Art and Politics

I was looking on the Art & About website because I wanted to get some background info on all of the works that I have been seeing lately scattered throughout the city. I was a little surprised to see that almost all of the descriptions of the works on the site were very 'safe', so as not to offend anyone or bring about any sort of commotion, given its status as a public event. I on the other hand find some of the works to be particularly sinister, ironic and political. The colourfully dressed statues all over the city reminded me of Yinka Shonibare's practice of incorporating ethnic patterns within traditional English attire. Because the various fabric used to dress the statues is so vibrant, I seem to associate it with 'native' or 'tribal' imagery. I may be way off the mark with this impression but while others stand in front of the colourful statues in order to have their picture taken, I can't help but feel something like "white guilt" or a tension with the work. Again, with the laneway work HAR BOUR VIEW by John Cambell, the site talks about the work in a very light-hearted, harmless way, seeming to censor the work's political message.

Art and Audience

I thought I would use this week's topic as an opportunity to talk about a piece that I am working on for Studio Extension. It's a shame that I don't get to see what you are all working on and vice versa, so here is a brief description of what I am trying to convey through this work. (If you haven't spotted it yet, it's the one made of clear packing tape and feathers stuck on the big white wall opposite the 2nd year studios... oh and it's not quite finished yet!)

The work is directly about the here and now, exploring transcendental concepts surrounding form, space and the void. In doing so, it abstracts architectural structures in which we function and move through within our daily lives. It incorporates the architectural surface so that the forms seemingly grow and protrude out from within the wall. The wall becomes more than just a flat two-dimensional and unexceptional structure, as the voids within the forms indicate an interior. While this illusion encourages greater awareness of the space and of our interaction with the space, the voids are impenetrable. They are filled with matter and sealed off from the viewer. This leads us to consider the space in a new light, looking into its unreal yet organic appearance.

The connection between the work and its audience is that when the onlooker views the form they become the beholder of that space, and thus more aware of their relationship with it. I think it is important to look at the notion of art and audience in a metaphysical manner, whereby a work which falls under the theme of abstract, or spiritual, or transcendental, or something along those lines, encourages the viewer to look within and reflect on their own state of existence.

Art and its Institutions - BABABA INTERNATIONAL

(above) Soap City, 2010

This Sydney-based art collective have made use of the gallery space throughout various projects by turning it into a workshop, a kitchen, and even a nail parlor. They recently held an 'exhibition' at First Draft called Soap City, where they used the space as a work shop in which to produce soap for the public. On each bar of soap was a map directing its beholder to a make shift roof top shower somewhere nearby, taking the viewer outside of the institution and to a secret place in which to cleanse themselves.

These guys seem to be interested in using the city's surrounding resources, and are totally breaking down barriers between art and life. Through their DIY mentality, Bababa bring the art making process into the gallery, and diminish the exclusive image that art galleries commonly possess. Instead of witnessing a finished product, the viewer is a part of the process and is encouraged to take part. Their practice is fun, lighthearted, communal and rough around the edges- challenging conventional perceptions surrounding art and its institutional factor.

Check out their website for more information and past projects:

http://www.bababainternational.com/

Art and Architecture - Yin Xiuzhen

Portable City: Mebourne, 2009
Suitcase, used clothes, magnifying glass, map, sound, light
Courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery

Portable City: Melbourne, 2009
Detail

Portable City: Jia yu Guan, 2009
Suitcase, used clothes, magnifying glass, map, sound, light
Courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery

Portable City: Jia yu Guan, 2009
Detail

The Beijing-based artist Yin Xiuzhen's Portable City series fits into both themes of architecture and globalisation. Each piece resembling a major city, Xiuzhen incorporates used items (mainly clothes) to create these worlds within a suitcase, ready to be packed up and taken to a new place. There is a nomadic sensation within her practice, which engages with the differing environments and the memories of the artist's experience within each city. The 'suitcase architecture' is not functional, but it explores the personal impact that a major city can have on its inhabitants. I like this work because it brings together both the overly public and functional purpose of architecture and the unique experience that each individual has within the environment in which they live.

