Crit no.1 / Displaying work as a group

For the crit we had two days to come up with an idea of how we going to display our work together in a gallery space. We had to work together to get the best out of our work and the space we were displaying in. It was a good experience communicating our ideas to each other and be confident doing so. Sort out our differences and argue our points across. I actually deep down enjoyed it but it was a bit stressful because we had two days to do it.

 

At the start I was concerned as I didn't have anything to show as my work is site specific and I cant just bring it to a different space or recreate it as that would take away from the piece and the idea. I make work and then decide where it belongs or while making it in space it belongs, so it felt a bit forced to show all of a sudden in a gallery space. I prefer displaying elsewhere, and if my work does not suit the gallery space I will not show it. And just because I was asked to show in the space as everybody else, I wasn't going to quickly come up with something that is completely not my practice. I decided I am going to stay true to my practice and if some idea came up then ill do it, if not then not and I would have to at the crit itself explain myself and my practice and why I wasn't showing. My work is quite intuitive and in the moment so I was definitely not going to go against that.

 

The first thing that we did in the space is discussed what kind of work everybody are thinking of putting in the space and then people who had work already brought it to the space and we tried to see links between them and discuss them. Slowly we started looking at the space itself and considering where the works will go. From the start we have all decided that we aren't going to use the white wall on one side of the room as we wanted to think about other ways of displaying. Thinking outside the box. The space itself is quite big and spacious, with a white wall running on one side of the room and glass windows on the other. A lot of light and brightness which was great. There was also a statue already present in the room which I found very interesting.

 

We started getting plinths out and trying to put work on top of them, experimenting the setup of plinths in the space. We started to put them in line and seeing how they work together.

 

 

Slowly I started to see a link between the statue right at the back which was already there and the plinths. I proposed to the rest of the group to maybe put the work in line with the statue. It works better in the space and is visually pleasing as well as includes the statue as piece of artwork and as part of display. There's also another link, the statue looks like its sitting on a plinth so visually all the sculptures that we also place on the plinth work visually together. It makes sense and I think it works. However I didn't think drawings and paintings worked on a plinth and slowly I was starting to think that maybe there are too many plinths as well, and maybe just the statues should be on the plinths and that's it. However we did all want to place our work in line so now we had to think about non sculptural art and where to display it.

 

 

 



 

 

After a while after some discussions we started to think that maybe the works were too straight in a line, looking too strict. To soften a bit we decided to play around with the plinth, turning them diagonally, on top of each other or making a domino effect with them by making them look like they are falling on top of each other. However we still stayed with the idea of a line that ran from the statue. We added movement and life to it without changing our aim. Still I felt that there were too many plinths, and because they are quite sculptural themselves they look like they dominate the work. Maybe it is also to do with the colour of the plinths. Maybe if we painted them black it would bring the work out more.

 

I also felt that it was a bit empty around the line of work. I knew that we decided to use the space itself as our guideline of how to set up our own work but maybe that made us too focused on the line and therefore we forgot about the space that surrounds our work. This is where I thought of how I can change that and suddenly I knew what I would do as my interaction and contribution to the space. 

 

As you can see we chose to stay away from the wall and closer to the windows and that made me think about how I can bring the outside in.  I decided that I will collect leaves and scatter them round the space. I wanted to change the whole gallery experience for the audience. Make it more interactive. I wanted for people to walk on them.

 

 

In my opinion the leaves bring everything together. Both filling the space, interacting with the work through the colours as well as with organic theme that seems to run quite a lot in the works too. It also creates interesting juxtapositions such as the metal circle which is man made and lifeless, contrasts well with the organic leaves. The leaves also bring out the colours of other pieces with similar colour, they bring each other out.

 

The leaves are randomly scattered however you can clearly see its boundaries and the gallery boundaries. You can clearly see where the display starts and how we decided to section out the space. Staying away from the wall and being closer to the window and working with parallel lines of the building (the pillars that run in line, the floor boards, the windows, the ceiling details that are right above our linear setup). 

 

Overall I think it was a success especially when we had 2 days to do it and we didn't know each other. We had to work fast and communicate well with each other to achieve this. Yes there are things that could have been improved and reconsidered, however based on how much time we had, we did really well.

 

~ Ev 





Shop Window Interaction/ Performance idea

I was walking down Bold Street, Liverpool looking at different shops that surrounded me and noticed a closed shop with windows being painted in white so people cannot see in. At the time I thought nothing of that except that it was unattractive to see and walk past. The next day I kept thinking about the painted windows and slowly an idea formed. I thought about how I can interact with such shop by scraping away at the paint and make a temporary piece out of it. I didn't know what I would do on the window but I knew that I was interested in it.

