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    contemporary art, religious, renaissance, sound art, Uncategorized

    Janet Cardiff, The Forty Part Motet (2001)

    May 11, 2011

    When a gallery is a deconsecrated church and the artwork is a piece of religious music, walking in is a hair’s breadth from turning up for Sunday worship. It’s humbling, even humiliating.

    The early choral work, Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, is drawing people in off the street, nevertheless. This is one church that’s full. The only people lacking are clergy and choristers.

    Instead 40 state of the art speakers surround the ad hoc congregation. They are placed at person height and a different voice from Salisbury Cathedral Choir can be heard on each.

    Were this a live performance, it would feel even less like art. Empassioned song fills the gallery, but the singers are absent. Their lack of presence is the most engaging aspect of the piece.

    The choir is an effect of technology so perhaps God is just an effect of such choirs. He and they are both here and not here. It depends whether or not you close your eyes.

    But the voices are in layers, so there is something fathomless about that question. And the several parts of the composition can surprise you. Phrases come at you from different angles.

    Cardiff has said she wants this to work to explore the ways in which sound can structure a space. It can certainly dominate a place and resonate with a building’s original function.

    So, walking in is strange. And as notes here point out, the experience is intimate. We are, one supposes, naked under the eyes of God. Hence a bit of embarrassment.

    There’s little choice but to join the flock and accept the embrace of this work. But getting out of church is still a relief. Weddings, funerals, ecclesiastical art shows, you name it.

    There are plenty more voices offering counterpoint to this. Classical music blog An Overgrown Path has specced out the audio equipment. Todd Gibson on From the Floor found it emotional.

    Dugal McKinnon’s blog, meanwhile, offers a compelling analysis which spells out the transcendental qualities of the work and goes much further on the theme of presence and absence.

    The current show at Fabrica runs until 30 May 2011.  See website for more details.

     

    aggregation, contemporary art

    Found Objects 08/05/2011

    May 8, 2011

    Some favourited links from the last seven days:

    • Big news of the week. Osama Bin Laden may have been a frustrated architect? Steve Rose builds a case in the Guardian.
    • The Telegraph reports Art dealer Philip Mould was victim of a poison pen campaign. When it was alleged that he couldn’t afford a painting, that was the final straw.
    • The colon “is not intellectual super-glue”. Just one of the insights in this untitled piece about the titles of art shows (from Frieze).
    • In Modern Art Notes, Tyler Green has so much to say about Lewis Baltz, his review runs to more than 2,500 words. But all of it is vital, so find it here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).
    • In a GQ interview, Chris Heath plays up the crazier aspects of director Werner Herzog’s life and work. This does however make for a good read (via @Jeff_Sparrow).
    • No one uses the C-word quite so well as Tracey Emin, according to novelist Ali Smith in the Guardian.
    • Jeff Koons cares so much he appears to wheel around his sculptures on hospital gurneys. Here’s video evidence.
    • Some street art which gets to the point.
    • An REM video directed by Sam Taylor Wood captures that iPod feeling (via @FisunGuner).
    • After listening to that, you may need to listen to this (via @edgeofchaos999).

     

    20th century artists, abstract painting, chance, watercolour, Zen buddhism

    John Cage, River Rocks and Smoke 4/11/90 No.1

    May 6, 2011
    John Cage, River Rocks and Smoke. Courtesy The John Cage Trust

    The universe, it seems, has good taste. Here is a painting it did. Or rather, here is a painting John Cage allowed to happen, letting the I-Ching direct his brushstrokes if true to form.

    Observe the wispy sfmuato effect, created by students with burning straw. Look at that delicate use of colour and the almost Assyrian shapes, each one traced round the edge of a stone.

    You could hang this on a wall and feel a deep oneness. Or you could marvel at the process involved, the radical shift towards egolessness.

    Either way, it is great in theory. You don’t even need Cage for this. You could leave a sketchbook out in the rain or scatter blossom on an adhesive canvas. That too would be pretty.

    Of course, Cage is pushing at the boundaries. Perhaps he is saying we don’t even need artists, in the same way it seems he once said we don’t need composers. Perhaps we don’t.

