THE GANG: PHOTOGRAPHS BY CATHERINE OPIE @ THE WALKER ART GALLERY, LIVERPOOL

As part of Liverpool's Homotopia Festival 2014, the Contemporary Art Society presents 'The Gang' photo-series, an exhibition of work by the renowned American artist Catherine Opie, at the Walker Art Gallery. Opie’s portraits of her friends from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community are intended to subvert American archetypes. Opie’s attempt to make visible a misunderstood sector of American culture produces a body of work that is at times explicit and even shocking in its content, but also playful and intimate.

The Gang: Photographs by Catherine Opie (1990), running at the Walker Art Gallery ,part of Liverpool’s Homotopia Festival 2014.

The iconic image presented to the Walker by the Contemporary Art Society with the support of the gallery, gives the exhibition its name and is one of 25 photographs by Opie on display. It features Opie’s friends photographed together in a humorous pose that is defiant, yet tender.

Catherine says: “I made The Gang after individually shooting them all for the 1991 body of work, Being and Having. It was great to see them with their moustaches and I couldn’t resist making some group photos of them… I think it is perfect in celebrating Homotopia as this work was made 20 years ago, in relationship to visibility within my own queer community. It is good to celebrate and reflect on equality that has been achieved and celebrated as well as the fight in regards to homophobia that continues.”

Divinity Fudge 1997

Vaginal Davis, 1994

Cathy (Bed Self-Portrait) 1987
C-print
Edition 4 of 8
-Catherine Opie

Nicola 1993
C-print
Edition 2 of 8
&
Monica 1990
C-print
Edition 2 of 8.
-Catherine Opie

The exhibition comprises both striking black and white and colour photographs taken from 1987 to 2012. The subjects are mostly Opie’s friends from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer community.        

 The element of the exhibition I found to be the most compelling and perhaps surprising was the palpable presence of the artist/photographer herself in her work. Whilst exploring Opie’s ‘Girlfriend’ series, the photographer is very much present throughout as she is both the documenter and participant.Through her‘Girlfriend’ series, Opie undoubtedly explores her own lesbian identity – capturing honest, striking and provocative portraits of her lovers and friends. It is this theory that grasps my interest, as Opie welcomes her audience into a world that has been absent from mainstream publication.  Her works’ are brutally honesty, she lays herself bare and unmasked in the same way she exposes the subjects of her portraits- in this way it is clear to see how she subverts stereotypes and common prejudices towards the gay community.

 The Walker Art Gallery’s Head of Fine Art, Ann Bukantas said: “We are thrilled to now hold The Gang in the Walker Art Gallery’s collection. We’re very grateful to Contemporary Art Society for presenting the piece, which is another demonstration of our commitment to inclusion and audience diversity. The acquisition has been the inspiration for this exhibition.

“Catherine Opie is an interesting artist whose work gives personal insight into an often marginalised community through her explorations of identity, sexuality and gender. What is unique about the work is the warmth and intimacy – and sometimes the humour – of the images which break down the sense of ‘otherness’ and instead evoke an increasing empathy. Her work is perfect for the context of the 2014 Homotopia Festival.”

The Contemporary Art Society’s Director, Caroline Douglas added: “Catherine Opie is one of the most compelling portrait photographers worldwide and her work is emblematic of how artists reflect the changing values and mores of wider society.

“The donation of The Gang is the result of an intense period of research into works by artists who deal with LGBT themes and demonstrates our commitment to the Walker Art Gallery, to whom we have donated over 80 works since 1979.”

MAGNIFICENT OBSESSIONS : THE ARTIST AS COLLECTOR @ BARBICAN ART GALLERY, LONDON

Flying postcard, 1960-90 © Martin Parr Collection

The art of collecting is a subject which has interested me for quite some time. So naturally, when I heard about Magnificent Obsessions , a new exhibition at the  Barbican Gallery devoted to artists and their personal private collections, I couldn't resist a visit while I was in London.

History it seems is rich with hoarders: Dutch painter Rembrandt was a notorious collector, gathering everything from seashells to musical instruments and weaponry, while Dr Seuss accumulated an extravagant compendium of hats throughout his lifetime. Frank Sinatra collected model trains, as does Rod Stewart, while Tom Hanks collects typewriters. Our favourite modern day heroic hoarder may be Johnny Depp, who gathers bugs, bones and a miscellany of items once owned by Jack Kerouac.

