Interview with Norman Rosenthal re Andy Warhol: Works from the Hall Collection at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

11/02/16

Interview with Norman Rosenthal

Andy Warhol: Works from the Hall Collection
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
4 February – 15 May 2016

With a figure as well known as Andy Warhol (1928-87), whose works are so instantly recognisable, it might seem an impossible task to put on an exhibition and keep it fresh and interesting for the public. The current exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, however, which features more than 100 previously unseen works, spanning the whole of Warhol’s career, contains many surprises. Curated by Sir Norman Rosenthal, from the collection of Andrew and Christine Hall, it – in the words of the Ashmolean’s director, Xa Sturgis – more than “puts paid to the idea of Warhol as a spent force in the 70s and 80s”.

In stark contrast to the stunning, high-reaching wall in the central gallery, hung with Warhol’s more recognisable commissioned screen prints of celebrities (including Joseph Beuys, Paul Anka and Maria Shriver), the final room focuses on his last year of life, showing only black-and-white prints, many with religious and existential themes. Another section features drawings, proving that Warhol was a talented draughtsman: “He had a natural line, which was every bit as beautiful as Matisse,” says Rosenthal, for whom these late drawings were a “revelation”. Highlights of the first room include a group of artists’ portraits and a series of prints of Watson Powell, a successful but unknown businessman, who came to be known as “the American Man”. Alongside this, a small side room acts as a screening room, showing looped excerpts from Empire (1964) and Sleep (1963) alongside Eat (1963), Kiss (1963) and Screen Tests (1964-65). Every corner of space has been used and the exhibition feels representative without being crowded.

“Andy took the world as it was and, in his own way, described it with amazing accuracy,” says Rosenthal, who talks about trying “to tell a story through the pack of cards that is the [Hall] collection”. Studio International spoke to him at the opening of the exhibition.

Watch the interview here

Interview with Claudia Sola

07/04/14

Interview with Claudia Sola 

February 2014

Claudia Sola is an artist based in Amsterdam. In November 2013, she took part in the Jerwood Encounters exhibition ‘Family Politics’, curated by Photoworks, where she showed a number of portraits from her ongoing project Dynasty. Her work also appeared in the Photoworks annual of the same title, as a special commission.

I conducted an online conversation with Sola to discuss the project.

Anna McNay: Your project, Dynasty, is based on an exploration of your mitochondrial relatives, extending from having had your DNA charted and discovering that there is this particular DNA molecule, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is passed down only from our mothers.

Claudia Sola: Yes, I had my DNA charted because of a health related question. It’s very simple. You send off some cheek tissue, a few saliva samples, just like they do in the movies. When I got the raw data back, I noticed the word mtDNA and the letter I. I didn’t understand what that meant. I needed to know more about it, so I bought a few books and started researching.

mtDNA is small, ring-shaped DNA that is not part of the nucleus of a cell but is found in mitochondria in the cellular fluid. Mitochondria regulate the energy balance in the cell, the transformation of nutrients into suitable fuel and the use of oxygen in our metabolism. Not all cells have identical numbers of mitochondria. Male sperm cells, for example, have very few and these are in the tails. Since the tail falls off the moment the sperm enters the ovum, the embryo is completely dependent on the hereditary qualities of the female mitochondria for the energy balance in its cells, in boys and girls alike. As the mitochondria originate 100 percent from the mother, they form a trail of hereditary characteristics that go back through mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, right back to the very first woman, ‘Mitochondrial Eve’.

Once every 10,000 years, a minute mutation occurs in one woman. 36 different clan mothers have been discovered to date. The clan mother is at the head of a so-called haplogroup. These 36 haplogroups subsume all of the world’s population today. Each haplogroup is given a letter and each clan mother has a fictitious name. My clan is haplogroup I; my clan mother is called Iris. She lived approximately 25,000 years ago in the Middle East, probably in what we now call Iran.

To read the rest of this interview, please go to: http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2014/04/dynasty/

Video review of Dennis Hopper: On the Road at Museo Picasso Málaga

18/07/13
Dennis Hopper: On the Road
Museo Picasso Málaga
29 April – 29 September 2013

Before joining the leagues of his subjects, entering into the world of celebrity as a cult director and actor, Dennis Hopper was a successful photographer who captured the anti-establishment, countercultural spirit of the 1960s through images of such iconic figures as Andy Warhol, Jane Fonda, and Paul Newman.

Born in 1936 in Dodge City, Kansas, Hopper used a Nikon camera with a 28-millimeter lens given to him by his first wife, Brooke Hayward, in 1961. His candid images remain uncropped, following the early advice of movie heartthrob James Dean to use his hobby of photography to practise framing movie shots, saying “you’re probably going to want to direct films someday, and you can’t crop film.”

Dennis Hopper: On the Road at Museo Picasso Málaga displays a selection of 141 black and white photographs, the majority of which were taken between 1961 and 1967, alongside clips from his movies. Also on display are three 1964 screen tests by Andy Warhol, a set of posters for movies in which Hopper was involved, and contextualising documentary material such as photographs by other artists, books, magazines and records.



To view this video review, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/dennis-hopper-on-the-road