“Everyone dances to their own personal boomboom”: 2017 final exhibition project

      

For our final project, we have worked all semester on our entry for the graduate exhibition (how quickly three years has gone!). My artist statement for this project:

“1917: Marcel Duchamp entered a urinal into an exhibition and changed the course of art history. He was a leading member of the Dadaist movement, which encouraged non-conformity, anarchy, nonsense and absurdity – as a rebuttal of bourgeois values and in response to the horrors of the First World War. He was also a chess Grandmaster. Chess is a game, some say a battle, bound by rigid rules and governed by ordered, rational thought. Quite a contradiction.

2017: My ceramic installation uses the metaphor of chess to comment on hierarchy, patriarchy, competition and warfare – disrupting the chess narrative and playfully referencing Dada’s most colourful artists, and their pioneering and innovative work.”

To accompany the exhibit, I created a booklet, which adds the following to my statement:

“I wanted to show a different way of being in the world, and the spirit of Dada was an apt vehicle for that. My installation is not “about” Dada and its artists. My aim is not to represent them – but insofar as they have inspired me, I thought some very brief background information on them might be interesting. Other figures are not specifically about Dada– they are just their own special creations.”

Here are the individual figures. For those that refer to Dada artists, I have named them, and more information about them can be found on the “Research: 2017 exhibition – Dada” page of this blog.

The figures are made from the following clays, or combinations of them: Red Raku, raku paper clay, Buff Raku Trachyte, paper clay, Abbots Red. The glazes were specifically chosen for their matt, dry, textured qualities; the recipes are from Jeremy Jernegan Dry glazes (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).

              

           

   

         

Tristan Tzara and Hugo Ball

        

Marcel Duchamp (with Eve Babitz)                                Sophie Taeuber

                 

Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven     Hannah Höch                                                   Kurt Schwitters

         

Robot                                                                              Tomb of the unknown artist

Making these little people has been a labour of love; I have become very fond of them. The project as a whole has been thoroughly enjoyable and full of stimulating learning – as has the entire degree course. I feel very lucky to have undertaken this at EIT, being able to make full use of the facilities (including workshops and a generous studio space) and most of all the knowledge, support and creativity of the tutors – to whom I say: tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou – ka mau koutou wehi!

I am moving on to the Masters programme next year, starting in February. I don’t know yet what I shall be focusing on, though it will certainly involve ceramics. Stay tuned!

 

Artists’ manifestos: my manifesto

For the latest module we have been studying artists’ manifestos – see my Ideas of the Year Research page: Artists’ manifestos. Our brief was to develop our own manifesto, inspired by what we discovered from others. We have been encouraged to look at ourselves, our principles and beliefs, what we are passionate about, what makes us “us” – and how this carries over into our art.

Unlike some of the artists I considered, I knew I wasn’t about to create a manifesto about what art should and shouldn’t be – that would have been premature and presumptuous. I thought about my political (with a small “p”) beliefs, how the world should be – world peace, caring for the environment, justice and equality for all, etc. However, since my art does not tend to be political in that sense, and since I wanted the manifesto to be no more than eight points, I decided to focus more on personal affirmation-type statements. Anyway, “the personal is political”, as the feminist mantra goes.

I came up with quite a long list, which I culled down to eight points, some of which directly refer to art, others are more inferential.

***********************

Julienne’s manifesto

I am already a winner. Out of millions of sperm, I won. (So did you.)

There are no paths – predetermined or “correct”. I create my own path, in art as in life.

All the choices I have made have ended up here  – the perfect place to leap forward from.

I intend to fully reclaim my natural curiosity and creativity, and take up every life-enhancing opportunity. That way lies art.

There is no pattern of behaviour so powerful that I can’t emerge from it. And no ceiling so high that I can’t break through it.

The beauty, creativity, courage, kindness and good deeds of ordinary people are the inspiration for my art. It contradicts the focus on the negative.

I want to celebrate the imperfect, the messy, the provisional, the human. I want to make art that makes people smile.

When I look at the stars I realise that nothing matters. And that everything matters.

***********************

My task then was to create an artefact which either reflected or incorporated my manifesto. I had been wanting to try printing onto clay, so I decided to produce my manifesto as a ceramic book. I did quite a lot of research into ceramic books (not a lot to be found) and into methods of printing on clay – especially screen printing as that is what I wanted to do. The brief for the artefact was that it should be reproducible, so that it can be sent to prospective employers; the advantage of screen printing is that it is endlessly reproducible, and provided I kept the artefact quite small, it would also be post-able – although a photo of it was also acceptable if not able to be posted.

