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    Found Objects 06/08/12

    August 6, 2012

    Some athletically aggregated art links for the week. (That’s the only Olympics reference here):

    • Like most nurses, C-Monster’s Art Nurse could surprise you with her technical knowledge. Here she is advising on a tricky restoration project
    • This sculptural installation looks good on screen. Is that a strength of the photographer or a strength of Robert Morris, or both?
    • Frank Stella’s recent work also holds up well. So if you can’t get to New York for his show, please avail yourself of this link.
    • This is odd, in the way the 21st century is odd. A Chinese website is ripping off lesser known Western artists with little hope of redress.
    • The video for this precocious rapper‘s debut single brings Ryan Trecartin to mind. Could the video artist have predicted Glass Popcorn?
    • If you want to find a way round planning regs, maybe call your proposed backyard structure art. Chris Burden does just that.
    • Jonathan Jones goes weak at the cultural knees for the richest collection of modern art outside Europe and the US. It’s, improbably, in Iran.
    • One more unlikely cultural story. Psychopathic hippy Charles Manson becomes subject of a new musical. Looking forward to the posters on the tube.
    • This’ll make you want to have a go. Art Fag City also blogs about Book-Spine poetry by Nina Katchadourian.
    • Infographics are getting a bit tedious. Or am I just annoyed that some of these 10 Famous Visual Artists on Art Info were a bit tricky? Hmm.

    20th century, contemporary art, dance, film installation

    Linda Remahl, Mien (2012)

    August 1, 2012

    Peeping through holes at ladies dancing is not the main prospect which comes to mind when you plan a gallery visit. And to see Remahl’s work, men will have to stoop.

    But your sense of decorum is just about preserved when you realise that this peephole only features some arty, black and white, jump cut choreography: fully clothed.

    The headphones are a lot more comfortable (and fill your head with some reassuring gypsy folk rather than, thankfully, a wakka chikka porno groove).

    Mien is a response to the poetry of Galician writer Xelis de Toro, whose book in translation, Invisible Bridges, has inspired an entire exhibition here in Brighton.

    So Remahl’s work reminds us that good writing may be seen as dancing with the pen. And the pen is surely not merely a pen, anymore than a cigar is just a cigar.

    But the apparent frivolity of dance is a stumbling block for serious poetry or prose, like the stance of anarchist Emma Goldman: “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”

    And what if there is an element of sleaze about all dance, ergo about all writing? That might explain why the famous 1913 performance of Rites of Spring degenerated into a riot.

    No one likes to be confronted with their voyeurism, least of all the grand bourgeois of pre-War Paris. They would recognise Remahl’s work for what it is, a gentle scandal of sorts.

    The Book of Invisible Bridges can be seen at Phoenix, Brighton, until August 14 2012. See gallery website for opening times, directions and full programme of supporting activity.

    aggregation, contemporary art

    Found Objects 31/07/12

    July 31, 2012

    For your enjoyment and perusal:

    • Na na na na-na-na nah, Ai Jude! China’s dissident art superstar gave the thumbs up to Britain’s opening ceremony for the 2012 London Games.
    • Blogger Catherine Baker was more circumspect, but makes a number of good observations which still point towards room for optimism.
    • RIP Franz West. Tyler Green from Modern Art Notes posts links to an epic five part review and about now would be a good time to read it.
    • The case for visiting the Hayward’s latest show is getting stronger by the week. Here is journalist Brian Dillon’s compelling essay on the art of nothingness.
    • Architecture Week carries a highly readable interview with Sir Norman Foster which reveals, among other things, he used to be a bouncer (via/ Phaidon.com, link may time out)
    • There’s another entertaining interview on Daily Serving. Taxidermist Polly Morgan talks about how she became an artist and other uses for dead animals.
    • Speaking of which, there was a buzz online about a gourmet meal of rats staged in New York by artist Allegra La Viola. Yum!
    • Animal theme continues with a trip to the Museum of Zoology in Florence. Not the first museum you might think of visiting in that city, but well worth a look on The Exhibition List.
    • Not everyone is happy about the regeneration of Margate seafront. It used to be a well kept secret for Phoenecia at The Rightness of Wayward Sentiment blog.
    • But I think this is my favourite link of the week: Japanese art lovers going crazy for the opportunity to shoot photos of replica Vermeers in Ginza. (Story from the Japan Times).

    conceptual art, contemporary art, London 2012, sound art

    Martin Creed, Work No. 1197 (2012)

    July 27, 2012

    It is not clear what Work No. 1197 set out to achieve. But few could misunderstand just what it was they had to do, or what happened.

    At inestimable numbers of people came together to ring all manner of bells. They met in churches, galleries, schools and theatres. You could even try this at home.

    At Fabrica gallery Brighton some thirty volunteers and staff formed a spontaneous circle, an effortless slipping into the role of bellringers.

