Good day kind blog viewers I very much hope you have had pleasant, fulfilling or restful weeks, depending on your preferences. Spring clean weekend was sadly not delightful for me but very much necessary and luckily I managed to take time out of my busy mopping schedule to have an excellently fancy slap up lunch with the kind parents Hunt after which on slightly boozed up feet I stumbled to the Chris Ofili exhibition at the Tate with daughter Hunt. The combination of full stomach, alcoholic head and the spotting of Nigella and Charles at lunch put us in excellent artistic stead I feel. Particular mention of thanks goes to Georgie here for her loan of Tate membership card. Thank you Georgie xxx
So, Chris Ofili eh? I must admit I am slightly scared of commenting on the great and more importantly contemporary Chris. What the hell do I know about anything made in the last 85 years eh? (or before for that matter) Literally nothing. So I will start by stating simply that I very much enjoyed this exhibition, although not the unbearable crowd of trendy wankers inhabiting it who apparently, since duping total plonkers into inseminating them, no longer have to queue! Given the choice I would definitely choose to go on Wednesday afternoons with the OAPS instead, much less annoying social demographic.
My very favourite part of the exhibition was funnily enough the first thing one encounters when entering; Shithead, which more than sadly can not be found as an image on Google, would have been heralded as a work of pure genius in my household for its name alone. Many, (MANY), an hour have we wasted playing the card game of this name and it causes me great regret that I can not produce a photograph of this wonderful sculpture for you my dearest housemates. Please imagine instead a lump of dung with human teeth, eyes and wool coming out of its head. Fab.
The first few rooms of the exhibition concentrate on the early works which bought Ofili to international attention. These intricate and multi-textured paintings with elephant dung inserted onto the canvas surface also use dung almost as plinths to support the bottom of the canvases as they lean against the gallery walls. I haven’t seen many Ofili’s in the flesh and it is this later use of the dung which I found particularly interesting. Before I go into this (and don’t worry it wont be in much detail) I will touch quickly on the paintings themselves, reproductions of which definitely do not convey the real skill and beauty of the work which have seemingly endless layers of varnish, resin, paint and materials such as glitter and photographs which in combination lend the pieces almost Claude like luminosity. I have nothing against the dung, I like it on some of the works, but I felt that in some of these pieces not only did it seem to exist as an afterthought to the painting, but it also seemed to detract from the incredible depth of the surfaces themselves. With the inclusion of huge round lumps of shit, often with extra collage elements added on top such as beading; the eye was encouraged to travel too speedily over the surface of the paintings making them appear flat in comparison and thus missing out on what I felt was the most interesting element of the work.
As for the dung itself; sometimes I felt it really worked yet sometimes, for me, it was a totally pointless addition. I get that he is interested in the mix of beauty and ugliness and that in some ways that’s a metaphor for the mixture of themes in his work, using spiritual and art historical subjects and interplaying them with often crude elements of contemporary culture such as references to black exploitation films or hip hop. However, did he have to use dung in all of them?? Some of them seemed to really work and the dung felt like an understandable addition; sometimes as a juxtaposition, sometimes as a more thorough incorporation but in each seeming to be a benefit to the piece overall. But several of the paintings, for me, would have been complete works without the addition of random bits of poo such as Afrodizzia which I have included a link to below. In cases such as this it seemed to act as a novelty factor when none was needed.
