Artists

Residency 2020: Gallery Visits

Alexis

I see the experience on these gallery visits in three ways. My appreciation of the work, what I take away from the experience, and the opportunity to discuss things with others in the group. It is not common to spend an extended time with many people who have art practice in common. The cyanotype and letterpress workshops have been examples of seeing how others look upon and approach the same task. It is like undertaking lengthy experimentation over a period of time without ever having to do so all in one afternoon.

I have written a lot about the works I saw but decided to show a few of the pictures I took as aids to memory.

Victoria Miro Gallery: from Gattaca…
…to old London
Parasol Unit
Christine Rebet – video projected on concrete plinth
Beers
Bookarts Bookshop
Rose Finn-Kelcey at Kate MacGarry
Helen Knowles at Arebyte
Helen Knowles at Arebyte: intervened by P

Wolfgang Gil: Maleable Sound as Sculpture

Alexis

 

Resonant Body I – Wolfgang Gil

 

Gareth Jones, in his essay, describes the historical changes in the relationship between sculpture and sound. This dichotomous tension is straddled by Gil’s work in Sonic Plasticity proposes the use of sound as a malleable material – one that can be stretched in all dimensions, encompassing height, width, and depth, with curves, edges, and changing geometries. His Aural Fields and Resonant Bodies combine physical structures set to vibrate, creating geometric fields of sound perceivable in space with edges and form.

This is an interesting field I am currently investigating with respect to the final proposal with respect to sculptures. I am not proposing to do the same sort of thing but Gil’s work does have correspondence with how I see sound as creating a physical entity in itself.

My idea is to counterpoise the readability and sensuality of the solid pieces with the pure perception and sensuality in another modality of sound. I am concerned about the cancelling out of one another: should solid sculpture reside in silence, should sound be disembodied? These are questions I intend to explore and aim to resolve in some way. The use of digital interactive devices is something I have been working with enabling an element of audience interaction. But then again, the work in silence also speaks of itself. This is an interesting area of empirical research which needs a trial and error, or heuristic, approach.

 

https://medium.com/@wolfganggil_35573/sonic-plasticity-an-introduction-343ae7e22de5

 

A Correspondence: Marguerite Humeau

Alexis

 

Betty brought Marguerite Humeau to my attention during her feedback to my Mid Point Review. The artist works with similar ideas I work with, organic life, sound, the past and myths. It is interesting but I do find her installations somewhat too clinical and the sculptures lacking in depth. What I mean by this is that they do not have scales of vision: they are large and smooth and had all their interest sanded off them. The slickness lacks humanity and looks rather plastic and artificial which does not seem quite in keeping with her ideas. They look like reproductions of Blender renders in fibreglass or some similar material. In any case, I like that she works with mediums and ideas that I can identify with and is one of very few artists that is in my direct sphere of interest.

 

Art Now: Marguerite Humeau, Echoes, Tate Britain, November 2017

 

Low Residency 2019 Day 3: Morehshin Allahyaai

Alexis

 

 

Warning: this post contains very subjective material.

After over six months I still remember one visit and one work in particular. At the Annka Kultys Gallery in the London City Island an exhibition of digital works was showing entitled Re-Figure-Ground.  Two things I remember, the video-game-like virtual reality goggle-based immersive 3D videos complete with kinetic controls with which to travel within the virtual world, and a simple 3D animation that did not do much with a spoken audio.

The VR works were interesting enough from the point of view of technology but quite honestly they left me underwhelmed on account of their lack of conveying any point to them other than showcasing the technical work. And to add, the resolution was so poor that it left me wondering whether I needed new glasses. This inconsistency between the vision and the actual vision left me somewhat frustrated. Claudia Hart’s augmented reality was like walking through a myopic fruit machine of social media icons along pointless corridors. The fact that she is examining the body, perception and nature ‘adapt[ing] the forms and software normally used to create 3D shooter games was no compensation for what was clearly meant to be a transformational experience. 

The Karst cave by Snow Yunxue Fu’s was, as she says, an attempt to embody the concept of Plato’s cave in a virtual realm. She then continues to say, ‘providing a contemplative environment for the visitor to wonder; walking and teleporting within the control of the wireframed virtual hands that are given to them’. Really, Plato’s cave? That is certainly not what Plato was on about when he described our secondhand manipulated perception of the world. Leave that bit of referencing and you are left with an enjoyable, if somewhat, again myopic trip fantastic.

 

 

The rest of the show I found cold but one work did stand out for me, and it was not the most accomplished technically. Morehshin Allahyari’s video installation She Who Sees the Unknown, Aisha Qandisha was a back projected video 1 of a 3D animated figure that did not do much other than turn around a bit and sit in some sort of digital sea. On its own it would have graced any number of album covers for some group or other singing about whatever. However, when combined with the narrative it became something else. It transported me to another world of magical realism in some ancient past which is very much present. 

