Culture

Culture

Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels

Passion and support for choreographic arts

The artistry will be glittering at the second edition of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival, which runs in London from 12th March to 8th April at the Royal Ballet and Opera, Sadler’s Wells, South Bank Centre and Tate Modern.

Following on from the hugely successful inaugural event in 2022, this iteration of the festival created in partnership with the world-famous French luxury jewellery company features 15 dazzling shows from a whole gamut of different cultures.

Taking place at iconic venues in our capital city, Dance Reflections showcases artists who, in the words of Catherine Renier, President & CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, have specialised in, “Collaborations with prestigious partners, contributions to major choreographic events, support for emerging and touring artists… These various commitments, in keeping with the values of creation, transmission and education dear to the Maison, all meet the same objective of celebrating contemporary choreographic art.”

Including repertory works, dance workshops, artist forums and awareness-raising initiatives, all emphasising the connections between dance heritage and modern choreography, the festival highlights imaginative ways in which dancers have evolved exciting new…

Culture

Hélène de Beauvoir: The Woman Destroyed

A tribute to the work of one of the fundamental figures of French Modernist painting

After three years in the making, the Amar Gallery is bringing to London Hélène de Beauvoir: The Woman Destroyed, a unique exhibition featuring paintings and works on paper from the 1950s to 1980s by this French artist, crucial to the feminist movement. Often overshadowed in the past by her older sister, Simone – the groundbreaking […]

Culture

Sigmar Polke. Affinities Revealed

The artistic encounter of two masters

Despite being separated in time by nearly 200 years, Sigmar Polke felt a deep admiration for Francisco de Goya. The show at Museo del Prado, Sigmar Polke. Affinities Revealed, explores how the Spanish master influenced the work of the German painter, after he saw for the first time Goya’s Time and the Old Women in […]

Culture, Philanthropy

The art of listening

International Contemporary Art Prize 2022, Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation

Created in 1966 by Prince Rainier III in honour of His father, who was a great protector of the Arts, the Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation is today led by Her Royal Highness The Princess of Hanover and keeps supporting literature, music and the arts. First awarded in 1965, the International Contemporary Art Prize (PIAC) rewards a recent work proposed by the Artistic Council, which is chaired by HRH The Princess of Hanover, every three years. The winner of this prize is awarded the sum of €75,000.

For its 48^th edition, each member of the Artistic Council proposed “Patrons” who were consulted to select the work that they felt was most accomplished and representative of the two years preceding the Prize. Twenty- seven works submitted and from those, two were shortlisted: The Star-Spangled Banner (2020) by Christine Sun Kim, nominated by David Horvitz; and How to Improve the World (2020), by Nguyen Trinh Thi, nominated by Zoe Butt. Both focus on sound and the act of listening and interpretation.

“Kim’s work offers a bridge between the world of the hearing and the world of the Deaf…”
– Christiano Raimondi

Christine Sun Kim is a is an American sound artist based in Berlin. She works predominantly in drawing, performance, and video, and considers how sound operates in society. Musical notation, written language, American Sign Language (ASL), and the use of the body are all recurring elements in her work. The Star-Spangled Banner began with Christine’s interpretation of the US national anthem in American Sign Language (ASL) at the Super Bowl in February 2020 in front of millions of viewers. Accepting the invitation to perform was not an easy decision for the artist, as American football embodies values that are not her own. However, it was vital for her to maintain visibility for the Deaf community in America. Unfortunately, Christine Sun Kim’s performance only got a few seconds of airtime, a clear sign of the work that still needs to be done to achieve more equitable visibility in the media. The next day, she published an article in the New York Times reflecting on her experience at the Super Bowl of the systemic racism that she believes pervades American culture and which has become a norm that often goes unnoticed.

Nguyen Trinh Thi is a Hanoi-based independent filmmaker, documentarian, and video artist and regarded as one of the pioneers of her home country Vietnam’s independent cinema. She is known for her layered, personal, and poetic approach to contentious histories and current events through experiments with the moving image. Set in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, home to a large concentration of Indigenous groups, How to Improve the World is a film about listening. The film reflects on the differences in how memory is processed between visual and aural cultures, while observing the loss of land, forests and way of life of the Indigenous people in this part of the world. On the subject of the cultural dominance of images at the expense of other sensory modes, Nguyen Trinh Thi states: “As our globalized and westernized cultures have come to be dominated by visual media, I feel the need and responsibility as a filmmaker to resist this narrative power of visual imagery, and to seek out a more balanced and sensitive approach to perceiving the world by paying more attention to soundscapes, in line with my interests in the unknown, the invisible, the inaccessible and potentialities.”

Christine Sun Kim receiving this year’s International Contemporary Art Prize.

The winner was Christine Sun Kim, who received 75,000€, which includes funding to produce a new work. The winning work will be exhibited as a part of a larger exhibition at Casa Encendida in Madrid from 10^th November 2022 until 26^th February 2023, the last public day of the ARCOmadrid International Contemporary Art Fair.

For Cristiano Raimondi, the artistic director of the PIAC, “Kim develops a work in which signs, gestures and their signifiers are constantly being enriched, offering a bridge between the world of the hearing and the world of the Deaf through the construction of an artistic language that goes from a sign to an image and from an image to a representation of music.”

This year, a Research Grant will be awarded for the first time. Its aim is to support an artist, an institution, a collective, or an art historian in their current or future research work related to the Mediterranean region. Proposed by the Artistic Council, this triennial prize is not open to applications and is endowed with a prize of €10,000. From the three nominated artists: DAAR (Sandi HILAL and Alessandro PETTI), Dominique KOCH and Pierre LEGUILLON, it was DAAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Research) and its founders, Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, who were awarded the grant. DAAR combines architecture, art, pedagogy and politics. Over the past two decades they have developed a series of research projects that are both theoretically ambitious and practically engaged in the struggle for justice and equality.

The Principality’s Prize was presented to French anthropologist Philippe Descola for the entirety of his oeuvre.

Other awards announced that evening included the winner of the Literary Prize, Vénus Khoury-Ghata; the Discovery Grant was given to Thomas Louis for his début novel Les Chiens de faïence, published by Éditions de La Martinière; the High School Students’ Favourite Choice Prize was presented to Marie Vingtras for her début novel Blizzard, published by Éditions de l’Olivier; the Young Musicians’ Favourite Choice Prize was awarded to York Höller for his work Viola Concerto (2016–2017), while the winner of the Musical Contest was the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra.

The Principality’s Prize, awarded jointly by the Rencontres Philosophiques and the Fondation Prince Pierre of Monaco, was presented to Philippe Descola for the entirety of his oeuvre. Descola is an internationally renowned anthropologiest noted for studies of the Achuar, one of several Jivaroan peoples, and for his contributions to anthropological theory.

Opening image by Philippe Fitte

Foundation Prince Pierre

www.fondationprincepierre.mc

Tél: + 377 98 98 85 15; info@fondationprincepierre.mc

Words: Julia Pasarón

Culture

The Neverending Story

The power of imagining, the danger of wishing

As part of the group of special editions produced by The Folio Society to mark their 75th anniversary, they have published a magical new edition of Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story, translated by Ralph Manheim and beautifully illustrated by award-winning artist Marie-Alice Harel.

