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Bird in Hand, 2006 ©Ellen Gallagher I stopped by Ellen Gallagher’s exhibition @ Tate Modern a few days ago. It was lunch time and I was on my way back to work. I had no time so I only meant to rush my way through it. Although I seriously resisted it, I got completely engrossed and ended up spending over an hour marvelling at Gallagher’s playful and intricate visual world + large scale paintings almost never fail to suck me in (the bigger, the better — pretty much always), especially when there’s a lot going on across the canvas and when the texturing is so rich.Ellen Gallagher: AxME @ Tate Modern until 1 Sep 2013 => HERE [I strongly recommend buying a combo ticket along with the Saloua Raouda Choucair exhibition — Choucair’s show is a secret gem and because it’s on a much smaller scale than Gallagher’s, it’s an easy one to fit in without feeling overwhelmed.]

Bird in Hand, 2006 ©Ellen Gallagher

I stopped by Ellen Gallagher’s exhibition @ Tate Modern a few days ago. It was lunch time and I was on my way back to work. I had no time so I only meant to rush my way through it. Although I seriously resisted it, I got completely engrossed and ended up spending over an hour marvelling at Gallagher’s playful and intricate visual world + large scale paintings almost never fail to suck me in (the bigger, the better — pretty much always), especially when there’s a lot going on across the canvas and when the texturing is so rich.

Ellen Gallagher: AxME @ Tate Modern until 1 Sep 2013 => HERE

[I strongly recommend buying a combo ticket along with the Saloua Raouda Choucair exhibition — Choucair’s show is a secret gem and because it’s on a much smaller scale than Gallagher’s, it’s an easy one to fit in without feeling overwhelmed.]

