0:11

Hello and welcome to The Week

0:13

in Art, I'm Ben Luke. This

0:16

week, why Marlborough Gallery has closed,

0:18

Rose B. Simpson's public sculpture for

0:20

the Madison Park Conservancy and Caravaggio's

0:22

final painting. After

0:30

80 years in business, the Marlborough Gallery,

0:32

one of the most historic commercial galleries

0:34

in London, New York and beyond, has

0:36

announced that it's closing. I talked to

0:38

Annie Shaw, one of our contributing editors,

0:40

about what happened and what, if anything,

0:42

it tells us about the market. The

0:44

New Mexico-based sculptor, Rose B. Simpson, revealed

0:46

a newly commissioned public artwork in Madison

0:48

Square Park and Inwood Hill Park in

0:50

New York on Wednesday called Seed. The

0:52

art newspaper's editor in the Americas, Ben

0:54

Sutton, went to meet her. In

0:57

this episode's Work of the Week is the final

0:59

painting ever made by Caravaggio, the

1:01

martyrdom of Saint Ursula, made in

1:03

1610. The painting is

1:05

travelling to London for an exhibition opening

1:07

at the National Gallery next week called

1:09

The Last Caravaggio and Francesca Whitlam Cooper,

1:11

the Gallery's acting curator of later Italian,

1:14

Spanish and 17th century French paintings and

1:16

the curator of the exhibition tells me

1:18

more. We have a new

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Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Do

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also subscribe to this podcast and to

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our sister podcast, A Brush With, wherever

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you're listening. The latest episode of A

1:37

Brush With features a conversation with Michael

1:39

Radecker. Please also give us a rating

1:41

or review on Apple podcasts. Last

1:44

week it was announced that the Marlborough Gallery, one of the

1:46

best known commercial galleries in Britain and the US since it

1:48

was founded in 1946, is to close. Annie Shaw, one

1:53

of our contributing editors and a regular reporter on

1:55

the vicissitudes of the art market, has been following

1:57

this story and I spoke to her to find

1:59

out. Annie

2:02

Mobile Gallery is announced the bombshell that it's

2:04

closing. She just took a little bit about

2:06

the origins of the gallery because I think

2:08

the people who are relatively new to the

2:10

out well they won't know the kind of

2:12

significance of the mob gallery in the market.

2:14

Yes yeah, it's a good point. I mean

2:16

as you say bombshell news and a gallery

2:19

has somewhat storied origins, know the final as

2:21

it with says cold and have been various

2:23

names to the gallery over. The Years was

2:25

founded in London in nineteen Forty Six by

2:27

Frank Lloyd Strike with a Jewish. Immigrants

2:29

who served in the British army

2:31

and while serving during the war

2:33

he met Harry Fisher and austria

2:36

hadn't read books d Let's. Say

2:38

they established. Mobile Fine are a couple. Of

2:40

years later they were joined by David Somerset

2:42

and Snowy some Gilbert's with the gallery at

2:45

and as many people see know this the

2:47

gallery sorted out exhibiting. Impressionist and post Impressionist

2:49

artists. Very early on they had a so

2:51

of of the complete collection of day cause

2:54

bronzes, one of which was acquired by the

2:56

taste and either to organize the so like

2:58

that was an extraordinary undertaking I think yeah

3:01

because that's the thing is that those of

3:03

us who have habit of familiarity with Marlboros

3:05

the years we think this him as being

3:07

very squarely located within a particular group of

3:10

artist in London. But

3:12

yeah, the sight of modernism was there things

3:14

to begin with. Any was only gradually you

3:16

are you. So the Titanic figures. Like Francis

3:18

Bacon, the least fraud in Frank Auerbach and

3:21

so on started join together at it. That

3:23

said, I think it was. You know it

3:25

was during the fifties and sixties that the

3:27

gallery rarely made its name. For what we

3:29

know it as working with the cream of

3:31

the prettiest crop. like he say those big

3:33

names Bacon for wait out Barbara hapless been.

3:36

I think at that time open really

3:38

set the agenda in terms. Of of

3:40

an exciting and fresh exhibition program and not

3:42

included Things like of is looking at their

3:44

archives to submit a car which is fascinating

3:46

yeah must urge or listens to go to

3:48

the Mob a gallery ah Congress just online

3:50

and it's just great pictures and imitation cards

3:52

and with against of really really with took.

3:54

His it's a wonderful resource it at things that popped out

3:57

to me with thing by out. In Revolt which slipped

3:59

a German on the. between 1905 and 1925, which

4:01

terribly avant-garde. You

4:04

know, exhibitions had no idea that they

4:06

hosted very imaginative things. They set

4:09

up in Rome after London and then there was

4:11

this move to New York. And we've dug out

4:13

this from that archive, this extraordinary report in the

4:15

New York Times from 1963, which

4:18

announces that arrival in New

4:20

York. And I had no idea

4:22

what a moment that was in the New

4:24

York art world. It's extraordinary reading it back.

4:26

Yeah, quite. I mean, like you say, I

4:28

think today we're so sort of blase about galleries

4:30

opening all over the shop. But at that time

4:33

in 1963 to open a major outpost

4:35

in New York was such a big deal. And

4:37

again, they hovered up, you know, much to the

4:39

annoyance of the New York dealers, that this

4:41

New York Times article indicates a Sydney Janice

4:43

thinking, God, these people are on

4:46

my tail. Yeah. But they hovered up some

4:48

of the abstract expressionist Robert Motherwell, David Smith,

4:50

Clifford Still. I think they've worked with the

4:52

estates of Jackson Pollock, whom they'd already

4:54

shown in London. Franz Kline, Ad

4:56

Reinhardt. So again, you know, this sort of

4:59

incredible list. Who's who in the in the

5:01

New York art world? There's a brilliant quote from

5:03

that New York Times piece. I'm just going to

5:05

read it out because it just gives a flavor

5:07

of it. It says, although some dealers welcome the

5:09

arrival of a gallery as powerful and influential as

5:11

Marlborough, others, especially smaller galleries, seem to feel the

5:14

Goliath has landed among them. So

5:16

it's that sort of sense. I don't think I

5:18

had grasped until I started looking back through the

5:20

archive just how much of a kind of major

5:22

player Marlborough was. And how, as you say,

5:24

like Sydney Janice quaking in his boots at the

5:27

arrival of this gallery that made its reputation

5:29

in London. Yeah. Yeah, it's such a lovely,

5:31

lovely detail and sort of interesting to know that

5:33

this poaching that the Megas are so sort

5:35

of known for was happening back in the

5:37

60s. It was ever thus.

5:40

Yeah. And then there was this seminal moment,

5:42

really the most important exhibition that Marlborough ever

5:44

did in terms of how they received now,

5:46

which was the Philip Guston show in 1970,

5:49

which, you know, it's difficult to

5:51

overstate how much of a kind

5:53

of seismic shock that Philip Guston

5:55

figurative show had. We just had

5:58

the big retrospective which related it.

