My week in the arts including my views on Tate Modern shows by ...

First off if you're around Ealing in the next few days check this out..

Grayson delivers the Reith Lectures 2013

Good to hear a real Essex boy (?) Grayson Perry giving this years Reith Lectures, first one was broadcast on Monday and some salient points made particularly regarding the need to put in some work to appreciate  intent of artists and the fact that time gives perspective on the standing of artists- had a bit of a feeling that there was something of an agenda with respect to the Works of Damien Hirst .

I (unlike Grayson) still like my paintings big and feel that size is important, looking forward to hearing the rest anyway.  

New Art Books

Two new books to add to my expanding library on the subject, one a bargain from local Oxfam Book Shop by the sadly departed and highly respected commentator Robert Hughes his Shock of the New has got to be a bargain at £5.00

Second book was from amazon and is an Alain de Botton collaboration on Art as Therapy with a sales pitch that is..

We often hear that art is meant to be very important; but we’re seldom told exactly why.

Alain de Botton and John Armstrong believe art can help us with our most intimate and ordinary dilemmas: Why is my work not more satisfying? Why do other people seem to have a more glamorous life? How can I improve my relationships? Why is politics so depressing? This book introduces a new method of interpreting art: art as a form of therapy, providing powerful solutions to many of life's problems.

how could I resist? Reviews will follow.

Two artists new to me

Paul Klee

Tate Modern has two major exhibitions on with artists new to me, the first I looked at was the Paul Klee  'Making Visible'. Klee was a half German/half Swiss born in 1879 who was methodical in the extreme permitting the exhibitors to clearly show his development as an artist. Klee died relatively young in 1940 having returned to Switzerland from Germany where he had spent much of his working life with an influential period teaching at the Bauhaus.
Klee was a prolific artist who was an experimenter developing his own techniques including a method to transfer sketches to canvas he was for a time a member of The Blue Rider movement and friends with artists including Kandinsky, like Kadinsky he was a talented musician. Among the techniques that Klee used was pointilism seen in Lowlands and evocatively used in memory of a bird (1932).
Having seen the work of Klee (17 rooms in the exhibition) I am somewhat intrigued and recognise his importance but I was not overly excited, I plan to visit again when the show is less crowded for further consideration.

Mira Schendel

Mira

The exhibition of Mira Schendel (1919- 88) and her back story was something more pleasurable for me. Born in Switzerland but raised in Italy as a result of Mira's Jewish blood line she was forced to terminate her studies of Philosophy at the University of Milan she then left Italy to arrive in Yugoslavia and in 1949 emigrated to Brazil.
Her work as an artist was influenced by many (including Klee) and much of her work is 'abstract' but text  also plays a very important part of her creations.
Stand out works for me included Still Waves of Probability (see youtube below) and short Old Testament texts worked into Homage to God - Father of the West.
Again I hope to revisit.