Poster parade organized by the Women’s Freedom League to promote the suffrage message

As we celebrate the 100 year anniversary since women were given the vote in parliamentary elections, Angela Westwater, one of the art world’s pre-eminent gallerists, reflects upon the great women gallerists who have inspired her, and the changing landscape of the New York gallery scene over the past 40 years

In the midst of today’s debate on justice and equality for the genders across all industries, the gallery world is a particularly interesting case to think about. While there is actually a large contingent of women gallerists, historically and today, they don’t always get the same level of recognition as their male counterparts. Many powerful women paved the way for the young dealers of today with the risks and bold chances they took. Taking just New York as an example, even as far back as the 1930s and 40s, there were Peggy Guggenheim and Betty Parsons, both of whom championed Abstract Expressionism. Having recently seen the ‘Bacon–Giacometti’ exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, I also think about the legacy of Erica Brausen, who started London’s Hanover Gallery in 1946 and gave Bacon his first show the following year.

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A more immediate example, and one who has inspired me personally, is Virginia Dwan. She had a gallery in Los Angeles in 1959 before moving to New York in 1965. Virginia and I actually met through the artist Robert Smithson, who, in fact, helped me land my first job as a gallery girl in 1971 at the John Weber Gallery. She championed artists such as Sol LeWitt, Robert Ryman, Richard Long and Robert Smithson early in their careers. While the Abstract Expressionist artists were still dominant in the US, and the American scene was frankly a bit parochial, she stood out for being very attentive and receptive to what was going on in Europe, an attitude that my partners Gian Enzo Sperone, Konrad Fischer and I shared when we opened our first space in 1975. Virginia also demonstrated real curiosity, as well as a commitment to not only mounting gallery shows but also sponsoring artists’ projects outside the traditional venues, such as Smithson’s Spiral Jetty in 1970, and aiming to reach a broad audience through accessible means such as artists’ books. Holly Solomon was a similarly fantastic, energetic woman who was a collector before she founded her eponymous gallery in 1975 in the early days of the art scene in SoHo. Partly because she had studied acting, Holly sponsored evenings of artists’ performances along with readings and musical events, which broadened the very definition of art for many people.

So, what did these women and their experiences teach me? Their achievements opened my eyes to the fact that there are different ways of being. They taught me the importance of maintaining as much openness as possible and listening to the artists themselves – see what they have to say, and be open to what you learn along the way in their studios.

Read more: Tracey Emin’s ‘Another World’ at Frieze London

When Sperone Westwater opened, SoHo had far fewer galleries than today. It was still an area of light industrial manufacturing, with a handful of artists living there. To start a gallery in 1975 was, to say the least, not a solid business plan. This was at the moment of the Daily News’s headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead”, printed after President Ford had refused to bail out the city in the midst of a major financial crisis, suggesting it instead go into bankruptcy. So, it was an adventure. I had my two partners in Europe, coming and going and planning the exhibitions together, but on a day-to-day basis it was just me and one assistant, and my desk was a door laid across two filing cabinets. Frankly, at the time when we started, I really wasn’t thinking about actually making money at all. Perhaps I should have been.

Bruce Nauman’s ‘Leaping Foxes’ (2018), part of his retrospective exhibition ‘Disappearing Acts’, at the Schaulager in Basel

I admit I approached the idea of opening a gallery with some trepidation, but, in the way of so many developments in my life, it came up partly as a reaction to what I had done before. Apart from serving as gallery girl for John Weber, I spent three incredible years as managing editor at Artforum, from 1972 to 1975, working with the legendary John Coplans, one of the founding editors, while he was editor-in-chief. He was a great mentor, and I loved being involved at a very lively, very controversial and very disruptive time at the magazine, then still in its youth. Part of what I did was to lobby hard to have attention paid to women artists. We put Louise Bourgeois on the cover. We put Jackie Winsor on the cover. We put Agnes Martin on the cover. I wrote a little bit myself, but frankly, what I learned was that I wanted to move on from working with words about art and on to working directly with the artists and their creations. I found that much more gratifying.

Read more: Whitechapel Gallery’s director Iwona Blazwick on the power of education

But Artforum did provide me with an incredible grounding and a connection to so many prominent and strong women whose work we published, including Rosalind Krauss, Annette Michelson and Lucy Lippard. They set a stellar example, and perhaps since they didn’t seem to feel they had to prove themselves in any way, I guess I didn’t either. The art world was much smaller then, and so I found it, in my own perhaps naïve way, very welcoming. There was a sense of community, especially downtown in SoHo in the early 1970s, and a marvelous sense of camaraderie.

In this sense, if I think more broadly about the challenges faced by today’s women gallerists in relation to my own experience, I don’t know that I ever thought about what I could or couldn’t do, or what I was or wasn’t ‘allowed’ to do back then. I think now, oddly, there are probably more conventions or standard operating procedures than there were for me, perhaps because of the increasing professionalization of the art world. I guess I just felt my way along.

Speaking of which, I remember calling the collector Franz Dahlem, who was associated with Heiner Friedrich who would go on to cofound the Dia Art Foundation in 1973. I remember calling him from a post office in Florence in 1972, telling him I wasn’t sure how I’d get to Kassel to see Harald Szeemann’s Documenta. He invited me to stay at his house and visit the Ströher collection in Darmstadt, then we could go on to Kassel together. I jumped on a train, got a tour of the collection, and spent the night. There were a number of paintings that they had hung up-side-down – or so I thought. The next morning, who should drive us to Kassel but Georg Baselitz!

What I have learned during my time as a gallerist, and what the great pioneering gallerists who went before me have shown, is the importance of relationships. I think – I hope – that my relationships with all of my artists are ones of great integrity and trust. For example, we showed Bruce Nauman first in 1976, and in 2016 we celebrated our fortieth anniversary with his extraordinary show of Contrapposto Studies from 2015–16. His incredible retrospective, ‘Disappearing Acts’, just closed at the Schaulager in Basel and opens on 21 October this year at the Museum of Modern Art and PS1 in New York. The number one priority of the gallery is always the artists. Of course, a little passion and perseverance can’t hurt.

Angela Westwater is co-founder of Sperone Westwater gallery in New York

Oxford University is the world’s best, according to august publications like The Times. Oligarchs, CEOs, kings and presidents clamour alongside ordinary people to get their sons and daughters in; and for generation after generation of ambitious, intellectual kids, Oxford is among a handful of names that represent the ultimate in academic aspiration. But what’s it like to actually be there? Our anonymous diarist is going to reveal all, in real time, in a series of entries, starting with her first night

October 6th, 2018: Freshers’ Week

I arrived at Oxford University a few days ago, a mere, defenceless undergraduate desperately in search of someone to latch onto and call my best friend. This orientation period, known as Freshers’ Week in the UK, has become a rite of passage for universities that is all too closely associated with excessive drinking, partying and regretful sexual antics. And now I find myself in the midst of it all. When I first arrived at my college, which shall remain nameless, an army of second year students rushed over to help me and unloaded my father’s car. They settled me into a surprisingly spacious bedroom with an enviable view of the college chapel, and in a matter of minutes I was set up and ready to go. But where to? I crept out of my room and nodded half-apologetic hellos to those on my corridor, trying rather superficially to deduce who I might get on with based on first impressions. I had to remind myself not to do what I did at interviews – that is, quite literally throwing myself at some poor French girl in the stairwell and begging her to go to dinner with me. Note to self: play it cool.

Oxford: the university everyone has heard of, and everyone desires. Made up of thirty-eight colleges, it is renowned for its gargoyle-adorned buildings and immaculate green quads. My college is no exception, nestled right in the centre of Oxford, and it feels as though time here is stood still: I can almost visualise my grandfather walking around the city as I do today. This is especially apparent when I see photos of my friends at less traditional universities; their world of video tutorials and soaring tower blocks is incomparable with my experience here. What many people fail to realise, however, is that this privilege is uncomfortably contrasted with an astonishing number of homeless people who literally live on the doorsteps of these privileged institutions; it is a sobering thought indeed.