6:00

And that was a Marlborough Gallery show. That

6:02

show was so important. It caused such a

6:04

fissure in that community and so on. So

6:06

you get a flavor from that just how

6:08

influential it was again. Absolutely, yeah. And

6:11

then through the 70s and 80s, they kept

6:13

picking up major artists. I'm thinking particularly

6:15

like people like Paul Arago and so

6:17

on. Yes, exactly. I think if you

6:19

look at the roster over the years,

6:21

there's been quite a diverse scattering of

6:23

artists. We mentioned some of the post-war

6:25

titans. We mentioned Philip Guston. They've also

6:27

worked with the estate of Kurt Schwitters,

6:30

Mark Roscoe. There was a big scandal

6:32

in the 70s involving Roscoe's estate which

6:34

has sold paintings to the gallery for under

6:36

market value. And this led to a huge legal

6:39

case. And in fact, Lloyd, the

6:41

founder, having found her tampered with

6:43

evidence. But alongside these artists, you

6:46

mentioned Paul Arago, there's Gillian Ers,

6:48

Dennis Oppenheim, Nam Galbo. The

6:50

gallery also has spaces in Spain now

6:52

and there they represent the likes of

6:54

Antonio Lopez, Blanca Minhoz. There's the architect

6:56

and sculptor Juan Navarro Balduig. So it's

6:58

a really diverse roster. And I think

7:00

this might be something to do with

7:02

why the galleries come undone slightly. And

7:04

then after that, there's been this sort

7:07

of attempts at reinvention through things like

7:09

Marlborough Contemporary which came a bit later

7:11

in 2012 and Marlborough Graphics. Let's talk

7:13

a bit about that contemporary side because

7:15

when I first started visiting Marlborough Gallery,

7:17

it was early 90s. And

7:19

so by that stage, for instance, they picked

7:21

up the artist, Therese Alton in the 1980s and

7:24

she'd been shortly set for the Turner Prize and things like

7:26

that. So there was a sense in which it was engaging

7:28

with a contemporary scene. But of course in the 90s, that

7:31

was when new players came on the scene. And so I

7:33

think Marlborough for me, even though

7:35

it represented contemporary artists, it almost felt

7:37

like a secondary market space. In

7:39

some ways it just didn't feel like it was right at

7:41

the cutting edge. And they may not have been seeking that,

7:44

but it was a reliable space to go and see good

7:46

art. But clearly it didn't feel like it could create seismic

7:48

tremors anymore of the kind that we were talking about. Yes,

7:51

quite. I mean, it was slightly before my time, Ben.

7:53

I'm not gonna say it's out agey, but it was

7:55

just slightly. But yes, in

7:57

2012, which is sort of more my era, they

7:59

launched. Mulberry Contemporary and this was

8:01

under the eye of Andrew Wenton

8:04

who wasn't from a commercial background, you

8:06

know, he was a curator and a professor

8:08

at Goldsmith, he's still a professor at Goldsmith

8:10

and he was tasked with bringing on a

8:12

number of contemporary artists who I think were

8:14

relatively unknown certainly in the UK. At that

8:17

time there was sort of Zhao Onafre, Angela

8:20

Ferreira, I mean I think she represented

8:22

Portugal in 2007 I want to say at

8:25

the Venice Biennale, so she had a

8:27

certain platform and standing already but

8:29

Adam Chotska, Jason Brooks, Ian

8:31

Whittlesey, I'm missing a couple there

8:33

but I think only Jason Brooks remains on

8:35

their roster so it sort of gives some

8:37

indication of what stuck from that venture. I

8:40

think the idea with Mulberry Contemporary was to have

8:42

the two businesses running alongside each other, you know,

8:44

Mulberry Contemporary was on the first floor of the

8:47

London Gallery and I think they shared a booth

8:49

at Art Basel at least on one occasion. So

8:51

there was the idea that they were sort

8:53

of going to be complementary programmes but you

8:55

know again this attempt to diversify didn't quite

8:57

stick and Andrew Wenton ended up leaving in

8:59

2017 and I think shortly

9:03

afterwards Mulberry Contemporary was quietly

9:05

closed. Right, I can remember it

9:07

launching and I can remember thinking oh that's an

9:09

interesting idea it definitely felt like it was probably

9:11

necessary at the time but yes as

9:13

you say it didn't quite stick and it ended up sort

9:15

of going quietly into the night really, it didn't really make

9:17

the kind of impact I think they were hoping it might.

9:20

Yes, no, I think there were some sort of reports of

9:22

a sort of potentially a new beginning or some

9:24

injection of new blood but never materialised.

9:27

And of course by that stage we did

9:29

have the mega galleries on the scene in

9:31

London for instance, Gagosian had obviously begun establishing

9:33

itself very solidly as had Howserworth and so

9:36

on so it was a different market entirely

9:38

really wasn't it? So what are

9:40

they saying now then about the reasons for closing

9:42

because this is an interesting thing, is it sort

9:44

of fizzling out or is it more complicated than

9:46

that? It's a bit of a complex picture and I think

9:48

it's been a bit of a slow demise as our

9:50

colleague Melanie Gerliss wrote in the

9:52

Financial Times, I think that's a really good way of

9:55

putting it. You know the official line is that currently

9:57

the gallery is being managed by a board in Switzerland

9:59

who Have no relationship to the

10:01

artist between they work and In an

10:03

industry like ours which relies so heavily

10:06

on a personal relationships I think that's

10:08

almost impossible. But of course has

10:10

been a number of other things been going on. some

10:12

of them very high profile mean I did better Family

10:14

feud at the top of the gallery which. Has

10:16

been widely reported and also reports

10:18

of a financial losses over the

10:21

past few years. Tell. Us

10:23

about the family feud that hurdle seats and

10:25

so on because that went on for quite

10:27

some time if we settled now. but it

10:29

was really quite bitter and I remember reading about

10:31

him your newspaper fairmount. Yes, Exactly. So it's

10:33

it's a little bit. Complex have to pay with me

10:35

that. This in terms of the family on one

10:38

side as gilbert. Lloyd son of Frank Lloyd who

10:40

is the founder who anger. His name

10:42

from Levi and on the other side

10:44

there's Frank nephew Pierre Levi. He ran

10:46

the gallery in New York for several

10:48

decades and his son Max who took

10:50

on his father's mode and twenty nineteen.

10:52

Max was ousted by the board as

10:55

president and. Twenty Twenty I think

10:57

while his father lane hospital with

10:59

Cove It said both parties ended

11:01

up filing lawsuits. The Levi's alleged

11:03

the board had tried to damage

11:05

their reputation and Eloise alleged that

11:08

gallery funds have been mismanaged documents

11:10

and those lawsuits revealed that the

11:12

business reports the last almost nineteen

11:14

million dollars between Twenty Thirteen. And

11:16

twenty nineteen. So in June twenty twenty min

11:18

max leave I was ousted. Board announced that

11:21

the New York. Gallery was closing said it is

11:23

not the first time we've had this. Thought announce

11:25

it was then moved back and the Gallery

11:27

New York remained open. but there were rumors

11:29

at the time. That mobile was trying to

11:31

find a buyer for it's infantry and

11:33

you know, huge question marks clearly still

11:35

hung over the future. The gallery, as

11:38

you mentioned, the Northeast, were apparently resolved

11:40

again quietly. There's not been many reports

11:42

about that that a spokesperson. Confirmed me

11:44

last week that the Northeast resolved to

11:46

the satisfaction of all parties and they

11:48

will say told me that family issues

11:50

had nothing to do with this decision

11:52

to wind down the business. So take

11:54

from that myself for has actually and

11:56

now the other thing which has been

11:59

really notable is that for instance an

12:01

officer we mentioned earlier on pool array

12:03

go left, mob or gallery to go

12:05

to a Victorian era and she must

12:07

have been a huge money and for

12:09

them and I her reputation has soared

12:12

ever since but she was already on

12:14

quite a high plateau intensive her her

12:16

reputation. Exactly. I mean I

12:18

think Point of a guy defected to Victoria

12:20

Me: you are in Twenty Twenty One around

12:23

the same time as at Tate Britain retrospective

12:25

which would naturally have an effect from her

12:27

market. I mean that was shortly before she

12:29

died sank our back. I understand it's not

12:32

quite so clear, but it my understanding that

12:34

he will say less. Around the same time

12:36

as three longstanding directors resigned from Oprah in

12:38

May Twenty twenty Two and they were Jeffrey

12:41

Part and Frankie Bossy and Join Our Tracks

12:43

and entered. the directors had what's the gallery

12:45

for decades. Seems. Like the departure

12:47

of those two artists, a major player in

12:50

the business as a whole. That sounds like

12:52

a terminal disease or gallery really? I think

12:54

so. and if vaccinated findings on Uk companies

12:56

house published. In January this year,

12:58

the feel. That the London Gallery specifically

13:00

that turn over dropped as five percent and

13:03

twenty twenty two while gross profit fell by

13:05

twenty four. Percent. And the

13:07

account specifically sign. That part of

13:09

the directors they sites as one

13:11

major contacted Rts as contributing to

13:13

the quite significant financial losses. right?

