Visited Exhibitions 2
My visits have been entered in reverse order, ending with my first Unit 2 visit to Clare Woods ‘Monument’ Mascalls Gallery Paddock Wood Kent. Visited June 2014 ‘Colour Sessions’ Polly Apfelbaum Frith Street Gallery Visited 5th December 2014 I didn’t appreciate the aesthetic of this show, having admired her work in ‘Silver’ and Cornelia parker’s curated room at the Royal academy Summer Exhibition.The tiny images are taken from the gallery web site and infer a glowing jewel like presence rendered against the vastness of the concrete gallery space but in fact my iPhone images are truer to the drab effect.
‘In 2013 Polly Apfelbaum was awarded a residency at The American Academy in Rome. The works exhibited here grew out of the artist’s experience in that city and in particular her fascination with the drapery and coloured fabrics depicted in Renaissance and Baroque paintings which she saw there. The series started out as a constantly changing studio installation with large squares of loosely draped fabric punctuated by hanging beads. The artist describes them as having an improvisational quality; like a musician improvising on a theme. Hence the title “Colour Sessions.’
“I was thinking about the movement and order of thought, of colour and light, the angel in the Fra Angelico Annunciation in San Marco, drapery, the way that curtains conceal and reveal. My work is spatial but always related to painting. The Colour Sessions can be read as monochrome paintings, but they are fragile monochromes – paintings that are falling off the wall. I recently discovered that the sheen of the fabric is the result of weaving threads of two colours together in a very tight weave – it makes it difficult to locate the surface or pin down the color. So even the ‘monochrome’ is actually two colors. The beads bring another spatiality into play, moving farther off the wall, into the space of the gallery.”Polly Apfelbaum
‘ Silver’ Visited 5th December 2014 Frith Street Gallery, 60 Frith Street. The purpose of visiting Silver was to access the work of Anna Barriball, one of the artists I intend to consider in reference to her use of materiality in my Unit 2 Critical practice paper.
Anna Barriball ‘Silver Sidelight with Fluorescent Orange’ 2014 Ink, paper, acrylic paint, acrylic spray paint on board. 61 x51.5 cms All the artists small works were selected and curated to seduce and absorb the viewer within this sympathetically and minimally altered 17th Century domestic space, the main modernisation being revealed in the basement.
‘To celebrate our 25th anniversary, Frith Street Gallery is delighted to announce the reopening of our original space at 60 Frith Street, Soho Square, where the gallery first operated in 1989 The inaugural exhibition, Silver, will provide an elegant visual retrospective of the gallery’s history, featuring works made between 1989 and the present day. The exhibition will include some rarely seen and perhaps surprising pieces; early work by Tacita Dean, a painting from Marlene Dumas’ seminal MD-Light exhibition and an iconic work by Cornelia Parker amongst others, all displayed within the intimate setting of the gallery’s original 17th-century and contemporary spaces. ‘
Fiona Banner Portrait of the Alphabet 2009 Photo booth photographs, polished aluminium frame. 145 x 7 x 4cms.
Cornelia Parker The Negative of Words 1996 Silver residue accumulated from engraving words 10.5 x 10.5 x 7.8 cms The tiny scale of this work surprised me as I have only seen it reproduced in art books where the image is bigger than the work!
Daphne Wright Still Life 2014 Unfired Clay Dimensions variable
Fiona Tan ‘Study for Provenance’ 2008 Digital Installation B&W Silent, digital film film file safety master, LCD monitor 17”, mini computer. 37 x 31 cms (Monitor) Loved the presentation iPad sized and the concept of transfixed children out staring the viewer, made me look over my shoulder to see if something amazing was happening behind me.
Callum Innes ‘Untitled’ 1989 Oil on paper 46 x 38 cms
Polly Apfelbaum ‘Colour chart’ 2000 Dye and marker on synthetic fabric 78 x 86 cms.
