joseph scissorhands

Saturday, 7 January 2017

Fondation Louis Vuitton

In the run up to Christmas I'd been working very hard. And as the saying goes: "All work and no play makes Joe a dull boy". And that quite simply, would never do. The solution? A jaunt on the Eurostar to Paris. A visit to Paris is always a pleasure, so off I went full of excitement with a specific mission in mind.

I had read that there was an amazing exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton - Icons of Modern Art: The Shchukin Collection, and decided that I wanted to see it. The Fondation Louis Vuitton is situated in the Bois de Boulogne on the edges of the west of the city - an area more famous for the ladies of the night who ply their trade among the park's foliage. I had never ventured to that part of Paris before and was curious to see the Vuitton Fondation building which was opened in 2014, and designed by 'starchitect' Frank Gehry.

The first sight of the Foundation building from a distance is really impressive. It's like a huge futuristic Ark which has somehow run aground from the Seine and beached in a pool of water. It's a dynamic design that looks as if it was inspired by the billowing sails of ships of old. This impression is reinforced by its siting in a shallow pool with a waterfall that gently ripples underneath the structure and makes it look as though it is ploughing its way through the surf.

The huge glass 'sails' on the building are usually just plain (internet picture above), but the coloured panels currently on the 'sails' are an installation by the artist Daniel Buren. They filtered the sunlight nicely and provided some interesting light effects inside the building.

It's the first time I've been into a Gehry designed building apart from the temporary pavilion he designed for the Serpentine Gallery back in 2008. It is a triumph of architectural engineering. The gallery spaces on the upper floors are light and spacious, and the views from the roof terrace below give great views of the surrounding park and Paris.

Even more impressive than the building however, is the current exhibition, Icons of Modern Art: The Shchukin Collection...

Monday, 2 January 2017

Pat Steir

I didn't manage to get to the Abstract Expressionism show at the Royal Academy, but this survey of Pat Steir's work at Dominique Lévy was both similar in spirit, and technique to some of those pioneers of 1950s American abstraction.

I really loved the movement in these paintings from Steir's Waterfall series. The paint is poured and dripped onto the canvas and then further worked to create something quite special, that to me conjures up the ghosts of both Hokusai and Pollock.

"The Waterfall paintings, which bridge the sensibilities of Conceptual art and Eastern philosophy, are contemplative investigations of space and chance. In this series, which the artist began in the 1980s and continues to produce today, Steir explores the technical possibilities available in paint, pouring and flinging it onto the canvas. This technique constituted an influential breakthrough in her style. To make the Waterfall paintings, Steir first applies oil pigment to canvases using thick brushes and slow, methodical strokes, sometimes working from a ladder. Her gestures are made with varying degrees of force, yielding marks that range from opaque and deliberate to thin, film-like traces. This method gives rise to shimmering mists and light washes of paint in some areas and powerful downward cascades in others. The Waterfall canvases appear dimensional and expansive due to their complex, multilayered palettes and dramatic colour combinations." (Dominique Lévy Gallery)

"Synthesizing gesture with natural referent, Steir's Waterfalls demonstrate her ongoing investigation into the relationship between material and image. The line, the foundational creative mark, has a strong physical dimension in her practice. In the Waterfall canvases, Steir’s line is connected intentionally and reflexively to her movement. In this way, Steir questions the very possibility of abstraction: ‘It seems to me, when you put down a line, there is a line. How could that line be abstract? No matter what else it represents it is always still a line.’ Thus, in the Waterfall works, the line is a line, and the waterfall is a waterfall, rendered by actual cascades of paint." (Dominique Lévy Gallery).

This was a really inspiring show and I was so glad I managed to get to it. I like the elements of risk, and chance that are implicit in Steir's work, and now want to research her earlier pieces which incorporate symbols and their effacement.