13:16

So what happens now? And business inventory

13:18

supposedly is Fifteen thousand objects? yes, and

13:20

the various estimates as as to how

13:22

much is with. But do we have

13:24

any sense what's on it? We don't

13:26

really know what's in the inventory. I

13:28

mean, obviously we can safely assume it's

13:30

a mix of post on contemporary art.

13:33

say. According to a Twenty Twenty

13:35

One article in the F T, when it was

13:37

announced that the new gallery was. Being wound

13:39

down there were rumors that the Uk

13:41

property developer Johnny Sandals and the with

13:43

interested in buying. The. Business and not included.

13:45

It's inventor A and that was and. Valued

13:48

at two hundred and fifty million dollars

13:50

have been twice that of ascertain what

13:52

that two hundred and fifty million dollars

13:54

relates to buy them include properties or

13:57

just the art sources close to the

13:59

gallery site. Late to the out at.

14:01

It's not clear whether. There's been a movies

14:03

and valuation mean obviously that been fluctuations in

14:05

the market since Twenty Twenty One and I

14:07

was. I would say that even though two

14:09

hundred fifty million dollars is is a lot

14:12

of money to you and me bad, it

14:14

does indicate that there are very. Few

14:16

blue chip masterpieces left. you know, sort

14:18

of fifty million dollar mark masterpieces that

14:20

we might have want to face. hated

14:22

bit more brought us to the cigarettes.

14:24

Five Francis Bacon's right to of these

14:27

activities. Ah yes, Oh yeah that we

14:29

have good points. Now they're saying that

14:31

they were going to be non profit

14:33

institutions that support artists that will benefit

14:35

from some of the funds made from

14:37

selling those works. Do we know anything

14:40

more about what those non profit institutions

14:42

all because it against their a wealth

14:44

of sucks institutions out. Yes,

14:46

Yeah, I'm one would hope that there was some

14:48

sort of the poor perhaps the summit This the

14:50

new are artists who joined Mope as some of

14:52

the younger. In emerging Artists but at

14:54

present we have no information on that.

14:56

I understand that Mobo are in. Active

14:59

conversations with some charities. That

15:01

we just don't have any details on who they are

15:03

to see as. I. Say

15:05

lastly, how significant a loss a small

15:07

but how much will disclosure impact the

15:09

wider out? What? I

15:12

mean, look is Stephanie a significant loss in

15:14

it's one of the longest. Standing galleries in

15:16

London and New York and elsewhere. But it's

15:18

either. As we discussed, it's demise has been

15:20

a long time coming. I mean, certainly for

15:23

longer than the comments softening of the markets,

15:25

I'm not sure how much this is it,

15:27

An indication of a wider. Problem. I mean

15:29

what is increasingly clear is that it so difficult

15:32

talk about the market as a whole. We've always

15:34

discussed it in terms of a set of lose

15:36

the Great. Set to stop market for that

15:38

sort of. Fails perhaps true are. Now

15:41

more than ever an advisor pointed out for me

15:43

the other day that Paris and has just announced

15:45

his closing off at when he is in London

15:47

in a different market for a contemporary but they

15:50

cited the economic climate said business is clearly not

15:52

easy at different levels of the market and costs

15:54

have gone up. We all know that that I

15:56

think in the case of my breath as a

15:58

think it lost its. He lost his

16:01

footing, they became sale and I think the

16:03

combination of the losses, a break on our

16:05

back coupled with those major directors and Twenty

16:07

Twenty two they have a seat relationships in

16:09

the market and that. You know, just enough for

16:11

a business to become. Unsustainable today.

16:20

Thanks and. You.

16:27

Can read more on the story of your

16:29

newspaper.com or not Apps and you can find

16:31

out more about the gallery history at Marlborough

16:34

archive.com. Coming. Up race be

16:36

Simpsons Public Art Project in New York

16:38

and Caravans you find work that softer

16:40

this week's news bulletin. Archaeologists

16:44

working at the ancient Roman city of

16:46

Pompei have revealed beautifully preserved frescoes in

16:49

Be Black room, a banquet in coal

16:51

and nuclear excavated. Part of the site

16:53

is the latest stunning find from Palm

16:55

Page which is almost perfectly preserved. Funny

16:58

Ass and Thomas Deposited but eruption of

17:00

Mount Vesuvius and Eighty Seventy Nine to

17:02

frescoes show scenes from Greek mythology and

17:04

literature. One presents Paris, the Prince of

17:07

Troy and Helen of Troy, and the

17:09

second depicts the Trojan priestess Cassandra and

17:11

the god Apollo as a bank quitting.

