Joan Eardley: 'Foreign Familiar' Curated by David Cass

Joan Eardley: Building, Palazzo Type (1948) Gouache 49 x 42 cm — Joan Eardley: *Building, Palazzo Type* (1948) Gouache 49 x 42 cm

I'm thrilled to be able to include Joan Eardley's 1948 Florence watercolour in Foreign / Familiar.

The works that form this exhibition are observations of the foreign ‘everyday’ through often overlooked architecture and city elements, and indeed scenarios that might not spring immediately to mind upon consideration of these locations. This is taken to a further extent in Eardley’s ‘Building, Palazzo Type’, for it was not only in Glasgow that the artist sought out derelict or dilapidated built-environment subjects. In this watercolour the noble proportions of a Florentine riverbank palazzo stand — quite unfamiliarly to the ancient structure — on unstable foundations, at a precarious angle, the rubble of restoration work all around, and with another isolated (spared) building standing exposed behind.

Eardley here is documenting the extreme restoration works necessitated by the devastation Florence endured at the end of the Second World War. The Germans had blown-up buildings along the river and each of the bridges that crossed it, except for Ponte Vecchio, which Officer Gerhard Wolf had ordered to be spared for personal reasons. Eardley’s watercolour depicts Piazza di Santa Maria Sopearno — along Lungarno Torrigiani and just behind Ponte Vecchio — and focusses on the still-standing Palazzo Tempi. This work therefore celebrates this steadfast ochre palazzo, one of many that line the riverbank, built some-time in the early fifteenth century and then restored three hundred years later to take the form that Eardley describes. Perhaps spared because of its close proximity to Ponte Vecchio, this beaming structure — owned by successive Florentine noble-families — has stood resolute throughout a turbulent history of siege, political struggle, war and repeated flooding*. Eardley’s painting presents this bastion as etched into that same history and memory, as familiar to the city’s inhabitants today as it would have been four hundred years ago.

*During the lifetime of Palazzo Tempi, Florence has endured seventeen small floods, sixteen large floods, and seven exceptional ones: most recently that of 1966, as seen in [Cass’s] Florence in flood project.

Perimetri Perduti: Launch Event

A huge thank you to everyone who came along to The Fruitmarket Gallery on Friday evening (20th January). I'm incredibly appreciative. We heard an extremely well considered talk from Edinburgh's Lord Provost, who described the reasons behind presenting this Florence project in Edinburgh, and from George Donald RSA, a senior Academician at the Royal Scottish Academy.

Please feel free to contact me directly for further information on the project, via the contact page. The Fruitmarket Bookshop in Edinburgh stocks a small number of the books. Thank you Allison Everett for such fantastic organisation.

David Cass30 January 2017

Patricia Emison: Pelàda Review

“Ex ungue leonem the proverb proclaims: from the claw [one comprehends] the [whole] beast. David Cass’s Venetian paintings operate with similar inductive power, providing us a set of visual microhistories of this redolent city.”

On wooden panels lush with palpable paint—corals, grey-blues, and reddish browns that invoke the plastered facades and steely water—we encounter the quotidian surfaces of many-layered Venice, details of deliberate though understated design and, equally so, of the multifarious accidents inflicted on weathering plaster and stone. Doorbells and nizioleti (those white rectangles on which street names, or directions, are inscribed), iron reinforcing clamps in walls, the characteristically red house numbers, a cropped bit of window-sill or door frame—all these offer us relief from Ruskin’s daunting invocation of the Doge’s Palace as “the central building of the world” and of Venice as the crossroads of world cultures. We are allowed to reconstruct Venice from the traces of design so thoroughly imbued into surfaces that seemingly random fragments acquire status as compositions. The experience resembles that of wandering the city itself as disoriented (despite the frequent directional arrows on the walls) pedestrians, blinkered amidst tall alleyways fixating as we amble on the manifold messages left at eye-level. The ubiquity of water prevents it from orienting us; we meander, both foot and eye.

The forms and the letters jostle on their panels, re-enacting the Renaissance paragone, the comparison between the visual and the verbal. The painterliness of Cass’s surfaces mimics the textures of rough painted plaster or, alternatively, invokes the famed impasto of Titian and his fellow artists. At times the free working of the paint verges on the non-representational, at which point, ironically, the insistent line weeded out of the painter’s repertoire by Giorgione (following Leonardo), is reasserted by Cass, in his case the sharp horizontal that separates water from wall, liquid from solid, a line that threatens to dissolve more readily than it resolutely defines.

