A Global History of Religious Prudes

Posted on May 5, 2013 by GalleriaKlik

The obsession of religion with sex and its derivatives, chiefly, nudity is not a preserve of the Muslim or Arab parts of the world. This is an obsession the Christian West also shares. In the example of the Catholic Church we see an obsession that goes way back in the church’s history. Just like the Qatari Greek nude statue story the Catholic Church’s example of the obsession with sex and nudity plays itself out in the arts.

Greek Statue

Was this the offending statue, hence detail of only the upper section?

The Qatari censorship story draws a parallel with no less than the world famous Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, Rome. The story from the art history annals goes that in his now world renowned Last Judgement fresco, on the altar wall of the chapel, Michelangelo depicted nude men with exposed genitalia to the horror of the papal powers of the time. To add insult to the injury of the powers, Michelangelo refused to cover up the naughty bits, setting precedence for the Greek minister of culture, Costas Tzavaras, in the Qatari censorship story.

Detail from Michelangelo's censored Last Judgement

Detail from Michelangelo’s censored Last Judgement

Religions obsession with sex in the West continues today, witness the turmoil of the Catholic Church and the Church of England’s distraction with gay Bishops. Hence before we laugh and point at the Qataris we must remember that we are just as guilty in the practice of equating sex with morality. The Qatari/Greek statue story is all just a little bit of history repeating.

By Depo Olukotun

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When money inhibits rather then promotes culture

Posted on May 1, 2013 by GalleriaKlik

“Qatar returns statues to Greece amid nudity dispute” reports the Guardian. The simple story here was that the Qataris were objecting to the nudity of these ancient works of art and decided to censor history by covering the offending bits of the statues with pieces of cloth, to the indignation of the Greeks. In its reports the Guardian’s website goes on to refer to how a “cash-strapped” and “bankrupt” Greece has been trying to “woo” a no doubt rich Qatar. In the face of the might of money, culture and heritage had to be curtailed. As cash-strapped as the Greeks might have been their culture minister, Costas Tzavaras, did not agree that the Greek heritage should be censored or distorted, so the offending statues were returned home and quite rightly so. I think this ‘money talks’ scenario needs to be a lesson to UK Culture Secretary Maria Miller.

Greek and UK Culture Ministers

Tzavaras (l) and Miller (r): Not two of a kind

Ms Miller needs to understand this is what happens when money in all its brashness talks without the input of a proper and cultivated appreciation. Without this deep and objective appreciation a proper knowledge of history, heritage and culture goes out of the window. In spite of an abundance of funds the Qatari regime is unable to engage culturally in this example. In this case the Qataris finance, and particularly the abundance of it, was hindering rather than promoting and supporting culture. In our case if we are to go down Ms Miller’s prescription, finance will also be affecting censorship, except in our case the lack of finance, rather than the abundance of it, would be the culprit. Either way a focus on finance or the “economic impact”, as Ms Miller puts it, is a hindrance and misplaced.

The economic benefits Ms Miller refers to in her speech are benefits derived from what has been built up over the course of decades or even centuries of our history and heritage. However our concern today is how we prepare our culture and heritage for the future. Ms Miller is, in essence, expecting the arts and culture to apply short-term tactics for what are meant to be long term, strategic benefits or results. Ms Miller’s short-term economic view can only undermine our long-term ability to engage in the cultural sphere. Firstly, come the future when our economic woes are hopefully behind us, we will have nothing to give because the foresight that led to the establishment of the British Museum or National Gallery for example will be non-existent. The foundations for the future we should have laid will not be there for us to build on. Secondly, our hopefully economic abundance of the future will however have us making undiscerning decisions like the Qataris have made here. Bottom line, money might talk, but heritage, culture or discernment have to be cultivated over time, and cannot be bought. It’s not all about economy, stupid!

By Depo Olukotun

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Highlights from Kinetica Art Fair 2013

Posted on March 14, 2013 by GalleriaKlik

Here are some video highlights from the Kinetica Art Fair 2013,  an annual event, which this year, ran from February 28th to March 3rd 2013 at Ambika P3, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS.

More video listings would be added hopefully soon.