The Neverending Story marked a moment of unforgettable magic in my childhood. As an avid reader and lover of fantasy, this was a book that made a huge impact on me. I started it one afternoon and didn’t go to sleep until I finished it. The story is timeless and would resonate with any kid of any generation. I regularly give it as a present to children between 10 and 13 years of age and I am still to meet the first one that didn’t devour it cover to cover. The Neverending Story was first published in 1979 but only became popular around 198222 as it got translated into almost every language in the planet.

This new edition looks like the way I imagined the original book would have looked like when I read it for the first time. It is full of exquisite design details, decorative chapter openers and many magical illustrations to help the reader jump to the universe of Fantastica. The text is printed in two colours: red and green (as it was in the editions of the 1980s) and opulently bound in blocked art silk. The book comes presented in a printed and pearl blocked case.

Folio’s edition of The Neverending Story is bound in blocked art silk and presented in a printed and pearl blocked case.

The story of Fantastica is a story within a story. The protagonist, Bastian, is the typical shy, unpopular kid, often bullied in school and with a distant dad, who doesn’t seem to be able to get over the death of his wife. Bastian falls upon The Neverending Story in a bookshop and immerses himself in the world of Fantastica and the tragedy that afflicts its Childlike Empress, who is dying of a mysterious ailment. At the same time, The Nothing is eating away this magical land, advancing at a terrifying pace, swallowing anything and everyone on its wake. When Fantasticans fall into The Nothing, they come to our world as lies. And lies lead to terrible things…

If we consider the fact that Michael Ende was German and born in 1929, it is easy to see the similarities between The Nothing and much of what happens in the book with the Nazi regime and WWII. Ende’s family was seriously threatened by the Third Reich and Ende himself served in the resistance in 1945.

In Folio’s edition of The Neverending Story we find eight full page colour illustrations by Marie-Alice Harel, including a double page spread.

In the book, as the hero Atreyu and his dragon embark in a mission to find a cure for the Empress, Bastian realises that he is not just reading the book… but that he IS part of it and has a key role in this adventure. It has to be him, a human being, that saves Fantastica and the Childlike Empress by giving her a new name. His low self-esteem though prevents him from sharing the name he has imagined for her and only when Fantastica is seconds from total annihilation he finds the courage to call it out: Moon Child.

As a follower of the Enlightenment era, Ende feels that imagination should always be balanced with reason, so although the book is a clear ode to the use of imagination, in several moments it clearly says that for all to be in order in our world and in Fantastica, humans should visit Fantastica but then go back to their world. Reason needs imagination and there cannot be imagination without reason.

The book also warns us about the dangers of getting our wishes granted and the short path to megalomaniac authoritarianism. After Bastian saves Fantastica, the Childlike Empress gives him the Auryn (the medallion of power), making him her representative and giving him power over every creature in Fantastica. Then she disappears. Any wish he wants is granted, but he loses a bit of his memory each time. He even changes physically, becoming tall, handsome and prince-like. However, inside, he still hates himself and that feeling contaminates his soul and eats him away. He loses his friends Atreyu and Falcor, and starts to listen to pernicious gossip from bad people. Not only he almost loses himself but, his delusions of grandeur take him to almost taking the crown of Childlike Emperor, telling himself that he is surely meant to do so after the disappearance of the Empress. At the end of the day, that is what she meant, right? He was almost ordered by the medallion she gave him to do whatever he pleased. A sobering view of human nature by Ende and one clearly mimicking the events surrounding the rise of the Third Reich and of Hitler.

When Empress Moon Child disappears, Bastian gets progressively drunk with power and believes he should be Emperor.

Thankfully in the book Ende turns things around. Bastian realises the mistake he has made when he goes to the City of Old Emperors and meets other humans that had tried to become Emperors before. The are all mad as they had wished and wished until they had completely forgotten themselves and live permanently in some sad form of delusion.

The moral and ethical lessons of The Neverending Story are not limited to the dangers of an improper relationship between imagination and reality or about the risk of becoming a tyrant, but also about the importance of finding and loving yourself, just as you are. Only then you can be the best version of yourself and help and inspire others.

Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story, illustrated by Marie-Alice Harel (£80.00) is exclusively available from foliosociety.com. You can buy it now HERE.

Words: Julia Pasarón

Opening picture: Sphinxes from the 1984 film The NeverEnding Story at Bavaria Studios, Munich. Photo by Michael Kleinhenz.

Culture

Ian Fleming

Blurring fact and fiction wins wars

In every fictional character there is a kernel of truth that helps make the narrative and the person believable; something tangible with which the author can relate to the reader. Ian Fleming’s James Bond is no different. His career as a Naval Intelligence officer probably influenced the narratives he constructed for agent 007, who would go on to save the world almost countless times, with feats and exploits that appear to defy credulity. The question is: did the fictional story influence real events, or did real outcomes shape the fiction? The strange fact of the matter is that with Fleming, it was a two-way street in which the lines between fact and fiction become very blurred.

This year marks the 60^th anniversary of Dr. No, the evergreen spy’s first movie, which presented to the world the man from MI6, generally amenable to vodka martinis, vintage champagne, fast cars, luxury watches, and a rosary of sexual conquests. Commander James Bond, formerly of the Royal Naval Reserve, an agent for the Secret Intelligence Service, may now be labelled as an anachronistic relic from a bygone age, but the books and the movies keep selling. There is still enough magic in the escapism and daring do of the gentleman spy to capture audiences of all ages across the globe.

Sean Connery and Ian Fleming on the set of From Russia with Love, 1963

In modern parlance, one would say James Bond is a misogynistic functioning alcoholic, who tended to gamble and take far too many risks… all of them attributes that reflect his creator. Ian Lancaster Fleming was born into a wealthy family in London in 1908. He attended Eton College. Although not academically inclined, he was a sporting hero, the Victor Ludorum of the school, but was persuaded to leave early by his housemaster on account of, among other things, attitude, hair oil, ownership of a car, and relations with women. He was enrolled in a crammer course to gain entry to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, but the taste for excesses continued, and in a career that spanned a number of false starts from the military to the foreign office, from journalism to stockbroking, Fleming arguably excelled at only two things: being a spy master in World War II and creating the world’s most famous fictional secret agent.

At the onset of war, in May 1939, having failed as a stockbroker in the City of London, he was inexplicably appointed as personal assistant to Rear Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence of the Royal Navy. In the role, Fleming was arguably to become the spymaster he was destined to be, with ideas and memorandums that contained an eclectic mix of war time campaign strategy and story book narratives, which allowed him to imagine and plan some of the most daring missions that helped the Allies in the conflict. He was given the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, the codename “17F”, and he worked out of Room 39 at the Admiralty. Irrespective of how it was offered or what exactly it involved, his role gave Fleming access to most of the War Office’s set of secret departments. Godfrey was, by all accounts, not a well-liked character among the high-ranking officers, so he used Fleming as a liaison with other sections of the government’s wartime administration, such as the Secret Intelligence Service, the Political Warfare Executive, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the Joint Intelligence Committee and the Prime Minister’s staff.

