FREE

17 | HOT&COOL ART

SETTING THE PACE ROBERT FRASER

BRIAN CLARKE 2014 BRIAN CLARKE ADVENTURES IN ART DAFYDD JONES KLAUS STAUDT LIGHT AND TRANSCENDENCE

ams Trust

Albert Ad

©

, Acrylic on canvas, 127 x 114cm , Acrylic on canvas,

The Captive

image:

Klaus Staudt (b. 1932 Otterndorf am Main, Germany) 1/723 SG 86, Diagonal, 1992, Acrylic, wood and plexiglas, 76.5 x 76.5 x 7.5 cm, 30 1/8 x 30 1/8 x 3 inches ALBERT ADAMS (1930 – 2006) PAINTINGS AND ETCHINGS THE MAYOR GALLERY %46-0ď 21 CORK STREET, FIRST FLOOR, LONDON W1S 3LZ 30 May – 10 July 2015 UNIVERSITY GALLERY Northumbria University Sandyford Road Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST TEL: +44 (0) 20 7734 3558 FAX: +44 (0) 20 7494 1377 T: 0191 227 4424 E: [email protected] www.universitygallery.co.uk [email protected] www.mayorgallery.com 29 MAY 2015 C Wednesday–Saturday 11am–6pm orbyappointment www.charliesmithlondon.com |@CHARLIESMITHldn +44 (0)2077394055|[email protected] 336 OldStreet,LondonEC1V9DR,UnitedKingdom 26 June–25July2015 Emma Bennett 15 May–20June2015 Dominic Shepherd 3 April –9May2015 Curated byJuanBolivar&JohnStark Anti-Social Realism HARLIE S MITH l o nd o n

Emma Bennett, ‘Tender Visiting’, 2014 Oil on canvas 50x40cm DIARY NOTES COVER IMAGE

DAFYDD JONES Brian Clarke, 2015 Photographed at Pace Gallery Burlington Gardens London FOOLS RUSH IN Brian Clarke added curating to his many talents when he agreed The FRANCIS BACON MB Art Foundation, established by Majid Boustany and based in to produce a tribute to his former agent, gallerist and friend, Robert Fraser. At the invitation of Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, Clarke Monaco, is a private non-profit institute dedicating its scholarly activities and research to teamed up with Harriet Vyner (one time Fraser biographer) to cre- Joking Aside the Lascaux Caves, near the village of French government have just spent the most uncompromising and enigmatic British figurative artist of the post-war era. ate a highly acclaimed survey of Fraser’s two gallery career – first- Montignac in south-western France. 56 million euros and several years creating ly in the ‘60s and latterly the ‘80s. Clarke’s aim was to conjure the IT IS (or, maybe, was) Here, we are told, art lovers wander a near-exact replica of the Chauvet Cave ‘essence’ of Fraser’s energy and originality – and to restore the every art student’s dream in awe through the two most famous (discovered 1994, in Vallon Pont d'Arc) – The Foundation’s mission is to promote a deeper understanding of the work and life of late dealer’s reputation as one of London’s brightest art stars. to borrow the work of illustrated chambers – The Hall of Bulls about 1.2 miles away from the real some famous artist to and The Axial Gallery. As well they thing, which includes more than 400 Francis Bacon worldwide. This institute will: support original research, sponsor emerging exhibit in the place of might. For these were painted in 1983 paintings of horses, bears, rhinoceros their own degree show – by local artist Monique Peytral, tasked and mammoths, hand prints and artists, organize exhibitions and seminars on Francis Bacon with local and international and be failed by the with copying the prehistoric artwork on carvings made c.30,000 years ago. assessors. Thus proving that an older to the walls of a concrete replica cavern. The government closed Chauvet to the institutions, and fund projects related to the artist. generation of art teachers couldn’t tell It took her 11 years to reproduce the public immediately – for reasons of their Arp from their Ensor. Today, an 17,300-year-old wall paintings that reside ‘preservation’. This replica opens in May. HOT & COOL ART overfamiliarity with almost everything – in a cave 200 metres away. The French The Estate of Francis Bacon welcomes the Foundation and will collaborate with it on thanks to the internet – makes this rather government decided back in 1963 EDITOR Lyle Owerko Kingsley Amis era joke pretty much a that visitors and strong lighting were Fine Art of Food research and educational activities. The art historian Martin Harrison, editor of the Francis contaminating the precious originals, Mike von Joel NEW YORK non-starter. Probably on a par with discovered on 12 September 1940 by IT IS ALWAYS interesting when a man Bacon Catalogue Raisonné, is on the board of this institute. [email protected] Anne Chabrol having an empty room and an instruction to switch a light on and off. 18-year-old Marcel Ravidat and three or woman of ideas makes serious money PARIS PUBLISHER friends, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel, and is able to forge ahead unbridled. Karl Skogland David Tidball The mighty IKEA corporation tried out and Simon Coencas. It is the ersatz Even Larry Gagosian’s detractors cannot The Foundation is open to scholars and art historians throughout the year and to the [email protected] BERLIN their own version of another well-worn Lascaux II that now thrills visitors to fault the cool architectural beauty of his general public, by appointment only. art joke recently. At MoMA, Arnhem, the site. majestic art emporia, the museum quality Jeremy Levison Elizabeth Crompton exhibitions he stages with free access to [email protected] MELBOURNE Netherlands (the Dutch do like this sort of thing) they installed one of their $10 Actually, the most interesting thing about the interested and his acumen as a dealer. FRANCIS BACON MB Art Foundation DEPUTY EDITOR decorative paintings and had a ‘curator’ the Lascaux drawings was proposed by I mean, what is not to like? Years of Anna McNay discuss it with visitors. Naturally, the archaeologist Marc Azéma of the parting otherwise savvy business moguls 21, Boulevard d’Italie [email protected] ‘famous Swedish artist, Ike Andrews’, University of Toulouse-Le Mirail. He from their $millions for works by living MC 98000 Monaco was much praised for his work and claims prehistoric man had a rudimentary artists has obviously given him a real SPECIAL PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION guesstimates of value ran into thousands understanding of the principle of insight into the psyche of the too-rich Tel: +377 93303033 Francis Foni Julie Milne of euros. Red faces all round then, but persistence of vision. Azéma has identified and their social insecurities. Now he has [email protected] www.mbartfoundation.com / Email : [email protected] [email protected] it is not that difficult to trick casual 53 paintings in 12 French caves, which repeated this enviable trick with a new AD EXECUTIVE PUBLISHED BY visitors to a provincial gallery on a superimpose two or more images to Upper East Side restaurant, Kappo Masa, Julie Milne State Media Ltd. weekday afternoon. apparently represent movement. Lascaux the 82-seat, windowless restaurant opened LONDON has the greatest number of these. When six months ago in Gagosian’s Madison CORRESPONDENTS [email protected] How much more fun this would have these paintings are viewed by flickering Avenue gallery basement.(1) Larry’s Clare Henry been at MoMA, New York. The IKEA firelight (as opposed to a steady candle partner is locally famous Japanese chef, Ian McKay flame) the animated effect 'achieves Masayoshi ‘Masa’ Takayama, and it is PRINTED BY team probably baulked at the risk of mass William Varley Garnett Dickinson litigation for ‘humiliation’ and ‘distress’ its full impact', he noted. This theory already the hottest of hot tickets. Despite Holly Howe Rotherham S63 5DL from those art lovers who stride around is backed up by the discovery of flying in fresh ingredients like clams and the museum giving everyone in earshot ancient engraved bone discs used as octopus daily from as far away as Japan their opinion on art and artists – but are thaumatropes, supposedly invented in and his NYC flagship, Masa, boasting 1825 by astronomer John Herschel. one Michelin star, this deluxe sushi den STATE MAGAZINE is available through selected most unlikely to have a Dutch sense of humour. However, it would have been A popular Victorian toy, thaumatropes has been universally panned by food galleries, libraries, art schools, museums and amusing to see IKEA corral a big fish (literally meaning 'miracle wheels') were critics. The main gripe is that it is so eye other art venues across the UK. collector and hear their view on ‘Ike discs or cards with a picture on each side wateringly expensive (one roll of Masa Andrews’. But of course I forgot. It has attached to a piece of string that, when Toro with caviar, $240; maki rolls, $240; Totally free, STATE is about new already been done in New York – at a rotated, tricked the eye into seeing beef tataki, $150) that The New York manoeuvres in painting and the place called Knoedler Galleries, where movement. One rare Stone Age bone Times decided: ‘the cost of eating at visual arts – combined with f22, they snagged the crème de la crème of disc, found in 1868 in the Dordogne, Kappo Masa is so brutally, illogically, a supplement on developments in hotshot collectors and sold them a few features a standing doe, while on relentlessly high, and so out of proportion the reverse the animal is lying down. to any pleasure you may get.’ One the fusion of art & photography. $10 paintings for a total of $80 million. And it was true – they did not have a Spun, the animal appears to get up socialite supporter retorted smugly: ‘It’s sense of humour about it. Not at all. and down repeatedly. a club for the 1% of the 1% and nobody It is not a review magazine – pretends it’s not.’ What it actually is is it is about PEOPLE worth serious Meanwhile, Lascaux III, a virtual tour Larry Gagosian’s incomparable skill at consideration; PLACES that Eye Fool of the entire cave at The Field Museum stroking the delicate egos of the privileged are hot and happening; and (Chicago) offers: state-of-the-art rich while simultaneously lifting the cash PROJECTS developing in the AROUND 1900, press baron Alfred computer animations, digital imaging from their wallets. And everyone is happy! international art world. Harmsworth (Lord Northcliffe) used techniques, cutting-edge laser mapping, to have a banner across his newsroom high-resolution stereoscopic photos, and Mike von Joel To apply to stock STATE Magazine, please mail stating: ‘They Are But Nine’ – referring geodesic modelling, creating incredibly EDITOR Julie Milne: [email protected] not to the number of his readers, but accurate and life-sized replicas of five panels from two locked away chambers – NOTE twitter.com/statef22 www.facebook.com/statef22 vimeo.com/statef22 to their mental age. The same might be said of the 300,000 annual visitors to the The Nave and The Shaft. So they say. And 1 www.state-media.com preeminent site of Upper Palaeolithic art, there is more. Scientists, artists and the Kappo Masa 976 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10075

Exterior view of the Foundation – MB Art Collection Copyright The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved Francis Bacon in his studio, 1977 – Photograph and www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 7 MB Art Collection copyright by Carlos Freire – MB Art Collection

{ ...... { AN ART ‘The history of art ‘Look at a thing long enough, NEWS is the history of revivals’ it loses all of its meaning’ RESTATE MONITOR { SAMUEL BUTLER { ANDY WARHOL PERISCOPE