I wandered down to the college bar – a dingy, dimly-lit room with a floor so sticky your shoes adhere to it – and was met with an astonishing mix of people. Impossibly posh private-school students were hobnobbing about their gap years – ‘oh you know, I did a ski season and then I was in Botswana with an indigenous community for a while’ – whilst misanthropic intellectuals could be seen frantically scanning the room for the nearest escape route loud-mouthed egoists were bragging about the full marks they achieved at A Level whilst the humble sufferers of imposter syndrome struggled to convince themselves they should even be here at all. Naturally we were all searching for people who look like ourselves, and we clung to each other uncomfortably like wet clothes to skin. I have since come to realise that this taste of adult life and social interaction is entirely alien for some; namely the boy who was unable to open a can of beer at pre-drinks because he had never done it before. Others are true veterans of the party lifestyle, like the philosophy student who reportedly had her ‘tongue down someone’s throat’ on the first night: eyebrows were certainly raised at breakfast the next day. Academic achievement is the only common denominator in our Oxford cohort; and whilst there are as many obscure and socially inept people as I had anticipated, there are approachable ones by equal measure.

I was also introduced to my subject tutors, the leading world academics who will be dissecting and scrutinising my essays in our one-on-one weekly tutorial meetings. One tutor, a bearded and bespectacled man, is terrifyingly accomplished for his barely three decades of existence (except when it comes to a sense of humour, a department in which he is unfortunately lacking). I can only cringe at the prospect of having to sit in his office each week, a deceptively inviting room filled with comfortable armchairs; in reality it is a lion’s den. Another tutor almost managed to put me at ease in her company by encouraging me to ‘down’ the prosecco she had poured me during a formal – that is, until I visited the library the ext day to take out a book and found her name plastered in capitals across the cover. Shortly after I had another rude awakening: an essay and a hefty reading list appeared in my email inbox. Four books and ten secondary texts to be read by next Monday? Freshers’ at Oxford, I have learnt, is as much about the work as it is the play.

Panic levels now through the roof, I looked to my peers to see how they were coping with the culture shock. One girl, who we will refer to as A, felt the need to text me at 3am last night asking me a question regarding our first assignment. Should I too be working at this ungodly hour? Who even works at this time? Note to self: avoid A at all costs. My knight in shining armour, however, came in the form of a boy who shall be known as BFG, the Big Friendly Giant no less. During a library induction, BFG disregarded the opportunity to discuss the vital academic resources at our fingertips in college, instead feeling compelled to initiate a conversation with the librarian on the comfort levels of the chairs. He’s got his priorities straight.

As I lay in bed on my third night, wandering absent-mindedly how many desperate drunken boys had used my bedroom sink as a urinal, many revelations became clear to me. Oxford has its own space and time; it is its own world, whole and complete in itself. It also has its own language – and it is baffling. How do you wear sub fusc? What on earth is a bop? How do I pay my battels? The nightlife, I’m afraid to admit, is sorely lacking. But the college food is spectacular. Oh, and I need a bike.

On the last night of Freshers’ we had our very first bop. An Oxford tradition, bops are college parties that take place in the college bar. Last night’s theme required everyone to come dressed as their subject. I can’t say it was immediately obvious that the boys who had balloons tied to themselves were the economics students (inflation, apparently), or that the girl with a bird on her T-shirt who wielded a bottle of tequila was an English undergraduate (Tequila Mockingbird…genius), but it was certainly an amusing sight. The awkwardness that we had all felt at the start of the week was rapidly dissipating thanks to the lethal concoction of fruit juice and vodka we were drinking. Even A had decided to stop working for a few hours; she could now be seen all over a second year student on the Common Room sofas. Love was certainly in the air that night. How long do we think will it last?

Our diarist is an undergraduate at an Oxford college. Can you guess who she is? Check back in for the next instalment soon

The latest release from renowned champagne house Philipponnat: Clos des Goisses 2009

Festive drinks parties might not have started just yet, but it’s never too early to stock the cellar, or drink champagne. Julian Campbell, Champagne Buyer at leading London wine merchant Justerini & Brooks recommends five champagnes for LUX readers

1. Philipponnat Cuvée 1522, 2008

Precise, aromatic notes of salt and red berries, brioche, toast and peach combine to produce an arresting initial impression in Philipponnat’s brilliant 1522 2008. A wine with a beautiful seam of fresh acidity that will allow this to age for many years to come. 8 years sur lie has given fabulous complexity with a savoury, very fine note of freshly baked pastries below the fruit, while also giving the mousse a wonderful finesse and sense of integration. The finish is long and deliciously salty. Only 1200 cases of this brilliant wine were produced.

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2. Pascal Doquet Le Mesnil 2006

All the minerality of Grand Cru Mesnil vineyards combined with Pascal’s vinous, long lees aged style – a real stand out in Pascal’s lovely range of Blanc de Blancs. The product of a supple, solaire vintage that has imbued this with lovely fruit to balance out the deep chalky notes, this is drinking beautifully now but will improve over the coming decade.

3. Philipponnat Clos des Goisses 2009

The latest release from renowned champagne house Philipponnat.  Opening up with a wave of wonderfully fresh cool chalk aromas, then a bold, expressive nose of grapefruit and fresh red berry, citrus and buttered hazelnuts and finally the faintest suggestions of fresh Victoria plum – there’s a great deal going on here, a wonderful marriage between complex richness and keenly rendered flavours. On the palate this is a big and powerful Goisses but also refined, brimming with rich red fruit, pastry, brioche, raspberry and finally the zest of lemons providing a keen, taut edge. Highly vinous, textural, long and complex, this is every bit as regal as we’d hoped. Superb, a true Clos de Goisses.

Read more: 5 travel experiences that will change your life

4. Egly Ouriet Les Crayeres, Ambonnay, Grand Cru, Blanc de Noirs, Brut NV

There’s an element of generous sunshine in this tremendously vinous bottle of champagne, but also a mouth-watering stony element, clear cut golden peach and raspberry, and fantastic chalk definition and minerality on the finish. Long, pure and textural – truly a wine masquerading as Champagne. Made by grapes from an exceptional Ambonnay vineyard with 70 year old vines on intensely chalky soil (at times up to 100m deep).

5. Ulysse Collin, Les Maillons, Blanc de Noirs, Extra Brut, 2013 base

Harvest tends to start here, one week ahead of the other vineyards, and the resulting champagne presents the most glorious red fruit and spice characteristics, huge amounts of pinot appeal, the finest of mousses, with a flourish of red currant, raspberry and ginger spiced pinot fruit on the finish. Aromatic and extrovert while remaining exceptional precision and detail.

For more recommendations and to purchase online visit justerinis.com

A black back mountain gorilla in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Abercrombie & Kent’s Founder and CEO, and LUX contributor Geoffrey Kent has visited 148 countries, racking up a total of 17 million miles (since he last counted). In his latest exclusive column for LUX, the modern-day explorer shares his top 5 life changing travel experiences

1. Seeing mountain gorillas in the wild

Sir David Attenborough summed it up the best when he said, following an encounter with a mountain gorilla in 1979, that “there is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than any other animal I know – they are so like us.”

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Seeing a silverback or female with a playful infant in the wild will undoubtedly change your whole outlook on wildlife conservation. While the mountain gorilla is one of the most beloved animals, it is also one of the most endangered. But there is cause for some celebration – according to WWF, who released the results of a new census early this year, Central Africa’s mountain gorilla population has now risen to above 1,000. This is a 25 per cent increase since 2010.

In 1985, I convinced General Museveni (the then future president of Uganda) to set aside the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest as a national park, on the condition that I build a luxury camp and bring in clients, so I’m very proud to have played a part in helping to protect these magnificent creatures.

Geoffrey Kent cruising the Arctic Ocean

2. Voyaging to the Poles

In 1999, I needed a new frontier to conquer. I had suffered a near-fatal polo accident in 1996 and was asking myself “what would it take for me to be on top of the world again?” Then I realised, I could go to the top of the world. With fast research I learned there was an expedition to the North Pole in July 1999 – the last cruise of the century. I predicted that the 12-day journey to the Arctic would be one of the most lunatic endeavours I’ve set out on – and I was right.