Venice is the antipode to modernism, a place of peeling surfaces and eroding thresholds, balanced precariously on those unseen and untrusted wooden piles, pounded into mud by the first settlers, refugees from the mainland. Now its inhabitants flee back to the mainland, while the Adriatic threatens to take back what it once had lent. Brigadoon-like, Venice has both travelled through the centuries as though preternaturally shielded from modernity, and has now reached a point of particular danger. Cass’s work heralds the deterioration and, in subtle ways, highlights the plight of the sparse natives, their names still affixed to many of the doorbells and their starkly simple protests against the cruise ships inscribed on the walls. His paintings both acknowledge Venice’s timelessness and accede to Venice’s status as highly endangered—though primarily they allow us to see the city, a city so freighted with the memories, as a place where art can still be made, on the basis of seeing rather than remembering, and moreover, where art can be made in a distinctly contemporary mode, finding abstract qualities in the empirical world and empirical qualities in abstraction.

“David Cass conjoins the randomness of the snapshot with the picturesque allure of paint and paper textures, the blankness of surface with the evocativeness of names and numbers, and the stillness of nature morte with the promise of a Venice that might again become vibrant.”

Patricia Emison is the author of several books on the Italian Renaissance, most recently The Italian Renaissance and Cultural Memory (Cambridge University Press), and Leonardo (Phaidon Colour Library).

Patricia Emison3 January 2017

Giles Waterfield

I heard the upsetting news of the death of author, gallerist and historian Giles Waterfiled this morning. I am here in Florence, launching the book (Perimetri Perduti) that he contributed to – not only through his kind support of the project and encouragement – but also in the form of a perfectly succinct and concise text that speaks of undocumented evidence and traces. Giles refers to the disappearing traces of Florence’s 1966 flood (traces of a nature less formal than plaques or reportage). One that threatened to repeat over this dark weekend as the Arno raged and the city grew feverish.

The same cannot be said of the marks (in this case impact of great cultural significance) that Giles etched onto our earth. No zealous citizen (as he puts it in the below text) can erase his words. A truly inspiring person who touched many, many lives and who I wish I’d known better, and who will live on in many forms of inspiration through his life’s work. I know that the British Institute of Florence (and particularly its director Julia Race) will be thinking of him, it’s thanks to the Institute that we met and his voice was added to Perimetri Perduti. I know also that his dear friend Candia (McWilliam) will be, whose words are now bound with his for good.

A friend sent this article, for your further reading. I've released on this blog below, his text from the book, A Vestige. Read in full screen by clicking the spreads below.

David Cass9 November 2016

Perimetri Perduti: The Book

I'm delighted to present Perimetri Perduti. This has been a massive task, but absolutely worth it. The book will be launched in the British Institute of Florence during November 2016 (opening Nov 4th), and in The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh soon after (January 20th). A huge thank you to all those who have contributed to the book, and supported it, you know who you are I hope.

“A combination of records of and responses to the catastrophe of November 1966, Cass’s thoughtful and moving pieces are all the more powerful in that they are made by someone who was not yet born when the flood waters hit Florence.”

— Julia Race: Director of the British Institute

David Cass8 October 2016Book, Art, David Cass, Perimetri Perduti, Art Book, Artist Book, Florence, Flood

A Fragile Sense of Place

Two Thames Barrier studies (each approx 11 x 8 cm unframed: gouache on card)

If not for the Thames Barrier, during periods of extreme high tide and severe weather, London would look very different.

The Royal Watercolour Society - for its Autumn exhibition 2016 - has briefed members to create artworks that explore the notion of a sense of place, specifically within the location of London. To me, a sense of place is something sensed and not usually identifiable, it's something intangible, a culmination of emotional and sensorial reactions to a physical environment to which I am connected. But taken literally, the event of physical inundation - a flood for example - can completely destroy one's sense of place within a location they [once] understood.

When a river bursts its banks, its 'wetted perimeter' is no longer where it should be. As water travels upward and outward, the map of the city changes dramatically. A rise in water level even of only a few inches can mean the difference between ground level, and the invasion of someone's house. Worryingly, the Thames Barrier has been in 'record' use in recent years (from early December 2013 to the end of February 2015, its steel gates were closed "a record-shattering 50 times, preventing the river from running riot. Previously, the barrier had closed only 124 times since it began operating in 1982" - The Guardian).

As we are witnessing ever more frequently, in locations around the world, London is not alone in being vulnerable to flooding. A storm surge generated by low pressure in the Atlantic Ocean sometimes tracks eastwards past the north of Scotland and may then be driven into the shallow waters of the North Sea. The surge tide is funnelled down the North Sea which narrows towards the English Channel and the Thames Estuary. If the storm surge coincides with a spring tide, dangerously high water levels can occur in the Thames Estuary, and if not for the Thames Barrier system, London would face a frequent and dangerous set of issues.

