Yn ôl i'r Eisteddfod Genedlaethol unwaith eto

Waw, anodd credu mae 6 mlynedd ers i fi fod ar y Maes yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol yn ddiwetha! Difficult indeed to believe it's been six years since I was at the National Eisteddfod, when it was last in South Wales! To be honest it feels more like 10 years, what with Coronovirus and all the other political shananagins happening in between.

The event this year is taking place in Pontypridd's Ynysangharad Park, which was a great location because you enter the Maes via bridges over the River Taff. Of course, I headed pretty quickly to Y Lle Celf, the Eisteddfod's annual national art exhibition. It made me appreciate how lucky we were in Cardiff in 2018 to be able to use the fabulous Senedd building in Cardiff Bay. This year is was in a large, anonymous, hot and noisy temporary hangar building. You couldn't even see the sign saying "Y LLE CELF" if the front door was propped open. However, there was a good selection and variety of art and craft on display, at least. And I have to admit, it takes some gumption and skill to create a major art exhibition from the ground up, for one week only, in the middle of a damp Rhondda park.

The winner of the Medal Aur am Gelfyddyd Gain/Gold Medal for Fine Art, Angharad Pearce Jones, was really no surprise because her installations formed the entrance to the Lle Celf exhibition. A choice of two routes led you either one side or the other of her steel fence, dividing a room and slicing through a table, which amongst other things was a comment on Brexit. Bold and ambitious, no one could deny the prize was well deserved.

Unfortunately I forgot to vote in the People's Choice competition. My excuse is I was distracted by a very gripping and entertaining performance piece by Esyllt Lewis, which involved jelly and a large glass of water. I'm normally drawn towards the paintings - and there were several that were great fun - but I might have been tempted to vote for Susan Adams' Cynllun ar gyfer y Lloches/Plan for the Asylum, a basketwork sculpture which also involved various paintings and an animation.

I came back for a second day to take part in the Darlunio ar daith/Sketching Tour of the Maes. Only ten minutes at each of a variety of locations to choose a view/subject and complete a drawing on a fold-out sketchbook provided by Y Lle Celf. It was a great exercise and I was pleased with most (though not all) of my efforts. It was part of a project by Geraint Ross Evans, who'd made a giant drawing (on display in front of Y Lle Celf) of the Rhondda Valley through time - though I belive that one took him slightly more than 10 minutes! I'm still trying to find out what happens with the results of our 'taith'. Gawn ni weld!

Y Lleoedd Celf

Mae’r Eisteddfod Genedlaethol wedi dod i ben ym Mae Caerdydd/The National Eisteddfod has drawn to a close in Cardiff Bay. It’s clearly been an amazing feat of organisation, negotiation and ambition to take over some of the most iconic buildings in the city and create an Eisteddod without fences ...except the ones necessary to stop stupid people falling into the Bay.

I had four amazing days helping steward “Y Lle Celf”, the Eisteddfod’s art exhibition,  in the Welsh Government’s Senedd building. After three days my face was familiar enough to the security screening personnel  to be able to wave me through without taking my belt and watch off. Though it also took me about the same length of time to get used to the wayfinding in a building not designed for displaying art. Andre Stitte’s vast sculpture and the stairs to the craft and ceramics on the top floor were clearly visible. But there were more than a few people who promptly left without realising there was a cornucopia of paintings, sculpture and audio-visual treats in the basement.

Stitt’s work was familiar to me from its previous outing at the 2016 Eisteddfod, but had grown upwards and sideways in ambition, much more conveying its desired impression of high rise architecture and grid style towns of the 1960s, much less of formica kitchen tops.

My personal favorites changed as the week went on. Ray Church, a ceramicist based in Carmarthen and no doubt Wales’ answer to Grayson Perry, had combined traditional style Greek vases with images of modern military hardware to create a political commentary. This surely was the most appropriate form of art for its location at the centre of Wales government. 

Meanwhile, in the depths of the basement with its own specially constructed wall to boot, was Jennifer Taylor’s “The Guardian at the Heart Machine”, a multifaceted tin foil cave of audio-visual art which, for the most part, was accompanied by Jenny’s actual legs. It not only conveyed a rich sense of the prehistory of West Wales, but also showed tremendous dedication to spend hours twitching your legs sticking out of a giant blue sphere. I had the pleasure of meeting the rest of Jenny on her off-duty moments.

