Life of Page

“I have often said that I have nothing to say as an artist. Having something to say implies that one is struggling with meaning. The role of the artist is in fact that we don’t know what to say, and it is that not knowing that leads to the work.” – Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor is a significant artist who has exerted tremendous influence over fellow artists of his generation, yet is someone relatively unknown. I personally hadn’t heard of him until I saw posters all over London of his unusual, colourful and textural creations. Kapoor was awarded the Turner prize in 1991, the year I and many of you were born, so in our memories he is sometimes lost in the abyss of artists who are not yet dead and remembered, but aren’t a la mode and claiming inches of newspaper columns with their latest stunts (naming no names, Damien Hirst).

What sets Anish Kapoor apart from other contemporary artists is his thorough exploration of colour and form with each series of sculptures being different to any that he has done before. The exhibition hosts rooms of mirrors, fantastical objects covered in colour pigment, sculptures created out of wax, cement, iron, fibreglass and marble, works coming out and going into the wall, a massive slow-moving carriage of wax that travels the length of five galleries and a canon. This one man show is a menagerie of mediums, leaving the spectator dizzied with visual stimulation.

Another aspect of the exhibition that distinguishes it from others is the interactivity of it; one can walk around, through and under the sculptures, making it a more enjoyable exhibition to see, breaking the mould of the sometimes monotonous experience one has when looking at painting after painting in a gallery.

One of the most memorable rooms is the home of Kapoor’s ‘Non-objects’ which are deceiving mirrors which are enjoyable and akin to a house of mirrors at a fun fair. They are exquisitely smooth and polished with all traces of human manufacture removed, to help induce the experience of the “contemporary sublime”. One mirror turns everything upside down, but once you are dizzyingly close, it is reverted back to normal but magnified. The are two huge bowl shapes hanging on the wall which you can completely submerge your head in, a long curved mirror ‘wall’ and a few free-standing 3D shapes which are, in lack of other words, ‘trippy’.  The only downside of this part was its environment; the effect would have been enhanced if it had been in a plain white room, rather than an old classical floor-boarded room at the Royal Academy with those metal grates in the floor, taking away from the potentially transcendental effect.

For me, the supposed highlight of the exhibition ‘Shooting into the Corner’ (2008-09) was an overrated anticlimax. ‘Shooting into the Corner’ is a canon which, every twenty minutes, fires a shell of wax (weighing about 20lbs) into another room at 50mph. It sounds impressive but the reality was disappointing. I am probably in a minority thinking this, as a young adult and a girl but the waiting around in a cramped space with a limited view wasn’t worth the final heavily anticipated ‘pop’ of wax hitting a wall, to cumulate with the hundreds of other obliterated shells of wax. It cheered up the young kids who had been dragged along immensely, but I left disgruntled with sore feet.

All in all I enjoyed it greatly and it will stay in my memory as one of the most fun exhibitions that I have been to. It was also thought-provoking and challenged my ideas of the role of colour and my perceptions of modern art, which may need to be seriously rethought!

Here’s an article I wrote two years ago for my college newspaper that I thought I’d share!

Annie Leibovitz is one of the most acclaimed and popular photographers around, making her name by shooting the world’s most famous and working for magazines such as Vanity Fair, Vogue and Rolling Stone. If you hadn’t heard of her before, you probably have now, as her exhibition A Photographer’s Life, 1990-2005 is showing at the National Portrait Gallery at the moment, leaving her name on the lips of everybody in the art and media world. Those of you doing photography probably know more about her than others, as she is someone recommended to study if you are looking at portraiture for the open brief. This is the perfect opportunity to see her work ‘in the flesh’ and learn more about this amazing woman.

To name all of the people she has photographed would to take a long time, but to name a few… Leonardo DiCaprio, Whoopi Goldberg, John Lennon & Yoko Ono (taken 5 hours before John Lennon was shot), George Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth II, Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Robert De Niro, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Robert Downey Jr., James Franco, James McAvoy and Susan Sontag.

With a list like this, it’s easy for Leibovitz to photograph anyone in the showbiz world. This, however, has caused spectators and critics to question if it’s the celebrity who makes the photo popular, or the way it’s taken. Would Annie’s photo of Whoopi Goldberg in a bath of milk still have the same effect and circulation if the woman in the bath was unknown? I think that it would because Leibovitz’s creative ideas are so plentiful and unique that her photos would be popular, whoever the sitter. What her contact book to be envied has done however, is show celebrities how they want to be shown and depict another side of them which we, as media-hungry people of this day and age, are curious to see and admire.

The exhibition is only of photos from 1990-2005 and merges her professional and personal life. She says “I don’t have two lives. This is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it.” Walking through the various rooms you see a cosmopolitan collection of photos: landscapes in Georgia, family holiday snapshots, politicians posed in offices, family portraits, elaborate celebrity portraits, documentary photos from Sarajevo in Bosnia, recognisable magazine covers and a lot of pictures depicting the life that Leibovitz shared with her mentor, friend and lover Susan Sontag, who died in 2004. There are some unsettling photos of Sontag while ill and at her deathbed, but hung alongside photos of the two of them in various countries and at home, enjoying themselves.

There are two underlying themes throughout the whole exhibit which are life and death. There are photos that celebrate her life, her family’s life, the lives of the internationally adored (and hated too…) and also her children’s lives. Leibovitz took photos whilst giving birth to her first child Sarah, demonstrating that her love of taking photos shows the love that she has for the subject, as seen in all of her family photos. Then you see the photos of Sontag. One is of her being loaded onto a plane on a stretcher, another shows her lying motionless, dressed in the clothes that Leibovitz chose for her to be buried in. Stark contrast is present throughout, especially in one case. Leibovitz shot Johnny Depp and a naked Kate Moss, an extremely attractive couple (however much I dislike her) on a bed together when they were going out. This is hung next to a photo of a bicycle on the floor, next to a smear of blood on the ground which belonged to the boy who was riding the bike. He had been hit by some sort of conflict in Sarajevo and had died on his way to hospital. The differences are monumental.

I really enjoyed the exhibition, although looking at over 200 photographs is a little monotonous. I recommend it to everyone who is interested in documentary, celebrity, photography or art, not just those who are taking photography A/AS. I look forward to what Leibovitz’s imagination will bring us in years to come.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to Life of Page! A cultural blog featuring my take on all things arty that I’ve gone to see. I hope it serves as a readable introduction to ‘artsy’ things for those who maybe feel daunted by more high culture, but also something to sate the appetite of those who love this sort of thing. Do forgive me for moments of complete self indulgence when they occur; I’m a luvvie at heart.

To begin, I thought I’d dedicate this post to my dear friend Rebecca Tobin (also known as beccaandthebox), a budding artist, cartoonist, doodler and all round general creative person who does the most wonderfully witty and whimsical drawings.

The Nightmare, R Tobin

She effortlessly commands a variety of mediums, such as sketches, ink drawings, paint, tablet drawings and plain old pen doodles. Each suits the subject matter in question, creating images which are a feast for the eyes. From horror to classical myths, the everyday to dreams, popular culture to comics, fan art to literary heroes, Tobin draws inspiration from everything around her, providing us with some idea of what the weird inside of her head must be like.

Wine Dark Sea and Rosy Fingered Dawn, R Tobin

I implore you to follow her (virtually, not literally, you creep), you won’t be disappointed.

You can find her…

On Tumblr
Her Website
Her Twitter