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Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence at the MFA Boston
From March 26 to July 23, 2023, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will host the exhibition “Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence”, featuring more than 90 works by one of the greatest masters of Japanese Art
Source: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston · Image: Katsushika Hokusai, “Red Fuji” (c.1830–31)
Taking a new approach to the work of the ever-popular Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), this major exhibition explores in detail his impact on other artists—both during his lifetime and beyond. Throughout a career of more than 70 years, Hokusai experimented with a wide range of styles and subjects, producing landscapes such as the instantly recognizable Great Wave and Red Fuji (both about 1830–31), nature studies known as “bird-and-flower pictures,” and depictions of women, heroes, and monsters.
The exhibition brings together over 90 woodblock prints, paintings, and illustrated books by Hokusai with some 170 works by his teachers, students, rivals, and admirers. These unique juxtapositions demonstrate Hokusai’s influence through time and space—seen in works by, among others, his daughter Katsushika Ōi, his contemporaries Utagawa Hiroshige and Utagawa Kuniyoshi, the 19th-century French Japonistes, and modern and contemporary artists including Loïs Mailou Jones, Yayoi Kusama, John Cederquist and Yoshitomo Nara.
Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence is organized thematically, with sections focused on Hokusai’s teachers and students, surimono (privately commissioned prints), the origins of Japonisme, landscapes, nature studies and depictions of heroes and monsters. The largest section, located at the center of the exhibition, is dedicated to Under the Wave off Kanagawa (The Great Wave) (1830–31). The print is presented alongside works that riff on or directly cite Hokusai’s iconic image, from John Cederquist’s How to Wrap Five Waves (1994–95) and Roy Lichtenstein’s Drowning Girl (1963, Museum of Modern Art, New York) to Andy Warhol’s The Great Wave (After Hokusai) (1980–87, The Andy Warhol Museum) and a Lego recreation (2021) by certified master builder Jumpei Mitsui.
“The MFA is home to one of the largest and most significant collections of Hokusai’s works in the world, making us uniquely positioned to tell the story of his enduring appeal and his impact on other artists,” said Sarah E. Thompson, Curator of Japanese Art. “We hope visitors enjoy this new look at the legacy of the ever-popular painter, book illustrator and print designer.”
It seems that the modern art world wants the artist to be restricted to the haul and carry, booth setup, travel, out of town hotel expenses, adverse weather, damage to artwork, and watch the crowds meander by art show circuit rather than using local art for interior decorating or serious art show displays in art centers or galleries. Communities like art shows that draw crowds and money into their area, and seem determined to keep the art show circuit working to their own advantage.
What’s wrong with using local art for decorating that represents our community or state? I have tried for many years to get interior decorators and designers, hotel builders, local art galleries, etc., to purchase and display my artwork, but they will not do so. I do have my prints for sale in local retail shops, and people do like and purchase my artwork, and I have placed high in online art contests, but I have given up trying to break into the larger markets that seem to be dominated only by money and huge discounts for interior decorators or art dealers who purchase artwork. I have sold through interior decorators in the past, but that is not the case today.
Shouldn’t ALL types of art be given a chance to be seen and appreciated? Artists today are in the same situation as artists in the past when new forms of art began to take over the old ways of doing things, but meeting with great resistance from the art world establishment.
As an artist, I am motivated by deeper thoughts than producing an artwork of appropriate, matching colors to hang on a wall and then never look at it again for the next fifty years. There is nothing wrong with abstract art, and many people like it, but I am not motivated to produce it, and I should also have a chance to do my kind of art.
I am a photographer and writer, and I produce many different types of artwork. Some photographs I sell as straight images, others I manipulate with digital artistic software to create artworks, and on some I like to add text that includes my poetry or thoughts. I also like to produce motivational and inspirational works which seem to be taboo to many people in today’s world! In any case, my end product is a print, either a photograph or a print made on a printer, so it can be reproduced in larger numbers. That type of artwork doesn’t seem to be appreciated as a work of art, just as a cheap print that anyone can produce with an iPhone in today’s world.
Our community is building a new cultural center that will open this summer, and they advertise and brag about bringing in displays and art shows from outside of the area to attract crowds, and they offer no opportunity for local artists to show there. It is really a slap in the face to local artists who might have something worthwhile to show, and visitors to the city might really enjoy seeing local artworks that portray the history of the community or other areas of interest, including statewide images.
The modern art world needs to change. Art galleries need to change. Arts organizations need to change. Art should be available for everyone to enjoy, not only for the rich to purchase it for investment purposes and then hide it away in private galleries to let it grow in value. Art should have something to say and be created for beauty, inspiration, and motivation, not just for money. Yes, we all like to make money from our work and be rewarded for our time and effort, but the artist should not just be motivated by money and following popular trends that sell. We are not helping the world by following that criteria for creating artworks; and I’m sorry to say that the world needs much help today.
I don’t think that change in the art world will happen in my lifetime, but we are in the modern age of technology, and perhaps change will come about in the coming years as people realize that we need art to help us understand the world, not just add color to a room!
After Impressionism: exhibition in London explores the richness and complexity of post-impressionist art
From 25 March to 13 August 2023, the National Gallery presents “After Impressionism”, an exhibition that brings together for the first time the radical art of European cities from 1886 to 1914.