A journey to the Arctic Ocean would give any man new energy. It may be freezing but it’s a thoroughly fascinating place. In the Arctic there are so many shades of blue. From aquamarine to sapphire, it’s rich and dazzling in a way you will have never seen before. It’s also a place where all the implications of climate change resound with the greatest force, and you’ll return home with renewed commitment to reducing your own contribution to the problem.

View of Kilimanjaro from Amboseli National Park, Kenya. Image by Sergey Pesterev

3. Climbing Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro has two main peaks – Kibo and Mawenzi which are connected by a saddle. Kibo is the taller of the two at 19,341 feet and Mawenzi is shorter, at 16,896 feet. The saddle is about 16,000 feet up. Altogether Africa’s most iconic mountain covers 995 square miles. The name ‘Kilimanjaro’ means ‘impossible for the traveller’. It comes from a saying of the Chaga people, who traditionally live on the southern and eastern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and Meru, suggesting that Kili is so great that men should be warned against even trying to climb it.

Read more: Senturion launches new collection of supercar key bracelets

At 17, in 1959, I climbed it from the Kenyan side. To train, I rose at 5am for a five-mile run and spent every day for weeks building my stamina and strength, because once you’re on Kili, there’s no easy way off. When most people tell you they’ve climbed Kilimanjaro, they’re usually referring to Gilman’s point but the very top – the peak of Mount Kibo – is Kaiser Wilhelm Spitze (now known as Uhuru Peak). The view from there is all sky and open space – it’s overwhelming in its simplicity. A&K has a summit success rate of 97 per cent, higher than most as we give clients more days to acclimatise to the altitude (and appreciate the journey!). I’ve never forgotten the experience of my first Kili climb.

Wildebeests spotted on a game drive. Image by David Clode

4. Going on safari

Life is undoubtedly messy. Getting up-close to the ‘circle of life’ is both humbling and thrilling. By nature, the only thing that’s predictable about a game drive is that it will be unforgettable. One day on safari is the great adventure that will change the rest of an individual’s life.

The Great Migration is one of nature’s greatest spectacles. Every year more than a 1.5 million wildebeest, 200,000 Burchell’s zebra and a smattering of trailing Thomson’s gazelle make a 1,900km odyssey between Tanzania’s Serengeti and the Masai Mara in Kenya. Instinct and the smell of rain spurs the herds forward with two things in mind: food and water. They are following the rains in search of fresh grass. Along the way, many migrating animals fall prey to waiting predators including lion, leopard, cheetah, crocodile and hyena.

Visit Tanzania between January and early March to see thousands of wildebeest being born each day, then from June through September, vast herds are on the move through Kenya.

Approaching the pyramids on the back of a camel is a breath-taking experience, says Geoffrey Kent. Image by Pradeep Gopal

5. Visiting the pyramids and sailing down the Nile

I’ve always been fixated on Egypt. Its history is epic – at sunrise, the pyramids appear blood red and your first sight of the Sphinx will haunt you like an apparition. Approach these ancient wonders on camelback and you’ll feel like you’re starring in a film. It’s a moment you’ll never forget.

I understand some travellers’ hesitation to visit Egypt, however the ancient country is awash with optimism right now, and it’s an ideal time to go. There are new hotels to entice, new tombs are being discovered regularly and the world’s largest archaeological museum, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) will – partially – open in early 2019.

Discover Abercrombie & Kent’s luxury travel itineraries: abercrombiekent.com

A scene from the performance piece ‘Alone Together’ at the Whitechapel Gallery with artist Seth Pimlott

As the world’s leading contemporary art galleries come together for this year’s Frieze London in Regent’s Park, Iwona Blazwick, director of Whitechapel Gallery, discusses the challenges and successes of working to enrich communities through outreach programmes

Iwona Blazwick

What is the ultimate objective of a public learning programme? For anybody who’s struggled to find recognition, has a difficult home life or doesn’t see what prospects there are for them, art holds the key. Perhaps this kind of experience might help somebody realise they’re an artist, but I don’t think it has to limit itself to that. We’ve had programme alumni go on to do everything from forensics to fashion design, psychology to filmmaking.

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I think the real asset of a good youth programme is that it can teach transferrable skills that take you in different directions. By encouraging participation and decision-making, we hope to bridge social, cultural and religious differences and instil some sort of epiphany in people that will help them for the rest of their lives, whether in a professional capacity, or as members of different communities. However, I don’t want to instrumentalise art. I also believe that it should be free to not do any of the above! But that very freedom too, I hope, can be found in our programmes.

In recent years there has been a shift from traditional media such as painting and sculpture towards moving-image work, performance and of course social media and digital. And yet, at the same time, artists working in the digital realms are also being drawn to ceramics and other tactile ways of making art. As a medium-sized institution, we can be quite nimble and offer a wide portfolio of activities to reflect this interdisciplinary time. For example, when we hosted Thick Time, our exhibition of work by the great South African artist William Kentridge, members of our youth forum, Duchamp & Sons, collaborated with the English National Opera, and our youth participants very unselfconsciously made extraordinary costumes, animations and even worked on a libretto.

A live street-art performance curated by artist Justyna Fedec

However, perhaps the bigger philosophical issue is: are we teaching people, or do we have something to learn from them? I believe our strength lies in reciprocity. Situated in East London as we are, we are uniquely placed to access rich and culturally diverse communities, and have one of the youngest populations of any borough of London. So many artists and creatives live in the area, and it is incredibly cosmopolitan, which gives everything a tremendous energy.

Read more: 5 travel experiences that will change your life

One challenge (and success) has been the fact that some communities here are fairly inward-looking, and are not engaging with the gallery. Perhaps this is because they are first-generation immigrants, or because they haven’t felt confident speaking English, or because of different religious backgrounds. To create a dialogue, it was important to recognise that each party had something to bring to the table. For example, in 2015, we launched a project in Stepney Green called Art Already Made: Skills Exchange and worked with a group of Bengali and Somalian women. For various cultural reasons, they had been a little bit isolated, and this project sought to recognise the tremendous skill sets they had and create an exchange of skills between the women and artist Rebecca Davies, ranging from engraving and bookbinding to embroidery and illustration. Having worked with them in a community centre, the next step was: how do we persuade them to come here, to the Whitechapel Gallery? That was the ultimate goal. And they did come, and they brought their families, and that was a great victory in that sense, to have convinced them to cross the threshold, to build up their confidence and work to keep them coming back and maintain that relationship.

A Duchamp & Sons performance in collaboration with artist Ian Giles

Another example would be our efforts to counteract the gang culture that is sadly on the rise in East London. For a lot of youth, the issue is that there is nowhere to go that you don’t have to spend money. In our latest programme, we worked with artist Seth Pimlott, who ran yoga sessions and performance workshops, ultimately culminating in the performance piece Alone Together, all about physical release. To provide somewhere to go and something to do, hopefully it can help children who would otherwise end up in a spiral of violence. Working across so many communities, of course, one has to bear in mind various cultural sensitivities, but having said that, we would never tolerate someone being intolerant. If somebody was critical because of somebody else’s sexuality or whatever, that’s something that I think one would confront. What we hope is that through their networks the kids who are exposed to our programmes will reach out to those kids who aren’t – those kids who do feel much more alienated or hermetic.

Ultimately, in any programme, what’s most important is to share. All of our initiatives serve as case studies. The reasons why entities such as the Swarovski Foundation, and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation before them, support our programmes is they want to learn from them. We’re moving into a post-industrial economy and have a generation facing changes and job shortages because of automation. Industry is changing, which is good, but it’s also a scary prospect and if you haven’t got the education and the confidence to deal with that, you are going to be lost.

Learn more about the Whitechapel Gallery and the gallery’s upcoming exhibitions: whitechapelgallery.org

‘Another World’, Tracey Emin

Artist Tracey Emin and Deutsche Bank are marking 100 years of women’s suffrage with a show of work by female artists from the bank’s collection at Frieze London and Frieze Masters, as well as a secret postcard sale for women’s charities. Anny Shaw reports from the Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounges

Tracey Emin. Image by Richard Young

To mark this year’s centenary of voting rights for women in the UK and Germany (and the fact there are still places in the world where women can’t or find it difficult to vote), the British artist Tracey Emin and her studio have curated an exhibition of around 60 works by female artists drawn from the Deutsche Bank Collection. Over the course of 35 years, the firm has accrued one of the world’s largest collections of works on paper.