Saloua Raouda Choucair @ Tate Modern, London, 3 June 2013 During your next visit to Tate Modern please make sure not to miss the wonderful (and rather short) exhibition on Lebanese painter & sculptor Saloua Raouda Choucair. You won’t regret it. Laura Cumming for The Observer: A bolt from the blue is not what one expects at Tate Modern. Unqualified revelations have never been the museum’s priority. Nobody goes to Bankside hoping to be astonished by a brand new name, a new artist, a new strain of art that has not yet been bruited on the international circuit all the way from Venice to Sydney to Basel. It does not deal in risks or experiments or artists without a press review to their name. It is powerfully attached to the status quo. Or at least that was the case until last week. For the first time in its 13-year history, Tate Modern has devoted a solo show to an artist who can confidently be described as completely unknown in Britain. She has never had an exhibition here, still less shown any of her paintings, drawings or sculptures here or practically anywhere outside her native Lebanon.Saloua Raouda Choucairis an extraordinary new name. She is also in her 97th year. Choucairwas born in Beirut in 1916. She has never stopped making art despite the fact that her earliest success – in Paris in 1951 – was more or less her last. She studied in the studio of Fernand Léger in Paris and was a pioneer of abstraction (or, to my mind, semi-abstraction) in Lebanon, but did not sell a single work there until she was in her 50s. Many artists have endured similar struggles but few have found themselves simultaneously quite so thwarted by political strife. One of the paintings in this show is pocked with holes from a bomb blast during the civil war that left Choucair’s husband deaf, and the Beirut art scene has been so devastated by violence that the galleries that represented her work have shut down in sequence over the years. Of all the monumental sculptures she dreamed of making, only the beguiling prototypes exist. And in Beirut itself, all that survives of her public art works is a series of 17 stone forms that used to huddle together in a familial crescent, and upon which families used to sit, but which have been split in two bySolidere, the company in charge of rebuilding the city centre; an art work in divorce. The show opens, as so often, with a youthful self-portrait. But in this case the sharply intelligent young woman all chopped about in post-cubist style, green shadows beneath the eyes, nameless urban jungle behind her, is wearing a headscarf. It is 1943 and Choucair has not yet left Beirut for Paris and seen the European avant garde at first hand. When she does, though, it will be with far less traditional responses. Her reaction to Léger’s art, for instance, is to take his tubular belles and give them some spirit. Her dark-eyed models don’t just sit there holding the pose without any clothes, they drink espresso, converse and read books (in one case, books on great artists, and we may guess who). They are never content to remain passive within their heavy black outlines; there is always a sense of imminent movement. A vein of humour is rare enough in art but it runs consistently through this show. Chores, as it’s called, could easily pass as some early modernist painting, all compressed forms and wild distortions. But if you look closely you can see that the bottle-washer’s head really is inside the giant wine glass she is washing; that the woman who’s doing the ironing is labouring away at the stretch of cloth that has been flattened against the substrate in true cubist style so that it doubles as the chore itself but also as her whole environment. There are plenty of jeux d’esprit in the opening galleries, but the major work here is an exquisite little painting called Paris-Beirut. An Islamic star, Cleopatra’s Needle, the colours of the desert, the Arc de Triomphe: all are reduced to their essential forms and held in perfect balance in a picture as condensed as a sonnet. The Arc opens as a portal in both directions – which way will Choucair turn, should she go or should she stay? In the event she returned to Beirut and a great stream ofgorgeous syncopated abstractsthat are based on mathematical permutations but fly free of science. Thermal currents, reflections, quivering trees, dancing figures; the catalogue places due emphasis on the strictly non-figurative principles underpinning the art, but paintings are their own evidence and these speak constantly of the visible energies of life. Choucair’s sculptures fuse Islamic design with modernist traditions. Like her paintings they are small-scale, spry and ingeniously balanced. Two roundels fit together, making a friendship. Six molar-like lumps fit together, and a bridge is established. She has many vertical forms constructed out of idiosyncratic blocks that irresistibly evoke mid-rise towers. One of these sculptures, carved out of wood, with recesses, reliefs and louvred apertures, seems to vibrate from top to bottom with interior life – unseen human existence. The last room has beauty in abundance, numerous sculptures created out of gossamer thread, spun steel and glass. Some are planetary, evoking eclipses and starbursts. Others have affinities with womankind – corkscrew curls, metal bows and gyrating curves – and the quirkiest are highly strung, shivering excitedly as one passes. Even without any knowledge of the Sufi principles apparently underlying this art, one has the sense of a free and humorous spirit perpetually at work. That Saloua Raouda Choucair has had to wait a lifetime for such a show is shocking but standard. Western museums are resolutely conservative. But perhaps Tate Modern is about to change direction, for this is the first in a series ofexhibitionsof Arab and African artists whose work is cherished at home and entirely unknown here. Fittingly, it’s on for half a year and is neatly positioned among the themed galleries on level four so that browsing crowds will come across it more easily. Choucair profoundly deserves it. Saloua Raouda Choucair @ Tate Modern, London, 3 June 2013 During your next visit to Tate Modern please make sure not to miss the wonderful (and rather short) exhibition on Lebanese painter & sculptor Saloua Raouda Choucair. You won’t regret it. Laura Cumming for The Observer: A bolt from the blue is not what one expects at Tate Modern. Unqualified revelations have never been the museum’s priority. Nobody goes to Bankside hoping to be astonished by a brand new name, a new artist, a new strain of art that has not yet been bruited on the international circuit all the way from Venice to Sydney to Basel. It does not deal in risks or experiments or artists without a press review to their name. It is powerfully attached to the status quo. Or at least that was the case until last week. For the first time in its 13-year history, Tate Modern has devoted a solo show to an artist who can confidently be described as completely unknown in Britain. She has never had an exhibition here, still less shown any of her paintings, drawings or sculptures here or practically anywhere outside her native Lebanon.Saloua Raouda Choucairis an extraordinary new name. She is also in her 97th year. Choucairwas born in Beirut in 1916. She has never stopped making art despite the fact that her earliest success – in Paris in 1951 – was more or less her last. She studied in the studio of Fernand Léger in Paris and was a pioneer of abstraction (or, to my mind, semi-abstraction) in Lebanon, but did not sell a single work there until she was in her 50s. Many artists have endured similar struggles but few have found themselves simultaneously quite so thwarted by political strife. One of the paintings in this show is pocked with holes from a bomb blast during the civil war that left Choucair’s husband deaf, and the Beirut art scene has been so devastated by violence that the galleries that represented her work have shut down in sequence over the years. Of all the monumental sculptures she dreamed of making, only the beguiling prototypes exist. And in Beirut itself, all that survives of her public art works is a series of 17 stone forms that used to huddle together in a familial crescent, and upon which families used to sit, but which have been split in two bySolidere, the company in charge of rebuilding the city centre; an art work in divorce. The show opens, as so often, with a youthful self-portrait. But in this case the sharply intelligent young woman all chopped about in post-cubist style, green shadows beneath the eyes, nameless urban jungle behind her, is wearing a headscarf. It is 1943 and Choucair has not yet left Beirut for Paris and seen the European avant garde at first hand. When she does, though, it will be with far less traditional responses. Her reaction to Léger’s art, for instance, is to take his tubular belles and give them some spirit. Her dark-eyed models don’t just sit there holding the pose without any clothes, they drink espresso, converse and read books (in one case, books on great artists, and we may guess who). They are never content to remain passive within their heavy black outlines; there is always a sense of imminent movement. A vein of humour is rare enough in art but it runs consistently through this show. Chores, as it’s called, could easily pass as some early modernist painting, all compressed forms and wild distortions. But if you look closely you can see that the bottle-washer’s head really is inside the giant wine glass she is washing; that the woman who’s doing the ironing is labouring away at the stretch of cloth that has been flattened against the substrate in true cubist style so that it doubles as the chore itself but also as her whole environment. There are plenty of jeux d’esprit in the opening galleries, but the major work here is an exquisite little painting called Paris-Beirut. An Islamic star, Cleopatra’s Needle, the colours of the desert, the Arc de Triomphe: all are reduced to their essential forms and held in perfect balance in a picture as condensed as a sonnet. The Arc opens as a portal in both directions – which way will Choucair turn, should she go or should she stay? In the event she returned to Beirut and a great stream ofgorgeous syncopated abstractsthat are based on mathematical permutations but fly free of science. Thermal currents, reflections, quivering trees, dancing figures; the catalogue places due emphasis on the strictly non-figurative principles underpinning the art, but paintings are their own evidence and these speak constantly of the visible energies of life. Choucair’s sculptures fuse Islamic design with modernist traditions. Like her paintings they are small-scale, spry and ingeniously balanced. Two roundels fit together, making a friendship. Six molar-like lumps fit together, and a bridge is established. She has many vertical forms constructed out of idiosyncratic blocks that irresistibly evoke mid-rise towers. One of these sculptures, carved out of wood, with recesses, reliefs and louvred apertures, seems to vibrate from top to bottom with interior life – unseen human existence. The last room has beauty in abundance, numerous sculptures created out of gossamer thread, spun steel and glass. Some are planetary, evoking eclipses and starbursts. Others have affinities with womankind – corkscrew curls, metal bows and gyrating curves – and the quirkiest are highly strung, shivering excitedly as one passes. Even without any knowledge of the Sufi principles apparently underlying this art, one has the sense of a free and humorous spirit perpetually at work. That Saloua Raouda Choucair has had to wait a lifetime for such a show is shocking but standard. Western museums are resolutely conservative. But perhaps Tate Modern is about to change direction, for this is the first in a series ofexhibitionsof Arab and African artists whose work is cherished at home and entirely unknown here. Fittingly, it’s on for half a year and is neatly positioned among the themed galleries on level four so that browsing crowds will come across it more easily. Choucair profoundly deserves it. Saloua Raouda Choucair @ Tate Modern, London, 3 June 2013 During your next visit to Tate Modern please make sure not to miss the wonderful (and rather short) exhibition on Lebanese painter & sculptor Saloua Raouda Choucair. You won’t regret it. Laura Cumming for The Observer: A bolt from the blue is not what one expects at Tate Modern. Unqualified revelations have never been the museum’s priority. Nobody goes to Bankside hoping to be astonished by a brand new name, a new artist, a new strain of art that has not yet been bruited on the international circuit all the way from Venice to Sydney to Basel. It does not deal in risks or experiments or artists without a press review to their name. It is powerfully attached to the status quo. Or at least that was the case until last week. For the first time in its 13-year history, Tate Modern has devoted a solo show to an artist who can confidently be described as completely unknown in Britain. She has never had an exhibition here, still less shown any of her paintings, drawings or sculptures here or practically anywhere outside her native Lebanon.Saloua Raouda Choucairis an extraordinary new name. She is also in her 97th year. Choucairwas born in Beirut in 1916. She has never stopped making art despite the fact that her earliest success – in Paris in 1951 – was more or less her last. She studied in the studio of Fernand Léger in Paris and was a pioneer of abstraction (or, to my mind, semi-abstraction) in Lebanon, but did not sell a single work there until she was in her 50s. Many artists have endured similar struggles but few have found themselves simultaneously quite so thwarted by political strife. One of the paintings in this show is pocked with holes from a bomb blast during the civil war that left Choucair’s husband deaf, and the Beirut art scene has been so devastated by violence that the galleries that represented her work have shut down in sequence over the years. Of all the monumental sculptures she dreamed of making, only the beguiling prototypes exist. And in Beirut itself, all that survives of her public art works is a series of 17 stone forms that used to huddle together in a familial crescent, and upon which families used to sit, but which have been split in two bySolidere, the company in charge of rebuilding the city centre; an art work in divorce. The show opens, as so often, with a youthful self-portrait. But in this case the sharply intelligent young woman all chopped about in post-cubist style, green shadows beneath the eyes, nameless urban jungle behind her, is wearing a headscarf. It is 1943 and Choucair has not yet left Beirut for Paris and seen the European avant garde at first hand. When she does, though, it will be with far less traditional responses. Her reaction to Léger’s art, for instance, is to take his tubular belles and give them some spirit. Her dark-eyed models don’t just sit there holding the pose without any clothes, they drink espresso, converse and read books (in one case, books on great artists, and we may guess who). They are never content to remain passive within their heavy black outlines; there is always a sense of imminent movement. A vein of humour is rare enough in art but it runs consistently through this show. Chores, as it’s called, could easily pass as some early modernist painting, all compressed forms and wild distortions. But if you look closely you can see that the bottle-washer’s head really is inside the giant wine glass she is washing; that the woman who’s doing the ironing is labouring away at the stretch of cloth that has been flattened against the substrate in true cubist style so that it doubles as the chore itself but also as her whole environment. There are plenty of jeux d’esprit in the opening galleries, but the major work here is an exquisite little painting called Paris-Beirut. An Islamic star, Cleopatra’s Needle, the colours of the desert, the Arc de Triomphe: all are reduced to their essential forms and held in perfect balance in a picture as condensed as a sonnet. The Arc opens as a portal in both directions – which way will Choucair turn, should she go or should she stay? In the event she returned to Beirut and a great stream ofgorgeous syncopated abstractsthat are based on mathematical permutations but fly free of science. Thermal currents, reflections, quivering trees, dancing figures; the catalogue places due emphasis on the strictly non-figurative principles underpinning the art, but paintings are their own evidence and these speak constantly of the visible energies of life. Choucair’s sculptures fuse Islamic design with modernist traditions. Like her paintings they are small-scale, spry and ingeniously balanced. Two roundels fit together, making a friendship. Six molar-like lumps fit together, and a bridge is established. She has many vertical forms constructed out of idiosyncratic blocks that irresistibly evoke mid-rise towers. One of these sculptures, carved out of wood, with recesses, reliefs and louvred apertures, seems to vibrate from top to bottom with interior life – unseen human existence. The last room has beauty in abundance, numerous sculptures created out of gossamer thread, spun steel and glass. Some are planetary, evoking eclipses and starbursts. Others have affinities with womankind – corkscrew curls, metal bows and gyrating curves – and the quirkiest are highly strung, shivering excitedly as one passes. Even without any knowledge of the Sufi principles apparently underlying this art, one has the sense of a free and humorous spirit perpetually at work. That Saloua Raouda Choucair has had to wait a lifetime for such a show is shocking but standard. Western museums are resolutely conservative. But perhaps Tate Modern is about to change direction, for this is the first in a series ofexhibitionsof Arab and African artists whose work is cherished at home and entirely unknown here. Fittingly, it’s on for half a year and is neatly positioned among the themed galleries on level four so that browsing crowds will come across it more easily. Choucair profoundly deserves it.

