VISUAL ARTS

The forgotten heroof Art NouveauSiegfried Bing is little known today. But the cosmopolitan dealerplayed a key role in the rise of modern art, Julius Purcell writes

Wether it is abrooch, a chairor even a type-face, most peo-

ple recognise a piece of ArtNouveau when they see it,even given its many localvariants. Rather fewer haveheard of the dealer SiegfriedBing, whose L'art Nouveaugallery was a magnet for theaesthetes and Japonistes of1890sParis.

Art Nouveau: The Legacyof Siegfried Bing, which hasjust opened in Barcelona'sCaixaForum, aims to redressthat disparity. This exhibi-tion not only gives Bing'sgallery credit for providingthe catch-all name for themodern style, but also cele-brates Bing's own role as aprime mover in its unifica-tion: helping to drawtogether Arts and Crafts,Liberty style, Jugendstil,Sezessionstil and CatalanModernisme into the undu-lating language that we readso easily today.

Assem bled by ProfessorGabriel Weisberg, who hasdedicated his career to theGerman-born dealer, theshow has come to Barcelonafrom Amsterdam's VanGogh Museum. If this was ahighly appropriate setting,given that the Dutch artistoften sought Bing's adviceon Japanese woodblocks, thespace in Barcelona is no lessso: CaixaForum's immacu-late new gallery is housed ina building by Antoni Gaudi'scontemporary, Josep Puig iCadafalch. Its rectilinearbrick reliefs in Catalonia'sown Art Nouveau style are afitting display cabinet forBing's treasures.

Some 350 of these are onshow, all of which were. atsome time, displayed in thesumptuous showrooms ofL'art Nouveau. Openingwith contemporary Japanesecombs and sake jars andending with Bing's triumphat the Universal Exposition

of 1900,it charts his progressfrom dealer in Japanese artobjects to internationaltaste-maker.

This progress emerges asorganic, even inevitable.Bing used his formidablenetworking skills to encour-age and extend the use ofJapanese traits in Europeanapplied arts, urging on astyle revolution whose"chuck out the chintz" tenetresonates today. In 1895,theyear he opened L'art Nou-veau, Bing wrote that hismission was "to eliminatewhat is ugly and pretentiousin all things that presentlysurround us". The future layin a "total art" for living.The uncluttered, simple,nature-drawn lines of Japa-nese design were to beapplied to everything, fromwardrobes to teaspoons.

Bing's love of Japanreflected the obsession of histime. In the 1850s, when

Bing said his aim was'to eliminate what isugly and pretentiousin all things thatpresently surround us'

Japan was opened up totrade, the woodblock printsthat flooded into the westfascinated Europeans, wearyof the prevailing classicismand anxious about theeffects on art of mass pro-duction. The stuff fromJapan, by contrast, was pre-industrial and refreshinglystrange. Monet was later tobe in thrall to its colour jux-taposition, Toulouse-Lautrecto its flat poster forms.

Hokusai's celebrated"Thirty-Six Views Of MountFuji" - whose quirky compo-sition had such an impact on

Degas' dancing scenes - wasthe subject of a lecture Binghimself gave to the JapanSociety of London: a rarefiedclub to which Bing intro-duced large numbers ofimportant recruits.

Despite his networkingbrilliance, Bing was anobsessively private man,who has left us scantrecords, portraits or photosof himself - a problem for anexhibition with a biographi-cal theme. Yet while attimes Bing seems strangelyabsent, the show manages tohold the central focus:Bing's decision in 1894 toshift away from Japaneseimports and create "salons"or showrooms to give expo-sure to the new style of inte-rior design.

The contents of theseshow just how internationalBing's reach had become:panels by Frank Brangwyn,Edouard Vuillard ceramics,sun-bathed pictures of Span-ish gardens by' the Modern-isme painter SantiagoRusifiol. A picture by PaulSerusier shows the extent ofJapanese influence: the sub-ject of a country pilgrimageis thoroughly European, butnot the procession of rigid,repeated figures ascending achurch-topped mountain,nor the rosy cloud abstractedto a caterpillar shape.

Bing also exhi bited"Woman with a Bird-Cage"by the Hungarian J6zsefRippl-Ronai. Clothed andbackgrounded in the rich,sombre colours of Whistler,the cage she holds aloft isglimmering emerald. Hergaunt-beautiful face glowswhite, similar to the palelady in the poster byToulouse-Lautrec hung oppo-site, and soon to crop up as amuse over all the surfaces ofArt Nouveau.

