Firewatch, Laura Poitras and New York

I’ve spent the last week and a bit seeing a lot of things whilst doing a minimal amount of work. The amount of exhibitions that I’ve been to has been slightly overwhelming, similar to the feeling that I have when I go to the Venice Biennale. It’s not a negative feeling, just a feeling one has. A fullness.

I have, however, been using the time to apply to a variety of exhibitions as well as writing a short artist statement. I feel that applying for things should become part of my daily routine, now that I have a variety of works that I’m proud of/happy with. I’ve only heard back from the 12o collective so far, and am going to be participating in a thing that they do called ‘30days/30works’. It consists of creating a new piece of work every day during the month of April, submitting an image of the different piece every day. This mass idea generation is interesting to me and is a somewhat exciting prospect. I also think that if I actually manage to create a new piece every day I get to be a part of an exhibition that they put on, consisting of all the people who made it through the month.

This is my artist statement:

I’m a London based artist working in installation, sculpture, moving image and other digital mediums. Issues of surveillance, the internet and the consumer capitalist culture within today’s society form the main issues surrounding my work. I explore these themes using tools and technologies, which are relatable but not restricted to art.

Due to the sheer amount of art that I’ve seen in the past week, the majority of exhibitions/galleries will only get small mentions, with the most interesting ‘things’ obtaining centre stage.

So, in no particular order, I’ll start with the Guggenheim, which was being dominated by a Fischli and Weiss retrospective. I always love watching The Way Things Go, it’s just such an impressive work, even if the cuts between takes aren’t quite as subtle as they ‘should be’. The cacophony of adverts and music videos that imitated the piece, OK Go with This Too Shall Pass and the infamous Honda Cog commercial, are no real match compared to the original 30 minute masterpiece. Another highlight was getting to see a small selection of sculptures from Suddenly this Overview. I remember first seeing these at the Venice Biennale in 2013, exploring the maze like structure that the plinths had created with vigour, reading every title and silently laughing to myself at the genius of it all. A favourite of mine is Mick Jagger and Brian Jones going home satisfied after composing 'I can't get no satisfaction’. All of the work on show was pretty great. Also on display in the Guggenheim was a photography show which was also incredibly positive. A series of photographs by Claudia Angelmaier caught my eye, called Works on Paper where she had photographed the backlit versos of postcards from museum gift shops. It was a very clever concept that was deceptively simple.

Another big gallery was the MOMA, whose ‘special exhibition’ was a retrospective of Marcel Broodthaers work. Some of the early work was a little obvious, especially a piece called The Watching Camera where squares boxes with eyes imprinted onto them had been placed on top of a tripod. The later work surrounding his museum, among other things, was a lot more in depth and interesting. Another show within the space called Projects 102 featured the work of Neïl Beloufa, who had created this crazy installation-like structure that felt increasingly home-made, but not in an 80s sort of way. An updated version of that, with projectors, televisions and CCTV cameras embedded into the assemblage of materials. It was a really exciting piece that I want to look into a little more. There was, of course, the huge permanent collection to sort through, which had some highlights, including Hito Steyerl’s November, Camille Henrot’s Grosse Fatigue, On Kawara’s One Million Years and Feng Mengbo’s Long March: Restart, which I’d seen before but never had the chance to actually interact with. I love the way in which it completely distorts the ‘usual’ way in which one plays video games, converting something personal into the public realm. Obviously there was a lot more, but I have so much to go through.

