Research. Context.

Beili Liu

The Mending Project, Iron
scissors, Fabric, thread, needle, mixed-media,
dimensions variable

The voilence of the chinese scissors hanging over head is calmed by the quiet continuous stitching.

http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/153986

Boys who sew

Crafts Council Gallery, London 5 February – 4 April

Exhibition of seven male artists, brought together by the medium of sowing.

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Making work about the affects of a death troubles me. I have a problem with making work that is overly sentimental or self involved. ‘Pity me’ art has no pull for me. At the risk of sounding like a wanker; I do think you cannot avoid making the work you have to make. .

Lee Mingwei is wonderful at dealing with this issue. His work is subtle and reflects the issue on to his audience. He doesn’t dwell on looking inward, he opens it up as a debate, invites you to get involved in the work and therefore the issue. Following the death of his grandmother he created The Letter Writing Project.

‘For The Letter-Writing Project, I invited visitors to write the letters they had always meant to but never taken time for. Each of three writing booths, constructed of wood and translucent glass, contained a desk and writing materials. Visitors could enter one of the three booths and write a letter to a deceased or otherwise absent loved one, offering previously unexpressed gratitude, forgiveness or apology. They could then seal and address their letters (for posting by the museum) or leave them unsealed in one of the slots on the wall of the booth, where later visitors could read them. Many later visitors come to realize, through reading the letters of others that they too carried unexpressed feelings that they would feel relieved to write down and perhaps share. In this way, a chain of feeling was created, reminding visitors of the larger world of emotions in which we all participate. In the end, it was the spirit of the writer that was comforted, whether the letter was ever read by the intended recipient or others.’

http://www.leemingwei.com/projects.php

Contextual for Conceptual brief

Piero Manzoni

An italian born conceptual artist, self taught, had his first exhibition at the age of 23. Among the art world he is known for questioning consumerism and mass production in italian culture. He was hugely influenced by a Yves Klein exhibition in his early work, even responding to his monochromes directly with a series of works.

He founded the gallery Azimuth with a fellow artist and exhibited heavily conceptual artwork. Including a series of balloons that the viewer could either blow into themselves of pay for the artist to blow them up. Another famous one was ‘Consumption of Art by the Art Devouring Public’ where Manzoni printed his thumb print onto hard boiled eggs and gave them out to the audience.

The work he is most known for is likely to be Artists Shit, he produced 90 cans with the label reading ‘Artists Shit’ along with his name. The cans were priced by their weight at the value of gold at the time. The contents are still under debate as to open the can would be to devalue the work itself, some say it could be plaster. With this work and many others he questions the value of the artist and celebrity, the price the public pay for a piece of somebody.

The Image above is of ‘ Artists Breath’ one of a series of three in red white and blue. Here he has blown up a balloon and presented it along with a plaque stating his name. The balloon has now deflated leaving a scrap of rubber on the wood, quite a poignant remark on the non existence of permanency.

Manzoni died in his studio in 1963.

Jannis Kounellis

Burlap and Beans 1969

Jannis Kounellis was born in Greece and went on to study in Athens and at the Accedemia di Belle Arti in Rome. A hugely influential member of the Arte Povera movement, he explores the boundaries of paintings, substituting frames, gallery floors and door frames for traditional canvas.

He introduced installations into his practice which involved a whole host of materials including sacks, live horses, coal, meat, coffee, found objects etc.

His work Burlap and Beans (actually untitled) pictured above is quite nicely relevant to my project as it was something the viewer could smell as well as look at. The sacks contain peas, coal and corn that reflect his Mediterranean roots, the smells are reminiscent of where he grew up in a seaside port and allow the viewer to be transported back to where he grew up but also perhaps into their own memories.

Jenny Holzer

Christian Boltanski

Philosophical aesthetics: Mimesis

Joseph Beuys Tramstop

I know I’ve mentioned this work twice, It is that good though. Recreation of a memorial beside a tram stop he used to wait at as a child.

