Blog-Backlog_Day Five_C

I have been dragging my feet with blogging, but this one in particular. This is mostly because, I feel like, I am being overly critical of the artist/activist blur. I am huge component of Beuyisan theory, and the ideals of community based art. However, since then I think that the artist has to be more assertive, and do a bit more than a minor intervention at best. Or perhaps, use better rhetoric, or vernacular, in calling it a happening. I think artist really need to claim their vocabulary and use it efficiently.

Brigitte Jurack's lecture further proved this point. I felt the lecture was a little long. I found her work interesting, but really the work posed to me, more questions about post production and at times, authorship in so far as the communial work goes. Can the work be successful without the participants, I think not. While, I wouldn't go as far as to call this the death of the author, rather, I would consider it, a credits reel. Fine Artists, should they be highly conceptual, outsource their work, include participants (this statement does not necessarily include all interactive pieces). Not only in particular websites, but in professional lectures as well, I am not only speaking directly about Jurack's lecture but many of the lectures I have been to.

My honest opinions of Juracks work are mixed. I really enjoyed the deer with wax sculpture in so far as it was mildly curious with little sense of whimsy. I also enjoyed her figurative work, because they were whimsical with a sense of curiosity. The overall trend I found, was that from the work she showed, I found what I enjoyed about one I had almost the inverse reaction when she showed the next. It could have just been the fact that she gave the presentation from present to past, rather than past to present, so rather than her work becoming seemingly more cohesive, it became less so, which I found frustrating, and hard to follow, because there was no way to look at it without referencing what she had just shown, so it seemed like reading a book from back to front, where by the questions you would want to know the answers to, you didn't care so much for asking, because you already knew them.

Lakes (no.5).//Monument for Damian//Moonshine Walk

Blog-Backlog_Day Five_B

Back to the TATE Britain

Rachel Whiteread : is known for large scale sculptures of negative spaces, including stairwells, under chairs. Some of her most notable works are the Holocaust monument, and her installation of an inverted version of the Forth Plinth. Her primary mediums are plaster and resin. Her pieces are enormous feats of craftsmanship resulting in awe striking ephemeral pieces. The drawings on exhibit were really wonderful.

Eadweard Muybridge is a photographer. He is known for photo studies of motion. Degas made a bronze horse statue based on one of his studies. Muybridge also invented the zoopraxiscope, which I didn't know. I really enjoy his panoramas, however after a while, the photo studies became repetitive. I did find the colors used on the walls to be inviting and and lush, which, I know is not necessarily about the art per say, but i want go into museum studies, so it is a point of interest.

The Damien Hirst room, was kid of disappointing. I was hoping to see some of his more provocative sculptures, I suppose after seeing the shark, butterflies and an arrangement of scientific plastics are pretty lack luster.

One of the rooms that was the most interesting to me was Art For Whom. It was filled with political art from the mostly the 70's. There was a piece called She/She by Linder, a feminist piece done via photo collage. Another was a collection of slogans from the North of Ireland, about the troubles in orange, white and green. It asked questions of who is the audience, about the politicization of art.

Blog-Backlog_Day Five_A

Westminster Abbey

The Abbey is a Church of England, and its lure to tourists is just how much history is embedded within it. The final resting place of England's finest including, Darwin, Dickens, Queen Elizabeth I, and personal favorite Mary Queen of Scotts. The abbey has with stood the tests of time in England, through Henry the 8th to the blitzes, comprised of several different styles of quintessential English architecture. A few point of further interest, this is where all the kings and queens have been ordained, and the prince will be married. One of the more sentimental aspects was the grave for the unknown British solider, the only grave you cannot walk on in the church.

Blog-Backlog_Day Four_D

The Globe

"This above all — to thine ownself be true" (Hamlet) : or be as true to life as historical have survived, as possible, and use your best guesses to fill in the gaps... With that being said i was mostly underwhelmed by The Globe and really have little interest in Shakespeare save for Shakespeare in Love and the numerous phrases that have survived vernacular history.

Blog-Backlog_Day Four_C

Saachi

After a very rainy, cold, long, journey if you will, from the Serpentine Gallery to The Saachi Gallery, we finally arrived. I drugged by soaked boots from gallery to gallery, having pieces of My Name is Charles Saachi and I Am An Artoholic mulling about in my mind. I looked for "unmonumental" trends and found them without a doubt. I must say, Saachi is slacking, very few, if any of the artist, have the draw factor of a Hirst or and Emin, which I think I enjoy about the artists Saachi sensationalizes. He is in advertising, and I was really expecting more of edge, or sensational aspect, but really it mostly fell short. However it was not all for not, I did see some things that were notable:

Ximena Garrido-Lecca
I found these to be particuarly touching, and just emanating a Latin American essence, that seemed kitschy in its European setting. Upon reading read the little pink Picture By Picture guide I found that I was 100% correct. Garrido-Lecca was utilizing the the iconography of the death cult_ure from her Peruvian heritage.


Olivia Plender
I found these to be a feat for the graphic medium, in a sort of Roy Lechtinestein with a lo-fi kitsch undertone. She used a B-rated aesthetic to articulate her concepts literally, with the potential of "zine" style distribution, as well as housed in the high art space.


//
Maaike Schoorel used washed color, they look in a lot of ways like a large scale water colour, which i would like to pose as post-modern impressionism // Nick Gross canvases were brown washes relying heavily on masked linear aspects, to that the negative lines would dictate the eye to realize shapes. I would like to pose this as referential of cubism.



Steve Bishop
Appears to be the British poster child for what i was looking for in "unmonumentality." A kind of couture sculptural collages (pun intended) A sloppy appropriated style, with hits of self conciseness awareness of status, material, and dialogue between them.

Blog-Backlog_Day Four_B

Anish Kapoor


A very rainy walk through the gardens, to find some of Kapoor's sculptures proved to be mildly underwhelming since the gray sky was reflected in the mirrored glass it was hard to even notice the shifted, in the disk. Which, I think references the site specificity, but is really telling of the nature of outdoor installations, and what is lost and gained when leaving so much up to the elements. Upon reflection it could have referenced a silver lining to the gray clouds, but i was much to wet and grumpy to see that at the time.

We did see the cutest little duckies tho...

Blog-Backlog_Day Four_A

Serpentine Gallery

Phillippe Parreno created an encompassing space both inside and out, thusly activating and internal and external relationship with the work. Large format, slow moving, short films, in a large space. The sound lending itself from room to room, inviting curiosity of familiar sounds in one room, while you are watching unfamiliar, slightly obscure screening in another.


I had little to no idea what the video here was about, but I think it was touching on light sensitivities in the dark, and the differences between they way things appear at night versus during the day. Anything that fades out with Devendra Banhart is okay by me, and automatically obscure, and haunting.



I didn't know until after the fact that this was about a Kennedy funeral train, but appreciated the scale, and solemness of the film. The sound was crisp as was the picture, so it was clearly a reproduction, rather than appropriated video.



This dark video follows a young Chinese immigrant boy, and the shadow creatures he sees via scratched in monsters by Parreno on film. It felt like the creatures could have been established by sound, score and absence, rather than scratched into film. I felt they were literally but not literal to the point of abstraction like the rest of his videos, that echoed the fictional déjà vu of Cindy Sherman photographs.

On another note, I could spend the better part of a small portion in the bookstore. Luckily, I was able to narrow it down to two books.