Modern Art is Rubbish

It’s our yearly review of the Brighton MA show time. We will bring you artworks involving subjects as diverse as hedonism, microbiology and even things that p*ss us off! We also checked out the Brighton to London Show at the Kellie Miller Gallery.

More info on the London to Brighton show

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In this podcast, we talk about the great Jules Olitski and how he blagged his way into the art world. also, we went to the memory-evoking paintings by Kate Sherman in Brighton!

The artist Page describes her work as

“The paintings, all oil on board, originate from photographs she has taken of her surrounding landscape. This photographic source is important because the paintings capture a reflective notion of memory, of the emotional distance between a real landscape and a photograph, between experience and longing”

The top 2 paintings are from her exhibition coast. The bottom 2 are other examples of the artist’s work.

You can see more work by the artist on the links below.

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“It is what is important in painting is paint, but it is what paint does and what  paint can do.” 

Was an experimental painter associated with   Post-painterly abstraction. This was a loose group of  American artist’s who rejected the more personal and expressive mark-making of the Abstract Expressionists.

Was born in 1922  in Snovsk Russia (now Ukraine)  His father was executed before he was born. His mother emigrated to America with him in 1923. He was Born Jevel Demikovsky his surname Olitski comes from a misspelling of his Stepfathers name on exhibition publicity. He showed an early talent for drawing. In 1935 he started taking the odd art class. He went on to be awarded a scholarship to study at the Pratt Institute of art. He eventually went on to study at the Beaux-arts institute in New York. From late 1948 to 1950 he studied art in Paris after which he returned to New York. He found fame in the 1960’s when the art critic and writer Clement Greenberg described him as being the Best Painter in America. He became the first living painter to have a show in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Never having the success experienced earlier in his career he continued to paint and experiment until he died in 2007.

“I am apprehensive of almost anything that plugs into a wall. I am defeated by TV’s and microwaves, I can handle a toaster, but short of that I fear and tremble”  He would love to experiment he used industrial spray guns to create his huge canvasses and even experimented with leaf blowers.” 

This is an extremely large work being 2946 x 6457 mm. This work was made by using spray paint guns to create a cloud of colour which the viewer feels drawn into. It is almost a spiritual and meditative experience.

Link to the large version

This canvas is approximately 2 metres wide by 3 metres tall.

From the 1970s onwards, as well a spray paints, Olitski started to use thicker paints, he would employ items such as mops, brooms and squeegees to create a textured surface. This work coincided with improvements in mediums such as polymer, gel and acrylic paints

Link to the large Version

How to get a one-man Show (Olitski style)

In the early 1950s, Olitski returned from Paris he had very little money to survive on, he also had a daughter, that was being looked after by his family. He lived in a cold flat in an area of New York known as Hell’s kitchen. He was forced to live on meagre rations of mainly peanuts and coffee.

Olitski stole paints and canvas and materials he needed, seeing himself as Robin Hood kind of character.   To earn extra money, he did try one job, which was working in times square as “Barker” a Barker would stand outside a movie theatre and let people know details about the film, such as, when the next movie is due to start.   Eventually, he was promoted to manning the phone inside the theatre.  However, When callers asked him what the movie was about, he would make would just make up a plot. Sometimes one involving a struggling artist. Moviegoers would complain when the movie they saw, was not as described to them. This lead to him being fired from his job.

Eventually, Olitski thought he must start to sell his work, he grabbed as many paintings as he could carry, to show them to smaller galleries. He was confronted with the same standard reply. don’t need your kind of work or your good but you are not for us….

With no luck with the smaller galleries, he thought he would try for the bigger galleries. One gallery he approached was the Charles Egan Gallery. They told Olitski that his work was good, in fact, as good as any of the painters the gallery currently showed, such as Willhelm De Kooning and Franz Kline.  Olitski enquired why if he was as good as those painters, why would they not take him on. He was informed because they already had those painters on their books, why would they need him. He tried another few galleries with the same lack of luck. 

Olitski came to the conclusion having just good paintings was not enough to get a foot in the door. He needed to create an artist with a great story, one that he could say painted his works. Jevel Demikov was to be his name. An artist whose prodigious talent was recognised by Joseph Stalin after he saw one of the painters social realist works. Stalin took so much of an interest in his artistic development that he arranged for Demikov to go to Paris in 1950 which was where Olitski would say he met him…. When back in Demikov Moscow he would work by day on his pictures of heroes of the USSR and at night he secretly worked on his radical and forbidden abstract works. This style of painting spread across the USSR, making him an enemy of the people. Demikov was forced to flee to America. Upon his arrival, he contacted the only person he knew, Olitski who lived in Brooklyn.