    Saloua Raouda Choucair @ Tate Modern, London, 3 June 2013

    During your next visit to Tate Modern please make sure not to miss the wonderful (and rather short) exhibition on Lebanese painter & sculptor Saloua Raouda Choucair. You won’t regret it.

    Laura Cumming for The Observer:

    A bolt from the blue is not what one expects at Tate Modern. Unqualified revelations have never been the museum’s priority. Nobody goes to Bankside hoping to be astonished by a brand new name, a new artist, a new strain of art that has not yet been bruited on the international circuit all the way from Venice to Sydney to Basel. It does not deal in risks or experiments or artists without a press review to their name. It is powerfully attached to the status quo.

    Or at least that was the case until last week. For the first time in its 13-year history, Tate Modern has devoted a solo show to an artist who can confidently be described as completely unknown in Britain. She has never had an exhibition here, still less shown any of her paintings, drawings or sculptures here or practically anywhere outside her native Lebanon.Saloua Raouda Choucairis an extraordinary new name. She is also in her 97th year.

    Choucairwas born in Beirut in 1916. She has never stopped making art despite the fact that her earliest success – in Paris in 1951 – was more or less her last. She studied in the studio of Fernand Léger in Paris and was a pioneer of abstraction (or, to my mind, semi-abstraction) in Lebanon, but did not sell a single work there until she was in her 50s.

    Many artists have endured similar struggles but few have found themselves simultaneously quite so thwarted by political strife. One of the paintings in this show is pocked with holes from a bomb blast during the civil war that left Choucair’s husband deaf, and the Beirut art scene has been so devastated by violence that the galleries that represented her work have shut down in sequence over the years.

    Of all the monumental sculptures she dreamed of making, only the beguiling prototypes exist. And in Beirut itself, all that survives of her public art works is a series of 17 stone forms that used to huddle together in a familial crescent, and upon which families used to sit, but which have been split in two bySolidere, the company in charge of rebuilding the city centre; an art work in divorce.

    The show opens, as so often, with a youthful self-portrait. But in this case the sharply intelligent young woman all chopped about in post-cubist style, green shadows beneath the eyes, nameless urban jungle behind her, is wearing a headscarf. It is 1943 and Choucair has not yet left Beirut for Paris and seen the European avant garde at first hand. When she does, though, it will be with far less traditional responses.

    Her reaction to Léger’s art, for instance, is to take his tubular belles and give them some spirit. Her dark-eyed models don’t just sit there holding the pose without any clothes, they drink espresso, converse and read books (in one case, books on great artists, and we may guess who). They are never content to remain passive within their heavy black outlines; there is always a sense of imminent movement.

    A vein of humour is rare enough in art but it runs consistently through this show. Chores, as it’s called, could easily pass as some early modernist painting, all compressed forms and wild distortions. But if you look closely you can see that the bottle-washer’s head really is inside the giant wine glass she is washing; that the woman who’s doing the ironing is labouring away at the stretch of cloth that has been flattened against the substrate in true cubist style so that it doubles as the chore itself but also as her whole environment.

    There are plenty of jeux d’esprit in the opening galleries, but the major work here is an exquisite little painting called Paris-Beirut. An Islamic star, Cleopatra’s Needle, the colours of the desert, the Arc de Triomphe: all are reduced to their essential forms and held in perfect balance in a picture as condensed as a sonnet. The Arc opens as a portal in both directions – which way will Choucair turn, should she go or should she stay?

    In the event she returned to Beirut and a great stream ofgorgeous syncopated abstractsthat are based on mathematical permutations but fly free of science. Thermal currents, reflections, quivering trees, dancing figures; the catalogue places due emphasis on the strictly non-figurative principles underpinning the art, but paintings are their own evidence and these speak constantly of the visible energies of life.

    Choucair’s sculptures fuse Islamic design with modernist traditions. Like her paintings they are small-scale, spry and ingeniously balanced. Two roundels fit together, making a friendship. Six molar-like lumps fit together, and a bridge is established. She has many vertical forms constructed out of idiosyncratic blocks that irresistibly evoke mid-rise towers. One of these sculptures, carved out of wood, with recesses, reliefs and louvred apertures, seems to vibrate from top to bottom with interior life – unseen human existence.

    The last room has beauty in abundance, numerous sculptures created out of gossamer thread, spun steel and glass. Some are planetary, evoking eclipses and starbursts. Others have affinities with womankind – corkscrew curls, metal bows and gyrating curves – and the quirkiest are highly strung, shivering excitedly as one passes. Even without any knowledge of the Sufi principles apparently underlying this art, one has the sense of a free and humorous spirit perpetually at work.

    That Saloua Raouda Choucair has had to wait a lifetime for such a show is shocking but standard. Western museums are resolutely conservative. But perhaps Tate Modern is about to change direction, for this is the first in a series ofexhibitionsof Arab and African artists whose work is cherished at home and entirely unknown here. Fittingly, it’s on for half a year and is neatly positioned among the themed galleries on level four so that browsing crowds will come across it more easily. Choucair profoundly deserves it.