17:14

Hold the black room would have been

17:16

used to entertain guests at night. School

17:18

of a painted black probably said smoke

17:20

sting schools by burning lamp would not

17:22

be visible. A room also features a

17:24

well preserved white mosaic. Flaw is just

17:26

one part of a larger house with

17:28

a reception room and gardens. While next

17:31

door there was a bakery, were skeletons

17:33

and a shrine were uncovered and besides

17:35

that a laundry. The Vietnamese American multimedia

17:37

artist in Que Les has died at

17:39

the age of fifty six. News of

17:41

his death prompted shock and thorough across

17:43

the international. Community and particularly in Asia

17:46

as well as exhibiting around the

17:48

world including and Document or Thirteen

17:50

and Castle in Germany and Twenty

17:52

Twelve, Three, Venice Biennale, least six

17:54

and Try a Do a Contemporary

17:56

Art. In

18:00

2007, Le founded the non-profit arts organisation

18:02

San Art in Ho Chi Minh City

18:04

in Vietnam to help young artists. Katie

18:07

de Tilly, founder of his Hong Kong

18:09

gallery Ten Chancery Lane, said, "...Din Q

18:11

Le was not only a great artist,

18:13

but a really great man." A

18:16

tribunal in Tasmania this week determined

18:18

that a piece of performance art

18:20

by Kiesha Cacelli at Tasmania's Museum

18:22

of Old and New Art, or

18:24

MONA, contravened anti-discrimination law. Under

18:27

the decision by Tasmania's Civil and Administrative

18:29

Tribunal, MONA has 28 days in

18:32

which to stop excluding women from Cai

18:34

Caille's work at the Ladies' Lounge. The

18:36

installation opened in 2020 as a protest

18:38

against the exclusion of women from gentlemen's

18:40

clubs. It admits only those

18:43

who identify as women. The one

18:45

exception is the butler who serves

18:47

champagne to women visitors who can

18:49

sit on phallus-shaped furniture. An Australian

18:51

resident, Jason Lau, visited MONA in

18:53

April 2023 and was unhappy to

18:55

find his $35 ticket did not

18:57

give him access to the lounge. He filed a

18:59

complaint with Tasmania's Anti-Discrimination Commissioner and this

19:02

led to a legal dispute that was

19:04

heard in the tribunal which found that

19:06

MONA was in contravention of the state's

19:08

Anti-Discrimination Act. To

19:11

read these stories and much more, visit the website

19:13

for the act. Now

19:18

on Wednesday, Rose B. Simpson unveiled new

19:20

public sculptures in two of New York's

19:22

green spaces, Madison Square Park and Inwood

19:25

Hill Park, as part of the 20th

19:27

anniversary of Madison Square Park Conservancy's art

19:29

programme. In Madison Square Park, there are

19:31

17 8-foot-high figures, or sentinels as the

19:33

artist calls them, in a circle around

19:36

a female form who emerges from the

19:38

earth. In Inwood Hill Park, one sculpture

19:40

stands facing the wood, a reference to

19:42

Native American histories embedded in the land,

19:44

while another looks out to the Hudson

19:47

River, by which settlers arrived in the

19:49

native lands that are now Manhattan in the 1600s. The

19:52

themes of Simpson's work connect deeply

19:54

to personal as well as collective

19:56

Native American experiences. She's an Indigenous

19:58

artist, having been raised in Santa

20:00

Clara Pueblo in New Mexico as part

20:03

of a multi-generational, matrilineal succession of artists

20:05

working with clay. Ben Sutton, our editor

20:07

in the Americas, went to Madison Square

20:10

Park to meet her. I

20:13

guess I wanted to start by asking, you know, obviously this

20:15

is like a very kind of

20:17

intense space to work in. You're

20:19

dealing with, you know, a lot of noise,

20:21

a lot of traffic. There's

20:24

like skyscrapers and there's just like

20:26

so much going on. There's other

20:28

statues. How did you, from the

20:30

get-go, kind of like approach this

20:32

quite unique and hectic site

20:34

for this project? I

20:37

think this is a special place. When Brooke

20:39

first invited me out, I got to wander

20:41

around and sort of listen to the place.

20:44

And I did hear all the

20:46

sounds and I got to feel

20:49

the sort of immensity of the

20:51

buildings and that makes the

20:53

trees kind of small, even though these

20:55

trees are massive. This

20:57

place really feels like a bowl. And

20:59

so that was one of the first

21:02

things I noticed was the sort of

21:04

vessel-like nature of this place. Because even

21:06

though it's a park, it's not central

21:09

park. You know, every direction visually there's

21:11

buildings. And so there's this holding

21:13

feeling of it. And it does. It has

21:15

a lot of visitors and it feels like

21:18

a place that people really depend on. So

21:21

it feels like a treasured and

21:23

special place. And this wild geometric

21:27

experience of city life.

21:29

Yeah, sort of this anomalous circular

21:32

resting place amidst the geometry

21:34

in the chaos. Yeah, exactly.

21:37

What inspired me for this piece was

21:39

how the buildings really felt like the

21:41

walls of this space. And

21:44

in a sense, they become sentinel for

21:46

this moment of connection and peace, you

21:48

know? Which I felt just for seeing

21:50

here. Yeah, I guess I wanted

21:53

to ask about the figures in your piece. So

21:55

there's the seven sentinels, the

21:57

sort of 18 foot tall steel

21:59

pieces. around the perimeter and then

22:01

the smaller kind of bronze figure in

22:03

the center. And then all the tall

22:06

steel pieces have both these faces that

22:08

are kind of looking out, the sentinels,

22:10

and then the face that's looking inward.

22:13

Not quite at eye level, like sort of

22:15

at like child level. I'm curious sort of

22:17

like why you felt like looking out and

22:19

looking in and sort of having these like

22:21

multiple points of vision, sort

22:23

of what that meant to you and kind

22:25

of how you hope viewers experience that. Initially

22:29

the faces of

22:32

the tall beams, the sentinels that

22:34

are facing out, are these

22:36

large like three foot masks

22:38

made out of steel with some

22:41

bronze turquoise eye barbs. And those

22:43

are looking out in a protective

22:45

manner. And that was sort

22:48

of the intention to make these faces sort of

22:50

watching. They're all eyes that are

22:52

open in all the directions so

22:54

that the central piece can close her

22:56

eyes and be present and sink

22:58

down into the present, into the space.

23:01

And she'll be sort of

23:03

overgrown with indigenous plants and

23:05

in that she'll sort of

23:07

sink into place, into past,

23:09

into present. And

23:11

the large pieces that surround

23:13

are protecting and making space so

23:15

that intimacy and vulnerability really. So

23:18

they stand on guard so that the

23:20

central piece can be vulnerable. Then along

23:22

the bottom facing in at about child

23:24

height are seven small

23:26

faces that are watching her.

23:28

Their eyes are open and

23:30

they're witnessing her vulnerability.

23:33

They're witnessing her moment

23:35

of self-awareness and self-consciousness.

23:38

And present to be present. And I

23:41

think that what that does is it

23:43

talks about sort of responsibility and

23:45

accountability in relationships. Relationships

23:48

took place. Relationships with

23:50

historical awareness, future,

23:53

responsibility. The relationship took

23:55

place and our

23:58

environment, be it industrial. human

24:01

built or natural environment. So

24:03

we have the large pieces,

24:05

the large faces looking out

24:07

in a protective way also.

24:09

Seeing context and context also

24:11

includes history and histories and

24:13

the historical stories and then

24:16

you have the being in the center who

24:18

is in her presence and then the small

24:21

figures that are facing in and watching

24:23

her are the future and to me

24:25

I often think about the young people

24:28

are watching me to see how to

24:30

be in the world and

24:32

I'm still trying to figure that out,

24:34

right? I'm trying to be self-aware enough

24:36

to make informed decisions on what that

24:39

looks like and the best thing

24:41

I can do is to show self-awareness

24:43

to the next generation so that the

24:45

next generation will know how to carry

24:47

us forth this year. We are only

24:49

a link in this life. So

24:52

this project is not only here in

24:54

Madison Square Park but also way up

24:56

town in Inwood Hill Park and

24:58

there you have these two figures, one sort of

25:00

like looking into the forest and one looking out

25:02

on the Hudson. I guess I'm curious if you

25:04

could sort of talk about how this group of

25:06

works here in Madison Square Park relates to that

25:08

group of works or if you see the two

25:11

installations as sort of distinct and doing different things

25:13

or kind of how you see them in relation

25:15

to each other. I mean

25:17

I feel really lucky to have

25:19

privileged to have them in both

25:21

spaces and I keep thinking about

25:24

the presence of Inwood Hill Park as

25:26

so much of the awareness of

25:28

meeting a guest and you

25:31

know as someone who is indigenous

25:33

to a place and I'm

25:35

not indigenous to New York but I

25:37

know what it's like to have an

25:40

ancestral relationship and history with an environment,

25:42

with a place, with a

25:44

colonial history and all the feelings that

25:46

come with it and so I think

25:48

I have a perspective about being a

25:50

guest that makes me think about how

25:53

I act and how I carry myself

25:55

as a guest in someone else's home.

