FREE

27 HOT & COOL ART

THE STARS IN MONA O S M A N ALIGNMENT Sophie Morrish Island Time: North Uist Works

An exhibition curated by Mel Gooding

31 JULY - 1 SEPTEMBER

BERMONDSEY PROJECT SPACE 183 -185 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UW Tue - Sat :11am - 6 pm Telephone : 0203 441 5152 Email : [email protected] WWW.PROJECT-SPACE.LONDON 5 JULY - 8 SEPTEMBER

1960s CALIFORNIA HARD-EDGE

KARL BENJAMIN, LORSER FEITELSON & HELEN LUNDEBERG

82 KINGSLAND ROAD, LONDON E2 8DP | +44 (0)20 7920 7777 [email protected] | www.flowersgallery.com

Lorser Feitelson, Untitled, Magical Space Forms, 1960, Oil on canvas © The Feitelson/Lundeberg Art Foundation

CLAUDIA DE GRANDI WAVES & HORIZONS Curated by Alan Rankle

3–9 September 2018

BERMONDSEY PROJECT SPACE 183–185 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UW (adjacent to White Cube Bermondsey) +44 (0) 203 441 51 52 www.project-space.london

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

>> DIARY NOTES

The Observer Gone - But assassination was on the phone I could not scream. Not Forgotten Pushing him away was the only thing of Anthony I could do,’ she told The Observer. AS THE 2018 art season prepared to Another claims the dealer demeaned awake from its Winter slumbers, just d’Offay based her, using inappropriate and sexu­ prior to the opening salvo of Janu­ ally suggestive language in front of ary’s London Art Fair, across the UK Mike von Joel on three others. The third, with ­extraordinary a few breakfasting readers flipped powers of perception, described a open their Sunday Observer. A few Editor anonymous phone conversation with d’Offay, – of that few – still interested in and deduced that he was actually ‘in contemporary art must surely have claims over his bath and masturbating’. A fourth fallen into their avocado compote, woman filed a complaint with po­ stunned by the full page three scoop a decade old lice about ‘malicious messages’ she (and it certainly was) which offered a booming ’80s, constantly vying with reputedly received from ­d’Offay. Six complete character assassination of the Waddington Gallery to show­ was a f**king months later the Met have made Anthony d’Offay, prominent London case the world’s major painters. At no arrest and are ‘still investigating’ art dealer (ret’d). The Observer might one time d’Offay was representing: disgrace. this. It should be clearly noted that have relatively few readers, but with­ Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Roy d’Offay has said of the accusations­ by in hours the story had been ampli­ Lichtenstein, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard the first three women: ‘I am appalled fied across national and international Richter, Anselm Kiefer, Jeff Koons ­often as a result of gifts, and have these allegations are being leveled press; across blogs, vlogs and slogs all and Rachel Whiteread, to name but been seen in nearly 100 museums against me and I categorically deny over artland – with glossy art mags a few. In 2008, he sold almost his en­ nationwide. Tate Modern’s Blavatnik the claims being made.’ rapidly bringing up the rear. tire art collection to the Tate and NGS Building includes a dedicated space for the original prices (reputedly for for Artist Rooms; and d’Offay’s foun­ Assuming these distasteful asser­ And what had this fiend done – im­ £28 million against a possible auction dation also made a financial contri­ tions are all true – and one wonders paled living babies on Giacometti return of £125million). At the time bution towards the £260 million Tate why any of them should be fabrica­ sculptures? No. As The Observer’s Tate director, Nicholas Serota, called Modern extensions, which opened in tions – it amounts to seedy, lascivious Ben Quinn, fronting up a story by it: ‘one of the most generous gifts June 2016. On 19 December 2017, and grotesque behaviour by an older The Art Newspaper’s Cristina Ruiz that has ever been made to museums d’Offay announced after 15 years: ‘it male employer to a younger female reported, the old goat had tried it on in this country’. was time to retire as ex-officio cura­ employee. But it is by no means in with three female staffers some 14 to tor’ [of Artist Rooms] citing age as a the Weinstein league of [alleged] ag­ 20 years ago and they now felt em­ factor. This decision was kept quiet by gravated assault and rape. Incidental­ powered by recent events to ‘go pub­ the gallery apparatchiks at the time. ly, the woman being kissed whilst ‘on lic’. Up to a point that is. The three the telephone’ in 1998 had the ben­ accusers remained (and remain) So who is Anthony d’Offay? The efit of CCTV ­evidence and apparently anonymous to the wider public – but general artland opinion is that he is a agreed a compensation package, are, in fact, known to this magazine. smug, arrogant and self-satisfied per­ signing a legally binding Non-Disclo­ To date d’Offay has not been arrested sonality. This also describes a large sure Agreement before leaving her and (at the time of writing) is not due number of other art world figurines job. Obviously she now regards this in court. He has not therefore been of course; but ‘unpleasant’ tends as void but on what grounds it is not tried and found guilty before the law to be the most common epithet for absolutely clear. of any offence. But thanks to the in­ d’Offay himself. And yet, in the period sidious internet judge’n’jury forum, referenced in the complaints, some In another irony, the usually ped­ d’Offay is a dead man walking. His 30 gallery staffers – mainly youngish antic Pravda of the art world, Art career and legacy broken into pieces. women – were desperate to hang on Monthly, scored a real coup in get­ Within hours he was being disowned to a job at his Dering Street gallery. ting ex-d’Offay employee, Jennifer by the both the Tate and the National So what were these vile assaults that Thatcher, to pen an erudite insider Galleries Scotland – for reasons out­ three women feel obliged to make view of sexual harassment in the art­ lined below. Anthony d’Offay : ruined by rumours public after so long a silence? world. Former colleagues from that period all confirmed the ‘unhealthy For younger readers, who cannot That generosity created the Artist One former employee (25 at the time) atmosphere’ of the d’Offay gallery, usually remember what month it is, Rooms programme, which has been alleges she was subjected to inappro­ [which] was ‘run on fear and stress’; d’Offay – now a 78-year-old – needs an unqualified success. Originally 50 priate touching and the ‘erosion of and being ‘regularly reduced to tears contextualising. The Anthony d’Offay rooms of contemporary art by 25 art­ personal boundaries’. D’Offay once through exhaustion, being shouted Gallery on Dering Street (closed in ists, the initial 725 works have grown ‘kissed her neck repeatedly’ while at or humiliated in front of staff or 2001) had been a key player in the to more than 1,600 by 40 artists, she was on the phone. ‘­Because I clients’. Thatcher, describing herself

8 | STATE MAGAZINE NULLIUS IN VERBA << as the receptionist (but is recorded ed by boss gallery, Pace, and for over could pull, and analyse, data from fame equals endorsements and rich elsewhere as a gallery press officer 50 years has made many hundreds of Twitter. This revealed that thou- appearance fees. by PR Week) also notes that the film photographic nude studies. All four sands of accounts all simultan­eously The Devil Wears Prada, satirising the women were reported as ‘being over- deciding to follow the same real Twit- The NYT tracked the Devumi office, high-pressured, all-consuming world come by his prestige, which they said ter user was a ‘very strong indicator listed as being on 7th Avenue in of a fashion magazine, was instantly made them feel pressured to expose of centralised control’. In a process Manhattan, only to find no trace. In recognised by staffers as like gallery themselves for reasons they [now] known as fingerprinting, the NYT real life, Devumi is based in a small life as they experienced it. ‘That struggled to justify’. In total eight detected at least 55,000 of their bot office suite above a Mexican restaur­ mythical combination of wealth and women have made similar historic accounts utilised the names, profile ant in West Palm Beach, Florida, power could be very intimidating as complaints about Close – none of pictures, hometowns and other per- overlooking an alleyway. Devumi well as exhilarating,’ Thatcher recalls. whom got selected to have their like- sonal details of real Twitter users. founder, German Calas (27) grew up You can almost hear the grinding of ness made. Close has never been ar- in South Florida, where as a teen­ teeth as she is obliged to admit: ‘I did raigned in court to face these charges Using business and court records, the ager he learned web design and built not experience sexual harassment at in a legal context or formally arrested. NYT showed that Devumi has more sites for local businesses. A biography the Anthony d’Offay Gallery.’ than 200,000 customers, including posted online in 2014 claimed that The internet furore over the ac- reality television stars, professional he earned a physics degree from Naturally, the internet campaign- cusations has, however, already re- athletes, comedians, TED speakers, Princeton in 2000 (he would have ers are out in force. The activist group sulted in the National Gallery of Art pastors and models & etc. In most been about 10 years old) and a Ph.D. We Are Not Surprised has called on (NGA) in Washington, DC, postpon- cases, the records show, they pur- in computer science from M.I.T. – the Tate to remove d’Offay’s name ing indefinitely a planned installation chased their own followers. So-called neither have any record of him. His from the entrance to the Turbine Hall of Chuck Close’s works. ‘influencers’ – amateur taste­makers current Linked-In page says that he and the Artists’ Rooms project he and YouTube stars – earn thousands has a MA in ‘international business’ created. Tate and NGS have decided a year on advertising deals. The more from M.I.T. – a course that does not ‘it is appropriate to suspend any fur- Fake – The people influencers reach, the more even exist. ther contact until these matters have New Real money they make. However, on sites been clarified’. In short, the destruct­ like Social Envy and DIYLikes.com, it Last December, a Twitter spokes- ion of a life-time of achievement in USERS OF social media should have takes little more than a credit-card woman said the company identified one day, in one page, in a failing Sun- long since discovered all that glisters number to buy a huge following on an average of 6.4 million suspicious day newspaper. He might well be a is not gold – or even tin. Recently the almost any social media platform. accounts each week. And yet – the total bastard, but The Observer’s ­rabid almighty New York Times has turned art world continues to depend more assassination of Anthony d’Offay – its unrivalled investigative power Britain’s soar-away Sun reported and more on the internet and social based on three anonymous claims onto the digital world of smoke and two young siblings, ­Arabella (14) media to make value judgments on over a decade old – was a f***ing mirrors. The results are illuminating. and Jaadin Daho, earning a com- the state of art and of artists viability. disgrace. Devumi is a company selling social bined £85,000 a year working with Columbia’s Mark Hansen (director of media followers to users hoping to brands such as Amazon, Disney, Lou- the Brown Institute for Media Inno- increase their influence. The NYT is Vuitton and Nintendo. But Devu- vation) says: ‘People have suspect- Forgotten - But purchased tens of thousands of fake mi records again revealed Amazing ed for a long time that social media Not Gone followers (25,000 cost $225) known Arabella and her brother have their is rotten with fraud and fakery. But as ‘bots’ in the trade, and discovered accounts boosted by thousands of it’s very hard to prove.’ That alone THE PORTRAIT painter and photo­ ‘a world of millions of fake accounts retweets purchased by their mother would explain the internet’s great grapher, Chuck Close, suffered an cat- that are interconnected’. Columbia and ‘manager’, Shadia Daho. ­affinity – if not parallel – with the aclysmic arterial collapse in 1988 and University developed software that contemporary art world. is confined to a wheelchair, paralysed from the neck down. He also suffers Et Omnia Vanitas from prosopagnosia (face blindness). Now four woman claim he made ML artha ane Fox, a savvy e-com- them feel ‘uncomfortable, manipu- merce pioneer, Baroness and CBE, lated, and exploited’ at events dating was revealed to have bought whole back as far as 2001. Speaking to the tranches of bot followers by the Huffington Post, all agreed they were NYT. She immediately blamed a in awe of the celebrity artist and ‘rogue employee’ for a series pur- appeared keen to enter his sphere chases spanning more than a year of influence. Close has a long histo- made using her own email address. ry of making nude images using the The biggest – 25,000 followers – was ­daguerreotype process and Polaroids made days after she became a Twit- – and likenesses that include Brad ter board member in April 2016. She Pitt and Kate Moss. Interestingly, all declined to name the person to the four agreed to ‘audition’ to be con- NYT team. Trash TV ‘personality’ and sidered for a similar nude study, and baker, Paul Hollywood, immediate- in addition, all four women accepted ly deleted his account after the NYT the $100 expenses Close offers for emailed him with questions about such an interview. Close is represent- Close : too much ogling from his wheelchair fake followers – where imagined Martha Lane-Fox : popular by numbers

STATE MAGAZINE | 9 an art COVER news IMAGE RESTATE monitor PAUL Carey-Kent Left: Kurt Schwitters and Hilde Mona Osman Goldstein at Merz Barn, c. 1946. Saatchi Gallery ©K & E Schwitters Stiftung, Hannover London 2018 Below: the barn today

HOT & COOL ART in Shenzhen, southern China. EDITOR CONTRIBUTING Curiously, ACE says it does not Mike von Joel EDITORS SCHWITTERS’ MERZ BARN IN CRISIS deal with ‘restoration projects’ [email protected] Holly Howe despite funding Littoral Arts Lou Proud HIDDEN IN a Cumbrian wood- moved to the Hatton Gallery over a number of years. Hunt- PUBLISHERS land, the Merz Barn was used in Newcastle in the late 1960s. er (70), and Celia Larner (80), Lee Sharrock by Kurt Schwitters as a studio Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, who run Littoral Arts Trust, have Karl Skogland William Varley after he fled the Nazis in 1940. Antony Gormley and Bridget used their savings, pensions [email protected] EDITOR at LARGE The stone building in Langdale Riley have all made generous and sale of one of their houses may now be sold due to lack donations towards its upkeep. to keep the site going. The Tate Michael Barnett of funds to maintain it – with Owned by the Littoral Arts and MoMA, New York, have Jeremy Levison Kate Enters [email protected] rumours the Chinese have an Trust, it has failed five times both declined the barn as a gift. Ian McKay interest. It became regarded as to secure funding from the Another application to ACE is a pioneering piece of modernist Arts Council and Ian Hunter, going in and the never say die ADMINISTRATION CORRESPONDENTS art after Schwitters covered its the trust’s director, has said an couple are more determined Julie Milne walls with his distinctive col- open sale would make about than ever not to be defeated [email protected] David Tidball lages prior to his death in 1948 £350,000 – with interest al- – especially as the local MP (a BERLIN – although the original art was ready from a private collection Minister) is now in their corner. PRODUCTION EDITOR Silvia Maietta Elizabeth Crompton [email protected] MELBOURNE

PUBLISHED BY PRINTED BY State Media Ltd. State Media Limited. LONDON LONDON [email protected] SE1 3UW

