Site

GCOP200

Thursday, 12th March 2015

In today’s lecture we looked at ‘Site’.  The term can relate to a physical space, but can also refer to something much more transient or philosophical.  A place becomes a site when it is recognised in terms of something else, such as a historical event, a physical landmark or monument etc.

Some artwork can be described as ‘Site specific’.  This means that the physical ‘site’ it is situated in informs the piece and cannot exist separately.  An example is Richard Serra, whose ‘Tilted Arc’ (a commissioned piece) was placed in the Federal Plaza.  The piece was obstructive in that it caused people to have to walk around the 120 feet sculpture rather than straight through the open space.  It caused controversy when the public collected signatures for a petition to get it removed.  When the commissioners decided to relocate the piece, Serra objected.  He said that to move the piece would destroy the piece.  It was to remain where it was, or be destroyed.

We looked at Susan Philipsz, who won the Turner Prize for her 2010 piece ‘Lowlands’.  In the piece, a recording of her voice singing a 15th Century Scottish lament echoes in the under-city of Glasgow.  Her untrained voice sings in a way that seems very personal, and is very beautiful when made public.

Janet Cardiff’s piece ‘The Missing Voice: Case Study B’ (1999) is a sound piece that visitors would wear and follow the directions to experience a journey made by her.  Sixteen years since the piece was made, it can still be hired and the journey can still be undertaken, but the site she is referring to is very different now.  The site is preserved, in a sense.

Jill Magid’s Evidence Locker (2004) involved her walking around Liverpool while being observed by CCTV cameras.  She wears a bright red dress and asks the CCTV operators to frame her “in the way that French films are”.  She occupies Liverpool, a CCTV screen and a control room simultaneously.  In one part of her piece she is blindfolded and relies upon the operators of the CCTV to direct her.

Archive/Archivist

GCOP200

Thursday, 5th March 2015

This morning’s lecture was titled ‘Archive/Archivist’.  Archives can be seen as a collection of physical objects, it keeps a record or documentation of an event and puts these physical items into categories.  An archive can also refer to the place the items are kept.  An archive is unique in that it can only be added to.  Once it has been added to the archive it remains fixed there.

John Akomfrah

“The Stuart Hall Project” – a film about Stuart Hall which is made from a collection of archived footage.  John Akomfrah uses the archived footage to create a narrative.

“The Unfinished Conversation” – this film takes the archived footage about Stuart Hall, from his autobiographic film, and presents it again as a new piece of work with a different narrative.

Otolith Group

The Otolith Group is described as ‘faceless’, they are not known as individuals but as a collective.  They take historical work and make collages from it, saying that the world does not need any more art.

Susan Hiller

“Witness” 2000 is an installation with hundreds of speakers hanging down from the ceiling in a darkened room.  Each of the speakers can be listened to by holding them up, but it would be nearly impossible to listen to all of these stories.  The sound recordings are all original recordings of people’s experiences.

Elizabeth Price

Price won the Turner Price in 2013.  She produced multi-layered montages of histories of tragedy.  Her work is explicit and raw as she is using real footage.  It is articulated as propaganda.

GCOP200 Research

GCOP200

Wednesday, 4th March 2015

Research and ideas so far.

The Object – Edited by Antony Hudek P80, Mike Kelley, The Readymade and the Double 1993

ISBN 9780262525763

This source is from The Object, a collection of essays around the object in art.  “The Readymade and the Double” is about everyday objects becoming an art object.  Kelley says that these objects, such as Duchamp’s urinal, ‘present reality as impossible to concretize’  Kelley says Duchamp has demanded that it is art, and therefore it must be.

“It is impossible for these ‘real’ objects, once presenting in the context of art, to maintain their ‘real’ status.”

This means that the objects are no longer ‘useful’, they are art, a doppelgänger of the original object.

“Were manzoni’s nudes art when they put their clothes on?  Where they art when they were no longer young?  Are they still art and how, after they are dead and gone?”

Performance Art 101 – The Happening, Kaprow

http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/blogs/performance-art-101-happening-allan-kaprow

A blog post on the Tate website, by Kirstie Beaven

Kaprow was ‘excited by the performative possibilities of painting’   Kaprow wrote an essay on ‘The Legacy or Jackson Pollock” in 1958.  “He suggested that the art to come was one that incorporated everyday life, and everyday objects.”

In 1959 he made ’18 Happenings in 6 Parts’.  He defined happening to be: “Something spontaneous, something that just happens to happen.”

“Kaprow’s events were actually tightly planned and participative” – The art performance is planned, not spontaneous.  The difference between art and life is in this planning.

Kaprow was creating “Chance encounters” and “Giving significance to everyday events” 

[Article links to “http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/blogs/performance-art-101-black-mountain-college-john-cage-merce-cunningham]

“These participatory events blurred the line between what was life and what was art, what was an everyday movement and what was a performance.”  Gillian Wearing’s ’60 Minutes of Silence’ slowly turned art into life.  The police officers posed for a photograph and sat still for 60 minutes.  As the hour progressed, the officers began to tire and more natural movements began to take place – they would scratch an itch, yawn, reposition their hands etc.

