Damn, two weeks again and a bunch, as
always, has happened. The curated exhibition that I’ve been planning for a
little while opened. People seemed to like it which I’m super happy about, as
well as the new book too, which I still have around 30 copies of. Not bad. I
started inviting people to be a part of my degree show and have returned to
Suffolk for a bit, taking a tiny break to relax, eat and work in the comfort of
a calm environment.
So, I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch
that has been fairly successful. People have gone, bought books, emailed me.
All good things. The install went well, although annoyingly Yuri’s piece had
somehow broken since it was last installed at mother’s tankstation so after three
days of trying to make it work we eventually ended up showing a previous video
of his. This of course worked well, but it was a shame to spend so long trying
to make this thing work. No matter. Everything else went fairly smoothly,
although there are always things that occur during an install that you couldn’t
have foreseen, or aren’t up to you. Little, annoying things, that usually end
up with you spending more money. Anyway, here’s some photographs of the show,
with all the pictures being available to view at www.isthisitisthisit.com/im-sorry-i-didnt-quite-catch-that
Also launched last week was issue 4
of the book, which people seemed to like. Lots have sold which I’m super happy
about, although it’s definitely more of an investment 100 copies. I couldn’t have
got 100 printed without arebyte contributing, which I’m incredibly grateful
for, and probably won’t happen next time for issue 5. Also issues have been
selling whilst it’s been open, which wouldn’t happen if it was at a smaller
institution/exhibition space. I definitely need to have less pages next time, 296
is a fuck load. Less pages but the same 100 copies I think, it’s a good amount
that people seem to respond to. It’s hard to work this out without talking to
someone who ‘does’ this, or without some sort of sponsorship. Once this
exhibition is finalised I’ll start thinking about issue 5, whatever that will
be about. I think it’s super important for me to write an essay for each one,
as that gets me immersed in the issues being discussed as well as researching
artists and writers to invite into the program. Anyway, here’s a link to issue
4, where you can either purchase a physical copy still or just read the PDF
which is available to check out on the same page - www.isthisitisthisit.com/issue-04
What else? I guess a lot of my time
has been devoted to thinking about these things, stuck in the past slightly. I
had work a bunch of days too, installing the Signe Pierce exhibition currently
open at Annka’s. In the end it turned out well, an incredibly liminal space,
airy, open but hopefully uncomfortable in a surveilled sort of way. I liked it,
and fits in with Signe’s persona. It was an enjoyable experience, even if it
was ‘work’. I got to go to IKEA, a space I haven’t visited for some time. It’s one
of those spaces that you want to stay magical, to keep the ‘wow’ factor
embedded within. Working there would kill that.
Aside from working, shipping off the
issues and curating/installing the show I’ve begun the process of thinking
about the degree show, inviting artists that I’ve worked with in the past
alongside new artists to be a part of a group exhibition to be placed within
the degree show. It’s maybe the most hated thing I’ve had to ask people to be a
part of, not because I hate the idea that I’m proposing, as of course I’m into
the idea, but ‘revealing’ in a way that I’m a student, inviting them back into
an institution that they probably never thought they’d return to, those two
factors I hate. It’s not just to do with me either, I’m sure these two factors
will put artists off too, which is sad, as it may be breaking future
bridges/collaborations to invite these people. I don’t know, it’s a tough thing
but I think it’s important for me to curate a show rather than exhibiting my
own work, or as well as my own work. I don’t know…
The idea that I’m proposing is to
build a bench like structure out of an aluminium modular extrusion system
commonly used to construct conveyor belts and various other automated
production processes in the shape of the cryptocurrency Primecoin, the first
cryptocurrency designed with scientific computing as its work. The plan for the
exhibition is to exhibit all of the artwork within/attached to this aluminium
structure. The show will be focused on focusing on the corporatisation of
public space, utopian ideals, the automation of industry and everyday
activities alongside the capitalisation and utilisation of the internet as a
space carved out for corporate ownership and an increasingly gamified culture
reliant on algorithms and consumerist ideologies. Here’s a Sketchup build of
the bench where all the work will be placed:
So I’m in the midst of contacting a
bunch of artists, around 20 in total. I am very certain that some of them
probably won’t get back to me, which is sad but acceptable, due to one, being a
student, two, having the show within an institution and three, the fact that
this is yet again an unfunded project. I dunno, I guess we’ll see. At the
moment I’m contacting Iain Ball, Yuri Pattison, itskindofhardtoexplain, Elliott
Dodd, Veronika Krenn and Davide Bevilacqua, Claire Jervert, Fabio Lattanzi
Antinori, Will Kendrick, Sarah Derat, Tilman Hornig, Anne de Boer, Tilman
Hornig, Thomas Hämén, Molly Soda, Debora Delmar, Toby Christian, Laura Yuile,
Joshua Citarella, Émilie Brout & Maxime Marion, Jonathan Monaghan and
Rustan Soderling. Some I’ve worked with, some I don’t, but I’m hoping they look
at my previous shows I’ve curated and value what I do, perhaps.
