The Wallace McCann Award seems too good to be true. I feel honoured to have been chosen for this fantastic opportunity to learn about art overseas. My initial theme for focus was 'Past and Present' and I refined my choice to five main cities: Madrid, Munich, Berlin, London, and New York City. These were cities where there was either a difference in, or attention to, the past and present theme in terms of art and culture. There were many positive moments and benefits to the visit.
Madrid
Madrid was a city of contrasts, in architecture, scale and speed! I first noticed the speed of the traffic during my shuttle bus trip from the airport to the hotel. Afternoons moved much slower. The 'siesta' does not involve going home for a sleep but a long lunch or game of chess with a friend in a café. Conversation is an important way of life. The major three galleries were well-respected and well attended. It was refreshing to view parents with children equally enjoying the artworks particularly at The Prado. Whilst major buildings were highly ornate with colossal sculptures seeming to hang off their sides, the side streets were narrow with delightful ceramic mosaics and painted tiles for signs.
The longer opening hours at galleries in Madrid allowed me to arrive at The Prado at 9.30am, ready to start. If I was ever in doubt about the validity and beauty of the European masters, this quickly disappeared, as I viewed both familiar and unfamiliar paintings by Goya, El Greco, Velazquez, Zurburan, Brueghel, Rubens and others. The works in The Prado have to be amongst the most passionate in the world. Walking into the room containing Goya's '3rd May' was like arriving at a funeral. Visitors immediately became silent as they stood in front of the huge work to contemplate the horrific scene of execution. Small reproductions in books look like comics compared to the experience of viewing this work first hand.
I also viewed the most superb special exhibition of Flower Still Life painting by 17th century Spanish painters. Entitled 'Flores españolas del Siglo de Oro' or 'Spanish Flower Painting in the Golden Age', the works were drawn from a range of international collections including The National Gallery in London. This was an ironic surprise considering the renewed interest in the subject of the flower and botany in contemporary Australian art including artists such as Tim Maguire and Robyn Stacey, two artists exhibiting at Bendigo Art Gallery in 2003.
Renowned for using flowers for religious symbology, Francisco De Zurburan's 'Cup of Water and a Rose on a Silver Plate' could be interpreted as alluding to the Virgin Mary, whilst Juan de Arallenao's 'Florero', like others, show that beauty, symbolised with drooping flowers from a vase, will eventually fade. After one day in Madrid, I felt completely immersed in the beauty and aesthetics of the city and its art.
The following two days I visited the new Thyssen Bornemisza Museum and the Reina Sofia Museum which is the modern version of The Prado containing 20th century art, mainly painting and sculpture. The building was once a hospital and the rooms are arranged in a rectangle with a huge courtyard in the middle (not accessible in Winter). One of its icon works is Picasso's 'Guernica', a work so huge that people stand back to be able to view it. As in many other modern art museums I visited, this wasn't a
definitive 20th century collection, but instead specialised in mainly Spanish artists such as Picasso, Miro, Tàpies and Dali. All art, especially the gutsy, highly textured, large scale abstract works of Antoni Tàpies simply must be witnessed first hand in order to experience the nuances. I learned about styles such as Magic Realism, an American style of art with Surrealist overtones, in addition to more widely known Surrealism and Cubism.
The Thyssen Bornemisza, a private collection which contains both art of the past and present, completes the city's 'big three' galleries. Almost as large as The Prado, this museum's chronology starts earlier with Gothic illuminated works and finishes with 20th century works. Thyssen Bornemisza displays its works on orange coloured walls that appear lime-washed. It's a daring effect to mix a bright background with predominantly older art but it succeeds in providing a warm feel without detracting from the artworks. Many of the stunning Renaissance portraits of women such as 'Catherine of Alexandria' by Carravaggio and 'Portrait of a Girl' by Hans Baldung Grien recalled to me the work of Australian contemporary artist Annette Bezor, who distorted images which idealised beauty. After recalling Tim Maguire's works in the Flowers exhibition at The Prado, I found it ironic that I have become more familiar with the appropriated versions than the originals. I couldn't wait to discuss these originals when next introducing 'appropriation' to VCE students at school. (An excellent discussion of Bezor's work is found at the website of her dealer: http://www.greenaway.com.au/ )
I aimed to experience art in a range of environments, which took me to the Palacio Real or Royal Palace whose external size and grandeur of architecture immobilised me and whose interiors confronted me with impressive staircases, chapels and dining rooms. Ceiling frescos were exquisitely painted by Italian artists such as Tiepolo and Giaquinto and some rooms were lined in ceramics. As a ceramics teacher I was charmed by the Pharmacia, a room of pharmacy jars commissioned for royalty. Every surface of the Palace contained a layering of decoration, despite most of the paintings being removed in the 19th century under Ferdinand VII - no clean-cut Modernism here! Fortunately the removed works have become a part of The Prado's Collection. My visit became an opportunity to view the famous decorative in addition to the fine arts of Spain in addition to experiencing the various purposes and contexts of art.