STATE MAGAZINE is available through selected galleries, libraries, art schools, museums and other art venues across the UK GOING… GONE FREE GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART: Totally free, STATE is about AFTER 45 years in Davies new manoeuvres in painting SUSPICION GROWS Street, Gimpel Fils has and the visual arts - combined shuttered and intends to JUST FOUR years after a similar it happening again within such with f22, a supplement on relocate in due course. The blaze tore through Glasgow a short time have raised sus- developments in the fusion of gallery e-mail addresses A D V E N T U R E S A N D M A R Y A M School of Art, the famous picions that there might be a PHOTOGRAPHY NOW PHOTOGRAPHY EISLER and phone number remain 27 OBSESSION art & photography. landmark has been gutted by more sinister explanation this 29/06/2018 18:05 unchanged. Rene Gimpel f22 COVER 27 - V2.indd 1 FREE fire for the second time. At its time. Mackintosh began work ran the historic firm after 27 HOT & COOL ART It is not a review magazine height 120 firefighters were on the site in 1897 and com- taking the reins from his involved in the operation to pletion took 12 years, finally - it is about PEOPLE worth father, Charles, and uncle, bring the fire under control opening in 1909. He had him- serious consideration; Peter Gimpel (themselves with flames visible for more self been student at the original PLACES that are hot and sons of the famous Parisian THE STARS IN MONA than 10 miles – just days after Glasgow School of Art before O S M A N happening; and PROJECTS dealer, also called Rene). ALIGNMENT the 150th birthday of Charles he designed the new building. STATE COVER 27 - V4-mona.indd 1 developing in the The brothers launched the 29/06/2018 15:52 Rennie Mackintosh, its archi- Mackintosh died in 1928, aged international art world. London operation in 1946 tect. The building had been 60. Some other alumini include and by the 1960s it was due to reopen in September five Turner Prize winners and unrivalled in its support of 2019 after a £35 million resto- 30% of nominees since 2006; To apply to stock STATE Magazine, please mail the avant-garde and Modern ration, following a fire in 2014, also actors Peter Capaldi and British artists, as well as Julie Milne : [email protected] when a projector ignited gases Robbie Coltrane, singers Fran American and European twitter.com/statef22 www.facebook.com/statef22 from expanding foam used in Healy and Sharleen Spiteri and luminaries of the period. a student project. The odds on broadcaster Muriel Gray. www.state-media.com ‘My ideas are not developed before I actually do the pieces.’ { Cindy Sherman }RESTATE One of the Best FRIEZE LOS ANGELES AS PREDICTED by State Conceptual Works magazine 18 months ago Frieze has announced a Los of Art - Ever Angeles fair, to be located at ONE OF the most powerful rockets since the Paramount Pictures Studios. This adds to the existing Apollo missions, The Falcon Heavy, developed portfolio of Frieze fairs in New by SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk, blasted off York and London. Bettina with a mannequin named Korek has been appointed as Starman sitting inside a Executive Director, working Tesla Roadster. Through with Victoria Siddall, Director the miracle of digital of Frieze Fairs, to launch this video (and strat­egically inaugural edition. Curator, positioned ‘action camer- Ali Subotnick, will oversee a as’) real-time footage re- site-specific program of artist projects and film. Some 60 corded the car travelling galleries from across the city through space at 24,500 and the world will exhibit mph as David Bowie’s in Hollywood in a bespoke Life on Mars plays in the structure designed by Kulapat background. These imag- Yantrasast of wHY. es were so clear and crisp Frieze LA 14-17 February 2019 and stunning they look faked. A pity the cameras only had a 12 hour QUEBEC CITY BIENNIAL 2019 lifespan so by now Starman is out on his own. MANIF D’ART selected Also, due to a glitch, he will miss his planned Jonathan Watkins, director 250-million-mile trajectory to orbit Mars, and of Ikon Gallery, as curator will fly off into the asteroid belt between Mars for the ninth edition of the and Jupiter. Musk has described it as a ‘silly and Quebec City Biennial. In fun’ mission but, in fact, it was a brilliant piece collaboration with the Musée of conceptual art totally in tune with the zeit- national des beaux-arts du geist. Sadly, over hundreds of millions of years Québec (MNBAQ), the events cosmic radiation will gradually tear the car to will occur across Quebec City pieces – the leather and plastics disintegrating (14 February - 21 April 2019). Watkins’ concept has been first – so long as the vehicle avoids collisions entitled Small Between the with space junk and micrometeorites. Stars, Large Against the Sky. Source: AP / Reuters NEW LIFE IN OLD DOG? FORMERLY THE 20/21 British UNTER DEN LINDEN MONEY TREE Art Fair, its new owners Robert BELEAGUERED shareholders of and Johnny Sandelson have secured a permanent home the troubled Deutsche Bank for their rebranded British Art (DB) will be pleased to hear it Fair at the Saatchi Gallery in will be opening a new ‘cultural Chelsea. Their inaugural edition forum’ located in Prinzessin- will debut 20-23 September nenpalais at 5 Unter den Lin- and the focus will remain on den – the boulevard leading Modern and Post-War British up to the Brandenburg Gate. art, a principal established To be called Palais Populaire, by the original founders Gay the opening is set for 27 Sep- is a major sponsor of contem- Hutson and Bunny Wynn, who enjoyed a number of successful tember 2018. It will host exhibi- porary art and the Frieze Art years based in the Royal tions, concerts, readings, talks, Fair. In February 2018, the Ger- College galleries at Kensington workshops, sporting events and man leviathan posted a €500 Gore. François Pinault have a cafe. The first exhibition, million (£436 million) loss, fol- www.britishartfair.co.uk French Pin Money The World on Paper, will show lowing losses of €6.8 billion in around 300 works from the DB 2015 and €1.4 billion in 2016. ART CAR BOOT FAIR OPERATING AT the level of a gov- of works drawn from Pinault at corporate collection, which is In April, DB booted out trou- ernment institution, the Pinault the Couvent des Jacobins and one of the largest in the world. ble-shooting British-born CEO, BUY TICKETS online now Collection told Le Quotidien de the Musée des Beaux-Arts in The collection is focussed on John Cryan, with a reported £7 (https://acbf.eventcube.io/) for l’Art they will loan pieces from Rennes, Brittany (Debout! until 9 works on paper and comprises million pay-off. a world-class line-up of artists with just for the day artworks Source: the 3,000-strong holdings to September). The billionaire lux- more than 50,000 pieces. DB FT Bloomberg | CNBC at astonishing prices (they say) two French partners. Only 130 ury goods magnate was born in works have been sold (deac- Champs-Géraux, also in Brittany. Art isn’t a retail business. What a gallery puts on The Art Car Boot Fair cessioned) since 2000, while François Pinault’s new gallery, the walls of a booth may or may not be the works 16 September, 2018. 12-6pm the Collection grows by around planned for the historic La Bourse the gallery is most interested in selling. Granary Square 20 Canal Reach. 100 to 500 works annually. The in Paris, is developing apace and ART MARKET MONITOR Kings Cross N1C 4AA loans are for a major exhibition due to open in autumn 2019.

STATE NEWS| 11 CAPTURED BY DAFYDD JONES i SPY [email protected]

Estelle Wolfson Grayson Perry Mary Beard

Hilary and Galen Weston Trudy Styler Bill Jacklin Ewan Venters Cressida Dick Abe Odedina Richard Wilson Fiona Banner Jock McFadyen

Jennifer Dickinson Gilbert & George Norman Rosenthal Gillian Wearing Mark Carney Mr. and Mrs. Gabriele Finaldi Tristam Hunt Peter Stodhart Hannel Rupert Royal Academy Annual Dinner June 2018 ACM Stuart Peach Richard Chang

Opening of The New Royal Academy London 15 May 2018

Manuela Mena Norman Rosenthal Kirsty Wark Antony Gormley Earl of Snowdon Tacita Dean Maria Balshaw Sarah Chatto

Richard Wilson Gavin Turk

Marc Glimcher Jamie Fobert Iveta and Mark St. James

Olga Polizzi William Shawcross Nicholas Serota Tacita Dean

Richard Hudson Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst Fay Mascheler Nedka Babliku Michael Sandle Lady Heseltine Peter Murray Lord Helestine

12 | STATE DONT MISS RESTATE Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) THIS IS the first time that Frieda Kahlo’s personal items have left the Blue House in Mexico City, the home in ARTISTS GET POORER which she was born, lived and died; and now a muse- um dedicated her life. A cupboard of clothes and por- A PAINTING by African Amer- recompense any losses a buy- traits was sealed on her death on the instruction of her ican artist, Kerry James Mar- er of his/her work might suf- husband, Diego Rivera, and only reopened in 2004. The shall , Past Times (1997), was fer down the line? No crystal V&A show has more than 200 of these fascinating ob- bought recently by rapper, ball required. Source: ArtFinder jects, including her clothing, jewellery and a number Sean Combs [aka P. Diddy], of self-portraits, as well as films and photos. Kahlo had for $18.5million ($21.1 mil- AS BAD FOR AUTHORS deep psychological problems over her health and self lion with fees) at auction in SOME OF the books short- image and the extensive exhibition also features an ar- New York. Marshall himself listed for the Wales Book of ray of hand-painted medical corsets and prosthetics. For did not receive a cent from the Year award have sold as those overly familiar with the Mexican artist’s oeuvre, the sale. In the USA artists few as 20 copies. BBC Wales one fascinating inclusion is the small number of Mexican

Carl Spitzweg are not entitled to a cut on reported almost half of the votive paintings (anonymous, naively painted cards giv- works sold on the secondary 10% share in Rebus (1955), he would shortlisted books sold fewer ing thanks for some personal crisis averted by divine in- market (known elsewhere as have made $575,000 from its sale at than 100 copies. Poet Robert tervention) on display. Kahlo’s style has a clear relation- droit de suite). The majority Sotheby’s New York in 1988 (see De- Minhinnick, who won the ship to these powerful little magical paintings. Essential of artists in the UK earn less mocratising Art Markets: Fractional overall prize for the third time viewing. than £5,000 a year after tax, Ownership and the Securitisation of for Diary of the Last Man, has Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up V&A 16 June - 4 November and less than $10,000 in the Art). Fractional shares, enabled by sold 202 copies so far. Niel- US (says Artfinder). Now one blockchain technology, could even sen, which provided the sales proposal is that artists should be traded independently of the work data, is the global authority PATRICK HERON (1920 - 1999) retain a stake in their own itself. The question always raised by on book sales and includes work. For example: if Robert these proposed share, or guarantee, bookshops and online sales THE FIRST major show of Heron’s work in 20 years cele- brates this key figure in post-war abstract art in Britain. Rauschenberg had kept a schemes is a simple one: will the artist in its figures. Source: BBC Utilising the new top-lit gallery at Tate St Ives, Heron’s retrospective here, from 1943 to 1996, demonstrates his HOW TO BE IN - total immersion in colour and form and the recurring in- WHEN YOU ARE OUT spiration of West Cornwall – a landscape that he noted had ‘altered my life’. DID YOUR VIP invita- Patrick Heron 19 May - 30 September Tate St Ives tion to the opening of Art Basel go astray? No worries. Now Vernis- ROYAL ACADEMY (1768-2018) sage TV has multiple THERE ARE only 80 members at any one time, all prac- lengthy looks inside the tising artists. The annual exhibition has been held every 2018 fair (and myriad year since 1769 (established in 1768 by George III) and of other artworld pow- now includes work from established artist members erpoints). The Art Basel (RAs); established non-members who have been invited; main hall was featured and those who submit their artwork for consideration in their PV video and by the 12 RAs who make up the hanging committee. the team went back a This year headed by Grayson Perry, they selected 1,351 second time to cover works from some 20,000 submissions. But the main at- more galleries during WHEN HE previewed his wonderful solar powered ‘sunflower’ light, Little Sun, to the press at Tate Modern in 2012, following a major exhibition in the Turbine Hall traction is the redevelopment and extension, designed the public days. Also (The Weather Project 2003), Olafur Eliasson bridled against a gentle suggestion by David Chipperfield, which joins Burlington House, to updates in their Unlim- from this magazine that it was hardly ‘fine art’ but more design. But lo! This June 6 Burlington Gardens, formerly the Museum of Mankind, ited add-on. To make the Icelandic-Dutch artist turned up ­at IKEA headquarters to announce a partner- which the Academy bought in 1991. The Great Specta- smart insider com- ship with his five-year-old, Berlin-based sustainability company LittleSun . The Lit- cle tells the story of the Summer Exhibition by featuring ments simply watch the tle Sun solar-powered sunflower LED lamp, a product developed in collaboration highlights of its last 249 years: works by Reynolds, Gains- video and save yourself with engineer Frederik Ottesen, can provide up to 50 hours of light after only five hours of solar-charging. The lamps have already been distributed to 10 sub-Sa- borough, Constable and Turner, right up to the Tracey the stress of being a Emin era. genuine VIP (again). haran African countries. IKEA will not roll out the first joint products until 2019. A marriage made in heaven! The Great Spectacle & 250th Summer Exhibition 12 June -19 August https://vernissage.tv/ THE FREE PRESS (20th century -) SLG FIRE STATION SOMERSET HOUSE hosts Print! Tearing It Up a celebra- BUILDING DUE TO OPEN tion of independent publishing by the underground and counterculture which itself became a potent force for SCHEDULED FOR an Autumn launch, the South activism, creativity and change. From Wyndham Lewis’ London Gallery (SLG) will open its new annexe in WWI era Blast via the alternative/art press of the ’60s the former Peckham Road Fire Station, opposite and ’70s (such as Oz, IT and Friends) up to The Face, the main gallery, on 20 September 2018. The pur- i-D, New Style and beyond, curators Claire Catterall and pose-built fire station dates from 1867 and the Paul Gorman have done a sterling job. Their view is that refurbishment includes exhibition and education the independent magazine sector is more vital, exciting spaces, an artist’s studio and communal kitchen. 6a and relevant than ever before. It’s a personal and well Architects have created a series of light-filled spaces informed selection (a bit top heavy on music and punk) over four floors whilst maintaining the original lay- but overall a truly fascinating social document. out whenever possible. Print! Tearing It Up, 8 June - 22 August Somerset House www.southlondongallery.org

STATE NEWS| 13 ‘To be an artist means never to avert one’s eyes.’ RESTATE { Akira Kurosawa }

NEW GIACOMETTI SPACE PARIS BASED, the Giacometti Foundation opened a new permanent space dedicated to exhibitions in June. Nearly 350 sculptures, 90 paintings, over 2000 drawings and an equally significant collection of etchings, as well as decorative art objects, will be open to the public over 50 years after Alberto’s death in 1966, aged 65.