 

The next day I tried finding the same shop with the painted windows and couldn't find it, however I found another closed shop on Bold Street which had perfect big clean windows. This is the shop:
 

 

I thought about finding the owners number and discussing my idea with him. The idea consisted of me replicating the painted look on the window and then interacting with it. I didn't know what I would do with it, but I trusted that I would respond to the space at that particular moment. It is quite intuitive and exciting. At the moment i'm trying to get a hold of the owner through a company which might take a while because I am an "art student".

 

During my wait for some kind of response I decided I needed to try it out somewhere else to see how I feel and whether I enjoyed it or not. So I found a big window in studio balcony which was perfect for the try-out.

 

I found out that the thing that the workers mostly use on windows to prevent people from seeing in is Windolene emulsion, but because I couldn't find it anywhere I decided to get white emulsion and mix it with water to get the same effect.

 

After covering the window in watered down emulsion which took me about 5 minutes I was thinking about what I can do on it. I knew I wanted to scrape off at the window repetitively but I didn't know what. So I decided to start with something simple, a spiral that keeps growing out the centre, slowly appearing and expanding on window surface. Very subtle and meditative process which I am a fan of. Throughout I kept taking pictures and analysing this experience and how I felt about it being in the studio and not in a shop. How that impacted the meaning of the work and the whole experience of the process.

 

 

Moon through the spiral on window

 

 

While in process new thoughts began to form. From the start I was interested in the window because of the workers working on it, but while working I got to appreciate its transparent quality. I began to think that by forming a spiral I slowly uncover what I can see through it and as a result I interact with the scene too and not just the mirror. Not only that but the scene interacts back, adding to the spiral. Its a conversation between both. Under different angles you can see the spiral better or worse depending on the background and that is very interesting to me.

 

Another thing that sprung to mind is that this experience is completely different to me doing this on an actual shop window. If I did it on shop window it would have been more interactive and performative in the sense that I would see people from the other side walking past the shop and as a result being a part of my work. That is very interesting. The spiral if I was to recreate it in that setting would not only interact with the background but also with the motion of people walking past and that information would be imprinted on my mark making as I have to concentrate really well to keep my hand steady, so if people walk past I would have more of an interesting spiral with all its imperfections where my hand moved from the line. I love this idea being in the moment and interacting with something that can capture it.

 

This spiral took me 5 hours, its not that big, but I will keep adding to it so I can fill the whole window in it. I really want to see how much time it will take me so I know if it comes to showing in a shop that I know n advance how much time I need.

 

 

Moon through the spiral on window

 

 

 ~ Ev

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 



 

Jackson Pollock: Blind Spots | Tate

Earlier this year I wrote an essay on Jackson Pollock so I was really happy when Tate Liverpool opened an exhibition showing some of is work. I visited it 3 times! Here's a link to Tale Liverpool about the exhibition!

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) is one of the starters of radical painting who was considered to be an “action painter” at the time because you could imagine quite visually the actions that went into the making of his painting. Therefore by pouring paint onto canvas in an act of expression, Pollock broke away the anatomical connection that had traditionally linked the artists hand, brush and canvas. He uses the brush and paint to make lines so you could say he is drawing with paint.

Jackson Pollock who was part of Abstract Expressionist movement stood out from his contemporaries due to his original approach to painting. There were two major differences in Pollock's approach to his art compared to other artists of his time. The first major difference was that Jackson painted on the floor. The second difference was that he used a stick instead of a brush.

I love his approach, it makes people engage with the painting more on a physical level as we can see looking at the paintings the movements that he went though. The actions he took to paint I consider quite per formative and repetitive and meditative. The simplicity of action and the intensity of the paintings is beautiful!

Because of Pollock's unique approach to painting I was a bit put off the protectiveness of the paintings in the exhibition and the way they were displayed although I know it was done to preserve and protect the pieces. For me Jackson Pollock's paintings should have been displayed on the floor as I believe the nature of Jacksons approach asks for that. I think we as an audience would engage with his work more, ad the processes and movements that the artist wet through. Being on the wall framed they give a different meaning to the paintings. On the wall and behind a screen they look uninviting and unapproachable. I think art should be approached easily and engaged with. If work was on floor we could have walked around the painting the way Pollock was creating it, retracing his steps, experiencing the painting in his shoes and from his point of view.

However I know that it is important for pieces to be preserved although I don't understand that as my work is temporary and I see nothing wrong in natural destruction of the work. For me it is important to stay true to the work and its nature.

~Ev

Artist: Catherine Bertola

I came across Catherine Bertola by flipping through pages of a book on my break, and immediately was interested in her work as I could see similarities between her art practice and mine which I would like to talk about here. But first more about the artist!

