The Art World Works From Home: Leonardo da Vinci Scholar Martin Kemp Is Thinking About Dante and Whipping Up Indian Food

The art world may be on lockdown, but it certainly does not
stop. During this unprecedented time, we’re checking in with
art-world professionals, collectors, and artists to get a glimpse
into how they are working from home.

Before the UK went into
lockdown, Martin Kemp—one of the world’s most esteemed
Leonardo da Vinci experts and a professor emeritus of art history
at Oxford University—was
working on a David Hockney exhibition, collaborating with
musicians, and busy writing a book about Dante Alighieri, slated
for the 700th anniversary of the artist’s birth, next
year.

Now he is now learning to do
research without libraries.

Though Kemp says he misses the
collegial banter of library life, he is still writing at home (and
is glad for the existence of digitized books). Read on to hear how
Kemp is exploring online exhibitions, giving some new technology a
try, and trying not to get cranky.

Where is your new “office”?

I have been working from my
office at home since I “retired” from Oxford University. I am
full-time writing, speaking (or was), broadcasting, and sometimes
presenting concerts (or was). On some unusually brilliant spring
days, I have been working outside on my terrace, surrounded by
sparkling blossom and thrusting green shoots.

What are you working on right now (and were any projects
of yours interrupted by the lockdown)?

I’m writing a book on Dante and
divine light in art (for Dante’s 700th birthday anniversary next
year), which I can do largely from home since the Dante texts are
all online. Though it is difficult stuff. I’m still
looking for a publisher! I have also been discussing with Robert
Hollingworth of I Fagiolini,
the vocal ensemble, a
traveling concert on Dante, in succession to a Leonardo concert we
toured in 2019. But such things are up in the air.

I am also planning a Hockney
show for Cambridge (the Heong Gallery at Downing and the
Fitzwilliam Museum) for summer–autumn 2021. It will look at the
perceptual aspects of his experiments in representation.

How has your work changed now that you are doing it from
home?

The content has changed little,
but I miss being in the same space as collaborators and colleagues.
Teleconferencing really does not do the same job. Being excluded
from libraries is a pain, not least my own Leonardo library, which
is the Research Hall of the History Faculty [at Oxford University].
The choices made in the Dante book are in part determined by the
availability of books, though the primary sources online are an
amazing gift. Well done the British Library, the Bodleian et
al.

What are you reading, both online and off?

Dante—a lot of it (and there is
a lot). 

Have you visited any good virtual exhibitions
recently?

I’m looking at quite a number of
online shows. The site of the Raphael
exhibition in the
Scudiere in Rome is a particular pleasure. An intelligently curated
exhibition, which I am very sorry to have lost. The online shows of
contemporary art give me a chance to catch up on what’s
happening.

Have you taken up any new hobbies?

Trying not to be a grumpy
(not-so-young) man.

What is the first place you want to travel to once this
is over?

My schedule of talks is gone and
with it the cancellation of visits to Florida, Venice, Stuttgart,
and Beijing. It would be good if one or more of these happened in
due course.

If you are feeling stuck while self-isolating, what’s
your best method for getting un-stuck?

The buzz I get from writing is a
good solvent for inertial glue.

What was the last TV show, movie, or YouTube video you
watched?

I don’t have a TV and have not
got into the habit of watching it. I tend to boycott YouTube,
Facebook, Amazon, Tweets, etc. I get harassed, and the pernicious
aspects of social media outweigh the good, though in present
circumstances I exempt those that facilitate face-to-face contact
with family and friends. Facetime works well.

If you could have one famous work of art with you, what
would it be?

Giovanni Bellini’s
St Francis
in the Frick Collection, New York.
Bellini said that he liked to “wander at will” in his paintings. He
has provided us with multiple journeys of delight within a single
frame.

Favorite recipe to cook at home?

I cook a lot of Indian
vegetarian food. I make up the recipes as I go along, always with
all the individual spices in response to the available ingredients.
I shop at Worton Organic Garden. The ingredients are
excellent.

What are you most looking forward to doing once social
distancing has been lifted?

Going to arts events, especially
music, which has come to mean a great deal to me. Collaborating
with world-class singers is privilege and delight.

The post The Art World Works From Home: Leonardo da Vinci
Scholar Martin Kemp Is Thinking About Dante and Whipping Up Indian
Food appeared first on artnet News.