In which my other half gets a new name, and I discover the abstract art of Agnes Martin at the Tate Modern

It is confirmed.

There will be a return to New Zealand this year.

Life is good.


Next winter will become summer, and short days will become long.


All I have to do now is find a flight around the world that takes in eldest child in Vancouver, followed by South Island, New Zealand for work and photography, on to Canberra to visit photography friends, Perth for a meet-up with my other half (OH), who happens to have business to do there, and then home again.

Simple.

OH is temporarily renamed as FG ( flight guru). For it seems that he knows about flights more than those people that spend all day booking flights for people as a day job. This is a man who knows the leg length of all seats on all planes, which is the best seat to sit in, and even knows what type of plane he is on when he is on it...

As for myself, I can only tell you about the colour of the cones on the runway.

Enough said. He has been very helpful, and I am sure eventually the perfect scenario will present itself.

He has been so helpful that I might have to offer him a premium upgrade to a more appropriate term such as DB (dearly beloved). If he offers me some of his air miles, then its a done deal.



I popped up to London last week to see the Sonia Delauney exhibition at the Tate Modern.

But when I got there I got side tracked by a small poster for an exhibition by Agnes martin.

A painting.

Very geometric, simple and, to my eye, beautiful.

Agnes Martin

Friendship 1963

incised gold leaf and gesso on canvas

Museum of Modern Art, New York

So I changed my plan, and visited the Agnes Martin exhibition after a short sojourn admiring the afternoon light in the turbine hall.

turbine hall © caroline fraser

I am going to have a little moan about the policy of 'no photographs' in some art and photography exhibitions.

Photography is not allowed in the Agnes Martin Exhibition.

I decided to be obedient.

And felt faintly irritated as I watched others boldly taking photographs in the normal way that people always do in exhibitions where photography is not allowed.

between the artworks at the Tate Modern

So I cannot give you a sense of the size and impact of the large gold leaf covered canvas. Or the simplicity of the hanging in the light filled rooms. Ethereal in places.

Words don't do the job.

I am, however, allowed to share this video about her abstract paintings.

Agnes talks about her abstract work developing over 20 years, and in a film showing at the exhibition says of her abstract technique  ' it took 20 years.... every day I moved closer....'

She worked until she died at the age of 94. It was poignant to see her last big painting, with a lack of the precision of previous works; paint dripping down the canvas.

You can read more about her here

Agnes Martin
On A Clear Day, 1973

She talks about 'innocent moments' in which she stops thinking and stops responding. 'Innocent cells on a grid'.


She has commented in the past about her work;

'Its not about facts, its about feelings. It's about remembering feelings and happiness. A definition of art is that it makes concrete our most subtle emotions. I think the highest form of art is music. It is the most abstract of all art expression'


and

'I hope I have made it clear that the work is about perfection as we are aware of it in our minds but that the paintings are very far from being perfect — completely removed in fact — even as we ourselves are'.

In the absence of any photographs I made do with a couple of postcards.

postcards 

And made my way home.

indulging my obsession with hazard warnings and the like on the way

Sometimes I feel that my images need more content. More of a narrative. More people even.


Having been to see Agnes Martin at the Tate, and reading a bit about her work processes, I  feel it is OK to carry on doing whatever feels right on the day.

Some days are definitely more abstract than others.

“Beauty is in the mind, not the eye.”

(Agnes Martin)

on crossing boundaries, keeping cheerful and mixing things up.

turbine hall -Tate modern

It's been a serious week.

Another very good friend diagnosed with cancer. 

A trip to Conflict, Time, Photography at the Tate Modern.

Events in Paris that shocked the world.


Sometimes it is less easy to think positively. Just back from watching 'The Theory of Everything' about Stephen Hawking at the cinema I feel challenged to do just that.

Stephen Hawking's quote......

 ' However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at,'......... 

was made at a time when he was unable to walk or speak, but had nevertheless gone on to write "A Brief History of Time". 

When I heard him say this in the film it really hit home. Packed an emotional punch.

It is a sentiment that feels important to hold onto when times get tough.



So now for some good news.......

• While at the Tate Modern I watched a father walk his very small son all around the turbine hall to look at the strange red textile hanging. Small son enjoyed the echo in the hall and became quite vocal. It was a joy to watch, and when I offered to send his father some images he gave me his email address without question, and we communicated in a positive way. 

• This week I have an exciting new challenge to participate in.

At  The School Creative Centre, Rye resident artists are going to pass a half finished piece of work to another artist for completion. This is intended to stir us up, shake us out of our comfort zones, and be good fun.

So all day I have been wondering how I pass a 'half complete' photograph to another artist. 

Options include giving a half developed roll of film, over exposing or underexposing an image to remove half the detail. giving an undeveloped negative, starting a collage out of old prints, and more.

But I have decided that the best way to fully participate would be to really get out of my comfort zone and do a drawing based on one of my images. 

The results may or may not be displayed here later...........

