Another
week moving forwards, installing exhibitions and making art. I’m starting to
feel slightly complacent, even though I am working a lot. I need to start a
secondary project, something to do alongside the current piece I’m working on
as well as isthisit? things and stuff
with A217.
I’ve
been slowly putting together the Facebook Live work this week, but was slightly
waylaid due to not having the correct sized drill bit. The making that’s occurring
is simply drilling into various MacBook motherboards so that they can simply ‘slot’
into the tripod. Although this sounds incredibly easy, when you have too small
a drill bit it becomes a very tedious process. After drilling two of the slots
I resigned myself to simply ordering some bigger drill bits from Amazon. These
have now arrived and will hopefully be used this coming week.
I
also thought more about the content of the work, how the different motherboards
could be seen as different floors of an office/tower. This inspired me to go
down the incredibly clichéd path of buying some tiny figures, spray painting
them blue, and attaching them to the different motherboards, obviously
representing the various Facebook employees. I’m unsure if this will be a thing
or not, but they’re kind of fun. It’s either that or buying a load of USB
sticks to attach to the faulty motherboards, maybe with customised content on
that the viewer can’t actually access but will envision. Maybe ‘fake news’
content? I’m not sure, and USB drives are expensive…
That’s
slowly moving forward, along with the video for the iPhone, which still hasn’t
really made any progress. I keep thinking that maybe the video should simply be
an actual Facebook Live video, broadcasting live onto Facebook whenever it’s
shown. I think this would be more appropriate, and then you could watch
yourself on Facebook from your phone when looking at the sculpture, which would
also incorporate surveillance into the whole thing. Very Yuri Pattison. It’s
just annoying that I’ve now bought the Facebook emoji scroll animation, but
maybe I can do something else with that, taking the same video and changing the
emoji scroll? Something simple like I originally considered. Maybe I’ll make a
Facebook specifically for the piece of work to broadcast to, that would work
out quite well.
I’ve
been incredibly busy this week putting together a few exhibitions, with Monday
seeing the installation of The Sacred 419 show. The VR piece went up in the
gallery alongside the aluminium print. Both looked good, if a little tucked
away, but still vaguely interesting. On Tuesday I got to see people navigate
through the VR space, which was fun. A few things I noted from this experience
was how fragile the piece is, with a lot of the grass falling off. Another
aspect was people not realising that you put the headset back on the rocks,
like, if you took it off the rocks, where do you think you should put it back?
Probably on the rocks mate. Here’s a picture of me, photographed standing
beside my work, lol.
I
also helped install the A217 exhibition, which was fun, although dragging huge
8 x 4 boards up 4 flights of stairs was fairly painful. I don’t really understand
why the sculptures had to be so big, but they were. Once they were up they
looked surprisingly good, filling the space and making their mark. Two of these
were placed outside in the corridor, with one of them in the actual space,
completely changing how one navigated inside. Inside the gallery were two tv
screens, one showing a performance piece that involved slowly falling and
another that was a conversation between two lamps. It was simple and nice. This
is the press release that I helped Zoe write for the show:
This
exhibition sees the collision of four practices, each responding to and
interested in relationships, be it between inanimate objects relying on one
another to function or the silent contract explored through a viewer looking at
an artwork. Allowing the work to integrate not just within the confines of the
galleries four walls but spilling out into the street, the exhibition considers
structures, institutional and otherwise, being broken and formed by the
relationships that are created when the different works are situated alongside
one another. Whether it’s the building blocks of a premise for a conversation
between two insentient entities reliant on their outer frame or a concrete
block being manipulated to portray how one feels when in an unrewarding
relationship, giving everything but gaining nothing, the idea of relations is
consistent throughout. Space Cutters runs parallel to Collapse, where human and
inert forces come into play to keep the different works alive, allowing a
horizontal to vertical descent.
Proper
photographs haven’t been taken yet, but here’s one that went on the Instagram
leading up to the private view.
I’m
going to be taking the lead next month, with an internet themed show looking to
the past, rather than the future, considering the acceleration of time. I’m
currently contacting people about artwork, with a few paintings, sculptures and
video works being displayed. I’m going to either have a huge print on the floor
that people can walk on created by Laila Majid, or a blue tarpaulin, walking on
the waves of the internet, along with the lights a different colour, pink, or
maybe blue again? Maybe these will be a custom pair of lights, ones that I’ve
specially made for the show, my piece of art in there. Although I don’t want my
curatorial practice to become too repetitive re coloured lights. It’ll be
publicised as a collaboration between A217 and isthisit?, more publicity = more people. So that’s slowly
happening, contacting people that I know alongside artists who have submitted
via CuratorSpace. Here’s a very vague plan made using Sketchup.
