Week 11 Class Notes
Independent Follow Up: Name some artists who work with the conflicts of migration, and the search for home or community << in my notes about there are artists mentioned in relation to this question.
Intro To Sculpture
Art and stuff
Guess where I went this afternoon :)
My little painting helper, Harriet the duck
Giant ‘reverse graffiti’ mural spray-washed onto the side of a Polish dam
(Source: itscolossal)
Sculpture Statement - End of Semester Assessment
After the mid semester assessment piece I was more then happy not to see another tag again and about ready to throw in the towel and not continue working with clothing tags. I had done a full circle and rather then trying to preserve and re-make these tags I wanted to put them aside and discard them. However after some suggestions on how to further pursue with tags and to not give up, I was given the idea to destroy them. I strongly connected with this idea and ran with it. I created a list of a variety of experiments that I thought would sufficiently destroy a tag after doing some research of destroying cardboard. I then worked through the list as part of my process and documented the reactions over a period of weeks to decide on the best process of destruction that I would use for my final experiments.
The most effect technique that I found was using Mr. Muscle Drano in crystal form with water, which made the solution fizz, splatter, bubble, smoke and it discolored, morphed and disintegrated the tags. After filming one of these experiments by hand, Chris suggested that I film it in a more controlled environment with a tripod. So I set up lights, a tripod, camera, an old opaque ice cube tray to put the tags in and filmed the tag without a reaction for a few seconds and then started the reaction and left it to do its own thing for 20 minutes. This turned out to be successful so I did it another three times with the same set up and process except with a varied start time on the reaction. This was so that during the 20 minutes that all four videos played that one reaction would be finishing, while another would be underway and the others would be static. Each video moves through all of these stages throughout the 20 minutes at different intervals. By doing this it gives the viewer something to look at without getting bored and dismissing the work.
After looking at the suggested artists list that I had to chose from to complete my artist’s reviews, I came across Justine Cooper who photographed stored collections at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Her work looks at preservation and uniform images and this was the opposite of what I wanted to do.
Chris also suggested that my videos would be more effective if I had started with the tags positioned in a uniform way. As seen at the beginning of the videos, the tags are positioned randomly with parts of them cropped out of the video and others on the diagonal. This was partly because I could not zoom my camera out any further without exposing the container that the tags were sitting in or the towel it was sitting on. Based on this I have decided against re-filming another set of four tags in this formalised way, as this would have drawn away from the tags being about destruction rather then preservation, as seen in Justine Cooper’s photographs. This also references that tags do not sit uniformly when they are attached to clothes.
I have chosen to project the tags onto a plain white wall, with the lights off, as this is similar to a gallery setting and allows the tags to project effectively without disturbance of another colour or texture.
After looking at artist Jake and Dinos Chapman and SUPERFLEX, Bjørnstjerne Reuter Christiansen, Jakob Fenger and Rasmus Nielsen and their artworks about consumerism and how it can consume our minds with wanting things that we do not actually need. Also in SUPERFLEX’s instillation I connected with the thought that this work represented the flooding of our everyday lives with advertisements and being consumed by them. So In my work I have also reflected how this is not healthy for us in large doses, through the destruction of the tags and the chemicals reactions that take place.
The original notes from when I was thinking of idea’s for my sculpture piece.
Notes for assessment day
How to set up the projector and media player:
- Put the projectors x4 onto plinths x4
- Make sure I have x2 power boards and x2 extension cords plugged in and ready to go. Get these from Andrew at the sculpture workshop + the x4 plinths.
- Plug in the power cords for the projector and media player
- Plug the HDMI cord into both the projector and media player
- Turn on the power and then turn on the media player using its remote.
- Plug in the USB’s. Wait until the USB’s have loaded and open the video files.
- Adjust the clarity (projector) and distance of the videos (plinths positions)
- Press play on all the video’s when ready + make sure all the projectors are focused.
http://richardmaloy.net/big-yellow/
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-11/richard-maloyjpg/4420506
(Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) 2012).
(Flickr 2012).