Institut Giacometti 5 Rue Victor Schoelcher 75014 Paris Visits by online reservation BANKSY RA ? FIRST FOR FLORENCE THIS YEAR the infamous street artist, Banksy, was rejected when he sub- WITH SOME 13 million mitted a work to the RA Summer visitors annually, Florence Exhibition, using an anagram signa- got its first public art space ture: Bryan S Gaakman. But when dedicated to modern and artist and exhibition coordinator, contemporary art when OLD MASTERS SPICE UP POSH SHOP Grayson Perry, asked him to con- the Roberto Casamonti tribute a work for his concept show, Collection opened in ONE-TIME ‘singer’ and now one, although anyone interest- banker, they have invested £30 Banksy re-submitted the work and it March 2018. Casamonti, fashion ‘designer’, Victoria ed in her particular brand of million in Victoria Beckham was [of course] accepted. A not-so- is a gallerist and founder Beckham, scored a PR coup fashion is unlikely recognise a Ltd in exchange for a minority subtle critique of Brexit confusion of Tornabuoni Art, with stake. The cash will be used to a personal collection of with 16 valuable Old Masters Lucas Cranach or the Joseph and division, it now hangs in gallery interspersed between clothes Wright of Derby canvasses fund an international e-com- three of the Royal Academy, a room over 5000 items of Italian and international art. rails, racks and bags. On loan sited beneath the stairs. Exclu- merce expansion for the fash- Perry himself hung with works that ion label, which makes clothes, have a similarly overt political bent. He selected around 250 from Sotheby’s as part of sively portraits, they were all It is every angst ridden art students’ highlights for the museum. June’s Old Master week, sale amongst the most expensive shoes, glasses and accessories. dream to submit a famous artist’s These include work by: catalogues were also dotted estimates in the sale, Cranach The company is predicted to original work (wrongly labeled) to Burri, Fontana, Castellani, around the Dover Street store. (Portrait of a Man with a Spot- be on track to break even by a major prize and watch it be re- Manzoni, Boetti, de She says: ‘It was my first visit to ted Fur Collar £1.5-2million) or 2020. Beckham’s flagship shop, jected out of hand by the ‘expert’ Chirico, Picasso, Ernst, the Frick in New York last year Rubens (Portrait of a Venetian designed by Farshid Moussavi judging panel. MEANWHILE A se- Kandinsky, Klee, Warhol, in the heart of Mayfair, was – Basquiat, and Kapoor. In that really opened my eyes Nobleman £3-4 million). The ries of Banksy works that recently to Old Masters, and is where much maligned Mrs Beckham, by a teeth grating irony – actu- appeared around Paris include three March 2019 the collection will be rehung with works my fascination began.’ Noth- whose latest fashion accessory ally a terrific venue to present large works and three interventions the always stimulating clash of featuring his trademark rats. Two of from the 1960s to the ing wrong with that, but this is her son, Brooklyn, has re- the large murals address France’s present. exercise was no more than a cently turned around her loss old with new, of historic with general climate of intolerance to- clever PR stunt which achieved making venture into fashion the ultra modern. Prepare for Roberto Casamonti Collection more of this chi-chi cross polli- ward migrants and Muslims. Three Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni the desired exposure across retail thanks to a major cash rat murals include a reference to the Piazza Santa Trinita 1 50123 a range of compliant media. injection fromNeo Investment nation – which thosedo yens of May 1968 uprisings. Wed-Sun, 11.30 7pm. Free In the art world today a gim- Partners. Led by David Belhas- fashion, the Italians, already do Source: Hyperallergic mick is all, and this was a good sen, a former Goldman Sachs so well.

Tracey Emin, Rachel Whiteread, ­Andria Zafirakou won the Var- ‘major stars through to grass Phyllida Barlow, Anish Kapoor, key Foundation Global Teach- roots projects’ using funds she Jeremy Deller and Antony Gorm- er Prize in Dubai. She wants got from the Global Teacher ley have signed a letter, published artists, cultural figures and Prize. She is also looking for by The Guardian, calling on the arts organisations to interface sponsors. government to rethink a key sec- with schools in deprived Lon- ondary school policy introduced by the former education secretary, don boroughs for her Artists An initial pilot involving 30 Lon- Michael Gove. The letter says there in Residence (AIR) initiative. don schools will run through is compelling evidence that the Zafirakou works as an art and the autumn term with the full study of creative subjects is in de- textiles teacher at a Commu- programme to be launched cline in state schools. Kapoor said nity School in socially troubled January 2019. ‘We expect the it showed the UK was being ‘led by Brent. The English Baccalau- initiative to spread throughout a bunch of halfwits, at best. What’s reate qualification requires the UK in September 2019,’ wrong with us?’ The Government pupils to study a minimum of says a statement on the AIR response was to claim: ‘We are in- seven GCSEs, including maths vesting nearly £500 million in mu- GLOBAL TEACHER WINNER IS - BRITISH website. Art world support- sic and arts education programmes and a language, but the op- ers include Mark Wallinger, between 2016 and 2020.’ THE WINNER of the $1 ­million ‘crusade to fix the problem tions do not include any arts ­Simon Schama, Melvyn Bragg prize for teaching intends a of arts education in the UK’. subjects. AIR hopes to sign up and Jeremy Deller.

14|STATE NEWS ‘The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.’ QUOTEUNQUOTE Pablo Picasso { } T’WAS EVER THUS DON’T GIVE UP THAT DAY JOB

A SURVEY conducted by Creative Independent drew on responses from 1,016 artists to discover: only 12% said gallery sales have been helpful; 61% said freelance and ‘Dodgy practices that would result in a banker or stockbroker being fined, or even contract work was the most significant economic factor imprisoned, are everyday occurrences supporting their art; 17% are making three quarters or in the private art galleries and more of their income from their art; 50% said they salerooms of London and New York.’ make just 0-10% of their income from art; 63% with an MFA or other art degree felt it had not helped Richard Morrison reviewing them to become financially stable; 29% who had been The Orange Balloon Dog by Don Thompson represented by a gallery found that the experience had not been especially helpful to their finances. ‘Many GOING… GOING… artists feel like failures because they have to have a day job, take corporate work, or wait tables,’ said Willa Ferdinand Botero Boy Licking an Ice Cream (right) Donald Trump Köerner of Creative Independent. ‘If only art schools would better prepare artists for the business aspects of being a visual artist – including preparing them to hours of amusement overcome the debt they’re accruing from that very THE GOOGLE Arts & Culture app matches users’ selfies with similar school – so many artists would be in better shape.’ faces in artworks from the collections of participating museums. https://thecreativeindependent.com/artist-survey/ The feature is a viral success due to its often oddball and some- ‘Some four billion species have evolved on times interesting results.Hyperallergic provided it with a picture of Earth of which 99% no longer exist, and the Mona Lisa and Google matched it with a portrait by Giovanni we are now in the middle of a sixth mass Antonio Boltraffio, a Milanese contemporary of da Vinci who some extinction, driven by humanity.’ experts say actually painted the infamous Salvator Mundi. A pic- ture of the POTUS returned Ferdinand Botero’s Boy Licking an Ice Britt Wray in her book, Rise of Cream. It’s not a totally new concept. Last year Quebec’s Musée de the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics and la Civilisation used facial recognition software to match users with Risks of De-Extinction(Greystone) ancient sculptures. Source: Hyperallergic GOOD OLD DAYS

‘The Royal College was a dreadful place in terms of education. You didn’t learn a damned thing. What you learned was SCOTTISH ACHIEVEMENT how to hold your drink with the teachers.’ IN THE south of Scotland a £3.1 million gallery in Kirk- The late Malcolm Morley (RCA 1954-57) POLLOCK PLAY CRITICISED cudbright is the climax of a project some 20 years in quoted by Martin Gayford in A PLAY by Fabrice Melquiot invokes the romanticised alcoholic the making. Regarded as an ‘artists town’ – much like Modernists & Mavericks (T&H) Abstract Expressionist by way of a spar with his wife, Lee Krasner. Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire – the new facility provides A template for the ‘heroic’ American painter, Jackson Pollock was a permanent home for work created by the many local MARGATE ROCK one of the early media-celebrity artists, and Melquiot’s Pollock artists. Sir Edwin Landseer’s The Monarch of the Glen happily propagates the myth. Actors Jim Fletcher as Pollock and was loaned for the opening party in the former town Birgit Huppuch (Krasner) could not disguise the French playwright’s hall building. With four levels for both permanent and bias at the expense of Krasner’s own creativity, essential role in Pol- touring exhibitions, work by John Faed, Edward Atkin- lock’s career and her talents as a painter – a criticism common in son Hornel, Jessie Marion King, Samuel John Peploe reviews. Krasner lived for 28 years after Pollock’s death in 1956 and and Robert Sivell will form the base holdings. Three her career was effectively obscured (ruined) by her relationship years ago the Kirkcudbright Artists’ Collection was of- with Pollock. This is a common cri de coeur amongst art historians ficially recognised as being ‘nationally significant’ and and supporters of women artists and now reflects general opin- will also be on permanent display. It is hoped the fa- [The stone] ‘is beautiful, it’s paleolithic, ion. Showcased in Manhattan (Abrons Art Center), translation by cility could one day provide a permanent home to the it’s monumental, it’s dignified, ­Miriam Heard and Kenneth Casler, Pollock will doubtless be arriv- Galloway Viking Hoard, discovered in the region but it will never, ever let me down.’ ing in London soon – given the success of Yasmina Reza’s play, Art. allocated to National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh. Tracey Emin on marrying a stone in a secret ceremony in France [embracing her status as a single, middle-aged woman] from www.state-media.com for back-issues | by post option | & more The Guardian archive

STATE NEWS| 15

PEOPLE

Yet it would be wrong to assume that Saatchi stumbled across a naïve, un- tutored talent. On the contrary, C&C Gallery owner Joanna Gore discovered Mona at Goldsmiths: the waitress was also an art student nearing the end of a thorough training who, like most of her peers, had to work as well as study in order to make ends meet. Mona was also an example of how London’s diver- sity and cultural energy has made it the - ists who have in their turn enriched the perfscene.ect That’s destination now threatened for an influx by ofBrexit art and rising rental and housing costs. In- deed, Osman herself is about to move - cation of Bristol, where a studio will be tmucho the cheapermore financially. The danger sustainable is that ‘the lo next Mona Osman’ won’t come to Brit- ain at all.

Osman’s background is exotic. She was born in Budapest in 1992 to a Hun- garian Jewish mother and a Sudanese Muslim father. He left when Osman was 11, and her upbringing was largely Jewish: school, youth club, synagogue. Later Mona, mother, brother and sister moved to Nice, explaining why Osman now speaks, she says, ‘rusty’ French as well as Hungarian, English and some Spanish and Hebrew. Her mother and sister switched to London, while Mona and her brother returned to Budapest. In 2010, Mona joined her mother here and enrolled on an Art Foundation Mona Osman at Bermondsey Project Space, June 2018 course in Lewisham. The way she ex- plains it, her art education fell into place with minimal planning. She had thought ‘foundation’ preceded ‘A’ levels, and had been toying with the idea of designing jewellery. She was pleased to - THE SWEET rectly to art school, but that Goldsmiths hadfind, just not initiatjust thated a the feeder course arrangement led on di to take promising students from the SMELL OF SUCCESS nearby Lewisham Collage. That facilitated Osman’s arrival to take Like a murmuration of starlings at sundown, the UK market her BA there from 2011-14. It was a valuable start, but only when Mona suddenly moved in one direction – and the focus of attention, went on to her MA at the Royal College spearheaded by doyen artnik, Charles Saatchi, was a former of Art did she feel fully at home and on cleaner-cum-waitress at Joanna Gore’s pioneering her way to becoming a painter. That early interest in jewellery, incidentally, C&C gallery in Forest Hill. is still visible in the extravagant ear- rings and hat she made to wear to the TEXT & PORTRAIT | PAUL CAREY-KENT IMAGES | MONA OSMAN Saatchi opening. Add her unusual eth-

Not, though, as striking as she was in WIND BACK to 2016 and something of the Room 1 centre stage as part of the such as – at the bottom, in the only Budapest,nic mix, and where Mona right is a wing striking and figure. racist a fairy tale occurred. Charles Saatchi major show Known Unknowns (Saatchi character actually shutting their eyes attitudes have developed disturbing- had arranged to visit the C&C Gallery Gallery to 24 June). That showcases – through alcohol. Mona cites the pow- ly in the post-communist era, and she in Forest Hill, which is attached to the artists who are not yet famous with the erfully anthropomorphic conclusion of found people stared at her rudely for Canvas & Cream restaurant, and was general public, but whose practices ‘are the artist Wols, that ‘arthropods are being different. In London, on the con- much taken by the expressionistic greatly admired by their artistic peers technically superior to man. The day a trary, she’s had to get used to going un- paintings on display. They were the and seen as breaking new ground’. noticed. work of the waitress, Mona Osman. Not its task’. only did Saatchi immediately purchase Saatchi’s collection includes the two by butterfly has been beautiful it has done That waitressing was a little more driv- several, he also indicated that he’d like two metre Lying Down Eyes Shut, typi- The fairy tale’s a nice story, and a true en than the average student’s add-on cal in its colourful and complex activity one. Indeed, the only time Mona has employment, as Mona was support- on buying those, too. Now Osman has and inter-relationships which act, says spoken to Charles remains when she ing her family, not just herself – often tomade see biggerthose workbigger and paintings, have first Saatchi option Mona, ‘like channels for the emotions’. served him and Nigella in the Can- working 50 hours in a week as well as has bought several – and they took It depicts various attempts to escape: vas & Cream restaurant six years ago. studying and looking to take her prac

