Dogbreath's Pantagraph: The Tate Modern

The Tate Modern is located in a decommissioned power plant along the Thames and thus looks unmistakeably industrial, but which has been embraced by the Tate, which is the largest of its two museums in London, for its felicitous location and size just opposite the city of London and St. Paul's cathedral, a relationship enhanced by the construction of the Millenium Bridge. Trying to take it all in in a few hours was a vain task, as was trying to take in all of London in a week. Indeed that is probably one reason I take so many photographs, as I am one who shoots first and asks questions later. That is to say I take pictures then only later figure out what they were all about.

I can't say I am am unreservedly a fan of modern art. There is some of it I like, but there is much I don't really understand. I have seen a lot of it over the years mainly in St. Louis, Washington, New York, and Chicago. I read and photographed many of the written explanations of what was featured at the Tate Modern, but even then for some of it, I realize that for some kinds of art, words are not much use. Some of the names are familiar to me, and some are new. You can cite the artist's nationality, his birth and death dates, maybe the title he gave to the work of art, and a note on the materials employed to make it, but still that doesn't always give one an insight into what it is all about. The thematic layout of the museum however was unique.
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Thomas Hirshorn (1957- )

Candelabra with Heads, by Thomas Hirshorn

One of the first works I saw, this work by Thomas Hirshorn (1957- ) shows mannequin heads embedded in large brown globs, that look like he used miles and miles of brown box tape and a few strategically constructed pieces of white 2x1 planks. The Tate Modern website (1) says this about it:

Hirschhorn is known for his sculptures and installations made from everyday materials such as cardboard, plastic and paper, bound together with brown packing tape. This work was originally part of an exhibition called Concretions, a term from geology and medicine that suggests the gradual growth of a solid mass. Hirschhorn related the theme to a broader social and spiritual petrification. Here the faces of mannequins seem to be emerging from – or submerged into – larger biomorphic forms.

I suspect these comments show that they don't have any clue as to what it is about either. Such artists usually don't explain much.

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Dan Flavin (1933-1996)

Working as I do in the lighting business, I took to Dan Flavin's Fluorescent panels a lot more. It's brightly colored and kind of spectacular in a way. Looking at it, I wondered, idly, when the 48 inch T12 bulbs burn out, where do they go to get replacements? With some wires, transformers, and light sockets, who knows what I could create?
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Francis Picabia (1879-1953)

Portrait of a doctor, by Francis Picabia

Apparently this canvas began life as a fairly straightforward portrait of a doctor friend, which, when it did not sell, and even his own daughter did not care for it, Picabia reworked it into its present form (2). To me it looks like bacteria tumbling off the body with a headdress that reminds me of spread legs in stirrups, along with along with five erect phalluses. Maybe the doctor only thinks about sex and death? Myself the cemetery tourist I guess I do too.
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Paul Delvaux (1897-1994)

Sleeping Venus by Paul Delvaux

Paul Delvaux painted this in Brussels in 1944 during the German Occupation and the last stages of the Second World War (3). I have seen a number of Delvaux paintings at the Art Institute in Chicago which are similar in that doe-eyed women inhabit a strange and surreal world. It looks like a dream sequence to me. The woman in Edwardian dress talks with a skeleton, while Venus dozes on a day bed in the altogether not far from the First National Bank, while another naked lady seems to be hailing a taxi. Again, a painter who thinks largely about sex and death and perhaps money too.
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John Heartfield (1891-1968)

Down with the Warmongers! Fight for the Soviet Union. Vote Communist.

This was part of an exhibition of left-wing cover art by John Heartfield during the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler in Germany.

The meaning of the Hitler Salute

The implication of this magazine cover by John Heartfield is that Hitler was getting money from shadowy millionaires (4). Hitler says "Millions stand behind me!" and the bottom caption says "Small man asks for great gifts."

Heartfield Cover for Kurt Tucholsky's Deutschland Deutschland ueber Alles

Tucholsky was a left-wing satirist, journalist and pacifist who was fought in vain against the fascist trends in Germany in the waning days of the Weimar Republic (5). John Heartfield was born Helmut Herzfeld, and anglicized his name during a wave of anti-British sentiment in his country (6) .