The threat has increased over time due to continuous rise in high water levels over the centuries and the slow 'tilting' of Britain (up in the north and west, and down in the south and east) caused by post-glacial rebound. The barrier was originally designed to protect London against a very high flood level up to the year 2030, after which the protection would decrease, whilst remaining within acceptable limits. At the time of its construction, the barrier was expected to be used 2–3 times per year. It is now being used over 7 times per year.

In the 1928 Thames flood, 14 people died. After 300 people died in the UK in the North Sea flood of 1953, the issue gained new prominence. Early proposals for a flood control system were stymied by the need for a large opening in the barrier to allow for vessels from the London docks to pass through, the Thames Barrier was eventually completed in 1982.

Two of my Thames Barrier Studies will be exhibited as part of London: A Sense of Place, in Bankside Gallery 7th October - 5th November.

1928 Thames Flood

David Cass24 September 2016Bankside GalleryLondon, Exhibition, Flood, RWS, Sense of Place, Show, ARWS, David Cass

Florence Flood Aftermath

“Inch by inch, floodwaters lowered, as daylight gradually left Florence on 4th November 1966. Oily black perimeter lines marked the water’s journey down façades: from a height of four adults in Santa Croce, each stage of this slow recession was charted in level horizontal lines of varying thicknesses. This process was repeated, unbelievably, over hundreds of acres. Clocks throughout the city sat stationary, reading 7:26 AM, when power in the city had been lost as the force of the inundation took hold that morning.”

The force of the inundation had been relentless as it pounded streets, ripping apart ground floors and basements, shopfronts, signs, generators, garages, cars. It tore the city apart from the ground up over the course of an entire day. The devastating and deadly force of black water. Had it not been Armed Forces Day on the 4th (a national holiday), the streets would surely have been busier as the tides entered the city early in the morning.

I've dedicated the last couple of years to researching and responding to this catastrophic historical event (drawing parallels with weather extremes of today). Through this research I've come across all sorts of ephemera (newspaper articles and clippings, magazine features and appeals for help, short-run flood related publications...) but by far the best is these photographs. I purchased this set of prints last year, from a vendor who did not know the history or provenance of their lot. I've asked around and searched extensively for evidence of these images (by an unknown photographer) in other archives, with no results. If you know anything about these images please do get in touch. I'll be featuring a selection of these scanned prints in my book Perimetri Perduti set for launch on November 4th this year: the 50th anniversary of the flood.

David Cass12 September 2016Flood, Florence, Alluvione, Firenze, Fotos, Photos, Archive, Black and White, Research, Ephemera, Prints, Analogue, Artist, Art, 1966, Italy, Rare, Found

Studio: Stow

These analogue 35mm stills document my ever-changing Stow studio. Captured with a 1984 Canon AV1, these images are an incredibly important aspect of my practice. Over exposed, or with expired film, these images document small moments, that – when taken together – illustrate not only how I work and where my ideas come from, but also the hoards of antique objects that inspire the creative process.

Wherever I've worked over the last six years (I've had studios in Edinburgh, Glasgow & Brussels; I've made work in France, Spain & Italy too) I've always returned here to Stow in the Scottish Borders to draw exhibitions and projects to a close.

“These new photographs on old film effect a curious folding of time. They have a quality of age, so that today looks like a postcard from years before. As [his] paintings enact an encounter of solid things, lodged in time and place, with endlessness and timelessness - the momentary glimpses of memory, the seascapes’ unending motion, represented on particular objects with particular histories - so the camera’s lens opens, and ‘now’ is captured on film that dates from ‘then’.

There is a motif of journeying and standing still, represented in a number of [his] photographs ... See here the warm interior of the studio, objects slant-lit, gathered in their taxonomies, bundled, piled, and at rest.”

— Author Ian Tromp

David Cass16 August 2016Art, Artist, Studio, Analogue, 35mm, Ian Tromp, David Cass, Photography, Stow, Scottish Borders, Artwork, New Art, Book, Painting, Painter, Atelier

Surface: Exhibition Photography

A set of paintings that explore the concept of the surface. Created using non-traditional methods and painted on unconventional surfaces, these repetitive, layered artworks are unified by their exclusive depiction of water. From heavily layered oil paintings created outdoors over several years, to miniature gouache artworks painted on matchboxes or coffee grinder drawers.

The exhibition (and ongoing series) features images of water surveyed whilst travelling: the Atlantic from Cádiz, the Adriatic from Dalmatia, the Mediterranean from Liguria. Many too, are abstracted visions of the English Channel ('Mor breizh') - the strip of water I must cross to reach France, Belgium, Spain and Italy - where I source the materials and supports upon which I works. From Paris’ plethora of antique shops to Brussels’ frequent flea-markets, I source and gather every-day items (wooden, metal, and paper planes) suitable to be brought back to the studio and transformed into the foundation of each artwork.

