Iconoclasts explore the experimental and often transformational practices of thirteen groundbreaking artists, inviting us to engage anew with what modern day iconoclasm might be.
Thomas Mailaender
Daniel Crews-Chubb
By using a myriad of unusual image-making practices from branding imagery onto human skin to sculpting curving structures out of crow feathers – these artists are breaking the mould, ushering a new age of artistic defiance through their resistance to typical artistic processes and their personal interpretations of cultural mores.
Josh Faught
Alexi Williams Wynn – Douglas White
Dale Lewis
Makiko Kudo
Born in 1978, Aomori prefecture, Japan. Lives and works in Kanagawa prefecture, Japan.
Makiko Kudo, Stage Curtain, Oil on canvas, 194.5 x 259.2 cm, 2011
Makiko Kudo, Stage Curtain, Detail
The realm of dreams and memory is one that Kudo’s figures inhabit. Rather than confronting or depicting the world as it is, Kudo rejects it by escaping from it – deriving the motifs from everyday life and her own imagination.
Makiko Kudo, Floating Island, Oil on canvas 227 x 364.6 cm, 2012
Makiko Kudo, Floating Island, Detail
Makiko Kudo, Floating Island, Detail
Makiko Kudo
Makiko Kudo, Gray Town, Oil on canvas 227.5 x 365 cm, 2011
Makiko Kudo, Gray Town, Detail
Makiko Kudo, Gray Town, Detail
Makiko Kudo, Invisible, Oil on canvas 182.0 x 227.5 cm, 2011
Makiko Kudo, Burning Red, Oil on canvas 181.5 x 227 cm, 2012
“I feel like a kind of a ghost in a thin and flimsy world. Because I lack a sense of volume and reality. I sense reality more in my dreams. Constructing a painting in similar to dreaming. Shuffling different landscapes, creating stories and connecting them with emotion and imagination, like a collage or a jigsaw puzzle.”
Makiko Kudo, I See Season, Oil on canvas 259.5 x 389 cm, 2010
This exhibition celebrates the work of Black artists working in the united states in the two decades after 1963. During this turbulent time, these artists asked and answered many questions. How should an artist respond to political and cultural changes? Was there a ‘Black art’ or a ‘Black aesthetic’? Should an artist create legible images or make abstract work? Was there a choice to be made between addressing a specifically Black audience or a ‘universal’ one? The exhibition looks at responses to such questions.
In 1963, when the exhibition begins, the American Civil Rights Movement was at its height. At the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in Washington D.C., Dr Martin Luther King, Jr dreamed that his children would live in ‘a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character’.
King referred to himself proudly as ‘Negro’, but by this time, many who were on the March were beginning to call themselves Black. Taking issue with King’s non-violent position, especially after appalling racist violence later in 1963, many joined in calls for ‘Black Power’.
Others rejected in idea of an integrated America, and began to speak of a separate, autonomous Black Nation. Looking at newly independent African nations, and understanding an ancestral connection to the continent, the terms ‘Afro-American’ and ‘African American’ also began to take root. The artists in Soul of a Nation wereprofoundly aware of these political visions and different senses of self, and each took an aesthetic position in relation to them.
Reginald Gammon, Freedom Now, Acrylic paint on board, 1963
Norman Lewis
“America the Beautiful”
In a small series of works, he set aside his flair for colour to concentrate on black and white, in order to reflect on race relations in America. Here, lewis evokes a gathering of the Ku Klux Klan, while titling the work to suggest the difference between America’s vision of itself and its realities.
Norman Lewis, America the Beautiful, Oil paint on canvas, 1960
Romare Bearden The Dove Photostat on Fibreboard 1964
Wadsworth Jarrell
“Black Prince”
Black Prince is a portrait of Malcolm X, made for the second AfriCOBRA exhibition in 1971 held, like their first, at the Studio Museum in Harlem. It is based on a May 1963 photograph of Malcolm X in Harlem, speaking against segregation and ‘Uncle Tom Negro preachers’.
Wadsworth Jarrell Black Prince Acrylic paint on canvas
Wadsworth Jarrell Liberation soldiers Acrylic paint and foil canvas
Kay Brown
“The Divel and His Game”
Kay Brown was for a time the sole woman member of Weusi artist collective, named after the Swahili word for ‘blackness’, and would go on to be an influential member of Where We At! In The Devil and His Game, Brown comments on then-US president Richard Nixton’s foreign and domestic policies.
