The'second round' of Art In Unusual Spaces exhibitions
will launch tonight (Thursday) at Leeds Shopping Plaza from 5-7pm.
Now Then by Guiseppe Lambertino, Kathryn Cooper, Lesley Child, John Scurrah,
Jamie Wardley, Luke Owens, Tim Curtis working with Clapgate Primary School
Playground by Sameeha Akudi, Sarah Baumann, Gaia Rosenberg-Colorni, Tania
Flewitt, Aoife Flynn, Alice Lea, Andy Nizinskyj, James Noonan, Laura Ruehl
and Hannah Parker-Smith.
SLICELand by SLICEArts (upstairs in the old TKMaxx unit)
Also - the opening of On Your Wall by Leeds Met Gallery and Studio Theatre
Details of the shows can be found at www.artinunusualspaces.co.uk
This is also a great opportunity for you to see and look round the spaces in
the shopping plaza which might be available for you, as artists, to use!
Check out:
www.lightnightleeds.co.uk
www.secretleeds.com
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Artists Book Fair
As this is on the doorstep it's a must when writing about exhibition opportunities.
13th International Contemporary
Artists’ Book Fair
Friday 12 & Saturday 13 March 2010
The Parkinson Court, University of Leeds
Friday 11.00–6.00 Saturday 10.00–5.00
13th International Contemporary
Artists’ Book Fair
Friday 12 & Saturday 13 March 2010
The Parkinson Court, University of Leeds
Friday 11.00–6.00 Saturday 10.00–5.00
Intrim
Tonight is the opening of Interim. This will be down in the Vernon Street building and is a competition that invites 2nd year fine art BA students who did their foundation course at Leeds to submit work for exhibition back in their home town. This is a great chance to see what is happening in Glasgow, the Slade, Goldsmiths etc. in relation to students in your year. The opening is a chance to network as well. Are there any students working collaboratively who would like to join in with projects that link Leeds with elsewhere?
It opens at 6pm tonight, (Wednesday) and will be open up until the 26th March.
This is of course another opportunity for your blog. How does the work sit in a very difficult space? As you are the ideal audience, does it communicate to you and if not why not? What are the examples of best practice that you could learn from?
Also. Now everyone has been to the retail exhibition space, I would hope that this gives you an opportunity to reflect on the reality that now confronts you. Those of you filling in proposal forms could if you wish also put those on the blog as well. (They could be scanned in)
It opens at 6pm tonight, (Wednesday) and will be open up until the 26th March.
This is of course another opportunity for your blog. How does the work sit in a very difficult space? As you are the ideal audience, does it communicate to you and if not why not? What are the examples of best practice that you could learn from?
Also. Now everyone has been to the retail exhibition space, I would hope that this gives you an opportunity to reflect on the reality that now confronts you. Those of you filling in proposal forms could if you wish also put those on the blog as well. (They could be scanned in)
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Writing about art
Always good to read the Guardian on a weekend. Not only was there an interesting article by Charlotte Higgins on 'Walls are Talking' the wallpaper and art show opening this weekend at the Whitworth in Manchester, but there was an interesting aside by Jon Canter on 'artspeak'. All of us have to write about our work at some time or other and it's never easy. Anyway this is the article in full as copied from the Guardian.
Artspeak? It's complicated
Jon Canter
If an artist's work is difficult, you might think those writing about it would want to make it more accessible. If only.
On 14 March 1888, Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo about his latest canvas: "It is a drawbridge with a little cart going over it, outlined against a blue sky – the river blue as well, the banks orange coloured with green grass and a group of women washing linen in smocks and multicoloured caps."
Dear, oh dear. Little cart, blue sky, green grass, multicoloured caps: simplistic or what? When you go to The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters, currently on show at the Royal Academy, don't bother with His Letters. Vincent, a word in your unbandaged shell-like – this is the way you write about art. It comes from the online catalogue for Esther Shalev-Gerz's exhibition, opening next week at the Jeu de Paume in Paris. "Over three decades, Esther Shalev-Gerz has consistently performed a process of unravelling particularities." Now that's more like it. It certainly beats: "Over three decades, Esther Shalev-Gerz has consistently performed a process of painting a drawbridge with a little cart going over it."
