“their judgement of artwork may be faulty”…Many, many moons ago I worked in an art gallery, and the Director (just returned from NYC) gave me a piece of paper. Its here now…
Although it was written (gawd help us) nearly forty years back much of it, despite the many changes in the art world, still stands. It was the dealer Ivan Karp who, having had enough of artists pestering him, wrote it to stem the flow. Goodness knows what he’d make of today’s art market. But its that last sentence that resonates with me right now. And what stands for dealers and gallerists and curators (what vulgar, squalid words they are!) equally stands for judges in competitions. I know many of them are artists too, but generally they are those whose primary objective is not making work but ‘networking’ and ‘brown nosing’ the aforementioned thus rendering their judgment equally faulty. Its in my mind as yet another competition has passed me by…or not (as I’ve observed of late, that many of these exercises in fleecing artists of their meagre funds, they often ‘extend’ deadlines to pull in yet more gullible punters) and I marvel at the plausibilty of all of us – I’m not immune as I, albeit occasionally, do it myself – in falling for the lure of bright lights and associated fame promised by the tiny odds of success.
Here’s the site of the Birmingham Library…with a good view of the Birmingham Library! The site being the Central Library that opened in 1974 just after I arrived in the city as a post-graduate student…boy…that makes me feel old! Tempus Fugit… Luckily although the entrance faces this construction site the Museum & Art Gallery is still accessible and, as it happens, in excellent form at present. As per our usual we got stuck into the comestibles first – we have our priorities right – and the cake selection and the staff make the grand Edwardian Tea Rooms a real pleasure as well as a beautiful space (score one to Tangye brothers). After that a stroll through the galleries is always rewarding and at present a wonderfully thoughtful and well curated show sits in the middle of the building.
…who was born in the 50’s in Western Europe. At least those of us with sufficient disposable income to afford the occasional cheap flight across the continent (and who knows how many decades that will be sustainable). But we can, and we do, take these trips that my parents would have found quite unobtainable. This time to the ‘Eternal City’ of Rome. Of course the ubiquity of such travel means that the ‘romance’ of such locations is a little tempered by the vast armies of us fetching up in places such as the Trevi Fountain.
I had planned to visit the big set piece museums of contemporary art, MAXXI, Macro and the National Museum. But once here desire evaporated. After all with several thousand years of the most creative endeavour on every street corner just strolling around is a visual education second to none. So instead it has been the most enjoyable flaneur punctuated by the occasional lunch or drink stop. Though fate always plays a part and suddenly we are at the Ponte Sisto and across the river from us is an extraordinary frieze, some 12 metres high and 500 long, by one of my favourite contemporary artists, William Kentridge. The ingenious manner in which the work was realised by washing off the grime in reverse is matched only by the freshness of the drawing despite the technical difficulties of translating small drawings up to such massive size.
