2009/03/08
Quality Malaysian artwork on show
By : R. Sittamparam
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Farouk Khan
KUALA LUMPUR: The Iskandar Malaysia Contemporary Art Show (Imcas) 2009, which will showcase about 1,000 works of more than 100 Malaysian artists, is set to place Malaysia at the forefront of the regional art market.
A painting by Hamir Shoib, valued around RM500,000
"The show, which begins on Saturday at the Danga City Mall in Johor Baru, is to promote art awareness in Johor Baru and indicate the kind of changes Iskandar Malaysia will bring to Johor," said Farouk Khan, who is the Imcas organising committee chairman.
Among the art on exhibit are works by leading artists that are from the private collection of Farouk and his wife, Aliya Khan.
Over the years, the Khans have scoured the country, buying up choice works of premier artists, convinced that Malaysian artworks were of world-class standard.
One choice work that will be exhibited is Pilihan by artist Hamir Shoib, which is valued around RM500,000.
"This is a unique and important event for the Malaysian art scene, especially as it is being held outside the artists' hub of Kuala Lumpur.
"I congratulate Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman and Danga City Mall for mooting the idea for Imcas, together with the National Art Gallery, with the aim of making it an annual affair," Farouk said.
"The development of a city state today is recognised not just in the number of buildings put up there, but the quality of life resulting from its technological and cultural development through advancement of the arts."
The unveiling of part of the couple's private artwork collection at the mall's 2,601 sq-metre anchor tenant space will represent the first public viewing of the collection.
It will serve as a preview to a show at the National Art Gallery in January next year.
Featured in the collection will be works of major contemporary artists, including Yusof Ghani, Zulkifli Yusof, Annuar Rashid, Tan Chin Kuan, Jalaini Abu Hassan, Masnoor Ramli, Ahmad Shukri, Jegadeva Anurendra, Jeganathan Ramachandram, Ivan Lam, Choy Chun Wei and Yau Bee Ling.
Farouk said although the works of Malaysian artists were highly sought after in the international art market, local buyers were quite averse to them.
"It would be sad if a situation arises here, as in China, where the government is forking out millions trying to buy back works of its local artists that are now in the hands of foreign collectors."
This is a strong possibility because many of the artworks of Malaysia's foremost artist, Datuk Ibrahim Hussein, who passed away recently, are in foreign lands.
Farouk said Imcas would include a fair for 100 young artists, who will vie for the top prizes of RM5,000, RM3,000, RM2,000 and seven consolation prizes of RM1,000 in an art competition.
"The artists' works will be for sale. It is a chance to become a beginner collector of reasonably-priced local artworks. This will be good investment as I'm sure every one of these artists will become major names and the value of their works will escalate sharply ."
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Takziah Atas Pemergian Datuk Ibrahim Hussein
19Feb
Takziah Atas Pemergian Datuk Ibrahim Hussein
By Anwar Ibrahim 18 Comments
Categories: Anwar, Belasungkawa, Catatan and Seni & Sastera
Saya menerima perkhabaran duka pulangnya kerahmatullah pelukis Datuk Ibrahim Hussein awal pagi tadi akibat serangan jantung. Di kalangan para seniman, Allahyarham dikenal sebagai “Ib”.
Bila mana kita berbicara perihal seni lukis moden, semestinya nama Allahyarham tak mungkin dipinggirkan. Sepanjang ingatan, kali pertama saya bertemu dengan Allahyarham ialah ketika mana saya memimpin Persatuan Bahasa Melayu Universiti Malaya (PBMUM) di kediaman abangnya, Datuk Ismail Hussein. Beliau menjelaskan kepada saya teknik lakaran dalam seni lukis.
Sewaktu saya menjawat Timbalan Perdana Menteri, kami turut mengadakan beberapa pertemuan - termasuk membicarakan rancangan galerinya di Langkawi (kini dinamakan Muzium dan Yayasan Kebudayaan Ibrahim Hussein).
Ben Okri, novelis terkenal (yang menulis novel Famished Road) tatkala ngobrol dengan saya saketika dulu juga menanyakan perihal rakannya “Ib”.
Lebih satu bulan dulu, kami bersembang panjang tentang isu seni lukis dan budaya di rumah jiran kami di Segambut. Hanya ketika itu terserlah pendiriannya yang menginginkan perubahan di negara ini.
Kecemerlangan Allahyarham turut mendapat pengiktirafan antarabangsa melalui penganugerahan ‘Crystal Award World Economic Forum’ di Switzerland (1997), ‘Order of Bernado O’ Hinggings dari kerajaan Chile (1995) dan juga ‘Order of Andres Bello Venezuela’ (1993).