Olitski, created an Exhibition called Lecole de Paris Aujord hui. He managed to borrow many paintings from Galleries in New york. They were by many famous artists and he decided to show Demikov alongside them.

When returning the paintings back one of the major galleries the  Alexander Iolas Gallery, the owner (Alexander Iolas) asked him how did the exhibition go. Olitski handed him a flyer, which had names such as Matisse, Picasso, Leger and Demikov. The Gallerist, of course, enquired who was Demikov? Olitski told the story of Demikov and that he could bring some works to show him.   Upon seeing the works, the Iolas owner declared Demikov to be a genius. He wanted to give him a show and demanded to meet him. A story about him being in hiding from Russian agents was invented. Iolas insisted that he must meet him as it was his policy to meet every artist. In the end, Olitski had to explain he was Demikov. Despite this deception, Olitski was still given his first one-man show at the Iolas gallery.

You can find out more about Olitski on the official website

A Short interview with Olitski.

Circus music used on the podcast

Circus Tent Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

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It is time for our yearly review of the Brighton Uni Degree art show. In this pod, we bring you Art theft, Heavenly Greek Mums! Sounds to sooth! Artists Avoiding conflicts!  Toilet Confusion & much more to entertain & inform you!

A space built by 5 artists for their degree show. It was collectively constructed by them on the University Campus and all the items belong to them. They also held talks and events in the space, and it was a place to hang out and talk art. There hope is take the space on the road. As the piece was created collectively by the Artists, they will all receive the same mark for it.

Her large canvases at first glance are very pale, almost white,   extremely subtle colours below the surface undulate. The works are inspired in part by her brother’s research into biology…. These are canvases to be experienced and sensed, as there is nothing for your eye to lock on to, her paintings are constantly in flux……

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A wire framed sculpture looks to be crushing and twisting. but not just the space it occupies, also warping gravity and space-time. The artist used science and physics as her inspiration in creating this work.

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Investigate 7 sisters….

Joe Bulman’s 3D work explores the hidden qualities of the City of Brighton, such as  often overlooked landmarks, colours, graffiti and charity shops.  This Ceramic piece was inspired by the Seven Sisters, which is a series of chalk cliffs local to the area.

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Anna’s work is an ongoing project, looking into the idea of changing run down neglected areas, such as alleyways and side streets. Her work seeks to change transform these places into areas where people can meet, engage and appreciate art. One of her pieces for this project was inspired, by the colours used in some graffiti.

Creates Jewellery pieces that relate to poems or stories that are sometimes connected to her life. Although new, the pieces seem as if they are created with a history inside them.

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This piece relates to politics.  The viewer puts their head and hands through a hole in a chalkboard, which visitors are invited to draw on, they subsequently become part of the artwork. It was inspired by the notion that if you just write about political events, but do not participate in them, then you become part of the problem, not the solution.

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A post shared by Moatzart (@moatzaart) on May 17, 2019 at 2:41am PDT

This is Sound art piece to provide therapy to the listener. You walk into a darkened room with 4 speakers in each corner, soothing music is playing. At one end of the room hangs light fabric, which onto is beamed evolving artworks, created by animating encaustic wax creations.

You can hear a piece of this work on the work on the podcast.

This piece is about artifacts and artworks in displayed British Museums, taken under dubious circumstances from Foreign Lands.

14 Flags of  British Overseas Territories hang down into a stairwell. The symbols on flags represent histories of misdemeanors.

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In this Episode, we have an interview with the co-creator of amazing inflatable works, Filthy Luker.

Filthy Luker is a Bristol Based Mixed Media Artist. Working in collaboration with the artist Pedro Estrellas, became known for Urban installations. Their works provide viewers with a new way to engage with the Urban Landscape,  such as giving trees personality by placing large inflatable googly eyes on them or making a building appear as if a giant octopus is trapped inside by strategically placing inflatable tentacles on them.