Cookie Jars formerly in the collection of Andy Warhol Courtesy of Movado Group.

Curated by Lydia Yee, it is the first major exhibition in the UK of its kind, displaying a vast cabinet of curiosities which celebrates Andy Warhol’s cookie jars, Martin Parr’s postcards and Arman’s eclectic assortment of masks.
                                           
“I think of a collection as being like a map of a person’s life" — Damien Hirst

 Montage display of 24 tropical birds, mid-19t Courtesy of the Murderme Collection 

Damien Hirst’s multiple collections of skulls and tropical birds are also on display, alongside an entomological cabinet created in 2013 which is methodically lined with insects. “I think of a collection as being like a map of a person’s life,” he explains. “Like the flotsam and jetsam washed up on the beach of somebody’s existence. A collection is deeply personal, and says so much about who the collector is.” Hirst recalls an obsessive hoarder who lived next door to him in the 1980s. “When he disappeared I got into his house and it was the most incredible thing I’d ever seen. It was 60 years of existence in one room, piled all the way up to the ceiling: collecting gone mad. I started using his belongings to make collages. It’s something I still think about when acquiring new objects and curiosities… I think the collector is always part of a bigger story.”

Elephant figurines from the collection of Peter Blake Photography by Hugo Glendinning

Another serial collector is Peter Blake, who has an artist studio packed with Victorian taxidermy, enamel elephants, toy trains and masks. Blake’s interest in collecting can be traced back to his childhood, when he was evacuated to Worcester with his sister to live with his eccentric grandmother, who filled her home with mincing machines and packed cocktail cabinets. “She never even drank cocktails,” remembers Blake. “I went to Gravesend School of Art in 1945, and by the station there was a kind of junkyard. The very first time I went there, I bought a papier-mâché Victorian tea tray, an outsider art painting of the Queen Mary and a complete set of leather-bound Shakespeare. So I bought myself a library and from then on I collected, sometimes towards art, sometimes just for the sake of it. That triggered a lifetime of collecting.”

Collage Artists: Hannah Höch to Man Ray

   After visiting the Hannah Höch exhibition at the Whitechapel        Gallery earlier this week, I was inspired to look at the work        of other notable collage artists:

From its roots in European Dadaism in the early years of the twentieth century, shadowing modernism and tracing its way through photography, collage is a medium as diverse as it is politically charged. Emerging as a reaction to the First World War, collage allowed artists to interact with existing materials – anything from newsprint and magazines to maps, tickets and propaganda and photographs – to rip them apart and then reassemble them, creating visually dynamic hybrids.

Coined by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, the term ‘collage’ points towards a medium simultaneously serious and tongue-in-cheek; a technique that is deeply referential of the political world in which the works were produced. Via the assemblage of different objects and images, collage interrogates the fundamental concept of what it is to create art, whilst offering a prismatic reflection of the social change and upheaval of the twentieth century. From the originators and pioneers of the form to more contemporary practitioners, AnOther presents its top 10 collage artists.

1. Hannah Höch

Höch’s most famous work, effortlessly titled ‘Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany’, shows her ideals and techniques in synthesis. A collage of newspaper clippings, the work challenges the racist and sexist codes upholding Weimar Germany. Throughout her career, Höch would challenge the marginalised place of women in twentieth century Germany. She drew together fashion magazines, illustrated journals and photography to pioneer a form bent on demonstrating that art itself could be collected from the everyday clutter of modern life.

Kurt Schwitters, Untitled (With an Early Portrait of Kurt Schwitters), 1937-8

2. Kurt Schwitters
Unlike the other Dada artists, Schwitters was not based in Berlin, but in Hanover, where he worked until the Nazis exiled him from Germany, when he came to live in The Lake District in England. Throughout his montages, collages and assemblages, Schwitters developed the concept of Merz – ‘the combination, for artistic purposes of all conceivable materials’ – in which he argued that everyday found objects including wood, plasterboard, wheels, cotton were equal in expression to paint itself.