Going to the new Whitney was an interesting, incredibly commercialised, experience. The Laura Poitras show had some really exciting parts alongside some old ideas, which was a shame. A favourite piece of mine was a dark room with a huge square block in the middle, with a projection of the sky on the ceiling. The different sky scenes were shots from different parts of the world where the use of drones is prominent. As you’re lying down on the block, looking up at the sky (peaceful and calm), you don’t realise that in a different room there’s a television screen showing live footage from an infrared camera hidden on the ceiling. The live footage being of the participants in the installation piece. This realisation that you were being filmed/being fucked with is something that’s used a lot within art, the revelatory moment when the man comes out from behind the curtain: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” Even though it’s been used many times before, for me it actually worked really well within the context of the work. I was first slightly distressed, as the space was a dark space, a space that I had felt vaguely safe in because of my anonymity, and the infrared camera had penetrated that space, but then that turned to me not really caring. Who cares if I was seen by a random person, laying in the dark? This directly links to how people seem to feel about the Edward Snowden revelations, the ‘who cares, I have nothing to hide’ attitude, so that’s why I think the revelatory moment was used very well in this instance. Another favourite was a screen on the wall, showing a range of numbers and WIFI codes running down the screen. The monitor was hooked up to a program that was observing everybody’s phones within the exhibition space, showing everybody’s wireless activity. This was also distressing, even though the data was useless to most people, I still felt slightly violated. A feeling that intrigued me, a feeling that I am exploring within my own work at the moment. Other works included lots of transcripts, which is sometimes interesting, but merely showing pieces of paper that you have found is kind of dull, you haven’t actually done anything with the information. I can definitely see the parallels between this and my screenshot works, but I hope that the strides I’ve been taking to get away from simply displaying accumulated knowledge have been at least vaguely successful. There were a bunch of other exhibitions going on too, but mostly old paintings/sculptures, which were all kind of dull. The whole space felt a little like the Tate Modern, overcrowded and full of families, there because it’s on a list of the ‘top ten things to do in New York’ not because they’re actually interested in art.

The next place was the New Museum, which had a few really great exhibitions, the main one being centred on Anri Sala. Lots of video work focused on music making and the idea of music in general. There was so much good work, Air Cushioned Ride being one of my favourites. An incredibly low quality film where Sala is driving around a truck stop whilst listening to Baroque music. The sheer amount of ‘truckers’ that were parked who were listening to Country music kept interfering with his car’s radio station. So as Sala circles the parked trucks the Baroque music repeatedly gets interrupted by Country music. Really simple and incredibly beautiful. Another exhibition that was going on in the building was focused on Cheryl Donegan and her commercial empire. Lots of ‘classic’ feminist work, painting with your ass and pouring paint over half naked bodies, but some of the ideas were interesting, and the work list was printed on newspaper and laid out as if it were an eBay web page. Another plus. Pia Camil also had some work being shown, an ‘evolving installation’ where you were encouraged to take away one of her pieces to give back your own object. The different objects were all displayed on a variety of grids, referencing vendor machines and Sol Lewitt. Unfortunately you were only able to swap an object on set days at set times, which kind of takes away from the whole thing. Also, because the swapped objects are going to be displayed, it becomes a sort of competition, with the person who contributes the weirdest object effectively ‘winning’; which is annoying to me.

Cooper Hewitt was another place to visit. More design than art, but it was worth it for the interactive pens that you were given, allowing you to draw on huge panels, ‘designing’ buildings and chairs. Beauty was the main exhibition that was going on, full of fancy cutlery and architectural models. The highlight for me was seeing Monument Valley being displayed. Unfortunately the curator(s) had only purchased the demo version, which was a bit odd. A few other notable things include an immersion room, where you get to create your own wallpaper that distorts the walls in real time (with the help of a projector) as well as Thom Browne heralding a room full of shoes and mirrors.

The Museum of Moving Image had an impressive(ish) exhibition that focused on 2001 and the letters between Kubrick and a company called Graphic Films that helped to keep the science behind all the space exploration ‘realistic’. Another exhibit focused on all the art that reimagines and recycles Hollywood iconography. So obviously there was Fiona Banner with The Nam and John Stezaker with the majority of his work but I was more interested in the room that focused on Hitchcock and a variety of works that used the imagery within his films. Vertigo@home by Gregory Chatonsky was a particular favourite. In the piece, Google Maps is used to follow all of the car routes that are taken throughout the original film, with the different sound segments layered on top of the digital journey. It was a weird experience, to see the artwork alongside the different films that had inspired them. The museum also had a load of exhibitions on surrounding film and the camera, these were fun, but not really ‘art’ based.

