Sex and the Rest Part II

On Monday it was sex

 Sotheby’s enlightened and/or entertained a packed auditorium of collectors and dealers when Tobias Meyer, Worldwide head of contemporary art, moderated a panel discussion titled: “Old Masters, New Voices.” The cast was what used to be called in the days of B Movies, a cockpit crew. Representing the megabucks world of contemporary art were John Currin

and Jeff Koons. Victoria Siddall Director of Frieze Masters the London art fair that brings together a tightly edited selection of dealers  in old and new art represented the potential for cross over. Luke Syson, and here we go again with egotistical job titles, the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Curator in charge of the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Met. was there to represent just that.  He arrived at the Met a year ago following his big success curating the Leonardo da Vinci show at London’s National Gallery.

     This was the set up: Each panel member was asked to chose one painting and talk about why it means so much to him or her. The new art folks had to chose old art; Sysons had to pick someone contemporary. And the winners were:

Currin: Tinteretto’s Susanna and the Elders. Koons: Titian’s “Venus and Adonis” in the Prado. chose another painting in the Prado, “Las Meninas” by Velazquez while Sysons went for Cy Twombly’s “Leda and the Swan.”  Currin and Koons did almost all the talking and an awful lot of it was about penises, nudes (by which they meant naked women) with dollops of pornography. Koons was winning; intelligent, knowledgeable, down to earth and a man enjoying life who sets about aiding and abetting other people to do likewise. It has rewarded him splendidly..all those cute rabbits and hearts have helped him bring paintings by Courbet and Picasso and more into the family home. Sysons choice of Leda and the Swan was yet more sex; only Siddall the only female, choice a painting with a different subject. This led Meyer to the plausible if superficial conclusion that men and women look at art differently. We were led to go home thinking that historically the two subjects of art have been sex and the artists themselves. Funny. Before the panel got going, I played the game of “what would I have chosen?” if I'd been on the panel. Instantly I knew it would have been “The Baptism” by Piero della Francesca. Not sex; not a painting about an artist. Still the event was enlightening and entertaining within limits. And Jeff Koons is a genuine art star even if the same cannot be said of his art.   

Sex and the rest Part I

SUNDAY in NEW YORK WITH LARRY


 Christie’s was up first up with special events intended to enlighten and/or entertain as well as maybe soften up dealers and collectors in New York for the Old Master sales. They went for unadulterated substance. Sunday at 6 p.m. Larry Kanter, gave a lecture on "Thoughts about Connoisseurship." Laurence Kanter the Lionel Goldfrank III curator of European Art at the Yale University Art GalleryArt Gallery and curator of the Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is an expert on Italian Renaissance art and it was his focus.
    The auditorium was filled with people  who were there not because they needed to shelter from the cold or be draped with tinsel and glitter. I didn’t see anybody yawn as Kanter began with a rehabilitation of Bernhard Berenson’s  reputation. I was gripped. Kanter  referred to the great art scholar of Italian art as a“genius” of connoisseurship and set out to re-educate those who, puritanically, have insisted that dealing in works of art and forging independent opinions cannot co-exist-- and if they happened to the person who did both would be morally suspect. A villain.
  This last year as I reread Berenson it became clear that so much mud has been slung at him that it has buried awareness of his huge contribution to what we know and understand about Italian art. 
  Kanter reminded us that one of BB’s precepts was to look at a painting and pay attention constantly to what it has to say for itself – not what people have to say about it. Kanter then gave a bracing practical example of how he puts that into practice. Outside the lecture hall, in the rooms displaying upcoming paintings for the Renaissance sale hung a a Sienese painting circa 1400; the work of Taddeo di Bartelo. Kanter looked at it and came to the conclusion that“It is too good to be by him.” Further study led him to believe that it is by another Sienese, Gregorio de Cecco who was slightly older and a much better painter. This is one case when a possible error can only make Christie's smile. If Kanter's view prevails the painting will be worth lots more.

Shell shocked

In love with a shell

Just back from BRAFA; the Brussels Antiques and Fine Art Fair. It was brutally cold but inside the cavernous former postal sorting office plunked down in the middle of nowhere (if you happen to be staying in the center of Brussels), it was toasty. Just to cheer us up they had branches of cherry blossoms in the central aisles. Nice. I suppose There were more than a hundred exhibitors and thousands of objects, furniture, jewellery and paintings for sale and one shell that stole my heart. A shell. A three thousand year old shell. At the fair I ran into a collector I know and I tried to get her to come with me to see it. I can understand why she didn't want to troop up and down the aisles because I saw I seashell and feel in love. It was at the stand of Archeologie a Paris gallery. If I had a spare 220,000 euros, which is what the dealer is asking for, I would buy it. It does seem like an awful lot of money. Or maybe not. I have no idea of what the going rate for a "rare tridacne shell carved in the shape of a bird of prey (probably an owl)" is. Or if there is one. A quick Google tells me that tridacne is the largest bivalve mollusc. The king of seashells. Or anyway the giant among them. I have slept on it and no, I am not going to swap the roof over my head for a magnificent sea shell.

    This owl is said to have been carved in the Mediterranean in 8000 b.c. when the Phoenicians were in residence. Maybe he is not an owl; the label is more firm that this is the image of a bird of prey. Its face is menacing but magnificent .the incised carving both front and back is beautiful--feathering but also like a message --about what?. The creature has survived for thousands of years. I didn't dare ask to hold him. The catalogue says he is 10 x 18 centimetres probably too big to hold in one hand. But this guy has fantastic have presence.(Yes yes maybe the guy is a girl owl he just seems male.)

  What if I did have the money and the owl came to live in the house... Would we feel protected by him or scared?  I think maybe both but I am sure that metaphorically, at least, I would walk on tip toes when I went into the room where he was perched. Face to face with him I would feel awed. I can't help thinking that if Picasso had trotted along the rue Jacob where the gallery is, and had seen this owl, HE would have taken the creature home without having to sell his studio to do it. And really the owl is cheaper than a Picasso sculpture....if you are inclined to make buying decisions that way.