What art have I seen? Marie Velardi
‘Lost Islands and other Works’ by Marie Velardi at Peacock Visual Arts including the timeline of human development according to Sci-fi literature.
I was invited to respond to the work as part of a Creative Carbon Scotland Green Tease. Anne Douglas and published an essay in the Elemental: Art and Ecology Reader earlier this year talking about the way that the Harrisons use inconsistency and contradiction in their works. This seemed relevant in relation to Velardi’s works, perhaps most obviously the timeline but also the works about islands and coastlines. Keeping contradictory truths in tension is an important skill and capacity that artists use in their works. Having just been at Tim Ingold’s lecture on the Sustainability of Everything this point is relevant to how we conceptualise living and carrying on.
What art have I seen? Out There: Our Post-War Public Art
Walked past this yesterday and today went to see the Historic England exhibition on post-war public art. Highlights how the Festival of Britain in 1951 acted as a platform for new work perhaps in a similar way to how the 2012 Cultural Olympiad and 2014 Commonwealth Games have provided a platform for a new cross artform sited work.
https://historicengland.org.uk/get-involved/visit/exhibitions/public-art/
What art have I seen? Surreal Encounters
Surreal Encounters at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art – Dada through Surrealism.
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/whatson/on-now-coming-soon/surreal-encounters/
What art have I seen? Jo Spence
Jo Spence at Stills. Three groups of work that clearly demonstrate the radical approaches to photography being used by Spence and her various colleagues. Put this alongside the ‘Context is Half the Work: Partial History of the Artist Placement Group’ at Summerhalland its a salutory reminder of what radical practice looks like.
Good review here http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/jo-spence-1
What art have I seen? Alice Neel and Jess Johnson
Two exhibitions at the Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh. Alice Neel, New York portrait painter. The drawings in the Playfair Library on the ground floor and the balcony are well worth the trouble. The influence of the Expressionists is really strong, but it’s clearly NYC. The show links biography with work which is fascinating, but a bit distracting. The mark making is great!
Jess Johnson’s Eclectrc Panoptic drawings, video and VR environment are all enthralling – the VR environment is really successful transposition of the drawings – it is a linear exploration and not ‘gamified’ but I suspect that the real quality is in the work with Simon Ward to make it feel like you are moving through the drawings.
What art have I seen? A partial history of the Artist Placement Group
Roger Coward speaking about his Placement with the Department of the Environment in Small Heath, Birmingham
What art have I seen? Dia Beacon
‘Best of minimalism’. The good tracks were Agnes Martin, Louise Bourgeois, Richard Serra, Robert Irwin, On Kawara, Fred Sandback. Having come from Mass MOCA it is apparent that Dia need to have a space for one artist to be focused on in depth.
What art have I seen? Mass MOCA
This is part of Michael Oatman’s ‘All Utopias Fell’, a strange spin on solar energy and communication with the stars. The Jetstream is about 3 stories up and contains amongst other things a library and archive.
The three floors of Sol Lewitt’s work arranged Early, Mid and Late.
Explode Every Day – an inquiry into the phenomena of wonder – standout pieces by Michael Light’s ‘100 Suns’ (photos from the Los Alamos National Laboratories); Rachel Sussman’s ‘(Selected) History of the Space Time Continuum’; Ryan and Trevor Oakes’ drawings exploring perspective; Tristan Duke’s scratch holograms; and Julianne Swartz’ trembling, rattling ‘Bone Scores’.
Three works from the Hall Foundation by Anselm Kiefer, one of which immediately physically connected with Kilmahew.
What art have I seen? Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
In the Yellow Room we find Whistler’s ‘Nocturne, Blue and Silver: Battersea Reach’ along with a Matisse, a Degas, a Sargent and another Whistler. Having been to Hearst Castle last year, we wondered what the difference was?
What art have I seen? GSA MFA
Glasgow School of Art MFA at the Glue Factory. Liked Yeonkyoung Lee’s disco inspired installation – v nicely composed. Uesung Lee’s drawings and detritus of drawing as a form of labour. Also Jamie Green’s Shankland ‘Sun Never Sets’ – v clever curatorial exercise. Finally like Sian Collins and Westmoreland Stones.
What art jave I seen? Deep in the Heart of Your Brain
Jacqueline Donachie’s exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow. Three groups of work: drawings of lamposts – sources of illumination in the modern urban landscape; sculptures which use the materials of accessibility infrastructure (ramps and handrails) but perhaps seen from the perspective of someone for whom they don’t work or maybe just that they evoke the precariousness of the people for whom they are designed; finally videos speaking to sisters, speaking to feelings of doubt, but also playful. Powerful stuff. (Oh and a piece of armour – a boot – that could flex more than you expected.)