• I am now the proud owner of a new scanner. Here I am in about 1970 writing my diary - no change there.........

the diary that got lost long ago....

I have hours of fun to be gained revisiting my photographic archives, but also wish to experiment with bits of nature.

dry winter hydrangea petal; scanned and photoshopped

• I am learning how to composite ( make one image from multiple images) on my ipad. This with the help of 

Lynda.com

I am always looking for ways to use my stone collection from around the world, so I made this image with one of my stones and the tree from my back garden.

They represent home and away......... two sources of pleasure. There may be more to come.......

composite image © Caroline Fraser 2015

Reasons to be cheerful?



friends

family

photography

sun

rain

summer

winter

trees 

and grass



in no particular order



and many more.

A spot of culture - Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern

I was interested to read in the paper today that Damien Hirst's spots may have originated from seeing Yayoi Kusama's work. I have always thought of them as being inspired by Bridget Riley, being more similar in terms of colour, but it seems that Kusama was obsessed with spots long before either of them.

from her website

Kusama's website

Yayoi Kusama in her youth

Not having heard of Kusama until a week or so ago, but keen to see her colourful works after enthusiastic reviews in the press, I took a break from domesticity and jumped on a train in the sunshine for a dose of culture.

Arriving at the Tate I learnt that Kusama was probably inspired to become an artist after her mother told her that she should stop painting. When she was about 10 her mother took all her paints and drawing materials away from her, saying that she would need to marry an important man and become a housewife. A sure recipe for rebellion, and possibly why she felt the need to emigrate to New York in order to escape the restrictions placed on her by Japanese culture in the 1950's.

The video introduction to the exhibition is moving and instructive

The exhibition is extensive and engaging, particularly her detailed drawings based on botanical specimens and the natural world. Visitors to the exhibition were taking photos surreptitiously wherever I looked. It amuses me to watch people trying to take pictures covertly, and regularly being told that photography is prohibited after they have bagged a shot. There must be thousands of photos of the exhibition out there. I made do with a few postcards, including one of "Yellow trees 1994" shown below, not feeling flush enough to buy a signed copy of the catalogue for £150 like the lady in front of me at the till.

The whole room installations of spots and coloured lights are uplifting and give one a sense of being immersed in a fantasy world. The exhibition guide suggests that the spots shown below in 'I'm here but Nothing' might be an attempt by Kusama to visualise and re-stage her own hallucinatory experiences, during which she senses that the visual world is overtaken by endlessly repeated forms. Her mental illness is not discussed in any detail, but it is clear that it hasn't affected her productivity.

I'm here, but Nothing

The only disappointment was the hurried way in which one is moved through the gorgeous infinity room, which is a magnificent end to a stimulating and thought provoking show.


You can see more of her work on Artsy's website here

On the way home I popped into Trafalgar Square for a dose of sparkling water against a clear blue sky.

and along The Strand and Fleet Street where I imagined myself as a tourist, appreciating the architecture with fresh eyes.

Gerhard Richter in 'Panorama" at the Tate Modern

Betty 1997 

Having read about Gerhard Richter for my photographic studies, I was very keen to see his work in the flesh.

Currently showing at the Tate Modern, this exhibition spans over 50 years of his work.

 It doesn't disappoint. The retrospective of the artist now in his eighties, is as varied as it is expansive. This is an artist who questions, tests and experiments with the role of art in the presence of other media. He breaks down 'the painting' to a series of brushstrokes in a single tone of grey, only to move onto multicoloured, mathematically derived abstracts containing over a thousand different colours. He paints in the manner of a photograph, or a newspaper advertisement, and then moves on to the most beautiful portraits inspired by works of the great masters. The variety and scale of works is astonishing. 

As photography is not allowed in the exhibition I don't have much to show for my visit; I don't really know why it isn't, as a photograph never compares with the real thing. Nothing prepared me for the beauty of his portrait "Betty" shown above. In the flesh it is richer, smaller, and more beautiful than any photograph.

I saw several people taking photos on their mobile phones, particularly in the large mirror that is one of the exhibits. Watching the public interacting with art is always entertaining, and no-one does it better that Thomas Struth. I had to make do with some postcards as a reminder of my visit.

Taking photos in galleries is something that adds to the visit. I was pleased to be given permission to take some photos at the Hamilton Gallery of Tom McCullin's work in  his exhibition 'Platinum' that ends today. Their view was that all the images are readily available in books already.

Don McCullin platinum print

I found this small show incredibly moving; the quality of the 16x20 inch platinum prints was quite breathtaking; they have a glow and depth, together with clarity and detail that only a medium or large format image can have. They had been printed especially for him by a third party, and were available in editions of 10 for around £10,000 each.

the presentation of this print in a dark alcove adds to the subtlety

They convinced me that I should be striving for quality in my prints; something that I have been seriously considering with my recent exploits in large format photography; I'll tell you how I got on in my next missive; suffice it to say, it is a challenge!