Content v's form, old v's new and beauty?

I have been reading an old book (published in 1972) on the techniques of the old masters. I had picked it up as an antidote to all the contemporary practice I have been immersed in. I have been wrestling in my mind art education versus art practice as well as questioning the art I make and whether it has a relevant voice or indeed whether my views and experiences are relevant. My practice over the past few months has involved a lot of thinking and research and a bit stop-start in the making and doing. Starting when I think I've got what I want then stopping when either the idea is too obvious and creativity is limiting or when I discover another artist has done something very similar and to such a standard that I think why bother. It is my normal creative process and I usually hit my lowest point just when I am on the cusp of a breakthrough - isn't that always the way?

Now the blog is a new thing to me and I am a bit wary of how it may interfere with this creative process, more specifically my breakthrough, by analysing and putting into writing - formalising if you like my thinking before it has passed the seed-corn stage. In the past I have let the thinking quietly get on with it in the background.  Given it space to form in its own time. But being artist in residence this year I feel I ought to be a bit more open. I'm not sure I can be completely open.  As Hereward Lester Cooke said in 'Painting Techniques of the Masters',  'The creative process does not lend itself to chaperone". So I am happy to share some of my current thinking but not the work yet! Hence why no pictures on the blog at the moment (other than a few tentative Tim Knowles inspired tree drawings - but I am working on building a website of my completed work).

Here are a few more nuggets I have found resonating with me this week.

"Read a hundred books, paint one picture" as quoted by Cooke from an old chinese saying which he likes the idea of but admits "it may or may not apply". There is an underlying theme in his book, that is, there are rules and it is useful to know them but you may choose to ignore them or to use them subversively but I think it is important to know they exist so that you can act with intent and integrity.

Which leads me onto another quote "The artist who works without thought is "like a squirrel in a wheel cage" said a seventeenth-century writer on art, and this observation is still true today". I find this one particularly interesting having watched some of the programmes from the Modern Beauty series on the BBC. Specifically 'Where is Modern Art Now?', BBC's Imagine with Anish Kapoor and Mathhew Colling's 'What is Beauty?', they all wrestle with the balance of content and form or put another way thought, craft and aesthetics.

Lastly, from the book by Cooke under the heading "Marriage and the Artist" he notes that around a third of the old masters were unmarried (I thought it would have been higher) but anyway according to Cooke this is "probably a higher percentage than any other profession". Whether it is or not am intrigued with his reasoning of ".....the desire of artists to remain free of everyday routines. The creative impulses are unpredictable, and there is no assurance that they can be dovetailed into domestic life."

Whereas at school and college students do not have the time to sit around waiting for inspiration. There is a process to follow and there are marks awarded for each stage including but not exclusively dependent upon the final outcome. 

Regardless to the approach with my personal situation; married with two children as well as the 50:50 teaching:studio time which comes with my artist-in-residence position I best be getting on with it!

more artist suggestions

As part of the logging of artists I suggest to the students at school to include in their research, here are a few more additions from the last week...

Barry Flanagan, Euan Uglow, Clunie Reid, Chuck Close, David Mach, Annette Messager, Louise Bourgeois, Bruce, Nauman, Chantal Joffe, Tony Swain, Gordon Cheungh, Mike Nelson, Patrick Hughes, Hans Holbein

and past exhibitions to look up...

Psycho Buildings, Altermodern.

RE-play

I run an art video/animation club two lunch times a week, at school. My previous editing experience has all been on iMovie HD which was available for free download up until 18 months ago for all iLife users. So, due to the limitations of the more recent incarnations of iMovie I have had to get to grips with Final Cut Express.

The matter was getting rather urgent as the students have taken some footage and need to do some editing now, so I really ought to be at least one -step ahead in the knowledge of the software. As a result most of my spare time today has been at the computer with a manual in one hand.

Here is the result!



It is a very rough stop-motion animation but at least I now know how to do most things which I knew on iMovie HD.

I often use video in my own art work or as part of the creative process. I had one of those moments yesterday when I stopped in my tracks and my mouth fell open as I realised I had created a piece of work so very similar to an other artist. It is not the first time this has happened but I usually realise it at the research stage and take another turn or stop going down that path but this is the first time that I have discovered it some years later. I was flicking through an old art magazine and came across a still from Ori Gersht's 'Pomegranate' video.