The Fisher Landau Center for Art had an exhibition occurring that focused on ‘Altered Appearances’ which featured a bunch of well-known artists, from Matthew Barney to Robert Mapplethorpe. A particular favourite was Nancy Dwyer with Entitled to What which is a digital print that’s made up of many stock-ish images found (presumably) on Google Images, arranged so that the white space between the different images spelt out ‘Entitled to What’, which is unreadable unless you step back and squint your eyes. Very interesting.

The Noguchi Museum had a Tom Sachs exhibition on, which was… Okay. I’m not sure whether I particularly like the ‘messy’ and ‘bodged together’ aesthetic that Sachs employs in his practice. The objects and structures that are created are surrounded by some interesting themes, but because of the aesthetic I have no real incentive to look closer. The space also had work by – you guessed it – Isamu Noguchi. I’m not a particular fan of the Barbara Hepworth-esque sculptures. The relationship between the different materials is always a nice thing to see, but nothing more than that really, for me, ‘other opinions are available’ however, to quote Mark Kermode.

The last vaguely big museum/gallery space was the Sculpture Center, which had a few exhibitions on, the main one being The Eccentrics. It was a group exhibition, with Adriana Lara’s The Non-object (frog) being one of the highlights, where a silicone sculpture of a frog, laying on its back seemingly dead, has been placed on a plinth. You only realise, once you get incredibly close, that the frog’s stomach is slowly rising and falling, which is delightfully clever. There were other exhibitions too, one featuring work by Jessi Reaves (kind of boring chair-like structures) and another with some very odd fish-like sculptures by Rochelle Goldberg.

Now, onto the smaller galleries. Freight + Volume was showing some dull, seen before, textile work by Meg Lipke. Loretta Howard Gallery had some abstract paintings by David Row whilst the Pavel Zoubok Gallery was showing some sculptures and collages by Ivan Chermayeff. All very old work that belongs a few decades in the past.

Sue Tompkins at the Lisa Cooley gallery had some more paintings, alongside some interesting text based works, which was definitely intriguing to me, but ultimately dull. The paintings worked well in terms of punctuating the space and creating a context for the text to work within, but at the end of the day they were boring and didn’t do anything for me. The Simon Preston Gallery had a group exhibition called Signal to Noise on show, which was really good. The minimal aesthetics accompanied by solid curating worked well for the artists, with Iman Issa’s use of plinths as a medium being a particular stand out.

The James Fuentes gallery had another bad exhibition full of paintings, but, the one aspect of the gallery (I think it was this gallery) to definitely take note of is that the door looks like a brick wall, with an incredibly subtle handle being the only indicator that there’s an actual building/space behind this fake wall. That was a definite plus.

47 Canal was showing a few good paintings (surprising I know) by Gregory Edwards, working off of a Vaporwave-esque theme as well as using a grid like pattern to evoke that video game/computer aesthetic. Although I’m aware that Vaporwave is a genre associated with the screen and the internet and that translating that into a painting is problematic, I still enjoyed them for what they were. So very A E S T H E T I C. Continuing on with paintings influenced by the screen, the Jacob Lewis Gallery had an exhibition on by Michael Bevilacqua called The Owls a Re Not What they. s EE m, one can’t really go wrong with a Twin Peaks reference. Well, you can, but Bevilacqua did not. The paintings/prints were made up of many different cultural icons and symbols, from a Minecraft ‘Creeper’ icon to screengrabs from his IPhone’s background. These were juxtaposed with a variety of museum objects, tying the new to the old. I really liked the work.

Gavin Brown’s Enterprise had a thought-provoking exhibition by Oliver Payne called Elegant Code on show. A number of elements were involved, from a school desk that had been transformed into a Street Fighter II arcade machine to a variety of colourful plastic cannabis containers elevated and shown on shiny black plinths evocative of high-end cosmetic salons. It brought together a lot of ideas within my own work, as well as Jon Rafman’s (his video lamenting the death of an arcade Codes of Honor being a definite connection). The Candy Crush-esque computer collages was also a ‘good thing’. I enjoyed myself.

