Clive Head: Modern Perspectives | Exhibitions | The National Gallery, London

Clive Head talks about his paintings, Canaletto and the limitations of photography - with the National Gallery's Colin Wiggins.

'Clive Head: Modern Perspectives' is on at the National Gallery from 13 October - 28 November 2010:
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/clive-head-modern-pers...

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• clive
• head
• national
• gallery
• exhibition
• landscape
• canaletto
• 13
• october
• 28
• november
• modern
• perspectives

[RayAndFlare]

@pingtran This makes no sense. Head rejects all known spatial algorithms, be they perspectival, photographic or digital for a unique invention of space in each painting. His paintings offer a resolution to his movement through space. The locations exist but the view is an invention. This an art of defining space and defining existence, not the assertion of known conventions. Have we forgotten the human enterprise of the artist who can draw afresh rather than render dumb and common solutions?

[RayAndFlare]

Sony have programmed a formula for stitching together photos that crudely abutt to extend the panoramic photograph. Head does not use photographs that always abutt, often they do not as they are taken from different positions. Head does not assemble this information in accordance with any known fomula. No formual could possibly exist and each pictorial solution is non-transferable to another painting. This is remarkable, way ahead of photography, elitist and not of our popular culture.

[nicholi2789]

That is exactly where my mind ran for defense of photographs, was PANORAMAS and you can get that effect that the painting had. Yet it was done by hand, and that is what makes it more unique aside from photography. The act of man made art entices me more than photos! I find it fascinating, this type of art! Good stuff! It is like Castle of Illusion, MC Escher

[RayAndFlare]

@SurfacePrimer I'm more than aware of what Head does. You don't have to explain it to me. Copying photographs is a part of it but he creates a view which is unseeable. And it's not really just a "slight" change. Perhaps you should try doing what he does, or looking at his work in more depth rather than just dismissing him as just another photorealist? I've seen your other comments, they show quite a lot of ignorance sir.

[SurfacePrimer]

@pingtran haha exactly !

[SurfacePrimer]

@RayAndFlare In simple terms. Head creates a drawing based on a London scene. He experiments with the perspective of the drawing - the creative stage - then colours it in copying photographs! this is just a slightly more creative version of photorealism

[cheadism]

@pingtran Seen here, it is inevitable that it will be thought of in the context of photography. That is the predominant mode in common culture. Most realist painting today also aspires to be photographic. But the history of representational painting is very different, each artist re-inventing the language of painting to resolve their own experiences. If cited in this context (as at the National Gallery) it does hopefully elicit a different response. I don't categorize, it just must be credible.

[pingtran]

FAO Cheadism.

It is a shame after all that hard work people will think it is just a view from a vantage point of one person rather than an impossible perspective for one human eyed being to perceive it from. Brilliantly executed though and I really love all the work I have seen of yours. Have you always done such, dare I say it after what has gone before, photo real paintings?. What would you categorize your art style as?

[RayAndFlare]

@pingtran To be honest I think you're using the "art snob talk" card because you really don't know what you're talking about. The special effects you get with your camera can't really be projected onto a canvas the exact way the human mind pictures it. Head creates his paintings using his mind, not some cheap effects with a camera. There, I didn't use any long scary words, did you find that easy to follow?

[cheadism]

RayandFare is factually correct, though for a fuller account Michael Paraskos' book on me is excellent. The nub of what I do is in the use of a different way of making space to that which underpins photography and CGI. It is open ended, not fixed and different in each painting. Canaletto does this too. Also many decisions are made to create harmonies and rhythms that do not exist in reality. The location is real but this view is an invention based on. Others must judge if that is valid. C Head

[pingtran]

Oooh get you! arent you the arty farty critic Mr RayAndFlare or should I say Mr Sewell.

I see you are using the old chesnut of spatial algorithms and other art critic speak which does not make a lot of sense if one analises it. It is just art snob talk. The view is not invention, I have seen the photos that this work is based on and it is a real location as shown in the painting and as could be reproduce by a panoramic camera. Cannaletto (sic) rules!!!