Art in your city

[Portobello Red]

Tate Liverpool

Mark Rothko: The Seagram Murals

2 October 2009 – 21 March 2010 - Free

In 1958, Rothko was awarded the first of two major mural commissions that proved both rewarding and frustrating. The beverage company Joseph Seagram and Sons had recently completed their new building on Park Avenue, designed by architects Mies Van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. Rothko agreed to provide wall paintings for the building’s restaurant, The Four Seasons. This was the first time he was required not only to design a series of paintings, but to produce artwork for a specific space. Over the following three months, Rothko completed forty paintings, three full series in dark red and brown. He altered his horizontal format to vertical to complement the restaurant’s vertical features: columns, walls, doors and windows.

The following June, Rothko and his family again traveled to Europe. While on the SS Independence he disclosed to John Fischer, publisher of Harper's, that his true intention for the Seagram murals was to paint "something that will ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room. If the restaurant would refuse to put up my murals, that would be the ultimate compliment. But they won’t. People can stand anything these days."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Rothko

[Boards]

Dali's legendary 'Christ of Saint John of the Cross'. The Spanish tried to nab it for a paltry £80m. Nae chance, Pedro, estimated worth £200m.

[plank007]

Public Art, graffiti, everyone has a different opinion on these..

image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr

[Portobello Red]

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[plank007]

Those are awesome!

[Erebus555]

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is Birmingham's best known art gallery. I recently paid a visit there for the first time in a while, when the Staffordshire Hoard was on show, and I was really taken aback at how much stuff was there. The gallery is home to the largest collection of works by Edward Burne-Jones and one of the finest collections of Pre-Raphaelite art. One of the best pieces there is William Holman Hunt's The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, of which there is a later, and much smaller version in the Liverpool Art Gallery.

Dotted throughout are so many detailed sculptures and busts that you just ignore when you look at the paintings.



Another brilliant art gallery that hosts collections of international stature but is really underrated is the Barber Institute of Fine Arts on the Birmingham Uni campus. It hosts paintings by Van Gogh, Picasso, Rodin, Monet, Rembrandt etc etc. The collection includes works such as Martini's St John the Evangelist dating from 1320 to Poussin's Tancred and Erminia of 1634. As well as art, it hosts one of the world's largest collections of coins which will have you there for hours.





Other art galleries include the Ikon Gallery at Brindleyplace which hosts a lot of contemporary art. I've been once and it wasn't my cup of tea really.
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[kids]

Manchester is home to a few famous pieces of art.

Jacob Epstein's Genesis



Ford Madox Brown's "Work"



This William Blake



I don't really get Art Galleries though, I mean, why won't prints do? it's all a bit esoteric isn't it?

[Damon]

Except that prints, by which I assume you mean reproductions rather than artists' original prints, tend to be nothing like the originals. If you know artworks through seeing reproductions, you are almost always amazed by how different the original is. A collection of original art, hung in a thoughtful and considered manner, is one of the the highpoints of civilisation; educational, inspiring, philosophical, argumentative... and so on. And yes, sometimes esoteric too

[Erebus555]

I can't stand prints. You just can't get the same impression by seeing the texture created by the individual brushstrokes on a print than on an actual painting. On the actual painting you can safely acknowledge the mix of colours, scale and composition.

[kids]

Paintings are about ideas, and (generally) you can understand the idea of a painting with a gist of a view. You can know your favourite painting without ever seeing it in person. What's in a brush stroke? only destructive esotericism for me.

If the copy was exactly perfect would you approve of them?

[Erebus555]

Whilst I can accept that you can know your favourite painting without ever seeing it in person, I don't think you can fully appreciate the skill and talent that has been put into it's creation from looking at a shot on the net or an imitation.

If an exact copy, perfect to the brushstroke was there in front of me, the appreciation would be there but it would all feel quite hollow that I am really appreciating the work of a copycat.

[kids]

So what is appreciating for you then? Are you imagining the act of artist - in history (in his or her "school") stroking the paint around the canvas? or are you imagining the emotional situation (in time, if you like) that led to that image?

[belfastuniguy]

I can't stand prints. You just can't get the same impression by seeing the texture created by the individual brushstrokes on a print than on an actual painting. On the actual painting you can safely acknowledge the mix of colours, scale and composition.

I agree with this completely..

I have seen famous paintings in print and online, in books etc etc etc.

However, actually going to view them in the galleries I've visited in various cities is truly fantastic. Only then, for me personally, do I fully engage with the piece, analyse it and appreciate it. Seeing works of art in person is an emotional experience and an experience that I've never had from simply looking at a copy or an image of the piece.

[kids]

Art for the people!

[belfastuniguy]

Originally Posted by kids

Art for the people!

In the UK and various other cities most museums and galleries are free.......

[kids]

The "best" art should be in hospitals and schools and in waiting rooms. Indeed it already is, but some people seem to think a middle-class trip to the art gallery is much more significant.

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[belfastuniguy]

Originally Posted by kids

The "best" art should be in hospitals and schools and in waiting rooms. Indeed it already is, but some people seem to think a middle-class trip to the art gallery is much more significant.

I didn't actually say that, I was taking galleries as a specific example as most major works of art featured in print are only available in galleries or museums.

'Best Art' is subjective, as art is personal to individuals, some may see Rubens as shit and a local artist commissioned for a hospital piece as magnificent While the reverse may be accurate for a second individual.

I'm a massive supporter of art in public buildings, I think it adds to the space and is of great benefit to the people using the building.

[kids]

Totally. So you only can't stand prints in art galleries. Fair enough I suppose.

Best art is subjective, but then there are trends and so we wouldn't be going wrong if we hung the most widely acknowledged meaningful art in our public places. Art in art galleries can't be viewed as subjective as you're not really viewing the art you're glimpsing highly vetted (socially vetted) cultural movements.

[belfastuniguy]

Depends on the galleries you visit. There are many that have no limits or criteria on what art is shown. It's a more recent thing granted, but to simply swipe galleries aside as sterile socially manufactured spaces is not entirely accurate.

[Portobello Red]

Liverpool - Walker Art Gallery

'The Liverpool Cityscape', Ben Johnson, 2008




Ben Johnson was commissioned to create The Liverpool Cityscape for 2008. He started painting in 2005. It took him over three years to paint, working mainly in his London studio with 11 assistants. To prepare, he visited Liverpool, found the best viewpoints, studied the architecture, talked to local experts, made drawings and took over 3,000 photographs.

Each featured building was 'drawn' on a computer. Combined, these drawings created an actual size 'plan' of the painting. Every drawing was analysed and broken down to create several separate stencils for each building: for the brickwork, the window frames, the glass, and so on. The stencils were carefully applied to the canvas using 'notches' to position them exactly.

The painting was carried out using hand-mixed acrylic paints applied with spray-guns through the stencils. The final touching-in of tiny areas of bare canvas was carried out using a fine paint brush.

Johnson completed the Cityscape in a public residency here at the Walker Art Gallery in early 2008. It was originally displayed as part of the exhibition; 'Ben Johnson's Liverpool Cityscape 2008 and the World Panorama Series', along with several of his other cityscapes.

The painting is now part of the permanent collection at the Walker Art Gallery. It will eventually be displayed at the new Museum of Liverpool, currently under construction at Mann Island.

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/w...c/johnson.aspx