The Bed is Back: Tracey Emin's My Bed at Tate Britain

It has been 15 years since Tracey Emin's Bed was last shown at Tate when it was the most talked about nominee for the Turner Prize.

Since then like the artist herself it has been on quite a journey. It was bought by Saatchi who exhibited it in both his gallery and his own home. In 2014 it was bought by Count Christian Duerckheim for a staggering £2.5 million. The Count in turn has lent it to the Tate gallery for a period of 10 years.

So much has been written about this work that I will not dwell on its history and the impassioned debates it inspires about what art is, how meaning is stored in objects, the importance of authentic objects and sensationalism. Although of course these are all important parts of what makes it what it is.

What interests me about this work is seeing it again at the Tate. It is easy to think that permenant collections stay the same but they are always changing and now My Bed is seen alongside a range of works that open up a fasinating dialogue with it. It has gone from being part of the temporary Turner Prize exhibition to being seen as an integral part of the history of British art.

Emin has helped curate the room in which the work itself will be shown. She has chosen to show it alongside some of her ink drawings produced in 2014 and gifted to the gallery and two works by Francis Bacon. The impression these dynamic works create in this small space is one of turbulence reflecting her emotional state at the time that the bed was conceived. The link with Francis Bacon is a logical one the two artists share a hair trigger and emotional turbulence they both lived big and fast and as a result their work is expressive and charged with their respective personalities and pains.

But of course the room is a small part of the overall gallery and seeing it there got me thinking about some of the other links. One that sprung immediately to mind is a Tate Britain favourite Henry Wallis' The Death of Chatterton. It is no secret that Emin's Bed is considered a self portrait of the artist in her darkest moment although it is sometimes forgotten that in an earlier incarnation a hangman's noose used to hang above it making the theme of suicide more explicit. It is interesting to look at the similarity between the works despite the fact that they belong to such different traditions. We see Chatterton in his bed with the signs and symbols of his life strewn around him. Instead of condoms suitcases and vodka bottles we have a discarded coat, torn up letters and an arsenic bottle.

A second connection which I am sure is not entirely coincidental is the fact that this display coincides with the Nick Waplington/Alexander McQueen show. McQueen took his life in 2012 and it is a theme that is difficult to entirely forget as you go around the exhibition. You get the sense that he was preoccupied with his own legacy with creating something memorable and getting all of the information down through his clothes and through the photo book the two produced together. In the Exhibition Susannah Frankel talks about McQueen being very aware of the Horn of Plenty as his last collection as a young man. The Juxtaposition of My Bed and this reflection on McQueen in the same gallery suggest a dialogue between creativity, survival, legacy and youth.

The Final link that occurred to me is a more general one. Looking at the bed now it is clear that it has become something else it is a sort of time capsuale not just of Emin's life and the history of the Young British Artists but of the 90's. As you go through the gallery from the 1600's to the present day you see a series of moments they are shown to be distinct by the objects included in them. Take The Portrait of William Style of Langley on show in the 1640 room.

We do not know the artist of this work but it can be dated to the 17th century because of the fashion and the objects shown within it. The same is now true with Emin's Bed. The fact the Marlboro cigarettes do not have health warnings, the old fashioned orangina bottle even the type of razor these details all date the work. They allow us to look at it through a different lens making it not just an art work but an artifact.

There are so many more connections to be discovered so I do encourage anyone to come and have a look My Bed will be on show at Tate Britain from 31st March 2015.

Art in Details: Peter Monamy

This will be the first in my series of Art in Details posts.

One of the wonders of looking at art from any era is discovering something in it that you had not seen before or that captures the imagination. At one point it was very popular to have whole books full of details from paintings and now one of the major developments in gallery and museum works is to make works available on the internet with high quality images that you can zoom in on.

These posts will be in that tradition but just focusing on one small detail with the briefest of blurbs. So here goes!

Amidst Peter Monamy's dramatically stormy seascape we are shown a glimpse of two desperate sailors clinging to the rigging of a ship that has just been submerged by a white frothy wave. Looking at the scene you can almost hear the chaos around you and sense their fear. This small detail is a powerful image of the human will to survive pitted against the ferocity of nature.

Seeing how Reality becomes Fantasy: Nick Waplington/ Alexander McQueen: Working Process

Alexander McQueen is the name on every London based fashonista and gallery goers lips at the moment. The V&A are holding the Savage Beauty exhibition which proved a sell out success when it was at the Metropolitan in New York. Now almost four years later it has come to London bringing the clothes back to McQueen's home turf.