Source: The National Gallery · Image: Paul Cézanne: ‘Grandes Baigneuses’, National Gallery, London
While celebrating Paris as the international artistic capital ‘After Impressionism’ will also be one of the first exhibitions to focus on the exciting and often revolutionary artistic developments across other European cities during this period. Starting with the towering achievements of Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Rodin, visitors will be able to journey through the art of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries created in cities such as Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Vienna and Barcelona. The exhibition closes with some of the most significant modernist works, ranging from Expressionism to Cubism and Abstraction
‘After Impressionism’ explores two main themes in the development of the visual arts in Europe at this time: ‐ the break with conventional representation of the external world,; and the forging of non-naturalist visual languages with an emphasis on the materiality of the art object expressed through line, colour, surface, texture and pattern.
Highlights of this wide-ranging international survey include André Derain’s ‘La Danse’ (Private collection), Edgar Degas’s ‘Dancers in the Foyer’ (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen); Paul Cézanne’s ‘Grandes Baigneuses’ (National Gallery, London); Edvard Munch’s ‘The Death Bed’ (KODE Bergen Art Museums, Bergen); Paul Gauguin’s ‘Vision of the Sermon’ (National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh); Camille Claudel’s ‘Imploration / l’Implorante’ (Musée Camille Claudel, Nogent-sur-Seine); and Lovis Corinth’s ‘Nana, Female Nude’ (Saint Louis Art Museum, St Louis.).
Lenders to the exhibition include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Art Institute of Chicago; Musée Rodin, Paris; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; Museu nacional d’arte de Catalunya, Barcelona; Tate; and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut.
‘After Impressionism’ is curated by the art historian and curator MaryAnne Stevens and Christopher Riopelle, the National Gallery’s Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings, with art historian and curator Julien Domercq. MaryAnne Stevens says: ‘In this exhibition we seek to explore and define the complexities of a period in art, and in wider cultural manifestations, that can assert the claim to have broken links with tradition and laid the foundations for the art of the 20th and 21st centuries.’
“Monet/Mitchell: Painting the French Landscape” is the first exhibition in America to examine the relationship between the paintings of two masters of their medium: the French artist Claude Monet (1840-1926) and the American artist Joan Mitchell (1925-1992). The exhibition presents 24 paintings, 12 by each artist, and will closely follow the development of Mitchell’s work from 1968 until 1992, a period when she lived in the small village of Vétheuil, France overlooking a house once inhabited by Monet. Organized in partnership with the Fondation Louis Vuitton and the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris, the exhibition adapts the Paris presentation of “Monet-Mitchell” now at the Fondation Louis Vuitton by incorporating eight different works by Mitchell and two by Monet.
In 1968, Abstract Expressionist painter Joan Mitchell moved to the small village of Vétheuil in the north of France, where she would continue to live and work for the rest of her life overlooking a house where Claude Monet had lived between 1878 and 1881. The artist, a contemporary of Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Philip Guston, already counted the late Impressionist amongst her influences, but it was during this time period that she most intimately shared an interest in Monet’s most enduring subject: the landscape and flora of northern France. Their gestural and energetic canvases reflect a mutual affinity with the landscape, rivers, and rolling fields of the greater Paris region.
“Monet and Mitchell fearlessly and exuberantly upended the established traditions within their medium, and it is a joy to bring their monumental paintings together for our community to experience,” said Min Jung Kim, the Barbara B. Taylor Director of the Saint Louis Art Museum. “We are thrilled to present these two artists in dialogue with one another, and thank the Fondation Louis Vuitton and the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris for their generous loans to our exhibition.”
The exhibition examines the relationship to nature of these two artists and the ways in which they addressed similar themes of trees, earth, water, and flowers, as well as the inspiration of Monet and Mitchell’s gardens at Giverny and nearby Vétheuil, respectively. The exhibition also shows how Mitchell’s compositional formats, and vibrant, gestural style took inspiration from Monet’s. Mitchell’s vivid brushstrokes, saturated colors, and depiction of sunlight create an evocative sense of memory and feeling within her paintings, which abandoned formal composition and perspective. Monet’s later works, bold and undoubtedly abstract, were defined by their lack of formality, and are revered by generations for his brilliant, unexpected use of color and capturing of fleeting light. Monumental in scale and overwhelming in impact, the works in the exhibition highlight the fascination both painters had for expansive, panoramic formats, and their shared mastery of light, color, and expressive brushwork.
ARCHIVIO ARTEVENTO – Aquilone Aristide Prandelli – Photo by Wolfgang Bieck
ARTEVENTO CERVIA is the first event in the world that viewed the kite as visual and performance art, blurring the lines between contemporary expression, theater, dance, circus, and puppetry.
This year it will be attended by 250 professional kite artists from 5 continents and over 2000 enthusiasts from all over the World!
From 21 April to 1 May 2023, on Cervia’s Pinarella Beach (Italy), 250 designers and pilots selected from among the most significant interpreters of a millenary tradition, in constant dialogue with the environment, will join over 2000 enthusiasts for the 43rd Edition of ARTEVENTO CERVIA, the original festival dedicated to kites and the environment, which has become a cult event for both promoters of the wind art and lovers of green tourism as well as sustainable creativity. In simultaneous flight, the event will show the most complete presentation of artistic, ethnic, historical, giant, sport, acrobatic, and even combat kites! All visitors and participants will dive into the magical practice that was born over 2500 years ago.
In the enchanting location at the southern gateway to the Po Delta Park, amidst salt marshes, pinewoods and the sea, the world’s first event dedicated to kites as an art form has been held since 1981. It is in Cervia, in fact, that the ‘artists of the wind’, new voices of an avant-garde poetic language, yet rooted in the history of mankind, have found their elective home over the course of more than four decades, experimenting with the effectiveness of this original artistic medium.
