sculpture
Women body and image, between symbol and revolution. Review by Carla Scarano.
Donne corpo e imagine, tra simbolo e rivoluzione
Women body and image, between symbol and revolution
Municipal Gallery of Modern Art
Via Francesco Crispi, 24 Rome
24/01—13/10 2019
The ideal venue of the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in via Francesco Crispi in Rome displays a vast range of pictures and sculptures from the Capitoline collections retracing the interpretation and development of the female form and her artistic personality from the end of the nineteenth century until today.
Apart from a great few names such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Rosalba Carriera, Frida Kahlo and Benedetta Cappa, women artists are a minority in the art world of the past and still struggle today to find their place. Most of the works on display testify the strong presence of the female form in all periods as a naked body studied and explored by the male gaze. Ambivalence and contradictions characterise the depiction of women as an angel figure, embodiment of the ideal mother and wife, or, on the contrary, as a threatening temptress, source of all sins. This reflects the ambiguities of the twentieth century, a time of social changes prompted by the two world wars when women showed their commitment at patriotic, social and civil levels. This commitment was acknowledged by political authorities but unfortunately no laws supporting women’s rights were promoted before the second half of the century. In fact, in Italy women were granted vote only in 1946, divorce was introduced in 1970 and abortion became legal in 1978.
The exhibition shows in different sections how women are depicted in art from the personification of the sacred and profane love to focusing on the beauty of her naked body and the Freudian exploration of her psyche. This reveals a crisis that runs across the twentieth century expressing a desire for change and emancipation often in contrast with the traditional roles of mother and wife.
In pictures such as ‘Wise Virgins and Foolish Virgins’ by Giulio Aristide Sartorio (1890) the two groups are separated in two different sections of the triptych highlighting two different aspects of femininity. A similar vision is in ‘Sacred love and profane love’ a pencil and watercolours exquisite piece by Senio (1900), in which a Red Cross nurse wrapped in a dark cloak is opposed to the vanity of a coquette in a flapping flowery dress. Naked women playing in Baths and interiors offer their voluptuous bodies to the viewer in provoking poses apparently oblivious of their identity as in Alessandro Pigna’s ‘Frigidarium’ (1882), Adolfo De Cardis’ ‘Naked woman with roses’ (1910), Camillo Innocenti’s ‘The Sultana’ (1913), or Istvan Csok’s ‘Corner of a studio’ (1905).
The beauty and gracefulness of woman’s naked body is celebrated in intimate contexts that underline its powerlessness but also its value which has allegorical and aesthetic importance in the art world. It personifies the skill of the artists and conveys their emotions expressing vitality and fragility. They also comment on the female role as in ‘Malice’ by Tommaso Bertolino (1950) where the naked composed figure with her arms crossed under her breasts communicates modesty rather than malice. The beautiful ‘Naked woman’ by Arturo Dozzi (1926) exposes her flawless form in an act of donation that is a defenceless surrendering to the viewer. Raffaele Costi’s ‘Two naked women’ (1945) is more unsettling in the expressionist depiction of two stylised nudes back to back, provoking and self-sufficient at the same time. ‘Bathers’ by Attilio Torresini (1934) is reminiscent of Manet’s ‘Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe’, but no man is present here, it is an isolated all women’s world.
In the section Gazes of the Soul, elegant middle class women communicate their emotions through their ‘looks’ captured by the artist in an exchange between viewer and sitter creating empathy. In the portraits of Amedeo Bocchi, Nicola Fabbricatore, Lionne, Marius Ledda, Antonio Donghi, Ildebrando Urbani and Vittoria Morelli there is an attentive study of the subject that highlights distinguishing personalities that seem to suggest an alternative to traditional roles. It is the representation of the intellectual woman with distinctive ideas and autonomous look. A similar view is in the works inspired by Freudian theories. Solitary women are depicted in silent interiors absorbed in their thoughts, withdrawn in their own inner space. It is an intellectual response to the classical exposed nakedness and to the roles of angel and temptress. Paintings such as Vincenzo Irolli’s ‘Waiting’ (1915), Felice Casorati’s ‘Susanna’ (1929), or ‘Old cards’ by Baccio Maria Bacci (1953), testify this alternative vision that reveals a crisis of the traditional roles and a search of identity.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is ‘The Doubt’ by Giacomo Balla (1907), a portrait of his wife Elisa, where seduction and curiosity mix in the woman’s gaze turning to the viewer. It is an invitation and a provocation to see more deeply beyond stereotypes. A similar view is found in Mafai’s ‘Women undressing’ (1934), picturing dynamic disharmonious figures that challenge the stillness of classical pictures.
The contemporary works of Giosetta Fioroni, ‘The Other Ego’ (2012), Amparo Sard, ‘Part ¼’ (2014), Paola Gandolfi, ‘Ambra Jovinelli’ (2000) and Luigi Di Sarro, ‘Untitled’ (1975), are subversive and thought-provoking. They reject the traditional roles subtly exposing the traps that imprison women as in the wired cage wrapping a crouched woman (Di Sarro), in the brick pattern that covers the woman’s figure (Fioroni), or in the nude outlined in pierced paper (Sard). the works reveal the consequences of the diminishment and exclusion from leading roles women suffered throughout centuries.
A collage of videos from the archive of Istituto Luce (Cinecittà) recreate the feminine image of the twentieth century. Different models of women are presented though motherhood and care of the family are primary. Women are seen from the male point of view, they are advertised in magazines and films and emulated by the female audience. They can be intellectual and mundane like Edda Mussolini, the Duce’s daughter, or the personification of the ideal mother like Rachele Mussolini, his wife, or Mussolini’s lover, Claretta Petacci. The queen Elena embodied love for the nation donating her golden wedding ring to the cause, a role model for many Italian women. Besides, there are the mondine (workers of paddy fields), seasonal workers in the rice fields of Po Delta and Po Valley who longed for stable works in factories that could grant them an independent life.
During Fascism the attitude towards women was contradictory, she was supported during pregnancy and rewarded for her role of mother and wife, as big families were funded by the state, but her place was at home. It was a ‘libertà vigilata’ (freedom under surveillance), as the commentator of the video clip cleverly expresses. The interviews interestingly include both women who joined the fascist Republic of Salò and women partisans.
