David Hockney on Countryfile

30th December 2012

David Hockney appeared in an episode of Countryfile explaining the colours that can be found in the landscape of East Yorkshire as well as his new work which is created using an iPad. It was the latter element that caught my eye.

Rather than getting an easel out or a real subject, Hockney now claims to retread the same area of countryside using only an iPad and "paint" using that. These "paintings" are then printed on a large scale and are going to be placed in the Royal Academy of Art. I don't really like people who aren't willing to move with the times, and in hindsight when people have objected to new revolutions or progressions it seems too easily preposterous (Whistler Vs Ruskin, Britain's resistance from Impressionism, America's resistance from Modernism etc). But I don't really think that this is a time when it seems silly (which it probably never does at the time). I think painting on an iPad is quite sad and horrible. I didn't like the examples of the works that were shown because it reminds me of when I was at primary school and we used to mess about on Paint and make pictures - but for David Hockney to do the same thing but get the credit of a huge artist just seems laughable and very odd. There's no feeling in painting on a screen with no mess, brush, colours, or physicality to it. Of course, people probably said this about computers generating text when a typewriter was thought to have more feeling, but painting is something that has been around since the beginning, surely it can't be taken over by heartless technology now?

I think it's quite scary how everything with feeling or physicality is rapidly being replaced by something easily done, very accessible and heartless. Everything's so cold now, there's no real expression or intimacy, it's just clinical and distant and I think it's really quite sad.

A Hockney iPad piece
Taken from "www.huffingtonpost.co.uk"

Baltic Visit

Visit: 29th December 2012

Bojan Fajfric

Fajfric is a Yugoslavian artist and his work discusses the political situation there and in particular, the rise of Malosovic. Upon first entering the exhibition space, which was made up of 4 rooms consisting of mainly films apart from the two large wall prints seen in the below image, I was a bit overwhelmed. Film requires attention, and I didn't feel as though I could pay the deserved attention to this many films, especially as they dealt with a subject that was foreign and difficult to me. As a result, none of the films really sunk in and I walked round too quickly, just so I could "get through" the sheer amount of work. I did this until I came to the last room, which was very small and intimate with no other visitors in (they filled the other rooms). In the room was a short film consisting of a monologue over images of riders and horses. Aesthetically, it looked to have been filmed on a Super 8 Camera. The monologue spoke a kind of timeline, beginning with a sight that shocked the narrator as a boy (a man struggling with a black stallion and it bit his thumb off). The next sentence was about reading Marxist documents and becoming involved with Marxism and the Gorvernment at the same time (it was revealed that he later left the police because he could see what Malosovic was going to do). The interplay between the horse and politics continued through dialogue as images of riders riding through forests and graveyards were played. I thought the work was incredibly clever. I interpreted the horse as an example of power that stayed with him through the years, and he grappled with it, similar to the man in his sight. Then at the end of the timeline, after leaving the police, the man opened a riding school - he overcame the power he thought to be wrong that had taken something from him and literally tamed the horse. Even though it was spoken in a dead pan way and the only emotion expressed was at the beginning, I thought it was really moving and I really enjoyed it. It was clinical, but also quite beautiful.

Jim Shaw

The Jim Shaw exhibition was very different to the Fajfric exhibition. For me, I thought one demonstrated experience of wanting political change and horror at what has happened, whereas the other seemed more from an "average joe" point of view, attacking the Western problem of consumerism.

Jim Shaw is a prolific American artist who works in many different medias, but all of his work seemed to look a bit samey despite this. It had a lot of impact due to sheer size, such as "Untitled (US Presidents)" (2006), but the imagery used was a bit too obvious to be good, I thought. For example, businessmen as zombies, the White House hidden behind 1950s household products and 50s comic strips telling tales of the downfall of heroes. I know he is a postmodern artist and therefore draws on a lot of pop culture, but I just thought there could have been a more subtle way to do it. It was of overkill on the "consumerism's bad" front.

Untitled (US Presidents) 2006

In a few cases I thought that the references were too far so that I'm not sure if Shaw was the actual artist. I don't mean whether he actually created it, but more that the authenticity of the ideas might not have belonged to him. For example, the image below could be a mix of Pollock, Baldessari and a portraitist like Saville or Freud. I think it is very easy sometimes to pinpoint different elements of artworks taken from different artists (whether intentional or not) so that it degrades the artwork. It made me think about whether anything original can be done anymore, or whether we'll just keep retreading the past in different combinations. There are a lot of artists who work around this subject - Sierra could be another example.

Hugo D'Argantel-Sypniewski Lecture on Santiago Sierra

Lecture: 5th December

Today we had a lecture on Santiago Sierra delivered by Hugo D'Argantel-Sypniewski. It also highlighted the wider issue of "social art". It's not really a type of art that I am familiar with but I do admire, especially the idea of bringing about positive change like artists such as Ai Weiwei (who I greatly admire - it's hard not to!). I suppose there could be issues raised about who is the artist within artworks of this type due to the reliance on the participation of the audience as well as the possibility of an absence of interactive input from the artist in the actual event of the piece (such as with some of Sierra's work).

However, I do admire this kind of work's defiance to be placed as a commodity that can be bought. (But I was disappointed when  D'Argantel-Sypniewski revealed that Sierra makes a hefty amount from galleries commissioning temporary works or projects.) I think an artist can loose integrity and respect from the issue of money, especially when their artwork has such a pungent political meaning and plays a part in social change. To profit from these seems somehow dirty and exploitative.

On the issue of exploitation, I did think that some of the works went too far and crossed the boundaries of art. (I know you're not really meant to think that because it is "art") For example, "160cm line tattooed on four people" (2000) was too far for me. I understood the back story about prostitution and drug use and the evil that money plays in the cycle, but I think to permanently brand a vulnerable person in a position that no-one should be in is quite evil and nasty.  D'Argantel-Sypniewski said it had philosophical and aesthetic connotations that he seemed to quite admire, and I understand this and even the urge to admire it, but I think it's a different matter between changing the body of ones self and changing the body of others - and again, their vulnerable position makes it almost hateful.

"160cm line tattooed on four people" (2000)
Taken from "www.hydramag.com"

Sierra also said that he doesn't believe anything can be changed; there's no other system but the one in which we currently exist. This is where, for me, he loses the integrity and inspiring element that Ai Weiwei instils in people. It seems odd that he would want to create this art if he doesn't see it changing anything, so he's just highlighting issues. In some ways, when combined with the amount of money he is making, I think that this makes him seem like a profiteer of those who aren't as fortunate as him. As I've said in previous posts, the art audience of his works is, by the nature of exhibiting in galleries, a relatively small demographic of the population. In highlighting the faults of society, he doesn't even seem to care enough to highlight it to a decent cross section of the public. The money, the setting, the lack of optimism.. all of these things contribute increasingly to an idea that he is just playing the system for his own profit - but he is playing it well.

