Requirement
Discuss 4 images of exhibitions that have been covered in the lectures and in gallery visits. Each piece of writing should be c. 300-400 words. You should do research and include visual analysis.
Fausto Melotti: Counterpoint (2019), Estorick Collection
This image was taken from a visit to Estorick Collection of the exhibition Fausto Melotti: Counterpoint. The view contains three pieces of Italian sculptor and painter Fausto Melotti, staged in a display room along with other metal sculptures and small-scaled sketched ad painting. It was after his completion of the study in physics, mathematics and electrical engineering that Melotti took a shift to art-making, mainly focusing on the solid metal sculpture. Born in the empire of Austria-Hungarian, he fled to the city of Tuscan from the war, where he was exposed to the very beauty of the natural and cultural landscape. His memories from what he regarded as his hometown had a great influence on his later art practice. Moreover, years of Piano’s learning and his academic background in science and engineering formed the foundation of his pursuit of rhythm and order in art-making. Consequently, he found the material of light steel to be ideal to realize his creation. In the middle of the image is the piece Study for Counterpoint (1962). It is a quite basic sketch of tempera, pastel, and pencil by its appearance. However, to be viewed with the two pieces on both sides can offer a new way of interpreting. On its left side, which is the viewer’s right, there placed a frame-like metal sculpture, titled Counterpoint XII (1975). Shaped like a window frame with the solid structure and thin sheet of stainless steel. And, it is noticeable that Counterpoint XII is the three-dimensional version of Study for Counterpoint, or, to say the latter is the sketch for the former, from both their titles and forms. However, while the painting contains different touches and colours, during the production of it the artist seemed to minimalize it with a single colour and material. Next to them in front of the French window stands another piece titled Sculpture A (Pendulums) (1968). Named as the pendulum and made of the shape of Newton’s Cradle, this iron sculpture is depicting the stillness out of the form of a dynamic model, reaching a balance between the motional and motionless. At the same time, facing the courtyard, it also functions as a visual representation of time to witness days of change.
Image:
Fan, G. (2019) Installation View of Fausto Melotti: Counterpoint.
Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store; Claes Oldenburg: Mouse Museum / Ray Gun Wing (2013), MoMA
This image is selected from the installation views of the exhibition Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store at The Museum of Modern Art from 14th April to 5th August in 2013. This exhibition brings together the major early works of the American-based Sculptor Claes Oldenburg from two collections: The Street (1960) and The Store (1961-4) to review his unique and intriguing gaze at the everyday objects in their diverse forms.
The major focus of the image is Oldenburg’s sculpture Floor Cone (1962) in cooperation with his then-wife, Patty Mucha for the second exhibition of The Store at the Green Gallery in New York. Made of painted canvas filled with foam rubber and cardboard boxes, it is in a recognizable shape of ice cream of a khaki cone sewed with a green sphere. Titled Floor Cone, it seems reasonable that this soft piece ought to be situated within a solid field for its expression and self-fulfilment.
Mucha has once recollected that when first made, the soft ice cream cone was taken on a trunk drive along the 57th Street in Manhattan. The children in the passing cars all screamed and shouted with joy. The Cone’s playfulness had, in a way, enriched the local narrative. As a matter of fact, the memory of his old days in the lower east side of Manhattan has greatly inspired Oldenburg’s art-making from everyday objects and debris from the neighbourhood. Through his reshaping and assembling, the waste regains their very value of preserving the ordinary. Among the works in the background of the image, Flag to Fold in the Pocket is typical of telling an intimate story. Oldenburg used one piece of butcher paper from the kitchen where he once worked in 1960, crinkled, ripped it with the addition of a few lines with crayon, to symbolize the American flag. Like its title, Flag to Fold in the Pocket is intended to be in the form of personal belonging. However, it is hung on an empty wall in a museum of the highest level in modern art. All the sculptures and painting in this exhibition image that originate from the street or are intended for the street, including the two above, look separated and in lack of identity. From the first-ever exhibition in 1959 to his little store in 1961, Oldenburg placed his everyday-based sculptures within their authentic context, one that is messy, mixed and real. Therefore, in a ‘white cube’ modern institutional environment, they are separated and alienated. They are to be appreciated by the connoisseurs with superb expertise. However, children who cheered for them very existence are nowhere to be found.
Image:
Griesel, T. (2013). Installation view of the exhibition, 'Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store; Claes Oldenburg: Mouse Museum / Ray Gun Wing'. Available at: https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1296?installation_image_index=137 (Accessed: 12 March 2019).