Anselm Kiefer Royal Academy of Arts Visited 1st December 2014
Having seen the inaugural show at Bermondsy White Cube
Then I watched ‘Imagine’ two weeks ago. Absorbed by watching the man in his multiple enormous working spaces and being entranced by Bajac in France I did not want to miss this retrospective. See Tim Marlow introducing Bajac and Keifer’s vision for it’s potential as an interactive space to inspire other artists. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfb9_gfL9mo[/youtube]
The retrospective revealed a surprisingly different aspect to Kiefer’s work, The delicacy of the watercolour on plaster books were totally unexpected from an artist whose art I connect to masculinity, darkness and monumentality. I had only being aware of his lead books.
Books are a powerful and paradoxical symbol for Kiefer, a primary source of knowledge and repositories of world history, knowledge and religion. In his lead books he states ‘you do not have to read my books, You only need to scan. I am not picturing words’
Under der Linden 2013 Electrolysed lead
‘Ages of the World’ an installation ‘specially concieved’ for this space in the Royal Academy. A teetering tower of chaotic finely balanced ‘worked’ canvases, sunflowers and boulders, representing our planet’s evolution of geological surfaces and strata.
‘Lead books are the only element strong enough to ‘carry the weight of human history’ and that it’s properties most closely resemble ours. “It is in flux, It’s changeable and has potential to achieve a higher state of gold’
Interior 1981
Ways of Worldly Wisdom The battle of Hermann 1980 Osiris and Isis 1985-87 Peder Balke The National Gallery Peder Balke is among the most pioneering painters of 19th-century Scandinavia, a forerunner of modernism Balke was one of the first artists to venture to the vast, untrodden plains of the North Cape where he was overwhelmed by “opulent beauties of nature and locations delivered to the eye and the mind.”
The traditional landscapes were over romantacised but I loved the gestural marking on the multiple small sketch paintings. ‘The Tempest’ 1862 A collaboration with the Northern Norway Art Museum [External link] in Tromsø, the exhibition displays over 50 paintings from private and public collections across Europe that represent every facet of the artist’s career. Maggie Hambling ‘Walls of Water’ The National Gallery
A contemporary parallel to the seascapes by Peder Balke?
Not for me, I read trees. ‘Shape of Light’ Michelle Charles Solo show England&Co Visited 11th November 2014 I was drawn into this unknown Gallery and unknown artist by the simplicity of the installation. Viewable from the street, the unframed images all seemed to hover in the white space and there were vitrines! Michelle Charles then became one of the artists that I considered in my Critical practice paper for Unit 2. I incorporated her ‘Milk on Economic books’ and ‘Every Fly has a soul’ Installations.
‘ The Shadow of a fly’ 2009-10. series of 21 works Installation of ‘Milk on Economic Books’ 2007
Right Vitrine: Ink drawing ‘Jug and Glasses on envelope’ 2009
Left Vitrine : Documentation of previous solo show exhibition catalogues. Fly and crystal Ball Images.
‘Every fly has a soul’ Series 11 2007 Water based paint on paper 11×15 inches
Current work. ‘Crystal Ball’ 2014 Water based paint on paper. 22×20 inches. The Crystal Balls series are glass receptacles,of the future not liquids. Their particular transperency hints at our self denial, our deluded need to see and therefore control the future.
‘What Remains- Part 11’ Rose Issa Projects Visited 11th November 2014
What Remains is a group exhibition about what we remember and the legacy we leave behind; about what is left of lasting value after world leaders and global events have come and gone…. Ultimately, What Remains is about memory: an idea, an impression, a feeling; a poem; an image; a glimpse of what we have seen, heard, or read; what struck us as important then or now. It is about what is lasting and what is transient, and about the artists’ contribution to their local and global culture. To what extent are we changing or have we changed? Above all, it is a cultural conversation. The featured works are new commissions as well as classic pieces from our archive, and include paintings, photography or sculpture by (in alphabetical order):
Part II: Etel Adnan; Maliheh Afnan; Farad Ahrarnia; Siah Armajani; Ayman Baalbaki; Said Baalbaki; Matthew Corbin Bishop; Al Braithwaite; Bita Ghezelayagh; Susan Hefuna; Iraida Icaza My images :
Bita Ghezelayagh ‘”Talismanic Fragments” Felt, carpet, wire, screws, silken thread, print, old pen nibs, iron. 2014 ‘My father once had a pear tree’ Shiah Armajani Writing, paint on embroidered old textile 1950’s
Mathew Corbin Bishop “Levant, North Africa and the Gulf” installation of paintings, oil on canvas 2014
Maliheh Afnan “What Remains” Mixed media installation 201 Susan Hefuna ‘Absence’ 120, holes drilled on a glass plate. 2014 Turner Prize 2014 Tate Britain Visited November 2014 For a 30th anniversary year this is not a celebration of the state of young British contemporary artists, aesthetics or ideas. The selection of three ‘video’ artists strike me as being two too many. If your idea of successful art is to sit in the dark watching hours of mainly black and white moving imagery, then this is the exhibition to sprint to. Although you could argue that video is just another media and no one would have raised an eyebrow to three selected artists using paint. James Richards has been nominated for his contribution to The Encyclopaedic Palace at the 55th Venice Biennale.