In the 1990s after sharing the same studio space as the British Artist Pedro Estrellas they began to collaborate and eventually formed the company Designs in the air

Inflatable tentacles

Inflatable Eyes

Fish installation

If you want to find out more about Filthy Luker and Designs in the Air the links are below…

The Website for Filthy Luker

The Website for Designs in the Air

Filthy Luker Instagram

Amazing Cover artwork contrasted with computer graphics.

As part of a 2012 Red Stripe art project Filthy Luker in conjunction with the digital programmer Junior Hacksaw they created a 17m high Space Invaders Machine. It was on the side of Manchester’s Town Hall. A large interactive artwork, and was made from traffic cones and plastic portable safety barriers. It was lit up a night and the public could make it shoot the aliens.

You can see the installation of the space invader work in this video below

Musii (Multi Interactive inflatable)

The website for the Musii

Video showing the Musii interactive

Musii

Musii is an interactive music system designed for developmental play and multi-sensory therapy. It is a white inflatable with three cones. Colours and sounds change depending on how the user interacts with it.

You can see it in use in the video below…

The Snake installation at Whitby Abby

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In this podcast mini, We Talk of Rodin Ripoffs, Car Boot Picasso and Spirit Sculptures

After 18 years a French court 2 art dealers were finally sentenced for dealing in fake Rodin Sculptures.  The reason it took so long was that none of the sculptures were sold within French justification so that is why it took so long.

Gary Snell a US art dealer was sentenced to a one year suspended sentence for trying to sell counterfeit Rodin works. Snell had around 1700 fake Rodin sculptures cast in Vicenza Italy. They were put up for sale at around 40,000 euros ($45,000).  That would have worked out to be about 68million euros ($76 million)

The Parisian art dealer Robert Crouzet was given a 4 month suspended sentence for selling Snell 16 of Rodin’s’ moulds including ones for the  “The Thinker,” “The Kiss,” and “The Hand of God.”They were both ordered to pay damages of 500000 euro to the Musee Rodin

The Musee Rodin is the official body representing Rodin and controls the production of its works. Rodin, when he died, gave all of the rights and the contents of his studio to the French state. But The Original Rodin Foundry sold Snell some of its Rodin Moulds Snell made his versions from these. Snell’s lawyer had argued in court that they were out of copyright, they were not however marked as reproductions, some of them apparently had the Rodin signature on them.

Phillip Stapleton from Crawley. Saw the painting in car boot sale in West Sussex. Even though he thought it was a fake he still bought it for £230 He then took it to a Brighton Auction house and was told it could be authentic. It may be an early version of the surreal 1930 painting “Seated Bather” by Pablo Picasso It could be an early version of the seated bather

The Brighton and Hove auction room is fairly confident that it is real it has a signature on the back. There apparently is a message to Roland Penrose written on the back who lived in East Sussex and was friends with Picasso, who was known to gift his works. If the work is genuine it could be worth approximately  £750,000

However David Henty a forger who lives in Brighton was reported as saying in the Telegraph newspaper that “it looks very familiar” suggesting that it could be one of his fake Picassos. An auction house spokesman Rosie may “He is a liar, he isn’t an honest person,” said Ms May, adding: “It would be a shame for Mr Stapleton if this devalues the artwork.” For a Picasso work to be accepted it must be authenticated by the Picasso estate for it to be accepted and it has no provenance as yet.

The Isle of Unst in Scotland is considering erecting a statue to a ghost. A local artist Eric Burgess-Ray has produced a hooded white model showing what the sculpture might look like, the council is currently considering the planning application. It based on a female ghost who haunts an isolated stretch of road and appears in cars driven by single men.

A local musician Steven Spence recalled his experience in the Shetland news. He was driving home on a dark night, he noticed out of the corner of his eye what he assumed was moonlight inside the van. “I thought at the time, ‘there’s no moon tonight’. When I looked around the White Wife was sitting in the seat next to me. She was transparent, grey and she smiled. I’ll never forget that smile.

“At the time it gee’d me a braa gluff, yes!” He had to look forward for a bend in the road, but when he looked back a few seconds later, she had gone. Unst man Alan Hunter had a similar experience 5 years earlier.  There are folk tales about a woman meeting a grisly end on this isolated stretch of road.

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In this Episode, we look at art featuring Madonna (Mother of Jesus) and Madonna (Madge) the Pop Star!