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Entitled ‘Another World’, the exhibition spans both Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounges in Frieze Masters and Frieze London, featuring 34 artists working from the late 19th century to the present day. Emin’s selection includes titans such as Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945), whose depictions of women and the working class countered the dominant male rhetoric of the time, and Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010), whom Emin admired greatly and collaborated with shortly before the French-born American artist died.

‘10am is when you come to me’ (2006) by Louise Bourgeois

For the show, Emin has chosen Bourgeois’s 10am is when you come to me (2006), a work with 20 etchings including depictions of the hands of the artist and those of her assistant Jerry Gorovoy, painted with watercolor and gouache in various shades of red and pink. Contemporary artists featured in Emin’s selection include Maggi Hambling (b. 1945), whose 1993 aquatint of a heron “appears somewhat comical”, in Hambling’s words, and Marlene Dumas (b. 1953), whose work entitled Girl from a Dutch Painting (1991) represents a state of mind rather than being a portrait of a particular person.

A Show for Everyone

Although the show is dedicated to women (Emin and her studio reviewed all of the 670 female artists in the collection), Emin says she wants the theme “to relate to everybody”. The title could refer to a liminal or dream-like state, she points out. “Another world can be the twilight time when we are half asleep and half awake. Or literally another world, another universe, the animal kingdom, or for me personally, another world represents the afterlife,” Emin says. The artist has created a new neon work, Another World, especially for the show.

“We always look to provide a stimulating and relaxing environment for our guests in our VIP lounges, whether they want to take in our exclusive exhibitions or simply take a break during their visit,” says Nicola West, Global Head of Events, Partnerships & Sponsorships at Deutsche Bank Wealth Management. “This year, Tracey and her team have created something truly spectacular.”

Käthe Kollwitz’s charcoal drawing ‘Frau, auf einer Bank sitzend’ (Woman, sitting on a bench) (1905)

A quarter of the 2,694 artists in the Deutsche Bank Collection are women – higher than the 4% at the National Gallery of Scotland and 20% at the Whitworth in Manchester, though less than the 35% at Tate Modern. However, Mary Findlay, International Curator in the Bank’s Art, Culture & Sports division, acknowledges there is still work to be done. “We are always looking to buy more works by women,” she says. “Diversity and promoting women is something that Deutsche Bank is vocal about. This exhibition is a good way to continue that conversation.”

With the advent of the #MeToo movement and the centenary of women’s suffrage, the art world certainly appears to be changing. So what advice would Emin give to young female artists trying to forge a career today? “Use really good contraceptives,” she quips. “Don’t sleep with gallerists or anybody who could enhance your career. Try to be logical in all your arguments and if that doesn’t work scream the house down. Work every hour God sends.” But most important of all? “Do not compare yourself to anybody.”

‘Another World’ Postcard Project and Sale

Inspired by the annual secret postcard sale held by the Royal College of Art (where Emin studied) and by historical suffragette postcards, which were produced by campaigners for women’s rights as well as by those who opposed them, Emin has approached women artists in the Deutsche Bank Collection and asked them to contribute unique postcard works to the charity exhibition and sale. The result is in excess of 800 works. The project is in aid of organizations, yet to be chosen, that support vulnerable women in London and in Margate, where Emin grew up and now has a studio.

The postcards, priced at £200 each, will be sold anonymously, with around three-quarters on view in the Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounge and a quarter available online. “What’s really interesting about selling works anonymously is that suddenly the name of the artist, and all that entails, isn’t important. You’re using your eye and your intuition to respond to what you see,” says Findlay. “That reflects the ethos of the Deutsche Bank Collection – we’re not about big names. Supporting creativity is at the heart of what we do.”

The long-term aim, Findlay continues, is to “create a legacy, and to do something concrete to actually help women who are the victims of abuse and change things for the future.” She expects the financial benefit of the project to continue into next year and beyond for the selected charities. “We have set up the Tracey Emin and Deutsche Bank Centenary Fund, which, with the large number of unique artworks we have to sell, will become a multi-year legacy,” she says.

‘Girl from a Dutch Painting’ (1991) by Marlene Dumas

Maggi Hambling

The Suffolk-born painter and sculptor Maggi Hambling, chosen by the campaigners Mary on the Green to create a public sculpture in London to celebrate the feminist writer and thinker Mary Wollstonecraft, was quick to respond when Emin wrote asking for the women artists represented in the collection to submit postcards for charity. “Almost every day a case of domestic abuse is revealed. It takes a lot of bravery to come forward and talk about it,” she says. “If the sale of these postcards helps those who help the victims of abuse, then it’s a great idea.” Hambling says she opted to paint something “rather jolly”. She adds: “I haven’t tried to paint victims. I hope I have done something quite joyous.”

Hambling has sent in postcards to RCA Secret, the Royal College of Art’s annual fundraising secret postcard exhibition, every year since it began in 1994. She is a keen advocate of raising money for emerging artists who are struggling financially; the scheme has raised £1m so far. The anonymous postcard sale is a format that has gained popularity, particularly among charities, but that doesn’t diminish their power, the artist says. “The more attention that is drawn to the victims of abuse the better, and I hope people will spend lots of money on these [Deutsche Bank] postcards. There will be something for everyone; all artists are different.”

Elizabeth Magill

The Irish painter Elizabeth Magill, who has a conference room named after her at the Deutsche Bank headquarters in London, is no stranger to philanthropy. This year she has produced work for no fewer than four charities, including a project with the Imperial Charity marking the National Health Service’s 70th anniversary.

A decade ago, Deutsche Bank acquired a set of 10 lithographs of landscapes by Magill, which have inspired the artist’s postcards. “I wanted to do something that directly relates to that series of prints,” she says. The artist is represented in ‘Another World’ by the painting Bonn 2 (2003), which she describes as “not a landscape as such, but more like a suggested backdrop to how I feel, think and interpret the world”.

‘Bonn 2’ (2003) by Elizabeth Magill

For Magill, an exhibition of women artists, coupled with the postcard project, could not be more timely. “Because of the #MeToo movement and the highlighting of the gender pay gap, I think we are entering into another world for women. At least I hope we are entering another world, although it remains to be seen; we thought the same in the 1960s,” she ponders. Despite the hurdles, Magill says she has never been preoccupied with her position as a woman. “I have always been concerned first and foremost with my work. My advice to a young woman today would be: just focus on your work, don’t be dissuaded.”

Emel Geris

“To begin with, I did not realize that the postcards would be shown – and sold – anonymously. I saw them as a natural progression of my paintings and just started working,” says the Berlin-based Turkish artist Emel Geris, before wondering: “I hope they won’t be too easily recognized!”

The only difference between the postcards and Geris’s typical work is the scale. “I adjusted the series I am currently working on to the card format, nothing more,” she says.

Tracey Emin has selected Geris’s painting, Dahinter (behind) (2017) for ‘Another World’. The work is part of a series that “deals with dreams, impermanence, trauma and other similar themes”, Geris says. “I created these pictures spontaneously, one after another, like a diary. I still work with these sorts of themes today, but in a completely different way. To see them after so many years seems like another world.” Geris says the #MeToo debate is part of a long-running narrative that is likely to continue for some time. “As long as this strange world keeps rotating, it will probably always be important,” she says. “We have to keep striving to make things better.”

Rosemarie Trockel display

Twenty-one watercolor sketches by the German artist Rosemarie Trockel, many of which depict heads in various guises, have been selected by Tracey Emin to hang in the wide corridor of the Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounge that leads to the fair itself.

Most striking among them are a group of drawings that show what appears to be a man’s head, in profile, with a wildly protruding nose, often painted bright red. “Trockel’s ‘Nose’ or ‘Pinocchio’ drawings exist in various versions in both black and white and color, and are mainly from the 1990s,” says Monika Sprüth, the co-founder of the Sprüth Magers gallery, which represents the artist. Trockel has also employed this motif in her sculptures. “They alternate between the figure of Pinocchio, the liar, and a phallic representation,” Sprüth says. “But interestingly the portrait has no clear female or male characteristics. Like many of her works, it deals with gender-specific assignments in a humorous way.”