ARCHIVIO ARTEVENTO – Aquilone Gerard Clement – Photo by Wolfgang Bieck
International artists who have made art history of the calibre of Jackie Matisse, Yayoi Kusama, Tal Streeter, Mimmo Paladino, Robert Rauschenberg, Curt Asker, Niki de Saint Phalle, Emilio Vedova, Karl Otto Götz, Jean Tinguely and Tom Wesselmann, Kazuo Shiraga (whose kite was sold by the Nagel auction house in Berlin last February for a record sum of € 1,140,000) and many others have used the kite as a means of artistic expression, creating true works of art. Jackie Matisse, granddaughter of Henri Matisse, for example, was a real fan of wind art: one day she saw a kite flying over the rooftops of Harlem in New York – a “line drawn in the sky” – and became fixated “on the idea of creating kites… using the sky as a canvas”. In 1995, she signed the Art Volant Manifesto and throughout his life he has created multiple works of ‘flying art’ with his brightly coloured kites used for performances designed to emphasise the ephemeral force of ‘chance’ in the artistic act that dialogues with the natural environment.
And it is precisely through the kite, as the paradigm of a new language of artistic creativity, that the ARTEVENTO CERVIA festival celebrates for the 43rd consecutive edition the reason that has made it the destination of an unmissable pilgrimage, namely the fact that it represents the cradle of a specific artistic current that has found its “place of the soul” on the Cervia beach. It will be , suitable for a diverse audience and spectators of all ages and abilities;The programme includes displays of artistic, ethnic, historical, and giant kites, acrobatic flight displays to the rhythm of music, multidisciplinary dance-theatre and contemporary circus performances, exhibitions, didactic workshops, night performances, the Flag Ceremony, the Special Award for Flying Merits, the Night of Miracles, the STACK Italia acrobatic flight championship, installations, air sculptures, a market, a food area, and much more.
ARCHIVIO ARTEVENTO – Aquiloni Claudio Capelli – Photo by Gerhard Zitzmann
In the name of a poetic of wonder between arts and cultures, the historic festival that has made Cervia not simply a kite capital but the world home of the art of wind, returns to celebrate the symbolic power of the rainbow with a record edition: 50 delegations from 5 continents will be present to promote peace, inclusion and environmental sustainability, with 11 days of unmissable entertainment.
ARTEVENTO CERVIA for 2023 will welcome as Guests of Honour the young ambassadors of Maori culture in the world of the Kaimatariki Trust & Te Kura O Hirangi group, coming to Cervia from the City of Turangi. Welcomed to Italy under the patronage of the New Zealand Embassy in Rome, the Maori delegation of 27 performers will be the protagonists, on the beach of Pinarella, of an extraordinary show that will include, along with the presentation of the anthropomorphic aboriginal kite, also performances of kapa haka (an exhibition of different Maori songs and dances) and waiata songs on the central stage of the Festival Village and a meeting with the public at the Maori Tent, located in the centre of the Wind Fair.
ARCHIVIO ARTEVENTO – Photo by Team Maori
The Homage to ‘Images for the Sky’ with Mimmo Paladino and Master Masaaki Sato
The main theme of the 43rd edition of ARTEVENTO CERVIA will be a tribute to the “Images for the Sky” collection (created in 1989 by Paul Eubel under the aegis of the Goethe-Institut in Osaka) with the presentation of the restoration of Mimmo Paladino’s kite commissioned by the artist himself to Dr. Nella Poggi Parigi, one of the leading experts in the conservation and restoration of works of art on paper. Dr. Poggi’s consultant, as a scholar of the history and culture of kites, Caterina Capelli art director of ARTEVENTO CERVIA, followed the entire process of the restoration operation starting from its presentation in the prestigious venue of the Vatican Museums, during a conference that also emphasised the role of the Cervia festival as the main international observatory on kite art. On the kite constructed by Japanese masters Kazuo Tamura and Shoei Ogasawara, Campania artist Mimmo Paladino chose to depict a Vitruvian man with donkey ears surrounded by symbolic presences and golden brushstrokes, adding to the poetic value of the support the strength of a metaphorical representation that is both essential and powerful.
Also paying homage to “Images for the Sky” will be the presence of Wind Master Masaaki Sato. It is to the latter, the protagonist of the 43rd edition’s collateral exhibition under the patronage of the Japanese Institute of Culture, that ARTEVENTO CERVIA assigns the Special Award for Merits of Flight 2023, presented over the years to personalities promoting environmental and social sustainability such as, among others, Lucio Dalla, Tonino Guerra, Franco Arminio and Gherardo Colombo. Master Sato, with the contribution of the cicada kite made for the Viennese artist Hundertwasser, was one of the masters custodians of the ancient art of the Japanese kite involved in “Images for the Sky”, of which he is to all intents and purposes one of the last precious witnesses. ARTEVENTO CERVIA thus wishes to pay homage to Eubel’s historic project that valorised the idea behind the festival, that of making the kite, a cultural asset with a history stretching back thousands of years and a symbol of peace and environmental sustainability, the perfect trait d’union linking East and West, past and future, tradition and innovation, knowledge of the hands and intangible cultural heritage, through the art that gives form and colour to the primordial desire to fly, celebrating the marvels of creativity between human dreams and needs, and above all making us feel united in our diversity, because we are all flying in the same sky.