Artist Review 5. Richard Maloy
Richard Maloy experiments with audience experience by using industrial materials to create structures and images in playful, sometimes awkward dialogues. Maloy’s massive installations draw viewers into gallery spaces, where they find themselves immersed in an unexpected environment, carefully built with cardboard, tape, plastic bags and wood. His gigantic work for APT7 uses cardboard boxes held together with tape and painted vivid colours, transforming them into a vibrant, amorphous structure. Thirty metres in length, the work encompasses most of the available space in the room, with its brightly coloured angular shapes creating new visual and spatial possibilities for the audience (Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) 2012). Within the mountain like structure is a cave that you can walk into and see out of (as seen the images below). This allows the audience to experience art in a new perspective and actually interact with it. I have included Richard Maloy as a part of my reviews based on his use of cardboard, as it is his main material and also because his work like Joanna Langford’s, presents a new kind of way that art can be displayed. The time and effort that it would have taken to create this piece is evident in the image where Maloy is gradually piecing together the cardboard with masking tap.
References:
Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA). 2012. “Richard Maloy.” Accessed 4th May. http://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/past/2012/apt7_asia_pacific_triennial_of_contemporary_art/artists/richard_maloy
Flickr. 2012. “QAGOMA: APT7 / Richard Maloy.” Accesses 4th May. https://www.flickr.com/photos/queenslandartgallery/8285245153/
Artist Review 4. Joanna Langford
What first interested me in Langford’s work specifically was her ‘The High Country’ instillation, which is ten metres high and is made of over 300 recycled milk bottles lit with LED lights and surrounded by lush green pastures of shredded silage wrapping. I was surprised at first by its large scale as the images made it look smaller then it really is. It was installed in Christchurch on the corner of Montreal and Kilmore Streets in 2012, which was long over due after years of waiting due to the disasters of the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes and injuries. It not only aims to convey Langford’s messages about urbanism and recycling, but also the feeling of achievement and victory over adversity (The big idea: te aria nui 2012). I decided to further look into Langford’s work as it presented a variety of ways that an instillation piece could be presented in new and interesting ways. I will look back on her work for inspiration when deciding on how to best present my own work for assessment. ‘The Landless,’ seen below, is another one of her instillation pieces that also displays an interesting way of presenting her work, with this piece including fake grass, clotheshorses and complete with LED lights that look like glowworms (Amery 2010). It looks like a forest suspended in the clouds with little ladders providing access to it.
References:
The big idea: te aria nui. 2012. “The High Country” floats into Christchurch.” Accessed 2nd May. http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/connect/media-releases/2012/nov/123707-the-high-country-floats-into-christchurch
Amery, Mark. 2010. “New Zealand Baroque: The Engine Room.” Accessed 2nd May. http://eyecontactsite.com/2010/08/new-zealand-baroque
Wood, P, Andrew. 2012. “Langford’s Hovering City.” Accessed 2nd May. http://www.eyecontactsite.com/2012/11/langfords-hovering-city
Jake and Dinos Chapman. Photo: Ben Westoby. Avec l’aimable concours des artistes et de White Cube (http://dhc-art.org/come-see/) and (Jake and Dinos Chapman 2013).
Artist Review 3. Jake and Dinos Chapman
The very confronting and eye opening dioramas, that Jake and Dinos Chapman created, present us with their vision of hell. These sculptural works from their ‘Come and See’ exhibition, explore beneath humanity by looking at consumer culture. The vision of Hell of the Chapman brothers has been expanded with monumental landscapes in scale. Extremely detailed, these apocalyptic landscapes depict surreal scenes of excessive brutality, blending miniature figures of Nazi soldiers and concentration camps with corporate insignia of McDonald’s characters (Jake and Dinos Chapman 2013). The process of making these creations would have been immensely time consuming, which adds to the monumentality of the diorama and the impact it has on the viewer. As each detail, figures placement and actions would have had individual consideration as how to best present the vision of hell and consumerism. I think that this work has a strong resolution and is very persuasive in getting across its overall message. I decided to include the Chapman brothers in my reviews, as I will also be looking at consumerism and how it can affect out minds and consume us, with the results being irreversible.
References:
Jake and Dinos Chapman. 2013. “London Jake and Dinos Chapman – Come and See.” Accessed 2nd May. http://butterflyartnews.com/2013/12/31/london-jake-and-dinos-chapman-come-and-see/