STATE MAGAZINE | 17 MONA OSMAN

Still, it would be wrong to call these human beings have three lives: public, autobiographical works. Rather they’re private, and secret.’ Those selves often about the need for any individual to seem to clash in Osman’s paintings. relate to the world. The connections Take what she says about My Brain is within the painting stand in for con- Eating my Head. ‘Double conscious, nections in the world. They are also in- paranoid, always contradicting loud formed by Osman’s interests in art and broader culture. She cites existentialist is right is ultimately wrong just as the philosophy as particularly important. shoutingwrong is voicesalways fighting.right. All The tangled. one that No One can, for instance, map Sartre onto truth, no certainty, no peace – late at the paintings: his core project was to night, when you are thinking until your understand human existence, and he brain starts to eat your own head’. started from the problem – as he saw it – that humans come into being without I Am Only Doing This Because I Love You an essence. That means we are radical- captures a particular type which Os- ly free to develop our essence through man hates: those who ‘have an extreme our actions, which is both an oppor- love which seeks to control, to get the tunity and a burden. Sartre’s most loved one to do things in the name of famous example, as it happens, is of a love which make it easier for them to waiter who plays at being a waiter as - a way of avoiding the challenge of dis- ing in the main characters, after which covering his true essence. Indeed, Bad Monalove you’. spontaneously Such paintings builds start up from the pat fill- Faith cites that directly: we can see Os- man’s ‘Red Cube’ crushed between the Resin, collage, woodcut, latex and pho- inauthentic actions of the characters. tocopiedtern she needs drawings to create all add the to visual the textur flow.- al variety and give the viewer’s eyes a If Only We Could Escape Family Traits oil, paper and resin on canvas 2018 Osman, like Sartre, is exploring how rest from the all-over energy. The results have a painterly dynamism which can be appreciated with no par- ...waitressing ticular need of explanation beyond the hints given by the titles. Yet it is stimulating to hear Mona’s animated was a little accounts of her thinking. Oppressed Op- pressors, for example, ‘shows how the more driven abused can become the abuser’ in a vi- than the ciousby a charactercircle reflected and oppressing in the interlinked anoth- average figurer characteres, all of whomin their are in both turn oppressed ‘whether that’s an everyday event like how, if someone is rude to you on the train, student’s that puts you in a bad mood which might make you sound off at someone add-on when you get to work; or a more se- rious matter, such as someone being employment, abused as a child turning into an abus- er themselves’.

as Mona was - - supporting urativeThe history handling, of art it also is easiest flows into to Ossee man’ssuch paint work.ers Given as Klimt her expressive, Schiele and fig her family, not Beckmann. There’s also a strong af- CoBRA artists, such as As- ger Jorn. More surprisingly, she cites just herself. finityMondrian with , Malevich and the more contemporary Gabriel Orozco. It’s true that abstract patterning plays its Lying Down Eyes Shut oil, paper, and collage on canvas with resin 2017 role in Osman’s work, but her main fo- cus in Mondrian and Malevich is on the tice forward. Times were tough enough ter what the Red Cube is, what matters she relates to the world. Sartre pro- way they strive for absolutes which are that she frequently painted over dis- is the relationship one’s self has with it’. posed that one person’s exercise of logically infeasible; and she admires carded canvasses plucked from skips. freedom creates values that any other Gabriel Orozco for paintings which de- Only in the past year has she escaped over in her paintings, which start from human being placed in the same situ- rive geometric shapes from sporting the obligations of both study and paid Thather own forceful experiences self-sufficiency and sketchbooks comes, ation could experience. Just so, Osman images, reading sport as an image of a work to devote herself entirely to art. and imagined conversations between presents her relations with the world Her dissertation was on ‘the Red Cube’, her characters– some of whom she re- as structurally comparable – even if dif- both suggest that Mona Osman is striv- which appeared in the paintings in her members from dreams. Curiously, she ferent in content – to how any of us has societying for a to stable be codified. framework Those she interests knows solo show at C&C Gallery in 2016. It’s says, when she was between studios to come to grips with reality. she can’t achieve, yet believes that the an analogy, says Mona, for the driving for six weeks she found her anxiety lev- striving remains valid – for that is, as force which everyone needs in their els increasing in the absence of paint- Though contrary to ‘any one of us’, Sartre would say, the human condition. lives – ‘something that moves us: a ing’s catharsis, and started to have there’s also the sense that we are not man, a woman, a career, money, love , dreams in which the characters, rather one, but a multitude of selves. In Gabri- www.ccgallery.co.uk hate, religion, ourselves. It doesn’t mat- than talking to her, faded away. el García Márquez’s formulation, ‘all paulsartwotld.blogspot.com

18 | STATE MAGAZINE Paul Carey-Kent Mona Osman in her studio STATE OF MIND

Jonny Burt and Joe Kennedy UNIT-ED FRONT The meteoric rise of two school friends has caught the - envious - attention of the London art world. Which is exactly as they intended

Is This the Future of the Gallery business?

TEXT MIKE VON JOEL | IMAGE PAULINA KOROBKIEWICZ

XX | STATE MAGAZINE PROFILE

THE MEN behind UNIT have the lingua franca of their gener- So who are Burt and Kennedy, the the map, with Kennedy leaving ­polished their image. Gone is the ation, was an integral part of the friends who met in a Latymer Up- his desk to go to Chiswick in the grinning, youthful look of happy- ‘brand’ (as they like to refer to per School classroom in Hammer- evening and hit the internet. ‘We go-lucky party boys, once familiar the UNIT identity) and not a bolt- smith? Both equally engaging per- were best friends right from when to private view guests at their Cov- on afterthought. Chiswick would sonalities, Burt is a natural front- we met at 11. I went off to Manches- ent Garden and Soho ‘pop-ups’ – prime them for a move upwards of-house man, whilst Kennedy is a ter to study psychology, something replaced by the mean and moody to Seven Dials in Covent Garden. trained professional ‘brand man- that still interests me, and I thought pose of heavy weight business ager’ with experience. It’s clearly of being a strategist in advertising,’ professionals (and not entirely An early show they contrived feat­ a formidable yin-yang dynamic, he recalls. ‘So I went to Sydney brief- unlike Bailey’s famous portrait of ured artists who themselves had ­although they insist there is no ly as a junior at Leo Burnett.’ Both the Kray twins). But, in fact, this is many thousands of Instagram such division of labour. seem to agree it was inevitable they likely just another carefully pre- followers – giving UNIT immedi- would become business partners. ate cross-pollination to their own Jonny Burt (28) is an artist, and of two of the nicest and smart- former actor and male model. He After Chiswick closed they stum- figuredest young step men in about the meteoric Town, both rise the inevitable axe fell on Turnham did an art foundation at Wimble- bled on some empty shops in busy trying to build a reputation Greenfledgling (the Instagram irony is always site. When that don and studied English at War- Seven Dials by accident, and Ken- in the quagmire of the London art ‘pop-up’ entrepreneurs make the wick. His parents are both success- nedy approached the landlords, world. The former school friends ful musical theatre ­actors (Da­ vid Shaftesbury­ . ‘I made the most have forged a very impressive and Burt and Beverley Kay) that outrageous pitch I had ever made visionary partnership they call might well explain the genes. His and we got the former Adidas re- UNIT London, and it is not hard We are here views on the gallery system were tail store. That’s when I quit my to buy in to their passionate belief forged when trekking around the day job.’ This was the point where that they have devised a business to disrupt. West End, trying to interest the art their ‘brand building’ marketing model which represents the very world in his own work. Burt soon strategies began. And nothing was future of art dealing. perceived that established galler- off limits to the creative ingenuity It’s more ies had priorities and methodolo- of Burt and Kennedy. Joe Kennedy and Jonny Burt gies that did not chime with those have recently hit the headlines intriguing of his own generation. Although Now they have used all their joint because UNIT has just opened at a he does not see himself as a ‘deal- resources and savings to secure 3 former Citibank site in prestigious that we are er’ or ‘gallerist’. ‘We are both cre- Hanover Square, competing with Hanover Square, alongside Vogue atives,’ he says. ‘Mayfair is an op- Barclays and other corporate and opposite the Blain|Southern here in the portunity for us to be taken seri- giants for the lease. ‘There is a ously. I loved Soho. We were only growing wealth class who do not middle of meant to be there for four months respond well to elitism,’ says Ken- gallery.in a side And street it isin justChiswick. five yearsHow but we got lucky, the landlord nedy. ‘We have always had a much didsince they they do opened it? shrieked their first The space Art the old guard. liked us and kept extending our more relaxed attitude – we give Newspaper. How indeed. lease. It felt like home. After a cou- access to artists’ studios. We facili- Our principles ple of years the landlords changed tate that dialogue between an art- The insidiously high business and we were out – they wanted a ist directly to any interested party.’ rates levied on commercial prop- will not restaurant. We were upset.’ Burt is erty – blamed for decimating the not adverse to risk. And Mayfair, Burt and Kennedy brim with en- high streets of Britain – have one change... with a 10-year lease, is somewhat with empty premises were still of the partners will be drawn on thusiasmwith Social and Media confidence. smarts, But they as hiddenliable for benefit. the rates Landlords and this propa stuck- ofdetail. a financial ‘Everybody stretch, thinks but neitherwe are befitslet their many reviewers of their make generation assump- gated the ‘pop-up’ – a short notice, formerly vacant property more rich kids but we are not, we just tions and reach conclusions as op- ‘licence to occupy’ deal whereby a attractive and thus more let-able) worked our arses off to get here,’ posed to making bald statements temporary ‘tenant’ would agree to the duo had enough chutzpah to - about their business. Reporters at cover the rates, maintain the prop- repeat the formula in the more publications that range from The erty and protect it from vandalism hesomething notes. That they theirdo agree first on. perma But is Guardian to Gentleman’s Journal and squatters (the landlords real Garden, then Soho. In these loca- nentthe move space to willMayfair ‘be a a move flagship’ to the is breathlessly report ‘sell out’ shows fear). More importantly, as long headytions they environs cleverly of added first, an Covent extra and £60,000 a go artworks. A mil- as it was decent and legal, what a as a young emergent painter? lion pounds sale is hinted at [©Roy ‘pop-up’ did once inside the door gallery spaces they created, by the art‘We galleryare here profile to disrupt. Burt It’s despised more Miles]. Whilst the men are clearly was up to the licensee. And land- fillip:day or ‘renting evening, out’quoting the rates dramatic not intriguing that we are here in the - lords do love an art gallery – for a million miles from £5000 per middle of the old guard. Our prin- ings at Companies House for both obvious reasons. day in the case of Soho. The Cov- ciples will not change – and we are doingThe Unit well, London deservedly and so,J&J theGroup fil ent Garden site will be retained in keeping Covent Garden on.’ tandem with Hanover Square and levels of business – but nonethe- Turnham Green Terrace in W4. renamed as UNIT 6 (day rate for Joe Kennedy (28) initially went Holdingsless, their are achievements yet to reflect speak exalted for UNIT’sBurt and first Kennedy, short term with let the was help at ‘hire’ is quoted at £4000+). How- into advertising – with a tr­ ansfer themselves. There is no doubt dark of friends and family, turned the ever, it has not all been plain sail- to Leo Burnett in Australia. On clouds are building in the art busi- shop into the familiar ‘white cube’ ing, and the duo often repeat the his return to London, the friends ness and who would not wish to gallery space and put their theo- folktale of being kicked out of one teamed up to create UNIT, with see Burt and Kennedy’s passionate ries into practice. For two or three space in Covent Garden at such his advertising day job support- and savvy solutions shine through months they showed their own short notice they were sitting on ing Burt’s managing of the gal- for the next generation of artniks? work and other artists gleaned the curb alongside a car stuffed full lery. Both men worked extremely The future can’t wait! from the internet. Social Media, of paintings with nowhere to go. long hours to put the gallery on

https://theunitldn.com STATE | 21 STATE OF MIND Stuart Semple 2014 Stuart Semple Nadia Amura STATE OF MIND BE HAPPY Radical city-wide projects that incite mass happiness Experience the unifying art of Stuart Semple

TEXT| LEE SHARROCK IMAGES | STUART SEMPLE & NADIA AMURA

AS THE planet becomes increasingly fragmented through a renewed Cold War, Brexit and the cycle of ­extrem­ism, a new world order is emerging. Since - rorist attacks combined with anti-im- migrant9/11 and rhetoric the subsequent has led conflicts,to a ­society ter where many people feel threatened and who are often afraid of public spaces. The election of a polarising President in the United States has only served to ex- acerbate the mistrust of ­‘illegal aliens’ or the ‘other’. In the USA, a seemingly endless ­series of random attacks by gun-toting citizens on schools, con- certs, churches and places where inno- cent people gather, hit a wall with the deadly shooting at Parkland School in Florida in February. After Parkland, thousands of people across America protested for tighter gun controls in a ‘March for our Lives’.

So with all the alienation and unrest in the world, how could contemporary

Part of the answer might just come artin the possibly form beof artist a tool Stuart for unification? Semple, whose democratic, immersive art is de- signed to bring people together again. Semple gained notoriety in the art world after the ‘Art Wars’, which start- ed when Anish Kapoor patented the colour ‘Vantablack’ and declared that no other artist could use it. In retalia- tion Semple created his own line of art supplies designed for all artists – apart from Kapoor – including ‘Black 2.0’ and ­‘Diamond Dust’ (otherwise known as ‘the world’s most glittery glitter’).

Although a talented painter and col- ourist, his public art installations have gained him the most recognition, in- cluding a Happy Cloud performance WE DON’T NEED ANOTHER HERO Acrylic, india ink and spraypaint on canvas 2014 at Tate Modern skyline of London with smiley pink about another mass public participation rundown alleyways into canvases for combat loneliness by meeting others – soap clouds, and whereJUMP he flooded the- project titled Hug Huddle, which took their artworks. Hug Huddle and Happy and an ‘Emotional Baggage Drop’ at the place near Tower Bridge last March. City are the kind of initiatives that can train station where people can deposit interacting again in a ,society a giant increasinflata- bring people from all walks of life and their tr­ oubles at a confessional booth. bleingly dance wary floorof strangers. designed Semple’s to get people Happ­ y Happy City: Art for the People is a 6-week different generations together aimed Clouds have bought a smile to the f­aces art intervention designed to break at demonstrating the healing power Lee Sharrock meets Stuart Semple of people in the UK, Moscow, Italy, Aus- down social barriers and encourage of creativity. Happy City features some in his Bournemouth studio as he tralia and Ireland. Semple was in his togetherness. Semple was invited by wonderfully unifying installations ­prepared for the Hug Huddle and Bournemouth studio preparing for his Denver to produce an interactive, im- ­Happy City projects in the UK and USA. biggest project to date, a Happy City in- mersive event in the Denver Theatre a colouring café where people can stallation taking over the city of Denver District (a 16-block area of downtown) ­including:make art with a huge Semple’s inflatable ‘colouriest dance floor; col- On one side of the studio a photo shoot (from May 2018). He was also beaming and local artists were selected to turn was set up with pots of Semple’s now

ours’; tea dances – for ­older people to STATE MAGAZINE | 23 STUART SEMPLE

in the audience said “So what are you going to do about it?” So I replied, I’m going to release the pinkest pink but not let him use it. As a joke.

Then my friend said “So when are you going to release this pink then?” I made a little website and I already had a pink because I make all my own paints, and put it on the website as a joke, and banned Anish Kapoor from buying the pink. Then it went crazy on its own ­really. Basically, I’ve been making paint for about 20 years be- cause I wanted more vibrant colours in my work, and the pink is one that’s evolved. With every exhibition I’ve done, I’ve made my pink stronger. It’s got to a point now where it’s this an in- sanely vibrant pink. I think I mentioned it on my F­ acebook as a joke, but then people actually bought it. For me the website was the piece of art – a website making the point about the elitism of the Kapoor thing. I wasn’t actually ex- pecting it to get orders, but I woke up in the mor­ ning and we’d sold a bucket load of them.

