I haven’t visited the Turner Contemporary for about three
weeks so the sketch of Rodin’s The Kiss from my last visit will have to do to
illustrate this post, hopefully I will get back there soon and hopefully get
the hand into a more apposite position to complement the rest of the
exhibition. I am no Marcel Duchamp so I may fail in this endeavour.
Feedback about the current exhibition from customers in my
bookshop is not entirely positive, however there is a new commission that
opened last week on the promenade outside the gallery, not protestors this
time.
What we have this time is; Sinema Amnesia, Mark Wallinger,
as I am sure everyone won’t remember this I thought I ought to mention it. Here
is the link http://www.turnercontemporary.org/exhibitions/new-commissions-mark-wallinger-and-lindsay-seers
as you see this will allow you to admire yesterday’s view.
Now on the one hand I have reservations about the popularity
of contemporary art while on the other there are the gallery’s statistics,
which suggest that the interest is considerable.
We have had four main exhibitions at the gallery so far, the
first one (Conrad Shawcross, Daniel Buren, Ellen Harvey, James Webb, Russell
Crotty and JWM Turner) I wasn’t that keen on. The next one the youf one with
artists too numerous to mention that I enjoyed very much. The next one Turner
and the Elements, that I wasn’t that keen on, too much of a jumble of his works
for me, this is always a bit of a difficult one as saying anything negative
about JWMT tends to be frowned upon. Then the current exhibition which is not
really my bag baby, but then I’ve only visited it twice so it may grow on me
and there is something about it that is inspirational that I haven’t really
nailed down yet, perhaps something to do with the tentativeness of Emin’s work.
Whatever it is I felt like painting after the two occasions that I visited it
so it may be that I just don’t understand it.
Anyway this leads me on to the business over the statistics,
taking an interest in the “Summer commissions at Turner Contemporary - Mark
Wallinger / Lindsay Seers” video embedded in the page on their site, link above, I watched it as I assume most people with an
interest in what the art the gallery has commissioned (and we have paid for) following
the video through to its statistics though I was surprised how few people had
watched it.
I am not sure what this is significant of but
will probably ramble on a bit when I have looked at some other stuff, I do for
instance subscribe to the Tate videos and will need to check the statistics
there.
I guess we all want and need the gallery to continue successfully and part of this is that there is a continued interest in what the gallery are doing, I am a bit concerned that there is a disconnection between what the gallery does and any views the public may have.
I guess we all want and need the gallery to continue successfully and part of this is that there is a continued interest in what the gallery are doing, I am a bit concerned that there is a disconnection between what the gallery does and any views the public may have.
Still on the local art gallery theme the Monkey Cage gallery
at the Westciff boating pool in Ramsgate is moving off to Whitstable, which isn’t
good news for Ramsgate
I do wonder how many people come to Thanet to view The
Turner Contemporary and wind up actually enjoying The Great Wall of Ramsgate
much more.
The Belgian Café has an exhibition of paintings by the
modern impressionist Anthony Giles, click on the link for his website http://anthonygiles.vpweb.co.uk/ he
also has two pictures on The Great Wall of Ramsgate.
All I can do really is look though my sketch book and give
you one of the sketches I did when I was in there last Thursday.
When it comes to The Turner Contemporary, I
think I will say “Give me Tomorrow” well September really, I am quite looking
forward to Alex Katz, but then I suppose I would be.
I know a lot of modern art is a con but I'm always happy to give it a go and usually find something that takes my eye. All Emin seems to have done here though is to put a few squiggles together of a mildly erotic nature and bunged them up on the wall. I can honestly say I have found more interest in looking at a wall full of children's paintings - if that's art someone will have to explain it to me. I was in and out in ten minutes - most unusual for me.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder it encouraged you to paint - no doubt thinking you can do so much better!!
Denplan it’s a tricky one, the inspiration one, the only exhibition that The Turner Contemporary has held that didn’t seem to make me want to paint and draw more than usual was Turner and the Elephants.
ReplyDeleteThe most inspiring being the Youf one, and frankly the diversity in that exhibition meant that some of the watercolours and drawings were much more difficult for me to have a go at reproducing than the Turner watercolours and drawings, you have to appreciate I don’t do other mediums. I came to the conclusion that this was a problem to do with the way the Turner exhibition was hung rather than anything wrong with Turner. An example of this was the Turner Watercolour and pencil drawing of the lighthouse on the end of Ramsgate harbour, in preparation for this Turner got into a rowing boat and did preliminary sketches, which had they been hung next to the final picture that was intended for display and publication would have made sense. As it was the thing was surrounded by sketches of other places. I am first to admit that this was a travelling exhibition and therefore the content not the gallery’s fault.
With the Emin thing, her sketches do have some quality to them, I have bought a tube of blue gouache she uses and if I get a chance I will go over there and have a go at copying some of them, always a good indicator.
Peter as you can see from the counter, so do I and as this relates to videos embedded in some of their website’s main pages it does concern me, although I am not quite sure what the evident lack of viewings is significant of.
If I embed a new and interesting video in this blog it isn’t unusual for it to get several hundred viewings in the first week.
The Belgian Cafe ex is Anthony Giles. A wonderful painter in my opinion. Couple of his works are on TGWR.
ReplyDeletehttp://anthonygiles.vpweb.co.uk/
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Yogi, I guess commenting on a post about erotic art puts you in the Q-cum-bear bracket, I enjoyed Anthony Giles’s website during my lunch break and have made the necessary modifications to the blog post.
ReplyDelete