Exhibition: Anne Tyler

from there to here: Autumn Drawing development

Rules for art and planning a drawing. Artist research: Ad Reinhardt

 Ad Reinhardt, contemporary of abstract expressionists, had more in common with minimlists and rejected the angst and expressiveness of Pollock et al.
His late works, Black paintings (1964-67), inspired by Malevich, sought to remove all extraneous references including representational elements. 

"a pure, abstract, non-objective, timeless, spaceless, changeless, relationless, disinterested painting—an object that is self-conscious (no unconsciousness), ideal, transcendent, aware of no thing but art." Ad Reinhardt


What appeals to me about Reinhardts work, though I have yet to seen any 'live' in the subtle use of gradations of colour, the lack of expression, may imply a lack of emotion and disconnection, but I like this contrasting lack of ego to the maniacal expressionism of Pollocks more muscular and passionate work.
This is an artist being more mindful and contemplative, especially towards the end of his life, and he mentions that the black paintings could only have been done in those years.

 On a different note, he also contributed a series of technical rules.
In contrast to others who would use inspiration and guidance to create their works, note number 3!
I can relate to the thinking what I want something to look like before starting. But the drawing and experimenting has led to further ideas and as a result, clarified what elements I need and has highlighted how important composition is. As it had felt a bit instinctive before, and a nod to photographic rules, I had dismissed it before as something I should be erasing and approaching things differently with a more complete covering of the paper. However the smoke paintings that I ended up liking least were the ones that had the most marks and were least thought through, even if the marks made by the candle were spontaneous.

The Twelve Technical Rules (or How to Achieve the Twelve Things to Avoid) to be followed are:

1. No texture. Texture is naturalistic or mechanical and is a vulgar quality, especially pigment-texture or impasto. Palette-knifing, canvas-stabbing, paint-scumbling and other action-techniques are unintelligent and to be avoided. No accidents or automatism.
2. No brushwork or calligraphy. Hand-writing, hand-working and hand-jerking are personal and in poor taste. No signature or trade-marking. “Brushwork should be invisible.” “One should never let the influence of evil demons gain control of the brush.”
3. No sketching or drawing. Everything, where to begin and where to end, should be worked out in the mind beforehand. “In painting, the idea should exist in the mind before the brush is taken up.” No line or outline. “Madmen see outlines and therefore they draw them.” A line is a figure, a “square is a face.” No shading or streaking.
4. No forms. “The finest has no shape.” No figure or fore- or background. No volume or mass, no cylinder, sphere or cone, or cube or boogie-woogie. No push or pull. “No shape or substance.”
5. No design. “Design is everywhere.”
6. No colors. “Color blinds.” “Colors are an aspect of appearance and so only of the surface,” and are “a distracting embellishment.” Colors are barbaric, unstable, suggest life, “cannot be completely controlled” and “should be concealed.” No white. “White is a color, and all colors.” White is “antiseptic and not artistic, appropriate and pleasing for kitchen fixtures, and hardly the medium for expressing truth and beauty.” White on white is “a transition from pigment to light” and “a screen for the projection of light” and “moving” pictures. 
7. No light. No bright or direct light in or over the painting. Dim, late afternoon, non-reflecting twilight is best outside. No chiaroscuro, “the maldorant reality of craftsmen, beggars, topers with rags and wrinkles.”

 

 

Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting, 1960–1966.

 

 8. No space. Space should be empty, should not project, and should not be flat. “The painting should be behind the picture frame.” The frame should isolate and protect the painting from its surroundings. Space divisions within the painting should not be seen.9. No time. “Clock-time or man’s time is inconsequential.” “There is no ancient or modern, no past or future in art. A work of art is always present.” The present is the future of the past, not the past of the future.10. No size or scale. Breadth and depth of thought and feeling in art have no relation to physical size. Large sizes are aggressive, positivist, intemperate, venal and graceless.11. No movement. “Everything is on the move. Art should be still.”12. No object, no subject, no matter. No symbols, images or signs. Neither pleasure nor pain. No mindless working or mindless non-working. No chessplaying.




