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National portrait gallery doors
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Message
Posted
I may be in a minority of one here but I'd be very interested to see what others feel.
Tracey Emin was asked to produce drawings of female faces for the panels on the new doors of the National Portrait Gallery. I think they are inept and that pretty much anyone on POL could have done a better job. I think she was given the commission because she has the name and it was nothing to do with the quality (or otherwise) of her art.
Am I being am miserable git or do I have a point?
I was going to include three pictures but the site won't let me upload them.
Edited
by Peter Smith
Posted
They work for me also, they’ve been deliberately kept simple because of the process of transferring the drawings to the bronze panel on the door - I’d like to see them all though before totally committing myself!
I’m no fan of her either, but she’s been very clever at marketing herself over the years!
Edited
by Alan Bickley
Posted
Peter - not ALL marketing, maybe? I think Emin has talent; talent which has been monetarily and, I think, excessively rewarded; because she has contacts, which to be entirely fair she made for herself. She went to where she'd be accepted and promoted, she worked in media which rewarded her particular talents. She, and others, played the art world's game; not necessarily by giving it what it wanted, but what she gave it chimed with the avant gardistes at the time. It's made her very wealthy - and that may rankle with those of us who plod on with traditional materials and methods (which is a reductive statement, really: it's so much more complicated than that).
Even so - OK, she's played that world's game and beaten it; and has produced very little work in her 40-plus year career which appeals to me in any way at all; she has aroused my hostility in the past - but then: there's some virtue in that; not in annoying me (which is childishly easy to do) but in subverting what I and others expect artists to be doing. At this point, I am wading out of my depth, so will yield what little ground remains beneath my feet to others.
Posted
Peter, I don't know anything about this artist but I do watch a lot of documentaries on all manner of things. When I've watched such, on cave drawings, It amazes me that, people, us, evolving, found the necessity to document an art form. It is truly miraculous, it exists to this day. I'm an avid news watcher and I remember seeing an article about this door somewhere. I quite liked the simplicity of it. I also liked the fact that Bronze, lasts for a very long time. So I think to myself, It's a raw piece from someone talented and clever because people will enjoy and discuss this piece of art for hundreds of years to come. I think this artist has been holistic in her approach.
Posted
Agreed. One doesn't have to admire Emin - that's a matter of individual judgement; but I think these doors work; well - I've said that already! Other opinions are, though, always available. Art is a many splendoured thing - it doesn't have to conform to that which we think acceptable, or fitting into the canon. Still - I'll reserve final judgement until I've seen them in situ (which might not be for a very long time, since I hardly stir from the Isle of Wight these days).
Posted
Just caught up with this. I recently went on an art binge to London, the National Portrait Gallery was on my agenda but was closed for renovations...a pity, I might have seen these doors. I'm not a fan of Tracey Emin. I know it's all in the eye of the beholder, but in this case the 'beholder' definitely needs glasses. To give her her dues, she's made it in the art world, with no discernible talent that I can see. But, to my surprise, the glimpse we get from the photo on this thread looks OK. As has been said, we need to see the whole doors, preferable for real, before we can reasonably assess them.
When I read the intro to this thread, I was thinking 'Tracey Emin's designs on the National Portrait Gallery's doors??? No, no, no, NOOOO! But maybe it's yes, YES. Who'd have thought?
Copied and pasted these...not an Emin fan but woukd like to see them in situ.