I've never unravelled a particularity, or even ravelled one, which many consider the first stage in the particularity-unravelling process. But I have, for nearly 20 years, been married to a painter, so I appreciate the agony. Not the agony of painting but the far greater torture of writing about paintings, in order to attract people to see them. Art for art's sake? Forget it. What you need is artspeak for artspeak's sake. Let's return to that catalogue: "Shalev-Gerz mines the personal in order to address and interrogate the ways in which the present is understood. Drawing on the fictions of history and speculations on the future, she amplifies the ethics of being invited to speak and being invited to" – nearly over now, honest – "listen. Hers is a powerful artistic practice that complicates how we understand our place in the world."
There, at the end, is the message, loud and clear as an amplified ethic. Shalev-Gerz complicates. She's a complicator. Thank goodness for that. Complication is what artspeak is all about. It seeks to confer status and worth on an artist's work by insisting on its obscurity, which it conveys through a grey porridge of abstract nouns. The purpose of those unravelled particularities? "To reflect on the ways in which the generalities of history and memory are constructed." The overall effect? "This gathering of works interrogates assumptions and opens the space between understanding and perception." (That's it. No more extracts, I promise.) You might think that if an artist's work is difficult, those who write about it might want to make it more comprehensible. You might be wrong.
Artists, in my experience, are practical. They're earthy. They worry about money. They have interesting stains. Grayson Perry never fashions a sentence so obscure it shuts the space between understanding and perception and knocks them both on the head. Then again, none of the above artspeak was written by the artist herself. It's the work of a contributor to her catalogue. For all I know, Shalev-Gerz is an unpretentious woman who likes a laugh and always buys her round. As for her work, I'll never know. The artspeak has had precisely the opposite effect from the one intended – it's convinced me not to see it.
As a 16-year-old, I once read my poetry in a Hampstead pub called The Freemasons Arms. As I stepped onstage, I had an overwhelming urge. I was desperate to baffle the audience. I ached for them to be baffled by my poems and attribute their bafflement to the fact that my poetry was "deep". In the event, they giggled and that was the end of my poetry career. But at least I understand the adolescent impulse behind artspeak. I just don't understand why it's written by grown-ups.
Perhaps we should start an 'artspeak' comment box competition. The prize a commissioned essay on the winner's work.
Artspeak? It's complicated
Jon Canter
If an artist's work is difficult, you might think those writing about it would want to make it more accessible. If only.
On 14 March 1888, Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo about his latest canvas: "It is a drawbridge with a little cart going over it, outlined against a blue sky – the river blue as well, the banks orange coloured with green grass and a group of women washing linen in smocks and multicoloured caps."
Dear, oh dear. Little cart, blue sky, green grass, multicoloured caps: simplistic or what? When you go to The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters, currently on show at the Royal Academy, don't bother with His Letters. Vincent, a word in your unbandaged shell-like – this is the way you write about art. It comes from the online catalogue for Esther Shalev-Gerz's exhibition, opening next week at the Jeu de Paume in Paris. "Over three decades, Esther Shalev-Gerz has consistently performed a process of unravelling particularities." Now that's more like it. It certainly beats: "Over three decades, Esther Shalev-Gerz has consistently performed a process of painting a drawbridge with a little cart going over it."
I've never unravelled a particularity, or even ravelled one, which many consider the first stage in the particularity-unravelling process. But I have, for nearly 20 years, been married to a painter, so I appreciate the agony. Not the agony of painting but the far greater torture of writing about paintings, in order to attract people to see them. Art for art's sake? Forget it. What you need is artspeak for artspeak's sake. Let's return to that catalogue: "Shalev-Gerz mines the personal in order to address and interrogate the ways in which the present is understood. Drawing on the fictions of history and speculations on the future, she amplifies the ethics of being invited to speak and being invited to" – nearly over now, honest – "listen. Hers is a powerful artistic practice that complicates how we understand our place in the world."
There, at the end, is the message, loud and clear as an amplified ethic. Shalev-Gerz complicates. She's a complicator. Thank goodness for that. Complication is what artspeak is all about. It seeks to confer status and worth on an artist's work by insisting on its obscurity, which it conveys through a grey porridge of abstract nouns. The purpose of those unravelled particularities? "To reflect on the ways in which the generalities of history and memory are constructed." The overall effect? "This gathering of works interrogates assumptions and opens the space between understanding and perception." (That's it. No more extracts, I promise.) You might think that if an artist's work is difficult, those who write about it might want to make it more comprehensible. You might be wrong.