Jackson Pollock (1958), Whitechapel Gallery
This image is the installation view from the 1958 exhibition of Jackson Pollock, a notable figure in the abstract expressionism, at Whitechapel Gallery as the artist’s debut show in the UK. In the centre of the image, as we as the very focus of the then show, is Pollock’s Summertime: Number 9A (1948). Consisting of black squiggles, intertwined with the other in yellow, blue and burgundy in a sketch-like style, this masterpiece is among those depicting Pollock’s widely known ‘dripping’ technique.
Having met the Mexican social realist painter David Alfaro Siqueiros and inspired by his murals, Pollock started practicing a new way of creation of pouring paints onto the hanging canvas and eventually, onto those spread on the ground, which forms the basis for his later practice. Some have argued that with black paints as the central body overlapped with lighter colours, Summertime: Number 9A portrays the dancing bodies with fluttering. Its abstraction corresponds to the immediacy and fluency of Pollock’s style.
Furthermore, as vividly documented in the image, this significant painting was installed on a breezing block wall, in the middle of the exhibiting room, referring to another highlight of the 1958 show – the inclusive spatial design by architect Trevor Dannat. Drawing the inspiration from German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s minimal ‘skin and bone architecture’, Dannat was determined to integrate the institutional environment of the gallery and the art creation into a coherent unity. The freestanding walls, the waves of fabric on the ceiling, the gridded floors altogether contribute to an interactive displaying space that gives various angles of viewing for visitors. It abandons the conventional theatrical visions of gallery rooms and thus is regarded associating with the ‘white cube’ gallery style that is prevailing in recent days.
At the time when this exhibition took place, the Cold War was arguably at its extreme. Abstract expressionism, containing a sense of randomness in its method and form, was used to enhance the cultural power to spread the U.S. ideology. Therefore, the exhibition in MoMA, ahead of this one but as well presenting Pollock’s creation, has been rumoured to be confidentially sponsored by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for the further global promotion. Those dramatic visuals were utilized to, in a comparison, highlight the stylishness and rigidness of Socialist Realism art, exposing the confined nature of the Soviet Union.
The exhibition, after sixty years, is restaged at Whitechapel Gallery from 4th September 2018 to 24th March 2019, as a tribute to Pollock. However, its historical significance is likely to be integrated with a different approach. The white cube display is so overused that it has been criticized by Irish art critic Brian O’ Doherty as in lack of perspective and formal composition, with a ‘modernist obsession’. The cold war came to its end almost thirty years ago and now we are facing a new round of global conflicts in ideologies, or, more likely, in interests. The historical context of specific eras could not be restaged and those that were once valued are now altered through time. The random dripping marks from Pollock’s paintings seem to have symbolized such unpredictability.
Image:
Lambert, S. (1958). Installation View of Jackson Pollock’s Exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery. Available at: https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/staging-jackson-pollock/ (Accessed: 10 February 2019).
Roman Vishniac Rediscovered (2019), The Photographer's Gallery
This image was taken at The Photographer’s Gallery from the ongoing exhibition of Roman Vishniac Rediscovered (2019), titled Werdorp Nieuwesluis Agraian Training Camp, originally shot by Vishniac in 1938.
The exhibition is a profound review of the Russian-American photographer Roman Vishniac’s lifelong work. It ranges from Vishniac’s early observation in the pre-war Berlin Streets to the night clubs in the New York City, from the fleeing and hiding Jews to the portray of Albert Einstein. Among such a rich collection of visual art, this image Werdorp Nieuwesluis Agraian Training Campus rather outstanding. In the 1930s, as the city was seized by the Nazis, German families began sending their children to the neutral countries for sheltering. As Britain was restricting the permission of the visas, a large number of young people had to settle in a youth training camp in Wieringermeer, the Netherlands. They were taught for framing, animal husbandry, and construction while waiting for their visas getting passed. Meanwhile, in 1938, Roman Vishniac was appointed by Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) to document the condition of the camp. It was during one trip that Vishniac captured this extraordinary moment.
It is notable that this photograph’s style differs from the numerous others that Vishniac took it from a lower angle, thus, to outline the human figure in contrast with the surroundings. Vishniac is with no doubt a master in uncovering the minor highlights of humanity. In the image, with a blank background of sky, the three young men were during the heavy labour, which, however, as supposed would lead to freedom and safety. Within such context, their poses seem heroic and full of hope.
Another point that draws the attention is about its framing that, there is no framing. This photograph is attached on the wall like a poster – actually, it does look like one that was staged. The field of rocks, different directions the young men were bending or facing towards and the open space have conjoined to generate a profound ambience, portraying the very tension and strength of human, wherever they are standing at.
Image:
Vishniac, R. (1938) Werdorp Nieuwesluis Agraian Training Camp.