Historic Photography Uncovered

John Dillwyn Llewelyn

Speaking at the official launch of the new Historic Photography show at the National Museum Cardiff its Director General  David Anderson told his audience  to remember the moment. It was the start of a great and new emphasis on what he called the most important collection in the Museum, its photographs. Thanks to the Esme Fairbairn Trust an ongoing digitisation programme has started. Photographs originating  from all departments in the Museum covering Geology ,  Botany, Social History,  Fine Art and more  are being digitised and will form a publicly accessible database in the near future.David Anderson  told us to look out for much more around Photography than has ever been offered before.

For now go and see this first flowering, the most magical and varied collection of photographs and cameras and explanations of photographic processes. This exhibition traces the evolution of photography, as a scientific process, as a social record and a medium for artistic expression.

The photographic material on display dates from the mid-19th to mid-20th century .My favourites show  the beaches I love; Caswell Bay, Tenby, Three Cliffs looking just like they do today but dotted with little ladies in full blown Victorian and Edwardian garb, extraordinary.
The exhibition continues until 19th April

Behind the Scenes of the Museum: Artists in Collections

Installation for Woverhampton Art Gallery 2012    Photo credit D8

10am – 4.30pm, Wednesday 14 May, 2014
National Museum Wales
Reardon Smith Lecture Theatre, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NP

If you are interested in the ways artists have interacted with Museum collections then this is the event for you.

The event will include:

·         James Putnam, curator and writer, discussing shifts in the way that artists are working with museum collections and their role in activating engagement.

·         Andrew Renton, Head of Applied Art at the National Museum of Wales, in conversation with artist Sarah Younan about their collaboration and what artists can bring to the interpretation of collections.

·         Jon Monaghan, artist and animator, leading a workshop on 3d printing as a tool for creating user-generated content.

·         Artist Helen Snell, talking about collaboration and what it's like to work in the 'institution' of a museum.

·         Emma Price, independent art consultant, offering practical advice on developing projects that utilise museum collections.

This event is free to attend but places are limited so booking is essential

Book now at eventbrite > 

For more information contact Alicia Miller, Axisweb Associate in Wales: alicia@axisweb.org

The City

Danny Easterbrook’s studio. photo copyright Spitalfields Life

Our Level 4 students are all exploring ways of making art from the concept of 'The City' this term. I have recommended the wonderful daily blog 'Spitalfields Life to them as an inspirational treasure chest of what a City can be when you look at it through its people. Posts have been categorised and can be searched by sections including  Night Life, Criminal Life, Past Life, Plant, Animal and Literary Lives to name just some. Today's blog is particularly magical. Read here about a musician and artist exploring the paintings of Giorgione by re-creating them in authentic materials in a beautiful studio in the middle of an abandoned tramshed in Clapton, London.

Myths Magic Mayhem

Want to go on a zombie walk? Learn about illustrating children’s books? Hear tales from around the world? Go to a comic book workshop? All this and more is on offer from Wednesday through to Sunday.

This week is the start of the first Cardiff Children's LiteratureFestival.

Information about the programme and how and where to buy tickets are available from the Festival website.

You can keep up with their activities by following @CDFKidsLitFest on Twitter. 

Sessions from experts encouraging adults to both read and write children's books run alongside appearances from famous authors & illustrators for children of all ages.There will also be plenty of FREE activities to get involved in including a Roald Dahl themed Treasure Hunt, craft sessions in the Cardiff Story and a hunt for Wally and Wenda.

Cardiff University is hosting some of the events, and in Cardiff UniversityLibrary Special Collections (SCOLAR) they are putting on an exhibition celebrating the history of children's literature, from the 17th century up to the 20th century.  They are looking at the chronological development of children's literature by highlighting several themes such as books for education and fantasy literature.

