Frieze

Frieze Masters tries to make old pictures fashionable by mixing them with the moderns. I like my old masters unfashionable and splendidly isolated, so I approached my first visit with low expectations. How wrong I was! There was a good deal not to my taste, it's true. But there were so many good and unusual things. My highlights were concentrated at a handful of stands, which shows the value of a good dealer. Some make money by having a good feel for popular taste (or maybe popular among the 0.1%). But some dealers just have exquisite taste (or maybe taste that coincides with mine). 

Richard Nagy created a mini Neue Galerie with great twentieth century German and Austrian fine and decorative art, including a roomful of Schieles (above). Stephen Ongpin had a wonderful selection of drawings, but I especially liked this tempera still life by Eliot Hodgkin (below). His stand focused on nineteenth and twentieth century drawings, but my taste is more towards the Italians in the corner, including two drawings of  elephants by Stefano della Bella.

Picture: Stephen Ongpin

Stephen Ongpin has a wonderful gallery in Mason's Yard, next to Jean-Luc Baroni. Baroni's stand was the other great highlight of Frieze Masters, where I became one of those annoying tourists taking photos of every single picture. Everything he had was good and interesting. 

Picture: MS

Highlight is this astonishing Degas, which doesn't reproduce well. There's a better image on the dealer's website, but I'm using mine because I wanted to show the frame. Baroni's and Ongpin's pictures were perfectly framed, which makes such a difference. 

Picture: ArtDaily

I know nothing about Antonio Mancini, to my shame, but his Portrait of Luigino Gianchetti as a Violin Player is magnificent, also with Baroni. 

Picture: MS

Doyen of Dutch dealers Johnny van Haeften had some superb Jan van Kessels and a floral still life by the underrated Simon Verelst. Didier Aaron & Cie was stuffed with unusual treasures, including a still life of leeks by Joakim Frederik Skovgaard (nope, me neither - but fine picture), a Museum Corridor by Christien Dalsgaard and several fine Alfred Stevens. Weiss had a great Pourbus portrait, a rare first rate picture by a normally fairly ordinary artist. And Sam Fogg had A monumental drawing for the crossing tower of Rouen Cathedral, presented to the Cathedral Chapter on 8th March 1516 by the master mason himself. It is indeed monumental, an enormous scroll confronting us at the entrance to the fair. A photo can't do it justice; the detail below gives a sense of the intricate details. It would be a perfect acquisition for the Victoria and Albert Museum, should any of you wish to buy them something?

Picture: MS

The powerful impression of works like the cathedral drawing drown out the memory of things I didn't care for and displays I didn't like. I went to the main Frieze fair too, but I have nothing original or insightful to say about it. By way of a sample, here is a self portrait by Tracy Emin, in case any of you care for such things:

Picture: MS

Recent reading: 'Body of Art' and others

Picture: Amazon

Diane Fortunberry et al Body of Art Phaidon 2015 £39.95

The term is meant as a put-down, but I love coffee table art books—big, sumptuously produced, designed for browsing. I appreciate the scholarly and serious as much as anyone, but coffee table books are an indulgence I'm not ashamed of. This new one from Phaidon is organised thematically, juxtaposing contemporary art and old masters with brief but incisive captions. They follow current fashion by imposing themes rather than following historical schools, which helps mix things up in interesting ways. It works for this kind of book, where narrative is less important, but the division is a bit hackneyed ('Beauty', 'Power', 'Identity'...). Chapters on 'The Abject Body' and 'The Body's Limits' work better.

My hesitation about the thematic approach is that it elevates art history above art, imposing categories that make sense to academics rather than ones that would have been recognised by artists. Old masters' peers were other artists. Some were certainly intellectuals, but I don't think their primary concern was making clever points about power or identity. Today that's probably less true, and artists and art historians do inhabit the same intellectual universe. But an approach that works for contemporary art becomes strained when it tries to incorporate the whole of art history.  

