What art have I seen?
Peter Howson‘s exhibition From Death to Life at the Maclaurin Galleries, Ayr
What art have I seen?
George Wyllie: Scul?tor and Navigator at the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts and Critical Dialogues: Scotland + Venice at the Lighthouse.
What art have I seen?
Alexander Hamilton’s notebook. Photo Chris Fremantle
Alt-photo at Edinburgh College of Art.
What art have I seen?
A Different Way of Working: The Prints of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and St Ives Painting, at the Dick in Kilmarnock. Particularly interesting images of glaciers and broken trees.
What art have I seen?
ECONOMY at the CCA in Glasgow and Stills in Edinburgh.
My uncle wrote a book entitled God and Money.
His book is about the Italian Renaissance. I’ll send you a copy if you are interested (let’s just say you’ll owe me). These days fewer people believe in God, more believe in art, and money involves more in the way of belief. IS there a big difference between indulgences and Hedge Funds? But it’s too easy to slip into that trope.
David Haley says,
“…economy need not be limited to monetary concerns, but may carry the virtues and the values of efficiency, good management, good housekeeping, and dwelling correctly, or ecologically. And this meaning, also, imples the profoundly simple/complex aesthetic when describing the ‘economy’ of Shaker furniture, the profound simplicity of a Zen brushstroke, or the Bauhaus term, “the art of the highest utility”.
There are two parts to the exhibition Economy, one in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh. I saw them on pretty much consecutive days (I then got a e-flux announcement about “It’s the Political Economy, Stupid” at the Pori Art Museum in Finland). We in the arts need to acknowledge our complicity, even our role as the avant garde in global capital and mobility.
Economy has a subtitle – work, sex, life, enclosures, crisis, spectres, exodus. David would like the inclusion of the Project Row Houses – they might be in the life category. Theirs is a minimal contribution: a poster highlights the resistance to the encroaching gentrification of the Third Ward in Houston where the Project Row Houses are located. David would appreciate the elegance of 21 shotgun houses used, seven as afterschool clubs, seven homes for single mothers and seven for artists residencies plus an office. Check it out – its growing.
Irony is also a useful tool for exploring economics. Hito Steyerl film (which is also part of a survey at the Art Institute of Chicago at the moment) deserves time spent with it. The film follows Steyerl’s search for one set of bondage photos taken of her whilst she was in Tokyo studying film some 10 years previously. She doesn’t know the name or location of the studio, magazine, photographer or ropemaster. As the ingenue she is able to visit and explore this strange world. Everyone wants to help. They are proud to be asked.
What art have I seen?
In pursuit of the Question Mark – a retrospective exhibition at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow. A really packed exhibition of the work of George Wyllie.
Collapse
Billy Klüver reminds us of Jean Tinguely’s work on collapse in Artists, Engineers, and Collaboration Klüver-Billy-Artists-Engineers-and-Collaboration (published in Culture on the Brink: Ideologies of Technology, A Manifesto for Cyborgs. Bender, G. and Druckrey, T. (Eds) Dia Center for the Arts, Discussions in Contemporary Culture Number 9. Seattle: Bay Press, 1994).
Jean Tinguely came to New York City in early 1960. On seeing the city for the first time, he decided to build a large machine that would violently destroy itself in front of an audience in a theater, throwing off parts in all directions. A protective netting would save the audience. When the Museum of Modern Art invited Jean to build his machine in the garden of the museum, he asked me for help. I took him to the New Jersey dumps, which in those days were not covered with dirt. He found bicycle wheels, parts of old appliances, tubs, and other junk, which we hauled to the museum and threw over the fence into the garden.
Enlisting the help of Harold Hodges at Bell Laboratories, we built a timer that controlled eight electrical circuits that closed successively as the machine progressed towards its ultimate fate. Motors started; smoke, generated by mixing titanium tetrachloride and ammonia, bellowed out of a bassinet; a piano began to play and was later set on fire; smaller machines shot out from the sculpture and ran into the audience. In order to make the main structure collapse, Harold had devised a scheme of using supporting sections of Wood’s metal, which would melt from the head of overheated resistors. The whole thing was over in twenty-seven minutes. The audience applauded, and then descended on the wreckage for souvenirs. Jean called the event Homage to New York. During those three or four weeks of the construction of the machine I learned how to listen to the artist, and to give him as many technical choices as I could – as quickly as possible. And as Jean has said repeatedly since, it couldn’t have happened without our collaboration.
For information see http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=33838
What art have I seen?
The Artist and the Organisation: Artist Placement Group 1966-1979 at Raven Row. Extensive documentation of a significant number of placements in industry and public service including correspondence on setting up of placements, feasibility studies and reports as well as films and other documentation. Films from ‘I am an archive’ (see Laura Trevail’s website for more info).