What
else? I continue to contact people about the magazine, whose deadline is coming
up fast! So after Wednesday I’ll be putting that together, looking to publish early
March, maybe I can tie that in with A217 in some way, a ‘launch party’? But
yeah, that’s happening. I need to interview more artists, I’m currently talking
to Pippa Eason, which is going well, alongside one other, but I think I should
have at least 3, maybe 4. I’ve also been talking to people about writing, with
Karl Sims writing something specifically for the publication and a few others
who I’ve asked and are getting back to me. Some people have applied with
writing too, with one or two actually being fairly interesting, so invited
writings will go alongside submitted ones. I also want to have at least 20 or
so artist features, simply name/statement/website/artwork. These will be the ‘bread
and butter’ of the magazine, making up the main body of the work. Hopefully it
goes well… Last few days to submit if you haven’t already - bit.ly/2iRafJc
Last
week’s write up for the online exhibition that I curated on the website was
also published this week:
Romanticism
in the internet era has been changed and distorted, with the idea of the
individual being replaced by a mass of voices, screaming as one into the
emotional abyss of social media, surfing the internet, ‘liking’ and ‘sharing’
content that’s already been presented to a million other people, just like you.
The new romanticist Instagram’s their private moments of sorrow, retweets a
photograph of an evocative landscape with some accompanying nihilistic text
whilst eating their vegan breakfast and tags their friends in a YouTube video
shared on Facebook after being appropriated by the LAD Bible. ‘Romanticism: The
2k17 Edition’ features two artists, both of them being highly aware of their
individual self, exploiting their bodies and the environments that they
inhabit. Madeleine Andersson AKA ‘girl irl’ has spent countless hours crafting
her own Instagram personality, effectively performing to the camera in a series
of short, Amalia Ulman esque, looping videos that see her interacting with the
materiality of the screen whilst reacting to the endless possibilities for
self-determination online. Andersson being ‘popped’ out of existence by her own
hand whilst eerily staring into the camera lens, for example, or continually
taking her top off, to reveal the exact top underneath, over and over again.
These quick, endless videos, are accompanied by a film by Soo Hyun Choi titled
‘Snow Romance’. In the video we see the artist take to the stage of a
photography studio, which then proceeds to be filled with foam, creating an
awkward juxtaposition between the beauty of Choi dancing as simulated snow
falls across her face with the illusion-breaking way in which the whole piece
is filmed, making one aware of the studio surroundings and the falsity of the
snowflakes. In a sense, you’re drawn in by this broken narrative, having been
shown behind the curtain from the beginning, as opposed to Andersson’s video
series that seeks to convince the viewer of girl irl’s legitimacy, until the
perfect image is shattered and the balloon is popped.
This
week was curated by SEIZE, an artist led collective/organisation that put on exhibitions.
You can see their exhibition by heading over to the website here: http://www.isthisitisthisit.com/ It
was a nice change to how packed it usually is, a ‘brave move’ some would say.
These
are their curatorial notes:
'If
an image is seen out of context, has it really been taken? Traditional
photography never died, it just never existed.’ - Sam Hutchinson
‘Now
you see it’ is an opportunity to offer some resistance to the busy, layered and
media-heavy aesthetics of digital art. Sam Hutchinson’s image 'I Only Exist as
Myself (arrangement, overhanging)' in some way negates expectations when it
comes to viewing on a screen. Coupled with the text 'Now You See It' the
combination can be read as a comment on withheld information, the promise of
more, and the momentary and fragmentary truths that come with the territory.
What
else happened? I need to begin planning for the upcoming essay, thinking about
what I want to write about, etc. I always leave it until last minute, which is
always a shame…
I
don’t know if anything else happened in relation to art in my own working, I
did go to galleries, a bunch of them, but I’m still wondering if I did anymore
or not… I’ve been thinking a little today about new artwork, and the lack of
painting that I get involved in. Whilst browsing through Facebook for the
millionth time I came across one of those apps that people use to determine
what their baby will look like, where they literally take your profile picture,
attempt to identify the face and paste it onto the body of a random child.
Obviously they’re always funny and incredibly worrying, which made me think
about the idea of self-portraiture, and the commissioning of paintings that
used to occur when one wanted a ‘family photograph’. This led me onto thinking
about how I could do this with my own face, creating this weird child from open
source software, and then commission someone to paint the image, but only have
this occur through the internet, or simply get it printed onto a canvas
(although this is less fun). I enjoy the idea of preserving something so
throwaway as a random Facebook app, something to be shared and forgotten about
within days, coming back to the idea of the analogue painting styles, but
taking it to a new level through the communication that occurs over the
internet. I don’t know if this is just a throwaway idea or not, I guess we’ll
see if I think about it after this initial interest.
