FEATURE | THREE THINGS
THINGS I'VE SEEN, LEARNT OR THOUGHT ABOUT THIS WEEK
I'm starting a little weekly feature here. It's about three things from this week. It's not long. It's just a quick dip into three things I've seen, learnt or read this week that are either thought provoking, helpful for developing your art practice, or to be honest, just damn nice - it's tough out there, let's enjoy some nice.
This week's three things range from art in "real life" to why we should all sleep more. They are not all complete thoughts, there is some space to think and grow and engage. So spend 5 minutes catching up with me.
THE DRESS
I love it when a piece of art appears in wider society's consciousness through some pop culture moment, even if only subliminally or peripherally, there just for a moment burned into a millions of people's retinas all over the world. In a lovely example, this week Edgar Degas' "Dancer with a Bouquet" 1880(ish) had its turn in the sun, featured on a 2003 Jean Paul Gaultier dress worn by Chappell Roan to the Grammys. Very ballet, very art, very fashion. Very Gen Z.
The original painting is an epitome in Degas' style, all light, colour and form, an impressionist masterpiece and these features are echoed beautifully with a lightly punk'd twist by the Gaultier. (I wasn't into Roan's look, but that's preference, just focus on the dress and the art.) The soft floating layers of tulle make lovely reference to the light, effervescence of Degas' dancer, and suggests at the tutu without actually being one whilst bouncing pale shine around in a pastel haze. Impressionism was all about the capture of light and movement - Degas ballerinas being quite the personification of that - and here Gaultier had used the textured layers and tones of yellow against their blue backdrop give the dress an innate sense of that movement; even before a sashaying pop princess gets involved.
This is not the first time the dress has appeared on the public radar, back in 2003 Beyonce was shot in it for an edition of Elle, outshining even the original catwalk showing of it. Weightless, buoyant and honey coloured against the plain pages, the dress becomes ephemeral, a dance. It feels like something Degas would have approved of, a contemporary subject for his gaze even. But that all starts getting a little meta.
Anyway, to see a Degas painting on fashion blogs and dare I say "trashy" celebrity gossip sites all over the world this week was a nice highlight in fairly depressing news cycles.
Find her in Vogue here
THE PROBLEM WITH INSTITUTIONS
Catching my eye this week, in a less delightful but thought provoking way was an article in the Standard dissecting the crisis Major art institutes are in. A financial one that is, with both the RA and Tate announcing casual millions of deficit. I'm not sure this can be news to anyone, or a surprise what this particular news outlet might blame for any of this. But it did discuss a topic I found interesting enough to think about deeply. It was positing the notion that, "if museums tried connecting with audiences rather than preaching to them, they might discover what we want to see" and questioning whether these institutions have become more about "lecturing audiences" than "inspiring them with the best art possible". It suggested that there was a proliferation of exhibitions around what they called "social justice" rather than art for art's sake as it were. This feels like a London problem if I'm honest; elsewhere there just is no money, and we get what we're damn given and call ourselves lucky there's any art.
I'm not as such going to discuss the diversity and inclusion issue here, quite frankly because I don't have time and I'm trying to keep it light. But to be honest it read a lot like: stick to showing works of dead white guys rather than focus on diversity of race, story, experience and representation.
But.
The thought I wished to raise here, after it was pointed out that the landmark Van Gogh show pulled in far more crowds than for example "Entangled Pasts" - other than just, it's Van Gogh, with works never before seen together, it seems both obvious and objectively fair that this would garner those visitor numbers - is can't we as audiences demand and expect both things? Exhibitions that show beautiful famous works and ones which share knowledge and speak about (sometimes) tough important subjects through the medium of art? Shouldn't there be an understanding that some shows will entice more visitors, yes, but some shows will bring new and different visitors and will have the chance to inform, introduce and make different artwork and artists become beloved over time - without the work, we can't fall in love with it. Just because one exhibition is important, does not mean another is not, we can hold two truths at once and we can certainly understand the coexisting of different exhibitions without it being seen as galleries pushing a social agenda.
While I don't want to be lectured during a visit to a gallery any more than anyone else, and I of course want exhibitions that not only teach and reframe but also involve great, even beautiful work - I will admit to being incredibly superficial, I like to look at beautiful things - I feel institutions have always and should always be doing things to reach and to incite discourse about culturally important topics, and to represent, include and inspire everyone, anyone. All while preferably showing excellent work. That's why exhibitions change, to address and attract differences.
I clearly felt a lot of things, and that's why I was thinking about it all week. What do you think? Galleries as purveyors of famous beauty or deep thought? Or both? Please.
You can read the article here if it interests you.
THE NEED FOR SLEEP
I discovered this week, through a second-hand telling of Johann Hari's book Stolen Focus (this is now on my read list), about a process that happens when you sleep: Your cerebral fluid washing your metabolic waste out of your brain down to your liver, essentially rinsing your brain free of all cellular proteins that build up as you use it when you're awake.
Excuse the pun but this idea has lived rent free in my brain all week, swilling around and coming back to my thoughts daily. I imagine the sound of rushing water, a torrent of something like Listerine, or Saline or.. coconut water; rinsing your brain's pathways, setting you a fresh and leaving your nerve endings tingly like that Mint Original Source shower gel.
It's a lovely thought, that through sleep we cleanse and repair, our brains are healing themselves - and who couldn't use a little more healing? Sleep is not the passive time waste or limitation on our creativity we sometimes see it as (sleep deprivation in order to "get stuff done" ) it's actually a necessary active process that stops your brain from getting literally clogged up. Less sleep can genuinely form tangles in the brain over time. We don't want knots, leave them for sailors.
So "get more sleep" isn't always an easy directive but it sure is worth trying. Perhaps start thinking of it in this way: as every wakening a fresh - excuse the cheese - blank canvas to begin again, to use fresh eyes, to have a clear tangle free mind to work with. Then maybe you can start to see it as one of the most important things we (creative) humans do - to wake up. But first, sleep.
Find the book here
So thats just three of the things I've been thinking about this week. I'll leave the comments open, if there's something you've seen or heard or you have an opinion on any of these, drop us a note, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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