Nearly a year into lockdown, Edvard Munch’s The Scream is a painting that has become more and more relatable. However, on the original version of the painting, there is a an eerie sentence written in pencil that has been more or less ignored until now. Ahead of the opening of the new National Museum of Norway, researchers examined the sentence and have determined that Munch indeed wrote the short inscription.

Four versions of the painting exist depicting a lonely figure cupping its face in what could be read as anguish. Swathes of colour sweep and pool around the figure offering Munch’s interpretation of a seascape with a looming red sunset. According to the artist, the painting was inspired by a blood-red sunset he once observed that felt like an “infinite scream passing through nature.”

The Scream has become synonymous with anguish and disbelief and was even transformed into an emoji. But, it’s the top left corner of the original 1893 version that’s creating a lot of buzz. There, a sentence scribbled in pencil reads “Can only have been painted by a madman.”

The inscription was first clocked by a Danish critic in 1904 who observed the writing on the surface of the painting. Since its discovery, it has been unclear if the graffiti was by the hand of Munch or a cruel review left by a spectator. The National Museum of Norway, though, has settled that debate, announcing that the sentence was written by Munch around 1895.

Using infrared scanning, researchers were able to analyse the writing and compare it with notes and letters written by Munch during his life. That analysis, coupled with one particular event in Munch’s life, led researchers to believe that the words were definitely written by the artist.

In 1895, Munch exhibited The Scream for the first time in his hometown of Kristiania (now Oslo) where it was met with fierce criticism. The painting also sparked speculation over the artist’s mental state, which led to the incident thought to be behind inscription. At a discussion night held at the Students Association, a medical student remarked that the painting proved that Munch was not of sound mind. It is believed that Munch was present at the discussion, heard the remark, and soon after wrote the sentence on the painting. The 1895 incident would also become a recurring theme in his letters.

“It’s a combination of being ironic, but also showing his vulnerability,” Mai Britt Guleng, curator of the museum and a Munch expert, told The Guardian. “He is actually taking this very seriously and he is hurt because there is a history of illness in his family, and he was very anxious, but he showed himself be marked by it.”

His life was punctuated by illness and death. Munch’s father and sister suffered from depression and were eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. He watched his sister pass from tuberculosis as a child and later his mother also died of the illness, contributing to his obsession with disease.

In 1908, Munch was hospitalised following a nervous breakdown exacerbated by alcoholism.

The 1893 version of The Scream will go on view at the new National Museum of Norway expected to open in Oslo in 2022.

The recently released documentary, Black Art: In the Absence of Light, simultaneously explores the challenges Black Artists continue to face in reaching mainstream audiences and the importance of their artwork in the narrative of American (United States) art history. The film takes a hard look at the significant role exhibitions, curators, and collectors play in perpetuating biases and breaking boundaries by underlining historical moments. 

Directed by Sam Pollard, the film introduces the foremost black artists working today and the artists that preceded them. The film begins with historical footage from the event that inspired the documentary, the landmark 1976 exhibition, “Two Centuries of Black American Art.” According to the late artist and curator, David Driskell, this exhibition hosted by the Los Angeles County Art Museum (LACMA) was “the first major modern exhibition which brought the black subject, period, to the American Public.”

The film’s central theme is the black figure’s significance as a subject in artworks and black artists’ representation in museum collections/exhibitions. In a 1976 interview, Driskell warns against those critics and historians that group all artwork by black artists together under the label of “Black Art” because it isolates the black artists from the canon of American Art. The director and producer perhaps chose to underscore the stigma behind this label by using it as the title of the documentary.

Artist, Kehinde Wiley describes the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 1994 exhibition “Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art,” curated by Thelma Golden, as life-changing. “Here, for the first time, you are seeing black masculinity, not as something on television that’s menacing, that arm’s length, but rather artists embracing it as subject matter, another color on their palette. It was mind-blowing, an exhibition that really tore down the meaning of the black body itself.” 