Let’s
move onto galleries then, beginning with the David Hockney retrospective at
Tate Britain. I went in not expecting much, as it is mostly paintings, but in
reality I quite enjoyed it. I am a fan of the splash paintings; they do manage
to capture incredibly detailed aspects of the environment alongside being able
to portray sunlight very well. They were just very good to see and quite
enjoyable. Another part of the exhibition I enjoyed was the room dedicated to
the video work which I believe is un-ironically called The Four Seasons, consisting of 36 huge flat screen TV’s, 9 on each
of the four walls, displaying the same country road being driven down in slow
motion. Obviously the different walls each portray a different season. It’s
obvious, but incredibly beautiful. It was worth going simply to watch this
film, and to see the amount of tech. The last room was dedicated to the iPad
and iPhone paintings displayed on huge TV screens, pretty much missing the
point. TV screens which were the wrong size, showing huge black bars at the
bottom and the top of the screen. It was also pretty annoying that the
paintings were consistently changing, showing the painting in progress, rather than
simply having the digital image staying on the screen. To me it felt like these
paintings weren’t being valued as much as the ‘real’ paintings, due to them
constantly changing. A bit of a shame.
The
next show was the last exhibition in the 5 week experiment that Annka Kultys
has been currently conducting. Yet again, a really good show, this time
featuring work from Ruth Waters, who had transformed the space into a ‘relaxation
studio’, creating a load of custom made yoga mats with various inspirational
texts printed onto them alongside a video/soundscape which is inspired by
Jennifer Aniston’s personal trainer. I enjoyed the created atmosphere, the
irony of it all, and the commitment to the thing. I’ve really liked the shows
for the past few weeks, even though they have basically been an appropriation
of a bunch of MA degree shows. Still though, Kultys knows how to pick them and
has created a successful platform for young emerging artists.
Next
was Cell Project Space, a really great gallery that shows off a bunch of awesome
upcoming artists. This time it was Ghislaine Leung with a really clean glass
installation with accompanying text, detailing a conversation that feels like
it was undertaken over text message, disrupted at times to reference various
things at seemingly random. Accompanying this was a carpet (I told you a few
weeks ago carpets were ‘in’ right now) that smelt of newness and a sound piece,
reminding you of childhood somewhat. On the huge glass panes there were lots of
tiny little flower stickers, making you aware of the grub and the small cracks
that probably occurred when the piece was being installed, a really lovely way
of initiating someone into the details of the piece. Another part of this exhibition
was a small dolls house like structure, with various videos being shown on
iPhones attached to the walls, both jarring with the professionalism of the
first room and working with the childhood sounds and flowery stickers. I’m not
sure what to think of it just yet. Also, little night light mushrooms are a thing, which is very fun.
From
there I travelled to Edel Assanti which had two great solo shows on, the first
being from York Chang looking at the downfall of the printed newspaper industry.
It featured huge vats of printer ink, diluted to represent the percentage loss
of density in editorial content in 4 major newspapers alongside 500 real legal
documents concerning Guantanamo Bay detainees and the lack of evidence against
them. The great thing about this work is that Chang took one of these
documents, altered it, and put it back into the 500, making them all unreliable
(even though they already were, thus the point).
Downstairs
was an exhibition from Sheida Soleimani, utilising a series of images of women
who have been unlawfully imprisoned and executed in the state of Iran. These
found images have then been printed onto fabric and hand sewn to create ‘Bobo
Dolls’, ones that were used in the 60s to see if children will hit inanimate objects
after seeing an adult do the same. Fucking dark and amazing work.
Then
to TJ Boulting for a not very interesting exhibition featuring some ‘new
paintings’ from Nick Waplington… Yeah… Thanks Nick.
Then
onto the Photographers Gallery for Conspiracy
Week, a week long exhibition dedicated to objects from outer space, etc. It
was fun, but felt rather rushed, and I never really like how they show work in
there, wooden stools on huge old fashioned TV’s. The big video wall in the
lobby however, was as great as ever, featuring a new video piece from Joey
Holder, whose work I’m a big fan of, concerning Jaws. Go see, it’s free.
Blaine
Southern with a show featuring huge metal sculptures of naked men and women,
not fun.
Carl
Kostyál was fine, big blocky colour
paintings, it’s a lovely space though.
David
Zwirner had a bunch of paintings from Josef Albers, pretty much all exactly the
same, yellow paintings…
Simon
Lee came after, with a show looking at screen memory, something that sounds
exciting but really isn’t, especially when it features a bunch of old artists.
I dunno…
Almine
Rech, yet again, a group show of artwork from old people. Very shiny sculptures…
After
that I went to see Urs Fischer at Sadie Coles, an exhibition featuring a
sculpture that is meant to be messed with, distorted and fucked with by the
public. The piece is made from plasticine, so is easily moulded. I liked this
idea, but kind of questioned the validity of how much you can fuck with a fancy
sculpture in a fancy gallery. I started to take apart the sculpture, going
against the kitsch idea that Fischer was playing with, but embracing the
collaborative nature. I was promptly told to stop, and to ‘respect the art’.
