Exhibition module

With creating exhibition online, it comes with some real challenges. Towards the end we still needed to look for two artists. Venus created a new email to display the forms in, this was much more professional and informative compared to the other relaxed form. Here is evidence of the new form.  

It was very important that we culminated 5-7 artist for our exhibition in order to have a range of extraordinary art. This task was very difficult due to the fact that we had many artists but we had to think who would fit within the theme and what artwork/photography would complement each other. One of the tasks was, we had to create forms to collect information from the artists so we can include biography for the exhibition texts and for the website. Here is an example of one of our forms that was sent to one of our artists. 

And then here is an example of one of our artists replying back to our emails.

We needed to find one more artist so I went on the London Artist page on Facebook and asked if any artists was interested being in an online exhibition with their work. I also spoke about the art working fitting within our theme. I found one artist through this called Uni Kaya. Here are the screenshots of our chat. Venus created an email to send to artists. So, I (Courteney) sent this to him in messenger.

For the funding sector, we discussed about creating a GoFundMe & handling an cake stand in the University. Our main focus for the funding is on the venue for Grow Tottenham due to the deposit. In order to catch the viewers eye I put the painting of one of our artists so they know who they are donating to and to engage with them with art for our exhibition. 

To raise money for the campaign I had to describe the detail on what the funds are used for, explained how soon we need the funds, what the exhibition is about, details about the organiser of the fundraiser & how much the support means to us.

When creating the post I had to set a target for the fundraiser, I had to think logically here. We need £150 for the venue so it is secured for us on the 13th till 15th & then other costs for travel & artists. So, I put the target as £250. 

Here is the descirption for the GoFundMe. 

I asked my other members of our group to share our page so we can get more views and donations from family and friends on social media. Hopefully this will have an affect for funding. 

One of the tasks is to find more artists within our theme. So, I joined a Facebook group called London Artists. This page is artists who are looking to collaborate, speak about ideas, showcasing their work and looking to exhibit work. This was the perfect opportunity to post about looking for artists for our exhibition and within the theme identity. As you can see here I have implicated what we need and specify in. After this post was posted, I already had one person who was very interested in our exhibition. He is a qualified art therapist and he regularly creates images that are driven by his clients unconscious mind and also from his own. I am still waiting on pictures from him but this is great as we were looking for art therapists who work in this field and I have studied the unconscious mind. The next post I will insert his images once he has sent me the work. 

Bio: 

My artwork is autobiographical and is often inspired by social factors And influences throughout my life. A lot of my work stems themes of feminism and current social influences.

Introduction: 

My favourite medium to work in is paint and some times installation. The mood of my work can appear dark but I never want my work to appear negative or sad and instead I like to try find beauty in the issues being addressed. I want to continue on with figurative painting and through this I want to celebrate the female form. The theme of objectification of women is something I want to explore, both the positive aspect and the negative. 

What does identity mean to you?

On Thursday the 30th January all the people from the course met up at Tate Modern to hand in our project proposals (for a different module)and choose the method of presenting our final work and after that we went our separate ways to look at artworks at Tate for some inspiration on different ways people exhibit their work. On the ground floor of Blavatnik building there was this exhibition room called 'Impermanence', the name caught my eye, as I was expecting to find something interesting, I was not disappointed: most of it was installation work which is very interesting to me as a third dimension comes into play.

Anya Gallaccio installation preserve ‘beauty’ 1991–2003 is made from about 2,000 red gerberas was truly astonishing. I am also interested in a concept of the decay and a process of dying, especially when it comes to beauty... Installation is a brilliant way to portray such idea, like no other way would, because decay of a real thing (gerbera) is part of the work, it very much plays with viewer's experience if I would have seen it a month ago, these flower would have looked different, metaphorically resembles me what it would be like to see a human being dying, or maybe life itself meaninglessly passing by..it connects the viewer to remember of mortality, so brilliantly large scale piece overwhelms the viewer and makes one face the ultimate fear of coming to an end. There is a lot there and it inspired me how direct is the relationship between the scale of the work and the message, I almost felt relieved submerged in it.

The other interesting one I found was Mirosław Bałka's sculpture of 473 used soap bars of different shapes and colours. Artist is thinking about the intimate relationship with human body and the soap, comparing this pieces of soap to the human skin cells shedding and being washed away. Thinking about impermanence just as in Gallaccio's work choice of presenting work through an installation plays a very important role in relation to time. These bars of soap have been taken out of their usual environment and in a way 'frozen' in time as they are not being used anymore as products, but at the same time, as everything deteriorates in time these bars of soap will too, just not as quickly as in their usual environment of use. Long stacked 'tower' must have been thought through as well, to me it seems to be related ti time again, in a way that we do not really see the quantity of disposable objects we use through time as we dispose them once one has finished we get a new one, this inspire the thought of in a way a collection of time in one appearance. I find Mirosław Bałka's subject matter fascinating, he looks back at overlooked everyday objects and find in them new meanings and expose rich histories they carry within them, I often come across art that is looking at the overlooked and when I think about it I get struck by the important reminder that things that we use everyday are perhaps the most important ones and are worth thinking about.