While spaced sixteen years apart and on opposite coasts of the United States, what Driskell and Goldman’s exhibitions have in common is that they were controversial, provocative, and pushed the white envelope. Critics had a hard time digesting the content and taking an honest look back at the marginalization of artists of color in traditional art exhibitions.  

The documentary also explores the monumental importance of President Barak Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama’s portraits. Art Historian Maurice Berger describes the official paintings hanging in the National Portrait Gallery as a beautiful challenge and a dramatic departure from the past presidents’ boring or traditional portraits. “The stakes were different. When you have two centuries of straight, white men who were president, and then you have Barak Obama–that portrait better be different.” In painting the presidential couple, Artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald wanted to portray them individually as the people they were, as private citizens–a man, and woman of color, who continue to inspire people worldwide. 

While groundbreaking milestones punctuate the documentary, it also highlights all the work that still needs to be done. Berger reveals that in a survey of major American Museums, it was determined that 85% of their collections are made up of white artists. “If you break down the remaining artists of color in those collections (15%), it’s 1.2% black. If the people sitting around the curatorial table are all white, you are going to have a problem.” Clearly, having exhibitions that feature black artists is not enough. Their artworks also need to be acquired by these cultural institutions. 

The role of universities also requires fundamental change. As an art history student in the mid-2000s, I experienced how a limited scope can be damaging to our understanding of art history as humanity’s collective creative experience. The slides running through our art history survey classes’ projectors reinforced the interest in white male artists. This reigning group of people even dominated our photography, modern, and contemporary art classes. I hope that this academic approach has shifted across the United States, given the cultural reckoning we now find ourselves in. Students from across disciplines can also have agency in asking themselves critical questions around whose voices and work are missing from the narrative they’re being taught. They can challenge professors. 

The historical footage, expert interviews, and vignettes of artists at work merge to effectively and beautifully communicate how vital the representation of artists of color is in cultural institutions and the importance of enabling them to tell their own stories while also elevating their history. Black Art: In the Absence of Light will stream on HBO until March 17, 2021. You can also visit the website to experience a thoughtful curriculum and art activities inspired by the film. 

In this week’s Art World Roundup: Artfizz launches new art selling and buying platform that rethinks the secondary market, dealer John Brandler snags another Banksy, and D’Lan Contemporary announces a new endowment to support Australian Indigenous artists. Meanwhile, Dolly Parton has asked that Tennessee not move forward with a statue honouring her, the CEO of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields steps down after a job listed sparks controversy and archaeologists have found Venetian beads that may have made their way to North America before Columbus. 

There’s a new arts platform on the block

This week, a new platform for buying and selling art was launched that’s rethinking the secondary market. Artfizz is a “community-driven ecosystem” making the art market more accessible for those looking to buy and sell contemporary art. Through Artfizz, sellers have the ability to curate their own auctions while those looking to buy “follow their own eyes and hearts.” Perhaps most exciting about the new platform is that artists will benefit from the sale of their works. According to Artfizz, artist will receive 50 percent of the platform’s 15 percent auction fee. Also, sellers can list works by more than 20,000 pre-approved artists (a number that will increase over times) without any listing or shipping fees. From submission to final listing, the process to put an artwork on Artfizz will take less than two weeks and there are be traditional bidding options as well as “Buy It Now” features. “For many artists, navigating the highs and lows of producing work and earning money is nothing short of an endurance sport,” Executive Director and co-founder of Artfizz Matthew Dipple said in a press release. “It’s one reason we want to always factor artists into what we do at Artfizz. The first step towards that is rethinking secondary market sales. Artists should profit from the entire lifespan of an artwork. It happens in other creative industries – why not the art world?” In November of last year, Artfizz was used ahead of its launch for “Show Me the Signs,” a benefit auction that supported the African American Policy Forum’s #SayHerName Mothers Network.