Raoul Hausmann, Merz, Picture as Rainbow, 1939

3. Raoul Hausmann
Friends with Schwitters, Hausmann abandoned painting in 1923 and centred his work on photography. He invented an apparatus known as the Optophone, which turned kaleidoscopic forms into music. As well as sound poetry, Hausmann’s oeuvre contains photograms, rayograms and pictograms.

Man Ray, Dora Maar 1936

4. Man RayThough informally related to the Dada and Surrealist movements, the American artist Man Ray contributed impressively to avant-garde, fashion and portrait photography, in particular with his solarised and isomorphic portraits of Lee Miller. Ray’s photomontages play with femininity and form, as in his multiple exposures of Alice Prin, better known as Kiki de Montparnasse, and Dora Maar.

Eileen Agar, Precious Stones, 1936

5. Eileen AgarBritish artist Eileen Agar was one of the only female members admitted into the Surrealist group on her own artistic terms, and not simply as a model or a muse. Like Höch’s, Agar’s works are social critiques and show humour and irony. In ‘Precious Stones’, she superimposes a classical cut-out profile over a catalogue page showing antique jewellery.

Joseph Cornell, The Hotel Eden, 1945

6. Joseph CornellInfluenced by the Surrealists, Cornell took collage into new directions with his pioneering work in assemblage. Cornell lived in New York, daily collecting the materials for his art from the bookshops and antique shops of Manhattan. He is most famous for his intricate wooden boxes, filled with lithographs, colourful birds and other trivia.

Nancy Spero, Notes in Time, 1979

7. Nancy SperoNancy Spero’s engagement with political, social and cultural concerns throughout her career as an artist in New York is best illustrated in her collage on paper ‘Notes in Time’. Inspired by Grecian scrolls and the story of Troy, the frieze-like collage is comprised of twenty-four panels, each nine-feet long, punctuated by 96 quotations, including poetry by H.D., and multiple female figures. It is a grand non-narrative celebration of the female form, but also documents a female struggle against political stereotype.

John Stezaker, Muse (Film Portrait Collage) XVIII, 2012

8. John StezakerBritish artist John Stezaker studied at the Slade School of Art in 1973, and went on to produce work which challenged the predominance of Pop art. Stezaker’s collages are irreverent; his use of glamourous 1950s portraits, of dapper suited men and Hollywood stars, mashed together with postcards of landscapes and with other faces, has the effect of the uncanny. In 2012, Stezaker won the Deutsche Börse photography prize to a mixed reception, as a few critics questioned whether a conceptual artist – who deals with the destruction of photographs – could win a prestigious photography award, proving that collage as an art form continues to be nothing if not controversial.

Jesse Treece, Mountains Between

9. Jesse TreeceUsing vintage magazines and books, Jesse Treece creates surreal and simple works, often using images of space and children to create an inimitable perspective on everyday life.

Annegret Soltau, Self Portrait

10. Annegret SoltauGerman artist Annegret Soltau constructs collage using photographs of her own face and body, stitched with black thread, confronting explicit issues in an imaginative manner.

Hannah Höch @ The Whitechapel Gallery, London

White Chapel Gallery , Hannah Hoch.

White Chapel Gallery , Hannah Hoch.

White Chapel Gallery , Hannah Hoch.

White Chapel Gallery , Hannah Hoch.

This week I visited a  retrospective of the work of Hannah Höch at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, for the first major UK exhibition of the influential German artist's oeuvre .

Hannah Höch was an important member of the Berlin Dada movement and a pioneer in collage. Splicing together images taken from popular magazines, illustrated journals and fashion publications, she created a humorous and moving commentary on society during a time of tremendous social change. 

'Acerbic, astute and funny, Höch established collage as a key medium for satire whilst being a master of its poetic beauty.'

Höch created some of the most radical works of the time and was admired by contemporaries such as George Grosz, Theo van Doesburg and Kurt Schwitters, yet she was often overlooked by traditional art history. At a time when her work has never seemed more relevant, the exhibition puts this inspiring figure in the spotlight.

taatshäupter (Heads of State) (1918-20)

Flucht (Flight) (1931)

Bringing together over 100 works from major international collections, the exhibition includes collages, photomontages, watercolours and woodcuts, spanning six decades from the 1910s to the 1970s. Highlights include major works such as Staatshäupter (Heads of State) (1918-20) and Flucht (Flight) (1931) as well as her innovative post-war collages.