The next step was to design my pages. I chose Bangla MN font – however I did not realise until too late that the computer had changed it to a different, finer font, which I’m unable to identify: it came out nicely on the screen, but a less fine font would have been easier with ceramic ink. I justified each verso page on the right and each recto page on the left – except the front and back pages, which are centred. I also realised, after the event, that somehow the layout of the pages had been changed changed, possibly due to the new font, so that the words begin on different lines to my original. Two of the pages (in Bangla MN):

           

For an account of how I experimented with clay surfaces, transfer papers and ceramic inks, and my process in getting to the final artefact, see my Ideas of the Year Research page “Printing on clay”. To summarise: I tried transfer printing, as the bisqued clay pages were not quite flat – but every method I tried did not provide a good and consistent image. I therefore made some new pages, in order to print directly onto them while still soft and pliable. I coated them in a lovely mauve slip, and added a hand print in white slip, before printing. (It was difficult to get rid of the lines made by the paintbrush when applying the slip, so I decided to make a feature of the lines by curving them.) Then I did the screen printing. I did eventually produce eight pages that at least have legible if rather faint text, but it took all day and many tries. I’m not sure what exactly the problem was; I need to experiment with a variety of different inks. After drying I bisqued then high-fired the pages:

The good news was that they didn’t crack in the kiln, and they have a really nice china-like feel to them. Two things that weren’t so good: firstly my lovely mauve slip (created by adding commercial stains to white slip – stains that are supposed to retain the colour of the unfired slip) turned a fairly dark red-pink, and the curvy brush marks are too dominant. Secondly the gently curled pages after the bisque firing, which I was pleased with, warped more than I wanted. This was because I had not supported them evenly enough in the kiln – lesson for next time.

I then tied them together with a leather thong – not easy, as two pages had been fired with the recto side up, and two with the verso side up – so that they curled in different directions. However there is something pleasing about the object, despite its flaws (well, flaws to me – they could be seen as deliberate characteristics). What pleases me is its tactile nature, more than its visual look.

I then thought about how to present the artefact, and how to protect it in the post. I made a box from MDF – a first attempt at this for me! – painted it black, and lined it with dark green velvet, using the hot glue gun (not very neatly):

      

The original idea had been to make a lid, but when I made the box I reckoned without the severe curl of the pages. So an open box it had to be. I thought about attaching ties to the sides and tying them across the book, but that didn’t look right. So… here is my finished artefact:

I decided to create a second artefact with the unused, previously bisqued and slip-coated pages. This time I wrote the manifesto by hand, using a standard glaze (Abbots variegated blue):

Despite fears that the glaze would run, making the text illegible, it held fast, perhaps because of the slip coating which gave it something to hold onto. Unfortunately this kind of glaze is too liquid to use for screen printing, but maybe it can be modified. The Robin’s Egg blue of the slip has turned sky blue – but it’s fine. As with the version above, I like the thin china feel to the pages, although these pages have also warped too much in the glaze firing. Overall, I prefer the screen printing of the text to handwriting – but handwriting may well be appropriate in other contexts, so this was a useful exercise.

In addition to the ceramic pages. I screen printed the manifesto onto coloured paper, which looks pretty; here are three pages:

          

I have very much enjoyed this project. It has been helpful to think in terms of a manifesto, particularly in relation to my art; it helped to clarify my thinking about what I do and why. I have also begun to learn about printing on clay, which I would like to pursue further, as it is a great complement to ceramics generally. I would like to thank my tutors for this project – and also Linda and Jill for their generosity with their time in helping me resolve issues around clay and printing respectively.

2017: Studio project completed

This was a great project, full of exposure to a wide range of ceramic artists, lots of experimentation and the creation of diverse figurative works. This was my final studio presentation:

              

I was deliberately aiming for a messy look, slightly echoing an archaeological excavation. As I said in my evaluation or the project: “”I feel that everything I have done has been ‘the work’; I could say that my studio has been my work. I have not progressed towards any particular artwork, and therefore have not wanted to prioritise any one piece over another. The exception is my head with the ladders, which occupies a place on its own, benignly presiding over the jumble that represents the way I have shifted my attention from one thing to another without a set structure – responding to ideas as they come up (and there is no shortage of ideas).”

I started the project with a rather strange desire to make severed heads – though their facial expressions were not tortured, but rather benign. My first piece I showed in my post on 28.3.17. This was followed by these:

This third piece was a sculpture made from a couple of scraps from the metal workshop. I learned the art of spot welding, so I could make little ladders.

I was getting “better” at creating heads and facial expressions. I decided to branch out into hands and feet; by the fourth hand, I was getting there. I thought the foot turned out well; I later applied a red ochre slip to it and the hand, which came out blotchy and darker than I wanted. I decided there would be little people emerging from the hand and foot – this proved difficult with ordinary clay so I turned to Sculpey (a polymer clay baked in the oven) – I discovered that twisting their limbs into spiral shapes was easier than modelling legs and arms, but I liked the effect.

       

My body parts theme culminated in the creation of a head. I modelled it on my own head, but at some point it stopped looking like me – more like a generic old man (lack of hair maybe?) so I enlarged the ears and nose and gave him some temple veins and brow furrows to accentuate this. I tried a number of possibilities for what comes out of his head; in the end I decided on just ladders – makes it more ambiguous. A tutor also suggested (rightly) that the little figures detracted from the essence of the head.

         

Meanwhile throughout the project I had various other ideas on the go, including a range of people in cages (not very successful) or emerging from walls (second one looks like an 18th century aristocrat; low-fire bubble glaze). My shovel piece came about because of my early failures in creating little people from clay so I decided to produce a lot of them. I’m not sure where this Hieronymus Bosch theme came from, but by the end of the project I had pretty well worked it out of my system.

         

Having got rid of my urge for decapitation, I turned my attention to rather more pleasant figures, creating a couple of small bird baths, and starting on a chess set. While these are hardly in tune with contemporary art, and were not a fundamental part of my project, there is something that feels very much “me” about these, and I think I will go on to explore them further.

