A distinct trend in 2015? Old masters’ presence in the room of contemporary art

 

One of the factors that marked 2015 has been the frequent presence of art from the past centuries in the realm of contemporary and emerging art, and vice versa. Once again – thus for the third year in a row – a considerable amount of influential living artists from all over the world have expressed what we would call the need of a stable set of values – which in certain cases are not just visual – in support of their research. In effect the main message this recurrent presence of pieces from Renaissance, Baroque or Medieval age coveys may concern the lack of a reliable idea of artistic quality; or, it may be also an idea of artistic quality which is fully independent from totally non artistic elements such as the market, or the tricky power of art institutions driven by private capitals.

 

Of course this need we are talking about is most of the time unconscious in artists, and collectors are not to be blamed for their extraordinary investments in art. We all know they are the oxygen that keeps this enormous body alive. Yet since the dawn of civilization art has been negotiating its freedom with the economic power, and since personal freedom has returned to be a main problem also in democratic societies, the recurrent presence of artists from the past in the contemporary art room is somehow to be regarded as a quite clear signal about what still is the real core of the matter. Apparently contemporary artists are stating that only art can evaluate art.

 

To start with, we would mention the “Gazing ball paintings“, the last solo exhibition of Jeff Koons – a main exponent of this trend since 1986 – , who has glued his blue gazing ball to copies of masterpieces by Leonardo, Turner and Monet, just to name a few. The conceptual outcome of these visually unpleasant and largely undervalued pieces is remarkable: a distorted copy of the beholder (and his surroundings) is brought into a copy of what was a peculiar interpretation (not to say a copy) of an ideal reality. Is there anything more philosophical than this? Moreover, the act of copying is all about freedom, isn’t it? Orhan Pamuk, My name is red, 1998.

 

Recently also Olafur Eliasson, another quite acclaimed artist and trend setter, has linked his work for the first time to a glorious temple of the history of art such as the Belvedere’s Winter Palace in Vienna. The exhibition title couldn’t have been more direct, “Baroque, Baroque”, and the pieces – some site specific ones, others from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection and The Juan & Patricia Vergez Collection – are again related to the idea of representation, as stated by the artist himself: ‘The presentation of my works at the Winter Palace is based on trust in the possibility of constructing reality according to our shared dreams and desires and faith in the idea that constructions and models are as real as anything’.

 

An old master, in this case Rembrandt, is also present at Karsten Greve in Paris, currently hosting a recent series of black paintings by Pierre Soulages, who will turn 95 next 24 December. The French master has linked his research on the black surface to the “Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild”, a masterpiece known for the extraordinary quality of the black textiles painted by Rembrandt as an evidence of the quality of cloth that weavers offered for sale to members of their guild. Again, the common standard for high quality in art and life is to pinpointed in the tradition.

 

Similarly, an emerging artist such as Adrian Villar Rosas (Rosario, 1980) has titled his current solo exhibition at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin “Rinascimento”. It clearly followed up on the single giant classic sculpture he presented at Marian Goodman in New York, last September, just a few months after two influential shows such as Slip of the Tongue (curated by Danh Vo at Palazzo Grassi in Venice) and Serial Classics at the Fondazione Prada (in Venice and Milan) had taken place. Like Soulages and Vo, Villar Rosas seems to be mainly interested in the special patina that certain objects or materials – clay in his case – can assume under the influence of time, light, air or temperature. By including references to what once was ideally purely perfect, such as Greek statues, sculptures by Michelangelo, or paintings by Rembrandt or Giovanni Bellini, appears now to be a way to call back an indisputable value, that is to say something we all agree on and that, as Koons as recently noticed, is becoming more and more open and accessible.

 

Effectively, along with the need of some cardinal points to direct their artistic research and promote creative freedom, artists of today are also experiencing the explosion of information related to art that the web has made possible and social networks are spreading around. Artists and artworks of all time have never been as connected as they are today, and so are their supporters. Now the question is: how long is it going to take for galleries, museums and art fairs to really mirror this scenery?

January 26, 2016