One of my favourite exhibitions was at the Jane Lombard Gallery, which was showing work by James Clar (who’s also represented by Carroll/Fletcher). I’m pretty much a big fan of the majority of his work, but I’ll only talk about one in particular; SEEK. An installation that features a computer alongside a microphone, an audio rack and a tv, where the contact microphone is recording the sounds that the hard drive from the computer is making in real time. The clicking sounds are re-routed back into the computer and analysed by sound-reactive software, creating a system that self-generates its own sound and visuals. Aesthetically it looks amazing, using extensive wiring to its advantage, alongside an awesome idea that comments on our computer generated existence. I may have bought the exhibition book.

The Doosan Gallery had an exhibition showing many screen-based works by Jungju An. Although the show was badly curated, with so many screens crammed into a tiny space, some of the work was really interesting, Concerto for Saw and Drum being a favourite. It’s a two channel video piece, where one screen is showing a man sawing down a tree whilst the latter screen features a man playing the drums. The resulting sound is definitely ‘something’.

Let’s get some more dull ones out of the way, starting with the Zieher Smith & Horton gallery, which was showing balancing sculptures accompanied by gestural paintings. Alden Projects had a tiny show on Marcel Broodthaers, which was only really worthwhile if you could speak French and, unfortunately, I do not. The James Cohan gallery had some terrible paintings full of detail being shown, and so did the Sikkema Jenkins & Co gallery. The Davidson Contemporary gallery had a show of very intricate and simple drawings by Sam Messenger, the type of work I want on the walls of my house rather than in an art gallery. The Shin Gallery had work by Hyon Gyon which was slightly weird, but in a boring way, 3-dimensional heads made from canvas piled up to the ceiling. James Austin Murray had some work at the Lyons Wier Gallery which was very aesthetically beautiful, black wave paintings, but still very dull and not entirely worth my time. The Skarstedt gallery had a group show of paintings which weren’t exciting, nor was Ted Larsen’s intricately made sculptures at Margaret Thatcher Projects (I’m not sure if there’s any relation or not). Gary Leibowitz at Invisible-Exports was dullness in a bottle.

At the Gagosian Taryn Simon had some amazing work that I’d previously seen at the Venice Biennale last year, her political flower pieces, where she photographs bouquets of flowers that were present at a range of incredibly serious political meetings, putting a short description of the meeting and origins of the flower beside the image. Really well done work that is always interesting to look into. The idea alone is so intelligent that the work isn’t even needed!

The Gladstone Gallery had an amazing exhibition on featuring work by T. J. Wilcox, who seemingly has an obsession with clouds and the sky. The work is made up of ‘digital skylight’ type contraptions, I can’t really do it justice by describing it, and so I’ll leave you to Google. The Miguel Abreu Gallery was showing a bunch of work, with the main draw for me being a bunch of glitched images. These were nice to look at but didn’t really add to any of the ideas surrounding ‘glitch artwork’ that we already know about. At the end of the day a glitched image is quite boring at this point in time.

Marcel Wanders had a show at the Friedman Benda gallery, where he completely took over the space, creating his own carpet and ambience (how does one create their own ambience? Google the exhibition/go there and take a look). It was interesting to see the first exhibition from this designer, as it tied in well with Laura Poitras’ first show at the Whitney. The contrasts being significant. The gallery was full of digitally moving images, showing creepy faces slowly moving from side to side as well as some small sculptures of an abstract dog, which was probably referencing Jeff Koons. Who knows? It was all very obtuse.

Turi Simeti was at the Rosai Ugolini Modern, with more of his beautifully simple canvas works. They are quite stunning, but yet again more like a thing that I want on my wall rather than in a gallery setting/something that I’ve made myself. I didn’t really pay much attention to the work at the Denny Gallery, the black and white paintings at the Cheim & Reid gallery, the terrible figurative works at the Ryan Lee gallery or Koen van den Broek’s ‘super dull’ paintings at the Albertz Benda gallery.