Artists, in my experience, are practical. They're earthy. They worry about money. They have interesting stains. Grayson Perry never fashions a sentence so obscure it shuts the space between understanding and perception and knocks them both on the head. Then again, none of the above artspeak was written by the artist herself. It's the work of a contributor to her catalogue. For all I know, Shalev-Gerz is an unpretentious woman who likes a laugh and always buys her round. As for her work, I'll never know. The artspeak has had precisely the opposite effect from the one intended – it's convinced me not to see it.
As a 16-year-old, I once read my poetry in a Hampstead pub called The Freemasons Arms. As I stepped onstage, I had an overwhelming urge. I was desperate to baffle the audience. I ached for them to be baffled by my poems and attribute their bafflement to the fact that my poetry was "deep". In the event, they giggled and that was the end of my poetry career. But at least I understand the adolescent impulse behind artspeak. I just don't understand why it's written by grown-ups.
Perhaps we should start an 'artspeak' comment box competition. The prize a commissioned essay on the winner's work.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Things I mentioned in this morning's talk
I mentioned Washington Garcia at this morning’s talk, find the gallery at:
http://www.washingtongarciagallery.com/aboutus.html The interesting issue here is that often these spaces are started by groups of artists and that they can develop into career opportunities. Washington Garcia has been running for about four years in Glasgow. Initially they were going into empty buildings, painting them white and making the spaces as gallery like as possible. Then gradually as they built a reputation, developed a website and now they receive money from Glasgow International http://www.glasgowinternational.org/ to help support the shows they put on, as the city now recognises the importance of the shows they curate. The fact that they have targeted mid career artists to show has meant that they could very quickly establish a strong profile and other galleries have wanted to look at who they are showing. Sometimes it’s not about developing a space just to show your own work, but once you have established a toehold in the art community it’s much easier to then start accessing venues for your own work. Notice how they are now commissioning essays on the artists they are showing. A canny move that supports the artists’ CVs as well as helps generate interest in the work.
Also in response to this morning’s talk, see below some web-sites that could be useful if you were thinking about researching the way presentation could shape an audience's reaction to art work. Get used to what they offer and look for alternative suppliers. The more you know the more you can trade. Artists are always asking each other, “where can you get a…” if you know where, you can help and then someone owes you a favour. A large part of this business is built on people supporting each other and to do that, you need something to trade with.
Good iron mongers offer a wide range of fixings and fittings, including lots of hooks, hanging ideas and brackets: http://www.ironmongerydirect.co.uk/
The place for those 's' hooks and small pulleys you always wanted: http://www.choiceful.com/shop-online-Fixings.html
For a wide range of fixings: http://www1.westfalia.net/shops/tools/ironmongery/tensioning_rope/tensioning_ropes/
Look at builders supplies as well
http://www.screwfix.com/
http://www.ebuildingsupplies.co.uk/page/home
Delicate and unusual wire meshes etc
http://www.wires.co.uk/?gclid=CKPDgLKJ5pgCFQyjQwodlXAxbQ
More architectural scale wire
http://www.steelwirerope.com/General%20Wire%20Rope/StainlessSteelWireRope.html?gclid=CKDE48KJ5pgCFQo1QwodZmKKcA
For coloured ropes and climbing fixtures
http://www.inglesport.com/shop/catalog.php?category=SRT%20Ropes
Swivels and links on a small scale are often found at fishing suppliers, try: http://www.seafishingsupplies.co.uk/index.php?cPath=59_109
If you are thinking about using commercial style signage or text. For instance if you are wanting to put a professional look to your sinage for an exhibition:
http://www.fastsigns.co.uk/England-WestYorkshire-Leeds-store857.html
Building walls? Plywood, chipboard, blockboard or MDF
http://www.boardcraft.co.uk/products.asp
Lighting, this might be an American company, but it’s good to see what gallery lighting is available:
http://www.pegasusassociates.com/products/ArtGalleryLighting/ArtGalleryLighting.html
Display cabinets are expensive, but looking through commercial ones available can give you ideas as to how you might want to make your own:
http://www.displaysense.co.uk/display-cabinets?gclid=CML7mN2V5pgCFQpNQwodRQ8ecg
FOR PAINT WHEN YOU HAVE NO MONEY TRY:
SEAGULLS RE-USE LIMITED.