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/history/img/1998_afrodizzia.jpg
The use of dung as semi-plinth I found highly intriguing and obviously invests somewhat in the ongoing (is it ongoing?) discourse of the plinth in relation to the gallery space. In the case of Ofili the pieces of shit propping up the images can be viewed as elements within the original work rather than pieces created to display the canvasses, I think, as they were mostly incorporated into the decorative scheme of the overall piece with beading and other elements added to them. Looking round the galleries I loved how the use of the dung in this way bought the pieces into the space of the viewer and these highly textured, tactile surfaces were not hung on the wall as later pieces were. I also loved that, like Brancusi and countless others; the plinths themselves now need to be protected from the visitors. Pieces in the Upper Room series I found ironic as by this point, personally, it did feel like Ofili was propping his work up with shit.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/07/20/arts/20tate2_600.jpg
It was with this in mind that I was glad to move into the later rooms of the exhibition where newer and less familiar (to me) work was shown including some pieces created in the last couple of years. In the film accompanying the exhibition (shown at the end) a lot is made of Ofili’s move to Trinidad and the subsequent effect this has had on his work. The paintings in this part of the exhibition were a real departure, it seems, from his earlier work and I felt his confidence shows through, almost as if they aren’t trying as hard as his earlier work, saying less yet with more strength – if that doesn’t sound too wanky. The spiritual and tribal symbolism is still very present and many of the images reminded me of 1930s tribal inspired fashion plates with the strong use of colour and elongated lines:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2009/9/15/1253031031235/The-Healer-by-Chris-Ofili-001.jpg
The collection of 4 ‘blue’ pieces using once again the themes of religion and spirituality were particularly haunting and visually stunning and probably my favourite images in the show. Please see below:
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/upload/2007/10/ofiliblues.jpg
All in all a really enjoyable, beautiful show and if you are not a huge fan of his earlier stuff still worth seeing as you will definitely get enjoyment out of the visually arresting images later in the show. If you (like me) do enjoy his earlier stuff you may be as pleasantly surprised as me by his later pieces.
See you next week xxxx
Monday, 8 February 2010
Week 4: Chris Ofili/Tate Britain
Good day kind blog viewers I very much hope you have had pleasant, fulfilling or restful weeks, depending on your preferences. Spring clean weekend was sadly not delightful for me but very much necessary and luckily I managed to take time out of my busy mopping schedule to have an excellently fancy slap up lunch with the kind parents Hunt after which on slightly boozed up feet I stumbled to the Chris Ofili exhibition at the Tate with daughter Hunt. The combination of full stomach, alcoholic head and the spotting of Nigella and Charles at lunch put us in excellent artistic stead I feel. Particular mention of thanks goes to Georgie here for her loan of Tate membership card. Thank you Georgie xxx
So, Chris Ofili eh? I must admit I am slightly scared of commenting on the great and more importantly contemporary Chris. What the hell do I know about anything made in the last 85 years eh? (or before for that matter) Literally nothing. So I will start by stating simply that I very much enjoyed this exhibition, although not the unbearable crowd of trendy wankers inhabiting it who apparently, since duping total plonkers into inseminating them, no longer have to queue! Given the choice I would definitely choose to go on Wednesday afternoons with the OAPS instead, much less annoying social demographic.
My very favourite part of the exhibition was funnily enough the first thing one encounters when entering; Shithead, which more than sadly can not be found as an image on Google, would have been heralded as a work of pure genius in my household for its name alone. Many, (MANY), an hour have we wasted playing the card game of this name and it causes me great regret that I can not produce a photograph of this wonderful sculpture for you my dearest housemates. Please imagine instead a lump of dung with human teeth, eyes and wool coming out of its head. Fab.
The first few rooms of the exhibition concentrate on the early works which bought Ofili to international attention. These intricate and multi-textured paintings with elephant dung inserted onto the canvas surface also use dung almost as plinths to support the bottom of the canvases as they lean against the gallery walls. I haven’t seen many Ofili’s in the flesh and it is this later use of the dung which I found particularly interesting. Before I go into this (and don’t worry it wont be in much detail) I will touch quickly on the paintings themselves, reproductions of which definitely do not convey the real skill and beauty of the work which have seemingly endless layers of varnish, resin, paint and materials such as glitter and photographs which in combination lend the pieces almost Claude like luminosity. I have nothing against the dung, I like it on some of the works, but I felt that in some of these pieces not only did it seem to exist as an afterthought to the painting, but it also seemed to detract from the incredible depth of the surfaces themselves. With the inclusion of huge round lumps of shit, often with extra collage elements added on top such as beading; the eye was encouraged to travel too speedily over the surface of the paintings making them appear flat in comparison and thus missing out on what I felt was the most interesting element of the work.