A visible change starts only after the second world war when women acquire the right to vote. They fought for Italian liberation during the war and gained the right to speak and participate in the political debate. The first MPs are Teresa Noce, Nadia Spano and Rita Montagnana, a minority compared to the vast male participation but a good start. The 1960s and 1970s are the years of the revolution. Feminist groups fight in streets, squares and assemblies to demonstrate in favour of divorce and abortion. Monica Vitti, Caterina Caselli and Gianna Nannini are icons of women’s emancipation. The exhibition recalls the movement in the display of feminist posters such as ‘Le streghe son tornate’ (the witches are back) and women metaphorically crucified by history. Social challenges and gender selection are still problems of today in spite of all the fights won by feminist movements. Guerrilla Girls wonder if women need to be naked to enter museums still today and how long it will be so.
The bookshop at the entrance of the museum features books by Serena Dandini, Lilli Gruber, Luciana Littizzetto and the memorable Alda Merini. They are the new role models of today’s society proposing different views in their stories, interviews, examples of women undertaking autonomous creative paths, as well as poetical and political visions. A perceptible alternative towards equality and change.
Carla Scarano © 2019.
The Revisited Myth: archaic masks of Basilicata. Review by Carla Scarano.
Il Mito Rivisitato: le maschere arcaiche della Basilicata
The Revisited Myth: archaic masks of Basilicata
Casina delle Civette, Villa Torlonia (Rome)
09/04 – 28/04 2019
The mesmerising Casina delle Civette (House of the Owls) hosts an intriguing exhibition of masks by Nicola Toce inspired by the Carnival traditions of Basilicata, a region in Southern Italy.
The House of the Howls itself is a permanent exhibition of the artworks of Paolo Paschetto, Duilio Cambellotti and Umberto Bottazzi. They are mainly sketches and drawings for stained glasses, some of which decorate the windows of the house. The prince Giovanni Torlonia transformed the 19th century Swiss Cabin in his residence adding huge windows, porticos and turrets, and decorating it with artistic tiles and stained glasses. The stylised howl that gives the name to the house is a repeated pattern created by Duilio Cambellotti in 1914. Cesare Picchiarini was the glass maker, one of the best at the time. Iconic fine glasses are in the Room of the Swallows, with the ceiling painted with swallows in relief matching with the beautiful window depicting black swallows flying among stylised pale blue clouds and ochre trees. One of the major highlights of the elegant residence are the beautiful staircase of the Four Seasons and the Balcony of the Roses with glasses by Paschetto in yellow, red and orange colours creating a warm lively atmosphere.
In this delightful surroundings, the thirty-eight masks and sculptures by Nicola Toce stand out in their originality and archaic features. They are traditional and innovative at the same time, created by the artist for the parades that celebrate the end of Carnival in some villages of Basilicata such as Teana, Lavello, San Mauro Forte, Cirigliano, Stigliano and Viggianello.
The masks are made of Papier-mâché and clay, using ancient techniques and are painted in green, red and terra colours. Legends and myths of a pre-Christian past are narrated in their features and are linked to the cycle of the Seasons, transhumance, fertility rituals, the awakening of nature in spring and the taming of animals. They represent anthropomorphic fantastic animals and magic creatures connected with archaic traditions that are still present in modern celebrations. Their meaningfulness is exactly in the renovated spirit of the propitiatory traditions of the Carnival and spring that the people of Basilicata still celebrate today. They reiterate the ancient rituals to exorcise bad luck and evil spirits. Toce’s masks embody this interweaving of ancient and new; they are reminiscent of archaic myths and recall horror movies. The names given to the masks evoke primordial idols and legendary characters of folktales. The figures often have beards and horns, hair like snakes, disturbing grins and protruding fangs. As the title of the exhibition remarks, the myths are revisited in a contemporary perspective that cannot deny the past, has its root in it and flourishes from it.
Carnival is the centre of Toce’s inspiration with its excesses that culminate in Mardi Gras (shrove Tuesday) and at the same time die with it. Life and death coexist between sacred and profane in the funeral procession of Carnival and in the mourning of his wife Quaremma dressed in black, whose name recalls the approaching Quaresima (Lent). This is also a parody of Jesus’ death and means to castigate extremes.
The craziness of Carnival involves wedding rituals between two men or a man dressed as a woman and a woman dressed as a man, and the burning of puppets and old things to give space to the new ones. It is a time of letting go and, once a year, you are allowed to lose control, mock everything and every one, included yourself, entertain the audience and enjoy yourself.
The exhibition of Toce’s masks reveals the continuity of traditions between ancient and new in the context of the Carnival celebrated in Basilicata where fertility and agricultural rituals mingle, highlighting the impact of mankind on nature. Toce’s artwork shows unusual unique sides that reinterpret the myths in an unsettling and meaningful view.
Carla Scarano © 2019.
Jeff Koons, Ashmolean Museum. Review by Carla Scarano.
Jeff Koons
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology,
Oxford
7 February – 9 June 2019
The vitality of breath and its life power expressed in Jeff Koons’ sculptures and paintings mesmerise the viewer at the Ashmolean exhibition. His work ranges from the Equilibrium series to Banality, Antiquity and the Gazing Ball sculptures as well as reproductions of balloon objects in stainless steel. The display features seventeen works, of which fourteen are exhibited in the UK for the first time in a project co-curated by the artist himself. It also responds to the collection of the Ashmolean Museum that comprehends art from prehistory to modern times. His artworks refigure the past connecting them to a contemporary perspective inevitably linked to the consumerist world of mass production and the glossy ‘reality’ of advertising and marketing.
Koons, born in Pennsylvania in 1955 and working in New York, is a renowned artist who gained success in the 1980s. His work sells for millions of dollars and is exhibited in major galleries such as The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Serpentine Gallery in London and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In interviews and videos, he claims that there are no hidden meanings or ironic intentions in his work and there is no judgemental intent. Some critics disregard his production as kitsch, others view it as important in a historical connection with past artworks. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to interpret his work as a prudent comment of American society at least, with its sometimes banal iconography and simplified representations that feed mass production and sell widely and easily.