The Virgin Mary is typically referred to as Madonna when she is depicted in images with the baby Jesus.  Madonna in Italian means “My Lady”

The Rich Ultramarine Blue as we talked about in our previous blue episode was expensive and rare, therefore was considered quite sacred. And for a long time was only used on the Virgin Mary

The shade of blue used on the virgin was to become called Marion Blue. Jesus, by contrast, is mostly depicted in red.

When you look at images of the Virgin Mary from the medieval period in history, Mary looks a bit odd. In this by the Italian Cimabue,  She is depicted as being very long and out of proportion,  surrounded by tiny angels, if Mary was to stand next to them, the Angels would only come up to the knee of Mary.

After the fall of Rome, Christianity and the church stepped in to fill the void. The Romans had plenty of beautiful statues the church at this time feared that this lead to people worshipping the actual physical object as opposed to worshipping the inner beauty. So Mary was painted strangely and out of proportion so that people would focus on the inner heavenly beauty.

The painting was commissioned  in 1512 by Pope Julius for the San Sisto Church in Italy, it was in honor of his late uncle Pope Sixtus

The painting is of the Virgin Mary, she standing barefoot holding Jesus. In the background, you can just make out the faces of white faded cherubs.

To her left is saint Sixtus and to her write was Saint Barbara.

The most famous part of this painting is the two cherubs, at the bottom of the picture

The image is part of The Melun Diptych which is a two-panel Devolution painting, The other panel is an image of Étienne Chevalier  and his patron St Stephen

The Madonna is sitting on a throne held up by angels that are completely painted in deep red or blue.

Mary wears a crown and in contrast to the angels, she is extremely pale as is the pale ginger baby Jesus. What is unusual about this picture is she exposing her extremely strange spherical breast with virtually no nipple, it seems that the baby Jesus is not in the least bit interested in this.

The image is quite interesting because it is also supposed to be a portrait of Agnes Sorel, the influential mistress of the French king Charles VII…  she was invaluable to him and died during childbirth.  Agnes Sorel was well known in court for wearing very revealing dresses sometimes exposing her breast.

At the time, many would have considered it blasphemous to cast a deceased royal mistress as the Virgin Mary.

This features a more earthly Virgin Mary, who looks be at her wits end with a  naughty Jesus who is about 6- 7 years old and is laying across her lap naked and face down. His halo has fallen off and is laying on the ground. His buttocks are red from the beating. Mary is dressed in a tight red dress top and has a blue shawl draped over her knees. On the left of the painting…  The surrealist and former dadaist Andre Breton, Paul Eluard are looking on through a small window.   The whole image is very surreal and dreamlike… This is quite a challenging image, Mary still has her halo so still has her holy status. Jesus was apparently perfect and without sin but in this without his halo, he is more earthly.

The Virgin Mother is a Bronze partially painted sculpture in the similar strong colours of a medical model. It is of a naked pregnant woman with cut-away views of her innards including skull, muscles, skull, and fetus. It is based on a child’s educational toy of the kind where you can remove the organs. This work for  is about the fragility and mystery of human existence

It is standing in the same pose as Degas “Little Dancer Aged Fourteen”1880–1 it is believed that Mary may have been around 12- 14 when she gave birth to Jesus. Little Dancer is A sculpture of a young Parisian ballet dancer. The original was made of wax and adorned with real hair and it had a fabric skirt, it was quite a revolutionary break with the normal subjects for sculpture. When Degas released this work it a caused a scandal it was described at the time by some as repulsive,” “vicious,” and “a threat to society” 

Madonna is  quite an avid  art  collector and own works by famous artists such as Frida Kahlo and Tamara de Lempicka

There have been several images of the pop Star Madonna she has long had links with three very famous artists.

Madonna Dated Basquiat the New York Based painter  – Basquiat died in 1988 at the age of 27

This was at a time before they were both on the brink of fame in the early 1980’s Madonna would often find him getting up in the middle of the night to start painting when the urge overtook him. He apparently would just get up and start painting whenever the urge struck.

Madonna owed a few works that she gave to him. In 1984 after they split she was made to return them, she told Howard Stern in an interview “he made me give them back to him. And then he painted over them in black.”

In 1985 Madonna was getting married to Sean Penn. Madonna invited the artist Keith Haring to her wedding as his date he took Andy Warhol.