Hmm what else? I think that’s been
all my time, or a lot of it. I think I’ll start making new work once I send off
all these emails. I’m also planning to put together a publication for the
exhibition, which should be fun…
I’ve been invited to do a bunch of
things since the show. One of the main things is being interviewed by a guy named
David Upton for the Computer Arts Society 50th Anniversary, which
seems super cool. Another is being paid to come and do a masterclass at
Goldsmiths for the graduating BA students on the Digital Art Computing. Now
that is cool but fairly frightening. A few other things like this are also in
the works. Also this week Wade Wallerstein’s exhibition on Offsite Project went
live, which I’m in. It’s a downloadable exhibition, where each artist was
invited to make a new piece of work responding to their desktop, plus being
interviewed too. It’s a bunch of people, probably over 20 in total, which is a
crazy amount. I’m into it, go here to check it out - www.offsiteproject.org What else is
upcoming? Who knows.
I think that might be it for me,
perhaps. I feel like I haven’t made new art in ages. The ergonomic desk pieces
are stuck in a standstill right now due to not printing out high quality pics
to use on the top part. Apart from that it’s pretty much done, I just need to
do it.
Let’s do exhibitions that I’ve seen.
I actually managed to see a bunch this week before leaving for Suffolk, although
I may try to make it to Outpost this week whilst I’m back, I do love the programme
there. Anyway, let’s begin with Arcadia Missa and a duo show between Gaby
Sahhar and Rosie Grace Ward influenced by a book written by Porpentine Charity
Heartscape called Psycho Nymph Exile. Unfortunately I haven’t read the book,
which kind of reduces the amount of interaction you can have with a work. It’s
a slight barrier to entry, which I have kind of proposed within my own work
too, so I’m very aware that this can be both a good and bad thing. Anyway, I’m
assuming, as the press release informs me, that the book is about sci-fi,
feminist sci-fi featuring women living in a dystopic world of violence and
fembots. I like the sound of it but haven’t read it. Anyway, the works by Ward
and Sahhar display an oversized bloody throwing star, hung in the centre of the
room atop a bloody elevated rug. This is Ward’s contribution, which I love. I’m
a fan of her metallic swords and weapons from video games, brought into real
life context, transitioning from cartoon like to creepy as fuck. Sahhar on the
other hand I’m less into, oversized paint on crinkled and aging paper using a dinosaur
motif that spans a lot of their work mediating on their life in the capital. I dunno,
I don’t know what I want from these works, I prefer the smaller pieces, they
feel a lot more content and unable to achieve, something I think the work
acknowledges.
Next up was South London Gallery,
whose press releases are always overly long I feel. I like long texts, but give
me it in a good format, not like a newspaper, extending the text even more than
it has to be. It’s a lot and puts me off slightly. Anyway, downstairs in the
main space was a beautifully tight show by Magali Reus, replicating icons of
work and industry in an incredibly tight way. You should go and see it in real
life as they are quite beautiful, and I bet they pack up beautifully too in
custom made boxes. Just go and see.