Endless column inches have been written about this show there was even a program on the BBC where Tinie Temper takes us around the star studded private view.

Less attention has been given to the Tate Britain's Nick Waplington/Alexander McQueen: Working Process exhibition and it is on this one that I shall focus.

Before I start one major disclaimer **There are no dresses in this exhibition** If you want to ogle over his astounding designs then this is not the show for you but believe me it brings plenty of other fascinating things to the party.

The exhibition shows the photographs of British photographer Nick Waplington. Waplington is better known for his early gritty photographs of his family and friends shot in Aspley Estate in Nottingham. In these we are presented with screaming children, men under cars, adults clutching fags, tinsel laden Christmas trees all set against a backdrop of garish 70's wallpaper and shag carpet. They capture an image of hectic, chaotic but also very loving family life. More recently his work has focused on Jewish settlers in the West bank. (incidentally his Instagram feed is great)

Certainly not the archetypal fashion photographer. Yet he was the man that McQueen looked to when he wanted to create a photographic document of his iconic 2009 show the Horn of Plenty. The match is in fact a perfect one and the collaborative photobook that the pair produced reflects both of their interests and personalities.

The images take us through the development of the Horn of Plenty catwalk show, as well as focusing on photographs taken in McQueen's studio the pair incorporated Waplington's stunning photographs of that oh so glamorous fashion venue... landfill sites.

At first glance this may seem like a strange combination however the notion of recycling and reusing old fabrics designs and other materials was central to this particular show and the starkly contrasting images do in fact compliment each other. The fashion photographs allow us to look at the beautiful colours in the landfill images the elaborate textures they create, while the landfill images remind us of the transience of the very nature of fashion, disposable culture and McQueen's interest in recycling his ideas.

The images take you through the process of creating the show we see the elaborate moodboards, Sarah Burton (who of course now heads the Alexander McQueen brand) helping pin the designs onto models, models being squeezed into corsets, magnificent hats being created by Philip Treacy and every little detail being closely examined to create the most dramatic effect possible. One of the striking things about the exhibition is the extent to which Lee is involved in the process there are endless shots of him in his slightly creased shirt micromanaging the design process.

The final room is undeniably the most dramatic the images shown here are the last phase in the process, showing the moment just before the models go on stage.

The room is dark with black walls and bright spotlights angled straight on to the works so they seem to jump off the wall. I can't help but think of it as the moment just before reality becomes fantasy because that is what McQueen's shows are really works of  pure carefully crafted fantasy.

Today's Partial Eclipse

Unfortunately today's partial eclipse in London will have resulted in little more than grey photos of a cloudy sky. So here are three images of eclipses past to make up for that.

The Metropolitan museum have this extraordinary set of Daguerreotypes by brothers William Langenheim and Frederick Langenheim who had opened a studio in Philadelphia. These seven images were taken during the first full solar eclipse since the invention of photography. I was interested to read that these images had to be so small (the smallest measuring 3.2 x 2.5 cms) at this early stage in the history of photography smaller cameras could function with less light and because the very nature of an eclipse means that there is limited light available William and Frederick had to use the smallest camera available.

This dramatic rendering of the eclipse from the British Museums collection is a mezzotint print ideal for creating the deep blacks and the stark contrast with the bright light. The inscription in pencil underneath suggests that this print was based upon watercolour sketches that the artist Drewitt made while at sea on the SS Ortona. I can only imagine how eerie an eclipse would look on board a boat.

We go back to photographs with this image from the V&A's collection which has already gathered 805 likes on instagram so far today. It is a print made in 1956 from a glass negative created in 1923-24 by the photographer Eugene Atget. This image has an almost theatrical quality with everyone gathered together engaging simultaneously in the same action.

Goya: The Witches and Old Women Album - Chillingly Brilliant

This exhibition was a must see for me as soon as I saw it advertised and the reviews did nothing to damped my enthusiasm.

Like most exhibitions at the Courtauld gallery it hones in on one aspect and investigates it in depth. In this case, an album (Album D) of drawings that Goya produced in the later years of his life.

