From Colour to Black and White
MUCA Gallery; Inge Morath Homage Exhibition
Hah, I’m quite the arty birdy!
When I heard the Oldies we were going to a modern art gallery, I thought I’d be out of my depth as usual. But I was chuffed that I immediately recognised the works of not just one, but two of the artists. Good old Andy Warhol is a very familiar face after our trip to Medzilaborce in Slovakia. Banksy, too, after our visit of the unofficial exhibition of his works in Lisbon. I was impressed to see that the Banksy works on display here at MUCA, the Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art, are the real deal. The owners started their collection 25 years ago, long before Banksy and many of the other artists were household names. Fair dues to them, they obviously had an eye for rising stars.
It was also fascinating to get to know some other mysterious urban artists such as Invader, who uses space invader type artwork to ‘invade’ cities all around the world. In Prague, I’d seen some fine examples of Cubism, but ‘Rubik Cubism’ was a new one on me!
These Soviet-style posters by Shepard Fairey, part of his ‘Obey Campaign’, are just brilliant. Putting them on display alongside original 1960s-1980s posters from the Soviet Union was a nice touch.
I was pleased to spot works by an Irish artist, Conor Harrington, included in the collection. Not that I understood what they were about, mind you. But what a talent!
The icing on the cake at MUCA is its Michelin-starred restaurant, Mural. Not that I got the chance to try that particular icing, sadly….
After all the colourful works at the MUCA, the Oldies went back to black and white. In the form of a photographic exhibition, ‘Inge Morath Homage’. I had also come across this Austrian photographer before, would you believe. Gosh, I hate to say it, but I’m really becoming a bit of a culture vulture after all. Yes, I had seen some of her photos at the La Gacilly Baden Photo Festival last year. And I was not averse to having a look at some more.
The photos themselves are outstanding. I particularly liked this one of a llama in a New York cab. Mad! Then again, a seagull in a caravan is not the most common sight either, I suppose…
What fascinated me even more, however, was Morath herself. I was glued to the video of a talk she gave a few years before she passed away, in which she told her life story. Born in Graz in 1923, she lived in Berlin, escaping to Austria on foot when the city was bombed during World War II… she worked as a translator, a journalist, an editor… while working with the great Henri Cartier-Bresson, she changed direction, building a career as a photographer against the odds… she travelled and worked in the Middle East, the Soviet Union, China, Africa during the 50s, 60s and 70s… her famous portraits are practically a ‘Who’s Who’ of Hollywood stars, artists and writers: Marilyn Monroe, Dustin Hoffman, Audrey Hepburn, Andy Warhol (yes, he keeps Popping up!), Pablo Picasso, Salman Rushdie, John Steinbeck …
Wow. There’s no doubt about it. Alongside all the greats she worked with and portrayed in her work, Morath herself was a great woman in her own right.