Despite the slightly heavy duty nature of his paintings, in terms of their possible difficulty in being appreciated for their apparent uniform colour, they would be difficult to reproduce.
Subtle crosses become more visible the longer one stares at them, due to the different shades of grey and colours that are used.

In contrast to his strong views on the strengths of abstraction, and the need for art to be 'art for art' not 'artists for artists'
he had a satirical side and was known for skewering the art world in his cartoons...
 
  

Ad Reinhardt, untitled cartoon originally published in PM

 Links:

http://www.art-agenda.com/reviews/ad-reinhardt/
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-reinhardt-ad.htm
http://www.artnews.com/2015/01/24/less-is-more-ad-reinhardts-twelve-rules-for-pure-art/

artist research: Richard Hamilton

European 'pop artist' contemporary of David Hockney, trained at the Slade after working in advertising in the 1940s.
Much influenced by Paolozzi, a scottish artist of Italian descent, himself influenced by american artists defying stylistic conventions such as Pollock and Dubuffet.
Hamilton liked the use of collage, as an antithesis to painterly, time consuming art, he named the collage as an 'instant art form'.
Using pages from magazines and catalogues, combining images to produce surreal stylistic visuals that challenged the idea of 'high' art.
Social progressive change, especially across the Atlantic was important during the times. Europe was developing it's own pop culture, with the Beatles (and their Peter Blake designed album covers. Over the pond, Jasper Johns, then later Roy Lichtenstein would be revolutionising pop art culture in turn.
One of the other greats that influenced Hamilton was Duchamp, whom he met and befriended after travelling to the States after Hamilton's wife died in the 1960s.

i came across Richard Hamiltons works when looking for collage/representations in art of female faces.
Looking for similar more modern takes after Man Rays disturbing images of obscuring the eyes on portrait sitters faces. This old world objectification and fetishisation of the female sitter sat alongside what I've been researching for Freudian symbolism for the Edwardian cloakroom.

Study for a Fashion plate, Richard Hamilton

 

Man Ray: Aurelien, 1944

Man Ray: Marchesa Luisa Casati portrait, technical error caused the blurring which Man Ray used in later photographs

LInks:

reference:Fineberg J, (2000) Art since 1940 Laurence King Publ. p239-240

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jul/25/richard-hamilton-duchamps-exhibition-tate-1966 

 

Exhibtion: James Turrell

artist research: David Prior

Reasearching british sound artists, came across soundfjord website with links to liminal website: official website of collaboration between David Prior (Sound artist and composer) his partner Frances Crow (architect and designer).
I came across mention of a project completed during a residency for  binaural media 
called 'Of this parish'

a film explaining a live soundart recording made on a residency for binaural in Portugal.
the concept was of delineating in a real time recording, the geographical boundaries of a parish. 
Where bells tolling ceased to be heard at a parish boundary, meant you were within the adjacent parish.

At the time I was researching ideas and symbolism for a sound piece for a project for Theaster Gates's Sanctum November 2015.

Already had ideas around
->timeline
->repeated stories of the parishioners
->the church was dedicated to weavers of Bristol, repetitive mechanic sounds...
->using more repetitive elements of sounds to create meditative pattern and series of noises

 
I'd started with an idea of referencing the historical timeline of the Temple church where the final sound piece would be played.


The film produced for liminal was more about using 

using sound as a means to articulate space

rather than time, but I was really struck and taken by the calm thoughtful, simple concept. 
 'The film is both a sonic portrait'
Coincidentally, the film then showed at the Arnolfini, I was able to go and hear David Prior speak about the ideas and logistics of the recording and video editing.
The actual recording in live time that was done of the church bells wasn't included in the film which I was disappointed about.
But I came away excited and energised by hearing about contemporary artists work that I felt touched on some of the themes/content I'm enjoying exploring on the course:
How and what media to use to communicate an idea and feeling

How does this relate to my work?
Interesting the comments on liminal website that the preparation
for the project.

