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"