The final room continues this quest RE AL ESTATE for identity and Cooper presents her QUOTEQUOTEUNQUOTEUNQUOTE semi-autobiographical figure in the role of the artist, the creator, the lover. The ladders and swings recur from earlier works, but new layers of meaning are added and the figure is seen to juggle, climb, and quite literally (Woman Rebuilding Herself, 1991) reconstruct her sense of self and being. Cooper’s works are justifiably often discussed for their themes and for her ‘Instagram is custom-made for the art being a woman artist, but their formal world: you get a quick flash of an image qualities, especially those of her works with virtually no text or explanation. on paper, deserve as much attention. There’s no need to read. It’s perfect for This exhibition will offer a chance people with zero attention span, zero education and zero interest in learning to redress the balance. (AMcN) Leonardo da Vinci, the Salvator Mundi about anything – perfect, in other words, for the art collectors of today.’ Eileen Cooper RA Hide and Seek: OH YES IT IS? ADAM LINDEMANN reported in Works on Paper 1977-2014 the New York Observer LEONARDO: Now accepted as an original 29 May - 23 August 2015 Leonardo da Vinci, the Salvator Mundi (an image (Wednesday - Sunday) of Christ holding a crystal orb c.1500) owned by Eileen Cooper RA Kick 2001 ROYAL ACADEMY a consortium of dealers, was sold privately in May Conte, pastel on white Japanese paper Piccadilly London W1 2013 for between $75 million and $80 million Courtesy the artist by Sotheby's. Details have been kept quiet until recently – the buyer remains anonymous. Owned LIFE by a cabal that included New York-based Robert ROYAL ACADEMY Simon and Alexander Parish, the picture was FOR EILEEN Cooper (born 1953), first first discovered at an estate sale where layers of female Keeper of the Royal Academy, over-painting caused it to be misattributed as a SENTENCE the line has always dominated her art. ‘Art dealers survive by outwitting some copy after Boltraffio, who worked in Leonardo's Drawing has never been just a preliminary of the world’s most cunning and ruthless studio. It was subsequently included in Leonardo or secondary practice. The size and scale manipulators of wealth, and they also know MEL GOODING da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan at London's how to charm the old rich, key sources of of her works on paper – some nearly 10 feet National Gallery in 2011. The painting once be- Marita Knipper Klaus Staudt, 2014 supply. Their operations tend to sail tall – reflects the significance she accords longed to England's King Charles I. (Source: Artfix) dramatically close to the wind of commercial the medium, many comprising multiple ethics and sometimes of the law.’ sheets of paper collaged together as her CONSTABLE: Bought for £3,500 in June 2013, a figures – falling, climbing, dancing, flying – DAVID SYLVESTER Reviewing study for Salisbury Cathedral has resold at auction burst out of the frame. Cooper draws from Bethlem Gallery and Museum (entrance) KLAUS STAUDT the Robert Fraser biography Groovy Bob in New York for about £3.4 million as an authentic her imagination. ‘Sometimes I will see Your youth encompassed a very traumatic period for your country. Do you John Constable. In London, Christie's had logged things happening in the process of drawing it as a copy of Constable's famous 1831 work think your affinity to the discipline and exactitude of Concrete Art is in any that I had not been able to think were BETHLEM GALLERY and valued it at just £500. The buyer realised it way a reaction to the chaos and destruction of the social infrastructure of going to happen. I will exploit them quite LAST MARCH saw the opening of a new had been painted over and was one of several Germany that overwhelmed your teenage years? Conceptual Art movements consciously then and work with them,’ £4 million gallery and museum space preparatory works Constable did before creating for your generation were synonymous with intellectual rigour and strong she says. at Bethlem Royal Hospital – the first Salisbury Cathedral From The Meadows, which was theoretical positions. The 'conceptual art' of today might be seen as a search Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney institution in the UK to specialise in the care bought by the Tate last year for £23.1 million. The for the one-trick gimmick. Do you have any opinions on this evolution? To celebrate the gift of 10 previously of the mentally ill, founded in 1247. Bethlem 18 x 24 inch painting had been in the collection unseen drawings to the Royal Academy Museum of the Mind is the of William Henry Smith (WH Smith) and hung at WHITNEY REOPENS Collection, an exhibition of 40 works on go to place for all matters relating to Hambleden Manor in the Chilterns, until the MY ART WAS not influenced by the a reaction to Abstract Expressionism. paper will be held, coinciding with the the history of mental healthcare and property was sold in 2007. Lady Hambleden, 83 two world wars. As a north German, Space, the colour white, the metric and ‘This is where the show falls apart [...] NOW IN downtown Manhattan’s meatpacking district, the Whitney Museum of American annual Summer Exhibition, showcasing treatment, including historic objects and (born Countess Maria Carmela Attolico di Adelfia) I am most certainly informed by the the serial were essential elements of too many works by similarly self-obsessed Art’s new 220,000 sqft home is located at 99 Gansevoort Street, between Washington Cooper’s experimental approach, works of art by former patients such as married William Herbert Smith (4th Viscount north German landscape. When my aesthetic ideas. The process of art world insiders are not only tedious and responding to the quality of the paper Jonathan Martin, Richard Dadd and Louis Street and the Hudson River. Scheduled to open on 1 May 2015, the building includes Hambleden) in 1955. She sold off the contents of my father came back from Russian im- construction is an intellectual one silly, they are simperingly in cahoots itself, using various different media, Wain. However, the Bethlem Gallery an education centre with dedicated space for state-of-the-art classrooms; a 170-seat the house, including the Constable painting, in the prisonment in 1953, I was influenced by his ca- and carries the certainty of achieving with the corporate market they including charcoal, pencil, pastel, conte and (originally established in 1997) offers space Christie's auction, which raised £1.17 million. reer as a doctor and, in 1954, I began studying sculptural clarity and transparency through affect to critique.’ multi-use theatre; a black box theatre for film, video, and performance with an adjacent ink. Her mark-making is at once bold and to contemporary artists and (Source: AP) medicine myself. During my time as a student, at least partly metric concepts and JACKIE WULLSCHLAGER, chief art critic outdoor gallery; and a Works on Paper study centre, Conservation Lab and Library tender as she explores what it is to be an service users. The statues of Raving and I would occasionally also attend lectures in art heir structural realisation. The way of of the Financial Times. On contemporary Reading Room. Already $743 million, which represents 98% of the $760 million project artist, a woman, a mother and a wife. Melancholy, now positioned on either CARAVAGGIO: After being told by Sotheby’s it history. In 1957, parallel to my medical studies, approaching the serial, which is still art featured in Adventures of the Black goal, has been raised for the scheme, which began on 24 May 2011. Founded by side of the art-deco staircase in the lobby, was by a follower of the artist, Lancelot William I successfully‘ completed a visiting degree relevant today, is the basis for this. It avoids Square, Whitechapel Gallery The exhibition will be arranged thematically, originally loomed above the gates of sculptor and arts patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1914 as the Whitney Studio Club Thwaytes sold The Cardsharps in 2006 for £46,000. at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, in Pro- hierarchies, the gestural, the momentary. with the first room comprising the gift, works the 17th century hospital, known then and later established as a museum in 1930, the Whitney was first housed in Greenwich The painting was bought by Mrs Orietta Adam, fessor Ernst Geitlinger’s class: From The sequence necessitates a step-by-step dating from the late ‘90s, earthy in their as Bedlam. Village. It is now the world’s leading museum of 20th century and contemporary allegedly on behalf of art collector Sir Denis Mahon. Figuration to Abstraction. In 1959, I quit approach. secondary and tertiary colours, primitive and A year later, at his 97th birthday party, Mahon my medical studies after 10 semesters American art, particularly by living artists. (Source: Whitney Museum) primal, with the unclothed figures exploring Mid-April will see glass artist Xavier declared that the painting, by now cleaned in order to study painting at the Munich The Nouvelles Tendances – as an the world around them, unashamed, childlike White take over the space with an and restored, was a Caravaggio from 1595 and ‘Kunstakademie instead. There I met up international movement – further and innocent, like Adam and Eve before artistic expression of his imaginary valued at £10 million. Italian scholar Mina Gregori once again with the likes of Gerhard von mirrored the aesthetic interest in light, the the Fall. utopia, a place known as Cohedia, and concurred. Thwaytes attempted to sue Sotheby's Graevenitz, Jan Voss and Janosch. kinetic, new materials and interaction. They NYC FOR H&W a mind map of his journey of recovery – for negligence but the auction house maintains the became a symbol of artistic revolt in a new The second room focuses on the late ‘80s at the Maudsley Hospital, also part of painting is not by the artist – and the court agrees. Particularly significant for the development of period of intellectual and aesthetic ideas A NEW gallery for Hauser & Wirth in the and early ‘90s, when Cooper’s works the South London and Maudsley NHS The original artwork was painted in 1594 and is on my art were die Neuen Tendenzen from the mid ‘50s on. West Chelsea arts district of New York centred on her new real life experience Foundation Trust (SLaM) – following a brain show in Texas. It was widely copied. (Source: BBC) (Nouvelles Tendances) coming about as continues their expansion programme. Di- of motherhood. ‘I didn’t intend to use the injury resulting from a cycling ‘Before 1800, artists pretty much only experience at all,’ she says, ‘[but] I think that accident 30 years ago. made specific art for people who paid them rected by partner and vice president Marc NOTE: In 1990 a court set a precedent for auctioneer German concrete artist Klaus Staudt was born in Ottendorf in 1932. He studied medicine they are the most straightforward pieces to do it. They were skilled craftsmen. They Payot, it will host a programme of emerg- liability (Messenger May Baverstock of Surrey). in Marburg and Munich from 1954-59 and painting at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste I have ever done.’ The representations are Xavier White Cohedia didn't starve unless the whole economy ing talents, as well as artists and estates The High Court noted: with small auction houses in Munich from 1959-1963. Staudt became a member of the international movement intimate and tender, breaking free of the 16 April -15 May went down. “Starving artist” is a modern the gallery represents. Hauser Architects. The 1946 building will be de- holding sales in village halls, it is reasonable that Nouvelles Tendances in 1963. In 1992 Staudt was given the honorary award at the dilemma that accompanies art made by burden of convention, and showing the child Wednesday – Friday, 10am - 5pm & Wirth 22nd Street will be designed molished to make way for the new gallery, they may fail to identify [such a painting]. But, if 5th International Triennial for Drawing, Wroclaw. artists, for artists.’’ as a mini-adult, and the mother in turn as a BETHLEM GALLERY, you are a Sotheby's or a Christie's with specialist by Annabelle Selldorf of Selldorf estimated to open in 2018. child, seeking to re-establish herself in her Bethlem Royal Hospital, Monks Orchard Road MICHELLE GAUGY owner, Gaugy Gallery departments, the burden to get it right is far higher. Mark Payot new role, to relearn her place in the world. Beckenham BR3

8 | STATE 17 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 9 ...... { AN ART ‘Art doesn't transform. NEWS It just plain forms’ RESTATE MONITOR { ROY LICHTENSTEIN

ART§LAW COMING...

FOLLOWING THE resignation of the highly NEW YORK: Forced back to court was ZURICH: The Swiss art business was popular Sandy Nairne, the National Portrait Leigh Morse, the former gallery director stunned by the arrest of ‘a prominent dealer’s Gallery has announced Dr Nicholas Cullinan at Salander-O'Reilly Gallery. Accused of son’ for the killing of a 23-year-old man at a as its new director. Cullinan is British and returning $60,000, a mere 4% of what she villa in the village of Küsnacht. Officers found grew up in Yorkshire, although he was born owes defrauded clients, by prosecutors. the victim with severe head injuries on the in Connecticut, USA, in 1977. Formerly In 2011, Manhattan criminal court found morning of 30 December 2014. Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Morse guilty of selling more than 80 works of the Met, New York, Dr Cullinan was educated art from four estates for approximately $5 The 29-year-old son of the homeowners at the Courtauld where he was awarded million without informing the owners. Morse has ‘basically admitted’ to killing the man, First Class Honours for his BA in History of has resisted the DA's request to sell according to the local prosecutor, Alexander Art, a distinction for his MA, and where he also residences she owns on the Upper West Side Knauss. ‘No motive has been established gained his PhD. and in Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania. She also though the two men were friends.’ Despite owns art, which Judge Michael Obus said the local Swiss press being coy about (Source: NPG) she's used as collateral for loans. Morse, who revealing the identity of those involved in the says she did not expect the gallery to file for tragedy, art world rumours allege the young Directors of the bankruptcy in 2007, narrowly escaped a man is Bennet Vertes (aka Bennett von National Portrait Gallery sentence of one to three years in prison. Vertes) – son of Laszlo von Vertes, for over 1857 | Sir George Scharf Lawrence Salander is currently serving a six 30 years a top dealer in Impressionism, 1895 | Sir Lionel Cust to 18 year jail term for an art scam that netted Fauvism, German Expressionism, Surrealism, 1909 | Sir Charles John Holmes more than $100 million from Robert De Niro, the École de Paris and Pop Art at Galerie von 1917 | James Milner tennis legend John McEnroe, Bank of America Vertes. Both father and son's galleries are 1927 | Sir Henry Hake Corp, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the located on the prominent Bahnhofstraße in 1951 | Charles Kingsley Adams estate of Stuart Davis, and many others. Zürich's city centre. 1964 | Sir David Piper He was ordered to pay $120 million Degas' La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze 1967 | Sir Roy Strong in restitution. Bennet Vertes, at Vertes Modern, specialises 1974 | John Hayes (Source: NY Daily News) in Pop and Street Art on both the primary Amazingly, he fled the San Francisco 1994 | Charles Saumarez Smith and secondary market, selling works by Federal Building on 3 February 2015 during 2002 | Sandy Nairne artists such as Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst a scheduled meeting with his attorney and § 2015 | Nicholas Cullinan and John Chamberlain. (Source: 20 Minuten) is now on the run. The Degas Sculpture Project and Modernism Fine Arts filed a lawsuit against Long, claiming she is GOING... responsible for the missing Degas – accused THE DETROIT Institute of Arts (DIA) SAN FRANCISCO:A SHIPMENT of five crates of not performing ‘due diligence’ with the announced director Graham WJ Beal will re- with $11 million worth of art was delivery of the artworks to her client. They tire as of 30 June 2015, after nearly 16 years. delivered to supposed art collector Luke seeking $2 million in damages. The highly anticipated Brugnara, a convicted felon, in San Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit, which opened on 15 March, Francisco in spring 2014. When art dealer is his final pitch. ‘It has been 10 years since I Rose Ramey Long went to check on the MEANWHILE Insurer Lloyd's of London conceived of the idea for this exhibition and I delivery, she found it empty. Four crates says it won’t pay up for the $3 million Degas draw no small pleasure that it will mark my were later retrieved with works by Willem ballerina sculpture because it ‘results from exit as director,’ Beal has said. The out-going de Kooning and Picasso etchings. The fifth theft or dishonesty by a person to whom the director presided over the historic and crate with Degas' La Petite Danseuse de insured property was entrusted, accordingly, unprecedented grand bargain initiative, Quatorze Ans remains missing. Convicted the claim falls within exclusion of the policy.’ which secured the DIA’s widely acclaimed art in 2010 of tax evasion and trout poaching, (Source: NY Daily News) collection while facilitating resolution of the Leigh Morse Brugnara was arrested in May 2014. Detroit bankruptcy. (Source: ArtfixDaily)

NEW BRIXTON PROJECT JACK FLASH POP BRIXTON, a community-led project, A PRIVATE collection of 12 works by the which The Collective (lifestyle solutions for self-taught Scottish artist Jack Vettriano young professionals) is delivering with Carl raised a total of £837,900 at an auction Turner at Carl Turner Architects, will be a in Edinburgh (estimated £800,000 to ‘mini city’ made up of 20ft and 40ft £1.2m.) The best price achieved was for up-cycled shipping containers redefined Waltzers, which made £236,500. Other as a vibrant hub for enterprise, culture, highlights included The Road to Nowhere, learning and growing. Located at 53 Brixton £218,500, and The Missing Man II, sold for Station Road, POP Brixton, a campus of £112,900 at Bonhams. Consigned by an Ron Henocq the converted units, will form a perimeter anonymous collector, the works offered a around a semi-public area to provide cross-section of Vettriano themes from 1992 GONE... studio, workshop and retail space at to the latest picture, dated 2004. Vettriano THE CAFE Gallery In The Park (CGP) affordable prices. (b.1951) did not take up painting full-time founding director, Ron Henocq, steps www.popbrixton.org. until the age of 40. down in April after a 30-year tenure. In 1989, two canvases submitted to the Judith Carlton has been appointed new Artist Jack Vettriano Scottish Royal Academy sold on the first director and joins after four years as THE PAST IS ORANGE day. His famous The Singing Butler sold for assistant director at Matt’s Gallery. A PROGRAMMER has created software that being the most popular. It also indicates a clear £744,000 in 2004 and is still one extracts the relevant colour information trend for more blue paintings towards the end of of the best-selling posters in Britain. Originally a derelict cafe in Southwark Park from images or artworks found in online the 20th century. A PhD student in psychology at Vettriano was made an OBE in 2003. More but now a vibrant contemporary resources like BBC, Google Art Project, the Karolinska Institute, Bellander commented: than 123,000 visited his retrospective at art space, the Cafe Gallery was rebuilt in Wikiart, Wikimedia and various museums. 'The marked increase of blue at the time of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in 2000 to create a fully accessible ‘white Martin Bellander’s analysis reveals the First World War might actually reflect a true Glasgow in 2013 – the most visited art cube’ space. CGP London is an Arts Council dominant colours in 94,526 artworks from trend in colour use.' exhibition at the institution. England National Portfolio Organisation and 1800 to 2000 with orange, then yellow, (Source: AP) (Source: BBC) financially assisted by Southwark Council.

www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 11 CAPTURED BY DAFYDD JONES ISPY [email protected] ...... AWARDS DON’T MISS

ZARA KHAN DEVON McCORMACK Blain|Southern Rebecca Pelly-Fry CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS A WELCOME support for skills in painting and drawing. The Griffin Open calls for BODIL BLAIN KATY WICKREMESINGHE ALI BANISADR Blain|Southern Blain|Southern submissions. Prizes worth a total of £12,000 and inclusion in exhibition. Selected by artist Ian Davenport, Saatchi Gallery CEO Nigel Hurst and Griffin Gallery director Becca Pelly-Fry. Shortlisted artists will be on display at the Griffin Gallery from 22 July (private view and judging) until 21 August.

