joseph scissorhands

Sunday, 6 April 2025

Egon Schiele: Portraits on Paper

Egon Schiele - Moa, 1911

"Bodies have their own light which they consume to live: they burn, they are not lit from the outside." - Egon Schiele.

Anyone who knows me knows just how much I love the city of Vienna and its history around the turn of the 20th century with the advent of the Vienna Secession. I admire the period architectural works of Otto Wagner, and of course the paintings and drawings of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele which are seldom exhibited in London. Schiele's work has been featured on this platform on previous occasions here, here and here, in large-scale international exhibitions. This intimately scaled exhibition though is devoted to Schiele's drawings. Portraits on Paper at Omer Tiroche then, was a rare and beautiful find. The drawings all figure studies from a private collection, were completed during two significant periods of Schiele's life. A few I have seen previously at the above exhibitions, the rest were all new to me including a tender, early depiction of his mother, whom by all accounts he wasn't particularly fond of. These sketches illustrate just how central the acts of observation and drawing were to Schiele's artistic practice. The human body fascinated Schiele and he found new expression forging an individual, highly distinctive visual language in the exaggerated facial expressions, eccentric, angular poses and sometimes explicit postures of the sitters in the drawings. There are several watercolour studies as well as some beautifully observed figure studies drawn with a concise economy of line which describe the posture and mood of the sitter perfectly. With the pencil portrait of Wally with her intense gaze out of the picture plane, Schiele appears to attempt to delve into the psyche of the sitter. Sadly Schiele's talent was cut short due to the Spanish flu epidemic which swept Europe in 1918. This exhibition is a real treat for anybody interested in the art of drawing.

Moa, 1911

Nude Couple, 1911

Boy in Green Coat, 1910

Sitzende Frau Mit Schwarzen Strümpfen, 1911

Sitzendes Madchen Mit Erhobenem, 1911

Portrait of Wally, 1913

Female Nude, Back View, 1917

Squatting Woman, 1918

AKT (NUDE), 1918

Artist's Mother, c.1906

Portrait of a Boy, 1910

Portrait of Young Girls, 1911

Egon Schiele: Portraits on Paper

until 2nd May

Omer Tiroche Gallery

21 Conduit Street

London

W1S

Saturday, 29 March 2025

Chiharu Shiota: The Soul Trembles

Chiharu Shiota - Uncertain Journey, 2024

“String, is like a feeling. The string is tight or tangled or cut. It’s like a relationship from human to human. It’s a mirror of my feelings.” - Chiharu Shiota.

I was so looking forward to this exhibition as it meant seeing not only the work of one of my favourite artists, but also a trip to one of my favourite cities. What better excuse then for yet another visit to Paris. Chiaharu Shiota: The Soul Trembles took place at at the very grand, Grand Palais in Paris, and I was so fortunate to be able to catch the exhibition on its closing day. Shiota was taught by artist Marina Abramović and is influenced in turn by Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta. I initially discovered Shiota's work in a smaller gallery setting here, and was able to see a further show in London here. This retrospective in Paris though, was the Berlin based artists' largest in Europe to date, and it didn't disappoint. Much of Shiota's work is site specific, and as a series of installations and sculptures has the physicality which necessarily occupies space. "I have to make art in space, and I am never sure how it will look like in the end. Other artists create art in the studio, a space that is familiar to them, but I create artwork in the museum or a gallery space. So it never feels cathartic… It is rather the opposite; I often feel a struggle", Shiota explains of her process. Chiaharu Shiota: The Soul Trembles consisted of a wonderful series of dramatic, immersive thread installations for which Shiota has become famous, her drawings and sculptures, early paintings and designs for the theatre which was an aspect of Shiota's oeuvre which I had previously been unfamiliar with. The whole exhibition unfolded over several galleries of the Grand Palais's cavernous exhibition spaces. The subtitle of the exhibition "The Soul Trembles" refers to the artist's sincere hope to deliver soul-trembling experiences to the viewer from emotions derived from the existential ideologies that drive her work such as memories, dreams, neuroses, identity, boundaries and existence. The dense, fairy tale-like red and black thread installations were the aspects of the artists work which captured my imagination on first encountering them. They still do, invoking narratives which each viewer can shape according to their own experiences and perceptions. "Threads allow me to explore space, piling up layer after layer creates a surface like the night sky which gradually expands into the universe. I began using white thread, for example, because I wanted to experiment with something new. I wanted to create something unfamiliar. I use red yarn because it resembles blood, the body and human relationships" states the artist. This retrospective contained three such large, immersive works and I was a very happy man for having had the chance to encounter these installations for the first time having only previously seen them or similar installations online. I had a fantastic time exploring these works despite the presence of the large crowds also visiting on the last day, and another wonderful day out in Paris.