The reproduction of ready-made toys, such as ‘Rabbit’ (1986), or ‘Balloon Venus’ (2008-12) inspired by the Venus of Villenford, are the most significant examples of the exhibition both in their originality and appeal. They look like inflated balloons on a large scale but are made of shining steel. They are seamless, deceiving the viewer who wishes to touch it to be sure it is not made of plastic and full of air. Wonder of wonders, the viewer’s image is reflected in it in multiple distorted ways in a fascinating play of mirrors. Pleasure and guilt mix in a slightly anxious awareness that there is no reliable referent and yet we participate and like it.
The Antiquity and the Gazing Ball series are the major links to the Ashmolean context. Past and present combine in the reproduction of Greek and Roman sculptures in collage paintings where a sketchy vulva is superimposed referring to Courbet’s painting ‘L’origine du monde’ (1866); or in ‘Antiquity 2’ (dots, 2009-12) where the actress Gatchen Mol in girdle and lace bra is riding an inflatable dolphin. She is compared to Aphrodite or Galatea and the Monkey, an inflatable as well just in front of her, represents Eros. This is not only an interpretation of ancient iconography from a ‘free love’ American point of view, it is also an explicit comment on what art means today compared to past mythology.
Gigantic sculptures of ballerinas in softly coloured stainless steel are reminiscent of Degas’ famous dancers but actually imitate, in a huge scale, tiny porcelain ceramics by Oksana Zhnykrup. Once again, any chance of originality is deviated from the content to the form, in a presentation or production of the artwork that is captivating and luxurious at the same time, though representing mass production objects. It is a pleasantly acknowledged simulation that blurs the difference between high and low quality products.
The last room displays the Gazing Ball series where a blue shining ball is positioned near or in the centre of an iconic artwork of western tradition, such as Gericault’s ‘Raft of the Medusa’, or Titian’s ‘Diana and Actaeon’. They are copies of old masters’ paintings that his assistants painted using colour-by-numbers to maintain an even effect. Famous ancient sculptures in plaster cast are present as well, such as the ‘Belvedere Torso’. The gaze balls are hand made objects exclusively produced for Koons. They represent a link between the viewer, who reflects their deformed image in it, and the artwork, in smaller scale this time compared to the original. It is a way to bring the audience near to art allowing a more relatable approach.
In the shop there are two of his balloon stainless steel sculptures, a yellow swan and a blue dog on sale for about twelve thousand pounds each; they affirm and encapsulate the appeal and purpose of this enthralling exhibition.
Carla Scarano © 2019.
Your Culture is not mine…or is it? America’s tense relationship with high culture. By Stephanie V Sears
Your culture is not mine…or is it?
America’s tense relationship with high culture.
By Stephanie V Sears.
As a half French, half American individual, I give in to a pastime common to double nationals, which consists of regularly comparing both countries of origin. A particularly provoking exercise in the case of France and the United States, because though the two nations share history, values, cultural ties, (in that profound sense of artistic, religious and philosophical influences), they also encounter some mutual irritation and bickering. My intention is to point out these differences, only in so much as they may clarify the decidedly diverging relation the two countries entertain with high culture. While this divergence may, to a certain extent, be explained historically and geographically, it cannot be so entirely.
High culture has been defined generally as” ….all that is best in a culture.”1 And the ruling consensus is that high culture includes all traditional artistic expression – ballet, poetry, theater, opera, painting, literature, classical music, film – of a quality surpassing national frontiers, by way of a universal appeal, even if such artistic work is clearly identified as originating from a particular culture. Leo Tolstoy, for one, noted the importance of a spiritual connection between the author of a work and its recipient.2 The American philosopher John Dewey,3 for another, considered that the individual artist’s creative expression could, by being ‘consumed’ by another person, reveal by the same token the character of that recipient. Finally, high culture is seen as transcending any immediate moneymaking goal.
In the 1964 French film sketch ‘Les Routiers melomanes’ (The music expert truck-drivers), starring Jean Yanne and Paul Mercey, two truck-drivers are doing their night shift together. Wearing wife-beaters, both display, in appearance and language, the plebeian coarseness expected of their profession. Yet as the one not driving, prompted by boredom, turns on a favorite radio station, we discover that they are both highly sophisticated connoisseurs of classical music, deftly able to argue the merits of a Beethoven quartet interpretation, as well as of other classical pieces; even as they continue to intersperse their highfalutin exchange with vulgar invectives directed at passing drivers. They amaze us still more, later on, by discussing the poetry of Charles Peguy, (who, to be fair, is about as easy to read as it is to listen to music by, say, Karl Heinz Stockhausen), with the same passionate expertise and sensitivity. Some of us may laugh at the contrast between blue-collar status and such an unexpected display of rarefied erudition. Some of us may not. Indeed, such socio-cultural discrepancy is not so far-fetched in France, a country renowned for its native infatuation with high culture, French or otherwise. High culture is enthusiastically promoted in public and private schools alike and, generally throughout a society that is close to its culture; literally, at every step, be it in its urban centers or in its countryside. In no other country, that I know of, is public opinion more indulgent and admiring of an individual’s inclination towards high culture. Ultimately, one’s relation to culture is considered to be a personal exchange between artist and recipient, a deeply sincere, quasi-religious one. From a French point of view, therefore, the situation depicted in the sketch ‘Les Routiers Melomanes’, may be considered as less of a joke about the contrast between social status and the expert refinement displayed by these individuals, and more of a poking fun at the native frenzy for culture in any circumstance.
I am almost certain that in the United States the sketch would be understood as a warning against class prejudice and division.
Famous actors Gerard Depardieu and Fabrice Luchini are both from very modest social backgrounds, the former having sojourned in prison in his nearly illiterate youth, the latter having begun his career as a hair-dresser’s assistant. Yet, both have risen today to fame, not only as icons of classical French literature through their enacting of well-known literary characters, but also as legitimate authorities on French literature and poetry.
Over time, French education has also inoculated citizens from former colonies with some of the same passion for French culture, and culture in general, and it is not unusual to find oneself discussing Balzac or Rimbaud, with a Senegalese taxi driver during one’s ride through Paris.
The sheer number of articles and essays published on the United States’ educational and cultural decline – tainted either with suspicion, resentment or nostalgia – as some question the value of high culture or, on the contrary, deplore its abandon, or again, propose a blending together of high and popular culture, or even the deletion of the former, deemed passé – illustrates how, in America, contrarily to France, socio-political ideology has intruded in the arts domain, and how strained and somewhat unspontaneous is the country’s relationship with high culture.
