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"MASTERPIECE"
ART FAIR: THE ROYAL HOSPITAL CHELSEA (S. GROUNDS), LONDON, SW3 - FACADE &
ENTRY
(paste-up 2-pics 05-07-17)
... in process
Staged in the grounds of
Christopher Wren's magnificently restrained and dignified hospital
(a building that is indeed a "masterpiece") and hiding the best view of it from the
Chelsea Embankment road, the "Masterpiece" art and antiques fair tent was
fronted with a vast photographic pastiche of a small portion of Wren's windowed facades, endlessly repeated at a 'baby-like'
2/3 scale - a
fatuous mockery of Wren's building and thus an insulting imputation//
presumption
regarding the cultural type and quality of
the fair's 'posh' visitors and potential
customers.
If was a joke - i.e. poking fun at the monotonously common
fakery of Classicism and its seemingly unassailable mass-popular association with dignity and power
(eg: the favorite style of despots); superior education and culture; and in this case, having fun scaling its visitors to look like giants as they passed it by (see
next pic) ... then fair game!
Or was Classicism (a mass-mnemonic for cultural quality, reinforced in this case by location and direct visual-culling from the prestigious Wren buildings it eclipsed) intentionally chosen for this huge work of economically engineered kitsch, cynically intended ('on the cheap') to invoke in its visitors a snobbish sense of cultural and financial superiority and
valued connoisseurship, and thus an appropriate costume for an outstandingly superior and expensive collection of art and craft 'Masterpieces' (many of which
however were not Classical).
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"MASTERPIECE"
ART FAIR:
THE ROYAL HOSPITAL
CHELSEA (S. GROUNDS), LONDON, SW3
- FACADE (NEPTUNUS STRUCTURES) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwGPgeZLyj8
www.accessaa.co.uk/in-pictures-neptunus-at-masterpiece-london/
(pic 05-07-17)
... in process
Main facade = 14 hung-fabric panels, each depicting x4
win-bays of a x4-story facade; x3 more panels back the portico, the 2 outside ones each depict x2 window-bays, the
non-windowed bays and the centre panel provide a plain brick backing for the entrance
porch and doors. In addition the 'building' has a laid-back portion at each end - the
right-hand faced with 2 panels, the left-hand with 8
panels.
[Site
pictures]
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"MASTERPIECE"
ART FAIR: THE ROYAL HOSPITAL CHELSEA (S. GROUNDS), LONDON, SW3 -
FACADE-ENTRY
(pic 05-07-17)
...
in process
A gigantically over-scaled 'Stripped-Classical'
portico, whose portentous mass (judged by the bulk of its columns) and
red-carpet-exclusivity-filter, must strike a reminder of filmic grandeur into
the hearts of (let us hope) appropriately kitsch-sensitive visitors, is
boxed-onto the flimsy photo-facade.
To the right of the overwhelming portico, the
pretend 'building' ends with a
bizarre 'fudge', its final facade photo-panel is badly positioned and the 'building'
seems cut-short. Having come to accept the pretend
building's solid reality, this seemingly 'magical' truncation produces a
visual shock; added to this is a ludicrous (unintended) joke: the photo-facade is
stretched around the 'building's' corner and this has bent its final dormer-window like an object
about to topple off a shelf.
#
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"MASTERPIECE"
ART FAIR: THE ROYAL HOSPITAL CHELSEA (S. GROUNDS), LONDON, SW3 - THE 'SHOP' OF
A FAMOUS PARISIAN GALLERY
(pic 05-07-17)
... in process
An agglomeration of objects that strongly relate under the unifying theme of
expense, luxury, rarity, beauty.
Made from quasi-permanent natural materials: stone, metal, clay, glass -
extra-ordinary because complex and precise yet hand-crafted with simple tools
- thus unique. Made in obedience to modes
of beauty that cannot since be authentically replicated
- thus antique, What
is kitsch here is ##not so much the fact that the physical refinement and
decorative elaboration of these pre-industrial products are basically
pointless - made by skilled crafters to furnish and
illustrate the lavish life-styles of their rich
contemporaries and
signal their users aesthetic refinement
and superiority of wealth. ##That
they are
still the currency of snobbery
-
but inflated in value by their freight of time; their glamour of uniqueness
(impossible to now originate except as 'repros'). ##But
that they are now
potentially 'dead possessions' divorced from real
aesthetic/practical significance - Separated from
the then excitement of their commissioners and owners, and from normal use in
that genuine context of aesthetic admiration and pleasure in using
splendid utensils. Outside of a museum, their now
status is as mere relics, useless objects topping the modern price-cone of trash-kitsch
(witness previous pics!).