 

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Banksy has left the building and Nottingham

The Nottingham Banksy, which popped up on the side of a Rothesay Avenue property last October has been sold to art dealer John Brandler, who’s no stranger to buying a Banksy. The mural is a black and white stencil painting of a girl using a bicycle tyre, a nod to the Raleigh Bicycle Company founded in Nottingham in 1887, as a hula hoop. The elusive street artist chained a bike missing its back tyre next to the mural adding context and a little comedy. Banksy laid claim to the work on Instagram a few days after it appeared. According to Brandler, he purchased the mural for “six-figures” before it was cut from its brick wall surroundings this week. The artwork will now head to Scotland where it will undergo restoration. Banksy has been vocal about his disapproval of the sale of his artworks and told the Nottingham rejuvenation board, the Nottingham Project, that he hoped the artwork would remain in the city. He’s not the only one sad to see the artwork head out of the Midlands city. “It’s sad to see it’s leaving. I think it should stay in the area it was put in” Alex Mitchell-Messam, who owns a shop nearby the artwork and saw it being installed, said to the BBC. “Banksy travelled to Nottingham, he chose to put that artwork here when he could have chosen anywhere. It was great, bringing new faces to the area and having a vibrant effect.” Brandler plans to include the Nottingham artwork in a forthcoming exhibition of street art later this year that will be held in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

 

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D’Lan Contemporary establishes endowment to aid Australia’s Indigenous artists

Australian gallery D’Lan Contemporary has announced the creation of The National Endowment for Indigenous Visual Arts (NEIVA). In partnership with actor Steve Martin and businessman Bruno Raschle, both of which are avid collectors of works by Australian Indigenous artists, the NEIVA was created with the aim of supporting Indigenous arts, fostering a more transparent primary and secondary market, as well as a sustainable market for Australian Indigenous art through a central trust fund. According to D’Lan Contemporary, the NEIVA will “centralise and distribute proceeds from Australian Indigenous art sales directly back to artists, art schools that educate Indigenous artists, and the broader Indigenous communities.” At the start of 2020, D’Lan launched the Voluntary Resale Royalty Initiative, through which sellers were offered to opportunity to donate two and a half percent of sale proceeds back to Indigenous artists. Donations of up to five percent were match by D’Lan Contemporary under this initiative. With the NEIVA, all funds accumulated this way will be funneled into the endowment and D’Lan Contemporary has committed to donating between two and a half and 10 percent on future primary and secondary sales. Funds from the NEIVA will be managed by a trustee company and distributions will be guided by Indigenous visual art leaders. “Art sales are often the primary source of non-government income for remote Indigenous Australian communities. The existing primary and secondary Indigenous art market, however, does not generate sufficient revenue to support both the artists and their broader communities. We want to change this,” D’Lan Davidson, founder of D’Lan Contemporary, said in a statement. “Our intent is to develop a market for a younger generation of Australian Indigenous artists and artist estates – both here in Australia and overseas – and to help support and develop the broader Indigenous art industry and their communities at the same time,”

Dolly Parton pumps the brakes on a proposed statue of her in Tennessee

Country music legend Dolly Parton has asked that she not be honoured with a statue in her home state of Tennessee, at least not yet. As Tennessee lawmakers debated on what to do with a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general, Tennessean, slave trader, and leader of the Ku Klux Klan, held at the State Capitol, a state House of Representative suggested replacing Forrest’s statue with one of Parton. Last month, those plans gained more traction receiving bipartisan support, but this week Parton asked that they not move forward. “Given all that is going on in the world, I don’t think putting me on a pedestal is appropriate at this time,” the singer and philanthropist said in a statement in which she thanked the state’s government for its consideration. “I hope, though, that somewhere down the road several years from now or perhaps after I’m gone if you still feel I deserve it, then I’m certain I will stand proud in our great State Capitol as a grateful Tennessean.”

