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Tuesday, 30 September 2025

Artlyst - The Art Diary October 2025

My latest Art Diary for Artlyst features exhibitions by several artists whose work I have championed through essays and exhibitions, as well as solo and group shows that explore environmental, social, and spiritual concerns. Read on for news of exhibitions by Michael Landy, Ana Maria Pacheco, Robert Smithson, and Suzanne Treister, among others, together with shows at Compton Verney, Firstsite, Pallant House, and the Engelundsamlingen in Vrå:

'‘Everyday Wonder to Revelation’ at Clare Hall, Cambridge, is an exhibition providing a rare opportunity to see paintings by Caine. These paintings delve into the core Neo-Platonist idea of the oneness of the world, the nodus mundi. We see this in his depictions of everyday objects, such as rugs, mopheads, carpets, and bundles of cloth. Although his subject matter is humble, the intricate depth of his draughtsmanship reveals unity and cohesion. We see it too in his expansive and luminous landscapes. When Caine blends his perceptions of space and shimmering light in the landscape with his exploration of the core in everyday things, he presents us with a vision of worlds beyond. His images invite us to step through a veil into barely imagined possibilities. Through his exploration of the small, the infinite beckons; through his exploration of the wonder of the everyday, revelation becomes possible.

In the essay I wrote for the exhibition catalogue, I note that: “Without reference to standard religious iconography and with a primary focus on landscape, still life, and portraits, Caine imbued and infused his work with spiritual reflection and with spirituality itself. That he did so in ways that allow those who do not share his beliefs to enthusiastically embrace and appreciate his work for their many other compelling qualities is a testament both to Caine’s skill as an artist and the subtlety of his understanding of the connection between earth and heaven.”'

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Monthly diary articles -

Articles/Reviews -

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Kevin Morby - O Behold.

Sunday, 6 July 2025

The Kingdom of God has come near you

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Catherine's Wickford this morning:

In the National Gallery in 2013 you could find a St. Francis without a head and with a candy-grabber crane that went inside his body and which, if you were lucky, pulled out a T-shirt saying chastity, obedience and poverty; another St. Francis was mounted on a donation box and, when you put money in, he hit himself over the head with a crucifix. Michael Landy’s large-scale sculptures consisted of fragments of National Gallery paintings cast in three dimensions and assembled with old machinery, cogs and wheels, meaning that visitors could crank the works into life with a foot pedal mechanism.

They sound like pieces designed to mock St. Francis and other Saints represented and yet Landy is an artist who is fascinated by the renunciation and kindness that Saints like Francis have shown through their lives. Landy is best known for two works. The first being an installation in a former C&A store on Oxford Street, where over a two week period, he destroyed all his possessions except for the clothes in which he stood. The second being ‘Acts of Kindness’ where Landy asked members of the public who had witnessed or taken part in acts of kindness while travelling on the tube, to write about them. So, as at least one of the art critics reviewing the show at the National Gallery, has noted while enjoying the jokiness of the lucky dip St. Francis, “you also sense that Landy thinks Britain could do with a little of St Francis’s spirit.”

St. Francis lived out his faith and that is what today’s Gospel reading (Luke 10. 1 – 11, 16 – 20) is all about. This passage from Luke’s Gospel gives us Jesus’ inspirational team talk just before sending his disciples out to be his advance guard preparing those in the towns and other places to be visited by Jesus shortly after. He gives his disciples a message to share – “The Kingdom of God has come near you” – but his main focus is on the behaviour and attitude of his disciples; the way in which they live and act.

He instructs them to live simply (“don't take a purse or a beggar's bag or shoes”); to be focused (“don't stop to greet anyone on the road”); to be peace givers (“whenever you go into a house, first say, ‘Peace be with this house.’”); accept hospitality (“stay in that same house, eating and drinking whatever they offer you”); bring healing (“heal the sick in that town”); share your message (“say to the people there, ‘The Kingdom of God has come near you.’”); and move on when not accepted (“the dust from your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you”).

