Minimalism: Reflections of You
Ceiling Piece (detail), Peter Kennedy, 1970Minimalism is a term thrown about by everyone in the commercial arena these days, but the art movement originated in New York in the 1960s. It was founded on the principle that ‘less is more’. The exhibition Less Is More – Minimalism + Post-Minimalism Art in Australia at Heide Museum of Modern Art explores the work of 34 Australian artists, many of them contemporary. Key American pieces provide a touchstone and counterpoint to the Australian work.
In minimalism, art was streamlined. It did away with all extraneous detail, and was reduced to simple shapes or textures that were constructed of one or two materials. Often reflection and light played a part, such as in Peter Kennedy’s luminous and futuristic Ceiling Piece (1970), constructed from coloured tube lighting (below).
Ceiling Piece, Peter Kennedy, 1970The art was about the object itself, not a representation of the world within a two-dimensional space. In order to minimise the composition, simple abstract shapes or modular forms were repeated in sequences or grids. In Post-Minimalism, artists introduced soft, pliable materials, amorphous shapes and new mediums such as video.
But simplicity of form does not necessarily equate with simplicity of experience.
Mirrorchrome, Giles Ryder, 2006
I.O.U., Mikala Dwyer, 2009Though the forms are uncomplicated and might not deliberately convey the artist’s vision of the world, shapes do carry the weight of the history of the world in symbolism. We all have this history subsumed within our consciousness, so we cannot help but respond to these apparently simple shapes in our individual fashion. Stark and shocking, they are in fact as complex as human beings – they reflect ourselves – sometimes literally, as in Giles Rider’s shocking pink Mirrorchrome (2006). And what of Mikala Dwyer’s huge, reflective I.O.U (2009)? Its weight is literally and metaphorically crushing. There is nowhere to hide from it. In the silent face of them, we must ask questions, and perhaps go down paths we would prefer to leave untrodden.
White Cube Fur Garden, Kathy Temin, 2007But sometimes they are more tactile, more friendly, such as Kathy Temin’s White Cube Fur Garden (2007), or soothing and sensuous as Daniel von Sturmer’s Painted Video (Sequence 4) (2009) where paint pools hypnotically, forming ever-widening circles that somewhat resemble a target.
As curator Sue Cramer states, ‘Though it began in the 1960s, Minimal art has generated some of the most influential and important ideas used by artists today, and for this reason it has a particular relevance for contemporary audiences. The movement was interpreted and re-worked by Australian artists … and after a period of being out of favour has been re-engaged with by subsequent generations of Post-Minimal artists …’
On until 4 November 2012, Less is More at Heide Museum of Modern Art is a rewarding experience, worth the half-day trip out.
Untitled, Donald Judd, 1969–71
Cubic Modular Piece No 3, Sol Lewitt, 1968
Untitled Floor Structure, Nigel Lendon, 1969
Ceiling Piece (detail), Peter Kennedy, 1970
Artists at Work
Mark Rothko, 1964, ph Alexander Liberman
It’s fascinating to see artists at work. So often we see the product of their labours, but not so much the environment in which they were created. Watching someone live draw or paint, or sculpt is even more interesting: you see their concentration, the occasional frustration or contemplation. It’s almost hypnotic, soothing, and sensuous.
Here is a voyeuristic peek of artists at work, or simply in their studio environment. The last image, of Henri Matisse, shows him not in his studio, but seated at a table reading the latest issue of Vogue – this tickled my fancy. The photographer, Alexander Liberman of US Harpers Bazaar fame, states:
I had just brought him a copy of Vogue, which contained my photographs of his chapel in Vence. He was intrigued by the magazine as a strange combination of the sacred and the frivolous. Matisse, close up, that stern unforgiving eye, haunted me. He spoke very little, and I was terrified in his presence.
Cecil Beaton, ph Irving Penn
Raoul Dufy, 1945, ph Cecil Beaton
Christian Bérard, 1937, ph Cecil Beaton; Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, 1890 (ph unknown); Henri Matisse, 1909 (ph unknown)
Betty Parsons, 1960s, ph Alexander Liberman
Noel Coward, 1943, Cecil Beaton
Le Corbusier, 1954, ph Alexander Liberman
Ossip Zadkine, 1954, ph Alexander Liberman
Robert Rauschenberg, 1965, ph Alexander Liberman
Yves Klein, 1956 (ph unknown)
Agnes Martin, 1973, ph Alexander Liberman
Henri Matisse in 1947; c1953-54; c1954
Henri Matisse reading Vogue, 1951, ph Alexander Liberman
Images from: Toulouse-Lautrec by Matthais Arnold (Taschen, 2004); Beaton by James Danziger (Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1980); Matisse by Volkmar Essers (Taschen, 2002); Then – Alexander Liberman Photographs 1925–1995, by Alexander Liberman and Calvin Tomkins (Random House, 1995); Klein, by Hannah Weitemeier (Taschen, 2001)
Little Girl Memories
I’ve written before about my old collection of swap cards (aka trading cards). My mum, under the mistaken belief that because I no longer played with them that meant I had no interest in their fate, gave my entire collection to my cousins. I wasn’t happy when I found out, to put it mildly.
