War in the Sunshine, The British in Italy 1917 – 1918, Estorick Collection
Several nice exhibitions in the Estorick at the moment: photographs of British soldiers in the Italian theatre are accompanied by the paintings and drawings of Sydney Carline, a pilot and painter who did the aerial combat shown below. He survived the war, only to die of illness during his first exhibition in 1929.
There is a permanent collection, mostly of Italian Futurists and Surrealists, Boccione (below), Severini, Carra, de Chirico and others: look out for three great charcoal portraits by Boccione, which remind one somewhat of Auerbach’s early charcoals, writ light perhaps.
Finally, there is a roomful of drawings by Giorgio Morandi. No prize for guessing the subject matter. But there are bottles too and a couple of trees, I think.
Edward Paolozzi, Whitechapel Gallery
Paolozzi was definitely hyperactive; my mental picture is of him leaping from one mode of expression to another, bit of sculpture, poster, design a dress, print, collage, make a film… Big, strong, scattering fag ash – did he smoke? Must have, they all did then – producing furiously. Then again, everything is finished so beautifully and is often so detailed that this impression is probably wrong; there’s nothing slapdash about his work. And although you can see glimpses of other artists, it’s quite original. A few examples below:
Touch of David Smith about these, maybe?
I’m pretty sure this collage was 1950, pre-dating the obvious Richard Hamilton piece by ……
Here’s three of his pre – psychedelia prints.
A later poster. It occurs to me that he resembles Rauschenberg and Hamilton as an ideas man, as well as maybe Fernand Leger in his visual style and workmanlike demeanour. Maybe also Sonia Delaunay – the dresses and plates. I’ve omitted his well-known, boxy, thin metal sculptures with crusts of embedded cogwheels and other bits and pieces; the Frinck-like heads; collages of comics and magazines; surrealistic, Monty Python-ish films…
This is a timely resurrection of an artist who seemed, to me at least, to be somewhat overlooked. An explosive, exhausting artist.
You Say You Want a Revolution, the Victoria and Albert Museum
It’s a pure nostalgia wallow, for the throng of white haired ex-hippies – can this lot REALLY have worn loons and long hair and smoked dope and dropped acid and capered like idiots in the mud at Bath and the Isle of White? No, of course not – it was just me. the only cry to be heard, over and over again, unnaturally loud over the soundtrack playing into their earphones, was: “Look! I used to have that one – and I’ve still got all three of those!” Vinyl albums in the racks… Biba, Granny Takes a Trip, Blow-Up, Stones, Pepper, Jethro Tull, CSNand Y, Joni, Janice, Jimi, Leary, Stokely, Huey, Eldridge, Angela – there’s Charlie! – Vietnam, Kent State, Grosvenor Square – some other stuff about space and Expo and then back to the real thing – a series of outtakes from Woodstock, mashed together to give 15 or 20 minutes. Great Grace Slick and Airplane; oh no, Joan Baez – but thank God, saved by Joe Cocker; not enough Janice; Jimi’s “Star Spangled Banner”; Country Joe, “What does that spell?”; The Who, sounding rather lethargic to me – Live at the IOW is much better; the bloke who cleans the toilets and has one son in the crowd and another in Vietnam; Arlo, completely out of his head.. I didn’t enjoy it at all. Who’s that old git think he’s looking at? Shit, it’s me, in the mirror glass…
The Cast Room, Victoria and Albert
After, walking through the cast room, we came upon this fabulous Michelangelo, which I’m sure I’ve never seen before:
Another great back to add to my collection, with Kitaj, Ginger etc.
And this, in one of the Medieval rooms: Agostino di Duccio, I think. It’s got a sort of Bosch feel to it, somehow.
Soutine
I love Soutine. Everything’s a bit (or a lot) bent in his pictures, especially out on the fields, where people sometimes walk on their sides like in Sokurov’s “Mother and Son”.
A Bigger Splash, (Luca Guadagnino, 2015) DVD
Starring Swinton, Fiennes, Schoenaerts and Dakota Johnson, this is the most ludicrous film I have ever seen. We turned it off in the Fiennes/Swinton kareoke scene, but having bought the DVD, I watched the rest after my partner went to bed. It improved, because Schoenaerts finally drowned Fiennes in the swimming pool, which he should have done much sooner. I was astonished to see it described somewhere as a comedy-drama and more so at the quote from Monocle, on the case: “A dazzling, sun-soaked masterpiece”.
Two life drawings to finish: one ballerina, doing three poses in each drawing.
Yes, I know it looks like she’s kicking her mate…
Next time, Hockney and Tillmans at the Tates, and Picasso at Barsa, which I didn’t get round to, this time.
Blackpaint
20/02/17
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