What art have I seen?
Detail of Peter Fend’s installation, Photo Chris Fremantle
Oilscapes at Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen
What art have I seen?
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Sullivan Galleries
Tamms Ten Year Campaign Office (detail). Photo Chris Fremantle
Tamms Ten Year Campaign Office – Tamms was a supermax prison designed to hold individuals in solitary confinement and sensory deprivation. Amongst the Tamms Ten Year Campaign initiatives to get people to use their airmiles to send inmates magazine subscriptions.
Opening the Black Box: The Charge is Torture – more than 70 proposals for a memorial to the victims of the Chicago Police Department.
Preview: A Segment from Natural Life (a work in progress). Imagine having been put away for life aged 15. Actors narrate the experiences of middle aged men as well as the their victims.
What art have I seen?
Of Natural and Mystical Things, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
What art have I seen?.
The Individual and the Organisation: Artist Placement Group 1966-1979 at Raven Row, London.
What art have I seen?
Inspired Editions: Prints and Multiples at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum. Very good answer to the question “What does Robert Burns mean to you?” when asked to Scottish artists living and working now.
The National Trust for Scotland’s press release:
Earlier this year, conservation charity The National trust for Scotland launched a programme of contemporary exhibitions for the first time. Inspired Editions: Prints and Multiples brings together 14 of the very best artists today and will run between 7 September and 24 December 2012.
All of the sculptures and prints on show are ‘editions’ – that means there are a small number of versions available for purchase – a move which makes them much more affordable to the general public.
The artists taking part in Inspired Editions are:
· ROB AND NICK CARTER (The Red Rose)
· CALUM COLVIN (Burns Country)
· GRAHAM FAGEN (Red Rose)
· EUAN HENG (Volunteer)
· KENNY HUNTER (Monument to a Mouse)
· WHYN LEWIS (Survivor)
· DAVID MACH (Robbie Burns)
· JO McDONALD (The Songs you used to Play II)
· HARLAND MILLER (Sweet Afton)
· ROBERT POWELL (A Tripartite Diptych: The Ploughman Poet flanked by Ossian/Macpherson and Topaz McGonagall)
· JEPHSON ROBB (Love & Kisses)
· CATHERINE SARGEANT (Tirl)
· FIONA WATSON (My Heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the Deer)
Affordability, without compromising on quality, was an important consideration for this new exhibition, which was curated by Sheilagh Tennant.
Commenting on the exhibition, Sheilagh said:
“There are over a dozen artists involved and it’s fascinating to see the variety of different interpretations of Burns’ work.”
The roots of the new exhibition were in Inspired 2009, an exhibition of original work inspired by the life and times of Robert Burns. This exhibition was part of the 2009 Homecoming Scotland programme of events and was also curated by Tennant.
Sheilagh adds:
“Inspired 2009 was a labour of love really – I had been aware for a long time that there had never been a major exhibition of contemporary art inspired by the work of Burns and the Homecoming celebrations provided a perfect vehicle.
“However, during the run of the exhibition, I became aware that, while many would have liked to, most people were disappointed that they could not afford to buy the work on show in Inspired 2009. When I was invited to manage the new contemporary exhibition programme at the RBBM, this provided the opportunity to exhibit a series of editioned work inspired by Burns’ life and works.”
Inspired Editions runs daily at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway. Entry to the exhibition is free and a proportion of all sales from the museum will go to support the property.
The museum is a cultural hub for Ayrshire and beyond, attracting the best from the world of art, music and literature and presenting their works with irreverence and fun.
Along with the Auld Kirk and Brig o’ Doon, the cottage where Burns was born has been combined with the Burns Monument and the new award-winning museum building to form the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum. Generously supported by the Scottish Government and the Heritage Lottery Fund, the museum commemorates the life and works of Robert Burns.
Since opening to the public in December 2010, the museum has welcomed more than half a million visitors and has won a series of accolades including being selected as a finalist for the prestigious Art Fund prize, securing a five star rating from VisitScotland and being named as Horace Broon’s ‘new favourite place in Scotland’.
What art have I seen?
“Cheer up! It’s not the end of the world…” (or ‘we’re a’ doomed’)
at Edinburgh Printmakers
Ricky Allman, Martin Barrett, Gordon Cheung, Etienne Clement, Jake & Dinos Chapman, David Faithfull, Damien Hirst, Konstantin Kalinovich, Kris Kuksi, Lori Nix, Andy Warhol.
