Curious Pursuits: open call
Art Historian Collective Porter & Jenkinson are looking for artists and writers for their first exhibition, Curious Pursuits, at the Portico LIbrary and Gallery Manchester from February 2nd - 29th 2012. Artists are invited to respond to the idea and aesthetics of Victorian Dark Societies, the Curious and the Peculiar. Submissions are welcome from the following that wish to exhibit work fitting this theme: illustrators, printmakers, painters, zine makers, writers, book binders, photographers, sculptors and I imagine anyone working in any mediums not listed also! More information here. I've had a pop myself with some micro fiction but hurry as there are only 24 hours left before the end-of-year deadline!
Abstract Lego Sculpture
The idea for an Abstract Lego Sculpture Workshop in response to artist Rashid Rana’s first UK public solo exhibition at Cornerhouse came to me when I first saw his new body of photo-sculpture works; ordinary, even average domestic objects that had been regressed to the razor edge of visual legibility. The use of block pixels reminded me of Lego, and so the idea was born. We would invite participants to deconstruct and rebuild their own everyday items and in doing so tackle two otherwise brain-hurty artistic concepts for themselves: minimalism, and abstraction. Can we do it? Yes we can!
Plastic Flowers In A Traditional Vase (2007 / detail) Rashid Rana. Image courtesy the artist, Gallery Chemould and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai
Rashid’s photo sculptures are responding to Minimalist ideals and intentions – reducing, simmering down to a base flavor like a soup stock, an essence, but also mocking this technique by taking a series of flat 2D photographs of the objects themselves and re-creating them as three-dimensional forms. To use food as a metaphor, this is like taking the contents of a tube of tomato puree, the distilled, ultra-flavoured essence of a specific taste, and moulding it back into the shape of a tomato… even re-attaching it to the vine. It’s absurd, but there is skill and a deliberate intention behind the act.
With the expert tutelage of the UK’s only Lego-certified freelance model builder, Ducan Titmarsh of Bright Bricks, we emulated this same process ourselves in our workshop by taking two objects, a Coke can and a stack of Wii cartridge games, and subjecting them to the same treatment. They will no longer look exactly like the originals, but still be recognizable as such. Think Picasso’s jumbled face-portraits, unblinking cyclopic eyes balanced upon triangular noses, or musical compositions that sound like a piano being dropped from a building. And then run over with a steamroller.
This is the bit where, in a traditional magazine layout, there would be a spiky bright yellow explosion accompanied by the subheading Did You Know…? Minimalism describes the practice and movement across multiple disciplines, but especially visual art and music, where the maker sets out to expose the essence or identity of a subject by stripping it back until only the bare bones remain. Abstraction indicates a departure from reality in the depiction of imagery; a courageous and still controversial approach when much of Western art right up until the mid 19th Century had been preoccupied by the illusion of reality and the orthodox logic of perspective.
Books 2 (2010-11 / detail) Rashid Rana. Image courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery, London
A coke can is one of the most recognizable items on the planet. It crosses cultures and continents and despite limited editions or redesigns or a change to the font and calligraphic text, it remains red and white and cylindrical. Cast your mind back to school art classes – were you ever asked to draw a crushed coke can? Without realising it, this might well have been your first exposure to the concept of abstraction – of moving away from a literal, clear representation of an object that still retains those core elements despite being jumbled and obscured. The curl of the letter C, the pillar box tint, a peeled ring pull. You don’t need to see all of it to recognise it for what it is.
Similarly, cast your thoughts back to early computer games, or what we know now to be early if you never actually played them. 8-bit, pixelated characters, Spectrum, Atari, Commodore. A limited number of pixels and no such thing as a graphics engine meant that characters and backgrounds were formed of little coloured blocks. Fast forward to the present and the likes of Mario and Sonic still survive in successful franchises, so the option of creating a stack of Wii games is a nod to their earlier incarnations. A thumbprint of red and white squares to represent a mushroom. Rectangles and triangles represent landscapes, bouncing brick-shaped bombs. We used our imagination in that situation, we can do the same now.
