jueves, 30 de noviembre de 2017

HASTA ENERO 2018. UNA NUEVA PRODUCCIÓN DE LA BOHÈME, DE GIACOMO PUCCINI, CON PAOLO CARIGNANI, EN LA DIRECCIÓN MUSICAL, Y RICHARD JONES, EN LA DE ESCENA, LLEGA AL TEATRO REAL

ENCANTADORES PAOLO GARIGNANI (DIRECTOR MUSICAL) Y JULIA BURBACH (DE ESCENA) EN LA RUEDA DE PRENSA Y EN LOS APARTES QUE ME CONCEDIERON. 
SON ARTISTAS EMPÁTICOS, SENSIBLES, QUE CONECTAN CON LAS PERSONAS QUE TIENEN A SU ALREDEDOR , COMO LOS DE LOS MEDIOS, Y SON LOS QUE LLEVAN EL PESO DE LA ÓPERA, JUNTO CON LOS CANTANTES, EL CORO Y LA ORQUESTA, CON GUANTE DE SEDA.  

EFICACES, A VECES DIVERTIDOS, PROMETIENDO "NIEVE Y BOHÈME", INCLUSO EL 25 DE DICIEMBRE ESTE AÑO, EL DIRECTOR GERENTE, IGNACIO GARCÍA -BELENGUER Y JOAN MATABOSCH, SIEMPRE ATENTO A LAS DISQUISICIONES, MÁS TÉCNICAS, SOBRE LAS ÓPERAS DE PUCCINI, SUS REALIZACIONES TRADICIONALES Y OTRAS, COMO ESTA QUE AHORA DESCUBRE EL TEATRO REAL. "MUY HONESTA", EN PALABRAS DE LA RESPONSABLE DE LA REPOSICIÓN, JULIA BURBACH. 



FRÍA MAÑANA EN MADRID, DE ESAS DE FRÍO COMO EL DE ANTES, CUANDO EL SOL SE ACOMPAÑABA DE LLUVIA Y ALGO DE HUMEDAD. Y EMPIEZA YA EL ESPÍRITU DE LA NAVIDAD EN EL TEATRO REAL, QUE CADA DÍA TIENE COSAS QUE FESTEJAR. CON BUEN HUMOR, CON PACIENCIA Y CON UNA ENTREGA TOTAL. ATENTAS Y DISPONIBLES COMO SUELEN, LAS RESPONSABLES DE COMUNICACIÓN Y PRENSA DEL COLISEO, TODO UN LUJO. COMO SIEMPRE.

EN BREVE, MÁS INFORMACIÓN SOBRE LA ÓPERA Y SUS ARTISTAS.


ALICIA PERRIS



Fotógrafa: © ROH | Catherine Ashmor

En coproducción con la Royal Opera House de Londres y la Lyric Opera de Chicago. El frío diciembre de Madrid nos transportará al invierno parisino, teñido de melancolía, para acompañar el amor truncado de Rodolfo (Stephen Costello/Piero Pretti) y Mimì (Anita Hartig/Yolanda Auyanet).
Puccini construye una historia protagonizada por personajes juveniles, cargados de inocencia y esperanza, cuyos sueños se truncan en medio de la miseria y cuyas vidas siguen conmoviendo hoy en día. La belleza musical, la eficacia dramática, los motivos orquestales y la narración sentimental propia del melodrama italiano hacen de La bohème una de las óperas más queridas.


Muy pocas obras en la historia de la ópera han logrado transmitir la fragilidad de la felicidad como La bohème. El arrollador amor de Mimì y Rodolfo lucha por sobrevivir, sin lograrlo, en un contexto de miseria, frío y enfermedad, y con su final trágico ilustra la descarnada realidad típica del verismo italiano. Giacomo Puccini se valió, para poner música a su historia, de un refinado lenguaje armónico y de unas melodías de sobrecogedora belleza, a través de las cuales dio vida al grupo de jóvenes artistas del París del siglo XIX que sueña con un golpe de suerte con el que alcanzar la gloria.
La pureza de Mimì, perfecta encarnación de la mujer bondadosa e inocente con la que se ensañará el destino, contribuye a atenuar momentáneamente la crudeza de unas vidas sin esperanza. El estreno se llevó a cabo bajo la batuta de un joven Arturo Toscanini, y, a pesar de la fría acogida inicial por parte de público y crítica, La bohème no tardaría en convertirse en uno de los pilares ineludibles del repertorio italiano romántico.

