Rebranding is usually associated with the renaming of an already established brand in order to reposition it in terms of its market. Sometimes it’s about institutions trying to turn themselves into something else. Both might well apply to the National Museum of Art, Cardiff.
The new art museum is, in fact, a series of integrated galleries within the National Museum Cardiff. Whereas modern and contemporary art used to be confined to just one room, it now has six galleries in the West Wing.
What is apparently the biggest space of its kind in Wales is intended to demonstrate “the strength and range of art produced in Wales since the 1950s, and how this relates to the international scene”.
The museum has a couple of displays based on its collections, People, Politics and Painting: Art in Postwar Wales; and Expressive Bodies: Art and the Body Since 1950.
There is also a gallery dedicated to the Derek Williams Trust (Williams was a collector and ultimately the gallery’s benefactor), and an installation by the artist group Common Culture. Lastly, there is a National Portrait Gallery (NPG) touring show, The Queen: Art and Image.
In general, what is on offer is neither very contemporary, nor very Welsh, but predominantly “modern British” – with a particular emphasis on the 1950s.
Touring Queen
I did wonder whether the creation of this West Wing, like its more famous namesake, might be, fundamentally, about politics. Arguably, nothing could be more political than The Queen: Art and Image.
One of the first displays you encounter in the Welsh manifestation of the exhibition focuses on protests by Welsh nationalists, the Welsh Language Society in particular, prompted by the Queen’s visits to Wales.
But the exhibition has far subtler undertones than this might suggest. By the time it opens in London in May, it will have been seen in all three of the UK’s other capital cities. This, in itself, is pretty extraordinary – as is the inclusion of commissions not yet seen at the NPG.
The exhibition is being promoted on the basis of its bringing together more than 60 of portraits of the monarch made during her 60-year reign. The potential punter could be forgiven for assuming that there might be a lot of that kind of thing about during the Diamond Jubilee year.
Indeed, one of the four jubilee exhibitions being organised by the Royal Collection is actually called The Queen: Sixty Photographs for Sixty Years.
It would be perfectly understandable if the Royal Collection were to dominate the 2012 royal exhibition market. It has already collaborated with the BBC on The Art of Monarchy, a Radio 4 series that explores our sovereigns through the works
of art they acquired.
At worst, these kinds of markers can be predictable, deferential and platitudinous: the BBC’s other major Jubilee-related series, Andrew Marr’s Diamond Queen has already been accused of being all three.
Thankfully, The Queen: Art and Image confounds any such expectations. It does this by deconstructing some of the best-known images of the Queen.
These include formal images, in which she is represented in all her regal splendour, as well as in “informal” photographs, many of which were taken by her cousin, Patrick Lichfield. Other pictures featured here include those created with and without Buckingham Palace’s approval.
The Queen: Art and Image is arranged chronologically. Taking Dorothy Wilding’s 1952 bromide, hand-coloured by Beatrice Johnson, as a starting point, it explores how one of the most familiar subjects in the world has been depicted. In doing that, it presents an intriguing survey of 20th-century portraiture.
One of the exhibition’s themes is the increasing loss of discretion and reverence exhibited towards Her Majesty. This is, arguably, at its most exposed in what Kim Dong-Yoo identifies as Elizabeth vs Diana.
Other images link the monarch with (undesirable) political positions. There is fascism, in Jamie Reid’s design for the Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen, and Gilbert and George’s collages, which are presented in the heraldic form of the cross-potent. And British imperialism features in Hew Locke’s Medusa.
Visual literacy
A great strength of this show is that it brings together a collection of images whose surface appearance is manifestly disconnected from underlying reality.
This is quite literally the case in Gerhard Richter’s blurred lithograph, based on a photo of the Queen, taken during her visit to West Germany in 1965 (she was the first monarch to go there for more than 50 years), and in Hiroshi Sugimoto’s beautiful, but disconcerting, gelatin silver print of a wax effigy.
Many other contemporary artists have also made images at several steps removed from their subject. The significance of Andy Warhol’s Queen Elizabeth II screenprints, for instance, depends entirely on the artist’s treatment of a familiar image.
However, some of the most astonishing images in the exhibition are those made with the Queen’s willing participation. Annie Leibovitz revisits Annigoni and Beaton’s iconography of the 1950s and 1960s, depicting her draped in an admiral’s cloak, but standing alone in a muted, broody landscape – presumably one of the palace’s gardens.
Lucian Freud and Chris Levine both represent the Queen wearing the Diamond Diadem (as per her image on stamps and bank notes).
Levine’s Lightness of Being, captures her momentary closing her eyes, as though wearied by the weight of the crown and all that it represents.
Perhaps the most audacious image is Thomas Struth’s Diamond Jubilee portrait of the Queen and her consort. They are represented as an elderly couple, stripped of their usual regalia, sitting (as if trapped) by the baroque interior of the Green Room at Windsor.
We’re often referred to as a visually literate nation, but we rarely reflect on the distinction between what is, or can be, articulated visually rather than verbally.
By the end of June, we’ll doubtless be suffering from a surfeit of cliched accounts of the Queen and why we should preserve the institution of monarchy. The Queen: Art and Image will seem like a breath of fresh air.
It’s not just the quality of the pictures that distinguishes The Queen: Art and Image from the other displays in Cardiff, but the astute intelligence of its curation. It’ll be a real challenge for the National Museum of Art to maintain the kind of standard set by this exhibition.