           

Also throughout the project were my experiments. A few examples:

1     2   3   4   

5   6   7

1. Adding black sand from the beach onto the surface of the clay or mixed into the clay body

2. Making various textured slips with oxides and firing test pieces

3. Coating various pieces of fabric or natural objects in slip and firing them

4. and 5. Firing some of these slip-coated objects and other items with my oxide slips

6. A black-sand covered test bowl with cobalt oxide slip – nice

7. Slip-coated leaves with various surface slips and glazes

 

The National: New Australian art [exhibition]. Part 1: Introduction + Carriageworks

Introduction to the exhibition

This exhibition provides a major overview of contemporary art created in Australia, showing over three galleries. I have covered the exhibition in three posts, one for each gallery. The photos are mine, and the quotes are from the either exhibition catalogue or the wall notes (unless otherwise stated). I have selected the 14 works (from 48 artists) that most absorbed me (I could have highlighted many more, but that would have made my account too long).

2017 is a significant year for Australia, being the 50th anniversary of the inclusion for the first time of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the census, and thus being counted as people (as late as 1967!!). Aboriginal issues are prominent throughout the exhibition. Indeed, although not planned that way, 20% of the artists in the exhibition are Aboriginal; it was pleasing that they are there as “contemporary Australian artists”, not solely as “Aboriginal artists” (even though they might identify as such).

The exhibition catalogue contains some excellent writing – although my one criticism is that the three curators in their essays have used fairly dense, academic language, which would be fine for academic journals – but in my opinion a catalogue for a public exhibition should be written in a style which is actually accessible to the public. I have attempted to briefly summarise the thrust of their [considerably more complex and extensive] positions.

The exhibition, they say, is about what it means to make art today in an Australian context – not to define Australian art, or find commonalities or tendencies. Indeed, calling it “The National” is provocative, since the concept of Australia as a “nation” is in fact a fiction, an identity which has been taken up but which is open to question. Therefore, the exhibition explores concepts and experiences of place and history, which vary according to race, gender, class and location. It challenges the dominant, European view of history, which is linear and unified, and which is used to justify power relationships; instead it spotlights and re-evaluates marginal histories, including an indigenous perspective. Similarly, rather than considering Australia as one place, the artists “assert the particularities of place and situated experience”. Rather than a coherent, consistent, essentialist notion of “Australian” identity, identity is understood as socially and culturally constructed, subjective and fluid. The artists are “eroding longstanding archetypes” and “unravelling Australia’s foundational narratives”.

While much of the exhibition is concerned with issues of colonisation, dispossession and exploitation, in a way that is sometimes subtle but often quite forceful, there is definitely a feeling that, as the curators put it, there is “potential for reinvention… [and] new forms of connection”. Through their artwork, the artists are recovering agency – that is, they are taking back power and control through exploring marginalised histories and narratives, espousing pluralism, and using art as a form of social and political transformation.

The artists are thus “creating alternative histories, subjectivities and cartographies that more faithfully communicate the truth of their lived experience”, though “truth” is acknowledged to be partial, provisional and open to challenge. As Nina Miall, curator from Carriageworks, puts it: “Rather than a singular, coherent selfhood, we should be seeking to create an Australia of multi-centred identities that, like Archie Moore’s varied and paradoxical flags, celebrate the ambiguity, difference and uncertainty defining belonging, now and into the future”.

I have focused here on the what and why of the exhibition, rather than the how, the analysis of contemporary artistic practice. One point: installations, video and works that combine two- and three-dimensionality predominate; there is little in the way of conventional painting or sculpture. The curators do not claim that the exhibition is representative of art practice in Australia generally; clearly it reflects their own priorities. But I think they are to be commended for putting together a thoroughly stimulating, varied and dynamic exhibition.

The first gallery I have covered is Carriageworks; although there was much of interest here, only two works made my final  selection, both by Aboriginal artists.

Archie Moore

        

United Neytions (2017) [Photos: http://thecommercialgallery.com/artist/archie-moore/exhibition/812/archie-moore-united-neytions%5D

Early colonists were preoccupied with trying to establish Aboriginal tribal boundaries, based on European notions of boundaries such as fences and buildings. Finding little physical evidence of these, and believing that the indigenous people were simply aimless nomads, they generally assumed the land was terra nullius (unoccupied) and this justified their wholesale appropriation of the land with a clear conscience. Yet of course there had always been recognised “mental imaging” of boundaries through geographical landmarks and ancestral and spiritual affiliation.

In 1900, self-styled anthropologist R.H. Mathews published a map purporting to delineate the boundaries of 28 “nations”. While the map was full of flaws and misunderstandings and generally discredited at the time (for example significantly underestimating the number of “tribes” and clans, it was at least an attempt to show sovereignty and nationhood (and it has been used by Aboriginal groups more recently to try to prove ownership). Archie Moore has taken the map, and devised 28 flags, using local flora and fauna and symbols and patterns associated with each area. However he calls these “false flags” – the intention is not to give credence to the “truth” of the map, but rather to debunk it, along with the writing of Aboriginal history by white “experts” andthe imposition of European notions about ownership in general – and to highlight the absurdity of nationalism. The mis-spelling “Neytions” refers to the inaccuracies of Mathews’ map.

