School

Oooh, I haven't been good about this. So sorry everyone!

Anyway, school.

The course is incredibly exciting. I am constantly amazed at the connections going on in my head and quite proud, actually, of how much I already know. The fact that I have a little experience in the practice of painting helps a lot. I'm always the one to know which technique was used and even how the artist started or constructed his work. Also, being here makes things so much easier because of the number of museums and exhibits going on. Its impossible to go to all of them. Books are easy to find too, so if I'm suddenly interested in a subject, I can quickly read up on it.


There are 24 of us in the Diploma course and there are another 20 or so Masters students who share morning lectures with us. I'd say about half the class is made up of British, Americans or Canadians. There are quite a few people from Russia and France (you'd think Paris would have a better program than Christies, but apparently not) and the rest from places like Mexico, Japan, Singapore, Greece, Switzerland and Italy. And of course, me, the Brazilian. There is another Brazilian somewhere in another course, Fine and Decorative Arts, I think, but I haven't been able to find her yet.

The course director, Lizzie is absolutely awesome. She has curated and worked at the National Gallery in London and Tate Modern. She is the type of person who captures your attention from the start and keeps you completely focused and interested during a 2-hour lecture. She's very passionate about everything she says and provides great feedback on points you make.

The other two main lecturers are... mmm, so-so. One seems to have never taken a public speaking class and Ummms and Ahhhhhs through-out the whole lecture taking forever to make his point and leaves off the end of sentences so you never really know where he's going. The people who don't speak English that well have a really hard time understanding him.

The guest teacher, an American, has another type of problem. He talks around his point, never making it completely clear, using long words and difficult terms when he could be more concise. He also goes into philosophy a lot but fails to define terms so one of the first things he says is that human nature is constantly changing. Of course half the class loudly disagreed with him. The point was completely lost, while everyone debated this and it didn't even really contribute with what he was trying to convey anyway. And all through this some students are furiously scribbling in their notebooks, trying to keep up, while others are looking around, waiting for the goal of this discussion to make itself clear.

If there's one thing we are learning from these last two, is how NOT to talk about art! But, it's still all good. And so far Lizzie is the one who has been giving us the majority of lectures.

In the afternoons, we usually have visits to galleries, museums and guest lecturers like Christies employees, specialists, artists and gallery owners. These are usually really interesting and always touch both on academic history of art points and the direction of the art market.

Today we went to the pre-sale viewings for two of Christie's sales. One of the people who took us around was a collector and Christie's alumni. There is always a focus on market, prices and the different types of investors, collectors and what the market is doing. Speculation seems to be a dirty word for most, but there have been one or two more realist speakers who have taken it for what it is. Art is being consumed. There is also a lot of talk about the bubble bursting but we've been told that the warnings have been going on for years. The collector we chatted to this afternoon said that from his conversations with gallery owners, the market does not seem to be slowing down that much.

Anyway, my first project is something called an Object Analysis. We have to chose a work of art, from 1860 to 1905 and describe it in a very particular way. There is a series of questions that have to be answered and to answer them, we have to research the artist, the subject, the time, the medium, the art-dealer, the museum... everything very deeply. I'm loving it. I chose a Degas... mostly because it was in an odd place: the V&A.

This one:

The ballet scene from Meyerbeer's opera 'Robert le Diable', 1876
Presently in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Bequethed by Constantine Ionides in 1901.







I'll post my essay when it's done, but, for now... it's so interesting to do this! I have to discover why it was painted, who it was sold to, for how much, how was it sold, who bought it afterwards, how did it get to where it is now, its path through history. I also have to imagine who saw it at the time, what were they thinking, who is in it, why was it important, who looks at it now, what was written about it at several times through history, etc....


To research all this, I use several libraries and look at old gallery and museum catalogues, newspaper articles, art critic essays, monographs, all sorts of stuff. The final product will be a 2000 word essay with end-notes and bibliography.


It's odd that the Robert Le Diable is in the V&A, because the V&A museum is basically a student's museum, which houses examples of design for objects and home furnishings. It was a museum originally intended for the instruction of trade and artisinal craft. You can't learn how to paint a Degas just by looking at it, so it's strange that a painting should be there. All this goes into my essay too because there is a whole story of why the painting is in the V&A and why it has stayed there for over a century. Which you shall learn later on. * cue discovery-channel/twilight zone music*


Next Wednesday I'm off to Venice! I'll try to borrow a camera to take pics and tell you all about that. Tomorrow I spend the afternoon at the Frieze Art fair, which is this mammoth of an event for contemporary art. The same collector we met today will be leading us through it showing us what he thinks are good investments and why certain pieces are there. As my friend Connor said, we better make some money between today and tomorrow so we can out-bid him!