Jonathan Jones's Blog, page 230

Demons, mummies and ancient curses: should the British Museum be afraid?

The British museum already teems with spooky objects. Could an ancient Assyrian artwork prove one curse too many?

Is the British Museum afraid of an ancient Assyrian curse?

Surely not. The famous Bloomsbury museum possesses many spooky treasures that it displays without so much as a shudder. Its collection of Egyptian mummies is the stuff of Hammer horror. It possesses the magical accessories of the Elizabethan magus John Dee and a bronze Mesopotamian demon that fans of The Exorcist will have no trouble recognising as Pazuzu. Yet it is apparently unlikely to place a bid at Bonhams in London on 3 April for a fragment of an Assyrian stele that carries a curse written in cuneiform, even though it owns the other part of the relic.

Peter Doig: Early Works review 'A show all would-be artists should visit'

Michael Werner Gallery, London
In laying bare his first pieces, the British painter reveals how he bubbled over with excitement in his student days and teaches a valuable lesson in how artists can find their signature style

It takes a special kind of courage for a famous artist to drag 40-year-old apprentice pieces out of the attic and make an exhibition of them. Yet that is exactly what the celebrated painter Peter Doig has done for his new show Early Works.

How early? Many of these paintings and drawings, Doig reveals as we contemplate a sketch of a car with Michelangelo's David as a hood ornament, were done when he was a student at St Martin's art college in London in the early 1980s. "It was a great time to be studying painting", he remembers, with the 1981 exhibition unleashing free, figurative, "neo-expressionist" art and a feeling that anything was possible.

Sarah Lucas, Peter Doig and Martin Parr the week in art

Lucas will represent Britain at the 2015 Venice Biennale, plus Doig airs his earliest works and a Martin Parr pop-up restaurant opens its doors all in your fave weekly art dispatch

Peter Doig: Early Works
The admirable British painter revisits his early works in this disarming portrait of the artist as a young man.
Michael Werner Gallery, London W1K, until 31 May.

Urban art through the ages in pictures

Artists from Hogarth to Hockney and Delacroix to Daumier have long been fascinated by city life. Jonathan Jones rounds up some of the best from around the world

Classic paintings of cities meet Google Street View

Why Gagosian is the Starbucks of the art world and the saviour

Art dealer Larry Gagosian pushes the best work Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, Richard Wright, Urs Fischer and fills the gap in our public galleries with real taste and belief

The art dealer Larry Gagosian is to open two new galleries in New York, bringing the total number of Gagosian galleries around the world to 14.

Is the Gagosian empire like the Starbucks of contemporary art? A megalomaniac attempt to corner the art market?

Is Laser Cat the digital art sensation of 2014 or a joke?

It's inflatable, it feeds on art, and its eyes beam images on to a world where technology rules. Or so its creators claim. But surely there's a better artistic response to a tech-savvy century?

Why did the tech-age sitcom The IT Crowd end? I've no idea, but I like to think it had something to do with the speed of change in the 21st century. No sooner had Graham Linehan's scripts nailed one phase of the internet than suddenly they were out of date, as a whole new set of memes took over the asylum. Today, this recent comedy programme already looks quaint. You mean people used to use "laptops"?

The world is changing too fast for comedy. Is it also changing too fast for art?

Forget Bacon or Van Dyck this tiny stamp will make collectors go wild

A £12m stamp shows that modern collectors are driven by the same obsessive desire as Romans and Renaissance princes

The estimated auction price of a stamp that is coming up for sale at Sotheby's puts art in its place. The 1856 British Guiana one-cent magenta, whose last owner was John du Pont, the wealthiest convicted murderer in American history, is expected to fetch $10-$20m (£6-£12m) when it is auctioned in New York on 17 June. For comparison, a Francis Bacon portrait of Lucian Freud set a world record for art last year when it sold for $142m not exactly chicken feed, and more than 10 times the magenta's top estimate. But the Bacon painting is an imposing large-scale triptych. The stamp is literally the size of a postage stamp, since that's what it is, which could make it the most valuable object by weight and size ever sold.

Is Laser Cat the digital art sensation of 2014 – or a joke?

It's inflatable, it feeds on art, and its eyes beam images on to a world where technology rules. Or so its creators claim. But surely there's a better artistic response to a tech-savvy century?

Why did the tech-age sitcom The IT Crowd end? I've no idea, but I like to think it had something to do with the speed of change in the 21st century. No sooner had Graham Linehan's scripts nailed one phase of the internet than suddenly they were out of date, as a whole new set of memes took over the asylum. Today, this recent comedy programme already looks quaint. You mean people used to use "laptops"?