What art have I seen? When the future was about Fracking
He He’s installation and film in the Visual Research Centre in Dundee, part of Mette M High’s Leverhulme funded St Andrews’ based Energy Ethics programme
What art have I seen? Gray’s Graduates in Residence
They’ve called it Only the improvisation remains constant, a quote from the Harrisons
This is a detail of one of Tako Taal’s works.
What art have I seen? Musee Art Moderne, Paris
Dufy, de Chirico, Braque and Picasso, Matisse, Sekula (Museum Guardroom), Duchamp, Bourgeois, Messenger.
What art have I seen? Island Drift and Nick Hedges
Streetlevel have an exhibition of work done with NVA in the Loch Lomond national park exploring light in a dark landscape. Light is brought to life almost as another albeit strange and new entity in the landscape. In the Trongate 103 Foyer Nick Hedges photographs from the Gorbals in the 70s are a reminder of what highrise housing was replacing – slum tenaments – but Hedges photography doesn’t just capture the issue – it’s as beautifully composed as a Vuillard.
What art have I seen? Drawn into tomorrow
Drawn into tomorrow by IC-98 at Dundee Contemporary Art
What art have I seen? Burnt Sierra and the Ship of Theseus
Calum Stirling’s exhibition Burnt Sierra and the Ship of Theseus at The Briggait.
What art have I seen? Turner Prize
Sadly Janice Kerbel’s choral piece was ‘off’ for the hols, but the juxtaposition between Assemble’s ‘craftivist’ community-focused regeneration of Four Streets in Granby, Liverpool, on the one hand and Bonnie Camplin’s study centre on the community kidnapped by extra-terrestrials was compelling. In one room we found a catalogue of hand-made objects which spoke to our desire for the worthy poor to have quality fittings (for which we might read ‘to become middle class’). And of course we can buy the objects ourselves, reinforcing our sense of our own good taste. In the other we are faced with a wholly other ‘other’, clearly a population of nutjobs with whom we have nothing in common. Except that in the library (and I’ll admit to a particular fondness for libraries – see previous writing on the Martha Rosler Library and of course the ecoartscotland library) there are books that I have on my shelves. I hope everyone found something that they connected with, bringing them one or two steps closer to the individuals in the video interviews – I watched a bit with a woman talking about reptilian aliens.
It would have been the obvious decision to give the prize to this or the room with fur coats over the backs of chairs – perhaps the red topped newspapers wouldn’t even have bothered making the usual fuss. The provocative decision was to award the prize to Assemble, but they aren’t exactly radical social practice – they lack a sharp enough political edge.
What art have I seen? Transmissions
Transmissions is an exhibition of work produced from the ASCUS micro-residency at the Centre for Immunity Infection and Evolution in the University of Edinburgh. Works by Mark Doyle, Anne Milne, and Jo Hodges & Robbie Coleman.
Comes back to the question provoked by Matthew Dalziel’s presentation at the North Light Arts Conference in 2014. He reminded us of the question “Who speaks for the wolves?” This prompts the question for our culture “Who speaks for MRSA (or Malaria or SARS)?” This exhibition begins to address that question.
What art have I seen? Devils in the Making
Devils in the Making, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow
Remember Nature
Julia Peyton Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist at the Serpentine wrote to ask us to participate and circulate this invitation.
We Invite you to Remember Nature by creating your own event, action, performance intervention or artwork, on social media, in a gallery, a college campus, in the street…
Institutions: Register your interest to recieve specially designed posters to support your event, giving details of name, email and postal address before Fri 23rd Oct.
Individuals: Register your interest to participate in this event
All we ask is that you send us evidence of your contribution however small – for example, you might create photos, films, or other documentary evidence. Once you have run your event please use the WeTransfer service to send us your digital artifacts. Send them to:
remembernaturemetzger@gmail.com
Just copy and paste the above email address into WeTransfer. Send us your evidence before 30 November 2015.
Example of event for Remember Nature at your campus
Gustav Metzger co-curated the programme of last years’ Serpentine Marathon titled Extinction: Visions of the Future on 18th and 19th Oct 2014. During this time his work, Mass Media: Today and Yesterday was livestreamed from Herbert Read Gallery into the Serpentine Gallery throughout the course of the Marathon. Fine Art students from University for the Creative Arts created a media wall from newspapers for 18 hours over two days. Students were fully immersed in this work, scouring newspapers, silently cutting out key texts relating to extinction, working in pairs for 2 hour blocks. This exhibition was curated by Andrea Gregson, Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, at UCA Farnham.
