James McNeill Whistler @ Tate Britain

 

James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and Silver, Chelsea, 1871

As to be expected, the highlight of the Whistler exhibition at Tate Britain is the room devoted to the Nocturnes. It is a rare treat to see so many in one room, together reflecting and meditating on the River Thames, soaked in industrial life in the 1870s. They are breathtaking. I believe that the Nocturnes set Whistler apart from all other painters of his time. His courage to paint these radical, almost abstract visions of industrial London, their haunting contemplation so at odds with how others were looking at industrial modernity. Peaceful, serene, at a moment in the day when light is ephemeral, gone in a split second, there is nothing in Whistler's paintings of the modern life so often painted by others in this period. Subject matter aside, what makes the Nocturnes  radical and unique is their technique. At the time, the thin, whisper-like watery paint was considered outrageous. Whistler's paintings were unfinished, some said. But the scraped away, thinned out paint on unprimed canvases is what enabled Whistler to capture the very special light of this time of day. The Nocturnes, together in one room, literally glow in their quiet meditative vision of what painting can do but had not yet dared. 

James MacNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Cremorne Lightrs, 1872

Another delightful element of the exhibition were the drawings and pastels and watercolours that Whistler did as he travelled from city to city, many of which I had not seen before. In his later years, after he had been rejected by the art world, Whistler was interested in cities built around water - London, Amsterdam, and of course, Venice. Paris in the earlier years of his career was filled with the hustle and bustle of daily life in the backstreets, the medieval parts of the city. But the most exquisite drawings were those that captured the reflections of light on water moving, lapping, and trundling around buildings in Venice and Amsterdam.

James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and Silver, The Lagoon, Venice, 1879-80

Whistler began scraping and rubbing and distressing the canvas very early in his career. His various techniques of pulling paint off a canvas rather than layering it on are evidenced in some of his earlier full length portraits. The scraped away areas on the canvas are in abundance, directing the viewer's attention to the face, or to the mood created in paint, away from any emphasis on story or character. Whistler's works are about air and light and "breath on the surface of a pane of glass" to quote him. They are not character studies or narrative paintings. Whistler wanted to do something that was only acheiveable through paint, using paint in a new way to create mood, the elements, and times of day. Of course, there was no question that this would bring with it the visibility of the canvas weave. No wonder critics such as John Ruskin were up in arms: Whistler was an outlier, and eventually, cast out for his innovation. 

James McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White no. 2, 1864

James McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Black, 1882-86

I was disappointed - perhaps predictably - with the lack of mention of his repeated use of greys and greens, and the falling of figures' clothes into the background - even the white girl loses her definition to grey as her face melts in the mirror. Whistler was always striving for the musicality of colour - the ethereality of his painted canvas had to mimic the objectlessness of music. But so often this was only possible through his exploration of paint application and resonance, something best acheived through a radical use of greys, greens and their shadows.

James McNeill Whistler, Note in Pink and Brown, 1880

The exhibition also focused on the Japanese influence of Whistler's style and composition, shown through exhibition of prints by some of the Japanese masters such as Hiroshige. Whistler's radical flattening of the canvas is the most obvious result of this influence. His removal of the diagonal from the composition and created these very flat and lateral compositions in paint, chalk and pastel equally. In Amsterdam, for example, buildings dissolve into air, layers of life in their floors. Then when he begins to paint the Nocturnes the flatness, lack of perspective, and horizontality becomes the perfect strategy to represent air. While it might be smog filled, it is air, creating all but abstract spaces in which figuration is a shadow, a hint of a person. People and things were not important to Whistler, but always composition, colour., and the magic of translating the air into an image were what mattered most. 

James McNeill Whistler, Courtyard on Canal, Grey and Red, 1880

Ultimately, Whistler showed extraordinary uniqueness; still today, his work is singular in its technique and aesthetic. It is true that he was exploring similar issues to those of French painters of his time. For example, the fascination with daily life as seen in Manet's paintings, the capturing of light on the canvas of Monet. But he took it one step further thanks to the thinness of his paint and the push to full abstraction in the 1870s. It's difficult to overstate how radical that was.  Where cloth is all but indistinguishable from the background and cities are interesting for their patterns and reflections, not for the realism of the lives lived therein. What an inspiration he was, and remains today!

L'exposition générale @ Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain

Installation Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain

After years of scaffolding and construction sheets covering the east side of the Place du Palais Royal, the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain finally opened last October. Before upgrading from its digs on Boulevard Raspail, the Fondation had celebrated architect Jean Nouvel work his magic in a stunning renovation. Before thinking about the building, a few words on the exhibition.

