Cathy's Art Diary

Small exhibition at the Accademia in Venice looking at their Heronimus Bosch pictures and marking the six hundredth anniversary of his death. The exhibition looked in detail at recent conservation work on the pictures funded by the Bosch Research and Conservation Project explaining the cleaning process and looking at new things that had been found in the pictures. The odd thing though was that only one of the pictures was there. The others were on loan to the big show in Madrid. They had been replaced by very good quality reproductions of them. The real pictures will be returned before this show ends so it might be worth waiting to go. The painting which was there was a strange triptych of three hermit saints. Each saint was surrounded by images of their visions, an absolute gift to Bosch! Another showed the crucifixion of St Liberta, a female saint who sprouted a beard to put off an unwanted suitor. Closes 7 February 2017

Charming exhibition at the Muso Correr in Venice looking at the life and work of Ippolito Caffi. Caffi was a Canaletto style artist who was exiled from Italy and travelled round the Middle East and Europe and then lived in Venice on his return. His early work was in Rome and having been there recently it was great to see pictures of the city again. And of course it’s always great to look at pictures of Venice in Venice and wonder at how little it’s really changed! Caffi was brilliant at handling different light effects including night scenes and also seemed to enjoy an scene with action in it such as the night bombing of Marghera at which he acted as a war reporter. Closes 20 November 2016  

Fabulous exhibition at the Doge’s Palace in Venice marking 500 years since the formation of the Ghetto in Venice. It was fascinating to realise that when the Ghetto was formed it was just an area given to the Jewish population of Venice as other areas were given to other nationalities. The area was then named after the furnaces (geto) which had been there before. The word has obviously grown to take on darker meaning and things were not always as easy in the Venetian Ghetto as when it was founded. There was a wonderful room of paintings from the time of the founding showing how Jews were viewed in society. This included three by one of my favourite artists Carpaccio. I loved his portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan who founded the Ghetto. There was also a great room of sketches and plans of the buildings and a great AV presentation of a walk through the streets which stopped at the site of the buildings whose plans you had just been looking at many of which still existed

Day two of a thought provoking exhibition in Venice looking at the major themes in architecture at the moment. The show is vast and we ended up doing it over two days. As there is just too much to write in one blog I thought I’d split my write up over two. This article looks at day two spent at Giardini site which houses all the main country pavilions. The themes on this site were similar to the first day, housing the migrants who are coming Europe, how to make the most of scarce resources and the benefit of involving communities in planning a project. I must admit after a while the pavilions merged rather plus we descended into train spotter mode and were determined to do them all so there was a bit of a race at the end! I was interested in the Netherland’s Pavilion which looked at how a UN Peacekeeping force could set up a temporary site in a way that could change as the work progress so in the end they could withdraw but leave behind a useful resource for the peopl

Day one of t hought provoking exhibition in Venice looking at the major themes in architecture at the moment. The show is vast and we ended up doing it over two days. As there is just too much to write in one blog I thought I’d split my write up over two starting with the first day I went which was all based at the Arsenale site. Whatever themes the organisers had set it quickly became apparent that the themes from the exhibitors were housing the migrants who are coming Europe, how to make the most of scarce resources and the benefit of involving communities in planning a project. The most striking display at the Arsenale on the theme of migrants was a wonderful huge blue city scape. It looked at how a fast build type of housing could be put up throughout a city rather than creating ghetto areas. This was also housing which could be built by the migrants themselves and could be added to as needed. This gives people a real stake in where they live. The resources t

Interesting exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice giving an overview of art in Italy in the 1960s. The show began by defining to imagine as “to form a mental image” and each gallery shows how a different artist used research to inform their thinking. Well I think that’s what it was but I just found it a collection of not particularly attractive work from an era I’m not that interested in in terms of art. Sorry! I was interested in the idea that when Italian artists looked to do pop art some of them turned to their artists past rather than the contemporary consumer culture so I liked Giovetta Fioroni’s take on the Botticelli “Birth of Venus”. I liked Domenico Gnoli’s big square pictures focusing in on sections of clothing like a great zoom lens so just showing the shoulder of a suit or collar of a dress. I also liked his bed pictures with the shadows of the bodies in them.   Also Michelangelo Pistoletto’s work on Plexiglass was fun and I loved his bea

Delightful exhibition at the Palazzo Cini in Venice of Venetian works from the collection of Vittorio Cini. Cini was one of the most important collectors of early Italian art who concentrated on Tuscan art but also had a good collection of Venetian work. There were some lovely works in this show and it started getting me to look properly at the first names of Tiepolo painters as I realised how much of a family business painting was to them! I loved a picture in the first room by Lorenzo of a man in an Oriental hat. There were some nice Guardi’s and Canaletto’s although Cini seems to have collected their more fantastical landscapes rather than picture of Venice. Also a good room of early works and I loved a picture by Bernardino da Parenzo of St Vincent de Paul raising the dead with wonderful bodies rising from their graves in different states of decay. Macabre but beautiful! There was also a Titian of St George I’d not come across before which was contemporary with t