Ficha Artística
Dirección musical: Paolo Carignani      
Dirección de escena: Richard Jones      
Responsable de la reposición: Julia Burbach  
Escenografía y figurines: Stewart Laing           
Iluminación: Mimi Jordan Sherin        
Dirección de movimiento escénico: Sarah Fahie       
Dirección del coro: Andrés Máspero     
Dirección del coro de niños: Ana González     
Rodolfo: Stephen Costello            (Dic. 11, 14, 17, 19, 23, 26, 29 · Ene. 2, 4, 7)       
Piero Pretti  (Dic. 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 27, 30 · Ene. 3, 8)         
Schaunard: Joan Martín-Royo    (Dic. 11, 14, 17, 19, 23, 26, 29 · Ene. 2, 4, 7)       
Manel Esteve           (Dic. 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 27, 30 · Ene. 3, 8)         
Benoît: José Manuel Zapata       
Mimì: Anita Hartig            (Dic. 11, 14, 17, 19, 23, 26, 29 · Ene. 2, 4, 7)       
Yolanda Auyanet    (Dic. 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 27, 30 · Ene. 3, 8)         
Marcello: Etienne Dupuis (Dic. 11, 14, 17, 19, 23, 26, 29 · Ene. 2, 4, 7)       
Alessandro Luongo            (Dic. 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 27, 30 · Ene. 3, 8)         
Colline: Mika Kares           (Dic. 11, 14, 17, 19, 23, 26, 29 · Ene. 2, 4, 7)       
Fernando Radó       (Dic. 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 27, 30 · Ene. 3, 8)         
Alcindoro: Roberto Accurso       
Musetta: Joyce El-Khoury            (Dic. 11, 14, 17, 19, 23, 26, 29 · Ene. 2, 4, 7)       
Carmen Romeu       (Dic. 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 27, 30 · Ene. 3, 8)         


http://www.teatro-real.com/es/temporada-17-18/opera/la-boheme/

EL MUNDO DE GIORGIO DE CHIRICO. SUEÑO O REALIDAD. OBRA SOCIAL LA CAIXA.

Del 19 de julio al 22 de octubre de 2017
Una retrospectiva del gran maestro del arte metafísico y uno de los artistas que más influyó en el arte del siglo XX. Descubre en detalle las distintas fases creativas del artista y escritor italiano, y conoce los objetos, naturalezas y paisajes de su universo.


La obra de Giorgio de Chirico (Volos, 1888 - Roma, 1978) se caracteriza por una incesante investigación en diferentes planos: desde su periodo metafísico inicial, en la década de 1910, el trabajo por el que más se le conoce, en el que muestra su personal transformación del arte clásico mediante sus enigmáticas piazzas de arquitectura renacentista, pasando por los temas iconográficos de las décadas de 1920 y 1930, sus investigaciones técnicas sobre la pintura de los grandes maestros durante la década de 1940, hasta su periodo neometafísico entre 1968 y 1976.
Esta exposición recorre las principales fases creativas de Giorgio de Chirico y retrata la continua investigación de la idea artística, marcada por una constante búsqueda en el plano iconográfico y simbólico capaz de crear una continuidad de la tradición artística italiana en el arte. Este empeño de continuidad fue uno de los elementos que determinó su posición destacada en el arte internacional, sobre todo en su influencia en el movimiento surrealista y en otros grandes artistas y escritores de la primera mitad del siglo XX.


http://agenda.obrasocial.lacaixa.es/-/expo-sueno-o-realidad-chirico-bcn

A DARK COMEDY FINDS SOCIETY’S PROBLEMS REFLECTED IN THE ART WORLD

Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s satire The Square follows the misadventures of the chief curator of a fictional contemporary art museum.
Craig Hubert
Christian seems to have it all. Slim and well groomed in the way of a Zara mannequin, he has blindly absorbed all of the vanity attached to his position as the chief curator of the X-Royal Museum, a fictional contemporary art institution in Stockholm that forms the setting of Ruben Östlund’s The Square. His main focus as the film begins is the promotion of the installation of the film’s title, an illuminated square carved into the cobblestone meant to symbolize “a sanctuary of trust and caring.” If you stand inside and ask for help, there is an implicit contract that says somebody must respond.

