://courseworks2.columbia.edu/courses/26049/files/938908/download?verifier=hudOZmzeLo5FDraH2uXFwKx8uuzqw86zN2SELwyS&wrap=1">dominated by these architects (especially Le Corbusier)</a> its creation included a budding team of Indian architects and artists, many of whom returned to India from overseas.</p>
<p>Works by these Indian architects are on display in the V&A show. There’s <a href="https://worldarchitecture.org/articles/cvnnz/urmila_eulie_chowdhury_indiais_first_woman_architect_as_i_know_her.html">Eulie Chowdhury</a>’s Chandigarh chair which was co-designed with Pierre Jenneret, <a href="https://mapacademy.io/article/jeet-malhotra/">Jeet Malhotra</a>’s photographs of the city under construction and <a href="https://www.artnet.com/artists/giani-rattan-singh/">Giani Rattan Singh</a>’s wooden model of the Legislative Assembly.</p>
<p>These architects were on the design team for the Capitol Complex, which comprised grand administrative buildings and monuments. The buildings were exposed concrete structures with sculpture-like forms and deep concrete louvres (slats that control sunlight entering a building).</p>
<p>Once dominated by British colonial architects, <a href="https://research.manchester.ac.uk/files/23724029/POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS.PDF">Ghana’s building industry expanded post-independence</a> to include architects from Africa, the African diaspora, and Eastern Europe. <a href="https://fiatlux1717.org/AdegbiteHistory.pdf">Victor Adegbite</a>, a Ghanaian architect, oversaw several public works as head of the country’s housing and construction corporations. He led the team for the building, popularly called Job 600, which was constructed to host the Organisation of African Unity Conference in 1965.</p>
<p>Nation-building programmes also acknowledged the importance of local expertise. This subsequently aided the development of <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reformation-architecture-education-post-independent-india-deepak-das/">local architectural practice and education</a>. The <a href="https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/rtf-architectural-reviews/a5067-campus-life-at-chandigarh-college-of-architecture/">Chandigarh College of Architecture</a> opened in 1961 and more followed suit.</p>
<p>Ghana’s Africanisation policies (intended to increase the population of Africans in corporate and government positions) influenced the founding of the architecture department at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (<a href="https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/post-colonial-education-in-kumasi">KNUST</a>). </p>
<p>The department began by recruiting educators from Britain and around the world. On display is a student-made geodesic dome (lightweight shell structure with load-bearing properties), which was constructed during a teaching programme with American designer Buckminster Fuller.</p>
<p>Among the staff were Ghanaian architects like John Owusu Addo – the first African head of department. He designed new buildings for the university most notably the Senior Staff Club and Unity student hall included in the exhibition. The hall’s nine-storey blocks combine exterior and interior corridors to improve indoor ventilation.</p>
<h2>The many dimensions of tropical modernism</h2>
<p>Exhibitions like this are important because they educate the public on the strides made by academic institutions and cultural organisations in rewriting the history of tropical modernism.</p>
<p>V&A’s collaboration with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and Chandigarh College of Architecture was integral to the exhibition. However, the show only briefly addresses the contemporary issues of <a href="https://www.academia.edu/35992935/Modernity_Architecture_and_Higher_Education_in_Ghana_in_Ben_Ashler_et_als_Timely_Teaching_Educational_Idealism_and_Modern_Architecture">conservation</a>, sustainability and the alternative histories of the style. </p>
<p>Institutions and organisations are now pushing for the conservation of tropical modernism in <a href="https://www.designandarchitecture.com/article/how-to-rehabilitate-mid-century-modern-architecture.html">Asia</a> and <a href="https://docomomojournal.com/index.php/journal/article/view/674">Africa</a>. Although monuments like Chandigarh Capitol Complex, have attained <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1321/">heritage status</a>, many are in decline, repurposed or at risk of demolition. </p>
<p>In India for example, the Hall of Nations, a group of pyramidal exhibition halls, was <a href="https://www.archdaily.com/874154/the-demolition-of-delhis-hall-of-nations-reveals-indias-broken-attitude-to-architectural-heritage">demolished in 2017</a>. Social media platforms like <a href="https://www.instagram.com/postbox.ghana/">Postbox Ghana</a> and international collaborations like <a href="https://docomomo.com/student-workshops/">Docomomo International</a> and <a href="https://sha.architectuul.com/">Shared Heritage Africa project</a> centre the African experience in documenting and reviving public interest in tropical modernism.</p>
<p>Unlike the architects and the experts celebrated in this exhibition, construction labourers are not as visible in historical sources because they were often unrecorded. Oral history’s ability to fill this gap diminishes with time, but we have a duty to avoid repeating the same erasure and omissions of the past. The legacy of tropical modernism is incomplete without addressing the contributions made by both professionals and labourers alike. </p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adefola Toye's PhD research is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). It is a Collaborative Doctoral Partnership between The National Archives and the University of Liverpool.</span></em></p>
The style was redefined by newly independent nations of the 20th century, who wanted to create an identity detached from their colonial past.
Adefolatomiwa Toye, PhD Candidate, School of Architecture, University of Liverpool
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223939
2024-02-29T10:01:25Z
2024-02-29T10:01:25Z
Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind – Tate show explores the artist’s radical legacy
<p><a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/yoko-ono">Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind</a> at the Tate Modern delves into the legacy of the Japanese artist and activist. It covers seven decades of Ono’s art, from the 1950s to the present day, and unfolds in a loosely chronological fashion. The show follows in her footsteps from the experimental music and avant-garde art circles in the US, Japan and the UK in the 1960s.</p>
<p>The exhibition draws its title from Ono’s Music of the Mind series of concerts and events held in London and Liverpool in 1966 and 1967. This makes explicit the crucial role music has played in her development as an artist and activist, and at once attaches and detaches her from the rock ‘n’ roll music context (and shadow) of her late husband, John Lennon. </p>
<p>Ono was a musician in her own right, having studied music composition throughout her life (as well as philosophy and poetry), whereas Lennon had studied art. <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/yoko-ono/exhibition-guide">Ono said</a> on the meeting of their minds: “We crossed over into each other’s fields … from avant-garde leftfield to rock ’n’ roll leftfield. We tried to find a ground that was interesting to both of us. And we both got excited and stimulated by each other’s experiences.”</p>
<h2>Ono’s ‘instructions’</h2>
<p>In 1962, Ono hung 38 sheets of paper featuring a set of instructions, written in calligraphic Japanese script, on a wall of the Sogetsu Art Centre in Tokyo. No artist had exhibited concepts for artworks as artworks themselves before, so the show, Instructions for Paintings, was the first exhibition of conceptual art. Ono elevated art to an intensely intellectual activity, and the concept of art above its physical form.</p>
<p>Ono’s instructions also democratised art, as they triggered the imagination, thought and creativity of the audience who is left to “complete” the works by following the instructions in their real lives. This can be done by anyone, anywhere, at any time, either imaginatively or physically. One instruction entitled Painting To Be Constructed In Your Head reads: “Observe three paintings carefully. Mix them well in your head.” </p>
<p>Ono self-published her book, <a href="https://monoskop.org/images/archive/6/64/20190320203953%21Ono_Yoko_Grapefruit_A_Book_of_Instructions_and_Drawings_2000.pdf">Grapefruit</a>, a collection of over 200 instructions, in 1964. Many of them are scattered across the Tate galleries for visitors to follow.</p>
<p>The Tate show suggests that Ono’s work is a form of “participatory art”, a kind of art that engages audiences in the creative process. But this is reductive. Ono saw her instructions as encapsulations of ideas, and <a href="https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/learn/schools/teachers-guides/the-idea-in-the-work-of-art-2">ideas as stones</a> “thrown into the water for ripples to be made”. </p>
<p>I interpret Ono’s instructions as seeds for the cultivation of the “social imaginary” – an imaginary system of ideas, values, orientations and practices that binds society together. Beyond “creation”, Ono’s instruction project is a catalyst for continuous social change, a process of “construction” that leads to an alternative world. </p>
<p>Her instructions lead to a social balance between the individual and the collective, through reflective everyday acts. These small disruptive acts draw awareness to the fact that society is socially constructed, and so it is down to the power of people’s radical imaginary to change it. </p>
<h2>Ono’s commitment to peace</h2>
<p>For over seven decades, Ono’s radical ideas have contributed to powerful social ideas such as peace, freedom, equality and democracy. Her persistent commitment to world peace is expressed through her conception of art as a radical imaginary act. </p>
<p>Ono’s instructions are <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/yokoonoofficial/2892207133">“meant for others to do”</a>. But precisely what kind of “doing” do they enable? Works such as Shadow Piece – “Put your shadows together until they become one” – and Film No. 4 (Bottoms) – “String bottoms together in place of signatures for petition of peace” – instruct people to play, but to play “with” rather than “against” each other. </p>
<p>Ono’s playful works undermine the systemic causes that drive society’s problems and trigger processes of social imagining.</p>
<p>How do you play an all-white chess set with an “opponent” (White Chess Set, 1966), get undressed under a bag (Bag Piece, 1964), or shake hands through a hole in a canvas (Painting to Shake Hands, 1961) with a “stranger”? This requires working in concert with the other and coming up with a new set of rules – initiating new social relations that lead to radically new modes of thought and action. </p>
<p>Engaging the social imagination can contribute to changing the drives and consciousness of individual people who could collectively change the world – by imagining it not as it is, but as it ought to be. In doing so, they can construct the world they dream of. <a href="https://twitter.com/yokoono/status/1295742125687087105?lang=en">As Ono puts it</a>: “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”</p>
<p>Ono’s distinct approach to the empowering social role of art galvanises people in many directions. To discover new constructive principles for creating spaces for critical thinking and artistic experimentation. For knowledge creation and political resistance. And to imagine an alternative world – because to “imagine” is to embark on a process of construction.</p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriella Daris received funding from the Getty Foundation, the Henry Moore Foundation, the Emily Harvey Foundation, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, the British Society of Aesthetics, the British Association for Japanese Studies, the Association for Art History, the British Council, and Kingston University. </span></em></p>
For over seven decades, Ono’s radical ideas have contributed to powerful social ideas such as peace, freedom, equality and democracy.
Gabriella Daris, PhD candidate, Yoko Ono's conceptual art, Kingston University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224310
2024-02-23T17:44:26Z
2024-02-23T17:44:26Z
Violence, dominance and passion on the big screen – and other things you should see this week
<p><em>This article was first published in our email newsletter Something Good, which every fortnight brings you a summary of the best things to watch, visit and read, as recommended and analysed by academic experts. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Click here</a>to receive the newsletter direct to your inbox</em></p>
<p>I am very particular about horror films. I want films with a meaty story that haunts, unnerves and, of course, scares me but is not a total gore fest. I don’t like to see people slashed to pieces, especially if there’s no real plot. I enjoy horror films like The Shining, The VVitch, It Follows, Tale of Two Sisters and Midsommar. So, when my colleague Anna sent me the trailer for Out of Darkness, I knew I would love it. </p>
<p>Set 45,000 years ago in the Scottish Highlands, the film follows a small tribe of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens who have found themselves in a new land beset with unknown dangers. They soon realise their survival plans will have to involve more than gathering food and finding shelter, as a mysterious monster begins to hunt them down one by one. </p>
<p>As our reviewer Penny Spikins, an expert in the archaeology of human origins, explains, filmic representations of this period have often verged on the ridiculous – being either wildly inaccurate (10,000BC) or crassly comedic (The Croods and Ice Age). The creators of Out of Darkness have, however, managed to pull off a deeply unsettling and surprisingly accurate stone age survivalist horror. </p>
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<p>They have clearly done their research, with the tribe’s clothes and look fitting what experts know of the period (no fur bikinis or loincloths). Our reviewer was also impressed by their inclusion of locations known to have been used in this period as burial grounds and hunting sites. They even worked with a linguist on creating an authentic-as-possible language, which manages not to sound jarring or cartoonish. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/out-of-darkness-im-an-expert-on-human-origins-heres-how-this-stone-age-thriller-surprised-me-223614">Out of Darkness: I’m an expert on human origins – here’s how this stone age thriller surprised me</a>
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<p>The Settlers is a brutally violent film with a lot to say for itself, which also plays with genre. It can be seen as a sort of western, following follows three riders in the early 19th century as they journey through rugged landscapes on a mission that sees them violently suppress native populations to further European interests. It’s a well-known narrative in westerns, but The Settlers uses it to starkly condemn the exploitation and colonisation of Chile’s Tierra del Fuego under the orders of the Spanish landowning elite in the country’s capital, Santiago. </p>
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<p>The film is the debut of director Felipe Gálvez Haberle, who does not shy away from the unremitting horrors of this campaign while telling this story of settler colonialism and genocide from the perspective of the perpetrators. As our reviewer Barry Langford notes, Haberle’s choices have been made to redress the whitewashed history of this period, and to incorporate Indigenous trauma into Chile’s narrative. He is urging viewers not to look away, and to witness the horror the country has chosen to ignore for far too long.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-settlers-flips-the-western-genre-to-explore-cinemas-role-in-colonial-crimes-223914">The Settlers flips the western genre to explore cinema's role in colonial crimes</a>
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<h2>Something sweet</h2>
<p>Both Out of Darkness and The Settlers feature deeply atmospheric cinematography that shows the beauty and violence of their natural landscapes. However, if you’re looking for something less violent and a lot more rich and lovely, then we would recommend you go see The Taste of Things. Our reviewer, Thi Gammon, thought it was gorgeous, which is much in keeping with director Trần Anh Hùng’s growing oeuvre. </p>
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<p>I am someone who shows my love through food, and this film speaks deeply to that side of me. It follows cook Eugenie and her boss, the famed French gourmet chef Dodin, over 20 years as they impress the world’s best chefs and grow closer in the process. Dodin wants nothing more than for Eugenie to be his wife, but things are not so easy in the world of romance as they are in the world of food for the pair.</p>
<p>It’s a simmering and sumptuous period romance with stellar performances from Juliette Binoche (Eugenie) and Benoît Magimel (Dodin). The process of cooking is given a lot of attention, with entire scenes given over to the dizzying processes of their kitchen. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-taste-of-things-review-this-gastronomic-french-tale-is-a-feast-for-the-senses-216035">The Taste of Things review: this gastronomic French tale is a feast for the senses</a>
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<p>If you’re looking for more romance, then why not watch the new Australian romcom Five Blind Dates? This film treads familiar ground, following a young woman who, to the dismay of her parents, is more concerned with running her business than looking for love. Tea shop owner Lia is forced to go on five blind dates, one of which her fortune teller tells her she will meet the love of her life. </p>
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<p>It’s the sort of film that’s perfect for when you want something comforting and familiar, but don’t want to rewatch your favourite romantic comedy for the umpteenth time. Our reviewer, Jodi McAlister, found it refreshing to see a film about a Chinese Australian woman that, while treading a lot of familiar romcom tropes, managed to be distinct. It also only lasts 90 minutes, which in a world of two-hour plus films is something to celebrate. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sargent-and-fashion-the-american-painter-brings-silks-and-satins-into-the-limelight-224212">Sargent and Fashion: the American painter brings silks and satins into the limelight</a>
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<p>Cocoon yourself further in beauty and romance at Tate Britain’s new exhibition, Sargent and Fashion. Did you know the American artist John Singer Sargent was a dab hand with pins and fabric? The man could make a dated cloak look new and dramatic again with a bit of time and a lot of vision, as the opening portrait to this exhibition attests.</p>
<p>Fashion historian Serena Dyer felt a bit drab next to Sargent’s impressive portraits of women in swirling taffetas and carefully draped silks – despite being kitted out for her visit in a great outfit and even accessorising with a Sargent painting necklace. It’s not a perfect exhibition – it fails to acknowledge the many anonymous women who created the fabulous garments on show and doesn’t say anything too exciting about Victorian fashion. However, what it does do is bring Sargent to a different audience, fashion lovers, and for those who are already fans, sheds light on a new and important side to his work. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sargent-and-fashion-the-american-painter-brings-silks-and-satins-into-the-limelight-224212">Sargent and Fashion: the American painter brings silks and satins into the limelight</a>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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A thrillingly accurate Stone Age horror, a violent Chilean wester, a sumptuous food romance, a comforting rom-com and a new look at a master painter’s love of fashion.
Naomi Joseph, Arts + Culture Editor
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222229
2024-02-05T17:23:04Z
2024-02-05T17:23:04Z
What makes something ‘cute’? Inside the exhibition defining the phenomenon
<p>Standing at the entrance to Somerset House, I noticed <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/368549">girls</a> – and irrespective of age, they can only be described as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1363460717736719?casa_token=0P-RD37lxjsAAAAA%3AS55azMh3qGwHzmyG305duhZYV_YKsmKalL8ASl3qVf702XGPDrKHgEncKcBShyA0ly5ii370zvPuYg">girls</a> – dressed head to toe in pink, bows and frills, from their elaborately curled hair to their Mary Jane platform heels. </p>
<p>Glittering and adorned with stickers, <a href="https://doi.org/10.21159/nvjs.12.05">cute plasters</a> and whimsical jewellery, they, like this exhibition, stand out in the late-January weather. Beacons of colour in a sea of wintery greys and blacks. What are they here for? It can only be the gallery’s new exhibition on <a href="https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/cute">Cute</a> – the first large-scale exhibition to examine the phenomenon.</p>
<p>The exhibition starts by exploring “cute” as a historic appreciation of cats. It draws a connection from <a href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/person/104XHB">Victorian cat portraiture</a> and <a href="https://andyholdenartist.com/hermione">collectable porcelain figurines</a> to the Japanese Hello Kitty. The exhibition celebrates the brand’s 50th birthday through a glittering kitty disco. </p>
<p>Jumping through time and geopolitical boundaries, the show demonstrates that “cute” cannot be bound to a single time or place but is an accessible concept that can be claimed by anyone. Appearing in its modern context through Japanese products of the early 20th century known as “fancy goods” for young women, it goes on to encompass diverse cultural products, from <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/7/3/24">comics</a> to computers, appliances to televisions, colonising even the screen itself as an <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1367877916674741?casa_token=NGqBsExImOwAAAAA%3AcxVQvvNJ4IF6g-_lqcW_lYIKDQhgnqCvibZ_-OlOkM8z3hU8C279H2Gff0YmV6_OuRaZxK3NO4Qm_Q">aesthetic</a> in <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/23/article/845498/summary?casa_token=XheY2yytZKAAAAAA:QDsR1YeMLNj5Q5_DVbPCs80Ch6ToVLuTua8Af5TDo9jNNrVBe_1G_T0Da-svWbjQniluXRbJTS0">music videos</a> of the 1980s and 1990s. </p>
<p>The Hello Kitty section of the exhibition is a universe of plushies and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/135918350000500205?casa_token=JH77fxBp6BQAAAAA:OLqETMB27HC8BYV_jbTkreO9EUww1NjWkLcJETX9Cf0w2MMgq1TaXbh3ouOnDoNYX2KBnvFUWtB44g">“Kitty mania”</a> in all kinds of products, from shoes and suitcases to tablets and karaoke machines. This encapsulates the most obvious secondary function of cute – <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/41/2/326/2907555">intense consumerism</a>, and its ability to sell objects of all kinds.</p>
<h2>Cute is a slippery word</h2>
<p>Moving upwards, visitors enter the “cute universe”. Here “cuteness” fragments and distorts into many shapes and meanings. </p>
<p>Playing on the word “slipperiness”, which is invoked several times in the <a href="https://www.somersethouseshop.com/products/cute-exhibition-catalogue">catalogue</a>, the exhibition’s efforts to put cute into distinct categories wrestles with its fluid qualities, which clamour for attention among the many objects on display. </p>
<p>The show is divided into sections – <a href="https://www.cute.guide/CB">“cry baby”</a>,<a href="https://www.cute.guide/PT">“play together”</a>, <a href="https://www.cute.guide/SCP">“sugar-coated pill”</a>, <a href="https://www.cute.guide/MO">“monstrous other”</a> and <a href="https://www.cute.guide/HS">“hypersonic”</a> – which all valiantly attempt to define “cute”. But the word resists definition. Objects of all kinds harness the differing qualities of cute to <a href="https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/eapc.2.1.49_1">incite emotions</a> – of sympathy, tenderness, love and desire. Though which emotions an object evokes vary, depending on the viewer. </p>
<p>The “cute universe” offers a deeper look at the concept through displays on community, how cute can disguise agendas, the juxtaposition of cute and horror and the glistening promise of cute as a future lifestyle aesthetic. The exploration reveals “cute” to be impossible to pin down. Neither good nor bad, it <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502386.2012.738640?casa_token=6RE5gyzPQx4AAAAA%3AeKg-sDlxCI8qyOb0HSVC4JahEIxRod9fZ2LJ-Ne5KDcDitvkFv_-InpW4r08u1uxcgVtg01Dn7-0aA">is a tool</a> to be used, felt and interpreted, dependent on the viewer and performer in a codependent relationship of ambiguity. </p>
<h2>Playing with scale</h2>
<p>The exhibition also plays with <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/90011648?casa_token=M4jXLh8pgEEAAAAA%3AIXDKAMjguiRNoGO7fHa7q_ZHqg4l49jr0f0TdOvLVOdtj9edOjnm7zSqMdJTB0rcA4DbBXi7wZxFCi0EFdchcrCUYlqFnGRbC9K7Bq6s-YYYOsWt3zw7&seq=4">scale</a>, with both oversized and undersized installations. This makes visitors feel they’ve become children once again, playing with tiny toys or experiencing an oversized world. </p>
<p>The immersive experience continues with hyper-feminine singer and visual artist, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/sep/29/to-be-a-girl-is-to-always-be-performing-hannah-diamond-on-pink-punk-and-making-the-pop-album-of-the-year">Hannah Diamond’s</a> creations, which evoke girly pyjama parties and pink beanbags, staying up too late and watching music videos on TV.</p>
<p>These works are nostalgic, a retrospective longing for a time that has already passed. Within cute is a performance of desire, filling in the gap between what we have and what we have <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/004262f802bdec094b52706dea45c89a/1?cbl=1818460&pq-origsite=gscholar">lost</a>. The performance of cuteness can only take place in the presence of loss of innocence.</p>
<p>So what to think of this exhibition of cute? As the curator Claire Catterall told me, the show hints rather than dictates its meaning. Yet, in the end, the bigger questions remain: what is cute doing to society? What does it mean that we are so complicit in its manipulation? Who are the players in cute, and who gets to decide? </p>
<p>Ultimately, the exhibition leaves us to decide for ourselves, but how can we when the concept itself is so slippery? I left Somerset House, disoriented and fizzing, as if I had consumed too many sweets. And yet, as I thought about the exhibition on my journey home, I craved a second helping.</p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hui-Ying Kerr received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for her Doctorate in History of Design on Japanese
culture in the 1980s economic bubble.</span></em></p>
The show is divided into sections which all valiantly attempt to define “cute”. But the word is resistant to definition.