The combination of powerful scripted content with a weird large image moving, now menacingly with the audio gave me the sense of a deity being displayed before its awestruck followers. This remains in my mind not only for the content but how something relatively simple in digital terms, can still have impact compared to more sophisticated presentations. 

 

Portfolio – Morehshin Allahyari

Morehshin Allahyari is a new media artist, activist, educator, and occasional curator. She was born and raised in Iran and moved to the United States in 2007. Her work extensively deals with the political, social, and cultural contradictions we face every day.

 

  1. Onto a white acrylic sheet (transmits around the require 50% of light for a good back lighting as Jonathan explained to me) suspended from the ceiling and cleanly fitted onto the sheet by means probably of some sort of projection mapping[↩]

Andrew Lord: A Case of Phusis

Alexis

 

 

I mentioned in a recent post that I am now ready to look into a contemporary context for my work. This is not altogether easy as what I do is not centred on one idea or medium alone. I know that many artists today are cross disciplinary and work in various mediums; this makes contextual correspondences all the harder to find. I have to be careful not to mention every one and sundry that I like or identify with in some way. This sort of openness would only confuse and lead to a lack of direction. What would making a long list do, help in the project development, show my wide taste in things?

No, what I am looking for is work that directly contextualises mine in terms of contemporary ideas and environments. Andrew Lord, ten years my senior is one such practitioner. Although he would not like to be called a potter, his body of work very much centres on the idea of vessels and clay, something I also work with.

Lord’s central notion is an interesting one. It is an idea that many working in clay have followed for some time, that of ‘rescuing’ pottery from still life painting. As Mark del Vecchio lucidly points out in his book, Postmodern Ceramics:

From Pablo Picasso to Giorgio Morandi, Vincent Van Gogh, and George Braque, pottery has tended to be the visual anchor of most still-life compositions. Contemporary ceramists have begun to reverse the compliment and draw inspiration from the paintings in which these pots appear, returning them to the three-dimensional realm, but retaining some painterly associations. 

Looking for what is common between two and three dimensions is a process which also requires an awareness of what is lost in translation. Only in this way can an essence of the object be made manifest. 

 

Andrew Lord displays his work in such a way as to allude to the still life genre by placing objects on tables and plinths, carefully arranged in terms of light, time of day, space and so on. The arrangements often remind me of Morandi’s still lifes, treated as emerging from the material becoming objects felt in the making. He leaves overt traces of how the object is formed often to the point of caricatured.

 

This work is consonant with elements of some of my work, playful and ‘rough modelled’ caressed into being aimed at a sense of Platonic idealism imperfectly fashion in and on (E)arth. 

It also interest for me to note that in some cases, vases are displayed just off the floor in a similar way to how I plan to show  H’s Play Things in the final show… with one twist. 

 

Much of this approach is consonant with what Heidegger says in his essay, The Origin of the Work of Art:

  1. The material (clay) is central and clearly evident in the work. 
  2. The clay is subservient to what is being portrayed yet it ‘shines forth’ 1.
  3. There is a struggle between the nature of the material and what it tries to portray, what it is formed into or as Heidegger would say, between the Earth and the World.
  4. The vessels are not the product of craft yet he uses, techne or mode of knowing, to bring out hidden Aletheia, or being.
  5. The being of the thing is not just made, it is brought forth and made evident. It is generated from within through phusis as though through natural law.

But what is the role of craft in this act of phusis? Heidegger does become confusing, or more likely confused unable to articulate a distinction between craft and art: he descends into subjective ideas of the mystical and the sublime and sacred to support his thesis. Perhaps a simple, if still elusive reply is that the impetus for a work of art comes from within an internal process of natural growth, whereas craft’s impetus is external to its growth. It is clear to me that this categorisation is false in many cases and can only be considered from piece to piece and not generically.

Having said all this, Heidegger does provide a useful way of thinking about art as a spontaneous act of emergence in the making also raising interesting questions regarding the relationship between what is ‘being creative’ and artistic practice. 

  1. Heidegger[↩]

Skype Chat 3.2: Jonny Briggs

Alexis

 

Link to Youtube video

Jonny Briggs work is firmly embedded in photography despite being informed by his perception of the medium’s inadequacies. Although he has worked hard to break free from traditional paradigms, it nevertheless continues a long tradition of constructed tropes and illusions.

His work is sensitively conceived through the optics of his own psychology and familial relations. Although at times he has moved away from this tight subject matter towards a more general view of things, he always gravitates towards the nuclear family both for subject matter and technical assistance: this seems to be where his strengths lie for the moment. Though the images may be appreciated without explanation, a fuller knowledge of their genesis and background makes them all the more engaging. 

