Category: Art

With a degree in Fine Art the world’s my oyster!!

FAIR—Frieze—Zoo—Regent’s Park, London

Tree Pants

Peter Coffin Untitled (Tree Pants) 2006 Andrew Kreps Gallery
Frieze Art Fair Sculpture Park

Why do I do it? Why did I try and “do” both the Frieze and Zoo art fairs in one day? And while I had a bad cold too.

And what did I get out of it? The best I can say is that I saw some friends and some good pieces of work and I came to the conclusion that contemporary art is a bit of a mess at the moment (as a whole, individually and, apparently, conceptually).

Stupidly I left my camera at home, so I noted those pieces and galleries that interested me, with short descriptions to remind me of what they were, I tried to be careful when writing down the names of artists and their galleries, but some of my notes are unreadable now so I apologize for any mistakes. Here are those from Frieze, in the order that I saw them in:-

  • greengrassi
  • Heimo Zobernig at Meyer Kainer (Swarovsky round stones) (I was very interested in him while I was on my BA, so it was nice to reacquaint myself with his work)
  • Henrik Olesen at Meyer Kainer (Warburgian panels)
  • José Maria Siciliana at Chantal Crousel Eclipse, 2006 (Oil on beeswax)
  • Marcel Broodthaers also at Chantal Crousel (One of my favorite artists)
  • Richard Prince at Gladstone (very tall black frames with the photos near the top)
  • Galleria Massimo de Carlo (I found their hand-written signs quite cute, but later realised that many people were doing) (nice website though)
  • Amikam Toren at Anthony Reynolds Last Drawings (the unpicked wire from spiral bound books as a drawing material)
  • Kai Kaiji The more I work the poorer I am
  • Atelier van Lieshout Minimal steel with rod …
  • Jacco Oliver at Victoria Miro (projection of animated paintings)
  • Charles Sandison at Yvon Lambert (projection of rearranging words)
  • Tomas Baumann (loop of rope)
  • Jiri Kolanda (little boxes on wall)
  • Jennifer and Kevin McColl Scary Things 1 (landscape model and small cameras picking words in the landscape to make (random?) sentences)
  • Jean-Marc Bustamente Trophée II (metal panels with cut holes to reveal coloured plastic) (again someone I paid attention to on my BA)
  • Nathaniel Rackone (corrugated panels opening and closing)
  • Tobias Rehberger at Bärbel Grässlin Orlando
  • Herbert Hinteregger Untitled 2006 (coloured sponges)
  • Wade Guyton (reminded me of the large glass)
  • Silke Schatz at Wilkinson St Gertrud, Köln 2006 (architectural/CAD line drawings)
  • Martina Steckholzer 2pm, Gloria
  • Geletin Hau (aerial photo of bunny made out of fabric (?) in landscape)
  • Tomas Ruff JPEG G101 (heavily compressed photos) (an idea I had wanted to develop myself, see my early attempt on youtube, but it has more meaning when he does it)
  • James Welling IPGI, IXTD, IVGB, IRDI (photos)
  • Luisa Lamburi Untitled. Melnikov House 2005 (photos of the windows of the house)
  • Gregor Schneider 4538km 2006 (architectural photo)
  • Gregor Schneider Cube Berlin 2006 (photo)
  • Yuko Shiraishi at Annely Juda Fine Art (glass boxes, why are you so fascinating?)
  • Christina Iglesias (iron and cement sculpture leaning against wall)
  • Eric Baudelaire Marée, Foundations (photos of half-finished constructions)
  • Rosemarie Trockel at Sprüth Magers Lee (I wrote down Monika Sprüth, but that must be a mistake) (another favourite)
  • Galerie Micheline Szwajcer

And from Zoo:

  • Jan Bünnig at Nice & Fit Mirror Ball (a big ball of tree bark, with a chunky chain) (crazy!)

Now that might be read as a value judgement, i.e. Frieze = more of interest = better show, but it’s more about the ratio of galleries in Frieze versus Zoo.

Thoughts about Frieze

Generalizing massively, there seemed to be a concentration of works incorporating precious materials to the left as you went in (Zobernig for one) and cigarette smoke to the right (not works incorporating smoke, just the smoke). It was also busier to the right, but that may have been due to the comparative density of the stands – and there seemed to be a slope down from right to left? The air conditioning was pretty useless, thank goodness it wasn’t a sunny day otherwise it would have been even more of a sauna in there (my cold may have had some effect on my impression of the heat though – possibly it was also affecting my balance and hence the impression of the slope).

Thoughts on Zoo

Much smaller and more manageable, and more intimate as well, less pressurized. Zoo restricts itself to galleries that are under 5 years old, so neatly differentiates itself from Frieze. Plus it’s in the zoo, how cool is that? With your ticket you get access to wander round the animal enclosures. It would be too easy to make parallels between a zoo and the fair—although they would probably apply better to Frieze—so I won’t.

Zoo seems to have more of a concern with the actual art developments taking place that their galleries are showing. The fact that they have produced the book the new art for the event shows some sort of commitment to analyzing their content.