Curated by Norman Shaw and Sarah-Manning Shaw
W.A.G.E. – 7pm on 18 September, Glasgow
W.A.G.E. (Working Artists for the Greater Economy) are speaking at a public meeting at The Art School (New Vic) 468 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, at 7pm on 18 September on their ‘exhibition fees’ campaign.
There will be an introduction by Charlotte Prodger and Corin Sworn and an open discussion.
This event has been organised by Transmission and the Scottish Artists Union.
Circulate the poster WAGE event 180912
What art have I seen?
Attended an outstanding seminar with Tim Rollins and the K.O.S. at the Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh. Saw the exhibition being installed and the workshop working with Darwin’s Origin of Species.
What art have I seen?
Socrates Sculpture Park: last visit was in 2009. This time the summer is taken up by Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City, a show jointly put together with the Noguchi Museum. Civic Action includes projects by Mary Miss, Natalie Jeremijenko and xClinic, Rirkrit Tiravanija and George Trakas.
Quite a line up.
Civic Action, Photo Chris Fremantle
Various experiments in thinking about site, place, economy, conviviality and ecology. The projects started with discussions and seminars at the Noguchi Museum and have resulted in prototypes in Socrates.
Civic Action Curator, Amy Smith-Stewart states:
The exhibition at Socrates shows us what the neighborhood once was and what it could be. It asks questions. Why can’t the community reclaim its scenic riverfront? How can the cultural activity of the Park extend out beyond its immediate surroundings? Why does the ecology around us matter? And how can this place become an innovative district for artists, scientists and urban planners and how can the area improve the quality of life for New Yorkers?
What is Socrates: if a sculpture park is normally like a museum (ie looking after stuff), then Socrates is more like a contemporary art gallery (showing new ideas and installations) mixed with some aspects of a workshop (bringing communities into contact with artists). And its also a public park being used for walking, practising the trumpet and sitting in the sun.
The curatorial approach has also evolved. In the past it was perhaps more like a sculpture park as museum – some works installed for long periods, stand alone objects to be admired.
A publication for Civic Action would be good.
Civic Action, 2012, Photo Chris Fremantle
What Art have I seen?
Brandon Ballengée’s the Collapse: The Cry of Silent Forms at Ronald Feldman, NYC.
NB Ballanjee has put together significant amounts of background research into a series of ‘appendices’ available on Feldman’s.
What art have I seen?
Ellsworth Kelly Plant Drawing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
What art have I seen?
Richard Wright, Works on Paper, Kelvingrove Art Gallery with excellent documentation on the Modern Institute’s site.
Tim Rollins and John Ahearn
Spirit of the Bronx at Frieze New York – FT.com.
Tim Rollins and John Ahearn: the contradictions of earnest and ethically engaged artists interested in beauty being part of Frieze NY.
What art have I seen?
George Wyllie: A Life Less Ordinary, Collins Gallery, University of Strathclyde.
What Art have I seen?
Image from Electronic Arts Intermix
Mono Lake, Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson, CCA Glasgow
There is an excerpt at http://youtu.be/lwyE2DxaN40
Smithson created one of his nonsite works with materials collected on this trip.
What Art have I seen?
Image from Stills
Ship of Fools, Allan Sekula, at Stills in Edinburgh
What art have I seen?
Image from Gagosian website
Paul Noble’s Welcome to Nobson at Gagosian.
Image from Royal Academy website
Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915–1935 at the Royal Academy,
John Msinr RA, Installation in Weston Rooms at Royal Academy, Photo: Chris Fremantle
Artists’ Laboratory 04: John Maine RA After Cosmati
What art have I seen?
At the Wellcome Collection this morning:
Bill Fontana’s White Sound: an Urban Seascape;
Felicity Powell’s A Charmed Life: The Solace of Objects;
Infinitas Gracias: Mexian Miracle Paintings;
and at the Freud Museum, in addition to his collection of sculptures, Barbara Loftus’ Sigismund’s Watch: a tiny catastrophe.
What art have I seen?
Museum of Everything Exhibition #4 at Selfridges and Gerhard Richter at Tate Modern
What art have I seen? AHM State of Play
Ruth Ewan’s Brank & Heckle at Dundee Contemporary Arts.
There for the AHM State of Play symposium. Ross Sinclair’s rant by audio/powerpoint was very refreshing, Jean Urquhart MSP deserved a standing ovation and perhaps hit the nail on the head. The Manifestos were really good, especially Tara Beall’s.
Once again, and precisely because there was no policy agenda being promoted, one must think hard to understand the point. Most conferences are organised by bureaucracies seeking to promulgate their policy initiatives and secure adoption by practitioners. Conferences organised by practitioners tend to complicate and agitate.