Ian Fleming in Room 39 at the Admiralty. He was given the rank of Lieutenant-Commander and the codename “17F”.

Fleming’s influence and abilities were swiftly engaged by the war time administration. In September 1939, Godfrey circulated the Fleming authored “Trout Memo”, in which deception of the enemy was compared to fly fishing. The memo contained several schemes to be considered to lure U-boats and German surface ships towards minefields. It also contained the idea that was used before the Allied invasion of Italy from North Africa, called “Operation Mincemeat” in which a corpse was used to deliver false documents in what appeared an inopportune twist of fate. In the memo, Fleming noted: “A suggestion is used in a book by Basil Thomson: a corpse dressed as an airman, with despatches in his pockets, could be dropped on the coast, supposedly from a parachute that has failed.”

Another idea that followed a year later was a fictional narrative aptly named “Operation Ruthless”. As the campaign to break the German Navy’s Enigma machine became paramount, Fleming devised a plan to obtain the necessary device with the initiation codes. The idea was to “obtain” a Nazi bomber, man it with a German-speaking crew dressed in Luftwaffe uniforms and crash it into the English Channel. The crew would then attack their German rescuers and bring their boat and Enigma machine back to England. The idea found favour with Alan Turing at Bletchley Park, but much to his annoyance, the mission was never carried out.

As war became more complex, in the same way that planting false information became the proverbial Trojan Horse, obtaining the correct plans from the enemy was equally a priority. In 1942, Fleming formed a group of commandos, known as 30 Assault Unit (30AU), which was composed of specialist intelligence troops, and who he referred to as his “Red Indians”. The same commando unit, with the same name, would appear in Casino Royale. It was 30AU’s job to be near the front line of an advance, or even in front of it, to seize enemy documents from previously targeted headquarters. Although Fleming did not part fighting in the field, he directed operations, selecting targets and the composition of the unit to undertake the mission; although for “Operation Overlord”, he oversaw events offshore from HMS Fernie.

Towards the end of the war, Fleming formed another special unit for military intelligence called T-Force, or Target Force. Once again, Fleming sat on the committee that selected the targets and listed them in the “Black Books” that were issued to the command officers. T-Force was responsible for securing targets of interest for the British military, including nuclear laboratories, gas research centres and individual rocket scientists. The unit’s most notable discoveries came during the advance on the German port of Kiel, in the discovery of the research centre for German engines used in the V-2 rocket, Messerschmitt ME163 fighters, and high-speed U-boats.

Fleming was demobilised in May 1945 but remained in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) for several years after. While at Naval Intelligence, he had admitted to a friend that he would write the spy story to end all spy stories and after the war, Fleming returned to writing as a journalist with The Sunday Times. He started authoring Casino Royale in 1952 to take his mind of the impending nuptials to his pregnant girlfriend, Ann Charteris (formerly Viscountess Rothermere) who had a long-standing affair with Fleming through two previous marriages.

On her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diana Rigg plays Countess Teressa (Tracy) di Vicenzo, who marries James Bond (played by George Lazenby). The character was based on Fleming’s own wife, the former Viscountess Rothermere.

Most of the central plots of the Bond novels contain elements of all Fleming learned or had experienced about the international balance of power when privy to the corridors of war secrecy at Naval Intelligence. Casino Royale and Live and Let Die both concern the Cold War and the subterfuge actions and operations of SMERSH (an arm of the Soviet secret service) in undermining western governments. The From Russia with Love plot could have been lifted from the Trout Memo as it concerns a plan by SMERSH to assassinate and discredit Bond, using bait in the form of a cipher clerk and Spektor (the Soviet decoding machine). The narrative for Moonraker was derived directly from Fleming’s time as part of T-Force and the discovery of the research units for the V2 rockets. Piz Gloria, Blofeld’s lair in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, was based on Schloss Mittersill, which the Nazi’s used as a think-tank concerning the Asiatic races and that was uncovered by the 30AU.

James Bond was an amalgam of all this. Every heroic or daring escapade encountered was written into Fleming’s mind from his past. He admitted, “Bond is a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war”. The secret agent’s lifestyle was an extension of his own, from Fleming’s jaunts to Casino du Palais in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, to Bond’s meeting with his future wife Countess Tracy di Vicenzo on the road from Calais to the fictional Royale-les-Eaux. The lines between fact and fiction become most definitely blurred.

Ian Fleming at the wheel of a 1930 ‘Blower’ Bentley for Life Magazine, October 1966.

Bond playing golf, even down to the same handicap, came from Fleming enjoying the sport. The brand of toiletries, the influence and role of various women, and his love of gambling were a portrayal of personal experience. The motoring duel between Bond and Drax in Moonraker derived from Fleming’s attending the 1930 Le Mans, where Birkin’s green British “Blower” Bentley kept pace with and outwitted the might of Caracciola’s silver white German supercharged Mercedes. Fleming wore a Rolex Explorer, as did his fictional counterpart.

Truth is, at times, stranger than fiction. The randomness or luck of life work in your favour to overcome the odds. Seemingly the more incredulous something is, the more amenable it is to succeed at times. That the outlandish ideas might work appeal to individual fears and insecurities. Fleming’s narratives, whether for war or the loyal reader, played on that.

Whatever you may think of the Bond movies over time, where the narrative and characters have been changed to meet the expectations or trends of 007 fans over the decades, the basic stories are captured in the real-life heroics of Fleming’s ideas and creations. The moral of the story is that fiction can win wars, can turn the tide, or simply be too remote to even be contemplated as made up by the enemy. In conflict, when there is a heightened sense of confusion, fiction can be as believable as the truth. James Bond did exist in Fleming’s war time actions, and still does, in every unseen act of heroism that has helped maintain and preserve the balance of power in the world as we perceive it.

Words: Dr Andrew Hildreth

Culture

StARTing

SAATCHI GALLERY Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Rd, London SW3 4RY. Wednesday 12th – Sunday 16th October 2022

Since its founding in 2014 by David and Serenella Ciclitira, StART has helped to springboard the careers of many artists from around the globe. In 2021, over 15,000 people came to explore its showcase of more than 70 emerging and established artists, hailing from 25 countries including South Africa, Ecuador, Portugal, Colombia, India, Austria, Korea, Thailand, and Ireland, providing collectors and art enthusiasts alike with the opportunity to discover the most exciting works from global markets. To complement the fair, 2021 saw the launch of a new art e-commerce platform StART.art, as well as a series of pop-up selling exhibitions called StART+. The inaugural StART+ opened in Knightsbridge in November last year, followed by Cape Town in March 2022. The first StART art fair Seoul opened last month at the Litenum, in the fashionable Sung Dong Gu district.

Founders David and Serenella Ciclitira have always been apassionate collectors of contemporary art and are dedicated supporters of young and emerging artists and the global art scene. On a 2007 business trip to Karlsruhe, Germany, David and Serenella attended an art exhibition: Termocline of Art: New Asian Waves, which left them with a thirst to learn more about the Asian contemporary art scene but were thwarted by a lack of material on the subject. In 2009, they founded Parallel Contemporary Art (PCA) and launched the Global Eye Programme. Five years later, the Global Eye Awards were launched, and the first StART art fair was held at the Saatchi Gallery.