 

What interested me from the start is the residency she did with other artists in Liverpool, called 'Further Up in the Air'. Further Up In The Air was a project which commissioned eighteen artists over two years to respond to the demolition of the Linosa Tower block in Liverpool, and the regeneration of the area local to it.  Further Up In The Air built on the success of an earlier pilot project in another tower block on the same estate - Up In The Air. A broad range of artists spent a month working in one of the tower's empty flats in the period leading up to the block's demolition. One of these artists was Catherine Bertola. To read about the residency in detail here's a link:

 

http://www.publicartonline.org.uk/casestudies/housing/up_in_air/description.php

 

Catherine Bertola reworked an embossed ivy pattern wallpaper by cutting round the outlines of the embossed leaves and partially pulling them away. 

 

Catherine Bertola, If wall could talk....., 2002.

 Installation at Linosa Close, Liverpool,

as part of 'Further up in the air'.

 

 

"Catherine Bertola subtly intervenes within specific locations, often empty spaces – be they temporarily vacated prior to renovation, long-since abandoned or even derelict and destined for demolition." link:click here

 

This is interesting to me because my work is also site specific and I constantly try and find places to work in, as I am not satisfied working in a studio all the time. My work develops from the place itself so working in the studio is quite limiting.

"Seeking out the traces of their departed occupants, she uses these as the base material for her work. The markers of our physical bodies – such as fingerprints and dust – and the locations they inhabit – from bricks and mortar through to our choice of fabrics, wallpapers and paint colours – remain long after we have departed."

 

I am also interested in traces such as stains, marks and other things that are left in the space and the things that people don't appreciate or notice anymore e.g. the solo show where I was searching imperfections. In the solo show I went round imperfections on the wall which you can count as a trace from previous artist who was showing there, bringing audiences attention to that. However I believe Bertola has a more of a strong connection to history and the people who lived in the space.

 

"Nothing is ever really destroyed, only concealed or altered. Whether painted or papered over or reduced to dust, fragments of the original remain. Likewise, Bertola’s work is as much about the processes that take place both before and after the actual public exhibition of an individual piece of work."

 

I would love to work in an abandoned space as I believe the space would generate many ideas for me. However at the moment I am working with any space that grabs my attention to experiment, and work forms from there. It is temporary and I am ok with that.

 

"Labour intensive and repetitive in their creation, these processes often mimic the methods of archaeology or forensic science, digging beneath the surface to uncover past histories, architecture and functions."

Interestingly I found myself explaining my solo show work in exactly the same way. As I was forming work, going round the imperfections on the white gallery wall, I could not help but feel as though I was an archaeologist, digging up and bringing forward information lost and unseen that was a trace made by previous artists work.

 

"Largely site-specific and outside of the conventional gallery environment, individual works often remain in place for months or even years, their eventual erasure dependent on the future actions of those other than the artist."

The solo show was made particularly for a gallery space and it was temporary, however I really want to move away from gallery environment and concentrate more on other spaces which I believe will trigger for more ideas to form. 

I feel as though Catherine Bertola's art work has opened my eyes that I need to work in different spaces more and get out the studio more often as I am a site- specific artist and being in the studio is limiting fro my ideas. At the moment I have several ideas I want to try out that includes me working in a different setting and out of my comfort zone which will be interesting. A project that I chose at uni will also help me to get out of a normal gallery/ studio setting as for this project I will be working with people of a different discipline and their setting which the people of that discipline are used to. This will be new to me as I will be responding to what happens there in some way and that Is very exciting.


~Ev



Wednesday Lecture 07/10/15 - Haseeb Ahmed

Artists page: http://www.haseebahmed.com/

 

A very interesting artist in the sense that he works with different disciplines which shapes his work. Disciplines such as hard sciences, genetics, architecture ...

 

He counts himself as a research artist, who researches interesting aspects of different disciplines and uses the knowledge or methodologies from these disciplines in his art. In that sense he is site specific, for example one work included a wind tunnel where he made work in. He considers his work being an installation rather than video maker or sculpture artist and that is all down to documentation of the work. Although he showed a lot of videos of his work and its processes, the videos themselves aren't work. It was clear from the lecture that he was very interested in different aspects of different disciplines as mostly he was talking about them. At some point of the lecture I thought I was in a science class where different terminology was used which you can hardly relate to art.

 

For me it is very interesting how he finds the setting that is completely not arty and creates art in it. Very unusual but I like the effort to combine them together, the science and art, as they do have their differences and similarities too.

 

The work that I liked the most was the Shamshir+Windtunnel=Progress (2008-09)

A site-specific installation in the MIT-Wright Brothers Windtunnel in which a replica 16th century sword is made to cut through the air Infinitely: http://www.haseebahmed.com/Shamshir-Windtunnel-Progress-2008-09

 

video: https://vimeo.com/18847712

 

The work was a performance in the wind tunnel where the sward was cutting through the air, In a way there is a juxtaposition. The wind tunnel points to the future and the sward pint to history to the past.

 

At some point of the lecture I could not help but think whether for him the process of making art was more important than the outcome at the end.

 

~Ev