    About Group - All Is Not Lost

    Nowness:

    The melancholic and soulful voice of Alexis Taylor overlays an explosive, arborous montage in the video for About Group’s new single “All Is Not Lost.” The dramatic images were selected by the Swedish director and artist Henrik Håkansson from his own project, “Aug. 11, 2012 Symptoms Of The Universe Studies (6min 29 Sec)”, that focuses on two individual black alder trees being torn apart in footage that was taken from different angles and at contrasting speeds. Spliced in with this is slow-motion film of butterflies in flight that was shot by Håkansson at high frame rates of 4000-7000 per second. “I had seen his work before and liked the films of insects, flying or being squashed in slow motion. I thought he could make something beautiful,” says Taylor, who splits his time between About Group and his duties with pan-genre dance outfit, Hot Chip. In About Group, Taylor is joined by a trio of fellow English experimentalists in guitarist John Coxon, drummer and founder of This Heat, Charles Hayward, and jazz and reggae keyboardist, Pat Thomas. The quartet’s second album Between the Walls, due out on Domino in July, was recorded with a mix of free-form improvisation and a desire to tap into the emotional resonance of Taylor’s songwriting that permeates today’s bittersweet track. 

    Olafur Eliasson’s “Model for a Timeless Garden”, Light Show exhibit @ Hayward Gallery, Southbank, London, 25 April 2013 

    Olafur Eliasson’s work involves experimentation, primarily with light, colour and perception. He is theartist who created The Weather Project at Tate Modern in 2003,and his art often gives rise optically disorienting phenomena, such as flashing stroboscopic lamps, which have the effect of appearing to reverse or immobilise movement. Since 1996, he has made a series of works featuring strobe lights and moving water in which each flash of light momentarily ‘freezes’ the falling liquid. In Model for a timeless garden (2011), which consists of a succession of 27 different fountains, the strobe effect produces an ever-changing landscape of apparently icy festoons and garlands.

    Light Show is a rather fun and immersive exhibit about artificial lighting. Olafur Eliasson’s water fountains room, a major highlight of the show, is an installation that is both mesmerizing and dizzying.

    Two of Francis Alÿs’s art videos are currently exhibited in the PM Gallery & House, Ealing, London: “Night Watch” about 1 fox roaming the corridors of the National Portrait Gallery, London + “The Guards” about 64 Coldstream Guards roaming the streets of the City of London. Outset: For ‘The Guards’, Francis Alÿs passed on instructions to a troop of 64 Coldstream Guards to take one of many pre-planned routes through the city. When one soldier met another, they were to march together until they met another soldier or group. At the point when the entire troop was in formation, they marched to the nearest bridge and then dispersed, breaking from anonymous military mass to individual agents. “The Guards” is absolutely mesmerizing but sadly the video is not available online. Here’s a nice TV news segment about Alÿs’s London video stunts (“The Guards”, “Night Watch” and “Railings”) => HERE Two of Francis Alÿs’s art videos are currently exhibited in the PM Gallery & House, Ealing, London: “Night Watch” about 1 fox roaming the corridors of the National Portrait Gallery, London + “The Guards” about 64 Coldstream Guards roaming the streets of the City of London. Outset: For ‘The Guards’, Francis Alÿs passed on instructions to a troop of 64 Coldstream Guards to take one of many pre-planned routes through the city. When one soldier met another, they were to march together until they met another soldier or group. At the point when the entire troop was in formation, they marched to the nearest bridge and then dispersed, breaking from anonymous military mass to individual agents. “The Guards” is absolutely mesmerizing but sadly the video is not available online. Here’s a nice TV news segment about Alÿs’s London video stunts (“The Guards”, “Night Watch” and “Railings”) => HERE Two of Francis Alÿs’s art videos are currently exhibited in the PM Gallery & House, Ealing, London: “Night Watch” about 1 fox roaming the corridors of the National Portrait Gallery, London + “The Guards” about 64 Coldstream Guards roaming the streets of the City of London. Outset: For ‘The Guards’, Francis Alÿs passed on instructions to a troop of 64 Coldstream Guards to take one of many pre-planned routes through the city. When one soldier met another, they were to march together until they met another soldier or group. At the point when the entire troop was in formation, they marched to the nearest bridge and then dispersed, breaking from anonymous military mass to individual agents. “The Guards” is absolutely mesmerizing but sadly the video is not available online. Here’s a nice TV news segment about Alÿs’s London video stunts (“The Guards”, “Night Watch” and “Railings”) => HERE Two of Francis Alÿs’s art videos are currently exhibited in the PM Gallery & House, Ealing, London: “Night Watch” about 1 fox roaming the corridors of the National Portrait Gallery, London + “The Guards” about 64 Coldstream Guards roaming the streets of the City of London. Outset: For ‘The Guards’, Francis Alÿs passed on instructions to a troop of 64 Coldstream Guards to take one of many pre-planned routes through the city. When one soldier met another, they were to march together until they met another soldier or group. At the point when the entire troop was in formation, they marched to the nearest bridge and then dispersed, breaking from anonymous military mass to individual agents. “The Guards” is absolutely mesmerizing but sadly the video is not available online. Here’s a nice TV news segment about Alÿs’s London video stunts (“The Guards”, “Night Watch” and “Railings”) => HERE Two of Francis Alÿs’s art videos are currently exhibited in the PM Gallery & House, Ealing, London: “Night Watch” about 1 fox roaming the corridors of the National Portrait Gallery, London + “The Guards” about 64 Coldstream Guards roaming the streets of the City of London. Outset: For ‘The Guards’, Francis Alÿs passed on instructions to a troop of 64 Coldstream Guards to take one of many pre-planned routes through the city. When one soldier met another, they were to march together until they met another soldier or group. At the point when the entire troop was in formation, they marched to the nearest bridge and then dispersed, breaking from anonymous military mass to individual agents. “The Guards” is absolutely mesmerizing but sadly the video is not available online. Here’s a nice TV news segment about Alÿs’s London video stunts (“The Guards”, “Night Watch” and “Railings”) => HERE

      Two of Francis Alÿs’s art videos are currently exhibited in the PM Gallery & House, Ealing, London: “Night Watch” about 1 fox roaming the corridors of the National Portrait Gallery, London + “The Guards” about 64 Coldstream Guards roaming the streets of the City of London.

      Outset:

      For ‘The Guards’, Francis Alÿs passed on instructions to a troop of 64 Coldstream Guards to take one of many pre-planned routes through the city. When one soldier met another, they were to march together until they met another soldier or group. At the point when the entire troop was in formation, they marched to the nearest bridge and then dispersed, breaking from anonymous military mass to individual agents.

      “The Guards” is absolutely mesmerizing but sadly the video is not available online. Here’s a nice TV news segment about Alÿs’s London video stunts (“The Guards”, “Night Watch” and “Railings”) => HERE

      George Bellows, The White Hope (1921): This litho recalls an event of 11 years earlier: the heavyweight title fight held in Reno, Nevada, on 4 jul 1910, in which the legendary African champion Jack Johnson decisevely defeated the former champion Jim Jeffries. Before the fight, promoters exploited racist attitudes by touting Jeffries as “the great white hope”. 

      George Bellows, The White Hope (1921):

      This litho recalls an event of 11 years earlier: the heavyweight title fight held in Reno, Nevada, on 4 jul 1910, in which the legendary African champion Jack Johnson decisevely defeated the former champion Jim Jeffries.

      Before the fight, promoters exploited racist attitudes by touting Jeffries as “the great white hope”. 