StART founders Serenella and David Ciclitira. © Jean Goldsmith

Since its first edition in 2014, StART art fair has become known for bringing the work of lesser-known artistic communities to the attention of both established collectors and those starting out on their collecting journey. Held annually at London’s iconic Saatchi Gallery, StART fills all three floors of the gallery with a mix of curated projects, gallery presentations and independent artist exhibitors.

This year, go back in time to the heyday of the King’s Road, thanks to a punk cultural tribute courtesy of Illuminati Neon, aka Mark Sloper, presented by Washington Green Fine Arts. Under the title, In 1977 I Wanna Go To Heaven, the artist takes us into an immersive, interactive experience into the heart of the ‘70s punk scene. This installation will be entirely lit by the neon emanating from Sloper’s new works, displayed in room set style vignettes, including a “wretched” squat and a “dive” bar.

Mark Sloper draws on his real punk roots and lifelong passion for music culture to create his dynamic neon art works, each of which are hand blown in Mark’s west London studio, ornately framed and individually hand-embellished with gems and crystals.

Another extraordinary artist exhibiting at this year’s StART is award-winning sculptor , Beth Cullen Kerridge. Beth Cullen Kerridge. She studied at the Royal College of Art, with her work being shown consecutively in two London parks thereafter. She then honed her craft working with and producing works for some of sculpture’s best known, including Eduardo Paolozzi, Elisabeth Frink and Alberto Giacometti, before becoming a studio assistant with Mike Bolus for Sir Antony Caro. Cullen has worked on major projects with Sir Norman Foster on the Millenium Bridge, Richard Rogers and the Tate. After taking time out to help husband Tom Kerridge launch a 2 Michelin-Star pub, she has been engrossed in perfecting marble carving, as well as working with bronze, steel and stone.

Cullen’s work often reflects on our frenetic Western lives. Embedding a seemingly light-hearted dose of humour into traditional materials and forms, more serious messages lurk beneath.

The StART Projects section includes work by the winner of StART’s 2021 Global Eye Award, North West Coast Native artist Steve Smith-Dla’kwagila, whose innovative work is a contemporary take on the traditional iconography of his Oweekeno ancestors. New this year there are a group of contemporary South African artists who debuted with StART+ in Cape Town in March 2022.

Steve Smith-Dla’kwagil, Around and Around. © Steinbrueck Native Gallery

StART also welcomes back Spotlight Italia for a second year, curated by StART founder Serenella Ciclitira and Director of Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery Spoleto, Italy, Marco Tonelli. This important snapshot of Italian contemporary art today is presented in collaboration with the Italian Embassy, London.

Born in 1972 in Pisticci, Southern Italy, Antonello Capozzi is a postwar and contemporary painter, engraver, sculptor and designer.

In going beyond the traditional view of Italian art, often intrinsically associated to more classical and renaissance era currents, these Italian artists strike a contemporary vein and embody the wider national context: a dynamic, modern and ever-evolving atmosphere, where a glorious past inspires new expressions of creativity.

The variety of artists brought together in this year’s fair promises to delight visitors and critics alike, giving all an opportunity to learn and appreciate the work of artists and galleries from around the world.

Words: Lavinia Dickson-Robinson

Opening picture: London Calling 2022, by Illuminati Neon. Vintage WWII flag with hand-blown pink neon. 80 x 115 cm. £5,950.

Culture

Hergé. The Exhibition

The father of European comics

Hergé. The Exhibition arrives in Madrid after a world tour that has included cities as far apart as Paris, Quebec, Odense, Seoul, Shangai and Lisbon, delighting Tintin fans of all ages. Curated by the Musée Hergé of Belgium, the show immerses its visitors in the universe of illustrator and artist Hergé, creator of the iconic comic book series The Adventures of Tintin. Hergé said about his most famous character: “Tintin is me wanting to be heroic and perfect…” “Tintin is me… my eyes, my feelings, my lungs, my guts!… I believe I am the only person able to animate him, the only person able to give him a soul.”

Watch Tintín on the move

Tintin was created in 1929. He was like Totor’s (the first cartoon created by Hergé) young brother, who had become a journalist but kept his boy scout’s spirit. He is aged between 16 and 18, with a face which never wrinkled despite officially turning 90 years old in 2019. “Since the Soviets, the character of Tintin has not evolved. From a graphic standpoint Tintin is still a sketch.”

The first eight adventures of Tintin were created in black and white. The first published in colour was The Shooting Star, 1942. Later the pre-war books were redrawn and published in colour.

Considered as the father of European comics, Hergé’s creative genius has opened decisive paths for the 9th art and his influence is still visible in the world of contemporary comics. He is not only the expert in the ligne claire, and the creator of Tintin, but also an artist of multiple talents: graphic designer, publicist, screenwriter, and painter. Recognized as one of the renowned artists of the twentieth century, Hergé is a universal creator. The show presents a wide selection of documents, original drawings and many other works by the talented artist, from illustration to comics, with forays into advertising, cartoons in newspapers, fashion design and plastic arts.

In addition, for the first time in Spain, part of Hergé’s private collection of contemporary art will be shown, revealing his facet as a great collector. You can see the works of Hergé himself, inspired by Modigliani, Klee, Miró and many other renowned artists. Fans will be delighted even more to discover that many other treasures from the Musée Hergé’s collections are on display, such as original drawings, sketches, film clips, models and the artist’s original artwork.

Many treasures from the Musée Hergé’s collection are on display, such as original drawings, sketches, film clips and models.

The tireless reporter Tintin and his faithful Milú have already surpassed the threshold of 90 years, but even in the 21^st century they have not lost their relevance and have conquered their place among the greats of universal literature. The adventures of Tintin continue today to arouse passions in both readers and other creative minds. The books are being more republished than ever and keep inspiring artists, writers, producers, and film directors.

Visitors to Hergé. The Exhibition, will be able to explore the creative processes behind his most emblematic albums, his work in the studio, his markedly cinematographic influences, his dialogue with contemporary art, his different steps as a creator, from the modelling of objects or buildings to coloration.

Hergé. The Exhibition
Circulo De Bellas Artes.
C/ Alcalá, 42, Madrid.
Until 19^th February 2023

Words: Lavinia Dickson-Robinson, edited by Julia Pasarón

All pictures courtesy of Archivos Gulbenkian. ©Pedro Pina

Culture

Hallyu!

Korean culture is making waves

I must admit I was a novice in all things Korean, until I visited the newly opened Hallyu! exhibition at the V&A Museum. The first major exhibition celebrates the colourful and dynamic popular culture of South Korea, following its early origins to its place on the global stage today. Hallyu is a Chinese term which, when translated, literally means “Korean Wave”. It is a collective term used to refer to the phenomenal growth and global popularity of South Korea’s popular culture, encompassing everything from music, movies and drama to online games and Korean cuisine, to name but a few.