Continue reading How to get involved
For more on extinction it’s worth checking out the previous post on Thom Van Dooren’s work.
What art have I seen: Jimmie Durham
Jimmie Durham’s Various Items and Complaints at the Serpentine Gallery – humourous, light touch, playing between the natural and the man-made. Parasol show last year was more critical of society.
http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/jimmie-durham-various-items-and-complaints
What art have I seen? Cy Twombly
Cy Twombly at the new Gagosian as well as the Polaroid works at Davies Str. Understand why he’s in amongst the Abstract Expressionists though the ‘blotting paper’ works are also quite conceptual in their way. They feel like Judd’s technical drawings shown at Talbot Rice a few years ago, adjuncts to the ‘real’ work. But compared to the works in Houston these have a much harder edge.
http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/cy-twombly–october-10-2015
What art have I seen? Escher and Avery
M.C.Escher exhibition at the Dean Gallery. Charles Avery at the Ingleby.
What art have I seen? KennardPhillips and Holoturian
KennardPhillipps (Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps) Here Comes Everybody at Stills is immediately angry: angry about Shell drilling in the arctic, angry about George Osborne, angry about media manipulation.
Ariel Guzik’s work Holoturian in Trinity Apse courtesy of Arts Catalyst, is a slow steampunk meditation on the parallel lives of cetaceans.
What art have I seen? Crawick Multiverse
This was an opencast coal pit up until a couple of years ago. I do wonder what members of the Society for Ecological Restoration meeting in Manchester next week would make of it?
What art have I seen? Paramus
PARAMUS. Exhibition by Javier Vidal Aguilera
Javier Vidal Aguilera’s Paramus at The Lighthouse in Glasgow, a development on his MFA Art Space and Nature Degree show
http://www.thelighthouse.co.uk/visit/exhibition/paramus.-exhibition-by-javier-vidal-aguilera
What art have I seen? Spiral Jetty
Spiral Jetty – photo Jake Fremantle
To visit Spiral Jetty you have to pass through the Golden Spike National Historic Site, created in 1957 to mark the point where the east coast and west coast railways met in 1869. It now comprises 2,700 acres of scrubland, but not Spiral Jetty – you clearly pass through ranches to get to the Jetty – the signs saying anyone leaving the road is trespassing are pretty clear.
Imagining Spiral Jetty, February 2008 https://chris.fremantle.org/2008/02/05/robert-smithsons-spiral-jetty-threatened/
November, 2009. Smithson, Aldiss and Earthworks https://chris.fremantle.org/writing/earthworks-brian-aldiss/
What art have I seen? Richard Diebenkorn and Conrad Shawcross
Richard Diebenkorn at the RA and Conrad Shawcross’ installation in the courtyard.
What art have I seen? Ben Woodeson
Ben Woodeson‘ exhibition Obstacle at Berloni has all the things you’d expect – thing that make you feel the work not just see it, things that imply imminent danger. The basement gallery is bathed in a hellish light but there’s a Tom and Jerry mousetrap dimension promising exploding neon, shatter glass and escaping poisonous gas. Woodeson’s homage to Carl Andre gives you a shock. His precarious glass pieces hint at Latham’s God is Great. What is really good about this work is the way your body is sensitised as your mind is stimulated and your curiosity (does that really balance?) is peeked.
What art have I seen? Gary Fabian Miller
Garry Fabian Miller’s exhibition at the Dovecot in Edinburgh comprises photographic works, tapestries and rugs both of his own design and also belonging to Winifred Nicholson as well as some of her paintings which have inspired Fabian Miller. Beautifully composed and judged.
Light Flight: New Work by Penny Clare
Penny Clare’s new exhibition is here www.actionforme.org.uk/light-flight Chris Dooks introduced me to the work of Penny Clare a while ago and its great to see more of her work. Anyone with a special interest in health and well-being should check out her story.
What art have I seen? Rights of Nature
Not enough time between conference presentations to properly appreciate this very significant exhibition.
What art have I seen? Mike Nelson
Eighty Circles through Canada (the last possessions of an Orcadian mountain man), Mike Nelson’ show at Tramway in Glasgow. As an homage and as an exhibition it’s just right – very well judged. The two sides of the wall – one a sequence of slides of landscapes which you realise all feature a ring of stones, the remains of a camping fire; the other the remains of a life, some tubes of paint, some climbing equipment, a photo album, some clothes, old books, tapes of classical music, gridded out detritus. Melancholy even without the back story. But also somewhat humourous – you see rings of stones by rivers, in forests, burbling streams and with majestic mountains in the distance, and then you see one with a big rig going past – not all walks are in pristine wilderness.