      George Bellows, Dempsey and Firpo (1924) / Dempsey through the ropes: via Self Hating Hipster: The painting is a snapshot of a title fight between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. Luis Firpo, a promising world-class heavyweight, challenged the then champion, Jack Dempsey and the bout was booked for September 14th, 1923 at the Polo Grounds in NY. As the story goes, Firpo dropped Dempsey in the beginning of first round; Dempsey got back to his feet and knocked Firpo down seven times (predating the 3KO limit per round and the rule prohibiting you from downing a half-downed opponent…Jesus). At the very end of the first round, Firpo backed Dempsey up against the ropes and rocked Dempsey’s chin sending him through the ropes and out onto the press table. Hell of a first round! [Bellows based his oil on a lithograph titled “Dempsey Through the Ropes” from the year prior which now goes for north of $100,000 at auction. This image has been facsimiled by the likes of the U.S. Armed Forces and The Simpsons.] George Bellows, Dempsey and Firpo (1924) / Dempsey through the ropes: via Self Hating Hipster: The painting is a snapshot of a title fight between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. Luis Firpo, a promising world-class heavyweight, challenged the then champion, Jack Dempsey and the bout was booked for September 14th, 1923 at the Polo Grounds in NY. As the story goes, Firpo dropped Dempsey in the beginning of first round; Dempsey got back to his feet and knocked Firpo down seven times (predating the 3KO limit per round and the rule prohibiting you from downing a half-downed opponent…Jesus). At the very end of the first round, Firpo backed Dempsey up against the ropes and rocked Dempsey’s chin sending him through the ropes and out onto the press table. Hell of a first round! [Bellows based his oil on a lithograph titled “Dempsey Through the Ropes” from the year prior which now goes for north of $100,000 at auction. This image has been facsimiled by the likes of the U.S. Armed Forces and The Simpsons.]

        George Bellows, Dempsey and Firpo (1924) / Dempsey through the ropes:

        via Self Hating Hipster:

        The painting is a snapshot of a title fight between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. Luis Firpo, a promising world-class heavyweight, challenged the then champion, Jack Dempsey and the bout was booked for September 14th, 1923 at the Polo Grounds in NY. As the story goes, Firpo dropped Dempsey in the beginning of first round; Dempsey got back to his feet and knocked Firpo down seven times (predating the 3KO limit per round and the rule prohibiting you from downing a half-downed opponent…Jesus).

        At the very end of the first round, Firpo backed Dempsey up against the ropes and rocked Dempsey’s chin sending him through the ropes and out onto the press table. Hell of a first round!

        [Bellows based his oil on a lithograph titled “Dempsey Through the Ropes” from the year prior which now goes for north of $100,000 at auction. This image has been facsimiled by the likes of the U.S. Armed Forces and The Simpsons.]

