Many Times

Tomorrow a new exhibition called Pompeo Batoni, 1707-1787 opens at the National Gallery, London. I am particularly interested in the London art scene during this period so this exhibition especially appealing because it deals with The Grand Tour and how it shaped British taste. In the eighteenth century it was an indispensible part of a gentleman's education to make the journey across the Alps to Italy and to admire the artistic treasures of Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome and Naples. The constant flow of aristocrats from England to Italy provided artists with an audience for Italian views, most notably amongst them being Joseph Wright of Derby, Richard Wilson and Thomas Jones. These and other artists found a drama and passion in the Italian landscape that came to symbolise a wilder, hotter, more passionate life than you could experience at home. It was the genesis of a new style: neoclassicism - a genre that believed in the moral example and aesthetic excellence of antiquity and it would, in turn, greatly influence the burgeoning market for topographical pictures of London. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the mid-eighteenth century Italianate paintings of the River Thames. One catalyst for this trend was the arrival of Canaletto in 1746 who was forced to come to London to sell his wares when his wealthy British patrons could no longer embark on The Grand Tour due to travel difficulties caused by the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-8). Mmm...I feel a PhD thesis coming on here. Anyway, more on that once I've seen the exhibition.

I hadn't intended to write about that though. What I did want to do was to quickly mention the intriguing retrospective of Juan Munoz's work at Tate Modern. Munoz died in 2001 at the age of only 48. I had seen his work before and I retain vivid memories of his amazing complex installation in the Turbine Hall called Double Bind which opened shortly before his death. The picture above is of his installation The Wasteland (1987). However, for me the pièce de résistance is in Room 10: Many Times (1999) which comprises 100 figures, identically dressed and with similar features. The handbooks says: 'They form a dense crowd, closely interacting with each other, gathered in pairs or small circles and often apparently deep in conversation.' As viewer you are completely outnumbered and whilst I had anticipated a feeling of alienation (some reviewers suggested that the figures were sharing a joke which you - the viewer - were not let in on) I felt quite the opposite. They were friendly, welcoming faces and being modelled smaller than real life there was a lilliputian quality to the whole experience. Without giving away too much, look out for some truly uncanny movement in some of the figures...just when you least expect it, just what you least expect.

Space Hopper

This morning I finished reading an article on Peter Doig whose paintings are currently the subject of a major retrospective at Tate Britain. In the article Doig says of his work 'I never thought of them as being particularly good paintings.' Well, they are very good actually. This one on the left is Lapeyrouse Road (2004) which Doig painted shortly after watching the 1953 Japanese film Tokyo Story. The artist describes the figure as: 'someone who is actually locked in his own thoughts...You don't really know what's up in his mind, and for this reason you become a drifter on your own just watching it in the painting.' Doig's paintings in this exhibition often reminded me of the unsettling stillness of Hopper's work. There's also a David Lynch quality going on here because what at first glance appears to be a fairly ordinary scene often turns out to have some sort of menacing undertow causing the viewer to look, look again and then look some more.

In other news, I am struggling to finish The Idiot by Dostoevsky. I'm on page 422 of 652 pages and it's an uphill struggle to the end. Dostoevesky himself said that 'the main idea of the novel is to depict the positively good man.' Well, it might take a better man than me to get through it...but with a little dedication who knows?

Yesterday I watched the Spanish film The Sea Inside (Best Foreign Film 2005) which follows the story of a paraplegic man and his fight to die 'with dignity'. It doesn't sound like a bundle of laughs, but it is in fact an incredibly uplifting film, I am getting goosebumps from just recollecting some of the inspirational scenes as I write this. The film is directed by Alejandro Amenabar (who directed The Others). Take a look at the trailer: http://www.theseainside.com/ and if that doesn't make you want to watch it, then I don't think we're compatible and we should call off the wedding.

Feeling art-orientated after starting this art shaped blog, I also settled down to watch Ed Harris' wonderful biopic of the American abstract expressionist artist Jackson Pollock: Pollock. Ed Harris plays Jackson (he was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar in 2000 for this role) and Marcia Gay Harden plays fellow artist and wife Lee Krasner (Best Supporting Actress 2000). It's a brilliant insight into the mind of one of the most original artists of the last century and the scenes of the painter in action are so skilfully shot that you really believe you're watching the artist at work. Take a peekaboo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmdLPLNb7Es

Last week I watched Derek Jarman's Caravaggio which is a different kettle of fish altogether but enjoyable in other ways. What was the most striking aspect of that film - apart from the superb Tilda Swinton - was the incredible lighting which perfectly resembled the delicious chiaroscuro of Caravaggio's paintings. If you can bear the REM soundtrack then this is an excellent montage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8FlnTFAXZ8

Now I'm rambling.

Gob on you

Ever since I started taking my interest in art seriously, I've been thinking that it might be an interesting exercise for me, and perhaps for some others, if I start to keep a record of my life as it is shaped by art. That sounds a bit corny and maybe it is. I see so much art in galleries and exhibitions, I notice art in the street in the form of statues and sculptures - even grafitti. I read about art in newspapers, magazines and books. I talk to like-minded friends and aquaintances about art. So why not write about what I think about it? And where better to do it than on a lovely free blogsite provided by Google?

In the 1980s, the comedy team that fronted the TV show Not The Nine O'Clock News performed a song called Gob On You. I'm not sure I quite understood the significance of the lyrics at the time (I was about 10 years old) but now I imagine it was a send-up of the apparently empty-headed attitude of your average punk rocker of the day. Lines like: 'Sex is boring pain is fun / I want to cut my fingers off one by one / There ain't no point in staying alive / I want to be dead when I'm twenty-five' seem to have hankered down for good in my depleted grey matter. Other lines from the song somehow retained are 'Gob on you 'cos I hate your guts / Gob on you - kick you in the nuts / Gob on you 'cos you talk about art / Gob on you 'cos you're a boring old fart.' I think the BBC had to bleep or at least mute the f-word. Anyway, that explains the title!

So, just to lay down a few ground rules which are mostly for my benefit. Whenever I get a minute I'll post a picture or something and tell you what I think of what I've seen lately. You can then tell me that I'm wrong and we can have a heated debate. S'easy.