Richard Wilson RA Deadline for applications: 25 May 2015 www.griffingallery.co.uk/open SHOCK WINNERS Colin Crisford Hughie O’Donoghue, studio study 2014 NOW IN its third and final year, this award three-month residency in a studio in encourages surprising site-specific Kensington, which will culminate in a SIR NICHOLAS SEROTA ANISH KAPOOR AMBER LE BON interventions in non-traditional spaces. four-day pop-up show. Subterranean: MARLBOROUGH FINE ART Lisson Gallery MICHAEL HOROWITZ Lisson Gallery Serpentine Sackler Gallery Richard Wilson RA announced the three Lynn Dennison; Ambulatory: NEW WORKS by Hughie O’Donoghue RA are concerned with the ways he understands place, winners of Sculpture Shock 2015, each William Mackrell; Historic: Hanna Haaslahti. nature and memory rooted in the raw and elemental countryside of County Mayo – both sides of whom will receive £3,000 and a (Source: Royal British Society of Sculptors) of his family having emigrated from Ireland during the early 20th century. These paintings are a ‘form of emotional archaeology, an unpeeling of memory and ABSOLUT FINALISTS experience to uncover something that has left an indelible mark,’ for the artist. They reveal the blurring of fact and fiction, the natural and the artificial elements of THE WINNING artist and writer of the 2015 Absolut Art Award will be announced in May place. O’Donoghue deserves to be more visible than he has been of late. Take this Lucy Moore during the vernissage of the 56th Venice Biennale. A ceremony will take place in September opportunity to reacquaint yourself with a mid-generation artist of merit. The catalogue in Stockholm, Sweden. The finalists have been announced: Art Work: Trisha Donnelly, USA; Camille has an essay by the poet and author John McAuliffe. ART BOOK FAIR 2 Henrot, France; Ragnar Kjartansson, Iceland; Minouk Lim, South Korea; Frances Stark, USA. Art Writ- DATES CONFIRMED for the second edition of ing: Julia Bryan-Wilson, USA; Mark Godfrey, UK; Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, USA; Helen Molesworth, Hughie O’Donoghue Permanent Green Room&Book Art Book Fair. Leading dealers USA; Dieter Roelstraete, Belgium. The prize money will be: Artist: cash €20,000, plus a budget of 22 April - 9 June 2015 from the UK, USA, Europe and Japan offer €100,000 to produce and exhibit a new art work. Writer: Cash €20,000, plus MARLBOROUGH FINE ART. 6 Albemarle Street, London W1 out-of-print and new publications on art, a budget of €25,000 for research and production of a new art publication. ELLIOT McDONALD LYDIA LEONARD HANNAH PERRY South London Gallery Serpentine Sackler Gallery photography, fashion, counterculture and design. Each dealer presents iconic publications from the past 40 years for sale. Charlotte Skene THE DARK SIDE OF LOVE Valentine's Masked Ball Catling and Molteni & C Dada will combine to create a new environment away from the DON’T MISS conventionally dull model of a ‘books on table’ fair. Directed by Lucy Moore and in association with Claire de Rouen Books.

Friday 22 - Sunday 24 May 2015 (11am - 6pm) ICA Nash & Brandon Rooms. The Mall. London SW1Y 5AH

SCULPTURE MILA ASKAROVA JAMILA ASKAROVA AT STRAWBERRY HILL Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon A NEW initiative. Stephen Feeke, of the New Art THE SECOND instalment of the Saatchi's outstanding ANTONY GORMLEY HARLAND MILLER IWONA BLAZWICK Centre, Roche Court, will curate the first and provocative museum quality survey which reunites KATE DRIVER South London Gallery LORCAN O'NEILL RACHEL WHITEREAD exhibition of contemporary art in the grounds two great continents once conjoined as the prehistoric land- Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon and house. Laura Ford will present a series mass known as Pangaea. Using traditional and of new bronze sculptures called Days of contemporary techniques and materials, 19 emerging artists Judgement for which her starting point was JEAN-FRANÇOIS BOCLÉ Everything Must Go 2014 Dawit Abebe Background 8 2014 (Detail) manipulate sculpture, painting,Derek installation Fordjour: andNo.92 2014 (Detail) Masaccio’s fresco The Expulsion from the Courtesy of the Saatchi Gallery, London Acrylic and collage on canvas Courtesy Kristin Hjellegjerde photography to explore the socio-politicalMixed media on wood issues Courtesy facing Jack Bell theirGallery Garden of Eden (c.1425). Ford’s work is homelands during this current period of uncontrolled urban particularly well suited to the history and and economic growth. atmosphere of Strawberry Hill, its Gothic SAATCHI GALLERY KRISTIN HJELLEGJERDE GALLERY JACK BELL GALLERY architecture and the sensibilities of its creator, Pangaea II: New Art From Africa and Latin America Horace Walpole. She studied at Bath Academy of THE SECOND instalment of the Saatchi's outstanding ETHIOPIAN ARTIST Dawit Abebe confronts 11the March relationship - 6 September 2015THERE IS A constant and impressive programme of Art from 1978-82, including a term at the Cooper and provocative museum quality survey which reunites between history and technology through mixedSAATCHI media GALLERY Duke ofinnovation York’s HQ atKing's the JackRoad Bell Gallery and this move away from SUZETTE FIELD Union School of Art, New York. She was included two great continents once conjoined as the prehistoric and acrylic paintings. Issues of privacy, alienationChelsea and London SW3 his base line of African art to a UK first showing of New Valentine's Masked Ball in New Contemporaries in 1983 before attending landmass known as Pangaea. Using traditional and materiality – and the impact these technologies have York based Derek Fordjour is no exception. It is a series of Chelsea School of Art. In 2005, she represented contemporary techniques and materials, 19 emerging on the environment and human behaviour. In rural portraits using layers of oil, acrylic, newspaper and fabric on Wales in the Venice Biennale. Stephen Feeke artists manipulate sculpture, painting, installation and communities like Ethiopia, Madagascar or Kenya, advances wood. Sourcing American popular culture and iconography, runs the programme at Roche Court and has also photography to explore the socio-political issues facing in technology have impacted on local heritage and culture. Fordjour explores his own issues with gender, race and curated exhibitions at Chatsworth with their homelands during this current period of uncontrolled He says: ‘We have 3,000 years of history here in Ethiopia, class through the language of sports imagery and motifs. MICHAEL ARMITAGE JERMAINE JENAS MAGDALENA GABRIEL Sir Anthony Caro and at Waddesdon Manor with urban and economic growth. passed down both through written and oral tradition, Fordjour was born in Memphis in 1974 and studied at the South London Gallery DEXTER BLACKSTOCK South London Gallery Edmund de Waal. He was formerly a curator at and the older generation know more than us. Technology has Pratt Institute and the Art Student’s League in New York City. the Henry Moore Institute. disrupted this process – now historical fact is an Contemporary portraits with a kick. Ali Banisadr At Once private view, Blain|Southern. Hanover Sq. London • Anish Kapoor & Lee Ufan preview ever-changing entity rather than a fixed truth.’ dinner hosted by Lisson Gallery. The Connaught. London • Future Contemporaries Party. Serpentine Sackler Laura Ford at Strawberry Hill Gallery. Kensington Gdns. London • Paddle8 Auction to raise funds for the gallery’s Young Arts Project. 20 June - 6 November 2015 Pangaea II: New Art From Africa and Latin America Dawit Abebe Background 2 Derek Fordjour: Meritocracy South London Gallery, Peckham Rd. London SE5 • The Dark Side of Love, Valentine's Masked Ball. STRAWBERRY HILL HOUSE, 268 Waldegrave 11 March - 6 September 2015 26 March - 2 May 2015 8 April - 1 May 2015 CAMILLA RUTHERFORD The Coronet Theatre, Elephant and Castle. London • Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon 2015 gala dinner Road, Twickenham TW1 4ST SAATCHI GALLERY KRISTIN HJELLEGJERDE JACK BELL GALLERY supported by the Swarovski Foundation. The Banking Hall, Cornhill. London South London Gallery www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk Duke of York’s HQ King's Road, Chelsea. London SW3 533 Old York Road, London SW18 13 Mason's Yard, St. James's, London SW1

13 | STATE 17 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 13 PEOPLE NATHANIEL RACKOWE

Ed Sykes Nathaniel Rackowe 2015 Installation Lawrie Shabibi Gallery, Dubai, 2015 Platonic Spin Lumière Festival of Light, Durham 2013 TRAVELLING Image courtesy: Nathaniel Rackowe Image courtesy: Nathaniel Rackowe ORN IN Cambridge and well – the light is very significant in that ‘They wanted something that looked GOING SOLO… ‘I had a major solo schooled in Essex, with city. Particularly in the winter when you amazing and they didn’t have any other ‘With anything that uses technology, exhibition at Bodson Gallery in Brussels a BA in Fine Art from don’t have that many hours of daylight and criteria than that. Their space is beautiful which brought together work spanning Sheffield Hallam, the transition between day and night is – it was refurbished by the architect John even in its basic form, you have to the last eight years and two brand new Nathaniel Rackowe took very slow. For this project I had the Pawson – so their shop already looked like large-scale pieces. I was in a group show his MFA in Sculpture at opportunity to make a public sculpture a gallery or museum space. I went away consider conservation.’ presented by UnSpaced in Bordeaux and the Slade. His graduate outside the institution using scaffolding and did a few proposals, including a mad, { } I then did a temporary commission in show was seen by British LIGHT and scaffolding netting. The institution crazy, incredible piece that I truly wanted Le Village Royale, off Rue Royale, in architect Will Alsop TEXT HOLLY HOWE | PORTRAIT ED SYKES itself was being massively refurbished so to make but I knew they wouldn’t go for. this as being too much of a problem JR did it with the New York City Ballet, central Paris. That was a garden shed OBE, who gave him a I guess in a way the choice of materials But they decided that they wanted the with his work. now Rackowe is doing it with Angela inverted, expanded, filled with light, short-lived, part-time job. He then joined ARTISTS HE ADMIRES… ‘Obviously piece for the Lumière Festival in for the work was a reflection of this idea – really crazy piece and had a production Woodhouse. Art and dance have long been painted with black bitumen on the Bthe Bischoff/Weiss gallery, which exhibited Richard Serra, once I discovered him. Durham in 2013. He also has a construction and renewal. The big black budget that could make it happen. It ‘Most of the parts that I use are quite entwined – Picasso was designing sets for outside, with a kind of yellow-green his work at the Scope Art Fair in Miami Dan Flavin, and Donald Judd as well. I sculpture entitled Spin in Lima, Peru – cube hovering in the air outside was was my biggest ever work. Black Beacon standardised and I know they’re the Ballets Russes back in 1917. Rackowe light spilling out from the inside – I (2004) – and the rest is history. feel that they had an incredibly seductive one of the first contemporary sculptures also filled with sequenced light, visible at was 20-metres long, suspended from the standardised for today. With anything that is currently working on (Un)Touched, loved that project. I had an exhibition at visual vocabulary and that has very much to be installed in the capital in recent night-time.’ ceiling – it dominated the entire shop. uses technology, even in its basic form, you which will premiere in London. an artist-run project space in Arles and Rackowe’s large sculptures feature influenced my work. Going back even years. He explains the process for Black The whole thing was tilted down so when have to consider conservation. There was created an installation in the basement recurring materials – scaffolding poles, further in history, Vladimir Tatlin, the Cube, which was installed in Copenhagen ART FAIRS… ‘It’s a tricky one because I you walked past the main window on an issue with the piece I did for MoCA – ‘I was interested in the idea that maybe space – a kinetic piece that was originally concrete, wood and fluorescent lights – Russian constructivist, is also an important during the winter of 2013 and remained don’t feel my work is best experienced at Madison Avenue you could actually look for the Artificial Light exhibition – that the work itself could almost dictate a made in 2004.’ but he does not like to be classified as a influence. I also really admire the on show for four months: an art fair. I would prefer people to come inside the whole sculpture’s length and see used these big 1,000 watt incandescent choreography. When I first spoke to ‘light artist’. He explains: ‘I think that light Portuguese artist Pedro Cabrita Reis. He’s to an exhibition as that would be the most this light bulb travelling back and forth. light bulbs that got banned by the EU. Angela, it just seemed to make so Rackowe kicked off 2015 with Radiant is definitely important in my palate of not that well known in this country – he ‘Public sculpture has huge challenges, pure experience of the work. However, From 60th Street you could see it from the I had about 30 of them in my studio – much sense to actually work with a Trajectories, a solo show at Lawrie materials but I don’t define myself by the had a show at the Camden Arts Centre a they’re just complicated things to art fairs give you amazing exposure so side, tilted up with all black tiled panels stockpiled! I think there are a lot of artists choreographer and include performers or Shabibi Gallery in Dubai. He has two use of light, I don’t necessarily give it few years ago and, more recently, he had undertake, but it’s the potential to I take them seriously and I try to make and strong lime green interior. It was there that probably don’t give a crap about dancers. Angela’s work is often concerned projects in Denmark: Sculpture by the greater importance than other materials I a small room at the Tate. create large-scale ambitious works with a work that can exist at its best in those for about two months.’ what’s going to happen decades down the with the idea of touch, closeness and Sea in Aarhus, one of Europe's largest use, like steel or cement or timber or glass.’ good budget – I love working that way. conditions.’ line but I do think about what kind of separation and that seemed to tie in with temporary outdoor sculpture exhibitions The piece I did in Copenhagen was for CONSERVATION… As demonstrated maintenance this work will need to my work. I’m not always crazy about (June-July 2015); and a solo show at STATE met with Rackowe to discuss art, PUBLIC SCULPTURE… Rackowe has a project called FRI:rum which was COMMERCIAL… In 2011, Rackowe by Dan Flavin’s work, all kinds of issues continue functioning.’ collaboration because I think I’m a bit of Etage Projects in Copenhagen (September inspiration, collaboration and what he has created a number of temporary outdoor undertaken at the Den Frie Centre of was approached by Calvin Klein to create can arise when modern technology goes a control freak, but there was something 2015). Any attempt to search for a been doing since Bischoff/Weiss closed sculptures, from installations in the Forest Contemporary Art. I did a residency in a ‘holiday window’ for a store on Madison out of date and light bulbs become COLLABORATIONS… Antony about how it was working with Angela, London gallery and dealer seems in 2014. of Dean, Gloucestershire, to a large light Copenhagen, got to know the city quite and 60th Street in New York. irreplaceable. Rackowe doesn’t foresee Gormley did it with Hofesh Shechter, we’re really very well balanced.’ somewhat irrelevant now.

