0:11

Hello and welcome to The Week in

0:13

Art, I'm Ben Luke. This week, Take

0:15

Britain unveils the artist Keith Piper's response

0:17

to a racist mural in its former

0:20

restaurant, the Art Basel and UBS Art

0:22

Market report and a weaving by Annie

0:24

Albes. Four

0:31

years after Take Britain closed its restaurant

0:33

because Rex Whistler's murals on its walls

0:35

contained racist imagery, it's unveiled the work

0:37

it commissioned in response to Whistler's painting

0:39

by the artist Keith Piper. I talked

0:41

to Keith about the work. The annual

0:44

Art Basel and UBS Art Market report

0:46

was published on Wednesday and, as ever,

0:48

reviews the status of the international art

0:50

market. I speak to its author, the

0:52

cultural economist and founder of the company

0:55

Arts Economics, Claire McAndrew. And

0:57

this episode's work of the week is

0:59

with Verticals, one of Annie Albers' pictorial

1:01

weavings made in 1946. It's a key

1:03

piece in the exhibition Woven Histories, Textiles

1:05

and Modern Abstraction, which arrived this week

1:07

at the National Gallery of Art in

1:10

Washington. I discuss the weaving with the

1:12

show's curator, Lynn Cook. We

1:14

have a new subscription offer for the

1:16

art newspaper, up to 50% off our

1:18

annual subscription packages. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find

1:20

out more. Do also subscribe to this

1:23

podcast and to our sister podcast, A

1:25

Brush With, wherever you're listening. And please

1:27

also give us a rating or review

1:29

on Apple podcasts. Now,

1:31

the Restral at the former National Gallery of

1:33

British Art, which then became the Take Gallery

1:35

and is now Take Britain, was once described

1:37

as the most amusing room in Europe because

1:40

of the fanciful mural around its walls by

1:42

the British artist Rex Whistler. Called the expedition

1:44

in pursuit of rare meats, it was completed

1:46

in 1927 when Whistler was just

1:49

21. But in the past decade, there's

1:51

been a growing awareness of and outrage

1:53

at racist passages in the work, including

1:55

images of a black child being kidnapped

1:58

from his mother, who is pictured It

2:00

in a tree. the child is added,

2:02

slaved and appease trained in multiple scenes

2:04

in the Bureau. Elsewhere their a caricature

2:06

of Chinese figures. The restaurant had closed

2:08

in March Twenty Twenty as part of

2:10

the response to the covert pandemic, but

2:12

never reopened at in December of year.

2:14

The Gallery it Out said it. It

2:16

started a consultation a lot to do

2:18

next about the View, which is not

2:20

a fully take to access and artwork

2:22

but is part of an architecturally listed

2:24

building. The group formed to discuss some

2:26

you described the conversations as difficult with

2:28

the disagreement among the pedal. But the

2:30

conclusion was to commission and artwork for

2:33

the contemporary artist. The results? A to

2:35

screen video installation. but a veteran of

2:37

the nineteen eighties Blackhawk Piper open this

2:40

week at Britain's called Five or Forty

2:42

it abandons a conversation between was less

2:44

and a contemporary art historian code professor

2:46

shattered. I went to take Britain's to

2:49

talk to kids about the. Case.

2:53

When the Tate announce in i

2:55

think he was twenty twenty t

2:57

that they want to do a

3:00

series of artist installations in response

3:02

to The Wrecks Whistler Miro, Emea

3:04

Srinivasan made a really interesting comment

3:06

in that release see said. Could.

3:09

The space be used by artists

3:11

as a creative side of reappropriation.

3:13

Or with this I'm fairly burden

3:16

them with a problem produced by

3:18

historically what. Did

3:21

you have any pause before you

3:23

accept this commission? Was it comes

3:25

to accept some ways. I.

3:28

Had a pause in max or

3:30

kind of fully understood the kind

3:32

of implications of the worth and

3:35

of the questions around the world

3:37

especially in relationship to the why

3:39

the conversations he terms of how

3:42

museums and them deal with objects

3:44

which a problematic because museums are

3:47

full of objects which have a

3:49

very specific history and that history

3:51

may be cut it difficult for

3:54

can simply audiences. However I'm strongly

3:56

of the view that. those objects

3:58

need to stay and need

4:01

to be analyzed, they need to

4:03

be deconstructed in order to increase

4:05

our understanding of the intricacies of

4:07

history. This is the thing which

4:09

we need to grapple with. And

4:11

so I kind of understood that

4:13

there had been calls for the

4:15

work to come down or be

4:17

removed, and I also

4:19

understood that wouldn't necessarily be possible.

4:21

So therefore the task of attempting

4:24

to engage with the work had

4:26

to be done. In terms of

4:28

the history of my own work,

4:30

I mean I've kind of spent 40 years

4:33

attempting to explore history, explore

4:36

difficult images and difficult objects, and

4:38

so I felt that yes, this

4:40

was a project which I felt

4:43

I could take on. And also, you

4:45

know, because I welcome that conversation. I

4:47

welcome both the conversation with individuals who

4:50

think work should come down or be

4:52

hidden, and also those individuals on the

4:54

other side of the spectrum

4:57

who argue that that that history

4:59

should be left alone. And

5:02

I wanted to engage both of those things

5:04

because, you know, my position is different to

5:06

both of those. I wanted to explore that

5:08

aspect of keeping it, because it's

5:10

not that sort of mantra that's been trusted

5:12

out by the British government endlessly, which

5:14

is about retain and explain, did it?

5:17

This is retain and transform or something

5:19

in that territory. It's

5:21

retain and deconstruct.

5:24

And deconstruction is actually a

5:27

transformative act if it brings

5:29

new knowledge and new

5:31

light both to the object itself and

5:34

to our understanding of the history that

5:36

made the object. When I

5:38

knew that you were doing this, I was

5:40

intrigued to see how you do it, because there's

5:43

a lot of collage in your previous work, there's

5:45

a lot of the use of found materials and

5:47

so on, and there is some of that in

5:49

this work, but it is predominantly a kind of

5:51

fictional conversation, so original material that you have shot.

5:54

Tell us more about that decision, why that rather

5:56

than a Much more collaged piece.

6:00

Interested because in terms of this

6:02

particular projects I really wanted to

6:04

kind of find a way in

6:06

which a connects me explore the

6:08

in history of the work on

6:11

also those things which made it

6:13

problematic I was immediately struck by

6:15

the fact that he was a

6:17

really young artist at the time

6:20

was twenty one now because I'm

6:22

also based in a university and

6:24

some speaking to kind of young

6:26

artist overtime and we kind of

6:29

use a particular. Vehicle of the

6:31

Studio Base Critique: Where you stand with

6:33

that artist in front of their work

6:35

and you ask them, how did you

6:37

come to this work What else are

6:40

you looking at. You. Know who

6:42

you influenced by and hold on

6:44

the spot. The work is problematic,

6:46

have you thought about them and

6:49

so that whole vehicle of the

6:51

studio critique always most formal. For

6:53

me it's called the eve of

6:55

okay to I wanted to cut.