Rosemarie Trockel, ‘Untitled’ (1994)

Other works on display reflect recurring themes in Trockel’s work, such as portraits of monkeys, people sleeping and domestic objects such as vases and pots. Trockel rose to fame by shifting the way traditionally feminine materials were used – and perceived – by the male-dominated art world, shunning painting in favor of drawing and crafts.

“We’re delighted that such outstanding artists are represented in both the exhibition and the sale,” says Nicola West. “The result is an environment that will not only engage our guests but also give them a chance to participate in a memorable event for a very worthy cause.”

About Art, Culture & Sports at Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank has been enabling access to contemporary art worldwide for more than 30 years with its substantial collection, in exhibitions and through collaborations around the world. Art works: it inspires people to engage with the present and helps them develop creative ideas for the future. Culture transcends borders. It is always an encounter and an exchange. Sports connect people and motivate them to perform and show fairness.

Find out more at db.com/art-culture-sports

Exhibition of Historical Suffragette Postcards

This comic postcard has been annotated with an anti-suffrage message, an example of anti-suffragette ‘hate mail’

A 1907 photograph of “a Lancashire lass in clogs & shawl” being escorted by police from a demonstration outside the House of Commons in Westminster and a cartoon of a stern-looking woman in a meeting hall full of men being asked if she will “go quietly” or be thrown out “by force” are just two examples of some 60 suffragette postcards that will go on show as part of the project.

Deutsche Bank will reproduce postcards from the Museum of London, which holds the world’s largest collection of material related to the militant wing of the suffragette campaign. In 1926, former members of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and the Women’s Freedom League (WFL) came together as the Suffragette Fellowship “to perpetuate the memory of the pioneers”. In 1950, they offered their collection of memoirs and archives to the then London Museum.

Poster parade organized by the Women’s Freedom League to promote the suffrage message

The Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounges will offer a unique opportunity to view postcards promoting both sides of the struggle. Many of the works for the pro-suffrage campaign were produced by two artist groups, Suffrage Atelier and the Artists’ Suffrage League.

“For the suffrage campaigners, it was all about getting the message into the home,” says Beverley Cook, curator of social and working history at the Museum of London. “They wanted to raise the profile of the campaign and present it not just as something concerning politicians, but integrating the fight into every part of life.”

Suffragetto, a board game produced by the Women’s Social and Political Union, from the exhibition ‘Sappho to Suffrage: Women who Dared’, at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 2018

On the other side of the political fence, satirical postcards mocked suffragettes, often depicting them as harridans or as wives and mothers who had abandoned their duties. “They were less formal ‘anti-suffrage’ and more like comic postcards. They were incredibly popular,” Cook says.
With up to seven postal deliveries a day in some parts of Britain, postcards were an effective form of communication. “They were cheap and would often carry very short messages, like ‘See you tomorrow at 2pm’. The telephone was not widely used at the time,” Cook explains. The WSPU and the WFL, which had suffrage shops in nearly every high street, with 19 branches in London alone, were popular outlets.

Commercially produced postcard satirising the suffragette movement

So just how effective were the postcards? Financially, they “added to the suffragettes’ war chest”, Cook says, noting that the sheer number in the museum’s collection (several hundred) indicates their success. “The fact that they have found their way into museum and gallery collections is proof of their currency.” Not only that, but they have also inspired a new generation of contemporary artists to produce postcards. As Cook points out: “The campaign is still as relevant today; it’s just a different battle. In essence, it’s all about women working together to become a force for change.”

Suffragette exhibitions in 2018

Sappho to Suffrage: Women who Dared
(Bodleian Library, Oxford, until February 2019)

Votes for Women
(Museum of London, until 6 January 2019)

Voice & Vote: Women’s Place in Parliament
(Houses of Parliament, until 6 October 2018)

A Woman’s Place
(Abbey House Museum, Leeds, until 31 December 2018)

Ladies of Quality & Distinction
(The Foundling Museum, London, until 20 January 2019)

‘Shabdiz’, 2017. Natural pigments and 24ct gold on handmade hemp paper. Hana Louise Shahnavaz

British-Iranian artist Hana Louise Shahnavaz spent 6 years studying the art of traditional Persian painting in Iran under the tutorage of master painter Safoura Asadian before moving back to London to continue her studies at the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts. In a week dominated by the ultra-contemporary and beyond abstract at Frieze London, we speak to a young living artist increasingly admired for her painstaking creation of materials – she mixes her own paints, from Persian soils – and her intricate artworks which possess a poetic, almost mystical quality as if merging ancient myth and the current zeitgeist for the authentic

1. Why is Iran so important in informing your art?

Hana Louise Shahnavaz

Iran has been, still is, and always will be absolutely vital to my artwork. I’m really inspired by Persian miniatures, Persian stories and Persian poetry, and for me it is really important to explore the roots and origin of these Persian art forms that influence and guide my own art so much. The obvious starting point of this exploration would be by visiting and honouring the location, which is in most part what we know as modern day Iran. I learnt to paint in Iran, having moved there post uni and ended up staying for around 6 years completely immersing myself in the arts. I therefore owe Iran a lot for the nurture it gave me and all it taught me.

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It is very important for me to physically be in Iran and stand in the earth and really feel the energy in its pure form – this is after all, where it all began. I’m a real big believer in breaking things down and going back to simplicity; start simple and then let things grow organically. Don’t skip steps but instead take time to build the foundation. A solid foundation is everything. Admittedly it’s something I didn’t fully understand to begin with – I wanted to immediately fly ahead and paint without stopping and breathing and observing. Then I began to appreciate the beauty and importance in going back and just looking to see where all this has come from. I started to ask questions and really think about how they used to do things in the golden years of old Persia. How did they used to paint? How did they view colour? How did they make their materials? I took time to look at the wall paintings in Isfahan, the old miniatures in the royal manuscripts, and all the paintings in the palaces. I find it really important to look and compare all the different Persian paintings by various Masters throughout time. Which ones attract me? Without analysing, just instinctively – what gets me? Then, after getting a feel as to what draws me in, I start to think and ask myself ‘why?’ This is one of the main ways in which Iran informs my art.

‘Map of Hormoz’, 2017. Earth on handmade hemp paper. Hana Louise Shahnavaz

Secondly, Iran is such a fascinating country. There is an amazing history of Persian art and poetry and you can feel it still vibrating in the earth, within the people. It is still very much alive today – it is timeless, a true living tradition. This is shown also by the many wonderful contemporary artists coming out of Iran today. There is a lot of art going on within Iran and one of the first things I will do when I visit now is to go to an art gallery and see what’s new. It’s actually really exciting to follow what is happening within the Iranian art scene – you can never quite predict what will emerge. But also, when I am in Iran it is not just about looking at art. Just breathing in the air, looking at colours, observing the natural colours that occur in Iran’s earth, in Iran’s terrain, the textures, the feel of the air, is all just as important. It really affects me. I’m a really visual person and all my work is inspired by things I’ve visually seen and felt. I use all my senses and think that is really important in art. Maybe it’s something that is being lost throughout time as we are getting very conceptual and art is becoming very much about what the artist thinks, feels and believes so when you skip all these things about observing, looking, feeling, touching, smelling, tasting and go immediately to ‘what I want to say’ a lot is lost, and so it’s really vital for me to look and am constantly observe my surroundings. I especially like to notice what flowers grow next to each other in the wild as these show certain colour combinations that naturally occur – colour combinations that I wouldn’t have otherwise thought may go together. I like to look at the trees to see how the different shades of green sing together. Iran is a fantastic palette of colour and texture to inspire!