14 | STATE 17 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 15 ROBERT FRASER & BRIAN CLARKE

Robert Fraser, 1983

BEING THERE The spirit of Robert Fraser was conjured up in a stellar tribute show at Pace Gallery London

TEXT MIKE VON JOEL | IMAGES COURTESY PACE GALLERY

VERY GENERATION in wills. There are numerous reports of his each of the three key centres being threatened with physical violence of modern art – Paris, over debts. In time, his artists got New York and London – progressively more vociferous on the has produced dealers who subject. Fraser also had a more guarded, seemed to effortlessly alternative lifestyle – as a risk taking connect with the zeitgeist. homosexual with an ever increasing Occasionally they have been dependence on heroin, later alcohol. appreciated and applauded He kept this darker netherworld away for their vision, at other from the majority of his artists and times it has required the reverse lens of acquaintances, maintaining only a few Ehistory to see and understand the vital role truly close friendships whilst neatly they played in the evolution of the art of compartmentalising them all. Some of their time. Post-war, it was the Americans his friends never even met each other. who dominated the first wave of contemporary galleries, perhaps personified As ‘Groovy Bob’ (©Terry Southern) Fraser by Leo Castelli, who opened on East 77th orbited the '60’s jet set – The Beatles and Street, New York, in 1957. Captured later Rolling Stones milieu; sponsoring Yoko in an iconic Robert Mapplethorpe portrait, Ono at the Indica gallery where she Castelli became as famous as his artists – first met John Lennon; allegedly re-art and sometimes more readily recognised. directing the Sgt. Pepper’s album cover by The American influence – and the suggesting his own artists Peter Blake and dynamic of American art – spread to Installation view A Strong Sweet Smell of Incense… Pace Gallery (Burlington Gardens), London W1 Jann Haworth; and being immortalised London in the early ‘60s where a small by Richard Hamilton in Swingeing number of dealers turned their backs on London 67, a painting depicting Fraser the market dominance of Paris to embrace ‘To the myriad of working class and Mick Jagger handcuffed together in this new energy. Britain had been cowed connection with the notorious Mars Bar by post-war austerity right through the artists who made it big in the ‘60s, Fraser drugs trial. Fraser got six months in ‘50s and young people across the social Wormwood Scrubs after pleading guilty spectrum were ready for radical change. was a toff from that rarefied parallel to heroin offences. Another curious brush world epitomised by Eton.’ with the police had occurred in 1966 at In London, three young dealers quickly { } a Jim Dine works-on-paper exhibition. engaged with the new trans-Atlantic Allegedly pornographic drawings were romance. John Kasmin opened in 1963 to by Pace Gallery (London) in an To the myriad of working class artists seized and Fraser prosecuted under the champion American colour field painting outstanding evocation of the Duke Street who made it big in the ‘60s, Fraser was arcane Vagrancy Act: the gallery was fined (and, paradoxically, David Hockney); gallery (1962-69) and his re-entry to a toff from that rarefied parallel world 20 guineas and ordered to pay 20 guineas James Mayor, heir to the famous Mayor the art world in Cork Street (1982-85). epitomised by Eton. The Jaggers and in costs. Gallery, had gone to imbibe New York The exhibition was conceived by Lennons of this irreverent new society (he would return to revitalise the gallery Pace’s visionary director, Mollie Dent- were as much enraptured by these scions When Fraser left prison he rapidly lost programme with American artists); and, in Brocklehurst, who persuaded the mercurial of privilege as the old monied class was by interest in the gallery business – kept Mayfair, the unlikely figure of an effete old artist Brian Clarke to curate the show, and them. In fact, Fraser was very much an open meantime by the unswervingly loyal Etonian opened a gallery devoted to what with archival research by Harriet Vyner. arriviste. His father Lionel was a self-made Susan Loppert – and it closed in 1969. would now be called ‘cutting edge’ art. man (finance) whose own father had It had played host to, among others, Fraser’s second gallery had closed over famously been butler to Gordon Selfridge. Hamilton, Riley, Caulfield, Blake, You might have expected to find Robert 30 years ago and his legacy diminished. Even close friends noted a certain Paolozzi, Dine, Oldenburg, Ruscha, Fraser idling in some Old Master gallery But the power of one of the world’s formality about Robert that he used as Dubuffet, Lartigue, Henri Michaux, in St. James’s, or propping up a desk at leading galleries, harnessed to Clarke’s part of his schtick, and he was renowned Dennis Hopper, Magritte, Balthus, Christie’s. Quite how he came to operate genuine affection for a friend and mentor, for his ever dapper appearance. Hans Bellmer, John Lennon & Yoko one of that decade’s most exciting, resulted in a once-only opportunity to Ono, and put on the truly ground- controversial and seminal art galleries is appreciate the breadth of Fraser’s activities, Even as a school boy, Robert Fraser had a breaking exhibition Los Angeles Now still contentious – despite the mass of his quixotic nature and particular sensibility deep-rooted psychological problem with (January 1966). Gilbert & George had documentary material and personal for art and artists. And the delicious irony money, not only keeping it, but handing it their first shows at 69 Duke Street. Fraser reminiscences still available. The peculiar that Fraser was readily revealed as very over. The paying of a bill – no matter who duly left for a seven year sojourn in India. genius of Fraser was recreated recently much a dealer for today. was owed the money – became a battle of It was the end of an era.

16 | STATE 01 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 17 SETTING THE PACE ROBERT FRASER

Robert Fraser outside 21 Cork Street. 1983 Richard Hamilton Swingeing London 67 1967 Courtesy Pace Gallery

Culture Moscow) in 2008, MD-B joined as international director and programme co-ordinator. The CCCM has reputedly the same floor space as Tate Modern – Turbine Hall and galleries. And when Larry Gagosian’s great commercial rival, Pace Gallery, decided on a London venue, Arne and Marc Glimcher provocatively head-hunted MD-B as programme director (official title: President). As a mother of two young children, she Original Duke Street office recreated A Strong Sweet Smell of Incense... Pace Gallery (Burlington Gardens), London W1 has noted that commuting back and forth to Moscow was more than a Brian Clarke met Robert Fraser for a seemed like old times. But those little onerous, and she does not speak second time via pop impresario, Malcolm ‘When Fraser reopened in 1982, it was for Brian times had changed and despite the Russian. However, MD-B will continue McLaren. Clarke was working through overwhelmingly positive press, percipient to act as advisor to Zhukova. a sybaritic period in his life back then – Clarke’s exhibition of paintings, with a star- exhibitions (Basquiat, Haring) and ‘I behaved like a piece of s**t’, he financial and moral support from Clarke, Portrait: Dafydd Jones Art: Tony Cohen confessed later. A meteoric and rewarding studded party that spilled out on to the street.’ Fraser’s methodology too was of the past. Vivacious and engaging, MD-B now career had seen Clarke – painter, designer, { } His health and alcohol intake, obsessive controls one of the world’s most architectural artist – become recognised as private life, and unreformed financial MOLLIE D-B influential gallery satellites in the one of the UK’s most promising creators two hit it off immediately. For Clarke, the Fraser Gallery reinstated – this time in promiscuity signalled approaching acknowledged art capital of Europe. of stained glass works. In later years he former dealer embodied a legend from a Cork Street, then the very apex of the disaster. When Fraser was diagnosed with WHEN SOME casual observers ‘I looked at our artists in New York and would become Britain’s pre-eminent golden time he had been too young to London art scene. AIDS in 1984 it arrived. He died at home heard that an annual programme of Beijing and thought about what might exponent, fulfilling high profile contracts experience; for Fraser, Clarke must have in 1986. contemporary art was being staged in work here, the myriad of cross wires across the world. In 1981, he was a represented the ‘now’ factor – with a pzazz When Fraser reopened in 1982, it was for the grounds of the historic 15th century that exist in the art world, and thought happily profligate and sociably glamorous that was missing from his current life in Brian Clarke’s exhibition of paintings, with Brian Clarke is fiercely loyal to his friends Sudeley Castle, organised by part-owner about what might be suitable for the character, living in Sir William Russell the hinterland of contemporary art. And a star-studded party that spilled out on to and he devoted much energy and focus to and socialite Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, space and for London – and for the Flint’s old studio in Kensington. The Clarke was to be the catalyst to get the the street. At that moment it must have creating this outstanding tribute to Fraser, it was assumed to be yet another collectors we have here. It’s a mix up of Groovy Bob in action at 69 Duke Street. Late 1960s dilettanti exercise. The sceptics could a totally independent programme and a capricious old Etonian dealer. Any future drug dealing which – ironically – probably saved a friend of Cynthia, his mother, as someone not have been more ill informed. Far replica of our overall direction. We are HARRIET VYNER investigation into Fraser will, perforce, have her life. On release, she stabilised her life and famous. I remember his brother, Nicholas, from being an enthusiastic amateur, very interested in working with British to draw heavily on Vyner’s original texts. became a writer, her first book – published by was incredibly helpful. The research took using artworks from the original Duke the stars once aligned. The expansive MD-B is a highly regarded and artists. We do want to be seen as a HARRIET VYNER’S 1999 cult Faber & Faber – drawing on her friendship with forever – four years at least. It ate up all Street exhibition programme and a Pace Gallery installation also did full accomplished art world organiser London gallery and are currently in biographical study of Robert Harriet Vyner herself was perfectly positioned Fraser and the many hours spent in the Pollo, the advance.’ mountain of ephemera to conjure up justice to the wealth of material, as did (the word curator is not big enough) discussion with the John Hoyland Fraser was not liked by to document the legend of Robert Fraser on Toucan Club or Chez Victor. the essence of the ‘60s legend. It was the outstanding, large format hardback with a grounding at Sotheby’s and estate,’ she says enthusiastically. everybody. The art critic both a personal and professional level. As a The Pace exhibition evoked many memories co-curated by Harriet Vyner, whose book catalogue that accompanied the show. an incredible 10 years with Gagosian David Sylvester bridled at great-granddaughter of the Duke of Richmond ‘I actually met Robert later through his god- for Vyner, her book was published 25 years Groovy Bob (Faber, 1999) represents the A truly historic event. Gallery, first in New York and then ‘I run the business and I have the the stylistic approach Vyner and brought up at Fountains Abbey as a young daughter, my friend Sophia Stewart. The more ago after all, but it had launched her on definitive profile of the man for whom at the new London facility. A 2013 responsibility to make it a success. had adopted, what he called child – her mother was a former Vogue model I saw him, the more I liked him, but I did not a career path. ‘It was Mollie’s idea for the an ‘oral history’ in his review of Groovy Bob, – Vyner arrived in London with a trust fund know about his past immediately. He was great show and Brian asked me to help with the highlight of the Sudeley Castle I have the directive to do whatever – programme was an acclaimed, as long as it makes financial sense for without realising, no doubt, the comedic and entrée to the artistic and bohemian elite friends with James Mayor, they were very catalogue. And I did the [archive] vitrine. A Strong Sweet Smell of Incense: Patrick Caulfield, John Chamberlain, Brian double entendre. Fraser’s life was anything but personified by Fraser. At 18, she briefly became similar, except... they were like the Yin and I might well do something else with monumental outdoor Alexander Calder Pace.’ With a project space in Lexington Clarke, Jim Dine, Jean Dubuffet, John Dunbar, linear, it existed in separate compartments on Lucian Freud’s girlfriend and model (he was Yang of one person. I was a bit messed up Pace Gallery in the future. It has been A Portrait of Robert Fraser show. Her former husband, filmmaker Street, Pace opened its flagship gallery Liz Finch, Richard Hamilton, Keith Haring, many concealed levels. Vyner’s technique of almost 50): ‘I met him at the Zanzibar club myself at the time he opened in Cork Street. mentioned...’ PACE GALLERY (Burlington Gardens), Duncan Ward, had directed Danny at Burlington Gardens in October 2012 Jann Haworth, Dennis Hopper, Mark Innerst, bringing the essence of the man out through with Craigie Aitchison,’ she recalls, ‘but Lucian Later, after prison, I was pretty flat and London W1 Moynihan’s cult art world insider with a scintillating juxtaposition of Groovy Bob Harriet Vyner Alain Jacquet, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert the words of his friends, acquaintances and did not socialise much at all – it was not my hopeless – and Robert had died. In fact, it was 6 February – 1 April 2015 comedy Boogie-Woogie – with the able Mark Rothko's late black and grey Faber & Faber 320pp Mapplethorpe, Claes Oldenburg, Eduardo business colleagues was the perfect solution. introduction to the art world by any means.’ Brian [Clarke] who pushed me into doing the ISBN-13: 978-0571205752 assistance of his wife. paintings with Hiroshi Sugimoto's She did her best to assemble these expansive book. I first thought it would be a conventional Featured: Kenneth Anger, Francis Bacon, Paolozzi, AWN Pugin, Jamie Reid, Gerhard A Portrait of Robert Fraser photographs of water and horizons. This reminiscences and eyewitness reports into By 23, Vyner was enthralled to heroin. The biography and interviewed lots of people, David Bailey, Clive Barker, Jean-Michel Richter, Larry Rivers, Georges Rouault, Brian Clarke & Harriet Vyner When Dasha Zhukova launched the established a benchmark that has been some sort of chronological order and the result sequel has been well reported: a 30-month some of whom did not want to talk about him. Basquiat, Larry Bell, Peter Blake, Ed Ruscha, Colin Self, Tony Shafrazi, Hb. 264pp. 100+ col illus. ‘Garage’ (Centre for Contemporary met in every exhibition since. is a definitive statement about the elusive and sentence in Holloway (paroled after 10) for I was quite shy and just as nervous talking to ISBN-13: 9781909406162 Derek Boshier, Edward Burne-Jones, Cy Twombly, Mies van der Rohe, Andy Warhol

18 | STATE 17 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 19 SETTING THE PACE BRIAN CLARKE

Ti Foster Brian Clarke with skull series, 2007

BEING HERE A collaborative project that also offered a rare UK opportunity to see past and present paintings by Brian Clarke