A particularly exciting exhibition was going on at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery where the work of Mark Dion was on show. The ‘main event’ was a life-size birdcage where 22 live birds were flying around, exploring the space that had been fabricated for them. Visitors were invited to enter to get a closer look at the 11 foot high white oak tree that was also in the space, alongside a number of books and other products relating to birds in general. It was supremely clever and immersive.

Paula Cooper Gallery had an enticing display of works by Walid Raad, where the shadows of different artworks were highlighted and displayed for all to see. It was an amazing concept, but for me the outcome was kind of basic, and didn’t really do anything more than the original idea.

The William Holman Gallery had some more paintings of things whilst the Luhring Augustine gallery was showing some infamous works from the sixties, from Nauman’s Violin Turned D.E.A.D to one of Kawara’s Date Paintings. These were all enjoyable to see but nothing new to me. Rhyme. Yeah.

Marlborough Chelsea had two exhibitions happening, one with Edie Fake (incredibly detailed ink drawings whose meanings did not translate well) and the other with Mark Hagen, which was good; gotta love the juxtaposition between wood and titanium. I did fall for the wondrous colour gradients that were created. A similar thing happened at Hauser & Wirth with Berlinde De Bruyckere’s sculptures of dead horses. I’d first seen these incredibly evocative sculptures at Venice in 2013 but had since forgotten. I’d recommend looking at them online, as I can’t do the distressingly dark but beautiful work justice by merely describing it.

Feur/Mesler had some work by Jeremy Deprez, coming back to the idea of the net, etc. It was cool, but nothing more. The Pierogi gallery had a group exhibition that was vaguely okay, the highlight being that, as you walk in the door, you’re confronted with two ATM machines created by Andrew Ohanesian. Very exciting.

David Zwirner had multiple exhibitions going on, my favourite being Michael Reidel with a wallpaper created by appropriating a website selling fine art supplies, plastering the walls with glitched words/phrases relating to painting. To accompany this he had also created a number of prints of book reproductions of animal skeletons, seemingly ‘branded’ with scanned images of the vinyl stickers that feature on the plastic bags of the art supply store. Did you not hear? Painting is dead. Obviously Raoul De Keyser did not because the show in New York was the exact show that I went to at the David Zwirner gallery in London. This was frustrating. Karla Black on the other hand was continuing on with her use of traditional artistic materials to create incredibly elaborate sculptures. They were nice, sensitive and delicate; not entirely my thing but still good to see. Sherrie Levine also had some work being shown comprising of SMEG refrigerators and paintings of pure colour. The colour paintings are derived from nudes by the impressionist artist Auguste Renoir, which is definitely interesting, especially when you pair that with the fridges. Very interesting and evocative.

The ‘bitforms’ gallery was another favourite of mine, showing work by Marina Zurkow all about data and the ocean. It all fitted, from the 3D printed products to the screens made to look like cargo containers. It was really well done.

Mike Weiss Gallery had a group exhibition that was kind of messy and not very fun. Chamber gallery was showing work by Makoto Azuma, who I’m not entirely sure of as an artist, some of it is good and some of it is bad and so clichéd. The David Lewis gallery was showing work by Greg Parma Smith. The press release alone is ‘wanky’ enough for me not to even bother talking about it; “This painting is not mine, not about me… It’s an allegory of being” The Company gallery was showing some work that’s not really worth mentioning, neither is the work at the Andrew Kreps gallery or ‘Envoy Enterprises’.

The Pace gallery had an exhibition featuring Tim Hawkinson, full of all these bizarre machines centred on clocks. Kind of weird but kind of interesting too. There was also a piece called Signature which was literally signing the artists’ own signature continuously, which is a fun thing. The Nathalie Karg gallery had work by Dorian Gaudin on display which was enticing, sculptural wall pieces full of aluminium and rivets were being shown alongside a kinetic sculpture that was moving around the space, disrupting ones view of the wall works, which was an interesting choice. I liked it.

The final gallery that I’m going to mention is The Kitchen, which had an exhibition featuring a few favourites of mine. From Trevor Paglen’s photograph of an undersea cable tapped by the NSA to Jennie C. Jones’ sound masterpieces. Christine Sun Kim was also present, who I’m a big fan of.