His carefully constructed images always leave clues as to their artificial nature confessing their falsity in an honest declaration of that fact. This partial unveiling of the inversions between what is authentic and what is not  can only be a form of authenticity itself. This is a case in which knowledge of the subject matter and artist benefits the work and does not detract from the trope but rather adds a further layer to its fabric.

The simplicity of his repertoire possesses a freshness which is in tension with an undeniable claustrophobia. This may evolve into something else in time with life’s experiences.

 

Skype Chat 2.3: Artist’s Talk – Xavier Sole Mora

Alexis

 

Today we had a talk by Xavier Sole Mora. It was interesting to see how Xavier reaches his audiences making use of his advertising background to attract people to what he does. He also generously showed and explained his proposal brief for the Aspen Commission. This showed his approach to the competed for commission. This video of his talk that includes the Japanese footage has been blocked by Nippon Television Network Corporation for copyright reasons. I have commented on this below.

There are a number of things that I took away from the session in terms of the artist’s position when it comes to placing work ‘out there’. These are all very worldly things and perhaps only have importance when facing a critical audience or placing in the commercial sphere. 

Precedence and originality

  1. Make sure you research what you do in terms of precedence to establish originality of idea or;
  2. show how your work extends preceding practices.
  3. Publish what you do constantly in some form to establish precedence in case you need to show that your work is original.

Commissions and who owns the work

  1. Establish in a contract who owns copyright. If this is pre-set as is the case in many competitive commission call outs, try to negotiate some kind of access and use of the work after handing it over on completion. Many companies commission work for tax reasons, as branding and or because they are a requirement of funding or planning permissions. Clarify who owns the work if the commissioning body is incorporated into another, bought out or closes down. Otherwise the work could well languish in obscurity, archived or even ‘skipped’. 
  2. If such an agreement can be settled on, secondary rights could also be clarified which can have financial implications in the case of sale of work or organisation (see below).

Copyright, attribution and appropriation

If work, whether images, audio or any other form of intellectual property is appropriated, copyright issues might ensue, particularly in a commercial context. 

This is a complicated part of the law and can differ from country to country which makes it particularly complex in terms of digital work which easily crosses jurisdictional boundaries in all kinds of ways. For example, if a digital work passes through a particular server, the jurisdiction in which that server resides could well apply. Since much of the world’s digital traffic passes through the USA in one way or another, it is likely that a digital work will fall under US jurisdiction. Proof either way can be complicated and expensive.

There is no problem if all work is sourced and or generated by the artist although there are obscure terms which can define copyright owned by software companies although this has not been tested in court to my knowledge.

Obsolescence

The aesthetics of digital mediums is very much governed by fashion and fast changing paradigms of taste, appreciation and acceptance and is also subject to what is possible at that time and subject to rapid change: digital work is very prone to look out of date. For this reason the content and message of the work has to be considered, whether it stands in its own right. It is all too easy for digital work to land in the area of entertainment. It is often hard to separate aesthetic and functional experimentation from art in the early pioneering stages of a technology. It is also difficult to know how such work will be seen in the future, work which will also be subject to technological changes.

Such technological changes will affect how current work is presented in the future and in many cases access may be seriously compromised due to the obsolescence and or disappearance of working hardware, software, technicians capable of renovating and or using them and importantly, money to finance the necessary processes. Some formats are more future proof than others such as PDFs which were designed to continue well into the future due to their coding simplicity and universal adaptability of the information contained. 

Need for working in teams

It is clear that work is not always feasible for one artist alone. Film, public art, architecture are such examples. Often large teams are required to process the large quantities of material and large scale process. However, when an artist is compelled to project manage, fund raise, lobby and recruit they are taken away from the primal work of making. 

Large scale projects have a significant impact on an artist’s practice and life. However, by involving large numbers of people in a project the work can reach much further in a shorter period of time than working alone.  Leading a team, delegating and project managing can be a very powerful way of reaching audiences and influencing people. However, the direct contact for the artist with their material can be somewhat compromised and involving many people brings in relational politics which can become overwhelming. In addition the financial requirements for large scale works usually necessitates the involvement of a wealthy third party, whether a gallery, government, individual or organisation, to support the realisation of the project. Such involvement almost invariably places pressure on the artist to conform to external needs which may not be part of or contradictory to their own philosophy.

Summary

Some people are well suited to work this way, others are not. It is very much a case of navigating a way through the vicissitudes of working as an artist, and perhaps not being swayed by the powerful propaganda that resonates in the ether of the art world, often obscuring a different reality for the artist.