Interesting exhibition at the Ca’Pesaro in Venice of portraits by Lino Selvatico. These pictures were done around the turn of the last century (1900) and have a Sergeant like feel to them. All the information was in Italian so I’m afraid I was rather flying in the dark on this one! The works tended to have quite enigmatic titles so you didn’t always know who the person was. I found the work a bit chocolate boxy such as a rather soupy “Signorina in Rosa” of a girl in pink with a monkey. Also a couple of rather hideous pictures of children such as Riccardo holding an owl. However I loved “La Vesta Rosa” a picture of a girl sitting cross legged in tights and I have to say he painted good dogs! Always a plus with me! Closed 31 July 2016.  

Lovely little exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery celebrating the 200 anniversary of the birth of Charlotte Bronte. It made good use of items from the gallery alongside archive material leant by Haworth Parsonage. Of course the centre piece was the wonderfully battered portrait of the three sisters by their brother Branwell and the chalk drawing by George Richmond. It was nice that the latter was shown her alongside pictures by the same artist of the contemporary authors Mrs Gaskell and Harriet Martineau. However most interesting were the archive pieces including a pair of her shoes and lots of watercolours by Charlotte. I was moved by the Memorial cards for Charlotte, Emily and Branwell and a letter from Charlotte husband telling a friend of her death. I’d not realised that her husband didn’t die until 1906, a date which seems another world to the Brontes. Closes 14 August 2016.

Small exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery looking at the backgrounds of early studio photographs. It looked at the development of these backgrounds. I was amused by the idea that there were producers and sellers of these so different studios used the same ones plus they were used for a long time so fashions changed by the backgrounds stayed the same. I loved a picture of an unknown man on a railways bridge. It obviously had a significance to him but that is now lost. Closes 4 December 2016.      

Interesting display at the National Portrait Gallery, focusing on the men who refused to fight in the First World War and the people who supported them, to mark 100 years since the introduction on conscription. Many of these men undertook civilian work instead such as farm labouring or being ambulance drivers but others who refused to even do that were imprisoned. I was interested in the inclusion of Sylvia Pankhurst in the display as I’d not realised that she broke ranks with her mother and sister and spoke against conscription and helped the objectors. I also loved Ottoline Morrell’s photo albums which seem to be included in a lot of exhibitions that catch my eye. She provided employment on her estate for objectors and the pictures included many interesting people from this era such as Maynard Keynes, Bertrand Russell and Siegfried Sassoon. Closes 5 February 2017.

Useful exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery looking at the development of ruffs and collars from 1560-1640. OK I admit this is one for the geeks but it was very interesting! In this period the ruff developed from a small decorative frill on a collar into a large stiff circle made of starched tissue like fabric sometimes supported by wires. Then as we move into the 1620s the ruff flattens and morphs back into being a white starched collar again.   Your wealth was demonstrated by the quality of the white of your ruff or collar as they were difficult to launder so it showed you had servants. The show included come lovely small pictures I’d not seen before and nice ones by Cornelius Johnson who specialised in painting lace. Closes 31 December 2016.  

This year’s exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in this series which pairs up an artist with London schools to explore the gallery’s collection to learn about people who have lived in their area and produce an art work based on this study/ This year’s artist was Simon Terrill and the schools were St Saviours and St Olav’s Southwark. The work produced was a massive photograph entitled “South of the River: Crowd Theory” in which the children posed in groups around the school inspired by the figures they had studied. It was taken with a large format camera which took a shot every 10 minutes from dawn till dusk to produce a single sheet, long exposure work. This is the latest in a series by Terrill which explore large groups of people in a place that is significant to them. It was s striking picture but you couldn’t see the detail of the poses the children had taken to see how these responded to the people they’d studied which included an international footballer, a hi

Small exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery to mark the donation of the Lucien Freud archive to the gallery. It’s fascinating to start to see where donations in lieu of tax from the Freud estate are appearing with the current National Gallery show being based on a donation and to think about how these might change and develop collections. This show included an unfinished painting, sketches, letters and childhood drawings. The donation includes 47 sketchbooks which contain everyday notes as well as sketches such as betting tips and phone numbers. They give a real sense of working sketch books as a place to jot and develop ideas as you live not as a sterile standalone thing. The unfinished self-portrait is fascinating as you can see the artists method of working out from the centre of the work. In this case most of the face is there but not the chin. The areas that are done are very complete. It feels like an everything or nothing approach. Closes 6 September

Stunning small exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of sculptures by Thomas J Price. I had seen some of the works before at the Fine Art Society and loved them. The main pieces were studies of contemporary black men presented like Ancient and Renaissance bronzes. I love the way these works show the ordinary and concentrate on small details such as the cigarettes in one figures pockets and the laces on the shoes. Each figure is named after the area they come from although they are factional subjects. Around the first room were also small head studies again showing amazing detail. The second room in contrast just contained one very large head. This referred back to the idea of monumental sculpture. It was very striking but I preferred the intimate detail of the smaller pieces. Closes 5 September 2016.  

