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.