Goldfish @ 65 Mabgate

This exhibition at MAP (65 mabgate if you never went) was one of those random event ones. Two students from LCAD had organised this rather well its was only open for a few days and only half of those, I managed to catch it on its closing day.

The setup was centred with a fish tank on plynth. Inside this about ten orange fish swam about ocasionaly obstructing five beams of light that crossed the tank. Each time this happened an action was created in the room. A projector searched google images and chose at random pictures to display on a circular disc at the end of the room, pens attatched to a rod that span when triggered caused dodgey circles to be drawn on canvas, and against the other wall a line of drums played theirselves based on the movements of the aquatic vertabre.

Of course this bionic display was not serene, or upsetting. It just was. I mean i think its absaloutly fantastic that students should put on something so technologicaly ambitious but it didnt touch me. Ive seen or heard of enough exhibition machines based on chance and random events to not wince at another. But this doesnt subtract from it its not something id do (for lack of want) just, i like art when it tickles my insides and this just created aural discourse.

But this makes me think, cos i keep talking about this art in the head, does any of my work transcend the physical and will it ever? I mean I desire to create things from the physical out, not to manifest internal dialogues, but I think alot.
The things I make I want to be beautiful first, I will sacrafice this if thats the point, but it rareley is. I see this work and hear it and thats all I do I dont think about I dont twist my thoughts through it, in it, around it. So is this the same of other people when they look at me and the things I make?

In all honesty I didnt take art because I had a thing to say I took it because I liked doing it and importantly I liked seeing other people like what I had done, so if it even matters to me is the only question really. Gosh

[/Rant]
lots of I in that
Entrance view

Baltic Flour Mills

What a Long post this would be if i talked about every thing i saw on that day. Thursday 9th April i went to gateshead to see the opening of a major new show at the Baltic Mills. The Plan was to catch the end of this exhibition.

Eat

then go back to check out the opening event of this exhibition

Of course there wasnt that much of an event unless you were vip which i most certianly am not, but the show was to pretty good. I think its good when art has a sense of humor and a couple pieces at this show tickled me for a few days after. The show was commisioned to celbrate darwins life and works so artists that were working with evolutionry thinking and in some cases taxonomy were curated. The ever popluar Charles Avery and his "Islanders" were present. also involved was a wormory, a shed completely catogarised, a video of someone in a birdsuit telling people they need to live their society more like birds and just regurgitate food for their kids but the funnest of all was the video of two giant turtles trying to mate ironicly entitled "intelegent design". But as far as interaction or addressing the auidence there was none of this, although a massive ammount of human-art relations were happening none of the pieces were direct or even that strong. Still an interesting cutaratorial idea and an enjoiable show but nothing ground breaking.......................... but then would i even reconise a revolution? sod knows.

Upstairs a whole load of Sarah Sze had exploded everywhere.

Cameras were not alowed so you'll just have to image it was rather similar to this but on a larger scale covering the entire floor and room. It was like its own lifeform or parasitic species spreading out, not imposing just intreeging. some parts of it were civilisation like others just like shapes but whatever you think of it you cant help but lean closer. try and get as close you can just to see what the detail is this is pretty clever i think humans cant escape the desire to see how something works and what its insides are like.

not much indepths thought about this set really.

Chorus @ Howard Assembly Rooms

On the last day of its opening i just remembered there was something i had to see.

So i skipped downtown to find this thing swinging about

A typical oval shaped room, blacked out windows above the gallery seating, with eight individually moving pendulums swinging about from their own motors hung high in the rafters. Running on their own randomly invented melodies with internal lights responding to the frequencies produced, these beings probably only took up 0.003% of the room in space but in presence there was no escape. 

Being part of the audience i was unable to disinter-act with the piece whilst in the room the darkness draws your eyes to the lights and the sound was one of those enveloping round edged ones. 

i found this part interesting, in a modern day setting where we always consider the space in relation to the work the creator tries to hide the space and block it out of the experience. Perhaps for no specific reason, but it tickles me when this is an exhibition commissioned to celebrate the new opening of this room. 

But for the piece this is a positive because you cant ignore it it addresses you directly.

In terms of fine art i don't know where it stands to me its just one of those technical exercises you see occasionally i enjoyed it but wouldn't say there was much to it. BUT thats the important thing it wasn't aimed at a fine art audience it was for the public and sponsors to encourage them to come and see what their council had been funding to build. successful in this sense.

 

The TATE and its Triennale

I don't know how these establishments manage to obtain such prime properties in the centre of london. As if the TATE Britain would be any different.

With this place the entrance is optional, you can choose to or not too go in of course but thats not what I'm on about. You have a choice on how, you can either choose to climb the steps and arise into the paradise of art entering into a semi-spherical ceilinged room that swallows you whole whilst at the same time belittling you into a reminder of your place and purpose in the gallery.

Or you can enter directly into the stomach of the machine, in on the basement level you are not given a sense of awe but more the sense of assimilation, the activity the interactions the people involved you are immediately one of.   

