A bunch of paintings

Just in case any of you are aucklanders, and were thinking of going to 'Degas to Dali' at the new revamped auckland art gallery, AND wanted my appraisal, here it is:

The collection comes from the National Gallery of Scotland. While they claim to have some of the 'best art in the world' i think it would be more accurate say they have some of the works of some of the great masters, but generally, the kind of pieces I imagine the painters would give to their favourite baker, or dying aunt, or bequeath to a, dare i say it, scottish gallery.

There are Dali paintings yes, and there are Degas paintings, there are freud, bacon, bonnard, magrite, nicholson, von jawlensky (a personal favourite), manet and monet... it's a veritable swingers party of great painters.. however, this pick and mix collection seems to encompass mainly works that were achieved prior to the artist really getting on a roll with their personal style, and before they became famous.

Picture Francis Bacon in his painting room slapping a hat and coat still life together, then when looking for canvases to paint over, to save money, this one just BARELY escapes a paint-over job. Bacon to me is a rich array of larger than life colours forming harrowed and haunting faces alongside sinister and morbidly sexual motifs like skulls. Francis Bacon is madness. Francis bacon is not: Hat and Coat Study.

To badger this point, there is one monet. It is of boats in a harbour. When I was seven I saw all of Monet's collection of watercolour lilly ponds and bridges and the lilac hued beauty of it burnt into my brain. Boats are nice too though.

As well, 'Degas to Dali' is somewhat of a liberal interpretation. The collection is not a sequential view of artworks, transitioning from movement to movement. Rather, it is a slap together of some expressionist, some impressionist, some surrealist, and sprinkle of pop art, oh and some landscapes. Because who doesn't love a landscape. Where, ever, have you viewed Picasso, alongside Warhol? Is it just too nouveau? Am I just too antiquated?
There are EVEN some 18th Centurey Japanese prints, welllll before Degas' time. I guess the curator thought: why take them down, when you'll only have to dust behind them. A sentiment I can strongly empathise with. But then, I'm not the curator of The Auckland Art Gallery.

While he/she was at it, he/she thought fit not to change the light bulbs. Probably the two most rewarding paintings, in terms of familiarity, as well as sheer brilliance, are Degas' two paintings from his most famous 'ballerina series'.
They are truly beautiful, emotive, you can smell the wooden dance room floors, hear the young ballerina's whispering girlish secrets as they practise plie's... but one of the two paintings is so poorly lit, that it is hard to see. It is genuinely hard to see. Like reading a book by an eco-lamp, waiting for it to take hold of it's identity and brighten the fuck up, but the brightening... it never comes. Not to go on, but to go on, further in the 'exhibition' is a single Morandi painting - he is known for painting bottles and jars in a monochrome of beige and bluey creams, that while just bottles and jars, manage to speak of silence and humility - and here is this single Morandi, being lit by a blue fluorescent light. I never liked those blue fluorescent lights in 5th form painting, and I certainly don't like them any more in the AAG.

I went to the Dali exhibition in Melbourne, it was mammoth and unhestitatingly astounding. And I don't even like surrealism. Surrealism is at the best of times like somebody telling you about their dreams. If i'm not in it, why would I care? It's abstract and often looks like somebody spilt their coffee on the rug. These particular pieces, ever the more. But this exhibition had me at hello. It took half a day to absorb it all. I came out at least having some appreciation of the great life and contribution of Salvidor Dali. The piec on show at the AAG, looked like a doodle Dali had made whilst talking on the wireless combobulator.

Highlights are: 'Maurice' - Pop King Andy Warhols fluorescent pink and blue screen print of a friends daschund. Eminently charming, farcical and at once noble. Andy Warhol famously said everyone would have their fifteen minutes of fame, what he not so famously also said was 'even pets'.

Of my favourites: The Lustre Bowl by Sir William Nicholson, exhibits a single lustre bowl (copper oxide and glass veneer over wood creating a lusturous sheen) and a dozen green peas on a plain white table cloth in a black room. Has to be seen to be felt, this painting, is probably worth the $20 admission fee. You can feel the temperature of the room. Feel the mood of the owner of the bowl. Someone who does seem to know a little of how to do their job at the gallery points out on the plaque how the bowl looks so hard and shiny you can hear it ping, whilst the peas soft and malleable and each displaying their own character. It's quite a fete. Lest I wank on.

I truly love Picasso, and there is one simple painting of his from the blue period showing the back of a woman holding a baby. The weight of her body, heavier on one foot, the curve of her back and crook of her neck are all perfectly executed. Barring the cubist period, Picasso never put a foot wrong.

To conclude, The Auckland Art Gallery has had a surgical facelift, it looks great. It's gone from Anna Paquin to Cate Blanchet. I think it could hold it's head up alongside, not the Louvre, but let's say the National Portrait Gallery of London. They have left the skeleton with some flesh on it, of the old building to be seen in places, such as alcoves that end abruptly at glass, waist-height walls, which meet spiralling staircases that dwindle symmetrically to smaller and smaller staircases. I had the greatest of expectations for this new gallery and their first international exhibition. I rather enjoyed closing my right eye and looking with my left, and then closing my left eye and looking only with my right, to see what each hemisphere of my brain would notice more.

I think go, it's only twenty bucks right, you get to wander around with the middle and upper middle class feeling cul-cha'd and like a better person, whispering in hushed tones your 'informed' (touche) opinion of great works.

I just think instead of calling it 'Degas to Dali' they should have more honestly entitled it 'a bunch of paintings from Scotland, not the best, not the worst, to be fair, the B team'; bring a torch.