        George Bellows exhibit @ Royal Academy of Arts, London, 28 March 2013 I was knocked out by George Bellows’s “Stag at Sharkey’s” when I came across that painting on the web a few months ago (ref to my original blog post => HERE), so I it was rather exciting to be given the chance to see it “in the flesh” @ the Royal Academy. And I wasn’t disappointed: all of his boxing fights paintings and lithographs on display are mesmerising — I love Bellows’s gritty realism… I’m less keen when he tries to rub brush strokes with the New York upper class (a couple of of rooms in the exhibition made me cringe).  Self Hating Hipster: Bellows rubbed elbows with artists like John Sloan, Everett Shinn, George Luks and Reginald Marsh; this group of artists were referred to collectively as the Ashcan Painters because of the crude, unbridled depiction of urbanity in both its glory and filth. Instead of a lush, pastoral landscape or an impressionistic portrait of a woman with a parasol, these artists were painting hold-ups, kids bathing in the Hudson, burlesque shows, train tracks, dive bars, circuses, Coney Island…and boxing matches. George Bellows on boxing: I am not interested in the morality of prize fighting but let me say that the atmosphere around the fighters is a lot more immoral than the fighters themselves. […] I don’t know anything about boxing. I am just painting two men trying to kill each other. Interesting bits about a few of the boxing paintings: Dempsey and Firpo (1924): via Self Hating Hipster: The painting is a snapshot of a title fight between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. Luis Firpo, a promising world-class heavyweight, challenged the then champion, Jack Dempsey and the bout was booked for September 14th, 1923 at the Polo Grounds in NY. As the story goes, Firpo dropped Dempsey in the beginning of first round; Dempsey got back to his feet and knocked Firpo down seven times (predating the 3KO limit per round and the rule prohibiting you from downing a half-downed opponent…Jesus). At the very end of the first round, Firpo backed Dempsey up against the ropes and rocked Dempsey’s chin sending him through the ropes and out onto the press table. Hell of a first round! [Bellows based his oil on a lithograph titled “Dempsey Through the Ropes” from the year prior which now goes for north of $100,000 at auction. This image has been facsimiled by the likes of the U.S. Armed Forces and The Simpsons.] The White Hope (1921): This litho recalls an event of 11 years earlier: the heavyweight title fight held in Reno, Nevada, on 4 jul 1910, in which the legendary African champion Jack Johnson decisevely defeated the former champion Jim Jeffries. Before the fight, promoters exploited racist attitudes by touting Jeffries as “the great white hope”.  Preliminaries (to the big out) (1916): Boxing had been made legal by 1916 but this Madison Square Garden fight is the first ever attended by women.  George Bellows exhibit @ Royal Academy of Arts, London, 28 March 2013 I was knocked out by George Bellows’s “Stag at Sharkey’s” when I came across that painting on the web a few months ago (ref to my original blog post => HERE), so I it was rather exciting to be given the chance to see it “in the flesh” @ the Royal Academy. And I wasn’t disappointed: all of his boxing fights paintings and lithographs on display are mesmerising — I love Bellows’s gritty realism… I’m less keen when he tries to rub brush strokes with the New York upper class (a couple of of rooms in the exhibition made me cringe).  Self Hating Hipster: Bellows rubbed elbows with artists like John Sloan, Everett Shinn, George Luks and Reginald Marsh; this group of artists were referred to collectively as the Ashcan Painters because of the crude, unbridled depiction of urbanity in both its glory and filth. Instead of a lush, pastoral landscape or an impressionistic portrait of a woman with a parasol, these artists were painting hold-ups, kids bathing in the Hudson, burlesque shows, train tracks, dive bars, circuses, Coney Island…and boxing matches. George Bellows on boxing: I am not interested in the morality of prize fighting but let me say that the atmosphere around the fighters is a lot more immoral than the fighters themselves. […] I don’t know anything about boxing. I am just painting two men trying to kill each other. Interesting bits about a few of the boxing paintings: Dempsey and Firpo (1924): via Self Hating Hipster: The painting is a snapshot of a title fight between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. Luis Firpo, a promising world-class heavyweight, challenged the then champion, Jack Dempsey and the bout was booked for September 14th, 1923 at the Polo Grounds in NY. As the story goes, Firpo dropped Dempsey in the beginning of first round; Dempsey got back to his feet and knocked Firpo down seven times (predating the 3KO limit per round and the rule prohibiting you from downing a half-downed opponent…Jesus). At the very end of the first round, Firpo backed Dempsey up against the ropes and rocked Dempsey’s chin sending him through the ropes and out onto the press table. Hell of a first round! [Bellows based his oil on a lithograph titled “Dempsey Through the Ropes” from the year prior which now goes for north of $100,000 at auction. This image has been facsimiled by the likes of the U.S. Armed Forces and The Simpsons.] The White Hope (1921): This litho recalls an event of 11 years earlier: the heavyweight title fight held in Reno, Nevada, on 4 jul 1910, in which the legendary African champion Jack Johnson decisevely defeated the former champion Jim Jeffries. Before the fight, promoters exploited racist attitudes by touting Jeffries as “the great white hope”.  Preliminaries (to the big out) (1916): Boxing had been made legal by 1916 but this Madison Square Garden fight is the first ever attended by women.  George Bellows exhibit @ Royal Academy of Arts, London, 28 March 2013 I was knocked out by George Bellows’s “Stag at Sharkey’s” when I came across that painting on the web a few months ago (ref to my original blog post => HERE), so I it was rather exciting to be given the chance to see it “in the flesh” @ the Royal Academy. And I wasn’t disappointed: all of his boxing fights paintings and lithographs on display are mesmerising — I love Bellows’s gritty realism… I’m less keen when he tries to rub brush strokes with the New York upper class (a couple of of rooms in the exhibition made me cringe).  Self Hating Hipster: Bellows rubbed elbows with artists like John Sloan, Everett Shinn, George Luks and Reginald Marsh; this group of artists were referred to collectively as the Ashcan Painters because of the crude, unbridled depiction of urbanity in both its glory and filth. Instead of a lush, pastoral landscape or an impressionistic portrait of a woman with a parasol, these artists were painting hold-ups, kids bathing in the Hudson, burlesque shows, train tracks, dive bars, circuses, Coney Island…and boxing matches. George Bellows on boxing: I am not interested in the morality of prize fighting but let me say that the atmosphere around the fighters is a lot more immoral than the fighters themselves. […] I don’t know anything about boxing. I am just painting two men trying to kill each other. Interesting bits about a few of the boxing paintings: Dempsey and Firpo (1924): via Self Hating Hipster: The painting is a snapshot of a title fight between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. Luis Firpo, a promising world-class heavyweight, challenged the then champion, Jack Dempsey and the bout was booked for September 14th, 1923 at the Polo Grounds in NY. As the story goes, Firpo dropped Dempsey in the beginning of first round; Dempsey got back to his feet and knocked Firpo down seven times (predating the 3KO limit per round and the rule prohibiting you from downing a half-downed opponent…Jesus). At the very end of the first round, Firpo backed Dempsey up against the ropes and rocked Dempsey’s chin sending him through the ropes and out onto the press table. Hell of a first round! [Bellows based his oil on a lithograph titled “Dempsey Through the Ropes” from the year prior which now goes for north of $100,000 at auction. This image has been facsimiled by the likes of the U.S. Armed Forces and The Simpsons.] The White Hope (1921): This litho recalls an event of 11 years earlier: the heavyweight title fight held in Reno, Nevada, on 4 jul 1910, in which the legendary African champion Jack Johnson decisevely defeated the former champion Jim Jeffries. Before the fight, promoters exploited racist attitudes by touting Jeffries as “the great white hope”.  Preliminaries (to the big out) (1916): Boxing had been made legal by 1916 but this Madison Square Garden fight is the first ever attended by women.  George Bellows exhibit @ Royal Academy of Arts, London, 28 March 2013 I was knocked out by George Bellows’s “Stag at Sharkey’s” when I came across that painting on the web a few months ago (ref to my original blog post => HERE), so I it was rather exciting to be given the chance to see it “in the flesh” @ the Royal Academy. And I wasn’t disappointed: all of his boxing fights paintings and lithographs on display are mesmerising — I love Bellows’s gritty realism… I’m less keen when he tries to rub brush strokes with the New York upper class (a couple of of rooms in the exhibition made me cringe).  Self Hating Hipster: Bellows rubbed elbows with artists like John Sloan, Everett Shinn, George Luks and Reginald Marsh; this group of artists were referred to collectively as the Ashcan Painters because of the crude, unbridled depiction of urbanity in both its glory and filth. Instead of a lush, pastoral landscape or an impressionistic portrait of a woman with a parasol, these artists were painting hold-ups, kids bathing in the Hudson, burlesque shows, train tracks, dive bars, circuses, Coney Island…and boxing matches. George Bellows on boxing: I am not interested in the morality of prize fighting but let me say that the atmosphere around the fighters is a lot more immoral than the fighters themselves. […] I don’t know anything about boxing. I am just painting two men trying to kill each other. Interesting bits about a few of the boxing paintings: Dempsey and Firpo (1924): via Self Hating Hipster: The painting is a snapshot of a title fight between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. Luis Firpo, a promising world-class heavyweight, challenged the then champion, Jack Dempsey and the bout was booked for September 14th, 1923 at the Polo Grounds in NY. As the story goes, Firpo dropped Dempsey in the beginning of first round; Dempsey got back to his feet and knocked Firpo down seven times (predating the 3KO limit per round and the rule prohibiting you from downing a half-downed opponent…Jesus). At the very end of the first round, Firpo backed Dempsey up against the ropes and rocked Dempsey’s chin sending him through the ropes and out onto the press table. Hell of a first round! [Bellows based his oil on a lithograph titled “Dempsey Through the Ropes” from the year prior which now goes for north of $100,000 at auction. This image has been facsimiled by the likes of the U.S. Armed Forces and The Simpsons.] The White Hope (1921): This litho recalls an event of 11 years earlier: the heavyweight title fight held in Reno, Nevada, on 4 jul 1910, in which the legendary African champion Jack Johnson decisevely defeated the former champion Jim Jeffries. Before the fight, promoters exploited racist attitudes by touting Jeffries as “the great white hope”.  Preliminaries (to the big out) (1916): Boxing had been made legal by 1916 but this Madison Square Garden fight is the first ever attended by women.  