Inner Artist or Inner Child? Have It Your Way at Salzburg’s Toy Museum

Pablo Picasso famously said that we are all born artists, the only trick is remaining an artist as we grow up. Somewhat along the same lines are those self-helpers who say that we are all born children, the trick is learning to stay in touch with that child as we grow up. Actually, it’s pretty much the same thing, isn’t it? The center of either ideal is finding a way to retain the innocence and playfulness that we enter the world with, even as we grow through it. It’s no small task. Sometimes we need help to re-find it. At moments like these, we can be thankful for oases like Salzburg’s Spielzeugmusuem, or Toy Museum, for being a monument to those wondrous little objects that once helped us discover ourselves and the world around us: TOYS.

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Music, Arts, and Political Discourse at Elevate Festival

You’ve heard of music and arts festivals before, I’m sure. Throw in some political discourse on top and you have the unique blend of a very individual festival, indeed: the Elevate Festival. Starting today in Graz, Elevate achieves it’s special mix by combining discussions, workshops, lectures, and film screenings with a program of contemporary music performers and DJs. If you’re not sold on it yet, how often do you get to go to something inside Graz’s historic Schlossberg? After taking an elevator literally down inside the hill, you’ll spend your festival time in a series of caves and tunnels inside the rock.

This year’s line-up of performing artists is so extensive, you need to read it for yourself, but expect an eclectic program that ranges from evenings of house, to avant pop, to psychedelic noise rock. The diversity offered at Elevate is made possible by extending the usual 3-day festival program to 6 days, and utilizing several venues means that on some days, you’ll have 4 simultaneous concerts to pick from. Just remember when you’re dancing to the last DJ’s set at 6am, the program of talks and films probably kicks off at 10am…to party through, or to power-nap, that is the question…

You’ve probably got everything planned already if you’re traveling to Graz for Elevate Festival this year, but how do you immerse yourself in the arts in Graz during the rest of the year? Easy – at White Line Hotels edit Schlossberghotel the art is so close, you’re sleeping in the same room with it.

Are you Frieze-ing?

You know it, I know it, but still no one says it very often: art fairs are terrible places to see art. The atmosphere is always…oh how best to say it…something like being on one of those black rubber people-mover conveyor belts designed to shuffle gawking masses past valuable items of interest and a pre-designated speed. Sounds fun, right? But, should it even be fun? I mean, art fairs are trade fairs, after all, and their purpose is for doing business. If sometimes that business can be done after hours at a party or bar too, all the better, but business is still the word of the day. And sales.

London’s Frieze Art Fair still hasn’t changed those final keywords of what the event is all about, but it has succeeded in presenting itself as just one part of a larger yearly cultural event through sidelines such as the TV-broadcasted Frieze Film, educational programs aimed at younger children, an off-site music program, and of course the on-site artists commissions and the Emdash Award (previously the Cartier Award). Past their own attempts to increase the scope of Frieze, the city’s galleries and artists don’t pass up the opportunity to make the most of the energy the fair brings in, and Frieze weekend sees some of London’s best exhibitions, and parties. Truth be told, unless you’re an industry professional, you don’t even have to step foot in Regent’s Park to get the most out of what the Frieze Art Fair has to offer.

If the business side of the art game leaves you cold or, shall we say “Frieze-ing”, here’s my top 5 off-site picks for the Frieze Art Fair. And guess what? For the first, you don’t even have to be in London.

LuckyPDF TV Ok, so this one is a half-cheat, because you can also go see the Peckham collective on set at the Frieze Art Fair, but you can also watch them live from your computer screen, anywhere in the world, from now until sunday at 4pm (London time). www.luckypdf.com

No Neutral Ground at the German Embassy (22 Belgrave Square) is something you might look over at first glance, but is worth the effort for Melanie Manchot’s Perfect Mountain. Here the German-born, London-based photographer has asked tourists atop an alpine glacier to don traditional costume, and pose in front of a backdrop of the mountain they are standing on. The next time a holiday seems surreal, remember Perfect Mountain. This one goes a bit longer — it’s on until October 20th.

Wilhelm Sasnal opens for Frieze weekend at the Whitechapel Gallery. Mixing a bit of art history with a bit of internet found imagery (think Roy Orbison meets Georges Seurat, and then a few more characters), even if the work isn’t so much your thing, the Whitechapel’s always worth checking out.

Sarah Lucas‘ Artist in Bed at St John Hotel (1 Leicester Square) has the easiest opening hours of anything this weekend: 7am until midnight (i.e., if  you miss this, you’re just lazy). The sculptures are installed in the bar, and there’s a good chance you’ll be somewhere near there at some point, so stop by for a drink and a viddy.