In her 2013 New York Times piece4, Patricia Cohen gives the statistics, from 2008 to 2013, of an overall decline of visits to museums, to the theater and classical music concerts, ballet shows, (despite a slight rise in attendance at jazz concerts and movies). Her conclusion remains, nonetheless, mildly optimistic as she evokes rising costs of tickets for the performing arts, the degree of accessibility to shows, and the availability of modern home technology allowing households to enjoy the arts at home. Daniel Asia, more pessimistically,5 notes ,already for the earlier period 1982 to 2008, a drop in attendance from a previous 13% to 9.3% for classical music concerts, from 12% to 9% for plays, a sharp fall of 50% for ballet. Jazz concerts – spared a decline in Ms. Cohen’s article – show a fall from 10.8% in 2002 to 7.8% in 2008.
In fact, virtual connection to culture often does replace the direct, physical connection that is yet so essential for a full impact of a performance or an exhibit on our emotions. But a more fundamental reason for this distancing with high culture, is, most probably, poor schooling – what the economist and socio-political commentator, Thomas Sowell, calls ‘gimmicky education’, one pervaded by the notion that a student must ‘feel good’ about himself rather than receive a formal education.6 The gradual disappearance of cursive writing from school (though some schools are now bringing it back after noticing the nefarious effects of its vanishing)7, may, all at once, be a symptom of this distancing and underscore a tendency to simply abandon certain cultural habits that used to link the individual more seamlessly to his history. Another cause or derivation of this cultural deficit may be the overall drop in literary reading.8 It is, however, the pervasive ideological discourse on social equality and how to achieve it, that must be held most accountable for this avalanche of sorrowful assessment of a general alienation from high culture.
Indeed, this scrutiny in favor or against high culture in America, reveals the interference of a socio-political self-consciousness in the world of the arts and high culture. The moral posturing employed in this interposition, in an attempt to impose a corresponding social framework, tampers with creative integrity as it proclaims authoritatively what is moral and ‘right’.
This is not to say that all earnest affection and cultural identification with certain American artists has disappeared. In my New England region, Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson are examples of such enduring and sincere cultural attachment. And yet…and yet one can’t help wondering, amidst the country’s current cultural climate, if there is not also, beyond a genuine appreciation, the hint of a surrender to politically correct pressure, to a tacit consensus that these poets are ‘safe’ to admire, unlike other great authors.
Jack London, Henry James, (and to include international anglophone authors) C.S.Lewis, Charles Dickens, J.R.R.Tolkien, Joseph Conrad, are all morally condemned for reasons not pertaining to the intrinsic quality of their work. Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, commonly accused of racism, is a case in point. One can’t help wondering why, then, that particular novella has been so consistently studied in America, (knowing that Conrad wrote so many other exquisitely well written stories giving central stage to non-white indigenous characters), if not to select a work that may conveniently support the discourse of pernicious colonial mentality rather than be simply read as great literature.9 The character of Fagin in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, has had the same fate.10 And such damning criticism extends even to music. Richard Wagner is a prime example of unredeemable musical offensiveness.11
The resistance against high culture entails, therefore, the suppression of works regarded as offensive, by first ridding them of a certain majesty and placing them on a level with popular and commercial culture in the name of a more ‘modern’ cultural outlook. Such a process may lead to adapting a great work by selecting parts of it and reducing that selection to an identifiable icon or slogan, that can then be introduced to the realm of marketing and commerce. Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and ‘The Kiss’ by Gustav Klimt typify such a process.
The American consumer of the arts is made uncertain of his taste for high culture in an environment in which high and popular culture become increasingly co-mingled, and in which moral criticism, condemnation, are in constant ebullition. The consumer of high arts is directed or pressured towards a more ‘omnivorous’ consumption, implying a less ‘elitist’ spectrum of culture.12 This broadening process, which, by the way, any cultivated and culturally confident individual performs on his own, at his own pace, out of natural curiosity, is force-fed to him by mass media and other forms of public prepping as an exercise in redemption or prevention from ‘elitism’.
The fundamental difference in cultural outlook between France and the United States may perhaps be reflected in the twin expressions: Down to earth and Terre a terre. The former, frequently used by Americans, conveys a positive and enviable quality. The latter, in France, connotes, to the contrary, a certain disdain and suggests a lack of aesthetic, intellectual and ultimately spiritual elevation of the sort that should spring directly from the human heart. In the American expression can be found the influence of a democratically egalitarian ideal. In the French expression can be found the remains of a chivalrous ideal fraught with romanticism, and which America characterizes with some diffidence as ‘elitism’. And yet it is not as if Americans have always been blind to those effects of a certain type of egalitarian idealism on individual self-determination and creativity. In fact, in the American passion for individual freedom and devotion to a certain view of social equality, there is a strange yet fundamental paradox. Ultimately, the two sides seem fated to clash until one is defeated one way or another. It is worrying to see individual freedom being challenged and restrained in the United States’ leading democracy, in a way somewhat reminiscent of regimes vigorously condemned by American principles.
In his time, Henry Adams noted the negative influence exerted by democratic principles on the making and enjoyment of high culture: “What Adams plays upon is important- the hurts that Democracy inescapably inflicts on the intelligent, cultivated high culture, the traditionally artistic sensibility, the individual.”13 The constant moral pressure imposed by the democratic ideal on American society gave birth, as a matter of course, to a suspicion of so-called ‘elitist’ culture and, thereby, of a taste for it. In Henry James’ book ‘The Ambassadors’, that same suspicion felt by the main character, Lambert Strether, is key to the plot in which Strether ultimately succeeds in resisting the seduction of European high culture, seen as the manifestation of a decadent society. To the contrary of Strether, Henry James’ writing, one of the most sophisticated in American literature: “privileges many of the things that American life barely tolerates and certainly has no notion or means of helping to flourish.”14 Davidoff goes on to add that such literature as James’ does not serve the large categories of activism.”15
Though noble and, in many cases, necessary, activism in the United States has also, to a considerable extent, given in to political bias and propagandizing; which, in turn, has led to an abuse of socio-political interventionism. In still more sinister fashion, however subtly it may have been conducted, activism has led to the censuring of individual freedom of thought and speech. Certain types of activism in America that are focused on culture, are clearly over-stepping the line that separates democratic values and the invasion of individual freedom.