    The chiming began and before long an additional sound could be heard. That was, if not mistaken, an unofficial resonance, a music of the spheres, something not signed off at LOCOG.

    Few artists come across as material minded as artist Martin Creed. But in that spooky extra vibration, there was something perhaps mystical despite the early hour.

    It made me think of Abbie Hoffman’s efforts to levitate the Pentagon. The Yippie founder also wanted to turn the building orange and end the war in Vietnam.

    By all reports, Whitehall is still on terra firma and retains the colour of stone. But hey, Jeremy Hunt’s bell broke, so perhaps it worked.

    The Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport joined proceedings on the deck of HMS Belfast, a suitable target for our peace-loving energies.

    New age readings aside, this was still a remarkable event. The diversity of bells in use was itself an exhaustive expression of difference and conceptual sameness.

    Top prize in my limited experience goes to the chap in Brighton with a cloche jar and an official Olympics bouncy ball on the end of a chop stick. Everyone is an artist, after all.

    Following a very quick three minutes of something approximating joy, the ringing ceased and a round of applause swept the room.

    It died down and the only sound left was a smartphone on the stage, pulsing with an official All The Bells ringtone. But since 815am, can anything else still be heard?

    classicism, contemporary art, installation art, outdoor sculpture

    Tom Dale, Banquet of Sound (2012)

    July 25, 2012

    Democracy has, one assumes, been going downhill since the time of ancient Greece. And here are the ruins of the principle: twelve abandoned, jumbled and toppled lecterns.

    In the midst of their cluster is a nod to the classical world that spawned public speaking. But the statue which has long sat in the gardens here is the most troublesome of gods, Bacchus.

    This lover of wine and experimentation is the last man standing in the in the verbal jousting matches which have led to the pile up of these metonyms of free speech.

    So Dale appears to suggest we may be intoxicated by the notion of democracy. We go to war for it. We dare not speak out against it. We brand our enemies with a disregard for it.

    But just what does our democracy add up to? The artist makes the point that lecterns are not only for politicians, but also celebrities, captains of industry, perhaps even bingo callers.

    Their proliferation (and it must have been fairly straightforward to knock up these hollow jesmonite replicas) can be seen as a media frenzy, or a point-of-view piss up.

    But cracks are already beginning to appear on the installation. In one sense this can be seen as a groundclearing exercise for something which could follow on from democracy.

    That’s not to say totalitarianism, but a preferable form of democracy. A world to come, rather than a future held in place by monolithic discourses such are represented here.

    Happily enough in the gardens of Ham House, they cancel out one another. Despite the title of this piece it is the quietest work on display. The only voice it waits for is your own.

    Banquet of Sound can be found in Garden of Reason at Ham House until September 23. See project website for more details. And read what Dale himself said about this work in an interview for Culture24.

    aggregation, contemporary art

    Found Objects 24/07/12

    July 24, 2012

    Not the most newsy of weeks, so go here for a Tate Tanks video. Otherwise:

    • My dream gallery since I can but dream of going there. Hyperallergic pokes around in The State Tretyakove Gallery, Moscow.
    • From that to this. A nightmare from the pages of Kafka turned into a sculpture currently on show at the New Museum, New York.
    • Parisian street art proves to be a good many scalpel cuts above some of its urban rivals. Check out Thom Thom‘s work on Beautiful/Decay.
    • Museum Nerd draws your attention to a new Ugly Renaissance Baby. Just who signed off this composition?
    • The Telegraph send Mark Hudson north of the M25 to report from We Face Forward in Manchester, a vital reassessment of West African art.
    • No matter what position you take on The Boss, this 17 page profile in the New Yorker is stunning journalism. Thanks to Adrian Hyland.
    • Pipe write about Zizek and Hegel with refreshing enthusiasm. As a relative stranger to both writers I loved this post.
    • Acerbic Alastair Gentry has found a remarkable doppelganger. And aptly enough, he’s laughing at you.
    • Read and weep. Goldsmiths applications down 23% and Ben Street is at a final year show to report on the end of an era.
    • Julian Opie has been making a bit of a buzz in London this week. Here’s one of the more genial reviews of his show at Lisson Gallery.

    contemporary art, environmentalism, installation art, site specific art

    Klaus Weber, Sandfountain (2012)

    July 20, 2012

    If gardens are symbols of mankind’s dominion over the natural world, then fountains are the suggestion of a triumph over physics. That’s one in your face, gravity.

    Having said that, there is nothing too agressive about the many spouts of water you can find in many a city square, many a palace or not-even-stately home.

    Fountains are decorous pieces of defiance. Perhaps they are the ultimate bourgeois placeholder. They certainly seem so in this famous scene from one of Jacques Tati’s films.

    But as we move into what has been called the anthropocene age, in which we prove we can do just what we damn well please with the planet, traditional fountains are redundant.