Visit the Kinetica Art Fair website for more on the annual fair, art, artists and galleries.

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Berchert’s kinetic readymades

Posted on March 14, 2013 by GalleriaKlik

Alexander Berchert refers to the continuously moving ball in his piece Limbo 2012 as the poor guy. Berchert takes the ready-made genre of art, used and sensationalized in Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain 1917, and infuses it with movement. Today we do not ask if Berchert’s work is art, like we did of Duchamp’s Fountain, because of its kinetic nature, it amuses and entertains us. Limbo 2012 in particular is infused with something else. And what could that be; poetry, allegory or philosophical pondering? Visit Berchert’s website for more of his visions in motion.

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Centipede? Vertebrae? Kinetica Art Fair highlights

Posted on March 4, 2013 by GalleriaKlik

Edwin Rahardjo’s Light Rhythm 2012 looks like a slightly larger than life golden human vertebrae. Then it starts moving and the image of a centipede comes to mind. You are mesmerized the same way you would be when you happen upon a centipede crossing your path. Looking at Rahardjo’s pieces truly evokes the feeling of a dreamlike experience of vision in motion.

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GalleriaClic’s art for the season of love

Posted on January 29, 2013 by GalleriaKlik

Check out these and other affordable art, GalleriaClic has, on offer for the season of love and romance!

GalleriaClic Valentine Art Collage

Sign up to the GalleriaClic’s mailing list and  get regular updates on the growing choice of affordable art available to you.

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Enrique Gavilanes invokes the spirits of the ancestors

Posted on January 14, 2013 by GalleriaKlik

To date Enrique Gavilanes has produced landscape paintings that explore the subject of spirituality. Gavilanes’ new work focuses specifically on the sense of spirituality we gain from the knowledge of our heritage. Irrespective of the culture we each come from, we all need a sense, which has been fashioned by our ancestry, of who we are. Hence ancestry and heritage are universal themes. With the Ancestors series of artworks Gavilanes echoes that universal theme of heritage, which we all hold dear as individuals.

Ancestors 4 by Enrique Gavilanes

Using teabags, a contemporary but globally recognised item, Gavilanes alludes to the universality of the subject of heritage and ancestry. It takes a mass of individual tealeaves blended in one teabag to give a cup of tea its richness and flavour. Likewise it takes people from a spectrum of cultures and heritages to give our communities its richness and diversity. Gavilanes’ Ancestors series is even more intriguing with the knowledge that no fresh teabags were harmed in the making this art.

Gavilanes’ Ancestors series in the group exhibition  Wide Open Spaces. Wide Open Spaces is on at the Espacio Gallery from Thursday 17 January 2013. The Espacio Gallery is smack bang in between Bethnal Green station on the Central line and Shoreditch High Street on the Overground line, at 159 Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 7DG.

By Depo Olukotun

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Women in Focus, Museum of London: Hinting at the issues

Posted on November 28, 2012 by GalleriaKlik

Dorothy Bohm has worked as a photographer for longer than the Rolling Stones have been on the road and just like them she is still at it. The exhibition Women In Focus at the Museum of London presents the output from Bohm training her lens on women around London. This is London in its guise as the avant-garde spots of the 1990s and noughties. Documentary style, Women In Focus takes you through more of a spectrum, and less of a metamorphosis, of womanhood in the cosmopolis. There are strong themes in Bohm’s images. She reveals the feminine obsession with preening, showing it cuts across cultures. Bohm’s photographs do a lot of sniffing at. One set of images viewed, side-by-side, take a light feather duster approach to the subject of the changing role of women in the capital. Another set, dab daintily at the theme of ‘women operating in a man’s world’.

Bohm’s images do a lot of hinting at. There is no slam-dunk on the social issues we have been lulled in, by the title, to come and engage with. There are a lot of moments but no Cartier Bressonesque ‘decisive moments’. She however, comes close to delivering a slam-dunk decisive moment. It is when she turns her lens on our society’s continued obsession with the sexualised female, that she achieves this. Camden High Street 1997 is the image that aims to do the trick. This image depicts the still primal exchange between men and women in our supposed civilised contemporary London. Interestingly there are two Camden High Street 1997s on display, both talking about the same thing. While one aims for the light touch approach the other aims for the knock out blow on the same subject. See the exhibition, compare the two same-titled and same subject images and you will, no doubt, see which is which.