These instructions of Jesus became a model for itinerant preachers throughout Church history including St. Francis and his followers. The words “Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use words” are often attributed to St. Francis but, while certainly reflecting something of what he said and did, that is not a phrase he actually used. ‘Francis did focus on proclaiming the word in deeds – as well as in words. And if you have ever read any of Francis’ own writings it is easy to see that Scripture is infused everywhere in his words, his life and his being – and his actions. It is easy to see where the oft-quoted phrase came from; for example, the Legend of the Three Companions’ includes this inspirational team talk from St. Francis:

“Calling together the six brothers, Saint Francis, since he was full of the grace of the Holy Spirit, predicted to them what was about to happen. “Dearest brothers,” he said, “let us consider our vocation, to which God has mercifully called us, not only for our own good, but for the salvation of many. We are to go throughout the world, encouraging everyone, more by deed than by word, to do penance for their sins and to recall the commandments of God. Do not be afraid that you seem few and uneducated. With confidence, simply proclaim penance, trusting in the Lord, who conquered the world. Because by his Spirit, He is speaking through and in you, encouraging everyone to be converted to him and to observe his commandments”’ (http://friarmusings.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/preach-the-gospel-at-all-times-if-necessary-use-words/)

But what has all this to do with us, as we are generally not being called by God to become itinerant preachers? The answer is very simple, that our actions, as well as our words, speak powerfully about our faith. Negatively, this is the reason why Christians are often criticised as being hypocrites; others look at what we do and complain that we aren’t practising what we preach. When our actions and our words come together, however, then our witness is powerful; to see that we only have to think of examples provided by Saints like Francis or more recent followers of Christ like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jnr, Mother Teresa, Oscar Romero, Desmond Tutu, among others.

This is also one reading of the message which Jesus gave his disciples to proclaim. Do you remember what it was? It was not quite the message that we might have expected or anticipated. The disciples weren’t given the message that ‘God is love’ or to ‘repent and believe’; instead they were told to say that “The Kingdom of God has come near you.”

What did that mean? The disciples were the heralds for Jesus’ imminent arrival in that place, so it would certainly have meant Jesus is coming and the Kingdom of God arrives where he arrives. But, because the disciples were also living out their faith in practice, as those bringing peace and healing into the communities they visited, it also meant that the Kingdom of God could be seen in their lives and examples too. This can still be true for us today. Doing good, for Christians, is not about our salvation – it’s not about earning God’s love – instead it is a consequence of our salvation; because God has loved us so much, we then want to love others and, as we do, the Kingdom of God comes close to those we love, help and heal.

That is the challenge of this passage for us today and so, in the words of St. Francis:

Dearest brothers and sisters let us consider our vocation, to which God has mercifully called us, not only for our own good, but for the salvation of many. We are to go throughout the world, encouraging everyone, more by deed than by word, to do penance for their sins and to recall the commandments of God. Do not be afraid that you seem few and uneducated. With confidence, simply proclaim penance, trusting in the Lord, who conquered the world. Because by his Spirit, He is speaking through and in you, encouraging everyone to be converted to him and to observe his commandments.

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Big Star - The Ballad Of El Goodo.

Sunday, 7 May 2023

George Morl: Pop-up exhibition and talk

Friday 12 – Sunday 14 May, St Andrew’s Church (11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN):
New Town, New Collection: Tales from George Morl’s private art collection

This exhibition brings together works acquired by artist and curator George Morl. Through founding a collection which reflects on the communal legacies of New Towns, Plotlands, and the possibility of human connections across the virtual world, it visions a future art collection centring support. 'New Town, New Collection' features works by contemporary artists such as Grayson Perry, Michael Landy, Elsa James, Madge Gill, Rosie Hastings & Hannah Quinlan, Uma Breakdown, as well as work by Morl.

Friday 12 May 7.00 pm, St Andrew’s Church - Talk: New Town, New Collection

Join British artist and curator George Morl for a talk about their collection as displayed in the exhibition New Town, New Collection. Reflecting on experiences as an artist and through their role as Programme Assistant at Firstsite in Colchester, Morl shares their joy of acquiring art, and motivations for building a collection to share for others.

These events of part of the One Beautiful Work Arts Festival - see https://onebeautifulworldfestival.blogspot.com/.

