Polaroid Process #6

graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm
original source: 'The Guardian' G2 06/10/08

Another in the series of drawings processed from newspaper reproductions of original Warhol Polaroid portrait photographs. In this instance, the subject’s check-patterned jacket provides suitable scope for the realisation of a more obviously apparent ‘all-over’ surface & reacquaints us with our old friend the Modernist grid.

Soundtrack:


Low 'Secret Name'
Rufus Wainwright 'Want' & 'Want Two'
Belle & Sebastian 'If You're Feeling Sinister' & 'Tigermilk'

Polaroid Process #5

graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm
original source: 'The Guardian' G2 06/10/08

Being another example of ‘a project within The Project’, this drawing was once again processed from newspaper reproductions of Warhol’s Polaroid portraits. The seriality of such an endeavour establishes an obvious link with the particular artist’s work, as does its ‘reproductive’ aspect.

Soundtrack:


Sparklehorse 'Good Morning Spider' & 'It's a Wonderful Life'
Cocteau Twins 'Lullabies to Violaine' vol. 1

Polaroid Process #4

graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm
original source: 'The Guardian' G2 06/10/08

Continuing the series of drawings processed from newspaper reproductions of a selection of Warhol’s Polaroids currently being exhibited as part of the Hayward’s ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’ show.
Although closely associated with celebrity culture & the depiction of, the celebration of, & perhaps therefore an easy target for playing a not insignificant part in the development of the phenomenon into its all-encompassing nature today, it’s worth noting at this point that Warhol only features subjects – such as this one - famous for actually doing things, achieving things & status, being celebrated for something other than merely fame in & for itself, as is so often the contemporary example & aspiration.

Soundtrack:


Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 'Abattoir Blues' & 'The Lyre of Orpheus'

Polaroid Process #3

graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm
original source: 'The Guardian' G2 06/10/08

Presenting the third in the current ongoing series of drawings processed from newspaper reproductions of Warhol’s Polaroid portraits, in this instance also utilising the skull motif to which the artist made regular recourse, again characterised by the harsh, high-contrast, flattening & detail-suppressing light of the original medium.
Interesting to contextualize the image with a similar one in which Warhol pictures himself in the company of the skull.


Andy Warhol Self Portrait with Skull
acrylic & silkscreen ink on canvas

Soundtrack:


Velvet Underground & Nico 'Gold'

Impossible to resist the temptation of listening to the glories of the Velvet Underground whilst drawing from & thinking of Warhol...enduringly magnificent stuff.

Polaroid Process #2

graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm
original source: 'The Guardian' G2 06/10/08

Being the second in a series of drawings currently being processed from newspaper reproductions of Warhol Polaroid portraits which themselves served as source material for his own paintings, as in this example.


Andy Warhol Truman Capote
acrylic & silkscreen ink on canvas/1979

Soundtrack:


Lambchop 'Nixon' & 'Is a Woman'

Polaroid Process #1

graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm
original source: 'The Guardian' G2 06/10/08

The original source of the newspaper photograph from which this drawing was processed is an historical one, actually dating from the 1970s, being one of Warhol’s Polaroid portraits made topical by its inclusion in ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’, an exhibition of the artist’s work currently showing at the Hayward Gallery. As a contrast to, for instance, the daguerreotype photographs of Chuck Close (as previously mentioned & used as source material), the instant nature of the flash-lit Polaroids gives a much harsher & considerably less detailed result from which to work, something that lent itself to the habitually flat, graphic, ‘posterized’ manner in which Warhol worked & produced his typical painted silkscreens.

Soundtrack:


Lamb 'Lamb', 'What Sound' & 'Between Darkness & Wonder'

Still Life...

graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm
original source: 'The Times' 2 17/09/08

The attraction of the particular newspaper photograph from which this drawing was processed resided mostly in its recalling the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi (as mentioned previously), those of quiet, still rooms with certain architectural features such as mouldings & windows that admit light but afford no view beyond, carrying an indefinable yet mysterious charge: the box, the only object in the space, plays such a role in this otherwise empty scenario, adding a narrative element to a still life, pregnant with possibility, affording opportunity to the imaginatively inclined, but to remain forever unresolved (this isn't cinema or theatre, after all). One might also be reminded of Magritte's ordinary domestic rooms made fantastic by oversized objects or the like.


Vilhelm Hammershoi 'Sunbeams'
oil on canvas/1900

Think of boxes in an art context & an obvious example occurs, courtesy of Mr Warhol, icons of banality, regularity & multiplicity yet possessing a distinct resonance that elevates them from their original context:


Andy Warhol 'Brillo Box'

To those of a Minimalist mind, boxes occur frequently, not least these mirrored ones of Robert Morris, making any space visually fascinating, constantly shifting & unfamiliar:


Robert Morris mirror boxes

and another example as might be experienced at Tate Modern such as Donald Judd's exquisite copper cube, its interior painted a bright red, a most seductive object.


