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21 | HOT&COOL ART
ENIGMA VARIATIONS KEITH COVENTRY The fine art of dystopia KEITH COVENTRY IN VYNER STREET EAST LONDON LONDON EAST STREET VYNER IN COVENTRY KEITH ED SYKES: SYKES: ED CURRENT EXHIBITION:
FRANÇOIS MORELLET
LES RÈGLES DU JEU
UNTIL 27 MAY
opens in London May 21, 2016, at 6 pm Installation view at The Mayor Gallery, 2016 R.S.V.P. if attending the opening
FORTHCOMING EXHIBITION:
LI HUASHENG
THE MEDITATION ROOM
02 JUNE — 28 JULY
1364, 2013, ink on paper, 69 x 136.5 cm
41-43 Brook Street, Mayfair, London, W1K4HJ THE MAYOR GALLERY 21 CORK STREET, FIRST FLOOR, LONDON W1S 3LZ liquidartsystem.com • T. +44 20 38 416182 • [email protected] TEL: +44 (0) 20 7734 3558 FAX: +44 (0) 20 7494 1377 A4 HALL 2.0 [email protected] www.mayorgallery.com
1 2 17:18 ART16 Take your pick 20-22 MAY STEPHEN NEWTON at London’s OLYMPIA Abstract Realism First Night summer art fair 19 May
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Room With a yellow Vase 2014
“...an astonishing triumph of expressionism - a genuine tour de force ŽĨƉĞƌƐŽŶĂůǀŝƐŝŽŶĂŶĚƐĞůĨͲŽďũĞĐƟĮĐĂƟŽŶ͟Donald Kuspit Yoshiyuki Ooe Train x 95 30cm 2011 | mixed media 69 18 May - 26 June 2016
Art Bermondsey Project Space 183-185 Bermondsey Street (adjacent to White Cube) London SE1 3UW
A NOT-FOR-PROFIT PLATFORM SUPPORTING THE FUSION OF ART, PHOTOGRAPHY & CULTURE Telephone 0203 441 5152 [email protected] www.project-space.london ART 13
CAPTURED BY DAFYDD JONES [email protected] >> DIARY NOTES
ISPY ...... COVER IMAGE WHOSE A PRETTY BOY? a pension and probably a health-care REGULAR READERS of newspapers scheme and playing with other people’s and colour supplements will be familiar money’. However, in March this year, with the nauseous trend for Fleet Deutsche Bank announced it would be Street’s finest to oppress the audience paying bonuses of 2.4 billion euros, with lurid tales of their own mental despite the German investment bank breakdowns, sex changes, terminal posting a 6.8 billion euro loss in its ED SYKES illnesses and bereavements. From the worst trading year since the global unfortunate, now paralysed, journalist financial crisis. Deutsche Bank would Keith Coventry 2015 MIKE & MARY VON JOEL who fell off her horse and writes a certainly lose face having to do a BP Vyner Street. E. London White Cube ELLIOTT MACDONALD weekly Times column on how she now style strategic withdrawal from art Pace London 3 A graduate of the Chelsea School of Art post-graduate course in has no life (basically the same text sponsorship, but can anything be read 1982, Keith Coventry (b1958) has enjoyed a stellar career based – each week) to celebrity scribblers – like into canny entrepreneur Matthew NORMAN unusually – on constant change and reinvention of his core discipline, Hunter Davies, who could not resist Slotover’s recent bromance with new GEORG BASELITZ JAY JOPLING ROSENTHAL painting. Creating work in clearly defined ‘series’, he seems to effortlessly “...why would SIMON DE PURY move from one interpretation of his key concerns to the next. A key to his the urge for some sort of public therapy Frieze investor and Hollywood supremo: White Cube White Cube White Cube commercial success lies in a 2013 series of brilliant reductions of common over the tragic loss of his author wife – a critic with an Ari Emanuel and his agency, WME- signage (maps) stationed at the entrance to sprawling council estates. the fashion is growing. In this respect, IMG (recently valued at $5.5 billion)? These minimal monochromatic paintings, reminiscent of Malevich and you would have thought the art world established media Art advisor, Alistair Hicks, the bank’s Russian Suprematism, will be judged by art historians as a notable stepping stone in the ongoing story of Abstract Expressionism. might be exempt – based on its being boyish schmoozer at Frieze, must be an intellectual arena populated, on the profile want to wondering if it is worth ironing his whole, by educated and clever people. Rupert Bear trousers this year. But never underestimate the power deviate into the of that beckoning finger of populist world of washed-up THIS IS SYRIAN TAT celebrity. TALKING OF art and entertainment. ‘soap stars’ with One of the greatest tragedies of modern HOT & COOL ART Who should leap up on the front page times – the wholesale destruction by GREGOR MUIR (terrorism, Brexit, instability in Libya their diet apps retarded fighters for ISIS of the ancient Tate Britain etc.) of The Sunday Times News architecture at Palmyra, and in particular PANDEMONIA EDITOR Lyle Owerko Review but our old shipmate Waldemar and slimming the 1,800-year-old Arch of Triumph – NICOLAS SMIRNOFF Mike von Joel NEW YORK Januszczak. A new major TV series on was turned into a photo-op for DUGGIE FIELDS [email protected] Anne Chabrol Surrealism? Art in war torn Syria? Sadly videos?” London’s mayor, Alexander Boris de Pace London PUBLISHERS PARIS not. Our hero gets two whole pages to Pfeffell Johnson. Archaeology at the JOHN PAWSON RON ARAD David Tidball explain that he was once so fat he nearly eclipsed the actual quality of his work Syrian site, which dates back to Design Museum Benefit Karl Skogland BERLIN exploded in an eat-all-you-can Chinese and savvy collectors are only really Neolithic times, was dominated by truly [email protected] restaurant. Now, Januszczak is a serious interested in his very early ceramic unique architectural remains. A likeness Elizabeth Crompton man, an accomplished art historian pieces. But it cannot have gone of the striking Temple of Bel arch was MELBOURNE Jeremy Levison turned credible TV pundit. Who unnoticed by Perry that his art is hardly cut from donated Egyptian marble [email protected] remembers his truly stimulating TV ever discussed seriously by critics and sculpted in 30 days by computer 1 DEPUTY EDITOR ADMINISTRATION series on Van Gogh and Gauguin – anymore, overshadowed as it is by his programmed, robotic arms at a work- HARRY BLAIN KEITH COVENTRY Anna McNay Julie Milne both artists who had already been prancing alter-ego, Claire. As the desire shop in the famous quarries of Carrara, Pace London [email protected] [email protected] ‘explained’ to death – where Januszczak for transvestite experience is very much Italy. This microscopically detailed GUSTAV METZGER Tate Britain managed to dredge up factoids not a natural part of Perry’s psyche, he is process is in itself miraculous and opens EDITORIAL PUBLISHED BY readily brought to mind even by those obviously not straight-jacketed in the up endless possibilities for inserting ASSISTANT State Media Ltd. Alice Cox in the business of art? Certainly no same way – say – Barry Humphries is accurate repairs into the most complex LONDON [email protected] one could ignore the presenter (62) – by the self-created monster of Edna of historic carved buildings. But rather [email protected] dressed in his It-Ain’t-Half-Hot-Mum Everidge. But Perry must have deduced than rising up nearly 50-feet and hand- CORRESPONDENTS shorts – halting in some nondescript how what once shone a light on his carved from limestone, this version Clare Henry PRINTED BY country lane in Auvers to point out career as a serious artist has at the stands just 20 feet tall (and cost around NEIL TENNANT Ian McKay Garnett Dickinson that this was the exact spot where same time scuppered it. The move into $143,000). As preening dignitaries stood BAL KALIRAI RAQUEL VAN HAVER William Varley Rotherham S63 5DL Vincent ate his sandwiches on that broadcast media, for which Perry is in front of it for the cameras and hordes Tate Britain Jack Bell Gallery fateful last day of en plein air painting somewhat of a natural, is an astute one. of gullible rubber-neckers seethed VANESSA VIE in 1890. So why would a critic with As the contemporary art world today behind the steel barriers, it was hard not MICHAEL HOROVITZ STATE MAGAZINE is available through selected an established media profile want to embraces its role as part of the to think of the infamous scene in This Is Art Bermondsey NATALIA SOUZA INES DE LA ROCHE BISHI deviate into the world of washed-up entertainment industry, Perry would do Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner’s brilliant 1984 Project Space Liberatum galleries, libraries, art schools, museums and ‘soap stars’ with their diet apps and well to mind the mores of that business piss take of rock star pretentiousness) TERRY O'NEILL other art venues across the UK. slimming videos? It is clearly one of – where gimmick, novelty and cheap when a three-foot-high replica of Fiat Chrysler Motor Village life’s mysteries – as is the ever evolving sensation dominate. After all, who could Stonehenge descends onto the stage – Totally free, STATE is about new media career of Grayson Perry. ever forget the trilling nun – Sister the props department had confused manoeuvres in painting and the Wendy Beckett – and her great insights millimetres and inches. After only three visual arts – combined with f22, Barely a fortnight after Januszczak’s into the flesh pots of Renaissance ateliers. PR laden days in Trafalgar Square, this a supplement on developments in mea culpa, the front cover of The Times conscience-raising arch travelled on the fusion of art & photography. supplement portrays a slick, vaguely WHAT A BANKER to Dubai (then to New York City in handsome, Hoxton restaurant maitre’d. THINGS COULD be worse – you September) before finding a permanent It is not a review magazine – it No it doesn’t. It’s potter Grayson Perry, might be a Deutsche Bank shareholder home somewhere on the site at Palmyra. is about PEOPLE worth serious in the guise of ‘serious man’. Perry, who – the main sponsor of the Regent’s Park That is – if a hotel in Las Vegas doesn’t consideration; PLACES that are has lately carved out a niche for himself Autumn beano – Frieze Art Fair. The get there first. hot and happening; and PROJECTS in broadcasting as the thinking bank’s English chief executive, John PAULINE GROOTHAERT LEYLA COSTA ZENA PRAWL developing in the international man’s pantomime dame, has a new Cryan, went on record last November at Mike von Joel Editor Fiat Chrysler Motor Village Fiat Chrysler Motor Village programme to plug2 (naturally) but a conference in Frankfurt attacking the KYLA LA GRANGE V&A BRIAN MAY V&A ADA ZANDITON EWA WILCZYNSKI V&A art world. the interview reveals some interesting banking industry’s bonus culture and To apply to stock STATE Magazine, please mail sub-texts. Perry is a clever, articulate demanding that financiers ‘...recalibrate NOTES Georg Baselitz WHITE CUBE, Bermondsey. London # Keith Coventry PACE LONDON Burlington Gdns. London # Time For Design DESIGN MUSEUM Benefit. Berkeley Julie Milne: [email protected] and intelligent man who has confronted their earnings expectations’ [and] ‘many 1. Gauguin: The Full Story (Channel 4, 2003); Sq. London # Pablo Bronstein TATE BRITAIN Duveen Commission. London # Women in Creativity Hosted by Liberatum # RaQuel van Haver JACK BELL GALLERY his demons through therapy and the people in the sector still believe they Vincent: The Full Story (Channel 4, 2004) twitter.com/statef22 www.facebook.com/statef22 vimeo.com/statef22 Masons Yard. London # Carlos Puente ART BERMONDSEY PROJECT SPACE, Bermondsey St. London # Terry O'Neill RANSOM ART GALLERY, Fiat Chrysler support of a skilled wife. His commercial should be paid entrepreneurial wages for 2. Grayson Perry: All Man. (Channel 4, Motor Village, Marylebone London # Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear V&A South Kensington. London. www.statemedia.com success as an artist has long since turning up to work with a regular salary, May 2016)
6 | STATE 21 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 21 | 7