    But surely life is not a zen garden. It seems more like a game of chess. Chance dictates which side we are on and then we need to attack and defend. Aimlessness is not often the best approach.

    Cage apparently loved chess, but he wasn’t the world’s best player. It is said friend Marcel Duchamp was known to lose all patience with him for making silly mistakes.

    Of course, the I-Ching paintings may have been an ! move in chess terms, threatening bishops and laying siege to kings. Except Cage is so light-handed, he hardly touches his pieces.

    John Cage: Every Day is a Good Day is at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, until June 5 2011. See gallery website for more details. Read my review of the show at Culture24.

    art history, Georgio Vasari, lobsters, renaissance

    Properzia de’ Rossi (1490-1530)

    May 3, 2011

    Of the 35 renaissance artists to feature in this copy of Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the Artists, there is only one woman. And it is a surprise half way through Book III to discover even one.

    This was Properzia de’ Rossi and the three pages dedicated to her life are among the most engaging in Vasari’s exhaustive and occasionally riveting masterpiece.

    It may be apocryphal, but she is said to have proved her fine art chops by carving a multitude of figures into a peach stone for a scene of the passion of Christ.

    But her greatest triumph was to carve a marble panel, which, Vasari claims, reflected some of her own autobiographical circumstances, on the doors of San Petronio in Bologna

    The scene in question comes from the Old Testament and shows the wife of Potiphar disrobing for Joseph in a bid for his attention, ‘with a womanly grace that is more than admirable’.

    De’ Rossi was also suffering from unrequited love and a footnote in the Oxford World’s Classics edition reprimands Vasari for ascribing mere ‘romantic or sentimental inspiration’ to a woman.

    But seems to me rather that this work is all the stronger for the apparent comment on de’ Rossi’s own life. It gives the work so much more honesty and front.

    And if women were generally excluded from public life in 16th century Bologna, what Vasari calls this artist’s ‘burning passion’ may have been socially challenging. It’s almost Tracey Emin.

    Or am I just lumping women artists together? in the same way Vasari does when he uses his chapter on de’Rossi to fill us in about Sister Plautilla, Madonna Lucrezia and Sophonisba of Cremona.

    He tells us that in one drawing by the latter, ‘a young girl is laughing and a small boy crying because, after she had placed a basket full of lobsters in front of him, one of them bit his finger’.

    That does seem very early in the history of art for comic lobsters, only perhaps not so early for proto-feminist statements.

    aggregation, contemporary art

    Found Objects 30/04/2011

    April 30, 2011

    Another week, another round-up of favourite links to the world wide web. Please enjoy:

    • Apparently there was a big state occasion here in Britain yesterday. Well, I doubt it was anything like as good as this footage of the funeral of Nam June Paik in Korea (via @ubuweb).
    • Better late than never, here’s a link to the Time Out interview with still missing Ai Weiwei. His relationship status with the Chinese government appears to be quite ‘complicated’ (via Eyeteeth blog).
    • “If you’re going to steal something, you know, you go to the bank,” says Richard Prince in a 1992 conversation published this week on photography blog American Suburb X. Last month a US Court found the re-photographer in breach of copyright laws.
    • This piece on Eric Ravilious was of local interest to me, since the 20th century painter lived and worked in East Sussex. But his extreme good cheer as described by Peter Laity in the Guardian should appeal to all.
    • On Bad at Sports, Terri Griffith blogs in favour of Google Art Project and museum apps and seems resigned she will never make it to the Uffizi.
    • Find out what links Tiger Woods to Tate in an astute and amusing piece by Ben Street for Art21.
    • German artist Hans-Peter Feldman wants us to understand just how much money he’s won in the Hugo Boss Prize. The resulting show at Guggenheim is certainly to the point (The New York Times).
    • Cey Adams appears to be the Peter Saville of hip hop and his 4 minute interview on the MoMA blog is well worth a watch.
    • Despite not being about art, there’s so much in this fascinating piece about time and consciousness that I don’t know where to begin recommending it: an in-depth interview with neuroscientist David Eagleman in the New Yorker.
    • Nothing-to-do-with-art-but-interesting-all-the-same Part 2: the Atlantic publishes two global maps which show the earnings of top athletes. They make bankers look like church mice.

    contemporary art, contemporary sculpture, internet art, sound, Uncategorized

    FOUND, Cybraphon (2009)

    April 28, 2011

    By writing this I am making Cybraphon happy and by reading this you are making me happy. Here’s what criticismism has in common with an autonomous emotional robot.