George Bellows exhibit @ Royal Academy of Arts, London, 28 March 2013 I was knocked out by George Bellows’s “Stag at Sharkey’s” when I came across that painting on the web a few months ago (ref to my original blog post => HERE), so I it was rather exciting to be given the chance to see it “in the flesh” @ the Royal Academy. And I wasn’t disappointed: all of his boxing fights paintings and lithographs on display are mesmerising — I love Bellows’s gritty realism… I’m less keen when he tries to rub brush strokes with the New York upper class (a couple of of rooms in the exhibition made me cringe).  Self Hating Hipster: Bellows rubbed elbows with artists like John Sloan, Everett Shinn, George Luks and Reginald Marsh; this group of artists were referred to collectively as the Ashcan Painters because of the crude, unbridled depiction of urbanity in both its glory and filth. Instead of a lush, pastoral landscape or an impressionistic portrait of a woman with a parasol, these artists were painting hold-ups, kids bathing in the Hudson, burlesque shows, train tracks, dive bars, circuses, Coney Island…and boxing matches. George Bellows on boxing: I am not interested in the morality of prize fighting but let me say that the atmosphere around the fighters is a lot more immoral than the fighters themselves. […] I don’t know anything about boxing. I am just painting two men trying to kill each other. Interesting bits about a few of the boxing paintings: Dempsey and Firpo (1924): via Self Hating Hipster: The painting is a snapshot of a title fight between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. Luis Firpo, a promising world-class heavyweight, challenged the then champion, Jack Dempsey and the bout was booked for September 14th, 1923 at the Polo Grounds in NY. As the story goes, Firpo dropped Dempsey in the beginning of first round; Dempsey got back to his feet and knocked Firpo down seven times (predating the 3KO limit per round and the rule prohibiting you from downing a half-downed opponent…Jesus). At the very end of the first round, Firpo backed Dempsey up against the ropes and rocked Dempsey’s chin sending him through the ropes and out onto the press table. Hell of a first round! [Bellows based his oil on a lithograph titled “Dempsey Through the Ropes” from the year prior which now goes for north of $100,000 at auction. This image has been facsimiled by the likes of the U.S. Armed Forces and The Simpsons.] The White Hope (1921): This litho recalls an event of 11 years earlier: the heavyweight title fight held in Reno, Nevada, on 4 jul 1910, in which the legendary African champion Jack Johnson decisevely defeated the former champion Jim Jeffries. Before the fight, promoters exploited racist attitudes by touting Jeffries as “the great white hope”.  Preliminaries (to the big out) (1916): Boxing had been made legal by 1916 but this Madison Square Garden fight is the first ever attended by women.  George Bellows exhibit @ Royal Academy of Arts, London, 28 March 2013 I was knocked out by George Bellows’s “Stag at Sharkey’s” when I came across that painting on the web a few months ago (ref to my original blog post => HERE), so I it was rather exciting to be given the chance to see it “in the flesh” @ the Royal Academy. And I wasn’t disappointed: all of his boxing fights paintings and lithographs on display are mesmerising — I love Bellows’s gritty realism… I’m less keen when he tries to rub brush strokes with the New York upper class (a couple of of rooms in the exhibition made me cringe).  Self Hating Hipster: Bellows rubbed elbows with artists like John Sloan, Everett Shinn, George Luks and Reginald Marsh; this group of artists were referred to collectively as the Ashcan Painters because of the crude, unbridled depiction of urbanity in both its glory and filth. Instead of a lush, pastoral landscape or an impressionistic portrait of a woman with a parasol, these artists were painting hold-ups, kids bathing in the Hudson, burlesque shows, train tracks, dive bars, circuses, Coney Island…and boxing matches. George Bellows on boxing: I am not interested in the morality of prize fighting but let me say that the atmosphere around the fighters is a lot more immoral than the fighters themselves. […] I don’t know anything about boxing. I am just painting two men trying to kill each other. Interesting bits about a few of the boxing paintings: Dempsey and Firpo (1924): via Self Hating Hipster: The painting is a snapshot of a title fight between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. Luis Firpo, a promising world-class heavyweight, challenged the then champion, Jack Dempsey and the bout was booked for September 14th, 1923 at the Polo Grounds in NY. As the story goes, Firpo dropped Dempsey in the beginning of first round; Dempsey got back to his feet and knocked Firpo down seven times (predating the 3KO limit per round and the rule prohibiting you from downing a half-downed opponent…Jesus). At the very end of the first round, Firpo backed Dempsey up against the ropes and rocked Dempsey’s chin sending him through the ropes and out onto the press table. Hell of a first round! [Bellows based his oil on a lithograph titled “Dempsey Through the Ropes” from the year prior which now goes for north of $100,000 at auction. This image has been facsimiled by the likes of the U.S. Armed Forces and The Simpsons.] The White Hope (1921): This litho recalls an event of 11 years earlier: the heavyweight title fight held in Reno, Nevada, on 4 jul 1910, in which the legendary African champion Jack Johnson decisevely defeated the former champion Jim Jeffries. Before the fight, promoters exploited racist attitudes by touting Jeffries as “the great white hope”.  Preliminaries (to the big out) (1916): Boxing had been made legal by 1916 but this Madison Square Garden fight is the first ever attended by women.  George Bellows exhibit @ Royal Academy of Arts, London, 28 March 2013 I was knocked out by George Bellows’s “Stag at Sharkey’s” when I came across that painting on the web a few months ago (ref to my original blog post => HERE), so I it was rather exciting to be given the chance to see it “in the flesh” @ the Royal Academy. And I wasn’t disappointed: all of his boxing fights paintings and lithographs on display are mesmerising — I love Bellows’s gritty realism… I’m less keen when he tries to rub brush strokes with the New York upper class (a couple of of rooms in the exhibition made me cringe).  Self Hating Hipster: Bellows rubbed elbows with artists like John Sloan, Everett Shinn, George Luks and Reginald Marsh; this group of artists were referred to collectively as the Ashcan Painters because of the crude, unbridled depiction of urbanity in both its glory and filth. Instead of a lush, pastoral landscape or an impressionistic portrait of a woman with a parasol, these artists were painting hold-ups, kids bathing in the Hudson, burlesque shows, train tracks, dive bars, circuses, Coney Island…and boxing matches. George Bellows on boxing: I am not interested in the morality of prize fighting but let me say that the atmosphere around the fighters is a lot more immoral than the fighters themselves. […] I don’t know anything about boxing. I am just painting two men trying to kill each other. Interesting bits about a few of the boxing paintings: Dempsey and Firpo (1924): via Self Hating Hipster: The painting is a snapshot of a title fight between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. Luis Firpo, a promising world-class heavyweight, challenged the then champion, Jack Dempsey and the bout was booked for September 14th, 1923 at the Polo Grounds in NY. As the story goes, Firpo dropped Dempsey in the beginning of first round; Dempsey got back to his feet and knocked Firpo down seven times (predating the 3KO limit per round and the rule prohibiting you from downing a half-downed opponent…Jesus). At the very end of the first round, Firpo backed Dempsey up against the ropes and rocked Dempsey’s chin sending him through the ropes and out onto the press table. Hell of a first round! [Bellows based his oil on a lithograph titled “Dempsey Through the Ropes” from the year prior which now goes for north of $100,000 at auction. This image has been facsimiled by the likes of the U.S. Armed Forces and The Simpsons.] The White Hope (1921): This litho recalls an event of 11 years earlier: the heavyweight title fight held in Reno, Nevada, on 4 jul 1910, in which the legendary African champion Jack Johnson decisevely defeated the former champion Jim Jeffries. Before the fight, promoters exploited racist attitudes by touting Jeffries as “the great white hope”.  Preliminaries (to the big out) (1916): Boxing had been made legal by 1916 but this Madison Square Garden fight is the first ever attended by women.  George Bellows exhibit @ Royal Academy of Arts, London, 28 March 2013 I was knocked out by George Bellows’s “Stag at Sharkey’s” when I came across that painting on the web a few months ago (ref to my original blog post => HERE), so I it was rather exciting to be given the chance to see it “in the flesh” @ the Royal Academy. And I wasn’t disappointed: all of his boxing fights paintings and lithographs on display are mesmerising — I love Bellows’s gritty realism… I’m less keen when he tries to rub brush strokes with the New York upper class (a couple of of rooms in the exhibition made me cringe).  Self Hating Hipster: Bellows rubbed elbows with artists like John Sloan, Everett Shinn, George Luks and Reginald Marsh; this group of artists were referred to collectively as the Ashcan Painters because of the crude, unbridled depiction of urbanity in both its glory and filth. Instead of a lush, pastoral landscape or an impressionistic portrait of a woman with a parasol, these artists were painting hold-ups, kids bathing in the Hudson, burlesque shows, train tracks, dive bars, circuses, Coney Island…and boxing matches. George Bellows on boxing: I am not interested in the morality of prize fighting but let me say that the atmosphere around the fighters is a lot more immoral than the fighters themselves. […] I don’t know anything about boxing. I am just painting two men trying to kill each other. Interesting bits about a few of the boxing paintings: Dempsey and Firpo (1924): via Self Hating Hipster: The painting is a snapshot of a title fight between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. Luis Firpo, a promising world-class heavyweight, challenged the then champion, Jack Dempsey and the bout was booked for September 14th, 1923 at the Polo Grounds in NY. As the story goes, Firpo dropped Dempsey in the beginning of first round; Dempsey got back to his feet and knocked Firpo down seven times (predating the 3KO limit per round and the rule prohibiting you from downing a half-downed opponent…Jesus). At the very end of the first round, Firpo backed Dempsey up against the ropes and rocked Dempsey’s chin sending him through the ropes and out onto the press table. Hell of a first round! [Bellows based his oil on a lithograph titled “Dempsey Through the Ropes” from the year prior which now goes for north of $100,000 at auction. This image has been facsimiled by the likes of the U.S. Armed Forces and The Simpsons.] The White Hope (1921): This litho recalls an event of 11 years earlier: the heavyweight title fight held in Reno, Nevada, on 4 jul 1910, in which the legendary African champion Jack Johnson decisevely defeated the former champion Jim Jeffries. Before the fight, promoters exploited racist attitudes by touting Jeffries as “the great white hope”.  Preliminaries (to the big out) (1916): Boxing had been made legal by 1916 but this Madison Square Garden fight is the first ever attended by women. 

