Hello all and welcome back once again to my crappy blog. This week, thanks to my friends highly useful press pass, I visited 2 shows at the Royal Academy, one of which I didnt even know was on – oops. The first was the Summer Exhibition. Now, everyone knows the Summer Exhibition is a load of crap and in fairness I haven’t actually paid to go and see it, well ever now I come to think of it, but I have still been to it more than I have probably been to the Turner prize in the last decade or so which isn’t great. This years show wasn’t as awful as some I have seen in the past, there were only about 5 dog paintings for example and actually I think most of those were (wildly popular) prints and drawings, which are somehow less repulsive than the oil versions I have seen there in the past. I did get quite annoyed by the general pretentious falsity behind it though – each room supposedly being ‘curated’ by a different artist/Royal Academician around some theme, when for the most part a theme clearly wasn’t there. I mean seriously these guys get to pick a few pictures to hang in various ways in one wall from a massive pile of crap in some warehouse somewhere. Don’t try and claim anything else, this is not a normal show. One of the boards claimed that a particular room was dominated physically and thematically by a particular large painting, but then went on to admit that there were other paintings in the room which didn’t really fit with that theme, and then some that did. Well bloody great thanks for that RA! There was also one room where we were informed only sensitive, thoughtful and intelligent people would appreciate the hang and if you didn’t like it then that meant you weren’t intelligent sensitive or thoughtful, which clearly means I am not intelligent sensitive or thoughtful. Oh no, you’ve made me feel really bad about myself now RA. The word twat springs to mind when encountering curators like that.
However, there were some nice pics in there when all is said and done. There was a cool one by Cornelia Parker (something to do with flattened teapots, I don’t know):
However, there were some nice pics in there when all is said and done. There was a cool one by Cornelia Parker (something to do with flattened teapots, I don’t know):
A couple by David Mach which I quite liked, also my friend works as an assistant for him so she probably made them:
These 2 called work and play by Chris Orr which were quite fun:
Loved this one by Simon Leahy made of newspaper called Library (hell of a lot of collage knocking round this year it seems to me which is definitely a good thing, love a bit of collage!):
Keith Typson’s Deep Impact was clearly a winner and got me very excited about the John Martin show coming up – nothing like a bit of apocalyptic fun for all the family:
I don’t usually bother to look at architecture exhibitions, well we all know my feelings about jumped up builders, but I actually really enjoyed at looking at all the little models for unbuildable buildings. I love guessing how much money they spent on specifically designed artfully distressed metal information plaques etc. I was looking at photos on the wall and really liked one of Shi Ling Bridge made from a ‘shell lace’ design by Tonkin Liu and Ed Clark, or someone, and then I turned around and realised they had a big model of it in the middle of the room:
After looking round all this stuff we went upstairs to see Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th Century which is a really rather good exhibition showcasing the work of photographers such as Brassai, Robert Capa and Martin Munkácsi. Now, I am painfully ignorant when it comes to photography, I am in all honesty a bit of a bloody snob about it – I genuinely believe if you put any crappy holiday snap in a shiny light box all blown up on a white walled gallery it’s going to look good. I’m not saying I don’t think there are some incredibly talented photographers out there practicing, I just think it’s really easy to fake it as well! Anyway, these guys were undoubtedly the real deal and I guess it is kind of amazing that all these incredibly talented and influential photographers all came from the same part of the world, and how unfortunate for them it should be Hungary in the first half of the 20th century!
In the early years of the century Hungarian artists such as Rudolf Balogh worked within the Magyar style which aimed to represent the quintessentially agrarian, timeless picture of Hungarian society. They produced solid, eternal looking images, the noble peasant sort of stuff. In fairness some of it was beautiful.
The exhibition did, if I remember rightly, spend a bit of time at the beginning discussing why it was that here was such an outpouring of exceptional talent from this small country at this point, but it didn’t go much beyond discussing advancements in hand held cameras and the rise in popularity of photo magazines and the desire for photo journalism in the press. The thing is though wasn’t that the case everywhere? I don’t really get why it was Hungary who lead the way so much at this point, maybe it was just coincidence?
Anyway, along came the First World War of course which resulted in Hungary losing something like two thirds of its territory leading to huge poverty, overcrowding and then of course the rise of fascism. From then on most of the photographers fled, first to Germany and Paris, and then in some cases onto London and America. The work of Laszlo Moholy- Nagy particularly stood out for me at this point. The photographer was clearly experimenting with the new, smaller cameras and exciting view points and perspectives, very the shock of the new:
I also really enjoyed the work of Angelo who seemed to be doing similar things:
Brassai of course buggered off to Paris where he sucked up to the Parisians so much he could never leave and produced many posters for 16 year old girls bedrooms:
André Kertész went to New York and apparently felt very lonely when he was there, ho hum.
Munkácsi also went over to the states and somehow got roped into fashion photography and was so influential he is hailed as reinventing the medium. His experience with sporting photography transformed the medium with his ability to capture movement and form to create a totally new look. He started off for Harpers Bazaar:
Despite all of this the real star of the show was undoubtedly Robert Capa, the things this guy must have seen?!? His 'Death of a Loyalist Militiaman' and the ones showing the Normandy landings define our understanding of war:
I could do about 8 pages on this stuff but I don’t have the time sorry – stay classy xxx