Zoe Preece’s two tables (to describe them in an over-prosaic way) grew on me, partly because they needed extra special attention from the stewards to prevent anyone from damaging, moving, or walking off with one of the 45+ pieces of porcelain. Both of the tables had head-scratching titles, “The way the earth remembers our bodies” and “An archive of longing”. Both had that delightful reveal of being something other than its initial appearance. She walked away with two prizes, as well as (so I’ve been told) selling both works.

It was odd, in many ways, that so few of the works on display conveyed much of an archetypal sense of ‘Welsh-ness’. There were no textiles (or sheep’s wool) visible. Only one that I recall used the Welsh language. Perhaps this was because the exhibition was more oriented towards the industrialised non-Welsh speaking south. From the point of view of the Welsh language, BayArt’s “Dim ond Geiriau (ydi iaith)” exhibition down the road was far more fitting, and the symposium on Wednesday involving Welsh-speaking and non-Welsh speaking Welsh artists was a fascinating contribution to the debate about ‘Welsh’ art and the language.

Wel, roedd profiad gwych a chofiadwy, dw I’n edrych ymlaen i’r tro nesa!

Sweetness and Light

At last I found myself in Cardiff with a couple of hours spare to visit the 2014 Artes Mundi (‘Art of the World’) exhibition at the Amgueddfa Genedlaethol. To be honest I was prepared to be unimpressed, after seeing the lacklustre offerings at Chapter Arts Centre.

However, the National Museum exhibition hit you in the face with a visual and acoustic maelstrom as soon as you step through the gallery doors. Chicago artist Theaster Gates presents you with three engaging installations of ‘found objects’, spotlit in a darkened room to the backing incantations of “Amazing Grace”. There are strong religious overtones everywhere. Art should engage and this definitely engaged me. Theaster Gates has an interesting background, setting up a project in Chicago selling artworks to finance the refurbishment of buildings using salvaged materials. I guess his section of slate roofing at Artes Mundi has some allusion to his interest in buildings and construction, though on closer inspection it is put together in a crude manner so flatters to deceive!

There is an architectural element in the next exhibition space, an epic one, which divides the room in three using two impressive, full height walls made from corrugated cardboard and packing tape. Contrary to its name, Carlos Bunga’s “Exodus” certainly didn’t make me leave immediately. It relates directly to the human scale and to the generous Edwardian exhibition space of the Amgueddfa. This site-specific aspect I admire. But at the same time it puts in mind those corporate team building exercises where you build a tower using balloons, straws and sellotape. Bunga’s walls are sturdy and the idea might be cute, but it seems to be put together without any love. An architect would say, like Gates’ roof, it is let down by the detailling. The artworks in the newly created white spaces are easily missed and forgettable.

Upstairs the exhibition takes a completely different turn. Renzo Martens’ chocolate sculptures have caught the imagination of the reviewers. Beyond the heady smell of cocoa, this is a presentation that raises the question of authorship as well as global issues of poverty, capitalism and exploitation. I love it!!! Beyond the tactile and sensuous nature of the chocolate self-portraits, there lies the story of an ambitious project in Central Africa. Martens (et al?) set up the grandly titled Institute of Human Activities on an ex-Unilever cocoa plantation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This was a collective project which engaged the local population in creating art, ostensibly keeping the money and accolade for their art within Africa. But very much to the chagrine of the capitalist landowners, it seems. In 2013 Feronica (successor of Unilever) kicked them out and they had to relocate to a more clandestine location.

Collapsible pseudo paste-tables leave me cold. I passed quickly through Renata Lucas’s installation space (the hinged boards around the edge of the room were kept conveniently flat) and found myself unexpectedly at the cinema, a darkened room showing a 40 minute film in German. Video art normally does nothing for me, though this piece by Omer Fast was extremely professional indeed. If only I’d had 40 minutes spare (and a box of popcorn). Steve McQueen watch your back!

According to the visitor e-comments, cardboard walls have won the day. But Gates and Martens tick all my boxes, with their thoughtful, layered and socially engaged practise. If Gates or Martens win the 2014 Artes Mundi it will be very well deserved and I’ll be very happy. Martens in particular meets all the criteria of ‘Art of the World’ and he gets my vote. I only hope, if he wins, the award will be collected by the combined forces of the Congolese Plantation Workers Art League!!