Ren-Shiki-Tai 1973 is an installation consisting of a series of wooden planks tied together with wire. Six cement blocks support the conjoined planks, which are configured in a shape with four roughly equal sides.Mono-ha (School of Things) was a pioneering art movement that emerged in Tokyo in the mid-1960s whose artists, instead of making traditional representational artworks, explored materials and their properties in reaction to what they saw as ruthless development and industrialisation in Japan

''The thing (mono) cannot exist as an isolated single body. Each singular piece is related and must rely on each other, then the reality of the thing appears. When the related objects are put in sequence, the value of each is realised. Cognitive ability recognises and specifies the thing. The sequentiality of each individual piece expresses the state between the things and also between the thing and cognition.''

(Kishio Suga, unpublished text, December 2008.)

Mono-ha studies materials and impermanence and decay of objects is very much a part of life of every existing thing. Kishio Suga's subject is quite complex, he explores how things relate to each other and how we perceive them things and the state between.Much of Suga’s early work no longer exists as it was site-specific, ephemeral and performative. Museum workers reassemble the work every time it is displayed following the artist's instructions. What caught my eye in this piece was the uneasy sense of fragility in how thin wire was holding these big blocks of concrete, almost a metaphorical sense of fragility of balance.

Rebecca Horn's room

Objects take on a life of their own in Rebecca Horn's work. Her films and sculptures turn familiar materials, gestures and settings into strange, emotionally charged scenes.In the late 60s Horn began to create wearable sculptures. She later used these 'body extensions' in staged actions performed  fore the camera. The isolation and restraint she felt while confined to bed due to illness inspired these works. She designed them to experiment with how the body moves, senses its surroundings and relates to other people.

Through this arch/door I went in, sat down on a small bench and watched Horn's video works. This was the most inspiring for me. This bunker looking round confined space was very suitable for the kind of videos she has produced: for intimate, captivating, slow experience for the viewer. It was important to have no distraction around the screening, I would describe it big enough as a cinema for 2 or 3 people as the screen was large and bench was small. Very appropriate way of displaying the work knowing the intent of the artist to get people to relate to how body moves and senses its surroundings.My favourite thing about Rebecca Horn's art is that sense of different kind of life, alternative way of being or doing things. Isolation could be a way to birth something that nobody has ever seen before if you just confront it and listen to yourself and your surroundings, all kinds of wonderful things emerge, you just have to listen, I really do believe that solitude can not only re-educate one's self, but produce something very real, more real then the reality we know and Rebecca Horn is a perfect example, I thoroughly enjoyed her work. These are couple of pieces I found on YouTube, sadly my favourite Two Little Fish Remember a Dance, 1974 – 1975  (the flow of air from a ventilator makes two goldfish suspended from metal bars dangle about on a hirsute male chest.) was not on YouTube :(

‘’We think that our faces are indexical to who we actually are on the inside. Makeovers, especially television makeovers, justify changes to how people look by claiming a kind of mismatch between what their current appearance is and who they are inside. According to this logic, makeovers become a necessary intervention and, indeed, a personal obligation to bring appearance and identity into alignment, upholding traditional racial, gender, class and ability biases around the meanings behind how people look.’’(Aeon Magazine, March 18, 2019)

Where does such obligation come from? Culture. When we’re around 3-4 years old, we become conscious of our sense of self. From then on, we accumulate certain ideas from an external world (parents, friends, books and films), those gathered ideas shape our understanding of ourselves, we take those ideas as they were our own thoughts and somewhat true and it is understandable if these were the only truths we have been exposed to. It lives in us unconsciously, our sense of self (appropriate/good self) that is made up of those ideas comes before we learn to question it.

Do we ever bring our appearance and identity into the alignment? There is an obvious need to be recognised, not only how we feel inside, but more so recognised as this better version of ourselves that we wish to be. We want to be better than we are, and we want others to think that we already are that better version, the fictional self. We must understand the tricks that culture is playing on us and in that way sinks us into that deep addictive illusion of a good person or more so these days better person than everyone else. (Obtaining a social order like going to church every Sunday in historical times in order to be a good person, or these days posting on social media in order to exist as a part of new age community)

People objectify and judge each other all the time, imposing opinions based on opinions heard in the past (from external world). In basic words, when we judge/objectify we feel that we know something about someone only based on very limited number of knowledge and in that way by forming assumptions (we really believe in) which forms fictional truths. (That’s how we see others)

On the other hand, as we aware of our thought process judging others, we know that people will have to think something about us too, so we show them the best we can show to them. We want to be liked; we buy objects that represents us in some way. (Think about the objects we own, even the organic shampoo can say something about the person) We can think about artists who maybe looked at the concept of identity in personal possessions and how things have no soul in themselves, but we attach meanings to them and attach meanings to ourselves. Also how ads and business motivations play on our desires which then become needs. The illusion of buying things to improve our incompetent self (as a quick fix).