Kay Brown The Divel and His Game Paper and acrylic paint on canvas 1970
Jeff Donaldson, Wives of Sango, Acrylic paint, gold foil and silver foil on cardboard, 1979
Ed Clark
“Yenom (#9)”
Ed Clark was a part of the second generation of abstract expressionist and in 1957 was the first American artist to experiment with irregularity shaped canvases.
Ed Clark, Yenom (#9), 1970
William T. Williams
“Trane”
This painting was named after John Coltrane and may conjure the cascades of sound in his performances.
William T. Williams, Trane Acrylic paint on canvas, 1969
Jack Whitten
“Homage to Malcolm”
Most of his late 1960s works were colourful with expressive brushstrokes, however Homage to Malcolm is very clearly structured and is the artist’s only triangular painting.
Jack Whitten, Homage to Malcolm, Acrylic paint on canvas,1970
Andy Warhol
“Muhammad Ali”
The palette of red, black and green shares its colours with the pan-African flag where red represents the blood uniting the African diaspora, black as representative of its people, and green being the natural riches of the African continent.
Andy Warhol, Muhammad Ali, Acrylic paint and screenprint on canvas, 1978
Barkley Hendricks
“Icon for My Man Superman (Superman Never Saved any Black People – Bobby Seale)”
Icon for My Man Superman (Superman Never Saved any Black People – Bobby Seale) is a self-portrait, trimmed with a border evoking the American flag. Barkley Hendricks painted himself wearing a novelty T-shirt, provocatively nude from the waist down. The work’s subtitle invites a declarative statement of solidarity with the Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale.
Barkley Hendricks, Icon for My Man Superman (Superman Never Saved any Black People – Bobby Seale), Oil paint, acrylic paint and aluminium leaf on canvas,1969
Gerald Williams
“Nation Time”
Gerald Williams was one of the five founding members of AfriCOBRA. For Williams, ‘Nation’ referred not to America but to a separate Black nation. Amiri Baraka used the word in the same way in his poem of the same year, ‘It’s Nation Time’, and Jeff Donaldson used the phrase too in the landmark AfriCOBRA text, ’10 in Search of a Nation’, also 1970: ‘It’s NATION TIME and we re now searching.
Gerald Williams, Nation Time, Acrylic paint on canvas, 1970
David Hammons
“Injustice Case”
Injustice Case refers to Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale’s trial for conspiracy to incite violence, during which Seale was bound and gagged in the courtroom. Hammons cut an American flag to frame the image (itself a punishable offence), effectively making this shocking scene from the halls of justice an x-ray of America.
David Hammons, Injustice Case, Body print and screenprint on paper, frame wrapped with American Flag, 1970
Barkley Hendricks
“What’s Going on”
Five figures stand nearly life-size. Amalgamations of people real and imagined, the nude woman is modelled on Hendricks’s recurring model, dancer Adrienne Hawkins, and the youngest man in rose-tined glasses is based on the artist’s brother. Hendricks conveys a range of complexions by seamlessly transitioning between highly malleable, slow-drying oil paint and fast-dying acrylic to suggest different textures and surfaces.
Barkley Hendricks, What’s Going on Oil paint, acrylic paint and acrylic resin paint on canvas, 1974
Barkley Hendricks
“Brilliantly Endowed (Self-Portrait)”
Brilliantly Endowed is a self-portrait that demonstrates swagger – defiance and cool detachment – as an everyday act of revolutionary aesthetics. Hendricks subtly targets New York Times critic Hilton Kramer, who had concluded a 1977 review by calling that artist ‘a brilliantly endowed painter who erred, perhaps, on the side of slickness’. The artist tackles head-on the double entendre and its potential stereotype connotation of Black male anatomy, while also putting on show his confidence as a painter, upending ‘slickness’ to embrace it as an attribute.
Barkley Hendricks, Brilliantly Endowed (Self-Portrait), Oil paint and acrylic paint on canvas, 1977
Alice Neel
“Faith Ringgold”
Alice Neel, a white artist, was an ardent supporter of the equal representation of Black people – both through her own selection of sitters, such as this portrait of artist Faith Ringgold, and in her social actions.
Alice Neel, Faith Ringgold, Oil paint on canvas, 1977
Emma Amos
“Eva the Babysitter”
Emma Amos was the sole woman artist in the Spiral group. The circumstances of socially-accepted domestic and child rearing responsibilities compounded the challenges women artists faced. This image honours a woman who helped enable Amos’s artistic practice. The radiant child-carer smiled while the artist’s toddler daughter is barely contained by the canvas.