East German Stamp featuring a picture of Heartfield

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Meredith Frampton and Dod Procter,
(two British realist painters)

Marguerite Kelsey by Meredith Frampton

Meanwhile, less political artists were concerned with other things, like women, such as Meredith Frampton (1894-1984) who produced the fairly straightforward portrait above,

and Dod Procter (1890-1972). Procter, Born Doris Margaret Shaw, her most famous painting is below, which was purchased by the London newspaper "Daily Mail" in 1927. I especially like the treatment of light in this one.

Morning, by Dod Procter

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Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Nude Woman in Red Armchair by Pablo Picasso (1932)

Pablo Picasso, perhaps one of the most prolific and successful artists of his time, was capable of pleasing if stylized portraits of women, such as this one, but veered off into more bizarre representations later in his career:

Nude Woman with Necklace by Pablo Picasso (1968)

Which makes me think of the the lament of aging spouses: "What happened to the girl I married?" This is a portrait of his second wife whose marriage ended with his death in 1973. Picasso's first wife Olga Khoklova, he wed in 1918 in Paris. Their marriage disintegrated by the late 1920s but she remained married to him until her death in 1955 because they could not agree on a property settlement. In 1955 he met his second wife, Jacqueline Roque of whom the above is a representation. Picasso being Picasso, these were definitely not the only women in his life (7).

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Henri Matisse (1969-1954)

Detail of Portrait of Greta Moll (1908) by Henri Matisse

A Miro Portrait

Greta Moll was one of the first students of Matisse's academy in Paris and one of his earliest collectors, along with her husband. Like many women she was never completely happy with the portrait and disliked the bushiness of her eyebrows, among other things. You have to think, however, that she got off rather easily in view of how Matisse's contemporaries did portraits, such as Picasso previously mentioned, and Joan Miro (above). Miro's subject did not like the portrait at all, and he ended up selling it to someone else.

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Christian Schad (1894-1982)

Self Portrait by Christian Schad (1927)

A German artist, Christian Schad was most active in the 1920's and by some quirk was not included in the group of so-called Decadent Artists like Max Beckmann, George Grosz, etc., and so did not suffer the persecution that fell upon such artists in Germany. Here he is featured in a see-through shirt in front of a hatchet faced woman in a 1920s hairstyle with a freggio, a scar on her cheek, the customary practice of Neapolitan men to disfigure their women to render them less attractive to other men (9). Schad was known as something of a realist painter, who nevertheless was allied with the surrealists (10). Come to think of it this is a rather surreal painting in view of the see-through green shirt, and the industrial night scene beyond behind another thin veil.
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Leon Golub (1922-2004)

Vietnam II (1973) by Leon Golub (left side)

Leon Golub was born and educated in Chicago. His paintings were taken from current events, such as the Vietnam war or the riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. This is a large canvas occupying most of the wall of a large room at the Tate Modern. This shows three soldiers on the left confronting Vietnamese villagers on the right and with a large blank space in the middle of the canvas (11, 12).

Vietnam II (1973) by Leon Golub

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Bruce Nauman (1941- )

Violins, Violence, Silence by Bruce Nauman

Bruce Nauman was born in Fort Wayne, IN in 1941, the day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. His father was an engineer for General Electric. It is very hard to summarize or categorize Nauman, who has done audio and video projection art as well as his work with neon. He has also done performance art which is almost by definition strange and disorienting. Maybe that is the point of it all. I've seen his neon work in the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Chicago Art Institute as well. He likes plays on words like that shown above. He reminds me of another artist whose work consists of various odd messages as rolling text along a marquee of lights.
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Asger Jorn (1914-1973)

Letter to my son, by Asger Jorn

Jorn was a Danish painter who was a "situationist" and avant-garde painter and founder of "COBRA" which stood for "Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam". Before you say that your four year old son could do that, bear in mind that Jorn was here consciously recalling the style of art practiced by young children. Another painter who also adopted this approach was Karel Appel (13).

Dogbreath's Pantagraph

Sunday, June 23, 2013

The Tate Modern

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