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    Beyond the Canvas

    An art blog with opinions

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    • All Posts
    Gates of Turan, Firouz FarmanFarmaian at the Venice Biennale
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Jun 12
    • 1 min

    Gates of Turan, Firouz FarmanFarmaian at the Venice Biennale

    Sometimes the Venice Biennale takes you places you'd never dream of going to. A decision to escape the mad crowds of San Marco and take the ferry to Giudecca meant I was rewarded with a mesmerising insight into a nomadic culture I knew nothing about. Firouz Farman-Farmaian has recreated a traditional Kyrgyz environment where we see, hear, smell (the felt banners hanging from the ceiling are made of yak wool) and, mostly, feel. It is also possible to sit on a rug underneath th
    3 views0 comments
    Ukrainian artists: Artem Humilevskiy
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Mar 7
    • 1 min

    Ukrainian artists: Artem Humilevskiy

    "During the quarantine period, I began to create staged self-portraits at home. In the photo, which was the beginning of the series, I seem to be hiding behind house plants in the corner, symbolically and succinctly denoting the existing dead-end state of each person during a pandemic. In my subsequent works, although I turn to self-irony, nevertheless, photographing myself in the nude, I live moments of self-acceptance. Over time, the series of self-portraits went beyond the
    11 views0 comments
    Ukrainian artists: Artem Volokitin
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Mar 2
    • 1 min

    Ukrainian artists: Artem Volokitin

    Artem Volokitin was born in 1981. He lives and works in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, home to 1.4 million people and less than 20 miles from the Russian border. Kharkhiv was therefore an obvious target for the invading forces. Last Sunday, Russian troops entered the city and started bombing it to the ground. We know the strategy, we have seen it in Aleppo. And in Chechnya before then. In response to the upheavals of 2014, the so called Revolution of Dignity, the sub
    13 views0 comments
    Ukrainian artists: Oleg Tistol
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Feb 26
    • 2 min

    Ukrainian artists: Oleg Tistol

    My dear Ukrainian friend Halyna makes veggie borsch for me. She also makes kapusta (red cabbage), Olivier (Russian) salad and blinis, which we eat with smoked salmon and lashings of smetana (sour cream). She feeds me her food in the same way she does everything: with generosity and pride. Every time she cooks is a bit special because that's when she talks about her childhood memories, her late parents and their life on a farm in what was then the USSR. No cooking today, she h
    10 views0 comments
    Ukrainian artists: Marina Skugareva
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Feb 24
    • 1 min

    Ukrainian artists: Marina Skugareva

    There are moments in life when our fear is such that we scramble for ways of taming it, in the hope that this crippling fear will somehow dissolve. And when we feel at our most powerless, all sorts of coping mechanisms kick in as we go down unexplored avenues trying to believe we can do something, anything, This is one of those moments. Me, I turn to art, like I always do. So today I'd like to showcase the work of Marina Skugareva, born in Kyiv, Ukraine in 1962. I don't know
    15 views0 comments
    The universality of misogyny
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Jan 3
    • 2 min

    The universality of misogyny

    "When I went to New York in 1992, I recognized that there was a genre called installation art, and had an idea that I will pop out from walls. I wanted to pop out from walls, from stuffy walls." -Yun Suk-nam Reminiscent of the Dadaist and Surrealist objects that lost their function to be transformed into something attractive and unsettling, the Godmother of Korean Feminist Art has produced beautifully upholstered armchairs and sofas that you cannot sit on. I love the contrast
    7 views0 comments
    Throwback to Rudolf Stingel at Palazzo Grassi, Venice
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Dec 30, 2021
    • 2 min

    Throwback to Rudolf Stingel at Palazzo Grassi, Venice

    Current rabbit hole update: scandals and crimes in the art world, of which I am delighted to inform you there is an abundance of. One episode of Ben Lewis' superb podcast ART BUST tells the story of American art dealer turned fraudster Inigo Philbrick's spectacular fall from grace. It's a compelling listen, during which Lewis also points out the dismally shoddy due diligence and the opacity of the resale market that de facto enabled the jaw-dropping magnitude of Philbrick's s
    11 views0 comments
    On World AIDS Day
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Dec 1, 2021
    • 1 min

    On World AIDS Day

    "If I have to change my lifestyle, I don't want to live." - Robert Mapplethorpe In this powerful self-portrait Robert Mapplethorpe looks us straight in the eye. The glowing black background and the focused use of light make his head and his hand look almost detached from his torso, as if floating in mid-air. The skull sceptre he is so forcefully holding in the foreground symbolises the awareness that death was coming for him. Mapplethorpe would die of an AIDS-related illness
    3 views0 comments
    Paula Rego at Tate Britain, London
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Sep 14, 2021
    • 2 min

    Paula Rego at Tate Britain, London

    Coming out of this extensive and excellent survey, you get a strong sense that Rego's work is an intoxicating blend of the political and the personal, an intricate map of her identity both as a woman and as a Portuguese citizen. Grown up during Salazar's fascist dictatorship, Rego started calling out the regime's domestic and colonial abuses when she was only 19, by which time she had moved to the UK. Since then, she has never ceased pointing her finger at political and socia
    78 views0 comments
    Richard Mosse - Displaced, Fondazione MAST
    Beyond the Canvas
    • May 24, 2021
    • 2 min

    Richard Mosse - Displaced, Fondazione MAST

    'Beauty is the main line to make people feel something.' - Richard Mosse It's easy to be fooled by the alluring colours of the striking photo chosen for the advertising poster of this superb exhibition at the MAST Foundation, but anyone who may have been misled by that imagery soon realises what the show is really about. Mosse is interested in the themes of war, displacement and migration, and with his camera he captures beauty and tragedy where there's conflict and destructi
    17 views0 comments
    Laura Aguilar's courageous rebellion
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Mar 23, 2021
    • 2 min

