I caught the feral night train from Basel to Amsterdam to see Jesse Darling’s installation Godsworth in the Oude Kerk. It is magnificent - unsurprisingly the visitors’ book is full of folk moaning on about how their visit has been spoiled by the installation. The work is made from building debris taken from construction and demolition within the building itself, this dust is watered and grass is growing, when the show is over much of it will return to waste - if visitors can’t see the message in that they should maybe spend a bit more time in church. I don’t think I would have looked half as hard at the building without the installation there - a revelation. Congratulations @jessedarling
I went to the Goetheanum campus - the home of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach. The main building was roughly designed by Rudolf Steiner shortly before his death and completed in 1928, most of the other buildings were completed in his lifetime before the arson attack that destroyed the first Goetheanum in 1924. It was certainly a journey but I’m not sure I heard the call…
Marisol @kunsthauszuerich is an absolute trip - having taught this work for years and having seen a lot of her work elsewhere in the US I thought I knew what I was going to see but there were lots of surprises in here. I loved the work in the first image, Portrait of Betty from 1962 of Betty Parsons, the startling yellow resin Kiss, and the surprising ringed hands of a work titled Dominant Woman from 1968 - why we are not always talking about queer Marisol I don’t know, it’s hardly subtle. The work she made of strange fish after she took up scuba diving in Tahiti - including the missile shaped Barracuda is exquisite. She did the dirty on Princess Anne in the Royal Family work though.
The thoroughly ludicrous world of Felicien Rops in the hilariously titled exhibition Laboratory of Lust @kunsthauszuerich I remember stumbling across his work while filing images in the Witt Library one summer and wondering what was with him - here he’s presented as acting against the hypocrisy of his era, I’m not sure why that has to take the form of eroticised misogyny - women as puppet masters, swine handlers, and sinners. At one point he had a wife at home and a menage a trois with the Duluc sisters in Paris on the go all at once - no wonder his priapic print here is titled The Right to Rest. Seems best understood as the Robert Crumb of his day.
Really glad to be able to see The First Homosexuals @kunstmuseumbasel beautifully distilled from the earlier exhibitions at The Alphawood Foundation in Chicago by @eros_is_remedy and Jonathan D. Katz. Lots of favourites in the mix and some wonderfully fresh and weird works too - the local material really makes it sing. #davidpaynter #kristianzahrtmann #elisarion #richmondbarthé #feralbenga
Some beautiful photographs and truly exquisite drawings in possibly the worst photography exhibition I’ve ever had the misfortune to see. Anyone who has been cursed to spend real time with me over the last few months - including my poor bemused students - knows that I’m completely fixated on Horst P. Horst at the moment. So fixated that I took the vaporetto to San Giorgio to see this show - the labels are insanely coy regarding Horst’s sexuality, weird (homophobic) given the man himself was anything but. Babe Paley must be turning in her grave to have her image grotesquely animated by AI above the famous Vogue image, and as for recreating his voice by machine - what works for Warhol is beyond the pale for Horst. Images were undated in some places, despite Horst being one of the best documented photographers to have ever lived, an inexplicable mix of vulgar new prints amongst vintage prints, and a total and utter ignorance of fashion and the history of Vogue and the blessed Mrs Vreeland’s role there. Disgusting - but with some beautiful moments… bit like the man himself. #jeanmarais #comtessedenoailles #luchinovisconti #leemiller #babepaley
Salivating @guggenheim_venice what an adventure she had! What a life! What an eye! Decalcomania, fumage, pharmacia - I honestly feel like a fainting heroine of a Henry James novel in here today, what a treat. The Hepworth from Wakefield looks beautiful in the show about Guggenheim’s London years - can’t wait to read your essay @abishapiro1
So interesting being here in live time - before consensus falls on what to see and what not to bother with, before certain views get crystallised. The main exhibition I really think is fantastic- the opening salvo of the Arsenale is remarkably this poem and painting high above. The show is filled with works dealing with memory, care, life among ruins and war, wildflowers, education, solidarity and beauty. I’m very grateful to be able to see it - thanks to the Gabe of the hour @gabefeijoo for the invitation and many congratulations to you and the team x
Mind blowingly great Michael Armitage show at Palazzo Grassi, some old favourites looking fresh and some stunning more recent pieces. The seductive intensity of the livid colour contrasts and the texture of the support somehow never being at odds with the often grim subject matter never fails to astonish me. There’s always a moment when one looks at a medieval manuscript when a flaw in the page reminds one that it’s made of skin - somehow the holes in the bark substrate of these paintings gives me a similar jolt…
Some perfect questions posed in paint laced through the rooms of the British pavilion by Lubaina Himid, hands, tongues, carp, and flowers and sounds from around by Magda Stawarska - including the inimical Nana Mouskouri. Our arrival to the Giardini was timed wonderfully for testing my inadvertent paparazzi skills… congratulations @lubainapics