Karla Dickens

        

Bound (2015) Fabric, embroidery, miscellaneous items.

From a distance, Bound looks like an haute couture array of fashionable jackets. They are in fact actual straight jackets, beautifully adorned with embroidery and diverse found materials such as combs, cows’ teeth and greyhound muzzles – the use of found materials and collage being the cornerstones of Dickens’ practice. “Emanating other-worldly spirits, these perplexing compositions articulate some of the reasons why women stay in abusive relationships. These, Dickens maintains, are addiction, beauty myths, children, land, marriage and money” [http://www.karladickens.com.au/collection/black-and-blue/]. Herself a survivor of abuse and addiction, Dickens’ work is both political and a way of resolving personal issues. Accompanying the work is a poem:

The National. Part 2: Museum of Contemporary Art

I have highlighted five artists from the MCA section of the exhibition, plus the stunning Kader Attia exhibition elsewhere in the gallery. Quotes are from the exhibition catalogue; photos are my own. [Scroll up and down for Parts 1 and 3.]

Khadim Ali

The arrival of the demons (2017). 15×7 metre mural running up the entrance staircase of the MCA.

The figures, based on the hero Rostam from the tenth century epic poem Shahnameh, are depicted as waiting silently, amid a scene at first glance the fires of hell, but on closer inspection in fact eucalyptus foliage as illustrated in the Australian passport. Ali, a Hazara from Afghanistan who finally received his passport in 2015 after six years, is commenting on the marginalisation and the “interminable, soul-destroying waiting… which Australia demands of those seeking refuge here” (p.52). There is also a referencing of the demonisation of refugees and other immigrants. Despite this serious intent however, the mural and its (to me) avuncular figures made me (and others I witnessed) smile; it feels full of human warmth -which in fact adds to rather than detracts from the message.

Matthew Bradley

     

One hundred vessels (2015-) Cast bronze and aluminium, and home-made casting equipment

This immediately appealed to me, because I love collections of objects, especially ones that are “imperfect” and have little practical function; the suggestion of a “museum of historical metalwork”.  As an on-going project, towards the acquisition of a self-taught skill, it is a “process-driven performance artwork”; the experiments and mistakes encountered along the way are all part of the creative process, as is the equipment itself: they are the artwork. According to the catalogue, Bradley fears that “human existence has been made vulnerable on too many fronts to maintain its current ‘mode’ of stability”. Collapse is imminent. Yet “From our scraps something might yet be cast”.

In the context of the overall theme of the exhibition, national identity/identities, I also see something about the drive towards, but the impossibility of, forging a single, “perfect” identity.

Ronnie van Hout

     

I know everything (2017). Installation of figures made from cast polystyrene, polyurethane and  fibreglass, with three videos.

Van Hout, a New Zealander living in Australia, is well-known for his self-portraiture, often in abject or unsettling poses. Here his adult face on children’s pyjama-clad bodies suggests a loss – or a lack – of the innocence and optimism associated with childhood and adolescence. The unsmiling, world-weary figure sitting on the toilet, fag in hand, is oblivious to and unmoved by the viewer, which leads to the frisson of slightly appalled voyeurism. The videos, also featuring the artist “trying on different identities, seeing how they fit”, reference popular horror films, played out in the (literal and metaphorical) darkness of the installation setting. As with all van Hout’s work, the tendency to find it all humorous is undercut by the unnerving qualities of the work.

Nell

    

Mother of the dry tree (2017), synthetic polymer paint on linen and wood; With things being as they are… (2017), collection of beings and objects, some on Japanese tatami mats.

I found this installation charming. Nell (she doesn’t use a surname) has influences ranging from Buddhism to rock and roll, and typically replaces human forms with egg-shaped ones that suggest “creation and the potential for life – fragile and robust at the same time”. The mother-child couplings have biblical references; the whole work is a statement of “her own blended spiritual practice and personal philosophy about gratitude and appreciation for the little things in life, with a strong dose of humour thrown in” – yet also touching on loss, grief and death. Like so many of the installations in this exhibition, there is movement between two and three dimensionality, between different disciplines, which I found enhanced the experience.

Zanny Begg

       

The City of Ladies (2016).  Seven short films produced in collaboration with Paris-based film director Elise McLeod, imagined and performed by young French women of different ethnicities, interspersed with interviews with various international feminists. The linking thread between the stories is the young women meeting up at a Paris demonstration. Some scenes are set against a backdrop of the wallpaper above, figures from which also appear in the films. There is a non-linear structure, so that in each showing of the work the fragments are combined in different ways (300,000 possibilities); each of the twenty minute films therefore provides a different focus, different perspectives on what contemporary feminism is about. The project was inspired by the book The City of Ladies, a feminist utopia written by Christine de Pizan in 1402.

“Zanny Begg is a Sydney based artist and film maker who is interested in exploring the archeology of contested history/ies and the architecture of social change. She works with film, drawing and installation to explore ways in which we can live and be in the world differently: this has included working with macro-political themes, such as ante-globalization protests, and in micro-political worlds, such as with kids in prison.” (www.zannybegg.com)

I found this work very powerful – unfortunately there was not enough time to view more than a couple of 20-minute sequences. The performances, including the choreography, are very beautiful. A short film with an interview with the artist and some clips from the work can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx6c4L3jMu8.