Director and CEO of Indianapolis museum steps down amid controversy

Following the publication of a controversial job advertisement for a position at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, the museum’s director and CEO, Charles Venable, has stepped down. In search of a new director, the museum listed an advertisement seeking a candidate who could “attract a broader and more diverse audience while maintaining the museum’s traditional core, white art audience.” The language of the job listing was immediately condemned by members of the community and cultural workers, alike. The museum issued an apology and changed the wording of the listing to instead read “traditional core art audience.” In a February 13^th interview with The New York Times, Venable admitted that explicit use of “white” was intentional. “I deeply regret that the choice of language clearly has not worked out to mirror our overall intention of building our core art audience by welcoming more people in the door,” Venable said in the interview. “We were trying to be transparent about the fact that anybody who is going to apply for this job really needs to be committed to D.E.I. efforts in all parts of the museum.” However, an open letter signed by almost 500 cultural workers and Indianapolis community members called for Venable’s immediate removal.  The letter in part stated: “We will not stand for performative measures, social media apologies, disingenuous recants of statements, virtue signaling, or blame shifting to third party vendors.” On Wednesday, the museum issued a statement announcing Venable’s resignation.

Centuries old Venetian glass beat Columbus to North America

Before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, as the mnemonic goes, a handful of blue glass beads from Venice may have made their way to North America. Mike Kunz of the University of Alaska Museum of the North and Robin Mills of the Bureau of Land Management published their findings in American Antiquity after researching glass beads they’ve found in Alaska. The beads, as well as a number of metal bracelets, were discovered in three different sites – including Punyik Point, a location along trade routes from the Bering Sea to the Arctic Ocean. A plant-based twine that wrapped one of the bangles was radiocarbon dated revealing that the plant was alive sometime in the 1400s. “We almost fell over backwards” Kunz told Artnet News of when they found that out. “It was like, Wow!” Ultimately, Kunz and Mills’ research has led them to think that the beads, estimated to be around 540 years old, were brought to Punyik Point between 1440 and 1480. Some 10,000 miles from their Venetian origins, what remains a mystery is how the beads might have gotten to North America over a decade before Columbus in 1492. Kunz and Mills have theorized that the beads were likely traded between Italy and China. From there, the beads may have travelled to Russia’s eastern coast before heading to what is today Alaska.

David Hockney was 16 when he first came across the work of Vincent Van Gogh at Manchester Art Gallery. “I do remember thinking he must have been quite a rich artist. He could use two whole tubes of blue to paint the sky in one painting,” he remarked during an interview with Hans den Hartog Jager. Ironically, Hockney goes on to become the world’s most expensive living artist and one who is inspired by the work of Van Gogh.

After a well-received show at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam last year, Hockney-Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature makes its way to Houston, Texas, marking the first exhibition for the two visionary artists together in the US. The initial exhibition was highly praised for the way it drew comparisons between both artists’ rich use of color and fascination with the changing of the seasons, despite the fact that Hockney’s scale often dwarfs Van Gogh’s studies.

The exhibition reveals Van Gogh’s unmistakable influence on Hockney in a selection of carefully curated landscape paintings and drawings. Through bold use of color and experimentation with perspective, both artists craft worlds that are unique and true to them, yet offer mass appeal. 50 of Hockney’s vibrant works, ranging from intimate sketchbook studies to iPad drawings and monumental paintings are presented next to 10 carefully chosen paintings and drawings by Van Gogh.

The scale of works like Hocnkey’s The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011  – a painting 10 meters wide, and made up of 32 individual canvases – makes clear that Hockney is continuing to bring fresh ideas and innovative styles to his work. Alongside the large-scale canvases and watercolours, the exhibition will include iPad drawings; The Four Seasons, Woldgate Woods (Spring 2011, Summer 2010, Autumn 2010, Winter 2010), as well as a video installation work in which nine cameras, placed at different angles, were driven through the same part of Yorkshire woodland at the mid-points of the four seasons, with the four videos playing simultaneously on facing walls. In addition to Hockney’s use of the iPad,  ‘photographic drawing’ In the Studio, created with the help of 3D-scanning technology, will also be displayed.

Hockney – Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, through June 20. 

