Something to see here
Fergus Greer, Leigh Bowery Session I Look 2 1988 © Fergus Greer
LEIGH BOWERY
Just take one look at the incredible outfits that artist and muse Leigh Bowery constructed and you know he is THE original. Rock stars have borrowed, artists have copied, magazine spreads have stolen from his imagination.
His influence runs deep. You can see him inspiring Alexander McQueen, Jeffrey Gibson, Anohni, and Lady Gaga to name a few. A musician, a fashionista, an artist, a muse to Lucien Freud, and a human who defied gender labelling. He was and is a legend.
“If you label me, you negate me.”
Leigh Bowery
ANSELM KIEFER
A first of it’s kind. Two of the largest museums in the Netherlands, the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam are opening their doors, for the price of one entry. You can make your own connections between the artists, or see them as independent towering figures holding their own place in history. Both important, both power houses, both as significant now as the first day they first put pencil to paper.
“But I believe above all that I wanted to build the palace of my memory, because my memory is my only homeland.”
Anselm Kiefer
george nama
The brilliant George Nama has a restrospective at Jack Rutberg Gallery in Pasadena, California.
Jack Rutberg writes “The works of George Nama defy easy categorization. They are at once monumental and yet, ephemeral. Figuration is the root of his imagery, but Nama’s forms are as invented as any non-objective painting or drawing might be, since nature is but a starting point while poetry, music and musings are most often the catalyst in Nama’s body of work.
It’s no wonder that some of the 20th century’s most significant artists in other media have sought to collaborate with Nama in the realization of their literary works. Among them are the great 20th century French writer/poet, Yves Bonnefoy, and George A. Romero, the profoundly influential filmmaker. Romero's final work – a poignant short story, “Liberator” - was a collaboration with Nama’s related etchings and gouaches, which are included in this current exhibition.
All these collaborations resulted in sumptuous projects about which Bonnefoy, whose writings on artists such as Goya, Giacometti, Miro and so many giants of the 20th century, declared he “would not hesitate to place [Nama’s artist books] among the most remarkable creations in the past twenty to thirty years, in the United States or France, where the genre has a long tradition.” “
“Poetry is between language and presence. It rushes forward towards presence, but it is only great if it remembers that it always will be in lack because it remains language. George Nama’s art is emblematic of the essential contradiction, of the ambiguity, of the pain, inherent in poetry.”
Yves Bonnefoy
very laboratory