TEXT MIKE VON JOEL | IMAGES COURTESY PACE GALLERY

HE MOST surprising Oldham Spindles Shopping Mall project thing about the creative he completed early in his career. polymath, Brian Clarke, is how little his name is ‘In those days, stained glass was more or known outside the inner less a dead medium. Commissions were art world. Now turned 60, mostly a single memorial window or a Clarke’s career has been baptistery. I forced a new aesthetic on to an impressive trajectory my reluctant but understanding patrons. of continuous achievement I then got the opportunity pretty early on and certainly deserving of more wider to do an entire suite of windows. After Trecognition – achieved later and so that there was no turning back. You don’t quickly by many of the YBAs. Recent just add an earring – you become part press coverage of the 50th anniversary of Brian Clarke at the time of his show at of the whole fabric and experience of The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Robert Fraser Gallery, Cork Street. 1982 the building. Recently, after 30 years, showed Clarke handing his own design of I feel very drawn to ancient ecclesiastical a commemorative medallion to the Queen rather more extremely than most because architecture. It is often sublime – and at Buckingham Palace, provoking not a I made a little bit of money and I could I now want to work once again with few readers to ask: who is Brian Clarke? afford to do things that had previously great architecture.’ In fact, Clarke (now a trustee) was awarded been impossible for me,’ he said in one a WCMT Travelling Fellowship to study candid interview. But what defined Clarke Clarke’s first real break was being art and architecture in Rome, Paris and – as opposed to many others who would commissioned by the giant Olympus Germany back in 1974. inevitably crash and burn – was his corporation to provide paintings and enviable work ethic: away from the stained glass for their Hamburg HQ Clarke rose to prominence in London’s limelight he was hard at it in his painting (1981). He had met Robert Fraser earlier elite art scene towards the end of the ‘70s. studio and pursuing what amounted to but this event marked what would become A whole wave of young writers, journalists, a one man British renaissance of the art an enduring friendship and collaboration: musicians, models and media brokers led of stained glass. ‘I'd just finished this big project in the charge to cast off a nihilist punk era Hamburg, five very big modular paintings and greet the economic boom of the ‘80s. Being a son of Oldham is a source of pride and five or six stained glass windows,’ he In 1979, Omnibus (BBC1, 1967-2003), for Clarke, although he did his DipAD recalls. ‘At the time, the largest project I'd trying to capture the zeitgeist, devoted a (1st class, distinction) in North Devon. Since actually done. I'd been involved with it whole programme to the artist. He was first setting foot in Oldham School of Arts for a year. Robert wanted to go out to 26. Clarke surfaced as a fashionable face & Crafts in 1965, Clarke’s deep-rooted Hamburg. He saw the paintings and the around town with a jaunty manner to passion for the appreciation and making windows at Olympus and on the flight match: ‘I got far too much exposure when of art has informed his life. As a designer, back he said: “Let's do something I was young. Really that wasn't healthy he adopted the magical qualities of light together.”’ For some time afterwards, Fraser for me. I came down from the North to and coloured glass to create windows for acted as agent and fixer across the board London, I seemed to be constantly in the two local churches (he is, coincidentally, for Clarke’s work. It was also a meeting of papers and I liked it. I went over the top an atheist) and he remains proud of the minds and certainly allowed the pair to be

20 | STATE 17 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 21 SETTING THE PACE BRIAN CLARKE CAPTURED BY DAFYDD JONES ISPY [email protected] ......

CATHERINE & DAVID BAILEY Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens RUPERT EVERETT Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens

MAT COLLISHAW ELLIOTT McDONALD JOHN DUNBAR Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens

BOB GELDOF JARVIS COCKER Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens

HARRY HANDLESMAN AARON KASMIN Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens JOHNNY SHAND KYDD Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens

BRIAN FERRY TARA FERRY Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens

CLIVE BARKER KIM MURDOCH Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens

Brian Clarke Spitfires & Primroses 2015 Pace Gallery, Lexington Street SUE TIMNEY Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens Linda McCartney Brian Clarke 1970s

naughty boys together in a maelstrom primroses. With my limited knowledge LORD NEIDPATH MAYA HIRST of sybaritic socialising then common ‘The greatest expression of our culture of science and physics it has become Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens across fashionable London. ‘Robert to my mind is the Gothic cathedral apparent that decoration or pattern exists taught me the difference between arrogance in the fundamental fabric of everything. and confidence,’ is Clarke’s considered and the greatest art within that is There is order to chaos.’ opinion today. the stained glass.’ Above all else, Primroses demonstrate Clarke may well come over as imperious { } that Clarke, nearly some 40 years since he and abrupt at times, but those that burst into the London arena, is still an MARLON RICHARDS ELLA RICHARDS know him intimately report a generous, prime site on Cork Street in 1982. The by Clarke would open at the Pace project artist to be reckoned with and it is high Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens compassionate and loyal friend. He rarely opening show? Brian Clarke paintings. space in Soho: Spitfires & Primroses. time he is given his due. Incomprehensibly, misses a public opportunity to applaud One group, based on Clarke’s observations he is still somewhat of an outsider. ‘I feel ZAHA HADID HARRIET VYNER TONY SHAFRAZI Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens his former wife, artist Liz Finch, and When Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst of primroses – abstract, colourful, painterly, it more now than I did then. I have refers respectfully to Canon Ron suggested Clarke curate a show that would loose and lyrically romantic – stands no critical recognition in the UK. The Greenall, who gave him his first stained be essentially a tribute to his old friend and in stark contrast to the painter’s usual difference is I don’t mind now. I felt angry NICOLAS SMIRNOFF TARAK RUSSELL glasscommission in 1976; and to his mentor, his acceptance ensured the result iconography featuring graphic, regimented back then but now it’s a club I don’t want ELISABETH ESTEVE ‘inspirational’ Burnley Art School drawing would conjure up the very essence of the motifs and a predetermined geometry. to join. I have always exhibited in leading Spitfires and Primroses teacher, Donald Matthews. It was Clarke’s all but forgotten art dealer. The art world Elements of this latter approach appear galleries – with Gagosian, Shafrazi, direct intervention that enabled a lost and is perhaps more fickle and unforgiving in the Spitfire series. Phillips de Pury, Karsten Greve – and drifting friend, Harriet Vyner, to forge a than most creative disciplines. However, there are always people who get the point. new career as a writer. And when Clarke is in February, A Strong Sweet Smell of Incense ‘To include Primroses was Mollie’s idea. A lot of artists are now doing architectural praised for his pioneering development of introduced Robert Fraser to a whole new There is a link. Cy Twombly once said to or site-specific art but they usually take CARINA COOPER contemporary stained glass, as often as not audience, willingly guided by the power me that “your paintings give the illusion of a work, blow it up and get it made. The Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens he will promote John Piper – ‘some of the and influence of Pace Gallery. It could being about these forms but, in fact, they real challenge is engaging with the most beautiful stained glass windows that not have been a more fitting salute to the are about the backgrounds”. For a long architecture and the rhythms and melodies history can boast’ – or Johannes Schreiter gifted and errant dealer. A small satellite time I have been interested in this idea and the movement when the light changes as: ‘probably the greatest living designer exhibition upstairs at Burlington Gardens, where you have a formal matrix but also outside the building. The greatest of stained glass’. including two of the original pictures an element that challenges that structure. expression of our culture to my mind is the Fraser selected for that first exhibition in Primroses have a personal, emotional Gothic cathedral and the greatest art within ARNE GLIMCHER ONDINE DE ROTHSCHILD FAIRFAX DORN MARC GLIMCHER It would be no surprise that when Cork Street, augmented the show. 30 years meaning for me from my time in Devon as that is the stained glass. It has been around ARIANNE DANDOIS ARNE GLIMCHER Clarke deduced Fraser’s innermost desire – on, Clarke’s paintings (from 1977-85) still a young student. I recently had a series of for 1000 years but only now are we in a Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens to recreate the influence and notoriety have presence and power and most have traumatic bereavements and wanted to do position to light it from the inside. of his original gallery in Duke Street – stood the test of time. something that calmed me. Painting these A Strong Sweet Smell of Incense. A Portrait of Robert Fraser, curated by Brian Clarke at Pace, BELLA FREUD JAMES FOX Burlington Gardens. London. Spitfires and Primroses, new work by Brian Clarke at Pace, JERRY HALL BRIAN CLARKE he set the wheels in motion to make it made me calm. I noticed that what first ‘Me? I’m painting cotton mills now...’ Pace Gallery. Burlington Gardens Lexington Street, London. Spitfires and Primroses happen. With part funding from Clarke, A few days later, a complementary seems like a random structure within one STATE magazine acknowledges the generous assistance the Robert Fraser Gallery opened in a exhibition of two recent series of painting flower appears repeated in a cluster of of Nicolas Smirnoff in the preparation of this feature

22 | STATE 17 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 23 STATE OF ART THE INDEPENDENTS

books whereas European homes had art... especially in Italy.’

Rosenfeld told The Guardian newspaper in an advice feature for emerging gallerists: ‘There is no problem THE being a painter or sculptor if the way you work with these ancient languages contains something original. I don't like the approach of selecting an artist, showing work, and if it doesn't go well, dropping the artist in favour of a new face. It's as damaging for the gallery as the artist. I prefer to spend time with an INDEPENDENTS artist's work and seeing if within his or her practice there is scope and the will to The future of the art world lies in the hands of art dealers prepared continually grow. There is never a right time – just your time when it comes...’ to risk their reputation and money for what they believe in… (MvJ)

TEXTS MIKE VON JOEL & ANNA McNAY | IMAGES ED SYKES, DAFYDD JONES, LIMONCELLO NOTES 1 One man shows: National Theatre; Barbican Centre; Pinacoteca, Bologna; Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara; French Cultural Institute, IAN ROSENFELD framing and lighting to the sheer scale gallery in London. They also have South Florence. Publications: Bologna: Time, Space and of some of the exhibits – often turning American, Asian and lately a Chinese Photography (Nuova Alpha); Ferrara: Echoes of IN 2011, WHEN the rosenfeld porcini the gallery itself into a total installation. artist (Lu Chao). As for future plans, Silence (Alchima Art Publishing). gallery first opened in Fitzrovia, received The former basement area is now an these encompass another gallery elsewhere wisdom decreed it to be the project of expansive, open plan and airy space. It in Europe, participation in the right fairs Italian architects. The effortlessly hip Ian easily converts to a ‘theatre’ to show and to grow with their artists. And PAUL STOLPER Rosenfeld could certainly pass for a man video and light works. rosenfeld porcini, like most metropolitan who had conjured a pair of back to back galleries, attend what art fairs they can, A NAME associated with some of retail spaces into an über-cool, split-level ‘I found the gallery in 2010. I knew the but see this creeping control over the contemporary art’s most successful artists, Ed Sykes Paul Stolper 2014 art gallery, which shows a provocative area, which used to be purely rag trade. market as an unwelcome diktat. The Paul Stolper started out by helping international programme created by The landlords were terrific. They gave us multi-lingual sales team constantly press young artists find spaces to put on shows. ‘Time was moving so quickly back then. leads into a contemporary space. Oddly practitioners of all ages and backgrounds. a year rent free and money towards the Rosenfeld for more visibility through the It was the early ‘90s and these friends enough, before I came here, it was a But not so. The Porcini partner is development – they made it all possible. major international fairs: ‘Finding fresh just happened to include Gavin Turk, There was a new gallery opening up every other printers and every wall was covered in certainly Italian – with a passion for It took from March to June 2011 to clients is a slow process and a fair exposes Jeremy Deller, Angus Fairhurst and day in London and there was always something pink pegboard that they’d just pin prints Old Master dealing – but Rosenfeld is build and the architects gave us a great you to a whole list of new collectors. But Damien Hirst. to. In a sense we’ve carried on that London born with a background as design solution, what are effectively you have to play the game,’ he says. ‘If fresh to go and see.’ tradition. And this is a great street. Before a highly successful photographer and two ground floors. I opened with an you want to get into Frieze you cannot ‘Time was moving so quickly back then. PAUL STOLPER the Internet, this was where you’d come 1 { } filmmaker. unknown – to the English – Spanish do the London Art Fair. We recently got There was a new gallery opening up every to buy all your art books. And, of course, artist, Enrique Brinkmann,’ laughs into a respectable ancillary fair to the other day in London and there was drawing by Picasso – it was just amazing! more serious about doing shows. I you can go anywhere in the world and ‘I was born and schooled – then university Rosenfeld. ‘Now we do cultural events, Armory Show in New York, but I said no always something fresh to go and see. And it obviously must have instilled some decided I wouldn’t think about whether tell people your gallery is in front of the too – here in London. I followed that dance, talks, music evenings – and I to it. I want the Armory itself. I certainly That was how I started really. I kept sort of passion for works on paper. But I was showing the right person and British Museum. It works a lot better for with America, to do a post-graduate don’t miss the chaos of the film and do get pressure from my people to apply putting on shows and fumbling along. publishing prints is expensive. You have whether it would make me money – I’d me than the gallery in the East End did. film course. I’d made a Super 8 film Dafydd Jones Ian Rosenfeld 2014 photographer’s life at all. If you take out to more fairs. At some point I realised that it was mad to pay for the fabrication upfront without just show who I wanted, how I wanted. It’s a great address and very well known, at university and I liked the medium. the element of ego – I used to be the to be finding the talent and distributing knowing whether they’re going to sell or That was a key moment. A friend of it’s truly international.’ But, actually, I did not like living in artist – now I attempt to help artists. ‘It is easier to sell young artists at the it but not really benefiting. So I saved not. It’s different from an artist working mine had a building with a gallery space, California. Next, Italy, where I worked as In 2007, Rosenfeld was invited to devise It is every bit as satisfying.’ moment because that is the way market up all the money I had and set about on canvas. So you hope to build so I began using that. I was just slowly But Stolper also sees the need to travel to a photographer in Venice, then Bologna the contemporary art exhibitions for the behaves today. But look at the “hot” publishing prints.’ relationships where there’s a sense of building up to doing more and more art fairs – albeit selectively. ‘Somebody and Florence. I had exhibitions and Galleria Napoli Nobilissima. That Rosenfeld met his Italian partner, Dario Chinese artists that were all the rage in loyalty on both sides.’ things. I got a more permanent space the other day said that galleries are now books published there. Subsequently, I experience led directly to London and Porcini, at an auction. He is a collector the auctions a few years ago. Many of Stolper studied History of Drawing and in 2004, and then this one [Museum just the storage spaces for art fairs. There did make films, which were shown at the the gallery that fronts on to both and a brilliant secondary market dealer those prices have now dropped through Printmaking at Camberwell – ‘a great After his peripatetic start, Stolper has had Street] in 2008. was a time a couple of years ago when Venice Film Festival (Echoes of Time in Rathbone Street and Newman Street. with a special eye for overlooked Old the floor. Buying art in England has course because it meant being able to a gallery space for nearly 20 years now. you would travel from LA to Hong 1993 and Doors of Memory in 1998) Rosenfeld brings an artist’s sensibility to Master works. However, the gallery only changed, the zeitgeist has changed – a lot go to the British Museum and actually ‘Initially, I didn’t see any rules. Because ‘I had ideas, but no plans. A lot of Kong, from Hong Kong to Mumbai, to and at Cannes. Then in Rome I spent a the exhibitions and a filmmaker’s eye for shows contemporary art from around the of our collectors are foreign but they live physically manhandle prints and I didn’t have rent to pay on a gallery, those ideas have come to fruition. This do art fairs back to back, but there comes lot of time on a film project, which duly detail. Every show is remarkable for the world – and Rosenfeld makes a wry face in London. English buyers are catching drawings. You could take out a I could do what I wanted. In 1997, is exactly the sort of space I’ve always a time when you are travelling so much collapsed, and I turned to looking at art.’ quality of its presentation, from the when people assume they are an Italian up. It used to be that English homes had woodblock print by Dürer or a rare however, I thought I ought to get a bit envisioned: a Victorian shop front that that it becomes physically impossible.