The arts and tech are only becoming more intertwined and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has recognised this having just announced the recipients of its inaugural Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship. Five artists have been selected for the new fellowship, which recognises their “innovative approaches to technology and new media” with an unrestricted grant of $50,000.

“For decades, artists have found novel ways to leverage technology in their art,” Knight’s vice president for the arts, Victoria Rogers, said in a press release. As a relatively new facet to the art world, the intersection of art and tech can allow for incredible and unusual experimental works. With ample room to explore comes difficult terrain to navigate as an artist as the field requires much time and resources.

Thus, the Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship aims to support those artists progressing the field through their use of technology, such as AI, AR, VR, digital mediums, immersive installations, and software, among others, in “thoughtful, creative, or poetic” ways. In addition to an unrestricted grant, the fellows will benefit from various “channels of support” ranging from contacts with art world professionals to collaboration opportunities. A new publication presented by the Knight Foundation and guest edited by artist and researcher Salome Asega will be one such networking avenue, as the Knight Arts + Tech Fellows will be featured in it. The publication, called Shift Shape, will be published online on the 24^th of March.

The five inaugural Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship recipients are:

• Black Quantum Futurism (Philadelphia, PA) – A collective founded by artists Camae Ayewa and Rasheedah Phillips exploring “Black temporalities and community futurisms” through a variety of mediums, including digital projects, performance, film, installations, writing, and music.
• Rashaad Newsome (Oakland, CA) – With an emphasis in “constructing a new cultural framework of power that celebrates Black contributions to the art canon and creates innovative and inclusive forms of culture and media,” Newsome is an interdisciplinary artist. His works consist of a blend of various mediums including photography, collages, computer programming, software engineering, an performance art.
• Rodolfo Peraza (Miami, FL) – Often creating works for public spaces, both physical and virtual, Peraza is a multimedia artist with a particular interest in data visualisations related to internet culture and its impact on society.
• Sondra Perry (Newark, NJ) – Working through video, computer-based media, and performances, Perry in an interdisciplinary artist exploring issues of race, identity, family history, and technology.
• Stephanie Dinkins (Brooklyn, NY) – The Kusama professor of Art at Stony Brook University and a transdisciplinary artist, Dinkins’ work “creates platforms for dialog about AI as it intersects with race, gender, aging and the future.”

The fellows were nominated by artists and art professionals before they were selected by Knight, United States Artists, and a panel that included Global placemaking lead for Google Josette Melchor, Creative Technologist and Found of Afrotectopia Ari Melenciano, and Director of NEW INC Stephanie Pereira.

“We’re thrilled to champion the work of these five gifted artists,” continued Rogers, “whose practices experiment with new ways to bring to light and address today’s issues.”

The Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship grant is funded by United States Artists, a US non-profit that has supported artists and creatives since 2006, having distributed more than $33 million in direct funding.

From Netflix’s new film to exciting discoveries in England and Wales, a trio of archaeology headlines prove not all things that come in threes are bad.

Netflix & (The) Dig

A new Netflix film beautifully portraying a major 1930s archaeological discovery in the English countryside has received a lot of attention.

The Dig tells the story of Edith Pretty (played by Carey Mulligans), the daughter of a wealthy Yorkshire industrialist family who, with the help of self-taught amateur archaeologist Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) and a team of archaeologists, uncovered a trove of ancient artefacts that forever changed our understanding of the Anglo-Saxon period. The movie, based on a 2007 John Preston novel by the same name, traces how Pretty and Brown unearthed a Great Ship Burial on Pretty’s Suffolk property, an estate named Sutton Hoo. Although dramatized for the silver screen, The Dig is a fairly true-to-life interpretation of the challenges the late-1930s excavation faced, not least of which being the lead up to World War II.