Saya dan Azizah serta seluruh pimpinan KeADILan merakamkan ucapan takziah buat ahli keluarga dan kaum kerabat Allahyarham atas pemergiannya. Semuga roh beliau dicucuri rahmat dan ditempatkan di kalangan para solehin.
ANWAR IBRAHIM
Takziah Atas Pemergian Datuk Ibrahim Hussein
By Anwar Ibrahim 18 Comments
Categories: Anwar, Belasungkawa, Catatan and Seni & Sastera
Saya menerima perkhabaran duka pulangnya kerahmatullah pelukis Datuk Ibrahim Hussein awal pagi tadi akibat serangan jantung. Di kalangan para seniman, Allahyarham dikenal sebagai “Ib”.
Bila mana kita berbicara perihal seni lukis moden, semestinya nama Allahyarham tak mungkin dipinggirkan. Sepanjang ingatan, kali pertama saya bertemu dengan Allahyarham ialah ketika mana saya memimpin Persatuan Bahasa Melayu Universiti Malaya (PBMUM) di kediaman abangnya, Datuk Ismail Hussein. Beliau menjelaskan kepada saya teknik lakaran dalam seni lukis.
Sewaktu saya menjawat Timbalan Perdana Menteri, kami turut mengadakan beberapa pertemuan - termasuk membicarakan rancangan galerinya di Langkawi (kini dinamakan Muzium dan Yayasan Kebudayaan Ibrahim Hussein).
Ben Okri, novelis terkenal (yang menulis novel Famished Road) tatkala ngobrol dengan saya saketika dulu juga menanyakan perihal rakannya “Ib”.
Lebih satu bulan dulu, kami bersembang panjang tentang isu seni lukis dan budaya di rumah jiran kami di Segambut. Hanya ketika itu terserlah pendiriannya yang menginginkan perubahan di negara ini.
Kecemerlangan Allahyarham turut mendapat pengiktirafan antarabangsa melalui penganugerahan ‘Crystal Award World Economic Forum’ di Switzerland (1997), ‘Order of Bernado O’ Hinggings dari kerajaan Chile (1995) dan juga ‘Order of Andres Bello Venezuela’ (1993).
Saya dan Azizah serta seluruh pimpinan KeADILan merakamkan ucapan takziah buat ahli keluarga dan kaum kerabat Allahyarham atas pemergiannya. Semuga roh beliau dicucuri rahmat dan ditempatkan di kalangan para solehin.
ANWAR IBRAHIM
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The artist Ibrahim Hussein
NST Online » Local News
2009/02/21
IBRAHIM HUSSEIN (1936-2009): The art of gratitude
By : REHMAN RASHID
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Portrait of the artist as a young man: Ibrahim in 1964, aged 28
The artist Ibrahim Hussein passed away on Feb 19, three weeks short of his 73rd birthday. REHMAN RASHID offers acknowledgements
Ibrahim in his Pantai Hills home
At Ibrahim’s Dewan Tunku Chancellor exhibition in December 1969, Tun Razak, flanked on his left by Ghazali Shafie and on his right by Ungku Aziz, is bemused by the artist’s painting, Sick Politician.
Datin Sim and Datuk Ibrahim Hussein at the Andaman Resort in Datai Bay, Langkawi, in 2001.
DATUK Ibrahim Hussein would have wanted to thank a great many people:
His father, Hussein bin Keuchik Asyik, for having had "the spirit of adventure" to sail a small boat from Aceh to Penang a century ago, to marry and settle down in Yan, Kedah, raising six children.
His mother, Aishah binti Awang, for awakening in him very early in life the conviction that Ib too would see the world: "You're going to travel far," she'd told him, on seeing a mole on the sole of his right foot, "on long journeys."
His eldest brother Abdullah, for his stoic hand on the rudder of a feckless young artist.
His elder brother Ismail, whose watercolours Ib thought were good, and so copied.
Ib would thank his family for his happy childhood, jumping into Sungai Limau and chasing after distant lights far away across the padi fields.
And also Mr Pereira, headmaster of St Michael's school in Alor Star, for getting Mrs Pereira to teach Ib English.
And George Douglas Muir, chief education officer of Kedah, who personally funded Ib's secondary education at St Patrick's school in Kulim, largely because he'd been impressed by the little boy's determination to sit outside Muir's office all day waiting for a chance to pass him a recommendation letter from Mr Pereira.
