This summer an exhibition curated by The Courtauld’s MA Curating the Art Museum students will open at The Courtauld Gallery.
The Courtauld’s students are creating a compelling and exciting exhibition by bringing together Post Impressionist paintings and prints from our collection with contemporary works from the David and Indré Roberts Collection. The result promises to be an exhibition that encourages us to find thought-provoking and unexpected connections between artworks that span more than a century. All the artists represented explore new ways of depicting their own experiences of nightlife, entertainment, and spectacle, often playing with the strange effects of light after nightfall. We are delighted that Good Morning, Midnight has been such a fruitful collaboration with the Roberts Institute of Art.
Barnaby Wright, Deputy Head of The Courtauld Gallery and Daniel Katz Curator of 20th Century Art
Iconic works from The Courtauld’s Post-Impressionist collection will be presented in dialogue with a selection of artworks from the David and Indré Roberts Collection dating between 1972 and 2023. Good Morning, Midnight will be the first time several of the artworks from the David and Indré Roberts Collection are exhibited in a public institution, including two works from contemporary painters Anthony Cudahy and Louise Giovanelli.
This collaboration goes to the heart of the Robert Institute of Art’s mission as stewards of the David and Indré Roberts Collection. We work to make the collection more publicly accessible so are delighted to have opened it up to The Courtauld’s MA students to research and interrogate. This partnership is an opportunity for us to bring new perspectives on the collection and fresh readings of it in dialogue with The Courtauld’s superlative Post-Impressionist collection. We are excited to see how the students will draw links between these artworks in what promises to be a fascinating exhibition.
Kate Davies, Director of the Roberts Institute of Art,
The exhibition finds its beginnings in depictions of entertainers in fin de siècle Paris in The Courtauld’s collection and compares how contemporary artists have responded to different experiences of entertainment culture, particularly that related to nightlife. Featured artists from The Courtauld’s collection include Jean-Louis Forain, Georges Seurat, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Artists from the David and Indré Roberts Collection include Anthony Cudahy, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Louise Giovanelli, Celia Hempton, Harry Gruyaert, Susan Meiselas, Marlo Pascual, Prem Sahib, Pádraig Timoney, and Rose Wylie.
While Impressionism is often associated with the artistic endeavour to capture natural light, Good Morning, Midnight shifts focus to the seedy, newly electrified Paris nightlife frequented by Post-Impressionist masters, including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Georges Seurat. The artists from the David and Indré Roberts Collection are similarly concerned with both old and new modes of entertainment and leisure, and how our changing experiences of these are mediated by technology. From bars to clubs, stages to screens, this exhibition speculates on the underlying power dynamics in places of leisure and entertainment, particularly those of the observer and observed.
Taking its name from the 1939 modernist novel by Jean Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight addresses the
disorienting experience of nightlife, entertainment culture, and the fleeting intimacy these provide, similar to that felt by Rhys’ protagonist as she wanders through Paris. Many of the contemporary works from the David and Indré Roberts Collection evoke this feeling of intimacy in relation to modern technologies, such as television, the film industry, and more recently, online chat rooms. Our sources of entertainment and leisure have less to do with in-person socialising and are instead increasingly mediated by our image-saturated world.
Good Morning, Midnight, 25th May – 7th July 2024, The Courtauld Gallery
Visitors can preview the exhibition as part of The Courtauld Lates, 6:30PM – 10:30PM, Friday 24th May.
Good Morning, Midnight is accompanied by a scheduled programme of public events including curator-led tours.