Other: Kader Attia

The MCA is hosting a major exhibition of this Algerian-French artist, comprising several installations. As well as an exploration of issues around the relationship between Europe and non-Western nations after decolonisation, including cultural exchange, a major theme of his work is about injury and repair. This is highlighted in a film as part of the exhibition, Reflecting memory (2016), on the phenomenon of phantom limb. Two of the installations which blew me away are shown below; note that both are in the semi-dark, not reflected in these photos – this enhanced their mystery and uncanny quality

     

Ghost (2007/2017) Aluminium foil sculptures.

The sculptures were made by moulding aluminium foil around actual bodies, then removing the foil. “Absence and presence are persistent themes within Kader Attia’s art. On approach, Ghost appears to be a huddled mass of bodies, but they are revealed as empty shells when viewed from behind. The relationship of emptiness and fullness has preoccupied religious scholars and philosophers for centuries; as the artist observes, the void left by the figures in Ghost is as important as the surrounding forms.” [Gallery wall statement]

     

J’accuse (2016). Axe-hewn teak busts and legs on steel mounts; video extract from French film-maker Abel Gance’s horror film J’accuse (1938), made in response to the carnage of WW1 and in anticipation of WW2.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The National Part 3: Art Gallery of New South Wales

AGNSW’s section of the exhibition had the most artworks that I particularly liked, and I have selected seven artists from the exhibition here – all not only great works of art but with fascinating stories behind them. There were plenty of other discoveries in the rest of the gallery too, including paintings from Australia’s art history, which was educational and mirrored NZ’s art history; the Aboriginal art collection, which I found wondrously diverse (knowing little about it beyond the traditional designs); and some further contemporary artworks.

Scroll up for Parts 1 and 2. Quotes are from the exhibition catalogue or the wall notes, and photos are my own.

Yhonnie Scarce

     

Death zephyr (2016-17). Hand-blown glass, nylon thread, steel armature.

At first glance, this is an incredibly beautiful work, crystals floating across the gallery in a melifluous cloud. The meaning is much more sombre and sinister. The artist grew up in Australia’s vast militarised test-firing  zone, the Woomera Range. This abuts the restricted zone still contaminated by the British nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950s and 1960s – as does her maternal grandfather’s Country. The effects of the tests on local indigenous communities has been suppressed, although “Many attribute sickness and death to the radioactive black mist that moved noiselessly across the desert” – quite apart from the forced displacement of those communities. It is fitting that Scarce’s medium is glass, transforming sand through intense heat, just as the bombs crystallised the desert sands.  “A momento mori, if you will, to an industrial contempt for human life.” The shapes reference the traditional bush foods of the Aboriginal people: long yams, bush bananas and bush plums – now contaminated for all time.

Taloi Havini

  

Habitat (2017). Multi-channel digital video.

Another environmental disaster, this time the abandoned Panguna copper mine in the artist’s native Bougainville (an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea). Whole villages were relocated, receiving a pittance in royalties in compensation for their land. Since the mine was closed in 1989 (after a local rebellion), people struggle to make a living from the devastated and toxic environment left behind, growing crops and prospecting for meagre amounts of gold. A combination of aerial and tracking shots across three screens produce a beautiful, ethereal, painterly effect which belies the havoc wreaked on the inhabitants by the Australian company responsible, Conzinc Rio Tinto.

Gunybi Ganambarr

        

Coastline of Grindall Bay (2016)      Milnjurr (2016)           Gapu (2017)                                                        Details + Buyku (2016)

Sand, natural pigments on bark     Galvanised steel         Rubber                                                                  Hollow logs, natural pigments

The artist, from remote northeast Arnhem Land, balances respect for traditional artistic protocols with innovation, often using found materials. Here he is commenting on the changes brought about by local mining and associated building projects. Coastline of Grindall Bay represents an aerial view of the saltwater estate of Garrapara,  significant for maintaining clan relationships, including the resolution of disputes. The miny’tji (sacred clan designs) which decorate the works have denoted ownership and responsibility for the land for centuries. Milnjurr and Gapu  make use of discarded industrial remnants; Gapu is made from an old conveyor belt used to transport minerals from the Nhulunbuy bauxite mine and alumina refinery away from the area – and hence it becomes a symbol of the dispossession of land and resources. Once again I am struck by the great beauty of the artworks dealing the ugly side of colonisation, industrialisation and corporate greed.

Megan Cope

    

RE FORMATION Part 3 (Dubbagullee) (2017) Hand cast concrete oyster shells, black sand, copper slag

Yet again a reference to the dispossession and capitalist exploitation of land and resources. The huge Dubbagullee midden was located where the Sydney Opera House now stands; it is one of many middens destroyed by the early settlers  (burning the shells for lime for mortar, and building over the area) and thus wiping away connections to the Ancestors and sites of ceremonial significance – as well as the villages and their communities. “Cope thinks of middens as a form of Aboriginal architecture. They are man-made structures that trace a record of occupation and culture over many centuries, debunking the colonial claim that Australia was terra nullius, or unoccupied territory.” Yet the intention of the artist is not simply to describe dispossession, but to reclaim concepts and spaces “autonomous of Western frameworks of being and knowing”.

The work reminds me of some of Ai Weiwei’s artworks (such as Sunflower seeds), which also refer to injustice, exploitation and environmental damage, though in a very different context.