ARTEVENTO CERVIA has achieved great success over the years thanks to a rich and unique format which is once again being used in 2023. Themes, artists and events are as follows:
PROTAGONISTS: among the Masters of the Wind, guests of the 43rd edition: Michel Gressier (France), among the personalities who drafted the Wind Art Manifesto together with Jackie Matisse; Kadek Armika (Bali), winner of the first prize for best original work at the Festival du Cerf Volant in Dieppe 2022; Makoto Ohye (Japan); Robert Trepanier (Canada), is part of the Quebec Ministry of Education’s directory for his teaching activities and actively collaborates with Cirque du Soleil and the company Theatre Ciel Ouvert; George Peters (USA), has realised more than 80 national and international interventions commissioned by private, public and corporate institutions and has curated the image of Barack Obama’s campaign for the State of Colorado; Carl Robertshaw (UK), has created visionary set designs for the Superbowl, the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, the likes of Bjork, Anthony and the Johnsons, Peter Gabriel, Nora Jones, Katy Perry and Alicia Keys, and fused the world of kites and puppetry in the performance The Hatchling presented to Queen Elizabeth at the Platinum Jubileum; Claudio Capelli (Italy), the creator of the festival and founder of ARTEVENTO, the first to imagine a contamination between visual and performing arts modulated by the energy of the wind in the form of an international event.
GUESTS OF HONOUR: the Maori team – Kaimatariki Trust & Te Kura O Hirangi from New Zealand. The kite as an opportunity for a valuable encounter between cultures to celebrate peace and get to know the host countries not only through the tradition of wind art but also through performances of theatre, dance, performance disciplines and folklore.
WIND GARDENS: the largest open-air exhibition of air sculptures and wind installations from around the world to celebrate environmental art and promote wind power as an inexhaustible source of renewable energy.
EXHIBITIONS AND LABORATORIES: the informative and educational activities of the Kite Museum to get to know one of the most fascinating and versatile human inventions, the subject of anthropological, historical and scientific research and emblem of a sacred relationship between man and the environment.
MEMORABLE PROGRAMME: “The Night of Miracles” (an original immersive show that has become emblematic of the spirit of the festival: collective performance of wind art, music and lights on the seashore), the “Special Award for Flying Merits”, the “Flag Ceremony”, the Kite Parade, Kite Aerial Photography demonstrations, acrobatic ballets in time to the music, STACK sport kite competitions and the original proposal of dance, puppetry, theatre and contemporary circus to build a poetics of wonder through the contamination of the arts. On the programme, performances of kapa haka and waiata songs by the Maori Kaimatariki Trust & Te Kura O Hirangi Team, Balinese dance-theatre performances and shows by Circo Madera (contemporary theatre-circus, without animals)
FESTIVAL VILLAGE: ‘Wind Fair’ and ‘Grand Circus Bazar’, kite and craft market, contemporary circus chapiteu.
A unique exhibition of wind artists, ARTEVENTO CERVIA is for this very reason an unmissable appointment for the most extraordinary interpreters of KAP, the practice of taking aerial photographs using a device carried aloft by a kite, as the meaning of the acronym KAP makes clear: Kite Aerial Photography.
Practised for 136 years not only as an artistic medium, but also in the fields of archaeology, geology and zoology, KAP is represented at ARTEVENTO CERVIA by its undisputed masters and by a large group of enthusiasts determined to prefer the ecological flight of the kite to the more impactful solution of the drone for reasons of sustainability as well as artistic poetics.
Realised during the festival, the reportages set in the territory’s most identifiable locations become in turn an opportunity for in-depth studies, as in the case of the collateral exhibition dedicated to the undisputed Master of aerial photography Wolfgang Bieck (Germany), set in the evocative industrial archaeology area of the Magazzini del Sale (Salt Warehouses) in the historic centre of the city of Cervia.
ARCHIVIO ARTEVENTO – Aquilone Ron Gibian – Photo by Wolfgang Bieck
Environment
With the motto “we are the rainbow”, the festival dedicated to wind art chooses all the colours of the rainbow as its flag to celebrate pluralism, dialogue and inclusion as instruments of peace, while at the same time identifying in that colourful bridge between earth and sky the emblem of a sacred relationship between man and the environment, a perfect prodrome of the environmentalist spirit that makes this spring event the great festival of sustainability.
In a stimulating climate marked by psychophysical wellbeing, through the wonder engendered by its spectacle and rich programming, for over 40 years ARTEVENTO CERVIA has been boosting a model of interdisciplinarity and multiculturalism inspired by environmental sustainability and social responsibility, encouraging the activation of inclusive and conscious collective good practices and promoting some of the goals of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Precisely on the common thread of sustainability, the festival will dedicate some artistic and popular insights to the bee, a pollinating insect emblematic of the rebirth and renewal of nature. ARTEVENTO thus celebrates the formative value of the experience of play and the effectiveness of active learning through the Educational Workshops of the Kite Museum, choosing the bee as the symbol of the training course dedicated to the youngest: a real school of kites.
ARTEVENTO CERVIA International Kite Festival is organised by ARTEVENTO with the patronage and cooperation of Regione Emilia Romagna, Municipality of Cervia, New Zealand Embassy, Japanese Cultural Institute, APT Servizi, Consorzio Aquiloni, BPER Banca, Cooperativa Bagnini Spiagge Cervia.
I was born in Le Creusot in 1965. Following an unruly childhood and a troubled adolescence I was attracted to woodworking, and enrolled in the Lycée Bonaparte in Autun, earning my diploma there in 1981. During those years I got to know the special world of restoring antique furniture, which shook up the ideas about production I’d been taught in school. I spent the next 20 years as a furniture restorer, learning about the ingenuity, sensitivity and beauty of our ancestors’ work, and bringing the objects they made back to life.