Emma Amos, Eva the Babysitter, Oil pain on canvas, 1973
Carolyn Lawrence, Black Children Keep Your Spirits Free, Acrylic paint on canvas, 1972
virginia jaramillo, Untitled, Acrylic paint on canvas, 1971
Joe Overstreet
“We Came from There to get Here”
In he early 1960s, Joe Overstreet Was making image-based painting clearly expressing the political goals of Black Power; he was closely associated with the Black Arts Movement, and painted backdrops for the jazz musician Sun Ra. He later turned to making more abstract work, here painting a colourful grid and drawing the outlines of figures giving gestures of empowerment.
Joe Overstreet, We Came from There to get Here, Acrylic pain on canvas and rope, 1970
Frank Bowling
“Texas Louise”
Texas Louise was one of six Map Paintings Bowling included in his solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in late 1971. He poured waves of acrylic over stencils of continents that were removed before more paint was applied, so ghostly outlines remain. Continents emerge from and disappear into colour; oceans and rivers are combined with pools and trails of liquid paint. While many Black Americans were pointing to Africa as a mother continent, Bowling’s maps do not privilege any particular place, and celebrate a more fluid and open idea of identity and belonging to the world.
Frank Bowling, Texas Louise, Acrylic paint on canvas, 1971
“No.1 / series: The Artist’s Mind” – Mixed, Acrylic and recycled cardboard on wood- 18.5in x 18.5in x 1.57in, 2017
Name: Leo Vergel
DOB: December 1988
Place of birth: Cartagena de Indias, Colombia
Occupation: Artist
I was born on December 16, 1988 in the Caribbean city of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, I was given the name Jesús Leonardo Vergel Alvarez, but I prefer Leonardo Vergel, because of the pressures of this society that is always dictating what to do, ending up giving up and studying a university degree “Profitable”, which by the way does not end because I decided to make art and live from it. I have never entered an artistic institution, I firmly believe in confronting the work a thousand times and do it very often, I am totally self-taught, painting now means for me to have recast the child I had forgotten.
“Palenquera No.1” – Mixed, Acrylic and recycled cardboard on wood -38.19in x 27.36in x 1.57in, 2015
“Palenquera No.2” – Mixed, acrylic and recycled cardboard on wood- 24.02in x 17.32in x 1.57in, 2016
My technique is to use colored cardboard cutouts, I can use them in a way that has an order or a random shape purposely that allows me to express the idea at that time. The shapes I use are rectangular, square, rhomboid or other triangular cases, I think it is because when I had a little fun playing using these materials and associated them with those geometric figures I saw in school.
“Palenquera No.3” – Mixed, Acrylic and recycled cardboard on wood- 48.03in x 36.02in x 1.57in, 2017
This can also be seen in the funds that I make in my works, to this is added that when I was 7 or 8 years I saw a lot of Japanese TV program called “nopo y gonta” where the presenter very creatively taught Children on topics such as geometry and how this could be creatively used to create any number of fun objects. Part of what I saw and lived as a child is reflected today in my work.
“Mango”- Mixed, Acrylic and recycled cardboard on wood, 55cm x 44cm x 4cm, 2016
My work is handled in a genre that I still try to understand and that for me is handled between painting and collage, but I could not say that it is clearly one or the other. My work begins to manage a little symbolism, from the memories, what I live in my daily life and what I think or how I see the world.
“No.2 / The Artist’s Mind” Acrylic and recycled cardboard on wood, 2017“No.3 / The Artist’s Mind”- Mixed, Acrylic and recycled cardboard on wood-31.89in x 28.74in x 1.57in, 2017
I like to think that it is Fauvism, by the way I express myself emotionally through color, but with recycled cardboard of vivid colors reinforced with acrylic. I have seen and I am inspired by works of great masters like Gustav Klimt, the way as in his work and uses the color are great teaching for me and I try to achieve it with my work, that the color and the human figure achieve a moving impact In people to the point of reflection. I would like very much to get my work to transcend my generation and in fact to impact people, to let people know that there are always second chances, I want to leave a legacy. My technique is inherent in me, it represents my childhood, when you do not have the resources to paint the only thing that matters is you and your imagination, the rest you forget, it loses importance.
“Open Cage”- Acrylic & recycled cardboard on wood, 45.67in x 35.83in x 1.57in, 2017
Istanbul Modern’s collection exhibition, “Artists In Their Time”, focuses on how artists position their work and themselves within the concept of time. It suggests a conceptual field for examining, and reconciling, the links between an artist’s time and societal, cultural, natural and universal time. It unites artists from very different periods, geographies and disciplines around common themes.