The captions are interesting, and I found the discussion of (to me) unfamiliar contemporary works informative. Like a good guided tour, they pique my interest and tell me something new without trying to teach me everything. But I found the longer chapter headings and introductions weaker. For example, Jennifer Blessing's overall introduction celebrates contemporary "feminist and queer artists [who] refuse to accept ... facile dualistic conceptions of identity. Instead, gender and sexuality are understood as a continuous spectrum of possibilities, not as fixed binaries" (p.9). But the facile dualism is Blessing's; her contrast of ignorant past versus enlightened present isn't sustainable. Artists have played with identity, including gender identity, for aeons. Mannerists like Spranger and Bronzino were obsessed with shifting gender identity, and ancient sculptures of Aphrodite speak to the same concern. Cartesian dualism was an idea that arose quite late, and burned quite briefly.

A final concern—and this one is damning—is that the production is terrible. Some of the reproductions looks like they've been taken from old postcards. The most sumptuous masterpieces like Giorgione's Tempest and Sleeping Venus, and Titian's Venus of Urbino look like grainy 1970s reproductions. An expensive book like this should do much better. Phaidon used to be a market leader in art history, producing high-quality books with good illustrations at low prices. Now they seem to have conceded the high-ground to Yale University Press, which is utterly and unfortunately hegemonic. C'mon Phaidon, they need a proper competitor.

Picture: Amazon

John Campbell Roy Jenkins: A well-rounded life Vintage 2015 £14.99

A fine and meaty biography of one of the major figures in British political history. Campbell is a fan, and it's an authorised biography, but he's good enough to present a balanced picture. I am unsympathetic to Jenkins. He was born to Labour Party aristocracy and was a professional politician, but he had a taste for the high life. I like that. Champagne Socialism is surely the best kind of socialism. But his connoisseurship of politics didn't match his connoisseurship of wine. As I read the book I perceived a gap in the discussion of ideas, but actually I'm not sure Jenkins had many ideas, beyond a wishy-washy middle way consensualism.

Jenkins's great achievements were as Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, but his tenure in both is over-rated. As Home Secretary he was the right man at the right time. His predecessors had been reactionary even by the undemanding standards of their time, and Jenkins was swimming with the current. His social liberalism was on the side of history; no great intellectual battle had to be won. And as Campbell sets out, in other respects he took a firm law-and-order line. Campbell's biography is weaker on economics, which is little matter as Jenkins's reputation as an economist was undeserved. He was less narrowly party-political than some of our more disastrous Chancellors, and avoided obvious disasters. But he largely gained credibility from a cyclical upswing. 

The biography is well-written and engaging, but could do with tighter editing. We're told several times of his liking for Anthony Powell and Auberon Waugh, and of his preference for his Glasgow constituency over his Birmingham constituency, and details of the SDP split now seem rather arcane. But his treatment of Jenkins's private life is measured and well handled, and Campbell is a particularly astute reader of Jenkins's many books. I would be a little more generous; his biographies of Asquith and Gladstone are magnificent. I appreciate Jenkins as a writer more than as a politician.

Emmanuel Todd Who is Charlie? Xenophobia and the New Middle Class Translated by Andrew Brown Polity 2015 £16.99

I learned a lot from this enormously impressive book. If I call it a sociological study I know I'll lose most of you, but it's acute, well-written and compelling, full of quotable aphorisms: "What you accept in practice is more significant than what you reject in theory. The main sector of the left wing of the left rejects, in theory and in no particularly order: austerity, the capitalist system, American leadership and the oppression suffered by the Palestinians. It accepts, in practice, the single currency and ree trade. However, it would be an understatement to say that this pseudo-opposition felt no great compunction about marching behind pro-European leaders" (p. 82). He describes anti-racist slogans as "part of a multiculturalist logic that insists on the 'right to difference', which is a clinical symptom ... of a deep-rooted inegalitarian unconscious" (p. 141). But there's also data to back up his claims. It's an impressive, humane and nuanced account of a topic too often left to hysterical pundits. 

