Tracey Emin - Second Life

A fabulously sunny day and I head indoors for the exhibition of the year, maybe. If you don't love Tracey, then you'll disagree I'm sure. I, however, find her painting, especially, incredibly moving as expression of women's pain. We all have it in various forms, and here it is writ and coloured large.

It was good to see the blankets, neons and iconic bed and the paintings again, and some new things - the bleeding stoma self-portrait photographs are very hard to look at. By this point in the exhibition I was overwhelmed and crying. I had to sit down and rest.

Although there is a lot to see, you don't need to read every piece of paper as it's all in the catalogue. Of course, you 'll have to acquire that. And you'll have seen the films before. Still they draw a crowd. 

I'd have liked much, much more to look at. More sculpture beyond the maquettes and one large one - there's one outside also, which small children were busy climbing all over as, Easter holidays and what else is it there for? I'd have appreciated her lockdown watercolours, more birds, neons and embroideries. The show could easily have been twice the size, and why not? I am greedy. More, more, more, please like the insomnia photos, the paintings of her Mum and, and.

One thing I can't quite understand is why you would bring children to this exhibition. Far too many awkward questions to be answered. I'm not sure I'd want to handle that until they were teenagers. But hithee and soon.

Tracey Emin/Munch at the RA

I have waited so long to see this show - since last December when it was postponed - it was hard to believe my turn had finally come, but here we are on day two of the gallery re-openings back in the lovely quiet RA.

Small and perfectly formed, the three rooms of paintings by artists separated by a century contain exemplary work of colour and pattern chosen by Emin. 

The conversation in paint takes on more than echoing techniques though. It is the subject matter that climes: intense emotions writ large on canvas and paper, wrestling the facts of human pain. 

I was deeply moved. Hurry to book a place, as although it's been held over due to the pandemic closures - lucky that - it isn't on for long. You won't be disappointed. 

Recent art shows round up

It's been a busy winter and start to spring. I've been away and otherwise had my head in my computer writing a book. I have still been looking at art, but without the time to write about it. So here's a whistle-stop round up of the shows I've seen since Christmas.

Tracey Emin at Whitecube, Bermondsey

Generally excellent, except that I didn't really go for the large bronzes. Mainly paintings here on difficult and unsettling subject matter- abortion and the death of her mother. I enjoy her paintings. Their fluidity and confidence of gesture is impressive. And they are more lovely to look at and less obvious than Kahlo on the same and similar subjects. The roomful of insomnia photographs rang a very large bell with me. Oh, for a decent night's sleep.

Bonnard, Tate Modern

Big blockbuster bore. Snoringly dull subject matter that viewed with twenty first century eyes is just not interesting, no matter how ground breaking it was at the time. I don't want to see the garden from your dining room, and despite the many times your wife takes a bath, there's really no excuse for painting her, every, single, day. Also, you can't paint dogs and cats for toffee. Don't even try. BUT you can do colour, colour, colour, colour. The master of complementarity. No contest.

Bill Viola, Royal Academy

Fabulous and wonderful as always. I just love his videos. Technology moves and he just gets better and better. Paired in this show with rarely seen and complimentary/influential drawings by Michael Angelo from the royal collection at Windsor, this was the best way to spend a cold Sunday than just about anything else I know. I took a novice who immediately became a convert. Bliss.


Van Gogh, Tate Britain

Blockbuster two - yeah, all the greatness you expect. Tortuous conceit of trying to make it something about the years he lived in south London before he became a painter. Throwing in of British art he supposedly influenced - hmm. The Bacons in the last room were a joy. Crowded beyond measure, etiquette and politesse. But it's Van Gogh, and At Eterity's Gate with Willem Dafoe is a must see film while I'm on the topic.

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2018

This year Grayson Perry did most of the honours in selecting and hanging the exhibition of Art Made Now. Thankfully the totally overused in inappropriate ways word 'curate' was nowhere to be seen. He had the galleries painted some pretty lurid shades of yellow and pink though, but they worked well.