    Laura Aguilar's courageous rebellion

    “My photography has always provided me with an opportunity to open myself up and see the world around me. And most of all, photography makes me look within.” - Laura Aguilar In her series of self-portraits set in the rocky desert landscape of the American Southwest, Laura Aguilar used her body like a sculpture, she is a human monolith. Her large body is draped on a big boulder whose shape echoes hers. It's hard to say whether she felt at one with nature or whether she was try
    11 views0 comments
    Kerry James Marshall IS the canon
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Feb 4, 2021
    • 2 min

    Kerry James Marshall IS the canon

    “Who needs to NOT think of you as a Black artist to consider you a real artist?” - Kerry James Marshall There are a handful of artists whose work I revere to the point that I don't dare write about them. Kerry James Marshall is one of them, and today I'm taking the plunge. I came across this video where he cites Langston Hughes' writings on how Black artists should not aspire to paint or write like white people, but rather should "express their individual dark-skinned selves
    8 views0 comments
    Rewriting the art canon: Kehinde Wiley's triptych for Penn Station, NYC
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Jan 28, 2021
    • 2 min

    Rewriting the art canon: Kehinde Wiley's triptych for Penn Station, NYC

    "I like Venetian painting a lot: looking at Giovanni Battista Tiepolo is one of my favourite things to do. When I went to my first Venice Biennale, I was blown away when I saw the works of these artists on the ceilings. The technical proficiency impressed me." - Kehinde Wiley Although these days our lives are mostly confined within the domestic walls, the time will come again when we get to enjoy the thrill of being in a public space that has been elevated by art. You know, t
    19 views0 comments
    Experience and participation in Olafur Eliasson's The Weather Project
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Jan 12, 2021
    • 2 min

    Experience and participation in Olafur Eliasson's The Weather Project

    “Having an experience is taking part in the world. Taking part in the world is really about sharing responsibility.” – Olafur Eliasson I saw this dazzling installation in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, and I'd be lying if I said I remember what I experienced at the time - I'm drawing a blank. But for some 80 anti-war protesters, this humbling light-clad space became a stage on which they could voice their anger. It's 2003, American and British troops have invaded Iraq and P
    17 views0 comments
    May Steven's Dark Flag
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Jan 8, 2021
    • 2 min

    May Steven's Dark Flag

    "Political activity does not interfere with my work, it feeds it. And if I'm interested in racism and fighting racism, then that should show up—will show up—in my work.” - May Stevens A committed civil-rights activist and feminist, between 1967 and 1976 Stevens produced a series of paintings called Big Daddy, where she addressed and channelled her anger towards her own father's racist views. Painted at the end of that period, Dark Flag marks the 200th anniversary of the Decla
    33 views0 comments
    Kim Abeles' Smog Collectors
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Oct 31, 2020
    • 2 min

    Kim Abeles' Smog Collectors

    "The Smog Collectors materialize the reality of the air we breathe. I place cut, stencilled images on transparent or opaque plates or fabric, then leave these on the roof of my studio and let the particulate matter in the heavy air fall upon them. After a period of time, from four days to a month, the stencil is removed and the image is revealed in smog." - Kim Abeles Since the beginning of the year, wildfires have burned over 4 million acres in California, with 5,000 firefig
    10 views0 comments
    Annie-Rose Fiddian-Green: Celebrating the lungs of our planet
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Sep 27, 2020
    • 1 min

    Annie-Rose Fiddian-Green: Celebrating the lungs of our planet

    "During lockdown I moved to north Norfolk where my attention was captivated by the ancient trees that hold the space there so powerfully. Fascinated by the biological communication that trees have with each other, I began research into the magic of forests." - Annie-Rose Fiddian-Green Trees, the immortals. The one irrational theory my otherwise staunchly rational self insists on hanging on to. Their magic, their power, their interconnectedness - I immediately saw it in these
    23 views0 comments
    Americans in Venice
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Sep 20, 2020
    • 1 min

    Americans in Venice

    Venice is, among many other wonderful things, synonymous with glass. The work of the Murano glassblowers has inspired countless artists to explore the possibilities of this fascinating medium and break the barriers of functionality to land into full-fledged artistic territory. Le Stanze del Vetro and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore present a superb show of 155 pieces and installations that trace the history of the American Studiio Glass throu
    19 views0 comments
    Lorna Simpson's fantastical hairscapes
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Aug 29, 2020
    • 2 min

    Lorna Simpson's fantastical hairscapes

    "Black women’s heads of hair are galaxies unto themselves, solar systems, moonscapes, volcanic interiors. The hair she paints has a mind of its own. It is sinuous and cloudy and fully alive. It is forest and ocean, its own emotional weather. We are compelled, always, by the phantasmagorical hair, which both invites and obscures. In these pictures, black women’s phantasmagorical hair is like smoke, but nothing is turning to ash. It is a non-consuming smoke, the mesmerizing bea
    16 views0 comments
    Titus Kaphar's Shifting the Gaze, 2017
    Beyond the Canvas
    • Aug 27, 2020
    • 2 min

    Titus Kaphar's Shifting the Gaze, 2017

    Painting is a visual language where everything in the painting is meaningful, is important, is coded. But sometimes, because of the compositional hierarchy, it's hard to see other things. - Titus Kaphar In 2017, Titus Kaphar hosted a TED talk whose title was "Can art amend history?" It's an impassioned speech during which he tells the story of how he first came to engage with art and some the struggles that went with it. Do look it up. While on stage, Kaphar unveils a copy h
    48 views0 comments
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