Hochfinanz (High Finance) (1923)

The exhibition charts Höch’s career beginning with early works influenced by her time working in the fashion industry to key photomontages from her Dada period, such as Hochfinanz (High Finance) (1923), which sees notable figures collaged together with emblems of industry in a critique of the relationship between financiers and the military at the height of an economic crisis in Europe.

Höch explored the concept of the ‘New Woman’ in Weimar Germany, presenting complex discussions around gender and identity in a series of both biting and poignant collages. The exhibition includes a number of works from the series From an Ethnographic Museum, in which Höch combines images of female bodies with traditional masks and objects and layers of block colours, capturing the style of the 1920s avant-garde theatre and fashion.

Um Einen Roten Mund (Around a Red Mouth) (c. 1967) 

Höch remained in Germany during World War II and retreated to a house just outside Berlin. Entering a period of 'lyrical abstraction' that explores the materials and possibilities of a newly developing consumer culture, the exhibition also includes her later works, such as the Raumfahrt (Space Travel) (1956) as well as Um Einen Roten Mund (Around a Red Mouth) (c. 1967) which makes use of cut-outs from colour-print and popular culture, incorporating red lips, petticoats and crystals.

White Chapel Gallery , Hannah Hoch.

ON THE TABLE. AI WEIWEI @ VIRREINA PALACE, BARCELONA

 (Blogging from Barcelona this morning)

La Virreina gallery  inaugurates a retrospective of works from the past three decades of dissident artist Ai Weiwei, who has been banned from leaving China since 2011. 

The "On the Table" show at Barcelona's La Virreina gallery spans photos, videos, sculptures, installations and architecture models from Ai's stint in New York in the 1980s to recent works. 

"There are over 40 objects with a selection of items from the beginning of his career as well as works that are now iconic and well known and works made especially for this exhibition," the show's curator Rosa Pera said. 

The goal of the exhibition is to show how China's best known contemporary artist uses images to explore "the tension between truth and lies, evidence and ambiguity, control and freedom," she said. 

A sculptor, designer and documentary-maker, Ai has irked Beijing by using his art and online profile to draw attention to injustices in China and the need for greater transparency and rule of law in the world's most populous country. 

Despite his fame, Ai has been banned from leaving China since being secretly detained for 81 days three years ago by China's authoritarian communist government for reasons that were never specified.  

The artwork "Handcuffs, 2012. " by Chinese dissident and artist Ai Weiwei during the presentation of "On the table. Ai Weiwei" exhibition at La Virreina Image Centre in Barcelona. AFP PHOTO / LLUIS GENE.

After his release in June 2011, Ai's design firm was slapped with a hefty tax bill, which he fought unsuccessfully in Chinese courts. 

The centrepiece of the exhibition is a table and ten chairs normally installed in Ai's studio in Beijing where he meets to discuss his projects. He sent it as a symbol of his inability to attend the show in person. 

The public is invited to sit in the chairs, take pictures and then upload them on social media sites, a preferred medium of the artist. 

"When you put something on the table ... you do not keep any cards up your sleeve and you show everything you are capable of doing," said Pera, explaining the title of the exhibition which will run until February 2015. 

One of the works made specially for the show is an installation consisting of pieces of marble that simulate grass sprouts emerging from the ground. 

The walls of the room where the installation is displayed are decorated with stamped images of an extended middle finger. 

Among the items on display is his "Study in Perspective" photo series, where the artist's middle finger is positioned in front of global  landmarks, such as the White House, the British parliament and the Sydney opera house. 

The show also includes some of his most famous works, including an ancient ceramic jug decorated with a Coca-Cola logo, a map of China made out of wood from ancient Chinese temples and a small sample from the 10 tonnes of porcelain sunflower seeds which covered the floor at London’s Tate Modern as part of his 2010 installation "Sunflower Seeds".  