Rosebud 2013, by James Richards. Images from 13 – minute video. Duncan Campbell was nominated for his contribution to Scotland’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Winner It for Others 2013 by Duncan Cambell Stills from 16mm film transferred to digital Video Ciara Phillips has been nominated for her solo exhibition at The Showroom, London.
A collaboration of rather banal printed ‘wallpaper’ and sculptural OK shapes in lurid colours. In spite of their size and shape have little impact and failed in promoting any sensation of being or feeling OK. Tris Vonna-Michell has been nominated for his solo exhibition Postscript (Berlin) at Jan Mot, Brussels.
As photography is forbidden it was a lengthy search to find ‘the shelf’ that I gave the ‘best in show’ award to (not the work), although it was the side view including the wooden floating sculptural support that I relished. (Not shown) Underwhelmed seemed to be the consensus on the public boards.
Tracy Emin ‘The last great adventure is you’ White Cube, Bermondsey ‘The work is about rites of passage, of time and age, and the simple realisation that we are always alone.’ Tracey Emin, July 2014 Having just seen the monoprint ‘Don’t tell me that you don’t love me’ 2007 at the Nakeds it was interesting to see this exhibition of her new work.Having spent decades using her own body as source material,it was interesting to view her change in line and contrast in approach to her now maturing/ageing body. 23 small fluid in drawing and material, indigo gouache works on paper line the long entrance gallery.
I loved the grandeur and scale of the embroidered calico drawings, her line captured in thick inky black thread.
The curation was a brave descision and possibly encouraged close scruitiny of the tiny layered repeatedly worked imagery and sculptures. ‘While the paintings at first appear simple and immediate, many of them are the result of application, obliteration and layering over a period of several years. Emin repeatedly returns to the canvases as a means of reviewing, revising and reconsidering her own position in relation to painting through temporal passages’. White cube literature
‘The Nakeds’ The Drawing Room 8th October 2014 Tour of the exhibition with Mary Doyle. ‘The Nakeds’ is an exhibition devoted to drawings of the body exposed. The exhibition revolves around the relevance of Egon Schiele’s work to contemporary artists. Precipitating issues such as ‘nude’ verses ‘naked’, voyeurism, exploitation and questioning the difference if any between pornography and art. In Ways of Seeing Chapter 3 John Berger stated that “to be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognised for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude” p54 Excellent thought provoking essays in the catalogue including Nicola Tyson’s letter to Egon Schiele. ( Later chosen by Tania Kovats for her November reading group seminar) [vimeo]https://vimeo.com/109642056[/vimeo]
It is amazing to see the breadth of top artists gathered together in one show. Artists: David Austen, Fiona Banner, Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, George Condo, Enrico David, Marlene Dumas, Tracey Emin, Leon Golub, Stewart Helm, Chantal Joffe, Maria Lassnig, Paul McCarthy, Chris Ofili, Carol Rama, Egon Schiele, Nancy Spero, Georgina Starr, Alina Szapocznikow, Rosemarie Trockel, Nicola Tyson, Andy Warhol and Franz West. Curated by David Austen and Gemma Blackshaw
Enrico David ‘Untitled’ 2014 Graphite on brown paper Frottage marks from the studio floor
Fiona Banner ‘Double Door Nude’ 2006 Text describing a striptease
Writing and drawing densely cover the large sheet of paper, while his sketchbooks are filled with fine angular drawings of Buenois-Aries transvestites
Joseph Beuys ‘Girl with Apple’ 1954
Tracy Emin ‘Don’t tell me that you don’t love me’ 2007 Monoprint Emin cites Schiele as one of her major influences and she selected this work to most strongly resonate with his. * Remember the Calamine Farrow and Ball on the walls and vitrines