When I was a child, swap cards were a mad craze – I don’t know whether they simply disappeared from my horizon or if they truly went out of fashion. Recently I have noticed them making a reappearance in limited edition sets at craft fairs and cute boutiques. I purchased this half-dozen from Bob Boutique in Bendigo (where I also bought the bunny mask).
They aren’t a patch on my original collection – without being all rose-coloured and biased at all – but they do make me feel nostalgic. I’m not quite sure what to do with them though. I’ll probably end with giving them away to one of my nieces. How ironic. Little girl’s memories just do belong to little girls.
Green Ladies (and an Exotic Dancer)
Wow! Zowee! Tzing! Welcome back to the penultimate episode of the Inter-Universe Beauty Pageant, hosted right here on Earth by the lovely ladies Orielle Starlight of Uranus, and Andromeda X of Jupiter!
Today we will meet the last four contestants: Misses Zane, Bottlestar, Gold and Lorna.
I can’t help but wonder if Miss Zane (above) is as zany as she and her home planet looks: Dora with the unpronounceable surname (and, with unearthly accents, also unprintable) Xeii. It is a great pity too that this sewing mistress betrays an extraordinary ignorance of her remarkable home planet, that – in defiance of all known laws of physics, astronomy and every stream of science known to mankind – is ineluctably, a cube.
I do like her join-the-dots dress though, the tomato-red over-the-knee socks, and the tangerine Mary-Jane wedges. [SPOILER ALERT! Ed’s note: Honestly, I think I surpassed my childhood self with Miss Zane. How did she not win?]
Another seemingly clear winner is Miss Bottlestar, Maldie Morn, who, at the tender age of 18, is a marine biologist. She must be a real smart cookie. She is a little more learned than Dora Xeii, and informs us of the etymology of her oddly-named planet: Bottlestar was once war-torn Battlestar, but in the aftermath of world peace (a noteworthy achievement in itself), it was renamed. She lives in the city of Grug. It must be admitted that the Bottlestarri aren’t that good at coming up with aesthetically pleasing place names though.
As if you didn’t suspect right away, the very pink Donna Stein of the planet Gold is a … dancer. I think I will not mention what kind. I’m not quite sure how she slipped past the selection criteria for this illustrious contest. Like the red ballet slippers though. Nice pins too.
This little green lady is Louella Brite, a ‘dressmaker expert’ from a rainforest on the planet Lorna. Owing to the altruism of some anonymous Earthling, her home planet was seeded with rainforests millennia ago, and everything is now in full bloom. Just like Louella’s rainbow themed gown. I would totally wear those platform ballet/gladiator sandals with green fishnets too.
Well there you have it folks: all 25 contestants of the 129th annual Inter-Universe Beauty Pageant have now paraded their charms before you. Revisit them all in the official gallery. Who are the winners? You’ll have to stay tuned to find out …
Christian Bérard: A Theatrical Man
Christian Bérard (1902–1949) is one of my favourite fashion illustrators, for his wonderful airy touch – his paintbrush hardly seems to skim the surface – the carefree, gestural lines, and the light and minimal colour palette.
Yet the Frenchman, nicknamed Bébé by his friends, was more than that: he was also a painter, a theatre set and costume designer, a book illustrator, and he even designed textiles and interiors. A social butterfly, he was the darling of Paris in the 1920s and 30s.
Bérard at work in the Vogue Paris office, 1937, ph. Roger Schall
A popular man, witty, charming and kind-hearted, Bérard lived large through heady times and left a great legacy.
Bérard was most famous for the set and costume design of Jean Cocteau’s (a life-long friend) film La Belle et la Bête, but he also designed the sets and costumes for ballet and the theatre. And like many artists before and after him, he turned to commercial illustration work when he required income, contributing to magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. He also worked as a fashion illustrator for Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli and Nina Ricci.
A truly theatrical man, Bérard never lost his sense of childlike wonder: he loved carnivals, street fairs and dressing up – creating costumes for parties at the drop of a hat. A popular man, witty, charming and kind-hearted, Bérard lived large through heady times and left a great legacy. Somewhat fittingly, he died while at work at the theatre: giving some final instructions to the director Louis Jouvet and some actors, he stood and said, “Well, that’s that,” upon which he collapsed from a cerebral embolism.
One of the actors present, Jean-Louis Barrault wrote after his death: If I had to choose only one among the many impressions of Christian Bérard that spring to mind, it would be one that soon became for him a profession of faith: the joy of living, to the extent of perishing from that joy … It is as if, while I think intensely of him, all of the Bérards leaping about me reply:
‘Love of life is based on suffering, anguish, nostalgia, sorrow and sadness … that’s true, but all that is the source of joy.’ [Venetian Red]
For a more thorough biography, visit Venetian Red and read Christine Cariati’s excellent story on the artist.
Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1932