Not a book that will appeal to everyone, so let me finish with something I can recommend without qualification:

Gillen D'Arcy Wood Tambora: The eruption that changed the world Princeton University Press 2014 £19.95

The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 caused global temperatures to fall, weather patterns to change, harvests to fail. Art historians will know it as the cause of the dramatic sunsets that Turner and Friedrich painted. 

I'm normally allergic to books that claim to identify something that 'changed the world', but this one is great. Wood explains the science wonderfully clearly: climatology, volcanology, and epidemiology. But he's equally strong on history and literature. I knew the story, in broad terms, but the detailed global explanation is fascinating. Well worth reading.

How not to buy a Rembrandt

Picture: Wales Online

Two big Rembrandt deals have been announced recently. Both reveal wastefulness and foolishness in public art acquisitions.

The UK government has placed a temporary export block on Catrina Hooghsaet (above), which is being sold from Penrhyn Castle. The Telegraph reports that a private buyer has agreed to pay £35m plus sales tax of £660k. The painting is exempt from sales tax, so presumably £660k is due on agent's fees of £3.3m. UK buyers have until 15 February to register interest in buying the picture. 

I hope no one does. The picture has been openly marketed for years; the Rijksmuseum came close to buying it. There was ample opportunity to negotiate a friendly deal without the need to pay millions to Sotheby's. I don't begrudge dealers' mark-ups or agents' fees, which are fairly earned in a competitive market. But British institutions have a woeful history of waiting until the last minute and then declaring a national emergency, when a bit of foresight would save millions. If anyone wanted it, the should have said so earlier. They will seem incompetent if they only raise their hands now. 

The other element I find objectionable is the smoke-and-mirrors approach to funding acquisitions. An element of tax that's been deferred could potentially be removed from the sale price, making it cheaper for a British public collection to buy the picture. But the real cost to the UK taxpayer doesn't actually change. It makes no financial difference if the tax is collected and then spent on a painting, or if the tax isn't collected in the first place. But it does give an artificial incentive to buy pictures subject to tax deferral, which is an arbitrary way of choosing acquisitions. I've written more about it here, and discussed on the BBC's One Show here.

Finally I don't think it's the best way to spend £35m. It's a fine picture, and I'm a great Rembrandt fan. But it's not one of his best, and we've got quite a lot in the UK already. Spend the money on other things, and please try to buy wholesale not retail. Lots of great pictures are sold for surprisingly modest prices, and £35m could fill some serious gaps in British public collections.

Picture: Dutch News

The French and Dutch governments have jointly bought this pair of full-length portraits by Rembrandt from the Rothschilds for €160m. The Dutch came up with €80m shortly after buying a Adriaen de Vries bronze for almost $28m, yet they are so short of funds for operating costs that they have to close at 5pm each day to cater for private events. When you consider the value of the Rijksmuseum's entire collection, there is no way that they money they're getting from plutocrats and celebrities can cover the cost of capital for the public asset they are exclusively enjoying. But every day the oiks are kicked out in the late afternoon so the privileged few can party away in evening. 

It's a chronic problem in the art world that money can be raised from public funds and private donors for big acquisitions and flashy extensions, but no one wants to pay for more modest acquisitions or for the running costs of all the new wings. The Dutch government should have spent the €80m on opening later so the public can enjoy what's already there. 

My other concern with this dumb deal is that the pictures will be shared in perpetuity, meaning that these large and fragile pictures will be moved between Paris and Amsterdam every few years. There will always be minor damage when big pictures like this are shipped hundreds of miles. But what happens if they become too fragile to move? And what happens if the museums disagree on restoration? Or if one museum wants to lend them elsewhere, to the Louvre Lens for example? What will happen if the Louvre wants to rent them out to a foreign museum? Or if the two countries fall out. It is inconceivable in the medium term, but forever is a long time and who knows what will happen in 300 or 500 years. Shared ownership of art is an absolutely terrible idea. When a crisis happens, it will seem obvious in retrospect. But right now the deal is being naively praised as 'saving' the Rembrandts, as if any other buyer would destroy them. I'd certainly be sorry to see them disappear to a private collection, but I'd be much happier if they'd both been bought by the Getty or the Kimbell. 