Art and Globalisation - Do-Ho Suh

Seoul Home/L.A. Home/New York Home/Baltimore Home/London Home/Seattle Home/L.A. Home, 1999
Silk, 149 x 240 x 240 inches
Installation view at the Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, 1999

Seoul Home/L.A. Home/New York Home/Baltimore Home/London Home/Seattle Home/L.A. Home, 1999
Silk, 149 x 240 x 240 inches
Installation view at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, Seattle, 2002

The Korean born artist Do-Ho Suh explores the theme of Globalisation through his practice, concerned with concepts of the individual and space. Many of his works defy conventional ideas of public space, such as his work Seoul Home/L.A. Home/New York Home/Baltimore Home/London Home/Seattle Home/L.A. Home, 1999, an ongoing piece that acquires the name of every city in which it is exhibited. The work speaks about displacement- the notion of moving from place to place and setting up a 'home' to temporarily occupy. Made out of fabric, the sculpture is easily transportable and reflects the artist's own experience of travel, living between countries and the issues surrounding individuality within a public, modern society.

Overview - Wolfgang Laib: Returning to What Is

Darren James Jorgensen’s interview with German artist Wolfgang Laib provides an insight into the artist’s unique and life long practice, and how through his work Laib inspires us to consider his use of materials and their placement within a new context. It seems as though the process as much as the final product is a crucial element in understanding the work’s intentions, as Laib discusses the profound experience in sourcing the material that will eventually become the basis for his work. Throughout the interview Laib talks about his practice in relation to the contemporary art scene, his influences, and his views surrounding the current art practices seen today as well as his beliefs about art’s potential to change the world.

Jorgensen presents us with an overview of the artists’ practice, which is immersed in the sourcing of organic materials such as bees’ wax, pollen and milk. By removing these materials from their original, natural setting and with them creating detailed, abstracted art forms, Laib is offering us the opportunity to appreciate their simplicity and pure form. The ephemeral quality of Laib’s works further highlight the meticulous and overpowering process undergone in order to retrieve these materials and replace them within a gallery space, where viewers are given room to respond. This repetitious and time-consuming procedure gives the viewer an indication of Laib’s personal experience with art, which he considers to be vital to understanding and experiencing life in a totally new way.

Whilst the interview comes across as light-hearted, Laib’s deep enthusiasm for the importance of art and its powerful influence on the world is felt. Through his practice Laib aspires to provoke change, in questioning our society and the morals and values by which we run our lives. These views become evident throughout the interview, as Laib declares his ‘non-European’ cultural influences and describes his workspace as being isolated from the art world, deriving his inspiration and knowledge from natural surroundings. Rather than engaging with art scenes surrounding the art world (as Laib stated in the interview his thoughts concerning the lack of originality seen within art practices today), Laib’s practice is embedded within his life, whereby each day is intended to inform his work. Within this philosophy stems the possibility for something new, with the intention for prescribing change.

Jorgensen’s interview was successful in displaying a personal account of the artist’s practice and beliefs about art, also providing useful images of three of Laib’s works, Pollen from Pine, 1999, Passageway-overgoing, 1996 and Ziggurat, 1999.

Art and Spirituality - Germaine Koh

Fair-weather forces (sun : light), 2005

intervention with sensors, microcontroller and electronic circuits, existing lighting system and natural conditions. Two installation views at Artist Space, New York, 2007.

Looking at James Turrell's practice today reminded me of the Canadian artist Germaine Koh, and her Fair-weather forces series. Like Turrell, Koh uses light to inspire her viewers to experience a relationship between human behaviour and natural phenomena, begging us to become more self aware and to engage with the environment surrounding us. The artist explains that Fair-weather forces (sun : light) is made up of the existing interior lights of a space which are controlled, in real time, in direct relation to changing exterior light levels, effectively defeating the purpose of artificial lighting.

I don't know if Koh was intending to suggest a spiritual experience for the viewer but the fact that it came to mind during the class today demonstrates to me my own connection with spirituality through this particular work.

Art and Identity - Latifa Echakhch

Latifa Echakhch's art practice is strongly influenced by her experience as a Morrocan immigrant living in Paris. She explores themes surrounding the individual and the state, reflecting on her own heritage, cultural differences, social phenomena and the socio-political issues surrounding immigrants within the West. Her work incorporates culturally defined objects such as Morrocan tea glasses and rugs as well as national symbols, legal documents and common, everyday objects such as carbon paper, sugar cubes, and rubber tires. Echakhch removes these articles from their original context and deconstructs them, without completely altering their form so that viewers can witness the objects in a broader, more significant light within the gallery space. This gesture enables the viewer to contemplate the stereotypes and socio-codes that are embedded within these materials.

