It’s my birthday tomorrow, which is
exciting, and marks about a week or so before the install for degree show
begins. How distressingly exciting.
The aluminium arrived this week and
looks fantastic, still incredibly expensive and definitely not worth it, but
still fantastic nonetheless. I regret everything. I’m still waiting for a few
connecting bolts to arrive, so once those do I can actually drill and bolt everything
together, making sure it all actually fits together without any extra parts
being needed. I also need to buy some more MDF to use as the bench section of
the structure. I’m still debating whether to paint this or not. Here’s the
finalised pic of how it will – hopefully – look:
I’ve continued to pick up artwork and
finalise the map/press release. It’s slowly all coming together. All of the
work is now either on its way to me in the post or scheduled to pick up this
week. It’s going to be a huge fucker to return everything without a studio
space. My room at my place is going to be full of artwork for a while.
I’m also finalising all the essays
for the book, which I did open up pre-orders for this week, with essays from
myself (the one I posted last week on here), Lucy Ludlow, Vanessa Kowalski,
Wade Wallerstein and an in conversation with me and Elliot Burns. There may
also be an essay from Perce Jerrom, although we’re still figuring out whether
it can be included or not. It’s a nice, solid list. Here’s how it will look,
and a link to pre-order if you like the sound of it - www.isthisitisthisit.com/duty-free
I’ve continued to work on my video
this week, pretty much finalising it, writing a completely new script and
having to re-build it from scratch after last weeks disaster. All very
annoying. The new script is almost done, I’m kind of only adding to it every
now and then now, reading a few books whilst picking pieces of text out of
them, distorting and utilising. The news format is still there, but more like a
continuous roll of text rather than every once in a while. I might need to make
a few more tweaks to the sound and the transitions, but we’re almost there.
Here’s a little bit of what I have so far, there are some fairly nice
screengrab opportunities to be had:
I’m also in the midst of finalising
the aluminium piece. After chatting with a friend I’m hopefully getting a
snakes head 3D printed to attach to the top of the structure, fairly cheaply, adding
all the ideologies and issue associated with the snake onto the piece. I’ve
also been reading Byung-Chul Han’s Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New
Technologies of Power, which talks about various animals and their attributes,
as well as what political alignment they may have.
I’m also thinking about including a
small SIM card work from me on the structure, just the phone tripod piece with
a scratched out SIM card of the Prime Coin symbol, again referencing the coin,
both referenced in the structure and a new painting by Willem Weisman that I’ll
be picking up this week.
I think that might be it for artwork
development and creation, I’ve just been annoyingly busy with boring press
release type work and nothing too exciting. I did go to a bunch of PVs and
exhibitions though, beginning with Home
Alone, a two day exhibition curated by Dateagleart, a collaborative duo who
I’m actually currently working with for the online ‘commissioning’ exhibition,
featuring nine artists, many of which I’d actually worked with in the past. So
they had this exhibition in their house, the house they were moving out from,
with the curatorial conceit being that all the work was being displayed within
a home, and all the furniture was gone. It was a nice idea, but to do this I
think the idea needs to be stronger than simply ‘it’s in our home so all the
work is – sort of – responding to that. Plus, no map or artwork details/descriptions,
for me that is incredibly important, as it should be for many other people.
Nice work, but badly put together. More of a shame really.
I went to a late showing at Edel
Assanti for a solo show by Noemie Goudal. The space had been transformed into a
gridded structure that you walked through in order to see a bunch of
photographs and collages. It was fun, but ultimately the ‘pay off’ for walking
through these structures felt circumspect. It was fine, but forgettable.
Norman Hyams at Hannah Barry Gallery
was pretty dull, lots of huge coloured sacks that I couldn’t be bothered to
read about. Lots of paint, lots of sacks.
Upstairs there was another show on,
which I always like about Hannah Barry. It was a group show about photography,
meaning a bunch of photographs pasted to the walls. It was okay, one of the
pieces was a carpet with pictures of the carpet printed on it. How meta.