Upstairs was Free.Yard, an ongoing
alias of Adam Farah. I’m intrigued by the idea of an alias, it works as
creating a platform. Anyway, the show was okay, super liminal as is the case
with many funded shows it seems, a beautiful excuse to make something that will
only appear once. I felt kind of disjointed from the whole thing. I probably
have more to say on this.
After that was Gossamer Fog and a new
show called Slow Fade featuring work from Lea Collet and Marios Stamatis
curated by Sayori Radda and Felice Moramarco. It was nice, consisting of a
lovely yellow hue lighting and a bunch of stamped on flowers spreading on the
floor, temporary tattoos fixed to the walls proclaiming very subtle
considerations along with delicate flowers. Broken pieces of glass wax and resin
hung from the ceiling and in the smaller room there was a video of two people,
assumedly the artists, dancing in a rented sports hall being filmed by a drone.
So, the first big room with the light, this felt like intimacy, controlled and
subtle intimacy that occurs through temporary tattoos and flower giving, the
type of intimacy that allows you to walk through a gallery space with no music
and appreciate these things as works within themselves. The second room, although
these two people were interacting and dancing together, distinctly human, felt
very unhuman, non intimate, seen through the lens of a robotic camera and
being, making disjointed moves and creating a false dichotomy. I liked the
show, it’s subtleties, although have seen better things occur there.
A solo show by David Musgrave came
next at Greengrassi. First off, he is my tutor, so be aware of that, and I’m a
fan of his work. It is super liminal though, a word I’m using a lot in this
post, but it truly is. A lot of his paintings are of paper having been creased.
These things are incredibly beautiful and open up conversations that are of
course important and can be appropriated to any discussion surrounding the
subtle nature of society etc etc, but there is a point where this becomes not
bullshit, but work that can be used for any situation, to talk about any
subject. Is that an interesting thing? Perhaps. I love the work, but want more
from it I think, an agenda of some kind?
Downstairs at Corvi-Mora was a bunch
of photographs and etchings, tiny works situated in a huge room by Myra Greene.
I dunno, use the room, don’t neglect the space please. I was bored.
I made it to the Zabludowicz
Collection to see Marianna Simnett and Ericka Beckman. Two fantastic artists
with big libraries of very dense videos. I need to return to both shows as I
didn’t nearly give them enough time. I will be returning, although I was sad
not to see new work from them.
Invites was Hazel Brill, fantastic
projection mapping but I didn’t truly understand what was happening with the
actual content. A narrative based around a sunflower? I love the interviews
though, Paul Luckraft is a very good interviewer. It must feel very good to
have such an archive of interviews.
They also have a new VR room at the
zab which currently has a group show on with work from Eddie Peake, Florian
Meisenberg, Anne de Vries, Ruben Grilo, Jack Strange and Anna K.E. Basically,
weirdly enough, the show, titled NAUSEA, considers various notions of virtual
perception. Wow, a VR show about virtual perception? That’s so revolutionary… I
dunno, it feels a lot like fetishising the new tech to me which I’m kind of
bored by at this point, even though it is still ‘fun’.
Sondra Perry at the Serpentine was
fantastic with the solo show Typhoon coming on. This is the first time I’ve
seen her work, which was quite incredible. Lots of her videos are commonly installed
within gym machines, like a rowing machine or a cycling machine, simulations of
real life exhaustion. You watch the videos, both of which in the show consider
Perry’s digital avatar that she’s created of herself, using the avatar as an
autonomous mouth piece. Whilst watching these videos, obsessed with the blue
screen of death it seems, you feel like you’re pouring out your self-worth and
power into the machines, which have been made hard to work. For example, the
rowing machine has been filled with hair gel. I love these works, actively
making you as an audience member participate in the labour, the labour it takes
to power the work, the labour it takes to make work as a black woman. I would
highly recommend going and experiencing the show, very powerful.