Units 3&4, Aire Place Mills
103 Kirkstall Road
Leeds
West Yorkshire
LS3 1JL
Kate Moree & Cat Pearson
0113 2467510
recyclingseagulls@yahoo.com
I havnt worked out how to make the links work yet, so just paste the URLs I have suggested into your browser to check out the on-line catalogues.
I presume all of you use Neville's DIY in the back of the Merrion Centre for your day to day needs. Everything from nails and screws to sheets of bubblewrap; if not check it out next time you are in town.
For your haberbashery needs try Samuel Taylor's which is over the road from the market, in that little street that leads to the back of House of Fraser and Games Workshop. Lots of fixings upstairs, but downstairs for fabrics including canvas, cottons, linens and hessians.
http://www.washingtongarciagallery.com/aboutus.html The interesting issue here is that often these spaces are started by groups of artists and that they can develop into career opportunities. Washington Garcia has been running for about four years in Glasgow. Initially they were going into empty buildings, painting them white and making the spaces as gallery like as possible. Then gradually as they built a reputation, developed a website and now they receive money from Glasgow International http://www.glasgowinternational.org/ to help support the shows they put on, as the city now recognises the importance of the shows they curate. The fact that they have targeted mid career artists to show has meant that they could very quickly establish a strong profile and other galleries have wanted to look at who they are showing. Sometimes it’s not about developing a space just to show your own work, but once you have established a toehold in the art community it’s much easier to then start accessing venues for your own work. Notice how they are now commissioning essays on the artists they are showing. A canny move that supports the artists’ CVs as well as helps generate interest in the work.
Also in response to this morning’s talk, see below some web-sites that could be useful if you were thinking about researching the way presentation could shape an audience's reaction to art work. Get used to what they offer and look for alternative suppliers. The more you know the more you can trade. Artists are always asking each other, “where can you get a…” if you know where, you can help and then someone owes you a favour. A large part of this business is built on people supporting each other and to do that, you need something to trade with.
Good iron mongers offer a wide range of fixings and fittings, including lots of hooks, hanging ideas and brackets: http://www.ironmongerydirect.co.uk/
The place for those 's' hooks and small pulleys you always wanted: http://www.choiceful.com/shop-online-Fixings.html
For a wide range of fixings: http://www1.westfalia.net/shops/tools/ironmongery/tensioning_rope/tensioning_ropes/
Look at builders supplies as well
http://www.screwfix.com/
http://www.ebuildingsupplies.co.uk/page/home
Delicate and unusual wire meshes etc
http://www.wires.co.uk/?gclid=CKPDgLKJ5pgCFQyjQwodlXAxbQ
More architectural scale wire
http://www.steelwirerope.com/General%20Wire%20Rope/StainlessSteelWireRope.html?gclid=CKDE48KJ5pgCFQo1QwodZmKKcA
For coloured ropes and climbing fixtures
http://www.inglesport.com/shop/catalog.php?category=SRT%20Ropes
Swivels and links on a small scale are often found at fishing suppliers, try: http://www.seafishingsupplies.co.uk/index.php?cPath=59_109
If you are thinking about using commercial style signage or text. For instance if you are wanting to put a professional look to your sinage for an exhibition:
http://www.fastsigns.co.uk/England-WestYorkshire-Leeds-store857.html
Building walls? Plywood, chipboard, blockboard or MDF
http://www.boardcraft.co.uk/products.asp
Lighting, this might be an American company, but it’s good to see what gallery lighting is available:
http://www.pegasusassociates.com/products/ArtGalleryLighting/ArtGalleryLighting.html
Display cabinets are expensive, but looking through commercial ones available can give you ideas as to how you might want to make your own:
http://www.displaysense.co.uk/display-cabinets?gclid=CML7mN2V5pgCFQpNQwodRQ8ecg
FOR PAINT WHEN YOU HAVE NO MONEY TRY:
SEAGULLS RE-USE LIMITED.
Units 3&4, Aire Place Mills
103 Kirkstall Road
Leeds
West Yorkshire
LS3 1JL
Kate Moree & Cat Pearson
0113 2467510
recyclingseagulls@yahoo.com
I havnt worked out how to make the links work yet, so just paste the URLs I have suggested into your browser to check out the on-line catalogues.