Donald Judd untitled
copper, enamel and aluminium/1972

Also another, earlier box of Judd's, in situ, illustrating the ubiquity of such simple forms, 'specific objects', within the Minimalist aesthetic.


Donald Judd @ Leo Castelli Gallery, New York 1966

On the subject, & referencing such a body of work as Chuck Close's apparently photorealist 'heads' & its conceptual underpinning, this very project, this year's work, has generally followed pretty strict Minimalist guidelines: working exclusively from daily newspaper photographic origins, on an A4 scale (admittedly this mostly for ease of scanning), in monochrome graphite (save for a few deviations into additional splashes of watercolour), & a general concentration on the subject of process rather than any image content other than that related to & referencing art & its history.

Soundtrack:


Teardrop Explodes 'Wilder'
Tori Amos 'Under the Pink' & 'Boys For Pele'
Portishead 2
Mogwai 'Come On Die Young'

More Ploy of Sex...

Today the opposite of tomato is 'Soft Enough For You'

graphite, putty eraser & watercolour/30x20cm
original source: 'The Times' 29/09/08

The original newspaper photograph from which this drawing was processed provided the image content of the continuation of the pomegranate juice marketing campaign that inspired the recent previously-posted 'Venus' drawing, in this instance pushing the selling of sex(-iness & -uality) that little bit harder. Here, the coy, over-the-shoulder glance recalls a pose such as that of Ingres' 'Grande Odalisque'.


Ingres 'La Grande Odalisque'
oil on canvas/1814

Whilst on the subject generally, it's worth mentioning Barry Hoffman's lavishly illustrated book 'The Fine Art of Advertising' (picked up a while back for a couple of quid, a small victory under the circumstances, perhaps), which, from an ad man's perspective, not uncritically & alive to the many inherent ambiguities of the subject, explores the relationship between art, artists & marketing, its often symbiotic nature & of course the playful, knowing irony with which advertising campaigns habitually appropriate &/or reference iconic images from the tradition of fine art & especially that of Western painting (although it's worth noting that some of the more sexually-inclined art of the East has also, inevitably, provided suitable fodder). All good, thought-provoking & instructive stuff, even if the novelty of the extent to which so-called 'creatives' routinely plunder art with the intention of inspiring desire in order to flog stuff & aspirations soon palls when surveyed in such a fashion, laid out in all its inglorious, mindless banality: but this of course is the very raison d'etre of marketing campaigns, they have a built-in obsolescence before it's quickly time to move on to advertising & selling the very latest 'essential', improved development in commercial, retail culture.
This is why pioneers such as Richard Hamilton & other of the 'Pop' artists & the heirs to their particular tradition, who turned the tables by appropriating images & the visual language of advertising into their art, assume admirable, heroic proportions, by reflecting back to the world for more considered contemplation - aesthetically distanced from the naked hard sell - the sheer dumbness & futility of the endless cycle of consumerism & insatiable desire, visually seductive as it so often is.


Note to self: beware the melancholic consequences of (half or slightly more than) watching reruns of the TV series of 'Brideshead Revisited' (excellent, seductive & absorbing though it remains) whilst also trying to get some art done (at the same time mentally composing drafts of blog posts!) in the all-too-short mere 2-day window of the weekend on a cold, gloomy, grey-turning-to-rain autumnal Saturday...

Soundtrack:


Boards of Canada 'Music Has the Right to Children'
The Sundays 'Reading, Writing & Arithmetic'
Van Morrison 'Moondance'
White Stripes 'White Blood Cells'

Further to...

the previous post & its references to the Venuses of art history comes this article in the Guardian based upon a new book reappraising the life (as an artist in her own right) of Victorine Meurent, who modelled frequently for Manet & not least for both 'Dejeuner sur l'Herbe' & 'Olympia', those icons of modern art & painting which subverted the academic tradition of the female nude & so shocked in their time with their uncompromising directness: note, for instance, how 'Olympia' confronts the spectator with both her unwavering gaze & the unpretentious starkness of the fact of her physical reality, her naked modern womanliness, rather than being merely the passive site & recipient of the viewer's gaze or the coy creature of tradition.

Art & Language

Whilst tidying the library bookshelves at work this evening, I encountered this irresistible appropriation of Mondrian's mature painting's formal vocabulary gracing a book cover, its structured syntax most apposite under the circumstances.