Walker Art Gallery

Visit: 23rd March

Paula Rego - "In the Comfort of Her Bonnet"
From "hhfineart.co.uk"

I had mixed feelings about this exhibition. Whilst there were a lot of big names in this new acquisitions show (Anish Kapoor, Stella McCartney, Yoko Ono, Louise Bourgeois), I didn't know whether it was the work or the name which afforded more appraisal or interest. Having said this, I did enjoy it and there were a lot more traditional process pieces than I expected (but I suppose this would fit in with the Walker's reputation). For example, Paul Rego's series of works based on 'Jane Eyre' were beautiful for their use of line, colour and shading - I really loved the variation of line within the piece and the lithograph style is something that really interests me. There was also a gouache piece, 'Crowd Version B' by Alexander Adams that I really liked, mainly for the intimacy of the small size of the piece and it's delicacy.

But I did think some of the works were more of a achievement for their name than the work, such as a dress by Stella McCartney based on a George Stubbs painting. Perhaps its because I don't have much of a fashion interest, but I didn't think it was that great - it looked a bit dull and clumsy. Pieces such as this were nicely balanced with new artists and degree pieces, which I thought worked well as the kudos of the bigger names granted other lesser-known artists the same attention and audience. I'm not sure though whether McCartney and Ono's pieces were collected for their relationship with the city and its heritage, but if they were I have mixed feelings about this. I've been in Liverpool since July and from what I've gathered it seems to be a bit of a bitter homage to its own former glories (all of which are gone). But The Beatles got out of Liverpool and never came back, as did all of the big merchants that made it a city in the first place. It seems so obsessed with clinging on to these connections that wanted to disassociate themselves with the place - and I think this is maybe reflected in the new acquisitions in the Walker with these two artists. 

Overall, the exhibition was much better than I thought it would be - it was perhaps a bit dull and safe, but I think it's a great setting to have a juxtaposition between old and new artworks. It's also interesting to see what art galleries are collecting.

The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things

Visit: 1st March 2013

from "yourlittleampersand.tumblr.com"

I felt quite alienated from the exhibition. I was really trying to understand the relationships between the objects, which I assumed was the meaning, but I couldn’t gather anything very ‘deep’ or intellectual – only the similarity of body parts or machinery. Because of this, I didn’t feel like I understood the exhibition, in fact, I felt quite stupid. (And a look through the visitor comments book didn’t make me feel alone in this!)

The only thing which grabbed my attention was the penis model which Malcolm McDowell kills a woman with in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ – that made me feel like the exhibition was worth seeing because it’s such a classic film prop. However, I’m not sure whether I felt comfortable with it being high-jacked for the purpose of an exhibition. As with Glam!, I enjoy the mix of high and low culture in art, but I think the rather pretentious gathering of objects with some cult status, ambiguity, or cheap shock factor reduced the worth of the prop – it made it sink into that world of pretention and clever-clever self-congratulating intellectual worth of the exhibition which is an association I didn’t want it to have.