Sunday 17 January 2016

Room, Farocki and Blue Squares

This week has been incredibly refreshing and exciting, getting back to work and exploring galleries, as well as just being around lots of people again, which is weirdly comforting in a way, being immersed in a small space with lots of people as opposed to being in an expansive space with very few people.

My works been slowly progressing, working with Sketchup and the Zooks to create a video which is slowly progressing into something interesting, thinking about the overconsumption of technology and the powers that control that. Sort of an extension of my last project, but in a different form. The ideas surrounding monotony and life are also affiliated with this, but in a looser way, still within the work but at the same time not at the forefront of the meaning. Influenced by many things, but most of all the variety of films that I watched over the holidays, considering life and the meaning of, Kaufman being the main man. At the moment I’m still adding video clips to the movie, alongside the soundscape, made up of an assortment of computer and video game sound clips. I also want to add in a dialogue between at least two people, or maybe just one, debating certain things about life whilst using quotes from popular television cartoons and films; bearing in mind artists like Jon Rafman and Harun Farocki, whose work I recently saw at the Whitechapel Gallery. The films, Parallel I-IV, chart the evolution of computer game graphics over the past 30 years, with a range of interesting commentary occurring overhead. Although I’d seen a lot of the films before, it was great to see it in its installation form, with all the screens arranged in a large circle. This is my film, which I’m going to continue on with for the next few weeks, slowly chipping away at it day by day.
During the rest of the week I went to a few galleries, the Whitechapel being the first, which was where I saw Farocki’s work. However on the 29th a new exhibit opens there titled ‘Electronic Superhighway’ which I’m very excited for, and will (hopefully) be the stand out show for me this term, as it features so many favourites, like Hito Steyerl, Eva and Franko Mattes, Jon Rafman, Constant Dullart and many more. Did I mention that I was very excited?

I then ventured on to many other galleries, like Tenderpixel, which had some videos being shown that were slightly impenetrable, and the White Cube (Mason’s Yard), which had some incredibly – for me – dull paintings. Just lines upon lines drawn into the canvas, all of which were incredibly similar.

I also went to Hauser and Wirth, which had some vaguely enticing stuff in the first gallery, all thinking about the fragility of life and everything that plays into that. Next door however had some very bizarre work, by Fabio Mauri. Well, not bizarre, but surprising. Looking through the window to the gallery it looks as if a group of men (29 in total) in suits are all gathered around a table, conducting some sort of meeting. In actuality this is simply a life sized sculpture, but at first I was slightly afraid to enter the space. I could tell the work was deep and meaningful, but that sort of went over my head at the time, and I intend to revisit what it’s all about at a later date.

Alongside this I’ve been to the Massimo De Carlo gallery, which had a show on called ‘Therapy Paintings’ by Rob Pruitt. In general I like Pruitt’s work, but in this case the whole idea was so clichéd and overused that I was just bored as I was looking around at these very gestural paintings inspired by therapy sessions. Slightly too middle class for me, which is a critique of myself as much as it is of the concept.

The Maddox Arts gallery had some geometry inspired rugs and paintings, which were all acceptable, but not entirely my thing. This was the same for the Simon Lee gallery, which had some ‘glitchy’ mixed media pieces on show. On a different note, I always hate going to the Simon Lee gallery, as the staff are always kind of rude. I know I’m a young person who isn’t going to buy anything, but still, ‘it doesn’t hurt to be nice’.

The Tiwani Contemporary had some very basic collages, which was, yet again, not my thing. Art First was also not that exciting, with lots of paintings of faces. Grimpel Fils was similar with an exhibition titled ‘Works on Paper’ which is never a good sign. Sadie Coles also had tiny paintings of faces, which was just boring. I also visited the Ronchini Gallery, whose exhibition was titled ‘Whispers’ based on the childhood game, ‘Chinese Whispers’. Do grown people not understand that the title of this childhood game is incredibly racist? If the exhibition was about the fact that children were taught a game and told that it was called ‘Chinese Whispers’ as opposed to ‘Telephone’ (the name given to it in the United States) then that would be interesting. Unfortunately it wasn’t about that at all! This fact kind of disturbed me enough not to really concentrate on what the work was about.

The last space I went to this week was the Philips gallery, which is usually a very weird space. As it’s actually an auction house, the work within is always by incredibly famous artists like Marcel Duchamp or Andy Warhol, being accompanied by classic songs from the seventies like Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed. This should be off putting, having to get the guard to open the door, and having however much the work is on every label, but in actuality it has a slightly calm atmosphere because of this well picked playlist which seems to be always on.

During the week I also went to the Tuesday lecture, which was by a painter called Gabriel Hartley. Obviously because he was a painter, I was put off immediately. The ideas within the work, concerning the internet and screens, were interesting, but the fact that the end result was a painting did not excite me. To make matters worse, he left 30 minutes for questions. Whenever I’ve been at an artist talk within a uni and they’ve left this amount of time for questions, one of two things always happen. Either everyone asks a questions and they’re all terrible, or only one or two people ask a question, and the event gets cut short, ending in an awkward silence. In this case the former occurred, which was excruciatingly painful and dull.

I’ve also been watching a few films this week, which includes Beasts of No Nation, Black Mass, Room, A Perfect Day, Band of Robbers and Mad Max 2. Room was quite distressing, with Jacob Tremblay’s acting being a high point of the film. A Perfect Day was an interesting look at how small problems can turn into huge ones whilst in a conflict zone. I’m always a fan of Benicio Del Toro, especially his role in The Usual Suspects and Sicario.

There was a quote from one of Harun Farocki’s films that I’ve been thinking about and will continue to think about, not because it’s especially hard to figure out, just because of its beauty and simplicity. ‘The objects have no existence beyond themselves’ was said in one of the Parallel videos concerning objects in video games. It’s definitely something to consider.

During the next week I intend to keep working on my film, adding more sound and substance to the work. I thoroughly look forward to this process and can’t wait for the outcome.

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