“Artists In Their Time” highlights how artists experience their own times, feel anxious and frustrated that time emerges from the past and flows into the future, and form bonds between their own internal time and that of others. The exhibition also presents a base for discussing the place of art in transience and change and the transformation of art. Through which times does a work of art pass to become part of the present, of the moment we are now observing? What is the meaning of the temporal relationship that works of art establish with one another? What conditions do works of art resist, or what conditions are they absorbed into, in order to maintain their relevance in the future?
Art Road Visiting Istanbul ModernBAD 2014 – High density foam, wood, mirror and painted glass
Doug Aitken
‘In Aitken’s works composed of graphic texts, we notice words such as Now, End, Speed, You, One, Bad, Space and Home. Through these works, Aitken crystallizes the meaning of words that are repeated or or questioned in modern life. In some of these works, the surfaces are mirrors, in others they are covered with diverse images, such as the sea, leaves, planets, or black and white photographs. The artist freezes an idea or word in fluid time and makes it still.
As is the case in “BAD”, works having a mirrored surface give viewers the sensation of peering through a kaleidoscope. When we look through a kaleidoscope, the reflection of light forms colorful patterns. When we rotate a kaleidoscope, the image we see constantly changes and non-repeating images appear. In this work, too, the light of one moment is never the same as that of another moment. The time of the work and the conditions of the space within which it is displayed constantly change. Aitken thus addresses the difficulty of holding on to an idea or image in today’s dynamic and rapidly transforming world.’
Abstract (Temporality…Water…Sun) 1953 – Oil on canvas
Fahrelnissa Zeid
‘Her artistic practice can be classified under the following periods: Her early period of figurative compositions with spaces constructed according to the style of miniatures; her period of maturity with geometric and freely abstractionist works reminiscent of stained glass surfaces; and her late period consisting mainly of portraits and in which psychological narrative comes to the fore.
“Abstract (Temporality… Water…Sun)”, from the artist’s period of maturity, was produced during the École de Paris period that emerged in Paris following World War ll and was dominated by non-figurative abstract art. The painting combines colors and movements that emphasize the chaos and dynamism of the earth, the universe, and humane nature.’
Sculpture With a Monkey Skull Dancing in front of Sarkis’ Big Times-1989-2009 The first and only Turkish version colored neons and a sculpture from the Congo
Sarkis
‘The words in the neon work featured in his solo exhibition “Site”, which opened at Istanbul Modern in September 2009, indicate the different stages of his career. Sarkis comments on this work: “The stages of my career in art were written in neon like the names of night club singers. An African sculpture with a monkey’s skull dances in front of them.” ‘
Aus Gelbroorange wird Blaudunkel 2012- Oil on canvas
Georg Baselitz
‘Adopting an attitude opposed to the ordinary, the artist conveys the hardships of the Nazi era in his works about German history through ruins, rebels, shepherds, trees and other figures. These forms in his paintings reproduce the image of melancholy and eliminate the feeling of pity. Through the material that he uses and the tension he creates in content and composition, he calls into question the human condition.
Baselitz work in Istanbul Modern, collection “Yellowred Orange Turns into Bluedark” (Aus Gelbrotorange wire Blaudunkel), features the deformed, upside-down images created with strong brush strokes that appear again and again in his work as a reaction to past tribulations and his constructed pessimism of the present. ‘
Abstract Composition 1947-1949- Oil on canvas
Nejad Melih Devirm
‘ “Abstract Composition” is the earliest-known example of an abstract painting by a Turkish artist. In this painting, surfaces divided into geometrical domains complete one another in a rhythmic balance, while color is used freely without implying any image of “nature”. Distinctive coloring methods are used for each area, producing different layered depths on the surfaces.’
Born / Bearing in to Death 2001- Photograph
Gül Ilgaz
‘In her work she examines the contradictions between East and West, or traditional and modern. At the same time, she puts the dilemmas of her own life under the microscope. She explores various aspects of a woman’s identity from a personal standpoint.
In her work “Born/Bearing in to Death”, Gül Ilgaz treats birth as the beginning of death. The photograph shows not so much the physical side of birth as the separation of mother and child after delivery, the loss of their oneness. In the photograph, the child is across the room from the mother, but it has no existence of its own; the mother shows both the separation that comes with birth and the beginning of death.’
Part 2014- Oil paint and paper on linen
Elliot Hundley
‘In Hundley’s work “Part”, featured in Istanbul Modern’s collection, the architecture of intertwining spiral forms takes the viewer on a profound journey through a monumental and surreal space. The performative expression in Hindley’s working process, the layers formed by interwoven images, the small figure hidden among these layers and details of different places are like the equivalent of narrative on the abstract plane.‘
Adnan Çoker Magenta Square 1996- Acrylic on canvasArt Road Visiting Istanbul ModernThe Headless Woman or The Bellydance 1974- Video, black and white with sound
Nil Yalter
‘In the video she focuses her camera on her own belly and writes on it an excerpt from Erotique et Civilization by René Nelli to the accompaniment of belly-dancing music. She therefore draws together the Oriental fantasies of men and the demand for bodily freedom of women.
