A few surprises at New Walk Museum, Leicester

I managed to get out of London at last to make a long-planned visit to the New Walk Museum in Leicester. It was on my list primarily because I had heard it contained the best collection of 20th-century German art in England, a generally neglected area in this country. I found the museum was a handsome building in a handsome situation: the New Walk is a 200-year-old pedestrian-only promenade lined with substantial 19th-century dwellings, presumably a result of Leicester's heyday as a hosiery manufacturer. The interior consists of large light-filled areas, which give a very good setting for a variety of displays. David Attenborough of nature documentary fame first became interested in natural history because of visits to the dinosaur exhibits (his father taught at Leicester University). There is also an interesting room devoted to craft work from around the world, and many activities aimed (successfully) at children.

Red woman

I was slightly disappointed with the German art room, however, as it is a fairly small display and a good proportion is of prints rather than paintings. Nevertheless, once one has adjusted to this there are some real gems to be seen: Franz Marc's Red Woman of 1912 is the most striking - he used colour symbolically, red being seen as warm, brutal and heavy. Other works which particularly caught my eye were a very attractive Gabriele Munter Portrait of Anna Roslund 1917 (she is also represented in the Courtauld Gallery), a 1938 Karl Schmidt-Rottluff landscape, and two characteristically brutal lithographs by George Grosz - one from 1920 The toads of property (shown lording it over the poor in the background) and a surprisingly late 1954 work Nazis. The German works are shown in rotation, so what is actually on show varies - I don't know if I was lucky or not.

The works in the contemporary gallery were a surprise and are quite impressive; they included a Peter Doig called Concrete Cabin which I seem to recall from a Tate Britain retrospective some years ago, and a slyly satirical Michael Landy 1998 large C-type photographic print. This latter was called Our limit is that of the desire and imagination of the human mind and at first sight is a straightforward portrait of a boiler-suited cleaner. However, the corporate logo says "Scrapheap Services", and the rubbish the operative (who turns out to be Michael Landy himself) has speared is a stylised cut out male figure. Quite an effective dig at current capitalism (though couldn't it have been done as effectively as a newspaper cartoon? - probably not as seeing it in a gallery context is what fooled me into taking it literally at first).

The biggest surprise was a gallery devoted to Picasso ceramics. They were donated by David Attenborough's brother Richard Attenborough, the actor and director, in memory of his daughter and granddaughter who perished in the 2004 tsunami. I had seen some of this at the Christie show (171 pieces subsequently went for £2.8m), but the effect of a large number of works of this quality is stunning. The ceramicists were specially taught by Picasso himself to produce work to his designs, and it is fascinating to see how Picasso was not only able to master a new medium at the end of his life but to do so in such a fruitfully co-operative way (shades of the collages of late Matisse I suppose).

Like many provincial museums, New Walk arose out of the local 19th-century philosophical society's collection, and it is pleasing to see that their typically eclectic interests are being reflected in the varied collections on show, and that this clearly suits modern tastes just as much as it did the Victorians.

The real excitement in Leicester at the moment is of course the rediscovery of the remains of Richard III in what is now a car park near the Cathedral. Leicester wants to make a big thing of reinterring the bones in Leicester Cathedral, but others are demanding they are buried in York Minster beside his wife and son, as was Richard's stated wish. I don't wish to get caught up in the controversy, but I was amused to see not everyone takes the matter too seriously......

Now you see it.....now you don't

A thorny problem indeed at the Detroit Institute of Arts

The current controversy over the fate of the artworks held by the bankrupt city of Detroit reminded me that you can't always take it for granted that publicly owned works will always remain public. Alarm bells rang when it was discovered that Christie's had been called in to value the Detroit Institute of Arts' collection, as it was feared all or some of the collection would be sold to help pay off Detroit's debts. The city authorities have denied this is their intention, and Christie's are saying they are trying to find a way to keep the collection in the public domain, not simply carrying out a valuation for auction purposes.  It's true that the city authorities are obliged to disclose all Detroit's assets as part of the process of applying for bankruptcy, to ensure creditors get the best possible deal, so the move may not be as sinister as it sounds. In any case, this is a world-class collection so a sudden release of a large number of paintings of this quality onto the market would cause chaos and seriously depress prices. And the sum raised would not make much of a dent in Detroit's debts.  A further complication has arisen in that the suburban townships surrounding Detroit, who provide much of the funding for the Gallery, have threatened to withdraw this funding if works are sold, which would cause the institution's collapse anyway.

This situation recalls the case of a Henry Moore sculpture of a reclining woman, known as Old Flo, which he sold at a low price to the old London County Council on condition it remained in public ownership and display. The leader of Tower Hamlets Council, the East End successor to the LCC, is threatening to sell it to shore up the Tower Hamlets budget. Again, it is being said the sum raised would not be very useful and would be soon gone. Again, outside bodies have involved themselves. Bromley Council, who took over residual duties from the old Greater London Council, the successor to the London County Council (yes, this is as complicated as it sounds), have claimed ownership of the sculpture. The London Museum in Docklands have offered the piece a home, plus the cost of insurance and maintenance and transport from the Yorkshire Sculpture Park were the work currently resides (the original home of the sculpture, a council housing estate, has been demolished).