His work does get you thinking, and I quite liked some pieces, but the authenticity doesn't seem to be there and that's something that I find very important.

Paul Rooney at VG&M

Visit: 28th November

The Paul Rooney exhibition at Victoria Gallery & Museum is comprised of video installations within two rooms. I'd never heard of the artist before, and upon seeing more video installations I was initially quite skeptical because it seems to be the main staple of any exhibition at the moment, but I really liked the show. My favourite was "Small Talk" (2001 - 2010). I liked the use of humour in the discussion between the captions and the story behind the work of the artist revisiting the footage he had taken and repeating it, as well as the reference to the end of the film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg by Jacques Demy. I admired how the dialogue didn't sound too cheesy and cringey, as sometimes I think artists who play with words can step into dangerous territory if it isn't executed well. I also felt a bit uneasy when we were informed of the attention to detail Rooney gives the actual text and how any minor alteration could change the meaning of the whole piece. I thought this was an unnecessary addition to add to an interpretation of the work and reduced its worth somewhat as it seemed an obvious thing to say, but not meaty enough to base an interpretation of and a bit of a "cop-out", I suppose. When interpretations like that are said it seems like people are clutching at straws to read something into a work of art, and that makes me questions whether everything that has been said is relevant, or whether it is all forced speculation, and I think that's a sad thought - especially when contemporary art is so heavily dependent on its idea for its worth.

Small Talk

Returning to the dialogue in Rooney's films for a moment though, I thought he had been unsuccessful with the dialogue in "The Futurist" (2008) - the main piece of the exhibition. Everyone seemed to enjoy the film, and I thought there were some good ideas in there as well as a lot of parallels with directors such as David Lynch in moments of tension. However, I thought that most of the good ideas weren't executed well at all. For example, the main character often talks out of synchronization with the sound the audience hears, apparently to remind the viewer that it is a film they're watching and not real life. But the fact that a viewer is watching a surreal film in a blacked out room in an art gallery that they have consciously entered seems to be indicative enough, without the out of sync bits that do appear to be mistakes. The dialogue the main character uses is at times quite toe-curling. I always think that if you hear lines of dialogue and don't immediately think of them written on the pages of a pretentious script then it is successful. But it seemed like a GCSE drama production - childish and clumsy in places even though you want it to be consistent and good and, in this instance, live up to the hype. There's also a female character at the end of the film who's acting is like that of a drama student in a monologue which I found cringey. I also thought the camera movement was too distracting - it was so much like a home video that I thought it ruined the production and end product.

There was another piece called "Letters that Rot" (2010) which was the interior monologue of a tree telling of a dream in which it was chopped down by a postman called Franz. The film was made up of white words on a background on a constant vertical scroll like film credits. I thought the placement of the projector in a pile of chopped wood was great and the angle that it was on caused ghostly reflections to slide along the floor and up the screens in the corner of the room, creating a dream-like effect. I thought that was really innovative and  used the medium to its best capabilities to suit the work. Some of the script was great, such as the line "Here Comes Franz" and the whole idea was quite ingenious, but I thought that most of the script was disappointing when opposed with the actual idea and possibilities. It seemed more like Rooney's self-indulgent attempts at poetry and I didn't think it fitted very well in the context. I was quite disappointed by most of it.

We were shown round the exhibition by Moira Lindsay who explained themes within the work as well as the work that goes into curating an exhibition such as this. It was really interesting to hear about and raised issues about acquiring art and conserving it which I had never even considered, such as the storage of new media and the Contemporary Art Society. I enjoyed the visit and found it really thought stimulating.

Copperas Hill - Biennial

Visit: 14th November 2012

The Copperas Hill Biennial exhibition included a lot of film - that was the thing that stood out to me when I first entered. There was sound coming from everywhere and huge screens wherever you looked. I was really thrilled about this, because I really love film and I think art films are better than ever before but I was a bit disappointed to hear that some people on my course thought there was too much film and that they didn't like this and were a bit sick of film. But by the end of the exhibition I felt I agreed with them a little bit (which was possibly worse!). I think its really exciting to see good art films, but I think it seems a bit like everyone's doing it at the moment just because it's an "in" medium, but I don't think the medium necessarily suits the meaning or purpose of every artwork - it's like they've shoe horned it into their work and it doesn't work some times. For example, the below film, "Sassuma Arnoa" seemed a bit surplus to requirements to me. It was a woman kneeling in the sea and then shots of a naked women manipulating her skin. To be honest, I wasn't really sure of the meaning because the captions didn't provide much help and I felt a bit dim because I didn't understand it. But there were other films, such as a Marina Abramovic style one of a woman beating herself, and a film showing dog fighting on one projection simultaneously to interviews with people who partake in dog fighting on the adjacent projection. This last example I thought didn't work effectively because it depicted something that is disgusting and cruel (or I think so anyway) and it was filmed from a distance in such a kind of indifferent way, with little camera movement, that it didn't seem disgusting or cruel. Perhaps this was the artists intention, but I presume not as the other film showed people making outrageous comments about how dog fighting is natural and it was clearly meant to provoke a reaction from an audience member.  Perhaps it was a statement about how numb we've become to viewing violence and violent acts on screens or projections - a similar sentiment to Warhol's "Electric Chair" maybe.

In addition, there was another film about Polish immigrants and I went in there with a few classmates who said it was too long to watch. I thought this was a shame that the overpowering use of film throughout the exhibition meant that some works which required prolonged attention weren't being given a chance like the other works. I didn't think the Biennial section of the Copperas Hill building had enough strong films there to justify having the medium so prolific throughout. In fact, for the rest of the day I went around many other of the Biennial sites and the films that were shown there weren't really amazing either - I think the proliferation and lack of quality that film in art seems to be condoning at the moment is going to help the focus shift to another medium - and probably soon.