Jerwood Drawing Prize 2014 8th October 2014 Selection panel: Gavin Delahunty, Dr Janet McKenzie, Alison Wilding RA The selection panel ‘perspective essays’ about their selection process, again demonstrated the selection of drawings while subjective was a response to ‘each selected drawing demanding attention’ The Jerwood Drawing Prize provides an array of approaches to contemporary drawing. It is intended to stretch the idea of what a drawing can be, showcasing a myriad of scale, form, technique and media.Alison Wilding points out that this exhibition is not a show that surveys contemporary drawing but a personal selection reflecting three diverse selectors. This year a relatively small number were chosen (approx 50) Talk from Alison Carlier on ‘Adjectives, lines and marks’ Audio installation, winner of this years prize and a Wimbledon MA Drawing alumni 2013 The extract Alison reads out is literal description for a museum catalogue and describes a Roman pot found in Southwark. The source of the text is a reference book held at the Museum of London Archive.Alison said ‘it felt like prose needing to be read aloud’ She talked of unknowing and unlearning all you know. Transcending boundaries and pushing subjects over the edge.She cited Lucy Gunning’s residence in The Centre for Drawing Wimbledon as being a strong influence. Alison describes the work as “an open-ended audio drawing, a spoken description of an unknown object”. “I was struck by the rich descriptive language of the text, mainly concerning the object’s tone and materiality,” she says. “On reading the text aloud, I realised the piece worked similarly to prose; it exists in your head, rather than in a made or finished way… The adjectives remind me of the texture of dry materials; charcoal, conte, etc. The text seems to align itself, or suggest, marks on a 2D surface.” The installation of the piece was considered with the curators at length, rejecting ideas of headphones and booths, the choice is discreet.
Alison speaking while a visitor listens to her work inside the installation. Alison would like the work to be isolated in a gallery away from the ‘pollution’ of other work. Student Prize winner Ara Choi ‘Mother No o, 2013 Pen and crayon. Shaun Dolan ‘Medicine Bottle’ 11 2014
Image Annette Fernando ‘Wait a minute, it’s the truth and the truth hurts’ Jessie Brennan ‘Apostelstraat’ 20, 2014 Graphite on paper 120x150cms Monumental, an intriguing beautifully framed and presented drawing.Extraordinary light in the drawing. A puzzling image that created discussion if the viewer is seeing a mirror reflection or architectural arch or balcony? The curators gave huge impact to the piece with their selected installation site-line. Interesting practice , excerpt from artist statement Jessie Brennan Artist, Lecturer / academic ‘Jessie Brennan’s practice lies between drawing and participation, informed by the social history of places, and by a direct engagement with the individuals who occupy them. Central to her work is the exchange of local knowledge and personal experiences, memories, folklore and myths between herself and the people within a particular place, situation or context. The information gathered from these exchanges and the process of exchange itself is playfully articulated in meticulously detailed pencil drawings and performances captured in video. Brennan’s video installations investigate interactions between individuals looking and being looked at, while the pencil drawings unravel imaginary landscapes assembled from personal information shared between the individuals and the artist. The changing scales interwoven into the fabric of the drawings create a fictionalized space in which incongruous perceptions of time and place coexist. Brennan swaps between a socially active period of gathering research to the private space of the studio where an intimacy between maker and object is formed. The work resonates with the personal memories, anecdotes and stories that inspired it. In the video installations the intimacy is repeated in the process of their making but in a public space. Recorded in a series of video portraits cropped closely to the face or eyes strangers are invited to draw each other’s portrait. They engage in a prolonged moment of eye contact and a concentrated, vulnerable and at times awkward process of reciprocated trust resulting from the drawing process. Brennan is interested in the critical framework of drawing and participation as a tool to conceptualize and imagine these experiences.’