The Library has gathered items from SCOLAR's collections, including the Children's Literature Collection which can be seen in part in the glass cases at the entrance to SCOLAR, and from the modern children's literature collection held in the main part of the library.  Items from the modern collection are also being utilised in a display on level 1 of the library (ASSL), where readers can vote for their favourite children's novel.The exhibition is available online and at the Arts and Social Sciences Library, Colum Road  from March-May 2013

Cardiff Metropolitan University undergraduate students may access Cardiff University Collections through a reciprocal scheme. Postgraduates through SCONUL Access. See details here

 

 

 

 

Culture Grid and Porphyry

This is porphyry. Stephen Cox sculpts in this stuff because he likes a challenge-its very hard (literally). In 1988, he was commissioned to carve sculpture for the new Cairo Opera House, Egypt, and was allowed to quarry Imperial porphyry at Mons Porphyrytes in the Eastern Desert, which had not been used since the end of Roman Empire.  Below is 'Chrysalis' a work from 1991, the  image is  from the Tate website . The artist describes this work as having to do with transition and reincarnation. It suggests a recumbant Egyptian funerary figure in the process of changing and mutating

Marble Roman emporers used to be dressed in porphyry togas because it is the colour of Roman Imperial Purple.

The first image of  porphyry in this blog entry  is not from an art image database  but from a geological one which I found by searching The Culture Grid. If you are after images from Ethnography, Geology and other non art and design objects then have a look at the Culture Grid.

Culture Grid opens up a wealth of information from museums, galleries, libraries and archives: giving greater access to UK culture, arts and heritage. It contains approximately  3 million items from hundreds of collections on all topics.

University College London (UCL) and University of Reading have just added 6,500 images of objects from their museum collections to Culture Grid. The images can be freely viewed, downloaded and used under a Creative Commons licence.The objects include rare Ancient Egyptian artefacts brought to life in twenty-first-century 3D; digital images of zoological specimens in glass jars, strange and beautiful anatomical prints, sixteenth-century portraits, and intriguing nineteenth-century scientific gadgets.

 Preserved infant lemur Grant Museum of Zoology UCL. Image from the Culture Grid

 

 

Your Paintings and your librarian!

The BBC hosts a website that documents all paintings in public ownership-those paintings that lurk in council offices, libraries, and slide libraries as well as the ones we get to see in the major art galleries and museums! The portrait above that a recent Fine Art graduate painted of me is just one of the 212,000 piantings now online and viewable by location, artist name or title.
Here are the FAQ's that answer questions such as who is behind the project, why no watercolours and also crucially  how many are on public display (20%)-a low figure which goes to show how valuable a service this website is...
Next time we have a Welsh Librarians' conference at the wonderful Gregynog Hall I am going in search of this fine specimen!                                         

 
















 

and this beauty painted by the same artist   

 

 

Every Picture tells a story: Girl Reading

Girl Reading by Katie Ward comprises seven linked stories set over a period of over 700 years, from 1333 to 2060. Each is an imagined story behind a painting, photo or sculpture. The subject is always  a  girl, or young woman reading. The pictures are not shown in the book so I have given you the links below.
The stories are also concerned with the changing position of women and the choices they have had during those hundreds of years

 

Here are the artworks

 

Simone Martini, Annunciation, 1333 (Uffizi) (painting available from Bridgeman Education in Cardiff Met Electronic Library)
Pieter Janssens Elinga, Woman Reading, 1668–70 (Alte Pinakotek, Munich)
Angelica Kauffman, Portrait of a Lady, circa 1775 (Tate Gallery-or if at cardiff Met use the link from the Cardiff Met Electronic Library)
Horatio Nelson King, Giulia Grisi, 1860s National Portrait Gallery
Julia Margaret Cameron, Portrait of a Sybil (Mary Emily (‘May’) Prinsep), 1870 National Portrait Gallery
Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell (née Stephen), circa 1916–17 (National Portrait Gallery)
Heinrich Vogeler, Martha Vogeler, circa 1905
Théodore Roussel, The Reading Girl, 1886-87 ((Tate Gallery-use the link from the Cardiff Met Electronic Library)
Women and Girls Reading Flickr Group
William Wetmore Story, The Libyan Sibyl, 1861–68 Smithsonian American Art Museum
Kimbei Kusakabe, Woman Writing with Brush, 1890s Old Photos of Japan
Correggio’s Mary Magdalene, which was lost during the Second World War, but was much emulated, for example: Cristofano Allori, Penitent Mary Magdalene, circa 1600 Pitti Palace

The House of Illustration

Eric Carle 'What are you like?'

 

TheHouse of Illustration is the world’s first dedicated home for the art of illustration;  adverts, animation, picture books, political cartoons, scientific drawings, fashion design; they are a creative hub for emerging and established artists working in every aspect of illustration.

The House of Illustration put on exhibitions like their most recent UK-touring exhibition, What Are YouLike? on at Bath’s Holburne Museum until October 17^th.