Toledo is a beautiful, stone city with narrow meandering paths and immense history. I viewed the El Greco paintings in their environment in the Toledo Cathedral. The Sacristy was the highlight, with the El Greco painting 'Spoliation of Christ' the focal point at the end of the room surrounded by other paintings and ceiling frescos. In the next room was a portrait of every archbishop since 1400, a history of portrait styles as much as a history of the people. Around the city there were decorative details in the stone architecture which I photographed to inspire my students with folio ideas for sculpture and ceramics.
Munich
The quiet of Munich was a culture shock after the dynamics of the people and traffic in Madrid. I visited Galerie im Lenbachhaus and was expecting a quaint aristocrat's house full of dreary 19th century portraits from the images I had viewed in gallery guides but was surprised when I saw two special exhibitions, one of contemporary photography and one of new media. After working chronologically through the permanent collection, I saw some late 19th century art and then there it was, the finest collection of Die Blau Reiter (or The Blue Rider) paintings I could ever imagine seeing. How privileged I felt to view some of Munich's best master works. Most of the Die Blau Reiter works were donated to the gallery by Gabrielle Münter, an artist and partner of Wassily Kandinsky. Contrasting with the other permanent collection works, these colourful paintings were displayed on walls coloured red, yellow and blue. Rather than competing with the paintings, the walls brought out the colours in the works, knowledge I look forward to sharing with students during 'gallery display' theme talks at Bendigo Art Gallery and VCE Studio Arts classes at school.
Next was the Haus Der Kunst in Munich, the gallery set up by Hitler in the 1930s to show what he proclaimed as purely German or Aryan art, having 'cleansed' Germany of the 'degenerate' artists of the 20th century. Interestingly, this 'cleansing' also included many of the artists in Die Blau Reiter group who separated in the 1930s as a result, providing a significant link to my visit to The Lenbachhaus. It houses a variety of stimulating 20th century exhibitions far removed from Hitler's preferred styles. The retrospective exhibition of Wolfgang Laib fully utilised the gigantic spaces with installation-based works using milk, pollen, rice, beeswax and marble in piles, repetitions often in conical and house-type forms recalling medieval reliquaries or Muslim tombs. The highlight of the visit was 'Tune the World', an exhibition by German Fluxus-inspired artist Stephan Von Huene, a contemporary of Nam June Paik and John Cage. 'Tune the World' featured fascinating sculptural works, which 'performed' kinetically and musically. One of the most bizarre was 'Kaleidophonic Dog' (Der Kaleidophonische Hund), loaned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which featured an upside-down dog with many legs which moved and expelled discordant music once per hour.
I also viewed the Alte Pinakothek, the Neue Pinakothek and Pinakothek Der Moderne in deliberate chronological order. The Alte and Neue Pinakothek both contain impressive collections of art from Renaissance through to late 19th century, including gigantic works by Rubens and the icon portrait works by Durer. The Neue Pinakothek continued the history of European painting ending with magnificent landscapes by Van Gogh and excellent examples by Toulouse Le Trec, Degas, Manet and Monet. However, the atmosphere at these museums was dreary with hessian walls showing the influence of Post-war architecture, and where was the public?