Artes Mundi 6 exhibition continues till 22 February at the National Museum, Cardiff, Chapter Arts Centre and Ffotogallery, Penarth (winners announced on 22 January)

Love Is Quite Enough

This weekend my curiosity drew me to Middle England, to see the “Love Is Enough” exhibition at Modern Art Oxford. The show, curated by leftie Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller, juxtaposes the work of local Arts & Crafts designer William Morris and late 20th-century American Pop Artist, Andy Warhol. Deller makes the claim that the two have a lot in common.

Okay, so I read the online review by The Torygraph before I left to catch my train. My natural default reaction is to immediately disagree with every value espoused by The Torygraph. In this case the review was absolutely scathing and claimed the only good thing about the exhibition was its lack of an entry fee. On the surface of things I couldn’t help but agree that Morris and Warhol seem absolute opposites and I arrived at the multicoloured doors of MOA fervently hoping Deller had identified something we’d all missed!!

The upper galleries of MOA displayed an extremely interesting mixture of key works by Morris and Warhol, a rare and special chance indeed to see this work in the same place. Morris & Co.’s epic and mythical “Attainment” tapestry faced-off against Warhol’s …erm …woven version of Marilyn Monroe. Around the next corner were his paintings and screenprints of East Russian missile sites, Chairman Mao and two of his Electric Chair series. Morris’s famous wallpaper patterns were exhibited extensively in a third room  alongside Warhol’s decorative ‘Camouflage’ paintings. The superficial similarities were often obvious, but somewhat forced and occasionally bizarre. Most stupidly, Warhol’s 1973 series of Chairman Mao prints were displayed above a cabinet of Morris’s socialist manifestos, pamphlets and membership cards. Mao’s image was ubiquitous during the 1970s and I somehow doubt Warhol’s fascination meant he had signed up to the Chinese Communist Party or become remotely as left-leaning as Morris, the campaigning socialist activist!!

True, Morris and Warhol each strove to make art and design more widely available in everyday life (at one point Warhol described his pop art as “Commonism”). They were both propagandists of some sort. Morris and Warhol both became inextricably associated with their personal ‘brand’. Both Morris and Warhol had a fascination with a mythical ideal – for Morris this was the fabled heroes of myth and legend, while Warhol obsessed about modern celebrity pop culture.

Unfortunately, I’m still not entirely convinced this exhibition does justice to either Morris, Warhol, or Deller for that matter. Sure, it creates an attention grabbing juxtaposition and an excuse to fly-in some great art from around the Western world to a backstreet of Oxford. But superficial similarities in artists’ output rarely if ever have a direct correlatation with their motives, beliefs or manifestos. All major artists share a certain commonality of ambition, but another curator could have easily constructed an argument here that the two artists’ oeuvres were actually completely different. However, I’ll agree with Deller that even Warhol, the most overt exponent of the commercial American dream, was confronted with the contradictions and alternative images of the day which reflected an experience that was not out-and-out capitalist, black and white, or comfortable. To the Torygraph’s chagrine they can’t claim him as one of their own either!

Exhibition continues at Modern Art Oxford until 8 March 2015.

In Post

Well, here I am helping to pay my winter fuel bills by sorting Christmas mail for the Post Office. Fringe benefits include getting covered with glitter and living on a diet of reasonably priced fried breakfasts served at ridiculous o'clock in the morning.

To my delight I've found I'm working next to several creative types, a Photography graduate and someone with a PhD in Art Theory (you know who you are if you're reading this - great to meet you). Maybe we've been specially recruited because we're nimble with our fingers, but more likely the truth is there are a great deal of art and design professionals who find it difficult to make a full time living from their work, so take what they can to pay the bills.

I perversely enjoy the reality check (as well as walking to work in the moonlight, scrambled egg on tap, more red envelopes that you can shake a stick at, finishing work at 2pm etc). It's a healthy reminder (aside from greasy breakfasts) that most people have unfortunately had creativity extracted from their lives and jobs, with little choice in when and how we do work, or get paid. It's part of modern life, something artist's need to relate to and not ignore from behind their individual bohemian solutions.

Mind you, I don't think I'm giving away any secrets when I say we could do a better job of the mural in the Royal Mail training room.

Nadolig Llawen/Merry Christmas from CF11!!