Based on a Victorian parlour game, the exhibition invited 45 people in the public eye to create a self-revealing artwork by illustrating 8 of their favourite things from a list of 12: their favourite animal, book, item of clothing, comfort, food, pastime, place, possession, music, shoes, weather or pet aversion (the thing they love to hate!).

Past exhibitions are here

The House of Illustration  also run competitions and organise events with some of the country’s leading illustrators. They work in schools across London through the  PICTURE IT education programme.

They aim to eventuallycreate a permanent home to celebrate the past, present and future of illustration. Items in the shop go towards funding the dream....

 

 

Places as people, maps by Adam Dant

 

The image above is taken from the Spitalfields Life blog which today describes the amazing work of Adam Dant. Follow this link to see more images. Adam Dant’s map describes a journey through London as if through the human digestive tract from the mouth in Whitehall to the rectum in Whitechapel. You will notice that he has placed the brain in Westminster, the liver in Fleet St, the heart at St Paul’s, the stomach in the City and the genitals in the East End.

This is just one of series of maps of big cities that Adam has depicted in such a way as to portray their essential qualities, rendered as huge ink drawings of double-page plates from volumes in the mythical Library of Dr London  and executed while touring around European capitals this summer . Other volumes in this collection of giant books hold engravings and charts which display Paris constructed from the bones of Liberty,  several alternative versions of Manhattan, and Tokyo's subway system as a tangled knot of 'Shunga print' style figures.

The drawings  will be exhibited in a show which opens tonight at Hales Gallery.

Adam Dant
From the Library of Dr London

7 Sep - 6 Oct 2012

Private view: Thursday 6 September 6-9pm

Hales Gallery

Tea Building
7 Bethnal Green Road
London E1 6LA
T 44 (0)20 7033 1938
F 44 (0)20 7033 1939

Thomas Heatherwick: the Cauldron and a Retrospective

The English designer takes Steve Rose through his retrospective show Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary, which runs at London's V&A until 30 September

Thomas Heatherwick is a designer architect from London and the man behind the Olympic Cauldron.

 The cauldron was lit on 27 July at the end of the end of the Olympics opening ceremony, which was directed by Danny Boyle.
The design of the cauldron had been one of the most closely-guarded secrets of the opening ceremony. When the competing delegations arrived in London, they each received a copper petal, inscribed with the name of their country and the words ‘XXX Olympiad London 2012’. They carried these petals into the stadium during the opening ceremony before laying them down on the cauldron. When all the petals had been laid down, the seven torchbearers each ignited a single tiny flame within one of the copper petals on the ground, triggering the ignition of all 204 petals. The Cauldron’s long, stainless-steel stems then rose towards each other and converged to form one single flame.
Lots more on Heatherwick here
The cauldron being lit here

To celebrate the Olympic year of 2012, a temporary building a one-bedroom boat, the Roi des Belges, by David Kohn Architects in collaboration with Fiona Banner has been installed on the roof above the Queen Elizabeth Hall.The building was picked as the winner in an open competition run by Living Architecture and Artangel, in association with the Southbank Centre
The riverboat building was inspired by the riverboat, the Roi des Belges, captained by Joseph Conrad whilst in the Congo in 1890, a journey echoed in his most famous work Heart of Darkness.

There is a deck, a crow's nest, a cabinet of visual curios - and a bed which slides on rails to make the most of the view over London: a panorama that stretches from Big Ben to St Paul's cathedral. An octagonal library with a curated selection of books and with twin desks looking out across the river enables visitors to use the Room as a studio space.

A range of writers, musicians and artists have been invited to stay in A Room for London, using their time there to create new works or performances. During the year the room  will transmit a programme of writing, performance and music.

Podcasts of the music, text and artworks are available to view from here
Fiona Banner’s work for the Room was  a film of a one-off performance of Orson Welles' unmade film Heart of Darkness The screenplay was performed in its entirety on board the Roi des Belges by the actor Brian Cox and is available on the website here until June 30^th

Lecture series at the National Museum, Cardiff

Tim Davies, Drift, (video still, 2011) © Tim Davies

The National Museum Cardiff in partnership with the Art Fund is offering a series of three evening lectures with acclaimed international academics at the Reardon Smith Lecture Theatre.

