Great day in London! - Art, art, art, and football!

You know when you have those days that are just really wonderful that you know will still stick with your for a while?  I love those.  Wednesday was one of those days. 

We’ve been busy, busy bees here in the land of Christie’s Masters without too much free time and tons of reading and research to do in the off hours.  Between working on our first major graded assignment, the oh so invigorating Object Status Report (where we have to do a full catalog report, historical review, and curatorial proposal for a work of art at Tate Britain) and reading Kant, Longinus, Fried, Clark, et. al. our brains have been in hyperactive overdrive for a while.  Wednesday’s activities provided a much needed and wholly unexpected treat for a weary grad student.

It started with a Pumpkin Spice Latte.  My fabulous mother sent me a Starbucks gift card in the mail, so I treated myself to a Pumpkin Spice Latte!! Not only was it real coffee, as opposed to the 40 pence instant powder that we drink on a daily basis, but it was chocked full of the rich pumpkin and nutmeg flavors that I’d been craving since the leaves began to change colors.  After my minor, but deliciously major, indulgence, I met up with my tutor group from Christie’s and Lizzie, our wildly effervescent professor/advisor, for a trip out of the city to visit the home of a private collector.  He took us into his cute little stereotypical British home with a picket fence and super slim hallways and corridors to see the works he had collected over the years.  His walls were covered with paintings by well-known and well-loved artists of whom the collector had met, known well, or simply admired their work.  

After a bit of chatting about the Polish Expressionists he had collected and hearing a few anecdotes from his collection experience and work acquisitions, we found ourselves piled on his itty bitty staircase with him filtering out stories from work to work up the walls.  Then he got to a piece that I had been eyeing since we walked in the door.  A simple but captivating drawing that turned out to be a self-portrait by none other than Peter de Francia! I have been a fan of the underrated and sadly mostly unknown artist for some time, so much so that I had requested to do my Object Status Report on one of his paintings at the Tate but was turned down due to Lizzie’s worry that there would not be enough research material.

Anyway, as we were moving on, I pulled Matt (the collector) aside and asked him where he had purchased the de Francia works.  First he was amazed that I knew the artist and inquired about my knowledge of him and what I thought about a few of the things I had seen or read.  Then he goes, “Oh and Peter sold me the works.  I knew him well.”  WHAT?!?! 

After bonding a bit more over his painting The Bombing of Sakiet, which is fabulous and everyone should know it, Matt told me that he had something to show me later.  After looking at a few more incredible works, he went to his storage room filled with the paintings that he couldn’t hang for lack of wall space, and pulled out one of Peter de Francia’s studies for the Bombing of Sakiet, a painting I had seen time and again from my research online and at the de Francia exhibition from a few years ago.  The very same painting that I had looked at over and over in photos, and I was holding it! It was a surreal experience. 

After all of my excitement, Matt even allowed me to borrow his police folder of sorts of all of the information he had on de Francia and the letters they had exchanged to help me with my work.   And after seeing all of the amazing things he had been able to collect without going to auction and spending millions of dollars, he specialized in buying artwork for reasonable prices from artists and small auctions rather than collecting the “big names” for big bucks, all I want to do is go out and start buying artwork.  Maybe someday. 

Our group had a delicious, although much more expensive than my taste, Chinese lunch before spending the afternoon at White Cube Bermondsey to see an exhibition that Lizzie had been particularly fond of.  Then I spent a time at UCL getting in a bit of research before talking Chris into going to the Sluice Art Fair.  One of our gallery guides from the week before puts on the fair every year to raise awareness and money for emerging British artists and put us on the guest list to attend the opening. 

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay long at the fair, which was very neat, because I had a ticket to see Arsenal play LIVE AT Emirates stadium!!!  I treated myself to an Arsenal scarf to fit in with the crowd and made my way in with my friend Joel who was kind enough to offer the extra ticket.  I bought us both a “lemonade,” which turned out to be 7-up (go figure), and walked out to the bright lights and gorgeous green field.  It was Elysian.  After running the circuit around the stadium for weeks, I finally made it inside and got to watch my first Champions League match in person. 

It was a truly wonderful day in London.

Frieze. Jane. Talk.

To catch up, Frieze Art Fair was unbelievable.  Hundreds of galleries from around the world come together to show off the artists they support and works they offer, and although slightly overwhelming at first, it was a wonderful experience.  Chris, Carrie, Esther, and I spent five hours walking around Frieze London, the contemporary fair, before bolting over the Frieze Masters, where we spent the next two and a half hours seeing works by the great masters from the Renaissance up to Modern that were for sale. 