South Korea has a dedicated goal to become the world’s leading exporter of popular culture. Since early 1999, Hallyu has become one of the biggest cultural phenomena across Asia, attributing its origins to movies and TV dramas that were released early that year. From there, popularity grew, not only within their borders but also in Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, and Vietnam.

This overwhelming success led to regional media sources quickly picking up the cues and collectively announcing the birth of Hallyu. However, the actual origins go back much further. Several factors contributed tremendously to the evolution of the Korean wave and initiated its phenomenal growth. Probably the most important one, which eventually made way for Hallyu, was the Korean Government’s decision in the early 1990s to lift the ban on foreign travel for nationals. This made way for them to explore the western world. Many studied abroad, and this gave rise to new interpretations of art, cinema and music, and innovative forms of expressions.

Korean censorship laws had prohibited movie makers and other artists from showcasing many topics considered controversial and had curbed their creative independence for a long time. In 1996, this censorship ceased and provided immense opportunities and independence to the young and vibrant generation of Korea to express newer and bolder ideas through cinema and music. Many influential film makers rose during this period.

Following the severe Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, President Kim Dae-Jung pushed for information technology and popular culture as the two key drivers for the future Korea. Technology created new industries above the traditional manufacturing Korea has been dependent on since it rose out of poverty and industrialized, and popular culture became an important export product worth billions of dollars, helping to rebrand Korea.

So, what can you expect from the exhibition?

From K-Pop costumes to K-drama props and posters, alongside photography, sculpture, fashion, video and pop culture ephemera, every facet of this global phenomenon is covered. The exhibition features around 200 objects across four thematic sections – including some loans never seen in the UK before – alongside pop culture ephemera and digital displays. Traditional and contemporary Korean culture is also explored by connecting historic objects with popular culture and socio-political events.

Gangnam Style, by PSY became a worldwide smash hit in 2012. It was the first YouTube video ever to reach 1 billion views. Here seen performance at TODAY, New York, in 2012.

The exhibition opens with a familiar example of Hallyu: PSY’s viral 2012 hit single ‘Gangnam Style’, with his iconic pink suit jacket on display; the first music video to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. Highlights include an immersive re-creation of Parasite’s bathroom set, and an array of iconic costumes and props seen in K-drama, film and music – including from hit Netflix series Squid Game, and outfits worn by different generations of K-pop idols, from PSY, to aespa and ATEEZ. It also presents monumental artworks, including by Nam June Paik, Ham Kyungah and Gwon Osang; around 20 high fashion looks by Tchai Kim, Miss Sohee and Minju Kim among others; as well as early examples of advertising and branding, including an original poster from the Seoul Olympics, and the first Korean branded cosmetic from the 1910s.

‘From Rubble to Smartphones’ provides historical context to the meteoric rise of Hallyu, highlighting how – within living memory – South Korea rapidly evolved from a country ravaged by war in the late 1950s to a leading cultural powerhouse by the early 2000s. Korea’s 20th-century history is marked by the Japanese colonial occupation, the territorial division that led to the Korean War, and the subsequent 27 years of military rule. In the 1960s and 70s South Korea experienced rapid industrialisation and economic growth, and the country was propelled onto the international stage in 1988 with the Seoul Summer Olympics, changing Korea’s image overseas for the first time. Despite the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, bold strategies and IT innovations turned South Korea into one of the most digitally connected countries in the world by the late 90s. Korea’s modern history is represented and explored through photography, posters, and archive materials, alongside objects ranging from Olympics posters to early examples of electronics.

Eight Beauties of Korea folding screen, 1900-1950. Attributed to Chae Yong Shin. Ink and colour on cotton. © OCI MUSEUM OF ART

‘Spotlighting K-drama and Cinema’ focusses on the remarkable success of K-drama and film, charting in turn their rise in popularity from the late 1990s to the present day, through multimedia, installations, posters, storyboards, props and costumes. Traditional Korean costumes and props will also be on display, including the grooming kit from The Handmaiden. This section also showcases webtoons, a Korean innovation of digital cartoons designed for mobile devices, as a source of inspiration for many K-dramas.

‘Sounding K-pop and Fandoms’, the third section, delves into the explosion of K-Pop music around the world, as well as underlining the crucial roles social media and fandoms play in increasing their reach. Visitors enter the gallery through a corridor lined by fan lightsticks, then will be greeted by posters, ephemera and album covers from early K-Pop bands like Seo Taiji and Boys and BoA, before progressing through to explore the concept of ‘Idols’ in K-pop. Highlights include a monumental three-metre-high sculpture of G-Dragon by Gwon Osang, whilst costumes on display will include Aespa’s original iridescent outfits from the music video ‘Next Level’, and British punk fashion-inspired ensembles worn by four members of ATEEZ in the music video ‘Fireworks’.

Aespa ‘Next Level’ MV, 2021 © SM Entertainment

The final section ‘Making K-beauty and Fashion’, presents K-beauty and fashion, underlining their origin whilst showcasing their innovative and experimental approach that led to new aesthetic standards both inside and outside of Korea. It highlights how product placement in K-dramas and endorsements from K-Pop idols have amplified the international profile of K-beauty and fashion. Featuring cosmetics packaging from the 13th century to the present day, the exhibition will trace packaging’s design evolution, from ornate porcelain pots to items including face mask wrappings boasting idols as superheroes.

Central Saint Martins’s Class of 2020 student Sohee Park (Miss Sohee) saw her Peony dress from her graduation collection ‘The Girl in Full Bloom’ gain practically iconic status when Miley Cyrus wore it on The Graham Norton Show.

I was surprised to learn that the V&A has been collecting Korean art and design since 1888, and now holds one of the largest collections of contemporary Korean craft and design outside the country, including graphic design, fashion, and digital art. It was the first European institution to host the seminal exhibition the National Art Treasures of Korea in 1961 and opened London’s first permanent gallery devoted to Korean arts in 1992.

Hallyu has provided Korea with an excellent opportunity to showcase its diverse culture, people, its unique entertainment products, exotic locales, and its own pan-Asian superstars to the rest of the world. Curated for the V&A by Lead Curator Rosalie Kim and Project Curator Yoojin Choi, the exhibition is also accompanied by a new publication edited by Kim.

The exhibition Hallyu! The Korean Wave runs from 24^th September 2022 – 25^th June 2023.

Further information & tickets are available at www.vam.ac.uk/kwave | #KWaveLondon

Words: Linda Hunting

Opening image: Ji Won Choi x Adidas. Photo by Francesca Allen, courtesy of Adidas.

Culture

FRIEZE LONDON 2022

12th – 16th October. Regent’s Park, London NW1 4HG.

Considered one of the most important art fairs in the global calendar, Frieze London and Frieze Masters bring together galleries from 42 countries, presenting art across the ages, from ancient and old masters to modern classics and the contemporary. Featuring some of the most exciting artists working today, as well as expertly curated selections from art history, both shows this year will celebrate the depth and breadth of London’s creative community. The event is supported by global lead partner Deustche Bank and by luxury Swiss watchmaker, Breguet, a company historically linked to art and artisan crafts.