And Dennis Gore, art director of Masters advertising agency in Singapore, who gave Ib his first paying job largely for the same reason -- only in his case Ib was waiting to proffer not a reference but a portfolio of drawings.
And Ah Sing, the driver Ib was able to afford with his earnings from the ad agency, who once drove him to the Straits Commercial Art Store, to whose proprietor Ib was also thankful for giving him a Windsor & Newton diary containing an advertisement for the Byam School for Drawing and Painting in London.
And of course he would like to thank the Byam School for accepting him on a scholarship after he sent them some of his paintings.
But the award did not cover transport and accommodation, so Ib would wish to thank the Australian newspaper reporter who wrote him up in a story headlined "Winner of Art Award has Cash Problem", and Ho Kok Hoe, president of the Singapore Art Society, who read the story, looked at Ib's paintings and gave him a ticket to London.
And Ib would like to thank Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, for giving him some warm clothes after Ib arrived there on a cold September day in 1959 only to have his luggage stolen from Malaysia Hall in Bryanston Square.
And Tunku Abdul Rahman, who heard of a young Kedahan art student on a scholarship in London and got Ghazali Shafie to arrange dinner for the three of them at the Ritz, where Ib was introduced to escargot.
And young Captain Hussein Onn, who would study late at the library in Malaysia Hall, where Ib lived, and have supper with Ib before going home.
And Sir Charles Wheeler, president of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1963, who invited Ib to be the first Asian guest artist with the RAA.
And John Wibley, proprietor of the Wibley Gallery on George Street, who gave Ib his first solo exhibition; and Charles Spencer, art critic of the New York Times, for his kind review of that exhibition.
And Edward Roch, a wealthy aristocrat who would drive his Rolls or Maserati to visit Ib at Malaysia Hall just to admire his work. When Ib lamented not being able to afford canvas for his paintings, Roch took it upon himself to supply Ib with all the canvas he was to use for the next 10 years.
For their personal encounters during his early experiences of the West, Ib would wish to thank Bob Hope, Joan Collins, Roger Moore, Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsburg, King Vidor, Ravi Shankar, Leonard Bernstein and Rudolf Nureyev.
What happened to Ib's homeland in 1969 brought him back after that heady decade. Ib would wish to record his thanks to Royal Professor Ungku Aziz, then vice-chancellor of University Malaya, for inviting him to hold an exhibition at Dewan Tunku Chancellor, and then offering him a sinecure as UM's first artist-in-residence.
And Ib was always grateful to then deputy prime minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, for letting him display his famous painting May 13 at that show after the police had told him to take it down.
Ib would have wanted everyone to know what a rocking place UM's Fifth College was in the early 1970s ("not like now, a nunnery!"), and to thank all the students who dropped by his studio for coffee and a chat, including Hishamuddin Rais, Anwar Ibrahim, Shahrir Samad and Lam Bee, a student from Kuantan who introduced her 19-year-old sister Sim to Ib.
And Ib would surely shower Shahrir with all the thanks in the world for having "kidnapped" Sim from Kuantan after her parents forbade her from seeing him, speeding her back to KL in his Alfa Romeo fast enough to elude the police roadblocks, just so Sim and Ib could be together on Ib's 38th birthday.
Above all, Ib was grateful to Sim's parents for finally accepting him. (For which he would also like to thank Tan Sri Awang Had Salleh, whose glowing recommendation, delivered at a chance encounter of the two men in a Kuantan motor workshop, helped sway Sim's father's opinion of Ib for the better.)
Ib's thanks, too, to Datuk Jamaluddin Abu Bakar, then our ambassador to Kuwait, for arranging an exhibition for Ib in Kuwait in 1977, where Ib would meet Yakob Sifar of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, who took him to visit a PLO desert base, which experience would inform Ib's 1982 series of paintings on Sabra and Shatila.
Sultan Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah and Raja Permaisuri Tuanku Bahiyah of Kedah, too, were both very fond of Ib, and he of them; during Sultan Abdul Halim's reign as Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Ib gave Tuanku Bahiyah art lessons at Istana Negara.
Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah of Selangor became dear to Ib while just a 15-year-old prince in London, and they remained fast friends all Ib's life. Ib would always speak of him with respect, affection and gratitude.
So very many people Ibrahim Hussein would have wanted to thank; it seemed a principal objective of his several meetings with this writer in 2007 for a proposed biography. ("See? You never know when someone you meet, or even don't meet, will have a big influence on your life.")