Alongside this overwhelming number of exhibitions, I went to two performances. The first was called De Materie at the Park Avenue Armory. It was a very weird experience, at one point one hundred sheep swarmed the stage and were directed by a flying, brightly lit blimp for a good 30 minutes. Although this wasn’t the worst part of the experience, it did make me feel incredibly uncomfortable, thinking about how the sheep had obviously been transported into the city to be kept in an incredibly unnatural environment before being shuffled onto a stage where a group of voyeurs watch and laugh at how stupid they are. There was also an incredibly distressing ode to Mondrian, where a ‘Mexican Wave’ was involved alongside the spinning of coloured pieces of card. I did not enjoy the two hours that I spent in that room. Also, when it ended, many people left before the performers had even finished bowing and hardly anyone clapped. The embarrassment from being a part of the audience was devastating.

The second performance was a lot simpler, Repercussion at Dixon Place. It featured three men who spent the hour interacting with and dancing around a drum kit. I enjoyed the beauty of the dance and the incredibly visceral nature of the choreographed routine.

Since coming back from New York I haven’t really done much, mostly catching up on lost sleep and relaxing. I watched season 10 of Trailer Park Boys which was well done as well as season 2 of Daredevil, a lot darker and bleaker than the first; in a good way.

I’ve watched a number of films, Down Terrace was classic Ben Wheatley fare; I’m really looking forward to watching High Rise. Suffragette was okay, but not that amazing, and didn’t really push me to sympathise with the characters enough. The Walk was a bit weird, having the story narrated to me from Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s position on top of the statue of liberty was slightly off putting, the green screen getting a little laughable at times. The final film (I know I’ve been sorely lacking in film watching) was Hotel Transylvania 2, not as ‘original’ as the first one but still enjoyable to just relax in to.

I did play a really interesting video game called Firewatch. Within it you step into the shoes of a man (Henry) who’s recently taken a job as a fire watchman in the ‘Wyoming wilderness’ due to his wife suffering from dementia. Henry wants to escape from it all. One could describe it as an exploration game (or even a ‘walking simulator’), as the majority of the gameplay is spent navigating through beautifully rendered forests and caves, slowly learning the different paths and routes around the map. I feel that this is a slightly derogatory statement though, as the story does an incredible job of drawing you in within the first five minutes and there’s a variety of mechanics that stop the game from simply being a ‘walking sim’.

Whilst you’re traversing Shoshone National Forest, your character begins to form a relationship with his supervisor (Delilah) via a walkie-talkie. This for me was an intriguing plot device, one we’ve seen in many films, from Phone Booth to Play Misty for Me, but one that was enhanced by you actually embodying this character, rather than simply watching it on a cinema screen. On top of this, the fact that you don’t actually see another human-being (up close) until the last few seconds of the game did well to enhance the feeling of loneliness that occurs, adding to the escapism aspect of the story.

Due, in part, to the incredible voice acting, I found myself forming a connection with Delilah, a connection that was cut when the video game ultimately ended, revealing to me that this character that I had shared around 4-5 hours with, was, in fact, escaping from her own past and her own self, like my character was. Reflecting back on my experience, the little vignettes of information that you acquired throughout the game hinted at this, concluding for me that the central theme for the game is escapism and that some of us just need time to reflect and consider what’s actually occurring within our lives.

It’s definitely worth playing, and falls (for me) into the ‘video games as art’ category, alongside The Beginner’s Guide, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and Journey.

Oh and I’ve come into a dialogue with a third year called John Hui who I’m going to collaborate with on his end of year show, which is kind of exciting. I think the work is going to be somewhat centred around video games and dreams, which is kind of exciting.

This one and a half-ish week period has been packed full of stuff that I’m going to slowly digest during this holiday period, picking out a few of the artists to write about in my essay as well as just considering what I want to create whilst I’m at uni next term.

Thank you for getting to the end of this, my biggest and 95^th blog post.

Enjoi.