Jannis Kounellis Untitles (Twelve Horses)

A representation of horses used in historical painting and equestrian statues in traditional art.

Chance

First project of a new year, leaving everything up to chance. Looking at a couple of artists that use systems in their work or incorpetate an element of chance.

Lawrence Weiner used a Declaration of Intent thats quite relevent to what we’re doing in this project.

1. The artist may construct the piece.
—2. The piece may be fabricated.
—3. The piece need not be built.
—Each being equal and consistent with the intent of the artist the decision as to condition rests with the receiver upon the occasion of receivership.

Printmaking.

we’ve been looking at different types of printing with collette, mainly intaglio and screen printing. There are so many different types once you get into it; woodcut, etching, lithography, engraving. We spent most of our time creating an edition of screen prints, its a useful way of replicating an image and getting a good flat colour. the technique is mainly used to print on to paper but can also be used on fabric, rubber, glass and metal. The screen was traditionally made from silk (silk screening) but due to the cost more modern materials such as nylon and polyester are used these days.

Jenny Smith.

I came across this artist in the Edinburgh Printmakers exhibit archive and really love the way she incorporates screen printing in 3D work. In her work she explores new ways of drawing and experiments with combining new technology such as laser cutting with old; screen printing. She looks at the theme’s of memory and identity in her work, she’s also influenced by Japanese zen and wabi sabi. Screen printing dates back to 960 ad during the Song dynasty in china, it then filtered into Japanese culture so its quite a nice coincidence to be exploring Japanese zen with this medium. Screen printing was introduced into western culture in the late 17oo’s, used mainly as a means to print wallpaper and posters. Since then it has been popularised by Andy Worhol and his famous replica of Marilyn munroe.

This work, Book of Beads, is a really interesting way of using screen printing, some even go as far as saying Smith is at the forefront of innovative printing. The holes in the work were made by laser cutting, after the work had been printed.

Katsutoshi Yuasa

Another artist that has exhibited at theEdinburgh Printmakes Gallery is Katsutoshi Yuasa, who works with wood cuts. This Japanese artists makes work based upon nature and natural incidents, he photographs his subject and then replicates the image in a woodcut.

“When i see the surface of the earth from above, it is a very beautiful pattern. I use these images as a starting pont of my work…”

Woodcutting is a form of relief printing, the idea is essentially to cut away the darkness in an image. Again it origionated in China, in the 5th centuary, arriving here around 1400. Yuasa manages to create beautiful light filled prints, using a traditional Japanese knife to cut away at a piece of wood to create a relief. The process is hugely time consuming and can take months to create one print.

The World is Abstract

Graded Unit

Artists I’ve been looking at for the graded unit; Home and Displacement

Joseph Beuys.

I’ve been looking lots at migration, journeys and things like that. Some of the main imagery thats come out of it is train tracks, at least thats what the main sculpture is going to be I think. Got me thinking a work by Beuys that i saw in the Tate modern the other day; Tram Stop.

Its a work that looks back to his early childhood, a recreation of a tram stop he used to wait at while on his was to school. He made the origional version of itfor the Venice Bienalle in 1976. It includes a replica of a memorial that used to stand there.

g Project.

When the piece was bought Buoys insisted that the work could not be resurected and should be displayed laid flat:

Also saw this version in the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin;

Douglas Gordon.

When I first began thinking of memory the first person I thought of was Douglas Gordon. It was his piece that’s permanently installed in the National Gallery of Modern Art here in Edinburgh that came to mind. List of Names, 1990, runs up the stairs (or down towards a scone and coffee if you prefer) and is a list of every person he could remember meeting in his life at the time of making the work. He must have quite a memory; one thousand four hundred and forty names grace the wall in small black print.