Tutorial:

• I can revisit Kaprow’s arguments, it is almost impossible to be completely original
• Make 4 or 5 main points
• Make comparisons between artists – this will take up a lot of the word count
• Introduce artists but focus on single works
• i.e. Clark and Landy, Calle and Harrison – four artists such as those are probably enough to focus upon.
• Nonart is unobtainable
• Research ‘Oak Tree’ by Michael Craig Martin
• Make a point and use the artists to contextualise it.
• 10 to 20 sources

 

Research Project, Section Ideas

GCOP200

Thursday, 12th February 2014

In my research proposal, I put down some ideas for headings and topics I want to cover in my written outcome.  This will enable me to research within the topic without straying too far from the point I want to make.

I have expanded the sections below, adding artists and areas of research.

What are some examples of artists who are pushing these boundaries?

• Gillian Wearing
• Sophie Calle
• Tehching Hsieh
• Michael Landy
• Ellie Harrison
• Marcel Duchamp
• Lei Mingwei

What are some examples of extremes?

• Teching’s time-clock and cage piece
• Michael Landy: destroying his belongings, exhibiting his parent’s house in a gallery

What is the response of critics and of the general public?

• Julian Spalding
• Charles Saatchi (possibly)
• ‘Elitism’ of art
• Separation between artist and audience

How has the boundary shifted over recent art history?

• Duchamp’s urinal – the first ready-made
• Negative public response

What is the prognosis of art in life?

• Forecast of how the genre can go forward
• My own opinions backed by other opinions

GCOP200 Research Project

GCOP200

Thursday, 29th January 2015

We were introduced to the research project today, which will form the bulk of credits for this module (GCOP200 is 20 credits overall).  We are to think of a question to explore, and create a 2,500 – 3,000 essay, informed by research and referenced.  The deadline for this is 17th April.

Each Thursday morning, we will each present our research so far and get peer feedback on how to move forward.

We have been asked to submit a research proposal (600 words) outlining what the question will be, the methodology and sources we expect to use.  The proposal needs to be handed in for 9th February.

Relational Aesthetics

GCOP200

Thursday, 15th January 2015

Today’s lecture was centred around relational aesthetics (or relational art) which is a term coined by Nicolas Bourriaurd.  It describes art that takes place outside the “gallery”, it is domestic and real and often involves exploring the crossover between daily life and art.  Work may take place on a street corner or in a non-traditional gallery space such as a house or subway station.  It sometimes combines performance with a visual end product, other times it may only exist in documentation.

Audience 

The audience for relational aesthetics is incredibly important.  Without an audience the artwork will not exist, the audience are encouraged to become directly involved with the work; the artist-audience relationship is more active compared to the passive relationship of making and observing.  Engagement goes far beyond appreciation.

Post-Studio Art Practice

Relational art does not rely on studio practice.  The process happens outside the studio and directly within the context of contemporary life.  For example, Mark Dion’s piece ‘Tate Themes Dig’ in 1999 used the act of retrieving items from the thames as his process.  The end product is in a gallery space but the process did not take place in a studio.  As such, the audience is invited to think about how the piece was made.  This is exaggerated further by the presence of the tools used in the gallery space.  Dion’s work explored boundaries between archeology and beach-combing, and brought attention to the fact that our environment has been invaded by human traces: most of the items pulled from the Thames were modern man-made objects.

Rirkrit Tiravanija’s work often happens in a gallery space and uses the space in a non-traditional and artificial way.  He is known for cooking curries for people in the gallery setting, changing the way we perceive the space.

Other relational aesthetic artists:

Kim Wide – Plymouth based artist involved in project ‘Take a Part’ which involves community participation.

Hamish Fulton – Walked and climbed mountains in order to create work

Simon Pope – Also used walking

Richard Long – Known as a ‘Land Artist’, he uses walking and interacting with landscapes and environments

Gordon Matta Clark – This artist is known for cutting houses in half in public spaces.

Michael Landy – Brought a house into a gallery space.

The lecture was really interesting because it made me think of my own practice which also operates outside of the studio and gallery.

Library Project

GCOP200

PERSONAL/RESEARCH PROJECT

Thursday, 4th December 2014

On Thursday 13th November, we were set a project ‘Library Project’.  The task was to think of a word which was relevant to our own practise and research it using different sources, both primary and secondary.  We had a few weeks to compile this research and reported back to the class today.

My chosen term was ‘ritual’.  I had used a questionnaire which I had circulated to my friends and family, a channel 4 documentary on Obsessive Compulsive Hoarders and an online interview with artist Ellie Harrison.