Keg de Souza

    

Changing courses (2017). Vacuum-locked bags, dehydrated local produce.

De Souza is known for her architectural structures, in which events take place – conversations on relevant topics, with a sharing of knowledge. Changing courses relates to the changes in Sydney’s food culture brought about by colonisation, urbanisation, gentrification and immigration – and the associated displacement of people. It connects “food, place, identity and domestic life”.

Without at first knowing of the more negative meaning, I felt the work to be a wonderful celebration of the diversity of Australian communities and their contribution to the national menu – and perhaps it is also that. It is, too, a reminder of how the creative imagination can assemble everyday objects into a monument of great beauty and interest. But I also had the feeling that this place of shelter – perhaps a metaphor for a home, a city or a country – can in fact be quite flimsy; perhaps it is food, or rather the sharing of food, that can unite and sustain it.

Tom Nicholson

        

Comparative monument(Shellal) (2014-17) Framed mosaics, boxes, video.

During WW1, Australian soldiers fighting the Ottomans discovered a sixth-century mosaic from a Christian church in Palestine. They dug it up and shipped it back to Australia, where it is now embedded in the wall of the Australian War Memorial. Artist Napier Waller was commissioned to produce a complementary mosaic to reach to dome; he used an alternative art deco colour range. Nicholson’s concept was to propose a new Shellal mosaic using the tiles from the original Waller mosaic, to be shipped to Gaza, as reparation for the original theft. As a symbolic substitute he has therefore made (or rather, two craftsmen from Jericho made) replicas of the original Shellal mosaic using Waller’s colour scheme – with the addition of some Australian flora and fauna. These reconstituted mosaic segments are being boxed up, apparently ready for shipment. Accompanying these is a video with archival footage of the mosaic being dug up, as well as the present location in what is now Israel, and featuring the Bedouin activist Nuri el-Okbi, who makes parallels between the loss of the mosaic and the loss of Palestinian lands.

I found this a fascinating story, conveyed in an imaginative multi-media way. I was also struck by the idea that reparation can be done, if not literally, then by symbolic means, which at least acknowledge the commission of past wrongs.

Helen Johnson

     

Empire play (2016). Synthetic polymer paint on canvas.

Helen Johnson’s paintings challenge white myths about Australia’s colonial past. They draw on historical and contemporary sources such as prints, political cartoons and films, portraying life-size generic archetypes, both representative of, or agents of,  European power and privilege, and other more lowly characters. “More suggestive than didactic, Johnson’s layered compositions deftly play with framing, legibility and perspective to undermine the idea of historical certainty.”

There are no notes to explain the meaning of Empire play, other than the general description of the body of her work (there are three paintings in this exhibition). The background drawing includes an explorer and land surveyor, and someone holding a cup with what seems to be freemason symbol. The four women I assume are transported convicts; the reverse of Johnson’s paintings contain scribbled notes and sketches related to her research for the paintings, and this one includes a judge, and a note “bound for Botany Bay”. Three of the women are on their knees, perhaps pleading not to be sent? Or giving thanks for deliverance from the nightmare journey at the other end? Two Roman centurions watch over them, presumably a reference to imperialist power. In her signature style, the artist has provided the painted figures with the barest of facial features, so that they remain generic: is the meaning here that we of European heritage are all implicated in colonisation, or that these women represent the victims of injustice too?

Johnson uses an interesting painting technique: for example she uses paint-soaked garments to push the paint into the canvas. The paintings are hung loose from the ceiling, like theatre backdrops (and the title of this one is Empire play); this makes the viewer an actor on the stage, rather than a passive bystander.

 

Gibbs Farm

Looking out across man-made structures in Kaipara Harbour

A great day out at Gibbs Farm, on the Kaipara Harbour; beautiful weather and stunning views. Alan Gibbs, billionaire, has been commissioning site-specific sculptures from some of the world’s greatest artists (including New Zealanders) since he bought the land in 1991. Sadly it is only open to the public a few days a year, and it is very difficult to get a place. However I was fortunate enough to attend a fundraising day for two Auckland art galleries.

Twenty of the sculptures are available for public view; it’s disappointing that others are in private areas. However of those twenty, there are some star attractions; here are my top four – my own photos.

Ansih Kapoor  Dismemberment, Site 1   2009

  

This structure, 85 metres long, lies Gulliver-like in a Lilliputian landscape. It consists of a PVC membrane stretched between two giant steel ellipses. Kapoor has made similar structures elsewhere, including Marsyas shown at Tate Modern in 2003. A video of its making can be seen at http://gibbsfarm.org.nz/kapoorvideo.php – an amazing feat of design, engineering and construction. Kapoor says of this work:

“I have now made a number of ‘Dismemberment’ works of which ‘Site I’ is the most significant. ‘Dismemberment’ refers to a taking apart of a body. In much sculpture in the landscape body and land are seen as synonymous with each other. Dismemberment ritualises this connection. The aborigines of Australia have an understanding that the land is connected in this way with a ritual origin. For me this then means that the sculpture is some how essentially connected with this place. It is therefore no longer ‘just’ an object in the landscape. In this work there are a number of dismemberments. There is the dismemberment of the site. There is the dismemberment between the object and the site. Even if this is the way in which the sculpture cannot be fully perceived from any one vantage point. The verticality of sculpture is turned into the horizontality of landscape quite literally in this work giving another disjunction or dismemberment. This can be seen as an internal fracture in the sculpture.”