As a bonus, this year The Hut Project were commissioned to create a series of “guided art-tours” to take place during the fair, which they promptly subverted by presenting each tour as an artwork created collaboratively between The Hut Project and the artist taking the tour. Each tour costs the visitor £250 and you receive a certificate at the end as authentication. I was fortunate enough to be able to go for free as Ian Evans of The Hut Project is also on my course at Goldsmiths. I had the choice of a tour round the fair looking at the art or the zoo looking at the architecture taken by Rob Tufnell of Ancient and Modern.

It was late in the day and the zoo had just shut, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. With the lack of people and dusk falling the animals all seemed to get much more active. We visited the Lubetkin Penguin Pool, which now holds the porcupines (?!), the tunnel under the road which used to have murals by someone I forget (although they have recently been painted over), the aquarium with with it’s water tanks built above it in the shape of a mountain for the goats, the Cedric Price Aviary, and the Lubetkin gorilla house, now housing the lemurs.

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COURSE—Framing Art—The Origins of Cultural Authenticity

Texts:

  • Quatremère de Quincy, Antoine. Ethical considerations on the Presentation of Works of Art [1815], Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1989, pp. 15–48 (transl. Jean-Paul Martinon)
  • Hegel, G. W. F. The Philosophy of History, transl. by J. Sibree, Dover, 1956, pp. 16–20
  • Inwood, Michael. A Hegel Dictionary, Blackwell, London, 1992, extracts: pp. 27–8, 101–3, 110–2, 118–9, 242–3, 274–5

After the First Reading

I’m having real problems seeing the relevance of Hegel’s piece to the seminar’s subject, and consequently his relation to Quincy.

To recap, this week’s lecture and seminar is entitled “the Origins of Cultural Authenticity” and the notes talk about these texts as “key texts in the origin of museums” and that the session will “introduce the key areas of investigation into the study of museums” and look “at the theoretical foundations of the museum and its relationship to the writing of art history.” Later we are asked to consider the notion of destination and what religious or historical references does it call for.

As far as I can see, there is no direct discussion of museums in the Hegel text. Therefore, the concepts and ideas discussed in it must have a general application to the subject, if we are to accept that it is relevant, and we must assume so, otherwise there is a major flaw in the session, or some kind of cruel joke/test taking place.

The hook, the entrée, must be this concept of “destination.” So how does Hegel deal with this?

Notes from Re-reading

What is “Reason”? Obviously not ‘reasoning’, as I initially understood it. It comes across as a more physical thing. Also, there is an emphasis on movement, development: “destiny”, “ultimate” – “. . . implies that that design is destined to be realized.” “Reason” is not an application but an attribute – which is inherent in an object? This is what confused me, the transferral of human faculties to concepts or objects – need more info on this.

So, I understand the example of the Roman Empire as a product of understanding, but how does it follow that an empirical fact (“its collapse”) is a “work of negative reason”? Understanding produces the concept which is described (I think somewhat confusingly) as an existing entity which sounds physical (although I suppose the RE is only an idea, not of the empire as a physical thing and negative reason is a feature of this idea (“entity”) which causes it to collapse and speculative reason causes the development of a new order. This seems an odd way of describing it.

Definition of ‘entity’: “being, existence, the existence of a thing as contrasted with its attributes.”

Is it the concept that is the entity? Or the actual collection of people and objects that make up the RE? Does it matter? The collection of people can still have, as part of its nature, the seeds of collapse, as much as the concept can.

‘Design’ is ‘destiny’. It inevitably works itself out. Is ‘import’ potential and ‘realization’ actual?

On the stage on which we are observing it—Universal History—Spirit displays itself in its most concrete reality.

(the ‘stage’ of history)

. . . the shape which the perfect embodiment of Spirit assumes—the State.

. . . that all [qualities of Spirit] are but means for attaining Freedom;. . .

[Matter] strives after the realization of its Idea; for in Unity it exists ideally.

Does Matter become Spirit on attaining it’s ‘central point’ (essence, freedom?)?

Spirit is self-contained existence.

–freedom, self-consciousness?

. . . it may be said of Universal History, that it is the exhibition of Spirit in the process of working out the knowledge of that which it is potentially.. . . so do the first traces of Spirit virtually contain the whole knowledge of that History.

. . . it is the freedom of Spirit which constitutes its essence.

This consciousness arose first in religion, the in-most region of Spirit; but to introduce the principle into the various relations of the actual world, involves a more extensive problem than its simple implantation; a problem whose solution and application require a severe and lengthened process of culture.

[which seems quite patronising]

Culture is the process by which Spirit is brought to consciousness, and:

. . . the thorough molding and interpenetration of the constitution of society by it, is a process identical with history itself.

“. . . the Christian principle of self-consciousness—Freedom” as opposed to “. . . the principle of Freedom generally”?

The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom; a progress whose development according to the necessity of its nature, it is our business to investigate.

In the process before us, the essential nature of freedom—which involves in it absolute necessity—is to be displayed as coming to a consciousness of itself (for it is in its very nature, self-consciousness) and thereby realizing its existence. Itself is its own object of attainment, and the sole aim of Spirit.