25:57

And I think that that isn't just a bad thing. our

26:00

present human cultural condition,

26:02

right? But it's also about the manner

26:05

with which we carry ourselves. We

26:07

are guests in this body, we are

26:10

guests in this life, we are guests

26:12

in each day, you know. And so

26:14

how do we approach our relationship to

26:17

place with reverence and respect? And I

26:19

think that the lack of is what

26:21

causes entitlement and which is what causes

26:25

us to feel like we have the

26:27

right to take or to harm another

26:29

person. And so this is the way

26:31

I approach historical trauma, but also,

26:33

you know, our current political situations,

26:35

etc. is that, you know, how

26:37

do we become self-aware

26:40

and how do we consider all the

26:42

aspects of things so that we can

26:44

be considerate and self-aware and self-conscious and

26:47

careful? And so the piece in what

26:49

held part to the miniature are two

26:51

miniatures of some of the sentinels here

26:53

in Madison Square Park, and they are

26:56

facing in and out. And there's a

26:58

large face facing into those

27:00

horizontal, large face facing out

27:03

to the other side, not always facing

27:05

in, not always facing out. That

27:07

it is our small parts of ourselves

27:09

and the large parts of ourselves, the

27:11

way we witness. We show

27:13

up with a sense of witnessing that

27:15

considers all of our sense of

27:18

witness and history, that considers

27:20

ourselves and considers each other

27:22

as a platform and deeply

27:26

witness each other. Pass the mind

27:28

and be good to the parts of witnessing

27:30

that I don't think we can do. We

27:33

practice too much to be safe. And

27:35

I'm going to talk because this is

27:37

all me teaching myself how to be in the world.

27:40

Well, it's not all of us, you know, and I feel

27:42

like hopefully there's a way in which, like, people

27:44

seeing this work become more

27:46

self-aware or like have that awareness or it

27:49

provokes some kind of deeper

27:51

understanding or deeper awareness, at

27:53

least. You know, I keep

27:55

being caught by this piece and how much it's

27:57

teaching me, even though in a sense I was...

28:00

the translator of what I was told to

28:02

create in a sense. When I first

28:05

was granted an intensive this, they

28:07

made some sad characters step back

28:09

and I almost didn't get

28:11

it until I had to see it.

28:13

And then it keeps teaching me. It

28:15

keeps teaching me about relationships. It

28:18

keeps teaching me about collaboration. It

28:20

keeps teaching me about accountability

28:22

and responsibility. It keeps

28:24

teaching me about being conscious and aware

28:26

of myself. And that's not always fun

28:29

to be aware of ourselves, right? But

28:31

it is, I think, through those rough

28:33

points, there's some real beauty we can

28:36

find. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I

28:38

really like the idea that the figure in the

28:40

center of this installation is going to sort of

28:42

slowly become of the grown. I

28:44

imagine also, you know, this is a

28:46

deeply man-made space, but there's also nature,

28:48

so I can imagine there'll be like

28:50

squirrels and birds, like the interactivity of

28:52

the landscape, such as it is, I

28:55

think is going to be a really

28:57

beautiful thing to see over the evolution

28:59

of it. Yeah, send

29:01

me pictures. Yeah.

29:03

I wanted to ask, you know,

29:05

you sort of like have alluded to this, but obviously,

29:07

Inwood Hill Park has this kind of infamous

29:10

historical baggage of being the

29:12

site where the Dutch sort

29:15

of quote-unquote purchased Manhattan

29:17

Island from the Lenape. And then here in

29:19

Madison Square Park, like this is sort of

29:21

like, you know, we're in the shadow of

29:23

the Flatiron building, which was the tallest building

29:25

in the world. When it was completed, kind

29:27

of like the birth of the skyscraper era,

29:29

and so much of Manhattan was built up

29:31

by like Mohawk steelworkers who built the skyscrapers. I

29:33

guess like both projects feel like they're hinting at this

29:35

kind of history that New Yorkers and

29:38

kind of tourists in New York, like people

29:40

aren't necessarily aware of or just kind of

29:42

don't think about it that often. I'm curious,

29:44

like to what extent those histories informed

29:47

how you approach the project or if they're kind

29:49

of just like part of the larger picture of

29:51

what you want people to think about. I

29:54

think because of my own

29:57

experience of place and watching

29:59

how colonization... transform an indigenous

30:01

reality. That everywhere I go,

30:03

I always just go on

30:05

this continent. I think

30:08

about what places looked like before calling

30:10

it a beach. And it's just a

30:12

habit, I think. But that habit also

30:14

comes with heartbreak and frustration

30:17

and some confusion. But I don't know

30:19

how many people do that. We

30:21

just go, oh, this is how it is. And

30:23

then that's where we begin taking

30:25

for granted to consider,

30:28

this is just how it is. And

30:30

so I do think about what

30:33

happened and what was it like

30:35

to be from here

30:37

and what was this place like

30:39

before a conversation and what were

30:42

the relationships you played, what

30:45

were the memories that were made. And

30:47

then you think about not

30:49

just pre-contacts, but

30:52

through the industrialization

30:54

of this place, through

30:56

enslavement, through all those layers

30:59

of trauma. And

31:01

you think about the height of these

31:03

buildings and fear. I think so much

31:05

about fear and how we navigate fear.

31:08

And when I think about Mohawk steelworkers,

31:11

I think about courage. And I

31:13

think about not just courage,

31:15

but also the denial of fear. And

31:17

I wonder how much the denial of

31:19

fear makes us do certain things.

31:21

Because it's a denial of a hard feeling that

31:23

makes us cause trauma. And so a lot

31:25

of these buildings had to be

31:27

built in a denial of fear

31:29

in a sense. And I wonder how much

31:32

of that intentional dissociation of

31:34

difficult feelings exist in this

31:36

city in so many ways. And

31:39

how much that denial perpetuates

31:41

our behaviors and how much we

31:44

can start rooting ourselves back down.

31:46

And even this piece, for me, 18 feet

31:49

is really tall. And

31:51

here they look so little next to

31:54

the world. And yet that's the biggest thing I've

31:56

ever made. You know, an El Camino is 17

31:58

feet long, right? These are 18 feet long. They

32:02

have ever made and yet this being is

32:04

rooting for something fences around like we have

32:06

to have known as far as we go

32:08

in a single. Yeah.

32:11

Sensitive about balancing the kind of upward

32:13

momentum was like actually being rooted in

32:15

place and having some connection. And

32:18

connection to place and round

32:20

name off of within and

32:22

without. A. Mere thought of flew

32:24

in addition to the C Serum as

32:26

as were parked and of his opinion

32:28

would hill park Yosemite for agis four

32:30

pieces the form of peace in the

32:32

when you manual certain overthrow the islands

32:34

which is very cool three as arena

32:36

when you finally have the scribble for

32:38

sonic mixed media figures com daughter's reverence

32:40

me to pieces on individual title to

32:43

the that he's kind of function in

32:45

a totally different manner as far as

32:47

your concern to me obviously that think

32:49

really got like your hand prints on

32:51

it in a very literal sense. And

32:53

yeah, was working in a in a

32:55

museum face as was the public spaces

32:58

to that particular worked. Feel

33:00

like it's and conversation with these figure out or

33:02

pieces are you consider that? Kind of like a

33:04

separate project? I mean, he sees

33:07

that because I met a phase

33:09

in my life. That's what I'm

33:11

investigating internally and places outside the

33:13

language. Lessons Madison Square Park pay

33:16

for them or chronicle. Won't

33:18

happen. I see local the movie

33:20

was more. Oh this is what

33:23

I'm dealing with a. Whole.

