Exhibition Reviews
This page focuses on exhibition reviews and looking at contemporary art through the eyes of a critic. Most of the exhibitions covered are based in Liverpool and include museums like The Tate, The Victoria Gallery & Museum and Open Eye Gallery.
Fernand Léger: New Times, New Pleasures Review – The connection between machinery, nature and form in the modern world
3.5/5 Stars
Tate Liverpool
Léger, during a period of rapid modernisation created works that commented on this using themes of shape, form and colour. After being put into the French army, his fascination with the aesthetics of machinery grew stronger. He used medias such as painting, film and photography as an expression of this interest. Further on in his career he turned away from machinery and focused on the interaction between nature and the human form.
Caitlin Brown and Lauren Souras
Tuesday 19th February 2019
The Experience of Modern Life: Early 1900s
The exhibition starts off with a brief introduction into Léger’s life which is a basis for the upcoming section. The sections have a combination of film, drawing and paintings as well as some of his sketchbooks which were curated in a way in which the different mediums complemented one another. If we look at the film shown next to Léger’s sketchbooks, we see that there isn’t an obvious connection to the rest of the works and theme of machinery.
The International Exhibition of Arts and Technology: Paris, 1837
This section starts off with a brief introduction to post-war Paris and artists practicing at the same time as Léger. The incorporation of the different artists adds confusion to the exhibition and isn’t successful overall. The photomural shown in this section is the epitome of the exhibition as it is the one piece that is different from all the rest.
Still Life and Modern Landscapes
This section seemed to be the least exciting of the whole exhibition, unlike the rest of the sections this part had nothing else to contribute to it. The works were great and deserved a brighter and more vibrant room to show them in. Léger looks at the beauty found in modern everyday life and the mass produced objects designed for public consumption. He gives his modern interpretation on life while incorporating cubist themes.
Poetic Objects
Unlike the prior section, this section was vibrant and brighter. This section includes Léger and his fascination with a new topic: natural forms and the incorporation of nature with realism and cubism. This is the first section leading into his later works where he experiments with human form.
An Immediate Art
This section develops off the same ideas as the previous section but includes his sketchbooks as well as paintings. The input of the glass cabinets added to the genius of Fernand Léger’s work as it showed his sketches and development of ideas.
The Grand Subject
Things get more interesting in this section, we move away from his traditional work which includes his fascination with machinery and looks more towards the human form. This transition was a good way to end the exhibition, with more of his modern work and an insight into contemporary art, it reflects the type of work going on at the moment and how the abstract styles. The paintings stare back at us with the powerful lines and colour that almost take over the figures. The way Léger paints his figures shows the connection between colour, line, form and shape. It leaves the exhibition with a modern twist with what seemed to be quite an ordinary exhibition in the beginning.
She's Eclectic: Women Artists of the VG&M Collection - A look into the world of female artists in a white male dominated society.
4/5 Stars
Victoria Gallery & Museum
The Victoria Gallery and Museum is situated in Liverpool within the University of Liverpool. Their current exhibition based on works solely by female artists and is called "She's Eclectic". The University/gallery has been collecting works since the 1880s but started collection works created by female artists more intensely during the 60's and 70's. This is the first exhibition showing the collection of all female works from the Victoria Gallery & Museum's archive. When you walk into the room, you see all the different styles all created by female artists, most of which live in the Merseyside area, and it is inspiring to see. This exhibition immediately gives a sense of relief as a female in the art world and invites you to look at the pieces more closely. These types of exhibitions help further the feminist movement as well as to see the types of art created by women. This exhibition is put on at a perfect time as it has been 100 years since some women have had the right to vote and this celebrates the progress of women.
By Caitlin Brown
Friday February 8th, 2019
As soon as you walk in, you can see a wide variety of different styles of art including sculpture, drawing, painting, ceramics and mixed media. Including works by Dr. Peggy Postma, Fiona Banner, Frances Macdonald MacNair and Elisabeth Frink, this exhibition celebrates the achievements of women and the works they have created. The first room includes sculptures situated in the middle of the room surrounded by pieces hanging on the wall and has a variety of different styles stretching from realism to abstract. The idea to put Elisabeth Frink's sculpture, Goggle Head, at the front of the exhibition is quite powerful and modern. This piece is of a male face and is made of bronze, Frink did a lot of male sculptures throughout her career to show themes of aggression and inhumanity. "Goggle Head" shows a male head with his eyes concealed by glasses or goggles to remove a sense of identity from the individual. In an exhibition about female works, its an interesting curating decision to put a male at the start of the exhibition, but is also an ironic and excellent decision.