It was precisely theseeclectic elements of Bing'ssalons that provokedhuge critical disdain at the

Showcase for a new aesthetic: Siegfri Bing's l'art Nouveau gallery in 1895

time. "A scream of being Jnutely separated skeins of enigma1bundled together," sneered dour. Perhaps one thmg orne ofone Paris critic, appalled at e exhibition lacks is a ref- could slits internationalism: "The ence point: some example fluctuadepraved Englishman ... the Ithe interior that the chau- retreatmorphine-addicted Jew." Lit- nist critic would have pre- an age,tie wonder, then, since this 'rred the very "ugliness try, wwas the time of the Dreyfus ~d ~retentiousness" that the enlaffair, that the Jewish-born ling helped to eliminate. enouglBing kept his head down. Bing's career culminated But h

Such contempt is hard to '/lith the triumph of hiS pr.esenunderstand now, given the pavilion at the 1900 Univer- still mcommercial and stylistic suc- sal Exposition, whose con- very (cess of the international tents conclude the exhlbl- paradceramics studios Bing pro- tion. He died five years later,moted. You can only wonder his name falling into annow how the vases by Louis obscurity so deep that, evenComfort Tiffany inspired on leaving this exhIbItIOn,anything but awe, with their he still seems intriguingly

ninutely separated skeins of:olour. Perhaps one thing.he exhibition lacks is a ref-~rence point: some example)f the interior that the chau-vinist critic would have pre-ferred, the very "uglinessand pretentiousness" thatBing helped to eliminate.

Bing's career culminatedwith the triumph of hispavilion at the 1900 Univer-sal Exposition, whose con-tents conclude the exhibi-tion. He died five years later,his name falling into anobscurity so deep that, evenon leaving this exhibition,he still seems intriguingly

enigmatic. He was the epit-ome of the aesthete, and yetcould shrewdly judge marketfluctuations; a man inretreat from the vulgarity ofan age of captains of indus-try, whose wives were, inthe end, the only ones richenough to buy his goods.But however ghostly hispresence is, this exhibition-still manages to flesh out avery 19th-century culturalparadox.

'Art Nouveau: The Legacy ofSiegfried Bing' is at Caixa-Forum, Barcelona, until 29January, Tel +34 93 476 8600

Waiting for theBarbariansErfurt Opera, GermanySHIRLEY APTHORP

"Normally speaking, wewould never approve oftorture," sings Colonel Joll."But I think it's generallyunderstood that this is anemergency."

Philip Glass's newestopera is an allegory for ourtimes. Waiting for theBarbarians tells acautionary tale about theevils of imperialism, themoral quagmire of war andtorture, about injusticemasquerading as law andorder, about individualresponsibility. The work, atidy 2'/2-hour music drama,received its world premierein the Thuringian capital ofErfurt on Saturday.

For his 21st @pera,Glass'sstroke of genius was torecognise in J.M. Coetzee's1980novel a prescientparable of today's Bushregime and its misdeeds. Infact, Coetzee's Waiting forthe Barbarians, for all thevague abstraction of itssetting, is a scorchingportrait of apartheid SouthAfrica at the time. The easewith which its analogiescan be made to fit today'sUS government ought togive pause for thought.

A string of recent flopshave illustrated the dangerof the novel as operatictemplate. Lorin Maazel's1984at Covent Gardenearlier this year wonwidespread derision,Nicholas Maw's Sophie'sChoice in 2002fared littlebetter. Would this beanother third-rate operabased on a first-rate book?

The risk of banality wascannily evaded when Glasschose Christopher Hampton(Sunset Boulevard,Dangerous Liaisons) as hislibrettist. This wasHampton's first opera, butyou'd never know it. Histext is a superb distillationof Coetzee's masterpiece.Hampton knows what toleave out, where to whittle,and how to build structureswith real dramatic impact.

With Glass, the ErfurtTheatre won internationalattention and the promiseof new music that would beeasy to listen to. And asthe opening-night standing

ovation proved, it won thehearts of its audience.

What it didn't win wasany points for originality.Glass was a safe bet, andhis score is just what you'dexpect, a neatly madepatchwork of tunefularpeggios and comfortablechord changes, metricallysteady, dynamicallyterraced, melancholic inmood, over which the vocallines run like dry recitativewith occasional stabs oflyricism. It could be a filmscore, except for the factthat film scores generallyillustrate the emotionsinvolved in a more directmanner. Pleasant sounds,but depressingly conveyor-belt. Glass has made self-plagiarism his trademark.

Guy Montavan's stagingis a literal retelling of thebook, best in its attentionto detail with characterdirection. George T;;ypin'ssets profit from the newtheatre's state-of-the-artstage technology and fromThomas Hase's painterlylighting. A series of gauzesfly in and out, shifting fromglittering blue ice fieldsinto red-orange desert orgrey prison walls with swiftsubtlety. Above, swaddledcorpses hang on poles, anomnipresent reminder ofstate brutality. Hank IrwinKittel's costumes crossBritish colonialism with atouch of the central Asiaimplied in Coetzee's noveland a nod to Nazi Germanyfor J011 and his ThirdBureau thugs.

Dennis Russell Daviesdraws solid and assuredplaying from the ErfurtPhilharmonic Orchestra, nomean feat in a genre thatrequires ferociousconcentration from everymusician. The evening'sstrongest performancecomes from Richard Salterin the pivotal role ofMagistrate. Salter's dictionis flawless, his tone warmlyexpressive, and hisdramatic talent such thathe effortlessly conveys allhis character's ambiguity.As the Barbarian Girl,Elvira Soukop is alsomemorable, broken butstrong, with bittersweetvocal purity. * * * * *Tel +49 361 2233155The production will go on toAmsterdam, Austin (Texas)and Cincinnati.

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