6:58

used that particular form as a

7:00

way of getting this imagines reconstruction

7:02

of Rex we slept to explain

7:04

where the work had come from.

7:06

You know he's influences. His prose,

7:09

has no place it in history

7:11

and. He social history as well

7:13

place it in relationship to the

7:15

other art works that he was

7:17

looking at, to place it in

7:19

the context of other outlets from

7:21

his practice as well at the

7:23

same time, and to bring all

7:26

of those things together in a

7:28

kind of conversational way. I thought

7:30

the kind of best way of

7:32

doing that was by staging. An

7:35

imagined conversation between him and

7:37

that kind of researcher. academic

7:40

type of character and the academic is

7:42

very clearly established the opening shot of

7:45

the film the professor is sitting there

7:47

doing her work jeffrey says guest anything

7:49

the archive yes everything away while sees

7:52

a fictional character i wanted to what

7:54

extent see the kind of stand in

7:56

for you see is an avatar for

7:58

you to set extent because you've

8:01

obviously done a lot of research into

8:03

this and it's sort of transparently presented

8:05

through the piece. That's interesting yes an

8:08

avatar for me but an avatar for

8:10

a whole generation of art historical thought

8:13

now she is the standing for

8:15

us all in terms of individuals

8:17

who are attempting to kind of

8:19

look at this history through his

8:21

remnants and ask questions

8:23

yeah and a particular interpretation of

8:25

the piece is that it

8:27

could be in her imagination she

8:30

could be imagining this confrontation

8:32

or this conversation with Rex Whistler

8:35

because we see her flashing in

8:37

and out of the archive

8:39

yeah and so I wanted it to be quite

8:42

ambiguous in terms of kind of where this

8:44

conversation was placed yeah and also when

8:46

it was happening yeah and in terms of

8:48

when it was happening you bring in all

8:51

sorts of the social and cultural events that

8:53

happened around that time like the general strike

8:56

like the exhibition in Wembley you know

8:58

the Empire exhibition and so on

9:00

to establish the kind of culture in

9:02

which Rex Whistler would have or should

9:04

have at least come across black people

9:07

so he would have had a context

9:09

in which to establish a view of

9:11

black people exactly this is what we

9:13

are attempting to arrive at I

9:16

think it becomes a problem if

9:18

we attempt to kind

9:20

of impose the kind

9:23

of knowledge of our time on

9:25

a historical figure we have to

9:27

in a sense establish what they

9:29

would have been exposed to notice

9:32

questions about okay you are in

9:34

the 1920s how would you

9:37

have encountered real-life black people and

9:39

obviously there were black people in

9:41

London at that time and in

9:43

a whole range of places and

9:45

so it was the jazz age

9:47

he was a bright young thing

9:49

he would have encountered black jazz

9:51

musicians you know in the war

9:53

he would have encountered black workers you know

9:56

there are all of these ways in which

9:58

he would have seen real-life black people However,

10:01

in his work, he was

10:03

resorting to these very particular

10:05

types of basic stereotypes. And

10:07

so that question was, you

10:09

were seeing people. Yeah. And

10:12

one of the interesting things is you absolutely

10:14

don't let him off the hook. You don't give

10:16

him that excuse of, oh, it was a common

10:18

view in that age to have this view.

10:21

Because what the professor does is point him

10:23

in the direction of how he's depicting the

10:26

black figures in the composition

10:28

and isolate why he might have

10:31

arrived at those. And then brilliantly through

10:33

the research, link it back to a

10:35

much wider story of his racist

10:38

depictions, basically. Yes, yes, absolutely. There is

10:40

also a story of the stuff which

10:43

didn't quite make this version of the

10:45

work in terms of it was in

10:47

the script and we lost it from

10:49

the script, et cetera, and we shot

10:52

it, but we didn't use it. And

10:54

a part of that was actually a

10:56

comparison with other artists of that time

10:58

of 1927 and how

11:01

they had painted black people or

11:04

depicted black people. So a really

11:06

important one was Stanley Spencer in

11:09

a piece which was in the Tate at the

11:11

time. So that was why it was a core

11:13

part of the research, which was

11:15

the Resurrection Cookum, which

11:18

is a very interesting work indeed. Major

11:20

work in Tate's collection. Yes, he was. Well, it was a major

11:22

work, but they took it down. He

11:25

actually had originally planned to

11:27

shoot them in front of that piece

11:29

while it was gone. And that is such an interesting

11:32

work in that context because Stanley Spencer

11:34

had actually gone out of his way

11:36

to seek out images of

11:39

black people which he could then

11:41

copy in terms of his painting.

11:43

Now, we find it difficult and

11:45

problematic because he found those images

11:47

in a national geographic which

11:50

to our frame of mind is a

11:53

highly problematic source. However, in

11:55

terms of his motives, the motives of

11:57

finding a way of kind of deep.

12:00

Speaking realistic, Black Vegas really important Yeah

12:02

and we actually know that of Rex

12:04

with the saw that work there is

12:06

enough in his diary about He saw

12:08

him with a d to Libya and

12:10

he didn't like it because it was

12:13

badly comfort in I saw that kind

12:15

associates also think about what what other

12:17

artists doing at this time back and

12:19

events Indeed it's a Levy and she's

12:21

a kind of key to in the

12:23

extremities a language isn't just use this

12:26

text which was written as it says

12:28

in the film with with the himself.

12:30

And and we see, have read out

12:32

excerpts from it's shocking in the same

12:34

way that imagery is shocking. And what's

12:37

intriguing is that that was published, it

12:39

was rejected by publishers. and of course

12:41

our minds immediately think why was it

12:43

rejected? But then you don't let the

12:45

institution of the Hook because them by

12:48

ninety fifty four to six years after

12:50

Windrush, this deeply racist text is being

12:52

published. And and in a while, you're

12:54

not letting the title, the Hook and

12:56

any more than you're letting the artist

12:58

of the guys. Interesting. Because yes it's

13:01

a was published stance is interesting

13:03

to compare the version of the

13:05

takes which is published nineteen fifty

13:07

four with the original manuscript right

13:09

which is actually in the Tate

13:11

Archive at he saw a clear

13:13

that that was the manuscript which

13:15

was written in the late nineteen

13:17

twenties could even calls the and

13:19

states not the taste the National

13:21

National Gallery branch off a lot

13:23

of us off as he was,

13:25

we really places him in in

13:27

history. They're pretty much the same

13:29

however. there. are some slight changes

13:31

to the language right and it

13:33

was interesting as to why it

13:36

wasn't published in nineteen twenty seven

13:38

varies additional research to be done

13:40

their rights body just really interesting

13:42

get his of a strange piece

13:44

of writing it's difficult to read

13:47

i know a few people who

13:49

managed to actually read the old

13:51

way through these very convoluted and

13:53

dense i want to ask you

13:56

about when you have filming the

13:58

moody problematic elements of this work,

14:01

you had to train your camera on

14:03

this deeply offensive imagery. I wonder how

14:05

it felt, you know, you knew you

14:07

had to record these details, what did

14:09

it feel like to actually focus on

14:12

those details in a relatively unprecedented way?