Unlike gathering field-recordings for future use in an edited work, these recordings are made in a single take. Like Aleksandr Sokurov’s film Russian Ark (2002), or indeed our work Another Poisonous Sunset (1998) or Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Part Motet (2001), Of This Parish is dependant upon real time rendering of space. For this reason, a significant portion of the residency was devoted to devising and preparing these simultaneous walks. Each walk was undertaken by two recordists providing equipment backup and ensuring that the primary recordist is not disturbed by the need to communicate, map-read or negotiate other practicalities.

 Ideas first, preparation, then controlled but spontaneous process that results in finished piece.

For final Sanctum piece, the sound recording, was edited live during the performance. Thus, the timeline and concept remained unchanged, but controlling and altering which elements allowed spontaneous editing during the performance eg altering volume or what sounds took 'centrestage' aurally.

from Liminal website,link below my italics

Of this parish Review

the talk given by David Prior was articulate, succinct and unpretentious. He spoke warmly and with interest about the themes in the work, the voiceover script and subsequent projects.
The film, was beautifully and simply edited but with a few additional effects eg children appearing/disappearing.
I will be interested to keep an eye on further projects by Liminal and I've also been looking into the binaural media links and other projects.





Links:
http://www.soundfjord.org/listeningpost.htm 
http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/film-screening-of-this-parish
http://www.liminal.org.uk/contact/
http://binauralmedia.org/news/en/about
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/mar/28/sound-art-radio-4
http://www.quietmark.com/

food for thought, sol le witt

Sentences on Conceptual Art

by Sol Lewitt 

1. Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.
2. Rational judgements repeat rational judgements.
3. Irrational judgements lead to new experience.
4. Formal art is essentially rational.
5. Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.
6. If the artist changes his mind midway through the execution of the piece he compromises the result and repeats past results.
7. The artist's will is secondary to the process he initiates from idea to completion. His wilfulness may only be ego.
8. When words such as painting and sculpture are used, they connote a whole tradition and imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations on the artist who would be reluctant to make art that goes beyond the limitations.
9. The concept and idea are different. The former implies a general direction while the latter is the component. Ideas implement the concept.
10. Ideas can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical.
11. Ideas do not necessarily proceed in logical order. They may set one off in unexpected directions, but an idea must necessarily be completed in the mind before the next one is formed.
12. For each work of art that becomes physical there are many variations that do not.
13. A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist's mind to the viewer's. But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artist's mind.
14. The words of one artist to another may induce an idea chain, if they share the same concept.
15. Since no form is intrinsically superior to another, the artist may use any form, from an expression of words (written or spoken) to physical reality, equally.
16. If words are used, and they proceed from ideas about art, then they are art and not literature; numbers are not mathematics.
17. All ideas are art if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art.
18. One usually understands the art of the past by applying the convention of the present, thus misunderstanding the art of the past.
19. The conventions of art are altered by works of art.
20. Successful art changes our understanding of the conventions by altering our perceptions.
21. Perception of ideas leads to new ideas.
22. The artist cannot imagine his art, and cannot perceive it until it is complete.
23. The artist may misperceive (understand it differently from the artist) a work of art but still be set off in his own chain of thought by that misconstrual.
24. Perception is subjective.
25. The artist may not necessarily understand his own art. His perception is neither better nor worse than that of others.
26. An artist may perceive the art of others better than his own.
27. The concept of a work of art may involve the matter of the piece or the process in which it is made.
28. Once the idea of the piece is established in the artist's mind and the final form is decided, the process is carried out blindly. There are many side effects that the artist cannot imagine. These may be used as ideas for new works.
29. The process is mechanical and should not be tampered with. It should run its course.
30. There are many elements involved in a work of art. The most important are the most obvious.
31. If an artist uses the same form in a group of works, and changes the material, one would assume the artist's concept involved the material.
32. Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution.
33. It is difficult to bungle a good idea.
34. When an artist learns his craft too well he makes slick art.
35. These sentences comment on art, but are not art.

---

First published in 0-9 (New York), 1969, and Art-Language (England), May 1969