Hui-Ying Kerr, Associate Lecturer, Fashion Communication and Promotion, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221911
2024-01-26T11:06:10Z
2024-01-26T11:06:10Z
The Wonderful World of the Ladybird Book Artists exhibition review: a look at the art that made the kid’s books iconic
<p>The Ladybird books, first published in 1914, helped millions of children learn and love to read over the decades. These hardback, pocket-size books, with bright and interesting artwork on the front, are pretty distinctive. You might have had one in your childhood, or seen one of the many spoofs put out by the original Ladybird publishers in recent years.</p>
<p>They were among the first books made solely with the child reader in mind and featured vivid, detailed and true-to-life illustrations and text simply and articulately expressed by experts in their field. The design of the original books has become iconic, with their full-colour illustrative style and simple typography.</p>
<p>The artwork is central to the success of the books, and to the enduring love many have for them. A quirky and original exhibition at <a href="https://www.victoriagal.org.uk/event/wonderful-world-ladybird-book-artists">Victoria Art Galley</a> in Bath is celebrating the artists that are responsible for Ladybird’s distinctive look. It has been curated by collector and researcher Helen Day, who became fascinated by the books after seeing her baby so engaged with the artwork on the pages of these old stories.</p>
<p>“I began as a collector but my interest soon broadened into a desire to understand better the social history that the books contain,” Day says in an introduction to the exhibition. She created a <a href="https://ladybirdflyawayhome.com/">website</a> and heard from a variety of people who were eager to share their own Ladybird experiences and stories.</p>
<p>The exhibition features a compelling assembly of books, artefacts, proofs, letters and original artwork by some of the most highly regarded Ladybird artists of the mid-1900s – such as <a href="https://ladybirdflyawayhome.com/john-berry/">John Berry</a>, <a href="https://www.martinaitchison.co.uk/">Martin Aitchison</a>, <a href="https://frankhampsonartwork.co.uk/">Frank Hampson</a>, <a href="https://www.thecharlestunnicliffesociety.co.uk/ladybirdbooks.html">Charles Tunnicliffe</a> and <a href="https://ladybirdflyawayhome.com/harry-wingfield-we-have-fun/">Harry Wingfield</a>. Many of them exhibited at London’s prestigious Royal Academy and exquisite originals of some of their work hangs on the walls here.</p>
<p>The intriguing biographies and often humorous quotes and anecdotes from these artists tell the story of the growth of a Loughborough printing company into the iconic imprint of children’s publishing. Such was its success, by the mid-1970s Ladybird was selling millions of copies of its Key Words Reading Scheme books. The series featured the characters Peter and Jane. They were known as the kids next door – which they quite literally were, as they were based on the neighbours of illustrator Harry Wingfield.</p>
<h2>A host of inspiration</h2>
<p>In an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BttMW4D7nY8&t=197s">interview</a> with TV presenter Richard Wyatt, Day noted that: “in the wartime, paper rationing meant that normal work dried up, but they discovered if they took the largest sheet of paper available at the time, and folded it … in a particular way … you could make an entire mini Ladybird book from just one sheet of paper. That was the winning formula. Suddenly, the brand, the format and some amazing individuals was the sort of chemical combination that sparked off this huge success.”</p>
<p>One of those amazing individuals was editorial director Douglas Keen, who commissioned the artists for the books he conceptualised right up until Ladybird was sold to Pearson, owner of Penguin Books, in 1973. Day notes in the exhibition introduction that Keen had enviable instincts for pairing the right illustrator with the right project.</p>
<p>The most fascinating part of the exhibition is the collection of photographs of the locations, families, friends and neighbours who inspired the illustrators. The roughs of the final illustrations are pinned next to the original artworks, which sit alongside the pages of the books in which they were printed. Eric Winter, who illustrated many of the Well-Loved Tales books, sometimes used his wife as a model. Seeing a photograph of her alongside Winter’s final painting of <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/196216/well-loved-tales-cinderella-by-ladybird/9780723281443">Cinderella</a> is a delight.</p>
<p>There are 500 books on the walls and 200 available to read. There is even a life-sized model of Tootles the Taxi from one of Ladybird’s most popular books, Tootles the Taxi and Other Rhymes, in which to read them. Younger visitors will love the interactive activities – dressing up in clothing featured in Ladybird books, drawing book covers to display on the noticeboard and completing a discovery trail around the gallery.</p>
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<p>Seeing the early decades of Ladybird’s history is a reminder not only of how important it is to publish inspiring content, but also that children’s books should reflect the diverse world we live in. With a 100 years in children’s publishing behind it, it is still growing in important ways.</p>
<p>Ladybird is still publishing books and still helping children learn and love to read. Today’s Ladybird artists come from all over the world, reflecting a variety of cultures, ethnicities and differences. New generations of children can see themselves in the pages of books that they, too, will love and reread. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221911/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:s.stewart2@bathspa.ac.uk">s.stewart2@bathspa.ac.uk</a> is affiliated with:
Society for Young Publishers South-West (I'm a mentor)
Society of Authors
I am an editorial freelancer for Penguin Random House Children's Books (which includes Ladybird), HarperCollins Children's Books, Macmillan Children's Books and most of the other global publishing houses.</span></em></p>
A loving look at the artists who made the children’s publisher so popular.
Samantha Stewart, Lecturer in Publishing, Bath Spa University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217995
2023-12-15T13:02:46Z
2023-12-15T13:02:46Z
Entangled Islands exhibition explores the history of Irish people in the Caribbean – an expert review
<p>A new exhibition at Epic, Dublin’s Irish emigration museum, explores connections between Ireland and the Caribbean. <a href="https://epicchq.com/entangled-islands/">Entangled Islands</a> aims to tell “the stories of a wide range of Irish people who traversed and settled in the Caribbean”, while also outlining “our intersecting histories of colonisation and resistance”.</p>
<p>The exhibition was partly inspired by growing academic research into connections between Ireland and the Caribbean in the last 20 years. Such research, as the exhibition explains, “complicates understandings of the Irish diaspora as a historically marginalised people”. The <a href="https://epicchq.com/entangled-islands-bibliography/">extent</a> of this scholarship is clear across the exhibition, although the tone is accessible throughout.</p>
<p>One prominent theme is a reevaluation of Ireland’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. The topic has previously been tackled in books such as <a href="https://books.google.ie/books/about/Ireland_Slavery_and_Anti_Slavery_1612_18.html?id=mToWDAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Ireland, Slavery and Anti-Slavery: 1812-1965</a> by Nini Rodgers (2007) and <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526150998/">Ireland, Slavery and the Caribbean</a> (2023), edited by Finola O’Kane and Ciaran O’Neill. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for Entangled Islands.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The exhibition focuses mainly on the stories of individual Irish people in the Caribbean, with some limited exploration of the wider context. While there are references to the positions of power many Irish people held under the colonial system, the extent of this fact – or its brutalities – do not occupy a large portion of the exhibition.</p>
<p>For example, an early panel explores Howe Peter Browne, the second marquess of Sligo, who became governor of Jamaica in 1834. This is a significant date given that the <a href="https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/explore-by-time-period/georgians/1833-abolition-of-slavery-act-and-compensation-claims/#:%7E:text=The%201833%20Act%20outlawed%20British,the%20Services%20of%20such%20Slaves'.">Slavery Abolition Act of 1833</a> was coming into effect when he arrived. </p>
<p>The exhibition makes much of the fact that Browne would have to enforce the new laws of the act, which required the “formerly” enslaved over the age of six to work 40.5 hours unpaid per week for four to six years. It notes that, Browne, like other enslavers, received compensation for loss of “property”, while also mentioning that Browne supported abolition. </p>
<p>Images on the panel of enslaved people suffering punishment on a treadmill and Brown’s ancestral home, Westport House in Mayo, are suggestive of the interrelationship between the horrors of enslavement and the Irish upper classes. Though nothing in the accompanying text makes this explicit. </p>
<p>Browne is positioned in a post-emancipation framework and portrayed somewhat positively, far from the way he is <a href="https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526151001/9781526151001.00026.xml">described by</a> Finola O’ Kane as a “less-than-mature” marquess, with “a mixed reputation as an improving landlord”.</p>
<h2>The Irish slave myth</h2>
<p>The exhibition is more explicit is in its discussion of the “Irish slave” myth. This refers to an online misinformation meme that <a href="https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:20525/">falsely claims</a> Irish people were enslaved in the Americas but have managed to succeed, nevertheless. </p>
<p>As one exhibition panel explains, the myth “persists in the face of contrary evidence”. The exhibition declares that: “White nationalists and racists, in particular, have seized on the myth in an attempt to undermine the unique suffering of enslaved Africans.” </p>
<p>The strength of this statement is notable, but perhaps because the meme remains most popular <a href="https://limerick1914.medium.com/all-of-my-work-on-the-irish-slaves-meme-2015-16-4965e445802a">in North American territories</a>, rather than in the UK and Ireland, a sense of distance allows for such unequivocal language.</p>
<p>There is a close attention to language across the exhibition, such as the consistent use of “enslaved”, in place of “slave(s)”. This is welcome and reflects reconsiderations, both in academia and beyond, of the extent to which the transatlantic slave trade was foundational to the making of modern Europe. </p>
<p>The layered meanings of “entangled” in the exhibition’s title are evident in the exploration of a number of connections from journalistic, to literary, as well as enslavement and colonialism. </p>
<p>At the same time, as the exhibition shows, there have been moments of solidarity between Ireland and the Caribbean, regions connected by their colonial pasts. Abolitionists such as Dubliner James Field Stanfield and Belfast man Thomas McCabe feature prominently, the latter ensuing an all-island perspective is included. </p>
<p>The visit in 1791 of Olaudah Equiano, a formerly enslaved man whose <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/34285/the-interesting-narrative-and-other-writings-by-olaudah-equiano-ed--vincent-carrett-intro-and-notes--vincent-carrett/9780142437162">memoir</a> would become a key text for the abolitionist movement in Britain, is also described.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, Entangled Islands has interesting stories to tell about specific people from Ireland in the Caribbean. There’s journalist James O’Kelly and his time in Cuba. And Kay Donnellan and Eleanor Frances Cahill, teachers from Ireland who became involved in the country’s labour movement. There’s also a nod towards Che Guevara’s <a href="https://www.thejournal.ie/che-guevara-irish-roots-3754700-Dec2017/">Irish heritage</a>, via his grandmother.</p>
<p>Towards the end of the exhibition, there is a turn towards literature. Figures such as St Lucian Nobel laureate Derek Walcott and former poet laureate of Jamaica Lorna Goodison are showcased as poets who have drawn inspiration from Irish writers such as <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2022/07/05/james-joyce-in-the-caribbean/">James Joyce</a> and W.B. Yeats.</p>
<p>The exhibition ends with a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9gGmmuPyE8&ab_channel=EPICTheIrishEmigrationMuseum">video</a> of four young mixed heritage Caribbean-Irish people talking about links between the two regions. They discuss both the racism they experience in Ireland and the interesting points of contact they find here with the Caribbean, from language to music. It is both joyous and confronting in equal measures and is an important addition to the story.</p>
<p>On the whole, this is a necessary and worthwhile exhibition that has fascinating stories to tell about the Irish in the Caribbean, which are often not widely known. More pressure could have been placed on the portrayal of Irish enslavers, but nevertheless, visitors are likely to come away with a fresh perspective. Entangled Islands is a well-researched, interesting exhibition that ends by echoing the idea of Irish and Caribbean entanglement into the present day.</p>
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<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217995/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ellen Howley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
One prominent theme is a reevaluation of Ireland’s role in the transatlantic slave trade.
Ellen Howley, Assistant Professor in the School of English, DCU, Dublin City University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219456
2023-12-08T17:11:26Z
2023-12-08T17:11:26Z
This hand-painted film is a ‘must see’ – what you should watch this week
<p>The mark of a good film, for me, is the way I feel when it’s over. If I jump up to brush off the popcorn and pull on my coat, it’s forgettable fare. If I’m still glued to my seat as the final credits roll, it will probably stick with me for quite some time.</p>
<p>Such was the case with <a href="https://theconversation.com/old-school-painting-meets-cutting-edge-animation-loving-vincent-is-a-rich-visual-feast-86419">Loving Vincent</a> in 2017, a beautiful film about the life and death of Vincent van Gogh. The story, about a man attempting to deliver the artist’s final letter and, in the process, unravelling the mystery around his death, wasn’t what hooked me. </p>
<p>It was the stunning look of the film, which made you feel as though you had tumbled headfirst through the frame of one of Van Gogh’s paintings. First filmed in live action, 125 artists then created oil paintings of each frame of the film (62,000 in total) in Van Gogh’s distinctive style. </p>
<p>Now, the film’s creators (husband and wife team Dorota Kobiela-Welchman and Hugh Welchman) have released The Peasants, another oil-painted masterpiece, this time adapting the Nobel-prize winning novel by Polish writer, Władysław Reymont. Our reviewer, an expert in Polish literature and culture, was pleased to find that the film stayed faithful to its source material – while also bringing fresh readings to a novel that is nearly 120 years old. </p>
<p>This time the visuals are inspired by famous Polish and European painters, including Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Jean-François Millet and Józef Chełmoński. Part of the fun is recognising the moments the action mirrors a famous painting, like when the main character, Jagna, turns her head in the perfect image of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. It’s an instant cult classic.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-peasants-this-oil-painted-film-of-wladyslaw-reymonts-novel-is-a-visual-masterpiece-219156">The Peasants: this oil-painted film of Władysław Reymont's novel is a visual masterpiece</a>
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<p>Another cult classic worth watching this weekend is The Wicker Man, which turned 50 on Wednesday. The film has been described as “the Citizen Kane of horror films”, and anyone who has watched it has their own unique relationship to its unnerving story. </p>
<p>The Wicker Man follows a devout Christian police officer (Edward Woodward) as he arrives on a remote island community, in search of a missing girl. As his investigation progresses, it soon becomes clear that the isolated people live by the rules of a thoroughly alternative belief system. </p>
<p>As our writer explains, the film’s director Robin Hardy thought of the film as a game. With clues at every turn to help the audience solve the puzzle, The Wicker Man rewards repeated viewings. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wicker-man-at-50-how-the-strange-1970s-british-film-became-a-cult-classic-204632">The Wicker Man at 50: how the strange 1970s British film became a cult classic</a>
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<h2>A Japanese history</h2>
<p>Blue Eye Samurai is the best TV show I’ve watched this year. The Netflix anime series tells the story of a master samurai – a young woman of mixed Japanese and English heritage, living disguised as a boy – as she carves her path to revenge on her white father in Edo-period Japan. The story’s depiction of women and characters with disabilities is refreshing, and the animation stunning. </p>
<p>But I finished the series wondering just how realistic these depictions were, as well as its constant – and increasingly horrifying – displays of violence. This piece from historian of Japan Ruth Starr brilliantly sorts the real history of the show from moments of creative licence. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/blue-eye-samurai-historian-explains-what-the-netflix-series-gets-right-and-wrong-about-real-edo-period-japan-218635">Blue Eye Samurai: historian explains what the Netflix series gets right and wrong about real Edo-period Japan</a>
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<p>There’s more Japanese history to be learned at Japan: Myths to Manga, on at London’s Young V&A museum. Aimed at families – but with plenty to offer to solo adult visitors, too – the exhibition promises an atmospheric trip through the ways landscape and folklore have influenced Japan’s culture, technology and design. Our reviewer, a leading expert in Japanese translation, was impressed – particularly by the inclusion of clothes made by the 12-year-old artist Coco Pink, which explore themes of waste reduction. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/japan-myths-to-manga-young-vanda-exhibition-celebrates-natures-influence-on-japanese-culture-217315">Japan: Myths to Manga – Young V&A exhibition celebrates nature's influence on Japanese culture</a>
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<h2>And the winner is…</h2>
<p>I’ve never been much of a gamer. In years gone by, I – wrongly – thought of them as timewasters. But my younger brother, an avid gamer, has taught me to see the high artistry at work in some of his favourite titles. </p>
<p>He plays Xenoblade because each game tells a grand narrative that players can participate in. Fire Emblem: Three Houses feels different each time he plays, with hundreds of character and plot combinations offering hours of enjoyment. </p>
<p>So, I was really interested to read about the six titles nominated for this year’s Game Awards – the industry’s equivalent of the Oscars. And a diverse bunch they are. We asked six experts to review the contenders: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was dubbed “balletic”, Super Mario Bros. Wonder “brilliant”, Baldur’s Gate 3 “hugely enjoyable”, Resident Evil 4 “unforgettable”, Alan Wake 2 “haunting”, and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom “spellbinding”. </p>
<p>The best one? The judges have now declared Baldur’s Gate 3 <a href="https://theconversation.com/baldurs-gate-3-wins-game-of-the-year-at-2023s-game-awards-219519">game of the year</a> 2023.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/all-the-video-games-shortlisted-for-the-2023-game-awards-reviewed-by-experts-217843">All the video games shortlisted for the 2023 Game Awards – reviewed by experts</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/baldurs-gate-3-wins-game-of-the-year-at-2023s-game-awards-an-expert-review-219519">Baldurs Gate 3 wins game of the year at 2023's Game Awards – an expert review</a>
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<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219456/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
An oil-painted instant cult classic, the Game Awards nominees and more.
Anna Walker, Senior Arts + Culture Editor
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215206
2023-10-10T15:22:09Z
2023-10-10T15:22:09Z
Philip Guston: controversial delayed Tate show asks ‘what would it be like to be evil?’