Read more: In conversation with one of the world’s greatest living artists, William Kentridge

Another really important thing Iran brings for me is the stories. I absolutely adore Persian stories. I think they are magical and beautiful and truly believe beautiful stories and beautiful paintings are important. What I find fascinating about Persian stories, which I actually think mirrors Iran as a country, is that there are many layers to them; Iran is a very complex country, culture, people, history. In the Persian stories there is the story you take at face value, which is very visual. When Persians write the poetry you can visualise it like a painting due to the detailed, beautiful ways in which the language is used. This visual language plays a huge role in my art, from guiding my creative design all the way to the intricate use of colour. Then there will be the meaning behind the story – and wow they are full of many layers of meanings! There will be the moral of the story, the lesson it is trying to teach, that could have some value in day to day life for most people. Then there is a philosophical, contemplative meaning, and deeper still there are Sufi/spiritual types of meanings embedded into the stories that are meant to guide the soul. Basically the stories have something for every one, and this is exactly what I hope to achieve in my paintings. Iran is a very poetic and visual country with a huge story-telling culture. You can see this when talking to Iranians – they all just talk with such detailed, beautiful poetic visuals. The way stories are told is just full of life and magic. All of this is constantly feeding into my art.

2. You take your materials very seriously, often making them yourself. Why?

Materials for me are everything. I can’t separate the materials from the end painting. It’s half and half and I will always call my art a collaboration between myself and the Earth. There are many reasons why materials are important, the first being quality. The more you understand materials and go back to the root of them, the more you can make true quality art. Due to the commercialisation of art we have lost real luxury art, because if you are going to make this kind of art you can’t make a lot of it. Therefore my exhibitions are always half about the earth and process/journey and half the actual paintings. I actually think this is really beautiful because it’s not just about making the materials also. It really feeds into the whole creative aspect of the painting, so it feeds into my visuals. For example, when I make my own paint I don’t just buy pigment from a shop that has been synthesised in the lab and thats what it is and always be every time you go and buy it. I actually like to go and forage for natural materials, earth, semi precious stones, plants myself that I can make paint from. I also like to do pigment swaps and collaborations with some other amazing foragers out there in the world who also find really special and unique earth materials. So what this does is it brings a certain unpredictability to the work. I’m never quite certain what colour will appear on my palette each time.

‘Hormoz earth’, Earth collected from Hormoz Island, Iran. 2018. Hana Louise Shahnavaz

Also I’m never quite sure what the end paint will be like when I make it from a mineral or earth – it’s always different when you make it into paint as it never looks exactly like you see it when it’s in its rock form. It will always be a surprise and will always be a bit different. These differences will always end up gently guiding me in new directions I may not have taken if I didn’t make my own paint. If I had tubes of paint already prepared for me, I think psychologically in my mind I could probably very much plan a painting, and even if I told myself not to plan there would still always an element of planning  to it, as I would always know exactly what colour I will be getting. I love to take that ability to plan away from myself, which is what happens when I make my own materials. This will of course change the whole feel of the painting, which is really exciting for me.

Also due to these pigment swaps I have been blessed to work with some very rare pigments. These bring a wide range of energies to the artwork and I always like to ask the forager the story behind the material. If we don’t understand where things come from then we can’t understand the true nature of those things. If I truly know the story and origin of the material then I can connect much deeper to it and its energy, and then get excited by it, which in turn opens the doors of creativity. The biggest and most important thing in art is creativity and I think pure creativity doesn’t come from the ego. It comes from something much purer and the artist is a vessel for that. It is nature that allows this to happen for me and the connection to the essence of the material I am using, and honouring it and respecting it. It’s why I also don’t take more than I need, and enjoy the fact that each painting will always be slightly different in the materials used, which again makes it more interesting and unique. It is definitely a fun way to paint!

Read more: French-Iranian artist Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar’s dialogue with Jean Cocteau

Also the more I work with the earth the more I have a profound connection to it and a deeper gratitude. To witness what this earth can give us is such a blessing. This then makes me want to protect the earth and really thank her for what she has generously given and to not be greedy with it. If anything can have that effect on us, to actually want to protect the earth we walk on, the earth that we come from, then I think that’s a wonderful thing! I feel that as we are made from earth and come from nature itself, we can connect very deeply and quickly with something that is also made from nature as opposed to something that has no root or connection to us. I therefore think using earth materials facilitates the connection to the painting.

Another reason why I don’t want to use ready made or synthetic paints is the visuals. These will never be the same as hand ground paint made from semi precious stones sparkling in the sun, 24ct gold shining likes its on fire and translucent plant pigments where the light just bounces through the delicate layers.

‘Galloping into the golden skies’, Handmade and hand-ground pigments, foraged natural pigments, 24ct gold on handmade hemp paper, 2018. Hana Louise Shahnavaz

Finally I also love to work for my art – I really enjoy the process. I like the active part of it. It is an honour to go through the alchemical process of it all as it really is embarking on a mental, physical and spiritual journey with the transformation of the earth into paint. It’s a beautiful journey and I wouldn’t want to miss it! I love the journey just as much as I love painting. I also love being able to tailor make my recipes in a way that suits the way I paint. If you buy paint or any art material you have to make sure you create art in a way that agrees with the material, whereas I do the opposite. I make paint in a way it can agree with the way I want to paint. Again this really fuels creativity. As we are moving with the times art needs to be able to grow and develop naturally, and so for an artist to be able to remove as many limits as they can I think that really facilitates the organic growth of art, and allows the artist to move in any way they wish or feel they would like to go, rather than be stunted. It’s about being in harmony with the material and working together to achieve a shared mutual goal rather than working against each other. Everything about this art is about being in harmony and that just provides peace, which in turn filtrates into the art.

3. What are your views about colour, and has colour been neglected as artists’ materials become industrialised?

Yes, I do think the industrialisation of artists’ paints has changed the way we think about colour. It has stopped us thinking about colour, to an extent that is. The colours are pre-made – they are already ground, already mixed, the recipes are decided for us. Each of these elements does have an effect on the final paint. So yes, the artist may mix a particular blue with yellow to get a shade of green, but so much has been decided for them already and any one else get that exact shade.

Also, when something is in a tube, for example ‘ultramarine blue’, the artist can’t really form a true connection with it as they can’t truly understand what ‘ultramarine blue’ is. Where does it come from? What is it? How is it formed? Everything has already been decided for us so how can the artist have that connection with the origin of the colour? So how can we truly understand its colour?  Because to understand the colour we really need to understand how it came about and why it is the way it is. So when you don’t have this connection you are just using it as a means to an end. You are using it for the painting and not enjoying it truly for itself. You are not there with it during its transformation, during its alchemical journey.

‘The secret garden.’ Handmade and hand-ground pigments, foraged natural pigments, 24ct gold on handmade hemp paper, 2018. Hana Louise Shahnavaz

This is how the industrialisation of materials has totally led to colour being neglected whereas in the past it was revered and honoured. These days everything is so fast-moving. We are in the fast-food, fast technology era where it is a lot about producing. The same has happened in art, where easy access to ready-made art materials has helped facilitate this mass produced nature, and as a result things like colour have become neglected. Due to the amount of paint I make and really working closely with my materials my eyes are getting really in tune to colour. I’m starting to see many blues within a blue pigment and many different greens within a green. So I feel like I’m really seeing colour for the first time and really witnessing what the world is offering. The more we use pre-made paint then the less we are going to be able to become in tune with that.

4. Do you have any artists who are your inspirations?

Yes I have many! I tend to get inspired by artists who excite me and who make me buzz and joyful. The first artists I would say really inspire me constantly are Persian miniaturists from around the 15th century during the Timurid dynasty of the Persian empire. I absolutely love the way they used to paint – it seemed freer and wilder than the later more ostentatious schools of miniature painting. It was also the time they used the best minerals, paper and gold in their manuscripts so it is always such an inspiration to look through them in person and touch the paper and actually see the vibrancy of the paint still glimmering like a jewel. I spend a lot of time in museums and the British library just to be close to these precious manuscripts. I also take a lot of inspiration from the wall paintings within the palaces around Iran.

Another artist I love is Reza Derakshani who is inspired by Persian miniatures and imagery and paints in an abstract expressionist style of painting. I was absolutely blown away the first time I saw his work in person – it was the colour, textures and story-telling magic that totally captured me. His paintings are always beautiful and this just draws you in. I never get tired of seeing his work and absolutely love his colour palette, which is always the first thing I will notice when viewing art.