The excavation of three mounds at Sutton Hoo yielded a number of treasures that were spectacularly diverse, a fact that surprised those working at the site and historians, alike. Ultimately, the uncovered artefacts were gifted to the nation by Pretty and are now housed at the British Museum. The significance of the artefacts to the understanding early medieval Anglo-Saxon history (~410 CE to 1066 CE) cannot be overstated. “The discovery in 1939 changed our understanding of some of the first chapters of English history,” Sue Brunning, curator of early medieval European collections for the British Museum told Smithsonian Magazine. “A time that had been seen as being backward was illuminated as cultured and sophisticated. The quality and quantity of the artifacts found inside the burial chamber were of such technical artistry that it changed our understanding of this period.”

Was there a Welsh precursor to Stonehenge?

As for one of the world’s most well-known and mysterious sites, researchers have made discoveries that could shed more light on Stonehenge. It is known that portions of the bluestone pillars that make up Stonehenge travelled around 150 miles to their Wiltshire home, but it could be that some were formerly part of another, older monument in Wales known as Waun Mawn.

Research into this theory was led by Mike Parker Pearson, a University College London professor of British later prehistory, and he and his team’s findings were recently published in Antiquity, a peer-reviewed archaeology journal. Thanks to four stones still in the Welsh field, researchers were able to locate buried stone holes that bear a similar shape to the bluestones found at Stonehenge. These stones that once stood in Wales also created a diameter that is nearly identical to that of Stonehenge. Finally, adding logistical evidence, the Welsh site is just three miles from where the bluestone was quarried in Presli.

This discovery gives credit to a theory proposed a century ago by geologist Herbert Thomas. It was Thomas who posed that the massive stones in Wiltshire were transported there after having been erected in Wales, but his theory was discredited as “doubtful and insignificant.” For Pearson and his team, the discovery is a long time coming. “I’ve been researching Stonehenge for 20 years now,” Pearson told The Guardian, “and this really is the most exciting thing we’ve ever found.”

A documentary presented by Professor Alice Roberts covering the findings aired on BBC Two on Friday.

Expected yet surprising discoveries at the Wittenham Clumps

Just 50 miles from Stonehenge in Oxfordshire, archaeologists have made yet another exciting discovery while excavating at the Wittenham Clumps. In preparations for redeveloping the visitor centre there for Earth Trust, the charity that cares for this historic site, bringing in archaeologists was the first step as the land is known to have been occupied for more than 3,000 years.

What archaeologists have discovered is an iron age settlement consisting of more than a dozen roundhouses that date from between 400 BCE and 100 BCE as well as a late third to early fourth century Roman villa. They have also discovered stone corn-drying ovens and more than 40 graves that span two Roman cemeteries.

The Wittenham Clumps are made up of two hills situated next to the Thames River. They are named for the clumps of beech trees – the oldest known planted beeches dating back 300 years – that sit atop each hill. Known as Round Hill, the taller of the pair, and Castle Hill, which was the site of an Iron Age hill fort, the hills have born evidence of Roman, Bronze Age, and Iron Age peoples.

So, when work began on the new visitor centre, archaeologists were hopeful that they might unearth something, but what the found was described as “astonishing” by Lisa Westcott Wilkins, co-founder of DigVentures, the unique archaeology team that lead the work at the Wittenham Clumps. “With so many people being confined to their homes, we’re really excited to be able to provide a glimpse of what ancient homes were like,” Wilkins said in a statement. “People will be able to find out what was happening along the River Thames in Oxfordshire during the Iron Age and Roman periods, and learn more about their homes – based on the evidence we’ve uncovered.”

The fun this is, is that if after watching The Dig, you’ve got an itch for more archaeology, you can follow along with DigVentures on the discoveries they make at the Wittenham Clumps

For artist David Breuer-Weil, art and art making became what he described as a “lifesaver” during the onset of the pandemic and the months that have followed. Breuer-Weil, who is based in London and well-known for his “Project” installations and large-scale bronze sculptures, has released a new book that compiles some of the work that he’s created during the pandemic. Fittingly titled Golden Drawings, the book showcases a series of work that are somewhat different to his oeuvre but offer a stunning reflection on life during the pandemic.