I too re-created Cotan's still life and created several videos from it. As it turns out it was around the same time (in 2007) but I was not consciously aware of Gersht or his work. I was inspired by the Cotan still life image when I was looking into the theory of perception and representation (in the essay by Norman Bryson from the book, Representation : Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (Culture, Media and Identities series) ).

Here are two of my Cotan inspired videos, these are based on the original 2007 footage but have been subject to further editing in 2009.





Ironically my original idea was to have the fruit and vegetables decaying but realised Sam Taylor-Wood had already done that - albeit with a different composition and different fruit.

Like? Why do we like, like, like?

Just before an after school staff meeting I overheard a senior school student (aged about 17) discuss his work with a teacher but I have no idea of the content of what he was saying as it was punctuated so heavily with 'like' that I was completely distracted. Now I am aware that this word has crept into my own oral vocabulary and I am a bit alarmed about the invasion. Especially because at home this evening my 7 year old told me about their own day's experience and it was littered with 'like'. When did this invasion begin, why, and how much am I responsible for my child's 'like's? My 7 year old understands that using 'nice' is not a great descriptive word. I wonder if they will give up 'like' so happily too?

What words could be used instead by all ages? 'Similar', 'close to', 'resembling', 'bordering on', 'not unlike', 'comparable' and just plain old pause/silence to punctuate?

But then, why single out 'like'...what about 'you know', 'basically', 'actually'......? Is it a symptom of our media rich, information saturated society that every space - verbal as well as visual - has to be filled?

Making informed connections with the work of others (a.k.a. name dropping)

At school I am asked to make quite a few suggestions to the students as to what artists might inspire them or add depth to their work and research. I have decided to list them with links on my blog. I won't categorise them so as to keep them 'open' but I may link to a specific piece of the artists work.

Here are the ones I've suggested so far this week and its only Tuesday morning!

John Baldessari, Miroslaw Balka, Barton Hargreaves, Richard Galpin, Bryan Evans, John Stezaker, Ellsworth Kelly, Jennifer Bartlett, Patrick Hughes, Mark Wallinger, Peter McDonald, Simon Patterson, Dryden Goodwin, Tracey Emin, Jeff Wall

This has thrown up a few issues ....how to handle contemporary and established artists with more adult content and differentiating those artists with technique which the students want to emulate versus those with content in terms of having a contemporary voice. Given the nature of the wider catchment my readers and my position in a school I have to be a bit more closed minded in some areas and more open in others than I would otherwise in a blog. It has also made me acutely aware of the impact others work has had on my personal semiotic coding. For example, if someone wants to use a horse in their work my brain retrieves the images of Half-Brother by Mark Wallinger or Maurizio Cattelan. I'm sure there must be a good book to read out there on the wider impact of art on semiotics....

Not just an empty vessel: Miroslaw Balka - How it Is

On a trip to Tate Modern with Year 11 I took the opportunity to experience Miroslaw Balka, 'How it Is'.  

Surprisingly I really got this. With the noise of others who had seen it already going around in my head, I approached the expanse of metal on legs feeling a little skeptical. Nevertheless I climbed the ramp and entered the big black box, looking straight ahead I tried to fix upon where the space ended. Having just walked in from behind and then the length of the vessel I would have thought that it would be obvious but all I could see was a big black nothing. Sure I could hear some mumblings from others, who were camping out temporarily on the floor but this did not detract from the feeling of a black fog enveloping and then bearing down on me as I walked further into the space. Although I knew it was only air I could feel the weight of this blackness on my shoulders. When would I reach the end? WALLOP! Suddenly I had walked right into the back wall. Feeling rather foolish (it was slightly padded with a velvety feel so surely I couldn't have been the only one?) I turned around and could see the light of the opening, so much light. How could I have felt all that blackness before? The illusion was revealed. Walking out I decided I didn't want repeat the walk into the container so as to savour my own original experience and initial response.

The Unilever Series: Miroslaw Balka, Tate Modern 13 October 2009 to 5 April 2010.

Not too late for a trick or treat - Ben Ashton Exhibition at Simon Oldfield

I first happened upon Ben Ashton's work at the Slade MA/MFA Show, 2008 and for over a year now I have been looking for the opportunity to see some more of his work (I'm not quite sure how I managed to miss The Brain Unravelled in September 2009 where he exhibited alongside Anthony Gormley and others). His first major solo show is now on, at the new Simon Oldfield contemporary art space - in an old monumental masons showroom and just a stones throw from The Whitechapel Gallery and Aldgate East tube.