Jessie Kleemann, Iben Mondrup, Nimis Lyngap - Sassuma Arnoa

Some people have said that the fascinating and somewhat beautiful features that still remain in the old Post Office building are distracting from the work and it is at times hard to tell which is art and which is a mere feature of the building. However, I don't think this is a negative. Having anything in an art space, or calling anywhere an art space makes you view it with completely different eyes - it's like Duchamp's idea of "when is art" as opposed to "what is art". So putting this building in an art context makes you automatically be visually aware of its beauty - which I think is incredibly interesting in terms of changeable perceptions and how we approach things in different contexts. In this way, we get to assess our own criteria of what or when we think art is - if you think some left signage is beautiful or interesting or charismatic enough to be art, who's to tell you you're wrong - no caption required. I also disagree that this detracts from the artwork. I thought the whole venue worked really well. I also thought that when looking from art to interesting features, like the marks on this chute shown below that I thought were amazing and very beautiful and delicate, like a mark making technique perhaps, I then looked at the art with fresh eyes. There was a lot of art works in the space, so to be given a rest and look at something for pure aesthetic value rather than meaning or context was refreshing.

Close up of marks on chute

Chute with marks on

I also really liked the below work by Sckpinicka. (There were more collages in the series by the artist.) Most of the works in the exhibition were quite big and intimidating and bold, so I thought this image was a refreshing change as it was so small and delicate and intimate. Personally, this is a kind of art I really like anyway. I love the arrangements and placing of things, and I love it when people collage old photos and magazine images together. I love how the meanings of images change when they are taken out of context and again with each new piece of paper, colour, line or image that they are put together with. I thought these collages were really beautiful and I liked the opportunity to get really close to something quiet in the space. I thought the inclusion of these works with all of the huge works was a bit of really successful curatorial work.

Kama Sckpinicka - Collage on Vintage Paper

Despite some of the negatives pointed out, I thought that the general, overall quality of the work in the Copperas Hill building was really impressive and invigorating. I think it's probably my favourite venue that I have seen so far in the Biennial and I left feeling quite inspired and refreshed!

Open Eye Gallery

Visit: 14th November

from "marmalade-cafe.blogspot.com"

Upstairs in the Open Eye Gallery is a display of a collection of Mark Morrisroe photography, showing both abstract and figurative works. I don't really know much about photographers and the only ones I've really heard of before are Robert Frank and Ed van Der Elsken, so this was an exciting change. Admittedly, at first when I started looking at the images I felt quite uncomfortable. I'd just been downstairs to see the Yoshiyuki exhibition featuring images of people having sex in a park in Tokyo wherein the participants seemed a bit too heavy on the male side compared to the female, and it seemed a bit sinister because of this. Then, coming upstairs there was photography that included found pornographic imagery of women, so I felt a bit uncomfortable and upset almost, because it always seems to be women that are exploited and taken as an acceptable target of gazes. (I was especially uncomfortable when the only other visitors taking long looks at the works in both exhibitions with me were male). I then saw quite a few images of naked males, presumably from pornography being used in the images. At this point my boyfriend became quite uncomfortable, which I was a bit happy about to be honest. I was relieved, and I found it massively refreshing to encounter an exhibition that demonstrated the exploitation of a male body (even if this was not the intention of the artist). I think everyone's become too accepting to view women as the standard objects, and this is especially true of men, the majority of whom who I have witnessed become very uncomfortable when faced with exploited images of their own gender. For this reason, I enjoyed the exhibition, especially an image called "The Psychology of Leather" - not only because it featured a man, but also because I thought the composition was incredible. 

Some of the techniques used in the other photographs reminded me of Mariah Robertson, whose work consists of analogue photography manipulated to look like digital photography.

Mariah Robertson - Untitled 34

Of course, despite the manipulation and experimentation of and with the medium, there aren't many similarities in the purpose of these artists' works. With the subject of AIDs and the interest in the body/ own mortality, I would have to say the Morrisroe work is more coherent to that of Derek Jarman's. I thought that, especially when taken in context of the artists own life, the works were very powerful. They weren't morbid, I didn't think. I thought they showed a kind of vitality in life, and a humour, and a richness that a life well lived should have. There were some somber, more intimate photographs, like small interludes into Morrisroe's mind, which I thought were really touching. I really enjoyed the exhibition. I thought there was just the right amount of photos so that you could appreciate each one fully.

From Open Eye Gallery Website

The above image is "Untitled" by Kohei Yoshiyuki, whose work was exhibited downstairs at Open Eye. I thought the way the visitors viewed the work, with a torch in a dark room, was extremely clever and unique and made you more involved with the artwork and its context; flashing a light on each image, you felt like a bit of a pervert, looking at things you shouldn't, but you couldn't help be fascinated by them, because they were objectively beautiful photographs and interesting displays of human nature. Looking at the images in this way made the whole gallery experience completely different to any other in terms of how a visitor views photographs.

Judy Chicago at The Black-E

8th November

Judy Chicago at the Black-E
Taken from "archive.constantcontact.com"

Tonight I went to a Judy Chicago book signing/ event at The Blackie, a community Arts Centre in Liverpool. I felt quite inspired by the speeches given, especially by a co-chair of The Black-E called Wendy Harpe who spoke very passionately about the subject of the role of women in art, which was quite moving.

Judy Chicago's speech highlighted her struggle to become and have her work be appreciated in the art world. She spoke of an anecdote where she was studying at university and her lecturer told her class that women had made no contribution to art, which was met with shocked gasps from the audience. I found her passion and ambition really inspiring, but for me, the whole subject of feminism in art sticks in the throat a bit. I know there are a lot of people who disagree with me, and this is possibly because I'm younger and I haven't been around to see the progress, or the struggle. However, recently I've been looking at Ai Weiwei's work, and this I think casts a questionable light over the issue of feminist art (perhaps rather unfairly). What I'm trying to say is, someone like Ai Weiwei is fighting physical and mental oppression - people having the identities of their children killed in an earthquake hidden from them, and being beaten up for speaking against the government. In no way can anyone say Ai Weiwei doesn't fight - his art has effect. But at the event tonight Chicago said "I thought "The Dinner Party" had eradicated that kind of thing", with regards to a sexist comment spoken by a woman. "The Dinner Party" is one installation in one art gallery in America - how can that alone eradicate anything? Arguably, art only gains attention from the middle classes who are interested in art - it's not exactly a huge demographic - and Chicago hardly promotes it in many other ways. Yes, there was a talk in Liverpool tonight, but it's 30 years after the work was made. I know I haven't changed anything and perhaps Chicago has, but I just think she might have for artists, she's not really changing society. By contrast Weiwei has caused uproar and massive attention for his issue - and the biggest difference I think is the difference of ego. Chicago said "I'd always wanted to be an artist ever since I was a little girl" but surely this is partly due to an ego trip - becoming part of history and getting your name in the art history books (her words not mine). But Weiwei isn't about the ego - he's about the issue. He reaches wider audiences and uses different mediums because yes, he is an artist, but he's a real activist. Chicago's having potentially elitist exhibitions and installations and assuming a wide cross-section of people will come to them - that's not the way it works, I don't think.