    FOUND collective’s sculpture tracks hits to its own website and obsesses over its stats and indeed, like most bloggers, that is activity I can all too easily relate to.

    Cybraphon monitors Twitter, Facebook and Google for mentions of itself and to some extent that’s me too, for shame. Perhaps it’s you as well.

    Cybraphon will even go so far as to sing about its own levels of popularity. This is usually a step too far for me, but I admire the chutzpah of the moody robot band.

    After all, it has some great tunes. In fact, the sculpture’s unabashed joy and despair at its own varying levels of fame are themselves a pleasure to encounter.

    And then there is the conspicuous retro styling. It suggests, despite the engagement with web 2.0, this individual hasn’t changed much since the industrial revolution.

    Self-consciousness and concern with what others might be thinking or saying is pre-industrial. These failings are so human and timeless it is impossible not to like this art.

    My new friend has just enjoyed its last day at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea. Please see website for details of its next destination.

    Feel more free than usual to share this story using the buttons or leave a comment. But it is of course more important you like Cybraphon.

    art market, street art

    Brighton Banksy for sale

    April 26, 2011

    This is a Banksy and yet not. The original image of two policemen kissing has been transferred to canvas and is now in storage. And that, as the Guardian reported last week, is up for sale.

    “We got it taken off a couple of years ago. What started to happen was people started to vandalise it, a lot of homophobes,” explains Carl Turton, barman in the pub on the other side of this wall.

    Until now the controversial piece had become a highlight of Brighton’s alternative tourist trail but, says Turton, “The people who come to get their photograph taken with it never come in the pub.”

    “It’s still Banksy today as it’s still there. It’s still Banksy artwork. Someone just spray painted over the top of it,” he adds. So one piece of semi-anonymous street art has become two.

    Such work is impossible to authenticate and impossible to look after. As the owners of The Prince Albert pub in Brighton have discovered, a frame serves little purpose on an exterior wall.

    One of these two works will be vandalised regardless and one will enter a collection. Strange to think that folk with £1m budgets still have plenty of time for Banksy’s confrontational statements.

    But if you take away the sense of confrontation and remove kissing policemen, etc, from the street, you take away the ostensible point of making a work like this in the first place, surely.

    Pub owner Chris Steward has said the work on the wall is 80% Banksy. What he might well have added is that the work for sale, the original, now represents just 20%.

    The scramble to buy and sell street art seems in keeping with its prankster ethos. But it is beginning to look if the real target of this political graffiti is the art world, rather than the authorities.

    The untitled Banksy in question can be seen in varying states of disrepair on the wall of The Prince Albert, Trafalgar Street, Brighton.

     

    aggregation, contemporary art

    Found Objects 23/04/2011

    April 23, 2011

    Another interesting week in art online has yielded up the following:

    • Oh my aching sides! Chinese spambots have turned the #AiWeiwei hashtag into a forum for risque jokes on Twitter. Hyperallergic translates for us. As if that wasn’t bad enough, hackers have targetted an online petition in support of the dissident artist. So sign now while you still have the chance.
    • Meanwhile on the Art21 blog, Michelle Jubin calls for your consideration of 37 more people who have been arrested in the Chinese government’s crackdown on the  ‘Jasmine Revolution’ (via/ @thebenstreet).
    • Last Sunday Christian fundamentalists attacked a photograph in France. But I am more shocked by the broadminded views of Sister Wendy than by Piss Christ by Andres Serrano.
    • Sadly this week Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros were killed in an explosion on the Tripoli Highway in Libya. A piece in the Guardian sheds some light on how and why photographers go to war.
    • Also from the Guardian, here’s a strangely reassuring slideshow: portraits of bureaucrats by photographer Jan Banning.
    • This feature in the Atlantic about branded entertainment contains some jawdropping quotes and facts. In fact this blog post was brought to you by PG Tips.
    • A new show in Aachen, Germany, highlights the spooky way television first invaded our homes with some tantalising screen shots on We Make Money Not Art.
    • One of the “known feelings” here is grim satisfaction, as Alistair Gentry tears into a pretentious press release on his vitriolic Career Suicide blog.
    • I’m sorry, this one-star review of a Jean-Marc Bustamente show at Henry Moore Institute from The Independent has only whetted my appetite to see work by the high-falutin French artist.
    • Now, the top five bunnies in art according to Jonathan Jones. That seems like a good way to sign off for Easter. Have a good ‘un.

    Algeria, artists' visas, conceptual art

    Zineddine Bessaï denied entry into UK

    April 21, 2011

    Bloody immigrants, coming over here and taking part in contemporary art group shows about the geopolitical relationship between Algeria, France and the UK!

    As if to highlight the inequalities of that relationship, graphic artist Zineddine Bessaï was this month refused a visa to attend the launch of his own show at Cornerhouse.

    The Manchester gallery supported two applications: one for Bessaï (young, single, male, non-affluent) and one for Amina Menia (an older, better off family woman).

    It asked for permission for a four-night stay in the city as a business visitor and both letters are, apart from names, passport numbers and DoBs, identical. I’ve seen ‘em.

    But in one case the Home Office found fault with the supporting documentation and said the letter did not “describe in detail the nature of your business in the UK”.

    This would all be just sad and predictable and a not uncommon problem for artists from certain parts of the world and yet another problem for the arts in this country.

    And yet to my mind the opening line of the HO letter is a bit high handed: “You state you wish to visit UK company Cornerhouse for 4 days and claim to be a “graphist”.”

    Refused the chance to see his work in a prestigious international show, Bessaï has been invalidated further by skeptical quote marks round his stated vocation.

    I cannot imagine this letter: “You state you wish to visit UK Company Manchester United PLC for 4 seasons and claim to be a “joueur de football”.”

    My personal view is, whatever legal profession, people should be allowed to travel freely between countries. But keeping out artists is just as embarrassment.

    BTW – After spending more than 15 minutes waiting for their press office to pick up the phone, I concluded the Home Office were unavailable for comment.

    New Cartographies: Algeria-France-UK is at Cornerhouse, Manchester until 5 June 2011. See gallery website for proof.

    art activism, performance art, Tate

    Liberate Tate performance @ Tate Britain

    April 20, 2011
    Image (c) Immo Klink, http://immoklink

    Disclaimer: this is not an eyewitness account, but then an eyewitness account would be missing the point. This is a response to a press release and a news story.

    By all accounts, the unendorsed performance went like this: two veiled figures poured an oil-like liquid over a naked man in the foetal position on the gallery floor.

    The wider context for this was an exhibition dedicated to the human body, and this show, Single Form, is sponsored by controversial oil company BP.

    The even wider picture is that one year ago a BP drilling mishap caused the deaths of 11 workers and spilled nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

    Needless to say, the company does some other bad stuff: from drilling in the Arctic to risky tar sands extraction in Canada, the stuff of an environmentalist’s nightmares.

    One way to offset such bad PR is to sponsor fine art: Tate say their arrangement with the corporation fits with their ethics guidelines, but has yet to disclose full details.

    Well, I have not been able to talk about the performance and the photo without talking about the important message. So Liberate Tate has staged a properly good stunt.

    Nevertheless, it looks like art. It features a nude and litres of paint. It was carried out in full seriousness. But when the performer got dressed, only a black stain remained.

    Okay, so they hi-jacked the rarefied atmosphere of one of the UK’s leading art galleries for their own ends. But they appear to have got away with it and who else does that sound like?

    There’s a full story on the Liberate Tate blog and for further news about BP-related goings on from the Art not Oil campaign, please go here.