This writer, on his part, would like to thank Ib, Datin Sim and their daughter Alia for that experience, and for having been granted the honour of seeing as a work-in-progress Ib's last great series of paintings, The China Series: huge, vibrant canvases; as powerful, seductive and telling as anything he'd ever done. At 71, Ib was still painting as though he'd just discovered his art.
"My paintings have parallel lives of personal emotion and social commentary," Ib said. "Artists, creative people, we're not practical, we work from the heart. It comes out of your private world and into the world everyone knows.
"Like praying, like sex, my painting is my love, my life, my whole self. God, goodness, prayer, it's all there, in one solid package. I paint the essence of my life.
"My whole life is a journey. No destination, nothing to achieve. I don't look at the future. The future is now. The problem with us all is we worry so much, we worry about worry. The future is death, why worry about it? If we could live as though we're going to die next week, we can perform well, seeing the goodness in people, being thankful to God every morning for another beautiful day."
2009/02/21
IBRAHIM HUSSEIN (1936-2009): The art of gratitude
By : REHMAN RASHID
Email to friend Print article
Portrait of the artist as a young man: Ibrahim in 1964, aged 28
The artist Ibrahim Hussein passed away on Feb 19, three weeks short of his 73rd birthday. REHMAN RASHID offers acknowledgements
Ibrahim in his Pantai Hills home
At Ibrahim’s Dewan Tunku Chancellor exhibition in December 1969, Tun Razak, flanked on his left by Ghazali Shafie and on his right by Ungku Aziz, is bemused by the artist’s painting, Sick Politician.
Datin Sim and Datuk Ibrahim Hussein at the Andaman Resort in Datai Bay, Langkawi, in 2001.
DATUK Ibrahim Hussein would have wanted to thank a great many people:
His father, Hussein bin Keuchik Asyik, for having had "the spirit of adventure" to sail a small boat from Aceh to Penang a century ago, to marry and settle down in Yan, Kedah, raising six children.
His mother, Aishah binti Awang, for awakening in him very early in life the conviction that Ib too would see the world: "You're going to travel far," she'd told him, on seeing a mole on the sole of his right foot, "on long journeys."
His eldest brother Abdullah, for his stoic hand on the rudder of a feckless young artist.
His elder brother Ismail, whose watercolours Ib thought were good, and so copied.
Ib would thank his family for his happy childhood, jumping into Sungai Limau and chasing after distant lights far away across the padi fields.
And also Mr Pereira, headmaster of St Michael's school in Alor Star, for getting Mrs Pereira to teach Ib English.
And George Douglas Muir, chief education officer of Kedah, who personally funded Ib's secondary education at St Patrick's school in Kulim, largely because he'd been impressed by the little boy's determination to sit outside Muir's office all day waiting for a chance to pass him a recommendation letter from Mr Pereira.
And Dennis Gore, art director of Masters advertising agency in Singapore, who gave Ib his first paying job largely for the same reason -- only in his case Ib was waiting to proffer not a reference but a portfolio of drawings.
And Ah Sing, the driver Ib was able to afford with his earnings from the ad agency, who once drove him to the Straits Commercial Art Store, to whose proprietor Ib was also thankful for giving him a Windsor & Newton diary containing an advertisement for the Byam School for Drawing and Painting in London.
And of course he would like to thank the Byam School for accepting him on a scholarship after he sent them some of his paintings.
But the award did not cover transport and accommodation, so Ib would wish to thank the Australian newspaper reporter who wrote him up in a story headlined "Winner of Art Award has Cash Problem", and Ho Kok Hoe, president of the Singapore Art Society, who read the story, looked at Ib's paintings and gave him a ticket to London.
And Ib would like to thank Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, for giving him some warm clothes after Ib arrived there on a cold September day in 1959 only to have his luggage stolen from Malaysia Hall in Bryanston Square.
And Tunku Abdul Rahman, who heard of a young Kedahan art student on a scholarship in London and got Ghazali Shafie to arrange dinner for the three of them at the Ritz, where Ib was introduced to escargot.
And young Captain Hussein Onn, who would study late at the library in Malaysia Hall, where Ib lived, and have supper with Ib before going home.
And Sir Charles Wheeler, president of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1963, who invited Ib to be the first Asian guest artist with the RAA.
And John Wibley, proprietor of the Wibley Gallery on George Street, who gave Ib his first solo exhibition; and Charles Spencer, art critic of the New York Times, for his kind review of that exhibition.
