Friday, 22 January 2010
Talking to myself?
Though hardly an expert on the subject, I’m helping to prepare a seminar on Samuel Beckett. The original speaker has had to drop out at short notice so we’re making plans to discuss the Channel 4 film of Play and the borrowed idea of soliloquy in relation to art practice. Is making and reflecting on art a way of talking to oneself or could it be construed as a dialogue with something you have made? How might ideas of soliloquy or dialogue that we hold in relation to our work affect the way we make our work and the way we present it to an audience?
Thursday, 21 January 2010
More cramming
Thoughts on Stowage. http://foundspaceuk.blogspot.com
Can I cram a bicycle in a sweet jar? Or possibly a typewriter? It has to be something big and fascinatingly mechanical. If not, Plan B - detritus from my life, layered up like rock strata.
Can I cram a bicycle in a sweet jar? Or possibly a typewriter? It has to be something big and fascinatingly mechanical. If not, Plan B - detritus from my life, layered up like rock strata.
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Out of space
My tiny studio space is fit to burst. I love its light and its views. I love the fact it turned up at precisely the time I needed it, about 18 months ago. And I love the fact it’s pretty darn cheap. But with two shows to prepare for in the next six months, it’s time to think about more space.
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
By the book
Dropped in on the Polytek exhibition opening. It's a collaboration between MA graduates from Central St Martins London and local Exeter graffiti artists. Here are some thoughts....
Still containing evidence of its former life as the Polytek plastics factory, this semi-derelict space is now used as a book sorting and distribution centre by the Bookcyle charity. Much of the work shown here draws on the manufacturing equipment and plastics stock left behind, as well as on the piles and piles of donated books.
It’s a lesson in the challenges as well as the rewards of curating non-gallery spaces. How to give your work a voice among so many competing demands for attention. The space alone is almost too impressive – with cathedral-like proportions and layers of debris and decay telling their own fascinating story.
Not surprisingly, some artists have taken refuge in the smaller mezzanine office spaces. But it’s those who wrestle with the wide open spaces who have the most to gain – or to lose. Graffiti looks commonplace in such an environment and fails to engage. By contrast, Warren Garland’s Wallpapered Machine re-makes part of the building’s industrial heritage into a kind of inside-out domestic interior. It succeeds in creating a surprising object out of an already fascinating one.
Most successful, however, was a collaboration between Josh Baum and Gabo Guzzo. Delineating a small area of the massive floor space with little more than a circle of chairs, they created a focal point for the building and its piles of rejected books: a bizarre library with its own esoteric rules and reading materials.
Interpretation is difficult: finding out who made what, what’s actually the art, what’s actually just the interesting backdrop. Frustrating, yes, but also refreshing. I enjoyed being able to explore without being told what to think. Giving this show room to breathe also gives it the chance to hang together as a whole, despite its slightly fragmented and disparate nature.
Polytek, Water Lane, St Thomas, Exeter. Until 13 September. http://www.thelazysusan.net/
Still containing evidence of its former life as the Polytek plastics factory, this semi-derelict space is now used as a book sorting and distribution centre by the Bookcyle charity. Much of the work shown here draws on the manufacturing equipment and plastics stock left behind, as well as on the piles and piles of donated books.
It’s a lesson in the challenges as well as the rewards of curating non-gallery spaces. How to give your work a voice among so many competing demands for attention. The space alone is almost too impressive – with cathedral-like proportions and layers of debris and decay telling their own fascinating story.
Not surprisingly, some artists have taken refuge in the smaller mezzanine office spaces. But it’s those who wrestle with the wide open spaces who have the most to gain – or to lose. Graffiti looks commonplace in such an environment and fails to engage. By contrast, Warren Garland’s Wallpapered Machine re-makes part of the building’s industrial heritage into a kind of inside-out domestic interior. It succeeds in creating a surprising object out of an already fascinating one.