‘’We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.’’ – Edward Bernays

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04&t=86s

That’s the link to a documentary about Bernays, pioneer of mass manipulation if you can say like that :D

It is more psychological then artistic, but good ground of the topic if we want to prove the point that identity is a mere creation of culture and is constantly changing in order to appear likeable which changes as well. (Maybe even look at nature of fashion in terms of concealing something (the body) that is naked, ideas of shame, maybe even going back to religious (also cultural creation) ideas of inborn sin.)

Ashamed of our nature because from the early days we were taught to tame ourselves.

Living in a constructed system, against harmonious nature…

Look at Schopenhauer for solutions

“Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure, are by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to chance.’’ -Arthur Schopenhauer

 Not to depend on external world as much as possible is a good start. Schopenhauer talks about our uncontrollable desire to endlessly strive for satisfaction that never arrives. The pattern of wanting something and once we have it wanting something else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw36V_iXR2k Kierkegaard ideas of becoming through self (VERY GOOD STUFF)

“As the nature of the image becomes apparent, what is viewed changes and evolves. The doubled up use of imagery creates an experience greater than the sum of its individual parts. The interpretations of the characters and actions within the paintings transcend upon realisation of the bigger picture, and visa versa.” -Tom French

Last Thursday, 30th January we went to a private view opening of a retrospective exhibition and memorial for British-born painter Tom French that took place at Unit London, Mayfair. Name was a first thing that grabbed Olga’s interest and after further read she decided to invite all of us to come along. Transcend means to go beyond limits which well coheres with the way French speaks about the work and the execution of the work speaks the ‘same language’ to the viewer. These paintings are relatively large scale and so when you first look at them from up close you get struck by this image within the image effect where you can hardly notice the facial expressions as your attention is drawn towards the detail which can be seen as separate figures within the figure, but referring to French’s quotation about the bigger picture he invites the viewer to see more than just a mere art of illusion and that is where the concept comes into play. What was he trying to say?

Prior knowing about artist intentions behind this work as a viewer I was trying to peace my own possible meanings and interpretations that this work could represent in relation to the name ‘transcend’. First thing that was the most apparent to me was ‘it is not what it seems at the first glance’ kind of approach, not just in an aesthetic way, but more about the inner expression of the artist.

This was a painting that from up close looks like fragments of these beautiful female faces, but if you step further away you can see this face that resonated to me as sad and longing for something, which I believe is not far of what artist actually intended to do in terms of seeing a bigger picture.

Thinking about technicalities of the work there is a lot there too: carefully constructed photo-realistic portraits intertwined with expressive opposite to careful brush strokes that give these paintings a sense of movement, dreamlike abstract forms and elements of urban graffiti. Use of completely opposite stylistic techniques in one piece of work reflects well the idea of duality, complexity and illusion.

Private view was an interesting experience, not only to see the content, but also to be among people that normally come for the purpose of buying the artwork and there was a lot of people, the atmosphere created by the crowd seemed unusually different to what you would normally see in somewhere like Tate or National Gallery where you would simply go to be with art, here it felt a more like ‘disposable’ and ‘one time thing’ orientated around investment then pure act of seeing.

Exhibition consisted of 16 artworks, in pretty simple layout and lighting on the white wall which suited the artwork and the purpose of the exhibition quite well. Paintings themselves were expressive enough so the simplicity of the interior subtly complemented it. Audio sound did not seem to be doing much for the exhibition, but rather for the private view ‘party’ opening. If the purpose was to study the artworks the better time to visit would have been in the next few days after opening when it is more quiet, but overall it was to be expected to be an event which is totally appropriate for it’s purpose.

Written by Rugile Kozlovskyte (Venus)

Link for more info:

https://rhodescontemporaryart.com/artists/29-tom-french/overview/

Gillian Wearing

Claude Cahun

Juno Calypso

Giles Duley

Shilpa Gupta

Set design is rooted in color theory and shape theory. It is designed to create the emotions you need your visitors to feel. Warm colors and soft forms generate different feelings to angular forms and cooler tones. It’s worth thinking about materials and textures. In the artificial, indoor environment of the typical exhibition hall, natural materials can really stand out. Used cleverly, they can help promote a feeling of wellbeing and creativity, offering a different atmosphere to the bulk of the show. Elements like this can create a natural draw for visitors.

We have all walked into spaces that have made us feel good, without being completely conscious of why. All we know is that we are happy to spend time there and we may feel more relaxed and receptive. When you think about it, this is powerful stuff. And what about soundscape? An exhibition hall can be a noisy and overwhelming place. Is there something to consider here? A possible break from that? How do you want your visitors to feel?

Rather than just looking at the layout and framing of the images, we focused on the set design. We couldn’t help but wonder if the artist was also a person who created magical interiors. After doing some research we found out that the colorful rooms and strange props were done by Walker’s long-term collaborator, set designer Shona Heath(they have been working together for the past 20 years). Shona's inventiveness and undeniable creative connection with Tim enabled her to translate his visions into a physical set. Their story made us realize the general importance of good teamwork and mutual understanding between an artist and other important people who work hand in hand in order to make exhibitions come true like curators, technicians, set designers etc.