|
Indepth Arts News:
"Encounters: NEW art from OLD"
2000-06-14 until 2000-09-17
National Gallery
London, ,
UK United Kingdom
The history of modern art is often presented in terms of the
rejection of the past in favour of new subjects and new ways of
painting. Until the early 20th century, art students were expected
to study in museums and copy the work of the great masters of
the past, but then the new language of Cubism, Dada and
abstraction seemed to deny any artistic parentage and was
viewed as the original invention of radical young artists for whom
the art of the past was irrelevant. The truth, however, is more
complex. Artists as various as Picasso, Magritte, Mondrian and
Pollock all looked hard at earlier art in developing their own
distinctive approaches. The art of the past is as much a factor as
society, technology and temperament in fashioning the forms of
new art, something that cannot be ignored and demands to be
reckoned with.
The National Gallery has always been a resource for artists, and
the Collection offers many examples of how artists in other times
have wrestled with tradition, extracting lessons of relevance to
their own art. 'Encounters: New Art from Old' is an exhibition of
new work by 24 major living artists (painters, sculptors,
photographers, video and installation artists) made in response
to paintings in the National Gallery, and shows how some of the
greatest artistic personalities of the late 20th century continue to
engage with the work of their predecessors. For some, like
Kossoff and Freud, this engagement is based on close study of
the way an artist paints and is a continual process of technical
discovery. For others, like Bourgeois, Clemente and Kiefer, the
art of the past is a source of ideas to be interpreted and
refashioned in works of a very different kind. The painters they
have looked at are as various as their responses, ranging from
Duccio to Seurat.
The new works made for 'Encounters' demonstrate that the art of
the past continues to speak to the present. They will allow
everyone who visits the exhibition to share that artistic exchange
between old and new.
IMAGE:
CLAES OLDENBURG AND COOSJE VAN BRUGGEN:
'Resonances, after J.V.', 1999-2000
Sculptural installation (mixed media)
148.5 x 140.2 x 41 cm
Related Links:
| | 
|