<p>American painter <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/philip-guston">Philip Guston’s</a> (1913-1980) work was filled with creative innovation. But the paintings he is best known for are the series of cartoonish hooded figures begun in the late 1960s.</p>
<p>Guston called these painted characters “<a href="https://www.artnews.com/feature/philip-gustons-kkk-paintings-history-meaning-1234572056/">hoods</a>”. They represented members of Ku Klux Klan (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ku-Klux-Klan">KKK</a>), an organisation that had haunted him since childhood. Painting these figures, Guston wanted to explore the idea of evil. “What would it be like to be evil?” he asked himself.</p>
<p>In Tate Modern’s vast Guston retrospective, which runs until February 25, the “hoods” occupy just one room out of 11. But Guston’s nuanced engagement with racialised evil caused a contentious three-year delay in the exhibition opening. </p>
<p>Produced in collaboration with three major US museums (the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Art, Washington and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston), the London showing of Guston’s retrospective was originally slated for 2020.</p>
<p>In the atmosphere following the <a href="https://theconversation.com/george-floyd-why-the-sight-of-these-brave-exhausted-protesters-gives-me-hope-139804">murder of African American George Floyd</a> by a white police officer in Minneapolis, <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/postponed-philip-guston-show-will-now-open-2022-museums-say-1919119">Tate announced that</a> the show would be postponed until “we think that the powerful message of social and racial justice that is at the centre of Philip Guston’s work can be more clearly interpreted”.</p>
<p>Tate was accused of <a href="https://artreview.com/patronising-postponement-of-philip-guston-retrospective-causes-outcry/">patronising its visitors</a>. The exhibition’s curator Mark Godfrey <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/mark-godfrey-leaving-tate-1950948">condemned the decision and resigned</a>. Rumours swirled about Tate’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/sep/26/sense-or-censorship-row-over-klan-images-in-tates-postponed-show">alleged intolerance</a> of internal dissent.</p>
<p>Tate director Maria Balshaw <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/10/03/postponed-philip-guston-survey-finally-opens-at-tate-modern#">now claims</a> that the delay allowed time for additional research into Guston’s depictions of the KKK. This is borne out in the exhibition, which begins by establishing key facts about Guston and his artistic commitment to condemning racism.</p>
<h2>Guston’s early work</h2>
<p>Born Philip Goldstein, Guston – whose later name change masked his Jewish identity – was the son of immigrants who had fled persecution in present day Ukraine. His family settled in the US as the KKK and racialised violence were on the rise. </p>
<p>Guston’s childhood was <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/in-defence-of-my-father-philip-guston">financially constrained and marred by family tragedies</a>. Largely self-taught, he worked through his fears by drawing “conspiracies and flogging and cruelty and evil” and demonstrated a prodigious artistic talent. This is evidenced in the exhibition through early works including <a href="https://ocula.com/art-galleries/hauser-wirth/artworks/philip-guston/mother-and-child/">Mother and Child</a> (1930), painted when he was just 17.</p>
<p>From here the exhibition proceeds chronologically. We accompany Guston through his experiments, first with surrealism, then with political murals.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="black and white photo of Philip Guston working on a mural with a group of children looking on." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552591/original/file-20231006-27-dto2px.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552591/original/file-20231006-27-dto2px.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552591/original/file-20231006-27-dto2px.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552591/original/file-20231006-27-dto2px.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552591/original/file-20231006-27-dto2px.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552591/original/file-20231006-27-dto2px.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552591/original/file-20231006-27-dto2px.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Philip Guston working on a mural with a group of children looking on (1940).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.aaa.si.edu">Archives of American Art</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Footage specially shot for Tate’s exhibition shows <a href="http://omeka.wustl.edu/omeka/items/show/14352">The Struggle Against Terrorism</a> (1934-35) a monumental, collaboratively made protest mural that Guston painted in Mexico. </p>
<p>In the 1950s, encouraged by his high school friend and fellow artist, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jackson-Pollock">Jackson Pollock</a> as well as <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/willem-de-kooning-1433">Willem de Kooning</a> and <a href="https://www.nga.gov/features/mark-rothko.html">Mark Rothko</a>, Guston began painting abstract compositions. In 1962, he received his first major retrospective at New York’s Guggenheim Museum which included several paintings shown in the Tate exhibition, such as <a href="https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/19024/passage">Passage</a> (1957-58).</p>
<h2>‘What if I died?’</h2>
<p>The global political turmoil of the late 1960s – addressed by the work of a younger generation of emergent “contemporary” artists – marked the end of a line for Guston’s generation. Pollock died in 1956, killed in an <a href="https://www.grunge.com/939772/the-tragic-real-life-story-of-jackson-pollock/">alcohol-fuelled car crash</a>. Rothko <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/26/archives/mark-rothko-artist-a-suicide-here-at-66-mark-rothko-abstract.html">took his own life</a> in 1970. De Kooning <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/153331750201700512">succumbed gradually to dementia and isolation</a>. Guston began again.</p>
<p>“What if I died?” Guston mused, perhaps thinking of these friends. “What would I paint if I came back?” </p>
<p>From the late 1960s, he abandoned abstraction, restricted his palette to mostly pink and black and began to work on the “hoods”. As younger artists <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-art-of-the-photograph-the-photograph-as-art/2021/04/15/5668ef7e-626f-11eb-afbe-9a11a127d146_story.html">fixated on photographic mass media</a>, Guston invoked the comic strip <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-gender-fluidity-of-krazy-kat">Krazy Kat</a>. He borrowed its strong black outlines and simplified forms to depict the Klansmen. </p>
<p>A mob of them cruise in a ludicrously cartoonish vehicle in <a href="https://www.artsy.net/artwork/philip-guston-city-limits">City Limits</a> (1969). A single “hood” meditatively smokes and paints a self-portrait in <a href="https://www.artsy.net/artwork/philip-guston-the-studio">The Studio</a> (1969). The “hoods” inhabit a sickly, empty city painted in <a href="https://cdn.jewishboston.com/uploads/2022/06/09_City-729x486.jpg">City</a> (1968) like unctuous tiers of strawberry blancmange, or a repulsive mountain of tumbling pink flesh.</p>
<h2>Introducing the ‘hoods’</h2>
<p>First exhibited in in 1970, the “hoods” had a hostile reception. Discouraged, Guston stopped painting for over a year. He spent the time travelling and finally settled in upstate New York, where he worked in seclusion until his death.</p>
<p>In spite – or maybe because – of the crisis incited by the “hoods” critical rejection, the paintings Guston made next are a tremendous synthesis of his preceding work.</p>
<p>Powerful colours return, along with forms that are recognisable, but dreamlike and strange. In one room, his large canvases are juxtaposed with ink drawings made in collaboration with his partner, the poet and painter <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_McKim">Musa McKim</a> (1908-1992). </p>
<p>McKim composed words around which Guston drew: “I thought I would never write anything again”, says one. “Then I put on my cold wristwatch.”</p>
<p>The final room in the exhibition is filled with work done at night and dominated by the colour black. <a href="https://www.artic.edu/artworks/90583/couple-in-bed">Couple in Bed</a> (1977), painted after McKim suffered a stroke, shows the pair apparently asleep. Guston clings to McKim, clutching his paintbrushes and still wearing his “cold wristwatch”.</p>
<p>After seeing Guston’s Tate retrospective, I led an undergraduate seminar analysing the New Right’s political rhetoric. The discussion turned to memes and how their crude comic simplifications serve far-right agendas well.</p>
<p>The exchange made me think back to Guston’s <a href="https://ocula.com/art-galleries/hauser-wirth/artworks/philip-guston/blackboard/">Blackboard</a> (1969) a painting of three hooded Klansmen on a schoolroom board. Did Guston mean to show the educational apparatus that engenders racism? Or was this a prompt to think about the interpretive frameworks that get placed around controversial works of art, including his own? </p>
<p>I’d like to think it was both. Guston wanted to pass on tools that we could use to take apart everything – form, colour, identity, politics – and to help us put it back together, in an improved form.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215206/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clare Carolin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Guston’s complex engagement with racialised evil caused a contentious three-year delay in the exhibition opening.
Clare Carolin, Senior Lecturer, Art and Public Engagement, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213907
2023-09-28T15:52:36Z
2023-09-28T15:52:36Z
The surprisingly punk fashion of the Bloomsbury set, including Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell
<p>Scrupulously researched and curated by fashion journalist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/charlieporter">Charlie Porter</a>, <a href="https://www.charleston.org.uk/exhibition/bring-no-clothes-bloomsbury-and-fashion/">Bring No Clothes: Bloomsbury and Fashion</a> has opened at <a href="https://www.charleston.org.uk/about-us/">Charleston’s</a> new spaces at Southover House in Lewes. The exhibition brings together original garments, paintings, photography and spoken word to explore how the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bloomsbury-group">Bloomsbury set</a> continues to inspire fashion more than a century later. </p>
<p>Charleston was once the home and studio of the painters <a href="https://www.charleston.org.uk/people/vanessa-bell/">Vanessa Bell</a> and <a href="https://www.charleston.org.uk/people/duncan-grant/">Duncan Grant</a>, and a gathering space for the artists and writers who came to be known as “the Bloomsbury set”, including <a href="https://www.bl.uk/people/virginia-woolf">Virginia Woolf</a> and <a href="https://www.charleston.org.uk/people/lytton-strachey/">Lytton Strachey</a>.</p>
<p>First, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/mrkimjones/?hl=en">menswear designer Kim Jones</a> transposes the works and designs of artist Duncan Grant into prints and patterns for his <a href="https://www.charleston.org.uk/stories/dior-x-duncan-grant-x-charleston/">Dior summer 2023 collection</a>. Jones’s hand-knitted rendering of Grant’s design for a fire curtain at Sadler’s Wells Theatre (1930) brings out all the campness of the artist, playfully reinterpreting the language of cubism to become kitsch. </p>
<p>Another designer on display, <a href="https://www.jawaraalleyne.com">Jawara Alleyne</a>, models his work after painter Vanessa Bell’s “<a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453043/bring-no-clothes-by-porter-charlie/9780241602751">slapdash style of throwing clothes together</a>” by fastening them with safety pins. </p>
<p>Sadly, we have no evidence of Bell’s cut-up method as we learn (from a rather matter of fact page in the diary of Charleston’s housekeeper Grace Higgens) that her clothes were burned after she died. But <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453043/bring-no-clothes-by-porter-charlie/9780241602751">according to her granddaughter</a>, historian Virginia Nicholson, Bell’s safety pins belong to the “family mythology”.</p>
<p>The exhibition also shows a handbag Bell made and a rags rug, still on the floors at Charleston. Repurposing and recycling clothes and cloth represented, for Bell, an ethical choice. It was an affordable alternative and a way of creating meaning through making. </p>
<p>What is interesting about the use of safety pins is that they not only give discarded garments a new lease, but they also mean the pieces could be dismembered again. Alleyne’s designs and installations draw out a punk attitude from Bell’s safety pins, which is lost in the representation of the Bloomsbury style as reassuring, crafty and quaint. </p>
<p>This spirit chimes with Porter’s reading of the legacy of the Bloomsbury group’s <a href="https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/15089/the-bloomsbury-group-bring-no-clothes-book-charlie-porter-interview">penchant</a> for “anti-fashion: something that looks so wrong, it’s right”.</p>
<p>The vivacity of Bell’s self-fashioning – captured in a rarely seen portrait by Grant – shows the wildness of her eccentric colour and pattern combinations. Her sister, the writer Virginia Woolf, once rather harshly <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300244113/the-bloomsbury-look/">responded</a> to her clothes designs for the <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/o/omega-workshops/story-omega-workshops">Omega Workshops</a> (a design enterprise founded by members of the Bloomsbury group) by saying they “almost wrenched my eyes from the sockets”.</p>
<p>Photos of Woolf from 1923 from the <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/journal-of-lady-ottoline-morrell-june-1923-with-photographs-and-accounts-of-virginia-woolf">journal of Lady Ottoline Morrell</a> display more fashion audacity. She pairs the floral swirls of her shawl with the lines of her dress, flaunting clash and tension in her clothing. </p>
<h2>Under the influence of Bloomsbury</h2>
<p>What is it about the fashion of the Bloomsbury group that continues to resonate today? In a recent examination of Bloomsbury’s experimental attitude to dress, art historian <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1qVaxyceRk&t=11s">Wendy Hitchmough argued</a> that it is their interest in a certain “bohemian latitude, and the capacity of dress to signal alternative values”. </p>
<p>The absence of a substantial representation of items from the Omega Workshops in this exhibition, marks its desire to move away from a history of modernist dress and instead “<a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453043/bring-no-clothes-by-porter-charlie/9780241602751">get closer to a garment’s wearer</a>”.</p>
<p>The exhibition introduces the group’s urgent rethinking of gender, sexuality and queerness as a way of life, without downplaying the fact that in spite of their <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-companion-to-the-bloomsbury-group/bloomsbury-and-empire/471BE8C34FDA9554D4A2F47E45729872">anti-colonial stance</a>, they never examined their white entitlement. In fact, they profited from the repetition of orientalist and <a href="https://www.theartstory.org/movement/primitivism/">primitivist tropes</a> within modernism. </p>
<p>The Bloomsbury group’s distaste for formality helped to set the foundations for how we dress today. But it is important not to forget how this rested on some significant precedents. </p>
<p>The exhibition positions the members of the Bloomsbury group as standing up against the military inheritance of the three-piece suit, cinched waists and constrictive undergarments. But there is a general sense that everything vaguely late-Victorian stands for the patriarchy. This means important connections are lost with the <a href="https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-new-woman">New Women</a> and the feminists, the vegetarians and antivivisectionists, the yogi and the sandal wearers of the previous generation. These groups paved the way for the revolution in clothing championed by the Bloomsbury set. </p>
<h2>The sandal-wearers</h2>
<p>One such sandal-wearer was the lesbian collector, avant-garde novelist and poet <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjZlZPowbaBAxUzVUEAHXxpBLYQFnoECFUQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.britannica.com%2Fbiography%2FGertrude-Stein&usg=AOvVaw2NJevA83lBIYRpeINGy-HV&opi=89978449">Gertrude Stein</a> (1874-1926). Her roomy brown corduroy gown, monumentalised in a <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/488221">portrait by Pablo Picasso</a>, must have made an impression on Bell. She <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/9780300244113/the-bloomsbury-look">purchased a similar dress</a> after she visited her in 1913.</p>
<p>In Florence in 1904, she and Woolf had also met the writer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vernon-Lee">Vernon Lee</a> (1856-1935) whose unique look <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-8365.12727">encouraged a sense of ambiguity</a> about her gender identity. Not to mention other radically dressed figures from the era known to the group, like <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp01984/radclyffe-hall-marguerite-antonia-radclyffe-hall">Radclyffe Hall</a>, <a href="https://www5.open.ac.uk/research-projects/making-britain/content/annie-besant">Annie Besant</a> and <a href="https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/carlo-levi--597289969328628621/">Filippo De Pisis</a>.</p>
<p>The modern designer <a href="https://ellaboucht.com">Ella Boucht’s</a> bodacious suits for queer, trans and non-binary clients – on display at the exhibition – are arguably influenced by kinship with these historical trailblazers, rather than solely, as the exhibit text says, “through opposition to the patriarchy and power within tailoring”. Sometimes queer liberation is not measured by the freedom to undress, or underdress, but its opposite. </p>
<p>When the <a href="https://thelondonmagazine.org/article/essay-queer-spaces-bloomsbury-and-the-bright-young-things-by-nino-strachey/">Bright Young Things</a> – a generation of gender non-conforming painted boys in London, Paris and Berlin – entered the scene in the 1920s, the meaning of the suit was completely unsettled.</p>
<p>By overstating the Bloomsbury set as standing alone against the conservatism of early 20th-century British society, Bring No Clothes sometimes suffers from an anxiety of influence. It is exciting to imagine the group in an agonistic relationship with history capable of inspiring posterity, but this is deaf to their dialogue with their contemporaries and predecessors.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Francesco Ventrella does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Bloomsbury group’s distaste for formality helped to set the foundations for how we dress today.
Francesco Ventrella, Senior Lecturer in Art History, University of Sussex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214415
2023-09-27T11:32:06Z
2023-09-27T11:32:06Z
Marina Abramović retrospective celebrates the grand dame of performance art – but questions the genre’s future
<p>In 1974, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marina-Abramovic">Marina Abramović</a> performed a career-defining work at a small experimental gallery in Naples, Italy. The Serbian artist stood naked next to a table on which she had arranged 72 objects associated with pleasure and pain. They included a bunch of grapes, a jar of honey, a feather, a whip, chains, a scalpel and a gun. </p>
<p>Accompanying text instructed the audience: “There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired. I am the object.” The performance, entitled <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/abramovic-rhythm-0-t14875">Rhythm 0</a>, lasted for six hours, during which Abramović was tickled, cut, written on and chained. Everything was documented by photographers, whose presence she had arranged. When someone held the (allegedly loaded) gun to the artist’s neck, the performance ended.</p>
<p>Half a century later, Abramović is the celebrated grand dame of live, performance, or body art. In this avant garde practice, the artist’s body takes the place of the object as the means of expression. She is also the first woman in the Royal Academy of Arts’ history to have <a href="https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/marina-abramovic">a solo retrospective</a> in its main galleries.</p>
<p>On entering Abramović’s retrospective, I was instructed not to photograph the performers. I hadn’t planned to take pictures, but this request struck me as strange. Photographic documentation is as integral to performance art as a wall is to a Renaissance fresco, or an acoustic echo is to a choral mass.</p>
<p>Everything I already knew about Abramović’s work was based on photographs. If photography was now forbidden – and the reenactment of works like Rhythm 0 was presumably ruled out by high levels of risk – what did this say about the changed, or changing, condition of performance art?</p>
<p>The exhibition begins not with live reenactment, but with extensive recordings of <a href="https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/marina-abramovic-marina-abramovic-the-artist-is-present-2010/">The Artist is Present</a>, a performance first staged at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2010. Abramović invited audience members to sit opposite her at a table and to stare into her eyes for as long as they wanted while the procedure was filmed.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Ulay attends a performance of The Artist is Present.</span></figcaption>
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<p>From here, the exhibition moves roughly chronologically through Abramović’s career. Rhythm 0 appears next, represented by the unsettling arrangement of threatening and seductive objects and a looping slideshow of the original 1974 performance. </p>
<p>Adjacent to this are black-and-white photos of a performance in which Abramović prostrates herself inside the flaming five-pointed communist star. And a large format colour picture of her 1997 Venice Biennale performance of <a href="https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/243/3126">Balkan Baroque</a>, where for days on end she scrubbed blood and sinew from a pile of grisly cow bones.</p>
<p>From 1976 to 1988, Abramović collaborated with her lover, the Dutch artist <a href="https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/ulay-performance-artist-dead-1202679604/">Ulay</a>. The RA show presents slides and videos of the works they made together that explored relationship trust dynamics. The best of these crystalise the tensions and vulnerabilities of intimacy into strikingly memorable image sequences, such as <a href="https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/243/3120">Rest Energy</a> (1980), in which Ulay holds an arrow pointing directly at Abramović’s heart.</p>
<h2>The limits of re-staging</h2>
<p>Accessing the next gallery involves negotiating the narrow space between a man and a woman, both naked. They are avatars for Ulay and Abramović in the 1977 performance <a href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/marina-abramovic/imponderabilia">Imponderbilia</a>. The work has been re-staged to neutralise its impact, so that instead of being compelled to enter the personal space of the blank-faced performers, visitors can take an alternative route that avoids them. </p>
<p>Intending to photograph the silhouetted profiles the pair cast on the floor, I reached for my phone, only to be admonished by a security guard. They explained that not photographing performers also meant not photographing their shadows.</p>
<p>This absurd interaction reinforced the limits of re-staged performance art. The point reasserted itself with the re-staged work <a href="https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/243/3132">Nude with Skeleton</a>. As I stepped closer to discover whether Abramović’s double was a live performer, a waxwork, or some kind of deepfake, another guard stepped purposefully into my line of vision, repeating the move when I sidestepped to look around them.</p>
<p>Throughout this substantial exhibition, Abramović’s desire to commune with her audience is stressed. But in practice, this intention is undermined by protocols of performer protection which distort the conditions of immediacy on which these works originally relied.</p>
<h2>Transitory objects</h2>
<p>When the audience is allowed to engage, their experience is mediated through a series of what Abramović calls “transitory objects”. These are made from materials associated with healing that you might expect to encounter in a wellness spa: crystals, green onyx, chamomile flowers. </p>
<p>Abramović claims these objects induce feelings of transcendence when they are stepped into, lain on or leaned upon. The objects are theatrically lit so that anyone interacting with them becomes part of the exhibition spectacle.</p>
<p>As I lay on a copper bed with my head awkwardly resting on a green onyx pillow, I prayed – not for transcendence, but that no one would sneakily take my picture and post it on social media. From this uncomfortable 21st-century position, I contemplated the possibility that the traumatic fallout of being threatened in 1974 by an audience member with a loaded gun had defined the subsequent course of Abramović’s work.</p>
<p>Despite this exhibition’s emphasis on care, transcendence and participation, Abramović’s work is defined by the apparent need to control her audience’s experiences while celebrating her own. It makes sense then that she has consistently distanced herself from the collective efforts of feminism. It also seems fitting that with her individualistic narrative, Abramović is the first women artist to have a solo exhibition at an institution that – for the past three and half centuries – has reserved this honour only for men. </p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clare Carolin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Abramović is the first woman in the Royal Academy of Arts’ history to have a solo retrospective in its main galleries.