14:14

Because this work's been kind of background

14:16

its whole life and now it's foreground.

14:19

That's interesting, it is because I

14:21

suppose in my own practice I'm

14:23

not unused to looking at

14:26

some difficult images. However,

14:28

what I've noticed with in the

14:30

staging of the work, images

14:32

which on the wall are just a

14:34

few inches big are suddenly floor to

14:37

ceiling in the projection. So there's a

14:39

different kind of relationship with that. So

14:41

I find that quite fascinating and so

14:43

when the image of the child is

14:46

on screen and it's floor to ceiling, it

14:49

takes on this whole other kind of power.

14:51

Which is surprising, I mean for me when

14:54

I encountered that, it's

14:56

operating in a slightly different way to

14:58

how I had imagined. Because obviously I've

15:00

been seeing this image just on the

15:02

screen of my computer when it carries

15:04

a different kind of resonance when it's

15:07

this large. And so in

15:09

relation to that, obviously there will be text

15:11

outside that will explain the context of this

15:13

work. But I imagine you're prepared that

15:15

a lot of people will find it difficult to watch

15:17

this film as well as engage with it. Difficult

15:20

to watch, I think that's an interesting

15:22

thing. In a sense I'm sort of

15:24

old-fashioned in that. I'm still of the

15:26

school of thought which thinks that art

15:28

can be challenging. It can make particular

15:31

demands on the viewer.

15:33

Should be challenging to it. Should

15:35

be challenging. And so yes, the

15:37

work is engaging with a very

15:39

difficult topic. I'm hoping that it

15:41

kind of passes through a range

15:44

of stages which allows

15:46

us to kind of discuss the work, to

15:48

look at the work historically, to look at

15:50

it in terms of its influences, to look

15:53

at it in terms of its context, all

15:55

those kind of things, and to look at

15:57

that very difficult content that's in the

15:59

work. Returning to Whistler's position

16:01

in all of this, one of

16:04

the ways in which you illustrate

16:06

how he clearly knew what he

16:08

was doing is

16:10

by isolating the details that

16:13

show that the black child

16:15

and the black woman in

16:17

the tree are between

16:19

a self-portrait and a portrait

16:21

of Stephen Tennant, effectively. Oh,

16:23

that's interesting, yes. So

16:26

the idea that it could be a sort

16:28

of small and fun detail, which is what Whistler

16:30

says, it's just a sort of bit of fun, becomes

16:33

more and more implausible when you think of

16:35

how it's positioned because there we have a

16:37

kind of autobiographical presentation, a kind of sense

16:39

in which, you know, that's a key detail

16:42

in the work. And also in the text,

16:44

the figure of the child becomes a key

16:46

factor in helping them find all these wonderful

16:48

delights that are eventually presented at the end

16:50

of the work. It's

16:53

that implication of Whistler's intention. That

16:55

is fascinating because it's the first time that I've

16:58

kind of heard that and it's extremely valid observation

17:00

and a really interesting one. The

17:03

particular take which I have on

17:05

that, which is also one which

17:07

emerged through the research around the

17:10

work, is that there's

17:12

always been a question around how

17:14

much Whistler was aware

17:16

or conscious of the actual

17:18

story whilst he was planning

17:20

the work and making the work, or

17:22

was it something which was constructed afterwards,

17:25

mostly by Edith Olivier. And

17:27

I've heard various different takes on that.

17:31

However, in this work, there's a

17:33

sort of important moment which also

17:35

reflects my own research process because

17:37

I was unsure about that because

17:39

I'd heard so many different things

17:41

until I actually filmed

17:44

the paparity drawings of the

17:46

mural. And there are small

17:48

copies of them in the Tate archive. However,

17:50

the original ones, which apparently are

17:53

larger, are in the Whistler archive

17:55

in Salisbury, which we were unable

17:57

to kind of get into. And

18:00

in the drawings it's clear that

18:02

he's annotated these figures in advance.

18:05

So in what looks like,

18:07

I mean to me, an initial

18:09

sketch for the work, already against

18:12

the figure, there's the word negro,

18:15

and the figure in the tree, negro's

18:17

mum. And so we have that also

18:19

in the work, it appears in the

18:21

work. And so that would seem to

18:23

suggest that in advance, when he was

18:25

at the planning stage of this work,

18:27

that particular story was already the kind

18:30

of key driver of the whole thing. And

18:32

I think that is a piece of evidence

18:34

which really, I feel, pins

18:36

down that argument. You know,

18:38

the story came in advance of the

18:40

mural, and he was in

18:43

a sense illustrating this story which

18:45

him and Edith were like

18:47

telling each other. Yeah. Lastly, one of

18:49

the things that really becomes clear through

18:51

talking to you is that this is

18:53

the first step, isn't it? The

18:56

story is much broader. I can even see

18:58

that you could make several versions of this

19:00

work, actually, because it's such a

19:02

rich territory to explore. For instance, there's a

19:04

hint of Florence Mills in the

19:06

work. You see a poster for one of

19:09

her performances, and she was an enormously

19:11

famous performer in 1920s America

19:13

and then London, and apparently

19:15

the future Ed Wood the Ace was obsessed

19:17

and went to see her work numerous times.

19:20

Really? I didn't know that.