Landschaften von Kiefer

The BBC broadcast an exhilarating late night programme this week about the German artist Anselm Kiefer. He is an artist with an overabundance of energy, passion and resources which have led to the creation of a 200 acre sculpture park in the south of France which staggers my artistic and architectural sensibilities! Passion and drive are attractive qualities in artists and Kiefer combines these with the good fortune of being born at the very beginning of the German post-Nazi, post-war period, exploring the biggest human and political issues with disarming self-certainty.

Early in October I treated myself to a trip to London and, in preference to the dry video-based offerings of the Turner Prize nominees, I visited the newly opened Anselm Kiefer exhibition at the Royal Academy. I had made absolutely the right decision and thoroughly enjoyed my two hours inside the galleries (particularly because it was chucking down with rain outside).

Kiefer is the very opposite of everything I normally stand for - I prefer tiny canvases in vibrant colour, touching on specific people and issues. And I'm proudly an artistic nobody, I have often wondered whether the size of an artist's canvases have a direct correlation to the size of their ego, reputation, workplace and bank balance. Kiefer's 200-acre French estate, hangar-sized studio and collosal artworks suggest he is some sort of art world Bond villian with an ego the size of a large planet, though unfortunately for my theory he comes across in the BBC documentary as thoroughly charming and genuine.

The Royal Academy exhibition consisted of a continuous feast of canvases, generally vast planes of encrusted paint, straw, wire, tar, mud and clay. Enormous sculptural sunflowers came to represent life (maybe mankind reaching to god) while the clay, mud and brickdust represented death and renewal ('dust to dust'). Many works contained sheets of maleable grey lead, no doubt a by-product of Kiefer acquiring all of the lead from the roof of Cologne Cathedral sometime in the 1980s! The physicality of his paintings impressed me most, not only in size but in texture, tangible objects rather than 2-dimensional studies on a flat plane. The centrepiece of the exhibition was a site-specific sculpture combining all of the elements of his paintings and, sublimely self referential, recycling used canvases as the main ingredient of the recipe.

Watch the BBC "Imagine" programme if you can. He's a difficult artist to ignore ...and apparently for the right reasons!

Cardiff Octoberfest

Cardiff's annual "Made in Roath" event, dominating the east side of the city, drew to a close this evening but it is only one of a plethora of major art events happening around the city this month. Coincidence or out-and-out competition, I'm not quite sure. "Cardiff Contemporary", is popping up all over the city till 9 November and has certainly stolen the limelight from MiR. Bigger still is the prestigious "Artes Mundi", attracting an international audience to the National Museum from 24 October onwards. Meanwhile "Empty Walls" gathers over 20 national and international street artists to decorate Cardiff's grey buildings with vibrant murals. On the weekend of 25/26 October Cardiff Open Studios throws the doors open on the remainder of the city's artists. In Cardiff Bay, the Butetown History and Art Centre launches Wales' first exhibition of 'Outsider Art', running until 16th November.

I had to spend several days scurrying back and forth across town because several pieces of my work were on display. My "United Colours of Madiba" painting got its first airing at Roath's SHO Gallery. My photograph of the Howard Gardens Art College campus was used prominently for the publicity and display at G39. In BHAC my "Portrait of a Diary as a Young Idea" fits well into the impressive array of paintings and sculpture on the 'Outsider Art' theme.

Fun though this may be, it is bewildering even for someone like myself who thought they were getting to grips with the artist personalities and groups in Cardiff. One would have thought, with 11 other months to choose from, there would be scope to spread these events out a bit! My heart tells me I should engage with the Made in Roath event, even though (said very quietly) I no longer live in ...erm ...Roath (and now the Roath Independence referendum has voted an overwhelming "YES" I may need a passport and visa to go to work). Made in Roath continues to be ultra popular, community based, democratic and encouraging mass participation and pride in the local area. In contrast "Cardiff Contemporary" goes down the more traditional route of professional artists presenting their work to the public in galleries, pop-ups and (occasionally) street corners. Exhibitions are selective and chosen from within the city's art scene. My head tells me I need to aim to engage with this event and, well, entering "Artes Mundi" is a distant pipe dream!!

Fortunately I can head for one of October's beer based "Octoberfest" events, hopefully numbing my brain to all this choice and confusion!!

http://madeinroath.com/
http://www.cardiffcontemporary.co.uk/
http://www.bhac.org/