Wendy Harpe included the topics of pole dancers and anorexia in her speech - the idea of women being oppressed by society with these bizarre social pressures that people think can be liberating, when really they're quite demeaning. But again, she said she's been "fighting" for over 30 years and to be speaking to a room full of 50 or so art fans isn't exactly getting out there. And the work Chicago makes doesn't exactly hit this topic - these are issues of society as a whole: the way our whole history has had women as the second sex - the pressure to look good for men, to be objects, to not be thinkers or remembered. This isn't something that can be solved with a few installations, sure it raises awareness, but men are still in charge of the large art institutions. Men are still dominating the history books. Men aren't under as much pressure as women to be objects of desire. It's ingrained into everything - and I sadly don't believe that can be changed in our life time, especially not by art - it doesn't effect enough people.

This isn't to say I didn't admire the speakers or their determination, because I really did, this is just a slight annoyance at the regular use of the term "the fight" that they repeatedly used. I do admire them, because they do at least try and do something.

Wolstenhome Creative Space - The Inhospitable Landscape

Visit: 8th November

(Installation)

 Today we visited The Inhospitable Landscape at Wolstenhome Creative Space and I found it really exciting and new. Unlike some of the things I have seen in the Biennial that have seemed a bit "safe" and conventional, I found the scale and interactive element of the work really unusual and overwhelming. The installation of trees and video in the same area reminded me of something out of a music video for The Cure or a Tim Burton film. It was quite eery, and quite unoriginal, until I noticed the TV screens dotted within the foliage and the specifically made for exhibition music. What I did think was unusual about the exhibition was that the literary inspirations that were noted by the artists were made available in a kind of mini-library within the work so that you could take it home and see how it related or inspired it perhaps. I glanced briefly over the titles and saw "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell, as well as "Great Expectations" and "Mrs Dalloway". I found that quite fun within the exhibition to try and see the links there. For example, I thought the presence of the beat of the music and TV screens hidden within the trees were quite evocative of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" I liked how the artists had taken the theme of hospitality and reversed it within this exhibition as so far I've seen quite safe and friendly interpretations of the theme, although here the space was very inviting and not "unfriendly" as one might assume. 

Along with some wallpaper designs, there was also another room containing video art that portrayed differences between natural and man-made (shots of forests contrasted with architecture or urban life). I liked this and I thought the size at which it was projected was really effective and almost all-consuming. The shots of buildings and tower blocks, reminded me of the work of Hilary Lloyd, ("Tower Block") that was in the 2011 Turner Prize show, especially with the way the camera scanned up and down the buildings. The same shots and them of architecture within nature also reminded me of the Cyprien Caillard film "The Smithsons" that was on this year at Manchester Art Gallery. I think for the theme of hospitality and the unexpected guest this idea is quite relevant as, in my opinion, it conjures ideas about where we as humans fit into the world and how we effect it. Architecture is probably an unexpected and perhaps unwelcome guest in nature. The shots of urban life were very grey and dull and quite oppressive/depressing, in the same way that tower-blocks blot out life, in the same way that cities perhaps block out nature, in the same way we become so wrapped up in ourselves and our own creations/habitats that we become oblivious to the beauty that exists beyond us and our egos and our creations.

(Film Projection)

I found the visit really invigorating. The old industrial building it was set in was a really effective gallery space and I thought it was really successful, especially for a group of young artists!

Jack Kerouac - The British Library

Visit: Saturday 3rd November 2012

Yesterday I went to the British Library in London to see Jack Kerouac's scroll of "On the Road". "On the Road" is my favourite book because of the typical desperate enthusiasm coherent within the works of the Beat Generation. My favourite thing about the book is the way the characters are so thirsty and enthusiastic for life, they're so active and really live life with amazing lust and speed; they live life in that "live every day as your last" sentiment that is normally an impossible cliche. But more than this, I love the subtle whiff of desperation and emptiness beneath the actions that would be more associated or comfortable with the sentiments of the existentialists. It's like an incredible, vibrant joy that seeps over and almost masks that instinctive feeling of being lost and not sure what you're feeling that I think is fundamentally human. It's cheesy to say a book changes your life or the way you think, but this book really did that for me, it made me think positively and gratefully about living, whilst making me wish I was alive in 1950s America, drinking coffee, listening to jazz and writing literature about being or discussing poetry in cafes.

From "oztypewriter@blogspot.com"

So, I was really excited to see the scroll in the flesh - and it didn't disappoint. It was really thrilling to see the handmade notes on the scroll and the editing that Kerouac had done himself. In addition to this, it really gave you a physical feeling of the continuous prose. I've read around the subject widely and I've always thought of that image of Joe Strummer in the sleeve of "London Calling" (right), but I've never really understood what it meant, or what it would be like. But seeing the scroll gave an overwhelming sense of the process, it was so clear to visualise Kerouac sat there frantically writing and drinking coffee.

Because the strength of the presence of the scroll was so great, I didn't think it was necessary to have a lot of the things that were in the exhibition. Having read widely around the area, I knew most of the information that was displayed, and they didn't provide any new depth of the subject. There was a paragraph of information that began "Wired on coffee..." that was repeated 5 times around the quite small exhibition, which gave the impression that they didn't have much to say about it so had to repeat themselves. I also thought they had got some small elements of information wrong, for example the origin/coining of the word "beat" in this context was attributed to a different time and even meaning than the one I have commonly read (the one of "upbeat, beatific and on the beat" that was said in a conversation Kerouac had with John Clellon Holmes). Because of this repetition and lack of real insight, I thought the information cheapened and distracted from the actual scroll quite a lot. The scroll was in a glass case, partly unrolled and surrounded by boards of pictures and information. I noticed at one point that every visitor in there was looking at the walls rather than the scroll which I thought was a bit sad, because only a few people gave the actual work enough time.

However, I did like the photographs that were enlarged. The whole 1950s aesthetic is so seductive and Kerouac seems so handsome and charismatic  Most of them were taken by Allen Ginsberg, and I especially liked the ones where they'd left his descriptions scrawled across the bottom. I also really loved an illustration by Kerouac that he'd sent to his publishers depicting how he thought the cover of "On the Road" should look. The drawing and letter he'd sent accompanying it were quite funny and charming.