Privatisation at the National Gallery: a reflection, and a modest proposal

The National Gallery has outsourced its security; the guards' strike was an abject failure, as AHN explains. The Union had a weak hand, and played it badly. The National Gallery always held all the cards, but they mismanaged the situation spectacularly. They unfairly dismissed an employee, but not just any employee. They sacked a union rep during one of the most contentious negotiations, which was a fantastically stupid move that caused the situation to escalate. 

The NG brought the strike on itself. Outsourcing is still a bad idea, but its implementation was handled incompetently. There is a serious lack of basic managerial competence and basic savvy. It is not simply that a senior individual made the decision to sack the union rep, but also that the management structure allowed the decision to be taken—it's a collective failure. And then it was compounded by upholding the decision on appeal. Morons. And where was the expertise from the Trustees, who are meant to provide outside guidance? The board seems stuffed with dilettantes who relish the social cachet but don't bring much to the table. I'm always appalled when the board minutes record their delight with the progress of restoration, which few of them are even qualified to judge. 

I'm not ideologically opposed to privatisation. My objections to outsourcing one of the key functions of the gallery are practical. But I do understand the need to save money and operate more efficiently, so in the interests of constructive engagement let me suggest a better candidate for outsourcing: conservation. The NG's conservation department has, in its history, done incalculable damage. Most of the collection has been drastically over-cleaned, given the collection a different appearance from museums in Europe that have been more cautious. 

The conservation department is expensive, powerful and dangerous. It holds great institutional power at the NG (the Head of Conservation was interim director before Nicholas Penny). It should be subservient to the curators. And it is dangerous, because its institutional authority means that it is immodest and subject to groupthink, promoting its bad ideas elsewhere—like the appalling overcleaning of the Leonardo's Virgin & Child with St Anne in the Louvre, promoted by NG conservator Larry Keith.

An internal conservation department has a natural incentive to create work for itself; who is going to say that nothing currently needs to be done, so they should take a holiday? On the other hand, it may on occasion have too much work to do, such as preparing pictures for a big exhibition, which incentivises haste. Given the lumpiness of the work schedule, it is a natural candidate for outsourcing. The day-to-day work of inspecting pictures annually ought more properly to fall to the curatorial department, which ought to have the skills to inspect pictures physically for damage and identify conservation work required. Outside consultants can be brought in to assist as required. 

The internal cost of cleaning a small picture is £34,500, which is far above commercial rates. And the NG is less competent than many independent conservators. They are now having to crowdsource to raise the funds to keep the conservation department going. Enough! Close it down. Save the money, and hire contractors. If they don't have the money, restoration will have to wait - which is not necessarily a bad thing, given the disastrous consequences of their historic haste. 

Two great books

Reading bad books is miserable, but it's fun to review them. Good books are the opposite. I read more of them, but review fewer. I feel compelled to set out the flaws of bad books, to warn others. But a review of a good book succeeds simply by winning it some new readers. So here are some brief notes on books I've loved.

Noel Malcolm's Agents of Empire: Knights, corsairs, Jesuits and spies in the sixteenth century Mediterranean world (Allen Lane 2015 £30) is one of the most astonishing books I've ever read, and I think it will become a classic. It is a kind of microhistory that traces the family history of the Brunis and Brutis who hailed from present-day Albanian territory. But unlike most microhistory, it isn't telling the story of everyday folk. These people were involved at the edges of grand affairs of state, engaged in the Battle of Lepanto and the Council of Trent. There's also fascinating material about the mediation between empires at the frontier between Christendom and Islam, and between the great powers in the Mediterranean and beyond. I suspect this kind of history will be imitated, but I doubt others will rise to Malcolm's level. The breadth of knowledge and depth of research is awesome, but it is organised by a powerful intellect. He moves easily between the minutiae of diplomatic language schools and shrewd judgments on the Mediterranean balance of power.