As we move around the room we come to a piece by Dr. Peggy Postma, which shows an abstract styled work created with oil paint on canvas. Dr. Peggy Postma was inspired by landscapes, music, horses and people and focuses on one of these things in each individual painting. However, this particular work was inspired by the movement of horses and was made in 1994. In this painting we can see the movement and outline of the horse which is enhanced through the brush strokes and colour. It is one of the biggest paintings in this exhibition and is at the centre of one of the walls. This exhibition shows a variety of different work by female artists all of which have something unique to say.
"Runway Show" by Fiona Banner was one of the highlights of this exhibition as it looks at unrealistic beauty standards, how women are treated in the modelling industry as well as recognising that these expectations are ridiculous. This is shown in the text she uses, "nose to the beat", "ankles skinny", and "pube plucked high thigh" all recognising that these models are made to look a certain way with certain noses and skinny bodies as well as being perfectly plucked to not show a hint of what could be seen as "masculinity". Fiona Banner looks at words in relation to aeroplane parts, each piece she does looks at a different issue. The Runway Show was a great contribution to the "She's Eclectic" exhibition and emphasises on this idea that women have to be society's vision of perfect.
Ultimately, this exhibition is a great addition to the works at The Victoria Gallery and Museum, especially since its the first time these works have been put on display - but also considering that Universities are seen to be male dominated, especially with a University founded so long ago. It is nice to see this exhibition opposite the exhibition on Eleanor Rathbone as well as the room showing the female founders of the University of Liverpool which are there permanently.
209 Women: A celebration of the 100 years since women could vote
4.5/5 Stars
Open Eye Gallery is an independent not for profit photography gallery based in Liverpool. Currently holding an exhibition entitled 209 Women, which is a project founded by Hilary Wood. This project is about 209 female MP's in the UK and the representation of females in parliament. This project is seen through 209 different eyes as each photograph included is taken by a different photographer and is a collaboration between the subject and the artist. This project began with Hilary Wood who was originally going to photograph all the 209 female MP's by herself. But then multiple photographer reached out to her wanting to get involved in the project. All together 209 female photographers took pictures of the 209 female MP's.
By Caitlin Brown
Friday March 1st, 2019
As soon as you enter the gallery, you are immediately hit with a mural of powerful female politicians residing in the UK. Open Eye Gallery has three spaces, two downstairs and one upstairs, it was nice to see that the importance of each woman was shared out between all of them rather than Theresa May and better known MP's being the centre of attention. This brought a sense of equality and importance to all of the women which, I believe, is the most important and great aspect of this exhibition. This exhibition was first shown at Parliament in London, these photographs were replaced with the art that was hanging in parliament. It was there from December 2018 to February 2019, which is when it moved to Open Eye, Liverpool. Hilary Wood said her reasoning behind starting this exhibition "came from my own experiences of gender inequality. I’ve worked mainly in male-dominated fields for the past 18 years. I’ve got two daughters and I wanted to be part of changing things so that they grow up in a society that is more gender equal. Since 1918, 4,503 men have been elected to the UK parliament - compared to just 491 women. On the centenary year of women’s suffrage, I wanted to celebrate how far we’ve come, but I also want to bring awareness to continued gender inequality by championing the visibility of women in power. This exhibition will bring visibility to those women that are part of making the fundamental changes to women’s equality.” (Liverpool Press Release, Open Eye Gallery, 2019). This exhibition encapsulates all of what Hilary Wood wanted to show and also humanises the women in power.
Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams at The Victoria & Albert Museum
25th October, 2019
By Caitlin Brown
Christian Dior’s first campaign, New Look (1947), was the introduction to contemporary fashion and the starting point for the rest of his career as a fashion designer. This campaign involved the notorious Bar Suit (1947), which caused controversy, but also brought attention away from post-war mind sets. At a time where fabric had been rationed, and having a style wasn’t a priority, Christian Dior created structured, feminine and fashionable pieces which challenged the static style of the time and re-introduced the meaning of fashion within Paris.