Lovely exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of the shortlisted entries in these years BP Portrait Award. I always enjoy this show but this year’s felt a bit thin. It was nicely arranged but there seemed to be less pictures in it. However like last year most of the work was quite realistic and there wasn’t too much abstract work. My vote for most unusual picture has to be David Von Bassewitz’a “Falk” a long double ended picture with the sitter at the top and I assume a self-portrait of the artist upside down at the bottom. I desperately wanted to know if it still worked as a picture if you span it the other way up! I don’t usually like portraits of children but who could not like “Tad” by John Borowicz which showed a naked toddler with a paper bag on his head. The picture had caught a moment beautifully. I also liked the picture of Sir Andrew Motion by Fiona Graham-Mackay, painted for a Radio 4 series that eavesdropped on conversations between sitters and artist

Fascinating exhibition at the National Gallery looking at the paintings owned by eight well known artists. The show was inspired by the recent bequest from Lucien Freud of a Corot’s “Italian Woman” to the gallery. The artists featured with Freud, Matisse, Degas, Leighton, Watts, Lawrence, Reynolds and Van Dyck. I liked the fact the narrative of the show was told in reverse chronology so you saw works by the earlier artists in the collections of the later ones. It discussed how some artists collected out of admiration for other artists and others   to seek inspiration themselves. Matisse owned a Cezanne of Three bathers which he referred back to in his work and it was great to see a large sculpture inspired by it. Degas got two rooms, one for his collecting of contemporary work and one for old masters. It was interesting to see that at the sale of his collection the National Gallery bought thirteen pictures including works by Ingres and Delacroix. Reynolds collect

Luxurious exhibition at Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice of glass designed by Viennese architects in the first half of the 20th century. These architects worked with manufacturers to produce these lovely objects. Even in the first case I fell in love with a cylindrical decanter by Adolf Loos. The show was presented against wall paper contemporary to the time. There was a lovely section on patriotic pieces made during the First World War and I liked a glass with the flags of Germany and Austria around it. Also a nice recreation of Hoffman’s glass room at the 1937 Paris exhibition called Boudoir D’une Grade Vedette, with panels of silvered wood. I fell for some lovely series such Patrician by Hoffman and Ambassador by Haerdtl which I believe are still made! Closes on 31 July 2016.

Beautiful installation   at Officina dell’Arte Spirituale, Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice of new work by Antonio Girbes. Girbes uses large photos of architectural elements displayed in a bent format to represent architectural form. The commentary says he is trying to create a place to take refuge from   the business of modern society. I loved Agora based on Palladian architecture produced for this show. Also a painted ceiling shown like a kaleidoscope of colour. All the pictures were shown in this dark space which concentrated the eye on the image and its shape. Less architectural was a long picture of tress in a wood which reminded me of the Bill Viola video in the Botticelli exhibition at the V&A and the large David Hockney pictures of trees. Closes on 31 August 2016.

Interesting installation at Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice by Lin Utzon. The work consisted of two large murals either ends of a large room of organic shapes, one with black painted on white and one with white on black. In the middle of the room was a large procession of black and white ceramic pots and in the corner was a pile of broken white post which looked as if the pots in the middle had come out of them. I saw it was being about migration however it was based on a quote by Albert Einstein “Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.” It just shows that we can all take different things from a work of art. Either way it was beautiful! I love this growth in ceramics as an art form. Closes on 18 September 2016  

Mixed exhibition at Pallazzo Fortuny in Venice of work from the contemporary art collection of Enea Righi. Righi is a Bolognese business man. It is always interesting to see what appeals to a person and what their eye sees but I found a lot of this work quite depressing. He seemed to have chosen a number of pieces looking at disfigurement.   The commentary said each floor of the show was “a step forward in finding the meaning of existence” but I’m afraid I did not get that from the show.   My favourite two pieces were both series of photographs of people. The first by Jonathas de Andrade called “Looking for Jesus” explored what the real face of Jesus would have looked like and consisted of portraits of middle eastern men quietly going about their business. The other by Petere Feldman was 101 black and white portraits of people aged from 1 to 100, one for every year. It was lovely to see a gradual picture of how people mature and age. It was sometimes hard to tell what