I presume all of you use Neville's DIY in the back of the Merrion Centre for your day to day needs. Everything from nails and screws to sheets of bubblewrap; if not check it out next time you are in town.
For your haberbashery needs try Samuel Taylor's which is over the road from the market, in that little street that leads to the back of House of Fraser and Games Workshop. Lots of fixings upstairs, but downstairs for fabrics including canvas, cottons, linens and hessians.
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Little Art Stories
Another art myth.
Under certain lighting conditions the painting would appear to be figurative. This always disturbed the artist, as he had worked steadfastly to remove any traces of the world from his work. However this was the painting that Greenberg had picked out as being the most truthful, the clearest example of the future path for art and the style that if as an artist he wanted to be successful, would be the one to develop.
Greenberg was never wrong, his pronouncements ended and started careers, his omnipotence was accepted throughout the art world. But still the painter was troubled. He had been sleeping badly during the past few nights. Nights of restless thinking, merged into dreams of ancient art. His thinking becoming confused with his dreaming, his identity merging with those artists he dreamed of.
Two artists dominate these dreams; one a Shaman artist from Palaeolithic Northern Europe and the other a seventeenth century Greek icon painter, both artists struggle with their vocations and wrestle with the purpose of their work. The painter soon realises that before he can resolve his own artistic direction, he will have to wait for his dream selves to resolve theirs.
His Palaeolithic dream-self stands staring at a darkly flickering cave wall. Smokey animal fat tapers burn behind him, casting his image from the floor, to the bulging wall and above onto the curve of the roof. The flames spit and gorge themselves on pools of fat, each leap of light pushing and shaping the artist’s shadow into new ideas of itself, as it blends with the dark of hollowed forms and the shadows of rocky projections. In his hands he holds the burnt remains of wood from a charcoal fire, a dollop of grease from a long forgotten kill, on a flat stone beside him. Chalk from the nearby cliffs in hand sized chunks lies at his feet. He sways to a rhythm that plays in his head and he too dreams. He dreams of the spirit world, a world where that moving energy that we call life, goes to once we no longer move and are still. A place where animals and humans are one, a time when the landscape for action is no longer needed, a space-time of vibration. He dreams of his drum. He remembers the day he killed the red deer, from which he took the skin that he dried and scraped during the long summer months before the even longer winter during which he stretched the membrane for his drum. He can feel his fingers in his dream. Fingers tapping out a rhythm, fingers searching for another sound with which to play. Deep inside his chest his heart is racing, beating out that other sound, waiting for his finger thoughts to be caught up in the beat. He drums his dream.
The Palaeolithic painter’s arm stretches out and touches the wall, his fingers sense the stone membrane that lies between the spirit world within the rock and his own remembered world of sun lit life forms. His fingers feel the movement in the rock skin, his dream mind beats a new rhythm of long dead human souls speaking through the stone amplifier. Spirit waves pass through each surface one after the other as the vibration comes into contact with his body, his feet, the floor, the flames of animal fat, the corridors and shafts that lead to the sun lit world above, the trees and skies and mountains and rivers and seas and creatures… Until after distributing this sound equally throughout the entire world, the artist can hear and feel the music of the spirit land in his drawing hand and he begins to draw.
Lost in the dark forms of animals and flickering tapers the dream merges into the candle-lit world of a seventeenth century icon painter. Light flickers from the gold leaf background of an already started image. The Lamentation of Christ is a traditional subject and the painter has already painted eleven versions of this particular scene. He is old now and is regarded as a master of his art. He gazes at the head of Christ that lies horizontally at the left hand bottom edge of the painting. Christ’s head is supported in the lap of the Virgin Mary, his earthly mother, her own eyes stare directly down at his dead face. Only the under-painting has been completed, the next stage is the detailing of the faces. The old painter knows all the templates, is clear as to which colours to use and how to paint the faces, but for the first time, he questions his faith.
For as long as he can remember he has been aware that the Second Commandment read: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. His boyhood tutor Emmanuel had taught all the Commandments to him and explained their meaning. Emmanuel was a painter as well. As a master he taught how to mix colour, grind paints, apply under-painting, prepare surfaces and most importantly he taught the various image templates to be used, including the one of the Lamentation of Christ he was now staring at. The Master’s teachings on the Second Commandment were given to all apprentices just before their first communion and were seen as part of an apprentice’s rights of passage into adulthood. The old painter in his turn had had to explain the same Commandment to his various pupils and knew that if at any time an apprentice was going to forsake the vocation, it would be at the point when he had to reconcile his conscience with his future occupation.