Clare Carolin, Senior Lecturer, Art and Public Engagement, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214017
2023-09-26T13:46:28Z
2023-09-26T13:46:28Z
The rich history of black British fashion is explored in an exciting new exhibition
<p>The story of black people is often told through a narrow lens, explained curator Andrew Ibi, at the private viewing of his new exhibition at Somerset House. Looking to widen that lens, <a href="https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/the-missing-thread">The Missing Thread</a> tells the rich history of black British Fashion. </p>
<p>With designs by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/02/i-wanted-success-and-i-got-it-quickly-how-bruce-oldfield-went-from-foster-care-to-fashion-royalty">Bruce Oldfield</a>, <a href="https://www.ozwaldboateng.co.uk/">Ozwald Boateng</a>, <a href="https://www.biancasaunders.com">Bianca Saunders</a>, <a href="https://saulnash.co.uk/">Saul Nash</a> and the late <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/jan/06/joe-casely-hayford-obituary">Joe Casely-Hayford</a>, the show presents a fusion of black British culture through displays on fashion, music and art from the 1970s to the present.</p>
<p>The Missing Thread is a careful and honest curation of black identity and displacement that tells stories of creativity and resilience. The exhibition begins with “Home”, an area filled with photography, artwork and fashion representing what it meant to be black and British in the 1970s and 1980s. </p>
<p>Generally speaking, home is considered a place of shelter, recovery and nourishment – but the black immigrant population in Britain often found home to be a place of struggle, racism and lack of opportunity. The pride and disappointment of the black experience in Britain is honoured through work by artists such as <a href="https://www.phf.org.uk/artist/vanley-burke/">Vanley Burke</a>, <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/charlie-phillips-obe-10634">Charlie Phillips</a> and <a href="https://kenlockphotography.com/">Neil Kenlock</a>. </p>
<h2>Designing a life</h2>
<p>Next is “Tailoring”, a room that depicts the expertise and craft of the black community. At the private viewing I attended, curator Harris Elliot explained that “tailoring is not just about the suit, but armour. This room is a statement of our protection, our identity and the struggles for blacks coming to this country”. </p>
<p>The ability to blend traditional heritage, trade and craft passed down through generations through tailoring formed a sense of community for black Britons. Here, we see designs from tailors and designers <a href="https://charlieallen.co.uk/">Charlie Allen</a>, <a href="http://www.ninivah.com/">Nineveh Khomo</a> and Bruce Oldfield.</p>
<p>But through the next corridor, in the “Performance” room, the atmosphere changes. You can smell the nostalgia of a different time, when music and pop culture formed black identities and gave us a sense of pride and confidence. The room is designed as a stage because, in a sense, the black community feels as if we are “always performing”, says Harris. </p>
<p>In this room, speakers stand seven feet high, with images representing 1980s hip-hop style and artists including <a href="http://www.bluesandsoul.com/feature/619/mc_duke_the_originator">MC Duke</a> and <a href="https://www.skinmusic.com/">Skin</a>, the lead vocalist for Brit-rock band <a href="https://skunkanansie.com/">Skunk Anansie</a>. You feel as though you have walked into a rave. This is fitting for the introduction to the next room, “Nightlife”.</p>
<p>“Nightlife” provides an look into the club culture of the 1980s. And the inclusion of an active nail salon behind the performance stage makes this space so exciting. Hair and nails are essential to the black cultural experience. Not only for beauty and adornment but for creating a space for socialising, safety and relaxation. </p>
<p>The many styles and expressions of black women dressing up for a night out adorn the salon’s walls. You feel the freedom, the connections and the friendships created in this beauty establishment when black women needed to escape from the hardships of everyday life. Club life was a safe escape for black Britons to be embraced by black traditions, culture and community – and it remains so today. </p>
<p>Runway fashion was not accessible to black people until recent years. Re-imagined secondhand clothing, patchwork and symbolic embellishments were the mainstay of black British style.</p>
<p>As you exit the nightlife and weave your way around the stage, with a stop by <a href="https://nicholasdaley.net/">Nicholas Daley’s</a> music and textile installation, the show navigates you to an exquisite display of work, an encore of Joe Casely-Hayford’s one-off pieces that pushed the boundaries of fashion and style. He was a true pioneer of his time and his <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/in-the-blackwhiterockfashion-world-joe-caselyhayford-has-gone-from-leather-for-u2-s-bono-to-pure-new-couture-roger-tredre-met-him-1472776.html">work with Bono</a> ends the show.</p>
<p>The Missing Thread highlights black culture’s contributions to art, fashion and music by highlighting its resiliency, resourcefulness and self expression.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharon Hughes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Missing Thread is a careful and honest curation of black identity and displacement.
Sharon Hughes, Senior Lecturer, School of Arts and Creative Industries, University of East London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/209570
2023-07-14T13:04:52Z
2023-07-14T13:04:52Z
A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography – Tate Modern show celebrates new generation of artists, but misses a trick
<p>The last large survey exhibition of African photography by a major western gallery was <a href="https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/insight-african-photographers-1940-to-the-present">In/Sight</a> at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1996. Twenty-seven years later, Tate Modern is introducing a British audience to the next generation of African photographers. </p>
<p>With such a long gap, there are high expectations for <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/contemporary-african-photography-a-world-in-common">A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography</a>. And the exhibition faces many curatorial challenges. </p>
<p>For most British visitors, this exhibition serves as an enlightening journey that challenges their perspective. It confronts and dismantles enduring colonial stereotypes associated with Africa. Simultaneously, it stands as a long-awaited affirmation of African photographers, validating their unique use of the medium.</p>
<p>The show’s curator, Osei Bonsu, developed three major themes – “identity and tradition”, “counter histories” and “imagined futures”. The 36 featured photographers tell stories of a new and confident Africa. It’s an Africa that celebrates its spirituality and is untangling itself from its colonial past. This is awe-inspiring work, by a new generation of artists who draw on the rich social and political history of the continent to tell their stories.</p>
<p>When entering the exhibition, I was immediately taken in by a series of large portraits: <a href="https://georgeosodi.photoshelter.com/portfolio/G0000X9MCoZDi.bE">Nigerian Monarchs by George Osodi</a>. The formality of the images speaks to the importance of these rulers as custodians of cultural heritage – even though their powers were eroded during British colonial rule. </p>
<p>The portrait of <a href="https://www.artsy.net/artwork/george-osodi-hrm-agbogidi-obi-james-ikechukwu-anyasi-ll-obi-of-idumuje-unor">Obi Anyasi II</a>, the longest reigning African king, is a clever comment on Nigeria’s past. His stern gaze competes with that of Queen Elizabeth II, whose portrait is printed on his gown. In the exhibition catalogue, Osodi explains that documenting and archiving culture is “key to understanding cultural origins, and thus developing a sense of identity”.</p>
<p>In the same room is Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai Chiurai’s series <a href="https://www.artsy.net/artwork/kudzanai-chiurai-we-live-in-silence-iv-1">We Live in Silence</a>. These works are a reminder that Christian missionaries contributed to the colonial occupation of the continent and were instrumental in dismantling pre-colonial societies, in which women had often been powerful and influential figures. </p>
<p>Inspired by Bible scenes, Chiurai’s work focuses on modern African women. He reclaims their space in the historic narrative of the continent. </p>
<p>At the same time, female artists are still struggling to claiming their space in the exhibition as only 12 women featured. Gender balance should have been a fundamental consideration in the curation of this exhibition, as it is crucial to foster equal representation of African women in the arts.</p>
<h2>Dialogue and consent</h2>
<p><a href="https://wuraogunji.com/home.html">Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s work</a> stood out as the only piece in the show that documented a response from Africans and engaged the African audience directly. </p>
<p>In her performance video, Will I Still Carry Water When I Am a Dead Woman? a group of masked women drag golden water canisters through the busy streets of Lagos, Nigeria. The reactions of the local people underscored art’s potential to challenge the undervaluing of female labour. It provokes dialogue where performance art is not widely understood or appreciated.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Will I Still Carry Water When I Am a Dead Woman? by Wura-Natasha Ogunji.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Ogunji, born in Nigeria, received her BA from Stanford University and an MFA from San Jose State University in the US. This highlights yet another issue with the roster of photographers in the exhibition. A considerable number have well-established ties with European and American art institutions. </p>
<p>Also, a significant portion have pursued their studies in Europe and the US, are represented by international galleries and maintain a dual presence between two continents. They are part of the global art scene that sees African art as a growing investment opportunity. There’s a risk that will result in the best examples of African art leaving the continent. As French gallery owner Cécile Fakhoury <a href="https://news.artnet.com/market/1-54-marrakesh-2020-1784178">has observed</a>: “If we keep going as we are, in ten or 20 years we will see all the major pieces in foreign countries.” </p>
<p>As this intensifies, it perpetuates a resource vacuum for local artists solely residing and working in Africa. It highlights the continuous underfunding of the cultural sector by most African governments and the lack of globally recognised art institutions on the continent. </p>
<p>Sadly, Tate Modern has missed a trick here. It could have more purposefully supported and celebrated the creation of local African art and included material that challenged its own position (as well as that of other western art institutions) in the global art market. As it is, I am provoked to think that A World in Common is a European exhibition with African content, rather than an exhibition that invites uncomfortable conversations about the function of institutions in the effort to decolonise our understanding of African art. </p>
<p>In the final two rooms, artists are imagining futures for Africa. Kiripi Katembo’s beautiful photographs of Kinshasa reflected in rainwater puddles capture urban life through a surreal mirror. Andrew Esiebo’s large images create a momentary stillness in the ever-changing architecture and landscape of Lagos. They comment on the “endless juxtapositions that exist in the city, between past and present, modernity and tradition”, as Esiebe observes in the catalogue.</p>
<p>What struck me most about the exhibition was the consent implicitly and explicitly expressed in all the works by collaborating with the sitters and avoiding works created through covert observations. </p>
<p>By working with masks, mirrors, self-portraiture or consenting sitters, the featured artists all circumnavigate the historic and often still-present exploitative relationship between the camera and the African continent. This is a decolonial approach to photography we can all learn from, but it also poses the question of how African photographers will make visible the richness of everyday life on the continent.</p>
<p>On the epilogue text panel, Senegalese writer and academic Felwine Sarr calls for “Africans to think and formulate their own future”. The 36 exhibiting artists definitely do that. But the curatorial challenges are manifold. My observations are an attempt to move the conversation beyond the thought-provoking work of the photographers and towards challenging the role of Tate Modern. </p>
<p><em>A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography is on at the Tate Modern until January 4 2024.</em></p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight,
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerstin Hacker receives funding from Educational Partnerships in Africa Grant (2009 - 2012)</span></em></p>
A World in Common is a European exhibition with African content, rather than a space that invites conversations and engagement that go beyond the images themselves.
Kerstin Hacker, Senior Lecturer, Photography, Anglia Ruskin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/208795
2023-07-12T16:03:36Z
2023-07-12T16:03:36Z
Thought-provoking new exhibition suggests the public should help shape the future of AI
<p>Humans have made tools for at least <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/stone-tools#:%7E:text=The%20earliest%20stone%20toolmaking%20developed,implements%20made%20by%20early%20humans.">2.6 million years</a>. And we’ve always been curious, not just copying others but seeking to understand how their tools work, why and what else can be done with them. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a 21st-century tool, similiar to the breakthrough that rocks were to our Stone Age ancestors. Only AI is advancing much faster.</p>
<p>Those who learn to harness it will have opportunities to thrive, while those who do not are likely to be left behind. AI evokes mixed feelings. There’s excitement about its potential, but also fear of the destructive uses it might be harnessed for. </p>
<p>To ensure a good future with AI, it’s essential that appropriate <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-uk-is-getting-ai-regulation-right-206701">regulation</a> is introduced. And the public must be fully involved in decisions around its development and implementation – as a new exhibition at King’s College London’s <a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/">Science Gallery</a> explores. </p>
<p>Created in collaboration with cultural programme <a href="https://futureeverything.org/">Future Everything</a>, the exhibition presents serious questions about AI in a playful manner. According to Irini Papadimitriou, Future Everything’s creative director, one of those key questions, especially regarding AI’s use in healthcare, is: “What is the bridge between research and consumers?” </p>
<p>The exhibition prompts people to contemplate the question in its title (AI: Who’s Looking After Me?) and to contribute to shaping AI collectively.</p>
<p>Siddharth Khajuria, director of Science Gallery London, told me: “We try to nurture space for collaborations between unlikely communities of scientists, artists, patients, technologists and many others, trusting that the ‘knowledge’ they produce … would not have come from any single perspective.”</p>
<h2>What to expect at the exhibition</h2>
<p>The exhibition is intended to be an eyeopener about AI, through its showcasing of unusual applications of the technology. These applications are presented through installations that encourage contemplation and curiosity.</p>
<p>Visitors are welcomed by <a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/ai-artworks/sprout">Sprout</a> – a soft, huggable robot inspired by nature. Sprout is designed to respond to human behaviour through movement and colour changes. Another exhibit appealing to the emotions is <a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/ai-artworks/looking-for-love">Looking For Love</a>, a playful internet café-style chat experience, where visitors can attempt to teach the machine about love.</p>
<p>The installations <a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/ai-artworks/heartificial-intelligence">Heartificial Intelligence</a>, <a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/ai-artworks/how-loud-is-too-loud">How Loud Is Too Loud?</a> and <a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/ai-artworks/does-ai-care">Does AI Care?</a> explore the use of AI in healthcare and how the tool could support medical professionals, rather than replace them.</p>
<p>Several installations explore the social interactions between people and AI. <a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/ai-artworks/the-future-is-here">The Future is Here!</a> raises awareness of how critical human labour is for tagging data sets, as this makes supervised machine learning possible. <a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/ai-artworks/what-is-essence">What is Essence?</a> showcases how a machine “sees” humans, via AI-generated images of people. It draws attention to potential algorithmic bias.</p>
<p><a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/ai-artworks/sentient-beings">Sentient Beings</a> reflects on our future interactions with AI assistants while <a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/ai-artworks/autonomous-trap-001">Autonomous Trap 001</a> explores the potential of human-machine collaboration and freeing AI from large corporations. <a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/ai-artworks/newly-forgotten-technologies">Newly Forgotten Technologies</a> meanwhile prompts reflection on the environmental impact of smart devices.</p>
<p><a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/ai-artworks/between-the-lines">Between the Lines</a> is an unusual artwork. It came about following conversations with international students who were being reported to the Home Office by their universities for not following strict rules during the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>It draws attention to the disconnect between people and those who make decisions about them. Testimonies of these detained people are encoded into synthetic DNA, which is made into ink and inserted into pens to be distributed to UK immigration control. </p>
<p><a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/ai-artworks/cat-royale">Cat Royale </a> by <a href="https://www.blasttheory.co.uk/">Blast Theory</a> explores a future in which AI is more prevalent in the home, with roles such as taking care of cats. </p>
<p>A video installation shows three cats living – apparently comfortably – in an environment with an AI-enabled robotic arm. The cats initially ignore the robot arm, but over time they begin to play with it. The robot learns how to entertain the individual cats according to their preferences. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Day one of Cat Royale by Blast Theory.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The artist, Matt Adams, told me that when it comes to AI, “trust and lack of trust exist at the same time”. Visitors are invited to reflect on the implications of employing a robot cat sitter and ultimately decide whether they would trust a robot with their own pet.</p>
<p>The AI: Who’s Looking After Me exhibition also includes an area with books, toolkits and activities. It is accompanied by a <a href="https://london.sciencegallery.com/ai-season">programme</a> of talks, tours, workshops and performances which are worth planning a visit around. The Science Gallery is inviting the public to help shape the ways AI might one day permeate our day-to-day lives. </p>
<p><em>AI: Who’s Looking After Me is at the Science Gallery London until 20 January 2024.</em></p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight,
on Fridays. Launches 4 August. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aniko Ekart has received funding from the European Commission and Innovate UK for Artificial Intelligence research studies. These are not related to the subject of the exhibition that this article is about. </span></em></p>
New AI exhibit asks visitors whether they would trust an AI robot to look after their pets.
Aniko Ekart, Professor of Computer Science, Aston University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/209069
2023-07-07T14:15:09Z
2023-07-07T14:15:09Z
Yevonde: Life and Colour exhibition reopens the National Portrait Gallery in style
<p>A long-overdue exhibition of the work of photographer Yevonde Middleton (1893-1975) has opened at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG), London. <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2023/yevonde-life-and-colour/">Yevonde: Life and Colour</a> is the first major exhibition since the gallery reopened its doors, following a three-year refurbishment.</p>
<p>Throughout her life, Yevonde was a vocal advocate for women. In her youth, she was a suffragette. And she championed women within photography throughout her long and successful career, gaining wide recognition in her own day. She is best known as a society portraitist and <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/blog/yevonde-a-beginners-guide">an early pioneer</a> of colour photography at a time when commercial colour photography was new and there was widespread scepticism about its merits. </p>
<p>However, as with so many women artists, Yevonde’s work has been underrepresented by galleries. It wasn’t till 2021 that the NPG acquired a collection of Yevonde’s colour negatives creating its <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/reframing-narratives-women-in-portraiture/yevonde-colour-archive">Yevonde Colour Archive</a>. A painstaking digitisation process provided the opportunity to reassess this artist’s colour work – much of which has never been seen by the public. </p>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/reframing-narratives-women-in-portraiture/">Reframing Narratives: Women in Portraiture</a> project, this exhibition, <a href="https://www.designboom.com/art/tracey-emin-45-women-portraits-london-national-portrait-gallery-new-bronze-doors-06-19-2023/">among other initiatives</a>, signals the gallery’s intention to improve the representation of women in its holdings and exhibitions. </p>
<h2>What to expect from the exhibition</h2>
<p>The viewer is guided chronologically through Yevonde’s 60-year career, which began in 1914. Early, tentative society portraits in black and white soon give way to a confident handling of several famous sitters, such as actress Florence Lambert and actor, singer and activist Paul Robeson.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/yevonde-an-introduction-to-the-woman-who-pioneered-colour-photography-203212">Yevonde: an introduction to the woman who pioneered colour photography</a>
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<p>The show details her groundbreaking work from the advent of the first commercially available professional colour printing process, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=the+Vivex+colour+process&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8">the Vivex colour process</a>, around 1930. This process used three negatives, one for each primary colour, which were processed separately and then printed, one on top of the other, by hand to achieve a perfect registration of the final print. Many of the prints on display have been framed in a way that visitors can see the edges – revealing the <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/assets/uploads/images/800_x221922_2022_oversized_Edited_V2.jpg">three colour separations and swatches</a>.</p>
<p>Yevonde eventually returned to black and white, however, because with the onset of the second world war, Vivex ceased trading. </p>
<p>Wit and raw energy emanate from her most famous series, <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/display/2005/goddesses-and-others">The Goddesses</a> – inspired by a charity ball in 1935 attended by society women dressed as mythical figures from western antiquity.</p>
<p>Many examples of Yevonde’s commercial work – for <a href="https://npgshop.org.uk/products/orchids-model-is-wearing-suit-and-hat-by-christabel-russell-ltd-npg-x220749-print">magazines</a> and book jackets – and her idiosyncratic “<a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1419537/still-life-with-head-of-photograph-madame-yevonde/">still-life phantasies</a>”, all playfully draw on her familiarity with surrealism. </p>
<p>Always looking to vary her approach, her innovations include double portrait montages (typically of couples), while later experimentation with <a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1430773/solarised-portrait-of-two-women-photograph-yevonde/">solarisation</a> (a darkroom technique used to reverse tones) echo the much earlier work of Man Ray and Lee Miller. An extraordinary image of the young <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw142261/Judi-Dench">Judi Dench</a> is a good example. </p>
<h2>Yevonde’s muses</h2>
<p>Yevonde was predominantly concerned with the lives and interests of wealthy and successful women, including debutantes, wives and mothers, but also, importantly, women in their professional capacities as authors, journalists, artists, dancers, actresses and models and adventurers. Her portrait of racing driver and aviator <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw82814/Jill-Scott">Jill Scott</a> is a notable example.</p>
<p>The exhibition’s strength is in its understanding that art is always <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Social_Production_of_Art/Mn0VCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcove">a collaborative affair</a>. Yevonde is the star of the show but there are other important contributors. </p>
<p>I spoke with curator Clare Freestone and Katayoun Dowlatshahi, the artist responsible for hand-crafting many of the colour prints on display. Dowlatshahi was brought in for her expertise in using the colour carbon transfer process to mimic the look of the Vivex process.</p>
<p>Achieving the colouration Yevonde desired was far from straightforward. When Yevonde was working in the 1930s, colour photography was still developing and in constant flux. Her process wasn’t consistent for a range of reasons. From the outset, Yevonde approached colour experimentally for its creative and compositional potential – often using coloured lights, filters and transparencies.</p>
<p>Dowlatshahi’s aim was to find the nearest colour equivalents to those used in the 1930s. She told me: “It felt really important to understand the colours, the pigments … used at the time.” Modern colours proved to be unsuitable. It was “a constant learning curve – everything had to be checked and checked again”. Four to six prints per image were produced in order to get the colour balance right.</p>
<p>The process of completing 25 finished prints, including initial research, took seven months and revealed that “everything that Yevonde did was purposeful and deliberate”. She left nothing to chance and gave very precise instructions to the printers at Vivex. </p>
<p>However, much of Yevonde’s portraiture might frustrate contemporary expectations. Her early pictures of celebrated women, particularly those in colour, only rarely give an insight into the sitter’s inner world. With studio portraiture of this kind, a vast amount of retouching was commonplace to “improve” the subject’s appearance while retaining an essential likeness. Yevonde describes this in her autobiography <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/In_Camera/NwrMuAAACAAJ?hl=en">In Camera</a> (1940).</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Yevonde celebrated women’s creativity, ingenuity and individuality which, she argued, was often expressed through colour in their chosen style of dress – hair, makeup, nails, fabrics and accessories – and through magazines.</p>
<p>Yevonde: Life and Colour includes a portrait by the English portrait photographer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/dec/21/jane-bown-a-life-in-photography-in-pictures">Jane Bown</a> taken of Yevonde during her 1968 exhibition of <a href="https://womenwhomeantbusiness.com/2023/01/25/yevonde-middleton-1893-1975/">Some Distinguished Women</a>. The show marked the 50th anniversary of some women gaining the vote and featured 50 portraits, among them writer <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw143858/Iris-Murdoch">Iris Murdoch</a> and artist <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw144768/Laura-Knight">Laura Knight</a>.</p>
<p>In Bown’s portrait of Yevonde, she is smiling and appears relaxed. It’s a rare opportunity to see a wonderful study of the woman who had observed so many others during her long and distinguished career.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2023/yevonde-life-and-colour/">Yevonde: Life and Colour</a> is on at the National Portrait Gallery, London, until October 15 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darcy White does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Yevonde’s photographs celebrated women’s creativity, ingenuity and individuality which, she argued, was often expressed through colour.