It got big because Dazed and Vice wrote about it, then it was in The Times. I was ONE OF THESE MORNINGS Digital print, acrylic, India ink, vinyl, tip-ex, oil pastel, and stickers on Hahnemühle etching paper 2014 just scared to talk about it because ­people bought more of it! Then we had infamous Black 2.0 paint, a special road to another studio, which he dedi- artworks. Musings such as ‘I was young, to take over my parents’ house to put ­anniversary edition with labels created cates to making paintings. Although the I was wrong, it couldn’t last’, ‘broken all the jars together on their kit­ chen by some of the emerging artists who unprecedented success of the paints, hymns’ and ‘feel the love’ offer an in- use it in their work. On the wall hung and the vast scale of the immersive sight into the workings of his mind, and 20,000 jars of it. I think we’ve sold a portrait of Andy Warhol, and a cut project in Denver that was taking up the inspiration behind his work. table.around By 5 the tons first worth month now. we So sold it turned about out magazine photo of Anish Kapoor, most of his time, he still maintains his into the real thing and there are fac- which Semple admitted had been used painting practice. He says he had ‘a love - as a studio dart board at the height of of colour and more traditional painting ket, where contemporary art prices ­warehouses and customer service the infamous ‘Art Wars’. Yet Semple techniques from a young age’, when his Inat auction an increasingly have gone commodified through the marroof toriesteams – involved it’s become now, a big and thing. fulfilment gives off such warm, happy vibes, that mother took him to the National Gal- and the top tier artists have become a one can’t imagine this was any more lery and Van Gogh’s Sunflowers had status symbol for the uber-rich, Stuart So what did you do after pink, were than a light-hearted joke. ‘a profound and enduring affect on his Semple is a breath of fresh air. His altru- they colours you use anyway? senses’. In the painting studio he was istic vision is a welcome antidote to the Semple also suggested a walk down the working on three canvases, all very top- market trends. The now infamous spat Yes, so I released the pink, and then ical and addressing with Anish Kapoor turned him into ­Anish got his hands on the pink because­ tough subjects such an unexpected manufacturer of high the Lisson Gallery bought it for him, as police brutali- end paint pigments that are selling in which I think was really naughty. Then ty in the USA. His the thousands. As we live through an attention to detail increasingly suspicious society post- ­picture on Instagram of him dipping is intense, to the 9/11, and the climate of fear exacerbat- he dipped his finger in it and put a point where one ed by the reign of the erratic President too far because you can’t have the pink. Trump, Semple’s democratic art is of- hisSo Ifinger released in it. the So Idiamond was like, that’sdust, whicha step fering a response to the negativity and is tiny little shards of glass. The glitter- figurejacket, inand a painting Semple distrust running through society today. iest glitter. I call this ‘Super Shard’, be- wearscontacted a reflectivethe fac- cause the shards are much bigger and tory that make the Lee Sharrock: Can you tell me about thinner, and also cut at random angles jackets to discuss the ‘Art Wars’, and the colours you how he could make created for artists? Did Anish K­ apoor his own paint with get his idea for Vantablack from Yves soThey’re they reflect99.9% more. clear, which means Klein and his ‘Yves Klein blue’? you can really see the work through qualities. it when you encrust it. I was really the same reflective Stuart Semple: A company made the ­obsessed with Warhol’s Diamond Dust On a blackboard black and then Anish bought the ex- shoes, and it was so hard to actually there were a ser­ ies clusive rights to use the black for art, get diamond dust. So I started to talk of white chalk and I thought that was really miserable. to industrial coatings people who re- scribbles, which act Then I was giving a talk at the ­Denver as a kind of mood Art Museum and someone in the au- made friends with these people, and I board for thoughts dience said “what’s your favourite inforce concrete with glass flakes. I and often provide ­colour?” And I said, this new black, but get it clearer, more THE WORLD’S PINKEST PINK - 50g powdered paint by Stuart Semple a starting point for no-one can use it. Then someone else tweakedrandom. Andthe recipethen we of gotthe this. glass flake to reflective and more

24 | STATE MAGAZINE STATE OF MIND

So how many colours do you have my assistant who’s 20, he doesn’t re- now? member that. So there’s now a whole ­generation that doesn’t really know

Now I think we have getting on for where that fear came from. Then out 30 products, including paints that do of that we had people being worried ­different things. The black’s the biggest I don’t buy into the idea that if about being in a public space together, one. “ and this rise of ‘stranger danger’. And you make art for the ­public it has this overriding idea that other people I wonder why Anish Kapoor would “ are somehow very dangerous or differ- want to have a paint that only he to be dumbed now, or doesn’t ent, and we got very afraid of ‘the other’. could use. I suppose it goes back And I actually think we’re all made of to Yves Klein blue, but Klein didn’t have depth of meaning. the same stuff. And actually yes, there say nobody else could use it, he just are one or two weirdos, but by the most made a paint using his name. part people are alright. What I’m trying to do with my work is to not even play I think I know why. It kind of gives him into that scenario, but create the exact a competitive advantage. When you opposite. Where people laugh, where think about his work, if he could make people come together, where people something that absorbed all light, I your work has the same kind of phi- my 6 year-old daughter and it was a are included. It’s not even to make a could see it would be very attractive to losophy as Superflex, of making art totally different experience. I think point, it’s actually just a direct anti- him. And he wouldn’t necessarily want accessible for everybody? the reaction was exactly how Super- dote. I think art can be applied to social everyone else to use it. He’s only going flex had envisaged it, or maybe the ­situations and improve them. So it’s to coat a cube or a ball with it. So, I sup- I think so, yes. Fundamentally I think same way people interacted with ­almost like a design project. pose he doesn’t want ­everyone using art is really important, and I don’t think your floating clouds at Tate, they just it. I mean, imagine if Damien Hirst or it’s right that some people should have get it. I grew up in a totally different time Jeff Koons got it. access to it, and other people don’t. But of rave culture before 9/11 and at the same time I don’t buy into the That’s when art works. That’s what I’d ­before terrorist attacks. If you’re confident in your work, idea that if you make art for the ­public it like my work to be known for. then surely you would let everyone has to be dumbed now, or doesn’t have The point with the rave culture is there have the materials and see what depth of meaning. So whilst I think I was reading about your instal- was a second summer of love. It was an they do with them. there’s an elitist thing, I also think peo- lation in Denver. We’re living in a important moment, because we had ple have lost faith in the general public very scared climate right now with that Thatcherite summer, it was also Yes, it’s just bizarre. I mean, if you give a to actually get it, and it’s amazing the ­terrorist attacks, chemical warfare a very hot summer in ’88. All of those stick of charcoal to Picasso you would depth of knowledge people have about and acid attacks. You said “We live in things together made a moment that get an amazing drawing, but if you give it cultural things. So, I like to make stuff a time where public space is threat- the criminal justice system stopped. to a 6 year old you’d get a very ­different that people can connect with on loads ened by fear.” And at the same time that culture be- kind of drawing. Why can’t everyone of levels, whether they’re a 6 year-old came commercialised, so you got the play with the black? It’s just weird. or a 60 year-old. I think there’s lots to it. Firstly I do be- rise of the super-club and money came lieve we’re living in a climate of fear, into it. And actually, what was just about Reading about Denver and learning I went to the Superflex press con- and I think it starts with 9/11. It’s the people coming together and having fun, more about your previous work, I ference when it was just critics and biggest historic, fear-based tragedy got eradicated. The same thing hap- think what I like is how democratic journalists, and went back later with we’ve had. And, interestingly Liam, pened to Punk, it got written out. With- is. It’s for everyone. It made me think in 5 minutes you could buy slashed up of the swings by Superflex at Tate SUSPENDED IN THIS BLISS Acrylic on canvas 2014 jeans or whatever. That’s what happens Modern’s Turbine Hall. Do you think Right: OH NO LOVE... YOU’RE NOT ALONE Acrylic on canvas 2015 as soon as there’s a ­genuine ­culture, it

STATE MAGAZINE |25 STUART SEMPLE

Nadia Amura Stuart Semple 2014

gets commercialised. Now the kids fake, so there’s no physical connection were going to do it. you want to release. You hear their’s who are holding these illegal parties of youth in public. So they’ve almost and they hear yours, and it’s a bit like a and raves, it doesn’t seem to have the become victimised by the over-policing That’s a really positive story, es- chain reaction. same reason. It’s different, the music’s of them. pecially when people are so down different, the drugs are different. I don’t about America at the moment. Do you think it will be anything like understand it. So how did the event in Denver come the Flash Mobs they used to have, about, did the people approach you? where people appeared in places You’re doing ‘Happy City’ when weird when all those type of people and started dancing. America is having so many ­problems, I did a show in LA and someone turned They were terrified but excited. It’s just especially with all the shootings. - and they’re all invested in it. - How do you think it’s going to go ver Art Museum, and invited me to do come together, and the Mayor’s office, teresting because culturally that’s re- down in Denver? upa talk and ther saide. theyI did worked this talk at all the about Den In the press release it says there are allyI think fascinating. the inflatable We’ve dance done floor it in isAus in- art and ­society, and what as artists I some local artists involved too? tralia and London. They’re shutting think we can do. Maybe artists have a very liberal, and very arty. They’re very responsibility because we have quite There were some alleyways downtown Iopen-minded, think the first very thing risk-taking is that Denver because is a lot of freedom of speech. Loads of and we wanted to revitalise them. We down the centre of Denver from traffic they found gold in the hills during the people started coming up at the end, for the2 weekends dancefloor, in whicha row. is The a big idea deal, is gold rush. But, at the same time, I’m these were big people from the city – the Happy Alley look like, and we’ve likepeople Piccadilly will come Circus and having jump notogether, traffic acutely aware of the situation in Amer- - askedgiven them local Denvera budget artists so they’ll what doestake and move physically in a public space. ica. And what’s interesting is Trump is ple from the Symphony Orchestra. I over the alleyway and live there for a Because we know when you move it interesting, because he’s almost the end couldnlike planners,’t think of the an Mayor’s idea, then office, I went peo on couple of years. There are some really makes you happy and releases endor- of a disaster that’s been crashing for a holiday last Christmas and was writing phins. You start to become aware of long time. It’s got to a point where the in my sketch-book on a beach. I wrote: to document it. We have to make it. One the people around you and your inter- kids are standing up and saying “we “Radical city-wide project that incites niceof the ideas. big things We’re isgoing the Emotionalto make a Bagfilm- action with other people. can’t carry on like this. Why do we need mass happiness”, and I took a photo of gage Drop that we’re installing at Union guns?” And we know that most of the it and messaged it to the head of the City, which is the main train station and I admit I was fearful for a while of kids are on anti-depressants. the way into the city. You arrive at Un- going on the tube or public spaces, and said “I like it. What do you need?” ion Station and you go the Emotional or going to Paris after the terrorist There’s a recent study that actually DenverAnd I theatrereplied district.“Something And hebig. replied The Baggage Drop, and they ask you what attacks for example. But I got over it mapped how far kids would go from whole city!” He said he would try to kind of emotional baggage you want and recently by doing things like the their home. 20 years ago, kids would get the money together, then 2 months Women’s March in Westminster I was roam around on their bikes. But now later I was out there and everyone had the city without it. You’ll see them and struck by how friendly people are. kids hardly leave their bedrooms, and chipped in, the theatre district, Visit tothey’ll deposit. see youSo youthrough can goa littleand exploreconfes- all their connections are digital and Denver… they’d raised the money and sional hole, and they’ll ask you what Yes I think people reach out and help,