Then there is the case of the Wedgewood Museum, threatened with bankruptcy and the breakup of its unique ceramics collection because of well-meaning but nonsensical pension law (a few employees worked for the old Waterford Wedgewood company, whose pension fund has a huge black hole, as a result of which the authorities are saying the hole must be plugged by the Museum - again, this is as complicated as it sounds).

None of these cases has been resolved to date, but decisions will be needed soon (by the end of 2013 in the case of the Wedgewood Museum). In Detroit's case, the huge Diego Rivera murals of the city's famous car industry would fortunately be difficult to remove, and it would be particularly invidious to attempt to do so as the work not only commemorates the city's raison d'etre, but was specially commissioned from the 20th-century's most distinguished muralist. Still, you could make a similar case against the removal of altar pieces, which hasn't stopped many of them being stripped from their original church surroundings.

Then there are cases where public works are stolen, like the Hepworth sculpture in Dulwich Park I blogged about earlier in the year, or the recent case of works stolen from a Dutch gallery which were feared to have been burned in a Romanian oven (though the thieves are now reported to be trying to negotiate a deal). Not to mention the innumerable goldsmiths and silversmiths whose work was melted down for its bullion value or to make new pieces. And the works destroyed in wars, like those that disappeared in the Dresden fire bombing.

All of which only strengthens my resolve to experience as many artworks as I can while they (and I) are still around.

Patrick Caulfield and Gary Hume at Tate Britain

Interesting "two-for-one" - but does it work?

 

Tate Britain is currently showing two adjoining exhibitions of recent British artists for one entrance price; I don't recall this happening before, and the exhibition booklet does not give an explanation. Is it because neither artist would be particularly successful on his own? Unlikely in the case of Patrick Caulfield at least, who has been popular since the 1960s; Gary Hume is probably less popular with the general public, but is still a big contemporary name - maybe the juxtaposition with Caulfield is intended to raise his profile? Anyway, the show provides an interesting contrast and provokes some thoughts about postwar British art (is that the reason for the show?)

 

 

 

Caulfield's work is usually visually appealing, but not very emotionally engaging. The works shown (this is a fairly small show) represent aspects of modern life in a flat, stylised, boldly coloured style reminiscent of colour advertising (he is often thought of as a Pop artist, although he disliked the label). Many are still lives, and if human beings are included we are not obviously invited to empathise with them. Something I had not noticed before is that some paintings seem to include collage elements, but they are in fact painted too - naturalistic flowers, for example, in an otherwise highly stylised painting. Ultimately his work is enigmatic: is the emotional distance a comment on dehumanising aspects of modern life? do the realistic flowers highlight the modern distance from nature? are the depictions of consumer products and corporate spaces approving, neutral or mocking? I have been around long enough to recall his work over the decades, and I must say I thought his work wore well. As he died in 2005, this seemed just the right time for a retrospective.

 

 

 



Gary Hume is in some ways superficially similar to Caulfield, but much less accessible. His work would not fit as easily in a corporate boardroom or public waiting area as Caulfield's does. His surfaces also use flat areas of bold colour, but the subject matter seems to refer to real life indirectly, rather than directly as with Caulfield. This is in spite of the fact that he was originally known for paintings of doors (he has made the entrance to the exhibition look like one of these works): these are almost, but not quite, abstract. One painting is of an arm holding a pom pom, but the rest of the cheerleader (if such she is) remains a mystery. Some works have a grotesque quality, some are sweetly decorative. But he clearly means to engage in a way it seems Caulfield did not. Hume uses enamel and gloss paint, which impart a sumptuous sheen associated with luxury objects. In some, the colours are separated with ridges, which looks like the wire in cloisonne decoration. Unfortunately, often I did not engage with the paintings much as I did not really understand the references - the grotesque works I found more immersive as I found them easier to understand. The sensuality and decorative aspects were also easy to respond to - Hume clearly loves paint, colour and surface effects, and his use of them is quite different from the apparently cool Caulfield. Hume lives in the USA, which perhaps makes him less well known to the British public than he might be, so again a retrospective is timely.

 

So, are two better than one? In this case, I think it is. The two artists are intriguingly similar but different, which forced me to think about the differences. The contrast between distanced and immersive approach made me realise that the distanced effect is more typical of British art, which is perhaps a way of saying it tends to have a fairly intellectual approach. But as Caulfield shows, this may be cool but it doesn't have to be cold. Hume's more emotional approach seemed more hit and miss to me - jump in and see what happens rather than a considered statement - but was potentially more life-affirming. It depends what you want from art. Maybe the point of this show is that, unlike artists, we don't have to make a choice.