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Showing posts with label tate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tate. Show all posts

Tuesday, 21 October 2025

Artlyst: Nigerian Modernism Explored - Tate Modern

My latest review for Artlyst is on Nigerian Modern at Tate Modern:

'... each room of the exhibition highlights different artists, societies and schools who carved independent visions for what modern art in Nigeria could be. The first of these, The Zaria Art Society understood the issues and challenges to a significant extent and developed the concept of ‘natural synthesis’ as a result. These artists, including Bruce Onobrakpeya, Uche Okeke, Yusuf Grillo and Demas Nwoko, began, as Bonsu explains, calling “for the merging of the best of indigenous traditions and forms with useful Western ones”. The members of the group took the concept of ‘natural synthesis’ in many different directions over the course of their careers. Still, it, essentially, became the foundation for much of the work that has been brought together for this exhibition.

As a result, spirituality features strongly in the work of many of the artists and groups found here. Onobrakpeya, who is a practising Anglican although he worked for many years at a Catholic Boys School in Lagos, combined Biblical themes with the visual and oral traditions of the Urhobo and Yoruba peoples. At the request of Fr Carroll, he created a set of prints of the Stations of the Cross which reimagines the stories set in Nigerian contexts. Later, he recreated these in his signature plastograph style as surrounds to a central image of The Last Supper. This plastograph image plus a set of the Stations of the Cross prints form an arresting group of works in the room dedicated to the Zaria Art Society.'

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

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Jide Chord - Another Level.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 18:03 0 comments
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Monday, 29 April 2024

Artlyst: Tate Expressionists Exhibition Reveals Spirituality and Past Gender Disparity

My latest exhibition review for Artlyst is on Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider at the Tate Modern:

'Apart from Impressionism, most early modern art movements had significant spiritual inspirations and motivations. Expressionism, whether that of The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) or The Bridge (Die Brücke), was no different and may have been one of the movements where spirituality was of the most influence.

The Blue Rider claimed that art knows no borders, and they sought to demonstrate the reality of that claim in Der Blaue Reiter Almanac, published in 1912. Yet, as the room specifically dedicated to images with a spiritual focus shows, their aesthetic concerns developed parallel with their belief in the deep spiritual significance of artistic experimentation, which drove their creative investigations.'

See also my review for Artlyst of After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art.

Interviews -
Monthly diary articles -
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Posted by Jonathan Evens at 22:29 0 comments
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Sunday, 24 March 2024

Meditation on Anselm Kiefer’s Palm Sunday

Meditation on Anselm Kiefer’s Palm Sunday - Thursday 28th May 2009, Tate Modern

Dead diagonal
transecting space
dusty, dirty palm
bleached of life
red clay
ball of roots
leaves droop
and trail
once fertile
now fragile
creviced trunk
bridges root ball
and limp
foliage bush

two walls -
39 framed panels
stacked three panels high –
are backdrop
to the palm diagonal
desert landscapes
composed of leaves
and sand
hieratic bleached leaves
tangled twigs
discarded clothing
dead matter
constructing created
mindscapes for the soul

Vast vistas -
cracked clay
dry surfaces -
death and decay
sterility and stasis
worlds shattered
and broken
apocalyptic
thirsty lands
praying for water

39
and the installation
forming 40 -
40 desert days
and nights
demonic temptations
forming
repentance sermons
Where are
our roots?
Have we lost
our roots?
Are we
torn up
by our roots?
Is our world
sterile, shallow,
cracked, breaking,
dry, dusty,
diseased, dirty,
dead?

Words written
in sand –
“vater”
“psalmsonntag”
“domenica
belle palme” –
words written
in sand –
pregnant pause
transient scribing
before
pointed challenge
and rocks
falling from hands
onto sand

An event
containing
death and life
turning on
signs in sand
water in desert
life in death
restoration in ruins
An installation
containing
creative dryness
constructive discards
where dead
things live as
objects of reflection
where discards
are reimagined
recombined
reworked
recreated
from detritus
and decay
dust
and destruction

Palm Sunday -
a festival
containing its
own apocalypse
and apotheosis
a welcome
that become
a waylaying
a celebration
that became
a condemnation
a crucifixion
that became
a resurrection

Palms torn
from a living tree
are thrown
in the dust
as welcome
to be trodden
underfoot
and discarded
bleached
by the noonday
sun
these
discarded palms
gathered up
centuries later
for artistic
recreation

Is this
object
installation
and moment
of reflection
a pregnant
pause
a creative
sign in sand
a recreative
refashioning
reforming
from the
dry
discarded
and detritic
the sterile
stagnant
and static?

National Galleries of Scotland say:

'Palmsonntag (Palm Sunday)' refers to the Biblical story of Christ’s journey into Jerusalem shortly before his arrest and execution, when worshippers laid palm leaves in his path. Kiefer’s recent installation comprises thirty paintings featuring palm fronds and stems, alongside a palm tree cast in resin. As the prelude towards Christ’s eventual death, the story symbolises for the artist, the moment between triumph and destruction. Laid on the gallery floor, the fallen tree echoes the body of Christ before his resurrection, suggesting both mortality and eventual renewal.

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Mark Heard - Rise From The Ruins.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 22:32 0 comments
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Friday, 18 August 2023

Artlyst: A World In Common: Contemporary African Photography - Tate Modern

My latest exhibition review for Artlyst is on ‘A World In Common: Contemporary African Photography’ at Tate Modern:

'‘A World In Common: Contemporary African Photography’ at Tate Modern draws on the theories of Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe (born 1957) by inviting us to imagine “a world in common”. To do this, Mbembe claims, we must “think the world from Africa”. ‘A World In Common’ explores Africa’s past, present and future to create a more expansive and inclusive narrative of humanity. It suggests that to conceive “a world in common” is to imagine a future of possibility. Unfolding across three chapters – Identity and Tradition, Counter Histories and Imagined Futures – the exhibition charts the dialogue between photography and contemporary perspectives on cultural heritage, spirituality, urbanisation, and climate change to reveal shared artistic visions that reclaim Africa’s histories and reimagine its place in the world.'

For recent exhibitions exploring similar themes, see my reviews of In The Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery and Rites of Passage at the Gagosian Gallery.

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -
Monthly diary articles -

Articles/Reviews -
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Jide Chord - Gospel Vibes.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 20:37 0 comments
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