Hidden Gems at the British Museum

(This story was originally published on the Londnr)

The (not so yummy) mummies. The (allegedly stolen) Elgin Marbles. The (not a language course) Rosetta Stone. We all know what’s in the British Museum, right?

Well, we all probably know what the highlights are, given that the museum has held its place as the most popular cultural attraction in the UK for the past eight years, with around 6.7 million visitors passing through its doors annually.

But when we spoke to Eleanor Hyun, Curator for the Korean Collection, she conceded that “when you talk to British people for the most part, they say ‘yeah, I went to the British Museum when I was seven with my school and I haven't been back’ so it feels like there's a part of the population who thinks nothing about it changes very much.”

But things do change in the museum’s permanent collection – many objects can’t be left permanently on display and have to be rotated for the purposes of conservation. Hyun admits “I love that my gallery changes every six months or so because you can't have paintings or works on paper, textiles or silk, out for that long. It animates the space again, which is counter to what a few people think about the British Museum as being more static.”

In the late nineties, the British Library moved part of its collection from the museum to its current home on Euston Road, resulting in some freed-up space. Part of this was set aside to form the Korea Gallery, which opened in 2000. Hyun shared with us why she loves three particular pieces from the Korean collection, and why we should make an effort to see them the next time we’re in Bloomsbury, instead of heading straight for the mummies.

Moon Jar (Joseon period, 1650-1750, glazed porcelain)

“The moon jar is the obviously one of the museum's star pieces because it is very representative of Korean 17^th Century porcelain from the last dynastic period. I like it because it shows how objects have their own lives – in particular its life in the 20th Century. It was bought by [father of British studio pottery] Bernard Leach, who visited Korea in 1930 and brought it back. He really loved it and during World War II, he asked potter Lucie Rie to move it to her studio for safekeeping. The anecdote goes that when he went to pick it up from her studio in 1946, he thought it looked so amazing there that he said she should just keep it, which she did until her death in 1995. The museum then purchased it in 1999.

“This style of jar is always slightly different because of the way it's made because it is produced in two halves and you have to bring them together to make it into a whole, so the middle it is often flattened out. It's called the Moon Jar but that is its 20th century name. Nobody really knows exactly who started it, but there was a Korean artist who was known to have use that phrase. In the historical records it's just called a big jar!”

“Sarangbang” – A Gentleman’s Room (Recreated from the Joseon period 1392-1910)

“This is one of the few places you can see a traditional Korean architectural space in the UK. The scholar’s, or gentleman's, room would have been somewhere a man would have studied, done calligraphy, have slept or had friends over for tea or drinks. It was designed by Korean architect Shin Young-hoon in the style of an upper class house of the mid-1800s, and he installed it with 12 Korean craftsmen who brought the materials over from Korea. 

“You see right away that everything is really close to the floor and that there are no high tables or chairs. Back then it was because the floor was heated but still to this day a lot of people still sit on the floor in Korea and Japan. You had a stone floor with oil paper on top, so in the winter when you heated the stones below it, the floor would be warm. But in the summer, you obviously wouldn't heat the stones so it would be nice and cool.

“If you were able to go into the space, you would see that the ceiling feels low, and because the furniture is low too, you automatically go lower to the ground. So the space in itself, like any kind of architectural space, informs you of how the furniture is going to be in terms of scale. I am trying to create a programme so a controlled number of visitors can walk inside as I really want people to experience the space – so stay tuned!”

Nam June Paik (1932-2006) – Evolution, Revolution, Resolution, 1989. Colour lithographs on paper

“I didn't even know these were here until I came to work here! It's a set of eight prints from 1989, made to commemorate the 200^th anniversary of the French Revolution. The television robots represent eight of the revolution’s leading figures. We currently have three on show (Jacques-Louis David, Denis Diderot and Olympe de Gouges), and rotate them.

“I like that people are surprised that we have them. Also if you really look at each of them, you can see that he's given each of them their own programming. When you read them, if you know all the languages, they're hilarious, and you realise that he must have been a funny playful dude. But at the same time, it feels like he is thinking not only about the French Revolution but as an art practice having social consciousness and the ability to have a political voice.

“The other thing that I like about them is that because they are works on paper, they can't be out all the time. I feel that when they are out it's kind of a precious thing because they'll go back into storage and it might be another couple of years before they come back out. Again it shows how art itself is not always at your beck and call and sometimes you have to make an effort to see certain things.”