And again, commercialism had its place there. The directions were all to the gift shop that was full of Beat books and merchandise - posters, notebooks, luggage tags and card holders (?!) I thought it was a little bit demeaning to the work itself, in the same way the boards and information around the exhibition seemed to be. I think they should have let the work be appreciated and viewed on its own merit, and not allow it be cheapened by expensive novelty items - it's literature, not novelty. Despite this, it was amazing to actually see the scroll and I think it's great that treasured cultural artifacts like this can be shown in England and transported around.

Horror Europa with Mark Gatiss

(Broadcast Tuesday 30th October 2012 on BBC Four)

Still taken from BBC iPlayer

I've never really been a fan of horror, I'm a bit too jumpy and very easily scared by it, but I thought this documentary following the story of European horror films was really interesting. I especially found it interesting to note how the "baton" was passed from country to country. This reminded me of how different countries have had thee art of the time throughout history (Italy and the Renaissance, Germany and Expressionism) I was especially interested to find out that horror films reflect ad demonstrate fears within the society they are met. For example, early German horror films reflected the atrocities and fears of the war. The settings of destructed buildings as well as the creepy lighting and sentiments all mirror societies anxieties. It was also interesting to note the crossover between art and cinema of the time. For example, the above picture shows German Expressionist artwork for the film "Der Januskopf" (1920)

Gatiss proposed that in more recent times horror films had been used to show Spanish societies memories of its dictatorship with "Pans Labyrinth" and the environmental consequences of new technology in zombie film "The Living Dead at The Manchester Morgue". Of course there are/were many horror films made with purely commercial motives. But it made me think how much horror in film has moved away from German Expressionism and exaggerated sets/costumes, or Italian horrors such as "Deep Red" with incredibly intense colour, to a much more realist vision of films such as "The Orphanage". Even with films that depict monsters, ghosts and supernatural beings that we can't completely fathom or that terrify us, the setting becomes so much more based on reality than ever before. I think this realist path is mirrored in music and other genres of film too - even traditional forms of art.

Films like "This Is England" really fulfill that "my life" story for a lot of people, and we have become obsessed with watching things be represented back to us in a very realistic manner. People like gritty and not fanciful. For example, "counter cinema" is so acclaimed now; the story with a lack of narrative and realistic thread is so highly regarded. In a world of apparent "connection" with new media, people seek representations of themselves for comfort and justification more than ever. People like to watch themselves. A Uses and Gratifications theory reading might presume this is for human connection and understanding, but can that be all it is? Connection and understanding doesn't require a literal carbon copy of yourself, abstract works like "Waiting for Godot" or "Eraserhead" could surely provide all of the understanding and communication someone could need, but these aren't obvious reproductions, so why do we like them so much now? And why do we seek it so much in artistic forms? Film is a tool that can be used to create infinite worlds or make anything happen - the impossible even, so why should we want to see film make happen what we do everyday?

Even with music this could be said to be happening and have been happening for a long time - since punk even. In "Panic" Morrissey sang -

"Burn down the disco

Hang the blessed DJ

Because the music that they constantly play

It says nothing to me about my life"

I think this is a sentiment very relevant to now. 

"Ash Wednesday" by George Shaw
From artrabbit.com

This move can also be seen in some areas of the visual art world. For example, last years Turner Prize nominee and panelist for this year's John Moore's Painting Prize, George Shaw paints pictures typical to us all of suburban life - the Modernist sentiment of paying attention to that which is always there but rarely noticed (e.g left). People want to see things real to themselves, to relate to it, or to form a relationship with it perhaps. Could this mean that the surreal has gone, or is just around the corner?

Ai Weiwei

I've recently been researching the work of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. I already knew of and was a big fan of his work "Sunflower Seeds" (2010) but I've been delving deeper into what he does and he's such a remarkable and inspirational man. It's very refreshing and inspiring to go from Western work about techniques of paint and very first world conceptual musings to someone who's fighting for freedom and human rights. 

The above clip is a film about Ai Weiwei and his group trying to free his friend who had been detained by the Chinese Government following the group accusing the government of being responsible for the cover up of as well as the deaths of hundreds of children in the 2008 earthquake. The way they are treat and informed is despicable with Weiwei being physically beaten.

I think it's awesome that Ai Weiwei releases this information and makes people aware of the situation in the East. He really makes his idea about the individual changing things seem like a real possibility. It makes me feel quite guilty that I don't know about, actively find out about, or actively try and help a cause like that which millions of people are struggling with. It really puts things in perspective. It's amazing people have so much courage and fight in them; I think it's beautiful really.

I know his artwork is activist in its nature, but like I said before, it really does make "revolutionary" Western works like Tracy Emin's "My Bed", Hirst's "For The Love Of God" and even Mark Wallinger's pieces about protest seem laughable. Ai Weiwei really fights for freedom and we can't imagine what its like not to have freedom. Having said that, we just blindly walk around moaning everyday, mourning our little upsets, so it seems as though we are less free than Ai Weiwei, or atleast his spirit, as he is so powerful, brave, determined and active.

Kill Bill and Liverpool Biennial

I've always really liked Quentin Tarantino films (like everyone does) but I'd never seen Kill Bill 1&2 until a few nights a go and I thought they were great. I preferred them to Jackie Brown and maybe even Pulp Fiction (although that's probably sacrilege to say in the world of film).

There are a few characteristics that I identify with Tarantino films:

Funny, smooth, sophisticated but entirely "filmic" dialogue

Actors/ Actresses he reuses as all good directors do (Thurman, Jackson etc)

Chapter markers in a film and a non-linear narrative

Experimental with genres

Great soundtrack

Violence - but not too far

Tension

Tongue-in-cheek everything!

For these reasons, and the carefully crafted you feel with watching Kill Bill Volume 1 & 2, I believe these films are more like artworks than Hollywood films - not that I'm clear on what the difference between the two is anyway!

I think my favourite thing though is the dialogue. It's indulgent and Postmodern, referencing film-lovers life long obsessions. But more than that, Tarantino does to film dialogue what Billy Childish does to garage music: he creates the perfect ideal of replication, so much so that even if you look back at the originals from the genres that he references, you won't find anything as good as his replication. It's like the ideal stereotype to the extent that it's better than the stereotype. It cashes in on that dialogue from Carol Reed films or film noir or classic Westerns; the mighty speech and the mighty comments.