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3
: KITSCH-ART AND ILLUSTRATION
The
first 2 examples depict the stereotypical features of some culturally-local 'paradise';
the 3rd (though it shares a flavor of their dreams) presents itself as the
stereotypical talented arty-painting, not an 'origination' (which would exclude
the taste/understanding of many punters) but a piece of work that typifies the
most popular type of local Paris art: turn of the century Impressionist
painting, but here performed with a 'passion and verve of inspiration' (actually
a rapidity of technique learned via repetition) rather than attempting truth to sensation
!
Examples
4 and 5 typify hypocritical effects of an 'art-market'. ....in
process
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JIGSAW
BOX-LID PICTURE: "THE SHADED WALK"
(pic
07-11-2002)
... in process
Fantasies of Paradise are made of all the nicest most memorable physical (illustratable)
features of Earth (as filtered via each particular culture's mass-taste
'software' - this version is 'antique Classical'). Obviously 'Paradise' excludes all the less pleasant features,
obviously therefore one 'Paradise' does not suit all - for instance if
there was a drug-taker slumped on the shaded bench with a needle in his
arm, this 'Paradise' may be more complete for some, spoiled for others. Is
this why illustrated Paradises always seem to be lacking something ... and if
that something is a human being, would not that thinking/perceiving/judging
presence complicate and temporalize the stereotype to the point of chaos?
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FROM
A NEWSPAPER-MAGAZINE AD FOR A "FINE PORCELAIN COLLECTOR PLATE"
PRINTED WITH "THE PERIWINKLE TEA ROOMS" BY MARTY BELL 1988
(pic
07-11-2002)
This painting is described on the seller's
blurb as a "masterwork" by "Mrs.
Bell" 1988. It depicts an infantile fantasy of a cozy nest,
nestling somewhere in the English countryside - in "the forgotten gentle
world of yesteryear" - eagerly waiting to serve tea to time-travelers!
The plate on which this schmaltz icon is printed was made to profit from
a culture steeped in kitsch.
[For the full-page ad (pic+txt) click on
the pic]
. Pretend
Picasso
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'ORIGINAL'
PAINTING
DISPLAYED
FOR SALE IN THE PLACE DU TERTRE ARTIST-MARKET, MONTMARTRE, PARIS
(pic 1979)
The public Art-Kitsch Market:
Montmartre Place Du Tertre paintings are
among the most intensively mechanically-practiced examples of European pretend-art paintings
- the effusions of locations which have become tourist-culture's 'art =
social-glamour' pilgrimage-destinations. This Montmartre version was a
normal socialising location (cafe, cabaret, etc) for now famous artists from
late 19C to early 20C who were subsequently identified with initiating the
radical cultural cusp-transition mediated via "Impressionism" to
"Cubism"/"Surrealism". As evidenced by the above
painting, the location's popular art-mnemonic is "Impressionism"
(the nascent 20C art-radicalisations are too difficult to easily
stereotype).
The apparent
vitality of such a painting is only automaticity: skill-practiced along a narrow pathway of subject-matter
plus mode of paint-handling,
until the 'artist' becomes a slickness expert - manufacturing objects
that depend for most of their perceived value (if any ... in the minds of
ambulatory spectators) on vague memories of the manner of rendering visual
sensation in 19C Impressionist Parisian street scenes; secondly on the
(emphatically non-Impressionist) 'eye-catching' affect of subject-matter
processed through Academic/Commercial visual-compositional conventions.
Beyond all they lack curiosity - the opposite of art!
.
David
- Borderstone
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PRETEND 'PICASSO': EBAY
- $140 SUGGESTED BID
(pic 28-10-2017)
... in process
Modern marketing uses the web to
broadcast pretend-art kitsch to a planetary audience of potential
'collectors':
In this case both the for-sale
work and the web-ad itself could be said to be attempting to create a
context of suggested, rather than actual, authenticity, such as is
brandished by many unjustifiably embellished-with-mental-mnemonic-value
kitsch objects and events.
The web-page itself describes the
above in terms that seem to slide around the edges of authentication! Even the common meaning of 'a
painting' is rendered confusing in its text [below]. A sad irony is that this little
"Pablo Picasso Painting"[1] displays some signs of painterly talent!
[Ref: web-page].
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"LARGE DAVID STATUE":
'BORDERSTONE' - PRODUCT CODE: 22514; PAINTED IN ANTIQUE WHITE;
HEIGHT: 120cm
(pic: Borderstone www site 13-11-2017)
... in process
"Taking inspiration
from Michelangelo, Borderstone have recreated this masterpiece of
Renaissance sculpture in fine cast stone." [Ref:
Borderstone website].
