Message in a bottle

This gargantuan painting by Peter Doig has just been unveiled at Tate Britain, palm trees must be in vogue! His painting is entitled Ascension and was originally shown at Westminster Cathedral last year, as a backdrop to a performance by pianist Stephen Hough. Today I constructed my own 8ft palm tree out of cardboard tubes and newsprint paper and ventured out into the streets of central London with it, will post the photos of the results soon...

I happened to be at Tate Britain this evening (although too late to see the painting, as the galleries were closed) for a debate on multiculturalism in art, centred around the latest piece of work to be unveiled on the fourth plinth, Yinka Shonibare's "Nelson's Ship in a Bottle". The debate ended up focusing on the way we articulate the notions of ethnic minorites and race relations, and particularly whether positive discrimination is a good thing, raised controversially by the author of this article and sparking heated discussion. I'm yet to see the rather impressive looking sculpture, but the critics seem unanimous in praise for its ambiguous subversion of and/or celebration of empire.

Some thoughts

I went to the Tate today to see the Chris Ofili exhibition and was largely impressed, his paintings that chart the post-colonial black experience are bold, colourful, and often deliver powerful messages whilst still being concerned with the formal and material qualities of his mixed media approach (an early feature of his work was the use of elephant dung). Whilst meandering around before entering the exhibition I came across a room of paintings by an old favourite of mine, James Abbott McNeil Whistler, paintings which I had not realised had been on show. As well as inspiring a certain sense of awe of his beautiful use of paint, it got me thinking about one of his key concerns, that of 'art for art's sake'. It's true, art can have a message or a concept behind it, but at the end of the day is it not its sole purpose to be an object of aesthetic desire? Ofili's work, in my mind, addresses this dilemma, holding a mirror up to a certain part of society whilst still being beautifully and intricately crafted.

The Upper Room installation, a series of thirteen paintings installed in a purpse-built wooden 'chapel' is a perfect example of how Ofili's work is inherent in references and contexts - the thirteen paintings are based on a screen print by Andy Warhol of a monkey holding a chalice and their installation draws comparison wit the Rothko Chapel, placing them in a long line of painting tradition, yet also suggesting such religious connotations as the Last Supper and the Hindu god Hanuman - whilst at the same time being a shrine to the power of painting itself, reminding us that art needs not rely on the footnotes explaining every last shred of context in a desperate attempt for us to 'understand' it. For certain, these footnotes can exist, and it is important that a work of art is aware of and engages with the history it is a part of, but for it to stand alone in its own right is what makes it truly worthy.