Hedendaagse kunstThe here and now
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Darling Sweetheart,
You are my avid fellow feeling. My affection curiously clings to your passionate wish. My liking yearns for your heart. You are my wistful sympathy: my tender liking.
Yours beautifully
M.U.C.
Christopher Strachey
M.U.C.
Digital algorithm. Built for the Manchester Mark 1, Manchester.
Christopher Strachey — a colleague of Alan Turing — was something of a pioneer in the electronic arts. Having already created the first video game (a draughts programme) and programmed a rendition of the national anthem in 1951, he followed it up with this parodic generator of melodramatic love-letters.
acquired MMXXVI.VII.XXVII
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Norman Rockwell
Triple Self Portrait
Oil on canvas. Hangs at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Mass.
There is nothing art snobs hate more than a talented man who uses his talent to appeal to the people, hence why many seem to hold Norman Rockwell in such a low regard. We will not be engaging in anything of that sort, thank you very much!
acquired MMXXII.XI.XXIII
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Barnett Newman
Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue III
Oil on canvas. In the collection of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Someone was, apparently, afraid of red, yellow, and blue: in 1986, a vandal disfigured the painting with a knife. It was “restored” in 1991, but the contractors coarsely applied xylene to Mr Newman's original red pigments, rendering it, in the words of one conservationist, an artwork "lifeless" and "forever destroyed".
acquired MMXX.IV.XXI
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Barron Storey
Portrait of Howard Hughes
Ink on paper. In the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Washington.
I find the Howard Hughes story fascinating — the myth of the hubris-ridden king, adapted for the modern day — and this portrait, originally done for Time magazine. captures the bitter decay at the end of his life, the rot in the soul of a man who has seen Ice Station Zebra two hundred times, perfectly.
acquired MMXXV.IV.XXI
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David Hockney
Pearblossom Hwy., 11–18th April 1986, #2
Photo collage on chromogenic print. In the collection of the Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
To quote a friend: “this has ‘early 2000s photoshop shitpost’ energy, how the hell is this older than a unified Germany”
acquired MMXXVI.VII.XXV
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Lizzie Rowe
Dysphoria
Oil on canvas. Hangs at the Laing Gallery, Newcastle.
This painting really speaks to me every time i go back to the Laing — alas, the digital form doesn’t do justice to Ms Rowe’s coarse brushes.
acquired MMXX.IV.XXI
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Raymond Moretti
Reinforced plastic and fibreglass. Stands along Terrasse de l’Iris, Paris. Click to switch between photos.
I have often mourned the loss of colour in architecture — so devoid is the field of vivacity these days that they invented the term polychrome for when someone dares to splash a bit of pigment on their work — and this 32-metre artified chimney is a glorious middle finger to that tendency, situated right in the heart of Paris’s glassy skyscraper district.
acquired MMXXVI.VII.XXVI
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Olia Lialina
My Boyfriend Came Back from the War
Hypertext.
One of the most famous early uses of the power of the internet for art.
acquired MMXXVI.VII.XXVI
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Ken Currie
Shot Boy
Oil on canvas. Hangs at the Laing Gallery, Newcastle.
I must have been about ten when i first went to the Laing, and the haunting glow of Ken Currie’s art burnt itself into my mind immediately. This is not a painting it is possible to forget.
acquired MMXXII.XI.XXIII
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Yiannis Moralis
Erotic
Acrylic on canvas. Private collection.
Whatever do you mean? It’s just some shapes.
acquired MMXXII.XI.XXIII
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Paris of the Future
Screen print. Private collection.
Better known as Mœbius, French cartoonist Jean Giraud was a master of the strange and fantastic (and a great inspiration for The Fifth Element, one of my favourite films).
This poster about sums up his whole ethos — an odd, surreal, but optimistic vision of the far-off future of France.
acquired MMXXIII.I.XXVII
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Wes Anderson
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Film.
If i could hang any film up on my wall, frame it, and just leave it playing on a loop forever — this would be it. There are films i like more as a whole, but so far as æsthetics are concerned, nothing beats Mr Anderson at his best.
acquired MMXXII.XI.XXIII
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City Lights №2
Oil on canvas. Once hung at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead.
It’s funny — the building in the background here doesn’t even exist any more. Cities change, but paintings don’t…
acquired MMXXII.XI.XXIII
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Cinnamon Roll
Oil on canvas. Private collection.
Glad to see a modern artist carrying on the tradition of still lives.
acquired MMXXII.XI.XXIII
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Jason M. Allen and Midjourney
Théâtre d’opéra spatial
Image diffusion.
When i first added this work to the gallery, it came with a spiel about all the potential i saw in the nascent form of machine-learning art — for the first time, man could conjure up images straight from the æther of the akashic records, no mediation through pen or brush needed! Alas, since then, it all seems to have been squandered.
Rather than leaning into what makes diffusion unique, the strange lumps and inconsistencies that mark an image as computer-made, the tendency has to been to sandpaper it all off, converging on a pale imitation of the human. Tinkering around with the model itself is too often off-limits, the whole process piped through a server farm somewhere in California.
Still, i have hope. Very occasionally, rather than gooning or generic slop, someone will do something genuinely interesting, toying around with the possibilities of seeing what lies where in our collective memory’s latent space, or forcing the computer to attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible. Mayhaps the medium will find its footing yet.
acquired MMXXIII.I.XXVII
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And Life is Over There
Bronze statue. Stands along Kalvermarkt, The Hague.
I began this gallery with a depiction of Hermaphroditos, and it seems fitting to end it with one. No longer confined to comedic frescos in the houses of the ultra-rich, They now stand proudly in the middle of a busy Den Haag street.
And yet, despite all the strides in progress, it’s hard to shake the feeling that one day, it might again all come crumbling down. A transphobic backlash from religious bigots? Might its subject fall afoul of “progressive” purists? Time will tell. For now, we can only hope that the long arc of history will continue to trend, as it always has, towards freedom.
acquired MMXXII.XI.XXIII