As for the dung itself; sometimes I felt it really worked yet sometimes, for me, it was a totally pointless addition. I get that he is interested in the mix of beauty and ugliness and that in some ways that’s a metaphor for the mixture of themes in his work, using spiritual and art historical subjects and interplaying them with often crude elements of contemporary culture such as references to black exploitation films or hip hop. However, did he have to use dung in all of them?? Some of them seemed to really work and the dung felt like an understandable addition; sometimes as a juxtaposition, sometimes as a more thorough incorporation but in each seeming to be a benefit to the piece overall. But several of the paintings, for me, would have been complete works without the addition of random bits of poo such as Afrodizzia which I have included a link to below. In cases such as this it seemed to act as a novelty factor when none was needed.
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/history/img/1998_afrodizzia.jpg
The use of dung as semi-plinth I found highly intriguing and obviously invests somewhat in the ongoing (is it ongoing?) discourse of the plinth in relation to the gallery space. In the case of Ofili the pieces of shit propping up the images can be viewed as elements within the original work rather than pieces created to display the canvasses, I think, as they were mostly incorporated into the decorative scheme of the overall piece with beading and other elements added to them. Looking round the galleries I loved how the use of the dung in this way bought the pieces into the space of the viewer and these highly textured, tactile surfaces were not hung on the wall as later pieces were. I also loved that, like Brancusi and countless others; the plinths themselves now need to be protected from the visitors. Pieces in the Upper Room series I found ironic as by this point, personally, it did feel like Ofili was propping his work up with shit.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/07/20/arts/20tate2_600.jpg
It was with this in mind that I was glad to move into the later rooms of the exhibition where newer and less familiar (to me) work was shown including some pieces created in the last couple of years. In the film accompanying the exhibition (shown at the end) a lot is made of Ofili’s move to Trinidad and the subsequent effect this has had on his work. The paintings in this part of the exhibition were a real departure, it seems, from his earlier work and I felt his confidence shows through, almost as if they aren’t trying as hard as his earlier work, saying less yet with more strength – if that doesn’t sound too wanky. The spiritual and tribal symbolism is still very present and many of the images reminded me of 1930s tribal inspired fashion plates with the strong use of colour and elongated lines:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2009/9/15/1253031031235/The-Healer-by-Chris-Ofili-001.jpg
The collection of 4 ‘blue’ pieces using once again the themes of religion and spirituality were particularly haunting and visually stunning and probably my favourite images in the show. Please see below:
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/upload/2007/10/ofiliblues.jpg
All in all a really enjoyable, beautiful show and if you are not a huge fan of his earlier stuff still worth seeing as you will definitely get enjoyment out of the visually arresting images later in the show. If you (like me) do enjoy his earlier stuff you may be as pleasantly surprised as me by his later pieces.
See you next week xxxx
So, Chris Ofili eh? I must admit I am slightly scared of commenting on the great and more importantly contemporary Chris. What the hell do I know about anything made in the last 85 years eh? (or before for that matter) Literally nothing. So I will start by stating simply that I very much enjoyed this exhibition, although not the unbearable crowd of trendy wankers inhabiting it who apparently, since duping total plonkers into inseminating them, no longer have to queue! Given the choice I would definitely choose to go on Wednesday afternoons with the OAPS instead, much less annoying social demographic.
My very favourite part of the exhibition was funnily enough the first thing one encounters when entering; Shithead, which more than sadly can not be found as an image on Google, would have been heralded as a work of pure genius in my household for its name alone. Many, (MANY), an hour have we wasted playing the card game of this name and it causes me great regret that I can not produce a photograph of this wonderful sculpture for you my dearest housemates. Please imagine instead a lump of dung with human teeth, eyes and wool coming out of its head. Fab.