Hey caveman! What you looking at?

We live in a world where the art is defined by the story. In many cases this is not necessarily the story the art on display is telling, but the story that surrounds the art. The story might have inspired the art but not necessarily so. The story itself is defined by or has to be seen to contain specific key references; usually a recognisable social issue or the focus on a specific demographic. It is on this premise that the exhibition Women In Focus might have been given its title. With this exhibition both the story and the key reference are obviously women. As a significant demographic, women are very much in focus at the moment. Witness, the issue of ‘women in the boardroom’, which currently keeps popping up now and again in mainstream media. Add to this the education of women, which has been brought into sharp focus by the Taliban attack on Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani blogger on the issue of education of girls. These and other current affair topics mean in essence Women In Focus is quite rightly a timely and relevant exhibition. The exhibition however raises questions, not about society but about itself like: what is it trying to say and could it be said more forcefully?

Women in Focus: Photography by Dorothy Bohm is at the Museum of London until 17 February 2013.

By Depo Olukotun

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An Enlightenment in Middle Eastern Complexities

Posted on November 15, 2012 by GalleriaKlik

Light from the Middle East at London’s V&A “offers insights from within cultures that are more often photographed and reported from the outside” says Jonathan Jones of the Guardian, it is not that simple and there is much more to the exhibition than the luxuries of an insight. Apart from the images from Abbas, a veteran photojournalist, most of the works in the exhibition were making myriad commentaries. Even though cameras do lie, we all know that now, Abbas tries his best to present an unloaded reportage. However all the other artists in the exhibition, most of whom seem to come from the generation after his (Abbas), embark on a deliberate dialogue some more vehemently than others, using the medium of photography.

Detail from 'Most Wanted' by Taraneh Hemami

Detail from Most Wanted by Taraneh Hemami,

It would be challenging to accept the commentary of John Jurayj for example, as an insight on the Middle East. Jurayj, though of Lebanese decent, was born and raised in the USA. At the event, Light from the Middle East: Artists in Conversation, a gig to launch the exhibition, Jurayj presented the case for his output on display. It was interesting listening to Jurayj tease about his inspiration, motif and hence his audience. While his motif might have hinted at the Middle East, may be specifically Lebanon, his artistic intention and notion of an audience was less about a window on the East and more a reflection on the West. He was not talking about any good old passive West, but the very West, which had coined the phrase ‘Axis of Evil’.

In terms of taking a swipe at the West, while Jurayj hinted, Taraneh Hemami was more blatant. Hemami’s commentary was more about being a member of what might be seen as a contemporarily and globally reviled people. Light from the Middle East reveals a people dispersed across the globe, who seem beset on all sides. At home you are faced with physical and primal danger if you were a woman, an artist, were not straight, were on the wrong side of the ruling political elite or worst still all of the above. Abroad the danger continued unless as Jurayj put it, at the launch event, you were able “to pass (as non-Middle Eastern)”.

The issues raised in the exhibition are multi-layered and complex. It reveals as much about the West as it does the Middle East. The questions raised are fundamental but not basic . What does the Middle East aspire to? How are those aspirations defined at home and abroad? What challenges are posed to the aspirations at home and, especially, abroad? The exhibition is not merely an “insight”; it is a commentary on the Middle East, by a not-so-conveniently defined Middle East, aimed not just at the West but also at itself (the Middle East). It simultaneously digs at a West and challenges a not-necessarily-passive non-Middle Eastern audience. ‘Simples’ it is not!

Light from the Middle East: New Photography is on at the V&A, until 7 April 2013.

By Depo Olukotun

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Enrique Gavilanes at Espacio Gallery

Posted on September 24, 2012 by GalleriaKlik

Enrique Gavilanes will be showing pieces from his long running series Samil Revisited at the Espacio Gallery from Thursday 4 October. Visit www.GalleriaClic.co.uk for more details.

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