I had no expectations for the day once my pal, the estimable Simon, suggested YSP as our destination given the good weather. I had no idea of the show until we were pulling onto the driveway…that turned out to be the sculpture of Robert Indiana. Of course I knew of the Love logo piece…I’ve seen one version in New York, another in Berlin and, gawd help me, one at Chatsworth years back I think! Other than that it would have been hard for me to recall more than a painting or two in the standard reference books on 20c. US Art.
Pretty much the ‘classic’ version
So imagine my surprise to find out that Robert was an early adopter of my Paintings Standing Up schtick! I’d wager that few of us here, in the UK at least, knew of the broader output of this – as it turns out – fascinating artist. The range of the sculptural work was really breathtaking. Again I have to declare my interest that much of the work deployed text, something often close to my heart as is also the case with found objects.
Gallery Two
All in all the experience was, for me, an increasingly rare one. Many of the shows I see are highly enjoyable but relatively unsurprising but here was something totally unexpected and very rewarding. It turns out that maybe one of my recent chosen texts (taken from The Character Of Atoms by Lucretius)isn’t as cut and dried as it might appear (spoiler alert; he was right).
Only share…experiences with those you trust completely. First trip out of the district since the self imposed ‘lockdown’ and some five plus months since the last time. To dear old YSP with my chum Simon and it was a treat…not nearly as tricky or odd as might have been expected. Yes we were masked in the buildings (other than in the restaurant where we managed a nice table out on the verandah) but otherwise much as before. Lets hope it stays that way (though despite a general consensus of government. media and – it must be said – much of the public cases seem inexorably to be creeping up again*).
The legendary Simon at work…reflected in Vasconcelos’ work I’ll Be Your Mirror
What of the art then? I enjoyed both offerings. Joana Vasconcelos is big, bright, jazzy, post modernist internationalism with a good dose of feminism, local culture (Fado, Catholic symbolism etc. – she’s Portugese) whilst Brian Fell is rooted in modernism, an Abstract Expressionist cum New Generation vibe (I immediately thought of sculptors like David Smith and particularly Ibram Lassaw on the one hand and early abstract Caro, King and Witkin etc. on the other – though Brian is mostly in the more complex physical spaces of the earlier of these). Both rewarding in their own ways; inevitably my personal interaction with Brian’s work more satisfying given our ages, cultural reference points and aesthetics.
Brian Fell
So a good trip out…next week back to Derby for a further dose of 20c. modernism with Ronald Pope as well as a show by previous Vickers award winners. As for the studio…
Botanicals 1, Oil & acrylic on canvas, 8 x 8″
Botanicals…a group of small paintings with quite a history even by my tortuous machinations. I’m fairly sure these started back in 2007 in the backwash from my bypass op. certainly there’s a number of clues in some of the forms. They were fiddled with for a year or so before being bundled into the store cupboard at Harrington Mill until I left there in, I think 2014/5? Back at the Chapel they went back into storage – and might have stayed there but for the ‘lockdown’. But now they are being revised, reworked and put to bed.
Botanicals 2, Oil & acrylic on canvas, 8 x 8″
My paper has a headline telling me that 67 cases have appeared in NZ implying that they are ‘failing’…meanwhile no mention (unless you search it out) that the UK recorded 1400 + that same day…)
I imagine there might be a few grumbles amongst the sculpture fraternity that Sean Scully is showing sculpture (with paintings, prints, drawings and photographs) up at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.After all his reputation rests mainly on his body of paintings made over the past half century.But its quite a coup for the place nonetheless as Scully is surely one of the biggest beasts to have shown there over the years.Its well worth a visit as it is showing concurrently with Giuseppe Penone, another ‘big beast’ of the Arte Povera group making YSP quite a classy destination at present.
And it gave me pause for thought that – by and large – the work as a whole showed off Scully’s talents and clear sighted approach to great effect.Its the latter characteristic that got me thinking.Right from the get go Scully has gone after his objective of making relevant abstract paintings for our time.His early work utilised grids at a time when they were much in vogue, but drawing upon observations and feelings of things seen in the world, progressed to a more closed, indeed sealed in, disposition whilst billeted (for the most part) in late seventies NYC before breaking out into an art that is abstract but routed so firmly in the emotional and geophysical that he can rightly claim that they are not abstract at all.Like most of us of pensionable age he is now in a furious race against time with so much to do aesthetically and inevitably a closing door in which to do it!The sculptures have come along in recent years and, as he was at pains to point out in his lecture, have been conceived and executed with the same lucidity as his other work.They are in effect paintings in three dimensions with the materiality being the main spring of their presence in the world.He also stressed the vital importance of truth to material in these works – that also got me thinking.Take Moor Shadow Stack – my pal Paul (who knows a thing or two about installing big works!) and myself were speculating earlier in the day that the piece must have been constructed of carefully engineered hollow slabs but his talk made such a play of the material quality being informed by its solidity that I’m now convinced that all the sculptures on show were solid objects (either that or he’s damn clever at convincing me!).
Crate Of Air, Sean Scully, 2018
If I have minor concerns (and they are so) then it is firstly in the sighting of Crate Of Air, a monumental piece, that I felt was a little cramped in its placing.Ideally it would dominate the lower lawn facing the lake in my opinion.Mind that would have involved relocating the Caro that I suspect the heroic installation team might have cavilled at given the scale of the undertaking. My other niggle is the surface quality of the paintings.Like most I’ve seen in the past five or ten years they are made on sheet aluminium using (what I think) is a proprietary aluminium primer that allows the luscious quality of the oil to sit on top.This gives the work in some light (particularly pale grey Yorkshire autumn light) rather a pasty sheen that I’m not so sure about.
However these are very minor issues (for me, let alone anyone else) and the paintings looked wonderful in the big open space of the Longside Gallery.Several of those on show I’m fairly sure had come from his 2015 and 2017 Chaim & Read shows (that by good fortune I happened to see) – the big multi panel painting Blue Note certainly was central to the Wall Of Light Cubed exhibition.The opportunity to see it alongside other works and set against the sculptural works in a generous space (everything being a bit cramped in Chelsea) was a real treat!
we were. My pal Simon and myself at the terrific Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Back on form and showing one of the UK’s finest cultural exports, Tony Cragg after a year or two of rather desperate material. I cannot recommend this show highly enough – it demonstrates that there is still a place for work that, in addition to being physically substantial , is also intellectually and – yes – spiritually strong enough to dominate both the cavernous galleries and the landscape in which they are located. I will review the show over on my Cloughie’s Eyes site after a second visit but go see for yourself it will be worth it.
And now I’m off…to spend some time in Northern Tuscany over Easter…and work on yet another of my various projects – Lavanderia – that has been entirely conceived and (so far at least) executed over there. So sadly I shall miss the opening of Colour: A Kind Of Bliss, showing now in the Crypt of St. Marylebone Parish Church. But if you can go and take a look! And if you cannot…here’s a sneak peek of it with one of my works far left…
Plainly Painting - David Manley 