Or... what goes around, comes around.As I was looking for something in my filing cabinet, I came across an old paint chart, produced by none other than the Tate corporation (in conjunction with B&Q in 2003), which features four series of interior paint colours inspired by the four Tates: Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. Some interesting colours include Skylon (a mossy yellow-green), Fruit (a burgundy-brown), Crustacean and Shamrock. (read my previous posts on painting by numbers and colour values).
[Tate - paint colour chart]The canvas rolls and stretchers which I acquired a while back have an interesting and connected back story. The canvas rolls and stretchers were from a friend of a friend who had, strangely enough, previously supplied the Tate Modern with none other than a paint by numbers canvas art - but were called 'self-assembly painting kits' (perhaps paint by numbers is trademarked).The venture sadly folded, thus a great quantity of canvas, stretchers and acrylic paint were going free to needy artists. I was very glad of the canvas and stretchers, but with one problem, the acrylic colours were not good... including a lurid turquoise (which Pantone is championing as the colour for 2010), fuschia pink and an acidic skittles orange - so I promptly donated all the 10 litre paint tubs to the art department.
[Tate - DIY canvas]Some, but not all, of the rolls of primed canvas had been pre-printed with two linear designs, Bouquet (seen right), which has more than a passing resemblance to Andy Warhol's flowers, and Wave (left), owing something in style to the work of Bridget Riley - two artists, who, quite differently, took a very systematic approach to painting.
Andy Warhol, flowers 1970In flowers, Warhol continued to embrace the art of the mundane in the repeated image, with deliberate mis-registrations of silkscreened colour - the image is made more saccharine and artificial (in its subject) and yet it is visually tantalising in the infinite number of variables - no two paintings are the same from this art factory. Apparently, Warhol was sued for using this appropriated photograph in his work.
Bridget Riley, Intake 1964(deliberately muted here, for easier visual analysis)Riley approached her paintings with a mathematical accuracy, many planned on graph paper beforehand - watch this film clip on youtube of a young Bridget Riley talking about her work.I love and loathe Riley. I love the craft, the process, the precision, the perfection of colour (or tonal monochrome); I loathe the unsettling optics, pulsating rhythms that seductively draw you in only to mess with your mind - there can be no love with a Riley, it's a battle of minds - the painting always wins....So, to round off painting by numbers - I can still recall the slightly exotic, oily aroma of tiny paint vials (was it enamel or real oil paint) and the cheap plastic brushes (the original kits, if unused and unopened, are highly collectable by the way)...And a quick browse of any Tate gift shop quickly tells you that Tate as a brand is all consuming and all consumed - even I have a Tate t-shirt (the miniature one), a Tate sketchbook, a Tate pencil and a Tate sharpener. In fact, Tate now have an art on demand service - select an image from their digital archive and have it printed in a range of sizes on paper or canvas... now, a framed Monet (prounounced Mon-nay) is just perfect for the bedroom... but first you will need to re paint the walls...
apocalypse, now and again
Every now and again I really look forward to seeing monumental new works by major artists. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's newest creation in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London is a scene of disaster... it seems mismatched, ill-conceived, too referential, derivative, a bargain basement of installation art... She has said in an interview that it's a memorial to previous Turbine exhibitors, set in the future (2058) when it rains everyday, the sculptures have mutated and the space has become the only sancturary for art and people, yet it's not a dark work (yep, the bright lighting doesn't support her dystopian view of London), and viewers will bring their own relationship to the work but the (too) many references to post-apocalyptic novels and movies skew the perspective...Unlike Louise Bourgeois' original Maman spider, her copied, or should one say referenced work seems to rely on scale to convey a message, but it doesn't seem to have any substance (the sculptures are apparently made of polystyrene)... she has seized upon the apparent zeitgeist of doom and catastrophe and tried to create a bleak cultural oasis of the future, but has merely mutated others work, then collated some obvious dystopian fiction which make any message seem as crude as a shopping list, and the books are all shiny new copies; some chewed-up or even water damaged books might have worked better... no doubt they'll have to be replaced regularly - FREE BOOKS at the Tate everyone... and the yellow bunk beds made me think of a quick trip west to Ikea... these objects apparently allude to Henry Moore's war shelter drawings.
TH 2058 at Tate Modern, London 2008 © TateAll in all, this work of works is all the more disappointing because I so wanted to to like it - I connected to the overall premise. Of course, I am relying on what I've read and seen in the press, and perhaps I will eventually warm to it, but I sense a rain check coming on... However, with the post-apocalyptic glow of an Eliasson sun highlighting a few Doris Salcedo cracks, with some Hirst-esque diamond superbugs crawling around a Whiteread style sugar cube mountain, maybe it would work as a chilling memento mori...A much more startling scene of cultural devastation was that of a stash of modern art smouldering in the aftermath of a London city warehouse fire in 2004; art imitates life even after reports of its death...Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster at the Tate Modern View a video clip of the Turbine Hall exhibit at Times OnlineView installation photos at BBC.co.uk