First conclusion

I think I have a better understanding of Hegel’s argument. To address the question of ‘Destination’, for Hegel this works by the development of Spirit to self-consciousness, and freedom. And this, outside of religion, is done by Culture – hence art/museums perform a didactic function – in this case to progress Spirit.

Quatremère de Quincy?

So how does Quatremère de Quincy relate to Hegel and the session’s subject?

His piece begins by stating that “Everyone now believes in the idea that collecting works of art and presenting them in what we now call Cabinets or Museums is the secret behind the well-being of the arts”, but proceeds to suggest that this is in fact denuding the works of their meaning, reducing them to “dull artifacts” and that by so doing we have stifled the development of any future masterpieces.

. . . no one will question the fact that art has to carry on perpetuating itself; but this must be driven by its own nature, not by some self-referencing game.

Could this be a similarity to the working out of the Spirit in Hegel?

No one is able to judge a work of art except by reference to an abstract notion of perfection which never changes. No one can now identify mitigating circumstances that have led artists to modify their technique or legitimise mistakes which, at first, came across as weakness or lack of genius. When seen in museums, works of art no longer retain the context or the circumstances which produced precisely those characteristics which for centuries generated admiration and awe. [. . .]

To what wretched destiny do you condemn Art if its products are no longer tied to the immediate needs of society? [. . .] We must stop pretending that the artworks themselves are preserved in those depositories. Their material relics may have been transported there; but not the network of ideas and relationships that gave the works their lives.

Is QdeQ saying that by divorcing the works from their original contexts we are breaking their possibility of destiny? Or their possibility of being useful as culture and hence as a means to develop Spirit in Universal History?

As much as I now understand the texts much better, I really don’t see how they relate in anything but a superficial way. I’ll have one more go at it tonight and see if I receive the lightning bolt of knowledge.

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OPENING—Life Forms—Kinetica Museum

Lifeforms

The Ancestral Path by Amorphic Robot Works

6 October – 14 November 2006

Kinetica Museum

The artists within Kinetica’s inaugural show ‘Lifeforms’ contribute to the extension of the human into the mechanical, and the mechanical into the human by confirming the fallacy that humans are, or ever were, entirely divorced from our technological environment. Whether we bathe in the glow of the instruments, or are riveted by technology’s virtuosity, we should never forget that we are not machines, but that machines are us. To that extent they – and the art made with them – already constitute a living, moving, energetic form of life.

Robert Pepperell, Lifeforms leaflet

So this is what becomes of defunct markets, they find new uses as centers of culture and refinement.

The arcades of the Old Spitalfields Market have been transformed into more bars and faux-markets than you can shake a stick at, serving those who cannot drag themselves away from the area. And as the pièce de la résistance they now have culture served up in the form of the Kinetica Museum, presented as ‘the UK’s first museum dedicated to kinetic, electronic and experimental art.’

The museum is split over two large open plan floors. As part of the Museum’s inaugural show the ground floor is given over to a new performance piece by the group Amorphic Robot Works, featuring a group of ‘humanoid, hybrid and abstract’ assemblages of metal, rubber and electronics. Upstairs holds a collection of works by various artists using movement, light and sound.

Dante Leonelli, Neon Dome

Dante Leonelli, Neon Dome

The works varied from those that wore their technology on their sleeves, either hi-tech – Daniel Chadwick’s solar powered, Calder-like mobiles – or lo – Tim Lewis’s junkyard writing machines, to the more operationally discrete – Dante Leonelli’s neon and plastic domes and Hans Kotter’s strip of light.

To generalise, the range of works suggest how kinetic art has progressed from it’s canonisation as an art form in the ’60’s through to its present incarnation. The early works in the show, or the works by artists who originally came to prominence at that point display a characteristically minimal aesthetic, hiding the technologies involved behind clean exteriors and presenting an abstracted display of light or movement.

Among the contemporary artists in the show there seems to be a divide between those who look back to this tradition and those who consciously reject it. Tim Lewis, Chico Macmurtrie/Amorphic Robot Works show a distinct current of anthropomorphism as well as embracing the messiness of their raw materials, not shying away from revealing the workings of their constructions and certainly not tidying up the display to meet some standard of minimalism. On the other hand artists such as Daniel Chadwick, Chris Levine and Hans Kotter feature minimal or high-tech forms.

Chadwick creates Alexander Calder-like mobiles using solar panels to power tiny fans activating the movement of the piece, as well as sinuous lengths of twisting tube, again powered by solar panels on wings attached to the tubular sections, looking very like a model of a space-station. Kotter’s piece is made up of a strip of electroluminescent tape forming a pristine line of light dividing off one end of the gallery.

Dante Leonelli was my tutor at college and I worked with him on some of the neon dome pieces after I left so I have a particular attachment to them. The three pieces in this show looked stunning, there’s something about the sparklyness of the plastic, the sharp stretches of neon and the slow dimming and brightening of the light that really affects you if you can give it the time and attention. In the middle of a busy opening is not the best environment to appreciate them, but they still stood out for me.

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