          George Bellows exhibit @ Royal Academy of Arts, London, 28 March 2013

          I was knocked out by George Bellows’s “Stag at Sharkey’s” when I came across that painting on the web a few months ago (ref to my original blog post => HERE), so I it was rather exciting to be given the chance to see it “in the flesh” @ the Royal Academy. And I wasn’t disappointed: all of his boxing fights paintings and lithographs on display are mesmerising — I love Bellows’s gritty realism… I’m less keen when he tries to rub brush strokes with the New York upper class (a couple of of rooms in the exhibition made me cringe). 

          Self Hating Hipster:

          Bellows rubbed elbows with artists like John Sloan, Everett Shinn, George Luks and Reginald Marsh; this group of artists were referred to collectively as the Ashcan Painters because of the crude, unbridled depiction of urbanity in both its glory and filth. Instead of a lush, pastoral landscape or an impressionistic portrait of a woman with a parasol, these artists were painting hold-ups, kids bathing in the Hudson, burlesque shows, train tracks, dive bars, circuses, Coney Island…and boxing matches.

          George Bellows on boxing:

          I am not interested in the morality of prize fighting but let me say that the atmosphere around the fighters is a lot more immoral than the fighters themselves.

          […]

          I don’t know anything about boxing. I am just painting two men trying to kill each other.

          Interesting bits about a few of the boxing paintings:

          Dempsey and Firpo (1924):

          via Self Hating Hipster:

          The painting is a snapshot of a title fight between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. Luis Firpo, a promising world-class heavyweight, challenged the then champion, Jack Dempsey and the bout was booked for September 14th, 1923 at the Polo Grounds in NY. As the story goes, Firpo dropped Dempsey in the beginning of first round; Dempsey got back to his feet and knocked Firpo down seven times (predating the 3KO limit per round and the rule prohibiting you from downing a half-downed opponent…Jesus).

          At the very end of the first round, Firpo backed Dempsey up against the ropes and rocked Dempsey’s chin sending him through the ropes and out onto the press table. Hell of a first round!

          [Bellows based his oil on a lithograph titled “Dempsey Through the Ropes” from the year prior which now goes for north of $100,000 at auction. This image has been facsimiled by the likes of the U.S. Armed Forces and The Simpsons.]

          The White Hope (1921):

          This litho recalls an event of 11 years earlier: the heavyweight title fight held in Reno, Nevada, on 4 jul 1910, in which the legendary African champion Jack Johnson decisevely defeated the former champion Jim Jeffries.

          Before the fight, promoters exploited racist attitudes by touting Jeffries as “the great white hope”. 

          Preliminaries (to the big out) (1916):

          Boxing had been made legal by 1916 but this Madison Square Garden fight is the first ever attended by women. 

          Monique Fong

          Marcel Duchamp met Monique Fong in New York in 1951. One day he gave her a private tour of the MoMa and at one point Monique very bravely admitted to Duchamp that she didn’t understand his work. Duchamp looked at her and said “Monique, that really doesn’t matter. What really matters is the fact that you and I are friends.”

          Dancing around the Bride by  

          I was commissioned to make this animated film about Marcel Duchamp for the Barbican Centre which will accompany “The Bride and the Bachelors” in the Art Gallery.

          What was Marcel Duchamp like? Why did “Nude Descending a Staircase” (No. 2) cause such a controversy in 1912? What drew Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg, and Johns to this fascinating Frenchman in New York?

          Lovely animated film to accompany “Dancing Around Duchamp” season @ the Barbican.

           

          “Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth @ MoMA, NYC The woman crawling through the tawny grass was the artist’s neighbor in Maine, who, crippled by polio, “was limited physically but by no means spiritually.” Wyeth further explained, “The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless.” He recorded the arid landscape, rural house, and shacks with great detail, painting minute blades of grass, individual strands of hair, and nuances of light and shadow. In this style of painting, known as magic realism, everyday scenes are imbued with poetic mystery. I always manage a quick visit to the MoMA whenever I’m in New York, although I must confess that over the past few years I’ve seen more of the museum’s bar than its galleries. But this time around I forced myself to avoid the bar and I stuck the art. “Christina’s World” is displayed in a corridor near the escalators and it pretty much stops you in your track as you make your way from one special exhibit to another. I wasn’t the only passer by who fell under the spell of the crawling woman: quite a few of us lingered around that painting a little too long.  [And to answer Ray72’s usual question every time we come out of an art show, “Christina’s World” would be the painting I’d take away with me and risk going to jail for.]

          “Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth @ MoMA, NYC

          The woman crawling through the tawny grass was the artist’s neighbor in Maine, who, crippled by polio, “was limited physically but by no means spiritually.” Wyeth further explained, “The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless.” He recorded the arid landscape, rural house, and shacks with great detail, painting minute blades of grass, individual strands of hair, and nuances of light and shadow. In this style of painting, known as magic realism, everyday scenes are imbued with poetic mystery.

          I always manage a quick visit to the MoMA whenever I’m in New York, although I must confess that over the past few years I’ve seen more of the museum’s bar than its galleries. But this time around I forced myself to avoid the bar and I stuck the art.

          “Christina’s World” is displayed in a corridor near the escalators and it pretty much stops you in your track as you make your way from one special exhibit to another. I wasn’t the only passer by who fell under the spell of the crawling woman: quite a few of us lingered around that painting a little too long. 

          [And to answer Ray72’s usual question every time we come out of an art show, “Christina’s World” would be the painting I’d take away with me and risk going to jail for.]