Haring most famous for his graffiti work, he had also produced works where he cut out headlines from the New York post and rearranged them t them up to produce fake Headlines Such as “Pope Killed for Freed Hostage” “Reagans Death Cops Hunt Pope”

So as a wedding gift he and Andy Warhol produced several works for her based on a fake New post headline “Madonna On Nude Pix: So what?” At the Time Penthouse had got hold of nude artistic photographs taken of Madonna when she was younger and struggling this work was referencing this.

For this work, Mr. Brainwash made famous because of the  Banksy Documentary “Exit through the gift shop”

He has used the hair from Andy Warhols Marilyn on an iconic 1990s image of Madonna with a few smudges of colour on top (confirm this fact)

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Dali was a showman  and master of publicity, who was famous for his Dreamscapes featuring his anxieties and fears. Join us as we take you into the world of Salvador Dali!

Dali Was born in 1904

Dali’s father was a Lawyer and Notary and quite authoritarian and had bad temper, he was very closed to his mother…

He was an extremely shy nervous child… His friend recalls him being terrified of Grasshoppers.

He was a naturally talented artist.

Link to the image here

When he was five he was told by his parents that he was the reincarnation of his brother who died Nine months before him as a 2-year-old his brother was called Salvador Dali.

He referred to him and the spirit of his brother as Castor and Pollux, a Greko/Roman legend. When Castor was killed, Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the constellation of Gemini

Portrait of my brother features the image a boy taken from a newspaper, Dali recreates and enlarges the dots of newsprint, made popular in art by the American artist Roy Lichtenstein.

Dali  spent many summers in the Cadaques in the northeast corner of Spain

Rock formation in Cadaques

Paranoiac Village (c.1931)

On 6 February 1921, Dalí’s mother died of uterus cancer. Dalí was just 16 years old

1922 he went to study painting in Madrid

Being so timid he became a flamboyant exhibitionist in order to overcome this.

In 1926 he went to Paris to meet Picasso

Picasso described “Dali as having a mind like an outboard motor”

Gali and Dali Photo here

1929 Gala met Dali

Gala an older more life experienced person than Dali. When they first met she was married to the Surrealist poet Paul Eluard. It was love at first site. Gala was the driving force behind Dali she was his agent and source of inspiration and would find galleries and buyers for his works…

‘I would polish Gala to make her shine, make her the happiest possible, caring for her more than myself, because, without her, it would all end.’ – wrote Dalí.

A strange compelling film. It has a narrative that plays like a dream. In it, Dali plays a priest

This surreal short is famous for its opening scene in which a razor is shown cutting across an eyeball.

It also includes scenes such as a man standing on the street prodding a hand with a cane while 2 police struggle to hold back mean in hats and suits who surround them trying to get a curious closer look. One scene has two grand pianos with 2 dead rotting donkeys under their lids…

This was film popular with the surrealists and he officially joined the group.

The film Chien Andalou

1931 he develops his paranoiac-critical method. He was deeply influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud who was pioneering research into the unconscious mind… Dali most famous works feature images drawn from his deep subconscious. such as, elephants and part open draws.

Meanings.

The various images that appear in his works have meanings attributed to them:

Ants: as a child, Dali saw an insect that had been eaten by ants and it was covered in ants and just its outer shell remained this came to symbolise powerlessness death decay and perhaps overwhelming sexuality

Crutches: The crutch is a symbol of death and resurrection It supports the flaccid, it represents the lack of security he felt and the need for support.

“I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.”

Did he do drugs?

Image of Persistence of memory here

His most famous work was Persistence of memory metal attracts ants like rotting flesh. It features soft melting watches in a surreal landscape, some are caught on a tree, A strange face lies melted in the centre of the picture it looks as though it Dali’s. The idea came to him when he was eating Camembert cheese. When Gala when she saw it she said: “no one will ever forget it.”

To escape the war in Europe Salvador Dali went to America where he was a famous celebrated character.

He made a lot of money from doing portraits and performed many stunts.

He held a desire to break into Hollywood and even created a dream sequence for the

Hitchcock movie….. Spellbound.

He even had talks with the Marx Brothers (he was friends with Harpo about creating a film for the Marx brothers called Giraffes on Horseback Salad it was never made but was recently turned into a graphic novel.  Dali talks with Disney about making a short film called Destino. It too was never made until 2002 long after his death.