There was nothing ground breaking, but there never is, and that, in a way, is not the point of this most democratic of shows, where five Sooty puppets stand as much chance of being selected as a sign for Unaffordable Housing or a bunch of painted sticks.

I enjoyed spotting the new work by some of my favourites like Tracey Emin (one painting and three lovely prints.- all figurative), Bill Viola (a mesmerising video from his people walking across the desert series), and Perry himself (huge print and lovely white people pot - a ceramic of Alan his teddy bear is hiding in the basement, only to be seen by members if they go down to the secret bar).

There was an anti-leave Banksy priced, of course, of £350 million, a new Anish Kapoor in the main courtyard (a huge red disk, hanging over a pile of weathered and vegetated basalt columns plundered from somewhere), and a host of generally lovely prints on the second floor.

The galleries were packed the day I visited as it was pouring with rain and in the exhibition's last week. We headed straight to the downstairs member's bar for coffee and later, lunch. Sssh don't tell anyone but the bar, which also serves food, is quiet even when the member's rooms are packed, and you have two glossy tree ferns to enjoy in the little courtyard.

I am pleased to report that the, no doubt ironically chosen, portraits of Farage and Moseley remained unsold.

Tracey's Bed and other things at Tate Britain

So there it is again, the sheets are still filthy dirty, the litter, used condoms, tampons and other detritus are still, well, there. Her slippers are still naff and the pair of tights is still slung on top of the duvet. But honestly, what was the fuss all about? It's strange looking at something that caused such a furore at the time. I liked it's iconoclasm when it was first put on show in 1999. I like it still. If you've never seen Tracey Emin's My Bed it in all it's glory, off you go to the permanent collection. Enjoy people's reactions.

But while you are there, think seriously and twice about going to the other current exhibitions. I was pretty underwhelmed by Sculpture Victorious because it is so much of a mishmash: partly about the Great Exhibition, party about sculpture in 1800s, but a bit all over the shop for me. It never does for me to enter an exhibition into a first room of sculpture of a monarch, Queen Victoria in this case. I'm Welsh. We don't do the royal family.

However I was astounded to learn that something like 6,000 elephants were slaughtered for their ivory every year to meet British demand alone in the mid-nineteenth century. The only good things to my jaded eye were a Byrne-Jones I have never before spied of Perseus and the Graeae (part-painting part-metal work, not exactly a sculpture), the Eric Gills and my favourite python-wrestling hero by Leighton.

Salt and Silver sounded promising, being as it is about early photography (salt paper prints) and the works are to be admired for technical achievement, but the subject matter is rather predictable and frankly dull, with one exception. The photographs from the Crimean War are worth a good look. I was especially taken with one of a cantiniere, who despite being in a campaign had time to lace her corset and pull in her perilously tiny waist.

The third exhibition, and yes, I did spent the best part of a day there, is also of photography  - Nick Waplinton's collaboration with Alexander McQueen, no doubt timed to coincide with the block busting show at the V&A. I am a big fan of huge glossy prints and the space to enjoy them, but I was more than a little bemused by the fashion shot, plate, costume  juxtposed (sic) by pictures of rubbish, literally and in close up, by which I mean plastic, broken glass, black bin liners and the like, all in sordid detail. It seemed a bit graduate show to me, but hey, make up your own mind.

Musee Rodin

Excellent collection of all your favourites: large castings, marquettes, marbles all jumbled around inside and in the grounds of a beautiful 18th century house at the back of Les Invalides. A cosy and intimate setting for works I've only ever seen in portentous places like the Cantor in Northern California, or at special exhibitions at the Royal Academy. Lovely garden too.

Very enjoyable and not expensive to visit - 10 Euros for two adults for everything including the current exhibition of 300 drawings (some racy enough to make Tracey Emin look tame), kids free, EU students under 25 free - so bit of a bargain for a family from one of France's non-state funded museums. Merci beaucoup.

http://www.musee-rodin.fr/