But even with this perfected reference, I think without any knowledge of the reference, the films are still excellent - they play with the reference but they don't need it and that's where I think the film can differ with contemporary art of today.

Today in a discussion after a lecture the issue was raised of current artworks that reference other artworks, with the example used being a piece from the Biennial in the Copperas Hill Building - Kyungah Ham's "Abstract Weave". The argument was that the work was blatantly referencing the work of Modernist artist  Louis Morris (as pointed out in the caption), but that without this reference the work was successful anyway.

Kyungah Ham's work

Louis Morris' original

But I disagree, unlike Kill Bill, the work loses a lot if you take away the reference of its entire aestheticism. There seem to be many elitist and entirely-referencing works around, but not in the Postmodernist "bringing low  popular culture into a high culture status" way, it seems to be more alienating to the viewer, or at least that is how I felt after seeing it and not making the connection and not thinking it was amazing. I felt a bit fooled and condescended once I found out. Someone suggested that it is a good thing because it encourages you to follow the trail of references and influences, but I feel as though I am missing out on a meaning that is directed to a class or mentality that I am not in. I think this exclusion is a really negative feature of contemporary art and the way it is displayed, and always has been I suppose.

Moving Away from Galleries and Artists

I've recently been reading a book called "The Museum as Arena", which is a collection of artists' writings about galleries and art institutions. I've been reading some other books that discuss this subject from curators/ owners and art historical/ critical perspectives, but I hadn't heard what it was like from an artists' perspective. I was shocked to discover that there's a proportion of artists that despise institutions; the MoMA comes under much scrutiny.

I was reminded of the Manchester Contemporary Art Fair and how repulsive blatantly commercial art seemed to me as there are many suggestions and links between the gallery and the marketplace. I thought it was also interesting to find out that, just as in "The Artist Is Present" there was a complex web of what could and couldn't be done above the artist that seemed to have the final word.

In addition to this, large art institutions seem quite irrelevant today to art, I think. There are so many artists and with the advent of new media literally everyone can be an artist, but art large art galleries seem to circulate the same few artists and have the same artists housed in their permanent collection; the obligatory Beuys, Warhol, Klein, possibly a Bourgeois, a Hockney... they're all rather samey. 

Because art galleries are so all-consuming and not many seem to question their relevance, ability to function or even existence, does this mean that artworks are now created "for" the gallery, rather than being housed in a gallery as a method of display but actually existing in their own right? It all seems to have gone a bit backwards. But the white-washed walls and white cube-esque spaces that art schools promote seem to make an un-moving subconscious assertion within the minds of "the artists of the future" that a gallery is where they will display; no questions asked. Even land artists have to record the actual artwork in some form so that they can display at least something in the art gallery, after all, that's what an artist does, don't they? I think the "be all and end all" idea of the gallery is something that needs to be questioned because I believe it restricts how people think about and create art; we need to move beyond four white walls and a concrete floor.

Galleries do seem to have struggled to justify themselves recently and come up with the idea of "education" as a shield between themselves and scrutiny. But think about it, who are they educating? Galleries have ALWAYS been places that shun or don't target anyone but the middle or upper classes. The lower class is exclusively not invited. But now they decide in a very condescending manner that they will "educate" the people they have tried to avoid for the past so many hundred years? It seems quite hypocritical and unbelievably arrogant that they should even possess an education that free-thinking people should want to be involved with. Art is important in education, but there are better ways to educate within it, surely. Whilst studying art, I encountered a workshop at Tate Britain, it was an educational day. But we had to travel from the North of England, how could someone who wasn't as privileged or lucky to be able to afford the train fare get there? It pretends not be elitist, but art galleries will always be elitist, in education, visitors, staff and even artists displayed.

In the 1960s and 1970s artists tried to move away from galleries and make their own spaces or new arenas for art, but this soon saw artists returning to the already ingrained institutions of art galleries. They are so powerful that a move away can collapse easily, but I believe this is widely down to money (again). Why else would they move back?

I think it's a shame and slightly inauthentic for artworks such as land art or performance art to be documented and in a way exploited by the artist to still be able to appear in a gallery and gain the sort of recognition and attention that "gallery" works do - I think they're two different types of art and to profit from a different meaning is slightly contradictory. I understand that artists still want to promote their work to an art audience but I find it hard to get my head around the fact that no-one has come up with a decent alternative.

But here, I think is the biggest problem that I can't seem to understand in art today; the artist and money. I'm quite cynical of the link between art and money. Art is perhaps too romantically attached to truth and beauty. There appears to be no comprehensive or equatable truth or beauty in profiteering in a consumerist/capitalist way. To capitalize on art is surely to miss it's meaning and see it as a value or a price tag. Perhaps the meaning of art has changed and I have missed the point, but I personally despise the obvious link between artist and money and the detrimental effect this has on the authenticity, creativity and development of work. Artists are meant to be the free-thinkers of society; the innovative - so why haven't they dared to have a proper go at moving away from galleries? There must be other possibilities and it seems a shame that the traditionally financial and social aspects of the current format should hold people back from possibly something better.

Marina Abramovic - The Artist Is Present

Wednesday 17th October - FACT

This was a class visit to FACT to see the film Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present (2012). I didn't know what to expect from the film as I'd never heard of the artist before and admittedly when it started I was quite unsure as to whether it was my "sort of thing" because it seemed like Marina was a fashionista posing for cameras, but it was silly of me to judge so quickly.

I found the film moving and quite incredible actually. Previously I'd never really known of many performance artists, apart from some of the works of Bruce Nauman, and as a result I'd never really rated performance art. The combining of personal life with artworks/ artistic journey throughout the film was really effective and it was interesting to see how the two combined together. I found it really quite inspiring and beautiful how Abramovic has dedicated her entire life to making art; she tried so hard and has been so undeterred and completely sacrificed living for the process of creating. I didn't think people like that really existed outside of fiction/myth and it was really touching to see someone so determined, driven and passionate. The physical strain of all of Marina's artworks was amazing and it was hard to see her really push herself beyond limits in her piece for The Artist Is Present.

Taken from "karimahashadu.blogspot.co.uk"

My favourite part of the film was when the exhibition The Artist Is Present opened at MoMA and one of the first people to sit opposite Abramovic was her former lover and artistic partner Ulay. It had so much resonance on so many levels; the meeting of two former lovers, the meeting of similar artistic minds, the audience that were watching them seeming to disappear, the silence as Marina couldn't talk but that so much seemed to be being said through tears and glances as well as humanism as an exhibit. 