Most successful, however, was a collaboration between Josh Baum and Gabo Guzzo. Delineating a small area of the massive floor space with little more than a circle of chairs, they created a focal point for the building and its piles of rejected books: a bizarre library with its own esoteric rules and reading materials.
Interpretation is difficult: finding out who made what, what’s actually the art, what’s actually just the interesting backdrop. Frustrating, yes, but also refreshing. I enjoyed being able to explore without being told what to think. Giving this show room to breathe also gives it the chance to hang together as a whole, despite its slightly fragmented and disparate nature.
Polytek, Water Lane, St Thomas, Exeter. Until 13 September. http://www.thelazysusan.net/
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Pope visits Exeter Cathedral
From the deliberately ridiculous to the sublimely minimal - Laura Kikauka's den of kitsch leaves Spacex to make room for Simon Pope's Carved from Memory. And the contrast couldn't be starker.
The gallery now contains two speakers playing a recording of a 20-minute conversation between Pope's grandmother and a local stonemason. Not much more. Gran is doing that thing many grans do: trying to remember something - in this case the details of a gargoyle on the front of Exeter Cathedral carved by her father, but now eroded. The stonemason will attempt a recreation based only on this conversation.
I was initially disappointed to find that there was nothing showing the stonemason's attempts to draw or carve the figure. But that's to miss the point. The almost-empty gallery and the lack of visual reference throws you back in on yourself. All you can do is listen and imagine as the details of the gargoyle are teased out. You leave the gallery with your own unique mental image of the sculpture.
It's a compelling proposition, boldy stated, and the attendance of several generations of the Pope family at the gallery opening gave it personal colour too - but I feel conflicted over this show.
I'm all for quality, but sometimes you have to feel the width too. This show is occupying Exeter's only truly contemporary art space for the best part of two months. It's good, but is it substantial enough? I say not.
Until 11th July 2009 at Spacex, 45 Preston Street, Exeter EX1 1DF http://www.spacex.org.uk/
The gallery now contains two speakers playing a recording of a 20-minute conversation between Pope's grandmother and a local stonemason. Not much more. Gran is doing that thing many grans do: trying to remember something - in this case the details of a gargoyle on the front of Exeter Cathedral carved by her father, but now eroded. The stonemason will attempt a recreation based only on this conversation.
I was initially disappointed to find that there was nothing showing the stonemason's attempts to draw or carve the figure. But that's to miss the point. The almost-empty gallery and the lack of visual reference throws you back in on yourself. All you can do is listen and imagine as the details of the gargoyle are teased out. You leave the gallery with your own unique mental image of the sculpture.
It's a compelling proposition, boldy stated, and the attendance of several generations of the Pope family at the gallery opening gave it personal colour too - but I feel conflicted over this show.
I'm all for quality, but sometimes you have to feel the width too. This show is occupying Exeter's only truly contemporary art space for the best part of two months. It's good, but is it substantial enough? I say not.
Until 11th July 2009 at Spacex, 45 Preston Street, Exeter EX1 1DF http://www.spacex.org.uk/
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Utterly cluttery
The opening of Laura Kikauka’s Celebration of Failure at Spacex saw this normally austere and quiet gallery transformed into a mad interactive party space full of novelty slippers, old 33rpm records, retro biscuits…and table tennis. Perhaps because it summed up Devon’s love of car boot sale clutter and kitsch, it was one of the best attended Spacex openings in a very long time. One visitor was even asking the artist for interior design tips. Until 2 May 2009 at Spacex, 45 Preston Street, Exeter EX1 1DF
Monday, 15 December 2008
Time after time
Christiane Baumgartner's new show Solaris combines traditional craftmanship with contemporary imagery. Hand printed by the artist, some of these impeccable woodcuts are on a virtuoso scale. The contrast between the labour-intensive, line by line chiselling of the plywood plate and almost casual imagery drawn from video brings together two very different perceptions of time and adds exciting nuance to the idea of "stills". Until 21 February 2009 at Spacex, 45 Preston Street, Exeter EX1 1DF
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