George Morl is an artist and facilitator based in Basildon. They currently are Programme Assistant at Firstsite in Colchester, and were appointed the Jerwood Newlyn Residency (2021-22) at Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange in Penzance. Morl's multidisciplinary practice comprises of paintings, sculptures, photography and video, exploring human connection under technology and networks, communication, gender, often through affecting integrative and collaborative approaches between organisations, collections, and communities. Work has been shown at Focal Point Gallery, Southend (2022), Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, Penzance (2021), Tate Exchange, London (2019), Southend Museums (2018), UCA, Canterbury (2016), Turner Contemporary, Margate (2016). Recipient of Arts Council England Practice Grant (2022), New Histories, Cambridge (2022), Firstsite Award, Colchester (2019), TOW Residency, Southend (2020), and awarded the UCA Darren Henley Scholarship, Canterbury (2016- 2018). ‘Essex @way from keyboard?’ marked their first public artwork for Focal Point Gallery’s Railway Bridge commission 2022.

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Lizz Wright - Presence Of The Lord.

Saturday, 9 July 2022

Artlyst - Re-imagining Essex July 2022 Diary

My July diary for A rtlyst has mentions for Michael Landy at Firstsite, Elsa James at Focal Point Gallery, George Morl at Southend High Street, and Grayson Perry at Salisbury Cathedral as I focus on the ways in which the image of Essex is currently being questioned, challenged and re-framed by artists and exhibitions in and from Essex:

‘Othered in a region that has been historically Othered’ is a major new film that comes in three chapters moving from initial experiences of being othered, through the Grenadian island ritual of Jab Jab which provides a transformative moment, into a final chapter that imagines a new future for Essex by taking the othering and turning it ‘into a zone of possibility and new dreaming.’ Unlike her earlier films in which the actual stories of othered Essex residents were re-told, these films feature James herself channelling through her performance – she equates this, in an interview with Ekow Eshun, to Christians receiving the Holy Spirit – the experience of being othered and of re-imagining.

Her performances in these films are based both on historical research into the persecution of women as witches in Essex in the mid-17th century by the infamous Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins, and focus groups held in Essex with asylum-seekers and refugees, black students, and the LGBTQIA+ community. From the focus groups have come phrases and concepts which have been incorporated into the lyrics and poetry that feature in the films. In this mix of words, sounds and images, James looks within ‘to find the source / of that redemptive’ and asks ‘What would Essex look like if the norm got turned on its head and the ‘Othered’ became the norm?’

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Articles -

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Curtis Mayfield - We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue.

Sunday, 3 July 2022

The Kingdom of God has come near

Here's the sermon I preached for Holy Communion at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

In the National Gallery in 2013 you could find a St. Francis without a head and with a candy-grabber crane that went inside his body and which, if you were lucky, pulled out a T-shirt saying chastity, obedience and poverty; another St. Francis was mounted on a donation box and, when you put money in, he hit himself over the head with a crucifix. Michael Landy’s large-scale sculptures consisted of fragments of National Gallery paintings cast in three dimensions and assembled with old machinery, cogs and wheels, meaning that visitors could crank the works into life with a foot pedal mechanism.

They sound like pieces designed to mock St. Francis and other Saints represented and yet Landy is an artist who is fascinated by the renunciation and kindness that Saints like Francis have shown through their lives. Landy was raised in Essex and he’s currently mining his roots at the Firstsite Gallery in Colchester where he recently had his first major exhibition in a public gallery for almost a decade called ‘Welcome to Essex’ and where his largescale collage on ‘The Essex Way’ can still be seen.

Landy is best known for two works. The first being an installation in a former C&A store on Oxford Street, where over a two week period, he destroyed all his possessions except for the clothes in which he stood. The second being ‘Acts of Kindness’ where Landy asked members of the public who had witnessed or taken part in acts of kindness while travelling on the tube, to write about them. So, as at least one of the art critics reviewing the show at the National Gallery, has noted while enjoying the jokiness of the lucky dip St. Francis, “you also sense that Landy thinks Britain could do with a little of St Francis’s spirit.”

St. Francis lived out his faith and that is what today’s Gospel reading (Luke 10. 1 – 11, 16 – 20) is all about. This passage from Luke’s Gospel gives us Jesus’ inspirational team talk just before sending his disciples out to be his advance guard preparing those in the towns and other places to be visited by Jesus shortly after. He gives his disciples a message to share – “The Kingdom of God has come near you” – but his main focus is on the behaviour and attitude of his disciples; the way in which they live and act.

