Art/Not Art – by Charlotte Elliston

I recently went to 2 events, both very different but seeing them both on the same day allowed me to think about the definition of art and how new media and multi-practice seems to be breaking down boundaries between art and other creative careers.

Last week I visited the exhibition ‘The Humans’ by Alexandre Singh at Spruth Magers gallery.  http://www.spruethmagers.com/

Having read a review describing the show as a ‘performance’ I was surprised to find a video playing in the gallery, which was actually a video of a play. The film is 3 hours long and I confess I only saw about an hour of the full piece, which was an allegorical tale about the corruption of humanity. There were references to Shakespeare (and borrowings from his language) and Rabelais among other playwrights, and some of the speeches were quite dense for the non-philosophically minded, but the film/play? was also interesting visually, with some beautiful costumes and lighting.

My query is what makes this work into a form of visual art as opposed to theatre. The piece had the length of a play, was performed originally on a stage, by actors, reciting scripted lines. In the second room of the gallery were some prints and sculptures of the actors and the props from the play, displayed as museum or archive pieces. Perhaps the element making this a piece of art as opposed to theatre is that the play was never performed on stage before an audience so is therefore a fictional account of something which never existed?

Later the same evening I attended a fashion show, off schedule of the brand Sorapol.  http://www.sorapol.co.uk/home.php

The brand was created in 2012 by designer Sorapol Chawaphatnakul and Daniel Lismore and the shows and pieces they create seem to blur the lines usually drawn between art and fashion. Their show was held at the Royal College of Surgeons, where a Victorian wood panelled room was transformed into a catwalk delineated by heaps of flowers and foliage, reminiscent of a Dutch old master painting or the decaying flower works of Anya Galaccio.

The show started with a video piece showing a model having a cloak-type garment stitched onto her body then exploding into flame. This model then kicked off the show, the shimmering and iridescent piece appearing like wings trailing from her body. This theme of second skin and transparency was present in many of the looks.

 http://www.fashion156.com/collections/sorapol-london-fashion-week-aw14/

The show also seemed to draw from historical portraiture –  in many pieces models had embellished necklines and covered heads.

There were also some fabulous lobster headpieces which could have only been drawing on the Salvador Dali lobster phone. I’m all for the interweaving of the arts, but in this case feel that the fashion show billed as a straight fashion show achieved this more successfully than the art exhibition which appeared to be a piece of theatre.

Charlotte Elliston

Sweet ‘Art In Paris – by Charlotte Elliston

You may have noticed from Sweet’ Art’s Facebook page, that we were recently at the Musee D’Orsay in Paris. I was extremely privileged to have a private tour of highlights of the gallery after-hours, which meant avoiding the crowds and seeing some Impressionist gems ‘up close and personal’.

The last time I visited the Musee was about 15 years ago, and at the time don’t remember being too excited by the works I saw. Perhaps it was the atmosphere of a Museum after-hours or the swift glass of champagne on the way in, but I was much more stimulated by some of the work this time around.

On the ground floor we were introduced to Francois Pompon’s ‘Polar Bear’, created in 1922 and clearly showing it’s Deco influences. Apparently Pompon was a student of Rodin and taught to sculpt in a realistic manner – to create the bear he sculpted all of the intricate details of musculature and then pared them back to this beautifully stylized piece.

I also discovered a Gauguin painting I had not seen before, ‘Les Aylscamp’s, one of his relatively early works created in Arles.

What caught me about this piece were the colours and very clearly defined brushstrokes. The almost geometric forms and splash of red reminded me of a Paul Klee work I had recently seen at the Tate Modern show Paul Klee – Making Visible, which was ‘Fire in the Evening’ painted in 1929.

My knowledge of art history is limited, but I feel sure that the visual relationship between these works cannot be just coincidental.

Finally, we were treated to Van Gogh’s ‘The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise’ and the recent theory proposing that Van Gogh did not kill himself but was shot accidentally by some local children he knew.

 

Not wanting to get them in trouble, and having previously attempted and failed at suicide, he did not inform anyone and so died. Not the most cheery story, but it does change the view of many who believe the painting to be his suicide note.

Some wonderful art rediscovered, but 2 hours on marble floors in high heels certainly don’t do wonders for the feet!

Charlotte Elliston