What his Master had taught him was this. Icons are not the likenesses of anything. They are flat images, not graven. Graven images are sculptures and sculptures are objects and as objects they cannot help communicate with God. Flat images that are not likenesses can however be used as communication channels between God and his people. These images are of ideas not things. Artists should never attempt to copy the world, if they did God would then punish them for their evil; only He can create from nothing. But, as God is perfection and all human beings are, since the expulsion from Paradise, in a fallen state, if God is to commune with his subjects it has to be through a mediated form. The icon is an image that is a picture of an idea that allows you to meditate upon the perfection that is God and that allows His subjects to approach Him from a distance. Prayers are focused through the icons whose images, like the Bible itself are frozen into formats that support the historical weight of the traditions of the church. To change any aspect of the format would be an evil act. Only God or his representative on Earth, the Orthodox Church can create anything new, therefore only visions sent by God and sanctified by the Church could be admitted into the existing image-bank.
The old artist had seen a vision of the dead Christ where Christ’s eyes in the Lamentation are open, staring in death into the eyes of Mary. He had recently been present at the death of an old friend, whose eyes in death had remained open. He had found this a powerful symbol of his friend’s recognition in death of a place beyond death. He was sure Christ would have known this too and that in death he would have had full cognition of his resurrection. However, he was a mere man and as such these thoughts were not to be tolerated as they could lead to a false pictorial idea; a new icon template that had not been sanctioned by the Church. If his thoughts were evil, these could be the result of a temptation laid in his way by Satan and as such he would need to purify himself through prayer before carrying on with the painting.
The flickering candlelight faded back into dream dark as the painter started awake from his dreams. At last he knew which path to take.
Under certain lighting conditions the painting would appear to be figurative. This always disturbed the artist, as he had worked steadfastly to remove any traces of the world from his work. However this was the painting that Greenberg had picked out as being the most truthful, the clearest example of the future path for art and the style that if as an artist he wanted to be successful, would be the one to develop.
Greenberg was never wrong, his pronouncements ended and started careers, his omnipotence was accepted throughout the art world. But still the painter was troubled. He had been sleeping badly during the past few nights. Nights of restless thinking, merged into dreams of ancient art. His thinking becoming confused with his dreaming, his identity merging with those artists he dreamed of.
Two artists dominate these dreams; one a Shaman artist from Palaeolithic Northern Europe and the other a seventeenth century Greek icon painter, both artists struggle with their vocations and wrestle with the purpose of their work. The painter soon realises that before he can resolve his own artistic direction, he will have to wait for his dream selves to resolve theirs.
His Palaeolithic dream-self stands staring at a darkly flickering cave wall. Smokey animal fat tapers burn behind him, casting his image from the floor, to the bulging wall and above onto the curve of the roof. The flames spit and gorge themselves on pools of fat, each leap of light pushing and shaping the artist’s shadow into new ideas of itself, as it blends with the dark of hollowed forms and the shadows of rocky projections. In his hands he holds the burnt remains of wood from a charcoal fire, a dollop of grease from a long forgotten kill, on a flat stone beside him. Chalk from the nearby cliffs in hand sized chunks lies at his feet. He sways to a rhythm that plays in his head and he too dreams. He dreams of the spirit world, a world where that moving energy that we call life, goes to once we no longer move and are still. A place where animals and humans are one, a time when the landscape for action is no longer needed, a space-time of vibration. He dreams of his drum. He remembers the day he killed the red deer, from which he took the skin that he dried and scraped during the long summer months before the even longer winter during which he stretched the membrane for his drum. He can feel his fingers in his dream. Fingers tapping out a rhythm, fingers searching for another sound with which to play. Deep inside his chest his heart is racing, beating out that other sound, waiting for his finger thoughts to be caught up in the beat. He drums his dream.