{ ...... { AN ART ‘I would rather die of passion ‘The aim of art is to represent not the outward NEWS than of boredom.’ appearance of things, but their inward significance.’ RESTATE MONITOR { VINCENT VAN GOGH { ARISTOTLE QUOTEQUOTEUNQUOTEUNQUOTE TOP10 MOST BEAUTIFUL CEILINGS IN THE WORLD ‘You have an idea what fashion is about, but I’d been at art school. I didn’t know 1. CASTELLO DI SAMMEZZANO Ann Freedman Just doin’ her best to get along if I wanted to be objectified.’ Leccio, Italy STELLA TENNANT 2. ELY CATHEDRAL NEARER MY to Laura Craik in ES magazine Cambridgeshire, UK COURT TO THEE 3. SOLNA CENTRUM IN 2009, two years before news of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (artist’s impression) METRO STATION Knoedler Gallery’s $70m sale of fake Stockholm, Sweden Abstract Expressionist paintings began 4. GRAND CENTRAL STATION to emerge, Ann Freedman resigned as New York, USA director. Knoedler might have collapsed GUGGENHEIM’S in ignominy in 2011, but Freedman is now 5. SHAH MOSQUE back on the Upper East side with a gallery, Isfahan, Iran Freedman Art, which she opened that GULF WAR same year. The multiple Knoedler lawsuits’ ‘The real world smells of nothing, 6. HAESLEY NINE BRIDGES GOLF CLUB HOUSE central issue is whether Freedman knew – THE GUGGENHEIM Museum Board of York City museum and at the Peggy feels like nothing and is colourless or should have known – that the works she Trustees has told the Gulf Labor Guggenheim Collection in Venice during and tasteless.’ Yeoju-gun, South Korea sold to Knoedler clients were fake. Coalition (GLC) that it will no longer the Venice Biennale. A billboard on DAVID EAGLEMAN 7. HEYDAR ALIYEV CENTRE negotiate over the conditions of the Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, advertises leading neuroscientist, to Bryan Baku, Azerbaijan workers involved with building its new several of the museum’s projects as ‘The Appleyard in Sunday Times magazine ‘FREEDMAN museum in Abu Dhabi. Richard World’s Finest Masterpieces’, including 8. SAN PANTALON HAS DESCRIBED Armstrong, director of the the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi on the top Venkatappa Art Gallery (VAG) Dorsoduro, Venice, Italy Guggenheim Museum and right. Armstrong states: ‘...the demands Foundation, sent an email to on the Guggenheim [are] beyond COLLECTOR TAKES OVER PUBLIC MUSEUM 9. HALL OF PRAYER HERSELF AS A FOR GOOD HARVESTS numerous artists, critics, curators the reach of our influence as an arts DEALER BUT Museum of Art and Temple of Heaven, Beijing and museum directors around the institution...’ GLC opponents continue ONE OF the oldest public art of the state government within establish a China ‘NOT AN world describing GLC as a group that to cite the largely invisible migrant galleries in Bengaluru, India, has walking distance. It is also in the Photography (MAP) in the VAG ‘continues to shift its demands’ and workforce, which continues to struggle been handed over to the private same compound that houses the premises. Local artists soon formed 10. ST STEPHEN WALBROOK EXPERT OR uses ‘deliberate falsehoods’. A year- for decent wages and dignity in Tasveer Foundation in a secret popular Government Museum and the VAG Forum, whose foremost City of London, UK long, fractious dialogue began after the UAE. Visvesvaraya Industrial agreement just revealed. The the and objection is that the agreement Source: BBC Culture/Jonathan Glancey CONNOISSEUR’’ the May 2015 protests at the New Source: Hyperallergic Venkatappa Art Gallery (VAG) was Technological Museum, both gives Poddar complete control of ‘With morphine I was able to do the founded in 1974 with a donation of popular destinations for school VAG, allowing him to potentially [wife’s 50th birthday] speech but that works by painter K Venkatappa and trips and tourists. promote his business interests. Glafira Rosales was about all. I was just lying in bed.’ In 2013, confessed the has grown to include large bodies of It also emerged early on that the paintings she supplied the gallery were ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER work by other well-known artists The Tasveer Foundation, controlled Department of Kannada and fake and pleaded guilty to money on crippling back pain and seriously from the state, including C P by businessman, collector, and art Culture, under whose aegis VAG laundering and tax evasion. She awaits considering a Dignitas exit, to Rajaram K K Hebbar dealer Abhishek Poddar, also runs falls, was neither made aware of, sentencing. Freedman has described Mark Edmonds in Sunday Times and . The Tasveer Gallery herself as a dealer but ‘not an expert or gallery is located on prime real the , showcasing consulted with, nor involved in the connoisseur’ and says that she didn’t estate in the central business contemporary photography. The whole process. ST STEPHEN WALBROOK City of London think anything was suspicious about the district of the city, with the seat secretive foundation aims to Source: Hyperallergic never-ending supply of cheap, major artist, works. As to being vilified by certain sectors of the collector world – ‘I didn’t slay anybody’s first-born’, was her response to The Art Newspaper. Ten UNDERFLOOR lawsuits were filed in Manhattan federal court by collectors who bought fakes. Six have been settled without Freedman getting on to the witness stand. The HISTORY following are in pre-trial proceedings: WILTSHIRE FARMSTEAD owner, Luke Irwin, digging in cables so the children could Frances Hamilton White, a California ‘39% of galleries polled have no play table tennis in his barn, has discovered the largest Roman villa – built sometime collector, bought a ‘Pollock’ in 2000 for e-commerce strategy in place, and only 43% of new young art buyers said they between 175-220 AD – ‘ever found in the UK’. Archaeological experts and an eight-day $3.1m; Knoedler paid Rosales $670,000. Martin Hilti Family Trust bought directly online, down from 46% dig by Historic England and Salisbury Museum revealed the home of a wealthy The bought a last year. Christie’s, the online market ‘Rothko’ in 2002 for $5.5m; Knoedler paid Roman family, complete with a mosaic; coins; brooches; animal bones, including a Matthew Butcher Flood House 2016 ©Bortherton-Lock leaders, saw a sales growth slowdown suckling pig; and oysters, which were artificially cultivated and carried live from the Rosales $750,000. Frank J Fertitta III from 69% last year, to just 11%.’ bought a ‘Rothko’ in 2008 for $7.2m; Flood House, an architectural design project, conceived by Matthew Butcher, will be located coast in barrels of salt water. Also identified was a Roman child’s coffin, which had COLIN GLEADELL Knoedler paid Rosales $4.5m. Many at a number of sites around the Thames Estuary. The structure is a projected dwelling for a been holding geraniums inside the Irwins’ home near Tisbury. Source: AP in The Telegraph, reacting to want Freedman to have her day in court – floating habitat, as well as a laboratory for monitoring local environmental conditions in an Hiscox’ bullish online sales report. Wiltshire Roman Villa an artist’s impression under oath. Source: The Art Newspaper area increasingly vulnerable to the risk of flooding.
8 | STATE 21 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 21 | 9
{ ...... { AN ART ‘The position of the artist is humble. ‘For me, painting is a way to forget life. NEWS He is essentially a channel.’ It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh.’ RESTATE MONITOR { PIET MONDRIAN { GEORGES ROUAULT DON’T MISS PRIZES AND COMPETITIONS PASTURES GREEN A De’Longhi Print Room exhibition showcases the gallery’s significant but rarely seen collection of historic works on paper Paul Nash from the 18th to 20th Wittenham, 1935 centuries, largely donated by connoisseur, Walter Hussey, Dean of Chichester Cathedral from 1956-78. From early watercolours and drawings by Alexander Cozens, Thomas Gainsborough and the exceptional watercolour artist, John Sell Cotman, to watercolours by 20th-century artists associated with Neo-Romanticism in Ivon Hitchens Paul Nash James Stunt Art – but not as we know it Britain, including , and Graham Sutherland. Views of the Sussex landscape around Chichester in particular include George Romney and George Catt, who taught the young Eric Gill at Chichester CUNNING College.
Pallant House Gallery 11 May - 6 June 2016 STUNT 9 North Pallant, Chichester. West Sussex PO19 1TJ THE POSTURING James Stunt, son-in-law of billionaire Formula One boss Bernie Art Cologne After hours nude tours POP, PIN-UPS & POLITICS Ecclestone, and husband of Petra, With some fine Christopher Gray The Chamber 2015 Alex J Wood Celestial patinated verdigris bronze, 2016 allegedly spent £3.5 million on art works Photo: Jasper Fry over the course of a year – as indicated by examples of WHAT IS IT ABOUT lesser-known works the newly published accounts of his firm, Clive Barker, Stunt Acquisitions Ltd by , filed at Companies Peter Blake, Derek MUSEUM Becca Pelly-Fry, Griffin Gallery House. The heiress married Stunt after he XL CATLIN AUSTRALIANS? Boshier, Pauline Boty, OF THE Head Curator; Vicky Wright, signed a pre-nuptial agreement, and the Patrick Caulfield, Deadline for Applications: ART PRIZE couple moved into a six-storey Chelsea Antony Donaldson Antony Donaldson, artist. DURING THE 50th Art Cologne (April), closed (the artist is naked, adult Study for Three YEAR 2016 Allen Jones, Gerald 3 July 2016. mansion with their three children, a spit the Australian artist Stuart Ringholt participants only). Ringholt has done Pictures Of You 1962 2016 Chelsea Arts Club Laing, Peter Phillips from the . Often referred offered extraordinary private this before: in 2012 in the Museum of THE SHORTLIST of five and Colin Self. Whitford Fine Art revisits the The Griffin Gallery The Studio Building. THE XL CATLIN Art Prize is to as an ‘art dealer’ by the press, Stunt, tours through the fair whereby all Contemporary Art in Sydney and in 2015 museums competing for the 34, who married Petra in 2011, is the sole original story of the British Pop Artists in the 21 Evesham Street, London. W11 4AJ now in its 10th year. Selected participants had to be totally naked. in the National Gallery of Art in Canberra. 1960s. The usual themes are featured – sex, award of the Art Fund Prize are: shareholder in his firm, which he set up griffingallery.co.uk/griffin-art-prize/apply from the annual XL Catlin Art Ringholt was born in Perth in 1971. He The objective is to allow the public to society and politics – and the gallery will Arnolfini, Bristol, South West; two years ago. lives and works in Melbourne and is become an element of the work of art have an internal makeover to conjure up the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, Guide for their potential to represented by the Neon Parc gallery. through the completely new reception infamous Swinging Sixties. A rather London; Jupiter Artland, West make an impact in the art The tours took place 6-8pm, outside experience. Not a gimmick then! fabulous in-their-own-words illustrated Lothian; V&A, London; York world over the next decade ‘STUNT LIKES catalogue will be available. PICTON opening hours, when the art fair was Source: ArtKoln Art Gallery, Yorkshire. The and beyond, each finalist has been commissioned to produce TO ARRIVE IN A Whitford Fine Art 27 May – 1 July 2016 prize of £100,000 is given at an ART PRIZE 6 Duke Street St. James's. London SW1Y 6BN awards dinner at the Natural a new body of work. The CAVALCADE OF History Museum in London THE PICTON Art Prize is a new winner will receive an award BYPOST? BIG BROTHER on 6 July 2016. public art platform that gives an of £5,000. The winner of the ROLLS-ROYCE EDGELANDS early career artist the opportunity Visitor Vote will receive £2,000. Rory BENTHAM Edgelands was a name to create an original artwork for This year’s finalists: Can’t find a copy of PHANTOMS AND dreamt up some 20 installation at the Angel Gate Biddulph (Slade School of Fine GENERATIONS OF Slade students have RESIDENCY STATE magazine in years ago to describe Art, MA Fine Art), Jude Crilly ‘ saluted Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), at Development in Islington. The BENTLEYS aspects of the changing FOR EMERGING (Royal College of Art, MA home in the glass display box containing Paul prize offers £3,000 cash and your area? face of Britain. For Sculpture), Jamie Fitzpatrick the philosopher’s skeleton, wrapped in Farley and Michael ARTISTS £10,000 towards the production his underwear, socks and outer clothes, Symmons-Roberts and installation of a new (Royal College of Art, MA The accounts, which cover the 12 months , the Why not get it by post? complete with wax head, in the entrance Day Bowman Griffin Sculpture), Christopher up to June 2015, disclose that Stunt authors of the book THE FIFTH edition of the sculpture. The winner of the to University College London. Last year, Road Trip 2 Edgelands, these Gray deposited £3.5 million into the business. Art Prize, opens to UK-based inaugural prize is Alex J Wood (Goldsmiths, BA Fine Just pay us your own the Panopticam Project launched a Oil, charcoal spaces are the great Jane With just under £4 million in fixed assets, and conte on canvas artists graduated since 2009. (featured in Visible, Four Artists Art & History of Art), webcam atop the auto-icon’s wooden ‘unnamed and ignored postage (&p) of which £3.5 million is declared as being The award consists of: a Of Today, issue 19), whose two and Hayes Greenwood (City & cabinet, transmitting the view from landscapes… places where our slipstream works of art, outstanding bills of £1.2 has created a zone of inattention’. This three-month residency in a a half metre bronze, Celestial, was Guilds of London Art School, Bentham’s micro world. Nick Booth, a million created a negative profit-and-loss touring exhibition of paintings and cross-arts self-contained 32m sq studio unveiled on 27 April. It draws on MA Fine Art), Hamish Pearch UCL curator says: ‘People get used to account of £715,000. Whenever he visits performances brings together works by Day (Camberwell College of The magazine him, so we need to try to think of new in W11; an apartment in West Wood’s earlier works concerning a gallery or auction house, Stunt likes Bowman, Dan Coombs, Marguerite Horner, Winsor Arts, BA Sculpture) and Neal ways to engage those people, while also London; materials from the space race, rockets and to arrive in a cavalcade of Rolls-Royce Barbara Howey, Lee Maelzer and Sean Rock is FREE making sure that first-time visitors can Williams & Newton, Liquitex and Conté movement within sculpture, and (Royal College of Art, Phantoms and Bentleys complete with , exploring and documenting these get a good look at the auto-icon. Because à Paris; and a mentoring was cast using the lost-wax PhD Painting by Practice). flunkeys in attendance. Oddly, it is wastelands. A catalogue will accompany the it’s such a popular, visible, and unusual exhibition (essay by Andrew Lambirth). method. extremely hard to find anyone in the programme from an invited object.’ The Panopticam shares an image arts professional. Griffin Simply go to: art trade that knows anything about his Edgelands XL Catlin Art Prize 2016 on the hour via Twitter at 2016 Judges: Rebecca Lewin, Picton Art Prize, ‘dealing’ other than his possibly being a 14 April - 30 June 2016 5 – 22 May 2016 @PanoptiStream. Source: Hyperallergic www.statemedia.com punter at London’s West End auctions. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), Serpentine Galleries; Jenny Angel Gate Development, 326 City Rd, Londonewcastle Project Space, The Crypt Gallery, St Marylebone Church, 17 then click on MAGAZINE Source: AP Marylebone Rd. London NW1 5LT Lindén Urnes, Lindéngruppen; London EC1V 2PT pictonartprize.com 28 Redchurch St, London E2 7DP
10 | STATE 21 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 21 | 11 NATHAN CLEMENTS-GILLESPIE
HE ART Fairs London western canon whose studios are not team, engineers of Art16, necessarily in one of the big art capitals. We room happily within the do urge these galleries to have their artists mighty Montgomery present and to engage with the events and Group HQ in AN OFFER visitors and art world professionals. An art Manchester Square, just fair environment is like putting everyone opposite the famous into a big blender, turning it on full speed Wallace Collection. There and seeing what happens. What is exciting cannot be many exhibition HE COULDN’T about Art16 is the chance to reveal the organisers whose skill set and experience international language of art – as well as its Tmatch that of the Montgomery behemoth, multiple dialects and accents. their expertise in conjuring art fairs stretches back to the Los Angeles Art Fair series in ‘As to expense? I’d say it is an investment for the 1980s – and beyond. In those days, it REFUSE the galleries. We work very hard to actually was the unforgettable Bryan Montgomery help them. We encourage them to do the who ran the company as chairman of The multi-talented Nathan Clements-Gillespie best they can and work on their stand Andry Montgomery Ltd. Today, eight years proposal. In turn, we work closely with after Bryan’s death at 80, it is Sandy Angus takes the helm of the fourth Olympia fair all our collector ambassadors, our VIP who heads its latest incarnation, Angus Art16 – and heads for choppy waters programmers and the London institutions Montgomery Ltd. The fifth generation to bring people to the fair. We aim to family firm is still extremely influential in encourage buyers who may not consider TEXT MIKE VON JOEL | PORTRAIT ED SYKES the business of international trade fairs and themselves ‘collectors’ but who want the increasingly so in the specialised arena of experience of living with art and those contemporary art. Tim Etchells and Sandy been an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim wealthy trustees and sponsors with the wanting to take that first step. A fair must Angus were the original founders of ART- Collection (‘a tremendous institution’) hard commercial realities of funding and cater for that and so I also have to think in HK, Asia’s premier art fair, sold to Art Basel and his family maintain close links to this developing an institution. ‘I admire the terms of £.s.d. A fair has an obligation to its in 2012, and have since launched other unique outpost today – although Clements- tradition of philanthropy in America and clients and our role is to bring in collectors contemporary art expositions, notably Gillespie is typically reticent about this: the UK. At MACRO, I worked with and buyers. Art16 has something for Sydney Contemporary, Art International ‘It is true, there is a single internship in advisory boards and trustees – who are everyone. From a limited edition print at Istanbul and Art Central Hong Kong. If loving memory of our cousin, Alice Stone fundamental in empowering the museum – one of our non-profit partners, to a major any creative team was likely to challenge the Ilchman, and my family sponsor this. In to achieve projects that might otherwise not work from an established gallery – and perceived dominance of Frieze in London, fact, I donated the first pay check from have been possible. For example, we were everything in between. Art16 stretches then Etchells-Angus would be the bookies’ my job in the US Pavilion at the Venice able to offer fantastic artist-in-residence across the spectrum. We have a young team favourite. Biennale of Architecture in 2008 to the fund.’ programmes, matched by an acquisition and we make sure no one is priced out. fund, which benefited both the artist and Located at Olympia, Art16 is the fourth Modern architecture plays a significant role the museum.’ It is not hard to see how ‘There is the Emerge section, curated by edition of the contemporary fair with a in Clements-Gillespie’s background. His MACRO’s modest and engaging ‘director Jonathan Watkins (director of Ikon in declared ‘global’ profile, featuring art from grandfather was a noted Boston practitioner, of external affairs’ made a big success of this Birmingham), dedicated to galleries under more than 30 countries. A brief frisson Donald L Gillespie, who launched his delicate counterbalance. And, suffice it to six years old, presenting a single or dual passed through the London art world last career working in Helsinki with architect say, within weeks of being appointed to exhibition. This is obviously heavily October when it was announced last year’s Olli Pöyry. This early influence adds yet Art16, he had tempted two of Italy’s most subsidised by the fair, where we offer 20m2 popular director, Kate Bryan, had suddenly another facet to Clements-Gillespie’s wide glamorous and high profile artniks on to its for £5,000. In addition to the stand, they ‘resigned’. Although the organisers declared ranging CV and qualification for his advisory board: Beatrice Bordone Bulgari get a section for installations – and a central themselves ‘surprised’, this young fair has Art16 role. and Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. exhibition platform, curated by Jonathan, already established a roll-over of fresh, new selected from all the Emerge participants. directors (Bryan herself had superseded the ‘I have always been interested in DESPITE THEIR undeniable popularity, Then there is London First, which equally popular Stephanie Dieckvoss). architecture and seeing all the various with visitor numbers on the increase, art guarantees that every single visitor will A mere nine months before Art16 was projects being built [at the Architecture fairs enjoy a mixed reception within the experience at least a dozen galleries, which scheduled to open, taking on the director’s Biennale] was exciting. I remember one of trade. The ever-increasing costs eliminate a have never been seen at a fair in London multi-faceted duties was bound to be a the models was about temporary housing whole swathe of galleries by default, and before and which are 10 years old or less. volatile and high-stress role and it borders on using paper and cardboard – just by virtue prime sites within the highly political These have a 20m2 booth to surprise and the miraculous that Angus Montgomery of how it was folded the material could pecking order of exhibitions invariably go inspire and to make Art16 fresh and a place rapidly found the perfect man for the job. withstand significant weight. When I started to the major players. Art16 is to maintain of discovery. at MACRO in 2010, we were in the middle the reduced number of stands as last year At the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di of building the new wing, designed by the (180 down to 134), while increasing the ‘Art16 is focused on quality, geographical Roma (aka MACRO), a self-effacing and French architect Odile Decq – we had hard opportunities for subsidised, smaller diversity and accessibility. Showing not softly spoken Italian-American had just hats on our desks for when we went out to galleries to participate. But is this actually only Londoners but our global visitors a spent four years in the role of Director of inspect the work. It is also an integral part and financially viable – despite helping fresh and exciting programme and an External Affairs and had worked on the of Art16, because I liaise closely with the attract a wider range of ex-UK gallerists? international overview of what is happening Italian pavilion for the 2013 Venice architects on just how the fair will be built Clements-Gillespie is very confident. in contemporary art and not restricted Biennale. At only 31 years old, Nathan and the sections positioned. I was up at necessarily to the western tradition...’ Clements-Gillespie is one of those multi- their main campus just outside London ‘It is possible. We are grateful to the major talented creatifs that only the art world inspecting the walls and lighting and galleries who effectively help subsidise the THIS YEAR, more than before, Art16 is seems able to produce. Born in Rome to checking progress just before I left for younger – and foreign – galleries that have under the microscope. If anyone can steer American parents (his father a journalist), Hong Kong.’ extremely limited budgets. That is what the event to a profitable future on London’s Clements-Gillespie came to the UK at 18 makes it so exciting. Forging relations with overly busy arts calendar then Nathan for a four-year stint at Oxford, studying Art16 director is clearly a ‘hands-on’ role, other galleries and the many living artists Clements-Gillespie is surely the man you French and Italian literature. Although his but one familiar to Clements-Gillespie, involved. We are a global fair, so we are want to have his hand on the tiller. first art job was in New York – with the whose job at MACRO encompassed finely offering these artists an opportunity to Art16 Olympia, Kensington. 20-22 May 2016 Peter Freeman gallery – in Venice he had balancing the egos and expectations of exhibit in London – artists outside the artfairslondon.com
12 | STATE 21 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 21 | 13 KEITH COVENTRY
PICKING UP THE PACE
The irresistible rise of Keith Coventry
TEXT MIKE VON JOEL | PORTRAIT ED SYKES