I thought the humanist element and the importance of "a fresh look for each person" that Marina gave, was incredibly similar, but a modern version of, the humanist notions of the Renaissance era. Marina is a big personality, but it was about the interaction between her and another human, not just focusing on her. The public participation and the "meeting" of two people seemed incredibly powerful, especially in modern times where we're constantly connected to each other (by new media) but not physically facing each other for most of this. In this way I thought it was especially relevant to a modern audience.

It was also interesting to note how Marina's retrospective exhibition was coming so late in her life. In the documentary film Ulay said "no-one works as hard as her". I found it interesting that her retrospective was within her lifetime, but sad that it took so long for her to gain wide recognition for her work that she devoted her life to. 

Despite this, there was one scene in the film where Marina pitched the idea about a stunt she could pull with illusionist David Blaine during "The Artist Is Present". She pitches the idea to her consultant, who also makes commercial, marketing and PA calls and he suggests that her idea is bad and would not fit in with what she intended the work to be about. This, I thought, called into question her authenticity. It seemed odd to me that a woman presented throughout the film as being so clear-headed, driven and determined, would whimsically think a silly idea would be good; especially when conflicting with her intentions. This seemed completely out of character to the rest of the representation of Marina Abramovic (at which point I realised I was watching a constructed film and that this representation wasn't necessarily as true, or extreme as I had thought). Authenticity is also questioned as this man is helping her to make quite important artistic decisions, one that you would assume the artist has complete control over and doesn't need advice on. The marketing of Marina as a kind of lioness of performance art was broken for me with these weaknesses of authenticity as it didn't seem to make any sense. This also made me see her work moving from authentic and genuine expression into commercialism, as they have the "clever" idea to sell off limited addition prints and pat themselves on the back for it, whilst living in a penthouse in New York and buying designer clothes - - genuine artist or profiteer of consumerism?

From a feminist perspective, it could be viewed with having positives and negatives. A positive reading could come from Marina's ability to "seduce everyone she meets" to manipulate them to get what she wants. She is also now a powerful female artist having a huge retrospective exhibition at possibly the most famous modern art gallery in the world. However, despite seeming to have so much power and ability, the people who are in charge of her (her advisors, the curator of the MoMA exhibition, Ulay) are men. So although it would appear that Marina is the one calling the shots, whether or not things can go ahead depends on the opinions and view of men who are in control of "the art world".

Tate Liverpool

Visit: 6th October 2012

Whilst visiting Tate Liverpool and looking at the "This Is Sculpture" exhibition I was drawn to the description of a Richard Deacon sculpture "Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow (K)"(2001). I wasn't especially a big fan of the sculpture itself, but the description stated that "The title is drawn from the opening line of a speech by William Shakespeare, made when Macbeth hears of his wife's death and laments on the pointlessness of life. Language plays an important part in Deacon's work, but his titles are not intended to describe or explain his sculptures, rather to have resonance in conjunction with them. The phrase suggests the passage of time and is thought to allude to the artist's anguish of how the work is situated in time"

Recently, I have been researching in my own time about James Whistler and this statement made me think of something that came up my research. Whistler titles his paintings according to musical terms; "Nocturnes", "Symphonies" and "Arrangements". He did this because he wanted to distract critics away from what his paintings were representing and their meanings, and leave space to focus on how it was painted. He once titled a painting after a Poe poem and it gave immediate meaning to the painting. But Whistler was obviously working from a Modernist perspective and Deacon a more Postmodern one, probably in knowledge that the viewer will relate to the work differently perhaps depending on their existing knowledge or experience of the quote. I think it's also possible that association with the words of Shakespeare, Deacon's piece is elevated as well.

This isn't to say the work that copied a Bukowski poem I mentioned earlier in the blog is elevated by association, because Deacon's work doesn't reference Shakespeare, the title does, which is arguably a minimal part of the work, not the entire work itself as in the case of the other.

Biennial - Unexpected Guest

Whilst visiting the Tate I had a look at the Biennial exhibition being shown. This included some of my favourite artwork, "The Hotel Room" Series (1981) by Sophie Calle. I just think it's completely original and Romantic and adventurous and cool.

I have never seen this work in real life before, only in art books, so I thought it was a really great opportunity to make a comparison of the two experiences. From books, I didn't expect it to look like it did in real life; I expected the photographs to be much bigger and laid out in some other way rather than being huddled in a corner, completely unfairly overshadowed by Martin Parr's nasty and crude photographs.

I am always surprised by the difference of reality and viewing the work in a book or on the internet. This surprise always reiterates to me the importance of seeing artwork "in the flesh" because it enables so much more understanding and opportunity of  a relationship with the piece.

Domino Gallery

Visit 3rd October

I found this visit really pleasant. As a group we were informed of the history of the gallery by the owner, Felicity Wren, who was really nice and down to earth (I've never met a curator before so I didn't know what to expect!). It was interesting to hear the story of how she came to be the curator she is now. We were told a story I found incredibly sad and relevant to myself as she explained how she had always wanted to be an artist, but been advised to follow a different career path for financial security, and in the daily grind of life lost her enthusiasm and drive to create art. The way she told it was very touching and a bit heartbreaking. 

It was really useful to hear an account from someone who has set up a gallery herself and curated it all herself. It's interesting to know what kind of work and preparation goes into it. I was a bit surprised that she'd chosen to keep the gallery to the format of a kind of mock white cube, but with a wooden floor. I think perhaps for a smaller gallery it might be interesting to do something a bit different to the common white-washed walls. Maybe she could have painted the walls a different colour, had the work arranged in an installation or just put the frames at different levels instead of all equally spaced at the same height. However, I don't really know as much as she obviously knows about the "business"!

The gallery itself was quite small and dainty, apparently at one point having a personality crisis as to whether it was a cafe or gallery. The work exhibited in there was by an artist called, Diane Welford, and her work were some small charcoal and ink drawings/ sketches. Priced at £1200 I felt they were overpriced and so did the owner, who was baffled at the artists' choice. The only reason I could guess as justification for the price was that the work was special to the artist who didn't want to part with them, but had an opportunity to exhibit. The space is a commercial space primarily and so perhaps she wanted to exhibit without actually selling anything, but keep the owner happy? It's a loose thread to follow I suppose...

The opportunity of curating and exhibiting arose which seems like a really promising path to be available! It was a really nice visit and felt like a nice environment!