 The first talk  called Wales at Venice  will be on Wednesday, 25 April 2012, 18:30–19:30
Speakers: David Alston, Merlin James, Laura Ford and Tim Davies

The Venice Biennale was established in 1895 and remains one of the most important and prestigious events in the international, contemporary art world. Since 2003 Wales has been independently represented as a devolved nation. For those artists who are chosen to exhibit it is a key international platform. This lecture explores Wales’s representation in Venice and also hears from three artists who have been selected to exhibit for Wales.
£4 with National Art Pass (full price £5)

Future lectures are John Piper (to accompany the current exhibition) on Wednesday, 9 May 2012, 18:30–20:30. The speaker will be  Professor Frances Spalding, CB. The third lecture will be The Influence of Josiah Wedgwood on Wednesday, 23 May 2012, 18:30–19:30 when the speaker will be Gaye Blake Roberts.

Fly on the Wall

Watch  workshop assistants creating a new Damien Hirst with a live feed ......Studio view one gives you a ground view and Studio view two camera is an aerial view. They are presently making a rather wonderful new piece of  variously sized stainless steel scalpel blades fixed onto a circular black canvas which today a young man is colouring in. Just one part of a very rich website that includes news, galleries of the most famous works, audio and video and a shop where you could buy a £5 spot keyring or splash out a bit more (£11,000) on a signed charm bracelet-the charms are casts of 35 pills. Damien Hirst is the subject of a major retrospective at Tate Modern, London running from 4th April-9th September.  Adrian Searle art critic of the Guardian  wrote that 'this exhibition charts a great descent in Hirst's art, one that mirrors the ascent of his bankability and the creation of ever more decadent and overblown artefacts.' The Sunday Times gave it four stars. Visit the exhibition to  find out for yourself . If you can't make it to London then let Noel Fielding take you on a private tour of the exhibition

       

Ideas about landscape

Andy Goldsworthy
Elder leaf patch

edge made by finding leaves the same size
tearing one in two
spitting underneath and pressing flat on to another
Helbeck, Cumbria
October 1983

If you are interested in Landscape from many viewpoints and not just from the aesthetic or Fine Art perspectives then you will enjoy following the thoughts on Landscapism a blog written by Eddie Proctor. His most recent blog is 'a Manifesto for a Working  Landscape' which covers all possible aspects of 'Landscape' and contains a plea to bring them all together and stop thinking and planning for them separately. Don't miss the links on the left of his blog page including one to the on-line Preview of the Andy Goldsworthy Digital Catalogue DVD Volume 1: 1976-1986 where you will find rare and early examples of Goldsworthy's work scanned in from his personal slide catalogue and there's also a link to  my favourite old rockers who used to work in the music industry and now celebrate nature, beer, music and art in equal measure on their wonderful blog 'Caught By the River'.

Hirst and money? here's Deller and Joy in People

Jeremy Deller opens at the Hayward today with a show entitled Jeremy Deller: Joy in People.The exhibition incorporates almost all of his major works to date including installations, photographs, videos, posters, banners, performance works and sound pieces and is curated by Ralph Rugoff, Director, Hayward Gallery.
Jeremy Deller  won the Turner prize in 2004 without having taken even O-level art at his London public school. He emerged after the Young British Artists, who began exhibiting together in 1988, many of them wrapped up in the rising art market and collected by figures such as Charles Saatchi.
Sometimes his work – a re-enactment of the Battle of Orgreave in 1984, one of the fiercest clashes of the miners' strike, or organising the ladies of the Women's Institute to show flower arrangements at the Tate – did not look like art at all.

His mum said "I tried to explain his work to the Queen when Jeremy took me to a reception at Buckingham Palace. I don't think she quite understood, but she was too polite to say."
Rugoff declares of Deller that he , "brought up questions of value" in his work. “ He has rarely made work that can be bought or sold straightforwardly. He has, said Rugoff, "heralded a new chapter when artists work as catalysts, producers, curators and collaborators … and with his interest in folk art and the creativity of everyday life he has brought attention to what other people have done".
There are some great events planned to accompany the exhibition including a David Shrigley and Jeremy Deller DJ Night on Friday 4 May 2012. Jeremy Deller’s interest in the social character of pop music is far ranging. The enthusiasms, rituals and passionate loyalty of fans have all provided the artist with inspiration. Our Hobby is Depeche Mode reflects on how people intimately embrace pop culture and embed it in the fabric of their everyday lives.The exhibition  runs until 13^th May