Read more: Inside Lake Como’s luxury residence, Villa Giuseppina

Probably the most important inspiration in my art career has been my own teacher and mentor in Iran, Safoura Asadian. She taught me how to paint, and she taught me everything about colour – not via rules and systems but by intuition and organic connection. She is a very intuitive painter with her colour palette and by watching her paint over many years and by being by her side, the way she uses colour has seeped into me. The way she brings joy to her art and also how it is a spiritual practice for her also shines through her painting. Her paintings truly uplift the soul and I have never met anyone so creative as her. Just looking at her work makes me want to pick up a brush and paint. This means a lot, that if someone does something that makes you want to immediately create art then that is certainly the biggest form of inspiration you could wish for.

Cornwall based artist Kate Walters is also a big inspiration. She really honours nature and paints intuitively, from the heart. I’ve had the blessing to work with her and she really opened up some doors within me and helped me to be free and play in art, to not think so much and just go with the flow and connect hand to heart.

‘Khosrow’, 2017. Natural pigments and 24ct gold on handmade hemp paper. Hana Louise Shahnavaz

5. Is fame important?

For me personally fame isn’t important because what I am doing is with the Earth and I’m just going along with the flow and doing what I enjoy and am at peace with. I think fame to some extent involves having to consider what may be fashionable or in demand in that particular time, and I find it quite dangerous to think about what’s fashionable if it may go against what brings joy to your heart. This may lead the artist away from what they love, which for me is a sad thing so I don’t concern myself at all with that part of the art world. I wouldn’t want to change what I do or be steered away from my collaboration with nature and story-telling magic. Of course it is the biggest blessing to have artworks enjoyed by many people and to know they are bringing joy into peoples’ homes, but I hope for this to happen organically and with no force. I wouldn’t want this to be the driving force behind why I paint. The driving force must always remain rooted in Nature.

6. What would you like to do next?

I’m really excited to announce that my next solo exhibition will be upcoming in January 2019 so watch that space – I’m very excited! Then in spring 2020 I will be having a huge exhibition with a wonderful artist Yasmin Hayat where we will be bringing a lot of magic and crazy earth colour to life, full of stories and adventures. I have a lot of foraging trips planned as I would like to explore a wider range of earth pigments from all over the world. It’s exciting to think about what new colours will arrive on my painting palette for my future paintings. I definitely want to meet some of the amazing foragers from many different countries that I have been collaborating with and doing pigment swaps with – to see them in person and go frolicking in the mountains with discovering new rocks and new colours. I would like to explore the world and definitely dive deeper into foraging. I’m especially excited to look for more special and rare materials with exciting stories to tell.

Another thing I am excited to do is to continue honing my recipes for my materials as it is like cooking – recipes are never ‘done’. This is the great thing, there is so much we can do with it and it is the beginning for me. I have a lot to learn and discover so want to dedicate a lot of time now to diving even deeper into my materials. I’m also in the process of exploring some lost painting methods and recipes in Iran. Hopefully I can figure out some of the golden alchemy these fantastic painters of the past used and then bring that lost or hidden knowledge into my own art. It’s going to be a really explorative and exciting year!

To view more artwork by Hana Louise Shahnavaz visit: https://startartfair.com/2018-solo-hana-louise-shahnavaz or follow her on Instagram @hanaalchemyart

As the globe’s art lovers gather at Frieze London, Anna Wallace-Thompson interviews one of the world’s greatest living artists exclusively for LUX.  The expansive career of William Kentridge has seen him design opera sets, stage multidisciplinary performances and create hard-hitting and poignant drawings and animations. His work explores the legacy of apartheid, as well as the human condition, and the ever-repeating cycles of history and memory.

When William Kentridge was three years old, he wanted to be an elephant. At 15, he declared his intention to become a conductor, but was somewhat crestfallen to discover one needed to know how to read music in order to do this. In his twenties, he decided to attend theatre school, and it was there, he says, that he found the confidence to realise he would never become an actor. At 30, a friend broke the news to him: stop calling yourself a technician, or a set designer. You’re an artist! No more talking about ‘falling back’ on a sensible career – time to sink or swim. This should have come as no surprise, for Kentridge had always been drawing and creating – “to make sense of the world”. At 34, he had a breakthrough. His 1989 animated film Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris introduced an intrigued audience to the first of what would become nine films chronicling the rise and fall of the characters Soho Eckstein, his wife, and her lover Felix Teitelbaum – all brought to life, in charcoal, through a unique draw-and-erase stop-motion animation technique.

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Carnets d’Égypte (2010), a multimedia ‘excavation’ of ancient Egypt

In fact, the world of William Kentridge is defined by those dark, deft lines of charcoal, which, as he explains to me, “make us aware of the work we do in recognising what we are looking at”. They capture, in a few strokes, the nuances of bodies and personalities, joy and heartache. When animated, they appear and disappear over and over to create living, breathing figures; the erased traces of lines remaining in the background, marking the passing of time and the endurance of memory. Now, at 63, Kentridge is often referred to as South Africa’s Picasso, and his fiercely intelligent oeuvre encompasses those signature charcoal drawings and animations as well as sculpture and theatre. He also creates vast, multidisciplinary performances using shadow puppetry, music, dance and sculpture – so that theatre school wasn’t wasted after all. His work has appeared in museum shows around the world, most recently Thick Time at London’s Whitechapel Gallery (2016–17), and O Sentimental Machine (2018) at Frankfurt’s Liebieghaus. He also debuted a special performance at London’s Tate Modern in July, titled The Head & the Load. The latter is, he admits, is “filling all my thoughts at the moment. It is the most ambitious work I’ve done… even though it is not necessarily the largest.” For, of course, in addition to theatre, Kentridge also has decades of opera design under his belt – and that means whole choirs on stage.

Read more: Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar’s dialogue across time and space

Kentridge is also a striking man. He is not particularly tall, yet appears tall. His sharp features, marked by dark bushy eyebrows are at once stern yet kind, lending him a sort of old world grace and gravitas (it is telling that Linda Givon, founder of his long-time gallery, Goodman, has referred to him as “a genius and a gentleman”). His parents, Sydney and the late Felicia Kentridge, were anti-apartheid lawyers. During his career, the now 95-year-old Sydney defended Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu as well as the family of activist Steve Biko in the infamous Biko Inquest – investigating the death of the Black Consciousness Movement founder at the hands of police. Kentridge has spoken of the pervasive sense of “indignation and rage at the dinner table” during his childhood, as well as a now-famous story during which the young Kentridge, thinking it was full of sweets, accidentally stumbled upon a box full of police photographs of brutalised bodies being used as evidence. Those images, he recalls, percolated in his subconscious and found their way into his work decades later, and it was only then that he himself recalled the incident, and told his father.

‘O Sentimental Machine’ (2015) at Liebieghaus in Frankfurt

With this backdrop of apartheid, it is natural that there is violence in Kentridge’s art, but there is immense, overpowering beauty too. Much of his work is political – a ruthless yet contemplative exploration of the human condition and the ramifications and consequences of apartheid in South Africa in particular, but also events in general. History, for Kentridge, is a collage – a series of intermingling events each affecting the other, and it is his insight into ‘the other side’, the understanding that “everyone’s triumph is someone else’s lament” that gives it such an edge. “I imagine working with Kentridge is what it must have been like working with Charles Dickens or Shakespeare,” the Whitechapel’s Iwona Blazwick tells me. “He is a phenomenon. Of all the artists we’ve worked with, he’s the greatest polymath, and so open and excited to work with other people.”

Scenes from ‘The Head & the Load’ (2018) performance at London’s Tate Modern

This is the reason why, to define Kentridge’s work as exclusively South African would be misleading in many ways. Its impact and appeal lies in its ability to transcend cultural boundaries. Speaking in the documentary, Certain Doubts of William Kentridge, he has explained, “The work is political in that it takes the political part of the world as one of its subject matters, in the same way one could look at love or deception or the structure of personalities, as a subject to endlessly investigate and play with.” For him, it is the ambiguity of any ‘message’ in his work that allows him such freedom – and part of why he loves, and often uses, Dadaist elements, as reflective of a process of not making sense in order to make sense. In many ways, this is the essence of Kentridge, as is his interest in what he has dubbed ‘the less good idea’. He often quotes the adage “if the good doctor can’t cure you, find a less good doctor” – if one idea isn’t working, find the less good one, for that is where the interesting stuff truly happens.