Compared to the original [next pic] this little garden statue depicts a well
muscled, sexually over-endowed yob. (Its main existential purpose may be to
enhance by contrast the exquisitely detailed poise of the original !)
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MICHELANGELO: DAVID - 1501~1504 - GALLERIA
DELL'ACCADEMIA, FLORENCE
(pic: Jorg Bittner Unna [jbittner@web.de] 28-07-2016)
... in process
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AD
IN NEWSPAPER-MAGAZINE - LITHOS BY ANTHONY BRANDT
(pic 04-1972)
Here a kitsch aspect of the 'art-market' is represented by sexually-exploitive 'soft-porn' - marketed as
the work of "Britain's Modern Michelangelo"!
Though they have no value as
'art'[1] the imputation of 'kitsch' is not deserved by these slick, illustrational, physically skillful,
mechanically standardised drawings, and there is
nothing inherently dishonest in illustrating features of another's works (only in claiming them as ones
own - something only his gallery can be directly accused of ... though one may surely
presume acquiescence!).
What makes this kitsch
are the ludicrous and un-substantiatable claims made for this 'Artist's' talent
and 'World' status (including the invocation of Michelangelo as his precursor;
the implication that he wields "the techniques of the Old Masters";
etc.) - it is thus the advertisment itself that is kitsch and which illustrates
its deceitful aspect beloved of 'snake-oil salesmen'.
NOTE [1]: All the characteristics of these drawings are
derivative,
their skill learned from familiar visual-illustration techniques (indeed: derived in direct line of descent - via 19/20thC
Academism - from visual/experiential discoveries of the Renaissance ... however not as the ad claims:
thus bestowing quality ... rather
denoting a tired exercise of historically familiar skills!); they convey no originality, no personal experiential discovery and
are thus unable to claim the condition of 'art'.
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FOUNDATION
ART & DESIGN COURSE, LONDON:
1: PHOTO-BOOK OF STUDENTS' WORK / 2: WITH 'OFFICIAL' CENSORSHIP !
(pic early 1987)
... in process
Here the kitsch aspect of the
'art-market' is represented by 'what
morality sells to school teachers'. This example is
a Foundation Art Course photo-book of student works, made to present Course
results to visiting school groups. When the time for visits approached, the
image that was most indubitably a personal origination/an art work (as opposed
to a skillful drawing) had been hidden under an inserted sheet of
paper!
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4
: KITSCH-RELIGION
... in process
Kitsch
grows in non-ignorable plots of ignorance and avoidance: our origin and death.
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BUCKFAST ABBEY, BUCKFASTLEIGH, DEVON, TQ11
0EE - (REBUILT 1880s)
(pic 1984)
A 19thC ugly kitsch rebuild of an ancient abbey, in an architecturally and
structurally incompetent
pretense of Medieval styles. 'Kitsch' because the innate beliefs, desires,
stone-building-techniques that constituted 'Medieval' are past and cannot be
recovered, and because this
crude, muddled assemblage of stereotypical style-signs (which
since the last genuine Gothic innovation have come to constitute the mass-culture
mnemonic for "a Gothic sacred building")
confront with their dis-honesty the continuous self-endorsement of the
religion that uses them,
that houses itself in them - its honesty, truth, revelations, its self-advertising status as the
essence of being !
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BUCKFAST
ABBEY VISITOR CENTRE, BUCKFASTLEIGH, DEVON, TQ11 0EE - (VIEW FROM AN
UPSTAIRS CAFE)
(pic 1984)
The ugliness of this typical 'modern'
religion-location, is watched over by a stereotypical statue of the Virgin
Mary, isolated on a flowery island oddly circled with seats which face away
from her across a plane of asphalt. This ring of seats has attracted a squad
of ice-cream eating quasi-military-uniformed boy-cubs.
A story: a figure that mediates and
reflects projections of 'beautiful' emotions such as mercy, compassion,
loving forgiveness, looks out towards magnificent free-living trees from her
isolation in a location of crassly insensitive ugliness. If the pathos had
been intentionally designed: a visual sermon, perhaps demonstrating the
necessity of a search for redemption in this ugly sinful world, it might
avoid an accusation of kitsch, however it's more likely this whole setup is
simply an unseeing common-sense exercise in visitor facilities provision,
ie: a cafe (from which this view was recorded), an ugly shed-shop (labelled
- below its chimney - "Books
& Religious Items"!), a vastness of asphalt with a peculiar dearth
of seats (to accommodate crowds of mostly strolling/standing visitors), and
(because this whole establishment is under the aegis of 'the divine') a
small statue of the 'Mother of God' on a little flowery island.