Damien Hirst, (eco-) property developer

ARTIST Damien Hirst who has been valued at £215 million has unveiled plans to build more than 500 landmark eco-homes in Ilfracombe, which he hopes will regenerate the town and provide a national blueprint for environmental housing.
The plans involve utilising land at Winsham Farm, which has been owned by Hirst for the past ten years, as well as nearby Channel Farm and Bowden Farm.
Mr Rundell said the houses would be modern in design and could incorporate state of the art environmental features such as photovoltaic panels, concealed wind turbines in the roofs and increased insulation.
"If we are committed to doing this as Damien wants it, it will happen. Damien is a man who gets things done."

Damien Hirst's latest exhibition, The Complete Spot Paintings, will be held at all 11 Gagosian Galleries across the world. Here's a selection of the works, which the Guardian has provided in a slideshow here

Save the Wedgwood Museum

The Wedgwood Museum has been listed by UNESCO as one of world's top 20 cultural assets. In the Unesco register, the museum's archive now sits alongside objects such as the Bill of Rights, which is the closest document that Britain has to a written constitution as well as a copy of King Charles I's death warrant.

But the Museum is due to be broken up and sold off to pay £134m pension deficit after a high court judgment in December. As well as thousands of ceramics produced by Josiah Wedgwood, the museum, which opened in 2008, boasts an archive of more than 100,000 documents and manuscripts, and masterpieces by Stubbs, Romney and Reynolds. Such is the collection's historic significance that questions will be asked in parliament this month.

The high court ruled that the collection was an asset of Waterford Wedgwood Potteries, which went bust in 2009, and could therefore be sold to pay off their creditors, the largest of which is the Pension Protection Fund.

Members of the Wedgwood family wrote a letter to the Telegraph this weekend they write:

"....We will now have to raise money to buy the very pieces of history that our family, together with employees and museum supporters worldwide, donated with the intention that they would be on display for the nation…"

Last month John Caudwell, the billionaire founder of Phones4U, the mobile phone retailer, said he would act as a lender of last resort to the museum.
He warned the act would not be “pure philanthropy” and would have “strings”.

The case is being reviewed by Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, who is expected to decide before the end of the month whether to seek leave to appeal in the case. Tristram Hunt, the television historian and a MP for Stoke, the home of the museum, is meeting with Mr Grieve this week to discuss the case.
Campaign to save the Museum is here

Michael Iwanowski-Photography evening at Chapter

FORUM is an informal, monthly event aiming to develop a core network of emerging artists together with students and graduates. It is co-ordinated by Ffotogallery and WARP for critical discussion and conversation
May's FORUM will be held in Ffotogallery’s meeting space at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff on Thursday 19th May -they will be meeting in the main foyer (box office) from 6.30 to 6.45 – look out for the person with a FORUM sign!
if you arrive later call 02920 668 695 when you arrive and you will be directed to the meeting space.

This Forum will present the chance to hear Cardiff-based photographer Michal Iwanowski talk informally about his practice and projects, followed by Q&A. The rest of the evening will be opened up to the floor for anyone to show and discuss works in progress or forthcoming events or opportunities.No booking necessary. FORUM is a FREE, drop-in event.

If you have any queries or questions please call (029) 2070 8870 or email turnerhouse@ffotogallery.org

Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951.

The Mapping Sculpture database , the outcome of a major three-year research programme conducted by The University of Glasgow, in partnership with the Victoria & Albert Museum and Henry Moore Institute , delivers the results of the first comprehensive study of sculpture between the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the Festival of Britain in 1951.

If you are on a smartphone and would like to access the mobile version, click here

The project  can be summed up as an investigation of sculptural practice that aims to reveal the numerous personal and professional connections underlying the production of sculpture. The project's state of the art database provides the means of searching this complex web of connections.

There are over 50,000 records in the database. This wealth of information can be used to answer many questions and will also suggest many new avenues for further investigation.

Turner Prize 2011-shortlist announced

The annual Turner Prize has turned its back on London and travelled north to the Baltic Gallery in Gateshead, opening this year on 21 October.

The shortlist has just been announced and this year includes two painters, George Shaw and Karla Black, who are joined  by sculptor Martin Boyce and video artist Hilary Lloyd.

some pictures of the nominees work here

Adrian Searle (Guardian art critic) on this year's nominees