19:22

She was an actor. I didn't actually know. Ed

19:24

Wood the Ace. You talk about Ed Wood the

19:26

Ace in terms of the Gargoyle Club. Yeah. And

19:29

obviously Ed Wood the Ace was kind of

19:31

reflective of a very particular kind of

19:33

politics in the 1920s. The

19:36

Florence Mills thing also is really

19:38

interesting, and we're actually looking

19:41

for archival documentation of actual

19:43

black American jazz musicians which

19:45

he would have seen in

19:47

1926, 27, 28, and obviously

19:52

she is key. And the way

19:54

that we've actually worked with that is

19:57

within the soundtrack. Now, at moments

19:59

in the soundtrack there's a violin

20:01

which is violin played by a

20:03

really interesting sound artist but

20:06

I also teach with called Tanzi Spinks and

20:09

we actually listened to some of the

20:11

work of Florence Mills and we attempted

20:13

to kind of work with some of

20:15

the harmonic themes within Florence's

20:18

work but to slow them down

20:20

and make them really kind of

20:22

ominous and so it is

20:24

variations on piece of work

20:26

by Florence Mills that you're hearing in terms

20:29

of the violin track within the work. Viva

20:44

Vocci is in the former restaurant at Tate Britain

20:46

for at least a year you can read more

20:48

on this story on the website or on our

20:51

app for iOS and Android. Coming

20:53

up the key findings in this year's

20:55

Art Basel UBS art market report and

20:57

Annie Albares in Washington that's after this

20:59

week's News Bulletin. Employees

21:03

fellows and volunteers at the Metropolitan Museum

21:05

of Art in New York have signed

21:07

an open letter to the director and

21:10

chief executive Max Hollein calling on the

21:12

institution to quote take a stand in

21:14

defense of Palestinians and the cultural heritage

21:16

of Palestine amid Israel's continued bombing of

21:18

Gaza. On Monday museum workers delivered the

21:20

open letter to Hollein asking for the

21:22

museum to publish a statement calling for

21:25

the bombing to end. More than 31,000

21:28

Palestinians have been reported killed since 7th

21:30

October last year when around 1200

21:33

Israelis were reportedly killed and about 250 taken hostage in

21:35

a Hamas terrorist

21:37

attack in Israel. In addition to the

21:40

loss of human life many important buildings

21:42

in Gaza including numerous mosques have been

21:44

damaged and destroyed. The letter argues that

21:47

there is precedence for the Met speaking

21:49

out on the protection of cultural heritage

21:51

sites in terms of conflict in relation

21:53

to Afghanistan, Iran and Ukraine. The

21:56

German government and 16 states approved reforms

21:59

aimed at... helping the heirs of

22:01

Jewish collectors to recover Nazi-looted art,

22:03

most importantly the introduction of binding

22:05

arbitration for claims to replace the

22:07

current Advisory Commission which has no

22:09

legal means to enforce its recommendations.

22:12

The reforms, which do not require

22:14

parliamentary approval, also grant claimants unilateral

22:16

access to arbitration in contrast to

22:18

the current system under which both

22:20

parties in dispute must agree before

22:22

a claim can be submitted for

22:24

evaluation. Claudia Rott, the German Culture

22:26

Minister, said in a statement released

22:28

after a meeting on Wednesday of government

22:31

and state culture officials that they aimed to

22:33

implement the reforms before the end of 2024.

22:36

She hailed the decisions as a big

22:38

and important step forward to considerable improvements

22:40

in the return of Nazi-looted art. Eni

22:44

Galaccio and Harold Ofe are among five

22:46

artists shortlisted to create a permanent HIV

22:48

AIDS memorial in London more than 40

22:50

years after the UK's first AIDS case

22:53

was reported in December 1981. The

22:56

overdue memorial will be located close to

22:58

the former Middlesex Hospital in Fitzrovia where

23:01

the UK's first dedicated AIDS unit was opened

23:03

by Princess Diana in 1987. The

23:06

charity behind the memorial, AIDS Memory UK,

23:08

says the public artwork will, quote, acknowledge

23:10

an increasingly forgotten period in British history

23:12

and the lessons we learned from that

23:14

time. The artists Ryan Gander, Sharpeur Pouyan

23:16

and Diana Punta are also on the

23:19

shortlist. All five have submitted initial proposals

23:21

that are currently being worked out for

23:23

submission. The wedding proposal will be announced

23:25

this summer with the work due to

23:27

be unveiled in 2026. To

23:31

read these stories and much more, visit the website

23:33

or the app. Now,

23:36

before our next item, the US artist Joan

23:39

Jonas this week opens major survey exhibitions at

23:41

both the Museum of Modern Art and the

23:43

Drawing Centre in New York. Last

23:45

year, I had an in-depth conversation with Joan

23:47

Jonas on our sister podcast A Brush With

23:49

and here she is discussing drawing. I

23:54

always try to find a way to use drawing.

23:56

It could relate to the meaning of the

23:58

piece, the text. Like

24:00

when I began to use video, I

24:03

consciously drew in relation to

24:05

the video camera, or I drew

24:07

in relation to the audience, or I

24:09

drew on a blackboard. When

24:12

I draw on a performance, the performance affects

24:15

the way I draw, because I'm

24:17

not thinking consciously, I'm just making the drawing.

24:21

And the drawing has to be an integral part. And

24:24

I don't treat the drawings that I make as precious.

24:26

I don't want the audience to say, oh, she's making

24:28

a drawing. We have to save it. You

24:34

can find a brush with Joan Jonas wherever

24:36

you're listening now. Her exhibition Animal Vegetable Mineral

24:38

is at the drawing centre in New York

24:40

until the second of June. And her Museum

24:43

of Modern Art retrospective Good Night, Good Morning

24:45

opens on Sunday the 17th of March and

24:47

continues to the 6th of July. Now

24:50

each year, Claire McCandrew, a cultural economist

24:53

who specialises in the arts, antiques and

24:55

collectibles markets and is the founder of

24:57

the company Arts Economics, writes Amach Anticipated

24:59

Art Market Report, though sponsored by the

25:02

Art Basel Art Fair and the bank

25:04

UBS. It's an independent and objective analysis

25:06

and looks at sales and other activities

25:08

across art market sectors, including auction houses,

25:10

art fairs, galleries and collectors. Through the

25:13

data it gathers, the report attempts to

25:15

identify current economic and geographical trends in

25:17

the market. I spoke to Claire about

25:19

this year's report. Claire,

25:22

last year on this podcast, I talked to

25:24

Tim Schneider and other members of our market

25:27

team and we were talking a lot about

25:29

a kind of middling year of a fairly

25:31

damp squib. The sort of

25:33

headline figure in terms of the downturn in the

25:35

market is 4%. Is that

25:38

as expected or is that

25:40

perhaps slightly less than expected? Yeah,

25:42

it's interesting. We actually probably had a

25:44

pretty good run for two years after

25:47

the pandemic. The market was growing even

25:49

though it wasn't the greatest year last

25:51

year. It did kind of lift itself out

25:53

of the hole from 2020 quite well in 2021 as well.

