"I had best be brief.."

"Concerning love, I had best be brief and say that when I read Bertrand Russell on this matter as an adolescent, and understood him to write with perfect gravity that a moment of such emotion was worth the whole of the rest of life, I devoutly hoped that this would be true in my own case.

And so it has proved... to that extent I can regard the death I otherwise resent as laughable and impotent."

~Christopher Hitchens Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays

111223: Found

Because I find her figure, slumped there like that, strange and beautiful. Her legs askew, sorrowful and silent like Morandi's bottles.

Auction House Alien (Part 2): Reclaiming A Cultural Encounter

In response to my mini post concerning  the auction house, reader Nick Johnston writes,

"Following the recent sales here in London of Picasso’s painting La Lecteur at c. £25m and now Bacon’s small triptych of Lucien Freud at c. £23m – both to vanish into private, anonymous collections I presume – it’s a salutary reminder that art can always be reduced by the global art trade to secure and lucrative personal investments. No doubt, in 10-20 years’ time, the same paintings will reappear in the major auction houses, and fetch even greater sums for their new owners. Can these works now ever hope to escape the celebrity status of becoming auction house blockbusters and be seen again as paintings, as ART – made not for money but for some kind of love – when the price tags threaten to eclipse them?"

This is partly a question of perspective. It could be argued their celebrity has considerably diminished their potential for being experienced as individual works of art  - where they are approached in purely commercial terms,  instead of as objects made by an individual, as works with their own historical context.

La Lecture c. 1932

Cheyenne Westphal says Bacon's was "an artwork that radiates 'wall-power'". 

Whether a work has 'wall-power' or any cultural resonance is a curiosity that is best explored, not an opinion to be blindly accepted. What we do with our curiosity is key. Without the effort to seek out and experience the work first hand, the artists, and not just their works, remain far removed from any kind of artistic or cultural experience that can be called worthwhile. We are too easily saturated with the digital image, instead of transformed or provoked by the physical matter of a created work encountered in real space and time. In the face of cult celebrity, alienation and vulnerable art market, this is the one physical response we should be encouraging people to have.

Celia Paul: Embodied Light and Experience

The work of Celia Paul has been on my mind.

I find her manipulation of paint compelling; it is nuanced brush work. It demonstrates a delicate yet assured response to the presence of her subjects - sometimes close family members, some times herself. The ambiguous light sources, shifting focal points and luminous shadows lend the paintings a warmth from which we can draw so much.

celia_paul_self

Beauty, mystery and strangeness come together in her work and affirms the unique strength of painting to mediate and embody human experience.

celia_paul_frank

Celia's exhibition, Identity, Mothers and Daughters includes new works on paper, prints and paintings at Marlborough Fine Art, London until 26 Feb, 2011. London readers, feel free to write me with your personal feedback and experience of these.