Especially in Germany, museums have been constantly reassessing their buildings and collections since WWII and rebuilding the many damaged museums. The recently opened Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich was a hive of activity, including school groups, in both the large foyer and the gallery rooms. Similar to the Guggenheim in New York, Pinakothek der Moderne has a rotunda ceiling and the room's centre opens into a round entrance foyer. Unlike the Guggenheim however, the staircases are curved, but not in one continuous spiral. This gallery has four themes: art, work on paper, architecture and design. Many secondary students were taking part in self-tours with dedicated teachers and I saw one Education Officer giving a tour - the cost of tours seemed expensive. The students enjoyed sitting with the art in the larger spaces and many paused on the wide staircases perfectly designed for groups of people to congregate on. The wider spaces also gave students the freedom to roam, making me realise the importance of environment for student engagement. After seven days in Munich I had felt what can happen to arts through political change, a responsibility I wanted to share with students and others upon return.
Berlin
I visited IFA, a gallery focusing on international cultural exchange and the Museum Insel (island), the site of much refurbishment in East Berlin. I put aside my feelings about provenance of classical and ancient art and visited the Pergamon Museum, where I viewed the icon piece, the gigantic Pergamon Altar. I enjoyed the Islamic tiles and the partially reconstructed Babylonian Processional Altar built during the enlargement of the palace precinct under the first two kings of the Neo-Babylonian empire, Nabopolassar (625-605 BC) and Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC). Beautiful bricklike tiles feature a range of animal figures such as lions, unicorns and other mythical creatures, and I developed a 'fantastic animals' theme for use with students. I also visited exhibitions in Linienstrasse including an evocative photographic exhibition by an unknown Russian artist calling himself 'VLAD'.
My theme of 'past and present' was evident in Berlin. After taking a wrong turn in Potsdamer Platz I ended up at the Topography of Terrors, an open air display of historical documentation of the events leading up to the holocaust on one of the few remaining parts of the wall. Finding my way back to the Potsdamer Platz, I visited the Kulturforum, a complex with a number of museums, the Western parallel to the East's Museum Insel. The Kunstgewerbemuseum (museum of decorative art) a great place to view the many ceramic works that I had only studied in books, had a delightful collection of silver and gold vessels in the theme of various animals from the Renaissance through to contemporary.
Subsequent days took me to the Brandenberg Tor, The Deutsche Guggenheim, the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirsche, a bombed out church which has had a new chapel built around the ruins, The Hamburger Bahnhof and the refurbished Gemäldegalerie. I had come full circle in the chronology of art and now returned to the older works in the Gemäldegalerie, ('picture gallery') to appreciate art history. The nearby Kunstbibliotek gallery hosts special exhibitions, one being 'Ansel Adams at 100'. Viewing his works chronologically I learned how they became much darker in his later years and the expressiveness increased from the earlier objective landscapes. The Jüdisches Museum involved a full day excursion, but for all the welldisplayed history, the most impressive and moving image was the sculptural installation 'Fallen Leaves' by Menashe Kadishman. This work, installed in the cold, deep space entitled The Memory Void comprised thousands of coarsely cut circles of metal, with screaming faces cut out of their centres, emphasising to me the power of art to leave a lasting image more effectively than words.
The only disappointing art exhibition during the trip was the Berlin version of 'The Dali Universe' in Kürfurstendam which was crowded into a hotel space and badly and unevenly displayed. I doubted the authenticity of many works and felt cheated. But I was pleasantly surprised by the Käthe Kollwitz Museum, modest and well-designed with each small room devoted to a different theme of the artist. This worked well for the smaller scale of Kollwitz's works on paper. Kollwitz's themes of motherhood and death as experienced by her until the end of WWII were moving. Two young art students were making numerous sketches in their journals. The top floor contained some of her few sculptural works.
London
After experiencing the throwing of fireworks during Silvester, or New Years' Eve in Berlin, I headed for London and was thrilled to visit Tate Britain, the perfect gallery to explore the theme of past and present within the gallery's theme of British art. The chronology commenced in the 16th century with Elizabethan portraits and in Postmodern reference to this period was an exhibition by contemporary photographic artist John Goto which explored the practice of destructing rood screens during the Protestant Reformation. The huge single colour photographs depicted in large scale the marks made by slashing and gouging at religious portraits. Despite such attempts to damage and destroy them their beauty remains. This provided an interesting counterpoint to the early painted portraits of the permanent collection and the contemporary portraits by British well-knowns such as Gilbert and George and Tracey Emin. In the words of John Goto: 'It is the traumatic violence of the Reformation that provides the historical starting point of the Tate Britain's displays.' The Tate Britain offers weekend activities for children such as Art Trolley (where children brought their creations back to a staffed art trolley) and an audio tour.