But just outside the square, homeless people spend their days begging for change and being ignored. Christian (Claes Bang) walks past them on his way to work with the casual stroll of urbane privilege. Except, one morning, he is confronted. A woman screams, loudly, but is ignored. Christian, along with another passerby, quickly find themselves in the middle of the situation. After breaking up the fight, the two men congratulate themselves, adrenaline pumping through their bodies. They are like children who just scored a touchdown, high-fiving and chest-bumping each other in the street.

Christian walks away, pleased with himself. But soon he discovers that his phone was stolen. It was all a ruse, he thinks; his masculinity is deflated. With the help of a young museum staffer, they track the phone to a nearby apartment block and set off on a reckless scheme to retrieve the stolen property as if they’re in a heist film, complete with a bass-thumping soundtrack to guide their way.


A scene from The Square, a Magnolia Pictures release

These moments often shift from the surreal to a grounded absurdity, as in a sequence where Christian goes home with Anne, an American journalist (played by Elizabeth Moss). When they arrive at her apartment, she has a pet monkey, it seems, as a roommate. Or the growling sounds you hear at different times in the background, coming from a large-scale video installation of Oleg, the performance artist, in close-up. The silliness is often in conflict with the way Östlund uses his camera, with precise framings that cause uneasiness.

But these undoubtedly feel like scenes that exist on the edges of what is happening with Christian’s personal turmoil. As much as The Square enjoys poking fun at the buffoonery of the art world, it’s more interested in what that world represents: a self-sustaining bubble where money, power, and posturing commingle — a placeholder for capitalist society writ large. What this creates is a world that runs on a series of contradictions. How can you promote progressive ideals in art but not acknowledge the suffering that is happening right outside your door?

Christian’s plan to find his stolen phone ends up implicating an enraged kid, who in turn begins to track him down, even showing up at his apartment. Incessantly, the kid asks for him to talk to his parents to get him out of trouble. But Christian won’t back down; he refuses to admit that his motives were wrongheaded. There is an exhausting repetition to these scenes that play out, over and over, in the same way. Christian, too scared to admit his faults, doubles down on his delusions. He did the right thing; he is a good person; he bears no prejudice.
Finally, there seems to be something like a breakthrough, a cathartic moment. After a forced change of heart, Christian attempts to reach out to the kid’s parents. He leaves a video message, tangentially admitting that he was at fault. But he can’t help mentioning that he is not totally at fault—these problems are structural, you see, and anyway, he happens to know a lot of wealthy people, some of the wealthiest in the country. They could fix everything. It’s such a palm-to-the-face moment, so insensitive in its pretense, that you almost feel sorry for Christian. He’s truly incapable of seeing himself, so blind to his own narcissism. After losing everything, he still can’t let go of his self-image.



Where Östlund arrives in The Square is a pessimistic view of human self-reflection: we can’t let go of ourselves to help others in need; we masquerade as caring people but it’s always through the lens of self-interest. We can create “The Square,” understand it and praise its value. But when it comes time to act on those same values, our human instincts get in the way.


https://hyperallergic.com/413594/the-square-film-dark-comedy-art-world/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=An%20Artist-Run%20Airline%20Promises%20Happiness%20As%20It%20Jets%20You%20to%20Art%20Fairs&utm_content=An%20Artist-Run%20Airline%20Promises%20Happiness%20As%20It%20Jets%20You%20to%20Art%20Fairs+CID_532a5096176c6bf0a82812ed433a1aa8&utm_source=HyperallergicNewsletter&utm_term=A%20Dark%20Comedy%20Finds%20Societys%20Problems%20Reflected%20in%20the%20Art%20World

LES NUITS PARISIENNES, L'EXPOSITION DE L'HÔTEL DE VILLE

Les Nuits Parisiennes, voici le thème de la grande exposition de l'Hôtel de Ville, du 25 novembre 2017 au 27 janvier 2018. Dans cette exposition, on découvre les différents visages de Paris la nuit, du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours et ce en plus de 300 oeuvres -tableaux, photos, films et documents d'archives. Les restaurants, cabarets, théâtres et cinéma n'auront plus de secrets pour vous.