Sara Selwood is a researcher, writer and independent consultant. She is a former trustee of the National Portrait Gallery
The new art museum is, in fact, a series of integrated galleries within the National Museum Cardiff. Whereas modern and contemporary art used to be confined to just one room, it now has six galleries in the West Wing.
What is apparently the biggest space of its kind in Wales is intended to demonstrate “the strength and range of art produced in Wales since the 1950s, and how this relates to the international scene”.
The museum has a couple of displays based on its collections, People, Politics and Painting: Art in Postwar Wales; and Expressive Bodies: Art and the Body Since 1950.
There is also a gallery dedicated to the Derek Williams Trust (Williams was a collector and ultimately the gallery’s benefactor), and an installation by the artist group Common Culture. Lastly, there is a National Portrait Gallery (NPG) touring show, The Queen: Art and Image.
In general, what is on offer is neither very contemporary, nor very Welsh, but predominantly “modern British” – with a particular emphasis on the 1950s.
Touring Queen
I did wonder whether the creation of this West Wing, like its more famous namesake, might be, fundamentally, about politics. Arguably, nothing could be more political than The Queen: Art and Image.
One of the first displays you encounter in the Welsh manifestation of the exhibition focuses on protests by Welsh nationalists, the Welsh Language Society in particular, prompted by the Queen’s visits to Wales.
But the exhibition has far subtler undertones than this might suggest. By the time it opens in London in May, it will have been seen in all three of the UK’s other capital cities. This, in itself, is pretty extraordinary – as is the inclusion of commissions not yet seen at the NPG.
The exhibition is being promoted on the basis of its bringing together more than 60 of portraits of the monarch made during her 60-year reign. The potential punter could be forgiven for assuming that there might be a lot of that kind of thing about during the Diamond Jubilee year.
Indeed, one of the four jubilee exhibitions being organised by the Royal Collection is actually called The Queen: Sixty Photographs for Sixty Years.
It would be perfectly understandable if the Royal Collection were to dominate the 2012 royal exhibition market. It has already collaborated with the BBC on The Art of Monarchy, a Radio 4 series that explores our sovereigns through the works
of art they acquired.
At worst, these kinds of markers can be predictable, deferential and platitudinous: the BBC’s other major Jubilee-related series, Andrew Marr’s Diamond Queen has already been accused of being all three.
Thankfully, The Queen: Art and Image confounds any such expectations. It does this by deconstructing some of the best-known images of the Queen.
These include formal images, in which she is represented in all her regal splendour, as well as in “informal” photographs, many of which were taken by her cousin, Patrick Lichfield. Other pictures featured here include those created with and without Buckingham Palace’s approval.
The Queen: Art and Image is arranged chronologically. Taking Dorothy Wilding’s 1952 bromide, hand-coloured by Beatrice Johnson, as a starting point, it explores how one of the most familiar subjects in the world has been depicted. In doing that, it presents an intriguing survey of 20th-century portraiture.
One of the exhibition’s themes is the increasing loss of discretion and reverence exhibited towards Her Majesty. This is, arguably, at its most exposed in what Kim Dong-Yoo identifies as Elizabeth vs Diana.
Other images link the monarch with (undesirable) political positions. There is fascism, in Jamie Reid’s design for the Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen, and Gilbert and George’s collages, which are presented in the heraldic form of the cross-potent. And British imperialism features in Hew Locke’s Medusa.
Visual literacy
A great strength of this show is that it brings together a collection of images whose surface appearance is manifestly disconnected from underlying reality.
This is quite literally the case in Gerhard Richter’s blurred lithograph, based on a photo of the Queen, taken during her visit to West Germany in 1965 (she was the first monarch to go there for more than 50 years), and in Hiroshi Sugimoto’s beautiful, but disconcerting, gelatin silver print of a wax effigy.
Many other contemporary artists have also made images at several steps removed from their subject. The significance of Andy Warhol’s Queen Elizabeth II screenprints, for instance, depends entirely on the artist’s treatment of a familiar image.
However, some of the most astonishing images in the exhibition are those made with the Queen’s willing participation. Annie Leibovitz revisits Annigoni and Beaton’s iconography of the 1950s and 1960s, depicting her draped in an admiral’s cloak, but standing alone in a muted, broody landscape – presumably one of the palace’s gardens.
Lucian Freud and Chris Levine both represent the Queen wearing the Diamond Diadem (as per her image on stamps and bank notes).
Levine’s Lightness of Being, captures her momentary closing her eyes, as though wearied by the weight of the crown and all that it represents.
Perhaps the most audacious image is Thomas Struth’s Diamond Jubilee portrait of the Queen and her consort. They are represented as an elderly couple, stripped of their usual regalia, sitting (as if trapped) by the baroque interior of the Green Room at Windsor.
We’re often referred to as a visually literate nation, but we rarely reflect on the distinction between what is, or can be, articulated visually rather than verbally.
By the end of June, we’ll doubtless be suffering from a surfeit of cliched accounts of the Queen and why we should preserve the institution of monarchy. The Queen: Art and Image will seem like a breath of fresh air.
It’s not just the quality of the pictures that distinguishes The Queen: Art and Image from the other displays in Cardiff, but the astute intelligence of its curation. It’ll be a real challenge for the National Museum of Art to maintain the kind of standard set by this exhibition.
Sara Selwood is a researcher, writer and independent consultant. She is a former trustee of the National Portrait Gallery
Project data
- Cost £57,000 for realisation in London only
- Funder KPMG (London)
- Curator Paul Moorhouse; Sioned Hughes; Owain Rhys
- Exhibition ends 29 April; National Portrait Gallery, London (17 May–21 October)