We took an afternoon last week to visit Lisson Gallery for the Anish Kapoor show that was going on there.  If you want to read about the work, see my art blog, but in short, it was a stellar show.  The work was great, and the company made it that much better.  Going to galleries with people from Christie’s, you never know what will happen.  We had way too much fun testing the pieces, Kapoor makes hemispherical sculptures that amplify sound waves,  and crawling under tables to talk about the how he created some of his more interesting works.

Jane came to visit last weekend.  I spent all morning on Saturday walking around Holborn looking at Street Art (London is one of the best cities in the world for finding Graffiti Art, which I have a strong soft spot for) before meeting up with her and having a lovely day catching up on Europe life.  We had a fabulously “American” Chipotle lunch and walked around a bit before meeting up with some Christie’s people to watch the Arsenal match at a pub.  That night we went out to a bar that has the “best music from movie soundtracks” nights every Saturday night where we danced the night away to everything from Cotton Eye Joe to Ghostbusters.  It was my first time going out with the people from Christie’s, and it was nice to get out to see a bit of London night life that wasn’t an art gallery or a museum, as much as I do love both.

Banksy

Stik

We’ve had our first few seminars at school.  Seminars are semi-brutal 3-4 hour sessions where we talk about art/aesthetic theory and philosophy, debating over issues like aesthetics, sublime, beautiful, autonomy in art, and vulgarity.  We have to prepare readings from philosophers and critics alike and be up to par on our economic, political, and social knowledge for the periods we are discussing and then relate all of these theoretical discourses back to various movements in art.  Mostly they are really very interesting and fun when we have a good discussion rolling, but after the talk dissipates, we come out of them just wanting a hug and a nap.

Mr. Brainwash

Invader

Quite a preview

This morning we were granted the opportunity to visit the preview of the Post-War and Contemporary Art Auction for Christie's that will be taking place tomorrow night and Friday morning.  Not only was the array of art spectacular - with works by artists such as Ai Weiwei, Gerhard Richter, Lucio Fontana, Alexander Calder, and Antony Gormley - but getting to see them displayed as though they were ready to purchase, which they were, was a whole new experience.  The price tags ranged from 20,000 to 2-3.5 million.  KEEP YOUR ARMS, LEGS, BAGS, HAIRS, BREATH IN THE AMY AT ALL TIMES! The pieces were beautiful to look at, but it was a slightly unnerving experience.

Didn't keep us from having a little bit of fun though...

Craig-Martin, Gowrie, Banksy...off to a good start in London.

Well it's been a bit since I last posted, and a lot has already happened.  We started classes last week, and so far everything has been really interesting, though it has been crazy busy.  We had lectures on Modernism, Avant-Garde, and Post-Modernism, visited a few galleries, visited a few museums, and met with an artist, a gallerist, and a resource specialist working for the Tate museums.  Our first writing assignment was due yesterday, and I've already read more than I thought my brain could handle.  What a whirlwind!

A few of the students from my program were allowed to sit in on a panel discussion with Michael Craig-Martin and Lord Grey Gowrie...um...can you say awesome?  Craig-Martin was one of the founding members of the YBA and Gowrie was chairman of Sotheby's and the Arts Council of England.  It was a great discussion about the development of the art market in London, and I may have been a little awestruck.  And Grey Gowrie is an adorable elderly gentleman.

So far the best part has been spending time in the museums with our tutors.  We spend hours walking through museums critiquing curatorial displays, articulating methodologies and art practice, and carrying on dialog about specific works of art until we've stripped a piece apart from every angle.  It's incredible.  We spent two hours at the Courtauld Gallery the other day and only covered four paintings.

London living is going well.  The city is beautiful and full of wonderful opportunities.  I met some of the people from our program at a food festival the last weekend where they had all ranges of cheeses, meat pies, chocolates, and crazy foods to try and purchase.  Two days ago I ran through Hyde Park where Londoners seem to spend their lazy Sundays lounging in the grass, walking with friends, and feeding swans in the ponds.  It's a beautiful oasis in the midst of a bustling city.  Lively, green, and perfect for a sunny afternoon out of the flat.

Today was especially awesome.  After visiting the UCL libraries (oh my gosh books!!), Chris, Misha, and I went to get a couple of £4 pizzas before heading back to Christie's for an afternoon of reading through culture and ideologies essays when we suddenly came across a Banksy graffito!! Unreal! I've never seen a Banksy in person and definitely not one on the streets.  It even had the little mouse tag at the bottom.  For anyone who doesn't know, Banksy is an anonymous graffiti artist who does incredible street art all over the world and is an incredibly talented painter and political activist.  It was a really cool, and totally unexpected, uplift for the afternoon.

This week promises another round of unbelievable adventures.  We get a firsthand look into the Post-War and Contemporary Art sales at Christie's tomorrow, a day at the Frieze art faire on Thursday, and get to attend a panel discussion for the Multiplied art faire put on my Christie's.  Can't wait!