On the 20^th of March last year, just days after the whole of the UK was plunged into what would be its first national lockdown, Breuer-Weil began to experience COVID-19 symptoms. For the next six days, as his symptoms worsened, he began a series of drawings embellished with gold leaf that became like a buoy. Thankfully, Breuer-Weil recovered from the virus, but he continued the series of drawings for weeks as the pandemic and lockdown continued, making 66 drawings in total.

Dubbed the “Golden Drawings,” Breuer-Weil brought them together to create his newest book by the same name. Alongside each of the 66 drawings, which are on view in an online exhibition through June, Breuer-Weil recorded his thoughts which accompany his drawings offering incite and context for the works.

If I’m honest, when I cracked Golden Drawings open, I was a bit hesitant; if 2020 taught us anything, it was to be cautious, right? If I was nervous that the book might offer too lofty a perspective on the state of the world or that I might leave its pages feeling forlorn as the UK perseveres through its third national lockdown, I wouldn’t have been more wrong.

Golden Drawings, while rooted in Breuer-Weil’s personal and intimate experience with the pandemic, offers a sense of connectedness in a time when physically connecting has become difficult if not impossible. The drawings are a beautiful interpretation of the artist’s walk through the early months of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the juxtaposition of graphite against gold leaf is stunning and each time you look at one of the drawings, there’s something new that catches your eye.

All 66 of the drawings are beautifully complimented with excerpts of Breuer-Weil’s thoughts, that read much like a running journal entry. Golden Drawings is somewhat of a narration of the lived experience of the pandemic.

This is the first time that the artist has written his own accompanying text, his words are relatable, thought-provoking, and comforting. Therapeutic undertones run through Breuer-Weil’s drawings and writings, connecting artwork after artwork, page after page. I found it impossible not to let those threads run out of the book and into my own experiences.

I sat down, planning to start the book and just a few hours later, I was turning the last page; I couldn’t put the book down. What struck me about Golden Drawings was how refreshing it was in being immersed in another’s pandemic experience and realising the commonalities we shared. Breuer-Weil’s drawings became an opportunity to meditate on the past year in a way I’ve yet to do.

Recently, I had the wonderful opportunity to chat about Golden Drawings with Breuer-Weil on the phone. Today, we’re sharing that interview with you:

Katherine Keener: Your drawings and writings feel cathartic. Was publishing them together as a book kind of the culmination of that experience?

David Breuer-Weil: Normally, when I’ve created books before, I have an art critic or a scholar write the introduction to the book. But in this case, the words came as I was drawing and so it was a decision to put my own words with the drawings, which I like as an idea. There’s a tradition of doing that in the past with people like William Black, who published poems with pictures at the same time. It’s not done that often these days, but I think it could be quite a nice genre, that thing of words with pictures.

KK: I do agree, your writings offered context and incite without pigeonholing the drawings or even what the viewer or reader was meant to experience. You touched briefly on your process, but how did you choose your subjects? Did your drawings come first, dictating your writing?

DBW: I would say that the drawings are primary, because that’s my primary expression. I don’t really consider myself a writer, although I have written quite a lot. So, I tried to make the writings as natural, heartfelt, and simple as possible. And people did actually respond to it well as writing, which was quite interesting, so I think that’s a question of just being modest and natural about it.

KK: The first six “Golden Drawings” were created quite quickly, one each day while you were sick. After that, you can see by the dates found on the drawings that some took a day while others were completed over a few days. Was that simply the natural progression of the series? Or, as time went on, were they requiring more preparation? 

DBW: I think in the first few drawings, I’m discovering a new medium, because I hadn’t really used much gold before. Actually, I resisted using it because it’s too decorative. But I found the gold was quite uncanny; it added a level of unreality and allowed a look into a different world. The gold brings a different psychological dimension. With the first drawings, I didn’t know what to expect. I was exploring. Then as time goes on, as I’m using the medium more and technically becoming more familiar with it, I’m using it to express more and expanding outwards. In fact, since Golden Drawings was published, I’ve been working on a new, very ambitious piece, which is large scale drawings in many parts kind of based on the Bayeux Tapestry. So, the early “Golden Drawings” are about finding a new medium and running with it.