Laurie Lax Oblong (Parnidzio Kopa)-day two, 2014 Charcoal powder on sand (photo documentation) Homemade charcoal from local driftwood was sifted onto sand during a residency in Lithuania, leaving the Baltic wind to gradually erase the drawing.
Zoe Maslen The Absents Presence, Hair Drawing 2014 Pencil on Fabriona Paper, 250x150cms. An articulation of the ephemeral presence. Zoe articulates the reverberation of the unseen by documenting its evidence. Giving traces a human form ‘the indent you left on my bed, a hair on my pillow’ The ones that provoked. I always look for for work I initially dislike to unravel and dissect why I have a negative response. Some times these works have a longer memory recollection than those admired. Diane Welford
(No image on-line, or on the artists website and my photograph is reflective) Eavesdropper, 2014 sunlight drawing, 38.5×31 cm ‘Eavesdropper takes place in secret, listening into the private and unknown without gaining permission, taking with it newly acquired information that may never have come to light. Eavesdropper draws parallels with our ability to perceive things through a different state of awareness.’ Artist statement This provokes as we have all recognised the familiar accidental phenomenon of the sun bleaching coloured paperin the studio? Was it accidental or a subtle testing out of a concept? I just can’t align the work, frame, concept and £350 price tag. Katy Wallwork ‘Crusade (rambling) Plaster and pigment 15 x 25 cms. Described in the artist statement as one in a series of sculptural drawings re-appropriating homoerotic and rebellious elements from historical prints and paintings. I was provoked by the crudity not of the image but the technique and palette, I did wonder if the curator had a similar reaction? Their curation of the drawing felt irreverent.
The same day Tracy Emin at White Cube, a more traditional rendering of a very similar plaster drawing
British Folk Art Tate Britain Visited September 2014 British quirkyness and whimsy exemplified. Some of the objects served a function, for example enormous shop signs used to identify trade in an era before universal literacy. The majority of exhibits were the creations of self-taught artists creating their inner visions supported by rural community and multiple traditions.
My curiosity was aroused about about ‘God in a bottle’ or ‘Whimsy, Patience, Puzzle Bottles’ which were included in a case of mainly organic made artefacts expressing communal feelings or beliefs. ‘The god-in-a-bottle, one of the most startling types of folk art in the common folk, how strange and magical the British past really is. Irish building workers in the north of England created bizarre, religious fetish-like sculptures inside bottles. In these surreal artefacts we see an untamed popular way of thinking about the world’ Jonathan Jones The Guardian British Folk Art review -welcome to the old weird Britain
Loved the elegance of this display, a very large glass shelf floats, supporting a massive boot. The glass mysteriously cantilevered and set into the wall. Phyllida Barlow Tate Britain ‘Sculptor Phyllida Barlow will unveil her largest and most ambitious work in London to date for the Tate Britain Commission 2014, supported by Sotheby’s, on 31 March 2014. The annual commission invites artists to make work in response to Tate’s collection of British and international art and to the grand spaces of the Duveen Galleries at the heart of Tate Britain.
Left me quite indifferent but then I’m not a health and safety inspector! BA Drawing Camberwell College of Arts Visited 18th June 2014 Tutor Kelly Chorpening The Degree show was difficult to navigate and to ensure that all the different areas allocated to Drawing had been viewed, as the separate map was incomprehensible to a novice visitor to Camberwell but loved the weight, design and professionalism of the free catalogue. Ragna Mouritzen The installation of this piece was inspired, hidden in full view. I asked if she was inspired by Marina Kassianidou and Susan Collis and she confirmed her admiration of both artists. We chatted about visitor reaction, perception or non reaction/missed obsevation of the installation. ‘Untitled’ Plaster, ink. dimensions variable showed the culmination of her experimentation with plaster/ink
From the artists blog ‘The tiles I’m making are made out of plaster and all hand painted with black ink. The different colours are due to the ink reacting in different ways to moisture in the plaster or from a window ‘ Ragna also showed : ‘Playing around with all these foam scraps I got from a factory. Nice to try out a new material – and also combining it with my good old favourite: plaster.’
Interesting subject and interpretation, beautifully drawn and installed.