24 | STATE 17 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 25 STATE OF ART THE INDEPENDENTS

We’ve tried a lot of fairs to see if we ‘I think having the space as an umbrella They had their two daughters and Stenfors’ schedule is usually planned ‘I have the main gallery and then the want to commit to them. It’s a balance. underneath which we can do all sorts Stenfors did some art advising while they about six months in advance, but this is ‘outsider’side, stuff that is not expensive. No one Some fairs are better for curators and of projects is the way to make things were little. ‘It was a good job to have flexible. ‘I have to make sure that the museums, others for sales. It’s a good work. Having a gallery space gives artists because I could be flexible. I could make artist has had time to fully digest their wants to give young unknown artists a real way of seeing clients face to face – inspiration. It’s somewhere to look at and fish fingers and macaroni with one hand work – I can’t just steal it from their chance. I like working with collectors who do’ going to them instead of sitting back think “Oh, I could do that or that!” and email a client with the other. But I studio, like kidnapping a baby from a STEVE LAZARIDES and waiting, showing them some work, We did a very big show with Gavin Turk, wanted more. I had always wanted to maternity ward. You can always spot { } discussing, and hopefully, at the end of Transit Disaster, which was just wall-to- start a gallery and it came to a point five those shows – the painting’s-still-wet the day, making some sales.There’s a core wall prints. You could show someone at a or six years ago when I thought: “If I scenario.’ Most shows run for five or six The Lazarides story has been much with a genial demeanour and happy to of art fairs that we’ve always kept. We fair and give them a big wall, but, you don’t do it now, then I’ll never do it.”’ weeks, so that’s about seven exhibitions reported: odd jobs around Bristol; a admit to using showman tactics to get do the IFPDA fair in New York, which know, filling a gallery and creating a a year, and then there are art fairs on photography course at Newcastle his artists noticed: is all prints, so it’s very focused. You have show does something different. There’s The obvious question is how did she do it? top of that. So far Stenfors has done University. ‘Bristol in those days always to be an elected member, so the quality somehow more resolve to having a real What does it take to open a gallery in the three: Art Rotterdam, London Art Fair felt like a northern city transported ‘F**k it! I want to be Barnum. That art is amazing. We also do Abu Dhabi, space to show in.’ (AMcN) UK’s capital city and make a success of it? (twice) and Art13. ‘I think they’re very to the South West. I was glad to leave. can only be viewed in white halls with Multiplied and Art Basel Miami.’ important for sales and for meeting Incidentally, Newcastle was very big on polished concrete floors is rubbish. I have new clients,’ she concludes. ‘It can be graffiti. I actually got into university the main gallery and then the ‘outsider’ The success of the gallery, Stolper profitable when you’re standing there using a borrowed portfolio from a side, stuff that is not expensive. No one believes, lies in consistency and working ‘I think learning to relax and trusting my gut but it can also be long-term profitable. photographer friend of my dad’s. The wants to give young unknown artists a with artists over a long period of time. instinct has been key. Also picking my battles. Not It is like an interactive advertisement to tutor knew I was lying but sort of real chance. I like working with It’s also about having good relationships going to war for things. Just letting things go. a very targeted audience.’ admired my front and my desperation collectors who do.’ with curators and other dealers and to get on the course – and away from placing work into good collections. On What comes back comes back’ Stenfors reckons she thinks about the Bristol.’ Lazarides subsequently made a His highly theatrical 2010-2012 annual the practical side, it’s important to { MARIA STENFORS } gallery 23 hours out of 24, but not move into professional photography and art events were crowd pleasers (in the pay people on time. ‘You’re running a necessarily in a worrying kind of way, a job at lifestyle magazine, Sleazenation. Old Vic tunnels beneath Waterloo business but there are two sides to it: more thinking about solutions and This is where he met the artist who Station) and there was the much reported the practical, overseeing costs and so on; MARIA STENFORS ‘There is a spiel, you know, about how digesting. ‘I think learning to relax and would become ‘Banksy’ and the urban proposed alternative to the hallowed and the aesthetic, making the right I did it, but I think I was actually just trusting my gut instinct has been key. legend began. Art Basel Miami Beach art fair in artistic decisions. I’ve been doing this all ‘FOR ME, no gallery is better than its really brave. I didn’t think that much, I Also picking my battles. Not going to 2011 (it never happened, not totally for quite a long time now and experience artists,’ says Swedish gallerist Maria just did it. I didn’t have all the answers. war for things. Just letting things go. ‘I was selling prints out of the boot of my unconnected to a bout of illness that counts. But I still do things I shouldn’t. Stenfors, whose warehouse space off I went on a gut feeling. What comes back comes back.’ Are there car in a pub car park; driving my old debilitated Lazarides). When he put on a The one thing I’ve never done is Gray’s Inn Road has been growing any other important skills in running a Ford Escort delivering Banksy books to show of Paul Insect (aka Paul Humphrey, budgeted for projects. Five-year plans, steadily since its launch in April 2010. ‘I remember for the first couple of gallery? ‘Being a good janitor helps!’ she shops all over London. I had the time of from middle class Crowborough, East ten-year plans, I’ve never done that, ever. ‘And it must make its exhibitions with openings here it felt like being a deer in laughs.‘You do everything. Everything my life, we broke all the rules. I told him Sussex) Damien Hirst bought the whole I’ve just gone with my gut. I’m too scared integrity. A gallery might be more the headlights. Having your name on from accounting, VAT returns, knowing that one of us would never get mentioned exhibition before it even opened, of planning because then it just looks like successful than this one financially or the door is quite frightening and I hadn’t about tax returns, to mopping, painting, without the other even if we lived to be reputedly the result of an email sent over maybe you shouldn’t do things! hierarchically, but if it’s not making its thought about that. I’d thought about installing works, calculating in your head 150. We were flogging his canvasses for by Lazarides. It’s the sort of deal that exhibitions with integrity, you stop the exhibitions I was going to make; I’d and on you feet when someone is buying £50 back then. The Lazarides Gallery was allows him to ignore the hierarchy of going to it.’ thought about the artists; but I hadn’t a work and wanting a discount. originally set up to sell Banksy’s stuff, but London galleries and their unspoken Ed Sykes Maria Stenfors 2014 thought about the fact that it was going it was really about people with attitude, pecking order – it also funds his eccentric Stenfors studied art history, classical to be my name on the door. I think if I ‘I think the most important thing is which is how we now come to show installations at art fairs which are a archaeology and philosophy in her had, there wouldn’t have been a gallery, people skills and being able to listen artists like Jonathan Yeo. I like working beacon for collectors and make him the native Sweden, writing about the size I’d have freaked out a quarter of the and hear what is said between the lines. with interesting people who push the darling of the organisers: ‘I am a total of Greek temples and whether this had way in.’ With collectors you need to listen to boundaries. I first met him through the hypocrite – I laugh at art fairs and then any relevance to the god that they were what they’re actually saying and not just President Bush porn collage – I showed I go and do them!’ attributed to. ‘It turns out,’ she smiles, Over the past five years, the gallery do the sales pitch and talk over them. that only in a window in Greek Street, ‘that female gods have larger temples has grown. It now has nine artists, so And the same with the artists. They’re no one was allowed inside. That went More recently Lazarides was again on Dafydd Jones Steve Lazarides 2015 than male gods.’ that’s nine different opinions and nine often dealing with something that’s very viral overnight.’ the front pages of the art press when he different ways of working. ‘I see it as a emotional to them and if they were any ‘de-accessioned’ his own collection of While studying, she was lucky enough relationship of trust. I have huge faith good at talking about it, they’d not have STEVE LAZARIDES dynamic programme that has its origins Lazarides has always been interested 33 Banksy pieces at Bonhams (January to get to work with Claes Nordenhake in them and they also need to trust me. made the work. in street art. Much to the chagrin of Laz in the integrity of Urban Art and the 2015). Mostly prints and a couple of in his Stockholm gallery. ‘He was very I’m dealing with their work, sometimes IT WAS reputedly the dictum of Leo (as he is universally known) he is forever honesty of those that create it. His timing sculptures, 31 sold for a total of informative, telling me to read Frieze, when it’s still in quite raw stages, so ‘It’s very important to have an Castelli – and certainly echoed by yoked to Banksy, but he never shies away was fortuitous, interest from the art world £434,600 – the top-selling lot was a read Artforum, see exhibitions, question I can’t just jump in and say things, I interesting dialogue going on in the Leslie Waddington – that dealers should from giving this famously anonymous exploded around 2007 and he was 2002 screen-print, Rude Copper, which things, stick to my beliefs. That became need to listen and digest and ask gentle gallery too. The key to any young gallery primarily work with artists of their own street artist the credit for providing the the agent for the works they wanted, hit £32,500 against a best estimate of part of my training and he’s still a questions. Having a gallery is not a way is to get a group of artists who want to generation if they are to prosper. There sales that put the Lazarides Gallery including exhibiting one of the world’s £12,000. The art snobs may well be friend today.’ of having friends. They are friends, all get better. Each show should aim to be is no better proof of this as a formula on the map. He has been quoted as most admired street artists, the Frenchman irritated all over again, but Lazarides of them, and there’s no way I could work better than the last one. I’m really for success than Steve Lazarides and his saying: ‘Banksy has given me complete ‘JR’ (‘...you should check out his Inside is committed to forging ahead of the Stenfors left Sweden following her with them if they weren’t, but I wouldn’t pleased now to be doing second solo gallery of the same name in Rathbone commercial freedom.’ No doubt it niggles Out project. He is political without pack: ‘I look at it like I’m running a husband, Alexis, to the UK, then to call any of them at 3am in a crisis. It’s shows with some of my artists and later Place. It is an atmospheric, former Banksy too, as both the Bristol-born boys being political himself.’); and Portuguese gig, providing the platform,’ he says. Japan, and then back to London. ‘He that grey zone that is so common in this year I’ll be doing a third, so the London townhouse, relatively have not spoken for quite some time national Vhils (Alexandre Farto). ‘No point in selling the same successful was sexy. It was pretty simple,’ she laughs. the art world.’ gloves will really be off!’ (AMcN) unmodernised and the base for Lazarides’ amidst rumours of a major fall-out. Lazarides is a compelling personality painting over and over again.’ (MvJ)

26 | STATE 17 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 27 STATE OF ART THE INDEPENDENTS

is a foolhardy sum to open a gallery with curators. It promotes them to the press. that to all intents and purposes is ‘The digital age is upon us and we do London fairs is far from easy, as – it’s nothing. Other contemporaries at ‘I feel like I’m their mum a lot of the pretty much succeeding, I must be the whole Twitter, Facebook and Lacey has discovered. ‘We do want to the time had £100,000 each put in to time,’ laughs Marston. ‘I look after them. doing something right.’ (AMcN) Instagram thing. I have a person participate. They are promoted to a open theirs. £6000 is nothing, but it was But I suppose it’s most comparable to working full time on this. That said, it large audience and create a focus. all I needed and I made it work.’ being an actor’s agent, in essence. is important that people see the artwork They are a key part of the artworld ANDREW LACEY in real life, you can’t appreciate it in but breaking in is not easy – it does Limoncello opened on Hoxton Street on ‘I don’t really enjoy selling art. I’m not a thumbnail. But you have to get away seem like an old boys’ club at times. 14 December 2007. It later moved to fearless and I’m not unembarrassed – all THERE IS a secluded enclave in the from being just a hanging gallery with The same galleries apply year after Cremer Street and then to the Russian those characteristics of great salespeople. heart of fashionable Notting Hill, the four walls. Our price range – often year and, what’s more, they get the Club on Kingsland Road. ‘Each time What I like most is making good shows. location of a well established gallery, £3000-£4000 – encourages those that same space. the spaces have got cheaper, but they’ve Our USP for clients is that we’re young, Piano Nobile, and also the legendary want to acquire original work and

got better. In the first two galleries, the cheap and funky. I’m alive and I’m still restaurant Julie’s, which since 1969 has support emerging artists who have ‘We want to be there and put ourselves possibilities for shows were quite led by going at the gallery, but I’m not at been attracting celebrities from rock already received some recognition and on the map. My plan is to participate the architecture of the spaces, but where the stage where I’ve got hundreds of music and theatreland. Clarendon Cross are on an upward curve. A lot of clients in two art fairs a year and there are a