So what were AHM attempting to complicate and agitate? The simple answer might be in Jean Urquhart MSP’s talk which ended with an invitation or a challenge for the artists to engage more directly with the political – get stuck in, get into the Parliament, get political, stop talking the talk and start walking the walk.
And this is probably true, although perhaps the ambition for AHM was more subtle and demonstrated through the one-minute manifestos. These were a platform for artists (in the broad sense) to articulate something, frankly anything, that they felt it was important to say. Over the three events, some were political, some humorous, some dadaist, some demonstrated their point through their form.
My manifesto was intended to set out what I think is important in doing what I do. I was glad to be able to be part of another two manifestos (in the end). I was part of Tim Collins Anthropocene Evolution Alliance and on the day I found myself being part of Tara Beall’s multivocal performance.
We all have stuff to say and we all believe that it matters.
What art have I seen?
Ingrid Calame at the Fruitmarket in Edinburgh
Martin Creed Work No. 1059, 2011
The Scotsman Steps, 2011, Photo: Chris Fremantle
Martin Creed Work No. 1059, 2011
Annandale Observer – News – 21st August 11
Merz, Sanquhar
Models and Metaphors: David Ruston at Merz in Sanquhar, Dumfries & Galloway
Images associated with the show at the Herbert on Flickr
Get a message from Simon Beeson on Facebook that he’s headed south after his annual pilgrimage to Edinburgh. Sorry to miss us. He says he stopped in Sanquhar to see David Rushton’s Merz exhibition – he provided a postcode. David Rushton was involved in Art & Language and now lives in Edinburgh. Curious, so on Sunday head East to Cumnock and then South East (intentionally overshooting to the Drumlanrig Cafe in Thornhill for good pizza and coffee) to Sanquhar. Just off the main street around a corner is a smallish, previously industrial, building. Simon had said something about lemonade.
David Rushton’s studio and exhibition space, called Merz, presumably in homage to Schwitters, is just fantastic. It has all the mod cons including a basement studio, an attic to sleep in, a wall that swings out to reveal a kitchenette, and a toilet and shower tucked at the other end. All of these are pushed as far to the edges of the building as possible, in Rushton’s description, to make the most space for exhibiting, perhaps 800 sq. ft. maybe less. There is a woodburning stove at the end of the gallery next to the desk.
He has temporarily installed Models and Metaphors – a show he had in Coventry – in this space.
I haven’t wrapped my head around the work yet, except for the piece (all the works are 1/24th scale vignettes) of a fictitious Pripayat Cultural Centre with major conceptual art works installed. This exhibition opened on 26th April 1986. It was immediately irradiated in the Chernobyl disaster, instantly making conceptual art once again of no financial worth.
What is the importance of art? Is its importance financial? Rushton clearly thinks not if he imagines irradiating his own generations’ best work. He also thinks not, if he chooses to locate himself in Sanquhar. But it is a brilliant place to be. And this is a brilliant space. And brilliant things are going to happen in it.
The only press coverage I could find was in the local paper Annandale Observer – News – 21st August 11.
Without question the most interesting things happen on the edge, in the rural, where it’s least expected.
What Art have I seen?
Michaelangelo Pistoletto at the Serpentine Gallery (and I found the secret door to the Bidoun Library).
Postcards to Japan
Express your support to the people of north east Japan by sending original A5 art work postcards.
After the major earthquake and tsunami in north east Japan on 11th March 2011 power supplies, land lines, mobile phone networks and internet access went down, making it extremely hard to contact family and friends to find out if they were safe.
The post office were quickly up and running again and in many cases the first news that loved ones were safe was by postcard.
Inspired by the wonderful impact postcards can have, we would like to invite artists and poets to send tangible messages of support to communities affected by the devastation by making A5 size original artwork or poetry postcards and posting them to:
“POSTCARDS TO JAPAN”
Ukishima Net,
Iwate, Iwate, Iwate,
028-4423,
Japan
We will collate all the postcards received into an exhibition to tour venues in north east Japan. There is no deadline, but if we have as many cards as possible by the end of May we can start putting on exhibitions. We also hope to publish a catalogue of the postcards received. Any profit made from the sale of catalogues would be donated to recovery projects in north east Japan.
Please look out for updates on http://www.ukishima.net If you have any questions please e-mail info@ukishima.net
What Art have I seen
Cedric Price, The Lighthouse;
Hidden Gardens;
Ulla von Brandenburg, The Common Guild,
Jeremy Millar, CCA
With some of ASN1 (and my mother for the first two)
What Art have I seen?
Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life
at the Wellcome Institute
with Liz Petrovitch
What Art have I seen?
Blueprint for a Bogey, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow
Followed by Chris Dooks’ talk on play as a creative strategy
CHRIS FREMANTLE 
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