picasso at tate liverpool

A member of the public looks at The Charnel House as part of the Picasso: Peace And Freedom exhibition
Photo: PA

Picasso: Peace and Freedom at Tate Liverpool, review
by Richard Dorment
Telegraph.co.uk

Picasso’s post-war political activity is the subject of an intermittently gripping exhibition at Tate Liverpool entitled (apparently, without irony) “Peace and Freedom”. If you come out of it as confused as I was, it is because the show refuses to oversimplify a messy topic fraught with contradictions at every twist and turn.

What is certain is that Picasso was never an ideological Marxist. His naïve support of a monstrous ideology was motivated by genuine humanitarian concerns – he also contributed generously to much worthier causes, including the American civil rights movement.

Yet the fact remains that for 30 years the artist whose name is synonymous with freedom of expression placed his genius in the service of tyrants dedicated to its ruthless suppression.

The precise nature of Picasso’s political affiliations has always been a contentious issue. Some art historians have detected evidence of anarchist sympathies in the early work executed in Barcelona and Madrid. But his dealer, Daniel Henry Kahnweiler, was adamant that the young Picasso was “the most apolitical man I ever met”.

The second half of Picasso’s life, however, was largely shaped by the vagaries of European politics. His passionate support of the Republican cause during the Spanish civil war resulted in life-long exile from the country of his birth.

And yet for all his immersion in Left-wing politics, with one glaring exception (Guernica – the monumental canvas expressing his outrage at the Fascist bombing of the Basque village in 1937), Picasso was never conspicuously successful as a painter of political propaganda. That is because effective agitprop requires the simplification of complex issues. Picasso was a poet, not a politician. His is an art of allusion, symbol and metaphor.

Agree? Disagree?

See the whole review here: Picasso: Peace and Freedom at Tate Liverpool, review

can art be priceless?

Left to right: Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society, New York, via Christie’s;
Sotheby’s/European Pressphoto Agency

What explains the quick return to confidence in the art market?

This month, a painting by Picasso, “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” became the most expensive painting ever sold at an auction when it exceeded expectations to fetch $106.5 million at Christie’s. In February, a sculpture by Giacometti, “Walking Man I," sold for $104.3 million at Sotheby's, setting the previous world record auction price.

What accounts for these auction prices? Are investments in trophy art any different from investments made in an office park or a sports team?

• Denis Dutton, professor of philosophy of art
• Eileen Kinsella, editor of ARTnewsletter
• Donald Kuspit, art historian
• Kathryn Graddy, economist

Can Art Be ‘Priceless’ in Rocky Times? @ Room for Debate, NYTimes

studio visit @ p.s.1

I'm on Fire 2007
Alyssa Pheobus

Cattle Rustler
Eric Graham

Black Gravity 2007
Seung Wook Sim

Welcome to Studio Visit, P.S.1’s new web initiative that offers virtual presentations of artists’ studios. Emerging artists working in the five boroughs and greater New York area are invited to upload video or still images of their studios and work. Artists’ submissions will be present on the website for at least one month.

Studio Visit will serve as an online artistic hub and provide viewers a look at the varied artistic practices located within one city.

1038 studio visits and counting...

hopper at the national gallery of art

A great interactive site from an elapsed Hopper exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in 2007-2008. Full of good resources.

don't judge a book by it's cover

The covers of Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated in the UK and in France.
Photograph: Observer

Albums are sold across the world inside a universal sleeve, blockbuster films branded in a singular style. But novels, by a convention that nobody in the publishing industry seems fully able to explain, must be re-jacketed from territory to territory. It inspires all kinds of illustrative madness, and makes browsing foreign bookshelves a fascinating – often bewildering – experience...

By Tom Lamont for Guardian.co.uk

See the rest of the article: Design: Don't judge a book by it's Cover, particularly in France

this is where we live

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

A film for 4th Estate Publishers' 25th Anniversary. Produced by Apt Studio and Asylum Films.

The film was produced in stop-motion over 3 weeks in Autumn 2008. Each scene was shot on a home-made dolly by an insane bunch of animators; you can see time-lapse films of each sequence being prepared and shot in our other films.

From 4th Estate

bring the noise: responding to ofili

Virgin Mary 1996

INSA shoes

"TATE Britain is hosting a side event entitled Bring the Noise that respond and resonate with the exhibition of Chris Ofili...

London’s writer and artist INSA was invited amongst many others to partake in the event and have produced an one of pair of Heels that is unusual to say the least. The piece is entitled “Anything goes when it comes to (s)hoes…”, a play on the lyrics from classic Big Daddy Kane track Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy which is referenced by Chris Ofili several times in his paintings. The highlight of the heels are the elephant dung that is used as the platform of the heels. INSA retraced the footsteps Chris Ofili made over 15 years ago and sourced dung from the same family of elephants that produced the dung used in Ofili’s infamous paintings of the nineties."

From Freshness Mag

picasso sells for $106.5 million

"A painting that Picasso created in a single day in March 1932, “Nu au Plateau de Sculpteur (Nude, Green Leaves and Bust),” sold for $106.5 million, a world record auction price for a work of art, at Christie’s Tuesday night. The painting, more than 5 feet by 4 feet, shows Picasso’s mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, both reclining and as a bust. Picasso’s profile can be discerned in the blue background."

By Carol Vogel for the New York Times