We are making, we are unmaking. We are simplifying, we are complicating. Hence the title of the overall exhibition – Everything Is Happening At Once. Thank you to all our participants, all of who commented upon how much fun it was to combine theoretical concepts with a playful make-it-yourself opportunity. Demands were made for further, weekly Lego workshops to tackle art history (a lone voice requested Duplo – we’ll say no more). For those who wish to continue this journey into modern art via the joyful medium of children’s toys, may I recommend John Cake and Darren Neave, an artist duo who recreate seminal YBA installations using – you guessed it – Lego!
Thanks to Explore More blog for the lovely personal write-up of their experience as a participant.
A Barbara Nice Afternoon
In my present role I’ve been on a good few artist and/or curator talks this past year alone, and almost always encounter the same problem: the tour group is made up of people with an enthusiastic albeit untutored interest in art (I include myself in this group), whilst the host is usually dripping, drenched, nay - sodden in obscure terms and verbiage: entangled in a drag net behind the SS Art World and all who sail in her.
The result is that within minutes of starting such a tour, most of those present have retreated to a safe space in their heads, the better to shut out the white noise that fills the gallery. A brave few might discreetly linger in mock-interest at a specific work, subsequently edging towards the exit, whilst the remainder dutifully file around making a mental note not to make the mistake of signing up to such a bore-fest again.
I’d had enough. While there is certainly still a place to hear direct from the artist or persons behind a show, especially for those able and willing to push past the veil of intimidation, it’s hardly suitable for encouraging a more personal response from those less familiar with the whizz-bang-snooze of verbal pyrotechnics. I wanted a tour guide for those who still needed stabilizers attaching to their cultural bike ride until they’d got the hang of sudden gusts of hot air.
Someone like a Mum, or a batty Aunt, who knew even less about the work on display than they did, but wasn’t afraid to speak their mind or submit an opinion.
Mrs Barbara Nice / image by Emma Case (copyright)
One specific person came to mind. I didn’t want to consider anyone else. I got in touch with Mrs Barbara Nice, the comic creation of Janice Connolly, star of Phoenix Nights, Coronation Street, Max and Paddy’s Road to Nowhere and tour support for Peter Kay. Barbara is a fictional Stockport housewife and mother of five, immune to false graces and after rearing her own brood, unshockable. I asked is she would lead a walkaround our current exhibition by artist Rashid Rana. She replied. She said she’d do it... but would it work? Or would we simply end up firing cheap shots at the usual modern art targets?
The tour was a sell-out (although free), raised to 45 people from the standard 30 due to demand, with repeat requests for a waiting list. On the afternoon itself Barbara set to work sweeping through the arrival area in full leopard-print and giant handbag, with a “Hiya, howya doin’?”, before grading the participants by coat colour. Purple was heavily evidenced. The more chatty individuals were quickly identified and gently prodded (Iris, the vegan who couldn’t stop touching the artwork, and Mickey, who wasn’t afraid to proffer an opinion), while others were gently encouraged to offer their own thoughts up and comments.
Despite a planned running-time of just 40 minutes, the tour went on for a record breaking 1 hour 40 minutes. As part of the experience we forbade anyone from reading the wall text or guides and simply shoot from the hip. We talked of colour and shade, of a geographic sense of place, the representation of flesh and violence, power dynamics, role of women, stereotypes, false knowledge and honest response, pictography, pixellation and porn. All while Barbara fussed, cajoled and supported even the quietest members of the group to have confidence in their own thoughts.
The tour culminated in Gallery 3: An Idea of Abstract, and the mammoth pay-off that is the giant, sculptural mirage of Desperately Seeking Paradise II. But instead of trying to shape a cursory summary to our humble journey, talk leaned toward cleaning solutions for this mammoth dust magnet. Feather dusters were duly distributed, and everyone pitched in with a light sweep and flick to ensure the work stayed looking tip-top. Afterwards everyone was encouraged to write postcards to the artist himself, with all those present unanimous in urging future tours that avoid belittling participants and encourage discussion.