All Images: Photography Pamela McMenamin.
Copyright Ben Ashton 2009
Courtesy Simon Oldfield Contemporary Art

I was a bit worried that Ben would ditch the structures and optical devices which were intrinsic to the experience of his Slade Show and concentrate on the paintings. I am so glad to report that the structures and devices are still here. The installation at the Simon Oldfield gallery delivers a coherent installation of the structures, devices and paintings creating the gestalt environment needed for Ben's work - to see that the whole is so much more than the sum of the parts.

Moving around the exhibition the viewer flips from being passive to active to almost voyeuristic. It is a play with the senses and in particular our perception and the creation of depth which most of us take for granted everyday. The optical devices trick our brain but we share and enjoy with the artist the common joke - the human condition and the peculiarities of today's society with this age old concern and the question of what is reality.

Underlying all this tomfoolery are rich historical references with a contemporary twist. A further nod to the past is on the practical part of the viewer. In order to truly appreciate Ben's work the viewer has to experience it in person. Therefore, just as in the past, people had to travel to see great works of art so too must we to see Ben Ashton.

Ben manages to conflate his love of painting and its histories with the contemporary. Ben is one the few contemporary painters out there who continue to push the boundaries of painting while keeping the practice alive and relevant today.

The exhibition has been extended until at least 15 November 2009. 

Simon Oldfield, Contemporary Art, 17 Osborn Street, E1 6TD.
Monday and Tuesday from midday - 6pm. Wednesday - Sunday 10am-6pm.

Big Head - 2009 Kaleidoscope (mixed media - external view) - 80cmx 37.5 x 37.5 cm

Big Head - 2009 Kaleidoscope (mixed media - internal view)

Hung Up - 2009 Stereoscopic Octagon (mixed media - external view)

Hung Up - 2009 Stereoscopic Octagon, (mixed media - internal view)

Glorianna - 2009 Stereoscopic structure (mixed media - internal view)

Cornellius and Big Head - 2009, oil on board - 41 x 31cm, installation view

All Images: Photography Pamela McMenamin

Copyright Ben Ashton 2009

Courtesy Simon Oldfield Contemporary Art

Freeze Frame - Frieze Art Fair 2009

Frieze 2009 was pretty much as expected: an assault on the senses and emotions but still one of the experiences of the year in terms of the art calendar. There was a slight format change with an area towards the far end branded Frame and housing relatively less established galleries with their space dedicated to one artist. According to Ossian Ward in Time Out this is "stepping painfully on the toes of Zoo".  This new addition, however, really worked. It was refreshing to move into a slightly rougher around the edges environment (right down to a more unfinished numbered flag indicating the gallery stand reference). The dedicated space to one artist gave the eye and mind more time to connect with the work rather than frenetically jumping from one work to another. Such respite was just enough to unlock some energy from ones reserves for round two of the rest of the stands and main showcases. However whether in Frame or the main stands it takes the recognisable or the unusual to really stand out. These were my highlights.

A Travel Without Visual Experience , Malaysia 2009

Pak Shueng-chuen

Courtesy: Vitamin Creative Space , Stand H3

In this work by Pak Shueng-chuen the viewer walks into a dark space and invited to view the work by capturing images with the digital camera provided or with your own camera.

A smaller scale (and limited edition) version of Grayson Perry's 50 ft. tapestry, “The Walthamstow Tapestry.”

Courtesy: Victoria Miro Gallery , Stand G6

This stood out because of the publicity surrounding the image just before the fair and it had the biggest crowds around it - this photo was taken during a quieter moment!

Catherine Story 's paintings

Courtesy: Carl Freedman Gallery , B2

Catherine is a very recent graduate of The Royal Academy Schools and I first came across her work at her and fellow students interim show (Premiums) in February 2008. It was a pleasant surprise to happen across this array of her paintings at one of the main gallery stands.

Peter Halley's paintings

Courtesy: Waddington Galleries , Stand G16

Alan Kane, Collection of Mr & Mrs L.M. Kane, 2009

Courtesy: Ancient & Modern , Stand R9 (Frame)

This was one of the most curious. The artist has taken artefacts from his parents house and displayed them alongside take-away postcards with images of the objects. The objects consist of ornaments, framed watercolours of unknown artists, family photographs and snow globes.

In addition there was a striking and monumental Chantal Joffe, a dedicated Frame space for Susan Collis, a number of small scale paintings on canvas and paper by Peter McDonald some of which I witnessed being sold (in fact, the only obvious sale I noticed during the day) and an arresting Jonas Burgert.