I expected to dip into this book, but I was  utterly enraptured and read every page avidly. 

R. Taggart Murphy Japan and the Shackles of the Past (Oxford University Press 2015 £20)

Japan brings out the worst kind of punditry. There are so many colourful anecdotes about its history, culture and economy that journalists can spin a good story without much analysis at all. The first half of Murphy's book is an excellent concise history of Japan. But it really comes alive in the second half. He writes confidently and knowledgeably about all facets of Japan, and is particularly sophisticated in his understanding of economics and finance. But his ability to explain cultural phenomena like gender relations and stay-at-home youth that impressed me most, because it stood out from anything else I've read on the subject. He is also excellent—and scathing—about the 'Japan hands', the coeterie of U.S. 'experts' who advise on all matters Japanese, who promote each others' work and reinforce each others' prejudices. 

I'm a bit of a Japanophile, but this is one of the few books I'd recommend unreservedly. Alex Kerr's Dogs and Demons is another, particularly on culture. And Richard Koo is strong on the Japanese economy. I'm also a great fan of Japanese literature; Natsuo Kirino is my current passion. Other recommendations would be appreciated. 

My great fiction discovery is Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels. They sounded a bit too 'misery memoir' for my taste, but I'm glad I gave them a go, for they are fabulous. Wonderfully well written and wickedly cutting, their style is oddly detached from the sadness they describe. I've only read the first two so far. In the second volume our hero is off his head on drugs for most of the book, yet still evinces our sympathy and manages a good deal of dry humour. Wonderful, and one of the few really excellent recent novels I've found. I have enjoyed few of other the recently-hyped novels I've tried.

On Art Galleries and Swimming Pools

This summer I learned to swim, and it prompted reflection on the similarities between swimming pools and art galleries. No, really ... bear with me. In both spheres, officials fret about declining public interest and propose more and more official interventions to curb decline. Swimming participation has fallen sharply, and officialdom thinks it's because we can't use our smartphones in the pool (I'm not making this up). Museums are in a constant panic about becoming 'irrelevant', so they enthuse about technology. Government cuts mean both swimming pools and museums are being outsourced and privatised. And a fetish for 'engaging new audiences' is offputting to serious swimmers and serious art enthusiasts alike. 

Drastic cuts to local government funding mean that councils can't afford to maintain opening hours or facilities at either swimming pools or museums. In museums we're just starting to see the effect, with outsourcing of security and reduced hours to facilitate private hire. Swimming pool operations have been outsourced for some time, with bad results. Private operators demand a monopoly on learning to swim sessions, which are pricey and profitable. That means not only that swimming clubs and other operators can't provide lessons, but also that fewer lanes are available for actual swimming. As a learner myself, I can say that it did me no favours. I only had a couple of unofficial lessons. Learning to swim is about practice, and that is curtailed when lanes are closed (especially when the slow lane at the end is closed - I needed the security of the edge when I started). At one swimming pool I use, there is sometimes just one lane of eight available for lane swimming. 

The contractual relationship between councils and outsourced operators means there's no one to hold accountable or to complain to. The operator says they're following the contract, and the council is unable to change agreed terms. We will see more of this in museums; some already close early for private events. Don't be surprised when you find your local museum closed for the day because they've got a wedding on. But it's not just a lack of money that's at fault; it's also how the money is spent.

The London Aquatic Centre is the pool used for the 2012 Olympics. It's one of only two 50m indoor pools in London, and it is brilliant. But the main competition pool is given over to something called 'extreme aqua splash' every Sunday afternoon. There is actually a separate training pool that could be used. But instead the main pool is turned into a play area for half the weekend. In the brief window before aqua splash the pool is chronically crowded with lane swimmers who are squeezed out for most of the day. Fun for kids has been prioritised at museums and swimming pools, partly because 'kids are the future', so we must 'engage' them. Trouble is, it doesn't work.