And Edward Roch, a wealthy aristocrat who would drive his Rolls or Maserati to visit Ib at Malaysia Hall just to admire his work. When Ib lamented not being able to afford canvas for his paintings, Roch took it upon himself to supply Ib with all the canvas he was to use for the next 10 years.
For their personal encounters during his early experiences of the West, Ib would wish to thank Bob Hope, Joan Collins, Roger Moore, Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsburg, King Vidor, Ravi Shankar, Leonard Bernstein and Rudolf Nureyev.
What happened to Ib's homeland in 1969 brought him back after that heady decade. Ib would wish to record his thanks to Royal Professor Ungku Aziz, then vice-chancellor of University Malaya, for inviting him to hold an exhibition at Dewan Tunku Chancellor, and then offering him a sinecure as UM's first artist-in-residence.
And Ib was always grateful to then deputy prime minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, for letting him display his famous painting May 13 at that show after the police had told him to take it down.
Ib would have wanted everyone to know what a rocking place UM's Fifth College was in the early 1970s ("not like now, a nunnery!"), and to thank all the students who dropped by his studio for coffee and a chat, including Hishamuddin Rais, Anwar Ibrahim, Shahrir Samad and Lam Bee, a student from Kuantan who introduced her 19-year-old sister Sim to Ib.
And Ib would surely shower Shahrir with all the thanks in the world for having "kidnapped" Sim from Kuantan after her parents forbade her from seeing him, speeding her back to KL in his Alfa Romeo fast enough to elude the police roadblocks, just so Sim and Ib could be together on Ib's 38th birthday.
Above all, Ib was grateful to Sim's parents for finally accepting him. (For which he would also like to thank Tan Sri Awang Had Salleh, whose glowing recommendation, delivered at a chance encounter of the two men in a Kuantan motor workshop, helped sway Sim's father's opinion of Ib for the better.)
Ib's thanks, too, to Datuk Jamaluddin Abu Bakar, then our ambassador to Kuwait, for arranging an exhibition for Ib in Kuwait in 1977, where Ib would meet Yakob Sifar of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, who took him to visit a PLO desert base, which experience would inform Ib's 1982 series of paintings on Sabra and Shatila.
Sultan Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah and Raja Permaisuri Tuanku Bahiyah of Kedah, too, were both very fond of Ib, and he of them; during Sultan Abdul Halim's reign as Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Ib gave Tuanku Bahiyah art lessons at Istana Negara.
Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah of Selangor became dear to Ib while just a 15-year-old prince in London, and they remained fast friends all Ib's life. Ib would always speak of him with respect, affection and gratitude.
So very many people Ibrahim Hussein would have wanted to thank; it seemed a principal objective of his several meetings with this writer in 2007 for a proposed biography. ("See? You never know when someone you meet, or even don't meet, will have a big influence on your life.")
This writer, on his part, would like to thank Ib, Datin Sim and their daughter Alia for that experience, and for having been granted the honour of seeing as a work-in-progress Ib's last great series of paintings, The China Series: huge, vibrant canvases; as powerful, seductive and telling as anything he'd ever done. At 71, Ib was still painting as though he'd just discovered his art.
"My paintings have parallel lives of personal emotion and social commentary," Ib said. "Artists, creative people, we're not practical, we work from the heart. It comes out of your private world and into the world everyone knows.
"Like praying, like sex, my painting is my love, my life, my whole self. God, goodness, prayer, it's all there, in one solid package. I paint the essence of my life.
"My whole life is a journey. No destination, nothing to achieve. I don't look at the future. The future is now. The problem with us all is we worry so much, we worry about worry. The future is death, why worry about it? If we could live as though we're going to die next week, we can perform well, seeing the goodness in people, being thankful to God every morning for another beautiful day."
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Picasso, like you’ve never seen him
Saturday July 12, 2008
Picasso, like you’ve never seen him
By ALEXANDRA WONG
How does a philistine appreciate art that has been called everything from revolutionary to downright baffling? Perhaps the key is in finding out what made him tick.
We cordially invite you to cover the Picasso exhibition, which has never been held outside of Europe.”
I reread the invitation, hardly able to believe my luck. Picasso in Australia — it’s a giant of a story. Yet I’ve never felt more like a blank canvas in my life.
Like most of the world’s population, I have never laid eyes on an actual Picasso. I have only a vague impression of him, culled from piecemeal anecdotes and layman opinions: his works are said to be so abstract and enigmatic, some baffled snarks have even likened them to a car crash.