When I meet him, he is in London to unveil a slightly different artistic project, namely, this year’s Vendemmia d’Artista, an annual artist commission by Italian super-winery Ornellaia. The collaboration feels natural, for Kentridge has something of a special relationship with Italy – evidenced most recently by the vast, 550-metre-long processional fresco, Triumphs and Laments, ‘reverse stencilled’ along the walls on the banks of the Tiber (high-pressure water was used to remove layers of dirt from the wall’s surface and create the images).

Kentridge’s Salmanazar creation for Ornellaia’s Vendemmia d’Artista

For Ornellaia’s 2015 Il Carisma, now in its 30th vintage, he has created special wine labels, drawing in charcoal on the pages of old Italian cash books sourced by him from flea markets in Tuscany. On them, he depicts grape pickers and wine secateurs, a shadow procession, as it were, of the people and tools involved in making wine, celebrating “a great harvest of hard labour”. And the secateurs? “I’m interested in things with hinges,” Kentridge explains. “It gives objects an anthropomorphism, and creates things that can walk.” Two of these figures will be realised as three-metre-high, painted steel sculptures and placed in the Ornellaia vineyard itself.

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The sale of these special bottles by Sotheby’s raised £123,000 for the Victoria & Albert Museum. The star piece, which went under the hammer for £50,000, is a Salmanazar with a mirrored casing. When placed upon a special drawing, it reflects a series of figures, bringing to life Kentridge’s vineyard procession. “The thing about mirror reflections is that you get an image without end,” Kentridge explains. “There is no edge to the form: it has a top and a bottom, but you can keep circling around. In this case it’s a static drawing of wine pickers, growers and makers, and at the Tate it will be humans carrying shadows along a long curve as they circle around a stage.”

Kentridge is referring to his most recent project, an expansive theatrical production marking the centenary of the First World War – and more specifically, the role of the millions of African porters and carriers who served (for the most part unacknowledged and forgotten in the historical record) in that war. The Head & the Load takes its name from a Ghanaian proverb (‘The head and the load are the troubles of the neck’) and draws on Kentridge’s vast experience of operatic production, set design, shadow puppetry, mechanised sculpture, dance and film projection. Debuting over the summer at Tate Modern, it saw Kentridge team up with his longtime composer collaborator Philip Miller as well as choreographer and dancer Gregory Maqoma to create a theatrical, musical procession.

“I am interested in processions for a couple of different reasons,” Kentridge muses. “One is that they have to do with human foot power – people moving themselves along. Obviously, this has echoes of migration, of refugees walking and the idea of human power moving from one part of the world to another.” The other aspect, he explains, is to do with lateral movement, referencing the analogy of Plato’s cave, in a processional work the figures move sideways to the viewer, rather than backwards and forwards (towards and away from). When they pass by us,we become passive, witnesses to the passage of time. “The world is filled with people, with loads on their backs and their heads, walking across the world,” he explains. “What is our relationship to that passage of passing?”

Stills from ‘Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris’

Plato is also key, as shadows have become one of Kentridge’s signature motifs, the use of monochrome (greatly influenced by what he sees as a rather bleak landscape around Johannesburg) evident in his animation works as well as in the use of large-scale shadow puppets and mechanical sculptures. “Colour had so many problems for me, associated with how one used it, that it stopped the question of what one was using it for,” Kentridge has said. “Charcoal, black and white, it’s much closer to writing… instead of writing with a pen, one’s writing in a shorthand with images and the images can always be at the service of something other than themselves – an idea, a theme, a question that’s being asked.”

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The use of shadow processions in his theatrical work, then, is an evolution of his schematic moving figures, as seen in films such as Ubu Tells the Truth, in which he combines moving puppets with charcoal animation. “There is something very simple about shadows, in that you take a basic shape, and when it’s cast as a shadow, one still recognises it,” says Kentridge.
“For example, without having to make a real model of a boat, you can cut out the silhouette of one, and everybody will recognise your boat – even though it’s just a few sticks and some cardboard. So in that sense, it is a sort of poor art form, yet it has a real richness of both allusion and illusion when you watch it.” There is a lot to be said for the democratising abilities of the ‘poor art form’ of silhouettes and puppets – indeed, in the 18th and 19th centuries, cut-paper silhouette portraits became a cheap and affordable alternative to photography or painting. “I hadn’t thought of them in that form specifically, but there is something very simple about them,” Kentridge responds. “A silhouette has a kind of life and a presence. We’re so good at recognising and putting meaning to a shape, so even if we don’t know how to draw something, we can recognise it as it appears in front of us. A lot of the pieces I create, when I look at them on the ground, I can’t quite tell what the image in front of me is, but as soon as it’s held up, and its shadow is cast, it reveals itself completely. I’ll be surprised, even though I made it – you can’t always predict what the shadow will be.”

When it comes to the theme of The Head & the Load, as with much of Kentridge’s work, it deals with historical events, human flow and facts that might otherwise slip through the fingers of history. During the First World War, there were over a million African casualties – of these about 30,000 were soldiers, but a staggering 300,000 were carriers, another 700,000 civilians. “I was astonished at my own ignorance at the start of the project, and the way in which these fatalities devastated different sections of Africa,” he says. “I also had no idea of the 300,000 Chinese in the Western Front, or the hundreds of thousands of Indian sepoys that were in Africa and in France.”

Kentridge’s fresco ‘Triumphs and Laments’ (2016) along the walls of the Tiber in Rome

It seems unfathomable that something like this could be so unknown. “I think this is because, all the air, as it were, has been taken by [the Eurocentric experience of] All Quiet on the Western Front and Wilfred Owen – that’s what we learned in school,” says Kentridge.
“That’s what one found so moving, and had such a strong connection to.” As a nod to this, The Head & the Load does feature a fragment of Owen’s poetry – translated, in true Kentridge Dadaist fashion, into forgotten French as well as a dog barking (“well, it might have metamorphosed now into a crow rather than a dog,” he twinkles) – Kentridge’s way of saying it’s time to remember other things as well, to be aware of someone else’s lament. The work stands as emblematic of the fraught relationship Africa has had with Europe since colonisation of the continent began, what Kentridge characterises as, “Europe not understanding Africa, not hearing Africa, and Africa having all of these expectations and hopes of Europe.” He pauses and smiles sadly. “As somebody said to me: ‘Not one of our dreams came true. Freedom! Oh, we missed the boat again.’ So yes, it’s incomprehensible.”

View William Kentridge’s portfolio: mariangoodman.com/artists/william-kentridge

Two side release clasps open the S177 wrist piece, mimicking the design of a supercar’s ‘gullwing’
doors.

British brand Senturion has launched a new limited collection of high-tech supercar key bracelets

Senturion’s latest collection of luxury tech-bracelets synchronise with your supercar, using embedded RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology, to function as an out-there alternative to a car key, on your wrist.

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The Senturion Key S17 collection is limited to only 177 pieces, which are fully customisable from the specifications and strap to the core finish, precious stones and personalised engravings.

S177 with PVD coated titanium, calf leather, rose gold and white diamonds, starting from £31,750

The piece is compatible with high performance cars such as Bentley, Ferrari, Rolls Royce, Bugatti, McLaren, Aston Martin, Lamborghini and Porsche, and starts at a base price of £15,850 for brushed titanium.

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Owners of bespoke Senturion Keys include Usain Bolt, Prince Albert II of Monaco, members of Chelsea F.C., Romain Grosjean and the Sultan of Brunei.

Our only gripe: LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai points out the Senturion Keys only work with the technology of the newest generation of Ferraris, meaning classic models like his can’t qualify.

Learn more about the production process of Senturion Key:

To find out more visit: senturionkey.com, or follow the brand on Instagram: @senturion_key