Monday, July 26, 2010

LUCIEN FREUD (et moi) AT THE POMPIDOU

I'm about to make sweeping statements but this is my blog and I'm allowed to sweepstate as much as I like. You are encouraged to refute, agree, elaborate, contradict, and I hope you will do one or more of these things because, frankly, comments are few and far between over here lately and I'd like to boost the participatory factor. So, here goes. 

There are two types of creatives: receptives and obsessives.


Receptive-creatives have hyper-sensitive antennae which are continually picking up visual, verbal and subliminal information and sensations from the surroundings. Receptive-creatives are easily distracted because of the abundance of stimuli bombarding them. When an object or subject captures their attention, they will give it total concentration but only until the next stimulus becomes impossible to ignore. The variety and intensity of input vibrating their antennae is such that the degree of success (in worldly terms) which their creativity achieves depends on the amount of time they are able and willing to give to any particular message the universe sends. A state of readiness to absorb, combined with uncertainty about whether the material really merits absorption, is the receptive-creative's normal modus vivendi. I, ahem, am among those who fit into this category. 

Obsessive-creatives are driven by a compulsion which demands single-minded focus on a chosen path and the avoidance of anything which might disturb, distract or question this choice. They too are receptive but in a one-track way and they arrange their lives so as to feed their compulsion and insist that anyone who comes close should either support it or stay out. Dedicated, opinionated, blinkered, uncompromising, workaholic, eccentric, egocentric, extraordinary, are some of the adjectives frequently used in describing them. I would prefer to be an o-c rather than an r-c but I have never succeeded in remodelling myself. Lucian Freud is among those who are probably born into this category.

I have not been one of the many admirers of Sigmund's grandson's painting (or of his grandad for that  matter - don't let me get distracted!) but I didn't want to miss this exhibition because I hoped to be goaded into pursuing a completely contrary path. So I took my lethargic body to the Pompidou - nowadays ressembling a decaying community centre designed by committee - and escalated, via a bird's eye view of the Rue Beaubourg, to the sixth floor galleries where Freud's Atelier paintings were impressively hung. 


Pompidou Centre entrance hall.

View from sixth level of the Pompidou Centre. 

I did not expect to be impressed. But I was. Not impressed as in awestruck but as in, this is important stuff - must sit down and take it in slowly.

First of all, his colours. They are greys, browns, ochres, meat-red, black and the occasional dusty yellow-green. They are Old Master-ish, museum-ish colours, destined for posterity and weighty gold frames, defiantly academic, you could even say anti-modernist. 

Then there's the light. The grey light of London bed-sitters in lonely winters and sweaty summers. The cold light of dawn, post-coitum triste. The sleepless night light of regret, apathy, desperation. The merciless light of hospitals, morgues and bus stations at 4 am. 

Then there's the flesh, his subject. Passive flesh offered up to be penetrated by his dominant, hypnotic gaze. Naked but not erotic bodies splayed in apparent abandon on the bed, sofa or floor, seemingly obeying the master's stage-instructions to "be themselves" but, in truth, being only what he requires them to be. He says that what interests him in people is their animal side and that he likes seeing his subjects "as naturally and physically at ease as his dog." However, far from being at ease in their theatrical set-up, Freud's actors are more like tranquilised laboratory animals, their vitality suppressed, coerced by the painter's will into becoming still-life - even the dog must relinquish all doggy energy if he's to play a part in a Freudian tableau. But in the coruscating self-portraits, perhaps the only time the artist allows his model to confront him as an equal, Freud achieves magnificent, courageous insight. 

I understand the necessity of establishing rules of engagement when absorbed in the intensely difficult process of looking at and transcribing a human presence. The artist may be inwardly saying to his subject: go away! I mean stay, but don't talk, don't move, don't interact, just be still so I can observe you without being observed. So it makes sense that Freud prefers his models to be asleep or in a kind of trance induced by long hours of posing, but his determined focus on flesh as meat, to the exclusion of any other aspect of identity (as far as he's concerned, the matiére of his portrait of a person is that person) must be the reason I left Lucien Freud's Atelier very impressed, but ultimately disappointed. The old Peggy Lee song ran through my mind..........Is That All There Is?

MORE

Monday, July 19, 2010

HOT PARIS AND A COOL RUSSIAN

The purpose of this trip was to accompany my sister to a worrisome medical appointment which, thankfully, turned out not to be as worrisome as expected. She went back to Rome the next day and I decided to stay on for a few days. Unfortunately, some time between arrival and departure I was caught by one of those bugs (not les moustiques: in addition to les moustiques) which gets you by the throat, nose, lungs, limbs, intestines and joie de vivre. What with the heat-wave and intense pollution, joie was drastically reduced and vivre consisted in shuffling very very slowly between cafés and any place with conditioned air, a modern convenience which in normal times I shun, but these are not normal times. 






I had made an appointment to visit Andrei Korliakov as I was eager to meet the Russian historian who had found a long-lost painting of mine (see January 20, 2010 ) and I brought my camera but, engrossed in conversation, stupidly forgot to record this encounter. Never mind, I'll do it next time I'm in Paris. Seeing again my bold, enthusiastic painting of cypress trees in Florence after all these years was a big thrill and I happily complied with Andrei's request that I write on the back to confirm it really was painted by me. It is now part of his very interesting collection of works by Russian (or Russian-connected) artists, most of which he discovered by chance during forays in the marché aux puces

Korliakov is a genial and dedicated researcher who has made it his life's work to build a record in photographs and documents of a fascinating slice of human history: the exodus of thousands of Russians from the cataclysmic revolution in their homeland to the many other countries where they started new lives. Working alone in his well-equipped Paris studio (state of the art scanner and computers) with the dogged patience and astute persistence of a detective, Andrei assembles the information which he finds or is sent to him by exiled Russians and their descendants, into impressive albums that are produced, published and distributed by himself. His next volume will be about Russians who went to South America and I promised to send him all material I have about my father's experiences in Paraguay and Brazil. If anyone reading this has Russian relatives or friends with connections to South America, or anywhere else in the world, do get in touch with Andrei (email and postal address are on his website). Such fortuitous links are the raw material his research depends on. 

I mentioned a painting I did long ago of an old man, Colonel Kermanoff, who lived near my father's property outside Asunciòn and to my astonishment, Andrei instantly located a photo of Kermanoff as a young man: it seems he was an important person in the pre-Soviet army and the records show he eventually ended up in Paraguay. Who knew? Another serendipitous happening! 



 Colonel Kermanoff   by NdA. Oil on canvas.


MORE

Friday, July 16, 2010

AN ALTERNATIVE WORLD CUP

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

DNA PAINTING, STATE 4

To anyone who visits here regularly, sorry for the long gaps lately. I've been otherwise engaged but will return and take up all unfinished business (including La Vie en Rosé) very soon. Am away from tomorrow until early next week but meanwhile, here's an update on the painting. The palette and brushes in the corner on the right of this photo are the real ones - just in case you're wondering. 
 
MORE