we are now is more like a white cube – thousands of profit in the bank. I now has a new addition, a contemporary would see buying original work as few options in October. But, going obviously it’s a pretty shabby white cube sometimes have to borrow and then give gallery launched by Andrew Lacey in making an investment. I personally see forward, I want to think about another – but the artists are really enjoying the it back. Art fair booths are so expensive. 2014, which represents a mere eight it as having an emotional connection gallery in the UK – or maybe Europe opportunities this affords them to And our works are relatively cheap, so we artists. As an essentially local gallery, to the piece.’ or even New York. I have already hit create shows.’ really have to sell a lot of them to pay for Lacey Contemporary is not short of { my targets this year...’ (MvJ) it all. There haven’t been any art fairs affluent neighbours who are doubtless From the outset, Marston’s goals have in recent years where we’ve not made a already engaged in the current trend of ‘You have to NOTES been primarily curatorial, although this profit though. The goal is always to make forming a private art collection. Lacey get away from 1 has matured somewhat with time and more money: I need to pay myself more, himself was born in Bristol, a contemporary being just a Transcending Boundaries, experience. ‘I went into this with pretty I need to make more money for the of Steve Lazarides, and he too grew Contemporay West African Art high curatorial aims. I didn’t really have artists. It’s all about picking up speed and up amidst the feverish explosion of hanging gallery from 25 April-10 May; much awareness of the commercial art momentum and keeping rolling in the interest in graffiti and street art – with four walls.’ Transformations: Limoncello Rebecca May Marston 2015 world or what it meant – or anything, right direction...’ a popular local youth movement that Aboriginal Art Today really. I started with a punctuation famously created Banksy. But Lacey had ANDREW LACEY from 13-23 May 2015. programme so that in between every Marston, a trained dancer, is also a no pretensions of being an artist himself { REBECCA MAY show there’d be a non-commercial event. mother to two young girls, Olive and and took the route into financial services, Along the way, those aims and ethics have Penny, and she lives 100 miles out of project management and marketing, And Lacey has already created ROSENFELD PORCINI MARSTON had to change. which today gives him a partnerships to broaden the horizon of 37 Rathbone Street ‘I THINK it’s smart to muck about That’s just about CV that includes Barclays the gallery calendar. Although totally 36 Newman Street sometimes and do things that other growing up and ‘From the beginning it was always my intention and Lloyds TSB; the committed to his gallery group, Lacey London W1 people don’t,’ says Rebecca May realising what I Home Office and is astute enough to know that his local www.rosenfeldporcini.com Marston, Gallery Director of Limoncello, was doing though. to work with artists who were starting out their the MOD. constituency need more than a few talking about the time when she took a The quality of the careers in the same way that I was, so that we private views to repeatedly engage with PAUL STOLPER ‘commercially suicidal’ booth at Frieze – art is first and could grow together and learn together’ ‘I did a degree in the space. He has devised a programme 31 Museum Street consisting of just the artists sitting round foremost but it’s Nottingham then came of collaborations that will themselves London WC1A 1LH a table, on hand to talk about their still a business and{ REBECCA MAY MARSTON } to London in 2000. I stimulate parallel live events. Two www.paulstolper.com absent work. ‘It was a disaster, but some we have to make visited galleries regularly immediate projects involve Aboriginal good things did come out of it, and we money. London, two and a half hours away from that moment on. I worked for a art and modern art from Nigeria1 MARIA STENFORS managed to cover our costs. I do a lot from the gallery. ‘I don’t know how it number of management consultants that illustrate Lacey’s own interest in 10, 21 Wren Street of things like that for a laugh.’ ‘From the beginning it was always my all works. My husband and I often talk before opening my own consultancy emerging world markets and, in both London WC1X 0HF intention to work with artists who were about this. I guess you just muddle company in 2007, which is still successful instances, he has recruited acknowledged www.mariastenfors.com Despite how it might sound, Marston starting out their careers in the same through the early years and hope it and is funding the gallery today. So I expertise to partner the exhibitions and is not rolling in money. ‘Our funding way that I was, so that we could grow gets better. At least when they’re babies, am experienced in branding, marketing, ancillary events. LAZARIDES ART GALLERY comes from selling the work,’ she says. together and learn together. I’ve never I wouldn’t leave them at home with a promotion – all skills you need to run 11 Rathbone Place ‘I am not from money myself.’ So how gone in offering things that I couldn’t nanny. A lot of women make that choice a gallery. About four years ago I wanted Dafydd Jones Andrew Lacey 2015 ‘These works are a good fit with the London W1T 1HR did she set up originally, as a fresh-faced because I didn’t actually have a f***ing and that’s fine, but I take them with me to do something I was passionate about – type of art we already show. They will www.lazinc.com graduate of the Royal College curating clue what I was doing – I’d only managed where I can. It’s pretty hardcore. This but I knew running a gallery was in no are approaching the business of art catalogues – this is, in Lacey’s opinion, raise the profile and introduce a whole programme, having worked as manager a couple of galleries. I hadn’t done my idea of having it all, is utter bulls**t. way a champagne lifestyle.’ dealing in a completely different way. a targeted and proactive promotion new audience to Clarendon Cross. As LIMONCELLO in just a couple of galleries? ‘I had set 10 years at Gagosian like some people It’s not impossible, but it’s f***ing How so? Lacey quotes the not impossible for galleries with a larger part of the African exhibition we will 340-344 Kingsland Road up the not-for-profit Associates as a have when they open their galleries.’ knackering. I’m ageing myself, that’s Lacey has currently restricted himself to inconsiderable commercial experience quota of artists. And reflecting Lacey’s have a fashion show and it is planned London E8 4DA one year gallery with Ryan Gander [her for sure. But if I didn’t enjoy it, I representing just eight artists. This has which now informs his current business own taste in painting (he has been to have a dancer. This will be a ticketed www.limoncellogallery.co.uk artist-husband] and one of our sponsors, Seven years and 14 artists later and wouldn’t do it. I don’t want to give up the advantage that each one can be model. He has a sales representative quoted as citing Kandinsky as a favourite) event.’ who was in art insurance, said to me: things are going well. Each artist gets a the gallery, I love it, it’s my baby. You just offered an annual solo show and a chance permanently out on the road marketing the works at LC tend to be abstract LACEY CONTEMPORARY “You should do it, you should open a solo show every couple of years and a have to work it out – try and get the to make sales. But Lacey has also nailed the gallery’s art – from interior designers canvasses which need to been seen in A new gallery has, perforce, to confront 8 Clarendon Cross gallery. I’ll help you out a bit.” He gave range of other benefits. The gallery helps balance right. I think considering I’ve his colours to the mast in another way, as to art consultants, hotels to corporate the flesh to experience the scale and the big machine that is the art fair. London W11 4AP me £6000 and I opened a gallery. That negotiate between other galleries and got two young children and a business the gallery declaration promises that they clients – and through videos and subtleties of colour. Securing a space in the already full www.laceycontemporarygallery.co.uk

28 | STATE 17 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 29 STATE OF ART THE OTHER ART FAIR STATE OF ART ART15

Ed Sykes Dafydd Jones Ryan Stanier 2015 Kate Bryan 2015

F ANYONE wanted proof had changed. I took the FAS to art fairs that London is regarded as the and expanded the client list. I loved that centre of the art universe (no place. I had so much more I wanted to matter what New York might do – then Art15 came up. Charles Ross think) then the arrival of Tim approached me – we were friends from Etchells at Olympia in 2013 Hong Kong. There is a great potential provided it. As founder of to introduce serious Asian dealers to a HERE IS an echo of the through the queues. Tracey then agreed to ArtHK – acquired by Art Basel Western audience and institutions. They early Frieze about The be on the next selection committee – in 2012 after just four editions know they have got to have a platform Other Art Fair and its and she gets a lot of press.’ – his Single Market Events (SME) in the West. enterprising founder. Igroup also promotes the Sydney In a world already The organisers take 10% of the sales – Contemporary and Melbourne Art Fair ‘The one thing that stops me having overloaded with art policed via a docket system and till points and is now poised for the third edition sleepless nights over Art15 is that we are expositions, most being – and ancillary events include a guest bar, of their latest London project: Art15. in London. Saying to people “do you run by large and well- food stalls and live DJ to keep the mood Nobody would deny Etchells’ expertise want to come to London?” – well, they funded corporations, upbeat. For April 2015, Stanier will be in this area – or that of his team. are already here. They have second homes the notion of adding yet another to the moving to Victoria House, put on the art Rather than merely recycling the art here – they arrive in May. They come for Tcrowded calendar might seem onerous. map by Saatchi and The Future Can Wait trade’s existing clients, Etchells is Goodwood, the Chelsea Flower Show, But The Other Art Fair has, in only exhibition staged by Zavier Ellis. The confident that: ‘art fairs deliver a different the races, the Royal Academy- Serpentine three years, created a remarkable presence artist Gavin Turk will be working on site audience to those […] that galleries Summer party. Everyone wants new on the London circuit. Director, Ryan and his wife Debbie will be running an sell to on a day-to-day basis.’ When clients and every collector has to start Stanier, has taken his simple concept – event for the charity, House of Fairy SME announced that one of the somewhere. The new emerging markets an art fair for artists to exhibit themselves Tales. Applications are running at an all capital’s most accomplished art insiders are actually now growth economies and (as opposed to stands filled by galleries) – time high, which has encouraged Stanier was replacing the popular Stephanie to view them with a cultural elitism and parlayed it into a dynamic event that to look to the future. Dieckvoss as Art15 director, it created or snobbery is so... well, it’s what the attracts not only collectors but gallerists comment. Especially when this was Americans were to the French a century on the look out for fresh talent. Not to ‘I think the artists walk away feeling they revealed to be Kate Bryan. ago. Take Henry Clay Frick – a ruthless mention a mass of enthusiasts drawn have had value for their spend on the industrialist whose collection is now from the general public. stand,’ he says. ‘In June we do the first Born in Woking in 1982, since gaining a precious jewel of the New York art event out of London at the Arnolfini in a BA at the University of Warwick world. Do we want these people to The 2014 TOAF in the ubiquitous Bristol; then we are advanced with plans Bryan’s star has been in the ascendant buy our art? Absolutely. At Art15 we 21,000 square feet of the Old Truman for Sydney, Australia. I have had a couple and she might easily be regarded present a global art world – galleries Brewery venue in Brick Lane – and of meetings about Paris – but there are a poster girl for the new breed of and art – to the most global of audiences shared with Moniker Art Fair – was a only me, Sophie and Jess in the office talented women beginning to dominate possible. I want to break out of the rush hour affair from dawn ‘til dusk, so that is on the back burner at the the international art arena. She usual fair model. We are smaller, more with a vast range of artists interfacing moment. I have been approached by worked at the British Museum under boutique. I want to be more of a crucible directly with their audience. Giant steps people in Geneva – we would not be the media-friendly regime of Neil for global collecting and interactions. on from a debut at the Bargehouse space directly involved but would be a part of MacGregor, before spending four years in the Oxo Tower complex in 2011. it. I certainly want to do more in Europe.’ in Hong Kong as director of the Cat ‘February [Art14] was not a good time And not bad for a 34-year-old London Street Gallery – surfing the new wave slot, we were up against Chinese New law graduate with a vision. Stanier has avoided all the clichés of of interest in contemporary art in Asia. Year and the Armory Show. Now, with today’s art fair smoke and mirrors circus. new dates in May, American galleries are ‘I was born in Sunbury-on-Thames There are no VIP nights or private ‘In the last year at Warwick you go the second most numerous exhibitors and did a business and law degree at collectors’ viewings – but he admits to to Venice for a term. I fell in love with [UK first; China third] at Art15. The Kingston University for three years. I letting Frieze cardholders in for free. it totally and with Renaissance art. EASTERN small independent galleries have not then worked for an events management A BIT OF Unsurprisingly, he is not recommended I always wanted to work with Art been buried at the back and we have team, with clients like London Fashion by organisers of the Regent’s Park event History Abroad, taking a small number made it very affordable for them to Week, and after that I joined a creative in return. of clients around major art sites. I had attend. A large percentage of our agency. Both were very useful experiences also applied for lots of jobs in the art exhibitors have spaces outside the UK – for what I do now. I had always been ‘I did once spot a well turned out fellow world and eventually got a lowly role at and outside of Europe even. What I interested in art and had struggling walking around and went up to have a the British Museum – the best start in PROMISE don’t want is for people to visit our fair artists as friends and I noticed how much THE OTHER chat. It turned out he was over for Frieze the art world you could possibly get. and see the same galleries at the front effort they put in to staging exhibitions TEXT MIKE VON JOEL | IMAGE ED SYKES and been to the White Cube dinner and They kindly gave me unpaid leave to with the same material. Collectors want in remote locations. It was pretty so on. They had not mentioned us – of go off and do AHA teaching. Art15 is Accent on Asia. The third edition of new things, they are very sophisticated. depressing – whatever you think, course – but he had done his research and so global and I absolutely understand ART15 looks to provide a platform for art Also, I am trying to diversify our collector Damien Hirst’s Freeze was really a came along anyway. He stayed for hours it – this is Neil MacGregor’s position. base. I have devised the New 100 Club, one-off and not at all typical of these it. We had 4,500 visitors, a marketing and a split of the box office and the bar and made quite a few purchases.’ I was involved in the set-up of Neil’s with a global perspective which is 100 collectors from around the DIY shows. budget of £3000 and 140 applications for concession. They are a well-known street brilliant radio series A History of the world under the age of 40. They come the 70 odd places.’ art brand in east London. This was one of It is clear there is something happening World in 100 Objects. The museum TEXT MIKE VON JOEL | IMAGE DAFYDD JONES together at the fair and have a really ‘I did a deal with the Shaftesbury two major turning points. It is so much and Stanier has his finger on it. Maybe set me up for life actually. passionate dialogue about their own property people and secured a three Stanier immediately appreciated the more relaxed at the Old Truman Brewery. the zeitgeist is moving? The easiest way We showed David Lynch, Gavin Turk, in the Arts & Culture category of the region and art. Each of them donates month pop-up space in Covent Garden, potential of this and scheduled two more It’s a week long tenancy – two days to to check out this ‘antidote to the Frieze ‘Hong Kong was to do with my Peter Blake, Australian and Asian artists, Women of the Future awards. As director of $500 and the $50,000 goes to the where I created a gallery called Art Beat. events in 2012, selecting the Ambika P3 build the fair – Ambika was very tight effect’ is to go along and scope it out husband, James, who was steered there mostly to an ex-pat audience. It was a the Fine Art Society (and youngest International Production Fund – The landlords liked what I did and venue. The first, in May, and then a second and meant working all through the night in during the coming months. As critic to run a company. I had a real interest small gallery and had a low price point – ever board member of London’s oldest art which gives it to a biennale curator who extended it to an 18 month run. So I in October – as a satellite fair near to to prepare. Louisa Buck wrote in The Telegraph in ‘otherness’ so immersing myself in and then ArtHK came along. That dealership) Bryan was much acclaimed nominates an artist to enable them to left my job and worked at it full time. Regent’s Park and Frieze. The following Magazine: ‘If you feel Frieze has lost its Asia seemed perfect. I went to university changed everything.’ for her What Marcel Duchamp Taught Me make work for it. There was no curator – it was me! You year, as a counter balance, his vision ‘Our second milestone was in 2014 when edge, there’s always this younger, hipper there to do a PhD and studied all exhibition last autumn. just fall into things – I got the idea for extended to an event in east London, Tracey Emin made a special print and artist-led alternative…’ sorts of new areas – Chinese painting, Highly telegenic, Bryan has judged ‘It might be a Romanian artist at the The Other Art Fair from this experience. centred on the trending Old Truman then signed them during the April fair. silks and calligraphy, and northern Portrait Artist of the Year for Sky Arts and ‘When we came back I joined the Sydney Biennale with a work that sells In 2011, with a shoestring budget, I did Brewery. I had emailed her before as she lived TOAF VENUES 2015 Renaissance art. Socially I met Mandy presented The Culture Show (BBC2), Fine Art Society and I ran the whole to America. This $65 billion business the first edition at the Bargehouse space around the corner from the Brewery – but 23-26 April, Victoria House, London d’Abo, a collector who wanted us to travelling to China to survey 700 years of [contemporary] show. The FAS directors actually begins with the artist in his on the South Bank. It is run by the ‘I emailed the organisers of Moniker and thought she had not bothered to turn up. 5-7 June, Arnolfini, Bristol open a gallery together, so I did – indigenous painting in collaboration with realised things had to go forward and the backstreet studio room with his council and no one seems to know about suggested sharing the October booking It transpired she had – but couldn’t get in 15-18 October, Old Truman Brewery, London reluctantly – and it really took off. the V&A. Recently she was voted winner nature of the New Bond Street art trade portable heater...’