A Chaque Stencil, une revolution, 2008

A4 carbon paper, glue, alcohol

Coutesy the artist and Tate Modern, London

Fantasia, 2008,

Wooden flagpoles, metal wall brackets, Courtesy the artist and Tate Modern, London

Erratum, 2004, Broken tea glass, Dimensions variable
Courtesy the artist and The Studio Museum in Harlem

Frames, 2000-2008
Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Francesca Kaufmann, Milan

Art and the Body - Janine Antoni

Janine Antoni is a contemporary artist who focuses predominantly on process, which is essential to the outcome of her work. She explores themes surrounding femininity, desire and pleasure, birth, death, motherhood and transformation. She works with an array of media, where sculpture, installation and performance all intertwine. Throughout her entire art practice, Antoni maintains a supreme connection with her body, in which she attempts to discover herself from the inside out. She undergoes repetitive and sometimes painful actions such as biting in order to fully become aware of her senses and to ‘get back inside the body’. In her works Lick and Lather, 1993, Touch, 2002 and Saddle, 2000, Antoni blurs the distinction between the artist and the artwork, using her body to physically transform the work.

For Lick and Lather Antoni made a series of busts of herself, using ephemeral materials of chocolate and soap. She then began eroding them by licking the chocolate and washing herself with the soap. This process provided the artist with a deeply physical connection to the work, in which she used her senses of taste, smell and touch to transform the busts. Antoni performs a loving and gentle ritual on the casts, leaving traces of herself and of the intimate experience that she has with the work. There is a strong female presence in this piece, which references the freedom of body and sexuality expressed in feminist performance art from the 1970’s.

Lick & Lather, 1993
Two busts: one chocolate and one soap
24 x 16 x 13 inches
(60.96 x 40.64 x 33.02 cm)
Courtesy the Artist and Luhring Augustine, New York




Touch 2002
Video still Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine New York




Saddle, 2000
Full Raw Hide; cast of artist's body
26 x 33 x 79 inches
Courtesy the Artist and Luhring Augustine, New York

Touch creates the illusion of walking on the horizon- something that is not physically possible but which resides in our imagination. With the help of a video camera, Antoni attempts to defy gravity by installing a wire that is level with the ocean line, and walking on it so that it appears that for a brief moment she is touching the horizon. While we know it is just an illusion, we get a sense of her body up in the air, with the wind and waves distorting her balance. The effect of this delicate image of Antoni against the horizon is to make us consider our own body balancing on a thin wire, which perhaps is a metaphor for the imbalance within our daily lives.

There is a coexisting presence and absence of the artist’s body in Saddle, which outlines the physical shape of her body underneath the hide of a cow. This work is about emptiness in form, as while we think that we can see her outline, Antoni really is not there. There is a spatial dislocation, which removes both the artist and the cow from their physical forms, leaving a ghostlike trace of two bodies that were once living and breathing. Finally, we notice that the artist’s body is in a defeated, crawling position, which ties in with the title of the piece. She is letting herself be dominated, such as the cow was in order to produce the hide, a defining element of the work. Saddle presents the body as a mortal, temporary state, which brings the viewer to question what happens to the body after death.

Antoni is at the same time removed and physically present in her practice, allowing viewers to draw on their own experience of the work. The artist engages with the theme of the body by using it to leave evocative traces within the work to which the viewer can relate. In doing so, she draws our awareness to our own body and senses.

Bibliography

Princenthal, Nancy, Janine Antoni: Mother's milk, (Art in America, New York: Sep 2001. Vol. 89, Iss. 9;124), 5

Heartley, Eleanor, Thinking Through the Body: Women Artists and the Catholic Imagination, (Hypatia,18.4 2003) 3-22

Heartley, Eleanor, Art and Today; Art and the Body, (New York, Phaidon Press, 2008), 217-239

Nixon, Mignon, Bad Enough Mother,October, Vol.71, Feminist Issues (The MIT Press: Winter, 1995), 70-92

http://www.luhringaugustine.com/artists/janine-antoni/#/images/1/

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/antoni/index.html

http://artnews.org/gallery.php?i=100

http://bombsite.com/issues/66/articles/2191

http://www.artcritical.com