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Showing posts with label mccormick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mccormick. Show all posts

Monday, 2 September 2024

Artlyst - The Art Diary September 2024

My September Art Diary for Artlyst highlights a range of international exhibitions before returning to the UK for exhibitions at Hastings Contemporary, The Sainsbury Centre, The Fitzwilliam Museum and Elizabeth Xi Bauer. I also highlight two interesting art books, a new initiative by the Association of Art Historians and a charity auction jointly hosted by Bonhams and Hauser & Wirth:

'Also in Mallorca is Zupan & Zupan, an exhibition by father and daughter, Bruno and Natasha Zupan. Art critic Ed McCormick described Bruno Zupan’s work as such: “The real magic is in the paint surface itself, with its energetic bravura strokes, splashes, splatters, and drips forming a unified statement, as active, alive, and visually autonomous as an Abstract Expressionist work by de Kooning or Diebenkorn – yet simultaneously evoking the world outside the canvas … His rhapsodic brushwork and singular vision have garnered him a worldwide following among those who still seek beauty in the art of painting. Bruno Zupan is one of the last great romantics, and for that alone, his work is worth treasuring.” Zupan’s iconic technique using black filigree design over gold leaf was inspired by the Byzantine art of his homeland of Croatia. One of the ways in which he uses this style is to create images of churches that show the faithful moving towards love, “which is the basis of constructive religious belief”.'

See also my posts on Mallorcan visits, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. See my post on the upcoming exhibition by John Paul Barrett at St Andrew's Wickford, which is also mentioned in this month's Art Diary. 

Interviews -
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Articles/Reviews -

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Big Star - Try Again.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 18:32 0 comments
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Wednesday, 24 September 2014

Pop's holy rollers

The Guardian has an article today on Pop's holy rollers which links Steve Arrington's retrospective‬ Double CD Way Out (80-84), Sheila E's autobiography The Beat of my Own Drum, and Chuck D's The Black in Man. Angus Batey writes that 'Many acts – from Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis to Marvin Gaye, Prince, Madonna and U2 – have struggled to reconcile the sacred with the profane in their art.' He suggests that if 'the musicians-turned-pastors (the likes of Arrington, Little Richard or Al Green) are the most head-turning examples of artists trying to accommodate their faith,' there are others like Sheila E for whom the process is less dramatic.

September has actually been a great month for new albums which explore spiritual themes with excellent new releases by Leonard Cohen, Deacon Blue, Robert Plant and U2.

Popular Problems by Cohen is his best since The Future and, as with that album, deals both explicitly and ambiguously with religious imagery and spiritual reflection: 'Word of Words / And Measure of all Measures / Blessed is the Name / The Name be blessed / Written on my heart / In burning Letters / That's all I know / I cannot read the rest.' ('Born in Chains')

Ricky Ross is in a rich vein of inspiration with The Hipsters in 2012 quickly followed by solo album Trouble Came Looking in 2013 and now A New House. Deacon Blue's best album since under-appreciated classic Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, both albums featuring songs centred on Bethlehem: 'I long to be there / As bright as the sky / At Bethlehem's gate' ('Bethlehem's Gate') and 'You got to go back, gotta go back, gotta go back in time / To Bethlehem / To begin again.' ('Bethlehem begins').

Robert Plant's Lullaby ... and the Ceaseless Roar is a wonderfully original melting pot of blues, country, indie and world influences. Somebody There explores a sense of the sublime: 'When I was a young boy / And time was passing by / Real slow / And all around was wonder / And all around the great unknown / With eyes that slowly opened / I set about the wisdom to know / And living out of language / Before one word I spoke / I heard the call / There is somebody there I know.'

Neil McCormick's initial reaction to U2's Songs of Innocence to me seems fairly accurate: 'I wouldn’t put it on a par with their greatest work - Boy, Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby or even the seamless songs of All That You Can’t Leave Behind ... But ... it certainly does the job it apparently sets out to do, delivering addictive pop rock with hooks, energy, substance and ideas that linger in the mind after you’ve heard them.' 'It is, at heart, a highly personal set of songs' with 'no flag waving anthems, no big social causes.' If there is a moral, he suggests, 'it appears in the coda of Cedarwood Road: “a heart that is broken / is a heart that is open.”'

More on some of these artists and the interplay between faith and music can be found in my co-authored book, The Secret Chord.

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Leonard Cohen - Born In Chains.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 20:28 0 comments
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