Eva Langret, Director of Frieze London said, “So many of our participating galleries are planning ambitious solo presentations and curated shows that really promise to stimulate, delight and challenge – and I am so excited to see such a diversity of talent all under one roof. Frieze Week also promises to be a major draw, with truly unmissable exhibitions across the city in both galleries and museums. This year’s fairs really reflect our commitment to celebrating the creative life of London.”

Nathan Clements-Gillespie, Director of Frieze Masters added, “Following the stellar launch of Frieze Masters in Seoul, we can’t wait to be back in London to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Once again, we will see Frieze Masters’ signature formula of showcasing the very best art throughout the ages. In addition, I am so looking forward to the discoveries that the fair provides each year – particularly in our Spotlight section, curated in 2022 by Camille Morineau and the AWARE team. Beyond the fair, Frieze Masters’ presence will be felt throughout the city – with our talks programme taking place in galleries and museums throughout London for everyone to enjoy.”

Frieze London will present the world’s leading galleries, showcasing ambitious solo, group and themed shows that offer an opportunity to discover up-and-coming talent and engage with work by some of today’s most celebrated names. Highlights include:

James Cohan, with a solo exhibition of Elias Sime’s ‘Tightrope’ series, which weaves repurposed materials – computer keyboards, motherboards, and electrical wires – into abstract compositions.
Sadie Coles HQ will show a solo presentation of Ugo Rondinone’s “Mattituck” series of paintings that was first first initiated in 2020.

Pilar Corrias will stage a solo show of work by Hayv Kahraman that continues her exploration of embodied experiences of “Otherness”, particularly in relation to the female body.

Thomas Dane Gallery has invited Anthea Hamilton to curate the gallery’s booth which will include recent works by Hamilton, alongside major pieces by artists including Hurvin Anderson, Lynda Benglis, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Barbara Kasten, Phillip King, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Jean-Luc Moulène, Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman and Caragh Thuring.
Stephen Friedman Gallery will present the first solo survey of Jeffrey Gibson in the UK, whose mixed-media paintings and sculptures combine indigenous artisanal handcraft with narratives of contemporary resistance, drawing on protest slogans and song lyrics.

Ryan Lee Gallery is bringing to the UK for the first time the work of Emma Amos whose figurative paintings often use her own likeness to engage with racial and feminist politics.

Indra’s Net will feature 10 dedicated presentations, as well as a number of displays scattered throughout the main section of the fair, and will feature artists including: Muhanned Cader (Jhaveri Contemporary); Dorothy Cross (Kerlin Gallery & Frith Street Gallery); Shirazeh Houshiary (Lisson Gallery); Jamilah Sabur & Oscar Santillán (Copperfield); Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio & Clarissa Tossin (Commonwealth and Council); Martha Atienza (Silverlens); Teresita Fernandez (Lehmann Maupin); Claudia Andujar (Vermelho) and Tomás Díaz Cedeño (Peana) among several others.

Oscar Santillán, Antimundo 00G, 2022. Oil on canvas. 120 x 80 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Copperfield, London-Detail.

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of Frieze Masters, the fair will bring together a snapshot of art history, from rare antiquities and Old Master paintings to luminaries of the 20th century. Highlights include:

De Jonckheere, with a solo presentation of works by Pieter Brueghel the Younger.
Gisèle Croës is focusing on a collection of Tang dynasty precious gold and silver cups, bowls and utensils historically used for banquets and feasts.
Helly Nahmad, London will present Joan Miró – After The War; a selection of paintings, works on paper and painted textiles executed between 1946 and 1973, emphasising Miró’s unique and ever- evolving approach to material and form.
ACA Galleries bring us an exhibition of pre-eminent African American artists of the 20th century including Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawerence, Faith Ringgold, Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson and Charles White.

Elliott Fine Art presents Portrait of a Zulu, 1897. Oil on canvas by Frans David Oerder.

Galleria Tommaso Calabro will present the exhibition ‘Casa Iolas. Citofonare Vezzoli’, curated by Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli, which will pay homage to the legendary Greek art gallerist Alexander Iolas (1907-1987) and include work by Victor Brauner, William Copley, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst and Leonor Fini.
Richard Nagy will create a Gesamtkunstwerk with works and furniture of the Viennese Secession movement including works by Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt.
Another first-time exhibitor Martin Beisly Fine Art will show Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian paintings made between 1830-1910, including works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, and Edward John Poynter.

Cesare Fracanzano, The Liberation of Saint Peter, late 17^th century. Oil on canvas.Courtesy of the artist and Artur Ramon Art.

Standout

Returning to the fair for the second year, the Standout section of the fair this year explores the idea of ‘Global Exchange’. Once again, the section is curated by Luke Syson (Director and Marlay Curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge) who describes the makers of art objects as “open-minded, even large- hearted, to a degree that is unusual in the arts’, explaining that ‘they embrace ideas, materials, designs and techniques that might have originated very far from home. In a world that today feels both more joined up and more culturally fraught than ever before, the histories of these works trace a complex and fascinating history.” Highlights include:

Oscar Humphries, with a special focus on Isamu Noguchi’s relationship with Japan, featuring works he created while visiting as well as collaborations with Japanese contemporaries.
Prahlad Bubbar brings a selection of “The Cosmic Dance” pieces, ranging from mother goddess figures of the Mauryan period (300 BC) in Northern India to a 16^th century royal canopy from Golconda in the Deccan region, amongst others.
Peter Finer is presenting culturally diverse examples of steel weaponry dating from antiquity through to Japan’s Edo period.
Raccanello & Leprince will show a selection of Renaissance-era Maiolica, featuring pieces by makers including Nicola da Urbino and Francesco Xanto Avelli and their followers, as well as productions of the Fontana workshop.

Amir Mohtashemi will showcase a pair of 19th-century Indian watercolor paintings of ducks, from an album of “Company School” paintings by local artists commissioned by Europeans to record the likenesses of flora and fauna.

Spotlight

The much-celebrated Spotlight section of the fair is this year curated by Camille Morineau and the AWARE team. Featuring 26 solo presentations by female artists of the 20th century, the section will draw attention to previously overlooked names and allow a reconsideration of recent history. Highlights include:

Ab-Anbar, with their solo show of works by Iranian artist Sonia Balassanian.
DAG will showcase paintings by self-taught Indian artist Madhvi Parekh.
The Gallery of Everything will present works by Sister Gertrude Morgan, whose work was featured in this year’s Venice Biennale.

Kó will show rarely-seen work by Nigerian artist Nike Davies-Okundaye, featuring embroidery, batik, weaving, patchwork, painting, and mixed media from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Partners and Collaborations

Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank is the Global Lead Partner for Frieze Art Fairs for the 19th consecutive year. Works by Shezad Dawood will feature in the Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounges at Frieze and on Frieze Viewing Room. The works, consisting of neons, painting, sculpture, and virtual reality, delve into themes of climate change, migration and mental health using a combination of fact and science fiction.

Breguet will present a specially commissioned artwork by the artist Pablo Bronstein, continuing his panoramic installation series launched at Frieze New York in May, followed by Frieze Seoul in September. The third iteration for London will reference the art of watchmaking’s endurance since the industrial revolution, whereby visitors will witness Bronstein’s artistic vision. The work will be displayed alongside historical watches from Breguet’s archives, as well as new timepieces from their collections. An artisan from Breguet’s workshop will also be present at the booth performing guillochage demonstrations.