Walker Art Gallery: John Moore's Painting Prize

Visit: 3rd October

"M is Many" - Ian Law

1967 saw Barthes publish “The Death of the Author”, but the John Moores Painting Prize 2012 has moved beyond this postmodern notion; it would appear the viewer as well as the author have been assassinated under our noses, leaving the artworks amidst an uncertain wilderness. The walls of this year’s exhibition support the arrogant, condescending glares of canvases and materials that do not need the interpretation of any visitor to guarantee meaning or appreciation, nor do the visitors necessarily search for instruction from the artist or their intention; each works’ significance is locked within themselves, hidden and uncertain to an onlooker.

This begs the question “why?” What is the use of a painting prize where the position and relationships of the works, artists and visitor are uncertain? If the purpose is to create debate, promote, or celebrate the art of painting as it exists today with the public as viewers, it would seem to have gone rather unsuccessfully. With the winner, the selection panel appear to have been deliberately (and somewhat predictably) unpredictable, favouring a potentially contentious or provoking piece rather than a “safer” option of obvious traditional characteristics (of which the British exhibition is almost too obviously lacking). The choice seems to have backfired though, as Pickstone’s Stevie Smith and the Willow (2012) hasn’t encouraged much criticism/debate, and has in fact been accepted with silence, or rather indifference. The panel may have misread the exhibition’s audience for a suitably varied cross-section of the public, instead of the self-proclaimed art-experts and art students that stroll carefully across the gallery floor, interpreting each abstract piece with rehearsed scripts of visual theory and contrived esteem.

Primarily displaying shortlisted UK entries, four winners of the John Moores Painting Prize China 2012 also appear alongside, arguably having detrimental effects on the home turf. Wenlong’s Aphasia (2010) demonstrates a staggering impact of photo-realist painterly skill. This is not to display an unfair bias towards technical skill however, it is merely the case that the China Prize entries present a solid force of more original and powerful paintings compared to the weaker, sparser attempts from the UK. Of course some display admirable astute wit, such as Liversidge’s Proposal for the Jury of the John Moores Painting Prize 2012 (2012). Individually the works are likeable, but they sadly present nothing more. Upon entering rooms filled with the best contemporary paintings one expects a great something; a gut reaction of any sort as a bare minimum. Expectations are not met.

Selection panellist George Shaw suggested the notion that each of the works appear to be “painted in a vacuum”; there is no intended coherency or narrative running through the exhibition, each piece is made by an individual, to be individual. The art world could currently be said to be mirroring the world of media that has become so powerful and all-consuming. Within modern Western society, new media houses unlimited democratic platforms where every citizen is freely entitled to share infinite views or project infinite ideologies. Now, everyman is an artist if they so choose. This presents us with another glaring question that screams from the white space eyes move to after each canvas, page and board in the John Moores Painting Prize: what is the role of the painter in society now, or even the artist?

"Stevie Smith and The Willow" - Sarah Pickstone

If, as it would appear, the idea is just as, if not more relevant to contemporary painting as its execution, why then is the medium even relevant? Could James Bloomfield not have portrayed a world becoming desensitised to the rising death counts in wars that are splashed in the media in a more appropriate or powerful way than a painting entered into a competition? Does this do the subject justice? The answer is probably yes to the former and no to the latter, seeing as it is a subject we have all acknowledged. The question of how this painting benefits society or even an individual is one which seems unfair to ask, but that does not mean it can be side-stepped to avoid awkwardness. Anyone can make art now, and many choose to, but does this make everyone an artist? Or is this merely an attempt at inclusivity; a superficial community in a lonely and isolated body of citizens. Of course in a politically correct world it does make everyone an artist, but doesn’t this reduce the worth of the word “artist”. No longer a Leonardo da Vinci or James Whistler, the artist has had its elitist, oh-so Romantic, mythical ideal stolen, and in its place stands everyone. Liberating and democratic for sure, but try and say it doesn’t feel like a tearful goodbye to a childhood hero.

The John Moores Painting Prize 2012 presents 62 paintings. If all are “created in a vacuum” then the vacuum is bigger than the artists and their own individual works; we are all in it. This is contemporary painting; welcome to the vacuum.

Bluecoat

Visit: 1st October & 3rd October

"John Akomfrah’s newly commissioned film, The Unfinished Conversation, examines the nature of the visual as triggered across the individual’s memory landscape, with particular reference to identity and race. In it, academic Stuart Hall’s memories and personal archives are extracted and relocated in an imagined and different time, reflecting the questionable nature of memory itself. This multi-layered three-screen installation investigates the theory that identity is not an essence or being but instead a becoming, where individual subjectivities are formed in both real and fictive spaces. (The film starts at 5 minutes past every hour in Gallery 2.  Duration: 45 minutes)." - Taken from the Bluecoat website

The visit to the Bluecoat was primarily to be given a short tour and informed briefly of the history, which was really interesting. I liked that the staff seemed to be really proud and concerned with the heritage of the building. After the visit was over we were encouraged to watch Akomfrah's film, "The Unfinished Conversation" (2012). I had to watch it in two sittings because I was pushed for time in my first. 

The film itself had a lot of similarities to what I had done on an art course previously; working with found and original footage, using a triptych of projections and overlapping sounds. I was really excited to watch the film, but I felt very uneasy about it quite quickly. It's based on the life Stuart Hall, whose theories of re-presentation and the media are famous, and I was already familiar with some. I didn't know all of the intimate details about his family however.

The thing I liked most about the film was the "found" footage of the eras, starting with black and white 1950s and moving through the ages. I also enjoyed the subject matter, I think it's fascinating how immigrants came to the UK and had to deal with awful prejudices and transitions in lifestyle. The thing I didn't like however, were the sequences that Akomfrah had clearly made recently. At one point there was a voice-over of Stuart Hall talking about how his sister had undergone electric shock treatment and never recovered. This was accompanied by the visuals of some tatty clothes on a hanger on a branch in a bleak forest. To me, this seemed very twee, cringey and A Level Fine Art student. It possessed no real imagination or creativity and made me cringe to think such a serious and delicate matter could be depicted in such a toe-curling way. I also didn't like the badly photo-shopped images of Hall's family. The images themselves were obviously fine, but Akomfrah had stuck them over an image of a frame on a sideboard in a house, and repeatedly failed to line the images up successfully so it looked like a bad cut and paste job. I thought for such an intelligent theorist and fascinating story, it was unpleasant to see the slap-dash elements of the film and I would have just preferred if it was past footage edited together rather than trying to be "edgy" or have poignant little scenes that were detrimental to the piece as a whole.

Taken from "www.liverpoolbiennial.co.uk"