Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991

I’ve been to Damien Hirst’s exhibition at the Tate Modern in London.  It is a show worthy of the Tate and Hirst. The most amazing work is the most famous one: The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of SomeoneLiving (hereafter for brevity TPIODITMOSL).

Hirst spoke about this work many times (the last one here), but once explained: “I like the idea of something describing a feeling. A shark is scary, it’s bigger than you, it moves in a environment unknown to you. It seems alive when it is dead, and dead when it is alive”.

In the London show, however, the sharks on display are two. The first is, in fact, TPIODITMOSL. The other, smaller and in a black vitrine, called The Kingdom.

For many TPIODITMOSL has become the symbol of the folly of contemporary art, so much so that in 2008 the economist Donald Thompson wrote the book The $12 Million Stuffed Shark. Thomson explains the genesis of TPIODITMOSL and reveals a number of quite interesting details.

The work was realised for the first time in 1991 with Charles Saatchi’s money. “The artist – writes Thompson – had made ​​some phone calls “Wanted shark”at some post offices in the Australian coastal towns, which had hung signs with his number in London”. The man who called Hirst was Vic Hislop, a fisherman from Hervey Bay, a resort on the Pacific Ocean. The shark was paid $6000: $4000 for the capture and $2000 for packing it in ice and shiping it to London by ship

Vic Hislop whit a shark in 1992.

TPIODITMOSL was shown for the first time in 1992 in Saatchi’s private gallery. But when in 2005, through the good offices of Larry Gagosian, Saatchi sold the work to the American financier Steve Cohen (they say: 12 million dollars), the shark had completely deteriorated. Hirst accepted to replace the animal and called again Hirslop Vic. He asked three other tiger sharks and great white shark of the same size and ferocity of the original. Hirslop, says Thompson, sent five sharks, one of them as gifts. (Here the article in the NYT with the story of the replacement of the shark).

What happened to the four other sharks? I actually counted at least five. Here they are:

The Immortal (1997-2005)

The Wrath of God (2006)

Death Explained (2007)

Death Denied (2008)

The Kingdom (2008)

Then as I know, there is at least a work created instead wiht a shark, whit a fish-hammer:

Fear of Flying (2008-2009)

While the Tate Modern celebrates Gerhard Richter, Charles Saatchi makes his German contemporary art exhibition: ”Gesamtkunstwerk, New Art from Germany”. The relationship between Saatchi and Tate is a battle that has lasted two decades and, according to Jackie Wullschlager in the Financial Times, saw the first win over the second (I am not convinced with the birth of the Tate Modern things have changed).

The curious thing is that among the artists chosen by the collector is also Isa Genzken, Gerhard Richter’s second wife (they married in 1982 and divorced in1995). Isa Genzken is not any artist (in 2007 represented Germany at the Venice Biennale), but it seems clear that in any way she doesn’t stand the comparison with ex-husband. Here are some pictures exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery.

Bouquet, 2004	Mutter Mit Kind, 2004
MLR, 1992 lacquer on canvas, 206 x 185 cm	MLR, 1992, lacquer on canvas, 126 x 91.5 cm

The exhibition by Gerhard Richter at the Tate Modern is an unforgettable. I knew that before, since this is the first major retrospective on the German painter, but confirmation has not been without its surprises. Memorable because the Richter magnitude has the space to unfold despite the limitations that an exhibition such as the Tate inevitably brings.
The exhibition has an educational trend, chronologically correct, but withdraws or has not been able, where possible, to explode at some explosive issues inherent in the art of Richter.
I make four examples:

the first is in the second room, when the relatonship etween “Herr Heyde” (1965) and “Tante Marianne” (1965) is not valued. The first painting, in fact, shows the arrest of chief of eugenics policy during the Nazi regime, while the second is the reproduction of an image in which Richter’s child is held in the arms of Aunt Marianne, a victim of that very policy. The paintings are on display at a short distance, but as if among them there was no direct relationship.

In the seventh room, however, are exposed “Kerze” (1982) and “Schadeli” (1983). The editors, in their presentation of the room, say that we are in front of a sincere meditation on the “vanitas.” Yet the two paintings are juxtaposed and are placed in non-strategic points (in the catalog instead of the two images are touching).

The catalog shows a series of paintings of 1995 relating to the birth of the last son of Richter: moving a series of eight images that are a great hymn to motherhood. Well, they are not on display. I imagine there will be in Berlin or in Paris. Too bad not having seen them live.

Last: the painting “September” (2005) in the last room is exposed as one of the others as if it were not one of the most daring challenges with which Richter has been compared in the last ten years.

Here is the things that I liked:

The first room with the first “official” painting (CR: 1), an image taken from a table found on the magazine Domus. A framework has within himself the destiny of Richter’s whole work.

The extraordinary “Neger (Nuba)” (1964) a photopainting taken from a photo of Leni Riefenstahl which is the first color in the exhibition.