Darcy White, Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture, Sheffield Hallam University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/203254
2023-04-04T15:06:04Z
2023-04-04T15:06:04Z
Ashish: Fall in Love and Be More Tender exhibition – a glittering testament to a fashion genius
<p>The first retrospective exhibition of the fashion designer <a href="https://ashish.co.uk/">Ashish Gupta</a> has opened at London’s <a href="https://www.wmgallery.org.uk/">William Morris Gallery</a>.</p>
<p>As an expert in fashion marketing (and a proud owner of a number of Ashish’s renowned shimmering <a href="https://www.wmgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions-43/ashish-fall-in-love-and-be-more-tender">sequined skirts</a>) I was greatly excited by the prospect of the show.</p>
<p>When the day of my visit came, not only was I was able to immerse myself in Ashish’s wonderful creations, but I had a chance encounter with the designer himself. He told me that the skirt I had chosen to wear that day (a sparkling green fish print fabric, covered in iridescent sequins) was from one of his earliest collections.</p>
<p>It was in 2021, 20 years after Gupta founded his label eponymous label, Ashish, that the Morris Gallery’s curators Roisin Ingleby and Joe Scotland conceived the exhibition. Ingleby told me of the hours of joy they had spent in Ashish’s London design archive, selecting the 60 designs that would eventually be showcased through the exhibition.</p>
<p>As a designer, Gupta is celebrated for colourful, glamourous, extravagant designs realised through detailed craftsmanship. Up to 30 garments are handmade each season. They are <a href="https://bricksmagazine.co.uk/2022/11/13/ashish-gupta-on-expressing-identity-through-art/">made to order</a>, with a limited run on designs, ensuring exclusivity and longevity. </p>
<h2>From a Delhi boy to the king of sequins</h2>
<p>Ashish Gupta was born in Delhi to GP parents. His first exposure to fashion was through a copy of Vogue magazine that his mother had “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/mar/07/ashish-gupta-colour-and-sequins-are-my-response-to-our-terrifying-world-">smuggled into the house</a>”.</p>
<p>At his strict Catholic school, <a href="https://www.lampoonmagazine.com/article/2021/11/04/ashish-gupta-designer-indian-manufacturing/">Gupta was bullied</a> and fashion and cinema became his escapism. </p>
<p>Having initially studied fine art in India, he moved to London to study fashion design at Central Saint Martins, graduating in 2000. He remembers the then course director, <a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/community/people/louise-wilson">Louise Wilson</a>, giving him the best possible advice: to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/mar/07/ashish-gupta-colour-and-sequins-are-my-response-to-our-terrifying-world-">dream</a>. </p>
<p>The colour, sparkle and sequins which have come to define his work ever since are the realisation of that dream.</p>
<p>When Gupta’s eponymous label was discovered by the famous <a href="https://www.brownsfashion.com/uk/sets/browns-focus">Browns Focus boutique</a> on London’s South Molton Street, he was launched from making clothes for friends into the <a href="https://showstudio.com/contributors/ashish_gupta">international fashion industry</a>.</p>
<p>Gupta is now considered a pioneer in the way his designs challenge heterosexual, masculine stereotypes and explore the role of clothing in <a href="https://bricksmagazine.co.uk/2022/11/13/ashish-gupta-on-expressing-identity-through-art/">making political and social statements</a>. </p>
<p>This exhibition focuses on the stories told by his creations, demonstrating fashion’s power as a form of cultural commentary.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519261/original/file-20230404-28-iuma7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A colourful shirt dress hangs on a mannequin." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519261/original/file-20230404-28-iuma7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519261/original/file-20230404-28-iuma7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519261/original/file-20230404-28-iuma7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519261/original/file-20230404-28-iuma7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519261/original/file-20230404-28-iuma7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519261/original/file-20230404-28-iuma7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519261/original/file-20230404-28-iuma7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ashish’s Wax Print Dress on display at the exhibition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the earlier pieces on display is a Dutch Wax Print Dress (2005), a celebration of London’s multicultural heritage. The dress is made from African wax print fabric – a material with a complex colonial history – and embellished with sequins.</p>
<p>In the same room is Ashish’s <a href="https://www.brownsfashion.com/uk/shopping/ashish-immigrant-t-shirt-11786702">Immigrant T-shirt</a> combined with a more traditional South Asian embroidered red skirt and veil from his 2017 spring/summer collection. </p>
<p>This collection was the first to explicitly reference his experience as an emigrant by combining elements of western dress and eastern influences.</p>
<p>Designed during the time of Brexit and the <a href="https://www.jcwi.org.uk/the-hostile-environment-explained">British Home Office’s hostile environment policy</a>, this collection explored the emotional impact of leaving home and beginning life elsewhere. Throughout the exhibition are designs that pay testament to Gupta’s belief in equality and inclusive representation.</p>
<h2>Crafting cultural commentaries</h2>
<p>The cultural and political narratives that define Ashish’s creative storytelling are on show through the combinations of craft skill, materials, sequins and hand embroidery, throughout the exhibition.</p>
<p>Sequins have become Ashish’s signature style and far from <a href="https://www.fashionabc.org/wiki/ashish-gupta/">cheap embellishments</a>, they represent a technical art form, enabling a different way of working with fabric.</p>
<p>Ashish’s garments are hand made in India using <a href="https://www.lampoonmagazine.com/article/2021/11/04/ashish-gupta-designer-indian-manufacturing/">traditional artisinal craft skills</a>.</p>
<p>Many of the garments on display highlight Ashish’s play on traditional craft through the embellishment of sequins, including crochet and Fair Isle knitwear. </p>
<p>On display in the centre of the opening room is the designer’s adaptation of a high vis jacket, with a lumberjack shirt and jeans from the 2010 autumn/winter collection. Here, the addition of sequins play with heterosexual norms.</p>
<p>The second section of the exhibition centres on the <a href="https://10magazine.com/ashish-ready-to-wear-aw17/">Yellow Brick Road</a> collection from autumn/winter 2017, which was inspired by the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. </p>
<p>These pieces feature multiple versions of the Rainbow pride flag, to form a collection that celebrates people of colour and queer communities.</p>
<p>The final section of the exhibition showcases the skill of hand embroidery on display in Ashish designs. </p>
<p>A highlight for me was the dressing gown created using <a href="https://www.culturalindia.net/indian-crafts/zardozi.html">Zardozi</a> – a south Asian embroidery technique using gold thread.</p>
<p>This fascinating exhibition presents the wonder of Ashish’s creativity and highlights the power of garments to convey stories and meanings. The glittering genius of combining sequins with traditional craftmanship has Gupta firmly on fashion’s catwalk of fame.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.wmgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions-43/ashish-fall-in-love-and-be-more-tender/">Ashish: Fall in Love and Be More Tender</a> is a free exhibition, on now at the William Morris Gallery, London, until 10 September.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naomi Braithwaite does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A new exhibition pays homage to the king of sequins, who combines detailed, traditional techniques with unconventional materials.
Naomi Braithwaite, Associate Professor in Fashion Marketing and Branding, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201429
2023-03-14T16:05:37Z
2023-03-14T16:05:37Z
Sasha Huber’s You Name It: Swiss-Haitian artist renegotiates colonial history in activist exhibition
<p>In 2008, <a href="http://www.sashahuber.com/">Sasha Huber</a>, a Swiss-Haitian multimedia visual artist based in Finland, began a project to challenge the problematic legacy of Swiss-American glaciologist and natural scientist <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/3/18/louis-agassiz-scrut/">Louis Agassiz (1807-1873)</a>. </p>
<p>Agassiz was a devout creationist who lectured on his belief in racial segregation, defended slavery and propagated the unfounded idea that races were different species. These racist ideas have been dignified and normalised through the commemorative naming of seven species and more than 80 places. Astonishingly, these include one on the <a href="http://wenamethestars.inkleby.com/feature/4839">surface of the moon</a>, another <a href="https://wenamethestars.inkleby.com/feature/81">on Mars</a> and his audacious self-naming of a mountain in Switzerland – “Agassizhorn”.</p>
<p>A solo exhibition titled <a href="https://autograph.org.uk/exhibitions/sasha-huber-you-name-it">You Name It</a> – which brings together a selection of Huber’s art works that act as challenges to historical, systematic, scientific racism – has been at the <a href="https://autograph.org.uk/exhibitions/sasha-huber-you-name-it">Autograph</a> gallery in London since November 2022. </p>
<p>The exhibition has been curated around the question: <a href="https://autograph.org.uk/exhibitions/sasha-huber-you-name-it">Who and what do we memorialise and how?</a> Conceived as a touring show, its first manifestation was in <a href="https://www.kunstinstituutmelly.nl/en/experience/17-sasha-huber-a-solo-exhibition">Rotterdam</a> in 2021, where it was simply billed as Sasha Huber: a Solo Exhibition. It then moved to <a href="https://www.thepowerplant.org/whats-on/exhibitions/you-name-it">The Power Plant</a> in Toronto in 2022, where it acquired its current title.</p>
<p>Since November 2022, the show has been based at Autograph, whose director, <a href="https://www.worldphoto.org/node/398">Mark Sealy</a>, has long been concerned with western photographic practice being “<a href="https://lwbooks.co.uk/product/decolonising-the-camera-photography-in-racial-time">used as a tool for creating Eurocentric and violent regimes</a>”. This abiding concern is evident in this exhibition.</p>
<p>In 1850, Agassiz commissioned the studio portraitist <a href="http://historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=3617">Joseph T. Zealy</a> to make a set of <a href="http://www.daguerreobase.org/en/about-this-project">daguerreotypes</a> of enslaved people on the Edgehill plantation in South Carolina. This included a Congolese man, Renty Taylor, and his daughter Delia, as well as five others. </p>
<p>Agassiz used the images to support <a href="https://eps.harvard.edu/louis-agassiz">his theory of the inferiority of certain ethnic groups</a>. The subjects were required to pose naked for three full-length views: front, rear and side. These are thought to be the first photographs of enslaved people.</p>
<p>Huber’s engagement with Agassiz began when she was invited by historian and activist Hans Fässler to join the “<a href="https://blackcentraleurope.com/sources/1989-today/from-agassizhorn-to-rentyhorn-2008/">Demounting Louis Agassiz”</a> campaign. In 2008, Huber undertook a symbolic renaming of Agassizhorn. Accessing the mountain top by helicopter, she marked the summit with a plaque bearing a new place name, Rentyhorn, honouring the enslaved man pictured by Zealy. A film of <a href="http://www.sashahuber.com/?cat=5">this renaming</a> anchors the exhibition.</p>
<p>Many other “reparative interventions” – Huber’s term – have followed. They take different forms, including places marked by colonial history far away from Switzerland. In each case Huber takes care to ensure that the project is devised with sensitivity to the given location or issue being addressed, drawing on indigenous knowledge and customs.</p>
<p>For example, Huber describes how in <a href="https://www.cntraveler.com/story/why-referring-to-new-zealand-as-aotearoa-is-a-meaningful-step-for-travelers">Aotearoa</a> (the Maori name for New Zealand) she worked with “Maori people in the area” on an intervention to “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=732n08fZDik&t=450s">symbolically un-name and cleanse</a>” the so-called Agassiz Glacier for a film titled: <a href="https://www.av-arkki.fi/works/karakia-the-resetting-ceremony/">Karakia The Resetting Ceremony</a> (2015).</p>
<h2>Creating “pain-things”</h2>
<p>Huber has also created numerous pieces using her signature “<a href="http://www.sashahuber.com/?cat=10010&lang=fi&mstr=10009">shooting back</a>” technique, in which “metal staples [are] ‘shot’ onto wooden boards” using a semiautomatic staple gun. This produces images and textured surfaces to represent key perpetrators and artefacts associated with colonial atrocities.</p>
<p>In one example, <a href="https://autograph.org.uk/content/images/editorimages/a%20-%20new%20structure/exhibitions/2022/sasha%20huber/tailoring-freedom.jpg">Tailoring Freedom – Renty and Delia</a> (2021), Huber has combined “shooting back” with new photographs based on the original daguerreotypes taken by J.T Zealy. </p>
<p>These are some of the most poignant photographic portraits I have ever seen. The figures seem to look back at us from across the far distance of time and place. Now “dressed” in carefully researched attire, Huber has afforded both father and daughter the dignity lost when the original photographs were made.</p>
<p>At first, Huber used this as a “weapon” of resistance, however, more recently the technique has taken a more restorative turn: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>My shooting of staples has sought to enact a stitching of colonial wounds. It was a way for me to make visible and tend to those wounds. I started to call my works <a href="https://autograph.org.uk/blog/tailoring-freedom-bindi-vora-in-conversation-with-sasha-huber/">‘pain-things’</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You Name It includes two new pieces of work commissioned through Autograph’s “Stranger in the Village” project. The African American novelist <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/baldwin-switzerland">James Baldwin’s</a> essay of the same name explores his distressing experiences in an all-white village in Switzerland in the early 1950s.</p>
<p>Baldwin encountered such a high level of curiosity in himself as a person of African descent – not least in his skin colour – that it left him feeling isolated and alienated. The essay, which investigated the racialised body, marked a turning point in his writing.</p>
<p>These new pieces by Huber, continue her exploration of memorialisation. <a href="https://autograph.org.uk/commissions/sasha-huber">The Firsts by Tilo Frey</a> was made in tribute to the Cameroonian-Swiss politician Tilo Frey (1923-2008), who campaigned for women’s rights and suffrage in Switzerland. </p>
<p>The other honours <a href="https://autograph.org.uk/commissions/sasha-huber-khadija-saye">Khadija Saye’s You Are Missed</a>, an “artist, activist and carer”, who died with her mother as victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, London, in 2017. They will join <a href="https://autograph.org.uk/projects-research/amplify">Autograph’s collection</a> with its “unique focus on black experiences and politics of representation”.</p>
<p>Huber’s art is startling for many reasons. Grounded in thorough research and motivated by a commitment to “reparative intervention”, she succeeds in forcibly addressing the legacies of western colonialism. At the same time her art – which can be understood as a form of <a href="http://www.sashahuber.com/?cat=10095&lang=fi&mstr=37">activism</a> – constitutes a positive renegotiation of this history. </p>
<p>As Huber’s partner, Petri Saarikko, <a href="http://www.sashahuber.com/">has said</a> of her work: “You’re lifting rocks from the past to build a bridge for the future.”</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=732n08fZDik&t=450s">You Name It</a> is showing at <a href="https://autograph.org.uk/exhibitions/sasha-huber-you-name-it">Autograph</a> London until 25 March 2023 before moving to Turku Art Museum in Finland from June-September 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201429/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darcy White does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Sasha Huber’s work often involves renaming colonial landmarks, including a mountain in Switzerland.
Darcy White, Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture, Sheffield Hallam University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/200303
2023-02-27T12:05:07Z
2023-02-27T12:05:07Z
Royal Academy’s Spain and the Hispanic World – an expert in Spanish art reviews the exhibition
<p>The Royal Academy’s first big show of 2023 is unusual. As well as presenting an impressive collection from Spain and the Hispanic world (around 150 items covering over 4,000 years, including paintings, sculptures, maps, books and manuscripts), it also tells the story of the collection’s source – <a href="https://hispanicsociety.org/about-us/">the Hispanic Society</a>.</p>
<p>The Society’s founder, <a href="https://hispanicsociety.org/about-us/history/archer-huntington/">Archer M Huntington</a>, was born in 1870 to a wealthy American railroad magnate. His parents took him on extended trips to Europe where he discovered the delights of art in the museums of London and Paris.</p>
<p>These travels did not include Spain, but the young Huntington quickly developed his own private passion when, at the age of 12, he bought a book about Spanish gypsies. He never looked back.</p>
<p>He learned Spanish, read widely about Spain’s history and culture and by the age of 20 decided that he would open a museum of Hispanic material. This became Huntington’s life’s work, first with an extensive library and, gradually, a wide collection of art and artefacts.</p>
<p>In 1904 he bought land in upper Manhattan and oversaw the construction of the Hispanic Society building. By his death in 1955, Huntington’s collection comprised around 350,000 items.</p>
<p>Huntington was respected not just as a wealthy enthusiast but as a genuine Hispanic studies expert. In his early twenties he took lessons in Arabic (considered very unusual at the time), recognising the significance of Arabic culture in medieval and early modern Spain.</p>
<h2>What’s on show?</h2>
<p>The Royal Academy show is a fascinating if inevitably abbreviated summary of Huntington’s interests.</p>
<p>The earliest works are earthenware pots from the <a href="https://www.casadellibro.com/libro-historia-de-espana-1-prehistoria/mkt0005944814/11755011">Bell Beaker culture</a> that originated around 2700BC in present day Portugal. Nearby is a display of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Celtiberia">Celtiberian</a> gold and silver jewellery dating from over 2,000 years later, from the north of Spain. It includes two long coiled silver bracelets with stamped and punched designs and an elegant gold and silver torque.</p>
<p>Then, continuing this high speed journey through time – and in a vivid demonstration of the Iberian peninsula’s position as crossroads between the Mediterranean, Northern Europe and Africa – there are examples of how successive ruling powers left their mark.</p>
<p>From the second century AD there are Roman marble sculptures and a striking mosaic head of Medusa. From the sixth century, richly decorated Visigothic metalwork. From the Islamic presence, colourful glazed ceramics and weavings including a spectacular silk shawl from circa 1400.</p>
<p>The works displayed demonstrate how, during the medieval and early modern era, the Iberian Peninsula was an extraordinary <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Spain_1000_1200_Art_at_the_Frontiers_of_Faith">cultural melting pot</a>. This resulted in cross fertilisation between Muslim, Jewish and Christian arts and crafts.</p>
<p>The exhibition then moves on to the period of Christian Spanish power both within the peninsula and across the Atlantic to the Americas – the “Hispanic” world of the show’s title.</p>
<p>Portugal and Portuguese colonial territories were not part of Huntington’s collecting, but he acquired some wonderful works from Spanish America.</p>
<p>As with objects that illustrate the rich cultural mix of the Iberian Peninsula, a selection of pottery, paintings, sculptures, weavings and elaborately carved and painted chests are exhibited, where indigenous American materials, styles and iconography are blended with that of the invading Spaniards.</p>
<p>Though in some cases the craftsmen were <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-latin-american-studies/article/abs/eleanor-wake-framing-the-sacred-the-indian-churches-of-early-colonial-mexico-norman-ok-university-of-oklahoma-press-2010-pp-xxi338-6500-hb/3AA278824FC2A69433CD88A853361D98">working under duress</a>, the care and expertise suggests a pride in their cultural traditions. These objects were a means of preserving traditional skills and knowledge.</p>
<p>In the splendid Map of Tequaltiche from Zacatecas of 1584 (commissioned by Spanish officials as part of the extensive fact-finding <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/hahr/article/44/3/341/159145/The-Relaciones-Geograficas-of-the-Spanish-Indies">Relaciones Geográficas</a>) the artist has included details of the landscape with the ruler of the village and his two sons. They are seated on top of a steep hill, presiding over other local settlements.</p>
<p>Significantly, in the lower left, the artist also represents a bloody battle between the local Caxcan people and the invaders. Two of the Spaniards have been beheaded and several others wounded.</p>
<h2>Treasured Spanish paintings</h2>
<p>The show includes paintings by artists of the Spanish golden age, including <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/el-greco">El Greco</a>, <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/francisco-de-zurbaran">Zurbarán</a> and <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/diego-velazquez">Velázquez</a>. But there are also surprises, such as a remarkable still life by the lesser known <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/816555">Marcos Correa</a>, from about 1670.</p>
<p>The paintings are few and take no pride of place over the other material. This is not just a decision of the curators – it reflects the status of paintings within Huntington’s collection. </p>
<p>Despite his profound knowledge of Spanish art, Huntington made a point of not buying paintings in Spain. He did not want to be what he termed “a plunderer” of Spain’s own heritage. The works in his collection were mostly family heirlooms or purchased at auction.</p>
<p>Pride of place among Spanish artists is given to Francisco Goya, to whose work the grand octagonal central hall is dedicated. </p>
<p>Here is perhaps the most eye-catching painting in the Hispanic Society’s collection and the image used on the promotional material for the Royal Academy show: the portrait of the Duchess of Alba of 1797. Works by Spanish contemporaries of Huntington such as Sorolla are also on show.</p>
<p>In 1911 Huntington commissioned Sorolla to paint a large mural to be installed in a purpose-built gallery at the Hispanic Society. Titled Vision of Spain, this series of 14 large panels depicts life in the different regions of Spain for which Sorolla spent nine years travelling around the country sketching the landscape, the peoples and their customs and cultures.</p>
<p>A large sketch for the mural of Castille is included in the final room of the exhibition. The panoramic view stretches from the Cantabrian coast, through the districts of Asturias, Old Castille and León, ending up in Toledo in New Castille. A fitting end to a remarkable exhibition that so vividly illustrates Huntington’s lifelong passion for Spain and the Hispanic world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200303/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Valerie Fraser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
During the medieval and early modern era, the Iberian Peninsula was an extraordinary cultural melting pot.