33:27

Hung. My own personal work

33:29

and co law and evidently

33:31

he later because. I'm sort

33:34

of going through. you know, the

33:36

same thing in a sense, but

33:38

what I see from all three.

33:42

Of. Them

33:51

are. Inaccessible.

33:54

Now a super important thing and

33:56

I started realizing I think I

33:59

started investing. how the work

34:01

itself can hold its stuff and

34:03

rather than be performative, it can

34:05

be functional, it can be sort

34:08

of doing its own work and

34:11

the viewer witnesses the work being done but

34:13

it's not necessarily, if

34:15

you grow or be informed by

34:17

the work, that is because of

34:19

the work you did in

34:22

reception to the work but

34:24

it's not digested, it's not

34:26

necessarily giving too much, right? And

34:28

so I feel like what

34:30

I find similar between this work and

34:32

what's at the Whitney right now is

34:35

that they're both kind of making

34:37

an environment, they're taking space for

34:40

the work to be done but

34:42

specifically the work at the Whitney,

34:44

they're in relationship to each other

34:46

and they're doing this work with

34:48

each other in a sense demonstrating

34:51

if one chooses to do

34:53

the work to understand it fully how

34:55

to be in relationship, right? They're figuring

34:57

it out with each other. Right, right, it's

34:59

these sort of four figures facing each other but

35:02

not the viewers so you're kind of, like you

35:04

were saying, like a witness to their communal moment.

35:06

Right and they create a tension

35:08

between them, they create a

35:11

visceral space of relationship between

35:14

them that's not necessarily for

35:16

anyone to walk into, right? Yeah. And

35:19

then the difference I suppose about the

35:21

Madison Square Park work is that, you

35:23

know, the viewer will be able to

35:25

walk in and around them but the

35:27

big bases are way above anyone's head.

35:29

They're looking at something further and bigger

35:31

almost on a level of supernatural and

35:33

so I feel like that's what I'm

35:36

sort of looking at and

35:38

investigating and building a relationship with

35:41

his thresholds and dimensions and

35:43

making spaces that are almost

35:45

psychological for this reason.

36:00

of like in a way building on the work

36:02

that you've done here and at the Whitney and

36:04

in Woodhill Park or are those kind of their

36:06

own distinct bodies of work or sort of what

36:08

can we expect from those shows? We're

36:11

working really hard. I have an incredible

36:13

crew right now at my shop and

36:15

we're building these large, larger than these,

36:17

24 to 27 foot tall figures, two

36:19

of them that will face each other.

36:22

So I feel like again we're playing

36:24

with sort of that tension between two

36:26

beings because they witness each other and

36:29

this one you know you pass through

36:31

the tension between them and I feel

36:33

like I'm excited to see those and

36:35

experience those in place at the Cleveland

36:38

Museum of Art. Those pieces are called

36:40

Strata. And then we're actually working

36:42

on finishing another car that will be

36:44

at Bion. So I will have my

36:47

original 85 El Camino show

36:49

car, Maria, and then we're

36:51

working on a 64 Bio Fervier of

36:53

Hydraulics that's going to be at the,

36:55

well that's very different in this sense,

36:58

but it is also about the vessel.

37:00

It's about space. It's

37:02

about relationships. It's about the aesthetic

37:04

presence. So it's fun. It feels

37:07

like there has been a lot

37:09

of planning and building for many,

37:11

many years and it's all sort of

37:13

coming to a head last

37:16

year and this year. So you know

37:18

this is a marathon in New York

37:20

and I'm so grateful for just a

37:22

part of me and my voice and

37:24

I'm just humbled by it and I

37:26

feel sometimes overwhelmed you know but also

37:29

like trying to maintain a deep sense

37:31

of wonder so that I can be

37:33

open to what it all has to

37:35

take from me. Thank

37:41

you so much for taking the time to chat. Nice

37:43

talking. Thank

37:48

you. even

38:00

better than the real thing is at the

38:02

Whitney Museum of American Art in New York

38:04

until the 11th of August. Roseby Simpson Strata

38:06

is at the Cleveland Museum of Art in

38:08

Ohio in the US from the 14th of

38:10

July to the 13th of April 2025 and

38:13

Roseby Simpson Lexicon is at the De

38:15

Young in San Francisco in the US

38:17

from the 16th of November to the

38:19

29th of June next year. And

38:23

finally it's time for the work of the week. In

38:25

1610 Caravaggio made a painting depicting the

38:27

mastem of Saint Ursula for a Genoese

38:29

patron. Though he'd recently experienced a violent

38:31

attack that left him badly scarred, he

38:33

was then hopeful of returning to Rome

38:35

where he'd made his reputation as the

38:37

greatest artist of his age after being

38:39

banished for murdering a man in 1606.

38:43

But he never made it back to the

38:45

Italian capital, dying soon after the Ursula painting

38:48

was completed. That ultimate picture will

38:50

next week come to London as part

38:52

of the exhibition The Last Caravaggio at

38:54

the National Gallery and I spoke to

38:56

its curator Francesca Whitlam Cooper about the

38:58

work and those final troubled years of

39:00

a great artist's life. Francesca

39:03

Caravaggio's last five years in

39:06

a very turbulent life were

39:08

extremely turbulent. Can you give

39:10

us a flavour of where he was in May 1610 when

39:13

he came to take on what was his very last

39:15

painting? You're quite right.

39:17

He lives a very turbulent life but this

39:19

really reaches a new kind of peak in

39:21

1606 when he kills

39:24

a man in Rome and is

39:26

then forced to flee the city with a

39:29

death penalty of Ando Capitale on his head.

39:31

So he has to flee the Papal States.

