Barbed wire, a mother and child, and a refugee camp

I was glad to attend the Private View this evening for Gilly Szego: A Retrospective which is hosted by Protein Studios in Shoreditch. The exhibition is the largest curation of Szego's work to date and showcases pieces from over seven decades, from early watercolours, through to the portraits for which she is best known. At 85 years old, Szego is still producing artwork and this exhibition also includes her show from last year, Opposites: Conflict and the Human Mind.

Gilly Szego: A Retrospective also includes photographs and works by other artists that tell the story of her career as a painter, including a portrait by Feliks Topolski. With over 50 pieces, spanning seven decades, the exhibition includes privately-owned works that have never been exhibited before.

I was particularly interested to see Mother and Child a painting shown in the St Martin-in-the-Fields refugee action programme in 1972, as part of efforts to raise awareness of the plight of Ugandan refugees. This canvas surrounded by barbed wire depicts a mother and child scene in a refugee camp, but set in such a way that people would mistake it for the Madonna and Child. Szego said at the time that 'if Jesus Christ had been born in 1972, it would have most likely been in a refugee camp.' She couldn't have known when she painted it in 1972 that 45 years later it would still look as if it was painted last week. 

Venue: Protein Studios, 31 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EY
Dates: 7th - 12th December 2017
FREE ENTRY

Opening Times:
Thu 7 Dec: 10am til 4pm (Open to Public)
Thu 7 Dec: 6.30pm til 10pm (Private View, by invitation only)
Fri 8 Dec: 10am til 6pm
Sat 9 Dec: 11am til 7pm
Sun 10 Dec: 11am til 6pm
Mon 11 Dec: 10am til 6pm
Tue 12 Dec: 10am til 4pm

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Paul Simon - Homeless.

Exhibitions update: Image and identity

I've recently enjoyed seeing two exhibition about image and identity:

Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!: This summer Grayson Perry, one of the most astute commentators on contemporary society and culture, presents a major exhibition of new work at the Serpentine Galleries. The works touch on many themes including popularity and art, masculinity and the current cultural landscape.

Perry’s abiding interest in his audience informs his choice of universally human subjects. Working in a variety of traditional media such as ceramics, cast iron, bronze, printmaking and tapestry, Perry is best known for his ability to combine delicately crafted objects with scenes of contemporary life. His subject matter is drawn from his own childhood and life as a transvestite, as well as wider social issues ranging from class and politics to sex and religion.

The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!, tackles one of Perry’s central concerns: how contemporary art can best address a diverse cross section of society. Perry said: “I am in the communication business and I want to communicate to as wide an audience as possible. Nothing pleases me more than meeting someone at one of my exhibitions from what museum people call ‘a non-traditional background.’ The new works I am making all have ideas about popularity hovering around them. What kind of art do people like? What subjects? Why do people like going to art galleries these days? What is the relationship of traditional art to social media?”

A Channel 4 documentary Grayson Perry: Divided Britain followed Perry as he created a new work for the show: his attempt to capture the thoughts of a divided country a year after the EU referendum. Harnessing social media, Perry invited the British public to contribute ideas, images and phrases to cover the surface of two enormous new pots: one for the Brexiteers and one for the Remainers. He also visited the most pro-Brexit and pro-Remain parts of the country for the programme, which is available to watch on All4. 

Saatchi Gallery and Huawei have teamed up to present From Selfie to Self-Expression. This is the world’s first exhibition exploring the history of the selfie from the old masters to the present day, and celebrates the truly creative potential of a form of expression often derided for its inanity.

The show also highlights the emerging role of the mobile phone as an artistic medium for self-expression by commissioning ten exciting young British photographers to create new works using Huawei’s newest breakthrough dual lens smartphones co-engineered with Leica.

I'll also be going to see Art Out of the Bloodlands: A Century of Polish Artists in Britain at the Ben Uri Gallery from 28 June - 17 September 2017. This exhibition focuses on the contribution made by the largest migrant community to 20th/21st Century British Art, this exhibition highlights the work of Polish artists who have worked and continue to work in Britain. Featured artists include: Jankel Adler, Janina Baranowska, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Stanislaw Frenkiel, Feliks Topolski and Alfred Wolmark, complemented by contemporary practitioners working in London now. All but a handful of the featured works have been created in England – the new homeland - yet many retain symbols of Polish national identity, from Catholicism and the cavalry, to the dark forests and traditional embroidery.

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Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here.

Pole Position: Polish Art in Britain 1939–1989

"Pole Position is a brand new exhibition which will shed light on a neglected chapter in the story of British art.

Created from the private collection of Matthew Bateson, the exhibition showcases 60 works by Polish artists, many of whom were forced to flee mainland Europe during the Second World War. Some of these artists journeyed through many countries before settling in the UK, while others were captured and imprisoned before finding their way to British shores.

The artists’ transitory experiences are reflected in the subject of their work; from powerful depictions of their lost homeland and the horrors of war, to the landscapes and luminaries they encountered in their new lives in Britain. The striking works on show are a testament to the great adversity the artists faced, but also to the wealth of new ideas and approaches they brought with them across the channel."

Amongst the highlights of Matthew Bateson’s collection included in the exhibition are Stanislaw Frenkiel’s Descent of the Winged Men, (1973), Josef Herman’s Head of a Bergundian Peasant, (1953), Henryk Gotlib’s Christ in Warsaw (c1939) and Feliks Topolski's celebration of British war time resistance, Old England (1945).

Matthew Bateson has said: 'These works were sourced from auctions or acquired directly from the artists over the past 30 years. I was attracted to dark and challenging imagery, aware that my passion for expressionist and narrative painting was unfashionable and outside the ephemeral art market and celebrity culture that dominates our times.’

The website for the Association of Polish Artists in Great Britain (APA) explains that "Although it is impossible to point to one characteristic which unites these Polish artists in one school abroad, if the influences upon these artists are examined, it would be right to say that they definitely belong to a 'common tradition'. The general term 'common tradition' allows us to see the influence not only of the Academies of France or Germany but also Polish Fine Arts Academies such as the ones in Cracow, Warsaw and Wilno (before the war) ... This leads towards sensibility of colour in their works, as well as painterly expression, and the belief in the work of art as a carrier of avant-garde theories. Further development of these traits in works of the artists took place in Britain."

In my Airbrushed from Art History series of posts, I referred to Polish painters in Post-War Britain as documented by Douglas Hall in his book Art In Exile. Hall wrote that the number of displaced artists from Poland coming to Britain as exiles from war and persecution before or after 1939 was perhaps greater than from any other country. In Art In Exile he told the stories of ten such artists as well as reviewing the context from which they came and their reception in England and Scotland. Hall writes that we "remind ourselves, through the experience of the exiles among us, that there have been other ways of feeling, other ways of understanding history, other ways of using creative ability for other expressive purposes."

Through Hall I discovered the work of Marian Bohusz-Szyszko and wrote a feature piece for the Church Times about his relationship with Dame Cicely Saunders. Bohusz-Szyszko and other exiled Polish artists (such as Stanislaw Frenkiel, Adam Kossowski, Henryk Gotlib, Marek Zulawski, and Aleksander Zyw) were part of a consistent but under-recognised strand of artists' employing sacred themes which runs throughout the 20th century in the UK.

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Steve Mason - Fire!