The fact that the editors insist on much reflection “work” that plays on the Richter painting and its relationship with the critical work of Duchamp.

The triptych of the three great clouds “Wolken” (1970).

Some abstract paintings chosen are truly mind-boggling as that of 1997 (CR :849-2).

And finally, the most dramatic room is dedicated to the cycle “Oktober” in 1989. For strength, skill and historical significance.

One last thing: what strikes me most reading the interviews Richter is his insistence to emphasize its anti-ideological orientation that, at times, appears to turn ideological. His willingness to go against the tide always led him, paradoxically, to play the role of champion of the art form during the last century has been given up for dead many times: painting. His highlight the limits (as in combat with the Annunciation by Titian) led him to discover its borders and at the same time the value of contemporary media. The fact that even today, eighty years, Richter continued to paint and invent new things (see the current exhibition in Paris) demonstrates that this research work is not finished yet.

Hymenoplasty Cosmetic Surgery, P.A. Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Transatlantic Sub-Marine Cables Reaching Land VSNL International Avon, New Jersey

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Contraband Room John F. Kennedy International Airport Queens, New York

Taryn Simon è un po’ la Sofia Coppola della fotografia. Newyorkese, classe 1974, parentele importanti (è la cognata di Gwyneth Paltrow) e soprattutto: piace alla gente che piace (leggi: Gagosian). La segnalo per due motivi: il primo è che dà l’impressione di una maturità di sguardo sorprendente per la sua età, il secondo è che come pochi è riuscita nell’intento di fotografare l’infotografabile. Mi riferisco soprattutto a due lavori come An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007) – del quale alcuni scatti sono esposti nel padiglione danese della Biennale di Venezia, e Contraband (2010). Americanissima, anche nello stile di critica sociale che avanza con la sua opera, adotta il teutonico processo di catalogazione inventato da Bernd e Hilla Becher. Lo dimostra nell’ultimo lavoro A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters esposto in questi giorni alla Tate Modern (fino al 2 gennaio 2012), nel quale fotografa sedici “bloodline”, immortalando i volti dei membri di famiglie svelando contemporaneamente le storie ad essi legate, come accade, appunto, nella storia indiana dell’uomo vivo dichiarato morto.

Qui la presentazione della mostra di Londra

Qui invece la presentazione di An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar

Jonathan Jones racconta una storia che non sapevo e che trovo davvero intrigante. È la storia che vedete qui sopra e che lega inaspettatamente una delle opere più importanti del Novecento, il ciclo per il Four Seasons di New York di Mark Rothko, con i dipinti della Villa dei Misteri di Pompei e il vestibolo della Bibblioteca Laurenziana di Firenze di Michelangelo. Il critico del Guardian lo racconta in modo più elegante e convincente, ma permettetemi lo stesso di sintetizzare la vicenda. Mark Rothko era un fan de “La nascita della tragedia” in cui Friedrich Nietzsche spiega che il teatro greco ha avuto origine dai riti dionisiaci. Mentre stava pensando al ciclo di quadri che sarebbe dovuto servire per le pareti dell’elegante ristorante del Seagram Building di Manhattan, Rothko fa un viaggio in Italia e si reca a Pompei e in particolare visita la Villa dei Misteri famosa per i suoi affreschi raffiguranti proprio dei riti dionisiaci. I rossi e i neri di quegli affreschi, probabilmente, sono quelli che ritroviamo nei quadri del ciclo ora conservato alla Tate Modern.  L’altra visita di cui Rothko parla è quella alla Biblioteca laurenziana. Jones dice che Rothko fu impressionato, in particolare, dalle finestre cieche del vestibolo della bibblioteca (uno dei grandi capolavori di Michelangelo). Finestre che, anziché portare luce, bloccano la curiosità del visitatore. La sala della Tate con i quadri di Rothko – dice sempre Jones – è come se riproducesse l’effetto claustrofobico e disorientante del vestibolo bicromatico di Michelangelo. L’ultima osservazione di Jones è forse la più interessante: nell’ultima fase della sua vita il pittore americano sembra interessato soprattutto a creare degli spazi con la pittura ed è soprattutto nella Rohtko Chappel di Huston che si ritrovano echi ancora più evidenti del Michelangelo architetto.

Gerhard Richter, Reader, 1994

Segnatevi queste date: 6 ottobre 2011  –  8 gennaio 2012. È inutile che fate quella faccia… no no no… non ditemi poi che non lo sapevate e che non avete fatto in tempo ad organizzarvi… Perché sarà certamente una mostra da non perdere quella di Gerhard Richter alla Tate Modern di Londra annunciata come la più importante retrospettiva degli ultimi vent’anni del grande pittore tedesco nella capitale britannica. Ci saranno tutti i suoi cicli più importanti: i photo-paintings, i quadri sulla Baader-Meinhof, giù giù fino a September del 2005, il grande quadro sull’11 settembre.

Io ho già prenotato il volo. E voi?