26 | STATE MAGAZINE STATE OF MIND that is human nature. point. Because if you decide you live London. It was like a weight had been So we’ve launched a website called in a friendly universe I think you ex- lifted off my shoulders when I got on hostiledesign.org and we launched it Do you think sometimes it’s propa- perience a friendly universe. There’s the train from Waterloo. So I decided I so people can take photos of hostile ganda by the media? enough people pointing at the bad stuff. was going to set up here. You’d be sur- designs and call out the local councils – prised at the scene that’s bubbling here. and get this stuff removed, because it’s One thing is the amount of media, and With your art you’ve very anti-elitist. I’m amazed. Every week I’m like: so- making public spaces horr­ ible. We’ve the amount of news that they need, How do you feel about the whole com- and-so has moved here… artists, design- made ‘design crime’ stickers to put and the speed with which we see it. modification of art, like Banksy, whose on hostile designs. People can choose And I also have a real problem with work gets cut from the wall on the because there wasn’t any of that. I can whether they want to pay nothing, or the rolling news thing. For example “A street and put into an auction house? ers,understand filmmakers. why, Iand actually it’s a good came thing. here 50p (which is what it cost us to make plane has fallen from the sky, suspect- the stickers) or pay £1. The problem ed Terror attack”. 10 minutes later, no If people weren’t buying my work I We did a project a few weeks ago. I we’ve got is that nobody asks for free it wasn’t a terror attack, it was some- probably wouldn’t be able to do a Hug walked through Bournemouth High stickers, and nobody gives 50p, every- thing else. What we used to have was Huddle. I think art is priceless to hu- Street and noticed the council had put body wants to give £1. So we have a the 6 o’clock news where they had put mans, and you can’t put a number on all these metal bars on the benches bucket of £1 coins are we are turning it together and let it get to the end of the good stuff. For example Van Gogh’s so homeless people couldn’t sleep on it into a charity and using the money where it was going it. Also, whether Sunflowers, you can’t really put a price them. Most people thought it was just we’ve collected to buy ‘Backpack Beds’ we like it or not, the news media are in on it. I went to the National Gallery, I a bar on a bench, but I’d spent ages for the homeless. They’re amazing be- the ­entertainment business, and they must have been 8, and it was at the end designing train stations, so I spotted cause they have complete dignity about know what shock does to people. of the room. I had a reaction to it, and it straight away and realised it was de- them, because they look like a normal my Mum had never seen me like it, it signed to stop rough sleepers sleeping backpack, they weigh less than 3 kilos I think the whole language and rhet- was as if I’d seen God or something. on the benches. So I took a photo and and fold out into a proper homeless oric is a problem too, especially the posted it on Facebook, and woke up the shelter. There’s a compartment where use of the word terrorism. His colours were so vibrant, and the next day and it had a million views. It you can put your belongings and lock colours you make really ping as well, went completely viral. The council said it with a key. They’re wind proof, wa- I’m doing a Hug Huddle near Tower so it’s obvious you still love colour. they weren’t going to remove them, so I ter proof, mould proof, weather proof, Bridge and people were really scared decided to do something about it. I did and less than $100 each. The designer about the idea, especially the insur- If I was a Chef I’d be interested in taste. an impromptu art event where I asked is Australian, they’re really big there ers who said “What if someone comes I’m an artist, so I’m interested in colour. people to come down and decorate and our plan is to distribute them in the to the Hug Huddle and hugs someone That’s what we make things out of. It’s the benches in a sign of solidarity for UK. We can bang on about hostile design, sexually, inappropriately, what are you actually quite interesting, commercial the homeless and called it Love Bench. going to do? We can’t insure you”. And paints are relatively new, strangely. Be- It had a major effect, we got it every- the most compassionate piece of design I was like: what if they don’t? and they fore Victorian times, every artist made where, the Independent, The Times, the butwe could,really whatso we we trawled needed everything to do was findand said “What if they do?”. I’ve had this their own paints, or their assistants Australian News, and Professor Green found the Backpack Beds. argument a lot. When we were design- did for them. With commercial paints the rapper came down and took one of ing a train station for Denver and they they’re basically just selling water with the bars off. We caused such a ruckus The big problem is, you’re homeless, said “what if a skateboarder comes and colour in it, to make as much money that the council removed the bars. you haven’t got a home, you’ve got your climbs on it, and destroys it ?” and I as possible. I got annoyed with that duvet, blankets – but during the day said: what makes you think they will? and started making my own paint, and It’s a bit like the council in Windsor what do you do with it all? You leave There’s this huge misconception that started to realise I could make better who said they were going to remove it in a doorway and the council might things are going to go wrong. But I’m paint. Like a heat activated paint that’s all the homeless people before the ever the optimist. purple, but when it gets hot it turns Royal Wedding, and I thought: why the Backpack Beds, you retain your dig- pink. It becomes invisible at certain don’t you find them a home? comenity. The along nice and thing confiscate about it it.in Butterms with of Insurance companies make as much temperatures. outreach is we distribute it through a money as they can by making people In Denver I’m talking to people like city homeless charity, and its something to worried. How does the Hug Huddle I read that seeing Sensation at the planners, but they’re not asking a ­wider talk about and becomes a way to bring work? Royal Academy in 1998 was a sem- question, which is how can we make the homeless into other services… inal moment for you. I saw it too, spaces more inviting, inclusive and I made a Facebook post saying: I want during an art foundation college trip happier? They’re actually taking a more www.stuartsemple.com to do the world’s Huggiest Hug, can you aged 20 to London, and remember Victorian approach to dealing with it. come and hug one another please, and the impact it had on me. then I paid for the location. Basically we’ll have a big video screen in Potter’s I was 17. We went to Sensation and I Field in London, and a big video screen was like: what the hell is this? I thought in Denver, where they will have a hug art was like drawing little things with a huddle at the same time. And hopefully pencil, then I saw Damien Hirst’s Shark, people will turn up and hug one anoth- and the Chapman Brothers. It was the er in London, instead of being scared. I show overall that hit me, because it was just want to see something really lovely. so well curated, and it was such a mo- ment… I was just like: oh my God, these Stephen Hawking died recently, guys are alive, they’re cool, and they’re and one of the things he said that’s making this. I thought: I can go back to been quoted a lot is that humanity’s art school and do what I want. greatest shortcoming is aggression. From your experience of public art You had a studio in London for a bit. events in the UK, Russia, Ireland and Then you moved to Bournemouth, Australia, what’s your experience of why was that? people, do you agree with Hawking? I lived in Shoreditch for 10 years, then My experience is the majority of people I had my son and my work was getting are alright. On the science thing, Ein- more and more international, and I stein said “The most important thing thought: I could be anywhere and make we need to decide in life, is whether we this stuff. We had a weekend place here live in a hostile of friendly universe”, and every time I came down I was re-

and I think he trumps Hawking on that ally happy and dreaded going back to 2014 Stuart Semple Nadia Amura

STATE MAGAZINE | 27 FOUT RTH ES ATE The case for the artist interview The Price of Everything IT CAN never be said that art­ the past it was the prepon­ al wave of material invariably ANOTHER amusing tumble through the ists are reticent about voicing derance of letter writing (the linked to marketing of some peccadillo’s of the art market by the economist their opinions on the crea­ only means of educated com­ description – except – the and marketing guru who has found his shtick tive process – and everything munication) that by its very format that might be called impressing and horrifying the new breed of else between. Through­out ­nature imparted an authentic ‘in their own words’. Whilst collector in equal measure. Thompson became art history there have been truthfulness and insight to artists may well become po- noted outside the dull round of LSE and ­manifestos and diaries and, the writer. Who cannot feel seurs when proselytising Harvard classrooms with his exposure of art failing that, some admirer the melancholy in the extant themselves, with a skilled in­ The $12 Million willing, Boswell-like, to re­ letters of V­ incent van Gogh, terlocutor these records can cord the wisdom of artists more than 650 to his brother become the most valuable to Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of great and small. Whether it Theo, ­ art history. The printed word ­Contemporaryworld financial chicanery Art. Now hisin equally catchy be Giorgio Vasari’s capti­ lished in 1914. Balloon Dog banner introduces a business vating mix of anecdote and which were first pub television, and a chance to that is, in turn, ­ In more recent times, art lacksexamine the the glibness workings of film of an or highly public, wards Florentine artists – or books and magazines, the artists’ mind and process at a opaque, erudite, fictionGeorge – Williams and heavy Fulcher bias to gallery catalogue, the video personal pace can encourage ignorant, charitable, with his slavish dedication to and television documentary, a deeper level of understand­ dishonest. Impress­ Gainsborough these have all given a plat­ ing. Two books of collected ively re­­searched, not hand – eye witness – account interviews appeared recently, form to the garrulous artist. a corner of what is that delivers the, it’s punch. the first In They form a never ending tid­ and both support the point. clearly now a highly commercial ­business is left unexamined. Tracking a Post-War Renaissance The vision of an artist toiling alone in a studio somewhere EXTRACT risking his/her all seems very remote On Francis Bacon’s from the self- Three Studies for a Crucifixion 1962 serving shenanigans Thompson unpacks as he spotlights high-end Whatever Bacon may have in­ galleries and auction houses, museums and collectors. And the huge amounts of cash being left does bear a resemblance to transacted. Many within the art system would sisted,Heinrich the Himmler figure on (andthe extreme to the photographs of Hitler and his agree with whole-heartedly – and yet – the beat goes on. One interesting outcome – our entourage that Bacon kept in his John Deakin Wheelers 1963 image bank). He told David Syl­ A famous reel of snaps showing (l-r) economics supremo ends with a prediction vester that he had been looking Timothy Behrens, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Michael Andrews of the inevitable collapse in the ‘bubble’ of at them before he painted an­ current art pricing. ‘Have tattooed on your other triptych, Crucifixion, three years later, in 1965. These imag­ LIKE a slow build ­avalanche, arm,’ suggests Thompson, ‘the past is not a es gave him the idea of putting a guide to the future.’ Balloon Dog has received world are disappearing and many plaudits and these are well deserved. this later work, but he claimed, theso any key opportunity figures of the to ’60sget artan Thompson delivers his incisive opinions with a disingenuously,swastika armband that on he a intended figure in insider perspective on them as by this not that this was a Nazi, both artist and individual is as mixture of wit, cynicism and self effacement – but simply to make it work ‘for­ welcome as it is fascinating. and formidable research skills. Recommended. mally’. While Bacon may have been extremely keen to rebut Martin Gayford (66), art critic The Orange Balloon Dog: the idea that his pictures were – for The Spectator and an inte­ Bubbles, Turmoil and Avarice in in the Victorian manner - telling gral and long standing part of the Contemporary Art Market a story, he nevertheless didn’t the London art scene, is him­ Don Thompson want to remove all hint of a nar­ self one of a era of writers be­ Douglas & McIntyre PB: 224pp rative. Bacon liked to quote Paul ing eclipsed by the new digital MODERNISTS & MAVERICKS ISBN-13: 978-1771621526 Valéry’s remark that 'modern sound bite generation. Here Bacon, Freud, Hockney & the artists want the grin without the he offers a deeply informed London Painters EXTRACT cat', explaining that ‘I want very, ­ Martin Gayford very much to do the thing that tial period of British painting Thames & Hudson HB: 352pp [THE EXPANSION OF freeports] and other indicators all Valéry said – to give the sensa­ insightthat seemed to a to highly evolve influenaround ISBN-13: 978-0500239773 point to the contemporary art market as a looming price tion without the boredom of its a coterie of London-­centric bubble. That outcome is, in my view, a certainty. The main conveyance. And the moment friends, rivals and allies. With garded as giants of the medi­ explanation for the huge sums of money changing hands the story enters, the boredom Francis Bacon and Lucian Feud um. To understand this period is wishful speculation, both for iconic works of art and for comes upon you.’ This state­ as the keystones to an arc that in British art is to understand work by emerging artists. Economics students learn that ment gives some idea of why Ba­ spanned the 1950’s on into all that has happened since, all things are cyclical and that speculation driven cycles the mid-‘70s. Gayford, call­ including the emergence of con disliked being interrogated are wilder. No luxury good (or commodity) can increase in about the meaning of his work. ing on an extensive series of the YBA phenomenon. Gay­ He had put together an image ford, who craftily turned his value at many times the annual rate of growth in GNP – or that imparted the emotional some 30 years, conjures up the sitting for a Freud portrait grow as a percentage of disposable income – for very long, charge of tragic drama – hor­ firartistsst-hand and interviews eye-witnesses covering who (Man with a Blue Scarf) into a A quote attributed to Herb Stein, chair of the US Council ror, suffering, sadistic violence, created the myths of bohemian­ book about the experience, has the existential void – but with produced a very timely histor­ well: ‘If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.’ Some art no script, no key, just an over­ ical text. He’ll soon be the last of Economic Advisers under president Richard Nixon, fits whelming sensation of a story, It Soho;and everyone’s Julian Maclaren-Ross’‘Swinging Six­ man able to utter the universal wasn't meant to be decoded… 1940s;ties’. Many John of Osborne’s his sources 1950s; are soldiers’ lament ‘I was there…’ pricehappen bubbles sooner deflate rather slowly; than later. sometimes the bubble bursts. now dead. Those still alive re­ Recommended. Whatever the rate of deflation, the likelihood is that it will

28 | FOURTH ESTATE FOURTH ESTATE

some of the most renowned artists of the 20th century. Over 40 (illustrated) con- A Trick of the Mind versations are squeezed into this single 900 page YOU CAN take a man out of Glasgow but you nev- volume [see jacket illustra- er take Glasgow out of the man – especially Bruce tion for full list]. And that Mclean (74), a sculptor who won the John Moore’s painting prize, former Slade professor, and undisci- probably prohibited a slip- plined multi-discipline artist once renowned for his iscased the two first volume mistake. version, Costs ‘pose’ performance work with his Nice Style collective. but the small font spread This neat book is a collection of diary/memoir single out across the full width of pages – some barely a few sentences long – that bulk the page makes reading the out to over 200 pages. There are no great insights to Q&A format irritating. That the state of art, but for a glimpse into an irrepressi- said, the intimate exchang- ble survivor, McLean’s footnotes to his life since 1963 Straight from the Horse’s es with artists like Gerhard – when he got on a train to London clutching £100 do- Richter, Louise Bourgeois, nated by his Dad (a decent amount then) – is for you. Mouth - the Storr Tapes Jeff Koons, Alex Katz, Chuck Many of McLean’s anecdotal recollections centre on Close and Richard Serra, drinking (too much) and the mild disasters that stem THE CRITIC, painter and Twice Dean of the Yale are insightful and illumi- from the need to urinate. academic, Robert Storr nating as are the exchanges The key question ‘posed’ (69) has been described American ­commissioner with painters adrift since by this book is how exactly as being ‘one of the most Schoolof the Venice of Art; Biennale the first in their deaths – Jorg Immen- he managed to remember 2007; and posts at the dorf for example. You can- any of it. Nevertheless, it the art world’ – which is CUNY center, Bard Center, not beat Storr’s affable in- ably demonstrates that influentiala pretty big Americans hat to wear. in Rhode Island School of De- quisitional style for placing true talent can always Storr’s career has been sign, Tyler School of Art, the reader right there at overcome the perceived one of glittering prizes, New York Studio School the table as the anecdotes snobbism and faux-aca- ever since he got his B.A. and Harvard. He was also demic pretensions of those in History and French at a Senior Curator Sculpture seriously involved in art at the top of the British art Swarthmore College in at MoMA. During this time flow.today This should is a havebook by anyone their system. 1972, followed by a M.F.A. Storr has amassed an ex- bedside – as a constant re- from the School of the Art haustive collection of one- minder as to why it might A LAWNMOWER IN THE LOFT Institute of Chicago, 1978. be worth it after all. Bruce McLean on-one interviews with 21 Publishing PB: 220pp ISBN-13: 978-1901785166 EXTRACT ... in conversation with Malcolm Morley I drifted into shoplifting at Woolworths. I Rififi (1955). I lived on the street, mainly stole books on or about ships and the sleeping in cars. I was not very good at shoplifting sea. I wanted to be a great thief like Cary Grant’s filmand charactermoved into in burglary, got caught and became The Long View the youngest person to go to Borstal (Reform School) at the age of sixteen. [...] The Irving Stone A rather attractive cloth bound book with colour plate book Lust for Life (1934) inspired me to go to the tipped into impressed cover. An understated design art class held once a week in the prison. Before - had about art. Her highest compliment was: ‘He ter born Paul Winstanley (64). The subtitle: ‘In which thatis a Royal my grandmother Academician’. influenced [...] I think whatever the Richmond idea I thatthe artist reflects considers the conceptualised the process ofpainting thinking of aboutManches and Hill Below the Wick making work’ has the right Zen-like tone for the calm original Morley. The painting came about after I self examination of the 59 paintings in question. The had been at Camberwell College of Art for one painting (1954) was the first former Slade student works from photographs, itself to report to, after spending two years in prison, a debatable concept, revising often banal landscape year.had arranged A very perceptive my placement probation at the school.officer I alsohad and still life studies to add and subtract expectations had a job waiting on tables at Lyons Corner and introduce fresh readings of often commonly House in the evening. I’d take the canvas to the bottom of the hill and paint, and then I’d take it back home and do some more painting as far enter the stillness of these images and superimpose as I could. Then take it back to the spot and it recognisedthemselves setinto pieces. the pictorial The spectator spaces findswhich it have easy an to developed like that. The house was originally unconscious familiarity. Originally concerned with built for Sir ]oshua Reynolds. A man came out Minimalism, Winstanley of the house to look at what I was doing. He was wearing a watch with a cover on it. I said, brings the same rigour to 'You are Scott of the Antarctic.' He was the - actor Sir John Mills, who ended up buying the urative paintings and his painting. He also bought a second painting thecorr constructionesponding texts of his are fig an of Richmond Hill I painted later at the Royal College of Art. enlightening addendum to the evolving practice of an Quite a few people who have seen the show established artist. have asked me whose painting it is, because the signature in the lower right corner says 59 PAINTINGS 'Evans' Could you explain that for me? Paul Winstanley INTERVIEWS ON ART Art/Books HB: 160pp Robert Storr Evans was the name of my stepfather. When I ISBN-13: 978-1908970336 Heni Publishing HB: 900pp 150 illus applied for a passport I had the opportunity to ISBN-978-0-9930103-5-4 return to the name Morley.