25:57

The market had hit close to its highest

25:59

level. level in 2022, so it was $68

26:01

billion, it was the second highest

26:03

ever level. And I think when it gets

26:05

to that size, it is slightly inevitable in this

26:08

kind of market that's driven by scarcity that

26:10

sales may slow down. And I think talking

26:12

to a lot of businesses operating in the

26:14

market in the final quarter of last year,

26:16

especially I think a lot of people were

26:18

bracing for a bigger drop in

26:20

sales. So the fact that it

26:22

was not quite as bad as it anticipated was

26:24

quite a positive thing. But it was a very

26:26

mixed picture, depending on who you spoke to

26:28

as well. And I think that's one of the

26:31

big features we've seen is this divergence in performance,

26:33

both between, when I'm looking at it from a

26:35

very macro point of view, both between different regions

26:37

and different value segments in the market. And that's

26:40

kind of what's muting the changes in some of

26:42

the sales figures for the last two years, keeping

26:44

them less dramatic. It was the same case in

26:46

2022, but in a completely different

26:49

direction this year. So that was kind of interesting

26:51

to see the changes. One

26:53

of the things I've got used to talking about

26:56

on the podcast is about how the high end,

26:58

the 1%, the top end of the market is

27:00

often the most buoyant and it's sort of supporting

27:02

all the other levels to a certain extent. This

27:04

time, that's not the case. Is it? Tell us

27:07

about those headline figures relating to the sort of

27:09

highest level sales. Well, this was a very important

27:11

issue, I think, last year. It was very much

27:13

the case in 2021 and

27:16

2022 that the high end was really what

27:18

was driving the market's recovery. And that really

27:20

turned around last year. So if you look

27:22

at the dealer segment, the businesses with

27:24

say 10 million plus in sales had

27:26

been by far the strongest performers prior to

27:29

last year and the smaller businesses still struggling

27:31

a little bit kind of post COVID. And

27:33

this turned around last year. So we saw

27:36

the 10 million plus dealers had the biggest

27:38

drop in sales on average of 7% and

27:40

all the businesses operating below that, say the

27:42

sub 500,000 level had

27:45

an increase on average of 11%. And it

27:47

was crystal clear, the auction sector, I think

27:49

this is fascinating to look at when we

27:51

have that micro level transaction data, that

27:54

the 10 million plus segment really thinned out. And that's

27:56

what really led to this sharp decline in values at

27:58

auction as well. It's really interesting

28:00

because 2020, everybody dropped. 2021, all these

28:03

segments increased and then it started to

28:05

split. And you can see this in

28:07

the auction sector in 2022, it

28:09

was actually the 10 million plus segment was the

28:12

only one to show an increase. We had all

28:14

those fabulous sales, the Paul Allen sale and all

28:16

these lots selling for over a hundred million. So

28:18

it was kind of a hard act to follow,

28:20

but 2023, the 10 million plus segment showed one

28:22

of the worst performances. The number of lots sold

28:24

over 10 million was down by a quarter. And

28:27

the value in that segment fell by about 40%

28:30

versus kind of low positive growth in

28:33

the market under 50,000. So when

28:35

I say more than 10 million, it's really the 50 million

28:37

plus segment that takes a huge chunk out of

28:39

the picture. So there's about 20 less

28:42

of those in the market last year

28:44

versus 2022. And

28:46

that's 1.5 to 2 million worth of sales

28:48

taken out of the market. So this is

28:50

what caused the kind of contraction, much

28:53

less of those very high results at auction. That

28:55

caused the market overall to fall by about 7%.

28:58

Right, to what extent are you able to sort of

29:00

drill down into those figures and say, well, hang on,

29:02

is this about nervousness amongst the

29:05

big collections? People thinking, well, this is

29:07

not the best time to bring my

29:09

work to auctions. Is it about nervousness

29:11

amongst collectors to spend the money? Can

29:13

you detect in the data, what is

29:15

the sort of key driver of that

29:17

fall at the highest end? I

29:20

mean, I think it's very much a supply

29:22

driven marketplace. And I think it's how vendors

29:24

particularly, it's still so dominant by a lot

29:26

of those 1 million plus works

29:29

both in the dealer and auction sector are

29:31

secondary market sales. And it's how vendors perceive

29:33

the market is at the time. You know,

29:35

if they don't have to sell at a

29:37

particular time, they might hold back if they

29:40

think it's not a good time to sell.

29:42

And we had such a complex kind of

29:44

year last year, politically, you know, economically, there

29:46

was a lot of worries. We did kind

29:48

of avoid a lot of the worst of

29:51

some of the economic issues, but there was

29:53

a lot of complexity and anxiousness. And I

29:55

think people that were more risk averse would hold back a

29:58

little bit and just see how things pan out. If you

30:00

didn't have to sell it, you might be advised to just

30:02

hang on a little bit. I think we saw a

30:04

little bit of that. I was amazed also

30:06

because I always knew that high net worth

30:08

and ultra high net worth used a lot of

30:10

leverage and lending for buying. We did

30:13

a survey at the end of last year of

30:15

collectors that I do with UBS. It was amazing

30:17

to see the amount of collectors

30:19

that used loans and lending and credit to

30:21

finance purchases in their collections. The interest rate

30:24

environment I think probably had a little bit

30:26

of a knock on effect for that as

30:28

well. That's really interesting because I was

30:30

going to ask you, as you say, the lower end of

30:32

the market has had a good

30:35

year. There's been a substantial growth in that

30:37

market. Is that because people

30:39

are buying at lower price points

30:41

or is that another environment entirely?

30:44

In other words, is there a newer kind of collector who's

30:46

buying at that lower level? Or is it simply the richest

30:48

people actually thinking, well, I'm not going to spend a million

30:50

on an artwork. I'm going to spend 100,000 or 10,000. I

30:54

would love to think it's a little bit of both. I'd

30:56

love to think there's more collectors coming into

30:59

the market. But I think it was getting

31:01

away from the quantitative surveys and looking at

31:03

the data, talking to people. They

31:05

said it's easier to make a sale at a

31:07

lower price point to the same types of collectors.

31:10

So I think there was a nervousness about spending

31:12

larger sums. And it's such a mood driven market,

31:14

as you know. You know, demand might be there

31:16

if vendors would bring the things to market. But

31:19

it's the sense that it's not a good time

31:21

to sell that's holding them back, even though people

31:23

are generally waiting in the wings if the right

31:25

material does show up. Another

31:27

thing I wanted to ask is, to

31:30

what extent is it also about different

31:32

kinds of artists that collectors are buying and

31:34

so on? So artists who perhaps might

31:36

be on the brink of a major

31:39

position in the art world, whether that's historical

31:41

figures on the secondary market or contemporary figures,

31:43

who collectors are experimenting with. Is there any

31:46

way of detecting that kind of stuff? So

31:48

for instance, people are choosing, instead of spending

31:50

a lot of money on a Rothko, are

31:52

buying a work by an artist who may

31:54

be from the same period as Rothko, but

31:56

has not achieved that level of kind

31:58

of household name. identity if you like.

32:01

Again, I mean we don't go into that level of detail

32:04

in this particular report, but I would

32:06

love to think that people are experimenting

32:08

more and that's what's driven the lower

32:10

price points, but I'm not sure that

32:12

is the case because with the kind

32:14

of uncertainty and risk aversion comes a

32:16

tendency to kind of anchor on fairly

32:18

well-established names. So it's kind of not

32:20

necessarily a time for experimentation and even

32:22

some of the galleries and dealers that

32:24

I spoke to that were kind of

32:26

cognizant of that and kind of altering

32:28

even the kind of content of the

32:30

work they brought to art fairs

32:32

for example. We saw paintings had

32:35

a much higher share of dealer sales

32:37

than other mediums. That's always the case,

32:39

but it kind of bumped up again

32:41

last year. So we don't go to

32:43

the level of granularity of by artists,

32:45

but the kind of evidence on the

32:47

surface of it would be that if

32:49

anything there was a tendency to stick

32:51

to slightly more traditional mediums and segments

32:53

than there was in previous years. There's

32:56

another factor in the data which seems

32:58

to suggest to conservatives in which is

33:00

the fact that private sales went up.