The Evening Before the Morning After: on the subject of bars, did you hear the one about the alcoholic artist? No, me neither… Mario Garcia Torres invited a selection of artists to send him their ideas for cocktails, recipe included, to be mixed at Bistrotheque on the 14th from 8pm. Consider it a homage to Gilbert & George, and critical commentary on the culture and expectation of artists and alcohol, and just a fantastic opportunity to imbibe some of the most creative cocktails you’ve seen.

Where else can you spend the evening before the morning after? White Line Hotels edit Town Hall Hotel and Apartments of course — whether for Viajante, or just for the cocktail bar.

Forget Romanticism

Let’s suspend reality for a minute: if Jean-François Millet were still with us, he’d be turning 197 years old today, and we’d probably be waiting to see if he’d hold out another 3 to celebrate the BIG 2-0-0. Truth is, he’d probably hate that sentence. As much as anyone would be flattered to still be spoken about well over a century after their death, Millet wasn’t one for the suspension of reality, and the legacy of the Barbizon School — of which he was a founding father — is still with us to prove it, even if Millet himself isn’t.

150 years later, it’s hard to look at the works of the Barbizon School as having been even in the least bit controversial. If anything (and particularly in the case of Millet), they now appear like the forerunners of Social Realism, a movement that due to its state functions makes “controversy” a little difficult to attach to it. However, this is now and that was then, and back in the early-middle of the 19th century some painters were growing dissatisfied with the dominant trend of Romanticism that had gained popularity in reaction to the Industrial Revolution. It wasn’t just painters growing weary. however. The Revolutions of 1848, although largely considered failures, broke out in 50 countries in response to the new working conditions the Industrial Revolution had ushered in. If any further example of the of the social-political climate at the time is needed, The Communist Manifesto was first published in that year as well. Within that context, it’s easier to see a painting depicting the common worker as being something entirely different than it is today.

Still, you can’t exactly call the Barbizon School a political movement of art. Although many of the Barbizon School’s key painters took the occasion of the Revolutions of 1848 to leave Paris for the nearby village of Barbizon, once there the focus of discussion lay on the natural representation of nature, and not necessarily on the natural representation of the working class. Millet, however, extended those ideals of naturalism to include the people of the countryside, most famously in his 1857 canvas The Gleaners. The Gleaners depicts 3 women gathering what remained from the wheat harvest, or with some metaphorical interpretation, the poor being left with the scraps the wealthy allowed them. Their lack of clear faces further underlined their marginalization. You can imagine how well that went over with the upper and middle classes of the Parisian Art World, who were still reeling from the Revolutions of 1848, and French Revolution before that.

The world’s political climate may be different now, but Barbizon remains a refuge. Here there’s space to think, to be inspired by the same landscapes that have inspired artists since the Barbizon School took up residence, and — dare I say it — even get a bit romantic. Make Hotel Les Pleiades, as chosen by the team at White Line Hotels, your place to suspend some reality.

Interlacing Ai WeiWei

There are a lot of variations in the expression of the sentiment, but “absence makes the heart grow fonder” is probably the cleanest and the most classic. How true it is. Ai WeiWei was certainly a far cry from unknown at the time of his April 2011 arrest – his installation Sunflower Seeds was concurrently housed in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall – but the outpouring of outright love from the art world that followed his arrest and detention in an undisclosed location brought the artist to an even higher level of fame. As speculations of his death in detainment were growing, nearly 3 months after his initial arrest he was finally released. Hopefully without being too glib about what was indeed a horrific experience for the artist, a speculated death can be as good the real thing in terms of a career move.

Now nearly 3 months after his release, his exhibition Interlacing at Kunsthaus Graz demands one additional question when viewing an Ai WeiWei: is it possible now to separate the persona of the artist from the body of work? Was it ever so with Ai WeiWei anyway, or was his persona always “interlaced” with the work? True, you could easily ask those same questions in relation to just about any artist, but when the body of work is so centered on cultural and political criticism, the position of the ego within it, justified or not, more easily becomes a point of debate.

However you feel about it – and who says you have to make up your mind now anyway? – from September 16^th Kunsthas Graz will be presenting Interlacing, the first large-scale exhibition of Ai Weiwei’s photographic and video work, just taken over from the Fotomuseum Winterthur. It is certainly one not to miss if you’re in Graz between now and the 15^th of January next year.

What else is not to be missed in Graz, aside from the building of Kunsthaus Graz itself? The Schlossberghotel, as chosen by the crew at White Line Hotels, is Europe’s finest Art Hotel.

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Contributing writer: Melissa Frost

Photos: From Kunsthaus Graz, all © Ai Weiwei.