Daniel Asia,16 points out that in the USA, popular culture was always taken more seriously than high culture, partly because of the moral approach evoked above. Yet the upsurge of popular culture in the 1950s, instead of melding different racial and economic groups of Americans together, opened the way to aggravating forms of blame and division, and led to what is commonly called ‘identity politics’. Homosexuals, women, Native Americans, African-Americans, demanded to be acknowledged as significant yet, somehow, separate segments of American society. As Michael Sliwinski indicates,17 this popular movement, improperly structured because devoid of intellectual leadership, and which, later, vented its views through mainly virtual modes, gradually led to a phenomenon of protest for the sake of protesting; as if mere agitation and clamoring could culminate in the desired result, whether the result was clearly determined… or not.18 In the 1960s, culture became a political weapon towards change.19 Any residual individual aspiration to experience the arts, unfettered by politics, seemed to gradually dwindle on the American horizon like a lonesome cowboy of the past. Meanwhile, activism seemed to spread like a rash across that previously hallowed ground of creativity.
One may legitimately wonder, in such circumstances, what happens to an artist’s freedom of expression, but also to the consumer’s right to his own personal cultural inclination. What happens when whole segments of society forcefully adapt the cultural environment by way of socio-political subterfuges? What happens to that sincere and earnest search for “a shadow of the divine perfection?” (Michelangelo Buonarroti quote)
The direct encounter between artist and individual is increasingly and conveniently replaced by a ‘plug-in’, emotionally atrophied globalism. Easy access to text, image, music, etc, and the consequent fluid virtual traveling of works of art and their swift manipulation by technology, blurs more and more the distinction between the genuine creative act and the consumer; useful, and to an extent, educational, giving quick access to information, virtual engineering also facilitates, with growing shamelessness, the possibility to ‘correct’, according to current acceptable socio-economic norms, any given artistic expression.
American activism employs the ‘soft’ method of victimization to filter its demands. Even nature, in its unsullied grandeur, was once, as a purveyor of personal solace to all, left outside of political debate. But it seems that it is now also being implicated in an environmental activism that does not seek strictly to help preserve nature, but also feeds a political debate with an over-all socio-political message.
In ‘Histoire du Juif Errant’ (1990) the French writer Jean d’Ormesson wrote that one would have to travel very far indeed to no longer be able to appreciate emotions common to all mankind. In fact, unlike much of today’s activism in America, that only pretends to speak for the individual, authors like Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Dostoevsky, Steinbeck, though considered as social critics of their time and place, spoke, in fact, first and foremost to and for the individual’s sake, wherever he might be.
Any intervening force, be it religious or political, that tampers with a personal encounter between artist and consumer of the arts, is bound to lead inevitably to a culturally impoverished society and a manipulated individual; or, to what Joseph C.Hermanowiecz calls: ‘The Culture of Mediocrity’ (2013). One possible outcome of such cultural activism might be a backlash from a growing portion of society refusing to be herded into a single cultural format. Activism having such a consequence, would, therefore, increase social strife and division rather than achieve the proposed goal of a multicultural harmony.
Cultural activism in the United States attacks a perceived supremacy of European culture as a villain holding hostage the vital innards of American society. One may fear, however, and with good reason, that one form of supposed supremacy may, ironically, serve as excuse to shape another far more inescapable supremacy: of a sanitized culture ruled by a singularly undemocratic globalism. In such a case, individual imagination is bound to wither. If high culture is the self-consciousness of a society18, yet is contained or eliminated by a biased form of censorship, and replaced by cultural standards that fit a certain contrived idea of social harmony, that society is bound to become troubled and emotionally void.
Rather than diligently warn against cultural expressions arbitrarily identified as passé, racist, supremacist – a method which undermines the individual’s right to self-determination – it could be more to the point, and more inclusive, to simply acknowledge the benefits of high culture to everyone.
Through the individual, any kind of cultural encounter is possible. It has been shown that great art welcomes tribute from any kind of individual variant at the intersection of social, economic, educational factors. Here lies the magical appeal of the high arts for anyone, if experienced on the grounds of intrinsic merit; in other terms, at a level where neither ideology, racial/racist considerations, social gradings, nor commerce are given precedence over a work’s essential appeal to an individual.
Authentic human emotion creates bonds that irresistibly breach conventional social types, bringing humanity together far more efficiently than any ideology. And left to its own devices, the power of culture is unstoppable in bringing together, say, a Chinese accountant and the short stories of J.L. Borges, an Ojibwa Native American and the Indian sitar, Mike Tyson and Baroque castrato music.
In summary, to privilege high culture, is, in my humble view, a way to bypass the sadly unsatisfactory bouillabaisse of the multiculturalism offered by media and commerce, for a far more genuine meeting between individuals of different cultural origins and/or social circumstances, bolstered by the highest levels of artistic expression, where they may seek together common values.
Sources
1 Fahad Al Kubaisi cites Tuchman, Gaye, and Fortin 1989
2 ‘European culture’ is an invented tradition/Benjamin G. Martin/January 2017
3 Art as Experience/John Dewey/ 1934
4 A New Survey Finds a Drop in Arts Attendance/ Patricia Cohen/NYT December 2013
5 The Future of (high) Culture in America/Daniel Asia/2015
6 Inside American Education: the decline, the deception, the dogmas/ 201565 Diane Rehm Show with Thomas Sowell/ Washington DC 1993
7 Is cursive handwriting slowly dying out in America? PBS News2014
8 The long steady Decline of Literary Reading/ The Washington Post 2016
9 Out of Africa/Caryl Phillips/ 2003
10 The Faces of Fagin/Paul Vallely/2005
11 As if music could do no harm/ Alex Ross 2014/Can we forgive him?/Adrian Mourby/2000
12 Whatever happened to high culture?/Joseph Epstein/2015
13 Robert Davidoff/Genteel Tradition and the Sacred Rage/72/2016
14 Robert Davidoff/Genteel Tradition and the Sacred Rage/133/2015
15 R. Davidoff/Genteel Tradition and the Sacred Rage/134/2015
16 The Future of (high) Culture in America/Daniel Asia/ 2015
17 Michael Sliwinski/The Evolution of Activism: From the Streets to Social Media/2016.
18 Frank Tommler/Mixing high and popular culture: the impact of communication revolution/ German Pop Culture:’ how American is it?’ U. Of Michigan Press 2004
19 Roger Scruton/ High Culture is being corrupted by a Culture of Fakes/2012
Three free exhibitions at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology. Review by Carla Scarano.