FOURTH ESTATE | 29 STEPHEN NEWTON Brithday Party 2015 Brithday Party THE ISOLATION CELL The Room paintings of British artist Stephen Newton examined by American critic Donald Kuspit

TEXT DONALD KUSPIT | IMAGES COURTESY ARTISTS’ STUDIO

30 | STATE MAGAZINE STATE OF ART

OOKING AT Stephen Newton’s think an artist should be and look like. new pictures – paintings from One can’t imagine that Newton is as 2017 – one notices the con- creative and vital as he is. creteness of the paint, a ‘heavy Limpasto paint’ insistently worked and He seems as lifeless and proper as the reworked into a rich texture. Forceful married couple, but what to me is most and intense, as in Room with a Yellow startling about both pictures – what Mirror, if also at times soothing and brings them to life and undermines the more smoothly applied, as in Seagulls propriety of the scene – is the colour Flying Past a Window (2017). It as and the painterliness, both subliminal- though the pictures are more about ly conveying joie de vivre, however fa- the paint – are meant to dramatise the talistically sober the scene. The red of paint – than the rooms they depict. the wall in the self-portrait is the colour of passion,(1) Is Newton a Greenbergian modernist colour of nature, and the yellow of the despite himself? Is his emphasis on the chair is the colourthe gr eenof the of thesun. floor They is theare medium, giving it a ­remarkable ‘pre- all life-giving colours – indeed, the co- sentational immediacy’, to use the phi- lours of life. The wall is a broad plane, losopher Alfred North ­Whitehead’s term? Thus, implicitly, a kind of ab- plane, and the back of the chair is a stract expressionism. Or is the passion- smallthe floor plane. is Newtona slightly sits smallerin it, implicitly broad ateness of his painterliness a means a royal – a sun king, as it were, his pure of expressing the passion that seems white head making him all the more lu- missing from the rooms? The human minous – even a sacred presence, as the forms in them are few and far between, icon-like work suggests. The bit of blue and those that appear seem rather pas- visible through the window in the mar- sionless, as Newton himself seems in ried couple evokes the wide open sky his Self-Portrait by a Mirror (2011). The of heaven beyond the emotionally sti- man in depressing black, and the wom- an in luminous white, in A Married Cou- red in the pink house glimpsed through ple (2013) sit far apart on – at ­opposite thefling window confines suggests of the r oom.that theThe embers hint of ends of – a nature-green couch. No of passion still glows in them, even as passionate embrace here, no happily the fertile green of the couch on which married loving couple – no intimacy­ they sit suggests that they remain chil- – but loneliness compounded. The dren of nature despite their emotional sterility. wraiths. Donald Kuspit ­figures seem oddly lifeless – ­devitalised Again and again we see an empty room The sense of isolation in these two inhabited. However homey it may be, with only one piece of furniture, the with an object or two in it and a ‘picture rooms – in all of Newton’s rooms – is and however comfortable the chair in it small chair he sits in. window’ – a picture and a window that may be, it is not exactly a home, a room is like a picture on the wall. Both afford with passionate paint – fulsome, vis- that Newton can call his own – even as Comparing it to traditional self-por- an opening – a sort of escape hatch – to palpable.ceral, full-bodied The emotional paint isv oidcompensa is filled- he takes possession of it by way of his traits of artists (for example, the elab- the world outside the room. The world tion for the absence of warm-blooded vigorous, at times vehement painterli- orate one Albrecht Dürer painted in of nature and the world of feelings. In human bodies. One might say the body- ness. It is a projection of his impulses, 1496, dressed in the silken clothes of Seagulls Flying Past a Window a small less room is given body by the paint, for it seems instinctively driven, even royalty, and the even more grandiose chest stands against a wall, on which the paint being embodied passion – when it is calm rather than turbulent. one he painted in 1500, an imitatio a painting of a young woman appears, desire concentrated and sometimes on Indeed, a projection of his libido into Christi in which he plays the Saviour) almost like a mirage, like the seagulls the verge of expressionistic wildness a peculiarly dead space, bringing it to Newton’s self-portrait is strikingly min- visible through the window. They are – even as it remains body-less and un- artistic life, personalising what is im- imal. It is ruthlessly schematic, in style, expressive symbols: she represents personally given. One is tempted to reductively abstract and expressively the world of feelings, for her appear- say, based on the evidence of his paint- restrained, underscoring Newton’s un- ance is affectionately preserved in art; ings, that Newton prefers emotionally pretentious appearance. Perhaps most and the seagulls represent the world of charged paint – and colour – to emo- importantly, Dürer boldly looks us in tionally dead, and colorless, people. and symbolise angels, and her picture Like his black and white couple. work, confronting us with his proud, naturehas a halo-likethat art t endswhite t o.frame, They flsuggesty freely- sacredthe face presence – it fills the– while canvas Newton in the shows 1500 ing she also is sacred – heavenly, more No one seriously lives or can emotion- us his back, as though indifferent to pointedly, pure spirits in material form. ally survive in Newton’s rooms, sublim- us, and, in the mirror view, averts his The whiteness of her dress and of the inally as claustrophobic as prison cells. eyes from our gaze, indeed, glances - Cell (2014) makes the point clearly. He sideways as though we’re beside the tal’ character – they both ‘transcend’ point of his art. More an act of self-re- seagullsthe room, confirms point beyond their it.‘tr Absurdanscenden as it best a guest in his own home, visiting may sound, I suggest that she symbolis- ishimself in eff ectin thein solitary mirror, confinementand then leav, at- Dürer’s self-portraits surely are. New- es the Virgin Mary – her youthfulness ing, the narcissistic moment a passing flection than an appeal for attention, as and golden hair suggest as much – and fancy. The self seen in the mirror is an as Dürer does in the 1500 self-presen- thus the Queen of Heaven, and that the illusion, the self-knowledge gained as tontation, doesn but’t sitsfill thein aspace corner of thelike pictura childe, seagulls symbolise the angels who at- constricted as the uptight self in the being punished, reduced to inconse- tend her, each perhaps even a reminder mirror. It is an ingenious self-portrait, quence for some misdeed. He’s mute of the Angel of the Annunciation. Is the showing Newton from the back and and tense, soberly dressed in black chest an altar? Altar Table (2013) sug- front – in the room and in the mirror – suit, black tie, and white shirt, suggest- gests it can function as one. but in both views he is a mere sliver in ing that he’s conventional, a conform- the empty room. Indeed, we see only a ist, a solid (stolid?) citizen, emotionally The work is in effect a disguised icon, Newton with Self-Portrait by a Mirror 2011 reserved not to say self-restrained – Courtesy Swindon Museum & Art Gallery a small presence in an enormous room hardly what romanticism has led us to and seagulls – are displaced: not in the slice of his face – a narrow profile. He is and the symbolic figures – young girl

STATE MAGAZINE | 31 STEPHEN NEWTON

place in which they would appear in Birthday Party (2015) seems to be the a traditional icon. And displaced from exception that proves the rule, but the otherworldly space to this-worldly bright white birthday cake, with its yellow candles and red and blue or- ceiling of the room are grass green and nament, has a black rim, and there are space.the wall Noteworthily, is earth brown, the suggesting floor and that the no gifts on the table on which it rests, and no guests at the party. All of which nature, however out of place they seem makes the emptiness of the room more thein the spiritual room, and figures however are embedded barren and in poignant and resonant, despite the sterile the room seems. grid-like array of nature-green lozeng- es on the background wall. What the Are the Sheep in the Snow (2016) also psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott calls ‘depressive “death inside”’(3) informs which they peacefully graze heaven Newton’s rooms, suggesting they spiritualin earthly beings, disguise? the ‘The white symbolism field in are symbols of his inner world – the of the sheep differs little from that of ­inner space inhabited by what psycho­ the Lamb, the latter closely linked to analysts call internal objects.(4) values given to the symbol by Christi- anity: white sheep which turned black One might say Newton’s room is the symbolised souls descending from unconscious – it is as timeless as the Heaven to Earth; while the black sheep unconscious, day and night often exist- that turned white symbolised the op- ing simultaneously in it. Thus the day- posite – souls ascending from Earth light coming through the window of the to ­Heaven.’(2) Newton’s sheep cast a dark Room with a Rural View (2017) black shadow, suggesting that they are between Heaven and Earth, which is haunt it, are Hadean symbols of him- where we are in Newton’s pictures. andself, hence the few the dream-like mortified objectscharacter that of his pictures and the uncanny character But that is not the whole story about of their emptiness. them. However much they are dis- guised sacred icons, they convey a Newton is not a realist, but a new kind deeply unhappy state of mind, a pro- of surrealist. The old kind of surreal- found sense of loss. Newton’s rooms ism was informed by drive theory; the Confessional 2016 Private Collection are empty, lonely spaces, the few ob- new kind of surrealism is informed by jects in them underscoring their emp- object relational theory. Psychoanalytic as a whole. It’s all but overwhelming circles rimmed with black in Full Moon tiness: however prominent and central, theory has moved away from drive the- emptiness implies that Newton’s at- through a Window and the blue vase in as in Doorway, (1999), Stairway to a ory towards relational theory, and so tachment to the objects is incidental, Armchair by a Window with a Blue Vase, Door (2001), and Confessional (2016), has the most subtle and sophisticated even accidental, however colourful – both 2017. they are dwarfed by the space, reduced surreal art, Newton’s paintings being and sacred – they may be. The room - exemplary. All the more so because is consummately empty, and the emp- There are no human forms in the space, tures in the void, deceptive mirages in they incorporate drive, as their excited tiness consumes the objects, reducing apart from Newton in his self-portrait toan insignificance,endless desert: nothe more door thanopens ges on painterliness indicates, into their real- them to what Freud called mnemonic and the married couple. As though in to the empty space, the confessional ism. That is, their rendering of objects compensation, there are a few ani- booth stands empty. The mood is one – the desolate and isolated objects – in Like the yellow couch with its purple mals, the birds in To the Sea and Park of despair: Discarded Chair, (2002), his empty space, sometimes cosmical- traces, some flashing in the darkness. Winter with a Derelict House (2014) ly and threateningly empty. The stark and Empty Street (2016), make the geometry of the space – the confrontal point explicitly: there is nothing more planarity of the rooms – makes its emp- miserable than to be a discarded chair, tiness more intimidating. a derelict house, an empty street – to be abandoned in an empty house, aban- There’s no horror vacui in Newton’s doned in the dead and cold of winter, pictures, his small objects hardly begin abandoned on a dark empty street. a kind of wasteland – but to fill his largeemptiness rooms. Clearly for itsthey own are enigmatic sake. One way of unraveling its mystery – its inner meaning – is by way of the psychoanalyst John Bowlby’s object re- lational attachment the- ory. However attached Newton may be to the few objects on display in his rooms, there’s an air of detachment to the room

LEFT Self Portrait By A Mirror 2011 RIGHT A Married Couple 2013 Collection: Private Collection

32 | STATE MAGAZINE STATE OF ART

that art as well as religion remains an asyluma picture – of a Christsafe space Crucified, – in suggestinga morally ­hollow, spiritless world.

Donald Kuspit is one of the leading analytical critics and art theorists of his generation; Distinguished Professor Emeritus of art history and philosophy at the State University of New York; and former contributing editor to Artforum and Art in America; and co- founder of the journal Art Criticism

Stephen Newton is a British painter and ­academic whose book Painting, Psychoanalysis and Spirituality was published by Cambridg­ e University Press, New York

Discarded Chair 2002 Stephen Newton in his Lincolnshire studio in Winter, both 2013, and the lived experience, once ‘moving’ objects NOTES sheep previously mentioned. now statically suspended in space – 1. The red is particularly striking; there is more of it But one can’t relate to them suggest that he has endured serious in the picture than green. Jean Chevalier and Alain as one can to human beings loss in his life. The detached, oddly Gheerbrant, Dictionary of Symbols (London and New – have the same intimacy mournful tone and subliminal pessi- York: Penguin, 1996), 792 remind us that red is ‘the with them as one can have mism about human relationships evi- color of fire and of blood and regarded universally as with another human being. dent in Newton’s pictures suggests that the basic symbol of the life principle, with its dazzling Without intimacy with an- he is no longer protesting his loss and strength and power.’ other human being, there is beyond despair, but has settled into de- 2. Ibid,. 870-871 solitude. If, as William James fensive detachment and accepted the 3. D. W. Winnicott, ‘The Manic Defence,’ Through said, ‘the greatest source of void in his life, that is, come to terms Pediatrics to Psycho-Analysis (New York: Basic Books, (5) terror in infancy is solitude,’ with the emptiness he feels. 1975), 13 then Newton’s empty room suggests that he suffered It has given him the courage and ability 4. Melanie Klein proposed that the infant, under the pressure of his drives, ‘creates’ and ‘discovers’ objects from solitude in infancy, sug- to address the larger ‘void,’ as the histo- in external reality that correspond to his needs. Thus, gesting also that his room is rian Daniel Bell calls it, left in the wake hateful feelings create persecutory objects and loving in effect his studio, where he of what he calls the ‘spiritual crisis of feelings create idealized objects. These structures makes art in solitude, indicat- modernity’. A time when: ‘the new an- are then brought inside the psyche by the processes ing that he suffers from soli- chorages have proved illusory and the of ‘incorporation’ and ‘introjection’ and become tude in adulthood, perhaps old ones have become submerged… a ‘internal objects’. Salman Akhtar, Comprehensive because painting is a solitary situation which brings us back to ni- Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (London: Karnac, 2009), activity and friends are few Winter With a Derelict House 2014 hilism’. Bell argues that art, which he 149 and far between in a competitive world. suggesting they are lost forever, or he’s regards as a ‘substitute for religion’(7) 5. Quoted in Victoria Hamilton, ‘John Bowlby: An given up on them – that there’s no point can transcend the crisis by addressing Ethological Basis for Psychoanalysis,’ Beyond Freud: A The lack of human objects in the room in wasting good feeling on them: better it – articulating the moral void it left in Study of Modern Psychoanalytic Theorists, ed. Joseph - to spend it on making art. Bowlby ar- its nihilistic wake. It seems no accident Reppen (Hillsdale, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum, ing with it a feeling of emptiness – that gues that ‘protest, despair, detachment’ that some of Newton’s empty rooms 1985), 19 confirmsinforms it.the People sense ofare solitude missing – bringfrom are ‘the most common and successive contain some reminders – remainders – 6. Ibid., 20 his pictures – they are the missing ob- responses to loss.’(6) Newton’s empty of Christianity, not only the confession- 7. Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions ­of jects, and they seem not to be missed, room – a void with a few souvenirs of al and altar table, but, in Asylum (2015), Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 28-29

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LEADING ARTS PATRONS IN DRUG ABUSE SCANDAL art&money

COVER STORY clude a third brother, the misleading doctors and late Arthur Sackler or his patients over the addiction PHILANTHROPISTS UNDER THE HAMMER wife and heirs. dangers of OxyContin.