Anyway in terms of the Triennale the work was nicely secluded into the back area the entrance slightly obscured by robes i was given the impression of secrecy. Once inside it expands again, a new universe of modern art inside a museum of exceptional predecessors.  You can walk through time from the roots of classical painting into the cosmopolitan avant garde reality of the present art.

The Exhibition itself was good for its art but overstated on its intentions. Nicholas Bourriad's curation here is to suggest that we have moved past modernism and post modernism and now are in what he calls 'altermodern'. A state of art creation where production chosses all boundaries and continents, where modern artists are so because they use different places and genre of people across the world to create and influence their works. But this has been the way since way before this exhibition perhaps the creators of land art were the first to use alien spaces to create and exhibit work. Whichever and however its definitely not a new thing or one that will pass like NB is suggesting post modernism has

check the guardian website for more interesting writtings on altermodern

Previous Unmentioned Entities

The Gallery as a Shop.

The Gallery as a Museum. 

The Gallery as a Church.

The Gallery as a Interaction Space.

An Interaction Space as a Gallery.

This is the way I see things to be. Most art and ways of displaying it fits snugly if not overlapping slightly these five headers. Places of display can be both spiritual and serve capital gain, they can present and interaction space and still exhibit slices of history, a space designed for public can become anyone of the Gallery synonyms when artist endeavor is involved. These are the Five i see most clearly other belong on different planes under sub-sections but are no less valid, just integrated.

In this blog i will speak about the impression I've gained of The Gallery as a Shop.

This is one of the Swarm of Gallery/Shops that surround the Gallery/Church/Shop the White Cube, Mason's Yard site. 

This is a typical view of these retailers, the first thing you see, or don't so much of, is the glass front sucking your gaze straight into their universe. Completely different to the sacred site of the white cube which resists as many external influences as possible.

Inside the ideal of the white cube the art has enough space about it to show completely its intent without distraction. Here it is different, art is seen as contained within frames as if they are a protective forcefield that blocks everything peripheral, a non possibility. 

"Pile 'em high sell 'em fast.", is the first thing i think people think when they see this method of display but perhaps they never knew that pre 19th Century this would have been the way all works were appreciated. Curation an idea not conceived yet, the work would be defined its place by size and popularity.

However something I cannot neglect here is the overall importance of this structure. I don't know what the technical term is but since I've understood this its become an obvious part of modern life, everything effects everything else. The design we see from a building we run through our databases of similar design and when we find a match certain parts of the memory are brought to the forefront of subconscious, in this case everything we have seen before tells us this entity is one where art is displayed for its sale.

And this is the most integral part, people must know things purposes or the small amount of confusion produced causes a pause in their reaction, although sometimes leading to curiosity this is not what you want when you are selling.

So these designs may be boring, standard, typical but they are only so because they work. 

White Cube

Mason's Yard Site

25-26 Mason’s Yard (Off Duke Street) St. James’s London SW1Y 6BU

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7930 5373 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7749 7480


Open: 10 – 6pm Tuesday – Saturday

The first thing I think anyone notices about the white cube gallery is the approach, weather consciously or not I think this has a tremendous impact on the mind-space of each individual entering the gallery.

For those of you that haven’t been there let me paint the picture. The gallery itself you would not be aware of unless you were looking for it, it’s tucked away so neatly in masons yard that to even be going to it is something of a cult pilgrimage. This is not something created by chance of course, when they rebuilt on this site they knew it would be hidden from most public view. And for their target audience this is exactly what they wanted, a secluded haven of modern art shopping.
They want people to feel like they are going somewhere off the radar of the modern universe, right into the cult of art.

So as you approach it you notice many things of course but one you cannot miss is the amount of gallery’s in its immediate area. You almost have to wade through all types of gallery come shop just too even come to the yard entrance. The format of these are all very similar so when you emerge on the other side of the arch the striking pose of the white cube gallery has double the effect it would have on you if it were just anywhere normal.

In this picture the Green Circles are galleries and the Red Square is the White Cube.



The cubiod stands proudly in the centre of the yard, as you enter it is bathed in sunlight and it quickly gives off an air of importance rivalling that of your town cathedral. Nothing is similar to it stands unaccompanied but not alone. Doors of glass, of course, floor is gray, walls are white and a single step up the same height as a kerb is the entrance.



The space inside does not disappoint, in terms of what they are trying to do anyway. I felt the illusion of natural light strongly. Fluorescent lighting flush with the ceiling massively diffused. And the ceiling was about forever away from the floor, lots of wide open space on the ground floor. The basement was an almost replica and I was still easily fooled by the lighting I could have been at any level and thought that I was within inches of the sky. Everything as you expect pure and unaffected by the outside world.

Visiting this place I found so interesting. The amount of deliberate psychological effects this establishment has taken to influence the visitors is fantastic. It’s not what I like to see art in but as an exercise it’s impressive to me.

It’s never possible to leave the world behind and the White Cube has used this to its advantage.