T ITS height, and this taste of privileged domesticity was to roof racks and driving them down to called an important create a series of paintings, Echoes of collection points in places like Peckham – ‘art hub’ in many a Albany (loosely based on Walter Sickert), in those days thousands of people made review, a Bethnal that depicted prostitution and other fun the effort to submit works. I actually won Green side street was activities enacted within the various sets with a painting that had 40 parts to it – a beacon for young (flats) of this conservative enclave. And so it was really only one fortieth of a work and hungry galleries how did an itinerant artist, who had made that actually won. Norman [Rosenthal] with a party lifestyle his name painting abstract interpretations was very supportive.’ to match. To the of London council estates, end up in cognoscenti of the arcane social club that is Frederick, Duke of York’s old apartments? In fact, the former RA Exhibitions Athe London art world, Vyner Street is now Secretary and Moores’ judge was a failed project, killed off, some would say, ‘It was through James Birch1 really, he told surprisingly enthusiastic, being reported as by the gentrification that the Olympics me about it. George Gale’s son, John Gale, saying: ‘[Spectrum Jesus] explores both the supposedly imposed on the East End. lived there – who I had already met. So moral and religious aspects of iconography. Today you almost expect to see tumbleweed I moved in. Terence Stamp was famously Full of ambiguity and contradictions...’ bowling down the centre of the street, on resident and later there were a lot of art The painting was subsequently acquired past the ghosts of the galleries that once world people – dealers, auctioneers. Roger by the Art Fund. made Vyner Street an art destination: Fred Scruton2 lived in Albany as did Alan Clark London; Nettie Horn; Kate MacGarry; (like his father, Sir Kenneth Clark before Coventry’s career path is typical of his Modern Art; Ibid Projects; David Risley... him). I think I was the first artist to live generation. Born in the North, he Golden Arches VIII, (detail) 2016 the list goes on. The shabby-chic local there in recent times.’ determined to get as far away as possible Gesso, glass, wood, bronze, and gold pub, The Victory, must certainly and, having failed at first to get a place at have noticed the difference. Only the Keith Coventry was born in Burnley, Chelsea, he attended Brighton Polytechnic magnificent edifice that is the Wilkinson Lancashire, in 1958. His early memories (1978-81). ‘I applied to Chelsea because Gallery acts as a reminder of the glory include attendance at a Roman Catholic someone at Burnley had described how days – but Anthony Wilkinson owns the church every Sunday morning at 7am, to great it was. Brighton seemed even further building and operates on the international read psalms out loud to the congregation. away and was my second choice. It was a fair circuit rather than depending on Ironically, Coventry’s grandmother was the great place, I went exploring the South footfall and impulse sales. sole Catholic in the family – he did not Downs at the weekend. It was very big on live with his immediate parents – and she printmaking at that time with a large But one building is buzzing with life and it ruled the home with a religious zeal that department run by Harvey Daniels3. I is the one just purchased by three artists to amounted to censorship. ‘When I have then did my MA in painting at Chelsea use as operational studios. There, located been out drinking, on the way home I still School of Art (1981-82) – down in on the light, open plan first floor is painter think maybe I should go and do some Bagleys Lane, with its burned out council Keith Coventry – and, typically, he is work now – is that Catholic guilt? I was estates and gypsy caravans parked in the going against the flow once again. When forced into being a reader in church forecourts. I lived in Wandsworth Old Vyner Street throbbed to the beat of raw services – psalms where people give a Town and walked across Wandsworth ambition and thrusting young arrivistes, response – and it sometimes feels like it Bridge each day.’ Coventry was resident in Albany, the when I give a talk today.’ Some 40 years exclusive block of 18th-century bachelor later, Coventry would win the £25,000 It was de rigueur at that time for former pads, just off Piccadilly, that at various John Moores Painting Prize (2010) for a postgraduates to enter the career vacuum, times sheltered Lord Byron, Gladstone, work called Spectrum Jesus. a sort of trial by poverty, to sort out the Dame Edith Evans, Lord Snowdon and serious players from the butterfly dreamers. Terence Stamp, among other high society ‘I spent years applying to the John Moores Coventry’s phlegmatic, northern attitude luminaries. Coventry’s own response to open competition. Putting paintings on might well have helped him survive the
14 | STATE 01 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 21 | 15 COVER STORY STIK ON MESSAGE
West Lake Estate 1996 oil on linen, painted wood & glass Courtesy Godson and Coles London Heygate Estate 1995 oil on linen, painted wood & glass Courtesy Tate Gallery
transition from art school to real world ‘I was already 10 years older than the YBA and he recollects he had no problem ‘When I was at school, I was told people. Mine was the last painting juggling mundane pay jobs with on show as you came out through the making art. by the art teacher that I was not bookshop. It was Sir Norman Reid Explaining Modern Art to the Queen and ‘When I was at school, I was told by the the best but that I did have more I often wonder if Saatchi identified with art teacher that I was not the best but that this image – himself explaining art to the I did have more dedication than the rest dedication than the rest of them’ great British public. I had been included of them. I overloaded this guy with work {}in Saatchi’s Young British Artists V at his I had produced myself in my own time. gallery on Boundary Road. He had kept I went into art to basically avoid the new gallery in Foley Street. I did a couple ‘We just kept bashing out the shows. a few favourite people on but the rest of responsibility of a real job, so I would of shows. The back bit opened out on to Initially we had a £100 budget where we us were hived off to the Arts Council have carried on however long it took. That Riding House Street and that became had all put in £20. Out of this we did a or auctioned’. reality check was standard in those days. I Riding House Editions run by Thomas card at Prontoprint, postage – and a few was a gardener and a painter and decorator Dane. It might well have been his bottles of wine. The five of us were just The Victory pub, Vyner Street for [the infamous property gangster] building. A lot of people left that gallery – trying to show our work. We gave April 2016 Nicholas van Hoogstraten. It was through Michael Landy, Gary Hume, me! I just exhibitions to Mat Collishaw, Sarah his architect – I never met him – but I felt I was in the doldrums. I had Lucas, Gillian Wearing, Fiona Banner State: You appear to feel most comfort- remember he didn’t pay. I then lived in a something running at the same time with and so on. The visitors book showed able making works in series, with clearly squat in the Oval alongside the cricket Maureen Paley. She had lost Dering people like Julia Peyton-Jones attending. defined parameters. Is this a natural ground, which was my studio and which we Street and gone back to Beck Road and I remember I gave up my bedroom to methodology? turned into a gallery. In 1998, everything Karsten thought my painting would make more exhibition space for the Gavin changed. People went straight into galleries work there.’ Brown exhibition. It lasted 10 years and Keith Coventry: Well, at one time I did from art school and started selling. But, we did 50 exhibitions – Carl Freedman not like repeating something I had already before that, you had to put in your Post-war art history has been determined said the difference between City Racing done. But I came to see you could do apprenticeship years. I was quite lucky. I to mirror the early 20th-century culture and the rest was that we kept pushing something similar – but that had a slight had a studio space at the Oval early on of ‘-isms’. It can seem obsessed with out the exhibitions. There is a book4 out development in it. So then I started and a bit of painting and decorating to identifying critical milestones and now about the whole thing – I haven’t working in series. It seemed doing an idea pay the bills. It kept you grounded. I movements: Cybernetic Serendipity (ICA, got a copy.’ once and then throwing it away… really, remember Stephen Cox coming round to 1968), the Freeze exhibition (1988), no one has that many ideas do they? I see me – he was my tutor at Brighton – Charles Saatchi at Boundary Road and his There was one undisputed 20th-century wanted to emphasise an idea in a series. and saying how he was free every day to Young British Artists V (1995) – and already milestone however, the year before City paint. Even then I thought that was very the mythology of Coventry’s scruffy betting Racing closed. It was Charles Saatchi’s Your most celebrated series has to be the boring – a total indulgence. shop squat, which for 10 years operated as 1997 Sensation show at the Royal Estate Paintings, which are really quite a cutting edge gallery called City Racing. Academy. Even at the time, this showcase sparse and beautiful. I saw Matt Collings ‘I knew Mark Wallinger – who was mad A cooperative with four other artists – for the enfants terribles of English art – wrote: ‘[These] estates spawned new about cricket – and he brought Michael Matt Hale, Paul Noble, John Burgess, the so-called Young British Artists (YBAs) problems, vandalism, violence, social Landy round because we could get up on and Peter Owen – City Racing became – was seen as something important. to the parapet and watch the Test match. influential before its demise in 1998 and, Keith Coventry was a participant in this Sceaux Gardens Estate 1995 It was Michael who got me a show at towards the end, gained respect (and reputation-making exhibition. Although oil on linen, painted wood & glass Karsten [Schubert]. I think I opened his funding) from the establishment. he recalls not being featured centre stage: Courtesy Vigo Gallery
16 | STATE 21 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 19 | 17 COVER STORY MARCUS HARVEY
Slifford Estate 1995 oil on linen, painted wood & glass Courtesy Tate Gallery Pure Junk XII 2016 carved wood, muslin, beeswax, gesso, glass and wood
isolation, drug dealing and addiction, them. I thought ‘Suprematist paintings’ – Burlington Gardens – Haunch had a something. I put in fairly long hours – prostitution and racism, recurring themes just drop off all the text and they talk bookshop where the café is now – their many seven-day weeks and 51-week years. in Coventry’s work.’ You had your finger about quite a lot in a concise way. The main showing rooms were upstairs. In I used to go to those famous art parties, on something there that captured the prices for these have been pretty stable 2009, I had five rooms and showed 132 although no one seemed to take a photo imagination of anyone involved with actually. With my next body of work paintings! They gave me the space and I of me. I can’t be bothered anymore – and the art of painting. How did they it was quite difficult to come up with just put something in each room. I made what am I missing? Nothing. I think the come about? something as neat as these paintings. those Jesus paintings in about five weeks. Groucho is owned by Krispy Kreme donuts now. If you had a London Library I had a lurcher dog at the time and would You seem to have had a very lively The Pace Gallery is now at Burlington card you could use Black’s up until 6pm in go walking for a couple of hours a day. I relationship with quite a few galleries. Is Gardens and they have lately closed their the days of Giuseppe [Mascoli]. They tell would cut through council estates looking the current collaboration with Pace a sign Lexington Street project space, which me Quo Vadis is the club to use now – for new routes to go. All of them have this you are settling down for the long haul? might have suited you better. although the art collection appears to map at the entrance – like an aerial view of have gone... the blocks – and this constant looking at Well, galleries close down. Look at With Pace – it’s my second show – I these signs added some significance to Haunch of Venison. When they were in think we have what they call a ‘working www.pacegallery.com relationship’. I have had a peripatetic relationship with galleries in the past and All images courtesy of Pace London unless it’s good to be fixed. I was attracted to otherwise noted. Pace because I knew it was a place where I would not be able to relax. A lot more was going to be demanded of me because NOTES standards are much higher on this level. 1. James Birch. Art dealer, curator and former gallerist (Birch & Conran) They deal with major estates. Everything depends on results, of course, and my 2. Roger Scruton. Conservative philosopher, prices are not that high. They come to author and art critic your studio and see what you are doing 3. Harvey Daniels. University of Brighton, and then say: ‘OK, give us 10 really good founder member of the Printmakers Council ones of those!’ It is more like a project, and fellow of the Royal Society of Painters where you take something and develop it. and Printmakers. I don’t feel I’m making a commodity – but 4. City Racing: The Life and Times of an you certainly go to the edge in terms of Artist-Run Gallery anxiety and stress. I will be showing a very John Burgess, Keith Coventry, Matt Hale, Paul large black bronze sculpture and then the Noble, Peter Owen. Black Dog Publishing Ltd. McDonald’s logo – curved sections – paintings in white gesso and beeswax.