The Sackler companies Goldin’s State A SURPRISE expose of the illegal, or strictly tax eva- based in the UK state that: Last February, American Sackler Foundation has sion, but tax experts have ‘from 2013 to 2016 [they] photographer, Nan Goldin, rattled the artworld, espe- questioned the technical paid £66.5 million of UK wrote an impassioned cially the sectors receiving requirement of Bermuda tax at the full UK corpo- essay in Time magazine large cash donations from to ‘add value’ to the trades ration tax rate, on taxable about her own rabid addic- its London-based family to support its legitimate tion to ‘the most insidious trusts. Investigative jour- position. One made much drug I’ve ever met’ – and nalist, David Cohen, used harder after 2015 with the Hillbillyprofits of Heroin£317 million.’ turned her wrath into a the Evening Standard as a The microscope on the crusade against Purdue platform to delve into the tax’. Sacklers stems from the Pharma, the Sackler com- Sackler’s ­pharmaceutical advent of a ‘diverted profits Raymond Sackler scandal over OxyContin, a pany responsible for Oxy- empire and its alleged In 2015, it is alleged re- powerful and long acting Contin. Perdue Pharma’s tax avoidance on a grand cords demonstrated that MAJOR SACKLER opium-derived narcotic. It rapid reply stated that they, scale. Cohen declared his BENEFICIARIES has proved highly effective in fact, supply less than 2% key source as being ‘for- assigned to Bermuda from in treating terminal cancer of all opioid prescriptions £150 million of profit was mer high-ranking Sackler a turnover approximating Victoria & Albert Museum sufferers and post-opera- company staff’ – more £285 million. This is the tive patients with severe many initiatives designed Natural History Museum commonly known as dis- the source of funding that pain. As an out-of-control to– andhelp financiallyaddicts and supportlaw en- gruntled ex-employees. was being poured into the Serpentine Gallery ‘street drug’ (aka ‘hill­billy forcement. However, the increasing London art world – often Royal College of Art heroin’) it has caused wide- scandal over the opioid with conditional ‘naming Museum of London spread addiction and death Legacy Tarnished drug, OxyContin, seems to rights’ – for example the The Old Vic – some 42,000 people died have put unwelcome focus Sackler Wing at the RA. Shakespeare’s Globe of overdoses in 2016. In the London-based Sackler on the Sackler family busi- Cohen’s sources estimat- 2007, Purdue Pharma familyOver thehave last donated five years,some Royal Ballet School ness – pharmaceuticals. ed that over 25 years the and its executives (not the £110 million worldwide Royal Opera House – a large part of it to fund Bermuda Triangle to Bermuda via Mundip- National Gallery Scotland $634.5 million for fraud- London’s arts bodies. Char- The Sackler empire com- harmaamount was of profitslikely to diverted be well Dulwich Picture Gallery ulentlySacklers) downplaying had been finedthe itable donations earn tax prises Purdue in America, over £1 billion. Fitzwilliam Cambridge potential for abuse and breaks, so these will likely Napp in Britain and Mun- Sackler Wing/ RA further reduce any UK tax dipharma in Europe and The Three Heirs liabilities. However, it is a Sackler escalator/ Tate Australasia. The opioid Owned by Sackler trusts, tragedy that a single con- painkillers, manufactured Sackler Crossing/ Kew troversial medicine, albeit by Napp in Cambridge, split equally between Mor- Oxford University an effective one correctly form the basis of the Sack- timerthe Bermuda Sackler ’s profits family and are Ashmolean Museum administered, is destined ler’s £10 billion fortune. his brother Raymond’s. Westminster Abbey to tarnish the legacy of - Around £120-150 million three truly remarkable and al Property rights for Oxy- was distributed annually philanthropic brothers. Met Museum NY ContinSignificantly, are held the inIntellectu the UK. from Bermuda in recent Source: Time | Evening Standard Sackler drugs reportedly years. Raymond Sackler Guggenheim NY make up 68% of the oxy- and family, all American Louvre codone market in England, citizens, pay US tax on Jewish Museum/ Berlin and 29% of the entire £263 their worldwide income. Nan Goldin million opioid market However Mortimer (who (ref: NHS Digital). The gist died in 2010 aged 93) had of Cohen’s revelations is a curious ‘non-domiciled’ how sales of the UK drugs status in London, and only were papered via Bermuda paid tax on remittances into (Mundipharma), but were, the UK. A change in the law in fact, distributed direct in 2017 would have made from the UK worldwide. his claim to be a foreign Sold cheap to Mundiphar- ‘non-dom’ after 36 years ma and then marked up residence extremely tenu- approximately 50%, the ous – even for a billionaire

Bermuda – where no tax made absolutely clear that ishuge payable. profits None were of kept this inis theof influence.allegations It do should not in be- Mortimer Sackler

36 | ART&MONEY art&money

FAKE VIEWS

- forged artists in the world,

PalazzoTHE PAINTINGS Ducale on were dis playproclaimed last year as ina dazzling Genoa’s being reproducedMarc Restellini as early, Amedeo as the 1920s, shortly after- Modigliani his death. collection of 21 athat French there expert are on ‘at the least Ital works. Seen ian artist, said he believes by thousands of adoring (paying) visitors they have 1,000 Modigliani fakes in now been declared as fakes the world’. In 2015, a Chin­

Yves Bouvier hears about Salvator Mundi sale to the Gulf HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE FIGHT SOTHEBY’S EXPECT to get drawn into the on-go- - ing Dmitry Rybolovlev vs alreadyused here attempted in Great Britain.to sue reported £92 million to the (see Yves Bouvier TheBouvier oligarch’s in France, lawyers Singhave­ Russian collector. Unfor State passim). The alarm million at a Christie’s NY The Russian may well use tunatelytly sold Salvator for Rybolovlev’s Mundi at and may be destroyedCarlo eseauction collector for Nu paidcouché $170.4 (Re- British courts to titleclaim fight.they case,Christie’s he himself subsequen­ Pepi, an art expert from helped the Swiss art dealer apore and Monaco, but was first raised by - failed.Bouvier Back had inovercharged 2015, the for £341 million tion was eventually closed clining Nude). The artist’s- high-end purchases made ‘potashhim up to king’ £730 claimed million that for afterBouvier a freakwas bidcontracted from the Tuscanydown, with and the the whole exhibi col- only solo exhibition – held inflate prices on a number - Gulf. The Russian claims lection handed over to the in Paris in 1917 – was raid a third of the 40 paintings lovlev also claimed Samu- the Swiss Freeport mogul ed by police on the grounds for his collection. Around elabout Valette 40 artworks. Rybo tocounter-claims act as his agenthe person – but- most of the fakes were of indecency. He died of- chairman of private sales, Carabinieri. Pepi believes tubercularple are now meningitis under inves in- Rybolovlev acquired from had written, Sotheby’soptimistic viceas- then sold them at a prof- historians have declared all 1920,tigation aged including 35. Three Rudy peo Bouvier were bought viada allyit, bought works of art painted in the 1980s. Art- Chiappini, the curator Vinciprivate, Picasso sales at, Sotheby’sRothko, icate of authenticity from Modigliani– including and works Monet by sessments of a number of with Rybolovlev being but one (which has a certif Joseph­ Guttmann - New York court has ruled works the Swiss art broker one of his best customers.- ofgarian the art art dealer exhibition, who owns and . A offered him. StrokeSalvator of luck: ­Sothebsian to y’spursue UK arehis claim viewing in thewhose Italian paintings government) fetch top to , a Hun - MundiBouvier is believed to have this as a ‘tactic’ by the Rus bedollar, pastiches. is one of Modigliani, the most Source: The Telegraph that classified documents- bought da Vinci’s 11 of the disputed works. between Bouvier and So then promptly for £58 sold million it for ata anotherthe legal jurisdiction. theby’s, understood to in a private ­Sotheby’s sale – Sotheby’s HQ is located in clude valuations, can be United States. - VICE SQUAD DATE THE ADVERTISERS astically pointing readers week – no doubt enthusi UNIVERSITY OF Bolton Evening Standard has laun­ vice chancellor, George LONDON’Sched an online EVER guide­popular to towards the Standard’s Holmes, received a salary Go commercial partners. The- rise of £66,000 according London includes articles newspaperAlexander was boughtLebedev by, to company accounts for cultureon what in to thedo capital.in the city the former Russian KGB of ficer,The Independent titles were than those of other univer- and family in January 2009. 2016/17 – published later and is compiled by their London team of ‘influencers and Liveadded by the Lebedev’s in sities.some Heof hisnow peers earns despite a total experts’.from the Tickets microsite, and whichtables March 2010; and of £290,215 – higher than canintegrates be bookedvideo and directly audio ESI Media (TV) washad foundedaccumulat in- Complete Univer- - March 2014. The Lebedev’s sityBolton Guide being ranked 126th £9000+ per year and with livered on Amazon Echo by the ­degree courses 3-4 years employers to. Hemove was house also Bolton is a town Evegney Lebedev, ES publisher and a regular bulletin de ed losses total £10 million NB: - in Greater Manchester in courtesey Financial Times Source:as of Press September Gazette | Evening Standard2017 (The loaned £1 million by his devices. ‘Curated lists’ will ES lost £9.98 million). dent fees are ­currently long. be updated seven days a nearer to the campus. Stu North West England.ART&MONEY | 37 ART & MONEY

HISCOX INTELLIGENCER Art Trends for 2018

THE PERCENTAGE of buyers who acquired art and collectibles on- line in 2017 has fallen from 2016, as the online art market struggles to attract repeat customers – but they are buying more frequently and at higher prices. Almost three quarters (74%) of internet art buyers bought more than one art object online in the last 12 months. 73% of galleries reported their online buyers are mostly new clients – but with 43% admitting repeat online buyers were rare. New Criteria Price transparency is key for new buyers. Existing collectors may be used to art world secrecy on pricing, but 90% of new buyers said that price transparency was a criteria when buying art online. 41% of buyers expressed no ­preference for a specific channel Catherine de Zegher - career in freefall. [INSET] Sven Gatz of purchase. Gallery Engagement Three-quarters of galleries used BETTING EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING third-party marketplaces to sell ART WORKS attributed to the Russian avant-garde on loan Sven Gatz - art online in 2018 (up from 59% from Igor and Olga Toporovsky’s Dieleghem Foundation en in 2017, and 41% in 2016). One in five (19%) are now using these to the Museum of Fine Art in Ghent was mired in con- Flemishmasse culture minister, , established to as- marketplaces as an outlet for at sess the ­authenticity of the disputed works, resigned least half of their online sales (up Russian section of the International Association of Art Magdalena. Embattled, Dabrowski De Zegher and alsoNoemi claimed Smolik that the Topor from 3% in 2017). Online gallery Criticstroversy from the first. Last February, 30 membersCatherine of the ovskywomen Collection told The hadArt beenNewspaper approved by two art historians, sales help broaden the inter­ de Zegher . Both these national collector base Almost (AICA) challenged the Ghent director, - they wished to ‘distance three quarters (70%) of galleries sold their artworks online to De Standaard,, to defend the authenticity of the Foundation themselves from the Toporovsky Collection’, which Smolik international clients – up from works she included in the exhibition. Flemish newspa bluntly ­dismissed as being fakes. - 54% in 2017. per, also reported that the loan agreement Pictorial Sites Dominate contained a clause allowing any Foundation work in the- Meanwhile, Toporovsky has been able to reclaim his con Instagram is the preferred social museum show could be removed and sold. When asked if troversial works of art unhindered. Belgium no longer has- media platform for a second De Zegher’s presence on the Foundation’s ‘scientific coun- an art crime squad – it was dissolved in 2015. However, year. Instagram has become the cil’ represented a conflict of interest, Toporovsky stated: Source:Catherine The Art de Newspaper Zegher was suspended (fired) from her posi art world’s favourite, with 63% of survey respondents citing it as ‘We needed to be on the same wavelength to do the ex tion as director of Ghent’s Museum of Fine Art on 7 March. their platform of choice (up from hibition in Ghent.’ A commission, which the beleaguered 57% in 2017 and 48% in 2016). With close to 1 billion users, it is becoming an essential tool for the art industry. TOP Amalgamation WOMEN ARTISTS & RISING STARS 81% of online platforms ques- 5 tioned expect to see a higher rate 1. Yayoi Kusama (89) 1. Cecily Brown - British of consolidation in the­ future 2017 auction sales = £49.2m realised $14.8 million in 2017. (up from 71% in 2017) and most (57%) expect this will be in the form of ‘vertical mergers’ (com- 2. Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) 2. Njideka Akunyili Crosby - Nigerian panies operating in different 2017 auction sales = £27.6m reached $3.4 million in 2017. parts of the value chain). Stiff Competition 3. Joan Mitchell (1925-92) 3. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye - British Half of all online platforms said 2017 auction sales = £22.9m realised a total of $2.5 million in 2017. the online auction market was going to be the area facing the most intense competition. 41% 4. Agnes Martin (1912-2004) 4. Jenny Saville - British believe that market will consoli- 2017 auction sales = £19.7m portraits fetched $11.8 million in 2016/17. date into only a few global play- ers, another 30% believe regional 5. Barbara Hepworth (1903-75) 5. Avery Singer - American and local platforms will dominate, 2017 auction sales = £11.9m one piece at auction sold for $735,000 whilst 32% believe it will remain collecting category specific. Source: BBC Hiscox Art Market Report 16.4.18 Yayoi Kusama - market favourite

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