How on earth would I, a philistine where art is concerned, be able to appreciate them?
Visitors admire the great artist’s private collection of artwork.
A day before I fly to Brisbane, I pose my conundrum to my cousin Justin, my family’s Unofficial Walking Discovery Channel: “How do you appreciate something you can’t understand?”
He thinks for a while, before saying, “Have you heard the legend of the Benedictine monk who discovered Dom Perignon champagne? He was so delighted he ran out of the cellar and yelled, ‘Come come! I’ve tasted stars!’ We all know that it’s a physical impossibility, but you get my drift, right?”
A departure from previous exhibitions
At the standing-room-only media preview, even the most veteran newsmen look unusually excited. Picasso & His Collection is more than an art aficionado’s wet dream come true.
Not only do we get to eyeball his most talked-about works, we are also given a rare insight into the artist’s aesthetic and personal influences. Hung alongside his paintings are more than 100 works from his private art collection and a massive catalogue of photographic and documentary material from his life.
There are paintings by 35 artists, including Chardin, Matisse, Renoir, Cezanne and Rousseau. There is a selection of Oceanic and African masks and sculpture dating from the 6th century BCE, which were critical in the evolution of Picasso’s work. There are intimate footage of the artist’s studio and candid photos from his personal life.
This emphasis on context underscores Picasso’s own view that perceptions and interpretations evolve with everyday experiences and interactions.
Anna Baldassari, director of Musee National Picasso, Paris, and curator of Picasso & His Collection, says, “Picasso had a very contemporary attitude. He believed in the knowledge of different perspectives. A painting is not just a painting: there is the context, the full story, things that happen around the story.”
The Gallery of Modern Art is not just for show and tell; visitors also get to leave their mark. Near the Children’s Art Centre there are walls for visitors to fill in the speech bubbles with their thoughts about the exhibition.
Tony Ellwood, Gallery of Modern Art director, adds, “This exhibition is a deliberate dialogue. Art should not be just self-referential. It should be informed by the world outside.”
Picasso & His Collection attempts to show what made Picasso the artist he was. For this reason alone, the exhibition ranks as one of the most important historical milestones in modern art. Coming hot on the heels of the hugely successful Andy Warhol exhibition earlier this year, it is expected to cement Queensland’s budding reputation as a cultural mecca.
An icon of modern elegance, the Gallery of Modern Art is a fine venue in which to pay homage to the Father of Modern Art.
Debunking myths
A first-timer in Queensland, I’m not really qualified to comment on Queensland’s reputation, but the exhibition does quickly overturn every preconceived notion I’ve ever held about the Spanish artist.
Cubism? Blue period? Surrealism? Forget high-brow concepts that would sail over most laymen’s heads. If before I’d only known him as the head-scratching painter of odd human figures with awkwardly juxtaposed anatomy, this exhibition reveals a startling range and versatility that is impossible to confine to any genre, or, for that matter, period.
Cheeky caricatures of men and women engaged in debaucheries abound but there’s a grittiness to them that suggests he wasn’t just a dirty old man. In Erotic Scene, a series of etchings inspired by the monotypes of Degas, the irreverent illustrations of brothel scenes possess an ambiguity that suggests they could also be a mocking nod to his own ageing self.
Even at its most enigmatic, his art is weirdly tactile. The befuddling human limbs invite the eye to search for an underlying logic and their reason for being. In La coiffure (Hairdressing), an oil on canvas of his paramour Dora Maar, one wonders what Picasso’s real motivation was, because he certainly wasn’t doing his model any favours. With her bulging, off-set eyes, narrow forehead, and exaggerated curving nostrils, her face can only be flatteringly described as a battlefield.
And when you least expect it, he throws a curveball.
What’s with Returning from the Christening, after Le Nain, a psychedelic riot of rainbow colours, that could have very well been a graffiti from the hippie 60s? It seems almost anomalous among his other abstract flights of fancy, and yet, there is a joie de vivre that tells us, yes, this is the same guy who drew that strange but compelling piece of naked women looking at the sky. (Bathers Watching an Aeroplane).
Talk about messing with our heads.
The artist and his life
All that eye candy invariably whets my appetite to dig up more about the man.
I head straight for the exhibition book shop, which features memorabilia and literature on the artist. Out of the rows of biographies, I pick out the one by Olivier Widmaier Picasso, simply titled Picasso: The Real Family History.