33:03

Tell us why private sales might have gone up. I

33:06

think this tends to happen in these kind of

33:08

uncertain times. If a market's

33:10

buoyant and things are looking up, the

33:12

sky's the limit at auction. You

33:14

can make much better than anticipated gains

33:16

from bringing something to auction better than

33:18

you might be able to negotiate in

33:20

a kind of quiet, sober, rational deal

33:22

if bidding just takes off. When

33:25

there's a sense that the market might be going

33:27

down, there is that risk of bringing things into

33:29

public sales. It will be

33:31

on public records that work sold for

33:33

a less than ideal price or

33:36

that doesn't sell at all. This does

33:38

tend to push people into the private sector,

33:40

whether it's either private sales at auction houses

33:43

or buying and selling through galleries. We have

33:45

seen that in buoyant markets, the auction sector

33:47

really kind of rockets ahead and

33:49

then in less certain or downward markets, the dealer

33:51

sector and private sales tend to do much better

33:53

and that's certainly been the case in the last

33:56

couple of years. Now transaction

33:58

volume increased. Is

34:00

that a sort of temporary blip? Is that

34:02

again about people spending less money? Or

34:04

are there more people swelling around, buying

34:06

artwork? What does transaction volume increase actually

34:08

tell us about in terms of a

34:10

trend? It's the same kind of

34:12

deal here. I mean, if you look at fine

34:15

arts, auction sales, for example, that's where we have

34:17

the good kind of transaction level data. You

34:19

know, 90% of the sales that take place in the market

34:21

every year, not just last year, but every year, are in

34:24

the sub 50,000 segment. And

34:26

this is the market that was doing pretty well last year.

34:28

So the majority of sales at auction are actually below 5,000.

34:31

All the media focus is always on

34:33

these very small number of things at

34:35

the high end, but it was the

34:37

kind of low positive growth in those

34:40

lower value segments that has taken off.

34:42

And I mean, again, it's very

34:44

difficult to track the numbers of buyers that

34:46

are involved in these transactions. That would be

34:48

a fascinating study to do if we possibly

34:50

could. But they were the most popular price

34:52

points with the lower ones last year. They're

34:54

the ones where there was a little bit

34:56

of buoyancy in the market, which was kind

34:59

of a green shoot, I suppose. Can we

35:01

start looking at the different markets now? Because

35:03

one of the things that it would suggest

35:06

is that the UK is down, China's moved

35:08

up into second place. So that suggests a

35:10

good year for China and a bad year

35:12

for the UK. But it's not as simple

35:14

as that, is it? No,

35:17

I think, I mean, the UK to me

35:19

has been like a picture of what resilience

35:21

is all about since COVID. It's had COVID,

35:23

Brexit, all these things it's been dealing with,

35:25

and it's managed to grow for two years

35:27

in 2021 and 2022. And

35:30

we saw, again, a slightly inevitable decline

35:32

in 2023 of 8% to

35:35

just under 11 billion. And the

35:37

thing about the UK is it's kind of

35:39

a key hub for those very high-end sales,

35:41

which was thinner, or there was a little

35:44

bit more pressure on that segment last year.

35:46

So it was the kind of lack of

35:48

those sales that probably caused the decline. And

35:50

there was also slowdown in imports as well

35:52

coming into the UK. So they're the things

35:54

that we really have to watch for. China

35:56

was a complete bright spot in the declining

35:58

market as well. And that was... quite specific

36:00

to some of the things that were going on

36:02

in China last year. The fact that 2022 was

36:05

a really bad year for China was still in

36:07

full pandemic lockdown mode in many regions. The market

36:09

was down 14% in 2022. But then when they

36:11

reopened in January, 2023, we had this kind of

36:17

surge of activity, this uplift and injection

36:19

of sales into the market as, you

36:21

know, the postponed inventories were sold and

36:23

people were coming back to fairs and

36:25

exhibitions after being in lockdown for

36:28

much of the previous year. So the first half

36:30

of the year in China was much higher.

36:32

So there were quite specific circumstances to the

36:34

year, I think, that caused the different dynamics.

36:36

And there's constant reshuffling of position between China

36:38

and the UK over the last several years,

36:40

which has been really interesting to watch. Now,

36:43

one of the things that people like me

36:45

who are so depressed about Brexit have

36:47

long argued is that it's going to be

36:50

terrible for the art market. Year after year,

36:52

there's been this sort of consistent thing which

36:54

has said, well, actually, Brexit hasn't been that

36:56

bad for the art market. The UK, though,

36:58

hasn't returned to 2019 levels. Is

37:00

that a Brexit factor, or is it much

37:02

more complicated than that? I

37:05

think it definitely has been. I mean, the

37:07

UK is a hub for international trade. And

37:10

it's the key hub in Europe, really,

37:12

for imports and exports of art. And

37:14

although most of the transactions by value

37:17

are from third countries, so the biggest

37:19

trade that the UK does in terms of,

37:21

you know, importing art is probably with, you

37:23

know, the US and Asia and other places,

37:25

the impact of greater tariffs in Europe also

37:27

has an impact. And I think there is

37:29

a sense that if you look at big

37:31

companies that have the choice, like Christie's or

37:34

Sotheby's, that have the choice of selling anywhere

37:36

and in a whole kind of range of different

37:39

jurisdictions, they will choose the one that vendors

37:41

find the most attractive from a regulatory point

37:44

of view as well. And I think what's

37:46

tending to happen is, and it's been

37:48

happening for a number of years with

37:50

Europe in general, is that the US

37:53

and Hong Kong and places like that

37:55

are seen as kind of easier and

37:57

more efficient in terms of addition. cost

38:00

places to transact and this is an

38:02

issue that we're seeing in the UK

38:04

and while the UK had a chance to

38:07

kind of break out of some of those

38:09

regulations so it's not tied as much to

38:11

the directive that it once was, that hasn't

38:13

changed. It's still the status quo there so

38:15

I think this is going to be important

38:17

looking forward as to how the UK

38:19

can maintain its position as a trade

38:21

hub because that's really what drives the

38:23

market. It's not just people from the

38:25

UK buying British artists material in the

38:28

UK, it's a critical mass of material

38:30

that comes together in London from all

38:32

places being sold to British collectors as

38:34

well as collectors from all around the world

38:36

so the kind of the trade situation is something that's

38:38

going to be key over the next few years. I

38:41

noticed that the sort of alarming statistics seem to be relating

38:43

to imports in the sense that the imports are 26% lower

38:45

than they were in 2019 in the

38:49

UK so that seems like a really notable number.

