The
biennial may be over but the city’s wealth of engaging art exhibitions and
shows certainly makes up for the loss. My visit to Tate’s Tracing the Century exhibition
yesterday was my first experience of viewing art after the biennial;
fortunately, it did not feel like the come down after the biennial celebrations
- rather, I felt it maintained the same level of energy and interest. It was
certainly a pleasant change to visit an exhibition that did not conform to
the theme of Hospitality, as after weeks of biennial events I was getting rather bored
with the contextual restrictions of the theme. Furthermore, after the
vast amount of conceptually-driven video art I had seen during the biennial,
and had frankly become rather tired of, it was brilliant to see pieces that
were focused more on a tangible experience of art and possessed a rather
interesting and diverse range of mark making techniques.
Tracing the Century: Drawing as a Catalyst for Change addresses the fact that drawing possesses boundless
potentials for utilisation and has the ability to transcend a fixed set of
conventions, which is why it can be incessantly re-invented and thus stimulate
change in artistic production. As well as addressing drawing as a perennial
artistic method the exhibition also regards artworks focused on the human body
and the inner self, inspiring a profound discussion and juxtaposition between
figuration and abstraction. As these two notions characterised art of the
twentieth century, the exhibition meritoriously explores them in relation to
each other, as opposed to exploring them as separate entities. My personal
favourites within the exhibition tended to be those that reacted to the
‘figuration’ theme, as their focus on physical subjects meant they usually
revealed a higher degree of draughtsmanship and mark making; after weeks of
seeing conceptually-driven works in the biennial, this was something of a
novelty. When I initially entered the exhibition I was quite unaware of
its size; however, whilst proceeding further into it I became conscious of its
vastness. Nevertheless, with it containing around one hundred works from the
Tate collection, the substantiality of the space is clearly justified. I was
particularly impressed by the exhibition’s means of curation - it had a
real flow to it and there were many occasions throughout when pieces residing
next to one another would not only complement each other aesthetically but
would also share an interesting contextual parallel. The system of captioning
was also effective, as captions were listed on the edge of the wall, and
therefore not in the way of the art. Effectively, they inform the audience but
do not detract attention away from the art. In my opinion, disturbing
the viewing of displayed pieces is an error very easily made within museum or
gallery captioning; therefore, I think Tate did a really good job of it
throughout this exhibition.
Arguably
one of the most thriving aspects of the exhibition is the great wealth of
monumental names exhibiting – Picasso, Warhol, Gauguin and Emin, to name a few.
I particularly admired how Tate had incorporated a fair share of great female
artists, such Tracey Emin and Nancy Spero and had displayed them amongst the
works of prodigious male artistic figures. It was a pleasant reminder that the
art world has come along way with regards to the politics of gender.
I
found Warhol’s boy drawings really special; there was a sense of emotion within
them that is somewhat lacking within most of his more celebrated works.
Laudably, they remind us of how great of a draughtsman he was, as due to his
prolific production of prints and conceptual works, this was albeit forgotten.
Nevertheless, there is still a lingering sense of control and order,
quintessential to the rest of his oeuvre that is produced by the controlled
lines and abstracted shapes. It is clear, throughout the drawings that Warhol
possessed a somewhat voyeuristic interest in the male body; therefore, it can
be argued that these works provide an honest allusion to his sexuality, a
subject that was at times just as ambiguous, as his curious, idiosyncratic
persona. My favorite Warhol drawing was Resting Boy. The delicacy of the lines
makes the male figure within the piece seem almost feminised. The piece recalls
an innocent kind of desire, which evokes a pleasant wealth of emotion in the
viewer. Explicitly voyeuristic, the boy looks as though he is sleeping and
being watched. There is not, however, a sense of perversion behind
the piece – but rather, a notable degree of innocence. Though there is
undoubtedly a degree of sexual desire pervading through the drawing, I
personally felt it was overridden by an evocation of naivety and innocence,
with the slumbering figure looking rather young and angelic.
I
was also captivated by William Orpen’s Anatomical studies, which were obviously
an allusion to the exhibition’s theme of figuration within twentieth century
art. They reminded me of my recent studies of Jean-Michel Basquiat, as he, just
as Orpen, possessed a large focus on anatomy within his work and was inspired
by the classic anatomical study - Gray’s Anatomy. Orpen’s
draughtsmanship within these pieces is truly meritorious – the intricate
detailing, beautifully executed lines and meticulous psychical accuracy are
truly something to behold. These drawings were originally used by Orpen to
teach his students at the Metropolitan School of art in Dublin and would have
therefore been seen more from a logical, educational perspective. It is great
that the pieces can now be appreciated simply as works of art, as they are so
beautifully rendered. One could undoubtedly argue that this level of
draughtsmanship is somewhat missing from today’s art with the fashionableness
of technology and with artists, to some degree, being expected to be social and
political activists or to possess deep conceptual meaning within their work.