Dali’s Destino remade in 2002

Dali was interested in quantum theory and the atomic science He described the atom as his favorite food for thought. He did many works on this theme he described this period as Nuclear mysticism

Dali was very interested in the discoveries made in the field of Quantum Physics

You can see an image of the work here

One of the most famous of the “Nuclear” works was Galatea of the Spheres. It is a portrait of Dali broken up into a matrix of spheres that are suspended in the air. Yet it still has a renaissance feel about it. The spheres represent atomic particles.

You can see an image here.

Dali influenced design….

The Lobster telephone is a surrealist object, made from the placing items that normally you would not associate with each other together.

Dali once said….

He also made jewelry made surrealist using gold and diamonds to make exotic objects

Crafted from pure gold and encrusted with  46 rubies, 42 diamonds, and two emeralds,  the ruby heart actually beats as you can see in the video below.

V&A acquires Mae West Lips sofa by Salvador Dalí and Edward James

Created by Salvador Dali and Edward James the sofa is in the shape of the actress Mae West lips. Seductive but a dark piece when you sit in it, you are sinking into the mouth of the sofa.

Gala Died in 1982

Dali died in 1989

Dalí Theatre-Museum. History

This was opened in 1974 and was billed as the world’s largest surrealist object. It was inaugurated in 1974 in Figures. This is the place where Dali is buried.

Dali filled up a Rolls Royce with 500kg of Cauliflowers and drove it from Spain to Paris in Dalí filled up a white Rolls Royce Phantom II with 500kg of cauliflowers and drove it from Spain to Paris in December 1955.

Apparently, the reason was that “everything ends up in the cauliflower!”.

In the London international surrealist exhibition. Dali was to give a talk. To represent how he existed in the bottom of the sea of consciousness he turned up in an old fashioned diving suit….. The artist nearly collapsed in the hot airless suit. And had to be rescued by someone who located a spanner

He once did a performance with a 12 metre long loaf of bread.

Once when meeting Warhol in a hotel Warhol handing him a Marilyn screen print which dali took and urinated all over it to Warhol’s delight!

We also mentioned the Musician Kevin Pearce in this podcast referencing his Coats in Doors childhood Protest.

You can find more info about him at kevinpearcemusic.com

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This celebration mix of Art, features Mystery concepts, Conversations captured, Artists outside of time, Blowups on Buildings and some Fracking good art!

Is a Brighton based artist who sketches members of the public sometimes capturing snippets of conversations.

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Madame du Frack

SLM is a Former Manchester artist originally from Essex whose recently moved to Sussex.

Madame du Frack was painted in 2014. The artist started their own anti-fracking campaign in order to bring awareness to the dangers of Fracking. The original painting is 20” x 28” on self made hard backed canvas.  The painting is based on early 19th century French posters combined with the Mona Lisa. Madame du Frack is the epitome of evil – the complete opposite of mother earth.

The artist stated, “I digitised the painting and turned it into a poster advert for naturally fracked water – to be sold as bottled water – with information at the bottom regarding where to find out about fracking and to encourage the signing of petitions.”

“Madame du Frack was initially printed as an A3 paste up (or wheat paste) which I stuck up all around Manchester and East London. I then used the poem I had written at the time to make handouts and left them in libraries, pubs, bars and anywhere else I could think of.”

“Next came the making of the actual bottles of fracked water. After a fake label and fun mixing all sorts of nasty ingredients -I sold bottles as art pieces (not to be drunk) at a couple of art events. They caused quite a stir and proved great for approaching a subject that nobody much seemed to want to engage discussion at the time.”

“In 2015 I converted the poster into French and it was printed up to scale as a bus stop advert for Brandalism – a group of subverters that took over 100s of bus stops ad spaces all over Paris during the COP15 climate talks. Madame du Frack got to hang out in Montparnasse which was coincidentally fitting as the original art had been inspired by the areas creative history.”

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Works with nature documenting the organic shapes found in local rural locations in order to create physical objects.  It is an interesting ongoing environmental art project.

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Sam is a British based artist.

The artist’s website states “My parallel world is sourced by memories, dreams and popular media. This work is a visual representation and documentation of their search that runs concurrently and has parallels with mine as a human being and artist.”

I graduated in Fine Art Painting at Brighton University in 2013 and continue with my daily practice.

Laptop

Website

An artist from the US who keeps the spirit of Dada Alive. Also taking it into the modern era with use of modern materials such as iPods and circuit boards.