The first few rooms of the exhibition concentrate on the early works which bought Ofili to international attention. These intricate and multi-textured paintings with elephant dung inserted onto the canvas surface also use dung almost as plinths to support the bottom of the canvases as they lean against the gallery walls. I haven’t seen many Ofili’s in the flesh and it is this later use of the dung which I found particularly interesting. Before I go into this (and don’t worry it wont be in much detail) I will touch quickly on the paintings themselves, reproductions of which definitely do not convey the real skill and beauty of the work which have seemingly endless layers of varnish, resin, paint and materials such as glitter and photographs which in combination lend the pieces almost Claude like luminosity. I have nothing against the dung, I like it on some of the works, but I felt that in some of these pieces not only did it seem to exist as an afterthought to the painting, but it also seemed to detract from the incredible depth of the surfaces themselves. With the inclusion of huge round lumps of shit, often with extra collage elements added on top such as beading; the eye was encouraged to travel too speedily over the surface of the paintings making them appear flat in comparison and thus missing out on what I felt was the most interesting element of the work.
As for the dung itself; sometimes I felt it really worked yet sometimes, for me, it was a totally pointless addition. I get that he is interested in the mix of beauty and ugliness and that in some ways that’s a metaphor for the mixture of themes in his work, using spiritual and art historical subjects and interplaying them with often crude elements of contemporary culture such as references to black exploitation films or hip hop. However, did he have to use dung in all of them?? Some of them seemed to really work and the dung felt like an understandable addition; sometimes as a juxtaposition, sometimes as a more thorough incorporation but in each seeming to be a benefit to the piece overall. But several of the paintings, for me, would have been complete works without the addition of random bits of poo such as Afrodizzia which I have included a link to below. In cases such as this it seemed to act as a novelty factor when none was needed.
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/history/img/1998_afrodizzia.jpg
The use of dung as semi-plinth I found highly intriguing and obviously invests somewhat in the ongoing (is it ongoing?) discourse of the plinth in relation to the gallery space. In the case of Ofili the pieces of shit propping up the images can be viewed as elements within the original work rather than pieces created to display the canvasses, I think, as they were mostly incorporated into the decorative scheme of the overall piece with beading and other elements added to them. Looking round the galleries I loved how the use of the dung in this way bought the pieces into the space of the viewer and these highly textured, tactile surfaces were not hung on the wall as later pieces were. I also loved that, like Brancusi and countless others; the plinths themselves now need to be protected from the visitors. Pieces in the Upper Room series I found ironic as by this point, personally, it did feel like Ofili was propping his work up with shit.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/07/20/arts/20tate2_600.jpg
It was with this in mind that I was glad to move into the later rooms of the exhibition where newer and less familiar (to me) work was shown including some pieces created in the last couple of years. In the film accompanying the exhibition (shown at the end) a lot is made of Ofili’s move to Trinidad and the subsequent effect this has had on his work. The paintings in this part of the exhibition were a real departure, it seems, from his earlier work and I felt his confidence shows through, almost as if they aren’t trying as hard as his earlier work, saying less yet with more strength – if that doesn’t sound too wanky. The spiritual and tribal symbolism is still very present and many of the images reminded me of 1930s tribal inspired fashion plates with the strong use of colour and elongated lines:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2009/9/15/1253031031235/The-Healer-by-Chris-Ofili-001.jpg
The collection of 4 ‘blue’ pieces using once again the themes of religion and spirituality were particularly haunting and visually stunning and probably my favourite images in the show. Please see below:
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/upload/2007/10/ofiliblues.jpg
All in all a really enjoyable, beautiful show and if you are not a huge fan of his earlier stuff still worth seeing as you will definitely get enjoyment out of the visually arresting images later in the show. If you (like me) do enjoy his earlier stuff you may be as pleasantly surprised as me by his later pieces.
See you next week xxxx
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