The world is changing too fast for comedy. Is it also changing too fast for art?

When it comes to art, the rapidity and scale with which technology is remaking our world naturally leads us to expect great things. So where are they?

Well, here's one contender for the title of digital art sensation of 2014. A couple of designers have come up with an installation called Laser Cat that has been hailed by Wired magazine. It's a giant cat that curates artworks and beams them out of of its eyes. It is a follow-up to the same duo's work Lionel Richie's Head, which allowed festivalgoers to enter Lionel Richie's head.

Christ, I don't even know what is digital about these efforts, except the creators say they reflect internet memes. "Cats are really big on the internet..."

I am obviously mistaken about The IT Crowd. The author is clearly still writing it, but he has gone underground and infiltrated his fictions into the pages of Wired magazine. Laser Cat is such a brilliant parody of unthinking trendiness. For a moment there I thought it was real.

Stuff like this gets taken up in the media because it sounds so down with the internet age. But culture does not work like that.

History shows that technological changes do not reshape art, thought or creativity in the simple way we imagine. Theorists have even come up with a term, "technological determinism", for the delusion that new technology in itself is what changes culture.

When printing was invented in the 16th century, it gave artists new ways to spread their work but it did not change the basic values of art itself. Even photography, the most radical change to visual image making in history, took more than a century to really transform the world of art.

Obviously, artists do respond to new technology, but it takes time. Real art comes from within. It has soul. There is a time lag for technology to be absorbed and experienced to the degree that soulful art can be made with it.

Video art is the obvious example. Television became universal in many places in the 1950s, but it took until the 1970s for artists to start making worthwhile experimental art with it. And it was not until the 1990s that such experiments entered the mainstream.

I reckon we will start to see the really intelligent, serious art of the digital age in about five to 10 years. On the other hand, the technology may have already changed so much by then that art cannot catch up.

In that case, we may be stuck with Laser Cat as this century's answer to the Shock of the New.

Watch Hungry Castle's video promoting Laser Cat

InstallationArtInternetCatsJonathan Jones
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Why Gagosian is the Starbucks of the art world – and the saviour

Art dealer Larry Gagosian pushes the best work – Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, Richard Wright, Urs Fischer – and fills the gap in our public galleries with real taste and belief

The art dealer Larry Gagosian is to open two new galleries in New York, bringing the total number of Gagosian galleries around the world to 14.

Is the Gagosian empire like the Starbucks of contemporary art? A megalomaniac attempt to corner the art market?

It may seem so, but this chain store of aesthetic delights is one of the best things happening to art right now. Gagosian is a force for good. This wealthy and powerful commercial enterprise acts as a genuine patron of the best in 21st-century art. Gagosian has standards, and they are impressively high. If you want to see the most serious art of today, it's a good bet you will find it in your local Gagosian.

I recently wandered awestruck among the great sculptor Richard Serra's mighty walls of steel at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. It reminded me that there has still not been a big Serra show at Tate Modern. But never fear. British art viewers did get a good chance to experience his art at its most ambitious – thanks to a terrific exhibition at Gagosian in London. The market thus filled a gap in our public galleries. With real taste and belief in art, this dealer champions (and of course sells) the best.

Gagosian's artists are not all mega money spinners either. The Turner prize winner Richard Wright makes elusive, often impermanent interventions. His art has been supported by Gagosian since before he got his Turner. He is at the opposite end of art from one of Gagosian's pop stars like Jeff Koons.

Yet what most impresses me about this gallery network is the support it can give to the very best and bravest art. The great painter Cy Twombly was represented by Gagosian and had shows at various Gagosian galleries right up to his death. The way he could keep making and showing art so effectively was a tribute to the gallery that enabled it all so smoothly.

It's easy to sneer at the mad prices and glib sales talk of the art market, but the art of today would be poorer without Gagosian. He is the one who pushes the best stuff – it does not get better than Serra or Twombly. And who has the first show at both his new Manhattan spaces? The brilliant Urs Fischer.

Walking into a Gagosian gallery almost always makes me optimistic about the future of art. Keep 'em coming, I say.

Richard SerraRichard WrightPaintingSculptureMuseumsJonathan Jones
theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Urban art through the ages – in pictures

Artists from Hogarth to Hockney and Delacroix to Daumier have long been fascinated by city life. Jonathan Jones rounds up some of the best from around the world …

Jonathan Jones