This is the Dada image we discuss in the show.

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30×30 inches oil and wax on linen

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Twitter

You can read about his life-altering experience here

An abstract artist from Britain who clearly loves what they do. This is an artist that loves to experiment and play.

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Their website reads “This duo are driven by their passion for innovative design, public art and mischievous intervention. Their pop-up installations never fail to turn heads, raise smiles and create epic scenes that shift the mundane towards the surreal, the sublime and often the downright ridiculous.”

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The artist states “Norman Gekko should be considered as a concept a collaborative project. To describe Norman Gekko as one artist is too simplistic.  Of course, there is an individual who produces the pieces of art but other people input into the works and enable the creative process. So to define Norman Gekko in reference to gender, age or nationality would be missing the point. Norman Gekko works almost exclusively with found or recycled objects”

“The sculptures are usually organised into series such as “Choking Hazard” –  a comment on pornography – or “Identity Badges” – exploring the contradiction between  our desire for individuality and our need to belong.”

Work from the Standard Deviation series

Work from the Bizpopbourgeois series

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Today in this Mini Episode we will be looking at a lawsuit involving a big Donald Trump Painting, a stolen fake painting and a new blue paint.

Artist Suing for a gallery not accepting his work!

An artist JULIAN RAVEN is suing the Smithsonian gallery. For not showing his artwork. He currently is appealing a lawsuit that was thrown out in December. As he feels that his work should be accepted to be hanging in the Rockwell Museum in the National Portrait collection (which is linked the Smithsonian)

You can see the creation of the work in this video. below

On his, the artist states After weeks of meditating on this recurring vision there was only one way to make it stop, paint the painting.

Painted in 2015 Raven had hoped that it would be put in the National Portrait Gallery display to celebrate Trump’s inauguration in 2017. However, The Galleries Director Kim Sajet informed that would not be accepted as it was too big, too political and that it was not very good.

Apparently, the artist thinks that the reason his work has not been accepted to be shown is one of politics. He feels that the art world is controlled by very strong left-wing ideologies

“The First Amendment simply does not apply to government art selections, no matter how arbitrary,” Judge Trevor McFadden wrote in the memorandum when first dismissing the case….

Italian police have foiled art thieves by replacing an original painting with a copy…. This was after hearing rumours of plans to steal the work.

Thieves broke into the church in the Italian town  Castelnuovo Magra about a week ago and stole what they thought was an original 17th-century painting called The crucifixion by the Flemish artist Peter Bruegel the younger.

The painting had been stolen previously in 1981 and was recovered a few months

Apparently, only a few people were in on the ruse….. the town’s mayor even made a statement shortly after stating that it was a blow to the town to lose such a painting.

The thieves have yet to be caught.

Pieter Bruegel the Younger was the son of a Pieter Bruegel the Elder – he produced his own works and made copies of his fathers works. There are several copies in existence………….

To celebrate what would have been the 90th birthday of Yves Klein. A paint company called Ressource is releasing a matte and velvet matte finish, household paint. Which is very close to the international Klein blue. It will sell at $100 dollars per litre. but you get undercoat with it. However it is still a cheaper way of getting your own a Klein blue, as many of his works sell for millions,

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£ 2,165,000 In 2016 A Monochrome Blue painting was sold at Sotheby’s and measured just 30 inches by 22 inches roughly 78 by 56 cm!

You can find out more about Yves Klein here as part of our podcast on the colour Blue here

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In the Final Part 3 of our Dada podcast, we discuss things like: Dada in the USA,  investigating if  Duchamp actually created the artwork Fountain,  talking about a useless clothes iron that got stolen and the punch up that ended Dada.

Dada spread to many countries. Centred around New York, US Dada was less political than European, but still nihilistic and iconoclastic attacking cherished beliefs.

The central figure for the US Dada movement Alfred Stieglitz who was an American photographer and art promoter. Many of the Dadaesque shows in the US centred on artworks instead of performance

Picabia was an artist and Cubist who also produced DADA works, he moved to New York from his native France

He produced several so-called Mechanomorphic works, which were drawings of what looked like designs for machines. These machine images to related to the human condition. I imagine it would have been shocking that an artist would represent humans, soulless almost like machines at the time.