He instructs them to live simply (“don't take a purse or a beggar's bag or shoes”); to be focused (“don't stop to greet anyone on the road”); to be peace givers (“whenever you go into a house, first say, ‘Peace be with this house.’”); accept hospitality (“stay in that same house, eating and drinking whatever they offer you”); bring healing (“heal the sick in that town”); share your message (“say to the people there, ‘The Kingdom of God has come near you.’”); and move on when not accepted (“the dust from your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you”).

These instructions of Jesus became a model for itinerant preachers throughout Church history including St. Francis and his followers. The words “Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use words” are often attributed to St. Francis but, while certainly reflecting something of what he said and did, that is not a phrase he actually used. ‘Francis did focus on proclaiming the word in deeds – as well as in words. And if you have ever read any of Francis’ own writings it is easy to see that Scripture is infused everywhere in his words, his life and his being – and his actions. It is easy to see where the oft-quoted phrase came from; for example, the Legend of the Three Companions’ includes this inspirational team talk from St. Francis:

“Calling together the six brothers, Saint Francis, since he was full of the grace of the Holy Spirit, predicted to them what was about to happen. “Dearest brothers,” he said, “let us consider our vocation, to which God has mercifully called us, not only for our own good, but for the salvation of many. We are to go throughout the world, encouraging everyone, more by deed than by word, to do penance for their sins and to recall the commandments of God. Do not be afraid that you seem few and uneducated. With confidence, simply proclaim penance, trusting in the Lord, who conquered the world. Because by his Spirit, He is speaking through and in you, encouraging everyone to be converted to him and to observe his commandments”’ (http://friarmusings.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/preach-the-gospel-at-all-times-if-necessary-use-words/)

But what has all this to do with us, as we are generally not being called by God to become itinerant preachers? The answer is very simple, that our actions, as well as our words, speak powerfully about our faith. Negatively, this is the reason why Christians are often criticised as being hypocrites; others look at what we do and complain that we aren’t practising what we preach. When our actions and our words come together, however, then our witness is powerful; to see that we only have to think of examples provided by Saints like Francis or more recent followers of Christ like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jnr, Mother Teresa, Oscar Romero, Desmond Tutu, among others.

This is also one reading of the message which Jesus gave his disciples to proclaim. Do you remember what it was? It was not quite the message that we might have expected or anticipated. The disciples weren’t given the message that ‘God is love’ or to ‘repent and believe’; instead they were told to say that “The Kingdom of God has come near you.”

What did that mean? The disciples were the heralds for Jesus’ imminent arrival in that place, so it would certainly have meant Jesus is coming and the Kingdom of God arrives where he arrives. But, because the disciples were also living out their faith in practice, as those bringing peace and healing into the communities they visited, it also meant that the Kingdom of God could be seen in their lives and examples too. This can still be true for us today. Doing good, for Christians, is not about our salvation – it’s not about earning God’s love – instead it is a consequence of our salvation; because God has loved us so much, we then want to love others and, as we do, the Kingdom of God comes close to those we love, help and heal.

That is the challenge of this passage for us today and so, in the words of St. Francis:

Dearest brothers and sisters let us consider our vocation, to which God has mercifully called us, not only for our own good, but for the salvation of many. We are to go throughout the world, encouraging everyone, more by deed than by word, to do penance for their sins and to recall the commandments of God. Do not be afraid that you seem few and uneducated. With confidence, simply proclaim penance, trusting in the Lord, who conquered the world. Because by his Spirit, He is speaking through and in you, encouraging everyone to be converted to him and to observe his commandments.

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Malcolm Guite - Songs and Sonnets.

Monday, 11 January 2021

Cranach: Artist and Innovator

Here's a review of Cranach: Artist and Innovator, which was at Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park until 3 January 2021. The review for various reasons is backdated.

As a Reformation propagandist who was also a Renaissance man, the works of Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop are shot through with paradox. Cranach was an artist, entrepreneur, innovator, and politician, who worked for Protestant and Catholic clients while spearheading the promotion of the Reformation through the publication and illustration of Martin Luther’s writings.