“A veritable woman in ‘convex’ and ‘concave’ at the same time. But she need not be deprived mentally or physically of the central part of her convexity: the clitoris (…). This aversion to the clitoris corresponds to man’s ancestral horror of this virile and natural part of woman, this part which is capable of absolute orgasm.” René Nelli, Erotic and Civilizations (Paris:Wber, 1972)’
Art Road Visiting Istanbul ModernRed V 2005- Fiberglass
Seyhun Topuz
‘Seyhun Topuz has used sculpture to make geometric, abstract statements. Her designs are made of forms not found in nature but rather shaped by notions of mathematical order and precision.
“Red V” is an example of recent work in which she explores how to achieve ideal forms by dissecting squares. Its sense of motion is created by the perfectly smooth, angular surfaces, which stand for nothing but themselves. The sculpture’s relationship with the floor is severed by platforms of varying heights. Topuz’s work strips the art of sculpture to its basic elements. ‘
BC (3030) 2012- Collage, paint, bleach, glue, fabric on wood
Sterling Ruby
‘Having exhibited work since 2004, he is relatively new to the art scene, but his installations, paintings, video, ceramics, and sculpture have gained considerable international recognition. In BC(3030), Ruby uses patches of fabric with different patterns and textures as his visual vocabulary, collaging these elements onto a canvas that has been painted, distressed, and stained with bleach. It utilizes stripedMexican rugs that evoke Hispanic culture and gangs in Los Angeles.’
Under the Grand Crack (and Sleep, Growth and All Words) 2008- Oil on canvas
Margherita Manzelli
‘Manzelli uses both symbolic and ordinary articles like a heart-patterned underwear or a sequin top to define the bodies of the women she typically depicts. The women’s easily bruised, fine, veined skin and delicate bone structure that could break with the slightest shock make them vulnerable. Their facial and bodily expressions give the impression of a sensitive wound in the process of recovery and are reminiscent of melancholy and illness.’
Your solar nebula 2015- 321 partially silvered crystal spheres, paint, stainless steel
Olafur Eliasson
‘The artist’s work “Your solar nebula” is composed of 321 glass spheres reminiscent of natural phenomena, such as water droplets or teardrops. There are three colors at the back of each sphere: a silver mirror-like surface at the center merging with black paint to the right and yellow paint to the left. The spheres are of different sizes and, when seen as a whole, seem to be frozen in a way that is reminiscent of stars coming together to form a spiral galaxy. This form has no geometric outline or arrangement and invokes a moment without predetermined coordinates, like the flow of a stream of water or a shooting star.’
Art Road Visiting Istanbul ModernTony Cragg- Ugly Faces 2006- WoodMorgenthau Plan 2012- Acrylic, emulsion, oil and shellac on photograph mounted on canvas
Anselm Kiefer
‘This work called “Morgenthau Plan” is from a series of the same title. The Morgenthau Plan proposed by the USA in 1944 aimed to convert post-war Germany into an agricultural country rather than an industrial one. Though the plan was never realized in its proposed form, it did create an alternative field of thought in terms of its emphasis on rural life as opposed to industrial development. In his works, Kiefer explores this rural way of life. As leitmotifs, the flowers concealed in the background or openly displayed on the surface refer to the ideal of a pastoral Germany with its agricultural fields and an increasing amount of farmland just prior to post-war industrial development. In the work, the flowers that bloom despite all the cultural, political, and ecological damage are not just motifs; as in the other works in the series, by affixing their photographs on the canvases using the marouflage technique, he readies the backgrounds for his works.’
Canan Dağdelen
‘In her latest work, entitled “AT polar covalent bonded HOME dot”, she examines the concept of the “house” from different perspectives. While Dagdelen previously used existing fundamental architectural forms, in her latest work she goes one step further and crates an architectural shape of her own. In this work, she refers to the chemical bonds resulting from changes in electron distributing caused by the bonding of atoms. The covalent, particularly the polar covalent bond, is Dagdelen’s focus. Dagdelen draws an analogy between the function of architectural elements and a common polar covalent bonded attraction between the two different types of atoms that come together in a water molecule, H2O, and the sharing of electrons in the outer electron trajectory. She achieves a new fork in the work entitled “AT polar covalent bonded HOME dot”, which consists of two domes and one cubic body. The way in which it is situated in space encourages viewers to seek its form and discover its own unique language.’
