Wednesday night we went to see the Guggenheim: 1940’s to Now exhibition at the NGV International; hope I get time to go back and have a look at the rest of the place before I leave. It was rather super. I am probably a bit crappy with art; if I like it straight away I’ll stand there for half a day looking at it, if not I’ll barely glance. I generally don’t go beyond the initial impression, but there does always seem to be something that will grab me, even if it’s not immediately discernible. Probably I should try harder, but it seems to me that matters of aesthetics are very personal. The fact that I like a particular painting is based on everything I’ve experienced over a lifetime, so I feel that I should be the best judge of whether to spend any time looking at it.
I love galleries in the evening as all the freakishly deformed art snobs come out. I don’t think they do well in daylight. Typically a rather elderly lady with impossibly pointy cheekbones, geometric hair and a coat fastened by a single button larger than her head. She’ll very likely be accompanied by a man wearing wholly inappropriate shoes and at least one item of clothing that has no place in the free thinking world. And they will be talking absolute arse about a ten inch square piece of canvas painted red. I have seen several of those over the years, of varying sizes and hues, and none of them have been worthy of so much hand waving and pontificating.
So anyway, back to my three second appraisal method of deciding whether to spend any of my life standing in front of a painting. I think it works pretty well as I nearly walked past one that appeared too busy, but something made me stay and stare. A lot. It was huge and gorgeous and Cryptic Butterfly by Suling Wang – I think it’s on the exhibition website (2010 update: yay, it’s still there – 7th picture down).
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/guggenheim/themes.html
Trouble is you need to see it to understand. Looking at paintings online is always a let down, often because of the size of the painting (I LOVE big paintings), but mostly because you don’t get the tactile quality of the paint. Paint is just great – I love paint. Can something be described as visually tactile? It’s something to do with the physical form of the paint, the thickness and its erstwhile viscosity. Anyway, I have a deep appreciation for (of?) the use of paint. Hence there is a lot missing when you view a picture online; but have a look, you might like it.
Incidentally, another example of that disparity in presentation was the Tamara de Lempicka exhibition that was on at the Royal Academy in London a few of years ago. I just love her paintings but had only ever seen them in books or online. When I went to see them in a gallery it was a completely different experience. I was shocked at how different the colours were. The depth and vibrancy was astounding. The paintings were much smaller than I had imagined them to be; I had always assumed that they would be huge room sized pieces, perhaps because of the implied strength of the forms that she painted. Hmm, I’m starting to sound a bit like an art student here…
I think good art is like (or should be like) a life changing sexual experience. It’s all consuming, makes you forget yourself and takes you out of time. You should feel as though you’re breathing it in. I guess that’s why the ability to produce truly good art is quite rare. Music is the same, for me anyway. I don’t feel like looking at a painting is a purely visual experience. It makes you feel with all your senses, although I’m not sure I can really explain what I mean by that. So I guess you’ll have to go and look at a gorgeous painting, or listen to some blissful music, or have some fantastic sex. Then you’ll know what I mean.
“Erstwhile viscosity” – I am having a bit of a word-fest today.
