Victoria Grove studio
London, 2011
Key elements in my life
Elements in my life which in my view are central to my career
2011
Fellow student Richard Hollis
photo by Gillian Wise
Brighton Beach, 1957
1.
Meeting the graphic designer Richard Hollis at art school and hearing his explanation of the Modern Movement. I was 21 at the time and had already started to do abstract work via personal experiment.
Letter from Georges Vantongerloo
Paris, 1963
2.
After that, meeting Anthony Hill and also going to Switzerland to meet the Swiss artist Richard Lohse; and visiting Max Bill’s Hochschule für Gestaltung (design school) in Ulm, Germany. Also, meeting Georges Vantogerloo in Paris.
“Madame Wise has real talent.”
Georges Vantongerloo, Paris 1963
Founding member of the De Stijl movement with Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and Bart van der Leck
3.
Becoming associated with the International Movement’s abstract geometric and constructive concepts and work, through my involvement with the British Constructivist group - particularly Victor Pasmore, Kenneth and Mary Martin and Anthony Hill.
4.
Doing a large construction on London’s South Bank for the International Union of Architects in 1961 on the invitation of Theo Crosby. Also many visits to Europe and to the USA in 1964 with Anthony Hill.
Coloured glass construction
4’ x 24’ • 1,2 x 8m
South Bank, London, 1961
Library pass during studies of the Soviet Modern Movement
Lenningrad Art Academy, 1969-70
5.
Around 1965 the first signs began that modernist avant-garde internationalism was being frowned on and that any of its survival in the UK was only an English phenomenon. This led to my travels to Czechoslovakia in 1968 (as a Fellow) to see Modern Movement work, then to the USSR and the British Council Exchange scholarship in 1969/70. There, at the Leningrad Beaux Arts, I found out what was left of the Russian constructivist spirit among the younger artists. This coincided with my showing at the first Systems exhibition in Helsinki to which I travelled to and from Leningrad. From there I developed a greater interest in art and science. I worked for a short while with Piotr Kowalski in Paris, through whom I obtained a fellowship with Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Boston in 1981.
6.
The results of this were changes of direction of perspective, and new issues to explore – who was doing what and where. I taught in the UK and USA but never accepted a full-time position.
Two walls over three storeys consisting of two facing murals connected by mirrored planes creating an internal of illusionistic spaces
Commissioned by Chamberlin, Powell & Bon
Barbican Arts Centre, London, 1983
7.
My five commissions relating to architecture and interiors are noted elsewhere, but the Barbican is the key one. It is unique in many ways, though still not really well-presented. Corporate views prevailed from the start of this commission and that meant there has been no promotion of the work – despite it being the largest interior work in London by a 20th century artist. It remains largely unknown, but I hope visitors to London will search it out.
8.
For my son’s education I returned to Europe and Paris, where career-wise I fell into a black hole. Post 1968 a darkness came over those who espoused authentic modernism – a cloud which has not yet lifted. I fear I am now slotted into a pigeon hole which roughly follows the double-think established in the 1960s in the USA. By this I mean the fabricated US avant-garde and the later corporate avant-garde favouring Duchamp. The market also dominates in two forms – the market for the so-called international “stars” promoted by corporate global interests, and the regional or national market.
I fit into neither category.