Valerie Fraser, Professor of Philosophy and Art History, University of Essex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195952
2023-02-22T17:19:05Z
2023-02-22T17:19:05Z
Why David Hockney’s Bigger and Closer is an important step forward for immersive art shows
<p>Artist David Hockney has ridden many technological waves. While his mark-making has remained resolutely painterly, he has challenged the practice of painting. He was an early adopter of computer-assisted drawing, using the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-hockneys-ipad-paintings-illuminate-his-enriching-way-of-seeing-the-everyday-197111">iPad and iPhone</a>. </p>
<p>His latest work, <a href="https://lightroom.uk/">Bigger and Closer (not smaller and further away)</a>, at Lightroom in London is an ambitious exhibition and another foray into the future from the 85-year-old artist. Using multiple large-scale video displays, Hockney has decided to stage an immersive exhibition that reviews the last 60 years of his work. </p>
<p>His is not the first – there have been immersive exhibitions of Van Gogh, Salvador Dalí, Frida Kahlo and Gustav Klimt. However, Hockney is one of the first mainstream and, crucially, still-living artists to take on this format. </p>
<p>There have been many <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkgngz/why-immersive-art-exhibitions-are-awful">critics</a> of immersive exhibitions who see them as commercial ploys built for the Instagram age, not for “serious” lovers of art. Hockney is defying these naysayers.</p>
<p>Like his adoption of the iPad and other tech, he is acknowledging our digitally-dominated world. Consumers increasingly desire cutting-edge and unique “experiences”, and Hockney is <a href="https://is.gd/jleq8Z">delivering experiential value beyond basic function</a> – beyond the experience of static paintings.</p>
<h2>Deconstruction</h2>
<p>What I’ve always liked about Hockney’s work is his deconstructive approach. He takes things apart and reconstitutes them, for us to see them all the better. </p>
<p>Take, for instance, his innovative photographic desert landscape collage, <a href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103QT4">PearBlossom Highway</a>. This work appears to have been exploded, deconstructed and reassembled in an effort to demand our attention. This is 1980s photographic technology stretched and experimented with. “Look and notice what I see (as the driver or passenger) passing through this immense US landscape,” he seems to say. </p>
<p>As a researcher, he also considered how painting may have significantly altered using early <a href="https://www.nga.gov/press/exh/2866/camera-obscura.html#:%7E:text=A%20forerunner%20of%20the%20modern,image%20onto%20the%20opposite%20surface.">camera obscura</a>. Known as the “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4130307">Hockney-Falco thesis</a>”, he explains technology is an aid to the making process and one to be embraced and experimented with across his diverse range of art-making. Why use outdated techniques, he argues.</p>
<p>The question now is whether Hockney can successfully deconstruct and reconfigure his large body of work to construct a meaningful, enjoyable and even exciting audience experience.</p>
<p>The art world has offered <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0fa670f4-4fd9-488e-bdf9-774c8e32b9cb">mixed reactions</a> to the act of repurposing artists’ work for immersive exhibitions. Many would say that works are being altered beyond recognition through the process of post-production and animation. Sometimes this happens in bizarre ways, as art critic Ben Davis <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/immersive-van-gogh-experiences-1983011">argues</a> regarding Van Gogh’s Cafe Terrace at Night transformed into a split curtain blowing in the wind, or Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette puffing smoke.</p>
<p>While these installations are modernistic, utilising commercial event techniques, the exploitation of artistic intellectual property is nothing new. Original art has long been shifted sideways into the museum shop, and repurposed as domestic items such as cups and saucers and shoulder bags. Should we be sniffy about this, and the further exploitation of artworks into the realm of video installation? </p>
<p>What’s different about Hockney’s exhibition from those before is that, as a living artist, he can control his own technology and vision. Hockney has had a huge hand in how this hour-long performance looks and sounds.</p>
<p>In a cycle of six-themed chapters, the artist reveals his process to visitors. His works dance about the walls in a carefully choreographed spectacle – accompanied by a specially composed soundtrack by the American composer <a href="https://www.eno.org/composers/nico-muhly/">Nico Muhly</a> and the voice of the artist himself.</p>
<h2>Immersive art is not new</h2>
<p>Digital artists such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Shaw">Jeffrey Shaw</a> have experimented over many years with a myriad of digital technologies. <a href="https://digitalartarchive.at/database/artists/general/artist/shaw.html">Legible City</a> (1989) transforms the act of cycling through a city into an interactive, immersive act of reading as three-dimensional words and sentences replace the architecture of the streets of Amsterdam.</p>
<p>In this immersive art piece, Shaw exposed the difficulties of engaging an audience. This early work made plain that artists cannot simply hide behind a technical facade, but must still work to entice their audiences. Legible City is now visually and technically dated, but holds its own as a concept.</p>
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<p>Virtual reality, augmented reality and projection mapping are all useful tools. But lacking conceptual design, their use can quickly become dated. How do you keep an audience on a journey beyond the initial thrill and technical surprise? </p>
<p>While technological considerations may initially lead, staging considerations must soon take precedence. Is it enough to present a simplistic art history timeline of one image after the other? Probably not. </p>
<p>Good immersive exhibitions will explore and create emotion. They will use thrill, fear, humour and cheek to propel people through a narrative, however nonlinear the journey may be. </p>
<p>During the late 1960s, the artist Edward Kienholz created a complex installation reflecting racism in the US. Titled <a href="https://www.fondazioneprada.org/project/kienholz-five-car-stud/?lang=en">Five Car Stud</a>, the work is still highly relevant. Audiences walk around a harrowing dark and highly detailed film-like set replete with vehicles, trees and plaster-cast humans as a racist murder takes place. It’s a shocking experience. </p>
<p>Can Hockney’s immersive exhibition succeed beyond the most basic idea of presenting his own art history on a big scale? My hope is that it does, and that this installation attracts a wider audience to contemporary art. This is Hockney’s desire too: “I hope it gives young people some ideas,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/feb/20/david-hockney-lightroom-immersive-bigger-closer-not-smaller-further-away">he said</a>. </p>
<p>The 85-year-old artist embraces the digital future more than many who are half his age. I am intrigued to see what he takes on next.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://lightroom.uk/whats-on/david-hockney/">Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)</a> is at Lightroom in London from February 22 until June 4 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195952/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Mckeown receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). </span></em></p>
Critics will say that immersive exhibitions destroy art but Hockney is ready to challenge them with his hour-long show
Simon Mckeown, Professor of Art, School of Arts & Creative Industries, Teesside University, Teesside University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199335
2023-02-21T18:11:50Z
2023-02-21T18:11:50Z
Knitwear: Chanel to Westwood review – showcasing the diversity of knitted fashion
<p>The exhibition <a href="https://dovecotstudios.com/exhibitions/knitwear-chanel-to-westwood">Knitwear: Chanel to Westwood</a> is a powerful, evocative display of knitted history at Edinburgh’s Dovecot Studios. Once a unique tapestry studio in Edinburgh’s Old Town, it’s now a welcoming venue for contemporary arts, crafts and design. </p>
<p>The exhibition consists of a vast array of knitted garments from the collection of Cleo and Mark Butterfield, owners of <a href="https://www.c20vintagefashion.co.uk/">C20 Vintage fashion</a>. Their archive is frequently used and referenced by fashion and costume designers and major brands, as well as loaned out for popular film and TV dramas.</p>
<p>The exhibition takes the audience on a unique journey that transcends obvious representations of knitwear, which might normally be associated with more well-known historical and contemporary examples. This offers an unexpected and more diverse perspective – unlocking a treasure trove of knitted pieces, many of which will be new to audiences. </p>
<p>Starting with an early-1900s knitted petticoat which could have been plucked from the rails of a contemporary fashion store, the exhibition opens with outstanding examples of Chanel (and Chanel-influenced) knitwear from the 1920s. Set chronologically, visitors can enjoy an engaging visual journey from knitted swimwear and Fair Isle jumpers to second world war-era “make do and mend” – highly topical in today’s debates on sustainability.</p>
<p>Following displays of American knitwear, 1950s cocktail glamour and 1960s crochet, the exhibition’s second gallery takes in futuristic approaches by Courrèges and the novelty knitwear of Fiorucci, before dashing from the 1970s to the present day via Biba, Comme des Garçons and Sonia Rykiel.</p>
<p>Here are three exhibits that stood out to me:</p>
<h2>1. Bill Gibb suit</h2>
<p>A standout piece, and even more so given its Scottish roots, is the stunning 1976 suit by Bill Gibb. The piece features a <a href="https://www.elegantknitting.com.au/single-post/2016/12/11/jacquard-patterns-how-do-we-do-it#:%7E:text=Jacquard%20is%20a%20term%20originally,to%20create%20a%20visual%20pattern.">jacquard-style knit</a> with a myriad of patterns and rich fields of vivid colour.</p>
<p>Gibb’s tunic and knickerbockers, set with a matching knee-length scarf, display the way that knit can express high-fashion luxury through elaborate design and timeless style. This outfit stands apart from other pieces in the exhibition, appearing to be a woven technique at first glance. On closer inspection, the intricate knit techniques become clear. </p>
<p>Gibb, an Aberdeenshire-born designer, worked closely with his then-partner Kaffe Fasset (Dovecot’s next exhibition concerns his work), producing exquisite textiles involving multiple colour combinations and patterns. Although he died aged only 44, Gibbs’s influence on contemporary knitwear and fashion is still acknowledged and admired by designers today, including John Galliano and Giles Deacon. </p>
<p>This is where the exhibition really excels – in the discovery of designers beyond the big brands, and in celebrating visionaries who might easily be forgotten among today’s myriad fast fashion options.</p>
<h2>2. Vivienne Westwood’s art of the undone</h2>
<p>I was drawn to the small display of jumpers by the late Vivienne Westwood that exemplifies the “art in the undone”. This style showcases loose, hand-knitted techniques that are transparent, worn-looking and almost threadbare in appearance, but secured in place by standard ribbed neck trims, waists and cuffs. </p>
<p>You can appreciate the rebelliousness in this knitwear that, like much of Westwood’s work, subverts the rules of fashion. The “undone” look belies their technical accuracy and supreme production. A historically important and poignant example of the Westwood aesthetic and influence, these garments are still as fresh as the day they were produced and must be seen up close to be fully appreciated.</p>
<p>Their inclusion in this exhibition helps to convey how diverse knit techniques can be, and provides a visual celebration of the power of craft in fashion.</p>
<h2>3. Scottish Knitwear Now</h2>
<p>The exhibition concludes with a small display titled “Scottish Knitwear Now”, focusing on the work of hand knitwear designer Di Gilpin and her collaboration with the Paris/Glasgow label La Fetiche, directed by April Crichton (former design director for Sonia Rykiel). </p>
<p>Garments consist of a neon pink knitted top, a cream mini-skirt and an oversized cream jumper with bold colour stripes. Every piece is made in an <a href="https://www.aran.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAorKfBhC0ARIsAHDzslsInALWci3fTSTevVkIlQDBG_0zoOYXrPISa5UoU2KD2lo3M82y4yEaAoNgEALw_wcB">Aran-style</a> handknit – a traditional technique that many people will know from fishermen’s jumpers. These pieces are far from traditional, though, and offer a modern take on a classic knit – a fitting end to the exhibition. </p>
<p>While an interesting connection is made here with contemporary Scottish design and craft, I was left clamouring for more – which can only be a good thing. This hints at possibilities for a future exhibition to celebrate the vast wealth of Scotland’s knitwear design talent and brands, from Johnstons of Elgin and Barrie Knitwear to Green Thomas and Jennifer Kent.</p>
<p><em>Knitwear: Chanel to Westwood at Dovecot Studios closes March 11 2023</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199335/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mal Burkinshaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Three exhibits stand out in this evocative display of knitted history at Edinburgh’s Dovecot Studios
Mal Burkinshaw, Head of Design, The University of Edinburgh, The University of Edinburgh
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/192885
2022-10-24T09:09:46Z
2022-10-24T09:09:46Z
Manipulating light can induce psychedelic experiences – and scientists aren’t quite sure why
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491042/original/file-20221021-19-9xwbq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C14%2C1224%2C782&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brion Gysin and William Burroughs with the Dreamachine, 1972.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charles Gatewood</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For millennia, people have used mind-altering techniques to achieve different states of consciousness, envision spiritual figures, connect with nature, or simply for the fun of it. Psychedelic substances, in particular, have a long and controversial <a href="https://theconversation.com/psychedelic-drugs-can-be-almost-as-life-altering-as-near-death-experiences-189325">history</a>. But for just as long, people have been having these experiences without drugs too, using <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/1/101">rhythmic techniques such as rocking, chanting or drumming</a>.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most powerful technique of this kind is flickering light, called “ganzflicker”. Ganzflicker effects can be achieved by turning a light on and off, or by alternating colours in a rapid, rhythmic pattern (like a strobe). This can create an instant psychedelic experience. </p>
<p>Ganzflicker elicits striking visual phenomena. People can see geometric shapes and illusory colours but sometimes also complex objects, such as animals and faces – all without any chemical stimulants. Sometimes ganzflicker can even lead to altered states of consciousness (such as losing a sense of time or space) and emotions (ranging from fear to euphoria).</p>
<p>Although its effects are little known today, ganzflicker has influenced and inspired many people through the ages, including the two of us. We are an art historian and brain scientist working together on an interactive showcase of ganzflicker techniques used in science and art. Our collaboration has culminated in the museum exhibition <a href="https://reshannereeder.com/ganzflicker-exhibit">“Ganzflicker: art, science, and psychedelic experience”</a>, which is part of the 2022 <a href="https://www.beinghumanfestival.org/">Being Human festival</a>. </p>
<p>Ganzflicker’s effects were first documented in 1819 by the physiologist <a href="https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/235945">Jan E. Purkinje</a>. Purkinje discovered that illusory patterns could appear if he faced the sun and waved his hand in front of his closed eyelids.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="a series of geometric pattern drawings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491040/original/file-20221021-19-ovckhv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491040/original/file-20221021-19-ovckhv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491040/original/file-20221021-19-ovckhv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491040/original/file-20221021-19-ovckhv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491040/original/file-20221021-19-ovckhv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491040/original/file-20221021-19-ovckhv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491040/original/file-20221021-19-ovckhv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From Jan E. Purkinje’s documentation of the subjective visual phenomena he saw when he waved his hand in front of his closed eyes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Near the end of the 19th century, an English toymaker and amateur scientist, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/051200c0">Charles Benham</a>, produced the first commercially available flicker device: a top with a monochrome pattern that, when spun, produced illusory colours that swirled around the disc. </p>
<p>Modified versions of Benham’s “artificial spectrum top” were used in experiments well into the 20th century. William Grey Walter, a pioneering neurophysiologist and cybernetician, <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-70911-1_17">pushed flicker effects further</a> by using electric strobe lights, synchronised with the brain’s rhythms.</p>
<p>Fascinated by the mind-altering potential of Walter’s machinery, the artist Brion Gysin, in collaboration with writer William S. Burroughs and mathematician Ian Sommerville, invented the <a href="http://mindcontrol-research.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/14_2_dream-machine-plans.pdf">Dreamachine</a> (1962).</p>
<h2>The swinging 60s of drug-free psychedelics</h2>
<p>A Dreamachine consists of an upright cylinder with patterns cut into it and a lightbulb suspended at its centre. When spun on a turntable at 78rpm, the flickering patterns (viewed through closed eyelids) can cause trance-like hallucinations.</p>
<p>Gysin thought of the Dreamachine as a new kind of artwork – “the first art object to be seen with the eyes closed” – and a form of entertainment, which he believed could replace the television. Others saw the Dreamachine’s potential to be a source of spiritual inspiration.</p>
<p>Burroughs thought it could be <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/brion-gysin-the-pioneering-artist-who-invented-the-dreamachine/">used to</a> “storm the citadels of enlightenment”. The poet Alan Ginsberg said: “It sets up optical fields as religious and mandalic as hallucinogenic drugs – it’s like being able to have jewelled biblical designs and landscapes without taking chemicals.”</p>
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<p>Flicker experiments in art did not stop with the Dreamachine. Others included Tony Conrad’s groundbreaking structuralist film <a href="https://fourthree.boilerroom.tv/film/flicker-tony-conrad">The Flicker</a> (1966), which was the first artwork to include the warning “may induce epileptic seizures or produce mild symptoms of shock treatment in certain persons”. </p>
<p>The conceptual artist James Turrell’s <a href="https://jamesturrell.com/work/bindu-shards/">Bindu Shards</a> (2010) was an enclosed globe that bombards the observer with strobe light. And, more recently, Collective Act created its own <a href="https://dreamachine.world">Dreamachine</a> (2022) , a public planetarium-style artwork inspired by Gysin’s which toured the UK.</p>
<h2>The science of ganzflicker</h2>
<p>Two hundred years after Jan Purkinje documented the physiological properties of ganzflicker, scientists still do not have a definitive explanation for how it works. </p>
<p>A recent theory proposes that visual phenomena may be the result of interactions between external flicker and the brain’s natural rhythmic electrical pulses, with more intense images manifesting <a href="https://theconversation.com/pseudo-hallucinations-why-some-people-see-more-vivid-mental-images-than-others-test-yourself-here-163025">when the frequencies of flicker and the brain are closest</a>.</p>
<p>It is also likely that a strong visual flicker influences brain states. Meaningful visions, altered conscious states and heightened emotions may be the result of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18591-6">imaginative suggestion</a>, which is amplified by the trance-inducing properties of <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/1/101">rhythmic stimulation</a>.</p>
<p>What is perhaps most powerful about ganzflicker is its universality. Engineers, mathematicians, artists, historians and scientists have all been united by this modest, drug-free means of eliciting dramatic changes in consciousness. The new wave of popularity on this topic will undoubtedly lead to illuminating discoveries in the coming years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192885/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew MacKisack received funding for this exhibition from the Being Human festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place 10–19 November 2022. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Reshanne Reeder received funding for this exhibition from the Being Human festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place 10–19 November 2022. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org.</span></em></p>
Flickering light can make people see different colours and shapes or feel altered emotions or sense of time.