“I’m an artisan who experiments with new ways of making furniture”
The secret world of the restorer encompasses many skills, much like those of a surgeon, who performs grafts to replace damaged areas and adds new veneer ‘skins’, and the hairdresser, who exercises his knowledge of chemistry to revitalize colors, or the locksmith, who restores worn-out locks … it’s a profession that requires an unusual bag of tricks as well as knowledge and patience, and includes stripping, sanding, ginning, polishing and varnishing wood, and an endless amount of rubbing. It’s also frequently unacknowledged, since its goal is to blend the restoration work with the original piece, the restorer’s work is invisible.
Didier Guenard’s workshop
I took an evening ceramics class at the School of Fine Arts in Chalon-sur-Saône in 1982, and a drawing class in 1988, which increased my skill in making quick sketches. In 1990 I put on my first outdoor exhibition, presenting a few paintings, some figurative wooden sculptures, and a miniature walnut wardrobe, a masterpiece that combined all my areas of expertise. That year I got married and in 1992 we bought an old stone house in ruins. I spent the next three years restoring it for our growing family.
The next creative project I tackled was the“Diaposaurus”. It begun in late 1996 and took more than 1000 hours to complete. Starting in 1998 I presented it in a variety of venues such as the Château de Pommard. In the summer of 2003 it was exhibited in Dompierre les-Ormes at the European Gallery of the Forest and Wood, where it was viewed by more than 15,000 enthusiastic visitors.
“Diaposaurus” by Didier Guenard
I finished the “Diaposaurus”, the creative equivalent of walking the Way of Saint James, in 1998. This multipurpose cabinet of curiosities recounts the legend of the Burgundian dragon known as La Vouivre. Made with fossils I found as a child in the vine yards of the Chalon wine-growing region, and wood I acquired here and there as an adult, this complex and refined piece transcends life on earth. It includes 16 varieties of local and exotic wood, forged steel rods with several different patinas, resin and fiber glass light fixtures, and many fossils, pebbles, sand and glass marbles that make up the cornucopia mosaic.
The different woods used in this piece were turned, sculpted, and include marquetry. It had six drawers, one cylindrical with a sprung ejection mechanism that can be used to store a bottle, and another with a retractable curtain closing. Pushing the button made of boxwood burl makes the midnight blue writing table advance, revealing a half-cylindrical pen holder. Opening the door with the horn handle reveals partitions and two small drawers with varnished interiors. It goes without saying that this piece also contains a secret space … location of which must remain a secret!
Details of “Diaposaurus” by Didier Guenard
After completing the “Diaposaurus” I took a recreational break and delved into a more Art Brut approach, using old acacia wood fence posts. After reworking them with a drawer-knife, I combined the posts with old slate pool tables and old metal to create a prehistoric effect reminiscent of the “Rahan”comic books I used to enjoy.
My next collection anticipated the total eclipse of the sun in 1999. These pieces include thick steel rims from old wagon wheels that were worn by being driven over paving stones. The soldered arcs act as both a design element and form the structure that sup ports the repurposed stone and wooden components, which are made of old wine barrels.
As a young woodworker my nickname was Diogenes, and I used the phrase “metamorphosis of the barrel”when I presented my work. As I gradually discovered the potential of the curved barrel stave and became an expert in its use I decided to set off on a new adventure and made my first pirate’s trunk, which led me to the “Barque du petit Béta” and the “Fauteuil à pépé”. I showed my work – the first pieces in the Diogenes, Rahan, and Eclipse collections – in a little chapel in the village of Corlay during the summer of 1999 as part of the “Eclipse” exhibition, and sold almost all of them the same year.
Encouraged by my success, I built a workshop extension onto my home and became an official furniture maker in 2001. During the same period I took part in the “Trophées du Net 2001”, organized by PME 71 and the Journal de Saône-et-Loire. I also built the “La Vache à roulette” (“The Cow on Wheels”), a trolley used for ceremonial serving of bread and cheese at the Hostellerie Bourguignonne owned by Didier Denis in Verdun-Sur-Le-Doubs.
The year my workshop opened I also took part in a symposium organized by the Conseil Général de Saône-et-Loire at the European Gallery of the Forest and Wood in Dompierre-les-Ormes, and sculpted the “Fœtus vegetal” from a block of limestone that I worked directly in the block. The following year I sculpted “Le cri de l’Orme” from a piece of elm 2.2 meters high. Many people have ordered farm tables from me. They’re made from re-machined wood from the wine industry; the seats and backs of the chairs that go with them are fashioned from old Burgundian barrels. Curved steel semi-circles are soldered together and reused in the architecture of these pieces, giving new life to ancient wagon wheel rims.
In 2003 I had the opportunity to try my hand at interior design when the beer cave “La Billebaude”in the town of Givry asked me to create their décor. This is the only time I’ve designed a public space. At the same time I entered “Dionysus” in the European Bacchus competition, and won the “Grand International Creativity Prize 2002/2003” in Florence. This armchair-ship brings together African, Greek, Celtic and Roman influences in a timeless way.
“Dionysus” by Didier Guenard
These transcendent curves lend themselves to pieces influenced by the medieval era was well as other periods and places, such as Africa, Greece, and Burgundy: the cradle of humankind, the first vowel and first letter of the alphabet, the origins of the barrel, the spiral staircase that resembles a Burgundian snail …
I made the “Barrel and Chariot Wheel Collection” between 2002 and 2005 as I dreamed of the days when steel-rimmed wagon wheels rolled on cobblestones as they transported barrels to wine cellars…
“I began to invent a new language with my hands”
In 2006 I had to stop building furniture full time because I became a teacher in the woodworking section of the ESAT in Crissey. There I learned to manage production and accompany students while continuing my creative work on a part-time basis. I alternated between the school, fallow periods, restoration work, and building extensions on our home.
