Popular, British, elemental (earth, air, fire, water, aether) JMW Turner, genius of light, forefather of impressionism, special effects dappler and smearer, call him what you will, he's some kind of painter. I hadn't seen the Turner Collection (in what was the Clore Gallery) at Tate Britain for many years, so having been up there to see the Chris Ofili show (Brit Plop not Brit Pop), I had some time to soak it up.
What was most interesting (and predictable) was how much more drawn my (and surely most modern) eyes were to the more abstract works. Some of these are in fact more abstract as they are unfinished; many of the paintings on display are rescued from Turner's own recycling bins and Rothko-esque catflaps. His 'finished' narrative historical epic works are impressive in their own way but comparatively humdrum; his greatest works to the modern eye are those where the objects are barely recognisable, shimmering water-light-fire-air. The chromatic and tonal choices in his most audacious paintings are incredible, but he is not just a master of the subtleties of light, the mark-making is imaginative and beautiful in its variety and combining of textures: ethereal scumbling, weighty daubs and smacks of impasto, instinctive scraffito by fingernail and brush-end, willing the paint to shine-crack-sparkle-bleed.
Then when you see the 'Grand Style' narrative paintings that were all the rage and earned JMW his considerable coin, you half wish he hadn't succumbed to tradition and sales ever and had pursued the mad swirls of the elements constantly. Can't really call him a sell-out, but: "hey Joseph Mallord William you SELL-OUT!"
Another current highlight of a trip to Tate Britain was seeing Douglas Gordon's 'latest'. Gordon is the artist behind '24 hour Psycho' (the Hitchcock movie slowed down and soundless), and the film 'Zidane: a Twenty-First Century Portrait', a feature film/moving image artwork that follows Zinedine Zidane's every step in real-time of a football match, analysed in great detail here. So Gordon is definitely not a one-trick pony but he certainly plays with the concept of reproduction and repetition, ready to re-do, re-enact, in a different space, at a different speed. His text installation at the Tate Britain, 'Pretty much every word written, spoken, heard, overheard from 1989...' , is an interesting case. From what I can gather he has installed variations of much the same work a few times before. Does that reduce it to by-numbers glibness?, is that repeatability part of it? - phrases, words that form part of the artist's creative world-view, perhaps, or is it simply the same as when any exhibition or series of works goes on tour where the curatorial decisions alter the surface effect of how it is viewed, the sequence of hanging etc. Anyways, I enjoyed it, it engaged amusingly with the space, has an off-key comedic edge that is both somewhat dark and throw-away. It has variations and reworkings of stock pop-song phrases, riffing on trashy cliches with shifts of emphasis and perspective. It is apparently staged to interact with concepts of good and evil and a selection of the Tate's religious paintings of the Sublime hung in the adjoining gallery space.
I've just found out that the Zidane movie was shot by a camera team lead by the brilliantly gifted cinematographer, Darius Khondji, a contemporary genius of light. Maybe Turner today would be a cinematographer. The fucking sell-out.
I've just found out that the Zidane movie was shot by a camera team lead by the brilliantly gifted cinematographer, Darius Khondji, a contemporary genius of light. Maybe Turner today would be a cinematographer. The fucking sell-out.
