Engineer's Daughter

the rothschild butterfly collection

Talk about a Wunderkammer.  An amazing collection of butterflies assembled by brothers Walter and Charles Rothschild and donated to England's Harrow school are being auctioned off at a sale at Bonhams in May.  Numbering in the thousands, the winged critters had been stashed away in a room used by the Harrow's IT department where few visited.  Walter Rothschild had a severe addiction to collecting to the point where he almost ruined himself financially, but he was able to found London's Natural History Museum with his vast holdings as a result.  Mark Brown summarized parts of a recent article by filmmaker Hannah Rothschild about her great-great uncle Walter that she wrote for the Bonhams quarterly:

Between 1899 and his death in 1937, butterflies became the main focus of his attention. According to Hannah: "Nothing man-made - no painting by Ingres or Velázquez, none of the jewels of Catherine the Great nor the intricacies of Mughal art - can come to the shocking beauty of these creatures ... My great-aunt Miriam used to send out a Christmas card and got great pleasure from correcting those who assumed that the image of swirling colours could be a lesser known work of some famous Impressionist painter. 
'You are looking at the greatly magnified reproductive organ of a butterfly,' she would tell princes and statesmen with glee."

Even though I feel sorry for all the poor dead butterflies in the Rothschild collection, it's also impossible not to marvel at the sheer variety of their iridescent and unusually-shaped wings that were gathered from around the world and pinned so carefully in place.  Here's hoping the whole lot stays together and ideally ends up in a museum.

the art of hype

The Guardian has a special report this week about how art schools in Britain are being accused by some contemporary artists of not properly preparing their students for the harsh economic reality that awaits them after graduation.  The accompanying online gallery starts out with artist Gavin Turk (pictured right) who says things have changed since he became a successful artist bang right out of school, that the boom is over and that professors need to prepare their young charges for hard work instead of filling their heads with false hopes of super-stardom.  As Jessica Shepherd reports, however, some artists like Fiona MacDonald see a problem in the culture at large besides:

"It's our reality TV society that makes us think we can go from pauper to princess," she says. "There's more chatter about who sold what to whom than there used to be. That atmosphere has pervaded the art world in general."

Personally I highly doubt there are many art schools out there promising their students they can count on being the next Damien Hirst, especially in this recession, and the story smacks of invented controversy to me.  Which is not to say it isn't terrifying to graduate with a degree in anything art-related these days.  I remember years ago already talking to someone at CCA just as the college had inaugurated their Curatorial Studies program who was bemoaning the fact they were preparing students for a particular kind of job in the art world that realistically is scarce at best.  And my artist friends do not expect to ever make a killing, nor are they trying to.  They just want to make their art and, if possible, a living.

victorian buildings under threat

Every year the Victorian Society in Britain releases a list of their top ten endangered buildings in the hopes of encouraging their preservation, and their choices for 2008 are all examples of some truly gorgeous architecture.  The Stonebridge School in north-west London, pictured right, was built in 1898 and is still used by two schools but has been marked for redevelopment by the local council.  It literally hurts my heart to think it might be ripped down, but many of the buildings on the Society's list have structural problems and I'm sure it's considered more economical to start over rather than preserve.  You can see more pictures here, including an impressive old mill in Huddersfield and the Moseley Road Baths in Birmingham.

goldsmiths art at dius

I was already aware of Goldsmiths, the well-known creative college of the University of London whose alumni include Vivienne Westwood, Sam Taylor-Wood, Lucian Freud, Steven McQueen and Damien Hirst.  However, I just learned today that the British government possesses a relatively new branch called the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, or DIUS, which is responsible for pretty much what it sounds like it would be.  The two organizations were recently brought together when Goldsmiths students were invited to display "contemporary and challenging artwork" like Seth Pick's painting Trunk at right in the DIUS offices.  Anthea Lipsett talked to DIUS for the Guardian:

Delyth Morgan, the students' minister, said: "It's not because we are the department for universities, we asked because we want to have in our space and working environment, some work that will challenge us and help to make us think.
    "Governments aren't always seen as particularly creative but we do believe we have a role to play in creating the right kind of environment for artists to thrive."

Former San Francisco supervisor Matt Gonzalez was famous for letting his office in City Hall double as an art gallery, and even though I'm not in government it's been scientifically proven that I work more creatively and happily when I have every available inch of my surrounding wall space plastered with reproductions.  The Goldsmiths art better work its magic on the DIUS ministers quick though; it's coming down next Monday already after only having been up for three weeks.

glasgow school of art degree show 2008

Just pointing you to some pretty pictures for your Friday, taken from the Glasgow School of Art's 2008 degree and master of fine art shows.  Past graduates of the school have included Douglas Gordon and David Shrigley, so it's fun to get a taste of the current students' work and watch as they hone their artists' statements.  The Guardian has a small gallery here to whet your appetite, and then check out the more extensive coverage on the GSA's site linked above.  I'm a particular fan of the ceramics department myself.