Forensic Architecture at the ICA was
both great and frustrating. I’d previously seen one of their videos at
documenta last summer, which was fantastic, deconstructing a killing of a man
in an internet café. I loved this piece, it was a beautifully intricate film
tucked within a load of shit. Now, with a show that filled the ICA, I felt
myself becoming annoyed as I went through the show. It features, I believe, 12
videos, each around 20-30 minutes long (although who actually knows as there
isn’t any time limits on any of them!!!). So, this is a big time investment. Of
course they’re fantastic videos breaking down incredibly important events that
have occurred, but there becomes a point as a curator where you should say that
its become too much. There is so much content in this show that by the time I
reached the end I was so tired and worn down. Its overwhelming and not in a
good way. Maybe they want me to feel this way, the overwhelming nature of war
perhaps? Still though, it’s too much for me. I’m happy to invest my time, but
only if that is respected. Tell me how long these videos are going to be, give
me a break in between, don’t fill it with everything you’ve ever done. Do go
and see the show, as it’s fantastic, but maybe spread it out over two or three
days, as the experienced pissed me off.
Next up, a performance by Sylvia
Palacios Whitman at the Tate which was utter trash. Kind of like re-watching
The Square but it’s actually real and you paid 16 pounds to see it. Utter wank
in the worst and vitriolic way possible.
Marvin Gaye Chetwynd at Sadie Coles
was also trash. Huge oversized paintings with various stuffed creatures
breaking out of them. I hated them so much, which is so rare for me. Really not
my thing at all, reminding me of puppets and sets at a school play.
A group show at Marian Goodman was
super dull, I don’t really know why I went there to be honest…
The final show I visited was Puck
Verkade and Georgia Lucas-Going at Sarabande, a really fancy foundation for
young artists. Anyway, the exhibition is titled (NOT) ALL PERSONAL and contains
a bunch of work. One from Puck exploring matters of consent, complicity and the
ethics of care through a video installation whereby we see a white male avatar
talk about complicity as well as various amphibian beings in this environment.
Georgia’s work consisted of a performance, which I missed, and a bunch of
photographs, very basic photographs with implied meaning from herself and her
family background/heritage. It was good.
Aaand that’s it. Let’s start talking
about films and TV. Beginning with Thelma,
a film about a young woman going to uni and finding out that she has some very particular
and creepy powers, but not in such an obvious way. Throughout the film you’re
with this character, rooting for this character as she’s so lovely and naïve, I
continued to root for her even when it became quite apparent that in actuality she’s
becoming a terrible, manipulative person who’s using these powers to better
herself. And you know what, I’m okay with that. We see her being oppressed for
what she has, this locked power inside of her, and she eventually learns to
control this thing rather than being suppressed. This is a very interesting narrative,
especially in the context of present day discussions regarding gender disparity
and thinking about The Power, an incredibly great book that everyone should
read. Go watch this film.
The Breadwinner was beautiful, an
animation about a young girl trying to survive in Afghanistan. It’s pretty
fucked up the limitations afflicted against women in these spaces. It’s
obviously an element that we’re all aware of in the western world, but it’s
still supremely fucked up. Anyway, another great film about the power of women
living in disparity that you should watch.
Black Panther was of course great,
although in the end it is a Marvel film, so it can’t be that great. It was very
funny and cutting, and of course beautiful to see such a film being made. Yeah
I’m into it, of course.
God I think that might be it for
films and TV. I’m continuing to watch Atlanta season 2, which keeps getting
better. There’s a terribly hilarious episode which sees Earn continue to be
oppressed because of his blackness, going to restaurants, bars and clubs, being
refused service or stupidly overcharged. In one scene he walks up to the
counter of a fancy cinema, attempts to pay with a 100 dollar bill, is refused
service, tries card but they need all his details, so he refuses. Him and his
partner Van then walk away. We then see a white man walk up, pay with a 100
dollar bill. Earn walks up to him, asks him to help him demonstrate this racist
manoeuvre by the person selling tickets. He simply lifts up his jacket, showing
his gun there, and tuts very lightly. So fucked up, so incredibly hilarious. It’s
these little moments of (to me) craziness which occur within the TV show that I
find incredibly tight and cutting…
Anyway, I think that’s it. The next
week will see me de-install the show, continue to contact artists about the
June exhibition at uni, continue to think about making work, continue working
and being in Suffolk for a bit of time. Let’s see what happens I guess...
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