Three free exhibitions at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford.
Antinous: boy made god. Until 24 Feb 2019, Gallery 8
Lui Shou-kwan Centenary Exhibition: Abstraction, Ink and Enlightenment. Until 7 April, Gallery 11
Plum Blossom and Green Willow: Surimono Poetry Prints. Until 17 May 2019, Gallery 29
Sometimes free exhibitions are as interesting as ones you pay for. This is the case of three free exhibitions displayed in three different rooms at the Ashmolean museum in Oxford. Though each exhibition is presented in only one room, they all show enough objects or pictures with effective explanatory captions that allow the viewer to successfully understand the subject.
Antinous: boy made god in Gallery 8, focuses on the figure of the handsome young man from Bithynia (present Turkey) who was the beloved lover of the emperor Hadrian from AD 123 till the boy’s death in 130. He drowned in the Nile, and there are no records to ascertain if it was an accident, suicide, or if he was killed. Possibly it was a self-sacrifice in favour of the emperor. Antinous did not hold any official or public position and was not a Roman citizen. However, his cult spread throughout the empire; he was represented in statues, busts, coins, bronze statuettes, and was celebrated in poems, hymns and festivals.
The exhibition displays several marble statues such as the beautiful ‘Antinous from Syria’, a naked bust with an inscription, ‘To the Hero Antinous’. The ‘Townley Antinous’, a head that was part of a statue, wears a wreath of ivy reminiscent of the figure of Dyonisus. His face looks down, in a modest pose as in the life-size statue of the ‘Capitoline Antinous’. This modesty represented the attitude the elders expected from a well-educated youth, similar to the ‘Venus pudica’ (modest Venus). The hairstyle, curls at the front and long hair at the back, is reminiscent of figures of heroes such as Achilles. However, there are no records of heroic acts or other particular events he performed, except the fact that he was Hadrian’s lover. He represented homoerotic attraction, which was subsequently repressed under Christianity, and had followers in local and popular worship. This widespread and enduring veneration is considered unusual by experts and though Hadrian founded a city in his honour, Antinopolis, and supported his cult, it does not seem enough to justify it. The most feasible explanation about this success is that he probably answered a need in society. The worshippers identified themselves in this country boy who became a hero and a god for them, and his life was exemplar. The exhibition also displays plaster casts and a statue of Antinous as Osiris, found at Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli in Italy. This representation as the Egyptian god of the underworld testifies the versatility and popularity of his cult.
A very different and equally engrossing exhibition is in Gallery 11. It is dedicated to the Chinese painter Lui Shou-Kwan (1919-1975), who lived in the mainland China and in Hong Kong working for a Ferry Company and teaching art. In his work he developed spiritual themes connected with Buddhism and Confucianism expressed in his landscapes and abstract paintings. His apparently loose, though carefully controlled, use of black ink in thin lines as well as in large patches reveals a traditional approach that records the physical object or landscape but aims to a spiritual connection. This is very clear in his Chan paintings (Chan meaning ‘Zen’ in Japanese) where large brushstrokes in black ink are juxtaposed to small yellow or red marks, probably linked to the symbols of colours in Buddhism where red is traditionally associate to life and virtue and yellow to renunciation and emptiness. They might allude to Zen practices focusing on meditation, a point in time and space to contemplate. The lotus pictures symbolise the openness of this practice to the world and to others, while the landscapes show the dreamlike quality of the land in its expanding, almost boundless reality, that seems to reach beyond the page. The abstract paintings are fascinating in their simplicity and yet highly evocative of a possible different dimension. The centenary exhibition dedicated to this remarkable painter displays a riveting selection of his works; this gives the viewer a deep and vivid awareness of the interests and development of his art.
In Gallery 29 the Surimono prints’ display from the Ashmolean’s collections offer an interesting view of Japanese poetry, custom and art of the early 19th century. The Surimono, meaning ‘printed thing or object’, is a woodblock print of about eight by nine inches commissioned for special occasions such as New Year greetings, the Cherry Blossom season or other particular events. They wish good luck combining images and poetry with pictures linked to nature, historical events, symbols or still life. They often illustrated a particular poem that won a competition or publicised Kabuki actors and did not have a commercial distribution but were privately published and privately owned. The text was paramount and was the main inspiration for the illustration which interpreted and added layers of meaning to the poem.
The exhibition, though displayed in a small room, offers a good range of examples from Kabuki actors, historical figures, symbolism linked to Buddhism, iconic characters of literature and legends, and festivities. The exquisite elegance of the pictures and their connection with the importance of harmony in life, convey a spiritual influence that, according to Japanese tradition, was present in the words of the poems.
The three exhibitions, though limited to one room, give a vivid and extensive view of the themes they address. The viewer cannot be but fascinated by their original finesse, vision and artistry.
Carla Scarano © 2019.
Ovid. Love, myths and other stories. Review by Carla Scarano.
Ovid. Love, myths and other stories.
Scuderie del Quirinale.
Rome.
17 October 2018 – 20 January 2019.
An enthralling survey of ancient myths is the central idea of Ovid’s exhibition at Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome. Ovid interpreted and sometimes created the tradition of classical mythology in his most famous poem, Metamorphoses. He was an aristocrat and an intellectual who clashed with emperor Augustus’ moral reforms. For this reason, Augustus exiled him to Tomis, a remote town on the Black Sea, where the poet died ten years later.
Ovid’s free thinking and open criticism to a moral interpretation of myths is clearly pointed out in the exhibition and well explained in the captions. Starting from the first room, the viewer is well aware of the paramount importance of Ovid’s works both in the past and today. From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, his books were copied by hand then published in printed editions spreading throughout Europe. Ovid’s words are still meaningful today in the installation in coloured neon, ‘Maxima Proposito (Ovid)’ (2017) by the American artist Joseph Kosuth. It is a selection of writings in English and Latin from Metamorphoses testifying the still relevant and inspirational quality of the myths.