A lot of Douglas’ work focuses on memory, amnesia and perception. In his work, Something Between my Mouth and Your Ear, the audience enter a blue room and are played a selection of thirty songs that were popular in the months running up to his own birth. Perhaps these songs are hidden in his subconscious as his earliest memories but here he is trying to provoke memories in the viewer, make them remember some time in the past.

One of his most well known pieces marked a move into working with film; 24 Hour Psycho, 1993. Douglas slowed down the Alfred Hitchcock film so it lasted a full twenty-four hours. He used a very well known film in order to challenge the viewer’s preconception of what they already know and what they are being shown. In this way the viewer is forced to remember when they first saw the film and how they remember it and also to compare it to the present where it is unrecognisable.

Born in Glasgow, Douglas studied at the Glasgow School of art before heading south to the Slade School of art in London. He was an instant success, his first solo show took place before he even graduated and he went on to win the Turner Prize in 1996 before representing Britain at the Venice biennale in 1997.

Rachel Whiteread.

Rachel Whiteread. Stacks. 1999

While researching for my memory project I began to think about materials that record information like mud with footprints or paper with pen. In Whitereads case she uses plaster,resin and rubber to create a copy of the space around an object. Instead of following other sculptors and concentrating on an actual form she focuses on the space inside, underneath or surrounding it. The space that we inhabit. Her sculptures create odd forms, often quite beautiful and always very familiar even if we cannot quite determine what they are.

It is not only the way in which she records information that links her to memory but it is the subject matter she chooses to cast too. She casts spaces she remembers from her own childhood, spaces that interested or intimidated her like under the bed or the inside of a box, a good example is Stacks, 1999, a cast of a set of bookshelves. It was actually a cast of the inside of a house that won her the Turner Prize in 1993. It was an idea she had in her head for some time, finally fully realised in an old terrace house in London that was fated for demolition.

Whiteread’s sculptures of negative space although often monumental in size are quaint in subject. They are a kind of modern-day memorial to the spaces we inhabit in day-to-day life, they translate spaces we hardly notice into something concrete. Bringing to the forefront things that are not celebrated, only lived in and with, her pieces often hold the detriment from the object she is casting; flaking wallpaper, paint and dust. In a way she is publicising spaces that are often quite private to some people, in one piece she turned a house completely inside out (Ghost, 1990).

Born in London, Whiteread initially studied painting in Brighton before moving onto sculpture at the Slade School of art. She was a success from the moment she left art school having her own solo show in the first year and going on to gain a turner prize nomination in 1991. This is duelargely to the fact she is part of the YBA’s (young British Artists), which cannot hurt really.

Martin Creed.

Work no.200: Half the air in a given space.

The names of Creed’s work are probably the most obvious titles in the art world. When he first began making work he numbered everything, so number 134 is his one hundred and thirty-fourth piece of work. The image above, work no.200: Half the air in a given space, is just that, enough balloons blown up so that they contain half the amount of air in the room. Another example is work no. 142, ‘a large piece of furniture partially obstructing a door’, it’s exactly what the title describes; a wardrobe in a door frame, in a gallery, you are able to walk past it but not to ignore it.

This approach to his work has gained him an almost notorious reputation amongst art critics, is his work too minimal? Too conceptual? When he won the turner prize in 2001 it was one of the most controversial wins yet. Work no. 227; Lights going on and off, true to form, was an empty room with a light periodically switching on and off. Even artists themselves protested against such a seemingly simple piece of work; Jaqueline Crofton threw eggs at the walls. However, is it too simple? Or does it explore one of the most fundamental elements of our planet: Light. Does it question how different light balances can affect our mood? Most importantly does is make us ask questions? Absolutely.

Although he has been sited as a hugely controversial artist, Creed seems only to want to make what we think of as art;

‘I want to make things. I’m not sure why, but I think it’s got something to do with other people. I think I want to try to communicate with other people, because I want to say “hullo”, because I want to express myself, and because I want to be loved’.

And so he is. Since Graduating from the Slade School of art in 1990 he has had eighteen exhibitions all over the world and has become a household name.