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Venus and rags - Walks of London

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Our London walks of Art, or as we like to say London is a walk of art, are going great guns.

We have nearly completed are London Walking Tour around Tate Modern and today have decided to make a return visit to the Energy and Process wing of Tate Modern.

Having nimbly dodged Richard Serra’s massive work Trip Hammer, which consists of two pieces of steel balanced precariously one on top of the other.

Having ducked as you pass Nikki de Saint Phalle’s Shooting Paintings. Having averted your gaze as you pass through a room in which a film showing nudity is constantly playing, you arrive at a statue of Venus that confronts a huge mound of coloured, and colourful rags.

Now we cover a lot of statues on our various London walks, but this particular one is, to say the least, somewhat bizarre.

Venus of the Rags was created in 1967 and then recreated in 1974.

It is a work by the Italian Artist Michaelangelo Pistoletto, a central figure in the Arte Povero movement.

Arte Povero was an Italian art movement of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

This was a time of great social upheaval, not only in Italy but also across the reat of Europe and in North America.

This was the era of Vietnam, and age marked by mass protests, riots and strikes.

In Italy a group of artists began attacking the vlaues of the established institutions of government, industry and even of popular culture.

They wanted to create art that was free of the demands of the market place.

Thus the Arte Povera movement was born.

In our next blog we will look at the work of Pistoletto, who was a central figure in this movement.

For now why not take a look at the various and varied London walks we offer.? You can join to explore Shakespeare’s London, Dickens London, or even the London of Jack the Ripper.

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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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Trip Hammer - Art Walks London

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Moving on in our quest to take a closer look at London on our Walks we move across the dialogue room in Energy and Process at Tate Modern and take a look at two huge slabs of steel that are balanced precariously, one on top of the other.

This is in fact an art work by Richard Serra and it is entitled Trip Hammer.

We do actually encounter another piece of Richard Serra’s work on our London walks around Liverpool Street Station.

He was responsible for one of the art works that grace (if that is the correct term) the Broadgate Development. This work is called Fulcrum and it consists of three huge sheets of metal that stand 55 feet high and lean against each other.

Fulcrum is what is known as “site specific art,” that is it is meant to exist at a specific location. As Richard Serra himself once said - when in the early 1980’s the New York authorities wanted to remove another of his site specific works. Titled Arc on the grounds that it restricted there passage through Federal Plaza in New York City -  “to remove the work is to destroy it.”

Trip Hammer, on display in the Energy and Process wing of Tate Modern, is about the sense of unease and anxiety that it instills in the spectator.

Luckily there is a protective bar around it to protect the work. But it’s also there to protect us from the work, because Trip Hammer consists of two delicately balanced pieces of industrial steel that are kept upright by their sheer weight and by minimal contact with the wall behind.

Both pieces of steel are 2.6 meters by 1.3 meters and the top one balances precariously on an edge that is just 5cm across.

It has minimal contact with the wall behind, in fact it just touches it ever so lightly. The two pieces aren’t fixed together in any way, it is their sheer weight, coupled with the force of gravity, that keeps them upright.

In other words it wouldn’t take much to topple them and the fact that they could fall at any moment makes us aware of the space we’re standing  in relation them.

So with Trip Hammer we have an artwork that combines classical simplicity with a sense of  nervous energy, some of which may well be coming from us as we contemplate the possibility that it could, in theory, fall on us at any moment!

Our next Walk of Art posting will look a little closer at this Richard Serra piece and will tell you a little bit about the artist who created it.

Of course you are very welcome to join us on one of our City of London walks or even on one of our Shakespeare London walking tours that takes in the area of Bankside where Tate Modern stands.

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Art and Walks in London - More Tate Modern

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

So, to continue where we left off when we introduced you to the Energy and Process wing at Tate Modern, and told you a bit about which of our London walks end close to Tate Modern so that you can pay it a visit

We were in the Energy and Process wing trying to make sense of Dynamic Suprematism by the Russian Artist Kasimir Malevich and got as far as explaining that what, at first glance, seems like a meaningless jumble of different shapes is, in fact, a very spiritual and mystical work.

In a later post we will look at a painting by a leading member of the Futurist art movement that came out of Italy in 1909.

Like the Futurists Malevich was very excited by the brave new technological world that the dawning of the 20th century had ushered in.

Scientific advancements such as motor cars and airplanes had given people a radically different perception of speed and movement.

Mankind could travel faster than ever before. He could look down on landscapes from high above and, in so doing, gain a totally new perspective on the world and his surroundings.

But for Russia in 1915, at the time when Malevich painted Dynamic Suprematism, the new technological age was about something more than a mere altering of peoples perspectives and perceptions about their surroundings - it was a catalyst for cataclysmic, huge social upheaval that would culminate in the Russian Revolution of 1918 and the overthrow of the Czar.

Malevich and his fellow, left wing artists were eagerly awaiting the coming of this new Russia and the resultant government by the people and for the people.

So this should be looked at as the art of a coming new world. An art that would replace religious icons with a simplicity that would enable people to look into and ponder a painting.

Indeed, just as the religious icons of old were intended to make you stop and ponder the world beyond, so to does Dynamic Suprematism make you forget about the materialism of art and look instead at the meaning behind the art.

So there we end our look at the work of Kasimir Malevich in Tate Modern’s Energy and Process wing.

Tomorrow we’ll pick up on the work that stares across at it in the dialogue room, Richard Serra’s Trip Hammer.

In the meantime, why not join us on a London walk to explore the places that surround Tate Modern and to enjoy a stroll over the Millennium Bridge following in the foosteps of Shakespeare and Dickens.?

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