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.