Love is central to Ovid’s oeuvre in all its forms: eroticism, seduction, passion as well as how to discipline desire. His libertine vision was in contrast with Augustus and his wife Livia’s reforms that meant to renew pax deorum (divine harmony) and devotion to the gods, aiming to give stability to the Roman empire. Ovid clashes with this view mocking the gods as frivolous, malicious, ruthless in their revenge and insatiable in love.
The examples are numberless and well explained throughout the exhibition with engrossing works of art, mainly sculptures from the Roman period but also pictures by Botticelli, Tintoretto, Domenichino, Saraceni and Poussin, and thought-provoking descriptions. The ambiguous and falsely chaste image of Venus Pudica (modest Venus), covering her private parts, is revealed in the illicit love affair of Venus and Mars. Another example is in the slaughter of the Niobids, a ferocious massacre of young innocents by the hands of Apollo and Diana. The goddess shows her vengefulness and cruelty in the story of Actaeon as well, who sees her naked by chance and is transformed into a stag then devoured by his own hounds. In a similar way, the satyr Marsyas, who dared challenge Apollo in a music contest, loses and is flayed alive as punishment.
The best example of Ovid’s exposure of the gods’ eccentricities and his criticism of Augustus’ policy, is expressed in the way he narrates Jupiter’s affairs, revealing the lack of morality of the lord of heavens and protector of Rome. Ovid’s Jupiter is a seducer, an insatiable lover, using any means in order to fulfil his desires. His victims are defenceless girls, young men and honest married women he conquers using trickeries and disguises. He transforms into a swan to rape Leda, a white bull to abduct Europa, an eagle to kidnap Ganymede, and golden rain to conquer Danaë. The gods worshipped by Augustus are not impeccable examples of morality, on the contrary, they are capricious and subjected by their passions and whims, eventually cruel to the extreme. Ovid’s undermining of the reputation of the gods brought Augustus to exile him.
The exhibition continues on to the second floor focusing on stories of love, rape and abandonment such as the myths of Ariadne, Proserpina and Ganymede. Love is an obsession, so powerful that it cannot be controlled. It triggers action and eventually transforms the victim in a goddess or dooms her forever. Women are usually powerless in the face of the authority of the gods. They are forced to submit both to rape and to transformation or to invoke transformation to avoid rape as in Apollo and Daphne’s story.
The most tragic story is the myth of Narcissus, where Echo, who is desperately in love with him, consumes herself to the point of being reduced to her voice. Narcissus rejects whoever is in love with him and finally loses his head for his own image reflected in water. As Tiresias predicted ‘so long as he never knows himself’ he will live. This is an ambiguous prophesy that implies the dangers of egocentrism. The only character who seems to thrive after his abduction, rape and abandonment is Ganymede. He is not punished or transformed but ‘promoted’ to the role of cup-bearer of the gods.
At the end of Metamorphoses, Ovid envisages his future everlasting fame. His works will be used by great writers such as Francis Bacon, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Joyce, T.S Eliot and Bob Dylan. The poet’s emphasis on change, a constant becoming of all the forms and aspects of the universe, reflects our modern vision of life. This lack of stability, that Ovid took from the philosopher Heraclitus, stresses the proximity of all the forms: humans, gods, animals, plants and minerals. There is a reciprocal influence and a constant tension between the different natures where new shapes keep what is possible of the old ones, which are never completely effaced in the transformation, as Calvino claims in his essay ‘Ovidio e la contiguità universale’ (Ovid and the universal proximity). Eventually, it is not a total change but a process. For the preservation of the species, survival is fundamental: ‘everything changes, nothing dies, the everything flows, and every image is transformed in movement’.
The exhibition shows in an effective, stimulating way how Ovid’s works influenced our culture and storytelling from ancient time until today, thanks to a vision centred on the constant becoming of being human. It entails transformation but also continuity and encompasses all forms present in nature. Interesting descriptions and significant works of art complete the display giving a thorough perspective to the viewer.
Carla Scarano © 2019.
Duilio Cambellotti, Myth, Dream and reality. Review by Carla Scarano.
Duilio Cambellotti. Mito, sogno e realtà
Duilio Cambellotti, Myth, Dream and reality
Musei di Villa Torlonia, Villa Torlonia museums
Casino dei Principi, Casino Nobile, Casino delle Civette
House of Princes, Noble House, House of Owls
Rome
http://www.museivillatorlonia.it/en/casina_delle_civette/artisti/duilio_cambellotti
06/06 – 11/11/2018
The beautiful park and the edifices of Villa Torlonia in via Nomentana in Rome is an unmissable place in the tour of the capital. It is not far from the centre and it is easily reachable by bus from Stazione Termini (the central railway station of Rome).
The Villa belonged to powerful Roman families, first to the Pamphili then to the Colonna and finally to the Torlonia. It has interesting buildings which were designed and restored by the architect Giuseppe Valadier in the nineteen century. He gave them an elegant, classical outline and reorganized the garden with paths and fountains. The most important parts to visit are: Casino dei Principi (House of Princes) with its temporary exhibitions, Casino Nobile (Noble House) with the museum, and Casina delle Civette (House of Owls). There are also Old and New Stables, Jewish catacombs, the Lemon House, the Medieval House and the Red House. In 1925 Mussolini lived there with his family until 1943.
The Casino Nobile is beautifully restored with interesting frescoes and remarkable stuccos, especially on the ground floor. Going upstairs there is an elegant detail: the plaster patterns on the ceilings mirror the patterns of the marble floor. On the first and second floors there is a collection of paintings of Scuola Romana (Roman school), one of the most important artistic movements of Italian art in the period between the two world wars. The painters of the Roman School were different one from the other but had some common characteristics, they all worked in Rome and had profound links with the city, were dedicated to blending great painting skills, believed in the experimentation of new approaches, and opposed Fascism. Among them there are renowned artists, such as Renato Guttuso, Mario Mafai, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Fausto Pirandello, Antonio Donghi, Giulio Turcato and Alberto Burri. Their work is referred as ‘Realismo Magico’ (magical realism); they chose intimate, homely subjects and hidden corners for their pictures in opposition to the rhetoric of the regime. They also expressed the anxiety of the modern world depicting places of the city demolished by Mussolini’s urban project.