Although the engravings that accompanied Luther’s texts are uncompromising and crystal-clear in their condemnation of the perceived corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, it has been the complexities and ambiguities of Cranach’s work that have primarily engaged later audiences and many artists. This exhibition brings us Cranach’s portraiture (often for his Court patrons), engravings (primarily Reformation illustrations), and Biblical/mythological scenes (a mix of public and private work, with the private predominating here).

Cranach’s paintings are frequently referenced in contemporary art and popular culture. In particular, his distinctive nudes, with pale, serpentine bodies posed against dark backgrounds, have entranced a wide range of artists. In the final section of this exhibition a lively dialogue with Cranach emerges in works by Pablo Picasso. John Currin, Ishbel Myerscough, Michael Landy, Raqib Shaw and Claire Partington, among others, as these artists take the formal structure of a work by Cranach as a point of departure for a creation of their own.

The works on display here chart a range of responses to Cranach by other artists, and correspond with the increased availability of Cranach’s work in books and postcards from the nineteenth century onwards. As variations on a theme, these works show both rupture and continuity with Cranach’s distinctive aesthetic, as Cranach’s familiar icons are overlaid with personal stories and current perspectives. This, then, is an exhibition which can be experienced in reverse with the recent images providing contemporary commentary on Cranach and his work.

Michael Landy’s towering mechanical depiction of Saint Apollonia, made originally for his Saint’s Alive exhibition at the National Gallery, seeks to reanimate the violent narrative of how this saint was tortured by having her teeth pulled out. Landy was responding to Cranach’s rather more serene depiction in an altarpiece that is now in the National Gallery. Cranach’s depiction of Saint Apollonia comes from 1506, prior to the posting of the 95 theses on the door of a church in Wittenberg. The violence in Cranach’s own work was to come later, particularly in the first of his collaborations with Luther, Passional Christi und Antichristi, pages from which can be viewed here and which contrasted the simple, virtuous life of Christ with the perceived privilege and pompous excesses of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church.

Wolfe von Lenkiewicz brings Cranach and Albrecht Dürer together in his Adam and Eve. Von Lenkiewicz has combined Compton Verney’s Venus and Cupid with the figure of Adam from Dürer’s Adam and Eve (1507, Prado, Madrid). Posed against a dark background, the human forms dissolve into flowers after the Dutch still-life painter Ambrosius Bosschaert, which have been clipped into new shapes. Von Lenkiewicz is known for his artistic reconfigurations of well-known imageries from art history and visual culture in order to create ambiguous compositions that question art historical discourses. Typical of his work, this image is a ‘tissue of quotations’. Dürer and Cranach were peers and, together with Hans Holbein, Matthias Grünewald and Albrecht Altdorfer, defined 15th century Northern Renaissance art. Their German Catholic devotional images foundered on the rock of the Reformation with Dürer and Cranach (in particular) laying the foundation for Reformation art.

In addition to the personal and art historical connections between the two, von Lenkiewicz is also aware that Cranach’s Venus figure doubled as Eve in, for example, the 1526 Adam and Eve (Courtauld Gallery). Including the additional element of Bosschaert flowers introduces a third, slightly later Protestant artist whose career in the Netherlands began after leaving Spain due to potential persecution, and a new Reformation art form, the still life, which has particular resonance here as nature morte. The transience of flowers and floral arrangements is aligned with the Reformation belief that our mortality results from The Fall.

Raqib Shaw’s paintings here have been inspired by Cranach’s earliest known engraving The Penance of St John Chrysostom and his painting of Lot and his Daughters. Both, at first sight, seem unlikely material for a Reformation painter. The legend of Chrysostom’s penance was later mocked by Luther as a Roman Catholic lie linked to the selling of indulgences (Cranach’s image precedes his collaborations with Luther), while the story of Lot and his daughters is one of incest.

Shaw gives us characters that are re-evaluating their lives in the light of the traumatic events they have either endured or facilitated. His Lot, like William Blake’s Newton, is using a compass to try to make sense of destructive events – environmental and military - that he cannot explain, although they occur in the shadow of the Tower of Babel. For Lot, all his reference points for understanding have been removed leaving him, in the words of Shaw’s title, without a compass, whilst holding one in his hands. Shaw’s Chrysostom, by contrast, is at a point of understanding having written ‘we cannot see the baggage on our own back’; an acknowledgement of all he had sought to evade about himself up to that point.