Paris, ville lumière ! Du 25 novembre 2017 au 27 janvier 2018, l'Hôtel de Ville de Paris nous entraine dans les lieux de la nuit parisienne à travers une grande exposition gratuite à retrouver dans les salons d'exposition rue Lobau.

Pour cette exposition, plus de 300 documents ont été rassemblés par les équipes de la mairie : des affiches, des photos, des films d'époque, des tableaux et des chroniques de journaux, tous dévoilant les visages de Paris la Nuit.
Si on connait la passion de Doisneau pour les balades nocturnes dans la capitale, le photographe n'est pas le seul à immortaliser Paris la nuit. Anonymes et professionnels des arts profitent des spots de la ville aux milles lumières pour réaliser des oeuvres surprenantes, ou juste immortaliser une expérience vécue.
On ne sait pas encore quels seront les grands noms de cette exposition, mais la Mairie de Paris ne nous a jamais déçue dans la pertinence de ses grands événements fédérateurs pour les habitants, alors on attend l'ouverture avec impatience.


Lea más en https://www.sortiraparis.com/arts-culture/exposition/articles/155270-les-nuits-parisiennes-l-exposition-gratuite-de-l-hotel-de-ville#xU2KJZ3jjMecjwSa.99

1 DE DICIEMBRE, PRESENTACIÓN AL PÚBLICO DE LA MUESTRA SOBRE AUSCHWITZ, EN LA FUNDACIÓN CANAL. 30 DE NOVIEMBRE, ENCUENTRO CON EMBAJADORES, INSTITUCIONES Y AMIGOS, ARROPADA POR BELLAS PALABRAS Y MÚSICA. UNICA PRESENTACIÓN EN ESPAÑA, MADRID.


Jueves 30 de noviembre en Madrid, en una tarde heladora, acorde con lo trágico de la conmemoración. 
Revisitación emocional de una lejana visita a Dachau y agradecimiento siempre a las horas de estudio compartidas un verano cercano en Yad Vashem. 
Encuentro mágico con un alemán mayor, que todavía recuerda con horror la llegada en 1945 de antiguos prisioneros de campos de concentración, a la Alta Baviera. La conversación es fluida y con buena conexión. Eso pasa con la empatía: o la hay, o no, no se fabrica. Excelente compañía espontánea para una tarde como esta.

Contenido homenaje a las víctimas del horror nazi del pueblo judío (también se recordó al pueblo gitano) y grave recordatorio sobre la posibilidad de repetición de hechos como estos en cualquier lugar del mundo y en cualquier momento. El dúo de violín y piano de los hermanos Cabello, con músicas nostálgicas, dieron al acto, más introspección y sentimiento, si cabe. A continuación de los discursos de organizaciones y embajadas, una visita guiada a la exposición, en los bajos de la Fundación Canal. Una advertencia sobre el mal que todavía continúa hoy y aquí en los más inesperados territorios e ideologías. Y si alguien no lo cree, ahí están las noticias de todos los días para confirmarlo. Una reseña un poco de urgencia, pero ocurrió hace dos horas y media y había que contarlo, cuanto antes. En tiempo real.
Alicia Perris

Auschwitz no solo fue el mayor campo de concentración y exterminio nazi, sino también el más letal de todos ellos: más de 1.100.000 personas fueron asesinadas tras sus alambradas.

Convertido en el símbolo inequívoco de los horrores cometidos por la Alemania nazi, sus restos e historia sirven hoy como advertencia universal de los peligros derivados del odio, la intolerancia y el antisemitismo y nos confrontan, asimismo, con los límites de la barbarie humana.