Although that reaction may be warranted, it’s not like I was going against what
the press release had told me to do, although rather than making a penis or
writing my name, I had decided to take apart the thing that the public was
being a part of. I love the idea of a collaborative thing like this, but I feel
like it must be fully collaborative to work. Basically I was probably stopped
because the sculpture will be sold at some point, and it would be terrible if
it actually did resemble what a community of people would do to a collaborative
sculpture, rather than simply a timid art crowd...
Alex
Israel and Bret Easton Ellis were showing two huge collaborative paintings at
the Gagosian. It was kind of fun, landscapes of Los Angeles with evocative text
overlaid. It was okay…
From
there I went to the Lisson Gallery, which had two exhibitions on, a solo by
Bouchra Khalili and a group show featuring a bunch of works from their
collection. A bunch of videos were on show detailing different people’s journeys
crossing borders illegally, showing the path that they took on a map whilst
unseen individuals recount their different stories. Upstairs the group show was
fine, with the standout being one of Ryan Gander’s ghost plinths, plinths/robes
made out of marble, made to look like the person wearing the robe has wandered
off. Really funny.
The
final exhibition of the week was at the Showroom Gallery; a space I hadn’t
actually been to before. Big images printed onto huge wooden boards cornering
off parts of the gallery alongside a sound scape. Gentrification and stuff, I
think by that point I was probably ‘done’.
I
went to an artist talk that featured Mette Bole this week, although I actually
really enjoy her work, the presentation was so dry and so quiet I just stopped
listening as it was so dull. It’s a real shame actually, a real shame.
There
was also another professional practice talk, from a fabricator called Sam Fish.
It was an interesting talk, if more suited to an artist about five years older
who either has the money or the funding to pay someone like him. It was
interesting though, and definitely brought about some different ways of making
money. He’s also fabricated work for both Ryan Gander and Ian Ball, two very
cool artists. He was also a genuinely nice guy, so that was nice.
I
did watch a few films this week, not as many as I’d wanted to, but a few nonetheless.
Moonlight was quite wonderful,
chronicling the three stages of a man’s life, from early childhood, slowly
moving into a teenager and then finally mid to late twenties. It was terribly
depressing and quite heart-breaking, finishing with a slow sigh rather than a
fist pump. Beautiful basically, a must see feature.
Jackie
was good, not great, but good. Some great acting from Natalie Portman, but the
story didn’t quite grab me as much as I wanted it too. It was incredibly well
themed, with the splicing of new and old footage being done very well, I just
felt like nothing really happened. A lot happened, but very little did at the
same time. I don’t know, it was probably just my mind-set at the time.
A Monster Calls
was crushing, leaving me quite surprised that it was a PG, with a lot of the
content being quite brutal, the tale of a young boy attempting to cope with his
mother’s terminal illness. Like, fuck, that doesn’t sound very uplifting.
Really well done with a nice mix of animation to portray the tales that this
giant tree monster tells. Worthwhile if you want to cry.
The
(sadly) last film of the week was Hacksaw
Ridge, which was fine, a little weird in terms of the split between the two
halves. The first is a classic boy meets girl tale, getting married and being
happy, if bullied by his father. It slowly turns to shit though when the main
character, Desmond, decides he wants to be in the army to be a war medic. In
this second half the violence is fairly brutal, people just dying everywhere
and anywhere, with no real care to how much investment the audience may have in
various characters. It’s good but is a bit mixed with what kind of film you’re
going to see.
The
past few days I’ve gotten into a fairly new animation called Counterfeit Cat, a show that sees a
normal housecat who’s befriended by a naive alien dressed as a cat. It’s kind
of interesting, if you’re into that.
I
think that is maybe about it? In the week ahead I want to finish the Facebook
Live piece, document the work, etc, alongside film a tiny bit of Facebook Live
to put alongside the documentation. I also want to start a new project
alongside making an actual video of the Facebook emotion scroll, whether this
is the portrait painting or customising lights, I don’t quite know right now. I
then need to organise the A217 show more, probably getting artists to send
their work to us now, as well as finalising who will actually be in the show.
The open call for the magazine ends on Wednesday, so from then onwards I’ll be
putting that together too! How fun! On isthisit?
this week I’m going to be curating a solo show from Roxanne Gatt, which will
hopefully be exciting. I’m also in a few things this week, a film screening on
Tuesday night at the Muse Gallery as a side thing of The Sacred 419 as well as
another thing there on Friday, a closing event for the 419 show. The screening can
be found here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1435848803137506/
I’m also in a new online exhibition that I just found out about today which can
be seen here: http://vos.rolandwegerer.com/
So
yeah, that’s it I think?
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