I hope to bring Barbara back and team up again, I enjoyed playing the straight man in my prop ‘clever glasses’ to her kitchen sink wisdom. As for Barbara’s own postcard to Rashid, it read as follows:
“Dear Rashid, I’d be happy to do this tour for you in Pakistan. P.S. My passport is up to date!”
Thanks to Cornerhouse Digital Reporter Ben Williams who wrote up his experience of the event here. Thanks also to photographer Emma Case for the use of her wonderful shot of Barbara with the purple balloons above!
Sketch-O-Matic call for artists
In an age of buy to invest instead of buy what you like, the making of Art has been torn from human hands as mass-multiple prints flood the high street. Instead, the buying of art is seen as rarefied and reserved for a wealthy few. Sketch-O-Matic is a full size photo booth situated in the busy ground floor café-bar at Cornerhouse, Manchester's' international centre for contemporary visual art and film. But where the machinery should be is a tiny, fully equipped artist studio.
You the public are invited to sit inside the booth as if for a photograph and make a donation to an artist through an anonymous slot in return for a self-portrait. Wait five minutes (give or take) and the image will appear in the side wall, accompanied by the warm blast of a travel hairdryer. If you hanker for that still-wet sensation, they may even lick it for you. It could be a pencil drawing, doodle, cartoon, collage or even word-poem. Take it, frame it, consider it. Now you are both patron and muse!
Launching for Art Night on Thursday 24th November until Sunday 4th December 2011. News of additional activity including film screening and Cornerhouse Projects exhibition to follow. Please see booth for timings.
ARTISTS WANTED!
North-West and Manchester based artists are required to join our Sketch-O-Matic rota in one-hour slots. Lunchtime slots (1 - 2pm) and evening slots (6pm - 10pm). We're looking for pencil drawings, pastels, watercolours, illustrators, cartoonists, cubists, doodlers, poets (for word portraits), collage, ink-blot, dried pasta decoupage and just about any zany or straight-laced style you can imagine... as long as it can be dashed off in approximately 5 minutes. There is, I'm afraid, one exception. No caricaturists. We don't want anyone to walk away feeling crappy about themselves because you've managed to exaggerate a slight mole into a volcanic eruption on the scale of Eyjafjallajökull. Please contact bren@cornerhouse.org or via this website if you'd like to take part!
Tooth collection points
These tooth donation points for the Palaces project have been recently competed by Barry at the Bluecoat, with a bit of steady-handed help from project assistant Sam on the vinyl lettering front. These two here are earmarked for the Bluecoat, home to artist Gina Czarnecki's forthcoming exhibition and the first public appearance of the palace sculpture in December, and The Centre for Life in Newcastle - newly confirmed as an exhibitor for late 2012. As the teeth are starting to trickle in, work on the beautiful fairytale animation to accompany the international call for milk teeth is nearing completion from the talented folk at Design by Day. I can't wait to share it with everyone...
The Lady Appears
Mandy is now pulling together the calico book cover for the final finish of The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington; completing the stitching and applying beaded pomegranate seeds. I’ve talked about my own experience on this project in some depth so far, but at this stage I'm going to hand over to my co-author to get her valuable opinion on our shared working process:
“Because we'd talked through all our ideas quite thoroughly, getting to this point was fairly simple. I feel that visiting The Icon Collection at Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery together helped us aesthetically to stay on the same track. I hadn't appreciated how helpful it would be to have Bren working with me at the studio as we went through the general layout, the choosing fabrics and colours, even deciding what type of stitches to use when generating each design.
“Having collaborated with other artists in different ways, I’m used to discussing work together before heading off to the studio off to work on certain elements of a project by myself. However working with Bren at the studio meant we were able to sketch, visualise and realise all the different aspects of the piece together, which made problem solving and decision making much quicker and simpler.'
“As it lays at the moment, a piece of textile art on a calico background, I have reservations about covering the block of wood with it as the untouched space around the illustrations stop the piece from looking too busy or overworked.'
Re-Covering opens at Untitled Gallery, Manchester in June. Follow the process and thinking behind our joint submission in the instalments listed below.