GRETCHEN BENDER @ TATE, LIVERPOOL

Gretchen Bender was an American artist who worked primarily in film, video, and photography. Her work shares the concerns of the generation of early 1980s Pictures Artists, which included household names such as Cindy Sherman. Although seemingly overlooked in recent years, Bender stars as part of Tate’s Autumn/Winter season Making Things Public, with an exhibition addressing how she experimented with found images to explore ideas surrounding the transmission and distribution of culture.

According to the New York observer, “Gretchen Bender’s art is having a moment” but sadly, this somehow doesn’t translate to the show at the Tate. Having visited the exhibition twice now, the emptiness of the gallery has been apparent – both of people and of art.  The sparseness of the exhibition space hits you as you enter the gallery, and with barely ten works to fill the huge white cube, the stark contrast from the bustling, conversation-inspiring buzz of the Warhol exhibition next door is apparent.

Works on display include Bender’s opening credits for US TV show America’s Most Wanted along with four music videos she produced in collaboration with director Robert Longo. As interesting as these could potentially be, the films are housed in a small room on one screen on constant rotation. I found this a perplexing curatorial decision, given that next door, Warhol’s archive of film and television programmes are each awarded their own screen, suggesting a level of importance granted to the Warhol’s work which is severely lacking in the Bender exhibition.

The real coup of the show is Total Recall (1987), an eight-channel installation with 24 TV monitors and two rear projections combining corporate logos from TV commercials with computer-generated graphics by Amber Denker, doctored clips from Oliver Stone’s Salvador and a post-punk soundtrack by Stuart Argabright. The installation is walled off, taking up half of the  entire exhibition space and is overwhelming to behold: as the darkened room is gradually filled with light, colour and sound from the huge wall of screens, the viewer is immersed in a nightmare of cascading corporate iconography, and snippets of eerily smiling faces from American TV advertising. The booming electronic soundtrack pulses through the floor as your eyes struggle to keep up with the aggressively rapid barrage of flashing images on the screens. Total Recall provides a mesmerising critique of the violence and commoditisation of images in society, as Bender exposes the false nature of corporate messaging and the sinister excesses of television itself. 

Elsewhere, a small handful of Bender’s photographic works, including an unsettling image of recently killed bodies make up the rest of the show. There isn’t enough here to reassure the visitor of Bender’s photographic prowess and the installed works do little to capture the imagination in the same way as her incredible installation piece.

In the 1980s, Bender anticipated our current state of image saturation, using hypnotic repetitions of television footage, and aggressive walls of sound to create immersive viewing experiences. Appropriating images from mass media and using a plethora of cultural references, Bender directly addresses the powerful influence of mass broadcast media. By contrasting the menacing force of corporations and technology with the struggle of individual human beings through pictorial references, Bender’s work is overtly political and subversive in its intent.

With all this fascinating theory behind the work, it would have been great to see more of her famed “electronic theatre” (sic). Where are digital installations Dumping Core and Wild Dead (both 1984)? And what about the infamous People in Pain (1988) which is noticeably missing here? It’s a shame that Tate were unable to acquire more of her works for the show, as without these large-scale immersive pieces, what we are left with hardly uncovers anything new, nor showcases the talent and influence boasted of this artist in the interpretation.

The Guerilla Girls - disrupting the Art world with the F word for 30 years

The Guerrilla Girls are NYC's secret corps of radical female artists, who are still angry and still challenging the patriarchy after three decades. The true identities of the Guerilla Girls is a source of much speculation and has been since their inception. However, the masked group of female artists is still very much at large and incognito 30 years after they first announced their mission to right the wrongs of the gender-skewed art world, flyering the lamp posts of Soho with punchy PSAs signed "The Guerrilla Girls: Conscience of the Art World."

These Artists, 1985. Courtesy the Guerrilla Girls.

The group formed in 1985, its founding members riled up by the 1984 MoMA showInternational Survey of Painting and Sculpture, a retrospective exhibition which included the work of only 13 women artists, out of a total of 169. And it's been hell-bent on disruption ever since. Over the past three decades, Guerrilla Girls have plastered billboards with slogans like "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?"; designed and distributed countless posters slamming everything from the male-female pay gap to gender inequality at the Oscars; staged a "weenie count" in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; written five books; and generally wreaked havoc for the art world patriarchy. All under the cover of  gorilla masks, and code names borrowed from  famous female artists.