For Cranach, however, these stories have a clear and linked Reformation understanding which concerns the repression of sexuality necessitated by the Roman Catholic demand for celibacy in those who are priests or religious. For Cranach and Luther, our sexuality finds its proper and full expression within marriage but, when prevented, by circumstances in the case of Lot and by unnecessary restrictions in the case of Chrysostom, the result is disaster.

This understanding of the Reformation view of sex is vital in understanding why it was acceptable for Cranach, as a Reformation propagandist, to paint alluring nudes, whether as Eve or Venus. Pablo Picasso and John Currin in their re-interpretations of Cranach, amplify the eroticism that their male perspective sees as central, according to their differing styles of work. Ishbel Myerscough and Claire Partington, however, critique the male gaze perspective that underlies Cranach’s moral view.

Cranach’s nudes are images of temptation. The version of Cupid Complaining to Venus included here from 1526-7 has Venus posed as Cranach also posed Eve in the Courtauld version of Adam and Eve. The connection between the two images is further emphasised in that Venus is depicted as holding on to an apple tree. Eating the apple in the story of The Fall is the temptation to step outside of what God has ordained. Venus is not tempting the viewer with an apple but with her body in a way that is outside of the order that God has ordained. The envisaged viewer is, of course, male.

It is this viewpoint that Myerscough and Partington rightly critique. Myerscough, by painting naked women as people, with value and beauty in and of themselves, not idealised morality lessons (Cranach) or objects of lust (Picasso and Currin). Partington, by sculpting women of strength, who reject all the trappings of male fantasy, including and especially the patriarchal identification of Eve as temptress.

Cranach paints through a revolution and his works reflect the confidence of rebels on their way to becoming rulers. We can no longer view his works, or the Reformation that he helped to build, from that perspective. The exhibition ends with Partington redressing the balance of power. Referencing biblical stories in which the underdog wins, including Judith beheading Holofernes and David defeating Goliath, Judith is shown posing triumphantly, with her foot on Cranach’s head.

Cranach: Artist and Innovator is actually artistic and curatorial reinterpretation of Cranach and his legacy. Partington’s reaction to Cranach’s images of Lucretia, a mix of confusion and incredulity which provoked her first Cranach reinterpretation, seems similar to the feedback curator Amy Orrock reported from the early days of the exhibition; of people drawn in by the contemporary reinterpretations and only understanding the Cranach’s in their light.

This contemporary inability to access or understand the Reformation mindset is graphically depicted in Andrew McIntosh’s What No-one Else Had, which sets Cranach’s Cupid Complaining to Venus in an eerily empty building alongside an isolated block of flats and a tree in South East London. The incongruity of both is indicative of the way in which much of what was revolutionary in Reformation thinking now appears oppressive. For those of us who are within the legacy that Cranach and Luther established, it may be that we need to learn the lesson of the legend that Luther mocked and Cranach engraved. St John Chrysostom was restored to his right mind when he received forgiveness from the ones he had abused.

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Good Charlotte - Prayers.

Sunday, 30 June 2013

The past is not even past

Having been to see Saints Alive by Michael Landy at the National Gallery, Laura Cumming's Observor review seems to me to be the one which captures the significance of this exhibition best:

"It is remarkable that the National Gallery had such faith in Landy, never mind reinforcing the floors for his giants. But the result is a tremendous event that seizes the viewer, involving us in a spectacle of passion, conviction, suffering and belief driven both literally and mechanically by violence. Their true subject, in this respect, is awe. These sculptures take you into the paintings, but above all into the lives of the saints, in the most eye-popping, nerve-touching, heart-wrenching way."

As Cumming notes "Landy has spent the past two years looking hard at paintings of saints and thinking about the complete self-abnegation of their lives." Similarly, Tim Rollins and K.O.S. also regularly create contemporary art based on art of the past. William Faulkner's statement - ‘The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.’ - is a guiding light for their work. Accordingly, they "embrace the idea of the arena of art existing in the fourth dimension of a social imagination beyond space and time, contingency and possibility."