I’m quite disciplined nowadays. I try to Pure Junk XI 2016 Window 2016 bronze and brass Photo: Stephen White work every single day and make sure I do carved wood, muslin, beeswax, gesso, glass and wood
18 | STATE 21 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 20 | 19 MIRANDA DONOVAN
IT ALL ACTUALLY started nervous system, so in retrospect I now from seeing this building just understand why, for a good four years, I felt off the A40 flyover, by the ALCHEMICAL so anxious a lot of the time. The problem Lucozade sign,’ recalls perhaps was using this concoction of Miranda Donovan (b1979). materials all together. There were times ‘It’s now an Audi building, when I would come back home and felt I but, back then, it was could have lit a cigarette from the fumes completely smashed out and there was REACTIONS coming out of me. The following morning, something about it that I was really drawn you wake up and you feel in a slight fog. to. It used to be so easy to find derelict Eventually, it got so bad, that when I ate buildings in London, but now it’s virtually Miranda Donovan unites a love of materials or drank a cup of coffee, my body would impossible. Everything’s been done up and break out in a painful rash because my liver homogenised. I really miss that sense of the with a strong graphic eye, bringing the outside in couldn’t break anything down any more. I old and the new being there cheek by jowl. – and the inside out was unable to eat. I remember ringing Alan That’s what I’ve always enjoyed in my work: Fitzpatrick [of AP Fitzpatrick Fine Art bringing in that sense of opposites – order TEXT ANNA MCNAY | PORTRAITS ED SYKES Materials in Cambridge Heath] and asking and chaos, a salubrious area with run down him what to do. He said, first of all, not to buildings. I like trying to make sense of it all. worry, as I wasn’t the only person this had It’s like trying to make sense of our world.’ happened to, but to clean my studio out of every single solvent and not to go there at Donovan takes photographs of what all for two to three months. At the time you she finds, documenting the intriguing think: “Oh my god, how am I going to deal juxtapositions, before returning to her studio, with this?” but you get through it and pinning the pictures up on the wall, and nature and various things force you to go extracting elements. ‘That’s where fact down a different road and, in the long run, becomes fiction. I’ll take the colours from it can turn out to be beneficial, not only to ‘one wall and put them with the marks from your health, but also to your output. After another and then combine them to make about six months of living a solvent-free them relevant to whatever it is I’m trying life, the clarity that came back to my brain to say.’ Her canvases become stretches of was amazing. There was a distinct point decrepit brickwork, with minute bricks created where I felt like this fog had just lifted out of layers of cement, chipped into, from me.’ graffiti’d over, some with foliage emerging through the cracks. The results are so life- During this time, Donovan has also been like that you might, at first glance, believe busy working as the in-house illustrator for she had brought back an actual slab of wall. Donovan studied History of Art at Bristol. A question Donovan has been asked the new, elite arts club, The Cultivist, She then began a Fine Art degree at the repeatedly is whether or not the character founded by Marlies Verhoeven and Daisy ‘Within my work, there’s definitely a real École supérieure d’art d’Aix en Provence, in the drawings is herself. ‘I think it Peat in 2015. Each new member has their passion for the materials in themselves,’ says which she completed at City & Guilds. In probably is, but in the third person. By portrait drawn by Donovan as part of their Donovan. Speaking of the brick mixture: 2007, she was taken on by Lazarides, whom using a character, you’re distancing yourself. welcome pack. It is also reduced down in ‘It’s quite therapeutic. It’s like cooking or she worked with until two years ago. Since Maybe there’s a subconscious thing going size and lasered on to their metal ID card, alchemy, mixing up your potion. When I then, she has been enjoying her independence. on. I suppose it’s also about making the in place of the more traditional photograph. was young, I used to get a tumbler and pour A recent show at CNB Gallery was perhaps serious less serious, by using a comical Donovan has committed to producing in some bleach, some vinegar, and then squirt inevitable following numerous collaborations character. You can talk about something 500 such portraits: ‘It gives it a sense of in some toothpaste, mixing up a concoction, with Mark Hix, whom she met in 2007 at that’s a serious topic, but make it more specialness, rather than being mass- seeing how bright blue I could get it. In a a dinner. ‘In 2009, he’d just opened Hix light-hearted, which I think is perhaps my produced,’ she says. ‘The project was very way, that’s what I’m still doing now’. Brewer Street and I remember him saying mentality as well. If I find something very fortuitous as it gave me something to focus there wasn’t very much wall space so he’d difficult, I can turn it into a comedy.’ my energies on. It’s really made me aware As well as materiality, however, Donovan is use the ceilings.’ Accordingly, Donovan again of my love of getting stuck into also drawn to linearity. ‘I think that’s why I produced a bespoke mobile for the Soho Some of the drawings are quite aggressive. detail. I used to really love making all was attracted to the burnt out buildings – restaurant. Over the years, she’s been One even has the character holding a the miniature bricks and foliage, but now the structure of the windows and the involved with various further projects, machete. ‘My son said to me the other I’m talking about an attention to detail brickwork. Similarly with the steel sheets including designing the menus for Frieze. day: “But mum, that’s the warrior”,’ says through pencil, rather than through a with rivets – they’ve got this form, this grid, ‘Mark has always been a massive support; Donovan. ‘And that’s exactly it. That material that you can manipulate to look this structure.’ The steel sheets Donovan he promotes art in a very natural way. He warrior mentality. I’m using the characters like something.’ refers to are, again, not actually steel sheets enjoys it and loves having it in his restaurants.’ to comment on things, to reflect on emotions, but wooden panels covered with resin and to speak about different archetypes of the And Donovan’s love of the linear once worked in such a way as to resemble – really This show was a landmark for Donovan human condition. I felt I was ready to bring again becomes apparent. ‘I see things in resemble – a warped and rusted sheet. as it was the first time she exhibited works them out. For me, the steel sheets also strong contours and shading,’ she says. And we’re talking large – No Expectations from her 2014 caricature series, Diary of reflect the human condition, because of all Having taken a break from the solvents of (2013-14), for example, measures 198 x My Other Self, alongside her walls and steel the dents and scars that we accrue over life, 10 months now, she hopes, soon, to be able 366cm. ‘Some people might say I’m tying sheets. ‘I’ve always drawn those characters but the characters are more recognisable to to return to using them – albeit on a lesser it up in a bow, taking something from the but I’d never exhibited them before. I others in terms of emotions.’ scale. ‘I’d like to be able to marry up what street inside and recreating it, but that’s a remember being about seven or eight years I’m doing now with this other work. I have bit like saying you can’t paint landscapes. old and seeing Fat Slags in Viz. I didn’t The characters were also something ideas for the character, too. I want to say I’m inspired by the architecture of the know what it was about but I asked my Donovan could continue working with more about the human condition and the urban environment. A clean sheet of steel mum if I could have a copy because I loved during a period of serious illness and emotions we all experience. For me, art would do absolutely nothing for me, but the characters in it. It was the same with the detoxification this past year. ‘Many of the should be an instinctive thing. It’s like using when I look at it and it’s got peeling paint Dandy and the Beano. I always wanted to materials I was working with – car paints, another language to communicate about and it’s warped, it tells a story.’ look at them, but purely on a visual level.’ spray paints, solvents, resins – attack the the world you’re living in.’
20 | STATE 19 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 21 | 21 MALTA
Victor Agius Genesis Gozitan unfired clay, exhibited at the National Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta, Malta, 2014 Photo ©2014 Elisa Von Brockdorff
F IRST SETTLED in paintings, made during the artist’s stay on around 4,000 BC the island from July 1607 to October when Stone Age man 1608, after he fled Italy accused of murder. sailed south from Sicily He entered the Order as a knight of and lived in caves on obedience and was obliged to spend a year the islands, the ISLAND OF in the convent before being made a knight Maltese archipelago himself. His first painting made on the has a long history. island, St Jerome Writing (1607), shows the Variously occupied by artist’s skill in the use of chiaroscuro for the Greek, Etruscan, dramatic effect. The Beheading of the Persian, Carthaginian, Baptist (1608) is both Caravaggio’s largest Roman and British empires due to a THEMES canvas – at 360 x 520cm – and the only position of strategic importance on the An island state dominated by the Church, work he ever signed. FGibraltar-Egypt route, it is located midway between Europe and Africa. During the Malta and its burgeoning art scene are set to As a result of this ecclesiastical First World War, Malta became known domination, contemporary art galleries as ‘the nurse of the Mediterranean’, and, take centre stage with Valletta's year as on the island are relatively few and far during the Second World War, it became between, but things are set to change. a pivotal weapon in Rommel’s North European Capital of Culture in 2018. With the impending V18 – Valletta’s year African campaign. Ultimately the whole ANNA MCNAY as European Capital of Culture in 2018 – island was awarded the George Cross in TEXT effort is being put into bringing more arts appreciation of its people’s heroism in venues to the cities. The most recent withstanding the Nazi siege. It remained edition of the Mdina Cathedral under British rule from 1800-1964, albeit Contemporary Art Biennale becoming one of the first British colonies (13 November 2015 – 7 January 2016) to be granted self-government in 1921. is also a signal of change. Begun in 1992, Finally, it became a republic in 1974. the biennale was initially a showcase for Since 2004, it has been the smallest Catholic art. In 1998, it was updated to state in the European Union – even show ‘sacred art’. This edition’s artistic Luxembourg is eight times as large. The director, the painter and professor Maltese have their own language, Malti, Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci, is, however, which sounds something like an Arabic not religious at all. Describing himself as a dialect, flavoured with Italian and English ‘militant left-wing and rampant anarchist’, expressions. Despite being staunchly he says: ‘I have no idea why they chose me Roman Catholic, the word used for ‘God’ – presumably to shake it up a bit’. And is ‘Allah’, and the second name of ‘Jesus’ shake it up he did. The theme this time is ‘Sultan’. round was ‘Christianity, Spirituality and the Other’, and, as Schembri Bonaci The two main cities on the island are explains: ‘For the first time, the Church Mdina and Valletta and they couldn’t be opened up several of its spaces for art – more different. Mdina, with its strong not a sacred type of art – but that city walls, moat and Norman architecture, produced by artists from all cultural and belongs entirely to the Church and George Cross reenactment, 2013 religious backgrounds, from all faiths, aristocracy, and seems hardly to have religious beliefs, spiritual beliefs, even changed since it was built. The streets are exclusive use of the title up to then, the director of the Valletta Film Festival, non-beliefs. It is the first time that a no longer than the flight of an arrow. St John’s was given the unusual name of notes: ‘you walk in and they’re an art multinational aspect has come to St Paul’s Cathedral is ornately Baroque Co-Cathedral. Despite its austere exterior gallery’. The barrel vault of St John’s, for characterise the Mdina Biennale since its and breathtakingly beautiful. Valletta, on and fortress-like character, its interior is example, is decorated with the life of founding’. Schembri Bonaci selected the the other hand, is much more modernised, exuberant and a further gem of Baroque St John the Baptist by Mattia Preti works of 120 international artists, with striking (and controversial) Renzo art and architecture, owing to redecoration (1660) – an unusual fresco, since it was including some loans from private Piano city gates and his new Parliament by the Knights of the Order of St John made in oil paint rather than watercolour. collections of works by artists such as building, and recognisable chain stores as a result of the Catholic reformation. It also houses the world’s largest complete Georges Rouault (1971-1958) and Dario on the main streets. Still a beautiful – and collection of 29 Flemish tapestries, based Fo (b1926). Working with two scholastic steep – medieval city, a Unesco World You cannot escape the dominance of the on cartoons by Rubens. Its star objets curators – Nikki Petroni and Irene Heritage site since 1980, Valletta was churches in Malta and as Oliver Mallia, d’art, however, are the Caravaggio Biolchini – he wanted to create a designed on a radically modern grid plan discussion between the contemporary following the 31-day Great Siege of 1565, secular works and religious Baroque setting. in which the Christians, led by John de ‘You cannot escape the dominance In fact, this year, for the first time, the Vallette, broke the power of the Ottoman Church opened the doors of the cathedral empire forever. St John’s Co-Cathedral, of the churches in Malta: you walk in itself, which was both a breakthrough, initially the conventual church of the but also the cause of numerous logistical Order of St John of Jerusalem, was and they’re an art gallery’ problems, not least due to restrictions on elevated to the status of cathedral in 1816, opening times and the fact that works but, as the cathedral in Mdina had the { OLIVER MALLIA Director, Valletta Film Festival } could not be hung on the walls. 22 | STATE 21 www.state-media.com MALTA ISLAND OF THEMES