Por primera vez en la historia, más de 600 objetos originales se exponen en la primera exposición itinerante sobre Auschwitz coproducida por Musealia y el Museo Estatal de Auschwitz-Birkenau; un emotivo y riguroso recorrido por uno de los capítulos más oscuros de la historia de la humanidad que, sin duda, removerá la conciencia del mundo.





El estreno mundial de la exposición tendrá lugar el 1 de diciembre de 2017 en el Centro de Exposiciones Arte Canal. Este será su único destino en España.



http://auschwitz.net/

miércoles, 29 de noviembre de 2017

DONALD TRUMP S'AMUSE À SURNOMMER UNE ÉLUE "POCAHONTAS"... EN PLEINE CÉRÉMONIE EN L'HONNEUR D'INDIENS D'AMÉRIQUE

Encore trois ans...
KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERS

Donald Trump s'amuse à surnommer une élue "Pocahontas"... en pleine cérémonie en l'honneur d'Indiens d'Amérique.
ÉTATS-UNIS - Donald Trump a fait ce lundi 27 novembre une allusion déroutante à Pocahontas, surnom dont il a affublé la sénatrice démocrate Elizabeth Warren, en recevant des anciens combattants amérindiens à la Maison Blanche.

C'est à l'occasion d'une cérémonie en l'honneur de Navajos, enrôlés par l'armée américaine comme "code talkers" (décodeur-traducteur) pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, que le locataire de la Maison Blanche a fait cette digression.

"Vous étiez ici longtemps avant nous. Même si nous avons une représentante au Congrès qui est -disent-ils- là-bas depuis longtemps. Ils l'appellent Pocahontas", a-t-il lancé, dans un silence gêné.
Donald Trump est coutumier des attaques contre Elizabeth Warren, qu'il surnomme "Pocahontas" en référence aux origines amérindiennes qu'elle revendique et dont il conteste l'authenticité.

"Il est profondément regrettable que le président des Etats-Unis ne puisse même pas mener à bien une cérémonie en l'honneur de ces héros sans lancer des insultes racistes", a déploré l'élue démocrate sur MSNBC………………….


http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2017/11/27/donald-trump-samuse-a-surnommer-une-elue-pocahontas-en-pleine-ceremonie-en-lhonneur-dindiens-dameriques_a_23289681/

HOW TROMPE-L’OEIL ADDED INFORMATION AND ORNAMENTATION TO MAPS

Look But Don’t Touch: Tactile Illusions on Maps at the Harvard Map Collection explores how cartographers have used trompe l’oeil illustrations on maps.
Allison Meier
“Bird’s-Eye View of the Eastern Railroad Line to the White Mountains and Mt. Desert” (1890) (courtesy Harvard Map Collection)

Cartographers have often added ornamental flourishes to their maps, whether sea monsters in the Medieval and Renaissance eras that attempted to describe ocean life, or octopi in more modern maps that suggested a spreading evil. In the 18th century, philosophers were considering the connection between sight and touch, an idea that made its way into the world of mapmaking. Look But Don’t Touch: Tactile Illusions on Maps from the Harvard Map Collection explores this emergence of illusions on cartography.

Look But Don’t Touch involves both an extensive online exhibition, and a display at the Map Collection in Harvard University’s Pusey Library. David Weimer, librarian for cartographic collections and learning at the Map Collection, told Hyperallergic that the exhibition was inspired in part by his research on embossed atlases for the blind, which got him thinking about how cartographers expressed space as something visual.

“This exhibition is working backwards from that into some 18th-century philosophical debates about whether spatial knowledge — phenomena like size and depth — are fundamentally tactile or visual,” Weimer explained. “I had first noticed these illusions in 18th-century maps, which fit into this trajectory. But then I found way more than I expected back into the 16th century and well into the 20th.”