During my research I had discovered how far removed the word ritual has become from religion.  Of the 27 respondents, only one had interpreted the question ‘What are your everyday rituals’ in a religious context.  I also found out that the documentary I had chosen had several complaints against it for editing it in a way that showed the townspeople in a negative light.  I realised that this documentary was perhaps less reliable than the interview with Ellie Harrison, which I had verified by going onto her website and checking that it was listed in her press/texts section.

I concluded that the research project had been helpful as I learned not to instantly trust sources and how to test them before citing the information.

In the evaluations today, other members of the group discussed how they had gathered the information from various sources, such as e-mailing curators, using books, journals and films to conduct their research.  The findings from each person were similar in that they had thought more deeply about each source.

Group Discussion: Gerhard Richter Interview with Benjamin H. D. Buchloh

GCOP200

GROUP PROJECT

Thursday, 6th November 2014

Task Set:  Respond to Interview of Gerhard Richter by Benjamin H. D. Buchloh

During our group discussion we responded to the written interview of Gerhard Richter.  The interview was an attempt by Buchloh to understand and find meaning in Richter’s work.  Throughout the interview, Richter stays very vague even as Buchloh’s questions become more provocative, leading to a charged exchange in which both seem to become frustrated.  The group had a divided opinion on whether Richter or Buchloh were to blame for this.

There were repeated attempts by Buchloh to assign meaning onto Richter’s work, meanings that Richter rejected.  Buchloh picked out contradictions and inconsistencies.  Although Richter grew up in East Germany during the war, Richter maintains that the war did not influence his work.  At one point during the interview, Buchloh mentioned Richter’s use of a decorators paintbrush and suggested that this could symbolise a ‘new dimension that [he] would describe as a quasi-mechanical or anonymous quality.’  Richter replies that it means nothing, that ‘A brush is a brush, whether it’s five millimetres wide or fifty centimetres.’

Repetition Research – Ellie Harrison and Antony Gormley

 GCOP200

PERSONAL RESEARCH/PROJECT 

Thursday, 9^th October

Task Set: Research two artists who use repetition and present next week.

I chose Ellie Harrison and Antony Gormley to research for my presentation.

ELLIE HARRISON

Ellie Harrison is one of my favourite artists. She does a lot of work around data collection and draws attention to everyday rituals. I specifically looked into “Tea Blog”, a colourful online archive of 1,650 thoughts collected over a three year period – each time she drank a hot drink of some kind she recorded the thought that was most on her mind. The thoughts are displayed on a colourful background to represent which hot drink she was having at the time of the thought.

In this piece, I feel that the repetition of her task over three years makes the project seem overwhelming and impressive. We do not need to read every thought to understand the project. We know there are 1,650 thoughts without checking. I am also interested by the way that Ellie Harrison’s thorough documentation of each hot drink brings our own ritualistic behaviours in a humorous way.

ANTONY GORMLEY

Anthony Gormley is another artist who has fascinated me for a while. Gormley created the Angel of the North, which has become an iconic piece. I chose to look closer at ‘Field’, a piece where 200,000 small clay figures occupy the various spaces they have been exhibited. Each of the figures is moulded individually with the help of local art students and community. The effect of the figures shown as a group is overwhelming. The individuality of the models is lost. Again, the scale of the piece is impressive, overwhelming and even slightly ominous.

Repetition in Art

GCOP200

Thursday, 9 October

Today’s lecture for Contexts of Practice focused on the idea of repetition. We looked at the artwork of two artists, Agnes Martin and Steve Riech, whose artworks both focus around repetition. Both artists practised around the same time. The works we looked at today had been created in the 1960s.

Agnes Martin was born March 22^nd 1912, and died in 2004. She considered herself an ‘abstract expressionist’.[1] We looked at ‘The Islands’, a painting she produced in 1960.   It was a 72 by 72 inch piece with very subtle colour differences, so subtle that it was almost blank. Within the square of the canvas, another square fits inside, consisting of tiny dots of white acrylic, all hand painted. I could imagine the process of producing those little dots would take an extreme amount of time and patience. The repetition within the piece allows the audience to grasp the piece straight away; our brains do the maths and we do not need to look at every dot to understand it. This gives the audience more time to ‘be with’ the painting and experience it more fully.

The Islands, Agnes Martin.

Steve Riech (3^rd October 1936), is a composer. His sound pieces are not orchestral – rather experiments with sounds, using tape loops to create phasing patterns. In comparison to Martin’s pieces, Riech’s is more jarring. We listened to around 10 minutes of “It’s Gonna Rain”, where two samples of sound were played simultaneously, and gradually went out of sync with one another. The resulting sound was very strange and almost uncomfortable to listen to. The repetition, like repeating one word after another, seemed to make less sense as it went on. It was interesting that everyone listening said they had tried to find meaning in what was being said, and that it became more impossible the more it was played.

[1] Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2014). Agnes Martin – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Martin. Last accessed 9th Oct 2014.