Paul Emsley presents Catharine, Duchess of Cambridge

When Royal Portraits go Bad

Emsley's controversial 2013 portrait

   Royal portrait commissions have a long history.  Henry VIII commissioned the English court painter Hans Holbein to go paint the otherwise unseen Anne of Cleves to determine whether or not she was marriage material.  Apparently, Holbein and her portrait thought yes.  Henry disagreed and art historians have long puzzled over how Holbein did not lose his head.

    Royal portraitist and first prize 2007 BP Portrait Award recipient, Paul Emsley is possibly grateful that times have changed (and that his subject is already safely married to William, Duke of Cambridge).

    Despite the Duchess’ polite claims to the contrary, her first official portrait as an HRH could have come off better.  Less polite critics have labeled Emsley’s effort as disappointing, even renaming the work, vampire princess, noting that the portrait more seemingly resembles the style of the popular Twilight films than a royal portrait.

   Why should we care?  Royal portraits do more than introduce a sovereign to his or her people, they are a record of the generations to which they belong.  Two hundred years from now, schoolchildren will visit the Royal Portrait Gallery for insights as to the lives and personalities of their great-great-great grandparents.  Kate's portrait is more than an idle curiosity to us for she is our ambassador to the ages and this is how she will be formally presented. 

Jonesing for Depth

Quinn's Planet, courtesy London Telegraph

Jonathan Jones Joneses for Artistic Depth

    In his 21 January review, Jonathan Jones, arts and culture critic for London’s The Guardian Newspaper, dropped the gauntlet over popular British artist Marc Quinn’s giant baby sculpture, Planet, and its installation in Singapore’s scenic Gardens by the Sea.

    Jones’ criticism is direct rather than rhetorical.  Does art need to be deep?  Inaccessible?  Clever?  Challenging?  How is it that we will choose to determine what is or is not considered art in a foundation-less (stated positively) Postmodern global culture? 

    I do enjoy The Guardian’s often thoughtful criticism, and appreciate Jones’ perspective in this case, but too often, I also wonder if The Guardian is not merely the UK’s contra-cultural, anti-establishment perspective – often appearing disagreeable merely to disagree. 

Quinn and Planet at Singapore installation, courtesy Artnews.com

    Indeed, there appears to be some disagreement with Jones’ perception.  Artnews.com confidently judges, “Planet is one of Marc Quinn’s most important works. The sculpture, which is a depiction of the artist’s infant son, appears to float above the ground and is a technical tour-de-force,” (Artnews, below).

    I think that in consideration of today’s cultural norms, Jones is being a bit hypercritical.  Consider the fate and present veneration of The Pearl, formerly at the heart of Manama, Bahrain. 

Cheaper by the Baker's Dozen

 1.      Francis Picabia, Volupté (1932), $130K

2.      Joan Miró, Femme (Femme debout) (1969), $4.5M -$8M

3.      Joan Miró, Femme, étoile (1942), $500K-$800K.

4.      Joan Miró, L’echelle d’évasion (Escape Ladder) (1939), $800K - $1.3M

5.      Joan Miró, Signes et figurations, $1M- $1.5M

6.      Joan Miró, Tête (1970), $800K - $1.1M

7.      Max Ernst, La Forêt (1934/35), $50K-$80K

8.      Max Ernst, Roter Gratenwald mit Sonne (Red Forest with Sun) (1936), $650K-$1M

9.      Paul Delvaux, ecce homo (la descendre de croix) (1949), $1M - $1.4M

10.   Paul Delvaux, La Première Rose (1947), $1.6M - $2.4M

11.   Paul Delvaux, Les nymphes des eaux (1938).  $5M-$8M

12.   René Magritte, A la rencontre du plaisir (1950), $2M-$3M

13.   René Magritte, La traverse difficile (II) (1946), $400K-$600K

14.   opt.  Edvard Munch, Robat pa sjøen (1904), $1M

 

Cheaper by the Baker’s Dozen

Or… if I had $10 Million Dollars … I’d Buy Us a … Miró, a Delvaux and a Munch

    I would never actually advise anyone as to what art they should or should not consider purchasing, but while reading Hedley Twidle’s interesting article about South African Nobel Literary Laureate John M. Coetzee in the Financial Times, I noted the advertisement for Christie’s upcoming Surrealist Art Auction in London (08 Feb, 2013), and could not resisting clicking on the teaser icon.  “Hmmm, I see…”

