Event date: 16 October 2024
Review by Carl Rowe
Richard Calvorcoressi in conversation with Carl Rowe. Background photo by Richard Deakin
The painter Lucian Freud would have been 100 years old in 2022. This occasion was marked by a major exhibition at the National Gallery in London, as well as numerous smaller events exploring aspects of Freud’s work.
Gagosian gallery adopted a different approach, presenting key works of Freud alongside those of fellow painters Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon and Michael Andrews. Richard Calvocoressi, Senior Curator at Gagosian was inspired by an iconic, albeit technically flawed photograph of the four artists taken by the photographer John Deakin at Wheeler’s Restaurant, Soho, London in 1963.
Calvocoressi chose Friends and Relations as the title for this exhibition, a survey of all four painters explored through their friendships, influences, family, lovers, and London, unified by their shared devotion to painting the human form.
Richard Calvocoressi CBE appears to come from a different era, a time of exquisite manners and elegant intellect. His opening words at the talk Friends and Relations provided a brief overview of his notable contributions to museum and gallery work.
His curatorial work at Gagosian is concerned with historical contexts, but in hisopening dialogue he identified key evolutionary moments in contemporary art, relating the London artworld of the 20th Century with its contemporary direction populated by influential characters, markets and dissemination. He understands the seismology of the art business. And this is important, because his insight into the work of Freud, Auerbach, Bacon and Andrews also extends beyond the artefacts and into relationships, the artworld, and the fabric of urban society.
Through Friends and Relations, Calvocoressi has arranged notable artworks by truly great artists, in such a way as to tell a broader, richer, more intersectional story. A narrative that the works might hint at individually, but not entirely reveal in isolation.
Gagosian has produced a short film, which provides the viewer with a walk through the exhibition. This was projected onto the screen for everyone to see, and Richard paused at points to talk about the works. Through his deceptively conversational narration, he revealed facts, connections, cause and effect. The blurred web of attraction and rejection spun around these four artists was made clearer by him.
Calvocoressi has considered the grainy, blurred photograph that Deakin took at Wheeler’s in 1963, and has sharpened it, coloured it and reprinted it. We all benefitted from this reprint by virtue of his talk.
ncas would like to thank Richard and Carl for a wonderfully informative and entertaining evening.