The Gallery of Modern Art also strives to foster arts awareness early through its Children’s Art Centre, which is running the programme “Yo Picasso Kids” to introduce children to Picasso and his ideas. — ALEXANDRA WONG & GALLERY OF MODERN ART, QUEENSLAND
Olivier’s grandmother Marie-Thérèse, I discover, was the artist’s muse and lover. To his credit, Olivier does not mince words about his grandfather’s way with the ladies, but points out that some of his most extraordinary portraiture were inspired by the women in his life.
“He listened only to his instinct — and his love. He loved like a madman,” Olivier declares. “He had a passion for other people. Without that, his work would be . . . empty of meaning.”
Olivier is an arresting storyteller. As I thumb through the heavy volume, I feel like I’m a fly on the wall in the artist’s working spaces in Horta, Barcelona and Lucia, while he paints his life before my eyes.
His life often as dramatic as his works. Marie-Thérèse simply called him “a wonderful terror”.
Art at its purest
Before finally leaving the hallowed halls of the gallery, I revisit a pen-and-ink self-portrait Picasso drew circa 1917-1918. It is one of his simplest yet most expressive works. In a few clean, deft strokes, he captured the spirit of his persona and life.
The caricature of the artist in a long coat, cigarette sticking out from the side of his mouth, is all at once irreverent, bold, visionary and unmistakably human.
As a layman, I realise that I may never be able to fully understand, or articulate, my appreciation of his work, but I have to say his work still possessed the uncanny power to move me. Perhaps that’s the source of his genius: his power doesn’t just come from a keen eye, or a knack for aesthetics, but because it draws from the deepest wells of human emotion.
And that, perhaps, is the greatest value of this exhibition. It showed me that Picasso was as much a human as he was a great artist.
As I stand there filling my eyes, I finally begin to understand what my cousin meant. This must be how the monk felt when he tasted “stars”.
o For more information on Picasso & His Collection, visit www.qag.qld.gov.au/picasso. The exhibition will be on display at the Gallery of Modern Art, South Bank, Queensland until Sept 14.
Picasso, like you’ve never seen him
By ALEXANDRA WONG
How does a philistine appreciate art that has been called everything from revolutionary to downright baffling? Perhaps the key is in finding out what made him tick.
We cordially invite you to cover the Picasso exhibition, which has never been held outside of Europe.”
I reread the invitation, hardly able to believe my luck. Picasso in Australia — it’s a giant of a story. Yet I’ve never felt more like a blank canvas in my life.
Like most of the world’s population, I have never laid eyes on an actual Picasso. I have only a vague impression of him, culled from piecemeal anecdotes and layman opinions: his works are said to be so abstract and enigmatic, some baffled snarks have even likened them to a car crash.
How on earth would I, a philistine where art is concerned, be able to appreciate them?
Visitors admire the great artist’s private collection of artwork.
A day before I fly to Brisbane, I pose my conundrum to my cousin Justin, my family’s Unofficial Walking Discovery Channel: “How do you appreciate something you can’t understand?”
He thinks for a while, before saying, “Have you heard the legend of the Benedictine monk who discovered Dom Perignon champagne? He was so delighted he ran out of the cellar and yelled, ‘Come come! I’ve tasted stars!’ We all know that it’s a physical impossibility, but you get my drift, right?”
A departure from previous exhibitions
At the standing-room-only media preview, even the most veteran newsmen look unusually excited. Picasso & His Collection is more than an art aficionado’s wet dream come true.
Not only do we get to eyeball his most talked-about works, we are also given a rare insight into the artist’s aesthetic and personal influences. Hung alongside his paintings are more than 100 works from his private art collection and a massive catalogue of photographic and documentary material from his life.
There are paintings by 35 artists, including Chardin, Matisse, Renoir, Cezanne and Rousseau. There is a selection of Oceanic and African masks and sculpture dating from the 6th century BCE, which were critical in the evolution of Picasso’s work. There are intimate footage of the artist’s studio and candid photos from his personal life.
This emphasis on context underscores Picasso’s own view that perceptions and interpretations evolve with everyday experiences and interactions.
Anna Baldassari, director of Musee National Picasso, Paris, and curator of Picasso & His Collection, says, “Picasso had a very contemporary attitude. He believed in the knowledge of different perspectives. A painting is not just a painting: there is the context, the full story, things that happen around the story.”
The Gallery of Modern Art is not just for show and tell; visitors also get to leave their mark. Near the Children’s Art Centre there are walls for visitors to fill in the speech bubbles with their thoughts about the exhibition.
Tony Ellwood, Gallery of Modern Art director, adds, “This exhibition is a deliberate dialogue. Art should not be just self-referential. It should be informed by the world outside.”