Next were the major galleries such as The National Gallery, Tate Modern, the Victoria and Albert and The National Portrait Gallery. At university I had studied Korean Koryo Dynasty celadon glazes, said to be the first in the world. At the Victoria and Albert Musem I therefore made my way straight to the top floor to see the ceramics where I was amazed and disappointed at the thousands of pieces of ceramics from many periods and countries in a most cluttered display. I wished that a selection had been grouped in an aesthetic display to emphasise their importance.
The National Gallery is the place to see many of the west's master icons and I viewed for the first time 'The Arnolfini Portrait' by Jan van Eyck, 'Bathers at Asières' by Seurat, 'Supper at Emmaus' by Caravaggio and the superb Titians, Turners and Van Goghs. I took part in a Professional Development program, 'Take One Picture'. Aimed at primary teachers, the day focused on analysing artworks and encouraging different viewpoints in children. The trails and education resources at The V & A and The National Gallery were appealing. I collected a trail for 'Black History Month' at the V & A and was interested to see similar themes being explored at the New York galleries I visited next. The National Gallery has produced a range of booklets for families of young children including the 'Lookout' series with themes of 'smelly', 'noisy' and 'tasty' paintings re-interpreting the gallery's masters in hilarious fashion.
A smaller gallery, The Serpentine situated in Hyde Park is also free, and was showing an impressive exhibition of Japan's answer to Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami. Every surface of the gallery was covered in the artist's 'wallpaper', paintings and sculptures fulling exploiting the possibilities of the Postmodern solo exhibition. A video showed the design and production process, involving Murakami's team of assistants. Conscious of the similarities between his studio and Warhol's 'factory', Murakami originally called his factory 'Hiropon' (a brand name of a medicine produced in Japan after the Second World War) but later changed it to Kaikai Kiki Corporation. Over twenty assistants are involved in photocopying, enlarging and computer modifying Murakami's initial drawings. Extensive colour tests are undertaken prior to the painting process. The technical quality of the works was high and the video of the hand painting demonstrated the skill involved. The Postmodern use of the paradox was evident in the exhibition in that while initially the works had a 'cute' and appealing quality, on closer observation 'Tan Tan Bo Puking 2002', for example, one can see that all is not well. This painting features a flat bright blue background and in the foreground, Murakami's trademark smiling flowers. Contrasting the small scale of the flowers is a gigantic creature, one of his motifs, 'DOB' dominating the space. This figure has jagged black teeth and appears to ooze brown and blue liquid from its mouth. A series of online teachers' notes for this exhibition is available from http://www.serpentinegallery.org/downloads/Teachers'%20Notes%20-%20Murakami.doc.
On my return to Australia I shared the catalogue of the exhibition with students interested in Japanese anime and described its scale and display. I was able to connect with some of these students and assist them to incorporate their interests into their art production whilst broadening their knowledge of art styles and terms.
I talked with Education staff from National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and Tate Modern, and at National Portrait Gallery was privileged to view the gallery's colour photo laboratory for use with students who had produced quality colour photographic portraits based on the themes in special exhibition and permanent collection portraits.
I visited Eltham College in Mottingham, a school recommended by Alison Raimes, an artist who had worked in its art department. A fairly traditional school, the visual arts offered were mainly painting and sculpture, including ceramics, and it obviously took pride in promoting the arts to the point of dividing the classes in half for practical lessons, meaning that around fifteen students would take part in painting whilst the rest worked in sculpture with a teacher devoted to each discipline. Year 9 equivalent boys worked enthusiastically and creatively on the concept of 'grotesque' in media images of celebrities such as Michael Jackson. Mostly from imagination the students painted large 'grotesque' figures juxtaposed against other subjects. The strong foundation in figurative drawing and painting technique was evident even at this level. The school had an artist in residence, Peter Davey, who worked in a studio room and students were required to book in to talk to or see him. I felt the Artists in Schools system in Australia is more accessible for students. Another highlight was seeing some snow-covered wooden carvings that were on permanent display in the yard; the previous day had been the first day of snow for the season and the art teachers had managed to incorporate 'snow sculpture' into the program for the day. Through using the internet I was able to show the art department samples of artwork by students at Bendigo Senior Secondary College, art galleries such as Bendigo Art Gallery and National Gallery of Victoria and the work of key Australian contemporary artists such as Patricia Piccinini. Despite being impressed with many aspects of art education during my visit to London, I would conclude that Australian students are ahead in terms of use of new media and computer technology.
