Fernand Léger- Exhibition review
Fernand Léger was not afraid of embracing the extraordinary, evidenced in his bizarre, intriguing works which reflected at the time his progressive view of life in the 20th century. Tate Liverpool’s exhibit covers both his early and late works highlighting Léger’s diverse range of experimental pieces as well as his change in mentality over the years, his political views and modern perception of everyday life.
On entering the exhibition, you come face to face with Léger’s individualistic, geometric style of painting paired perfectly with his avant-garde black and white film ‘Ballet Mécanique’ which immerses you in sound and dynamic imagery. This is one of the two films that are shown at this exhibition, the second being ‘the girl with the fabricated heart director’, a part of the Dadaist film ‘Dreams that money can buy’. Just these films alone make this exhibition worth seeing.
The exhibition begins with his pre-war paintings including ‘the card players’ (1917), his mechanical approach is shown here with a focus towards an appreciation of the human figure which continues throughout his career. Léger was able to reflect on other artists at the time, using a cubist style with his own twist. Tate Liverpool has done well to show the progress and development of Léger’s works over the years by displaying his works in a chronological order with the Information boards highlighting Léger’s key beliefs and reasoning behind his works.
His piece, ‘Essential happiness, new pleasures’ takes up a whole wall of the exhibition, constructed together on the walls of the Tate. This relatively forward-thinking piece brings the viewer away from Léger’s iconic painting technique and towards a new approach with the use of modern photography techniques and collage. I enjoy how the piece is modern with its strong, blunt blocks of colours contrasted with Léger’s black and white photography of agricultural everyday-life. Also, I like how the piece reflects on the political culture at the time making a statement on the modernisation of agriculture.
An iconic piece by Léger ‘Dancers with keys’ is also displayed, the contrast between the abstract fluid forms of two dancers is contrasted with the harsh, blunt geometric shapes that are blocked with colour showing both Léger’s obsession with the human form and with new technology and mechanics. This is again contrasted to the dark loose shadowy shapes that make up parts of the background. This piece like many in this exhibition prove that Léger was well ahead of his time creating works that could be compared to the pop art pieces of the late 50s but created in the 30s.
The Léger exhibition takes over three quarters of the third floor of the Tate, the rest is dedicated to a pair of South Korean contemporary artists (lesser-known than Léger), Moon Kyungwon and Jean Joonho, who present their project ‘news from nowhere’, an insight into their ideas of a utopian future and a reflection on today, like what Léger was trying to portray. Both exhibitions are relevant in society today and create connections with the world around them.
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