The format of Desert Island Discs allows you to choose eight records (or in this case art), an inanimate luxury that has no practical use and a favourite book (excluding the Bible and Shakespeare - as these already await the "castaway").
As my ideal island is a sociable one, I imagine there are few consolations for life on a deserted one. I have wondered about the wisdom of arriving with a compilation of past preferences (be they art or records) rather than holiday reading. However, hoping I will never need pack for it, these are my desert island 'discs'.
1. Popova, Dress Fabric design, 1923-24
A suitcase full of textiles by Anni Albers, Maija Isola, Aalto and Pucci would
console me. In the interests of travelling light, I would simply choose Popova's
pattern because it comes from a moment when textile design was understood as
revolutionary - as well as more important than easel painting. The boldness
of her design and its seductive diagonal stripes remind me of my early interest
in art or the felt, folk patterns, striped rugs, eye-popping agapanthus print,
cross-stitch samplers and other aspects of the mania for making that filled
the house I grew up in.
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Popova dress fabric, 1923-24 |
2. Antonello da Messina, St Jerome in his study (about
1474)
According to Harrt, this small portrait of St Jerome at work, "is a complete microcosm
of its own, yet reflects as in a sphere of crystal the vastness of the outside
world." In Art History class at school this was the first painting we got to exercise
our iconographic skills on. Later I saw it in Room Four of the National Gallery
in London, alongside Piero della Francesca's The Baptism of Christ, his
unfinished Nativity, and Bellini's portrait of the Doge of Venice wearing clove
of garlic-like knots down his creamy brocade jacket. Like noticing that Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon only just fitted between the ceiling and carpeted floor
at MoMA, I have never forgotten my first view of the Room Four arrangement.
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Antonello da Messina St Jerome in his Study |
3. Andy Warhol, Silver Clouds (1966)
Created for an exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery, Warhol's helium-filled silver
clouds moved with the air currents. Warhol's work encompasses many of the extremes
of art that interest me. This is cerebral art by a traditional art skill genius:
he was a brilliant colorist who drew fantastically.
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Andy Warhol
Silver Clouds, 1966 |
4. Richard Killeen, Please Fax Me Now (1998)
I would be happy with any of Killeen's fascinatingly sprawling,
everything-is-political art. His combination of social observation and
graphic invention is written large in his smallest cutouts, like this
Matchbox Economy work, drawn on fifty jeweller's tags and conveniently
packed in a Beehive matchbox.
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Richard Killeen
To see more Richard Killeen works, visit www.richardkilleen.com |
5. Jacqueline Fraser, The Benediction of Goat Island
Our Saviour: And this is the seeping algae that choked the strutting godwit (1998)
Goat Island (Mapoutahi) was returned to Ngai Tahu in 1997 as part of a
Treaty of Waitangi settlement. This mercurial work made of telephone
wire reminds me of the way art both comments on and becomes the culture.
In a fax to the German curator, Rene Blok, Jacqueline Fraser wrote, "the
aesthetics of my work are Christian Dior". I like her improbable
translations of stories of colonial loss and destruction via the
language of French couture.
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Jacqueline Fraser
The Benediction of Goat Island Our Saviour: And this is the seeping algae that choked the strutting godwit, 1998 Courtesy Roslyn Oxley Gallery, Sydney |
6. Yvonne Todd, Dior (2002)
Todd's Dior from Bellevue, her striking series of photographs of women
cosmeticians, has an unreachable air I associate with Rutu, Rita Angus's
1951 self-portrait as a blonde Polynesian goddess. Todd's work makes me think
about writing about art, or more accurately, writing about Sea of Tranquility,
her earlier series of female portraits, which left me unable to make sense of
my own response let alone account for the work's mystery.
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Yvonne Todd
Dior, 2002 |
7. Goya's portraits of the Spanish Royal family (from
Charles III to Fernando VII)
It seems a good idea to include something I haven't seen. Juergen
Teller's unflattering photographs of Paris couturier clients have lately
made me curious to see these Goya's.
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Francisco de Goya Maria Luisa in a mantilla |
8. Octavia Cook, Cook & Co Parrot Cameo, 2004
Octavia Cook's overscale parrot cameo made of glossy pea green plastic
and sterling silver would be a good look on a desert island. The Parrot
was the subject of my first school project. I was pleased I could choose
a subject so quickly, but not until the night before it was due did I
confide to my mother that I had no idea what the word project meant.
Fortunately she was a librarian, had no hesitation about projects, and
sat with me at the desk in my room, dictating sentences about the native
parrot and helping me cut out parrots from the National Geographic.
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Octavia Cook
Cook & C Parrot Cameo, 2004 |
9. Book:
Persuasion by Jane Austen
I read Northanger Abbey in the Himalayas, so this time would take Persuasion.
10. A Luxury:
The 12th century marble pavement of Venice's Basilica di San Marco
An expanse of geometric pattern walked over for centuries would improve a desert island.
Anna Miles Gallery
Suite 4J, 47 High St, Auckland.
Phone (09) 3774788
www.annamilesgallery.com
Best access to the gallery is from 47 High St.
Take the lift along from the World Man store to the Fourth Floor.
The Gallery is open Thursdays & Fridays 11-6, Saturdays 11-4 and by appointment. The next exhibition, Surfdale by Kate Small opens on Thursday 7 April at 6pm