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/96809445[/vimeo] I was intrigued by this and the short loop time made it compelling. I remembered it was funny but trying to capture an image at the show conveys a different story! So pleased I managed to track the video on Vimeo.
The investment of time and the methodology were impressive but the installation costs was a surprising commitment for a BA Graduation show.
Heemin Yang ‘Mountain, Upside Down’ pencil on paper was a simple presentation of an imaginative concept with beautiful mark making.
I felt the small bronze castings made the enormous rope installation fussy and detracted and distracted from the exuberance of the drawing. I was unsure if they were part of the functional hang of the rope but I preferred the areas depending on the less visually intrusive steel hooks. I would have preferred that the small bronze cast knots, had been used to create a separate work as a contrast in scale, detail and media.
Cornelia Parker RA curation of her ‘Black and White’ themed room at The Royal Academy Summer Show I only visited to see Cornelia Parker curate her black and white themed room and see who she invited to exhibit. With her own work concentrating on the fragility of existence and the transformation of matter, will her interests be replicated in her selection of other artists?
‘This year I am curating a room for the Royal Academy’s ‘Summer Exhibition’, a chance to invite artists I have long admired. In 2011 I curated an exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery of works from the Government Art Collection, salon hung as a spectrum. The RA room is an extension of that idea, except it is only using black-and-white works. As the summer show is usually a riot of colour, the aim is to create a different mood in this space, a kind of visual firebreak. Some artists have made new pieces especially with this theme in mind, others I have selected for their relevance – politically, psychologically or formally.’ Invited Royal Academicians Michael Craig-Martin, Richard Deacon, Tacita Dean, and Michael Landy were invited to exhibit works, plus other high-profile artists Martin Creed, Jeremy Deller, Mona Hatoum, Christian Marclay, Laure Prouvost and David Shrigley.
I liked the amalgamated presentation of sculpture and drawing in the curation by John Maine RA MFA Graduate Show Wimbledon College of Art July 2014′
Eloise Lambert ‘Enclosed Memory series 2014′, the figures are hovering in real space, in a state of flux. The drawing becomes a fixed point where as the lives of the sitters are not and as proposed by Roland Barthes, ‘Whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is this catastrophe.’[2] So, the portrait becomes an imperious sign of our future death and is a certificate of our presence. E Lambert
Chloe Chow Yorda Yuan BA Sculpture Graduation Show Wimbledon June 2014
Catriona Collins Striking installations
Olivia Rawnsley
BA Fine Art Graduation Show Wimbledon June 2014
Harriet Horner
BA Degree Show Greenwich University/ K Colledge /University of Kent In the five years since I graduated from Greenwich University the buildings have undergone a pass the parcel existence and rebranding exercise, they have just been reabsorbed into yet another University structure. The installation spaces get smaller every year.
‘The Money Shot’ Monica Morvan BA (Hons) Folded paper, cut paper sperm The presentation of the show was confusing with degree foundation students mixed amid the BA Hons Graduation students, with poor signage the only way to differentiate was to ask them. It turned out that all the work I had found either conceptually or curatorial of interest was all Degree Foundation students!
John Stewart ‘Lucidium Redux’ .
Janet Herd
Peps Barkhan ‘Lost’, meaning not yet found 2014 ‘Inspired by the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines MH370. The newspapers reporting the conjecture surrounding the mystery were used to create 239 origami prayer cranes.(Symbolising good fortune and longevity due to their fabled life span of 1,000 years) The work was partly inspired by Mira Schendel’s installation ‘Still Waves of Probability’ 1969′
BA Hons Theatre and Screen Wimbledon College of Art June 2014 Stunned by the maturity and acomplishment of the sculpture installations in the ‘Technical Arts and Special Effects’ BA (Hons) show. Ron Mueck would be proud to have inspired Rebecca Sellick, Frankie Toomey, Anne Marie Johnson, Ruth Herman all young women. The catalogue was a good design with the exception of the cover. They all had contact numbers and websites. No personal statements. As usual with Graduation shows no images related to the final pieces due to the time frame, all images were of early clay intension/process shots, some bearing no relation to the final piece. Such a lost opportunity to showcase their achievements.