Pablo Bronstein’s, Scenic Wallpaper with Important Machinery of the 18th century, generated huge interest in Frieze New York.

BMW Open Work Commission 2022: curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini ‘BMW Open Work by Frieze’ invites an artist to develop an ambitious project utilizing BMW design and technology to pursue their practice in innovative new directions. For the 2022 commission, artist Nikita Gale will present 63/22, a sculptural installation comprising a series of electric guitars imagined in collaboration with BMW i7 designers and activated by live performances in the lounge.

Nikita Gale, Private Dancer,2020. Installation view, California African American Museum, Los Angeles. Photo: Elon Schoenholz.

Maison Ruinart has given carte blanche to Jeppe Hein, who will translate his first impressions of Ruinart’s terroir into fragments of matter and emotion that both awaken senses and touch hearts, while placing each of us at the centre of a delightful participatory experience. A collective experience that is unique each time. An artistic installation to live RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

La Prairie will highlight emerging women artists, inviting five young female artists to create digital works inspired by the codes of Bauhaus. The Women Bauhaus Collective by La Prairie celebrates the legacy of the women in Bauhaus and empowers greater equity for future generations of talent. As part of the collective, Talia Golchin, a London-based artist and recent graduate of Central Saint Martins, has created a digital sculpture entitled “Euphoria“, inspired by the synergy of the body, mind and the universe. A physical representation of “Euphoria“ will be on display within the La Prairie lounge at Frieze London.

To keep up to date on all the latest news from Frieze, sign up to our newsletter at frieze.com, and follow @friezeofficial on Instagram, Twitter and Frieze Official on Facebook.

Opening picture: Linda Nylind. Courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze.

Words: Julia Pasarón

Culture

Araba Opoku

Whispers Down the Lane

Araba Opoku is a multi-disciplinary artist who was born and currently resides in Accra, Ghana. Her body of work ranges from dreamy abstract paintings to more specific projects, from her self-reflective works, to referencing socio-economic adversities such as the challenges in Ghana over the lack of water and the direct link to mental health issues within individual and familial frameworks.

“The mind is a map, an entire world waiting to become tangible in form, I explore how and why I want to make that possible.”
– Araba Opoku

Opoku’s art is not only concerned with suffering and anguish. Her commentaries on the water crisis also captures the freedom, joy, and abundance that water signifies, exhibited by graceful flows of paint and a plethora of colour. Her paintings in general reference her immediate environment by representing specific streets, home gardens, and daily scenes in the community she lives in. Characterised by fluid shapes, flowing lines, and blended hues which produce an effect that almost resembles richly painted textiles, the subtlety and precision of her art allows her to speak to the fullness of life as well as its decay.

Opoku takes a textile-like approach to painting, merging various forms and colours from the world around her onto her canvases.

Early influences derive from Araba’s mother’s association with the fashion industry – their home was always filled with an abundance of diverse styles and textured fabrics – and the encouragement of her school art teacher who recognised her talent for neat lines and creative thought. Balancing her art practice with her on-going studies in Psychology at the University of Ghana, her work was showcased at Art X Lagos in 2021, and resides in several collections in New York, London, and Ghana. For her artistic talent she was awarded the inaugural Yaa Asantwewaa Art Prize by Gallery 1957 in 2021, dedicated to woman artists living and working in Ghana. Opoku is also the creative director and member of the art collective Artemartis, which has done much to highlight and platform emerging artists in Ghana.

Gallery 1957, based in Accra, Ghana, has a curatorial focus on Africa and its diaspora. Presenting a programme of exhibitions, installations and performances by the continent’s most significant artists, the gallery serves as avital platform for promoting Africa’s presence within the art scene by hosting ambitious exhibitions, providing resources for residencies and participating in international art fairs. Founded by Marwan Zakhem in 2016 with an initial focus on supporting the West African arts scene, Gallery 1957 has since expanded to collaborate with leading artists globally and now hosts three spaces in Accra – one in the Kempinski Hotel and two in Galleria Mall – as well as a London outpost in Hyde Park Gate. See more details HERE.

Araba applies multiple layers of blue and green acrylic paint, introducing distorted subjects and texts that create an illusion of fluid motion and depth.

Curated by Katherine Finerty, the London-based Art Historian and Writer, Gallery 1957 announces its first solo exhibition of new works by Araba Opoku, running from September 24 to October 22, 2022 entitled “Whispers Down the Lane”. The immersive show presents new canvases alongside video projections, textiles, installations and sounds creating a sensory experience of the artist’s night-time vigil. Across an abstract, ethereal body of work, Opoku’s paintings of aquatic blues and vegetative greens subtly evoke her ritualistic experience of collecting water, which began when she moved to Dansoman with her mother and sister a decade ago. From awaking in a dream-like state at midnight to fetch water, to the stupor that continued the rest of the day, her work captures the warped state of life amidst water scarcity. Exploring this tradition across generations, the exhibition considers the effects of moonlight, the cyclical nature of being, lost twins and symmetry, the passing of transitory memory and constellations made from stars to spiders. For this new body of work, the artist turns towards these nocturnal creatures, connecting the intricate worlds she creates in her art to the expansive blankets ensuing from their webs; textile-like places that make you feel comforted and capable of imagining new and endless possibilities.

The subtlety and precision of Araba’s art allows her to speak to the fullness of life as well as its decay.

The artist’s process starts with collaged collections of everyday objects relating to her midnight fetching ceremony, from sinks and streets to plants and the moon. She then transfers these collages to the computer, creating warped compositions that serve as maps to her physical and psychological processes. When Opoku finally transports these sketches to paper, she relishes in pouring splashes of water and paint directly onto the canvas. This aqueous foundation is then built up through layers of acrylic colour and web-like borders, their undulating surfaces mirroring the effects of water with collaged details recalling our dream states. The end result of thickly layered paint and gracefully warped subjects represents water as both life-giving and an enduring source of uncertainty and suffering.

Araba Opoku Exhibition at Gallery II space, Gallery 195, Accra, Ghana 24^th September – 22^nd October, 2022.

Words: Shelley Campbell

Culture

Queens Of The Art World

By Nick Foulkes

“I will show your most illustrious Lordship what a woman can do!” This quote, from one of her letters, functioned as something of a strapline for last year’s Artemisia Gentileschi show at the National Gallery. If you managed to dodge Covid lockdowns and get to this stunning exhibition, you will have enjoyed a visual banquet of drama from what Artspace.com called the “best baroque feminist painter you’ve never heard of”.

Judith chopping off Holofernes’s head can probably be spun as a feminist call to action, but it could be argued that she is ‘just’ a great baroque painter. After all, it sounds trivial and limiting to refer to Caravaggio as a proto-masculist icon of manliness, because he got into fights (even killing a man), liked living it up, and painting pictures of young men that are considered highly sexualised.

There is no doubt that gender is one of the defining issues of our times…
– Nick Foulkes

Self-portrait as the Allegory of Painting by Artemisa Gentileschi.