Robert de Vaugondy, “Carte de la Terre des Hebreux ou Israelites” (1745) (courtesy Harvard Map Collection)

The objects range from 18th-century maps of England with illustrations that appear tacked on the page, to a 1777 plan of Boston that features a surveying compass that seems to rest on the paper. An 1890 “Bird’s-eye View of the Eastern Railroad Line to the White Mountains and Mt. Desert” is visualized like a single strip of paper, chronicling the path of the railroad and steamships between Boston and Bar Harbor, Maine, while Abraham Ortelius’s 1584 map from Theatrvm Orbis Terrarvm (1584) has the illusion of an older map by Paolo Giovio of Lake Como pinned on his newer atlas.

“As maps become commodities, they, of course, are trying to entice you to buy this map instead of that unadorned or less beautiful map,” Weimer stated. “But, as I hope you can see in this exhibition, they also help teach viewers how to understand the cartographic content and also try to justify the authority of the mapmakers themselves.”…………………….


https://hyperallergic.com/408052/illusion-maps-at-harvard-map-collection/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=An%20Artist-Run%20Airline%20Promises%20Happiness%20As%20It%20Jets%20You%20to%20Art%20Fairs&utm_content=An%20Artist-Run%20Airline%20Promises%20Happiness%20As%20It%20Jets%20You%20to%20Art%20Fairs+CID_532a5096176c6bf0a82812ed433a1aa8&utm_source=HyperallergicNewsletter

AN ART NOUVEAU INTERPRETATION OF THE MINOAN WORLD

Restoring the Minoans: Elizabeth Price and Sir Arthur Evans at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World revisits the archaeology of Knossos through a contemporary video installation.
Allison Meier



Émile Gilliéron père or fils, “Acrobats Leaping over a Bull” (20th century, before 1914), watercolor on paper, after a fresco from the Court of the Stone Spout, Knossos (courtesy Harvard Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, gift of Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. image © Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, photo by Steve Gyurina)

One of the first objects that visitors encounter in Restoring the Minoans: Elizabeth Price and Sir Arthur Evans at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) in Manhattan is a forgery. Anointed “Our Lady of the Sports,” the ivory and gold statuette of a bare-chested Minoan goddess raises her arms skyward, recalling the poses of the Snake Goddesses excavated at Knossos. In the early 20th century, Minoan fakes, sometimes fabricated by the same people carrying out archaeological restorations in Crete, appeared on the market for museum and private collectors. Although their authenticity has since been questioned, at the time they were just part of a blurring between past and present, between the authentic and the artificial. It was all fueled by one archaeologist’s passion to reconstruct a civilization from its ruins.


"Statuette of a Minoan Goddess (Our Lady of the Sports)" (Probably early 20th century), ivory and gold, Crete (?) (courtesy Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, with permission of the Royal Ontario Museum, © ROM)

“Statuette of a Minoan Goddess (Our Lady of the Sports)” (Probably early 20th century), ivory and gold, Crete (?) (courtesy Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, with permission of the Royal Ontario Museum, © ROM)
Restoring the Minoans focuses on two attempts to rebuild the past from the perspective of the present, each given one gallery at ISAW. One is the work of Sir Arthur Evans, who began excavation of Knossos on the island of Crete in 1900; the other is British artist Elizabeth Price’s two-channel video installation, “A Restoration.” The 2016 piece was made the Turner Prize-winning artist as a Contemporary Art Society commission based on collections at Oxford University’s Ashmolean Museum (where Evans was keeper) and Pitt Rivers Museum. It draws on Evans’s archives, particularly the gorgeous watercolors that artistically interpreted the fragments found at Knossos.

“He celebrated the distinctiveness of this civilization from other Bronze Age Aegean cultures, and influenced how we understand the Minoans through his excavations, curatorial projects, lectures, and extensive publications, but above all through his restorations at the ‘palace’ of Knossos,” writes Restoring the Minoans co-curator and ISAW Curatorial Assistant Rachel Herschman in the accompanying catalogue.

With its labyrinth of storerooms, and recurring depictions of bulls on exhumed engraved gems, gold work, and frescos, the Bronze Age complex struck Evans as archaeological evidence of the myth of King Minos and the Minotaur. Thus it was dubbed the Palace of Minos, never mind that this myth arose post-Bronze Age. Evans called his restoration efforts a “reconstitution,” and much of it was done with that most modernist of materials: concrete.