The National Sculpture Symposium : FORUM Visited July 6th 2014 Riverhill Himalayan Gardens. Kent Meet the artist tour Katie Hayward ‘Wind Powered’
I have collaborated with Katie and curated her work in ‘A Fine Line’. The combination of delicacy, strength and humour in her sculptures is fascinating. Katie has been selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2014. Edward Jones ‘Himalayan Enclosure’
Steve Hurtado ‘Earth Joint’
Sol Bailey Barker ‘As above so below’
Jane Phillips ‘Spiral Energy’
Patrick Hurst ‘Mirror Form’
TTTT Visited 11th June 2014 These Things Take Time A Jerwood Encounters exhibition curated by Sarah Williams I visited this exhibition as my interest and curiosity were sparked by a review mentioning the utilisation of video/screen based and sculpture as combined installation pieces. It matched my contemporaneous interest in capturing fast moving imagery in my ‘Television Drawings’ and how the viewer can be ‘held’ by a work of art despite the abundance of available imagery and sensation. ‘The curatorial motivation for TTTT was to explore the influence of the contemporary world on approaches to the making of sculpture and three-dimensional artwork. It takes into account the impact of the internet and digital environment on many artists work, seen in the way in which artist are exploring space, language, the body, our relationships to objects (things) and material, specifically in relation to the viewer.’ Nicole Morris, Your Love Will Fade, 2012, Digital Video with sound. Courtesy of the artist Video still left and projected inside ‘Stud’ . Installation space ‘Stud’ housing video
My photographs of walk in video space 304’8 x 450 cm and close up of the pencil rubbings that created the screen Cecile. B. Evans ‘How happy a Thing can be’ 2014
My photograph. Notes Trace-empty spaces. Clear and perfect then an aftermath of a ‘perfect’ bed room, kitchen and bathroom, home or hotel? Timed and dated by TV. Liquid ?wax. Bingo, dumpster and removal of house contents. Cutting the hair is the only human reference. ‘Marte e Venere – A Hand Held Monument’ 2013 Digital video, 10 min (as presented in ‘Friday 13th’, British School at Rome, Italy, 2013) The film essay is an enquiry into the illicit tactile relation with artefacts, with one eye on the recent proliferation of mobile touch-screen interfaces. Centrepiece of the montage is an ancient depiction of Venus and Mars, a sculpture that in 2009 had been temporarily restored on demand of the former Italian prime minister to be displayed in Palazzo Chigi. In the meanwhile it has been de-restored and returned to the Museum of Roman History, where also the amputated hands, fingers and genitals are kept in a wooden crate. The film focuses on those remaining prostheses, their historical significance and their melancholic afterlife.
The exhibition provided a space to consider how the way in which we perceive and navigate the world is changing as our lives become more mediated through a screen and how artists are responding to these concerns. While in the case of this exhibition, the acronym TTTT refered to the phrase ‘These Things Take Time’, an internet search engine further reveals other associated meanings – ‘Too Tired To Type’ ‘Too Tired To Talk’ and so on. These slippages subtly hint at rapid developments within our language which are influenced by the internet, and to our own experience of ‘things’ and ‘time’ which are also changing in the current technological, economic and political environment.
Matisse:The Cut-Outs Tate Modern Visited June 11th 2014
Impressive unexpected scale of work only previously viewed as an image in a book.
Interesting to see that the vibrancy and layered depth of the originals showing all the rips and patches failed to translate into the printed publications of the work.
Discovering Palmer’s Kent. Samuel Palmer, Graham Sutherland and Paul Drury. Visited 14th June 2014 Pastoral and nostalgic small etchings, the finest most intricate etching lines that I have ever viewed .
‘Sunset or Herdsmans cottage’ by Samuel Palmer When a small etching by Samuel Palmer was brought into the art studios at Goldsmiths College of Art in 1924 it sparked a mini revolt in the etching department. The densely worked surface of Palmer’s print was in almost direct opposition to the current trends. Two of the students, Graham Sutherland and Paul Drury, were so excited by the print that they set about discovering all that they could about Samuel Palmer. They embarked on a series of outings to the Kent countryside exploring and drawing the landscape that had so inspired Palmer. Drawn to the quality of the Kent light and the rural way of life, they produced a body of exquisite etchings directly influenced by their admiration of Palmer’s visionary work. Ninety years on, the three artists’ enlightened responses to nature, and their idyllic view of the English countryside still have the power to enthrall. The exhibition will include a previously unknown Sutherland etching and the first showing of sketches, plates and prints of unfinished works by Paul Drury.
