Category: Exhibitions

I could not attend this exhibition in person, but once I was informed that it was available as a virtual tour, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get to experience something that I thought I had missed the opportunity of viewing.

The early self portrait does not suggest sadness, although it is done in the Blue Period. So too, La Vie suggest creativity, the start of humankind. 

His choice of  circus performers in the Rose period might have come from his sense of being outsider, as an artist. There is a greater lightness to these pictures than those of the Blue period.

The inclusion of non Western influences in his work creates more disturbing images, with a focus on the face, such as in the Demoiselles d’Avignon.

He then heads towards greater abstraction, using not faces but solid objects such as a guitar, a bottle. I liked the costume designs for “Parade” with the splash of colour and little dots around and within it, and the skyscraper costume which  forces the viewer to look at it.

The self portrait of this time is disturbing like a Cubist image but in a subtler way. There is something almost alien and inhuman about the “Head of Woman”. The images of Walter go one step further, with what looks like a penis on her head.

From the War images, the man and sheep series is oddly heartwarming, creating a pet/master dynamic. The disturbing  sheep skull drawings remind me of the dark images H. R. Giger or David Kronenberg.

I liked the grouping of small paintings of women, which was creative and different to his previous compositions. 

Overall, Picasso’s work is extraordinarily varied in style, sometimes erotic, other times cubist, with many different kinds of art such as portraits and sculpture. 

The exhibition is available to view virtually here.

The church was luxurious and opulent.

There was a revolving door and I saw a few lit candles near pictures of Jesus

I saw four screens at the end of a hall, each with a person martyring him or herself.

One man was curled on the floor, then was pulled up by the feet and had icy cold water poured on them. We was finally pulled up and away to parts unknown.

One man sits alone and in silence on a chair, sparks reign down around him but he ignores them. The sparks ignite and start a blazing fire that flourishes into a raging inferno but he man ignores this as well, and thought the chair he sits on catches fire, he remains unburnt.

Another was shown in total and utter reverse, starting with a unidentifiable, nebulous person almost completely buried under a pile of grating sand. The sand is slowly pulled upward and sucked of offscreen. The person is more and more uncovered, like an ancient monument being uncovered by archaeologists. The person, reveal to be a man in white, gets to his feet and once the sand is gone altogether he stands in silence.

Another shows a woman being held by her feet and hands. She blown by tremendous, fearsome winds. She wear a white dress and was the one that least intrigued me.

Another video in another room on the other side of the church, only a short walk away, shows the symbolism of Mary, starting with a bald black woman in a red dress breastfeeding an infant, healthy, clean looking river near some mountains, then showing a live campfire, a comparing crouching near it (presumably for warmth), a dark and bleak forest, a cactus, a line of dead fish, a house on a dark night,a of Mary in a blue hood holding and looking at a dead Jesus,

One of the aims of the experimental film module is going to see experimental film work in situ, so we went to the Tate Modern to see the work of Nam June Paik, the ‘godfather’ of video art.

Below are some of my thoughts about his work.

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“TV BUDDHA“

” TV Buddha” shows the Buddha in a seated position with an image of him being reflected through a TV screen. 

I found the uncomfortable juxtaposition between the meditating Buddha and the TV monitor interesting, as people meditate to disconnect from technology. I would never meditate in front of a TV monitor as it represents the very thing I want to seek solace from when I meditate. 

When we meditate, we seek to confront ourselves, but Nam June Paik superficialises the Buddhist form of self-reflection by placing this TV Monitor infront of the Buddha.

I feel like TV Buddha also plays on our identity being slowly constructed and created through another reality, in this current age we are often represented through electric currents pixelated onto a screen, our consciousness being reflected through a digital medium…something that did not exist in Gautama’s lifetime.

It also reminded me of W.E.B Dubois’ concept of having a ‘double consciousness‘ – a psychological challenge or internal conflict that oppressed persons feel about their identity being fragmented, feeling that their sense of self is partly influenced by how they are viewed by the oppressor. 

In this context, the Buddha was the oppressed and the TV was the oppressor, representing the inescapable wrath of Western ‘globalisation’ transmitting the identities and bodies of the Other onto a TV Screen that can be broadcasted for the world to see.

“TV GARDEN”

Upon entering the exhibition, I saw an installation of an array of TV sets that appear to grow from the luscious ‘garden’ of foliage in a dark room, with the TV sets being the only light source. Different images of people and objects glared on the screen whilst the foliage remained still and immobile.

Something seemed off about TV sets being nestled in flora and fauna and to me, it seemed like the representation of the relationship between man and nature as throughout human history we have had a desire, an everlasting need to conquer and claim unexplored spaces. TV sets represented this achievement, as in the era of the digital age we are now able to explore everything – satellites allow us to see into the deepest corners of the Borneo to the Amazon – we have successfully conquered nature.

“UNCLE AND AUNT”

What I found interesting about Uncle & Aunt was the fact that these robots were a part of a robot family he created, using newer monitors for the younger members of the family, representing the technological innovations of humans over time.

All in all I very much appreciated the fact I got to see this fascinating exhibition. Seeing his work instantly made me think Nam June Paik was a humorous guy, who also had a deep passion to explore his Korean and East-Asian side through his work and I think his use of Buddhism showed his passion to explore Buddhist thought around the human mind and the link it has with our technological innovations.