Voila  la Femme 1915 (Here is the Woman)

Link to image of Voila la Femme

Link to image of Parade Amoureuse

Randomly one time Picabia sent one of his paintings to Paris. It was confiscated and sent for investigation at the ministry of inventions. They thought it was a compressed air Break.

Duchamp was already quite a celebrity when he arrived in New York in 1915

This was one of his earliest Readymades. It was a snow shovel that he presented in a gallery

Link to image of in Advance of the Broken Arm

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven a German artist considered an artist to have created the first Arte Trouve found art object (or Readymade as Duchamp named them.

Born in Germany in 1874 moved to America in 1910

She was a highly individual and expressive person. She would create quite a striking figure. She Would sometimes shave her head die it in various hues. She would accessorise with a pack of dogs or live birds could be seen wearing a soup can bra. She was an extremely important artist in modern art history.

She is responsible for creating the first-ever recorded found object artwork (later called Readymade by Marcel Duchamp)

On the way to her wedding in New York. Elsa found a rusted metal ring. Just under 4 inches in diameter. It has a feminine quality and resembles an engagement ring. This piece could have been a been reference to her marriage. She gave many pieces spiritual or religious names

Another famous work of hers was called god which she created with the American artist Morton Livingston Schamberg

A piece of plumbing on a plinth This was created in 1917 the same year as Marcel Duchamp created his urinal piece fountain. Perhaps they were influenced by each other?

However, it has been recently suggested that she may have been responsible for Marcel Duchamp’s fountain work.

There is a theory that Duchamp did not create Fountain but it was actually the work of “The Baroness” Elsa Von Freytag

You can found out more about Fountain on our first ever podcast.

Here is a link to a good blog post by artbouillon.com discussing the issue and it also features images

Finally, dada came to Paris in the 1920s  It was to have some of biggest Dada names involved including: Tristan Tzara (the self-appointed leader of Dada from Zurich), Max Ernst from Cologne, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray from New York

It still had  the same level of absurdness

Man Ray an American artist who had come over from the US dada scene

Had a show which included paintings and collage. The space was completely filled with balloons so visitors had to squeeze in. Then when signalled to do so, the Dada organisers all popped the balloons with cigarettes.

The most famous work on show was called Gift. It was a clothes iron with 14 tacks glued onto it… The work was alluding to domesticity and sadism……. It was created the day of the opening and it was stolen the same day. Interestingly the piece was created with the help of Erik Satie the composer.

An example of the

In the early 70s, he released an edition of 5000 irons which sold for $300 dollars apiece

Other dada notable performances in Paris include

Which I think we can recreate….

Jean Arp reading a Newspaper whilst an electric Bell was going on. So you could not hear him at all.

A piano piece by Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes (George Ribemont Dessaigne) comprised of totally random

A press release announced things such as: All dadaist will have their heads shaved in public, Pugilism without pain, a Dada magician, Plays and poems and promised to reveal Dada’s Sex.

In the end, the show was a bit of a letdown, seeming a bit amateurish.

The dadaists at the event all decided no to get their heads shaved and the big reveal of the sex of Dada was just a couple of balloons attached to a phallic-looking column attached to some balloon

The end of Dada came in 1923.

And many artists involved in the Dada scene were looking to other forms of art, especially one that was inspired by dreams and the subconscious. Artists were growing tired of each other and rivalries came to a head at the Théâtre Michel in Paris The show was called  The Soiree of the Bearded Heart, it was an event organised by Tristan Tzara. It was to be an evening of film Piano Music and dancing, of course, the required dadaist poetry was performed also

Estranged former dadaists after hearing rumours of their works being performed showed up for a showdown. Fired up the French poet Andre Breton upon hearing a something referencing Picasso, leapt on stage and attacked a performer Pierre de Massot with his cane,  breaking Mascot’s arm. The Police turned up and kicked Breton off the premises. Revenge and tension was clearly left hanging in the air

The Poet Paul Eluard poet angered at Breton being removed from the last Dada play. Stormed into the theatre during a performance of a play called the Gas Heart and demanded to see Tzara. As soon Tzara appeared he leapt up on stage and punched him in the face. This escalated into a small group bust-up, which also ruined the set.

An Interesting Dada style documentary about the history of Dada called the ABC’s of Dada

The Book “Destruction was my Beatrice” by Jed Resula is an interesting history of Dada to read.

The piece of Erik Satie on the pod was by the courtesy of  Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) and

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