Gabriel Caruana Figure, 1983 Ceramic and glaze GABRIEL CARUANA Old School Hero
‘CLAY FOR me is fresh and free, always alive and bold: it what the pen is for possesses the same verve that gave birth the poet. It is my to the modern independence in paint- soul. It stays as I ing and sculpture’. put it. It pleases RAFFAELLA ZAMMIT RAFFAELLA me.’ With this Caruana works primarily with obvious passion, ceramics, but he also makes drawings Gabriel Caruana and paintings. ‘What is important,’ (b1929) has dedicated his life to his he says, ‘is not the medium but the art, fighting against the odds to individual seeking expression’. Having continue working, despite a recent broken free from the shackles of double amputation below the knee. representational art, his work will Just turned 87, Caruana is Malta’s remain an important point of reference answer to Picasso. He brought modern for the study of 20th-century Maltese Maltese façade art to the island and worked hard to art. In 1990, he acquired an old get it accepted. ‘I believe that one must windmill, Mithna Ta’ Ganu, in have the strength of his convictions Birkirkara. This was opened on 22 One British artist, whose work was shown mentality is changing slowly – very and also seek understanding,’ he says. June 1990 as an art, culture and crafts in the cathedral, was Andrew Hancock ‘We are here at a time when Malta’s ARTNAKED is also playing an important slowly,’ she continues, ‘and the artists ‘Design is the basis of all. Design is centre. It is now a listed building in (b1982), who was one of six international cultural scene is becoming increasingly role in this year’s Valletta Film Festival, are supporting and encouraging the in the mind, the heart and the need of much restoration. Caruana and artists selected by the London-based curating a strand of ‘art shorts’ to be growth of the small independent hands. Creation is feeling, seeing, his daughter, Raffaella Zammit, are curatorial consultancy, ARTNAKED, dynamic, growing in ambition, and ever shown as an installation (a looping series alternative art spaces and galleries. When manipulating and being faithful to hoping the government will fund this. which was involved as creative sponsor of of 10-12 video artworks). But it’s not as if I was still in the UK, I worked for Turner the materials used.’ Zammit, despite her full-time job with the biennale. Hancock, whose heritage is more active on the global stage’ the island doesn’t produce artists enough Contemporary, in various capacities. an environment agency, is busy setting part Maltese, created a series of work on of its own. A recent exhibition, Virtuoso, I actually feel like I am back in the middle As a young artist, Caruana had two up a foundation to keep her father’s the island, integrating limestone dust, HON DR JOSEPH MUSCAT at the commercial art gallery Studio 104, of a regeneration project now. Only there studios. His doors were always open for name going. As part of this, she is chalk and found objects into his painting. { Prime Minister of Malta } run by British expat Michelle Morrissey, is now a community or neighbourhood. people to drop in and, more often than digitising the archives of all his many ‘Part of my focus for these works has included five names to watch: Austin There is not the hostility shown towards not, he’d take them home for a dinner press cuttings, filed and ordered by his been on Maltese communities and the Camilleri, Raphael Vella, Ruth Bianco, art staff members, as in Margate. Here the of pasta. There weren’t many opportu- wife/her mother. The foundation also dichotomy that exists between outward ‘This edition of the Mdina Biennale has in ambition, and ever more active on Victor Agius and Vince Briffa. More neighbours are polite, helpful and very nities on the island, but he went out works to support emerging artists. expressions of faith and private religiosity,’ provoked artists to question the very the global stage,’ continues the Hon Dr commonly, these artists’ works might be respectful. I can almost see them wishing and made his own, paying for all his he says. ‘Being privileged in the making essence of being, to look at their inner Joseph Muscat, Prime Minister of Malta. seen at St James Cavalier, a millennium I could have a visitor or a run-away- travel himself. He’d always take a work A book on Caruana was recently of these new artworks for the Mdina self and reflect on that which is spiritual,’ ‘The Mdina Cathedral Contemporary project ‘centre for creativity’, with space success exhibition. There is no hostility, or a book along to museums and give published by Kite (2015) and, in Biennale, I am symbolically acting writes Monsignor Aloysius Deguara, Art Biennale 2015-16 possesses all these for exhibitions of work by contemporary just concern.’ it as a gift, thereby establishing many 2002, his name was included in the out ritual observances that stem from the chairman of the Mdina Cathedral characteristics. It is based on these merits Maltese artists, alongside a theatre, a concert contacts and even friendships. One Walk of Art unveiled at the Yorkshire profound Catholic traditions. I am Museum, in his foreword to the that I do not hesitate to envisage the hall and a cinema. Morrissey describes it – Over the street from Studio 104 is the such contact was Victor Pasmore, who Sculpture Park. painting as part of a real pilgrimage accompanying catalogue. ‘We are here Mdina Biennale becoming one of the somewhat generously – as ‘the equivalent to not-for-profit, independent, artist-run became a friend and mentor. He said and in my own manner making art as a at a time when Malta’s cultural scene is most important artistic projects of the Tate here’, but in terms of public arts contemporary art space, BLITZ, which of Caruana: ‘Caruana’s art is always gabrielcaruana.com religious obedience.’ becoming increasingly dynamic, growing recent years.’ venues, that is pretty much it. ‘The cultural focuses on photography. Set within a Maltese carnival
24 | STATE 21 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 21 | 25 MALTA ISLAND OF THEMES
Andrew Hancock, installation The sacristy of St Paul's Cathedral for the Mdina Cathedral Contemporary Art Biennale. Photo: courtesy ARTNAKED Austin Camilleri Zieme, 2014 Bronze and hard stone plinth, first installed at the City Gate,Valletta Photo Craig Hands Adam Dix, installation Curated by ARTNAKED for the Mdina Cathedral Contemporary Art Biennale in the Cathedral Museum, Mdina. Courtesy ARTNAKED Cittadella aerial view { Austin Camilleri in his studio. Photo George Saguna ‘For the first time, the Church AUSTIN CAMILLERI
Victor Agius, Oxur, 2014 opened up several of its spaces for BORN IN 1972, Austin Camilleri has Camilleri also makes paintings with Mixed media with found earth, resins and art – not a sacred type of art – but that represented Malta internationally in Paris, ‘windows’ – shapes taken from old works pva glue, soil and sand on panel Brussels, Rome, Vienna, London, New of his or from pornography. He enjoys produced by artists from all cultural and York, Geneva, Munich, Ramallah, certain elements of kitsch and the reverse Guatemala City, and Cape Town, among psychology of not stripping away layers to at Ggantija Temples in Xaghra, Gozo, religious backgrounds, from all faiths, others. His practice incorporates video, understand things, but building them up opposite where he lives. Together with the religious beliefs, spiritual beliefs, installation, sculpture and painting. He instead. He describes his paintings as composer Mariella Cassar Cordina and studied at the University of Malta and the ‘auto-referential works – paintings about the writer Immanuel Mifsud, Agius has even non-beliefs’ Accademia Pietro Vannucci in Perugia, painting’. When he took up a paintbrush, evolved a dialogue with the Unesco World after winning a four-year scholarship in 1991. however, it was important for him to Heritage site of the temples, creating a GIUSEPPE SCHEMBRI BONACI master the medium: ‘If I’m going to use it, performance, followed by an exhibition Camilleri is particularly well known in Artistic Director I must know what I’m doing – otherwise at St James Cavalier. His terracotta pieces Malta for his three-legged, bronze statue of I’d be Damien Hirst’. Mdina Cathedral Contemporary Art Biennale 2015 comprise negative skins formed through a horse, installed at Valletta’s City Gate, as pressing slabs of clay on to a number of Dr Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci { part of VIVA – Valletta International Visual Most recently, Camilleri was the winner VICTOR AGIUS megaliths found around Gozo. Arts Festival – in September 2014. In of a competition to create a new national four-level, 400-year-old Valletta art, jazz and performance. The National abandoned until the announcement that addition to missing a leg, the four-metre monument for Malta. Since he doesn’t BORN IN 1982 on water. These sketches are just to develop Agius has participated in numerous townhouse, the building has been Museum of Fine Arts, whose most it would be European Capital of Culture tall statue was entitled Zieme, not Ziemel, actually believe in monuments – being Gozo, Victor Agius the concept, however, as he then makes international exhibitions: the Spazio repurposed into a space for exhibitions important holdings include works by Preti 2018. There is a lot of catching up to which would have meant ‘horse’. Taking off of the belief that the people are the was raised in an his ceramics freely. At its core, his work Pastificio Cerere in Rome (2012), and events, and a social space for the and Antoine Favray, as well as portraits do and the clock is ticking’. On a more from the premise that Malta, unlike other monument – he intends to use St Elmo’s artistic family. His is concerned with formless matter. To his Galleria San Eufemia in Venice (2011), creative and curious. It also offers a self- of many of the Grand Masters of the positive note, she adds: ‘There are some countries in northern Europe, has no Square in Valletta and to create an ALAN CARVILLE ALAN father was a sculptor mind, ‘the material is the spiritual, not the Arte Padova Fair in Padova (2011), contained apartment hosting the BLITZ Order, is moving to a larger space for truly passionate and strong people here in equestrian monuments, Camilleri set out architectural installation with a sloping but he allowed his the form’. His overall practice consists of the Long Room Gallery at Oxford live-in residency programme. So what is 2018. And 2017 sees the return of Malta the arts world, students and academics, to convey a potent message on power and square or triangle, which takes people down son space to develop performance, installation, sculpture and University (2010), the International the primary problem stunting the growth to the Venice Biennale for the first time who are working hard to make a politics. ‘In equestrian monuments, the into the space beneath the fortress. He sees his own techniques. painting. Agius examines the distinctive Biennale of Contemporary Art in of the contemporary art world in Malta? in 17 years. difference’. With people like Schembri horse carries representatives of power on this as giving the space back to the people. After graduating from the University of ecological and archaeological features Florence (2009) and the Museum of ‘People are slow in communications Bonaci at the helm, watch this space! its back and hence is somewhat symbolic of Malta’s Fine Art Department (2004), of the sites in which he is working and Modern Art in Santo Domingo (2006). here,’ says Natasha Borg, who comes ARTNAKED director Tani Burns power itself,’ the V18 Foundation, which Camilleri, who is also a visiting lecturer at Agius continued his studies abroad, first reflects both upon the subject of human As an emerging talent from Malta he was from a background as an art historian, describes Malta’s ‘burgeoning cultural was co-organising the festival, explained. the Faculty of Education, University of at the International School of Painting, existence in general and the limits of his selected to represent his country in the curator and manager. ‘PR is our landscape’ as ‘incredibly exciting right ‘A missing detail in this horse transforms Malta, lives in St Lucija – the smallest Drawing and Sculpture in Perugia, own existence in particular. 2014 European Ceramic Context in biggest hurdle.’ now,’ adding: ‘As Malta moves closer to NOTES the sculpture into an ironic testimony to village on Gozo – with his wife and two Italy, then at Central Saint Martin’s. ‘As Bornholm, Denmark. Despite his success, 2018, when Valletta takes on the crown Thanks to Tani Burns of ARTNAKED; the the illusory nature of power. His loss makes children. He is also a curator and has islanders, we need to travel,’ he explains. For the Mdina Cathedral Contemporary Agius remains aware that ‘contemporary With V18 approaching, however, of European Capital of Culture, we have Waterfront Hotel in Sliema and the Xara Palace him no longer productive.’ Camilleri designed books, campaigns, awards and Art Biennale, Agius made a series of St art does not equal money here. It is twee things are starting to change. Schembri already seen, over the course of just a few and Medina restaurants in Mdina for their himself, however, says: ‘I don’t believe stage sets for operas, theatre and dance. Agius works with soil, roots and tree bark Pauls, cast in local soils from the statuettes traditional tourist art that sells’. Accordingly, Bonaci, for example, has finally been months, definite developments in the hospitality; and Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci, in defining a medium – it’s about the He has represented Malta in a number in a Kiefer-like manner, collecting different used for festas. He has also been part of he also works as an art educator to make called in to work on a project he’s been cultural infrastructure across the major Nikki Petroni, Natasha Borg, Oliver Mallia, concepts. I don’t see it as a sculpture of international exhibitions. coloured soils to use as pigments and the ongoing Ggantija 2013 Project – an a living. touting for a long while: that of renovating cities of the island’. Morrissey says: Raffaella Zammit, Michelle Morrissey, Austin of a horse; I see it as a conceptual work painting directly with them mixed with interdisciplinary and collaborative project victoragius.com the nearly derelict Strait Street, Valletta’s ‘Contemporary art has just not been a Camilleri and Victor Agius for their time of art’. austincamilleri.com former red light district, into a street for part of the culture and Valletta had been and wisdom.