Matthew MacKisack, Associate Research Fellow, University of Exeter
Reshanne Reeder, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Edge Hill University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127405
2019-11-21T13:03:44Z
2019-11-21T13:03:44Z
From the Iliad to Circe: culture’s enduring fascination with the myths of Troy
<p>The story of the epic war fought over a woman has been told many times. It now lies at the heart of an exhibition at the British Museum opening on November 21. <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/troy-myth-and-reality?campaignid=1642&cmpid=em%7Cmktg%7Ccard%7C180619%7Ctroy&contactid=1512094">Troy: Myth and Reality</a> introduces audiences to the history of the archaeological site of Troy (modern-day Hisarlik, Turkey), many of the different individuals caught up in the Trojan War, and various later responses to this powerful <a href="https://blog.britishmuseum.org/the-myth-of-the-trojan-war/?_gl=1*2wk0wc*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE1NzQxNzk4MzEuRUFJYUlRb2JDaE1JXzRlUTZ0VDI1UUlWZ3JIdENoM1p6UWQxRUFBWUFTQUFFZ0xzUHZEX0J3RQ..">legend</a> in drama and literature.</p>
<p>That the story of the Trojan War should be the subject of a blockbuster exhibition comes as little surprise. Ever since classical antiquity, audiences have been consistently telling and retelling stories about the site of Troy and the heroic war that was fought there between the Trojans and the Achaeans (later conflated with the Greeks). The most famous telling of all perhaps is the <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D1">Iliad</a> from the eighth century BCE, composed by Homer, a figure shrouded in mystery.</p>
<p>The Homeric poem captures the story of a dreadful, ten-year war fought between two nations. It shows the major influence of powerful men on the battlefield, such as the Trojan prince Hector and the commander of the Myrmidons, Achilles. For these individuals, deeds performed in war will secure them “<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Il.+9.410&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134">everlasting fame</a>” (κλέος ἄφθιτον in ancient Greek).</p>
<p>But the poem also illustrates the horrendous impact of the war far away from the battlefield. In <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0134:book=19:card=276&highlight=briseis">one memorable passage</a>, Briseis, the captive prisoner of Achilles, laments the slaughter of her husband and children. It is a heartbreaking account that shows acutely the universal misery brought on by the bloodshed of war.</p>
<h2>Troy after Homer</h2>
<p>Ever since Homer, people have looked to expand on and retell different aspects of the Trojan War in light of their own circumstances.</p>
<p>The fifth century BCE Athenian playwright Euripides produced several plays that depicted the aftermath of the conflict. In his <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0124%3Acard%3D1">Trojan Women</a>, Euripides centres the widows of Troy and the hardships they endure at the hands of their Greek oppressors, who divide the women like booty between themselves. It is an uncompromising account that many have read as a biting commentary on the civil war fought between Athens and Sparta at the end of the fifth century BCE. The play does not glorify war and instead highlights its horrors through Troy’s displaced women.</p>
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<p>Of course, the creation of refugees through warfare and the transportation of human bodies across geographic boundaries is a profound concern for audiences today. The ongoing Syrian civil war has created around <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/numbers-syrian-refugees-around-world/">6.7m refugees</a>, who have been dispersed across the globe. And the recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/07/all-39-people-found-dead-in-essex-lorry-identified">shocking discovery</a> of 39 Vietnamese nationals’ bodies in a lorry in Grays, Essex on 23 October, 2019 is a ghastly reminder of the terrible conditions that many refugees have faced past and present.</p>
<h2>Troy Today</h2>
<p>In contemporary culture too, there has been a spate of interest in the stories and myths of Troy. The exhibition shows clearly the impact it has had on the visual arts. Highlights include a 1978 collage by the African-American artist Romare Bearden, titled <a href="http://sitesarchives.si.edu/romarebearden/works/sirensSong.html">The Sirens’ Song</a>, which recasts Odysseus’ journey home after the war with African-American subjects. Bearden’s work employs the familiar story of Troy to give the African-American experience a universal and classical representation. </p>
<p>Another notable work is a print called Judgement of Paris (2007), pictured above, by the conceptual artist Eleanor Antin. The photo, which riffs on <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/peter-paul-rubens-the-judgement-of-paris">Peter Paul Ruben’s Judgement of Paris</a> (1639), highlights the powerlessness of Helen who sits looking outwards, forced to the margins of the image. Antin’s work turns this on its head. Featured as part of a series called Helen’s Odyssey, the photo challenges a tradition that has often vilified the Spartan queen Helen for her involvement in the war. </p>
<p>A recent significant development has been the growing number of English-language fictional accounts about Troy written by women. These works retell and expand on various aspects of the Trojan War story from the perspective of the women involved. They range from Pat Barker’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/22/silence-of-the-girls-pat-barker-book-review-iliad">The Silence of the Girls</a>, which retells the Iliad from the perspective of the story’s women, to Madeline Miller’s bestseller <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/books/review/circe-madeline-miller.html">Circe</a>, a feminist exploration of certain events from the Odyssey. Such works offer a potent challenge to a tradition that has been wholly dominated by male authors and male-centred stories. </p>
<p>An especially impressive entry in this burgeoning group of women writers’ works on Troy is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/books/review/memorial-alice-oswalds-version-of-the-iliad.html?login=email&auth=login-email">Alice Oswald’s 2011 poem Memorial</a>, an idiosyncratic translation of the Iliad. The poem evokes various contemporary war memorials, such as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, in its opening which lists the names of almost all the men whose deaths are reported in the Iliad.</p>
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<p>What’s more, the poem records moments in which the soldiers of the Iliad die on the battlefield. In doing so, as in the Iliad, Oswald repeatedly draws attention to bereaved parents, widowed partners and fatherless children. In an age where technology has changed the methods and image of warfare, desensitising us to such violence, works like Memorial are a timely reminder of the human costs of deadly conflict.</p>
<p>It is clear, then, that Troy and the stories that surround it continue to shape culture thousands of years after the Trojan War ostensibly occurred. This is what makes the British Museum exhibition so relevant for audiences today. The story of the Trojan War is a story of universal suffering that stretches past the battlefield. It is a story that highlights the absurdity of war, which at its core holds sentiments that ring as true today as they did in antiquity. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Troy: Myth and Reality is on at The British Museum from November 21, 2019 - 8 March 8, 2020</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan Haywood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From art that centres the African-American experience to feminist retellings, the British Museum’s new exhibition explores culture’s enduring fascination with the legend of Troy
Jan Haywood, Lecturer in Classical Studies, The Open University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/114589
2019-04-02T01:13:04Z
2019-04-02T01:13:04Z
The National is a time capsule of new Australian art in uncertain times
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266756/original/file-20190401-177178-z2at14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sam Cranstoun, Utopia, The National, Carriageworks.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zan Wimberley</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.the-national.com.au/">The National</a> is an ambitious name for any exhibition of contemporary Australian art. In this case it is justified by the inclusion of artists from every state and territory. The bald statistics of the media release note that over 60% of the 70 artists are women, and over one third are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders.</p>
<p>Their biographies reveal a broad range of age, geographic and cultural backgrounds showing modern, multicultural Australia at work. It is the result of a very conscious curatorial decision to show what is new, and what concerns artists at the end of the second decade of the 21st century.</p>
<p>In both size and subtext, this differs from the two other regular surveys of contemporary Australian art – the National Gallery of Victoria’s <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/melbournenow/">Melbourne Now</a> and the Art Gallery of South Australia’s <a href="http://adelaidebiennial.com.au/2018/">Adelaide Biennial</a>. Despite spreading over two generously sized venues, Melbourne Now has always projected a decidedly local focus – it may include artists from other locations and even other countries – but the city is the hero. Adelaide’s Biennial has always been constrained by the relatively small size of the Art Gallery of SA.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266980/original/file-20190402-177199-s6jvm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266980/original/file-20190402-177199-s6jvm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266980/original/file-20190402-177199-s6jvm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266980/original/file-20190402-177199-s6jvm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266980/original/file-20190402-177199-s6jvm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266980/original/file-20190402-177199-s6jvm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266980/original/file-20190402-177199-s6jvm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266980/original/file-20190402-177199-s6jvm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sally M. Nangala Mulda, Town Camp Anywhere 2018–19 Acrylic on canvas, acrylic on paper, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Tangentyere Artists, Mparntwe (Alice Springs)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist and Tangentyere Artists Photo: AGNSW, Mim Stirling</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The National casually stretches between three reasonably large locations – Carriageworks, Museum of Contemporary Art and Art Gallery of New South Wales, but in its scope it draws the whole country into its extended embrace. </p>
<p>Each venue has a slightly different flavour. The old industrial space of Carriageworks is the place for the over the top performance by Pope Alice (aka Luke Roberts and entourage) as well as Mark Shorter’s (literally) dark performance piece, <a href="https://www.the-national.com.au/artists/mark-shorter/song-for-von-guerard/">Song for von Guérard</a>. At the MCA, curators Anna Davis and Clothilde Bullen explored what they call the “third space”, an overlapping between cultures and gender to produce a greater visual diversity.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266758/original/file-20190401-177187-i5bcxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266758/original/file-20190401-177187-i5bcxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266758/original/file-20190401-177187-i5bcxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266758/original/file-20190401-177187-i5bcxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266758/original/file-20190401-177187-i5bcxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266758/original/file-20190401-177187-i5bcxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266758/original/file-20190401-177187-i5bcxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266758/original/file-20190401-177187-i5bcxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Mark Shorter, Song for von Guerard, at Carriageworks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zan Wimberley</span></span>
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<p>In her catalogue essay, AGNSW curator Isobel Parker Philip likens The National to a black box flight recorder that captures the moment even as the plane falls to its doom. She sees our present time as being “a moment steeped in uncertainty and precariousness”. </p>
<p>Rather than seeing exhibitions of contemporary art as an ever recording black box, it’s probably more appropriate to see them as a time capsule – where the contents are laid out for inspection to show the future what we were.</p>
<p>All three venues have works that explore the nature of history and recovering memories that were either willingly or unwillingly repressed. At the entrance of Carrriageworks, Sam Cranstoun’s ironic <a href="https://www.the-national.com.au/artists/sam-cranstoun/utopia/">Utopia</a> sign is a visual quotation of Ken Done’s triumphalist <a href="http://www.kendone.com.au/news.php?s=expo-88s-30th-anniversary">Australia</a> sign, which welcomed visitors to Brisbane’s World Expo 1988. That year-long celebration marked the end of the repressive Bjelke-Petersen era and the launching of modern Queensland.</p>
<p>On occasion, Utopia is partly obscured by Tom Mùller’s <a href="https://www.the-national.com.au/artists/tom-muller/ghost-line/">Ghost Line</a>, which steams a foggy reminder of the steam trains that once called the current site of Carriageworks their home. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266757/original/file-20190401-177196-3x1z6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266757/original/file-20190401-177196-3x1z6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266757/original/file-20190401-177196-3x1z6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266757/original/file-20190401-177196-3x1z6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266757/original/file-20190401-177196-3x1z6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266757/original/file-20190401-177196-3x1z6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266757/original/file-20190401-177196-3x1z6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266757/original/file-20190401-177196-3x1z6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tom Muller, Ghost Line, The National, Carriageworks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zan Wimberley</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Inside, Cherine Fahd’s <a href="https://www.the-national.com.au/artists/cherine-fahd/apokryphos/">Akrókryhos</a> recovers family photographs recording the funeral of her grandfather, who died young. The works at Carriageworks are more abrasive than those at the AGNSW. There, the first works visitors see are Andrew Hazewinkel’s <a href="https://www.the-national.com.au/artists/andrew-hazewinkel/the-ongoing-remains/">12 Figures after Niccolò</a>, where antique heads reveal themselves to be masks, failing to conceal underlying collective anxiety.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-images-of-mourning-and-the-power-of-acknowledging-grief-112129">Friday essay: images of mourning and the power of acknowledging grief</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266949/original/file-20190401-177171-13l32cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266949/original/file-20190401-177171-13l32cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266949/original/file-20190401-177171-13l32cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266949/original/file-20190401-177171-13l32cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266949/original/file-20190401-177171-13l32cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266949/original/file-20190401-177171-13l32cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266949/original/file-20190401-177171-13l32cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266949/original/file-20190401-177171-13l32cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andrew Hazewinkel, Part 1, The Emissaries: Keepers of Our Stories from The Ongoing Remains, (3 parts) 2019. Powdered pigment, gypsum cement, mild steel, 20 sculptures: bust 46 x 21x 22 cm, base 122 x 38 x 33 cm, individual figure, 168 x 38 x 33 cm; installation dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Reading Room, Melbourne © the artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: AGNSW, Mim Stirling</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other works are quieter as they give a slow reveal of distress. <a href="https://www.the-national.com.au/artists/peta-clancy/undercurrent/">Peta Clancy</a>’s giant photographic <a href="https://theconversation.com/peta-clancy-brings-a-hidden-victorian-massacre-to-the-surface-with-undercurrent-113350">Undercurrents</a> only gradually reveals itself to be the echo of an old massacre at Dja Dja Wurrung country. This large, understated work is installed adjacent to Sally M. Nangala Mulda’s bleakly humorous paintings of <a href="https://www.the-national.com.au/artists/sally-m-nangala-mulda/town-camp-anywhere/">Town Camp Anywhere</a>. It gives a certain continuity to the legacy of displacement.</p>
<p>At the MCA, the late Mumu Mike Williams’ giant painting, <a href="https://www.the-national.com.au/artists/mumu-mike-williams/kamantaku-tjukurpa-wiya-the-government-doesnt-have-tjukurpa/">Kamantaku Tjukurpa wiya (The Government doesn’t have Tjukurpa)</a>, gives an uncompromising critique of the legacy of colonisation and the connection of the Anangu people to country. The canvas it is painted on is government issue mail bags. It maps the water holes where people still remember how they were given flour – laced with arsenic. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266759/original/file-20190401-177175-1irybfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266759/original/file-20190401-177175-1irybfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266759/original/file-20190401-177175-1irybfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266759/original/file-20190401-177175-1irybfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266759/original/file-20190401-177175-1irybfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266759/original/file-20190401-177175-1irybfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266759/original/file-20190401-177175-1irybfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266759/original/file-20190401-177175-1irybfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Installation view of the National at MCA featuring Mike Williams’ Kamantaku Tjukurpa wiya (The Government doesn’t have Tjukurpa).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jacquie Manning</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is partnered in the exhibition with Abdul Rahman-Abdullah’s exquisite ode to memories of childhood, <a href="https://www.the-national.com.au/artists/abdul-rahman-abdullah/pretty-beach/">Pretty Beach</a>. Here sculptures of stingrays and suspended crystals evoke a seascape loved by a dead relative, and so honour him.
Mourning can be a complex emotion. Hannah Brontë’s <a href="https://www.the-national.com.au/artists/hannah-bront%C3%AB/heala/">Heala </a>screens her video onto the floor of a luminous, orange-draped room. She draws the viewer into her world, as “Orange is the first colour that you see in the womb. Light from outside through your eyelids.” </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266760/original/file-20190401-177190-1sdeyfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266760/original/file-20190401-177190-1sdeyfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266760/original/file-20190401-177190-1sdeyfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266760/original/file-20190401-177190-1sdeyfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266760/original/file-20190401-177190-1sdeyfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266760/original/file-20190401-177190-1sdeyfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266760/original/file-20190401-177190-1sdeyfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266760/original/file-20190401-177190-1sdeyfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hannah Bronte’s Heala at the National, MCA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jacquie Manning</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women move, float and sing their way through pregnancy and loss to the rhythm of the most enticing rap, its beat quoting the beat of the artist’s own heart.</p>
<p>Not all new artists are young. <a href="https://www.the-national.com.au/artists/daisy-japulija/billabongs/">Daisy Japulija</a>, Sonia Kurarra, Tjigila Nada Rawlins & Ms Uhl collectively paint a vision of the colours and rhythms of country caught in light – all painted on perspex panels. It comes as a surprise to find that the artists are all residents of the Guwardi Ngadu aged residential care facility. Nothing is as it seems.</p>
<p><em>The Nation is on Art Gallery of New South Wales until 21 July 2019, and at Carriageworks and the MCA until 23 June 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114589/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has in the past received funding from The Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
The ambitiously named exhibition, The National: New Australian Art, lives up to its title as a visual examination of Australia in an age of uncertainty.
Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Associate Professor, Art & Design: UNSW Australia. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/108502
2018-12-12T00:03:13Z
2018-12-12T00:03:13Z
Honouring the dead: Alex Seton’s stark, moving protest sculptures carved from marble
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249882/original/file-20181211-76986-1o3bujl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from Alex Seton's A Durable Solution? - a series of memorial plaques naming the 12 men who have died under our 'care'.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sullivan & Strumpf</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Alex Seton’s sculpture A Durable Solution? is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/07/marble-tombstones-at-labor-conference-reminder-of-alps-role-in-offshore-detention">concentrating the minds</a> of some delegates as they approach this weekend’s ALP national conference in Adelaide. It is the key work in <a href="https://allwecantsee.com/">All We Can’t See</a>, an exhibition in the foyer of the Adelaide Convention Centre. </p>
<p>No delegate will be able to avoid this visual response to the Nauru Files, the records of life on that island first exposed by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/nauru-files">The Guardian</a>. With exquisite timing, the show’s opening reception will be held at the centre on Sunday, the evening before the Labor Party debates its refugee policy. </p>
<p>Seton has a carved series of stark, minimalist memorial plaques, naming the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2018/jun/20/deaths-in-offshore-detention-the-faces-of-the-people-who-have-died-in-australias-care">12 men who have died</a> under our “care” on Nauru and Manus Island. There is no compromise, no gloss. The white Carrara marble, the same material used by Michelangelo, has been pared back, muted. Its surface is bereft of texture, the only incisions are the names of the dead and the dates they died.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249885/original/file-20181211-76965-f7c2j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Detail from Alex Seton, A Durable Solution?</span>
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<p>A Durable Solution? is the third time this relatively young artist has made work that can be described as a collective memorial. Even though each of these sculptural installations commemorate the lives of a specific group of people, they also focus on the individual, to allow private grief. Seton has described his approach to memorials as “capturing those moments that are a test of our humanity”.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249886/original/file-20181211-76986-gkw817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Alex Seton: Insert Grievance Here (2011).</span>
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<p>He came to memorials via his series of sculptures of flags. Seton is an artist passionate about one material, marble. While this may be the great classic stone for monuments, it is very unfashionable in the 21st century. But his childhood home was near the Wombeyan Caves Marble Quarry, and he was fascinated by those rough blocks of veined rock that could be transformed beyond recognition.</p>
<p>So while studying a Bachelor of Art Theory degree, Seton began to carve. His passion for the precise craft of manufacture melded with his understanding of subtext and symbol. He learnt to carve stone so that it was easily mistaken for fabric. He looked at the ultimate symbolic use of cloth – in flags.</p>
<h2>Carving folded flags</h2>
<p>Flags may be ironic, but more often they are patriotic. They are the symbols soldiers fight under, and when they are killed a flag will drape their coffin. Seton is the same age as some of the young soldiers who first died in Australia’s longest war in Afghanistan. As part of coming to terms with the deaths from his generation, he began to carve folded Australian flags to honour the dead – one for each soldier. </p>
<p>These are made of pink, pearl marble from Chillagoe in north Queensland. Its flush suggests flesh and blood. Each is “bound” with a cloth halyard, creating confusion as to where the stone may begin. Twenty-three flags were first exhibited in Lismore and Brisbane. More have been added with each death. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249883/original/file-20181211-76962-1q15vzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Alex Seton, As of Today, marble with halyard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sullivan + Strumpf</span></span>
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<p>The title of these works, As of Today, reminds the viewer that more deaths may be on the way. The Australian War Memorial purchased the flags, with a commission to add more when necessary. There are now 42. Seton has <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/exhibitions/seton/statement">said</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Initially I thought this work was about us – how easily we forget – but it is not about us at all. It is about those who gave their lives and whose memory we now preserve.</p>
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<p>At the same time as the Australian War Memorial was preparing to show his work, Seton was completing a rather different memorial. Dark Heart, at the 2014 Adelaide Biennial, can be described as a dive into the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-2014-adelaide-biennial-contemporary-art-as-it-was-meant-to-be-23033">dark night of the national soul</a>. Much of the art was confronting, pricking the national conscience as a Jeremiad against the follies of modern Australia. </p>
<p>Now owned by the Art Gallery of South Australia, Someone Died Trying To Have a Life Like Mine was made in response to a particular incident in the sorry history of the many boat people who have died at sea. </p>
<p>In May 2013, 28 empty lifejackets were found washed ashore on Cocos Island. There is no official record of who the voyagers may have been, but one jacket contained a small amount of Iranian money. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249884/original/file-20181211-76980-18m4cxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alex Seton Someone Died Trying to Have a Life Like Mine, Wombeyan marble, polyester webbing, stainless steel, varied dimensions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Adelaide Biennial</span></span>
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<p>Seton began his work to honour these dead, and to give an answer to the question many ask – why set off in an unseaworthy boat across hostile waters? The answer is that these people want what we take for granted, a life like ours.</p>
<p>Each carved jacket manages to quote elements of the western canon of art. One is burst open like Michaelangelo’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Slave">Dying Slave</a>. Two are together, as intimate as a quattrocento Madonna and Child. Others are placed in an arc, like flying angels.</p>
<p>The power of Someone Died Trying to Have a Life Like Mine comes from its evocation of empathy, the realisation that the people Seton is commemorating were like us. They wanted to walk in our shoes, so we are drawn to don their lifejackets.</p>
<p>It is this empathetic approach to honouring the dead that gives Alex Seton’s memorials their power. He moves beyond the studied factionalism of party politics and asks the viewer to consider the shared humanity of those who have died.</p>
<p>It does not matter whether they are soldiers or asylum seekers, lost at sea or imprisoned on land. They are us, and we are them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108502/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has in the past received funding from The Australian Research Council. Many years ago she taught Alex Seton at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW.</span></em></p>
Alex Seton’s sculpture A Durable Solution? dominates the protest exhibition at the forthcoming ALP national conference. He has also created an official memorial to Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan
Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Associate Professor, Art & Design: UNSW Australia. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105120
2018-10-18T01:44:08Z
2018-10-18T01:44:08Z
The resonances between Indigenous art and images captured by microscopes
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240936/original/file-20181016-165905-138ytua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from Witchetty Grub Dreaming, Jennifer Napaljarri Lewis, Warlukurlangu Artists of Yuendumu</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rich visual parallels between Indigenous artworks and microscopic natural structures hidden in the world around us reveal unexpected and intriguing similarities that can deepen our respect for our country and its stories.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://storiesandstructures.micro.org.au/">new touring exhibition</a> in Sydney, bringing microscopy and Indigenous art together, explores these images, which pass on knowledge and shape our understanding of the world. Their resonances derive from the similar perspectives of the imagery, and symmetries hidden in nature. </p>
<p>The microscopic images (known as micrographs) were captured on transmission electron microscopes, which create enlarged projections of a thin, sample slice and reveal a flat, top-down image, similar to many of the artworks. Another similarity comes from the natural forms and patterns found at the microscopic, landscape and cosmic scale.</p>
<p>In Indigenous cultures, stories shared and held in paintings record how the land and creatures were created, how they function together and how people relate to them. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dreamtime-and-the-dreaming-who-dreamed-up-these-terms-20835">'Dreamtime' and 'The Dreaming': who dreamed up these terms?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For researchers, microscopic images reveal the tiniest structural details of the natural world. With experience and the knowledge passed down from previous generations, scientists read these stories and expand our understanding as they strive to answer the question “how and what makes the world function as it does?” (Or, as Goethe wrote in Faust, “how and what holds the world together at its innermost core”.)</p>
<p>Twenty one Indigenous artists from around Australia have created new works for the exhibition that demonstrate a connection between their stories and microscopic images of related parts of our country. </p>
<p>These artworks are paired with images of things, such as molecules or crystals, taken by scientists using microscopes. Below is a selection of images. </p>
<h2>Birnoo country (artist Gordon Barney) and white ochre</h2>