The apparently unnoticed contradiction
between the values mediated by the religion's resident goddess and by the
ugly crassness of her (and our) location - suggests that a goddess of beauty
and goodness is a kitsch pretence of this mass-mnemonic 'religion', which
has smugly left to Mary (or rather a Mary statue!) the job of transforming
humanity's boorishness.
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COFFIN SHOP: 49 RUSHEY GREEN, LONDON, SE6
(pic c.2000)
... in proces
Expensive disposable
furniture faces the street. This should be a shocking
dis-continuity - that throws into relief the presumed existence
of this absurd world and all its bizarre human contradictions of natural
rational factuality and
connectedness.
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COFFIN SHOP: 49 RUSHEY GREEN, LONDON, SE6 -
"LAST SUPPER" COFFIN
(pic 08-2000)
A 'resting-place' for
a dead person - a lifeless body needs cozy comfort and even 'a Last Supper with Jesus'.
The whole thing is a stupid lie ("but you cant
be certain can you").
It's to reassure the lovers and spectators (and to line the undertakers' pockets).
From the outside it exudes comfort, a bed 'beyond our dreams of luxury' ... a magical dream space ('created' by a commercial-artist 'inspired' by the genius of Leonardo Da Vinci) in which my loved one can share in great company: Jesus and the apostles (shame about Judas).
Placed on the cushy mattress (enlarge the picture) is a paper slip like an invitation: "LAST SUPPER",
but do they really know who they're asking to the feast ... and when that suffocating lid closes over
the body's face its picture will be sideways to the eyes!
'Doing ones best for the dead loved one'. Isn't it possible to think of some way of celebrating their
enduring presence and disposing of their physical remainder, that is more
personally satisfying and consoling than this horrific kitsch mockery of the fact of
decomposition ... and its huge cost that is borne as an obligation of love!
(note the
writing on the wall beside it: "DISBURSEMENTS", and in the catalogue [next pic]: "Presented by:
£2690-00" - both snobby, euphemistic and coyly discreet terms of ones obligation to the
thoroughly commercial undertaker.)
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COFFIN SHOP: 49 RUSHEY GREEN, LONDON, SE6 - "LAST SUPPER"
CATALOG
(pic 10-2002)
... in process
.War-Memoria
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EARTH
GRAVE: EAST HAM CEMETERY, LONDON
(pic 1987)
The opposite of the preceding corpse coddling!
Probably this is a recently dug grave waiting for its stereotypical ceremonial adornments, meanwhile however
- in this mere earth state there is no horrible contrast between a
corpse and the marble purity of an 'eternal' monument*. The rough filling of earth covering the body shares its naturalness and provokes
little contrast in ones mind between the dissolution of what is buried and the living nature of the earth itself.
(The small muddle of abandoned offerings, seem in their dereliction
to appropriately memoralise the physical and psychic remains of organic
death.)
* It's almost impossible to invent
an appropriate grave-topping - one that truly satisfies the enigma of a
person's disappearance, that solves the total ignorance and
consequent reality-crisis for the still-living, that refuses
to
settle for regressing into
kitsch
illustrations of social/religious stereotypes.
The cemeteries are crowded
with bought monuments that surely exacerbate the unbearable mental/emotional
conflict between the horrible (visualised) reality
of the persistent corpse of a known person, hidden under some fatuous wish-fantasy expensively caved in 'everlasting' stone by a stranger or machine.
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WAR
MEMORIAL: BROAD ST. (NEXT TO CHURCH), HARLESTON, NORFOLK
(pic 02-01-2013)
... in process
Symmetry - the centrality
of this memorial, pillar and cross - is here (because this example is merely
a banal repetition of an aesthetic habit*) experienced as a 'demand that
one's attention is absorbed in attempting to psychically actualise an
important temporal event' ... not only as a human-disaster but somehow as an
event sanctioned by religion!
... in process
Ironically a real
present event has intervened: the physical collapse of a couple of strings
of celebratory lights, now (for me) serendipitously evoking
barbed-wire ... in process
* Note that cruciform
symmetry is deployed in Tantra as a psychically-affective symbol evoking the
origination
of the Phenomenal [example].
... in process.
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WAR
MEMORIAL: BROAD ST. (NEXT TO CHURCH), HARLESTON, NORFOLK
(pic 24-06-2017)
The kitsch pretence of
war: the barefaced
hypocrisy of presenting 'glory' and 'faithfulness' to the deceived,
conscripted and slaughtered. Especially
via this aesthetically bankrupt muddle of defunct symbols.
To balance
this kitsch tosh with a dose of sanity, here is a rare anti-war memorial:
Saint Martin d'Estreaux.
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