Workers rebuilt the Palace right on the Minoan ruins, some dating back to the second millennium BCE. The wealthy Evans owned the site in Greece, so his team had incredible freedom for this bold rebuild. A Swiss father-son team, both named Émile Gilliéron, painted enhanced copies of the surviving frescos, filling in any missing pieces. Several were installed on this fresh construction. The Gilliérons’ paintings have an Art Nouveau feel in their figures, colors, and motifs, as do the sculptural replicas. The catalogue for Restoring the Minoans contrasts a plaster reproduction of a Minoan Snake Goddess to a similarly lithe lady in a Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec lithograph. As Evelyn Waugh quipped in 1929, the Minoan restorers seemed to have “tempered their zeal for accurate reconstruction with a somewhat inappropriate predilection for the covers of Vogue.”

“I looked at these drawings and saw a complicated, febrile mix of different historical moments, and it was impossible for me in that moment to entirely disentangle them,” Price told co-curator and ISAW Exhibitions Director and Chief Curator Jennifer Chi in a catalogue interview……………..


https://hyperallergic.com/410143/restoring-the-minoans-elizabeth-price-and-sir-arthur-evans/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=An%20Artist-Run%20Airline%20Promises%20Happiness%20As%20It%20Jets%20You%20to%20Art%20Fairs&utm_content=An%20Artist-Run%20Airline%20Promises%20Happiness%20As%20It%20Jets%20You%20to%20Art%20Fairs+CID_532a5096176c6bf0a82812ed433a1aa8&utm_source=HyperallergicNewsletter&utm_term=An%20Art%20Nouveau%20Interpretation%20of%20the%20Minoan%20World

THE QUIET RADICALISM AND DRY HUMOR OF EARLY GILBERT & GEORGE

The duo’s early work reveals how they opened the door to truly seeing queer bodies in art.
Zachary Small

Installation view of The General Jungle, Sonnabend Gallery, New York, 1971 (© 2017 Gilbert & George)


The massive, unfolded paper sculptures of Gilbert & George’s earliest collaborations expose the anxious meditations of artists on the cusp of a major career. Expressively drawn in the late summer of 1971, The General Jungle or Carrying on Sculpting romantically reconstitutes London’s many pristine parks as sites of Kantian contemplation or Woolfian angst. Born at the height of Minimalism’s reign over Britain, Gilbert & George’s romantic self-portrait series were initially received as rebelliously democratic. Their “Art for All” movement rebuked the prioritizing of Greenbergian “high art” snobbery. Today, the charcoal drawings are a testament to how Gilbert & George worked to soften the preening pretensions of Conceptualism in the British art scene.

Presented by Lévy Gorvy in the gallery’s London outpost on über posh Old Bond Street, Gilbert & George’s work is in rarified company. Such a location feels a bit strange for Gilbert & George, who arrived on the scene as queer outsiders uninterested in pure abstraction and esoterically Conceptual tactics. Thinking about the artists in their current context, however, helps us parse what’s so important about their early works. By spotlighting their relationship in every work, Gilbert & George insist that the viewer acknowledge their relationship. Putting a gay relationship on full view must have felt radical in 1971— homosexuality may have been decriminalized in the United Kingdom by 1967, but the deregulation only applied to private acts between two men ages 21 and up. What’s more, Gilbert & George weren’t depicting homosexuality as salacious but as ordinary — one aspect of the duo’s work is its pinpointed restraint and poignantly dry British humor.


Gilbert & George, “The Singing Sculpture.” Sonnabend Gallery, New York, 1991 (© 2017 Gilbert & George)

Upstairs at the gallery, a video of “Singing Sculpture” (1991) plays. Performed in New York’s Sonnabend Gallery in front of The General Jungle, the video involves a gilded, polychromatic Gilbert & George lackadaisically signing a version of “Underneath the Arches” from 1935. Theirs is a comedy of difference. The self-seriousness of their demeanor completely contradicts both the song and their metallurgic presentation. In the context of The General Jungle, however, this song delivers a sense of somnambulance, a daydream that Gilbert & George have fallen into.