Love songs in the middle of the night

It’s four in the morning, I'm lying in bed, my window is open and I’m listening to love songs. There is no sound apart from the birds singing in the tree that's just outside. I have decided that as it’s Valentine’s Day, they must be wooing. Not “Honey, can you pick me up a worm” or “Hey darling, check you out”, or even worse “Hey darling, check me out”, but songs of pure unadulterated passion.

Every now and then, a car passes in the distance, threatening to drown them out, but my ears strain for their music and their voices seem to crescendo in defiance.

I drift back to sleep, with their romantic chorus echoing in my ears…

End note: I read a few years ago that the reason birds sing at night is not because they’re confused by city lights and think it’s dawn when it’s not, but because they realised that it was quieter at night, and therefore easier to be heard…

Writing myself to sleep

The desire to write coupled with the desire to sleep leads to a decided change in my handwriting. Normally, I can barely control my pen – struggling to keep up with the rapids pouring from my mind. I find myself dropping letters, writing words in the wrong order and merging a series of letters into one curious symbol. It’s not dyslexia – just a case of the physical process letting down the mental process. But now, I look at my handwriting in the paragraph I’ve just written and think “My! How legible.”
And how lacking in passion and enthusiasm.
But it’s fine.

I’m just terribly, terribly tired and yearn to peel off my clothes and discard them in a pile on my bedroom floor before sliding into bed.

This is how I know I’m tired – the idea of clothes on the floor is abhorrent to me, but right now, the prospect of hanging them on the back of my chair, or worse, transferring some to the laundry basket, seems as challenging as climbing Everest.

Anyway, I can’t sleep. I’m not even at home. It’s 3.45pm in the afternoon and I’m sat writing in a café because I’m killing time before meeting my friend at the National Gallery. And we have to go today because the show is closing soon, and it’s the only time we’re both free, and two of my friends specifically recommended it, and I’m already starting to feel crushed by the weight of guilt bearing down on my shoulders, and I don’t know why I feel guilty, because I’m still going, right? I haven’t cancelled, but now I’m starting to feel bad, like somehow I don’t value it enough, or won’t appreciate it enough, or that the presence of my semi-somnambulant self in the gallery is somehow going to poison the whole show.

Oh that’s it. I just can’t bear to think about it anymore, I’m going and that’s that but I really am going to spoil it for myself because I’m already trying to calculate in my head how long I think it will take me to get around the exhibition, which is a bad thing to think, but I’m just so desperate to crawl into bed. On the plus side, an earlier email from my friend has suggested that he too is in need of an early night so perhaps he will be amenable to me gently nudging him towards the bus after the exhibition, towards our own separate beds.

Globetrotting in the name of art

OK, maybe it's just an excuse to take more holidays but I have been doing quite a bit of travel to look at pretty pictures in the past few months. In May I went to Hong Kong to check out ARTHK and worked extremely hard writing articles for FAD everyday. You can check them out here. In June I went to Kassel to check out Documenta and wrote just one article, which I've pasted below for your reading pleasure. (It's still on for another month so head out to Germany and see it because it won't be on again for another five years!) And in July I went to the Kiev Biennale and lazily decided not to write anything at all (but in summary, it wasn't particularly exciting and all the big pieces had previously been exhibited elsewhere so there was no "shock of the new" in Ukraine this summer). Wonder what I'll go see this autumn...

Documenting the Documenta

“What? Those stones? Oh yeah, they’re from the Joseph Beuys’ project called 7,000 Oak Trees. Yeah. Such an amazing gift to our city. He planted the trees and put those stones beside each one, about 20, 30 years ago. You know, if you have to move a tree, for construction or something like that, you have to put up another tree with a stone beside it somewhere, you know, so the number always stays at 7,000.”

This was my introduction to the power of Documenta – an art event held every five years in Kassel, a city located slap bang in the middle of Germany. Because these words weren’t being sprouted by someone leading one of the numerous art tours arranged during the exhibition, they were coming from my taxi driver. And I wondered (Carrie Bradshaw style), how many taxi drivers around the world could speak so knowledgeably about an artist like Beuys?

It’s hard to sum up this art behemoth in so few words because it’s vaguely similar in scale to the Venice Biennale, in that there are art works are dotted all around the city as well as in the eight or so main gallery spaces. Featuring over 150 artists from around 55 countries, this is a comprehensive and indeed academic look at the current state of art. While the gallery owners and collectors were naturally hovering around, there was a general feeling that this was art for art’s sake, and not just another retail experience.

Of course, without a commercial focus, the event was free to showcase more “difficult” pieces – i.e. lots of video art, performance art, lectures as art and text. There was a lot of text. Which was kind of a treat, as it meant you were able to quickly brush up on an artist you may not have previously been familiar with. However it also meant you could easily spend an entire afternoon just reading about the works of a handful of artists.