39:33

He goes down to Naples

39:35

and is hugely successful there,

39:38

spends time in Malta where

39:40

again he's painting very successfully

39:42

though his personality is such

39:44

that he's endlessly getting into trouble. He's

39:47

in Sicily. May 1610

39:49

finds him back in Naples. He's been

39:51

there since the autumn of 1609. We

39:55

know that he's painting. We know also

39:57

in the autumn of 1609 he is... really

40:00

violently attacked leaving a bar

40:02

in Naples and that

40:05

attack really seriously disfigures his face, you

40:07

know, according to the contemporary sources this

40:09

is a really violent attack. The

40:12

fact that it's a facial wound suggests there's

40:14

something there about kind of honor and he

40:16

has dishonored somebody, perhaps this is a sort

40:18

of revenge attack. So he's been convalescing, so

40:20

by the spring of 1610 he

40:23

is better, though perhaps still weak from

40:25

this attack, he is painting and he

40:27

doesn't know it but he's painting his

40:29

final painting. What's extraordinary as

40:31

he's hinted there is that who all the turbulence

40:34

and in Malta too he, as you say, even

40:36

though he was trying to become a friar at

40:38

that time which is rather amusing, or he gets

40:40

involved in some sort of altercation and therefore has

40:42

to flee again. So but all the time he's

40:45

painting and also we know that he's painting some of

40:47

the greatest works he ever made at this time. He

40:50

has this amazing ability to sort of,

40:52

and perhaps this is partly what

40:55

propels him, but he has this

40:57

amazing ability to create extraordinarily rich

40:59

works, extraordinarily detailed works, extraordinarily

41:01

time-consuming works, all the while

41:03

living this incredibly violent personal

41:06

life. No, he absolutely

41:08

doesn't. You know, for me I think about

41:10

his time in Malta, you're quite right, he

41:12

goes off to Malta because he wants to

41:14

become one of the Knights of the Order

41:16

of St John, you know, the idea of

41:18

ennoblement, of having that title and that recognition

41:21

is really important to him and

41:23

he goes and he's there for a year and he

41:25

does it, you know, he becomes a Knight

41:27

and he has this success but it's almost,

41:29

to me there's something kind of Shakespearean about

41:32

Caravaggio like that tragic flaw that it's almost

41:34

like he can't let that happen because then

41:36

as you say there's this huge fight, this

41:38

altercation, he's thrown into a dungeon prison, supposedly

41:41

escapes, I mean clearly with some

41:44

help but with ropes and a boat and everything else getting

41:46

so Sicily, but it

41:48

is an extraordinary life and as

41:50

you say what's even more

41:52

extraordinary, it's not that he's not painting or

41:54

that he's turning out dud works, it's he's

41:56

actually turning out masterpieces in this period which

41:59

is pretty breathtaking. Now, the

42:01

commission comes to him. Tell us about who commissioned

42:03

him to make this martyrdom of St. Ursula. So,

42:06

he is commissioned by a Genoese nobleman

42:08

called Marcantonio Doria to paint a martyrdom

42:11

of St. Ursula, and that's what he's

42:13

working on, he's just finished working on

42:15

in May 1610. He's

42:18

probably known Doria for several years. We think he's

42:20

probably met him when he's been to Genoa earlier

42:23

during another period of violence in which he needed

42:25

to leave Rome for a little while. So, there's

42:27

already a kind of connection. Doria

42:29

is based in Genoa, but he has a

42:31

business agent, Lanfranco Massa, who is working

42:33

for him, and he has lots of property

42:35

in Naples and a strong connection

42:37

with Naples. And so, the painting

42:39

is rediscovered as a Caravaggio, if

42:42

you will, partly on the evidence

42:44

of this letter that Lanfranco Massa

42:46

writes to Marcantonio Doria from Naples

42:48

to Genoa in May 1610, talking

42:50

very explicitly about the painting. It's amazing, isn't it?

42:53

We'll come on to that because there's some really

42:55

interesting details that emerge from that in terms of

42:57

the conservation of the work and so on. But,

42:59

okay, so he's got this commission. How strict is

43:01

the commission in terms of scale and so on?

43:04

Because this is not one of his largest works,

43:06

but it has a very tight focus. Do we

43:08

know anything about what the nature of the commission

43:10

was? No, we

43:12

don't, and that's not untypical.

43:14

So, we know that the

43:17

painting is made for Marcantonio Doria. We

43:19

know that it is a martyrdom of

43:21

St. Ursula. It's been suggested, I think,

43:23

very plausibly that perhaps one of the

43:25

reasons Doria is interested in St. Ursula

43:27

in particular is that he has a

43:29

stepdaughter to whom he's quite close, a

43:32

woman called Livia Grimaldi, who is in

43:34

Naples at this moment, and she is

43:36

professing. So, she's taking on a religious life

43:38

as a nun in Naples under

43:41

the name Sister Ursula. So, that

43:43

seems too strong a coincidence for

43:45

there not to be some sort of link that

43:47

must surely explain why he's commissioned Caravaggio to paint

43:49

the martyrdom of St. Ursula, which is quite an

43:51

unusual thing to paint in this

43:53

period. Right, absolutely. But there's no sense in

43:56

which this is a portrait of her or anything like

43:58

that. There's no detail like that that we've seen. No,

44:00

there's no detail in which this is a portrait

44:02

of her. Obviously there's the self-portrait of Caravaggio included.

44:04

And again, that's the sort of intriguing detail that

44:07

we see Caravaggio in the background. It's the last

44:09

time we see him. He's there with this kind

44:11

of deathly pallor on his face peering over the

44:13

shoulders of the soldiers and of Ursula herself watching

44:16

the action. It's very sort of morally

44:18

ambiguous because is he a

44:20

witness to the scene? Is he trying to stop

44:22

it? Is he culpable in some ways? Is he

44:25

impotent? There's lots of kind of questions raised by

44:27

that. He's not disfigured though, is he,

44:29

crucially? We know that he's just had his

44:31

face slashed, but you'd never know from this

44:33

depiction. You would not know from the painting and

44:35

that to me is very interesting as well. Again,

44:38

also thinking about the fact that he knows

44:40

Marcantonio Doria, so it seems

44:42

unlikely Doria would have requested Caravaggio's self-portrait. That

44:44

feels more like a sort of in-joke for

44:46

someone who's going to receive the painting. Oh,

44:48

you know, there we go. But he

44:51

casts himself in his very famous light,

44:53

which I love. There he is, bathed

44:55

in that incredibly dramatic light, which is

44:58

his trademark, I guess. Absolutely. And this

45:00

is a painting of incredible chiaroscuro, these

45:02

extraordinary kind of contrasted lights

45:05

and darks, which is exactly what we know

45:07

Caravaggio for. And obviously, it's incredibly tempting to

45:10

make something metaphorical of that and to think about

45:12

this period in his life as kind of one

45:14

of darkness and light. He's

45:16

been through all this violence. He's been on the run

45:19

for so many years, but just as his painting is

45:21

being finished, he's getting word that perhaps he's going to

45:23

be able to go back to Rome. So perhaps the

45:26

long-falled pardon is coming through. Perhaps he's going to

45:28

be able to resume his whole life. So for

45:30

me, you know, I look at that self-portrait of

45:33

Caravaggio and yes, there's this incredible light

45:35

that he's bathed in, but it's funny actually, if

45:37

you look, he's sort of almost looking beyond the

45:39

picture frame. It feels almost as

45:41

if he's looking to what comes next. Well,

45:43

that's it. He has a bit of hope after

45:45

so much darkness, I guess. Yeah, that's interesting, isn't

45:47

it? Tell us about the composition because Saint

45:50

Ursula quite often is depicted because the legend

45:52

of Saint Ursula is about the 11,000 virgins.

45:55

And so artists love that subject. Of

45:57

course they do. And so therefore,

46:00

make a lot of it. But here you wouldn't know that.

46:02

I mean it sort of has to be

46:04

explained to you that it's St Ursula really, doesn't it?

46:06

It absolutely does. And for a long time

46:08

it lost its identification as a martyrdom of St

46:10

Ursula. I think precisely because when

46:12

you look through the history of when people have

46:15

depicted that story of this British or Breton princess

46:17

who's gone on a pilgrimage to Rome, and then

46:19

she and her 11,000 virgin

46:21

followers have been massacred by the Huns. Normally

46:24

artists have kind of strewn battlefields of

46:26

dead virgins. And there is this kind

46:28

of emphasis on quantity, for one better

46:31

word. I mean I think that is

46:33

what the story is associated with. And Caravaggio,

46:35

of course, does something

46:37

completely atypical, something very

46:39

Caravaggianic. He strips the

46:41

story down to the kind of bare essentials. We're

46:44

looking at six or seven figures here. We

46:46

are looking at life-size figures. The composition is very,

46:48

very closely cropped. So as you stand in front

46:50

of it, you really feel as if you are

46:52

just there sort of watching

46:54

this violent thing happen. And

46:57

it's very condensed. As your eye moves across

46:59

the canvas from left to right, you have

47:01

the prince of the Huns who's just fired

47:03

this fatal arrow. There's this extraordinary hand of

47:06

a bystander that kind of reaches out too

47:09

late to stop this awful thing from

47:11

happening. You have Ursula's hands framing the

47:13

wound. But it's all happening in the

47:15

space of sort of centimeters. It's very

47:17

compressed, very intense, very typical

47:19

of how he paints dramatic subjects.