30 | STATE 17 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 31 'Cements its place on the international art fair circuit' Wallpaper* 'The fair is firing on all cylinders' The Telegraph 'This art fair is a must' Time Out Featuring 150 modern and contemporary galleries ANOTHER COUNTRY from over 40 countries. Understanding and education are keywords in the language of Preview 20 May Azerbaijan as they introduce their art to the world. Book now at artfairslondon.com TEXT ANNA McNAY

Shirin Neshat, Agayar, from The Home of My Eyes series, 2014-2015. © Shirin Neshat. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

32 | STATE 01 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 01 | 33 EUROSTATE BAKU

Vusal Rahim’s studio door, YARAT Studios, 2015. Photo Anna McNay

YARAT Contemporary Art Centre, Baku, 2015. Photo Rauf Askyarov, Courtesy YARAT Farid Rasulov, Carpet Interior, 2013, installation. Courtesy of the artist and YAY Gallery Shirin Neshat, Gizbasti, from The Home of My Eyes series, 2014-2015. © Shirin Neshat Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

ITUATED ON the Great completion of the Baku-Batumi pipeline meeting rooms and a café. On the slopes lectures, artist-in-residence programmes start from 25,000 euros. Farid Rasulov, have people who are not engaged in art Silk Road, at the foot of in 1907, Stalin made Baku the base of his outside, public art displays abound. The and participation in art fairs, including the who took up the baton two years later at ‘YARAT, which means ‘create’ in but would like to understand it. With our the Caucasus mountains, revolutionary activity. From 1920 until the remarkable building’s shape resembles an Venice Biennale. In December 2012, it the 53rd edition, makes work for his Azeri – is a not-for-profit organisation, first show four years ago, a lot of young and with its capital, Baku, horrendous massacre of pro-independence infinity sign and its design eschews a single opened the YAY Gallery in the Old City, Shebeke series using the traditional Azeri people came. Even though they knew facing the Caspian Sea, protestors in ‘Black January’ in 1990, the straight line. which functions as a commercial gallery, medium of stained glass mounted in set up in 2011 by Aida Mahmudova nothing about art, they were very curious, Azerbaijan has served country was under Soviet rule. Since 1991, selling the work of YARAT’s (and other) wood – as opposed to the lead found in which is great. We try to raise more as a key trading point Azerbaijan has been independent once Baku came to Europe’s attention when it artists and sharing the proceeds 50/50 European traditions – creating large-scale and a group of artists.’ curiosity, because first you get curious and throughout history. An again and it is flourishing as a young and hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012 between the artists and the foundation. rose knots and geometric stars, shapes { } then you try to understand.’ independent Zoroastrian wealthy country with a rich history. The in a newly built Crystal Hall (Alpine Bau commonly used in carpet weaving. Ramal state in the 4th century BC, Azerbaijan architecture of Baku, declared the Capital Deutschland AG). It is now getting ready to In November 2014, a new complex Kazim makes paintings and sculptures that force my style elsewhere,’ says Kazim create a platform for Azeri art, both at Education is the cornerstone of YARAT Sadopted Christianity under the Romans of Islamic Culture in 2009, reflects this present the first ever European Games, Baku was opened which provides 11 studios express the trauma and emptiness of life, gratefully. home and abroad. As Mahmudova and the new contemporary art space is (4th century AD) and Islam under the history well, with the Old City, Icheri 2015, in June. On the artistic front too, the (with the option to live in) for YARAT’s echoing the style of Francis Bacon and explains: ‘The aim is to raise as much also home to an art book library, currently Arabs (7th-8th centuries AD). It has been Sheher, containing several UNESCO city is thriving, and March 2015 saw the artists. Its current incumbents include Egon Schiele, while Vusal Rahim is YAY Gallery represents 10 artists, all of awareness as possible – and to educate. numbering some 600 print books, but described as: ‘the quintessential borderland, world heritage sites. And a modern opening of the YARAT Contemporary Art Mahmudova herself, Rashad Alakbarov, currently working on an installation whom are Azeri, but, of its six annual Awareness both locally and internationally with plans to expand to 4,000, plus 50,000 many times over: between Europe and Asia, landscape rising up around this, including Centre – a two-floor 2000sqm gallery in a Farhad Farzaliyev, Reza Hazare, Orkhan with dolls, commenting on the plight of shows, three will be by local artists, three about what our artists are trying to say, and digital items. The aim is to catalogue Islam and Christianity, Russia and the Middle such iconic buildings as the Flame Towers converted Soviet-era naval building. Huseynov, Nazrin Mammadova (who teenage pregnancy. There is also space by international. Russian director, awareness about what Azeri contemporary everything and open to the public as a East, Turks and Iranians, Shi’a and Sunni by HOK Architects and the Heydar Aliyev previously had a residency in London for a guest artist. Collaborators do not Anastasia Blokhina, is keen to emphasise art is. We do a lot of workshops with our lending library. ‘People have been yearning Islam’1. Azerbaijan also has a rich cultural Centre (named after the third President of YARAT – which means ‘create’ in Azeri – is at the Delfina Foundation) and Niyaz have to pay for their studios and are also the importance of social media – they artists and they travel around Azerbaijan for something like this to happen,’ says landscape, based on the visual arts, carpet- the Republic, from 1993-2003), designed a not-for-profit organisation, set up in 2011 Najafov. Particularly notable is Faig provided with some of the materials they recently sold a couple of works through and work with children in different regions Suad Garayeva, Curatorial Director at the making, poetry, dance and classical music. by Zaha Hadid Architects. This latter by Aida Mahmudova and a group of artists. Ahmed, who represented Azerbaijan at need to produce their work. ‘YARAT Instagram – and their desire to be ‘firmly of the country. We have different age new centre. ‘After numerous pop-up shows, houses a museum, an auditorium, a Since then, it has commissioned more than the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, and gives me the opportunity to explore the in the 21st century’. YARAT similarly groups that we’ve tried to target. We have it was time for something more permanent Following the drilling of the world’s first conference hall, a concert hall, multiple 120 projects, including two major public who is described by his peers as a ‘very work I want to do without the pressure of seeks to nurture an understanding of children, we have young people and that people could come to at any time. oil well in 1848 and the subsequent exhibition spaces spread over nine floors, art festivals, film festivals, exhibitions, renowned Azeri artist’. His prices now finding paid commissions which would contemporary art in Azerbaijan and to students, we have practising artists, we We have an auditorium here for

34 | STATE 17 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 35 EUROSTATE BAKU PROJECTS GAZELLI ART HOUSE

Dafydd Jones Mila Askarova 2015

HIS AUGUST sees the fifth anniversary of the London incarnation of Gazelli Art House, a contemporary art gallery run by Azeri-born and raised Mila Askarova, initially founded in Baku in 2003. After running a series of pop-ups around London, the Tgallery moved into its permanent space at 39 Dover Street in March 2012. It reopened in Baku seven months later. The Baku space is currently shut again, undergoing extensive refurbishment, so as to have space for both quick turnover shows and longer, more experimental, project-based work.

Askarova set out with no specific training at all but has gone on to acquire a BSc in International Relations from LSE and has variously worked and studied at Sotheby’s, Central Saint Martins and Christie’s Education. She sees the key to Gazelli Art House’s success in its combination of commercial and educational aspects. ‘It’s so important to have an education programme alongside the exhibition programme,’ she explains. ‘Of course, I have my own taste, and we, as a gallery, have our own kind of programming, but that’s exactly why we There also has to be a certain sensitivity like to invite in other curators, who have and cultural understanding in the way nothing to do with the exhibition – it’s things are presented. ‘I think there’s a bit like letting go of the hierarchy and a very strong national identity in most importantly it’s about accessibility. TAKING ON Azerbaijan and that’s why we’re quite Engaging all these different levels is sensitive about how we’re perceived. my priority.’ Occasionally you do get the odd article Rashad Alakbarov, Shabaka, 2012. Photo Fakhriyya Mammadova, Top to bottom: artists Farid Rasulov, Ramal Kazimov and Reza Hazare in YARAT Studios, 2015 criticising something culturally related, Courtesy Fakhriyya Mammadova and artist Photo Rauf Askyarov, Courtesy of YARAT Accessibility is something Askarova has criticising the system really, and it learnt a lot about, especially with regards MAYFAIR has an impact. I think people should master-classes by artists and photographers There have been some negative Fire and Water, presenting the cultural NOTES to catering for and respecting the perhaps be more open now but this and we will also hold lecture series, responses to YARAT’s work, but that is superimposition of Baku and Venice. 1 different mentalities of Azeri and British Experimental and edgy work shown in the sensitivity about how we come across – screenings, discussions, conferences and not surprising given that even the State Azeri art and influence in the art world is Historian Tadeusz Swietochowski audiences. How would she describe this how we are perceived by the interna- panels. We would like to be a hub for the Academy of Art, at which most of not to be overlooked. Under the leadership LINKS difference in mentality? ‘Well, I think the heart of conservative Mayfair is attracting tional scene if you like – reflects in how whole region – including Georgia, Iran YARAT’s artists were trained, still offers of Mila Askarova, the independent gallery, www.yarat.az/en curiosity and engagement with the work the works should be presented. In the and Turkey. Most importantly, everything only a very traditional course. ‘We do get Gazelli Art House, is a high profile feature www.yaygallery.com/en over there is on a slightly different level, the right sort of attention curation of the shows. It’s the same with is free.’ people saying: “This is not art. What is of Mayfair in Central London. www.heydaraliyevcenter.az/ because it is still a young art scene. If you Asia – China, Taiwan, Hong Kong – www.mim.az/en/ TEXT ANNA McNAY | PORTAIT DAFYDD JONES this? I can paint like this myself”,’ admits look back to the ‘50s or ‘60s, to how the not only how they are being perceived The centre is home to YARAT’s Mahmudova. ‘But you get people like A crossroads for culture throughout YARAT CONTEMPORARY scene was during the Soviet times, the themselves, but how things are being permanent collection, concentrating on this everywhere in the world.’ Too true. history, Azerbaijan is set to become a ART CENTRE capital of it all was still Moscow. From an different because it is still quite a tightly presented in the right way, bring quite presented to them, without specific artists from the region, and the inaugural Mahmudova herself should know. She is, vibrant hub for contemporary visual Making Histories: artist’s perspective, to be a credited artist, knit society, but there is movement a few people together and lead to an historic or cultural references.’ exhibition in the downstairs space, Making after all, a successful artist, about to have art in the 21st century, as the younger The YARAT Collection you had to affiliate yourself with the right happening. It’s about having the international dialogue. People can extract Histories, is drawn from this, showing how two solo shows opening in May, one at generation, well trained in the 24 March – 24 November 2015 kind of political party and go out to confidence that is needed in the artists whatever they want, regardless of who Overall, however, Askarova is very Azeri artists connect to their pasts and to the Museum of Modern Art, Baku, and foundational skills, breaks free of its Moscow, this was your only choice – and the artworks that they are coming they are, from what we do here in positive about the development of the today’s current history and changes. one at the Leila Heller Gallery, New York. Soviet shackles and seeks to represent its Shirin Neshat: whereas now the whole world is your across – and perhaps wish to acquire. London or in Baku. The galleries’ art scene in her home country. ‘The Upstairs is a striking black and white YARAT is also hosting a collateral event at past, present and future in an exciting The Home of My Eyes oyster. In terms of mentality, from the I think they require more of a thorough educational programmes grew out of this more international and local initiatives photography exhibition by Iranian-born the 56th Venice Biennale, The Union of and exhilarating way. 24 March – 23 June 2015 creative side, there’s more opportunity explanation about the works for them understanding. Regardless of whether that happen in Baku, the better. Shirin Neshat, a special commission about now, so I guess that’s why there’s more to feel connected, for them to acquire you’re inside the industry or you’re out- Compared to how it was 10 years Azeri people and Azerbaijan. ‘We chose PALAZZO BARBARO experimentation. You see quite a diverse that level of trust.’ side it or you’re studying it, there has to ago, it’s a whole different set up. With to open with Shirin because we love her ‘A crossroads for culture throughout The Union of Fire and Water range of young artists and mid-career be a programme in place – alongside the time, it's just getting stronger and work and find it relevant to the region,’ history, Azerbaijan is set to become a vibrant San Marco, 2840, Venice artists who aren’t afraid to go that little Art, for Askarova, has always provided exhibition’s commercial initiatives – that stronger and it’s very exciting to see says Garayeva. ‘This new commission 9 May – 22 November 2015 bit further and explore beyond the a neutral ground for people of all ages, provides that base for an active dialogue. that develop.’ shows the people it’s a space for them. nationalistic attachment. From the point nationalities and backgrounds. ‘It’s That’s the whole point: we have to talk hub for contemporary visual art STATE acknowledges YARAT, in particular Aida For me, this building is a temple for of view of the collector, it is slightly something that can potentially, if about what we’re looking at.’ www.gazelliarthouse.com in the 21st century’ Mahmudova, and Pelham Communications for their the people.’ { } invaluable assistance in realising this feature.

36 | STATE 17 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 17 | 37

PARTNERED BY

ORIGINAL RECORDINGS WITH ARTISTS FREE TO VIEW www.state-media.com/state including JULIAN SCHNABEL JONAS BERGERT etc BACK ISSUES FREE ALL BACK ISSUES ARE FREE TO DOWNLOAD AT www.state-media.com select STATE or F22 click >MAGAZINE>ISSUES READER’S GALLERIES

PROMOTE YOUR PAINTINGS OR PHOTOGRAPHS AT BUY DIRECT FROM THE ARTIST AT www.state-media.com LONDON’S select STATE or F22 click >GALLERIES>UPLOAD PORTFOLIO LEADING ARTIST FAIR SOCIAL MEDIA Delahaye Meet Marine at The Other Art Fair. THEOTHERARTFAIR.COM FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @statef22

CCOHEDIA...OHEDIIAA...

What is Cohedia? A shape, a colour, a solution, an answer? Where is Cohedia? Join artist Xavier White to “explore an outsider’s artistic wanderings on the journey to the mind-expanding cityysscape of Cohedia.”

Opening 15 April 3 - 5 pm

Exhibition continues: 16 April - 15 May Wednesday - Friday 10am - 5pm GallGalleryery and museum open firfirstst and laslastt SaturSaturdayday of the month 10am - 5pm

Free entrance - all welcome

BethlBethlemem GallGalleryery | BethlBethlemem RoRoyalyal HospitalHospital | Monks OrchardOrchard Road | BeckenhamBeckenham | Kent | BR3 3BX 020 3228 4101 | [email protected]@bethlemgallery.com | NearestNearest British Rail: Eden ParkPark / EastEast CroydonCroydon

wwwwww.bethlemgallery.com.bethlemgallery.com | @Bethlem_Gallery@Bethlem_Gallery | www.xavierwhite.weebly.comwww.xavierwhite.weebly.com

 !"#$%&''' ((()*+),((()*+),