    That is what makes Klaus Weber’s Sandfountain so timely. It’s a technological swansong which swaps a single water pump for some dozen sandblasting units.

    The sand will erode the concrete and you can already see the disconcerting way it shifts and cascades. The sculpture mesmerises just as much as any abyss.

    Weber jokes about the global need to save water and one thing seems fairly inevitable: there will be no shortage of sand in the world to come.

    This is not the first time the German artist has perverted a piece of garden furniture. He once concocted a homeopathic solution of LSD (1:800) and put that into circulation.

    That’s one you can try at home, because it was apparently all legal and above board. Whether or not you do, spare a thought for Weber’s recycled desert next time you turn on a tap.

    Sandfountain can be seen at 5 Sugar House Lane, London, until 26 August 2012. It is part of Frieze Projects East.

    aggregation, contemporary art

    Found Objects 16/07/12

    July 16, 2012

    Greetings art lovers. Have some links from the week just gone:

    • Having once left Facebook and been lured back, my hat goes off to Man Bartlett who turned his departure into performance art
    • Few writers have ever got to grips with evil like author of The Kindly Ones, Jonathan Littell. Now he’s doing journalism in Syria.
    • Tyler Green interviews the sloganeering Barbara Kruger on the Modern Art Notes podcast.
    • Jayson Musson will soon be as famous as his alter ego Hennessy Youngman. Animal reports from his recent show of paintings of sorts.
    • While not that impressed with her retrospective at Hayward, I have to say Tracey Emin’s show at Turner Contemporary sounds swoonsome.
    • This on the other hand is gnarly: a film by Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn which I came across this week in the course of research
    • The next best thing to having been at Documenta? Why, there’s this longread review from Paris Review, who do that kind of thing inimicably.
    • Graffiti writer and filmaker Tom Oswald writes a brilliant piece in the Guardian about the waning of tube art. Check it out.
    • There should be more of this sort of thing. Vintage cultural programming from Art Fag City with Mike Wallace on op art.

    contemporary art, fluxus, installation art, relational aesthetics

    Yoko Ono, HELMETS (2001/2012)

    July 13, 2012

    Visitors to the Yoko Ono show in London may well come away with a piece of debt to the redoubtable artist. To be precise that would be a jigsaw piece of debt.

    Early in her show at Serpentine hang some half a dozen WWII helmets filled with segments of a giant puzzle. You can guess the overall picture from a glance at any one of them.

    Were these pieces fit together again, the pattern to emerge would be blue and fluffy bits of white. It’s an invitation to think of a line by Yoko’s husband, “above us only sky”.

    Gallery notes indicate that the artist hopes her visitors will get together with their individual pieces and recreate this map of the heavens. That is really blue sky thinking.

    But we won’t of course, not in this life. Our single pieces now serve only to remind us of how atomised and unknown to one another we remain.

    The ironic twist is that military uniforms bring people together a lot more definitively than exercises in what you might call relational aesthetics.

    Nevertheless, the broken blue pieces and the grim metal lids make for a poetic juxtaposition. The same quality of patience is perhaps required to do a puzzle and to negotiate a truce.

    On the back of each piece are the artist’s inititals. You may now feel you own an orginal Yoko Ono artwork, but you don’t of course. This is very much an indefinite loan.

    Yoko Ono: To the Light can be seen at Serpentine, London, until September 9 2012. See gallery website for more details. It is a good show IMO but that won’t stop you from enjoying this savaging in the Independent.

    aggregation, contemporary art

    Found Objects 09/07/12

    July 9, 2012

    Apologies to anyone who checked in last week, I was on a break. Back on it now:

    • So, Londoners, are you pro or anti the Shard? I only ask because nothing can compete with the wrath of Simon Jenkins in the Guardian.
    • The same paper reports on a 5 year old abstract art prodigy from India. God knows how he came up with his process.
    • For a man best known for working with corpses, Joel-Peter Witkin is a right natty dresser and cheerful interviewee (video).
    • New York Magazine profiles Yayoi Kusama. Worth a look, even if you feel you’ve already had too much of the spot-loving Japanese artist.
    • Dilligent Chloé Nelkin shares photos and impressions of Verona and Padua. That’s what you call a working holiday.
    • Not sure this is a genuine flashmob, but it’s still great. An orchestra appears out of nowhere to gig in a Spanish town square. Thanks to Edward Winkleman.
    • Art Fag City pop up in Belgium to review the latest Manifesta. The 2012 theme for the roving Biennial is coalmining.
    • What with Jeff Koon’s suspended steam train and Richard Wilson’s balancing bus, this kind off thing is having a moment. (from Beautiful/Decay).
    • As remote as the Tea Party seems from these shores, a spoof art manifesto is immediate and funny. See Hyperallergic.
    • This post on blissblog hit an unlikely musical spot. Simon Reynolds curates mainstream black pop from The Whispers to The Commodores.