A Top 5 of Living Female Artists?

We're almost at the end of the Phoenix 'isms' classes (previous posts here, here and here). In this second batch of five sessions Nicci has done a great job of presenting 20th and 21st century art by themes - gender, identity, the gaze, vanitas, momento mori, and so on - rather than by art movements ('isms'). We also focused on some favourite individual artists including Frida Kahlo, Nan Goldin, Yoko Ono, Lucian Freud, Andy Warhol, Rachel Whiteread, Paula Rego and Peter Blake.

Cindy Sherman at MOMA until June 2012 (with make-up)

In week 4 we also looked at Cindy Sherman and debated the claim that she is the greatest living female artist. I'm a sceptic and started to think about the competition. As a result I've come up with the following Top 5 female living artists as follows (in no particular order and using the usual criteria of - influence on others, subjective judgement, personal prejudice, etc):

1 - Yoko Ono - Hugely influential artist working in a number of media. Her involvement with John Lennon led many people to become aware of and investigate modern art (me included).

Jenny Savile

2 - Jenny Saville - Real painter of women in the tradition of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud (and Picasso and Rubens?) with a distinctive and visceral style.

Paula Rego - Betrothal from Hogarth tryptich

3 - Paula Rego - An artist who tells stories using a variety of different, but recognisable, styles, normally in pastels. Her images are often animalistic - a feminist artist who produces unsettling work. (See this facebook page for further Rego images - thanks Ernesto).

Tracey Emin - Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made

4 - Tracey Emin - A member of the YBAs, she has transcended this and shown herself capable of producing a range of impressive work including installations, paintings, neon, and use of fabrics (and more) which is largely autobiographical.

Bridget Riley

Finally, at joint No.5 (cheating here) - Bridget Riley - the queen of Op Art, who has consistently taken the form in new directions from the 1960s to the present time; and Elizabeth Fritsch - a studio potter whose work is perfection (and is often influenced by music, painting, and architecture).

Pots by Elizabeth Fritsch

Runners-up: Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Rachel Whiteread, Nan Goldin, Marina Abramović ... ?

In the final week of the 'isms' course we're getting an early look at The Perfect Nude exhibition, which runs from 29 March to 12 May at the Phoenix. A hundred artists have been invited to make paintings on the theme of The Perfect Nude. The aim is to "create a rich network of images that will establish a context for representation of the body in contemporary painting". Should be interesting.

The picture above is not from the exhibition, of course - it's an output from the life class I attended last year - far from Perfect, but I like to think that the subject would hit it off with the guy in the flyer above ...

Modern Art - Is this how it happened?

Finally, if you're looking for an online Modern Art History course, why not take a look at this one which does an excellent job of covering the development of art from the late 1800s to the 1960s, with plenty of examples and lecture slides. You can also read further in the book chapters referred to throughout (History of Modern Art by Arnason - a big and expensive book, but more reasonably priced secondhand copies of older editions are plentiful).

Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning, Frida Kahlo, R B Kitaj and Man Ray

During the past few weeks I have attended a whole load of art exhibitions, including those trailed in previous posts. I hope to catch up with some blogging about these exhibitions shortly.

Meanwhile, however, here are links to some excellent recent art blog posts: First some photos of Max Ernst (and Dorothea Tanning) working and relaxing in various locations, and of his sculptures - featured in the book Max Ernst: Sculptures Maisons Paysages and in the blog Mondoblogo.

More photographs: This time of Frida Kahlo from the exhibition at Artisphere (Virginia, USA) as reported in the What's up! Trouvaillesdejour blog. The facsimile photographs come from the collection of the Frida Kahlo Museum, Coyoacán, Mexico.

And finally, part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 of a 4 parter on R B Kitaj from the Poul Webb art blog.

And a postscript: In our art history group at Exeter Phoenix last week we covered a lot of ground (as ever) - mainly on interpretations of the body in art in the first half of the 20th century. One of the examples we considered was Man Ray's iconic Le Violin d’Ingres. Here is that picture, together with the 'originals' by Ingres.

Man Ray - Le Violin d’Ingres

Ingres - La Baigneuse, dite de Valpinçon

Ingres - Le bain Turc

Art History: 20th Century 'Isms' at Exeter Phoenix

For the past few weeks I have been attending a short course of classes at Exeter Phoenix on modern art 'Isms'.  It's only a couple of hours a week for 5 weeks and so is inevitably selective. The course is run by Nicci Wonnacott, whose work includes performance stuff like this:

Before Xmas I did a one-day life class which Nicci tutored (advertised by the Phoenix as a chance to explore the face - so a couple of us were a bit surprised to find it was a full life-drawing class) and the discussions with her and the other artists from various backgrounds - all competent artists - were really interesting.

Richard Hamilton

The discussions in the 'Isms' class are, of course, part of its appeal. Those attending include some who are studying art, some who are doing or have just completed art degrees, and others who have art experience or simply have opinions - sometimes strong ones.

Marcel Duchamp

In the first three weeks we covered a lot of ground. Highlights included: Constructivism, Jenny Holzer, Kurt Schwitters, Barbara Kruger, Shepard Fairey, Dada, Surrealism, Marcel Duchamp, Meret Oppenheim, Dali, Man Ray, Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol, The Stuckists, Rita Donagh, Gee Vaucher, Fluxus, Mark Wallinger, Jeff Koons, Abstract Expressionism, Neo Dadaism, Joan Miro, Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Willem De Kooning, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, Robert Motherwell, Claes Oldenburg, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and so on ...

Meret Oppenheim

Last week - week four - we covered almost as much again. Nikki is keen to redress the under-representation of the role women have played in developing art in the 20th century and one of the interesting things for me is that previously I was unaware of the work of many of the women we have considered.

Barbara Kruger

There have been a few other things that have surprised me. Such as the important role that the Constructivists had in the 20th century revolution in art. I went to the Rodchenko and Popova exhibition at Tate Modern in 2009, which was pretty comprehensive, but it is not until you put each movement into the wider context that you can appreciate the true impact.

Rodchenko

I am also a little surprised to find how directly derivative the work of some of our 21st century artists is. As we know, little is new under the sun, and most art references back to Art History, whether knowingly or not. Nevertheless, for example, work by the Faile and Jacques Villegle appears very closely related:

Jacques Villegle

Faile

And some of Sarah Lucas's work seems thin and derivative when you look at similar work produced by Dorothea Tanning in 1967:

Dorothea Tanning

Sarah Lucas

And don't get me started on Damien Hirst - just refer to the Stuckists ...

Damien Hirst - Toy or Art?

Earlier this week the tour guide at Tate St Ives told us that conceptual art is on the way out and figurative art is the future! Our final class is coming up this Thursday - I'll let you know how it turns out ...

Incidentally, if you can't get to art classes at the Phoenix you could always try this book: Isms - Understanding Art by Stephen Little which I came across in the Tate shop. It does a pretty good job of covering art movements in a few paragraphs, from the Renaissance to Neo-conceptualism, and is well illustrated with examples. A snip at £7 from Amazon.