<p>The overlapping plates of the ochre mineral are reminiscent of the rows of hills in Gordon’s country.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240919/original/file-20181016-165921-1o731xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240919/original/file-20181016-165921-1o731xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240919/original/file-20181016-165921-1o731xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240919/original/file-20181016-165921-1o731xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240919/original/file-20181016-165921-1o731xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240919/original/file-20181016-165921-1o731xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240919/original/file-20181016-165921-1o731xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240919/original/file-20181016-165921-1o731xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">White Ochre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hongwei Liu</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240917/original/file-20181016-165921-8pyjwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240917/original/file-20181016-165921-8pyjwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240917/original/file-20181016-165921-8pyjwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240917/original/file-20181016-165921-8pyjwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240917/original/file-20181016-165921-8pyjwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240917/original/file-20181016-165921-8pyjwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240917/original/file-20181016-165921-8pyjwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240917/original/file-20181016-165921-8pyjwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Birnoo Country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gordon Barney, Warmun Art Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Witchetty grub dreaming (artist Jennifer Napaljarri Lewis) and moth sperm</h2>
<p>Jennifer’s painting shows women collecting witchetty grubs. These can be eaten at all stages of their life cycles. Without the structures shown in the micrograph, sperm wouldn’t function and moths’ life cycle would be broken. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240920/original/file-20181016-165885-rars9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240920/original/file-20181016-165885-rars9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240920/original/file-20181016-165885-rars9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240920/original/file-20181016-165885-rars9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240920/original/file-20181016-165885-rars9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240920/original/file-20181016-165885-rars9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240920/original/file-20181016-165885-rars9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240920/original/file-20181016-165885-rars9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Moth Sperm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Greg Rouse</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240921/original/file-20181016-165888-10mt8f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240921/original/file-20181016-165888-10mt8f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240921/original/file-20181016-165888-10mt8f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240921/original/file-20181016-165888-10mt8f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240921/original/file-20181016-165888-10mt8f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240921/original/file-20181016-165888-10mt8f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240921/original/file-20181016-165888-10mt8f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240921/original/file-20181016-165888-10mt8f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Witchetty Grub Dreaming.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jennifer Napaljarri Lewis, Warlukurlangu Artists of Yuendumu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Brush-tail possum dreaming (artist Judith Nungarrayi Martin) and ribosomes</h2>
<p>The dark dots in the micrograph are <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/ribosome">ribosomes</a>. These tiny molecular machines are responsible for producing the vast array of different proteins that make up the bodies of all living things, including possums and people.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240922/original/file-20181016-165905-5dzdc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240922/original/file-20181016-165905-5dzdc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240922/original/file-20181016-165905-5dzdc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240922/original/file-20181016-165905-5dzdc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240922/original/file-20181016-165905-5dzdc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240922/original/file-20181016-165905-5dzdc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240922/original/file-20181016-165905-5dzdc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240922/original/file-20181016-165905-5dzdc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ribosomes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image created at the University of Sydney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240923/original/file-20181016-165888-zpstvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240923/original/file-20181016-165888-zpstvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240923/original/file-20181016-165888-zpstvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240923/original/file-20181016-165888-zpstvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240923/original/file-20181016-165888-zpstvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240923/original/file-20181016-165888-zpstvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240923/original/file-20181016-165888-zpstvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240923/original/file-20181016-165888-zpstvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Janganpa Jukurrpa (Brush-tail Possum Dreaming) – Mawurrji.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Judith Nungarrayi Martin, Warlukurlangu Artists of Yuendumu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Sandhills dreaming (artist Vanessa Nampijinpa Brown) and atoms in quartz</h2>
<p>The crystal structure revealed in the micrograph is fundamental to the sand making up the sandhills that Vanessa paints in her story.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240924/original/file-20181016-165921-1ce0l6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240924/original/file-20181016-165921-1ce0l6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240924/original/file-20181016-165921-1ce0l6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240924/original/file-20181016-165921-1ce0l6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240924/original/file-20181016-165921-1ce0l6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240924/original/file-20181016-165921-1ce0l6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240924/original/file-20181016-165921-1ce0l6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240924/original/file-20181016-165921-1ce0l6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Atoms in Quartz.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hongwei Liu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240925/original/file-20181016-165894-15ley7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240925/original/file-20181016-165894-15ley7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240925/original/file-20181016-165894-15ley7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240925/original/file-20181016-165894-15ley7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240925/original/file-20181016-165894-15ley7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240925/original/file-20181016-165894-15ley7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240925/original/file-20181016-165894-15ley7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240925/original/file-20181016-165894-15ley7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ngalyarrpa Jukurrpa (Sandhills Dreaming)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vanessa Nampijinpa Brown, Warlukurlangu Artists of Yuendumu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Gathering bush tucker (artist Kerry Madawyn McCarthy) and gum leaf cells</h2>
<p>The cells in this gum leaf are reminiscent of the rocks and coastal landscape of Kerry’s painting. Her people move through the landscape to collect food just as carbon dioxide moves through the leaf spaces to cells, where it is converted to food for the plant.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240926/original/file-20181016-165909-12cs02f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240926/original/file-20181016-165909-12cs02f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240926/original/file-20181016-165909-12cs02f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240926/original/file-20181016-165909-12cs02f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240926/original/file-20181016-165909-12cs02f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240926/original/file-20181016-165909-12cs02f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240926/original/file-20181016-165909-12cs02f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240926/original/file-20181016-165909-12cs02f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gum Leaf.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Minh Huynh, Elinor Goodman and Margaret Barbour</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240927/original/file-20181016-165891-xitr4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240927/original/file-20181016-165891-xitr4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240927/original/file-20181016-165891-xitr4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240927/original/file-20181016-165891-xitr4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240927/original/file-20181016-165891-xitr4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240927/original/file-20181016-165891-xitr4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240927/original/file-20181016-165891-xitr4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gathering Bush Tucker.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kerry Madawyn McCarthy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dry River bed (artist Kurun Warun) and blood flow in a fish eye</h2>
<p>The red areas of Kurun’s painting indicate the life blood that still survives in the dry river bed. The parallel to the red blood cells in the fish eye are obvious.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240928/original/file-20181016-165905-1f3n9xm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240928/original/file-20181016-165905-1f3n9xm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240928/original/file-20181016-165905-1f3n9xm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240928/original/file-20181016-165905-1f3n9xm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240928/original/file-20181016-165905-1f3n9xm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240928/original/file-20181016-165905-1f3n9xm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240928/original/file-20181016-165905-1f3n9xm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240928/original/file-20181016-165905-1f3n9xm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fish Eye – Blood Flow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shaun Collin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240929/original/file-20181016-165905-4ltvwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240929/original/file-20181016-165905-4ltvwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240929/original/file-20181016-165905-4ltvwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240929/original/file-20181016-165905-4ltvwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240929/original/file-20181016-165905-4ltvwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240929/original/file-20181016-165905-4ltvwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240929/original/file-20181016-165905-4ltvwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240929/original/file-20181016-165905-4ltvwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dry River Bed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kurun Warun</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Skin (artist Joshua Bonson) and collagen fibrils</h2>
<p>Joshua paints crocodile skin as a celebration of his totem, the saltwater crocodile. He also sees his paintings as a representation of landscape. Collagen is the fundamental protein found in skin and gives it its strength and toughness. This is a beautiful connection at both the physical and philosophical levels.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240930/original/file-20181016-165909-j1xunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240930/original/file-20181016-165909-j1xunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240930/original/file-20181016-165909-j1xunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240930/original/file-20181016-165909-j1xunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240930/original/file-20181016-165909-j1xunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240930/original/file-20181016-165909-j1xunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240930/original/file-20181016-165909-j1xunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240930/original/file-20181016-165909-j1xunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Collagen Fibrils.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anne Simpson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240931/original/file-20181016-165897-w4g7dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240931/original/file-20181016-165897-w4g7dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240931/original/file-20181016-165897-w4g7dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240931/original/file-20181016-165897-w4g7dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240931/original/file-20181016-165897-w4g7dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240931/original/file-20181016-165897-w4g7dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240931/original/file-20181016-165897-w4g7dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240931/original/file-20181016-165897-w4g7dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Skin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joshua Bonson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Water dreaming (artist Lola Brown) and river red gum and water transport vessel</h2>
<p>The story in Lola’s Water Dreaming painting involves two river red gum trees. River red gums line inland water courses and are essential to Aboriginal life. The vessels that transport water up through the plants have thickened rings for support. This later becomes the wood of the trees.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240933/original/file-20181016-165921-172juy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240933/original/file-20181016-165921-172juy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240933/original/file-20181016-165921-172juy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240933/original/file-20181016-165921-172juy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240933/original/file-20181016-165921-172juy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240933/original/file-20181016-165921-172juy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240933/original/file-20181016-165921-172juy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240933/original/file-20181016-165921-172juy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">River Red Gum Leaf.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Minh Huynh, Elinor Goodman and Margaret Barbour</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240934/original/file-20181016-165894-17k8s1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240934/original/file-20181016-165894-17k8s1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240934/original/file-20181016-165894-17k8s1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240934/original/file-20181016-165894-17k8s1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240934/original/file-20181016-165894-17k8s1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240934/original/file-20181016-165894-17k8s1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240934/original/file-20181016-165894-17k8s1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240934/original/file-20181016-165894-17k8s1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plant water transport tubes (xylem)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anne Simpson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240935/original/file-20181016-165888-1amavyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240935/original/file-20181016-165888-1amavyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240935/original/file-20181016-165888-1amavyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240935/original/file-20181016-165888-1amavyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240935/original/file-20181016-165888-1amavyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240935/original/file-20181016-165888-1amavyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240935/original/file-20181016-165888-1amavyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240935/original/file-20181016-165888-1amavyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Water Dreaming.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lola Brown</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="http://storiesandstructures.micro.org.au/">Stories and Structures – New Connections</a> has been conceived and curated by Dr Jenny Whiting from Microscopy Australia. It is currently on display at the University of Wollongong.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105120/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Wepf receives ARC funding and is a member of various microscopy societies and the acting past president of the European Microscopy Society. </span></em></p>
A new exhibition pairs paintings by Indigenous Australian artists with microscopic images captured by scientists. The parallels, as this gallery of pictures shows, are intriguing.
Roger Wepf, Director, Center for Microscopy and Microanalysis (CMM), The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/104921
2018-10-15T19:02:39Z
2018-10-15T19:02:39Z
Modern Art from The Hermitage showcases the French gems of two great merchant collectors
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240541/original/file-20181015-109236-1kj1uj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Signac, 'Leaving the Port of Marseille' 1906/7 oil on canvas, 46 x 55.2 cm, The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Inv GE 6524.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: © The State Hermitage Museum 2018, Vladimir Terebenin.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The first corner of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ summer blockbuster <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/hermitage/">Masters of Modern Art from the Hermitage</a> is dominated by three giant black and white archival photographs, but visitors’ eyes are drawn to the intense colours of a single painting, Christian Cornelius Krohn’s 1915 portrait of the collector, Sergey Shchukin. </p>
<p>Unlike many of the great works in the Hermitage, which are very much a tribute to the collecting passion of <a href="https://theconversation.com/masterpieces-from-the-hermitage-puts-the-great-in-catherine-the-great-review-45435">Catherine the Great</a>,
most of the early 20th century paintings are a result of the collecting passion of two families – the Shchukins and the Morozovs.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240553/original/file-20181015-165891-1nzcqi0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240553/original/file-20181015-165891-1nzcqi0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240553/original/file-20181015-165891-1nzcqi0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=700&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240553/original/file-20181015-165891-1nzcqi0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=700&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240553/original/file-20181015-165891-1nzcqi0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=700&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240553/original/file-20181015-165891-1nzcqi0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240553/original/file-20181015-165891-1nzcqi0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240553/original/file-20181015-165891-1nzcqi0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christian Cornelius Krohn (Xan Krohn) ‘Portrait of Sergey Shchukin 1915, The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg Inv GE 9090.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Estate of Christian Krohn/BONO.Copyright Agency, 2018</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Last year, much of Sergey Shchukin’s remarkable collection of early works by Picasso, Matisse and their circle, was shown in Paris. According to <a href="http://www.artnews.com/2017/02/21/an-embarrassment-of-riches-the-shchukin-collection-at-fondation-louis-vuitton-in-paris-overflows-with-modernist-masterpieces-and-offers-dark-parallels-to-our-plutocratic-present/">The Art Newspaper</a>, French audiences packed the galleries as these were “some of the best paintings their culture has produced”. In Sydney, works from Shchukin’s collection mingle with paintings from the collection of the Morozovs, as well as other paintings “liberated” from their wealthy owners after the 1917 Revolution. </p>
<p>One of the photographs shows Shchukin’s Picasso room, where the walls are crowded with finely painted melancholy studies from the artist’s Blue Period, a few very early Cubist works – and two readily identifiable paintings from this exhibition. </p>
<p>Woman With a Fan and Farm Woman were both painted in 1908, when the artist was on the cusp of turning from Cézanne-inspired solid forms to Cubism. Woman With a Fan was loosely based on a study of his mistress, Fernande Olivier, while Farm Woman was based on Marie-Louise Putman, the owner of a house where Picasso was staying. Yet both have been rendered anonymous, reduced to pure geometry.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240537/original/file-20181015-109213-d3w94r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240537/original/file-20181015-109213-d3w94r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240537/original/file-20181015-109213-d3w94r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240537/original/file-20181015-109213-d3w94r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240537/original/file-20181015-109213-d3w94r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240537/original/file-20181015-109213-d3w94r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240537/original/file-20181015-109213-d3w94r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240537/original/file-20181015-109213-d3w94r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pablo Picasso, ‘Table in a café (Bottle of Pernod)’ 1912 oil on canvas, 46 x 33 cm, The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Inv GE 8920.
© Pablo Picasso/Succession Pablo Picasso/Copyright Agency 2018</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: © The State Hermitage Museum 2018, Vladimir Terebenin, Leonard Kheifets and Yuri Mololkovets</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When the Shchukins and the Morozovs travelled to Paris for trade and pleasure they were following a path well trod by generations of Russians. Since the time of Peter the Great, Russia had turned to France for both intellectual and aesthetic nourishment. In music and dance this had long ceased to be one way traffic as Tchaikovsky melded elements from both Western and Russian traditions, while Russian Ballet took a French tradition and made it its own.</p>
<p>It is curious, but not surprising that the two great collectors of modern art were textile merchants. Their trade gave them an eye for fresh relationships between colour, line and texture. </p>
<p>By the end of the 19th century the Morozovs were one of the richest families in Russia. Ivan and Mikhail Morozov were passionate collectors of Bonnard, Sisley, Signac, Pissarro and Cézanne. The family was sympathetic to the aims of the Bolshevik Revolution (their grandfather had been a serf) and Ivan planned to eventually give his collection to the state.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240539/original/file-20181015-109222-2c3emw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240539/original/file-20181015-109222-2c3emw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240539/original/file-20181015-109222-2c3emw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240539/original/file-20181015-109222-2c3emw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240539/original/file-20181015-109222-2c3emw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240539/original/file-20181015-109222-2c3emw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240539/original/file-20181015-109222-2c3emw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240539/original/file-20181015-109222-2c3emw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul Cézanne, ‘Fruit’ 1879/80, oil on canvas, 46.2 x 55.3 cm. The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
Inv GE 9026</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: © The State Hermitage Museum 2018, Pavel Demidov and Konstantin Sinyavsky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the state took it first. In 1923 his house and collection had become the State Museum of Modern Western Art, which eventually became the repository for looted art from other collections. By 1932, Stalin’s doctrinaire hegemony decreed that modern Western art was decadent and it vanished from public view until after his death. The preservation of Russia’s great collections in the face of totalitarian opposition is a tribute to the bravery of generations of dedicated museum professional staff.</p>
<h2>Befriending Matisse</h2>
<p>Sergey Shchukin, who first visited Paris in the 1890s, was a very early patron of that young radical, Henri Matisse. The earliest Matisse in this exhibition, The Luxembourg Gardens, circa 1901, takes a subject which is almost a cliché of French Impressionism, and makes it into a Fauve celebration of pure, intense colour. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240554/original/file-20181015-165924-lkpnas.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240554/original/file-20181015-165924-lkpnas.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240554/original/file-20181015-165924-lkpnas.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240554/original/file-20181015-165924-lkpnas.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240554/original/file-20181015-165924-lkpnas.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240554/original/file-20181015-165924-lkpnas.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240554/original/file-20181015-165924-lkpnas.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240554/original/file-20181015-165924-lkpnas.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henri Matisse ‘The Luxembourg Gardens’ c1901, The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg Inv GE 9041.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Succession H Matisse/Copyright Agency, 2018</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is a truly remarkable painting. Shchukin bought it from Matisse’s dealer, Galerie Druet, in 1907. A year later he bought the luminous Woman on a Terrace of 1906, a work of such stunning simplicity that it is worth seeing the exhibition for this alone. But Shchukin did not stop with collecting Matisse’s early masterpieces and befriending the artist. In 1911 Matisse visited Russia, as Shchukin’s guest.</p>
<p>The portrait of Shchukin hangs next to an entrancing, but frustrating, photograph of the Pink Drawing Room in his mansion. The elaborate 18th century Roccoco room is covered in a crowd of masterpieces by Matisse - but the photograph is in black and white, with no sense of colour. From historic records we know that in order to prepare the room for his art, the artist arranged for the ceiling to be painted pink. The walls were given pale green wallpaper, the carpet was cherry red. Matisse then curated his personal selection of some of the paintings Shchukin had bought, including A Game of Bowls of 1908.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240538/original/file-20181015-109242-13ekbtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240538/original/file-20181015-109242-13ekbtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240538/original/file-20181015-109242-13ekbtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240538/original/file-20181015-109242-13ekbtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240538/original/file-20181015-109242-13ekbtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240538/original/file-20181015-109242-13ekbtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240538/original/file-20181015-109242-13ekbtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240538/original/file-20181015-109242-13ekbtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henri Matisse ‘Game of bowls’ 1908, oil on canvas, 115 x 147 cm, The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Inv GE 9154.
© Succession H Matisse/Copyright Agency, 2018</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: © The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg 2018, Vladimir Terebenin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I can understand why this work, along with Nymph and Satyr, painted the following year, hangs at the entrance to the central court in the Sydney exhibition. Their fluidity of form and line, along with their limited palette, connect them to Matisse’s two great Dance and Music paintings.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240540/original/file-20181015-109236-1xpyw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240540/original/file-20181015-109236-1xpyw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240540/original/file-20181015-109236-1xpyw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240540/original/file-20181015-109236-1xpyw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240540/original/file-20181015-109236-1xpyw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240540/original/file-20181015-109236-1xpyw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240540/original/file-20181015-109236-1xpyw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240540/original/file-20181015-109236-1xpyw2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul Gauguin,‘The month of Mary (Te avae no Maria)’ 1899, oil on canvas, 96 x 74.5 cm, The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Inv GE 6515.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: © The State Hermitage Museum 2018, Vladimir Terebenin, Leonard Kheifets and Yuri Mololkovets</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The opportunity to see this art up close and personal, to get a sense of how Matisse interacted with the culture of the man who so admired him, is rare indeed. </p>
<p>The Dance and Music paintings are not in the Sydney show. However, visitors can see Peter Greenaway and Saskia Boddeke’s five channel, multi-media installation that recreates the relationship between Shchukin, Matisse, radical Russian artists and two of the great paintings of the 20th century.</p>
<p>Shchukin was passionate about sharing the art he had bought. In 1907 he opened his house to visitors every Sunday. When the Bolshevik Revolution overturned the old order in 1917, he fled to France and his art was seized on the orders of Lenin.</p>
<p>The last work in the exhibition, Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square, owes nothing and everything to the activities of the merchant collectors of modern art. In its stark denial of any resemblance to reality, it eliminates any consideration of possible decoration and challenges the very idea of what art may be. </p>
<p>The first version of Black Square was exhibited in St Petersburg in 1915 in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0,10_Exhibition">The Last Exhibition of Futurist Painting 0.10</a>. It therefore overlaps between the era of the merchant collectors and the creation of a new world.</p>
<p>If there had been no Revolution, no state confiscation of this great collection, would it have remained intact, or would it have been fragmented by the relentless art market? </p>
<p>The actions of the first Bolshevik revolutionaries, followed by the ethical scholarship and fortitude of generations of curators, enable us today to have a small window into the minds of these great experimental collectors and the art that they loved.</p>
<p><em>Masters of Modern Art from the Hermitage is at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until March 3.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104921/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has received funding from the Australian Research Council for a Linkage Project grant in partnership with the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of South Australia and Museums Australia. This grant enabled the research for Australian Art Exhibitions: Opening Our Eyes, written in partnership with Catherine De Lorenzo, Alison Inglis and Catherine Speck. The publication of this book by Thames and Hudson Australia was enabled by a grant from the Gordon Darling Foundation.</span></em></p>
In the early 20th century, two families of collectors brought the best of modern French art to Russia. Many of their paintings - including works by Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne - can now be seen in Sydney.
Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Associate Professor, Art & Design: UNSW Australia. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.