“Tips” 2015- textile collage, acrylic paint and ink
Servet Koçyiğit
‘Koçyiğit observes his places of residence both as an insider and outsider, and reflects his observations in his artistic practice by considering them jointly with local and global issues and contexts. He pulls everyday concerns, conventional functions, routine tasks, ordinary household utensils or found objects out of context and imparts them with new meanings or reconsiders them within entirely different contexts.’
Tomas Saraceno
‘His project “Air-Port-City” from 2007, made of airbags and nets, is a light but massive structure that references atomic forms. Saraceno presents architectural alternatives to our notions about nationality, property, city plans and territorial boundaries. He designs technically possible but utopic solutions to our socio-cultural and environmental problems.
“The Air-Port-City” project aims to create free-floating international cities that are independent of territorial borders and which redefine political and economical system. He designs technically feasible utopias in answer to socio-cultural and ecological problems. “The Flying Garden” project is made of garden modules that reflect the intrinsic, chaotic harmony of ecological structures in this new utopia.’
1553 2012- Oil on canvas
Taner Ceylan
‘The title of Ceylan’s painting “1553”, inspired by Süleyman the Magnificent’s wife Hürrem Sultan, is a reference to the year when Süleyman had his son Prince Mustafa killed. The blood spread on the painting’s surface reminds us of the tension between power, force, and violence. According to Ceylan eternal life and everlasting beauty always requires sacrifice. The veil that conceals the face of the subject in the painting also symbolizes the way power nourishes itself on a covert violence. The artist works with people in his close circle such as Alp, the model for this painting, whom he has often used as a model in his previous works. ‘
The first series of large-scale works draws on Miller’s extensive archive of psychology and social science books, which date from the 1960s and ’70s. Characterised by their bold and colourful abstract covers, these books embraced a positive attitude and the possibility of ‘fixing’ disorders through a process of self-help.
Pot, Oil on canvas, 105 x 72 x 2 in. 2017Colour Made Me Hard, Oil on canvas, 109 x 73 x 2 in. 2016In the Shadows I Boogie, Oil on canvas, 60 x 36 x 2 in. 2017
In Miller’s paintings, three-dimensional architectonic forms in bright, pop colours float against solid saturated backgrounds and are paired with fictional, sardonically humorous titles such as Reverse Psychology Isn’t Working (2017) and Immediate Relief … Coming Soon (2017). Occasionally, the same title appears on different compositions, highlighting how colour, forms and context can change both the rhythm and meaning of words.
Reverse Psychology Isn’t Working, Oil on canvas, 115 x 81 x 2 in. 2017Immediate Relief … Coming Soon, Oil on canvas, 118 x 81 x 2 in. 2017
Similar to the titles, Miller’s abstract imagery can also be read in different ways. Commenting on the work Armageddon – Is It To Much To Ask? (2017), for example, he says: ‘it’s an image that you see one way – then, when you relax, it flips and, no matter how hard you try, you can’t see it the original way. It’s symbolic of the way you read the title.’ These words reflect a departure for the artist, whose previous series of Penguin paperback paintings were re-appropriations of an existing object. Here, for the first time, Miller creates his own designs, focusing more closely on the impact of the image itself.
Why Breathe In, Why Breath Out, Oil on canvas, Two panels, each: 75 x 61 x 2 in. 2017Ace, Oil on canvas, 105 x 75 x 2 in. 2017Bi, Oil on canvas, 104 x 72 x 2 in. 2017
In another series of fictional book cover paintings, Miller depicts the outlines of letter in a range of typefaces and colours, intersected or layered over each other to create short, enigmatic words such as ‘Up’ or ‘If’.
Up, Oil on canvas, 104 x 73 x 2 in. 2017If, Oil on canvas, 104 x 72 x 2 in. 2017
Through a process of isolation, overlaying and re-connecting, Miller creates a sense of depth in the image that deconstructs and abstracts the meaning of language itself. With their bold, saturated colours, these paintings reference American abstraction and, in particular, Robert Rauschenberg and Ed Ruscha’s use of vernacular signage and motifs. Miller has said about this series: ‘The idea is to make paintings that are just words, in contrast to the titles of previous works’.
Thought After Filthy Thought, Oil on canvas, 60 x 36 x 2 in. 2017The Future, You May Not Like it Now, But You Will, Oil on canvas, 115 x 80 x 2 in. 2017
In both series of paintings the artist continues to use his own name as author. While the presence of Miller’s name alludes to the actual authorship of both image and text, fact and fiction became blurred, allowing for the artist’s deadpan humour to provoke, question and draw attention to the context and content of each work.