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London opened the ‘Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams’ exhibition on the 2nd of February 2019 until the 1st of September curated by Oriole Cullen, who is curator of Modern Textiles and Fashion, and designed by Nathalie Crinière. This exhibition is the most recent fashion exhibition after the ‘Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty’ exhibition (March – August 2015) which reached record breaking visitor logs. The V&A exhibits over 500 pieces from archives as well as 200 haute couture pieces. With the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris opening their Christian Dior exhibition in 2017, the V&A follows the same ideas, while including new thoughts and focusing on Dior’s identity as well as his obsession with British culture. This exhibition is a reconfiguration of what was shown in Paris, taking on different themes and focusing largely on the social history and British side of the House of Dior.
As you go through what appears to be designed as a catwalk, each of the 11 different rooms house various pieces and show the development of the Dior House starting from when it was overseen by Christian Dior himself to the current Director: Maria Grazia Chiuri. Opening up the exhibition is Dior’s first campaign New Look, and at the centre of the room is the epitome of the Bar Suit (fig. 1), known for the sculpted satin jackets, cinched waists, padded shoulders and hips, and voluminous skirts. Although the beauty and structure of these pieces marked a new era within post-war society, it also redefined the “role” of a woman and caused many controversies surrounding this idea. These clothes condoned the idea that women should look a certain way, with a small waist, hour glass figure, and contributed to the idea that women are made to look nice and not work in jobs. This was a contradiction considering that women worked in heavy jobs during the Second World War. This was not addressed within the exhibition, but was the exhibition about aesthetics or context? Exhibited as though you were inside the mind of Christian Dior’s archival room, different styles of the Bar Suit were pinned onto glossy black mannequins surrounding the main example. Each piece was designed by a different creative designer from Gianfranco Ferré to Maria Grazia Chiuri. The piece designed by Maria Chiuri pulls on the creative style of Dior while incorporating social and political movements from today – by using the slogan “We Should all be feminists” printed onto a white and black shirt. This slogan printed on the T-Shirt is very current within the world today and also goes against this idea that Christian Dior went backwards in relation to women’s rights. The introduction of the Bar Suit and the campaigns that followed focused on women being pretty, petite objects rather than strong, powerful humans. Maria Grazia Chiuri offers a different take on how women should be portrayed: we see this as her version of the Bar Suit appeals to women of all sizes, and reinvents the classic design. Chiuri’s design includes a long, straight, black skirt with no particular shape to it, a white, almost oversized, T-Shirt with the feminist slogan written on it and finally the iconic Bar Suit jacket. However, while still taking inspiration from Dior’s original, it is a jacket able to fit all women’s body sizes and not enforcing an hour glass shape. Also shown in the first room are drawings, photographs, perfume bottles, and magazines. Many of the illustrations shown were design ideas drawn by Christian Dior accompanied by photographs of him working or at social events.
The two rooms that follow the first are on the rest of Christian Dior’s life and his fascination with British culture. At the centre of this idea of “Britishness” is a dress that Princess Margaret wore on her 21st birthday. Exhibited in a transparent case, the dress is protected from the public adding importance to it and to the Royal family, even if not intentional. Next to the original dress is a photograph taken by Cecil Beaton. However, the dress is noticeably different from the one in the photograph. This is because the photographer edited the image to make it seem, in his opinion, “more powerful” according to Oriole Cullen (Newbold, 2019), which explains the colour difference. Again, this idea of Christian Dior’s designs making women’s rights going backwards is highlighted. The original dress wasn’t paper white but an off white; at first one would think the original had just faded due to age. But then, when reading the exhibition text, you see that the photograph taken by Cecil Beaton had actually been edited to make Princess Margaret look more powerful. The dress shown in the photograph looks much more striking than the original dress, and again this theme of women not being powerful and having to look a certain way comes in again with Dior’s designs.
Moving onto the following rooms, the themes of the exhibition change and focus on the Artistic Directors after Christian Dior which include Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Bill Gaytten, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri. Even though the House of Dior has had many different Creative Directors, one theme remains the same: the eccentric, extravagant, structural artistry that was embedded in the design house from the beginning.
The ‘Travels’ inspired room housing many different pieces from Egyptian and Japanese culture (fig 2, 3, 4) can be seen as one of the only visible controversial parts of the exhibition. While many argue that this is cultural appropriation but it wasn’t seen as that due to the time these designs were brought out, many see this as a celebration of these cultures. John Galliano was the creative mind behind some of the more drastic designs and among the controversy of cultural appropriation were rumours of anti-Semitic abuse that surrounded his departure as Creative Director from Dior – which weren’t mentioned in the exhibition. This room remains the downfall of the exhibition as the designs stray away from Christian Dior’s original plans for the fashion house. These designs are based on something else rather than introducing something new – the Bar Suit was a design that had never been seen before, one that was born out of the depression of the Second World War and brought light to fashion and structure. These designs are what could be called “replicas” of a culture which, at the time, wasn’t in the foreground of the fashion industry.
