Art Of The Day Weekly
#371 - from 15 January 2015 to 21 January 2015
© Dijwar Ibrahim Siraj
IN THE AIR
In praise of caricatures
Caricatures had never shown their strength to this point before. It took the murders at Charlie Hebdo so that we could gauge the impact of a few pencil marks in a world we thought to be saturated and indifferent to images. The movie Caricaturistes, fantassins de la liberté, by Stéphanie Valloatto, awarded at the Cannes festival in 2014, is almost foreboding, as it presented cases such as that of Syrian caricaturist Ali Ferzat, kidnapped and tortured by Assad’s police. We also remember the attack with a hatchet against Kurt Westergaard, the Danish author of the first cartoons against Mahomet, and we know that caricaturists from many countries have regularly been mistreated by those who have the power to do so (South-African Zapiro had been held without trial by the military police in 1988 for his anti-apartheid position). But, even in the past when freedom of the press was hardly respected, was there ever such a barbaric execution. In 1832, Daumier spent six months in prison for having done a caricature of Louis-Philippe as Gargantua. In 1898, Heine, from Simplicissimus, was condemned to the same sentence for offending William II. Gillray and Cruikshank, the English masters, were never disturbed. In 1978, Wolinski wrote in the newspaper L’Humanité: “A sense of humor, like fire, water, air or gold always has the same components…” Simple and unforgettable components which intolerant, authoritarian people and extremists will never be able to digest.
EXHIBITIONS
Lyubov Popova, Painterly Architectonic, 1916, oil on board, 59.4 × 39.4 cm. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.
The art of the square
LONDON - This burst of lightning was heard exactly a century ago, which explains the present exhibition. The famous Black Square by Malevich (1879-1935), kept at the Hermitage in Saint-Petersburg, launched the Suprematist school and even more so, the rich vein of geometric abstract art. It flourished throughout the XXth century, in different directions and under all latitudes, as can be seen in this gathering of very varied works, that combines Malevich’s Russian compatriots (Popova, Rodchenko or critic Punin), the De Stijl’s Dutch group (Piet Mondrian and Van Doesburg) or classics from the 1970s such as Dan Flavin and Helio Oiticica. The exhibition examines the echoes in architecture, utopias or daily design, but it does not omit the most recent variations, such as those of Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco.
• Adventures of the Black Square, at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, from 15 January to 26 April 2015
Kjarval, Fra Pingvollum, from Thingvellir
Kjarval, the poetry of Iceland
REYKJAVIK - An Icelandic artist? We can easily mention Errò, who settled in France a long time ago, but it is not easy to mention one of his compatriots. It is true that Iceland, an island with some 300 000 inhabitants, who only got their independence from Denmark in 1944, only organized its first real exhibition in 1900. At the time, Jóhannes Sveinsson Kjarval was a young 15-year old from the province. He wished to widen his horizons and went to study in Reykjavik and the abroad, in London and Denmark. When he went back home he described the landscapes of his native country in a very imaginary manner, the coast, the lakes, rocks, the vegetation, to the point of becoming a sort of “national” artist. His rough face has appeared since 1995 on the 2000 crown bills. For the initiated (all Iceland natives!), the exhibition presents works never seen before: his drawing on plastic. Beginners will take advantage to discover another artist from Iceland, “Expressionist” painter Einar Hákonarson (born in 1945), shown simultaneously.
• Kjarval, Poetic Color Palette at the Reykjavik Art Museum, from 17 January to 15 March 2015
The return of Johns
VIENNA - The recent success of Jeff Koons, the long term fashion of Andy Warhol sometimes make us forget American pioneers who are still alive and active. It is the case of Jasper Johns (born in 1930), the alter ego of Robert Rauschenberg in the pop movement and the creator of those iconic Targets and the American Flags painted with wax. The sacred monster has been the subject of many retrospectives in major institutions such as the MoMA in 1996 and the National Gallery in 2007. Here Johns presents his last series, “Regrets”, which owes a lot to chance. It was indeed inspired from a photograph of Lucian Freud on a bed, holding his head. Johns discovered this strange composition by John Deakin (that belonged to Francis Bacon) in a sales catalogue. It inspired him for a whole series of drawings and two large paintings that refer to the attitude of regret or despair …
Jasper Johns, Regrets at the Albertina, from 13 January to 26 April 2015
BOOKS
Noire croisière
This is a mythical episode of the history of the automobile and of exploration. Yet, its main organizer declared on the eve of the departure, that “I have the spirit of a little badly dressed bourgeois who takes his suitcase to go from Chartres to Etampes”. On 12 October 1924, Louis Audouin-Dubreuil doubted because the tension of the preparations had exhausted him. But the Citroën challenge, this « Black Cruise » in carriers did leave and covered 20 000 kilometres, all the way to Madagascar, where it arrived in July 1925, following a series of adventures and scientific studies that continue to fascinate us today. The report was written by his daughter and is remarkable due to the quantity of fac-simile documents from the family archives. The documents are elegantly slipped into envelopes in thin silk paper, and include the transcription of the songs sung by the rowers from Ouellé as well as reports on ritual cannibalism and witchery, or notes on the customs in Kenya. In order to have the reproductions of the pastels by Alexandre Iacovleff (1887-1938), the artist of the expedition, who worked with the Ballets Russes and signed his contract on the corner of a table at Maxim’s, one will have to choose the luxury edition.
• La Croisière noire, by Ariane Audouin-Dubreuil, Glénat, 2014, 176 p., €39 (luxury version €120).
IN BRIEF
LOS ANGELES - The Photo LA fair will be held from 15 to 18 January 2015/
MIAMI - The Miami International Art Fair will be held from 16 to 20 January 2015.
OPENINGS OF THE WEEK
Mirjam Appelhof BEAUTIFUL MIND
15 January 2015 - BOULOGNE BILLANCOURT - Voz'Galerie
A very personal inner world, fed by a personal tragedy