I made this “Reception desk” for my eldest daughter’s Bed and Breakfast in 2013. The façade of the L-shaped desk is the counter; it is ideal for welcoming clients and placing a computer. The piece is entirely made of repurposed solid oak, originally used in wine vats, and barrel staves. The staves were re-machined and glued together to create new shapes that were then assembled with other shapes, resulting in an architectural construction that features a variety of rounded forms.
Reception desk by Didier Guenard
The rounded forms and horizontal surfaces are joined by invisible dovetail joints, the most complex and least apparent technique for assembling wooden furniture. Shelving under the desk provides storage place for documents. There is also a secret hiding place, a small retractable litter basket, and a spinning key holder mounted on ball bearings under the desk area.
My first hybrid pieces date from 2014 and include square steel tubes. “Jeu de mains” took off in a new direction and allowed me, thanks to the metal I incorporated, to look beyond the architectural possibilities of wood alone. As my work continued to evolve I began making more sculptural pieces in 2016, opening the door to fresh possibilities with my first figurative works.
“The Archer” was the first character I made from metamorphosed barrels. This timeless piece, from an undefined continent, is neither masculine nor feminine. Its architecture includes oak and chestnut that were glued together and assembled. The increase curvature of the bow was achieved through making numerous notches (kerfing), to which I then glued an outer layer of veneer in a template.
All Things Fall by Mat Collishaw, 2014 Aluminium, LED Lights, Motor, Plaster, Resin, Steel
The Bomb Factory Art Foundation is pleased to present All Things Fall, a solo exhibition featuring the work of contemporary British artist Mat Collishaw, from April 20th, 2023, to May 21st, 2023. The exhibit will be held at Bomb Factory Art Foundation’s newest building in Marylebone.
Mat Collishaw is one of the most significant and compelling artists in contemporary British art. With an early foundation at Goldsmiths College, Collishaw formed part of the legendary movement of Young British Artists. He was one of 16 young artists who participated in the seminal Freeze exhibition organized by Damien Hirst in 1988 as well as the provocative Sensation show of 1997.
The Bomb Factory Art Foundation show will feature two works that have never been exhibited before, Insilico (2023) and the Palantir (2022) series of 13 paintings. The large-scale zoetrope sculpture, All Things Fall (2014), will be shown in London for the first time. The Machine Zone (2019), inspired by the historic behavioural experiments of the psychologist B.F. Skinner, has previously been exhibited in the UK and internationally in Moscow & Dubai.
Insilico by Mat Collishaw, 2023 Aluminium, Steel, Resin, Servo Motors, Electrical Circuitry, Raspberry Pi, Monitor
The selected works reflect on human perception distorted through the dark, manipulative lens of social media. Insilico’s robotic stag slips and falls in response to abusive posts on Twitter. Night vision images of animator predators and prey appear as ghost-like spectres in the Palantir paintings on raw linen. In The Machine Zone, animatronic pigeons re-enact the behavioural psychology experiments of B.F. Skinner. Finally, in the gripping and powerful All Things Fall, a Temple featuring the Massacre of the Innocents erupts into a delightful orgy of violence. Mat Collishaw’s world consumes and captivates.
Throughout his 30-year career, Collishaw has contemplated the nature of the human subconscious and explored ways to influence it through various media. Through optical illusions, paintings, projections and moving sculptures, the artist creates works and scenarios that directly and unconsciously engage their viewers. The works encourage us to think about fundamental questions of psychology, history, sociology and science. Behind the richness and visual appeal of each work there is a deep exploration of how we perceive and are influenced by the world through images, and modern technology. Questions regarding behavioural manipulation and programming linger in the viewing experience.
The Machine Zone by Mat Collishaw, 2019 Aluminium, Steel, Resin, Servo Motors, Electrical Circuitry.
The majority of works in the exhibition emerged early during lockdown when everything outdoors fell silent and people turned to social media to make a noise. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram increasingly became forums for attack, platforms used to hunt and take people down.
A primal herd instinct reared its beastly head through the medium of digital technology. Like our online records, the artworks attempt to capture a fleeting, furtive moment of disquiet; a shadowy record of the predator and its prey.
Mat Collishaw
Founded by artist Pallas Citroen in 2015, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation is a charity that provides affordable studio spaces to over 100 resident artists and delivers free public educational programs and exhibitions for the local communities of London. The Bomb Factory Art Foundation is a cultural art destination that is based across four sites; Archway, Chelsea, Covent Garden and now Marylebone.
‘Mat Collishaw has always been an artist I have held in the highest esteem. I was, therefore, thrilled when Mat agreed to exhibit with the Bomb Factory Art Foundation at our new gallery space at 206 Marylebone Road . Bomb Factory Marylebone heralds in a new era for the Bomb Factory Art Foundation; where we will endeavour to bring in new audiences to witness exhibitions by emerging, as well as established artists. We will facilitate the merging of partnerships between these artists to encourage the production of new works that will add to the roster of urgent and thought provoking exhibitions that Bomb Factory has, and will continue to put on for the public. We can’t wait to see what this season will hold’
Pallas Citroen, Founder of The Bomb Factory Foundation
With special thanks to BHive Technologies who designed and developed AI and machine learning models to collect and analyze the data, leveraging top rated OpenAI-developed engines.