38:52

Yeah no it is, it's considerably lower and

38:54

again this is the thing that the art

38:56

market is grappling with now is to kind

38:58

of find ways to make that an easier

39:00

process. There is ways to kind of get

39:03

around import VAT with temporary admissions and different

39:05

things but I think it's just the idea that

39:07

if it's a more complicated place to do business

39:09

why not just do it somewhere like New York where

39:12

you don't have all this hassle and this is kind

39:14

of what is driving the sense of choice for vendors

39:16

they're choosing locations where they know

39:18

they'll have strong demand and where

39:21

it's an easy place to do business so this

39:23

is really what the market has to look at

39:25

I think going forward. Lastly NFTs

39:27

we've been talking about the decline in

39:29

art NFTs and the market for them

39:31

for some time your report reinforces that

39:33

to a certain extent. Do you think

39:35

it's in terminal decline or might it

39:37

revive do you think? I

39:40

know we were so overdosing on information on

39:42

NFTs in 2021 that nobody wants to really

39:44

talk about them anymore and the market has

39:46

declined quite significantly it was close to 3

39:48

billion in 2021 at that peak and

39:51

then it's had two years of declining sales including

39:53

a 50% drop last

39:55

year to 1.2 billion this is

39:58

art related NFTs so we're talking about the

40:00

sales on platforms outside of

40:02

the traditional art market on

40:04

NFT platforms. But when you

40:07

look a bit closer at the data, there is

40:09

still spikes of activity last year

40:11

even, and you'll see particular projects by

40:13

artists are generating multiple million

40:15

dollar sales. I think it's actually become

40:18

a little bit more interesting and a

40:20

little bit more driven by artistic projects

40:23

and by art instead of just by

40:25

speculation. I think that whole speculative

40:27

activity that dominated the market

40:29

so much is actually kind of running

40:31

out of steam a little bit. And

40:33

purely speculative people are moved into collectibles or

40:36

they're just holding on, realizing that they're going

40:38

to sell as a loss. And a lot

40:40

of activity is actually driven by the artistic

40:42

side of things, which is I think it's

40:44

a very positive development in the art market.

40:46

The figures don't look positive, but the actual

40:49

activity that's going on is slower and in

40:51

terms of the turnaround is slower as well.

40:53

That's kind of very famous statistics that I

40:55

just sticks in my mind that we got

40:57

from the NFT data people we work with

40:59

that in 2021 the turnaround for

41:03

art related NFT was 33 days.

41:05

So that's the average period someone would

41:07

buy it and sell it for me. It's crazy. When

41:09

you think about the art market from the kind of

41:11

academic studies we've done is about 30 years. So it's

41:13

still what you're dealing with 30 days to 30 years.

41:15

So now if we can get just kind

41:17

of meet somewhere in the middle, I think we're looking at

41:19

a much more stable market and

41:21

one that's driven by the art itself rather

41:23

than whether you're going to make money out

41:25

of it quickly or not. Well

41:31

Claire, thank you so much. You're very welcome. You

41:42

can find the report at

41:44

theartmarket.artbarzell.com And

41:47

finally, it's time for the work of

41:49

the week. This year is a bumper

41:51

year for textiles and art as Adriana

41:53

Pedrosa, the artistic director of this year's

41:56

Venice Biennale told this podcast last month,

41:58

fabric works are a light motif running

42:00

through his International Exhibition opening in Venice

42:02

next month. Several other shows are reflecting

42:04

on textiles increasing importance in modern and

42:07

contemporary art, including the current exhibition at

42:09

the Barbican Art Gallery in London, Unravel,

42:11

which tours to the Stedlik Museum in

42:13

Amsterdam later this year. This week, the

42:16

National Gallery of Art in Washington DC

42:18

opens Woven Histories, Textiles and Modern Abstraction,

42:20

which will later travel to Ottawa and

42:22

New York. It features 160 works

42:25

by more than 50 artists from across the

42:27

world and multiple generations, all of whom have

42:30

used weaving and related techniques to develop

42:32

the language of abstraction. Among the key

42:34

figures in the modernist history of textiles

42:36

is the Bauhaus artist Annie Albers, and

42:38

among the works by her in Woven

42:40

Histories is With Verticals from 1946, an

42:43

example of what Albers herself called Pictorial Weavings.

42:45

Lynne Cook is the curator of the exhibition

42:48

and I spoke to her about the piece.

42:52

Lynne, where was Annie Albers when she made

42:54

this extraordinary piece? She was

42:56

at Black Mountain College in North

42:58

Carolina. She had arrived in 1933

43:00

with Joseph Albers, escaping

43:05

rise of the Nazis in Germany,

43:08

and she was teaching weaving

43:10

to the students at this

43:12

liberal art college. Yes, and she obviously

43:15

had made extraordinary work already at the

43:17

Bauhaus at that stage. Is there something

43:19

significant that happens to her work once

43:21

she's in the US? Does her work

43:24

shift at all? Yes, it shifts radically.

43:26

At the Bauhaus she worked

43:28

in what we could call

43:31

a constructivist vocabulary, geometric abstraction,

43:34

making designs for

43:36

mass-produced textiles for

43:39

furnishings and interiors and

43:41

perhaps a little for

43:43

apparel, and also

43:45

making what were called wall

43:48

hangings, which were decorative tapestry-like

43:50

weavings for interiors to hang

43:53

on walls. When

43:55

she came to the US And

43:57

took up this teaching position. Her work was a very

43:59

interesting piece. Had not arrived

44:02

and she began teaching the

44:04

students with exercises, using materials

44:06

to hand that included corn

44:09

kernels it's so natural, vegetation

44:11

and all sorts of other

44:13

things once the loans live

44:16

there and she started waving

44:18

again, she started from a

44:20

very different position from why

44:23

she'd been before I think,

44:25

and there are not a

44:27

great many works extant. From

44:30

between about Nineteen Thirty

44:32

Seven, Thirty Eight and

44:34

Nineteen Fifty when Joseph

44:36

and Any move to

44:38

Yale University where he

44:40

has a teaching position,

44:42

the works in this

44:44

interval between the later

44:46

thirtieth in the late

44:48

forties begin with what

44:50

could be seen as

44:53

a continuation of the

44:55

Bauhaus language, but into

44:57

lived with my teeth

44:59

from pre Colombian. Architecture

45:01

as take architecture that

45:03

say was saying on

45:05

trips to Mexico in

45:07

particular. It's difficult to overstate.

45:10

the importance of those trips is because

45:12

they really were some formative. So many

45:14

of her ideas emerge from them, are

45:17

exposed to all sorts of coke true

45:19

aspects of in that time. Yes,

45:22

Of course she'd already doing

45:24

about pre Colombian textiles from

45:26

her time in Berlin and

45:28

at the Bar House in

45:31

Weimar to the south. Pre

45:33

Colombian text as a very

45:35

much admired as was the

45:37

whole culture by the early

45:40

twentieth century through the excavations.

45:42

Of German archaeologists and others.