The real feat of the curators is to have brought together all the pages from this book known to be in existence. The sheets come from museums far and wide who have graciously contributed their drawings to allow us a unique insight into the artist’s psyche. As you go around I recommend you take note of the names of the contributing galleries just to recognise the work that has gone in to getting them there.

The first room sets the scene effectively including prints and drawings which demonstrate Goya’s preoccupation with the occult with age and its troubles and vanities. Then in the second room we get to the real business of the exhibition, the album itself.

The masterfully executed ink drawings veer from the hauntingly horrible to the poignantly beautiful. In the first pages images of gnarled witches abound with their stooped postures, jutting chins, broken teeth and sunken malevolent eyes. Some fly through the air either tumbling down to hell with reckless abandon or swooping up by the power of their magic, others gnaw on babies or collect them to take to the great witch master. There is madness and a primal erotic and voyeuristic charge in many of the images. Figures look up each others skirts or are clinched in twisted embraces. 

Wicked Woman Goya

However in the last pages of the book, the subject matter shifts. Goya shows us aged and stooped figures leaning on sticks with toothless grins. My personal favourite drawing belongs to this category.  It is an image of an old woman dancing to the music of the castanets in her hands. She throws her left leg up in a joyful gesture seemingly carefree and with little regard to her frailty. These later drawings appear to show sympathy and care we see that the cruelty reflected in them is not a fictitious mythical and fantastical one but rather the everyday cruelties of age. 

He can no longer at the age of 98 Goya

Goya appears to answer the inevitable question of where these images came from within the series itself. After the particularly repulsive image of a witch about to tuck in to a supper of raw baby which is shown above we see an image entitled by Goya  He wakes up kicking. It shows an old man appearing to wake from a nightmare with that horrible start which we all know well. The implication is that these are images and visions drawn from Goya’s own dreams and imaginings reflecting his darkest fears and preoccupations. This is also eloquently expressed in the print below from his Capricios series in the first room entitled The sleep of reason produces Monsters.

The Sleep of Reason produces Monsters Goya

The album is roughly dated to 1819-23 coinciding with the artist’s famous Black Paintings which he painted directly on to the walls of his house in Madrid. Like these paintings it is unlikely that these drawings were intended for public consumption. Luckily for us both the paintings which were stripped from the walls and the drawings have survived the test of time. Most of the sheets even maintaining the fascinating titles that Goya gave them. Allowing us a privileged look into the head of Goya as an old man.

One of Goya's Black Paintings Two old men eating soup 

Exhibition runs until 25^th May 2015. For more information and to book click here. 

Poetic Pairing: March 2015

Thebes Ramesseum statues of Osiris c. 1870-75 New York Public Library Digital Catalogue

Ozymandias

I met a traveler from an antique land,

Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, Kind of Kinds."

Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair!

No thing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Shelley

 

Some Inspiration to keep those New Years Resolutions going

Somehow we are already well into 2015, I do not know about anyone else but it seems to be flying by to me.

My new years resolutions, to take up a craft (for which I chose Crochet) and to budget more carefully are just about remaining on track.

However, I thought maybe we could all do with a little artistic inspiration to help keep our heads in the game. Here are the top 10 most popular new years resolutions and something to help motivate you to keep them through spring at the very least.

1. Spend more time with friends and family

The appearance of the artist family 1935 -1947 Chagall

How can you not be touched by the tender gesture of the artists hand on his chest as he takes a moment away from his work to look at those around him.

2. Fit in Fitness

Pick up a Discus or maybe just hit the gym or do a spot of Yoga

3. Tame the Bulge

It might not be asparagus season yet but if this Flemish still life doesn't tempt you to stick to the vegetables nothing will.

4. Quit Smoking

Frankly if you aren't smoking something as fantastic and elaborate as this pipe from the met what is the point anyway.

5.Enjoy life More

Why not pull up a swing and takes some inspiration from these folk.

6. Quit Drinking

After all who wants to go around dropping babies.

7. Get out of Debt

Money may not look quite as fabulous as these ancient coins from the British Museum but it is nice and shiny.

8. Learn Something New

Be inspired by Kader Attia's Jacob's Ladder work which was shown recently at Whitechapel gallery and pick up a book any book will do.

9. Help Others

In Van Gogh's Delacroix inspired work we see illustrated the classic story of the Good Samaritan.

10. Get Organised 

How could you not be organised with this coin case from the Met or this stunning desk from the Wallace collection. You might have to make do with one from Ikea but the idea is the same.