26 | STATE 21 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 21 | 27 FOUR TO WATCH STATEMENT WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT ART HEROES
TWO WRITERS tackled the posthumous biographies of two contemporary art ROBERT Robert Fraser dealers, divided by a generation gap of as ‘Groovy Bob’ 40 years but who died a mere 10 years apart. In a strange coincidence, both FRASER that you’re selling’. So I said, ‘That sounds authors eschewed the traditional A-Z, like a reasonable deal,’ and I gave up my crib to grave panorama and decided on DAVID HERBERT I always respected job. A few months later I got a cheque the In-Their-Own-Words format. By Robert. He respected me. I had an eye for that bounced. doing so, the already remarkable art, and so we got along very well. And similarities between these two we’d go around to artists’ studios and it MICK JAGGER I liked Robert very flamboyant art world operators became was just wonderful, because we both much, but he was obviously a tremendous even more pronounced. zeroed in on what was good. It was great sharpie, someone you had to be a bit to talk to him. careful with, moneywise and otherwise. But he was a great taste person. IRVING BLUM The most remarkable Robert was bringing in a new kind of thing about Robert was his almost DEREK BOSHIER He’d sometimes talk visual sensibility. instantaneous understanding of what was about boys. He might see one and say, going on in the art world in America. He ‘Oh, he’s very pretty’. He didn't hide J PAUL GETTY He deserves to be understood in the 60s that there was this the fact that he was gay, but he wasn’t remembered, Robert. He really was an Tarik Hanif Deterioration 2015 Steel, leather and paint Photo: Daniel Walmsley Sarah Jane Moon Harriet & Anoushka (Detail) 2015 Oil on canvas groundswell of real activity and he was queenie about it. icon of his time and I think that when he able to sort through it in a very precise died there wasn’t an obituary in any of the TARIK HANIF SARAH JANE MOON way and get right to the core of it. KASMIN You might go wild and get turned major papers. Which is a shame, because Having recently completed his art and design foundation at Sarah Jane Moon is an award-winning painter who most often works on at times, but in the background is the he certainly required one. Harriet Vyner South Trafford College, Tarik Hanif has accomplished a great within the genre of portraiture and narrative painting. In 2013, she ELLSWORTH KELLY He was very likeable, wife, the child, the mortgage, etc. The deal in a short time. Using materials such as metal, leather, was the recipient of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Bulldog Harriet Vyner’s expanded reprint friendly, and there was a certain immediate difference between Robert and me was BRIAN CLARKE When Robert died it
THURSTON GREY THURSTON canvas and concrete, and working with photographs he takes of Bursary. Her work explores notions of identity, relationship,
(Heni Press) of her 1999 Faber & Faber bond between us. Robert was a very that I was always considered the soul of was like the end of an era. That’s easily MOON JANE SARAH banal, urban situations, Hanif creates sculptures, paintings and sexuality and place through naturalistic oil painting and, despite her book on Robert Fraser (1937-86), the old courageous and flamboyant dealer. He probity, and he was bohemian, financially and frequently said, but when Robert clothing, one medium often feeding into another. Deterioration, contemporary aesthetic and politics, there is an obvious nod to Etonian dealer who came to prominence had a big collection of my early drawings. irregular, shall I say. died it was definitely a turning point. for example, grew from a photograph of a detail of an oxygen canister in a traditional, formal and painterly concerns. Whether featuring reclining male nudes in the 1960s and then again – briefly – Something bigger than Robert had ended hospital. Hanif’s work represents familiar but avoided subjects such as or suited lesbian couples, Moon’s work is always bright, bold and celebratory in with a Cork Street gallery in the 1980s, JOHN RICHARDSON One of the odd RICHARD HAMILTON The only way I for me and for quite a few people. deterioration and progression by-processes – rust, for example – ultimately nature. Her practice is primarily autobiographical and she paints those whom she is conjures the erratic brilliance of the man things about Robert was that he always can date that occasion of showing with showing that nothing is immortal. close to or is intrigued by. through a myriad reminiscences from dressed up. The rest of us were in blue Robert was that I left teaching in DAVID BAILEY It’s having individuals friend and foe alike. jeans and leather jackets and up to no Newcastle in 1966. Robert Fraser said, like Robert around that makes England good in the Village, but Robert always had ‘Give up teaching and I will guarantee worthwhile. They make England Tarik Hanif (b1995, Manchester) Sarah Jane Moon (b1982, Wellington NZ) an impeccable blazer, very Old Etonian, that you have the same income that you’re work. We’re a dull bunch otherwise Art and Design Foundation, South Trafford College, 2015 Diploma in Portrait Painting, The Heatherley School of Fine Art, London, 2011 consciously so. getting from teaching, plus a few things aren’t we? Lives and works in Manchester Lives and works in London tarikhanif.com sarahjanemoon.com
publicised it, he attracted people to the MAUREEN PALEY So you can have JOSHUA area, he did... I think that's probably his mercurial talent that somehow in a greatest achievement, the redevelopment supernova-ish way can come into the COMPSTON of Hoxton. Without him, it wouldn't have world like this fireball of energy and happened. literally, like some meteoric thing, drop
Darren Coffield to the earth or move away from the earth SAM TAYLOR-WOOD I knew in Joshua’s ANDREW WAUGH I mean the bizarre and really just like a shooting star it In Darren Coffield’s tribute volume on lifetime that he was going to become this thing is that now it seems to me that extinguishes very quickly. his friend and sometime colleague, sort of fascinating figure posthumously. I everything he was trying to do then is now Joshua Compston (1970-96), the same knew that he was always going to be the fashionable, and accepted. The graphics SARAH LUCAS But in another way this formula is used to reveal the troubled dandy romantic of that time as well. And that him and Tom did in 1992 are now like was one of the very hardest things to take and mercurial personality of a character I think he knew that too. an established graphic art form. Even the for a lot of people – me being one of them, archetypical of the post-punk, YBA way he dressed, you know, the only thing Jay Jopling I think being another – generation that colonised the then TABITHA POTTS A lot of people were that Joshua lacked was a fixed wheel because you really did envisage this future derelict East End of London and who pretending to be from a sort of working bike. He was the first hipster really in for him. thrived on the ‘can-do’ dynamic to class background or there was a lot of many ways. make change happen. class stuff going on. Josh was A: not JAY JOPLING I don’t believe he committed ashamed of being intellectual, and B: not GAVIN TURK I didn't really seem him as suicide; I’m sure it was an accident. He Compston was born in Putney, the son ashamed of being posh. an artist. I saw him as an entrepreneur, was involved in too many projects and had of a judge, and educated at St Edward’s as someone who was in the art world but too many ideas going on for him to want School, Oxford. Fraser, the son of a CHARLES BOOTH-CLIBBORN Because was approaching it or wanted different to draw things to a close. Nick Pearson Beetle 2014 Spray enamel and iridescent paint on spectacles and case with plaster and filler Holly Zandbergen The Swing Bridge 2015 Oil on canvas banker, was educated at Eton, and spent he was mad in all fairness, people did get things out of it. He really did want to start Photo: Suzanne Roden several years as an officer in the King’s rather fed up with him because he was a factory and make art much more an NICK PEARSON HOLLY ZANDBERGEN African Rifles. Both eventually fell victim always broke, we all were broke but he everyday experience. Using wry humour, or foregrounding the uncanny, Nick Pearson’s Award-winning artist Holly Zandbergen works figuratively in oils, creating to their own demons of identity and was more broke than everybody else. work addresses what he sees as the awkward relationship between rich surfaces through an impasto application. Working from imagery sense of place. What Fraser did to ruffle CLEMENTINE DELISS I think he was sculpture and everyday objects and his fascination with the poetic that arouses a subjective response, she has an ability to mould abstract the feathers of Mayfair, Compston and ZEBEDEE HELM He really thought art a pioneer of this whole question of PHIL WHITCOMB PHIL
possibilities of the ordinary. Low-cost, mass-produced items of utility ADAMSON TOBY formations into deeply intimate, figurative depictions that seem to strike his Factual Nonsense gallery did for could help people and improve their lives. sociability within art practice. You couldn't – often having a direct relationship to our bodies, quotidian lives or a sensory chord with the viewer. Zandbergen gained recognition as an the impoverished backwater that was All his plans for art galleries were set in make out whether he was an artist, an memories – are ‘reworked’. Burrowing into their meanings and emerging artist when she won the Prudential Young Artist Award at the then Hoxton. massive warehouses in the East End, entrepreneur, an impresario, a curator, making drawings and collages in the process, Pearson creates new or amplified National Open Art Competition in 2015. She has since exhibited in the Columbia and the people that work there had to a producer, a publisher – whatever that associations. Pearson has exhibited internationally, teaches at London College of Threadneedle Prize at the Mall Galleries, which will tour to Florence in July 2016. be from the East End, from the blocks was. That was all part of it. Groovy Bob: Contemporary Arts and lectures in art history at Richmond Adult Community Zandbergen recently enjoyed her debut solo show, The River Series, at the Graham of flats, not these posh women wafting The Life and Times of Robert Fraser College and OPEN Ealing Arts. Hunter Gallery. their hair but people who knew nothing CHLOE RUTHVEN Tom Shaw always Harriet Vyner about art; he was Zionistic in that respect. said he’d die at 42 and he died at 42, and PB: 356pp ISBN: 978-0-9930103-9-2 Josh said he’d die at 25 and he died at 25, Nick Pearson (b1959, Leeds) Holly Zandbergen (b1992, Timaru NZ) MAX WIGRAM The entire area is his didn’t he? So maybe some people do have Factual Nonsense: BA (Hons) Fine Art, Stourbridge College of Art, 1981 BVA Painting, Dunedin School of Art, 2013 legacy. He championed it, he moved in a sense of the pace at which they want to The Art and Death of Joshua Compston Lives and works in London Lives and works in London there first, he told everybody about it, he live their life. Darren Coffield Joshua Compston at Factual Nonsense nickpearson.co.uk hollyzandbergen.com HB: 280pp ISBN: 978-1780885261
28 | STATE 21 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 21 | 29 TIGHTLY LACED FROM FIG LEAVES on statues to gussets and jock showcase certain sets of people. I was proud to straps, the question of how to cover our private parts be on the selecting panel for these awards because has never purely been one of practicality or modesty. the resulting exhibition brought together some Throughout history, garments have been produced to Anna McNay fantastic art, by fantastic artists of all identities and variously augment or shrink different parts of the persuasions – with no need for pigeonholing or ART&MONEY anatomy, according to changing trends. The latest labelling those involved. If only the rest of society offering from the Victoria and Albert Museum could follow suit. (Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear, until March 2017) brings together garments from the mid 18th century onwards – some you will covet; some you JE NE SUIS PAS CHARLIE will be relieved never to have to try on. Hot pants, SADLY, HOWEVER, a report issued by Freemuse, hooped petticoats, garters, thongs, disposable pants, an independent organisation based in Copenhagen, genderless pants, crotchless drawers – nothing is advocating for and defending freedom of expression, missed out in this exhaustive trawl, and, if you fear this has shown that attacks on artistic freedom are on is a ploy to objectify near-naked women, men are, in the rise globally. With 469 cases reported last year, fact, shown to be fashion victims every bit as much. that was almost double the count of 2014. The study Particular focus is placed on the corset, however, and, classified the November terrorist attacks on the if we think we have it tough with body image and the Bataclan in Paris, which resulted in the deaths of 89 size 0 model industry today, seeing how women have people, as the single largest attack, noting also the suffered physically for the desirable period look down after-effect, whereby many people refrained from the centuries is an eye opener. The smallest historic visiting museums or attending concerts and theatres. corset on display has a waist of just 18.9 inches, The murders of the artists at the offices of Charlie although sizes as tiny as 16 inches were once popular, Hebdo were, however, curiously not counted. A kick often causing breathing and lower back problems. A in the teeth for the brave artists whose lives were stunning crystal-embellished corset, worn by Dita von lost there. Teese for a performance in Paris in 2011, has a waist of just 18 inches, while the UK standard size 12 waist, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE in comparison, measures 28 inches. HAUCK DA SILVA was recently a runner up in the TATE MODERN UNVEILED Emerald Winter Pride Art Awards – alongside past THE BIG ART event this summer will be the opening So is it self-harm or art? A contemporary artist whose F22 cover artists Nicolas Laborie (issue 19) and of the new Tate Modern on 17 June. With a 10-storey work and self converge at the point of tight-laced Aleksandra Karpowicz (issue 20). The 2016 award extension, creating 60% more space for art and visitors corsetry is Iluá Hauck da Silva. She describes her glass was, however, deservingly won by Rosso, for her – at a mere cost of £260m, of which, at the time of sculpture, Veins of Vanity II (2011), a cast of her torso genderqueer self-portrait painting, Madame Moustache, printing, £30m still remains to be raised – the new showing the indents and scars left by the wearing of a inspired by Manet’s Olympia (1863). ‘I am very grateful gallery will be able to display 800 works by more corset, as ‘a visual comment on vanity and the violence that the award is open to everyone, regardless of than 300 artists from 57 countries – 36% of whom will of beauty’. At the same time, however, she suggests gender and sexuality,’ says the artist, ‘as this allows be women. ‘There is a commitment, now, to show the that corset wearing can be empowering to women: many of us to openly stand on the side of LGBTI real history of art,’ says incoming director, Frances ‘Anything that makes us feel beautiful helps our communities in the fight for equality. Self-portraits Morris. Let’s hope this ratio is upheld for more than confidence. Is vanity about empowerment? My personal are an artist’s most intimate confessions. Madame just the opening weeks and that the institution’s first corset wearing tight-laces knotty dilemmas, passions Moustache is a statement on how I see (or how I’d like major Queer British Art exhibition in 2017 will likewise and obsessions, so I offer Veins of Vanity II as an to see) myself as a woman today, defiant of stereotypes reveal the real queer history of a great number of answer – a crystal clear sculpture, which exposes the and rooted cultural prejudices’. its artists. destructive aspects of momentaneous and transient empowerment and beauty’. Personally, I’ll settle for The awards were indeed open to all, as long as the being able to breathe. work submitted dealt with the themes of gender, GREEN LIGHTS FOR ELIASSON sexuality and identity. Having been involved with both ON THE THEME of artists doing good for society, the these awards and GFEST, which only invites works Danish-Icelandic artist, Olafur Eliasson, has responded from artists who identify as somewhere on the LGBTI to Austria’s giving migrants a red light by creating a spectrum, I have heard arguments aplenty for both crystalline polyhedral green light, made from recycled standpoints. As I suggested last issue, with respect materials, such as yogurt pots, plastic bags, nylon and to all-women shows, there is always the fear of neon green LEDs. Over the course of three months, the ghettoisation or of an artist’s work being perceived lights will be assembled by refugees and migrants, solely in relation to their sexuality. In a society where working alongside local university students in a weekly the fight for equality is still ongoing, however, visibility workshop at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary is paramount. As the lesbian photographer, J E Biren, (TBA21) in Vienna. At $336 each, the lights can be said back in the 80s: ‘Without a visual identity, we have bought on-site, online and through selected partners. Portrait courtesy COLLECTOR TRIBUNE no community, no support network, no movement. Proceeds will go to various initiatives helping Making ourselves visible is a political act. Making refugees in Austria. What remains unclear, however, ourselves visible is a continual process’. is if and how those assembling the lights are being compensated for their work. Alright then, as long But does that mean such events need to be exclusively as it’s not all just a ruse for positive press and Amy Cappellazzo snags queer? Would it not be better, as with Winter Pride, to cheap labour… welcome everybody, straight allies included? Seasoned activist, Peter Tatchell, sees a place for both: ‘We haven’t yet reached a post-homophobic society, so A DOG THAT BITES there’s a valid place for LGBTI-only art events and FINALLY, I am occasionally chastised for being $50 million for Art Agency competitions, but we’re moving towards a post- ‘too nice’ in what I write and that ‘people only respect homophobic society, so it’s good that some exhibitions a dog that bites, not a poodle’. I was somewhat and competitions are open to all comers, LGBTI and confused then by a recent article, reporting on a straight – this helps break down barriers and builds a scientific study that shows that ‘people obsessed with community of interest between people of all sexualities grammar aren’t as nice as everybody else’. The study, Partners start-up from and gender identities. I welcome the fact that there are published in the journal PLOS One, speculates that straight artists who want to do work with LGBTI themes the difference between the two groups may be ‘because – that’s terrific’. Making sexuality a secondary factor less agreeable people are less tolerant of deviations also means focus can rightly be placed on ensuring the from convention’. As a comma-obsessed, former House of Harlot © Sister Sinister art itself is of a high standard – something that is all syntactician and now editor, clearly I’m less nice than Sotheby's Daniel Loeb Courtesy Victoria and Albert Museum, London too often overlooked when the quest is to box tick and certain people think...