What art have I seen? Maclaurin Festival
The whole of the Maclaurin Collection is on show at the moment including early 20th C British artists influenced by Futurism, St Ives School, every notable Scottish artist from the second half of the Century, the Bestiary, and really good work by Nash, Deacon, Hamilton Finlay and Maclean. Interspersed are works purchased from the Maclaurin Schools Competition. Well worth checking out. Not sure the recent acquisitions stand up well. Hopefully seeing the whole collection together will inspire the Trustees to be more careful and ambitious in their future purchases and perhaps learn from the founding curator and used exhbition offers and residencies to facilitate acquisitions.
artinscotland.tv ‘s piece on the show with Mike Bailey
What art have I seen? Horst
Horst at the V&A – would have liked to see some of his marked up photos next to the retouched published images. Also interesting to see that both Horst and one of his models spent time in the Louvre studying poses. But you can also see what the Street Photographers were reacting against – fashion photography as the ultimate constructed image.
What art have I seen? Post Pop
Rachel Whiteread homage to Gorgio Morandi in the Post Pop: East Meets West at the Saatchi Gallery.
What art have I seen? Mark Neville
Mark Neville’s London/ Pittsburgh at
Alan Cristea.
Recent work by this Pulitzer nominated artist photographer exploring two juxtapositions of social inequality – one in London and the other in Pittsburgh (Braddock/Sewickley).
Mark said, “I had viewed both London and Pittsburgh through a prism mixed with Charles Dickens and Norman Rockwell. Sometimes the bringing together of two bodies of work made in different locations can generate new insights and reflections upon social divisions in each.”
What art have I seen? Schiele and Johns
The Courtauld has two fascinating exhibitions – Egon Schiele The Radical Nude and Jasper Johns Regrets. This analysis of the Johns exhibition from its showing at MoMA in New York is worth reading.
What art have I seen? Uwe Stoneman at Tent
Will you miss the seabirds when they are gone? Uwe Stoneman works for the RSPB and is also an artist. This group of work uses a documentary approach as a means to speak about something where the level of care makes any other approach to difficult.
What art have I seen? Louise Hopkins
Linlithgow Burgh Halls – great space and a nice chance to see a range of Hopkins’ reworking of everyday objects such as maps and fabrics.
What art have I seen? Jupiter Artland
http://www.jupiterartland.org/_assets/media/media/-108.jpg
Jupiter Artland – very much appreciated Jessica Harrison’s gruesome reworkings of found ceramic
mantlepiece ornaments using epoxy and nail varnish. You walk into the upper exhibition space and see what you take to be a suite of traditional ceramic figurines and it takes a moment to realise that they have been Tarantinoed. Someone else referenced the Chapman Bros.
What art have I seen? Matisse and Information
Matisse Drawing with Scissors, the complete lithographic series from Verve magazine, and also the Information show that forms part of Generation. Both at Paisley Museum and Art Gallery. Didn’t get to the Tate for the Matisse show – is this a substitute?
The historical part of Information is revealing and the documentation is interesting. The best of the new crop is the piece with the coat check tickets.
What art have I seen? Mark Neville
There is a sequence of film in black and white with no sound where we simply, through the use of a camera mounted on the side of a vehicle moving through a settlement, see what the soldiers see – kids making finger guns to shoot at them, a woman smiling, men studiously ignoring the passing vehicle. We see lots and lots of stands selling vegetables (even in b&w the eggplants stand out shiny and dark). Some people are caught really close up as they pull their scooters over to let the vehicles pass. The normality of the scene is constantly challenged by the shadow of the 50 cal machine gun mounted on the top of the vehicle tracking over everything.
The artist and photographer Mark Neville spent time in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, with 16 Air Assault Brigade in a project organised by firstsite in Colchester and the Imperial War Museum. This exhibition at the Imperial War Museum comprises large format photographs and films he made whilst there.
Mark uses a very high speed film camera, usually used for documenting science experiments, which means that even from a moving vehicle the image is really clear.
The still photographs also exhibited involved taking a large format camera and flash unit normally used in fashion shoots out on patrol (I can’t quite imagine how this worked, but I believe it knowing Mark’s commitment to his process). Kids, a man slaughtering a goat, nothing that looks like a patrol in a war zone (a soldier carrying a case of Irn bru) except what you see in peoples’ eyes – suspicion and uncertainty.
What art have I seen? Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell the East Hampton Years 1944-1952 at the Guild Hall in Easthampton.
Selection of works starting at the point when Motherwell was still caught between Surrealism and Cubism. Some of the works are truly beautiful, and in places you catch glimpses of realism – a shadow under a shelf – you’re not sure if its you’re imagination. Sad they razed his house in 1985 (bad decade).
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