Tuesday, 3 April 2012

Vancouver Art Gallery Review , The 1960s


I have just been to see and highly recommend visiting LIGHTS OUT! 
Canadian Painting from the 1960s on view in the Vancouver art gallery, from Feb 18th until the 29th of April 2012. The retrospective exhibition presents a variety of paintings that relating to the important period of 1960s, it was a period that refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe. This "cultural decade" is more loosely defined than the actual decade, beginning around 1963 and ending around 1974[1].In Vancouver, the Vancouver art gallery held numbers collection of paintings form the 1960s, especially from Canadian artists, such as Suzanne Bergeron, Ronald Bloore, Yves Gaucher, Kenneth Lochhead, Michael Morris, Michael Snow, etc. throughout the show you will discovered that the art works from 1960s reflects the variety and potency of this remarkable period.
There are two art works that are inspiring and influence me the most, one is Charles Gagnon’ Blind Spaces with Plumbline 1968 and Gershon Iskowitz’s Sunset 1960. The first one is a white monochrome painting by Charles Gagnon, the first reason that the painting is attracting me is because it was hang on the gallery against a white wall, which seems transform in to s single unit with the wall. From the distance you can see a pure white painting with small and messy brushstrokes, but when you go close to the painting you can see many details that create by the brushes and within each upstrokes you can see the artist’s strong individuality, the free spirit and the qualities of openness, enthusiasm, genuine curiosity and determination that continue to be the wellspring of a substantial body of work that is original and complex[2]. Its coherence is remarkable and exemplary from every point of view. Although the panting is a monochrome with barely single color, however the meaning behind it and with the relation to the culture and social phenomenon in the period of 1960s creates its most significant historical meaning.
The next painting is by Gershon Iskowitz, it is a painting named Sunset; it is a painting that placed with other artist’s works around a corner in the gallery, although it was placed with others the color and atmosphere of the painting creates its own characteristics and personality. The painting is a landscape painting in an abstract expressionist style. The paining mostly composed of warm colors, however the combination of these colors creating a lonely sense and the Loneliness has occupied the whole painting to me. Many different colors have applied to the canvas and these colors are perfectly combined, mixed and crossed with each other, the brushstrokes are clearly seen by viewer’s eyes but there is a distance creates between the viewer and the painting, which to me is the atmosphere of the painting. The color all-together create a sense of mystery, distance and it perfectly reflects the period of 1960s, the rise and downfall of that period, just like the sunset.


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960s#Visual_artists.2C_painters_and_sculptors
[2] http://www.canadacouncil.ca/

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