Paul Drury
Gustav Metzger : LIFT OFF! Visited June 12th Kettles Yard Cambridge Artist and political actavist who developed the concept of Auto-Destructive Art/ Auto- Creative Art.This exhibition had new updated site specific work and earlier pieces.
We were not allowed to take photographs of the work but the invigilator allowed me to photograph this statement that accompanied …..
The exhibition includes a new film of Metzger in conversation with curator Elizabeth Fisher, reflecting on this aspect of his practice. [vimeo]https://vimeo.com/96332028[/vimeo] Gustav Metzger Visitors to Lift Off! will be submersed in Gustav Metzger’s world of creative experimentation and activism between the late 1950s and early 1970s. Bringing together archive, film, sculpture and installations, this ambitious exhibition focuses on Metzger’s auto-creative work – the alter ego of his better-known auto-destructive practice. The exhibition includes Metzger’s landmark piece Liquid Crystal Environment (1965 remade 2005) on loan from Tate. This hypnotic environment is composed of projections that create constantly shifting psychedelic patterns. The exhibition will also showcase works that use air, water and heat that Metzger first made in a university laboratory in Swansea in 1969 and which have not been seen since. The show highlights Metzger’s close connections with the city of Cambridge. Born in Nuremburg in 1926, Metzger came to Britain as a refugee in 1939. He began his education as a student at Cambridge School of Art in the 1940s and lived in East Anglia throughout much of the 1950s. Two of his most significant lecture demonstrations, in which Metzger presented his ideas around auto-creation and auto-destruction, were staged at Cambridge University in 1960 and 1965. I was more interested in a mention of Null Object and found the following :
NULL OBJECT: Gustav Metzger thinks about nothing Null Object links neurophysiology, psychophysics and manufacturing technology to produce a sculptural object in Portland stone. Using bespoke software, London Fieldworks produced 3D shape information from EEG readings of Gustav Metzger’s brainwaves as he attempted to think about nothing. This data was translated into instructions for a manufacturing robot, which carved out the shapes from the interior of a block of stone to create a void space. London Fieldworks produced a publication of the same name published by Black Dog Publishing, including an introduction by the artists, a text by Gustav Metzger and four contextualising essays by Bronac Ferran, Hari Kunzru, Nick Lambert and Christopher Tyler. These leading writers across the fields of literature, art, science and technology explore the diverse historical and conceptual grounding for and broader implications of NULL OBJECT’s production process.
‘One Billion Objects in Space’ Tania Kovats Artist in residence Department of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. Gravel Hill Farm. A participatory sculpture inspired by the Universities Astronomy department work on The GAIA mission,launched by the European Space Agency which aims to chart the billion stars in the Milky Way. Investigating the development and evolution of our galaxy, using black holes as reference points to this mapping process.
‘Tomorrow Today’ Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie. collaboration with Cambridge’s Department of Archeology Visited June 12th
The future scaled layout of the NW Cambridgeshire development has been constructed by local volunteers under the guidance of the artists Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie. Following an archeological dig of the area in February 2013, the excavated earth was used in an ancient ‘cob’ construction method to create and build the scaled vision of the areas future.
Clare Woods ‘Monument’ Mascalls Gallery Paddock Wood Kent Visited June 2014
In Room 1 The smaller paintings and lithographs are based on sculptures by Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland but it is not the sculptures that are important as she works from one dimensional photographs and may never have viewed them. It is the ‘personages’locked inside.
It was the cabinets that really fascinated me showing her notes and preparation sketches, ink on tracing paper and key line print for the two water-colour and pencil studies for ‘The Worrier’ 2011. Chatting to the assistant curator about this exhibited openness, she commented that Woods normally keen to protect her process, had felt as exposed as if she had allowed the curator access to her knicker draw
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