Real Fun with Flags (at the RA)

RA the place to see Jasper

There's a TV 'internet feature' within TV's Big Bang called 'Fun with Flags' - well yesterday I visited London's RA and was tremendously excited to see Iconic paintings from Jasper Johns famed for his 'Flags' (and other things).


It feels odd in some ways but there was real excitement for me in seeing the pictures on show - I'm going to have to make a second visit after doing some research into Johns.

[The first part which was looking at this from Andy Warhol on YouTube]


Johns was from an Art family, was raised mainly by his Grandparents.  The lack of family influence in his artistic development did not seem to limit him in his later work (and perhaps even had the

opposite effect).

Jasper Johns -He's still alive

Johns was perhaps more of an expert in Collage than a straightforward painter.

Well known amongst the Pop artists a friend of Robert Rauschenberg - his work is hugely influential and part of the antidote to the abstractions of artists like Jack the Dripper, Mark Rothko and Barnet Newman  that 'Pop' swept away

Johns experiments are brave and often work - his 'Painting with Two Balls' remains surprising and humorous.

The artist is famed for the way his paintings are both about things and the things they are about (like his flags, numbers and maps)
.
Nice intro for the exhibition here.


My personal favourites were work about Seasons which include several of the same items and silhouettes through Summer, Spring  Fall and Winter also intrigued by the more recent 'Nothing at all Richard Dadd (1992)' - Dadd was a British artist who spent much of his life incarcerated having killed his own father.

For me there's a strong presence of George Braque in much of John's work.

More on my RA  visit soon, I saw another exhibition there which featured an artist who was of one of Jasper John's big inspirations -Marcel Duchamp.

Bye Fats

As for  Jasper Johns (above) - I was under the mistaken impression that Fats Domino was no longer with us - well that's the case now he died recently at the age of 89, a private man with a sense of humour and family, lauded by Elvis Presley, a star of the Best Sound-tracked Rock & Roll Film (The Girl Can't Help It) and his cover of the Beatles Domino inspired Rocker  Lady Madonna that rare thing a Beatles cover that exceeds the original  - here it is ..

Tate Modern and Robert Rauschenberg

I did and liked it

As always when you look at some specific subject a little odd piece of trivia settles in your mind  - the new one for me is that both Janis Joplin and Robert Rauschenberg hailed from the same place (Port Arthur Texas) .


In fact ahead of taking a trip to Tate Modern to look at the Rauschenberg canon I had watched Alistair Sooke holding forth on BBC 2's Artsnight -it's something of a confirmation of his commentary that I felt so inclined to make the journey - some larger exhibitions can feel like work, this was not the case for me in looking at this multi faceted creative.

In fact looking at the exhibition it's rather splendid to see all the areas he took on - you can see he was an early adventurer in exhibitionism, many of his works are conceptual and the relationships he had with Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly are evident too.





I greatly enjoyed learning about his collaborations with engineers and marvelling at Mud Muse which uses a Revox 77 Taper-recorder.

Also good to see the famous 'Retroactive' in the flesh and of course the Goat!

Robert Rauschenberg and reminders

If you get bored or can't sleep, are lucky enough to live in the UK and have access  to a TV and the BBC iPlayer I recommend taking a look at the Arts section of the application.

A recent visit to this section revealed to me via a Alistair Sooke fronted Artsnight programme on Robert Rauschenberg - intriguing story and view on the artist who although not as infamous as Warhol or Duchamp was similarly influential.

Robert Hughes quite literally
wrote the book on Modern Art

What I liked about the artist that was investigated was along with  his non-artistic background, his restless search  for new experiences and his philanthropy was the evidence that he smiled a lot  and did not take his activities too seriously.

Many critics were irritated by the fact that he moved on and tried so many different approaches, in The Shock of the New (by the hugely influential Robert Hughes) Brian O'Doherty is quoted as a saying 'he did not seem house trained ' but he was a man who had a vision beyond art and sold many of his collections to help fund the Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange (ROCI).

Retroactive 1 (1964)

As well as using 'found objects' in his works particularly  during his time in New York Rauschenberg was a great artist of Silkscreen prints.


I will definitely check out the exhibition atLondon's Tate Modern 


[And thankfully you can catch the TV documentary series The Shock of the New on youtube]

Memories

Talking with a friend about the strange way (human) memory can deteriorate - reminded me how connections hover - this Pizza van for example.

Took me a little while to make the connection with travelling Pizza van during our time in Ecully (outside Lyon) France.

Brought back thoughts of great Pizza past.