There is no doubt that gender is one of the defining issues of our times and one of the great dividends of a more diverse approach to programming is that some great art is being brought into the public eye. In May, Tate Britain opened a show of Cornelia Parker’s magical suspended installations that seem to be snapshots of explosions in the split second after detonation; and later in the year will be bringing back a major, Covid-shortened, survey of Lynette Yiadom- Boakye’s oeuvre. Tate Modern currently has Laubaina Himid. The Hayward has a Louise Bourgeois show.

And before lockdown, if you can cast your mind back to that era of prelapsarian innocence, Cindy Sherman had a major retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery. The Barbican, meanwhile, showed Lee Krasner, the Abstract Expressionist who, in other times, might have been known primarily as the wife of Jackson Pollock. But 2019 also held more recondite delights. There was a jewel-like Faith Ringgold show at the Serpentine and a superb exhibition of Dorothea Tanning at Tate Modern. To my shame I knew next to nothing about either artist before visiting the shows and came away enlightened and enriched.

Spider (1997) by Louise Bourgeios. Steel, tapestry, wood, glass, fabric, rubber, silver, gold and bone. © The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2021. Photo by Maximillian Geuter.

Too often it is easy to focus on the artists and forget that both as a business and a field of cultural endeavour there is a talented matriarchy that has long been an important part of the London art scene working as dealers, auctioneers, gallerists and museum directors. The capital has been inestimably lucky to have had Iwona Blazwick running the Whitechapel Art Gallery for two decades during which time, the gallery doubled in size and regained much of its international importance – you can also cite her as a godmother of the YBA movement, giving Damien Hirst his first show at the ICA back in 1992.

Before moving to the Whitechapel, Blazwick was head of exhibitions at Tate Modern, where she worked with Frances Morris, with whom she devised the then controversial, since influential, hanging of works for the opening of the museum thematically rather than chronologically. When Morris was announced as the director in 2016 the Guardian recorded, “She has already had a far greater influence on its identity than any of the three men who have served as director since it opened in 2000.”

There Could Be an Endless Ocean 2018, by Lubaina Himid. Courtesy of the artist and Hollybush Gardens

When thinking of the Serpentine Gallery, I experience a Pavlovian reaction and an image of Julia Peyton-Jones leaps to the front of the mind. Even though she left in 2016, for more than a quarter century she transformed a young exhibition space housed in a quondam tea-room and thrust it into global art spotlight. With Hans Ulrich Obrist at her side, she was one half of an artworld Fred and Ginger, a double act that defined a crucial period of not just the history of art, but the history of the art market.

And in London, the art market is in no small part shaped by women. Victoria Miro and Sadie Coles are better known than many of the artists they represent and if you look out of the front window of Hauser & Wirth on Savile Row, you look into the eponymous gallery of Pilar Ordovas.

Ordovas began her career at Christie’s in 1996. “That was a time when it was all much more of an old boy network and more traditional. I think I was one of the first women to be head of a department at Christie’s.” She goes on to add, “I suppose there was a certain amount of sexism, people would ask about pregnancy in job interviews, things like that,” she says, adding that times have changed considerably. “Women and minorities are what is relevant and important commercially, but I am not sure how helpful it is if we are highlighting things solely because they are topical. I have never really liked to think in terms of gender.”

I have never really liked to think in terms of gender.
– Pilar Ordovas

Instead, she likes to subvert accepted norms and challenge received wisdom, which is probably why she is so excited about her current show. Called Stitched, it concerns 20th century and contemporary artists who use needlework in their practice. In order to avoid preconceptions, Ordovas explains, “Although you might think the majority, if not all the artists, would be women, in fact it is evenly split between men and women.”

Culture

Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels

Passion and support for choreographic arts

Hélène de Beauvoir: The Woman Destroyed

A tribute to the work of one of the fundamental figures of French Modernist painting

Sigmar Polke. Affinities Revealed

The artistic encounter of two masters

The art of listening

International Contemporary Art Prize 2022, Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation

“Kim’s work offers a bridge between the world of the hearing and the world of the Deaf…”

– Christiano Raimondi

The Principality’s Prize was presented to French anthropologist Philippe Descola for the entirety of his oeuvre.

The Neverending Story

The power of imagining, the danger of wishing

**Folio’s edition of The Neverending Story is bound in blocked art silk and presented in a printed and pearl blocked case.**

Ian Fleming

Blurring fact and fiction wins wars

StARTing

SAATCHI GALLERY Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Rd, London SW3 4RY. Wednesday 12th – Sunday 16th October 2022

Hergé. The Exhibition

The father of European comics

Hergé. The Exhibition
Circulo De Bellas Artes.
C/ Alcalá, 42, Madrid.
Until 19^th February 2023

Hallyu!

Korean culture is making waves

FRIEZE LONDON 2022

12th – 16th October. Regent’s Park, London NW1 4HG.

Araba Opoku

Whispers Down the Lane

Queens Of The Art World

By Nick Foulkes

Spider (1997) by Louise Bourgeios. Steel, tapestry, wood, glass, fabric, rubber, silver, gold and bone. © The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2021. Photo by Maximillian Geuter.

There Could Be an Endless Ocean 2018, by Lubaina Himid. Courtesy of the artist and Hollybush Gardens

Subscribe to the I-M Newsletters:

contact us on: 020 8741 8967

I-M Magazine – Inquisitive Minds

Sign-up to our newsletter

Culture

Passion and support for choreographic arts

A tribute to the work of one of the fundamental figures of French Modernist painting

The artistic encounter of two masters

International Contemporary Art Prize 2022, Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation

“Kim’s work offers a bridge between the world of the hearing and the world of the Deaf…”

– Christiano Raimondi

The Principality’s Prize was presented to French anthropologist Philippe Descola for the entirety of his oeuvre.

The power of imagining, the danger of wishing

Folio’s edition of The Neverending Story is bound in blocked art silk and presented in a printed and pearl blocked case.

Blurring fact and fiction wins wars

SAATCHI GALLERY Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Rd, London SW3 4RY. Wednesday 12th – Sunday 16th October 2022

The father of European comics

Hergé. The Exhibition Circulo De Bellas Artes. C/ Alcalá, 42, Madrid. Until 19th February 2023

Korean culture is making waves

12th – 16th October. Regent’s Park, London NW1 4HG.

Whispers Down the Lane

By Nick Foulkes

Spider (1997) by Louise Bourgeios. Steel, tapestry, wood, glass, fabric, rubber, silver, gold and bone. © The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2021. Photo by Maximillian Geuter.

There Could Be an Endless Ocean 2018, by Lubaina Himid. Courtesy of the artist and Hollybush Gardens

Subscribe to the I-M Newsletters:

contact us on: 020 8741 8967

I-M Magazine – Inquisitive Minds

Sign-up to our newsletter

**Folio’s edition of The Neverending Story is bound in blocked art silk and presented in a printed and pearl blocked case.**

Hergé. The Exhibition
Circulo De Bellas Artes.
C/ Alcalá, 42, Madrid.
Until 19^th February 2023