Palantir by Mat Collishaw, 2022 Oil on Unprimed Linen
From 24 March to 20 August 2023, the second edition of the ground-breaking exhibition “Melbourne Now” is presented at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia.
Source: NGV Australia · Image: Melbourne Now2023 artists and designers at the announcement event on 18 October. Melbourne Now 2023 open on 24 March 2023 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. Photo: Eugene Hyland
Bold in scope and scale, the exhibition highlights the extraordinary work of more than 200 Victorian-based artists, designers, studios and firms whose practices are shaping the cultural landscape of Melbourne and Victoria. With more than 200 ambitious and thought-provoking projects on display, including more than 60 world-premiere works commissioned especially by the NGV for this major presentation, the exhibition highlights the vibrant creativity of local emerging, mid-career and senior practitioners and collectives – including many who are presenting at the NGV for the very first time.
The large-scale exhibition traverses all levels of The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, including contemporary interventions across the Australian Art and First Nations permanent collection displays, and highlights a diverse range of contemporary disciplines across fashion, jewellery, painting, sculpture, architecture, ceramics, video, virtual reality, performance, photography, printmaking, product design and publishing. Exhibiting artists including Christian Thompson, Esther Stewart, Atong Atem, Mia Boe, Kait James, Pitcha Makin Fellas, Layla Vardo, Nicholas Mangan, Fiona Abicare, Meagan Streader, Sean Hogan, Amos Gebhardt, and Lisa Reid.
Never-before-seen commissions include a room-sized ‘temple’ constructed from thousands of computer fans by emerging artist Rel Pham, which draws on the artist’s Vietnamese heritage and interest in gaming culture. Blurring the boundaries between the digital and physical realms, this neon-lit installation combines the visual language of technology, classical Asian architecture and religious iconography.
Lou Hubbard’s “Walkers with Dinosaurs”, 2021–23, sees a mass of inflatable walking frames tumbling out into the foyer of the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia’s third floor. Presented alongside two stacks of colourful, dinosaur-shaped children’s chairs, with humour, the sculptural installation poignantly evokes the inevitabilities of our shared mortality.
Made in collaboration with Kyoto-based lantern studio Kojima Shōten, Larrakia / Wardaman / Karajarri artist Jenna Lee will illuminate the gallery with a series of hand-painted paper lanterns in the shape of Gulumerridjin dilly bags, a traditional woven bag designed and used by First Nations women. “Balarr” (To Become Light) explores the relationship between light and dark and draws on the artist’s research into ancestral objects including the similarities between her own paper craft practice and the Kyoto style paper lanterns.
Welcoming visitors to NGV Australia, Lee Darroch’s 10-metre-long installation “Duta Ganha Woka” (Save Mother Earth) comprises driftwood collected on Country. Representing men and women from the 38 Indigenous language groups of Victoria, the driftwood pieces are connected by jute string which illustrates the deep connection between First Nations peoples in this region.
Also on display is Troy Emery’s largest sculptural and most ambitious work to date, standing over three metres high. In the artist’s signature soft sculptural style, the exuberant textile depicts a feline-like animal.
High Museum of Art presents ‘Evelyn Hofer: Eyes on the City’
From March 24 to August 13, 2023, the High Museum of Art presents the first major museum exhibition in the United States in over 50 years dedicated to Evelyn Hofer.
Organized in collaboration with The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, “Evelyn Hofer: Eyes on the City” is the first major museum exhibition in the United States in over 50 years dedicated to Hofer, a highly innovative photographer whose pioneering work spanned five decades but remained underrecognized in her lifetime. The exhibition focuses on her series of widely distributed photobooks devoted to European and American cities, published throughout the 1960s, and will feature more than 100 vintage prints in both black and white and color from those publications. The works are drawn exclusively from the artist’s estate and from the collections of the High and the Nelson-Atkins. After its presentation at the High, the exhibition will travel to the Nelson-Atkins, where it will be on view Sept. 16, 2023-Feb. 11, 2024.
“The High has one of the nation’s leading photography programs, which features an extraordinary collection of 20th-century documentary photography and significant holdings of Hofer’s work,” said Rand Suffolk, the High’s Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr., director. “We are delighted for the opportunity to present these photographs together for the first time in our galleries and to highlight Hofer’s important artistic contributions, including as an early adopter of color photography.”
Born in Germany in 1922, Hofer left with her family for Switzerland in 1933 in response to the rise of fascism, settling first in Geneva, where as a teen she studied photography with Hans Finsler, a pioneer of the “new objectivity” movement. After time in Madrid, the family moved to Mexico, where Hofer worked briefly as a professional photographer. In 1946, she arrived in New York, where she worked with art director Alexey Brodovitch to produce photo essays for Harper’s Bazaar. She quickly expanded her practice and became an acclaimed editorial photographer.
Though celebrated for her editorial work, Hofer never received wide acclaim, due in part to her unique style and methods. New York Times art critic Hilton Kramer notably referred to her as “the most famous unknown photographer in America.”
“At a time when spontaneous black and white pictures were the hallmarks of avant-garde photography, Hofer favored cumbersome large-format cameras and embraced color materials,” said Greg Harris, the High’s Donald and Marilyn Keough Family curator of photography and co-curator of the exhibition. “Subtle and rigorous, her photographs possess a captivating stillness, exactitude and sobriety that ran counter to the dominant aesthetics of the day and the frenetic energy of her fellow street photographers of the post-World War II era, such as Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander. As a result, she never achieved recognition commensurate with the quality and originality of her work.”