It was impossible to cram everything in during my three days there, but I did manage to cover quite a lot of ground. Here are my recommendations for how to manage Documenta and some key artworks you definitely shouldn’t miss.

My top 5 things to see at Documenta (13), in no particular order:

·         Nedko Solakov – Knights (and other dreams) – Brüder Grimm Museum. This is hilarious – Solakov explores his fictitious dream of wanting to be a knight – and hides lots of witty comments among his exhibition (in a similar humour to David Shrigley)

·         Tino Sehgal – Grand City Hotel Hessenland (but entrance via Hugenottenhaus). You walk into a pitch black room. You can hear singing and feel things moving around you. How big is the room? Are there other people in there with you? Can you make it out without wetting yourself?

·         Horst Hoheisel – Aschrott Fountain – Obere Königstrasse. This art work wasn’t made for this Documenta, but there are events taking place there during it. A great example of why you should explore an art work in depth. What looks like a boring grill on the street with water running around it transpires to be a fountain that has been built upside down so it goes into the ground. You can look down through the grills to see the structure. Incredible.

·         Fiona Hall – Fall Pray – Karlsaue. One of the temporary huts in the massive Karlsaue park houses the work of Fiona Hall. She has made a number of animals in danger of extinction out of camouflage materials. The Japanese cat reminded me of Behemoth – the cat from Complicite Theatre’s version of The Master and Margarita.

·         Kader Attia – Repair of the Occident to Extra-Occidental Cultures – Fridericianum. This installation compares and contrasts facial disfigurements with decorative facial augmentation – for example a man with a damaged lip beside a man with a decorative lip plate.

Top Space: Neue Galerie. This venue had lots of interesting art works. I particularly liked the work by Geoffrey Farmer, Maria Martins, Susan Hiller, Zanele Muholi and Roman Ondák.

Top tips:

1.       Get the free map with the participants as this lists all the works in the main venues and those in the satellite locations.

2.       If you have an interest in art, then it’s worth investing €24 in the official guidebook. This features a page of text (in German and English) and a full page photo for every artist in Documenta (13) and is a great source of background information on each artist.

3.       Hire a bike. It’s only 50c per half hour and it’s a great way to view all the art works in Karlsaue, which has around 60 works of art dotted around it, as the park is slightly bigger than Hyde Park in London.

4.       Take your time, go for a week! There’s lots to see, and you’ll appreciate it more if you’re not rushing around.

To Venice, with love...

So last year I headed out to Venice for the opening of the 2011 Biennale with artist Wayne Chisnall, who also played the role of official photographer for the piece I wrote for RWD.

It was an unforgettable week. The art, the people, and the city itself collectively made me swoon. And Wayne photographed me looking like a criminal in the mafia-themed section of the Italian pavilion (which I really liked even though many art critics panned it), so that was a highlight. Below is the article I wrote:

Image is nothing. Thirst is everything.

How to tackle the 54th Venice Biennale if you have an undying

thirst for art? That was our question before, during and after this year’s event. I had five days to see the art at 89 international participants’ pavilions (each country has its own venue to display work of its choosing), 37 official collateral events, and a ton of other additional arty events. Oh, and did I mention the parties? They were a conundrum in their own right, as whichever one you attended, you were consumed by the fear that you were missing out on a better one elsewhere.

Photographer Wayne Chisnall and I spent most of the first morning queuing to pick up our press passes, little knowing that queuing was to be a constant theme during our time there. What to see first? A lot of people had been hyping the British pavilion, so we thought we should probably aim for that. And lo, there was a long snaking queue in front of it and we were informed that we would have to wait for around two hours to get in. We decide to leave that until later and head for the official opening of the Japanese pavilion. Free food and wine. Yes please.

Or no thank you as it turned out. Never have I witnessed such a scrum for canapés, with people literally shoving one another out of the way to snatch a piece of bread. Then I spy with my little eye something beginning with P. Prosecco. At the German pavilion. Much less chaos (god bless the Germans). We grab a drink while a friend gets chatting to people, asking them if they’re going to see the Anglo-Japanese thrash metal band Bo Ningen. They inform him that they’re not Japanese, but Korean. Cue long round of apologies.

The Koreans actually had one of the best pavilions, featuring sculptures of robots, a video of soldiers dressed in flower camouflage moving through a set filled with plastic flowers, and more video installations projected within mirrors. They also had people dressed as soldiers who cunningly headed to the US pavilion to create an excellent photo opportunity for themselves as they posed in front of the upturned tank, which featured an athlete running on a treadmill on top of the tanks’ tracks.

