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“Temptation of St. Anthony” Max Ernst

It’s a Tuesday night in Vienna. What to do? Go to the premier opening of the Max Ernst retrospective exhibition in the Albertina, of course. Thanks goes to Celene and Jutta Venosa for making this possible. Otto Rapp and Timea Tallian were  also there to gaze, point. Pick the artists! The five of us kept the security on their toes, nervously hovering in close vicinity, as we peered and scrutinized, with our noses barely centimetres from the paintings.

I’ve long been a fan of Ernst’s decalcomania period, but Otto had a grin from ear to ear and a sparkle in his eye. The Albertina exhibited 180 paintings, collages, and sculptures spanning Max’s  artistic career. I think all of us were less than enthusiastic about his earlier works. But as we progressed through the exhibition, arriving at his frottage, decalcomania and later paintings our interest spiked along with animated discussions. So much so were we engaged in the artworks and discussions, I think we came to hardly notice throng of other visitors milling around us and the artworks. To some extent, I think we ended up owning the exhibition.

I have seen a limited number of Ernst’s actual works before, and so with this expansive exhibition, it was a wonderful saturation. Curiously what I noted, was that in his earlier periods, his colours were muted, or more rather a lack there of. Black and brown was everywhere to be seen. And then, he started to discover colour. Perhaps he started come to understand the full vehicle of expression that painting could be, as by the last few rooms of the exhibition, his works were positively luminous.

Ernst could apply the full range of his experimentation and techniques to produce some outstanding works. Many of these I have never seen printed in any book or catalogue. At the opening speech by the Albertina director, he made it apparent, why this was so. Because Max never consistently stayed with any period of painting for any length of time and was constantly exploring new artistic territory, it makes it hard for museums or curators to box him in. So, the majority of Ernst’s work still to this day remains in private collections.

It was a fabulous evening, with exhibition definitely one of the highlights of this current adventure in Vienna. If you happen to be in Vienna while the exhibition hangs, go and see it!

Max Ernst Retrospective Exhibition
Albertina Vienna
Austria
23 January – 5 May 2013

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Tomorrow morning I am travelling from Berlin to Hamburg to attend the opening of the H.R. Giger Retrospective exhibition. I will be there to photograph and video the event for Fantastic Visions. I am rather hoping I can get some good footage of Giger, and perhaps, if I am lucky get him to say a few words on camera.

Hamburg artist, Dennis Konstantin will be joining me at the opening. Many thanks must go to Cornelia Mensdorff-Pouilly for getting us into this exclusive event.

More information about the exhibition and its opening times can be found on Fantastic Visions.

GENSO exhibition

I am in Paris to attend two exhibitions. The first is the GENSO exhibition organised by Shoji Tanaka and Hugues Gillet. It is two years ago since I was last in Paris when I exhibited with Shoji’s group, the IFAA from Japan. This time however, I will be a visitor instead. I look forward to seeing Shoji again and to also enjoying the quality exhibition that he has organised. He and Hugues, a Paris native, have assembled an impressive array of artists, including the likes of Claude Verlinde, HR Giger and Gérard Di-Maccio.

The other exhibition I will be visiting is the “Phoenix and Dragons” exhibition organised by artist Lukáš Kándl and his wife Françoise. Lukáš’ exhibition projects involve a select number of artists. The invited artists then work to a specific theme.

Through an number of email exchanges I organised for Shoji to meet with Lukáš and Françoise as their exhibitions are happening in very close time frames. I felt they all have similar aims and would benefit from meeting each other, and if they take a liking to each other, then perhaps more opportunities will be opened to the each other’s projects. I am very much looking forward to seeing how this meeting works out.

I am also very much looking forward to visiting Paris again.

One of my favourite artists and master draftswoman, Laurie Lipton, has just released a limited giclee of her most infamous image, LOVE BITE. There is more information on Fantastic Visions.

The exhibiting artists

Seeing a brilliant opportunity, at very short notice, Amanda Sage organised an exhibition of Fantastic Visionary artists at Galerie 10. She and Laurence Caruana, along with Andrew Gonzalez had been giving a painting seminar in the Summer. A number of artists had travelled to attend their course in Italy. Thus she came to the idea of organising a show while everybody was in Europe.

After a late night skype session between Amanda, Dennis Konstantin and myself, Dennis made himself busy with the flyer and Amanda busy organising the other artists, which is often compared to herding cats.

Dennis drove down from Hamburg in his spacious blue VW van. A vehicle well kitted out for adventures, so it fitted our needs very well. After stopping over for the night in Berlin, we loaded my artwork into the van and began our long road trip to Vienna.

René and Lisa graciously housed us in their living room for our stay in Vienna. So I must thank them again for their hospitality.

On Tuesday we made trip out to one of Dennis’ collectors, who endless numbers of Fuchs prints and sculptures and now had a growing collection of Dennis’ artwork.

After too many coffees and a light lunch, we trooped over to Amanda’s studio to catch up David Heskin and Aloria Weaver who were staying with Amanda. It is a pleasure to meet the real face behind an internet presence, and more so with David and Aloria. Both had been on Amanda and Laurence Caruana’s painting seminar idyllically located in a medieval village in the Italian hills. They were now making the most of Amanda’s studio in Vienna to finish of some works for our group exhibition “The Irresistible Flow of Time” at Galerie 10.

Wednesday brought Emma Watkinson to Vienna and us to Galerie 10 to hang our artwork. Not all of the exhibiting artists were present and there was much to do. Although we started early in the afternoon, we worked into the night to complete the hanging of 69 artworks in total, making at a very large show. And by the time the hanging was completed, it looked amazing. It was such a wonderful collection of high quality artwork.

Our work was done, so we adjourned to Amanda’s studio again, taking Galerie 10 owner, Michael Scheer along with us. It was again a long night as artists are wont to do, however, we could sleep in for our big day, the opening of the exhibition.

When I arrived, the gallery was wall to wall with people. The opening also brought all of the local Fantastic Painters, and then others from far away elsewhere who just happened to be in town.  Many of these faces I met for the first time outside of the internet. Its reassuring to get to know the real people of these ever present internet avatars.

Two of the other exhibiting artists managed to make time from their busy schedules back home and fly into Vienna for the exhibition, Daniel Mirante and Basia Wiacek.

De Es Schwertberger did all of us younger artists the honour of exhibiting with us and bridging the worlds of the established Fantastic Realists to that of the emerging, oft referred to as, Visionary artists. However, the term Visionary is still up for debate.

We the exhibiting artists were of course very busy the whole evening talking to various people about our art, and of course catching up with and meeting the other artists. Not surprisingly, it ended up being a very late night.

And similarly unsurprising, was a few of the taught faces present the very next morning for breakfast at De Es‘ studio. In De Es‘ expansive inner city studio, we took advantage of the far more relaxed atmosphere and conversed at leisurely pace. Sadly however, this gathering of new and old friends had to eventually part ways, as flights were waiting to whisk people off to new adventures.

As for Dennis and myself, our next adventure was to commence the following day when we returned North to Germany and headed to the Bavarian Forest to visit the opening of  the 1st Biennial of Fantastic Art in the Town of Viechtach. But this is the next news entry.

Following are all of the wonderful artists that I exhibited with.

De Es Schwertberger (A), Amanda Sage (USA), Dennis Konstantin (D), Leo Plaw (D), David Heskin (USA), Aloria Weaver (USA), Adam Scott Miller (USA), Gregory Pettit (USA), Autumn Sky Morrison (USA), Daniel Mirante (GB), Basia Wiacek (GB), Emma Watkinson (GB)

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