I was also pleased to be able to view what some artists are doing for the poorest schools in London. The Bow Trust is an artist-run initiative in the East End of London where artists rent studios and work with schools to fill the gaps in art education. I met with Alison Raimes, one of the artists involved and saw images of the many projects held in 2002, many of which had a multicultural focus well suited to the diverse demographics of the population.
The visual arts projects ranged from 'Enchanted Gardens' using textiles techniques inspired by Pre- Raphaelite style and Egyptian tapestries through to a Carnival project involving 540 pupils designing and making costumes and artwork, modelled in a carnival procession. Some of the best young artists now studying at university are coming from the East End. My ten days in London scratched the surface of what this art-friendly city had to offer. I had made numerous contacts, shared ideas about Australian art, expanded my knowledge of contemporary art and renewed my interest in the art of the past.
New York City
I visited the famous Guggenheim where I was keen to see the special exhibition 'Moving Pictures' which presented a good selection of the big names in contemporary photography and video installations, the highlight being Bill Viola's impressive video installation 'Going Forth by Day'. From the visits to art galleries from my chosen cities I was able to consolidate my viewings and appreciate the new trends in photography and video art. In straight photography, square format, colour, light-box backlit photos seemed to be the new trend, especially in Germany, and a new use of the concept of time was evident in video art. During my New York stay I saw a history of video art in 'Video Acts: Single channel Works from the Collections of Pamela and Richard Kramlich and New Art Trust' at the contemporary art space PS1 which seemed coarse and low-technology when compared with the contemporary versions. The new use of video had shown an aesthetically pleasing improved technical resolution and a slowing down rather than speeding up of time. This was particularly evident in 'Going Forth by Day' and 'The Quintet of Remembrance' also by Viola. 'Going Forth by Day' is a five-part projected digital-image cycle that explored themes of human existence such as individuality, birth, death and rebirth. The second panel, 'The Path' used the large space of the wall to present a wide panorama of people walking along a path between trees in the mountains. I thought about how the experience of viewing an artwork first hand had changed from the thrill of being able to see a painting's actual colours and textures against a neutral and non-distracting background to experiencing the fine resolution, sound and development of a moving image when viewed over a period of time and again felt grateful for the range of viewing experiences I was privy to. Unlike a painting, multiple piece video installations compel you to sit and work through each of the panels.
Being advised that I would need a week to work my way through the Metropolitan Museum of Art I arrived there early. The Met must be one of the largest art museums in the world and the collection is varied, encompassing a wide variety of international art, craft and design from various periods. I decided to visit the Bill Viola installation first to avoid the crowds that were evident at the Guggenheim. 'The Quintet of Remembrance' featured only one screened image, this time a group of five people whose faces showed various emotions of sadness, anger, fear, sorrow to despair.
Whilst 'Going Forth by Day' was said to reference fresco painting, mainly by the use of cycles of imagery in which the progress of a soul is shown, in particular Giotto's frescoes for the Scrovegni chapel in Padua as influences, 'The Quintet of Remembrance' referenced the group portrait as evident in late medieval and early Renaissance paintings. In discussing the characteristics of Renaissance painting, Viola notes that 'in real old masters pictures, there is something odd and forced in the way the substance of a drama congeals into one single point in time. Of course, this flaw is balanced by the special leisure that we are given to think about the passing moment shown' (Viola, 2001). In 'Quintet of Remembrance', Viola used high-speed 35mm film to capture the performance which lasted approximately sixty seconds, but amazingly, in the video it extends to sixteen minutes and nineteen seconds.