Highlights inside the US space included an ATM connected to an organ which played music when people made withdrawals. Never have I seen so many people allowing themselves to be photographed while using a bank machine. Every hour, a gymnast would also appear to do somersaults and flips over the installation of replica flatbed airline seats.

The enormous queues eventually forced us out of the main sites of the Giardini and Arsenale and into Venice itself, where the more recent entrants into the Biennale were situated. Luxembourg had an incredible show reminiscent of a fairground’s hall of mirrors. 2011 newcomers Bangladesh and Haiti showcased interesting work, Iraq returned following a 20-year absence with a strong show, while Azerbaijan attracted interest by being the first pavilion to ever have work covered up by its own authorities (and sadly to Western eyes, the work really wasn’t that controversial).

All in all, it was a hectic time, as I managed to tick 59 pavilions off my list. But in true Biennale style, now that I’m back in the UK, the fear has descended. I’m left wondering, what did I miss out on seeing? So go! It’s on until November and there’s a lot to see. Just don’t tell me that the ones I missed were the best ones. I just might cry.

Simon de Pury interview for House Seven

Here's a copy of the interview I did with art auctioneer supremo Simon de Pury last week, when I was out in Miami for Art Basel Miami Beach. I've uploaded it here as House Seven, the site I wrote the piece for, is only accessible to members of the Soho House Group. And I know most of you think I just swan around at art events getting tipsy on the free booze. But here's the proof that sometimes I actually do a little bit of work. And there will be a more comprehensive piece on the art fair itself on RWD's website soon.

AN INTERVIEW WITH SIMON DE PURY
SOHO BEACH HOUSE, POSTED: 3 DECEMBER 2011

Soho House Berlin member Simon de Pury is Chairman and Chief Auctioneer of Phillips de Pury & Company. House Seven caught up with him in Miami to talk about art fairs and the frictions between galleries and auction houses.

What did you think of the 2011 Art Basel Miami Beach?
The quality is very, very, good and everything surrounding it makes it very agreeable for collectors and art lovers to come to Miami. Mostly because the local collectors, the Rubells or the de la Cruzs or the Bramans, are so open about welcoming everybody to their houses each year. They make a great effort of showing something really worthwhile that in itself makes the trip to Miami worthwhile. The only danger is that it can become a victim of its own success; there is just so much going on, so many events happening simultaneously. For every hour of the day you have to pick between 10 different possibilities and whenever you have a saturation of things to do, it can be a problem.

What made you choose Soho Beach House for the Phillips de Pury party?
Well Soho House is a great venue and I love the Cecconi’s restaurant in the garden space. Also, it’s a relatively new place in Miami so it was fun to do it there. We had a seated dinner – trying to pull that off with the notoriously undisciplined art crowd is quite a challenge in itself! We were around 80 people over capacity, but somehow it all worked out and was terrific.

So what’s your favourite art fair?
I was born in Basel and I have been to every single Art Basel so I have a particular sentimental involvement with that fair. I like it because you find the best of the classic works as well as the best of the young emerging artists. But there’s so much happening and if you’re in the business, you have to follow it all in the same way that you have to follow all the biennials, and all the auctions happening everywhere.

Won’t this lead to a time clash for various art fairs?
The art market is a travelling circus that sets up its tent every week in a different place. But you can’t do it all, so it’s a competitive situation between art fairs. You have some fairs that really grow and develop and some fairs that may be temporarily less important and create less of an impact but everything evolves constantly.

Auction houses are participating more in art fairs, making some of the galleries nervous. What are your thoughts on the tensions between the two?
The primary market needs the secondary market, the secondary market needs the primary market, the auctions need the galleries, the galleries needs the auctions, everybody needs everybody, and it’s a false debate to say auctions versus galleries because whenever you sell a work privately, the only way you can justify the price is by similar works that were sold publically at auction. You need that public barometer. During Frieze, you have great contemporary auctions taking place during the same week. So the bigger the magnet is for what’s happening in a given week at a given place, the better it is for all the participants.

And lastly, you also DJ – do you need similar skills to that of an auctioneer?
I find it very similar because in most cases you want to be attuned to the wavelength, same wavelength as your audience, and to create excitement. And so if you’re a good auctioneer you’ll create excitement in the sales room and so obtain good high prices, and if you’re a good DJ, you equally try to create excitement on the dance floor and achieve getting people dancing. While I play a bit of current house music, I love to mix it up with dance tracks from any period and occasionally bring in something totally unexpected like a piece of yodelling or swing from the 1920s, trying to surprise the audience, but still getting them on the dance floor.