As Gloria Steinem wrote in 1995: "The women's movement is too diverse for any one symbol...but if I had to name a group that symbolised the best of feminism in this country, I would say, 'The Guerrilla Girls.' Smart, radical, funny, creative, uncompromising, and (I assume) diverse under those inspired gorilla masks, they force us to rethink everything from art to zaniness."

An interview with the founding party starters of the Guerilla Girls - 'Frida Kahlo' and 'Kathe Kollwitz' , taken from guerrillagirls.com  :

How has your mission evolved over the past 30 years?We began in the art world because we were a group of female artists who saw that things were getting worse for women and artists of colour, after some gains due to feminist protest in the 70s. Almost immediately, we branched out into other areas of culture and politics. We've now done over 100 posters, stickers, actions, huge billboards and several books about art, film, pop culture, politics, abortion, homelessness, rape, war and more.

Naked, 1989. Courtesy the Guerrilla Girls.

Looking back to 1985, how did you channel your anger over the 1984 MoMA show and create a group that could change things?We didn't actually organise that protest in front of MoMA in 1984, but a couple of future Guerrilla Girls joined the picket line and were pissed that it had absolutely no effect. No one going into the museum cared about the lack of women and artists of colour inside. That was the moment we realised there had to be a better way — a more contemporary, creative way — to break through people's belief that museums knew best and that there was no discrimination in art. We got the idea to do posters, and in spring 1985 we called some friends to a meeting, and passed the hat around to pay for printing. When we put the first two posters up in New York in the middle of the night, all hell broke loose. Who knew that would lead to hundreds of others, plus, books and street projects? Who knew that would cause a crisis of conscience about diversity in the art world, something museums, collectors and critics had denied for a long time. Now, it's a no brainer.... you can't tell the story of a culture without all the voices in that culture

What have been some of your most effective campaigns since then?Our poster Do Women Have to be Naked to Get Into the Met. Museum? and some of our film campaigns have been among the most influential. Our goal is to do something unforgettable. After seeing our "Naked" poster, you can never go to a museum without thinking about how many women artists are on the walls.

The Guerrilla Girls have invented a game-changing kind of political art. Humor helps us present issues in unexpected, intrusive ways. We don't do posters and actions that simply point to something and say "This is bad," as a lot of political art does. We try to use information in a surprising, transgressive manner to prove our case. We believe that some discrimination is conscious and some is unconscious and that we can embarrass some of the perpetrators into changing their ways. This has proved true in the art world: things are better now than they ever have been for women and artists of colour, and we have helped effect that change. There is still a long way to go, however, and we are still condemning the art world for its lack of ethics, tokenism, economic discrimination and other bad behaviour.

Dear Collector, 1986. Courtesy the Guerrilla Girls.

Have you had any run-ins with the law...?Not really, but our upcoming sticker campaign against billionaires who control the art world today may get us in some real trouble. We do get angry emails from theatre owners when we put up anti-film industry stickers in their bathrooms.

Are there other practical difficulties with being a masked avenger?It's hot inside the masks! But the good news is you wouldn't believe what comes out of your mouth when wearing one.

Is wearing masks a protective measure? Do you think Guerrilla Girl members would suffer a backlash in the art world if they weren't anonymous?In the beginning, we decided to be anonymous for purely self-serving reasons: the art world is a small place and we were afraid our careers would suffer. But we quickly realised that anonymity was an important ingredient to our success. First, it keeps the focus on the issues, not on our individual work or personalities. Second, the mystery surrounding our identities attracts attention, which is helpful to our cause. We could be anyone...and we are.

A lot of the museums at which you've protested, including MoMA, now own work by the Guerrilla Girls. How do you feel about that?Wary and confused? Happy and excited? It's true that in recent years we've been busier than ever, and we've also been faced with a dilemma: What do you do when the art world you've spent your whole life attacking suddenly embraces you? We think carefully about every request and if the conditions are right, we take our critique right inside the galleries and institutions. When our work appears at venerable venues like the Venice Biennale, the Tate Modern, or The National Gallery in DC, we get hundreds of letters from people saying they were blown away by our analysis of art and culture. It's a thrill to criticise a museum right on its own walls.