Wherever You Are, Whatever You’re Doing, This One’s For You, Oil on canvas, 112 x 77 x 2 in. 2017Circling The Small Ads, Oil on canvas, 109 x 72 x 2 in. 2017
The Portrait Award is an annual event aimed at encouraging young artists to focus on and develop the theme of portraiture in their work.
ARCHIPELAGO
Brian Shields
Acrylic on canvas behind part-mirrored glass
This self-portrait is painted in acrylic paint and gel on canvas which was secured behind part-mirrored glass, from which the silvering had been removed. The work was made with use of two mirrors, in front of and behind the artist, to create the unsettling effect of having the sitter turn away from the viewer.
JESSICA
Laura Quinn Harris (b.1984)
Oil on board
The artist is drawing attention to the space around the sitter. You really start to look around the painting as if you were around the room. She seems to be coming out of the shadows. They seem to be as important as the sitter, and so does the background pattern. You think: ‘Where is the artist’s attention? Where does she want us to look?’
THE LEVINSONS
Rupert Alexander
Oil on canvas
This family portrait depicts Michelle and Sam Levinson and four of their five daughters. In a previous commission, Alexander had painted two of the Levinson children and that work is seen in its early stages on an easel in the studio. The family travelled from New York to London for sittings in the summer of 2015 an again early in 2016.
HONEST THOMAS
Alan Coulson
Oil on wooden panel
The portrait is of the sitter’s friend Thomas, who makes handcrafted leather objects. Coulson says: ‘While I focused on Tommy’s individual aesthetic by exploiting the graphic quality of his t-shirt and tattoos, my overall aim was to creat a strong sense of presence.
SELf-PORTRAIT
Rowanne Cowley
Oil on canvas
This self-portrait was made as part of a personal project to complete a portrait of each member of Cowley’s family in one year. Cowley works as a full-time gardener and so family sittings and painting sessions have to be organised in the evenings or during bad weather around her work schedule.
S. AT END OF SUMMER
Marco Ventura
Oil on canvas
The portrait is of a professional artist’s model at the Instituto Europe di Design, Milan. The portrait was inspired by the verses in the Book of Genesis referring to Eve choosing to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden.
ANIA
Ania Hobson
oil on canvas
This self-portrait was created during a brief period of painters’ block. Hobson says: ‘I wanted to record the frustration that I felt. This painting eventually proved to be a way of pulling myself out of this impasse, with the unrealistic angles and perspectives mirroring the feelings I had at the time.’
DR TIM MORETON
Lucy Stopford (b.1967)
oil on canvas
The portrait is of the artist’s friend. Dr Tim Moreton who for many years worked as Registrar at the National Portrait Gallery. Stopford met Moreton when he arranged for her to see a portrait that was not on display, he has gone on to sit for Stopford on several occasions and for the portrait classes that she teaches.
SIMONA
Lukas Betinsky
Oil on canvas
The portrait is of the artist’s friend Simona.
Bentinsky says: ‘The idea is based on traditional techniques. The portrait is built on simplicity, purity and the expression of the person herself.
PORTRAIT OF BEYZA
Mustafa Ozel
Oil on canvas
The artist says: ‘I look for certain characteristics in those of whom I make portraits. Having rich colours in the face is of great significance for me as is the effect of catching a fleeting emotion. I decided to make this portrait, as Beyza has these features.’
BLIND PORTRAIT
Daniel Coves
Oil on linen
In recent years, Coves has produced a series called Back Portraits in which the sitter’s identity has been hidden, this is the first front-facing portrait the artist has made in many years and the fist to reveal the identity of the sitter. In creating this work, Coves was inspired by the painting Woman reading a Letter by Johannes Vermeer.
Simona
Lukáš Betinský
Oil on canvas
PEN VOGIER
John Burke
Oil on panel
The portrait is of the artist’s friend Pen Vogler, a writer, food historian and bibliophile. Vogler recreates recipes from previous eras to discover what the past might have tasted and felt like. Bruke wanted to explore the idea of evoking the past in the present by painting her in a vintage-style dress in her victorian house.
SOCIETY
Khushna Sulamam-Butt
Acrylic and oil on canvas
The portrait depicts a group of friends the artist made at the Ruskin school of Art. Sulaman-Butt says: ‘l attempted to convey a sense of sinister isolation. The subject exchange looks in strained silence, highlighting the unspoken discomfort in their differences.’