47:22

I know that the painting has undergone

47:24

a lot of conservation in its time,

47:27

that its condition is not perfect. But

47:29

the coloring of Saint Ursula is very

47:31

notable. It's a deathly pallor. Is

47:34

that Caravaggio's original coloring? Do

47:36

we know? It's a very difficult

47:38

question to answer. I mean, it is a

47:41

painting that has right from the

47:43

moment it's painted in May 1610, had

47:45

this kind of quite complicated conservation history. So

47:47

this letter that is written saying,

47:49

Caravaggio's just finished this painting and everyone who's seen

47:52

it is amazed. Also includes the note that, oh,

47:54

sorry, I popped it out in the sun to help it dry fast. I

47:56

seem to have done something funny with the

47:58

varnish. I've got to get Caravaggio. everyone's again to

48:01

fix it. I mean

48:03

literally from the get-go you know there's

48:05

clearly some sort of conservation concern. We

48:07

know there's another incident later on when it's

48:09

shipped back from Genoa to Naples where packing

48:12

material sticks to the surface. In

48:15

terms of what we're looking at though in

48:17

terms of the contrast you know for me

48:19

having thought about having spoken to a lot

48:21

of people you know the kind of consensus

48:23

it's hard to imagine that that pallor on

48:25

Ursula or indeed the pallor on Caravaggio himself

48:27

they're not accidental those aren't just the effects

48:29

of pigment change or you know

48:31

not seeing the painted surface exactly as we would

48:33

have seen in May 1610. I

48:36

think that is quite a deliberate choice and

48:38

for me her pallor you know it plays

48:40

into the expression on her face as well

48:42

which is very complicated it's sort of surprised

48:46

but accepting and every

48:49

face in this painting is very difficult to decipher I

48:51

think that is one of the things that

48:53

makes it condition issues notwithstanding you know a

48:55

very powerful work. That's right there's an

48:57

almost a serenity about her isn't there and

48:59

I guess could that be interpreted as relating

49:02

to the fact of you know her knowledge

49:04

of her own martyrdom I guess that you

49:06

know that she has the serenity of faith

49:08

I guess. Yeah I think that

49:10

is a big part of it and I think you

49:12

know certainly one of the things that we've tried to

49:14

do in the exhibition and in the catalogue is to

49:16

talk about that and write about that quite intentionally because

49:19

I think it is very easy to you know talking

49:21

about the martyrdom of Saint Ursula these are things that

49:23

are happening to her it's quite easy to put her

49:25

into a kind of passive voice whereas actually I think

49:27

there is a different way of looking at that painting

49:29

and saying this is a choice I

49:31

mean she was given a choice by the prince of

49:33

the Huns you know he offered to spare her life

49:35

if she married him and she refused to marry outside

49:38

her Christian faith. It doesn't make what's happening

49:40

to her any less awful it doesn't

49:42

make any less abhorrent but I think

49:44

there is something and I think Caravaggio

49:46

is painting that there is something about

49:48

restoring a little agency to her and

49:51

her accepting martyrdom and that's the price

49:53

she is willing to pay for her

49:55

faith it's really powerful. Indeed indeed. Now

49:57

tell us about the history of the painting after

49:59

Caravaggio. Caravaggio's completed it. Basically

50:02

it goes to Genoa and then is

50:04

it right that basically it stops being recognised as

50:06

a Caravaggio for a very long time after that?

50:10

Yes and no. So it goes

50:12

to Genoa and then it's in

50:14

the Doria family in Genoa and

50:16

it's in many inventories in the

50:19

Doria archives as Martyr

50:21

de St Ursula by Caravaggio, St

50:23

Ursula by the tyrant,

50:25

Caravaggio. Over time though that

50:28

connection is severed and I think that's just

50:30

one of these inevitable things that happens. Artists

50:33

like Caravaggio fall very much from favour,

50:35

it's not a kind of prevailing taste.

50:38

So I think in the late 19th

50:40

century that the painting is then returned

50:42

from Genoa back to Naples, still within

50:44

the Doria family to one of their

50:46

properties there. And essentially it gets

50:48

separated both from the artist's name

50:51

but also from the subject. So

50:53

by the middle of the 20th

50:55

century it's being suggested that this

50:58

is a painting by Metea Praty

51:00

who's a Calabresi painter, one of

51:02

Caravaggio's followers, a generation younger. This

51:04

is suggested by Manfredi who's one of

51:07

his kind of Roman followers. It's lost

51:09

the connection to Ursula completely and again that

51:11

might also have been due to being

51:13

under really thick, gunky

51:16

varnish, not being so legible.

51:18

But for me the separation from the Ursula story

51:21

is also because this is just a really unusual

51:23

way to paint Ursula. And then

51:25

we have to end with Caravaggio's end. So

51:27

as we were saying he's thinking he might

51:29

actually get reprieve and be able to return

51:31

to Rome in triumph and become an even

51:34

greater painter with even greater patrons and so on.

51:36

But that doesn't happen does it? Does it? It

51:39

doesn't happen. So at the end of May

51:41

1610 the master of Saint Ursula as you

51:43

said is sent up by boat to Genoa

51:45

to his patron and just a few weeks

51:47

later Caravaggio himself is on a boat. He

51:49

boards a boat from Naples up the coast

51:52

because he's got word that this papal pardon

51:54

is going to come through and he can

51:56

kind of pick up life where he left

51:58

off four years previously. And

52:00

it's just sort of awful twist of fate

52:02

that for once it actually not particularly his

52:04

fault because there's lots of things He's like

52:07

they're absolutely down to him and his temperament

52:09

and this this particular sort of chain of

52:11

events actually isn't so he lands

52:13

and Is mistakenly arrested for once he

52:15

doesn't seem to have done anything. He

52:18

is mistakenly arrested But what that arrest

52:20

involves is him being separated from his

52:22

belongings that all his belongings the paintings

52:24

He's made for his supporters in Rome

52:26

everything he owns Continues in

52:29

that boat up the coast to

52:31

Porta Ocole and he is something like

52:33

50 or 70 kilometers further down the

52:35

coast Absolutely desperate because

52:38

that's his whole life that sailed up the coast without

52:41

him So, you

52:43

know, there's several contemporary ish or

52:45

17th century biographies of Caravaggio and

52:47

they write quite poetically about him

52:50

Running up the coast chasing that I

52:52

mean he can't physically have been running but nevertheless

52:55

He was obviously very desperate probably

52:57

still weakened from this attack in

52:59

Naples He has been questions about

53:01

you know, it's a very malarial area. He

53:03

picks up an infection and basically dies at

53:06

Porta Ocole on his own Unmourned

53:09

a pauper nothing to his name.

53:11

It's a completely sort of Ignoble

53:14

and for someone who you know, whether you like

53:16

him or not as a person his paintings did

53:18

change the world I Need

53:24

they did Francesca, thank you so much

53:26

for joining us on the podcast my pleasure. Thank

53:28

you The

53:34

last Caravaggio is at the National Gallery in

53:36

London from the 18th of April to the

53:38

21st And

53:42

that's it for this episode you can find us on

53:44

X formally known as Twitter at an audio and on

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Facebook Friends the week

53:49

not is produced by Julia Mahaska Alexander

53:51

Morrison and David clack and they've is

53:53

also the editor and sound design Thanks

53:55

also to Daniel Hathaway and to our

53:57

guests Annie then and Rose and friendship

54:00

Thank you for listening, see you next week

54:02

for a Venice Biennale Special. Bye for now.