As you enter the “Garden Room”, you are hit with a light and ethereal sense of beauty (which are very different from the darker rooms beforehand). The dresses are all inspired by and including flowers; the dresses fill the spaces in the room and there isn’t a plain theme in sight. Surrounding the dresses is a floral backdrop mimicking that of a fantasy world. This room is one of the lighter ones, which makes the dresses seem more extravagant and classy. “The Garden” is probably one of the most important rooms as the theme has a special connection to each of the Creative Directors, including Christian Dior (Cullen, 2019). This room sums up the designs of the more recent artistic directors, Raf Simons and Marie Grazia Chiuri. However, all the Creative Directors who succeeded Christian Dior were inspired by his original ideas. The exhibition tries to reinforce this idea that all the Artistic Directors followed in the footsteps of Christian Dior. And, although many of the rooms showed this there was one Creative director that did not follow this idea: John Galliano.
“The Travels” room looks at a variety of different designs, most of which were created by John Galliano. Although others were designed by Christian Dior, Gianfranco Ferré and Maria Grazia Chiuri, there is a distinct difference between John Galliano’s designs and the other Creative Directors. John Galliano takes a more intense approach to the designs inspired by Egyptian culture which makes it seem like he has appropriated them. However, Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Haute Couture Tokyo- inspired dress (2017) is subtler and takes cherry blossom themes from a Japanese art piece which is classed as more of an appreciation rather than appropriation. The same is the case for Gianfranco Ferré’s Indian- inspired dress (1996); he looks at Indian patterns and beading techniques and incorporates it into the dress. The exhibition does not look at the distinct differences between the designs, but rather encourages the idea that all the Creative Directors after Christian Dior, followed his artistic techniques, thoughts, designs and direction.
The V&A had a record-breaking ticket sale (pricing tickets at about £20) which made them extend the exhibition. The cost of the exhibition isn’t known, however many of the designs were on loan from the House of Dior as well as from Cecil Beaton who donated some Haute Couture pieces. The exhibition also displayed pieces from the V&A’s archive as well as items from the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Supporting the exhibition was a catalogue which looked at the exhibition in depth and also examined more designs and inspirations from the House of Dior. The catalogue was separated into nine different parts, and each part considered the individual rooms in the exhibition, starting from The New Look, The Dior Line, Dior in Britain, Historicism, Travels, The Garden, Designers for Dior, The Ateliers and finally, The Ballroom. This exhibition catalogue, written by the curator Oriole Cullen, makes the exhibition stronger as one can see how much work has been put into the exhibition.
Overall, the exhibition was rather dark, however this may be due to the preservation of the archived pieces as some of the pieces date back to 1947. At the beginning of the show, there was a room filled with Dior’s first campaign as well as his sketches, perfume, and jewellery. This room would have benefitted from more light to bring attention to all of the items within the room, as it was difficult to see the intricacy of the drawings as well as the delicacy of the jewellery (that was captured in the promotional images of the exhibition). Aesthetically, the exhibition exceeded any initial thoughts, as each room was unique and broke the norms of what is expected from an exhibition, for example, white walls to bring importance to the pieces. It was designed as if the visitors were walking down a runway, and each room was a piece of art in itself, especially ‘The Garden’ and ‘The Ballroom’.
The downfalls of the exhibition would have to be the lack of recognition towards John Galliano’s distinct differences in design, the themes of cultural appropriation and the controversy surrounding his departure as Artistic Director. Another factor which would have made the exhibition interesting is if, in the exhibition text, they mentioned the problems surrounding Christian Dior’s Bar Suit. It would have been impressive if the differences between Maria Grazia Chiuri’s interpretation of the Bar Suit was compared with Christian Dior’s version and how his version sent women’s rights backwards.
Other than these issues, the exhibition was an ethereal and extravagant success featuring designs from all of the Artistic Directors and inspirations varying from flowers to historicism to ballroom. Each room affected one differently and left one feeling a whole other appreciation for the House of Dior and the intricacy of all of their designs. The Victoria & Albert Museum’s aim for this exhibition was to celebrate a designer who introduced a new era, set an unbreakable standard for dressmaking and created a legacy of craftsmanship and design (Cullen, 2019). Ultimately, this was successfully portrayed in the exhibition along with appreciating each Artistic Directors work.