Inspired by the Time Traveller in H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895) the group have endeavoured to explore this idea in their current exhibition at the Maureen Paley Gallery and have made work based on imaginary ‘visitations’ with Shakespeare, Mendelssohn, Haydn, Darwin and Strauss:

"Their journey begins in 1590 at the time when Shakespeare was writing A Midsummer Night’s Dream and simultaneously in 1826 when Mendelssohn at 17 years of age began work on his own score for a production of this play. In their work A Midsummer Night’s Dream (after Shakespeare, 1590-1596 and Mendelssohn 1826–1842) they invited young people to transform into the character of Puck, painting flowers and blossom over sheet music from Mendelssohn’s score that was completed in 1842. Next they imagined the first performance of The Seven Last Words of Christ by Haydn in 1786 and created seven paintings that use black Spinel pigment that they applied onto pages from this score. They then visited Charles Darwin in 1837 as he began sketching out his idea of a ‘Tree of Life’ in one image that would be developed into his theory of evolution described in On the Origin of Species published in 1859.

In 1945 they meet with Richard Strauss in the final days of WWII while he was composing his elegiac and mournful Metamorphosen (in Memorium). This music created a deep desire within the group to reflect on their experiences working in the South Bronx that brought up feelings of tragedy and transformation, destruction and rebirth. They have created a meditation in this new body of work that memorializes, researches and remains hopeful by existing in past, present and future tenses."

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Joseph Haydn - The Seven Last Words Of Our Saviour On The Cross.

Saturday, 25 May 2013

Saints - evolving, personal and alive

Several current exhibitions in London make significant use of the Christian tradition of saints to comment on contemporary issues.

In Iconostasis at the Halcyon Gallery, Mitch Griffiths asks, 'Who are the icons of today? Who are the celestial equivalents of our age?' "Griffiths plays with the notion that our saints have now evolved – no longer heavenly, but worshipped for their unending trials and self-promotion through the media. Griffiths’ figures exist in a state of purgatory – neither holy nor common, famed nor unknown – hanging on the edge of a nirvana which is based no longer on divinity, but instead on a false sense of ecstasy ensued by the rituals and expected behaviours of contemporary society."

In Cecilia Vicuña's early paintings, "religious icons are replaced by personal, political and literary figures, and some were previously exhibited in her 1973 exhibition (Pain Things & Explanations) at London’s ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts)." Her exhibition at England & Co begins with a group of these "paintings from the early 1970s that narrate her own history, interwoven with that of Chile and Salvator Allende. These use a painting technique Vicuña learned in the late 1960s from the Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington; and were initially inspired by the naive and subtly subversive images made by 16th Century indigenous artists in Latin America after the Spanish conquest when they were forced to paint angels and saints for the Catholic Church."
Michael Landy: Saints Alive is the culmination of Landy’s position as the National Gallery’s current Rootstein Hopkins Associate Artist in residence.

"Landy’s imagination has been captured by images of saints in the collection; the colourful and detailed portrayal of their lives, their attributes, and stories of their single-mindedness and strength have provided powerful stimuli for Landy’s work. Towering over visitors, the seven large-scale sculptures swivel and turn, in movements that evoke the drama of each saint’s life. Saints Apollonia, Catherine, Francis, Jerome, Thomas – and an additional sculpture that takes a number of saints as its inspiration – fill the Sunley Room alongside collages on paper that show the creative process on which Landy embarked to arrive at the kinetic sculptures.

The large-scale sculptures are formed of re-imagined fragments of National Gallery paintings cast in fibreglass, painted and assembled with the surprising addition of metal cogs, wheels, defunct fan belts and motors that Landy has accumulated from junkyards, car boot sales and flea markets. Landy has reworked the two-dimensional images into energetic three-dimensional pieces, creating elements hidden from view in the original paintings, such as a saint’s back or the fullness of folds of drapery. Keen to involve visitors and to facilitate interaction with the works, Landy has devised foot pedal mechanisms that crank the works to life."
Richard Dorment, reviewing the exhibition for the Daily Telegraph, concludes:

"Landy’s interest in saints who were willing to suffer and die for their beliefs doesn’t seem so remote from the subjects he’s been dealing with throughout his career. What makes his take on the world so interesting to me is that he rejects both the materialism of Marxism on the one hand and of consumerism on the other in favour of a third possibility, that we can live our lives according to spiritual values, placing our trust in things we can’t see or touch or own – whether that entails religious belief or not.

What an artist."

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James Macmillan - Padre Pio's Prayer.