Joan Mitchell, La Grande Vallée VI, 1994 and
Damien Hirst, Cherry Blossoms, 2020

The inaugural exhibition itself is vast and leaves little time for reflection as there are so many works. On display is a single work by each of the artists held in the Fondation collection. If not all the artists are represented, most are. Many people will be familiar with the works from past exhibitions at the Boulevard de Raspail gallery—a Damien Hirst Cherry tree painting, a Ron Mueck woman, a Sally Gabori abstract painting, Matthew Barney's Cremaster. There were also works that I had not seen before, for example, a wonderful selection of David Lynch's drawings, jottings, scribbles and scrawls. Some of them were clearly conception sketches for films—some very familiar shapes and ideas from Blue Velvet , Twin Peaks, Eraserhead—while others looked like reflective jottings made while on the telephone. It was a real treat to see Lynch's mind at work in the drawings.

Sarah Sze, Tracing Fallen Sky, 2020

Another work that fascinated my friend and colleague Oksana who joined me for the afternoon was Christian Boltanski's Ephémère (2017) in which linen cloths play and dance, inside moving fragments of projected light projected. As the cloth blows in the wind, light flickers and jumps, and then moving inside, it is like being inside an experimental film. Sarah Sze's installation, Tracing Fallen Sky (2020) was fascinating as it could be seen from above from a higher floor and below on its floor. In it, objects and monitors, and a model planet create a whole world that, in keeping with the innovative sight lines is also always moving. 

Christian Boltanski, Ephémères, 2017

The most exciting thing about visiting the new space was, however, discovering the building, its history, and Jean Nouvel's redesign. The building at 2, place du Palais Royal, was built in 1852 as a hotel to accommodate visitors to the 1855 Paris Exposition. By the 1880s, the ground floor shops had expanded to the point where they took over the entire building along rue de Rivoli. The Palladian architecture made for a grand bourgeoise building in the heart of Paris, showcasing the prosperity of the Second Empire of Napoleon III. As part of the renovation project of Barron Haussmann, the Grand Hotel du Louvre was designed as a luxurious symbol of developing industrialization and economic prosperity in the city.

Looking up and out

Jean Nouvel's redesign has maintained the symmetry and perspective of Palladio's interpretation of classical architecture and made it contemporary through introducing moving parts, reflections, windows onto the city offering unexpected perspectives. A walk around the vast building is filled with surprises and extraordinary perspectives. Particularly, looking up from lower floors at the building's arcade along rue de Rivoli, at times glimpsing the windows of the Louvre opposite, and at others, watching people pass was a wonderful sight. This is another paris museum for which visitors will spend a lot of time admiring the architecture as well as the art. But what is most noticeable, is how easy the space is. Big spaces (like the Louvre) can be exhausting to navigate, but at the Fondation Cartier, there was never any sense of being frazzled by other people. It is also large enough that there were very few people around and on a hot day, the chilly air conditioning made it relaxing and enjoyable.  I am looking forward to the Fondation Cartier's first exhibition, especially to see how they use the space to showcase their amazing collection. 

Tetsuya Ishida @ Gagosian Paris

Tetsuya Ishida, Recalled, 1998

Tetsuya Ishida paintings are filled with alienated young men, merging with machines, becoming them, dissected and packed in boxes, bodies trapped by buildings. The figures are tragic and yet, curiously identifiable. As the exhibition press release says, Ishida's style has a socialist realist tone and form, but at the same time, the figures fall into the surrealist nightmares of René Magritte. Most obviously the narratives reminded of Kafka's office workers consumed not always by institutions, but here, by machines, technology, and consumerism. 

Tetsuya Ishida, Convenience Store Mother and Child, 1996

One of the most disturbing aspects of Ishida's figures is that they are often sleeping, or catatonic, only ever active when limbs have become machine parts. Even then, the young men are comatose, at the will of the machine, everyday appliances, or architectural structures. Ishida's is a world in which human is no longer awake and machine has taken over. And worse, there is no attempt to challenge their colonisation. The young men and their machines also often occupy raked spaces, at times giving the impression that the figures are on their way to falling out of the painting. Otherwise, the spaces contribute to the surrealist tenor, suggesting that they are inside a staged performance, having lost all connection to authentic behaviour. 

Tetsuya Ishida, Gripe, 1997

While the paintings discourse on the alienation and mechanisation of daily life in urban 1990s Japan, anxiety and isolation brought about by economic decline and the so-called lost generation, their prescience of Western countries today is uncanny. Apparently, the paintings show predominantly Ishida's self image struggling with mental illness, alienation, and anxiety. However, the depressive mood and mechanical metamorphosis is easily identifiable to anyone working in a repetitive and repressive structural situations. The paintings show a world in which obedience and conformity are not negotiable, where the ability to negotiate has long been lost.

 

Tetsuya Ishida, Interview, 1998

Adding to these Kafkaesque nightmares is the common presence of animals in the paintings. Once again the young male figures are enveloped by animals, usually of the insect type: cockroaches, lizards, walruses, animals with claws and tusks made to trap a body. The disquieting proximity of these terrifying scenarios to our own existence aside, this exhibition is a great introduction to an artist who for me, and I imagine many others in Europe, was previously unknown.