Neil Dawson Horizons  1994

   

New Zealand artist Neil Dawson is best-known for his monumental public artworks – some of which, like Horizons, are optical illusions when viewed from particular vantage points. Horizons is in fact all on one curved plane; see a YouTube video for a closer look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVnTbuocmZw

According to the Gibbs Farm brochure Horizons suggests a giant piece of corrugated iron blown in from a neighbouring farm. I have always thought of it as a piece of paper, but I guess corrugated iron makes more sense.

Richard Serra Te Tuhirangi Contour 2001

   

From the brochure: “Serra’s 56 Corten steel plates [each 252mx6mx50mm] lean out by 11 degrees from the vertical and trace a single contour line across the land in a way that, in the artist’s words, ‘collects the volume of the land’.”

Discovering the meaning of Te Tuhirangi brought the sculpture’s sinuous, flowing form more sharply into focus for me. “The taniwha Tuhirangi accompanied the legendary explorer Kupe on his voyage of discovery to New Zealand.” [http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/postage-stamp/10892/tuhirangi] A taniwha, according to Māori legend, is a spirit inhabiting rivers and the sea, often portrayed as a snake-, lizard- or dragon-like creature, and can be either a guardian or a dangerous being. Standing under the massive leaning structure, you certainly get a sense of this dual meaning.

Bernar Venet 88.5º ARCx8  2012

Corten steel, 8 arcs each 27×0.75×0.75m. The arcs were conceived as a contrast to the horizontal planes of the land and sea which surround the sculpture on its hilltop location. The brochure quotes another of Venet’s ideas: “I am thinking about the sunrises and sunsets, and the golden light that steeps the Corten steel in red and brown hints.”  At five years old, the steel has gained its beautiful rust colour; in another ten, it will have the chocolate hues of Te Tuhirangi Contour above.

I had never heard of Venet, a French artist. He has been profoundly interested in mathematics and science, and many of his sculptures are derived from the line. “My sculpture is based on concepts that appear to be divergent, but which in the context of my activity organize themselves in a complementary manner: order and disorder, the determinate and indeterminate. We know that matter, nature, and life organize themselves according to complementary principles (organization, disorganization), and my work is no exception to this universal model.” [http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag04/may04/venet/venet.shtml] His works are thus a balance of control and randomness.

Like Dismemberment, Site 1, Venet’s monumental works are a considerable feat of engineering. Each arc appears to be standing on the tip of one edge of its base, but in fact there is a massive underground foundation. “According to the importance of the project and the installation difficulties that I expect to encounter, I sometimes create several different models. I then choose the one that best corresponds to the site and to the limits that I must work within. The role of the engineers is limited to ‘wind testing’ problems, especially for my big vertical arcs, which are subject to vibration phenomena (galloping). They also study the volume of the foundations and other technical details that I know nothing about.” [http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag04/may04/venet/venet.shtml]

2017: studio project

Our first project this year is a studio-based one. I have chosen ceramics as my medium, and have three aims for the project:

1.  To investigate the properties of different kinds of clay and the effects of combining it with different substances, and various techniques for working with it.

2. To create a body of work, especially figurative but also sculptural and functional, developing my skills and exploring themes.

3. To research the theory and practice of contemporary ceramics and ceramic artists, and to continue to explore the concerns and concepts of contemporary art in general – and to link this to my own practice.

I am currently working on a large number of pieces; my main problem is narrowing down the focus of the project: I get so excited about all the wonderful work out there I want to try everything.

           

This was the first finished thing I made. The heads are earthenware paper clay; they were bisque-fired to 950 degrees, skewered on the galvanised barbed wire, which at this temperature has remained intact but turned a nice rust colour, with traces of the burnt galvanised coating remaining. I am particularly interested in amalgamating metal into clay work.

Ton me, the work  is ambiguous in its meaning, though of course it has many associations: crown of thorns, relics, head-hunting trophies, momento mori – and the necklace of human heads worn by the Hindu goddess Kali, signifying the destruction of the ego (an act of compassion).

End of year exhibition

For my end of year exhibition I created an installation called “Conversation”, using the plaster and ceramic pieces from the previous post.

   

Plaster, clay slip, PVA, hessian, wire netting        Plaster, silica flour, PVA, hessian, wire netting

Clay, red oxide wash                                                           Paper clay, clay slip, soft toy

   

Sawdust, flour, PVA, plaster, newspaper, wire netting   Plaster, clay slip, PVA hessian, wire netting

Clay, clay slip                                                                                            Clay; plaster, cheesecloth, wire netting; plaster on fabric, ball of wool

My sculpture creates a conversation between the contrasting states of alienation and connection. The installation contains figures that are not physically “perfect”, “finished” or “whole”, but may be distressed (in the material sense), fractured or fragmented, ambiguous, in a transitional state, or even abject. They may be containers for states of loss, melancholy or despair, or metaphors for a fragile or deconstructed humanity. These figures are juxtaposed with others who evince another kind of humanity – albeit an awkward, imperfect and idiosyncratic one; are they attempting to create connections with their fellow beings?