Tom Glynn is a rare breed: an artist who can move effortlessly between artforms, materials, scales and registers, equally adept at making miniature paintings and monumental sculptures. And yet all of his work is unmistakably English in mood. His images are populated by the country’s Neolithic monuments and pastoral landscapes, and informed by the many artists who inhabited those places before him. Glynn is driven by the same Romantic spirit that motivated Palmer and Turner, Nash and Piper, Wallis, Lanyon and Hockney, but his art is never anything but his own. It is, after all, underpinned by an urge that has coursed through his veins since he first stepped foot in a sandpit.
Dr. James Fox | British Art Historian & Broadcaster
What is your overall outlook on how the art market is changing?
I am aware that over the last decade or so, more and more galleries are becoming increasingly dependent upon significant developments in digital art. There has been an increasing amount of virtual exhibitions, AI, computer generated images, virtual reality through an interface with technical tools and processes. In addition, there is a growing interest and reliance upon NFT’s. Having said that, I am reassured that while our digital age develops and we all become more dependent upon this way of life, there are still many galleries in the UK and worldwide that continue to show the physical work of artists irrespective of the form or media used.
I am also most aware of how the work frequently selected by some of the worlds most well known and prestigious galleries and museums has become increasingly diverse, which is to be expected, but personally I very much hope this will not become the exception in respect of the continuation of traditional Fine Art, Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking, Photography and Mixed-Media work being exhibited in real – physical galleries and spaces; not just ones that exist in the ether or even potentially in a gallery hologram, if I may describe it this way. It has to be said though that great art can be appreciated, felt and create emotion irrespective of whether it is accessed physically or digitally.
I delight in utilizing traditional artistic materials and mediums such as canvas, paint, wood, clay, plaster of Paris and so many other sourced materials found around us in both the natural and built environments. As a result of this, I don’t make digital art and my focus isn’t to turn my work into NFTs. However, if a dealer or gallery wanted my work to be more generally available through NFT’s I wouldn’t of course object. Ultimately it’s my desire to have my paintings, sculptures, and assemblages seen in real space and time, rather than repurposed through a digital medium. A painting and sculpture exist as real and tangible things, rather than digital representations, even though they can also have their own artistic value.
What advice would you give to new artists that wish to make art their career?
Work continuously, be dedicated and hard-working with passion and never give up as the art world is notoriously competitive. Develop and practice techniques and develop competency and confidence in using materials and mediums. Constantly explore visual ideas intelligently, reviewing and reorganizing. Develop a deep knowledge of the visual language and develop an immersive understanding and knowledge of the basic elements that in part form an essential visual language. Be independent and original and know when you are working that you reveal the truth and honesty in the artwork produced. Furthermore, be able to make a critical analysis of your own work and the work of others.
There are so many artists today creating amazing art in a vast array of mediums and styles, do you ever feel the pressure of competition?
There is always a sense of a vast array of mediums and styles in art, especially modern and contemporary art. There’s hardly a material or medium that’s not been used and I am reminded of Chris Ofili, who incorporated elephant dung into one of his large paintings on canvas. I have never felt the pressure of competition in respect of mediums and styles or felt obliged to use a particular style or medium. I have gradually evolved my own combination of materials and approaches over many decades, always dependent upon the theme and subject I am depicting.
For example, more recently I have often applied layers of wood ash onto PVA laid down onto a large canvas, before applying thinned washes of acrylic paint, followed by other applied textures and layers of paint. My paintings are often built up in this way. I have also recently acquired some diamond dust that will be incorporated within one of my current large abstract landscape paintings.
In your opinion, what is the primary skill set one must possess to be a good artist?
While I am convinced it helps to have an extensive knowledge of art, art history, artists and art practice, it is also essential to develop a significant ability and understanding of the Visual Language and seek ways to express one’s own visual ideas in a meaningful and truthful manner, providing insight and meaning within the work executed. Technique and developing strategies to apply and manipulate media (such as paint and mixed-media) I would suggest is essential – even in a rapidly developing digital art world – as I believe we shouldn’t forget our traditions or early beginnings. Drawing has always been a key starting point, but this doesn’t have to be an academic or photorealist entity or style, rather – as in Paul Klee’s Pedagogical Sketch Book – “taking a line for a walk”.
What types of art do you like to surround yourself with?
I certainly surround myself with a large collection of my own work and I can reveal that my house is full of my paintings, sculptures and assemblages. I also have some work by a celebrated modern ceramic artist, Sandy Brown, a conte crayon drawing by David Nash, paintings by the St. Ives artist Neil Canning, some paintings from my tutors at art school, including Robin Ball, Harold Cheeseman, Michael Fairclough and Brian Ingham, a large double portrait sculpture depicting August and Camille. (ref: Rodin) in herculite plaster by Emma Pover amongst many others. Essentially, my extensive collection comprises work by modern and contemporary artists, including some figurative sculptures by the British Portrait Sculptor, Suzie Zamit, who also produced a magnificent full size bronze portrait head of my late mother.
Who are your favourite artists and what works of art influenced you the most – and why?
I have always been fascinated, intrigued and in awe of the work of Picasso, Matisse, Arp and Brancusi and I have previously described how I have grown up with them as though my friends. In addition, there are many other modern and contemporary artists that have also influenced me, such as Anthony Caro, Joseph Cornell, Jackson Pollock, David Hockney, Paul Nash, Peter Lanyon and Leon Kossoff. I have previously mentioned Louise Nevelson, who I have always admired; a truly amazing woman and a fabulously sublime artist whose work is visually exciting, inventive and inspiring.
