Zaha Hadid Early Paintings and Drawings

Zaha Hadid: Early Paintings and Drawings, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, until 12th Feb, 2017

Fig. i

The Peak site plan, Hong-Kong, 1982-1983, 11038 x 4961 cm, Zaha Hadid

I was bully to run into this exhibition of Hadid'southward early paintings and drawings as they combine features which are both architectural and abstruse which coincides elegantly with my arts practice project this year: Exploring Brainchild from Architecture.

Effigy 2 below exemplifies Curator, Hans Ulrich Obrist'southward description of Hadid as a:

… glowing admirer of Russian Constructivism, she fabricated paintings influenced by Malevich, Tatlin, and Rodchenko. Among the many lesser known facets of her work are the free calligraphy drawings in which she frequently explored the ideas that would later exist transformed into compages. Hans Ulrich Obrist, 2016, Curator Serpentine https://www.artforum.com/passages/id=59951

Fig. two

Horizontal Tektonic, Malevich'south Tektonic, London, 1977, acrylic on cartridge, 128 x 89 cm, Zaha Hadid

Hadid explained that ane issue of her interest in Malevich was her decision to employ painting as a "blueprint tool":

I found the traditional system of architectural drawing to be limiting and was searching for a new means of representation. Studying Malevich immune me to develop brainchild every bit an investigative principle. Zaha Hadid, 2014.

https://world wide web.royalacademy.org.u.k./article/zaha-hadid-ra-on-the-influence-of

I enjoyed the irony of discovering the statement to a higher place equally I was starting from the opposite positon i.e. exploring architectural principles equally a ways of investigating abstraction. During my visit, I was particularly struck past Hadid'south mastery of perspective and proportion in her vast sweeping cityscapes.

Fig. three The Meridian Blue Slabs, 1982 – 1983, dimensions unknown, Zaha Hadid

During a close examination of this canvas I tracked the shadows of supposed buildings sloping diagonally into the bay, darkening the road meandering from the sea to the mountains and making vertical streaks on parallel buildings.

The paradox created by the sharply precise geometry of the city reaching north towards the wider angles and broader sweep of the mountains, produces a pleasing sense of contrast betwixt the urban sprawl upwards and the mountain range which looms notwithstanding higher upwards towards locations which would provide superb panoramic views over the landscape, city, bay and still further beyond the water.

Intriguingly, there is a magnificent building design – extreme top correct – the foundations of which would be ancient rock. Like a series of cantilevered Zs, the downwardly pointing structure is as bold and balanced as the vertical slivers of loftier-rise buildings at the water's edge.

Fig. four Zaha Hadid design, Serpentine Pavillion, 2000

In 2000 Zaha Hadid designed the countdown pavilion in the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion Series; and until her expiry in 2016, she was a Trustee of the Serpentine Gallery for 20 years.

Hadid'southward intimacy with the Serpentine Sackler Gallery now exhibiting her early on paintings and drawings extends to both the exhibition space and the display table which she designed to protect and display her sketch books.

Fig. 5

Fig.six Zaha Hadid Architects, 2013

The Serpentine Sackler Gallery is housed in an 1805, Grade II listed building (The Magazine); a quondam gunpowder shop in The Royal Park of Kensington Gardens. In 2013 Zaha Hadid Architects created the undulating, white canopied extension at the side of the building to create additional space for a eatery, gallery and social space.

In his review of the evolution of Zaha Hadid's work from the 1970s to 2008, Lebbeus Woods (Fatigued into Infinite: Zaha Hadid, 2008, Architectural Design, Vol 78, Issue 4, July/August, 2008, pages 28-35) tracks the shifts in Hadid's work from Suprematist-informed fragmentations in the 1980s to a more contemporary fluidity and complex curvilinearity as demonstrated in the Figures 7 and viii below:

Fig. 7

The World (89 Degrees), ,1989, dimensions unknown, Zaha Hadid Photograph: a section of the original image together with reflections of photographer and visitors, Gillian Lock-Bowen, 2017

Fig. eight

Metropolis, 1988, dimensions unknown, Zaha Hadid,

Woods states that the key to understanding these paintings is fragmentation:

Animated $.25 and pieces of buildings and landscapes wing through the air. The earth is changing. It breaks up, scatters and reassembles in unexpectedly new, nevertheless uncannily familiar forms…Fragmentation tin be philosophical, too. It tin can be systematic and not merely chaotic or accidental…Only when established forms are cleaved up are they susceptible to change. Forest, 2008, pp 31-32.

While examining the content of the exhibition of Hadid's early painting and drawings at The Serpentine, I realised that her vision was not merely about beautiful buildings, but also visions of new cities and radically changing city and landscapes.

Coincidently, I visited Rome a year ago; a city renowned for its aboriginal social, political, cultural and architectural history. Without knowing the builder was Hadid, I walked around the outside of the Maxxi Museum late ane evening.

Fig. nine Maxxi Museum, Rome, 2009, Zara Hadid Architects

Fig. ten Maxxi Museum, Rome, Pattern, 2009, Zaha Hadid

My Italian friends told me that the building is controversial; it certainly introduces a radically new course of architecture to the City.

I imagined that my visit to Rome would open-upwards many new perspectives and was keen to get a sense of at the calibration and splendour of the aboriginal Roman sites – vast ruins exposing the foundations of the social and political history of modern Rome.

The Maxxi Museum revealed that there are contemporary architectural visionaries in Rome and that it is a urban center with the capacity (if not the capital) to build a powerful contemporary city of stunning, beauty and efficiency.

Forest (2008) also notes that the fragmentation evident in Hadid'south early paintings and drawings is inherently democratic involving choice. I felt mazed by corporeality of decision making evident in Hadid'southward complex, large-scale drawings which consist of millions of tiny convoluted or stand up alone choices; the outcomes of which contribute to her overarching – magnificently ambitious – vision of new worlds as seen in Figure 11.

Fig. eleven Changsha Meixihu International Civilisation Art Centre, acrylic on canvas, 1134 x 949 cm, 2017, Zaha-Hadid

As Hadid'south work evolves it appears to move away from a sense of fragmentary angles and channels shattering and slicing through space – a radical breaking abroad from – towards a sense of curvaceous fluidity. The sense of explosion moves from forms to events moving energetically and cohere at the level of vision.

Similar the universe, Hadid'due south drawings contain the promise of infinite expansion.

Upon reflection, what I have learnt from this exhibition which I volition accept frontwards into my current project is:

Cartoon is a means of filtering and locating – e.g. filtering out habits, locating pockets of energy vying for expression.

Action: I intend to draw, analyse and make decisions earlier I paint my next serial of abstracted images.

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Source: https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/painting-as-performance/post/52473964/

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