30 | STATE 21 www.state-media.com www.state-media.com STATE 19 | 31 ART & MONEY ART & MONEY
Dirty protest by activists, PLATFORM KERCHINK ART DEALER Laura Borghi of Borghi Fine Art is suing the city TOP10 of Englewood, New Jersey, and in 2014 to about $40 today. The local code enforcement officer Most Expensive art collective Liberate Tate claim Walter Deptuch for issuing her thousands of people have called a code complaint in January for Living Women on Tate to reject BP on ethical ‘Display of [a] Nude Painting’. Artists* grounds. In 2015, an information The Tom Dash work includes a tribunal demanded Tate reveal partial view of a woman’s bare 1. Cady Noland financial details of BP’s support bottom. Borghi says: ‘You see 2. Yayoi Kusama following a 2012 Freedom of more on a plumber when he 3. Cindy Sherman Information request by Brendan bends down’. 4. Marlene Dumas Montague of the campaign group Source: Hyperallergic Request Initiative. Figures for a 17- 5. Bridget Riley year period show sponsorship was OLDEST Ari Emanuel of WME-IMG 6. Rosemarie Trockel £150,000 to £330,000 a year to a total of £3.8 million. Activist group, TRICK 7. Julie Mehretu CRYING ALL Platform, estimates that the BP FRIEZE 8. Tracey Emin funds represent 0.5% of Tate’s FBI AGENTS raided the home of Saher Saman Marji Hoyle 9. Jenny Saville overall operational income. The and – LOS ANGELES Marji Sotheby’s Supremo Daniel Loeb Tate has commented that ‘the board of the now-defunct 10. Vija Celmins THE WAY... Gallery COMING? and ethics committee regularly in Santa Fe – and seized Ari 11. Chen Xi review compliance with the ethics documents, a computer, and AUSTERITY THE HOLLYWOOD SUPER-agent, multiple paintings. Artworks Emanuel, confirmed he was to 12. Tauba Auerbach OIL GIANT BP first started working Opera House. In 2017, this will policy [...] which debated in 2010 that buyers paid for but never be the first outside investor 13. Beatriz Milhazes with the Tate in 1990 before the cease for the Tate, where its 27- whether to continue with BP SOTHEBY’S WAY in Frieze, a private company gallery was split up in 2000 (Tate year link to BP has been a constant sponsorship’. The committee, received, or that were consigned 14. Paula Rego founded in 1991 by Matthew Modern and Tate Britain in London, provocation to activists. It is less whose members included the to the duo to sell and have Slotover Amanda Sharp Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives). likely to be their efforts to discredit artist Jeremy Deller, agreed with disappeared, focus on the 32 THE 2013 exit of poster Pugnacious hedge fund manager and . *based on the top 2000 artworks sold at Although kept secret, in 2011, BP BP than the drastic contraction of the executive view that ‘currently paintings by the Australian boy Tobias Meyer, head of Dan Loeb grabbed control in His sport and entertainment auction from 1985 onwards by living committed £10m over five years to the oil business, which has ended the benefits of BP’s support for Aboriginal artist George contemporary art worldwide, 2014 claiming in an SEC filing conglomerate WME-IMG, run artists Tate far outweigh any quantifiable Ward Tjungurrayi, valued with Patrick Whitesell, did support its four key partners: Tate the agreement. BP has put projects caused a kerfuffle in the that a ‘cultural malaise’ had SOURCE: ArtNet Britain, National Portrait Gallery, on hold and laid off staff as the oil risk to our reputation’. at $300,000. rarified auction trade. Now taken hold at Sotheby’s. Loeb not disclose the value of the British Museum and the Royal price plunged from $100+ a barrel Source: Independent/FT/Guardian Source: Hyperallergic a tsunami of departures is ousted Bill Ruprecht, employed investment or the size of raising questions about the since 1980 and President and WME-IMG’s shareholding. management style of the 272- CEO since 2000. Bloomberg Slotover said the deal would year-old Sotheby’s. The seniority recently revealed Ruprecht’s see ‘how digital can support ANOTHER of those leaving – and the high successor, Tad Smith, had a live events’ and assist in Papers suggest Mossack Fonseca value art they usually handle – first year pay package worth creating content. The news came MAYBE worked to prove that the IAC was will mean ‘the old art-collecting $20 million. Loeb further upset just weeks before Frieze New based offshore and, as such, was families, whose collections will staff with a notice to buy out York, which takes place on A PAINTING that might have been outside the jurisdiction of the soon enough be estates headed some 80 employees – rapidly Randall’s Island, opened its executed by Italian master American courts. The case to market, will have no connection followed by a $50 million fifth edition on 4 May. Last year, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio continues to make its way through to the house’, one dealer told purchase of Art Agency, Frieze London in Regent’s 400 years ago has been found in the New York court system. Eric ArtNet. The recent TEFAF Art Partners, an art advisory firm Park, London, saw 55,000 an attic in southern France. Market report noted a 7% year- founded just two years previously Turquin, the expert who retrieved the MEANWHILE visitors and showcased 164 Cecilia Giménez The leaked on-year fall from the previous by Christie’s veteran Amy painting two years ago, says it is in documents have also exposed other galleries. Included in the high (of $68.2 billion), the first Cappellazzo and art advisor an exceptional state of conservation LAUGHING ALL prominent figures in the art world, agreement is a commitment by decline since 2011. As of 28 Allan Schwartzman. The pair, and estimates its value at 120 million including artinfo.com publisher WME-IMG to support the Frieze THE WAY... March, Sotheby’s stock (BID) along with their partner Adam euros (about £100m). The authenticity Louise Blouin, the founder of the Tate Fund has fallen roughly 40% over the Chinn, got a promise of $35 , which enables Tate has not been established and the THE BACKWATER town of Borja, China Guardian auction house Chen Frieze London million in performance bonuses. to buy works at . painting had been left for more than Spain, made world headlines when Dongsheng, the artist and arts last year, from $42.40 to $25.15 Helly Nahmad of New York Prior to its acquisition, AAP had This year’s allocation will 150 years in a property in the outskirts aged resident Cecilia Giménez (85) patron daughters of Azerbaijan’s per share. It dipped as low as sold works through Sotheby’s. amount to £150,000. Some 100 of Toulouse. Called Judith Beheading overpainted a church depiction of billionaire dictator Ilham Aliyev, $19.14, in February. NAHMADS IN LEGAL works by 69 artists have been Holofernes, it depicts the biblical Jesus to create a grinning primate. Spanish baroness and art collector acquired for the Tate Collection heroine Judith beheading an Whilst Elias García Martínez’s Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, and GOING.. GOING.. GONE by means of the fund since Assyrian general, and is thought to original Ecce Homo was an WRANGLE (AGAIN) even Pablo Picasso’s granddaughter, 2003. WME-IMG recently sold a have been painted in Rome circa anonymous daub, the makeover Marina Ruiz-Picasso. By buying art LONG-SERVING staff and North and South America; stake to SoftBank, the Japanese 1604-05. Allegedly, The Louvre is version now attracts 30,000 tourists through the British Virgin Islands- Modigliani number of years at Sotheby’s: Elaine Whitmire (35) Vice telecoms and technology now among the world famous art – and their money. In 2012, Mayor A 1918 painting, Seated painting was actually owned by based shell company XItrans Man With A Cane, recently seized in a a Panama-based company, the Finance Ltd, set up by Mossack Melanie Clore (35) chairman, head of specialists, institutions considering making an Eduardo Arilla condemned the group, in a deal that valued the raid on Geneva Freeport, was allegedly International Art Centre (IAC). Details Fonseca, Monaco-based Russian European chairman; Anthony decorative arts; Henry Wyndham offer for the painting. unauthorised ‘improvement’ but group at $5.5bn including debt. stolen from Jewish gallery owner of the case have emerged in the billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev was Grant (26) Senior vice president; (22) Chairman of Sotheby’s Source: AP today is blessing a visitor centre – Source: FT Oscar Stettiner by the Germans when Panama Papers, a trove of documents able to keep his collection from his Miety Heiden (18) Senior vice Europe; Mitchell Zuckerman located a few metres from the 16th- they invaded Paris in 1940. He had that reveal how the world’s rich and wife when they divorced. president; David Norman (31) (27) Executive vice president of century sanctuary housing the fled with his family but was forced to famous have set up companies in tax Source: The Guardian/Hyperallergic Vice chairman of Sotheby’s global operations. ‘Beast Jesus’ – and of course the leave his collection behind. Now his havens through Mossack Fonseca Americas; Scott Nussbaum (12) Source: ArtNet/Art Newspaper revenues flowing into the town. BEACHED SALE grandson, Philippe Maestracci, has leaked to the German newspaper Contemporary art; Alex Rotter Assorted merchandise – available on launched a legal battle for its return Süddeutsche Zeitung more than a (15) Global co-head of CHRISTIE’ S WILL close its offices in Palm Beach. ‘Years ago, on-site Amazon — includes T-shirts, books, after it apparently resurfaced at a year ago. IAC was apparently set up contemporary art; Polly Sartori representatives scouted for pieces in Palm Beach, and collectors visited wine bottles and teacups. The Sotheby’s auction in New York in by Giuseppe Nahmad and half of its (15 ) Head of 19th-century the office to look at catalogues and discuss possible sales. That model amateur artist will receive a cut of 2008, consigned by Helly Nahmad shares were passed to his brother European paintings; Matthew seems to be gone,’ local art adviser David Miller said. Sotheby’ s own all proceeds from sales and the Gallery. Involved are the gallery, an David in 2008, with the other half Weigman (31) Director, world- office is now a single representative, down from the five-person team that previously irate family of original offshore company and the Panama following in 2014. Nahmad's lawyers wide sales publicity; Warren used to handle the region. artist, Martinez, has also been Papers law firm, Mossack Fonseca. say the IAC bought the painting in Weitman (37) Chairman for Henry Wyndham out after 22 years Source: Palm Beach Daily News quietened by a share of the action. The Nahmads say the £18 million good faith at an auction. The Panama Louise Blouin Source: El País
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CALC L NOW 01590 672 888 for a free assessment of RESIDENCY AWARD IN PAINTING AND DRAWING our arary t insurance needs Six shortlisted artists take part in showcase A personal service exhibition at Gri n Gallery. Winner receives Accommodation | Studio for all galleries, Materials | Open Studio events shows JUDGES Rebecca Lewin, Serpentine Galleries Curator Jenny Lindén Urnes, Lindéngruppen Owner Becca Pelly-Fry, Gri n Gallery Head Curator Vicky Wright, Artist CLOSING DATE 3 July 2016 www.gri ngallery.co.uk/gap16