45:44

But she had a chance of course

45:47

to see things in person through these

45:49

trips. The interesting thing for me with

45:51

the articles. Is it moves

45:53

beyond the language of direct

45:55

reference in say work code

45:58

months, hit albums, and. really

46:00

nothing with this specific

46:02

vocabulary in her of nothing

46:05

that follows, nothing quite like

46:07

it before. And as a

46:09

work of weaving, it's really a tour

46:11

de force. It's got a very different

46:14

vocabulary and a highly

46:16

complex and yet seemingly

46:19

very simple iconography of

46:21

dark lines, thin diagonal

46:24

stripes, moving left,

46:26

moving right that make up the

46:28

fields. One of the things about

46:31

the piece that we're talking about with verticals is

46:33

that it's very large and it's one of her

46:35

very largest pieces, is that right? It

46:37

is. It's on the large side.

46:39

She'd made works during the Baha's

46:42

years which were comparable, a little

46:44

larger, a little not so wide.

46:47

And then she would make these commissions

46:50

in the 50s for the doors

46:52

of the Torah in synagogues that

46:54

were quite large also. But it's

46:56

certainly one of a relatively small

46:59

number. There's a limited sort

47:01

of colour palette in with verticals

47:04

in terms of there's reds and there's

47:06

these sort of black seam, the actual

47:08

verticals of the title. So tell us

47:10

about that structure. There are only

47:13

three colours I think. There's

47:15

the red, there's the natural

47:17

linen and the vertical bars

47:20

which are in black and

47:22

which appear to lie behind

47:24

this surface of diagonals

47:27

moving in bands left and

47:29

right irregularly across the surface.

47:31

And the placement of the black

47:34

bars which are all of the

47:36

same width but not of the

47:38

same height appears to

47:41

have no system to it.

47:43

It's not a mathematical progression

47:45

or not based on some

47:47

recognisable pattern. It's

47:49

organised intuitively in a sense

47:51

and yet the overall

47:54

impression is of extraordinary animation

47:57

and balance at the same

47:59

time. And this,

48:01

as a compositional structure,

48:03

is not only hard

48:05

to resolve, but when

48:08

she's weaving it, she probably cannot see the

48:10

whole thing as she makes it.

48:12

And there are no extant

48:14

drawings and no indication that

48:16

she made preliminary drawings for

48:19

it. There are no studies really

48:22

for anything like this in her work.

48:25

One of the things that I'm struck by, again,

48:27

looking at this work, is the optical effect. Can

48:29

you tell us about what it's like to stand

48:31

in front of it, Lynne? Because of course there's

48:33

the structure, but once you're up close to it,

48:35

all sorts of other things happen visually. Once

48:38

you're in front of it, and it's a

48:40

big field, it's like a meter and a

48:42

half tall and more than a meter wide,

48:44

if you stand near it, you'd

48:46

feel the vision is fully engaged.

48:49

You're much more aware of

48:51

how this continuous field

48:54

of narrow red and

48:56

cream stripes are

48:58

moving and they're unpredictably shifting

49:00

from a 45 degree

49:03

angle left to a 45 degree

49:06

angle right. And those shifts

49:08

are happening, as I say, to

49:10

regularly, because she's not even

49:13

working with one direction of stripes,

49:15

diagonals, all the way across the

49:17

width of the field. She will

49:19

shift and it will go from

49:21

diagonal left to diagonal right. Sometimes

49:24

when it hits one of these

49:26

black bars, but sometimes in the

49:28

middle of the black bar or sometimes

49:30

beyond the black bar. And

49:33

mapping what this underlying,

49:35

very dynamic field would look

49:37

like as an armature would be

49:40

hard to do. It appears

49:42

as a kind of very

49:44

animated, very rich interplay between

49:47

the two colors. And one

49:49

that's hard to hold down

49:51

because you can't find a

49:53

system and yet is extremely

49:55

satisfying, musical. One might say

49:58

trying to find anything. While

50:01

know much about that it relates

50:03

to have maris thing I can

50:05

think of are those pure and

50:07

ocean drawings that laundry on made

50:09

in the teams. Or at the turn

50:12

of. The twenties where you

50:14

have is somewhat related syncopation.

50:16

Of lines against a continuous

50:19

ground. One. Of the

50:21

things that's wonderful I think about this

50:23

piece is is that the way that

50:25

it engages with the past in terms

50:27

of abstraction proof of course looks to

50:29

the future and it's difficult to again

50:31

to overstate the importance of any out

50:33

as to the history of of textiles

50:36

in the twentieth century but also looking

50:38

foods right because she's such an exemplary

50:40

of creativity would in textiles. and I'm

50:42

textiles as art. Yes, one

50:44

of the reasons why I

50:46

chose this work as because

50:49

it's pivotal and yet it

50:51

doesn't are like family and

50:53

compositional a very closely to

50:55

the work made in Europe,

50:58

nor does it relate only

51:00

and composition the to the

51:02

works that began in Nineteen

51:04

Forty Nine with what she

51:07

calls pictorial waving and these

51:09

are usually smaller works with

51:11

very experimental wave structures weather.

51:14

Pattern or the design comes

51:16

out of the choice of

51:18

the texture of thread and

51:21

the dimension of thread and

51:23

pictorial. waving says her term.

51:25

And these ah autonomous artworks,

51:27

not utilitarian textiles and they

51:30

are meant to be sun

51:32

and galleries and museums in

51:34

direct company with the work

51:37

of Hub. Painting peers

51:39

like Paul Clay, for example,

51:41

So they're painting adjacent

51:43

textile artworks and that

51:46

was a hauling new

51:48

type holiday and have

51:50

practice and one that

51:52

was immensely. Influential going

51:55

forward. Her influence,

51:57

I think extends beyond.

52:00

her immediate practice to

52:02

her vision for textiles,

52:04

its relationship to modern

52:06

architecture and its dialogue

52:09

with that, and her

52:11

ideas of having a

52:13

practice that designed

52:16

for high-end mass production and

52:19

made artworks in parallel.

52:22

She'd manifest her thinking in her practice,

52:24

but her ideas are also spread

52:26

very extensively through her book On

52:28

Weaving, which is published in the

52:31

later 60s and

52:33

really is perhaps the

52:35

best-known text on weaving in

52:37

the 20th century and has

52:39

been immensely influential within

52:41

the US and beyond. Lynne,

52:47

thank you so much. Thank you too, Ben. It's

52:50

been a pleasure. Woven

52:56

Histories Textiles and Modern Abstraction is at the

52:59

National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC from

53:01

the 17th of March to the 28th of

53:03

July. It then travels to the National Gallery

53:05

of Canada in Ottawa from the 25th of

53:07

October to the 2nd of March next year,

53:09

and then it's at the Museum of Modern

53:11

Art in New York from the 20th of

53:13

April 2025 to the 13th of September. And

53:19

that's it for this episode. You can find

53:22

us on text, fully known as Twitter at

53:24

Tern Audio and on Facebook, Instagram and threads.

53:26

The Week in Art is produced by Julia

53:28

Mihalska, Alexander Morrison and David Clack. And David's

53:30

also the editor and sound designer. Thanks also

53:33

to Daniela Hathaway and to our guests Keith,

53:35

Claire and Lynne. Thank you for listening and

53:37

see you next week. Bye for now.