Casino dei Principi hosts an exhibition of Duilio Cambellotti, featuring about two hundred works that delineate the artist’s eclectic career which was influenced by the ideas of William Morris and the Scottish design of the School of Glasgow. It is an anthological exhibition that displays examples of the artist’s versatile work as an illustrator of books and magazines, creator of posters for events and advertisements, sculptor, ceramist, furniture, jewellery and carpet designer, textile artist, printmaker and stained glass artist. He also designed scenes for the Greek theatre of Syracuse, and other classical theatres in Italy such as Taormina, Ostia Antica and Paestum, as well as the costumes of the plays. His style is connected to Art Nouveau but he had a strong political and social commitment as well. He resisted the perfect industrial product and believed that the artist was a craftsman close to the art of the people that, for him, in the mainly rural Italian environment of the time, were the peasants of the Roman countryside, the Agro Pontino. His source of inspiration was people’s work, their legends and myths, the buffaloes of the Agro Pontino and the tools the peasants used to labour the land. This is clear in some of the works on display such as ‘Conca dei Bufali’ (1910), a bronze large bowl with buffaloes, or in the sculpture ‘Le vacche aratrici’ (1924-25) where the busts of the cows are the central piece. They are pieces that evoke a mythical agrarian world considered morally important and aesthetically attractive in opposition to the industrialization that was advancing in Italy, though slowly compared to other European countries.
Cambellotti denied the hierarchy of arts, a concept which is clearly showed in the exhibition explaining his tendency to mix and experiment in different techniques, following the Wagnerian idea of ‘total art’ (Gesamtkunstwerk), ranging from paintings to the graphics of posters and advertisements, stained glasses, furniture and even toys. He also took part in an important social project, the ‘Scuola del Popolo’, People’s School, that meant to bring education to the illiterate peasants of the Roman countryside. He designed posters to advertise this project, decorated schools and illustrated the books with the letters of the alphabet making drawings to simplify learning through images. In this way he combined his social commitment with his work for companies, and for public, civil and ecclesiastical patrons. He illustrated the Florets of St. Francis of Assisi, produced stained glasses with religious themes and realized private house furnishing and interior spaces for exhibitions. He worked for the magazine ‘La Casa’, the House, and took part in Monza’s famous International Exhibition dedicated to decorative arts in 1923 and in 1925.
The exhibition illustrates every step of this engrossing, unconventional career in different sections with significative examples of his major works starting from the posters he produced for the theatrical performances he contributed to as set and costume designer as well, to the advertisement for the Fiat Balilla, ‘La Balilla dell’Impero’, the Balilla of the empire (1937), to interior and furnishing designs, stained glasses, also present in the window decorations of Casina delle Civette, ceramics, textiles inspired by Middle East art and projects for monuments. His style looks for a synthesis, a harmony that combines his ethical commitment and the aesthetic message where the role of the artist is in unifying craftsmanship and the themes and symbols of labour linked to the agrarian archetypical Italian heritage.
More works by Cambellotti are in Casina delle Civette, both in stained glass and furniture. This is a unique building which was originally a Swiss cabin, or rustic chalet. The prince Giovanni Torlonia liked to live there so much that he transformed it, adding annexes and altering parts. The final result is complex, multi-faceted, incredibly attractive and mysterious. From outside it looks like a mixture of medieval, rustic, Renaissance and vaguely northern style. Inside it there is a special charm in its narrow corridors, wooden stairs and floors and variably sized rooms, all decorated with superb glass windows. The emblem of the owl is recurrent, probably hinting to Giovanni Torlonia’s passion for esoterism. There are owls on stained glasses realized by Cambellotti, but also on capitols, stuccos and tiles. The place is so intimate, elegant and fascinating that it is said the prince preferred this small house to his rich palaces. On the front door is his motto: Wisdom and Solitude.
It took four years to refurbish the Casina delle Civette after it was completely abandoned for more than forty years, but now it’s worth visiting as well as the rest of Villa Torlonia both for the beauty and peaceful environment, and for the riveting exhibitions displayed in its elegant buildings.
Carla Scarano © 2018.
Rodin and the art of ancient Greece. Review by Julia Pascal.
Rodin and the art of ancient Greece
The British Museum
Julia Pascal
Watching a rehearsal of a play or ballet can often be more interesting than the performance itself. Artistic practice and process is intriguing. For this reason the decision to curate an exhibition showing the interconnections between Rodin’s works and the art of ancient Greece is particularly satisfying. Not that we are watching Rodin at work, rather the juxtaposition of what he saw and how these works inspired him, makes the interplay between his reactions and his actions, a means of understanding his imaginative journey. The impulses behind particular Greek and Roman sources, and the effect of these on a modern French artist, is thrilling.
It is surprising that Rodin never visited Greece and that his addiction to Greek architecture was partly satisfied by what he saw in the British Museum. Here Rodin rediscovered classical art and was provoked to make new works seeded by these antiquity. By seeing both the source and the effect, the viewer has a profound understanding of how one artist influences another across the divide between Classicism and Modernism.
What is astounding here is the gigantism of so much of Rodin’s art. Rodin was obsessed with the Parthenon and the Elgin Marbles. The Marbles’ displacement to London has caused fury in Greece and this exhibition might be seen as a justification of that relocation. However Rodin and the art of ancient Greece is so much more than any political swipe.
There is a huge hand clenched. There are flying figures. There is the eroticism of The Kiss. There is the political outrage in the figures of The Burghers of Calais. Everywhere there is movement, plasticity of bodies, a feeling for warm flesh through the cold materials of marble and bronze. There is a hedonism that is rooted in Greek art which bursts in to the modern space. This is an extraordinary exhibition that is full of daring, light, wit and imagination. It breathes and pulsates and it is hard to forget.
Julia Pascal © 2018.
Chihuly: Reflections on nature. Review by Carla Scarano.
September 9, 2019 by Carla Scarano • added recently on London Grip, art, exhibitions, installations, sculpture • Tags: art, Carla Scarano, exhibitions, installations, sculpture •
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