Picasso & His Collection attempts to show what made Picasso the artist he was. For this reason alone, the exhibition ranks as one of the most important historical milestones in modern art. Coming hot on the heels of the hugely successful Andy Warhol exhibition earlier this year, it is expected to cement Queensland’s budding reputation as a cultural mecca.
An icon of modern elegance, the Gallery of Modern Art is a fine venue in which to pay homage to the Father of Modern Art.
Debunking myths
A first-timer in Queensland, I’m not really qualified to comment on Queensland’s reputation, but the exhibition does quickly overturn every preconceived notion I’ve ever held about the Spanish artist.
Cubism? Blue period? Surrealism? Forget high-brow concepts that would sail over most laymen’s heads. If before I’d only known him as the head-scratching painter of odd human figures with awkwardly juxtaposed anatomy, this exhibition reveals a startling range and versatility that is impossible to confine to any genre, or, for that matter, period.
Cheeky caricatures of men and women engaged in debaucheries abound but there’s a grittiness to them that suggests he wasn’t just a dirty old man. In Erotic Scene, a series of etchings inspired by the monotypes of Degas, the irreverent illustrations of brothel scenes possess an ambiguity that suggests they could also be a mocking nod to his own ageing self.
Even at its most enigmatic, his art is weirdly tactile. The befuddling human limbs invite the eye to search for an underlying logic and their reason for being. In La coiffure (Hairdressing), an oil on canvas of his paramour Dora Maar, one wonders what Picasso’s real motivation was, because he certainly wasn’t doing his model any favours. With her bulging, off-set eyes, narrow forehead, and exaggerated curving nostrils, her face can only be flatteringly described as a battlefield.
And when you least expect it, he throws a curveball.
What’s with Returning from the Christening, after Le Nain, a psychedelic riot of rainbow colours, that could have very well been a graffiti from the hippie 60s? It seems almost anomalous among his other abstract flights of fancy, and yet, there is a joie de vivre that tells us, yes, this is the same guy who drew that strange but compelling piece of naked women looking at the sky. (Bathers Watching an Aeroplane).
Talk about messing with our heads.
The artist and his life
All that eye candy invariably whets my appetite to dig up more about the man.
I head straight for the exhibition book shop, which features memorabilia and literature on the artist. Out of the rows of biographies, I pick out the one by Olivier Widmaier Picasso, simply titled Picasso: The Real Family History.
The Gallery of Modern Art also strives to foster arts awareness early through its Children’s Art Centre, which is running the programme “Yo Picasso Kids” to introduce children to Picasso and his ideas. — ALEXANDRA WONG & GALLERY OF MODERN ART, QUEENSLAND
Olivier’s grandmother Marie-Thérèse, I discover, was the artist’s muse and lover. To his credit, Olivier does not mince words about his grandfather’s way with the ladies, but points out that some of his most extraordinary portraiture were inspired by the women in his life.
“He listened only to his instinct — and his love. He loved like a madman,” Olivier declares. “He had a passion for other people. Without that, his work would be . . . empty of meaning.”
Olivier is an arresting storyteller. As I thumb through the heavy volume, I feel like I’m a fly on the wall in the artist’s working spaces in Horta, Barcelona and Lucia, while he paints his life before my eyes.
His life often as dramatic as his works. Marie-Thérèse simply called him “a wonderful terror”.
Art at its purest
Before finally leaving the hallowed halls of the gallery, I revisit a pen-and-ink self-portrait Picasso drew circa 1917-1918. It is one of his simplest yet most expressive works. In a few clean, deft strokes, he captured the spirit of his persona and life.
The caricature of the artist in a long coat, cigarette sticking out from the side of his mouth, is all at once irreverent, bold, visionary and unmistakably human.
As a layman, I realise that I may never be able to fully understand, or articulate, my appreciation of his work, but I have to say his work still possessed the uncanny power to move me. Perhaps that’s the source of his genius: his power doesn’t just come from a keen eye, or a knack for aesthetics, but because it draws from the deepest wells of human emotion.
And that, perhaps, is the greatest value of this exhibition. It showed me that Picasso was as much a human as he was a great artist.
As I stand there filling my eyes, I finally begin to understand what my cousin meant. This must be how the monk felt when he tasted “stars”.
o For more information on Picasso & His Collection, visit www.qag.qld.gov.au/picasso. The exhibition will be on display at the Gallery of Modern Art, South Bank, Queensland until Sept 14.
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