Tuesday, 22 July 2008

DAILY MIRROR | "Too rude" nude is exposed 60 years on | 22 July 2008

DAILY MIRROR | "Too rude" nude is exposed 60 years on | 22 July 2008

Above | DAILY MIRROR, "Too rude" nude is exposed 60 years on

Sir Gerald Festus Kelly's "Newport Nude" hit the national headlines in the Daily Mirror once again today, Tuesday 22 July 2008.

See below for the controversy surrounding Festus Kelly's feisty nude when it was exhibited at Newport Museum and Art Gallery in 1947, with a petition for its removal and a headline in the DAILY MIRROR, A Bishop Objects to "Nude" Bought by Town (31 Dec 1947)


THE NUDE | Case study: Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, D.D. V (a) (Nude Study) (1924)

Click on images to view ( opens in flickr).

THE ART OF THE NUDE: ARTISTS EXPLORE THE HUMAN FORM | Guest Curators John Wilson & Roger Cucksey | Newport Museum and Art Gallery | 19 July - 20 September 2008

An exhibition exploring the genre of the nude in the permanent collections of the Newport Museum and Art Gallery.

Saturday, 19 July 2008

THE ART OF THE NUDE | Video clip of the exhibition opening

THE ART OF THE NUDE: ARTISTS EXPLORE THE HUMAN FORM | John Wilson & Roger Cucksey, Guest Curators | Newport Museum and Art Gallery, 18 July - 20 Sept 2008

> View | video clip to record the exhibition opening by painter Harry Holland on 18 July



> Listen




THE ART OF THE NUDE | Exhibition opening 18 July 2008THE ART OF THE NUDE | Exhibition opening 18 July 2008THE ART OF THE NUDE | Exhibition opening 18 July 2008THE ART OF THE NUDE | Exhibition opening 18 July 2008THE ART OF THE NUDE | Exhibition opening 18 July 2008THE ART OF THE NUDE | Exhibition opening 18 July 2008THE ART OF THE NUDE | Exhibition opening 18 July 2008THE ART OF THE NUDE | Exhibition opening 18 July 2008THE ART OF THE NUDE | Exhibition opening 18 July 2008THE ART OF THE NUDE | Exhibition opening 18 July 2008THE ART OF THE NUDE | Exhibition opening 18 July 2008THE ART OF THE NUDE | Exhibition opening 18 July 2008

Harry Holland | "It's a great pleasure for me to open the exhibition THE ART OF THE NUDE.

"Football fields of flesh have been painted of the nude.

I could speak about the theme of the nude in relation to the beauty of the human form.

I could speak of the nude and the erotic. The nude and the divine.

What I would say is that the practical aspect of painting the nude is a real challenge - dealing with the model is a real challenge. For the model is always complaining - it's either too cold in the studio, or it's too hot; the model is either upset about a boyfriend, or else on a high". [Paraphrase from memory. JW]



* "Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed" - William Blake

* "The body always expresses the spirit whose envelope it is. And for him who can see, the nude offers the richest meaning" - Auguste Rodin

* "I was trained as a painter. I'm very familiar with the nude body, masculine and feminine. I do, I suppose have a soapbox position, and I want to be certain that the human body is in the center of the frame." - Peter Greenaway, Film- maker


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Monday, 7 July 2008

THE ART OF THE NUDE | Exhibition opening 18 July 2008

The exhibition THE ART OF THE NUDE will be opened by painter Harry Holland on Friday 18 July 2008

* Contact Newport Museum and Art Gallery for attendance details
* View ART OF THE NUDE: Exhibition leaflet (pdf)


THE ART OF THE NUDE: ARTISTS EXPLORE THE HUMAN FORM | Guest Curators John Wilson & Roger Cucksey | Newport Museum and Art Gallery | 19 July - 20 September 2008

An exhibition exploring the genre of the nude in the permanent collections of the Newport Museum and Art Gallery.

> View | THE ART OF THE NUDE - exhibition selection process



> Listen





* "Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed" - William Blake

* "The body always expresses the spirit whose envelope it is. And for him who can see, the nude offers the richest meaning" - Auguste Rodin

* "I was trained as a painter. I'm very familiar with the nude body, masculine and feminine. I do, I suppose have a soapbox position, and I want to be certain that the human body is in the center of the frame." - Peter Greenaway, Film- maker


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Tuesday, 1 April 2008

THE ART OF THE NUDE




























THE ART OF THE NUDE: ARTISTS EXPLORE THE HUMAN FORM | Guest Curators John Wilson & Roger Cucksey | Newport Museum and Art Gallery | July - September 2008

An exhibition exploring the genre of the nude in the permanent collections of the Newport Museum and Art Gallery.














"Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed" - William Blake

"The body always expresses the spirit whose envelope it is. And for him who can see, the nude offers the richest meaning" - Auguste Rodin

"I was trained as a painter. I'm very familiar with the nude body, masculine and feminine. I do, I suppose have a soapbox position, and I want to be certain that the human body is in the center of the frame. Its physicality is important and is always very, very strongly positive because I think that that physicality would begin to lose perspective over all the other senses" - Peter Greenaway, Film-maker


Resources

  • Video clip [1]: The selection process for the exhibition [ Posted 1 April 2008]





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Saturday, 13 October 2007

CHARTIST NEWPORT

Announcing:

CHARTIST NEWPORT














website | blog | flickr

A Newport Museum and Art Gallery project to document the heritage of Chartism and public art in Newport and South Wales. | Produced by Roger Cucksey, Keeper of Art, Newport Museum and Art Gallery & John Wilson, Guest Curator.
















Commencing with documentation of the the Newport Chartist Mural, we move on to explore the wider context of public art in Newport in which the popular celebration of Chartism is to the fore, and then further afield to look at the wider landscape of Chartism and its commemorative landmarks in Monmouthshire and South Wales as a whole, and finally a consideration of the historical interpretation of Chartism. | Read more: Project outline

The project was seeded with funding support from Modus and Public Art Wales in order to commence the Newport Chartist Mural Documentation exercise.

We are seeking new project partners to continue to build our online resources.

mural | public art | landmarks | history | resources


John Wilson, Guest Curator, Chartist Newport | 13 Oct 2007


CHARTIST LANDMARKS

We commence our online resources with an exercise in Mapping Chartist Newport:


















Some selected Chartist landmarks - highlighting the geography of Chartism in Newport, the industrial valleys and iron-districts of Monmouthsire and the "Hills", plus some wider South Wales connections. [Work in progress]


[1] A geography of Chartism: From Westgate Square to the Chartist Caves
( v_0.1 | 10 Oct 2007)

Visualization:

* chartistprism
* flickr map
* postcard
* desktop
* tags



[2] The signs on the street: Chartist prism

Defamiliarizing the landmark

* chartistprism

Walking the street - we tend to pass by everyday familiar landmarks; despite their size they dissolve from our very sight. Public statues and other forms of public art are no exception - the noble becomes a traffic island, we do not enquire into his past deeds.


















Chartism - the signs on the street of a memorialized past - in public statues, memorials, plaques and other forms of public art. The signs on the street. Fragmented signs and space; or, heroic narrative and place of Chartism? Sites of memory and forgetting, sedition and freedom, power and struggle.



















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Thursday, 4 October 2007

NEWS | Art: Review to consider digital plan


























Caption |
SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME? Guest curator John Wilson and Keeper of art Roger Cucksey, look at Newport Museum and Art Gallery's first on-line exhibition, Documenting the City, in April this year


Art: Review to consider digital plan | South Wales Argus, 3 Oct 2007


Excerpt:

Newport has a wealth of art treasures, including work by LS Lowry, Sir Stanley Spencer, Dame Laura Knight and Hans Feibusch.

But with space at a premium, just five per cent of the gems are on public display.

Now public watchdogs are to look at how to increase public access to the collection, which could include virtual viewing.

Cllr Davies suggested the authority's culture and recreation scrutiny forum should examine the issue. (...)

Earlier this year, we reported how Newport's Keeper of Art, Roger Cucksey, and Guest curator, John Wilson, launched the gallery's first ever on-line exhibition, Documenting the City.

Mr Cucksey told the Argus he hoped the council would be able to offer the financial support to continue online archiving.

This in-depth review is likely to consider whether parts of the collection could be digitised and made available on-line.

A final report is not expected to go to cabinet member Councillor Ron Jones until next April. (...)

Read the full text here | Argus online version here

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Wednesday, 1 August 2007

ART IN NEWPORT | Projects archive

Work is in progress for the Art in Newport projects archive here, to record projects produced by John Wilson as Guest Curator for the Newport Museum and Art Gallery.
























LIST OF PROJECTS

EXPLORATIONS










THE EXPLORATIONS SERIES

Exploring the Newport Museum and Art Gallery collections - themes

[2] The Art of Collecting (2007)
[1] The Poetics of Place: Industrial South Wales (2004-07)



ART AND SOCIETY IN NEWPORT







THE ART AND SOCIETY IN NEWPORT SERIES

Exploring art and society in Newport - surveys

[3] Documenting the City: Art and Society in Newport (2007)
[2] Documenting the Twentieth Century (2000)
[1] James Flewitt Mullock and the Victorian Achievement (1993)

















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