Juno Calypso at TJ Boulting was
intriguing. She’s predominantly a photographer, known for going to areas and
photographing herself in these awe inspiring spaces, a high end, pornstar-eque hotel
being one of the most known locations. In this new series of works she went to
live in an underground bunker that was built by the founder of Avon cosmetics,
meant for escaping the cold war but now a hideaway for millionaires obsessed with
cryogenics. So the photographs are images of her within this space, alongside a
fabricated garden – I assume – mimicking the simulated garden in the bunker. It
was okay, although at the time there were no press releases. Left to my own imagination
they just looked like photographs from within a suburban home. Probably my
fault, but without the added interesting information they dissolved into simple
photographs. I dunno, very nice photographs, but ultimately photographs
perhaps. Great in a group show maybe.
A duo show titled Becoming Animal featuring collaborative
works by Petra Feriancova and Nicolas Lamas was next. All of the work was a
kind of collaboration with animals and insects, so one piece was a cage that
housed butterflies and moths, another was a small branch with a snakeskin
draped over it, one comprising of a bee hive alongside a towering cabinet like structure
with small objects placed within. The press release talked a lot about the
exhibition reflecting the current climate of anxiety and trepidation, ecologies
moving in and out of focus and becoming increasingly unviable. It was nice.
Next up was Fran Meana at Assembly
Point with a show titled System Recovery.
Consisting of a number of 3D prints in the shape of various symbols, a small
acrylic print and two TV installations installed on aluminium frames, I did
have to admire once again how Assembly Point does so much with so little work. The
space is never packed, it’s always so subtle and open. It’s completely the
opposite of how I curate, which probably shows the lack of progress I’ve made
as a curator, which is a shame. The show however, was a little lacking. It felt
like there wasn’t enough to sink your teeth into, I wanted more content,
something beneath the surface of the sheen of aluminium and high-quality
animation. It was crispy but not great. Plus, in comparison to the usual shows
at Assembly Point, the press release was pretty basic.
Moving on to Claire Baily’s solo
show; Skeleton Key at Castor
Projects. This was another crispy experience, beautiful MDF and brass wall
based works accompanied by a plaster sculpture on the floor. It’s incredibly beautiful
work, with lots of embedded iconography and various insinuations, although I
think this is one of those rare times that I love how it looks and I don’t necessarily
need to know more. If I had money I would buy one.
Enclave Projects had a group show on
called The Good-For-Nothing Screening
Room. It was okay, some videos that I didn’t really like, and a mini
version of Benji Jeffrey’s beautiful degree show film in the back that I’m
always so into. I’m not sure why…
The last exhibition of the week was a
big one; the Slade BA degree show. The first degree show of the year is always
an interesting, and exciting, premise. Beginning the mad dashes through institutions.
I think I liked three or four works in total, which is actually quite good. The
first was a whole room installation by Kara Chin, made up of some beautifully (I’m
assuming) 3D printed ceramics (so money) and very crispy animations of plants
growing in repeated architectural spaces. It was very nice.
Another nice piece was a very sweet
video by Frederick Freebury Williams. It felt very Studio Ghibli inspired,
although I’ sure that’s a fairly obvious example. Very methodical and
beautifully crafted. I may have to go back just to watch this film properly,
but I probably won’t.
Jonathan Small had a series of glass
and acrylic large scale folding fans on show. These were just incredibly crispy
and impressive to look at.
I think that may be it for works I
liked. Something that I loved, which wasn’t necessarily a work, was the
addition of a glass table with white chairs in the middle of one of the rooms.
On the table were the artists business cards and a book, kind of like the sorts
of tables you see at Frieze. I loved this idea, of being very obvious and open
about the commercialism that occurs within the institution. Whoever had done
this obviously did not like those connotations and proceeded to tell me that
the show was for students, not institutions. Is Slade not an institution?
I’m just trying to work out
whether I’ve actually seen anything this week, other than the usual cartoons
and continuing on with TV shows that I’ve already talked about. Let’s go with
no and hope that I haven’t forgotten anything. I guess that’s been my week. I
have a bunch of meetings this week, some pretty exciting, which I’ll
potentially talk about next weekend. Other than that continuing to edit the
film, hopefully putting together the aluminium installation and seeing whether
it all works, picking up all the work, finalising all the essays and interview,
getting the 3D printed piece finalised. And I think that may be it, perhaps.
How exciting, I’m intrigued by the future.
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