Interesting exhibition at Marignanaarte Arte, Venice of work by Marcello Morandini the architect and designer. The show consisted of drawings, photographs and sculptures including sculptural plaques.I loved a design for a new paving design St Peter’s Square in Rome. It would be great if he could do it! I also liked two matching panels, one in black and onw in white, which showed how different a design could look in different colours. Closes 10 September 2016  

Retrospective exhibition at Pallazzo Grassi of work by Sigmar Polke. I had been to the Tate Modern show a few years ago and not really liked Polke but this show gave the pictures a bit more room to breathe and I understand them better and really liked some of them. I’m not sure I really appreciated the skill in the dot pictures before and that he painted on each dot or sometimes the space between the dots to create a pale one, creating an image purely from these dots. The most effective ones here were the Hermes Trismegistos series. I loved some later works created by putting powdered pigment on a canvas then shaking them and adding water. They became a homage to pigment with wonderful organic shapes in the paint. There was a great film at the start showing Polke working on one of these works although as my friend pointed out we were literally watching a film of paint drying! There were also three films Polke made while working on the German Pavilion at the 1986 Bienn

Varied exhibition at the Punta Della Dogana in Venice showcasing contemporary art from the Pinault Collection. I have to start by mentioning the building! The refurbished Punta Della Dogana has opened since the last time I was in Venice so this was my first visit.   It is an amazing space for showing modern and contemporary art a number of interlinked spaces over two floors. The views are also spectacular looking across to San Giogio and St Mark’s Square These were some amazing works in this show. There did seem to be a bit of a theme around white squares with at least three or four artists producing different types. My favourite of these was the room by Gunther Uecker, who produced white squares in thick paint with bits of his life in them such a razor blades, hand prints etc. I loved the ice sculptures by Pier Paolo Calzolari in the first room in particular the frozen mattresses which were gradually   melting. The tapestries by Goshka Lacuga were stunning in their s

Fantastic exhibition at the Accademia in Venice looking at the life and work of Aldo Manuzio, a 15th century publisher and humanist. I had thought this show might be quite dry but it was a fascinating insight into early publishing and put it into the context of the time. I loved one commentary which described Venice as the “Silicon Valley” of the Renaissance comparing the changes brought about by printing to the internet. Aldo started by spotting a niche market with the growth in humanism for re-edited versions of the Greek texts in an affordable form. In turn these new versions of the texts revived ideas and lead to painters being compared to Apelles. He introduced the idea of small portable books which were easy to carry and created the idea of reading as a quiet, private, intimate pastime. The exhibition ended with a wonderful series of portraits of people with these small books, showing that they were fashionable items and held as a sign of learning. He also inven

Interesting installation in the cloisters of Santa Maria della Visitazione by Studio Mameluca, part of Design.Ve, which uses antique palaces, galleries, closed shops and empty houses, and turns them into temporary design spaces. This work took inspiration from Brazilian face painting in the indigenous population. The work in centre of the courtyard was based on the idea of an Occa, a communal house for social interaction and created furniture based on hexagons and triangles used in the face painting This was accompanied by a photographic project to record the diversity indigenous culture in Brazil with poster sized pictures lining the cloister walls. Closed 26 June 2016

Colourful exhibition at Tate Modern of work by Indian gay artist Bhupen Khakar. I liked the way this artist layered story in a picture which was shown in particular the ‘trade paintings’ in which he showed ordinary people he encounter in his home town. He showed all aspects of their life by surrounding a portrait of them in their work guise with a border of other images of their life. This drew on the idea of altarpieces which had an image of a saint and an outline of their life in the praedella. I also liked his ceramics especially a portrait plate with the image shown as the unglazed sections. I loved one image called Night which built a larger image out of a series of smaller framed pictures givng a similar effect to a Hockney Polaroid collage. He depicted his own life in graphic images of same sex relationships and visceral pictures at the end of the exhibition of his cancer treatment. Closes on 6 November 2016 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph

Thought provoking exhibition at Tate Modern of work by the installation artist Mona Hatoum. I didn’t know this artists work before and there were some great sculptures and installations. I liked the fact that there were just one or a few works in each room which gave you space to see them in the way they were designed to be seen and gave you space to walk round them. From the first room with a magnetic cube covered n iron filings which looked like hair I was grabbed! I loved Light Sentence consisted of wire mesh lockers with a light swinging in the middle and being raised and lowered. This meant that the shadows were constantly moving and changing. Also Homebound which was a room installation with kitchen utensils and furniture connected by electrical wire which made lights come on an off, giving an feeling of home which should be comforting being a threatening space. My favourite piece was a large circle of sand with a rotating blade once side of which smoothed the surface