Returning to The General Jungle’s drawings, it’s obvious that the artists savor their park strolls as moments of heavy, almost mawkish contemplation. A caption at the bottom of every image narrates the scene. “The Cold Morning Light Filters Dustily Through the Window” is one of the earliest paintings in the exhibition, and sets the tone. We see Gilbert & George set into the park’s wilderness and away from London’s palatial apartment buildings. “We Step into the Responsibility Suits of Our Art” adds a touch of self-aware melodrama. The title is both a poetic gesture to the role of the artist and a literal reference to Gilbert & George’s sartorial uniforms.


But beyond the more formal and iconographical qualities of The General Jungle, what fascinates me is the subtext of the series. Why did Gilbert & George choose places like Regent’s Park and Kew Gardens for these drawings? The gallerist I spoke with said that these parks were simply where the couple would regularly stroll. Subsequently, their dramatization of London’s parks as “jungles” underscores a general anxiety the pair has about their ethical responsibility as an artist. (Another work is titled, “Is Not Art the Only Hope for the Making Way for the Modern World to Enjoy the Sophistication of Decadent Living Expression.”)

While I can accept this reading, my skeptical side wants to dig deeper. Could these images also contain a slight reference to the queer practice of cruising? Here we have two men strolling in a park together amid the bushes and trees. (Parks are a common site for such dalliances.) There’s also a dirty, cartographic sense to their drawings. The charcoal provides a rugged, messy sense to their impressionistic style. Additionally, some captions are more insinuating than others, like “And the Night Presumes Upon the Evening” and “Nothing Breath-Taking Will Occur Here … But.” Coincidentally, these two works are the most abstract and messy paintings in the series, depicting the park’s vegetation in a blurry gust of wind rather than focusing on Gilbert & George’s presence. Where could they have gone?

Through this reading, I see Gilbert & George’s earlier works as a subtle and well executed queer reckoning for inclusion. Before the 70s, few queer subjects were depicted in art without condemnation or sensationalism. And while Minimalists and Conceptualists had their aesthetic and philosophical reasons for rejecting figuration, Gilbert & George’s use of self-portraiture opened the door to truly seeing queer bodies in art.

The General Jungle or Carrying on Sculpting continues at Lévy Gorvy (22 Old Bond Street, Mayfair, London) through December 2.


https://hyperallergic.com/413569/the-quiet-radicalism-and-dry-humor-of-early-gilbert-george/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=An%20Artist-Run%20Airline%20Promises%20Happiness%20As%20It%20Jets%20You%20to%20Art%20Fairs&utm_content=An%20Artist-Run%20Airline%20Promises%20Happiness%20As%20It%20Jets%20You%20to%20Art%20Fairs+CID_532a5096176c6bf0a82812ed433a1aa8&utm_source=HyperallergicNewsletter&utm_term=The%20Quiet%20Radicalism%20and%20Dry%20Humor%20of%20Early%20Gilbert%20%20George

EXPOSICIÓN. COLECCIÓN TELEFÓNICA. CUBISMO(S) Y EXPERIENCIAS DE LA MODERNIDAD



Juan Gris, La guitare sur la table [La guitarra sobre la mesa], 1913. Cortesía de Fundación Telefónica © Fernando Maquieira


La presente muestra reúne la Colección Cubista de Telefónica con fondos del Museo Reina Sofía para plantear una aproximación plural a la experiencia cubista Si cualquier estudio en torno a este movimiento supone reconocer la prevalencia de la obra de Pablo Picasso y Georges Braque, resulta también pertinente atender a las formulaciones de Juan Gris sobre las que se centra gran parte del argumento expositivo. Esta premisa, no solo lícita y posible, sino incluso, deseable, permite considerar la naturaleza y las implicaciones complejas y heterogéneas del cubismo y sus ramificaciones, de la mano también de otros artistas como María Blanchard, Rafael Barradas, Albert Gleizes o Vicente Huidobro.