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Posts Tagged ‘marcel Duchamp’

London, Trees, Walks and Art.

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

Trees feature a great deal in our various London walks. For example on the Secret City Walk we point out a tree on Cheapside, close to St. Paul’s Cathedral, that the poet William Wordsworth actually wrote a poem about.

But to return to our little wanderings inside the Energy and Process wing at Tate Modern, we can even point out a tree in there and link it to our other London Walking Tours.

The tree in question is a work called Tree of 12 meters created in the early 1980’s by the Italian artist Giuseppe Penone.

It takes a while to “get” this sculpture. At first glance you appear to be staring at two very stark almost skeletal trees that appear to be almost petrified.

You could be forgiven for thinking that you are just looking at two dead trees that someone has stood upright and decided to call them art.

If that is what Penone has done then it could, of course, be a follow on to Marcel Duchamp’s breakthrough in the early 20th century when he bought a urinal displayed it in an art gallery making the belief that if he as an artist took an everyday object, no matter how mundane or basic, and displayed it in an art gallery then it became a work of art.

So, if Penone takes two dead trees and displays them in an art gallery setting, then they too become art.

And indeed, that would be exactly what the Arte Poverta movement would revel in.  An ordinary, everyday object that is used by an artist to create a work of art.

Except, Tree of 12 metres is not any every day object, it is in fact a carefully and skillfully carved work that has been created using one of the oldest forms of sculpture - carving.

We’ll return to this theme in tomorrow’s blog as our Haunted London walk is about to take place.

In the meantime, don’t forget that we have a whole  host of wonderul London walks that will show you places that you would never dream still existed.

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Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Artist

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

London is a a City of Art and our Walks include numerous wonderful places where works of art can be seen. Indeed, we have been known to refer to our London walks as Walks of Art!

Last night, before we were called away to do a little bit of scary art of our own on the London Ghost Walks, we started telling you a little bit about a painting by Nikki de Saint Phalle, which can be seen in the Energy and Process wing of Tate Modern.

We explained how, at first, the picture, one of her Shooting Paintings, seems like a series of coloured streaks running down a plaster.

But we ended by telling you how Nikki de Saint Phalle actually made chance itself the main creator of the painting. Here’s how.

She would begin with a wooden base board which she would lay down flat on a surface.  This done she would fill plastic bags with different colours of liquid paint.

Having done this she would then cover everything with plaster so that she had a pristine white, rough mound of plaster piled against the background of the board.

She would wait for it to dry and then would be ready to “create” the painting.

The board would be raised upright and Nikki would then take a .22 rifle and shoot at the plaster.

The bullets would penetrate the plaster and would then rupture the plastic bags beneath causing the paint to run down the surface of the plaster in streaks of colour that mixed, mingled and pooled together.

Thus the element of chance effectively became the means by which the painting was created.

It was a revolutionary way to create a painting since it brought a new realism into art and, as a result, Nikki de Saint Phalle became famous and travelled all over the world to stage her Shooting Paintings.

The one you’re looking at in Energy and Process was created on the stage of the American Embassy in Paris on the evening of June 20th 1961.

Two American artists, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, fired the bullets at the plaster and created what you see before you. So this could be said to be a collaboration between de Saint Phalle and these two other artists.

Shortly after this was created Nikki de Saint Phalle was introduced by Marcel Duchamp to Salvador Dali, both of whose works we will cover in a later post.

However, Nikki de Saint Phalle stopped creating her Shooting Pictures in 1963 saying that she had become addicted to shooting “like one becomes addicted to a drug.”

We will continue our tour of the art inside Tate Modern later today with a look at the central hub of Energy and Process as we look at Arte Povera itself.

You can, if you wish,take a look at our various London walks or tonight you can join us on one of our Old City of London Ghost Walks.

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London - it’s a Walk of Art

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Yesterday we left you cowering beneath the two huge slabs of metal that combine to make Richard Serra’s Trip Hammer, having earlier discussed where else you can see examples of his work on our London walks.

Today we’ll have a closer look at this precariously balanced piece and ponder exactly what is the meaning behind it.

Of course the main point that we like to make time and again on our Walks of London is that, no matter where you are standing in this great city look around you.

London is a city of surprises and on our London walking tours we make a point of creating wonder out of the ordinary.

But for now, let’s return to Trip Hammer.

Richard Serra was born in San Francisco  in 1939. Whilst at university he helped support himself by working in steel mills, and this would later have an enormous impact on his art and an influence on the materials he chose to use in his art.

Although he has worked in lead and other materials, examples of which can be seen in the main hub of the Energy and Process wing, steel has become his preferred material for his art.

With Trip Hammer you can actually see how he likes to use the very steeliness of the steel to create an abstract that doesn’t represent anything, but which most certainly makes you ponder it, perhaps even fear it.

It is, in effect, taking the concept of Marcel Duchamp’s “ready mades” and using an ordinary, everyday object, that is not really meant to be seen, and displaying it in such away as to make the spectator not just look at it but to also wonder about it.  Both to stand in awe before it and be apprehensive about the potential for disaster that emanates from the work - it is, if you like, the ultimate in chance in art.

But there is also  the natural art in the steel itself.

Steel, of course, degrades and rusts - you can see this on the two pieces of steel he uses for Trip Hammer, both of which show signs of rust.

So this element adds another dimension to the work, ensuring that it will keep changing and developing as a piece.

Amazingly in Spain  in 2005, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid announced that they had somehow managed to “mislay” a 38-tonne sculpture that Serra had created!

Our next posting will look at another intriguing work in Tate Modern where chance really does play a part in the very creation of the painting itself.

Be sure to check out the various London walks we offer and don’t forget that we also do a nightly Jack the Ripper Tour that you might like to join us on.

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