The Met provides a good range of family trails and guided tours. I collected excellent Family Guides on the themes of 'Heroes and Heroines', Glass, 'Think Sphinx! Art Hunt' and 'What is Cleopatra's Needle?' I particularly enjoyed the special exhibition 'African-American Artists, 1929-1945: Prints, Drawings and Paintings' and subsequently used my catalogue of images to inspire a student with her 'African' theme in Studio Arts Unit 3-4.
I was similarly awakened to the world of African- American artists at The Whitney (Museum of American Art) in the exhibition 'The Quilts of Gees Bend' which featured quilts made from the 1930s to the 1990s by more than forty African American women from the small rural community of Gee's Bend, Alabama. The clever use of monochromatic colour schemes and harmonious shapes, usually geometric, demonstrated an awareness of aesthetics seen in their painter contemporaries, some of which reminded me of the repetitive pink and orange stripes of the paintings of Australian indigenous artist Emily Kngwarreye. Like Australian contemporary artist Tracey Moffatt, Lorna Simpson does not wish to be typecast as an African-American artist but shows a representation of class, gender and race in her video installations and photography. On display at The Whitney was '31', a film installation, which featured thirty one projections of a month in the life of an unknown woman. Although not as grand as Viola's works, I found 31 to be just as compelling. I found myself intrigued by the personal and social spaces of one person. 'Cameos and Appearances' featured silhouetted profiles with text drawn from films, paintings and music. In this exhibition a group of older, perhaps tertiary students were presenting their responses to the exhibition to their group as variously, personal impressions of the exhibition, poems and a rap 'song' complete with dance actions. What a great technique this could be to Middle School English students!
Leaving the larger galleries, I visited the commercial galleries of Chelsea guided by John Haber, an editor and writer who manages his own art website: haberarts.com. In an exhausting few hours we covered around twenty of the two hundred commercial galleries. I felt proud to see the work of Australians Tracey Moffatt and Rosemary Laing alongside that of Jeff Koons, Rachel Whiteread and Lucien Freud. Another noted area for commercial galleries is the beautiful Art Deco Fuller Building in 57th street. I was also generously treated to a number of tours of the city by graphic designers Harold and Sandra Burch. Sandra works at Sothebys, and there I was surprised to see an excellent photography exhibition from Aperture in addition to a range of public programs on offer. There are so many ways to be involved in the visual arts in New York!
Travelling overseas to just some of the major cities of the world has provided me with much to enrich my teaching, not the least of which is the opportunity to view works of art first hand. It has been my goal to instil a love of the pure experience of viewing artwork in students but also to teach how art, as it changes in medium and style with time, has the power to be an aesthetic experience but also to move its audience. I have reinforced my belief in the idea of using artworks of the past with contemporary art in both my teaching at Bendigo Senior Secondary College and the themed tours at the Bendigo Art Gallery. This pluralistic inclusion also does not position one period of art as superior to another but rather embraces and accepts all art forms, interestingly, a feature of Postmodernism.
From visiting some of the world's best galleries, from observing programs for students and children in galleries and from visiting artists, teachers and Education Officers, I now have new ideas and topics to share with students, teachers and other art professionals, one inspired by the National Portrait Gallery in London and their exhibition 'Americans: Paintings and Photographs from the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC.' The students were invited to dress either like one of the Americans depicted in the exhibition, or as another American type, such as a rapper. They were then photographed against a projected background relating to their character. Each one was a great success.
From viewing and photographing older pieces of sculpture and ceramics in major museums such as Kunstgewerbemuseum and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York I have developed a theme 'Fantastic creatures' with my Studio Arts Ceramics class, many of whom are making animal and mythical creature ceramic forms as a result. By visiting some of the major contemporary art museums and commercial gallery strips I was able to get a wide perspective of worldwide trends in art, enabling me to more fully define contemporary art.
In addition to holding some of the most important artworks in the world, the cities chosen also possess turbulent and fascinating pasts, such as the 'cleansing' of the 'degenerate' artworks of the German cities Munich and Berlin. The Haus Der Kunst in Munich stands in defiance of Hitler's intention, devoting itself to exhibitions of the most cutting-edge 20th century and contemporary art.
I thank the Tomlins family and Art Education Victoria for making this life-changing experience possible.