When I was a child our local swimming pool had a water slide and a wave machine, and it was fun to splash about. But there was no pressure actually to learn to swim. So I didn't, and it was a quarter of a century before I got back in a swimming pool. As with swimming pools, so with museums. Engaging kids has become a messianic project, to the exclusion of adult enjoyment. And when they grow up, they will look at museums as places only for kids. Why would they think museums are places for grown ups, when they know them only as places where they went to play? 

The ideology of inclusion means that neophytes are led to expect facilities to be organised around them. This blog post expresses frustration at the demand that faster swimmers give way to slower people. And here is another swimmer frustrated with the prejudice against supposedly-elitist competitive swimmers. As a new and slow swimmer, I agree with them both. The reluctance to enforce rules in case it puts anyone off is actually offputting. You have to have an induction session before you can use the gym, but you can just turn up at the pool. It's hard for pools to work effectively without shared norms, and it's hard for new swimmers to know how to behave when the rules aren't explained. I found this indispensable guide online; I wish I'd known sooner.

We've seen this before. Librarians were among the first to fret about their coming irrelevance. Local authorities turned libraries into 'ideas centres', and ditched the books for computers and community centres. It just accelerated the decline. When they became places to hang out rather than, um, libraries, the case for maintaining them became weaker. Local authorities are slashing hours and closing branches. Swimming pools and museums seem set on the same trajectory. I suspect the answer is really simple. Do less. Less extreme aqua splash, fewer lane closures. Keep the doors open, the pool clean and prices low. But what group of interested professionals will conclude that they need to step back? Instead they think it's about innovation, technology and consumer expectations.

Brian Sewell

I'm truly saddened by the death of Brian Sewell, saddened to a degree I've never before felt for some one I never met. He was a giant among critics. Brian—for he will always be Brian to me—was a really great writer with a unique prose style, and his acerbic criticism stood out from the consumer reports written by some of his peers. But the strength of his criticism came from his extraordinary knowledge of art. Sewell was famous for his put-downs, but his brilliance really came through in his enthusiasms. He had both a good eye and a deep knowledge of art history that he shared generously. 

I'm saddened a second time by the obituaries, because they emphasise too much his barbs and too little his enthusiasms. I'm struck by how everyone notes that Brian was often wrong. Of course he was sometimes wrong. But the judgment of 'wrong-ness' is sometimes made with a finality that implies that he was objectively WRONG. That contrasts with Brian's own criticism. For all its vitriol, his controversial judgments were thoughtfully presented. He was consciously goading the panjandrums of officialdom, which is quite different from demanding obeisance to conventional wisdom. Strong words are fitting when trying to overturn consensus; they are unnecessary and even censorious when demanding deference to convention. 

The goading worked, and the panjandrums hated him. It is simply astounding that people felt moved to sign letters in protest at an art critic, and that high officials sought to get him sacked because they disliked his criticism. It underlines the need to challenge the sensitive bullies with identikit taste.

Brian' rich vocabulary and sophisticated writing made demands of his readers, but rewarded us amply. He believed in his audience. His Christmas 'books of the year' showed the breadth of his reading, recommending recondite and expensive academic texts to the readers of what became a free local paper. And he even taught art history in prisons, which I think tells you more about the man than any number of encomia. Brian's autobiography will, I think, stand the test of time. It's not only a window on a fascinating life. It's also one of the best autobiographies I've ever read. I was put off by reports of its salaciousness, but when I finally summoned the will to read it I found the discussion of sex to be frank, yes, but also authentically integrated into the life. He is a rarity among writers for his ability to write about sex without awkwardness. 

I desperately hope that his criticism will last too, although it's not a model that can be followed. You see some people who try, but you can't emulate Brian's style or form without first mastering the content - having a solid grounding in art history and a great eye.