KK: I was going to ask you about your use of gold leaf, because you do describe it in the introduction to your book as “too decorative,” which you’ve echoed. Why were you drawn to such a flashy medium during a pandemic and a year that most would probably describe as having been bleak? It could feel like an odd juxtaposition to have this beautiful, bright gold leaf set against what many might describe as a desolate year?

DBW: I think there are a few reasons for this. The first is just a feeling you have when you make art and it feels right. So, the feel of it is number one and I felt that quite strongly. The second reason is that years ago, I worked with and studied a lot of medieval manuscripts. Many of those are illuminated with gold leaf and a lot of them were actually from quite early in the 14^th century, which was the age of the Black Death. A lot of the manuscripts reference that and have this gold leaf. So, I’m making a deliberate connection between the pandemic now and older pandemics, where the reaction was often, artistically, a kind of apocalyptic imagery in connection with this kind of gold background. But the third reason is that during the first lockdown, there was, for England, quite unprecedentedly wonderful weather. We had this glorious sunshine every day. So, there was all this weird stuff going on and at the same time nature was out in all its glory. I wanted to express that paradox of while the world’s going through this terrible thing, the weather, at least in England, was marvellous, which is not typical for the country. So, the choice to use gold leaf was a combination of those three factors.

KK: From Drawing One to Drawing Sixty-Six, there seems to be an evolution that has taken place. The first drawings feel as though there is an urgency to create them and get them down on paper, but as you progress through the drawings, they take on a much more reflective nature. This is emphasized by your writings, which towards the end of the book are hugely introspective and meditate on current life, the past, and the future. Do you feel as though you’re the later Golden Drawings are reacting not only to the pandemic but to the issues that society is facing that began to come to the surface after the pandemic took the spotlight for a while?

DBW: I definitely think that’s correct to say. The pandemic is one thing, but there are a lot of other things going on in the world that were very important and powerful and I think that art, at least for me, needs to reflect the moment you’re living in. I think there is a lot of art that has become preoccupied with the art market and money, which is not really what it’s about in the long-term, in my opinion. In 100 years, or 200 years, when people look back at this time, they are going to want something that expresses what was happening. Much like those medieval works, which reflected their times.

KK: How do you think this series and the pandemic have affected your work as an artist?

DBW: I think there are a lot of images that have come from the pandemic, the cover of the book [Drawing Forty Five], which depicts the clapping hands is a good example of that. You have this tragic image from the pandemic, but it’s also unbelievably positive when we came out every Thursday night clapping for the NHS. Sometimes the worst times bring out the best in humanity. That’s the kind of paradox that is really quite interesting and is expressed in the art. So, I think that you get these marvellous things about humanity in bad times and the art is this marvellous thing that stays there after the bad times. It’s taking something positive, out of all of the negative, which does happen with art quite a lot.

KK: You’ve mentioned these drawings being documentation for future generations can look back to. What has struck me is the accessibility of these drawings and your writings. Even if someone has no background in art, you can empathise with and connect to Golden Drawings…

DBW: I think one of the things to come out of the pandemic is that the whole world is in this together. Different kinds of elitism have been broken down and one of those is art, where for a long time, art was catering to a small group of people who are, in a way, art world insiders. I think it’s important to reclaim art as a tool and as a language for the whole world.

Towards the end of our conversation, Breuer-Weil added that the drawings sparked another series of large-scale oil paintings that took up much of his time during the second lockdown and found inspiration in the Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain. So, while the “Golden Drawings” are works in their own right, they became studies for Breuer-Weil’s larger piece.

Perhaps that is symbolic of the pandemic. The trauma, loss, frustration, and joy in the things we once took for granted, all of these things and more have made up a complete period, that has reshaped the world. The pandemic has been an unexpected period of upheaval but, it’s also a period that will play a role in society as we move forward, and perhaps it will prove to be preparatory for a better future. A future where we find the glint of gold in all that surrounds us.