CORINNE
Anastasia Pollard
Oil ok board
The portrait is of the artist’s friend, Corinne Allen, a musician and songwriter. Pollard says: ‘I was struck by her passion and talent and subsequently asked her to sit for me’. The portrait was completed in a few sittings during which the women developed a lasting friendship.
CARMEN
Silver Vestre Goikoetxea
Oil on panel
The portrait is of the artist’s mother who visited the artist in his studio on the way to market wearing her usual coat, beret and black gloves, which reminded him of the elegant dress-sense of the past. Goikoetxea asked if she would pose for him, and the work was developed over a series of short sittings.
Zahad Hadid in her London office in 1985. Photo by CHRISTOPHER PILLITZ/GETTY IMAGES
“I have always been interested in the concept of fragmentation, abstraction and explosion, in de-constructing ideas of repetitiveness and mass production. My work first engaged with the early Russian avant-garde; in particular, the work of Kasimir Malevich – he was an early influence for me as a representative of the modern avant-garde intersection between art and design.” Zaha Hadid
Malevich’s Tektonik, London, UK 1976-77
Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid was an Iraqi-born British architect. Hadid was born on 31 October 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq.
In 1997 she graduated from American University of Beirut and then starting to work for her former professors, Koolhaas and Zenghelis, at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Hadid established her own London-based firm in 1979.
Then she began teaching in universities such as Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge University, the University of Chicago and Her reputation for a while rested largely upon her teaching and the imaginative and colourful paintings she made of her proposed buildings, because no one would pay for her projects.
This exhibition at Serpentine Sackler Gallery was mainly about her early working days and showing her extraordinary talent even back then.
In 1988 she was chosen to show her drawings and paintings as one of six architects chosen to participate in the exhibition “Deconstructivism in Architecture” curated by Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. This was a start for her international reputation.
Vision for Madrid, Spain 1992Detail
In 2004 she became the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
The Peak, Hong Kong, China 1982-83The Peak, Hong Kong, China 1982-83
The BRIT Awards 2017 with Mastercard confirm that the 2017 statue was designed by Zaha Hadid.
An Iranian born artist now living in Columbus, Ohio, she attended the Faculty of Arts at the University of Tehran, and afterward studied under the mentorship of prominent Iranian painter Daruish Hosseini. She later began sculpting under the tutelage of eminent sculptor Behrooz Daresh.
Pastel & acrylic on cardboard, 20″x20″Acrylic & pastel on cardboard,25″x22″
“I am an expressive person. I enjoy watching people, in public spaces, at coffee shops, pools, beaches, painting their bodies, their emotions, capturing the other side of them. Not the realistic things everyone can see, but the hidden expressivity.”
Acrylic & pastel on cardboard, 22″x24″Acrylic & pastel on cardboard, 20″x24″Acrylic & pastel on cardboard, 20″x22″
“I like to make my viewers think. When they pass a piece at an exhibition they have to stop and wonder. I like to show non-artists the things they can’t see. Show them a different world. It’s sometimes hidden, and sometimes not real at all, but in my imagination, a fiction that the person inspires.”
Acrylic & pastel on cardboard, 18″x20″Acrylic and pastel on cardboard, 22″x26″
Raheleh’s work concentrates on abstractions of the human form and the emotional expressivity emanating from it, something not found elsewhere in nature. Each piece shows an alternate view of the subject, displaying a distinct beauty otherwise unseen. One cannot pass Raheleh’s pieces without stopping, and getting washed over by its startlingly unique perspective.
Pastel & acrylic on cardboard, 20″x16″Acrylic & pastel on card board, 20″x24″Pastel & acrylic on cardboard, 20″x22″
“For sculpting, I started because the canvas is not enough to show my emotion and excitement. I needed to make it in three-dimensional to get enough expression. To make the creatures I invented, and introduce them to the people.
I enjoy carving. When there’s a piece of wood or metal, and you can bring out art out of nothing — you give a little of your soul to these things. They have a part of you in them.”
Diving Bird – Aluminium 12″ x 10″
Since moving to the U.S., Raheleh has begun collaborating with an Iranian-American photographer, Arezoo Bijani, on a collection of works emanating from their experiences as artists in Iran, revealing the struggles they passed through in their home country, but also the distinct non-Western vantage point it gives them on male-female asymmetries even in the West.
Prints:
Lino print & collage on paper, 20″x8″Lino print with ink & collage on paper, 10″x8″Lino print & pen on paper, 10″x8″Lino print on paper,12″x10″
Wadsworth Jarrell Liberation soldiers Acrylic paint and foil canvas