These are artworks made from ordinary objects that speak of function and familiarity: tabletops, drawer bases, trunk lids, roadsigns, books & papers. Aged items and objects that describe a lifetime of use in their worn grains – a kind of repetition that is mirrored in the marks of each piece, the obsessive documentation of a singular subject.

David Cass10 May 2016Exhibition, Art, Gayfield Creative, David Cass, Artist, Artwork, Photography

David Hewson: Author of 'The Flood'

In collaboration with The British Institute Florence, I'm putting together an exhibition that looks at the history of Florence's 1966 Great Flood. I've been working on this project for around three years now, and hope that its climax will fall on the month and year that mark the 50th anniversary of this catastrophic event: November 2016. Below, internationally renowned author David Hewson (The Killing) describes his own critically acclaimed response to the flood, in relation to my project:

"In a single night in November 1966 the birthplace of the Renaissance was reduced to a sea of mud as the Arno burst its banks, engulfed some of the most famous and historic buildings and sights in Europe and took the lives of more than thirty people."

"And yet, as I discovered when I came to write a novel partly set during this extraordinary period, the event is now largely forgotten outside Florence itself, overshadowed in the public imagination by the dreadful aqua alta in Venice at the same time. The city, its stalwart people, and the thousands of angeli del fango who flocked to Florence to help the city recover deserve better. During many visits to the city while I was writing The Flood I was astonished to see how the disaster continues be visible on the face of the twenty first century city, from the signs in the street marking the level of the water down to more subtle effects, among them the restoration of the damaged masterpieces in the Brancacci Chapel to remove the prudish additions of earlier centuries."

“Four years on from working on The Flood David Cass’s evocative paintings took me straight back to that terrible night in November 1966, a timely reminder of the fragility of beauty against the elements of nature, and the defiant human spirit that swept away the mud and restored Florence to glory. I hope they find a place in the heart of the city fifty years on from the events that inspired them.”

— David Hewson

David Cass6 January 2016Florence, Firenze, Flood, David Hewson, Author, The Flood, Book, Audible, Writer, Exhibition, November 2016, Nature, Mud Angels, Proposal, Show, Italy

New Website, New Media, Collaboration

I'm an artist who has spent the last five years working on very specific artworks – mostly under the umbrella of painting. As of mid 2014, I embarked upon a new series of projects that see my camera as a medium equal to my paintbrushes. These projects are wide ranging in their exploration, but unified by theme. I'm looking for evidence, for traces of past lives – the lives of places, the lives of people.

My painting practice is heavily concerned with the past, as well as the changing fate of our planet. I work exclusively with found objects, creating artworks with, and upon, items and objects of considerable age. I create paintings which bear witness to their previous lives, picking surfaces that speak of function, of use. In these paintings, the subject matter has always been to do with sustainability (recycling) and the passing of time – most evidently in my paintings of sea.

These new-media works inform and support my painted works, whilst also documenting research. None of this work could have been made possible without the guidance and support of artist Gonzaga Gómez-Cortázar Romero, whose work I urge you to explore.

Gonzaga and I met at an environmentally focussed arts residency in the Almería arid-zone. His photographic works, particularly those created in the surrounding Los Vélez park possess a potent undercurrent, an energy that subtly emanates from each photograph. On initial viewing – the images which make up his series Espesuras for example – seem to be concerned mostly with a fleeting light, captured at a specific time of day. But for me – in the works we have made together – it is the darkness that speaks the most.

His photographs describe an imagined world, one stuck in permanent twilight, one where neither day nor night exist. Waves of claustrophobia distract from focusing solely on the beauty of these photographs, not just because they offer no sky, but because they’re deceptive: they overwrite the landscape with a light which has little to do with their subject. They’re surreal, dream-like, and for me – very powerful. In all of our collaborative endeavours, this aesthetic has been vital in conveying themes related to climate change and landscape abandonment.

Above image: forest fire aftermath research, created whilst filming El Bosque Encarnado. — Above image: forest fire aftermath research, created whilst filming *El Bosque Encarnado*.

Above: Espesura VI, one from Gonzaga's Espesuras series. — Above: Espesura VI, one from Gonzaga's *Espesuras* series.

David Cass9 August 2015

Blog

Wherever I've worked over the last six years (I've had studios in Edinburgh, Glasgow & Brussels; I've made work in France, Spain & Italy too) I've always returned here to Stow in the Scottish Borders to draw exhibitions and projects to a close.