Arshile Gorky - A Retrospective at Tate Modern
11 February, 2010
by: Katuschka
As Tate Modern opens its retrospective of Arshile Gorky, Kate Weir prepares to add a new name to the canon of Surrealism.
I’ll admit I knew nothing about Armenian artist Arshile Gorky when I walked into his retrospective at the Tate Modern. I thought I understood why when I saw the entrance room filled with sombre Cezanne inspired pieces. I steeled myself for another exhibition of worthy but eminently murky artwork, but was soon made aware that Gorky’s artwork has been woefully ignored in the Surrealist canon. (Incidentally Arshile Gorky is actually a pseudonym aquired when the artist emigrated to America – his real name is the infinitely more unpronounceable Vostanik Manoog Adouyan.)
Gorky's early paintings show nothing of the kaleidoscopic, psychedelic fun that begins when the influence of Picasso, Arp and De Chirico become apparent. Theres' floating amorphous blobs of colour, nudes which make you wonder if Gorky has ever seen a naked woman before (or perhaps if he has a fetish for women with giant hands and one leg) and pieces which pre-empt the colourful scrawlings of Basquiat and Willem De Kooning. He's at least the equal of his eminent contemporaries.
His work recontextualises sections of New York through the steel lenses of Russian industrialism, the graphic savvy of Dada, and the jazz colours of Mondrian. Central Park at sundown is reduced to a sienna wash with urban accoutrements invading the landscape like buildings sprouting into a skyline. A tragic fire which destroyed most of Gorky’s body of work becomes an inspiration from which the sublime and shadowy Charred Beloved series of paintings emergelike a Phoenix from the ashes.
His restless re-tooling – “If something is finished it is dead. I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting.” – marks him as an unstoppable force of talent. Even the notoriously difficult Dada artist Andre Breton said of Gorky: “He is the only surrealist artist who maintains direct contact with nature”.
At the centre of the exhibition are Gorky’s poignant paintings of his mother, who starved to death after the Armenian genocide. There are various guises of her haunted face, with Gorky painted as a little boy beside her. She’s both an icon of his tragic early life, the lifeblood which runs through his work, and an anchor for his Armenian identity, so it’s no wonder she is the focus of his best work.
Gorky recounts his childhood experiences through the language of the city with industrial flotsam and jetsam and his past with the vivid palettes of dreams. The decision to show Gorky’s preliminary sketches shows just how considered these seemingly random works are; some of his paintings could be dismissed by the “a five year old could do that” brigade, but these sketches show shades of Dalí -esque soft forms, Picasso’s skewed perspective,and Duchamp’s erratic whimsy. Gorky manages to bring all these elements together in a melée of buzzing ephemera.
Arshile Gorky – A Retrospective is at Tate Modern until 3rd May 2010.
Click here to see all London exhibitions.
Click here for things to do in London.
Image credit: Arshile Gorky, Waterfall 1943 (detail), Oil on canvas, 1537 x 1130 mm, Painting, Tate, Purchased with assistance from the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1971
Arshile Gorky - A Retrospective at Tate Modern
11 February, 2010
by: Katuschka
As Tate Modern opens its retrospective of Arshile Gorky, Kate Weir prepares to add a new name to the canon of Surrealism.
I’ll admit I knew nothing about Armenian artist Arshile Gorky when I walked into his retrospective at the Tate Modern. I thought I understood why when I saw the entrance room filled with sombre Cezanne inspired pieces. I steeled myself for another exhibition of worthy but eminently murky artwork, but was soon made aware that Gorky’s artwork has been woefully ignored in the Surrealist canon. (Incidentally Arshile Gorky is actually a pseudonym aquired when the artist emigrated to America – his real name is the infinitely more unpronounceable Vostanik Manoog Adouyan.)
Gorky's early paintings show nothing of the kaleidoscopic, psychedelic fun that begins when the influence of Picasso, Arp and De Chirico become apparent. Theres' floating amorphous blobs of colour, nudes which make you wonder if Gorky has ever seen a naked woman before (or perhaps if he has a fetish for women with giant hands and one leg) and pieces which pre-empt the colourful scrawlings of Basquiat and Willem De Kooning. He's at least the equal of his eminent contemporaries.
His work recontextualises sections of New York through the steel lenses of Russian industrialism, the graphic savvy of Dada, and the jazz colours of Mondrian. Central Park at sundown is reduced to a sienna wash with urban accoutrements invading the landscape like buildings sprouting into a skyline. A tragic fire which destroyed most of Gorky’s body of work becomes an inspiration from which the sublime and shadowy Charred Beloved series of paintings emergelike a Phoenix from the ashes.
His restless re-tooling – “If something is finished it is dead. I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting.” – marks him as an unstoppable force of talent. Even the notoriously difficult Dada artist Andre Breton said of Gorky: “He is the only surrealist artist who maintains direct contact with nature”.
At the centre of the exhibition are Gorky’s poignant paintings of his mother, who starved to death after the Armenian genocide. There are various guises of her haunted face, with Gorky painted as a little boy beside her. She’s both an icon of his tragic early life, the lifeblood which runs through his work, and an anchor for his Armenian identity, so it’s no wonder she is the focus of his best work.
Gorky recounts his childhood experiences through the language of the city with industrial flotsam and jetsam and his past with the vivid palettes of dreams. The decision to show Gorky’s preliminary sketches shows just how considered these seemingly random works are; some of his paintings could be dismissed by the “a five year old could do that” brigade, but these sketches show shades of Dalí -esque soft forms, Picasso’s skewed perspective,and Duchamp’s erratic whimsy. Gorky manages to bring all these elements together in a melée of buzzing ephemera.
Arshile Gorky – A Retrospective is at Tate Modern until 3rd May 2010.
Click here to see all London exhibitions.
Click here for things to do in London.
Image credit: Arshile Gorky, Waterfall 1943 (detail), Oil on canvas, 1537 x 1130 mm, Painting, Tate, Purchased with assistance from the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1971
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