I am interested in the capacity for humanity and kindness in ordinary people (the “little people”), with all their quirky imperfections (rather than “saints” or “heroes”), as a counterbalance to the seemingly huge and overwhelming cruelty, bigotry and turmoil of the current zeitgeist. Ultimately however the unexpected relationship between the figures creates an ambiguous dynamic: is the relationship comfortable, tender, reassuring, or is it one of curiosity, bafflement and mutual incomprehension  – or alternatively one replete with tension and dissonance? Or do the contrasting states of despair and humanity cancel each other out?

My work fits with the contemporary cultural perspective of fragmentation and provisionality. The materials I choose to work with, plaster, clay and papier maché, complement this aesthetic, as “base”, down-to-earth, fragile materials; the “hand of the artist” is palpable. This follows on from the practice of figurative sculptors such as Kiki Smith, Mary Frank, Stephen de Staebler and Varda Yatom – with the pathos and poignancy of others like Francis Upritchard.

Conversation

Hello.

HHHUPHRGGRUMmmmmphhhh….

…………?

Um… are you all right?

Postmodern anguish… we are thrown into an alien and unresponsive universe, barred forever from knowing why yet required to invent meaning… living authentically with the meaningless of life is impossible … to be sick unto death is to be unable to die, yet not as if there were hope of life; no, the hopelessness is that there is not even the ultimate hope, death…… no objective order or structure … all values are baseless … reason is impotent… no true world…  life is nothing alienatedindifferent…   incredulity towards….. explodes into….. collapse of..….. decay and disinteg……… epistemological cul-de……… pain and continge……….  desp…………….  brsss……………… grimph………….  nnnnn……………………  mmmmmm…….. phhhhhhhh…………………..

………….?

Would you like to cuddle my teddy?

AAARRRGHHHHH!!!

 ..………..

 OK.

Plastered…

This semester I have spent many happy hours puddling about in plaster of paris, muddling along in clay and getting a little bogged down in papier maché, in preparation for our class exhibition. In a complete change of direction from last semester (abstract painting), I focused on the human figure.  A few examples here:

  

Plaster and silica flour on hessian on wire netting armature

  

Plaster and silica flour on hessian on wire netting armature

Plaster and clay slip on hessian on wire netting armature

Works in clay:

     

                      

1                 2  

1    Papier maché & clay slip on wire netting armature.

2    Sawdust, PVA glue, flour and water on wire netting & papier maché armature.

I also did some monoprints, creating masking tape figures on the plate and inking over them; several different colours were used, for example:

   

  

My artist’s statement:

My studio practice has involved the creation of figures that are not physically “perfect”, “finished” or “whole”, but may be distressed (in the material sense), fractured or fragmented, ambiguous, in a transitional state (emerging or degrading), or even bordering on the abject. They may be containers for states of loss, melancholy or despair, or metaphors for a fragile or deconstructed humanity. On the other hand some may be the opposite: quirky, tender figures who evince humanity – albeit an awkward, imperfect and idiosyncratic humanity, manifesting pathos, in the true sense of the word. I am interested in the relationship between these two states – whether they can co-exist comfortably in the same space, or whether this creates a tension, or produces a dissonance – or whether they cancel each other out. The placement of the figures plays with this dynamic; the viewer is invited to consider which of these effects is evoked. What is the difference – and the relationship – between pathos and bathos?

The long tradition of figurative sculpture in Western art at least until the late nineteenth century aimed to celebrate the “ideal” human body, inspire religious devotion, promote established values and systems, commemorate the nation state and its empire and the great and the good within it. All this was rejected by Modernism – and to a large extent figurative sculpture with it. The re-emergence of figurative sculpture over the last three decades or so has a decidedly different agenda to Western tradition, and my work fits within this new cultural perspective: fragmentation, alienation and provisionality. I have been influenced by a number of contemporary sculptors, such as Lucile Bertrand, Kiki Smith, Mary Frank, Stephen de Staebler, Claire Curneen, to mention but a few – but there were earlier precursors who have also been significant, in particular Auguste Rodin, Merdado Rosso and Alberto Giacometti – and the non-finito statues of Michelangelo.

A quote illustrates the point: “By portraying the body as fragmented and incomplete – an aesthetic first embraced by Auguste Rodin in the late 19th century – De Staebler renounces classical idealism’s flawless corporeality in favour of depicting the body as inextricably bound by the human condition. As this condition is contingent on its own mortality, De Staebler’s bodies are inscribed with a palpable melancholy, even suffering, and evoke a sense of searching or yearning.” http://www.allartnews.com/exhibition-of-bronze-sculptures-by-the-late-artist-stephen-de-staebler

My use of plaster, clay and papier maché – “base”, down-to-earth materials – reflects this contemporary philosophy. While they can be used to create “perfect”, truly mimetic artworks, in their rough, unpolished state they express exactly the desired quality of provisionality, of becoming or degrading. It is easy to see the “hand of the artist”, again echoing a contemporary rather than a traditional, classical stance.  In addition, I am interested in exploring how these media can be used, what for example can be combined with plaster or papier maché to achieve different effects, how it adheres to different surfaces and fabrics (hessian being a current favourite, for its rough-hewn “bandaged” look).

Beyond the art world, my sculptures have other resonances: golmim (golems), prehistoric figurines, Egyptian mummies, the casts of bodies entombed in Pompeii, and of course victims of war (The English Patient comes to mind).