    Truthfully, I have a love and hate relationship with Surrealism, but many of the pieces in this particular auction draw closer to Modernism than to Surrealism, though all are definitely impacted by Surrealist forms and theory.  The first few selections in their slide show did not hold my attention.  They were fine, but not of the quality or the creativity I would expect for those prices.  But after imagining the excitement the wives of attorneys, Freshmen Congressmen and the other Long Island types whom I assume bid on such pieces, I caught a glimpse of Joan Miró’s Femme – a large, brilliant sculpture in black matte-finish bronze … And the expected price range for the piece?  A mere $4.5 million.  “Nice – I’d sure like to see the commission on that one,”  I thought to myself.

    Going through the slideshow catalogue, I noted several other Miró’s that I felt to be rather special and a few other works by other artists, ending up with a baker’s dozen-or-so that I felt would be well worth the trip to view.  The combined recommended minimum for the full dozen, roughly a cool $19.5 Millions – not really so bad if you really think about it.

in memoriam

Courtesy Agência Brasil

Oscar Niemeyer 

1907 - 2012

    The world lost a legend yesterday -- Brasilia architect Oscar Niemeyer passed away in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at the age of 104.

    While he designed many magnificent buildings and structures, I have always been partial to his designs for Brasilia, the Brazilian capital.

    Together with Le Corbu, Niemeyer defined a generation of the arts for me and first led me to an appreciation of the Modernist spirit and aesthetic -- a long journey for a prairie cowboy to make.

    Niemeyer changed structures and design in positive ways that will long outlive both him and those buildings.

    Thank you, sir.  You will be long remembered.

Painting the Place Between

from the collection …

Painting the Place Between

(01 Dec, 2012 – 17 Feb, 2013)

Minnesota Museum of American Art

30 Nov 2012, St Paul, MN

    I have not attended MMAA’s programming events for several years due to having moved to Chicago for school.  Let me say, their new Project Space at 4^th and Robert Street in downtown St Paul is exceptionally light and approachable, and the same artistic community I have grown to love and value over the years, was in appearance at the event celebrating core holdings representing Minnesota’s regional artistic heritage.  The theme of the show seemed to focus on a sense of place – an odd but fitting theme for a city celebrating the 150^th Anniversary of its rather dark history in removing Native American tribes from their homes along the Mississippi River and resorting to armed force to evict many of them from the state entirely.  The background cultural context is the approaching anniversary of the hanging of 38 (of 300 sentenced) Siouan patriots as traitors, the day after Christmas, and a growing sense of and appreciation for the presumed unrealistic goal presented by many Native American Minnesotans that the historic Fort Snelling be razed, its removal reopening emotional and cultural access by the Native American community to that area which had once been a cultural heartland for their civilization.

    Not since my time spent in Cape Town, South Africa, or more precisely, Tshwane, fka Pretoria, and Mbombela, fka Nelspruit, have I sensed such a salient, if silent, contestation of the sense of place in a wider, post-colonial geography. 

Song Yer Thao Field (2012)

    While the curatorial staff intended the show to “shape a vision of our natural space as mediated by the artist’s subjective experience and the shared legacy and aura of painting on canvas… offer[ing] up evidence of the role the painter plays in how we view and interpret our landscapes as common ground and shared legacy,” the question on everyone’s mind is by what right and to what extent is this legacy truly shared, to what extent is this legacy contested, and how do the arts impact or facilitate either geographic appropriation or multi-cultural resistance.  While the works by Betsy Byers, Bette Carlon, Jil Evangs, Andrew Wykes, and Phyllis Wiener definitely are in dialogue with the Western cultural canons, they are also dialoguing with American imperialist art traditions dating back to Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, and even Ansel Adams.  All of the artists are perceived to be white Minnesotans, with the exception of Hmong artist Song Yer Thao whose Field (2012), rather than contrasting with the other works, lends stylistic support to that of Jil Evans, Phyllis Wiener and Holly Swift.  Still, one to left to ponder whether Fort Snelling has given up its cannon for the canon.