The Palaeolithic painter’s arm stretches out and touches the wall, his fingers sense the stone membrane that lies between the spirit world within the rock and his own remembered world of sun lit life forms. His fingers feel the movement in the rock skin, his dream mind beats a new rhythm of long dead human souls speaking through the stone amplifier. Spirit waves pass through each surface one after the other as the vibration comes into contact with his body, his feet, the floor, the flames of animal fat, the corridors and shafts that lead to the sun lit world above, the trees and skies and mountains and rivers and seas and creatures… Until after distributing this sound equally throughout the entire world, the artist can hear and feel the music of the spirit land in his drawing hand and he begins to draw.
Lost in the dark forms of animals and flickering tapers the dream merges into the candle-lit world of a seventeenth century icon painter. Light flickers from the gold leaf background of an already started image. The Lamentation of Christ is a traditional subject and the painter has already painted eleven versions of this particular scene. He is old now and is regarded as a master of his art. He gazes at the head of Christ that lies horizontally at the left hand bottom edge of the painting. Christ’s head is supported in the lap of the Virgin Mary, his earthly mother, her own eyes stare directly down at his dead face. Only the under-painting has been completed, the next stage is the detailing of the faces. The old painter knows all the templates, is clear as to which colours to use and how to paint the faces, but for the first time, he questions his faith.
For as long as he can remember he has been aware that the Second Commandment read: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. His boyhood tutor Emmanuel had taught all the Commandments to him and explained their meaning. Emmanuel was a painter as well. As a master he taught how to mix colour, grind paints, apply under-painting, prepare surfaces and most importantly he taught the various image templates to be used, including the one of the Lamentation of Christ he was now staring at. The Master’s teachings on the Second Commandment were given to all apprentices just before their first communion and were seen as part of an apprentice’s rights of passage into adulthood. The old painter in his turn had had to explain the same Commandment to his various pupils and knew that if at any time an apprentice was going to forsake the vocation, it would be at the point when he had to reconcile his conscience with his future occupation.
What his Master had taught him was this. Icons are not the likenesses of anything. They are flat images, not graven. Graven images are sculptures and sculptures are objects and as objects they cannot help communicate with God. Flat images that are not likenesses can however be used as communication channels between God and his people. These images are of ideas not things. Artists should never attempt to copy the world, if they did God would then punish them for their evil; only He can create from nothing. But, as God is perfection and all human beings are, since the expulsion from Paradise, in a fallen state, if God is to commune with his subjects it has to be through a mediated form. The icon is an image that is a picture of an idea that allows you to meditate upon the perfection that is God and that allows His subjects to approach Him from a distance. Prayers are focused through the icons whose images, like the Bible itself are frozen into formats that support the historical weight of the traditions of the church. To change any aspect of the format would be an evil act. Only God or his representative on Earth, the Orthodox Church can create anything new, therefore only visions sent by God and sanctified by the Church could be admitted into the existing image-bank.
The old artist had seen a vision of the dead Christ where Christ’s eyes in the Lamentation are open, staring in death into the eyes of Mary. He had recently been present at the death of an old friend, whose eyes in death had remained open. He had found this a powerful symbol of his friend’s recognition in death of a place beyond death. He was sure Christ would have known this too and that in death he would have had full cognition of his resurrection. However, he was a mere man and as such these thoughts were not to be tolerated as they could lead to a false pictorial idea; a new icon template that had not been sanctioned by the Church. If his thoughts were evil, these could be the result of a temptation laid in his way by Satan and as such he would need to purify himself through prayer before carrying on with the painting.
The flickering candlelight faded back into dream dark as the painter started awake from his dreams. At last he knew which path to take.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Give me time
Hi new bloggers. Lots of you need to send me a link before next week. I'm snowed under with dissertation tutorials at the moment so dont expect any comments from me or any meaningful writing. However the new show at the Howard Assembly rooms by Janet Cardiff (that's inside the Grand Theatre)is a show that I will want everyone to see. It starts 4 February – going to 3 March. This is a re-working of Thomas Tallis’ 16th Century choral masterpiece, Spem in Alium and it is a really fantastic installation. 40 speakers each projecting the sound of one person, are used to gradually bring all the voices together to create something uplifting. Remember to walk around the edge so that you get all the individual contributions and then to stand in the middle to hear the totality of the experience. Comments on the space, venue and audience will be looked for.
Also make sure you comment on the city art gallery and the Northern Art Prize. My own fave rave this week is the small show of Chinese found rocks in the small back room in the Henry Moore Gallery. The relationship between carved stands and found rocks opens out a reverse art history where the plinths are more important than the sculptures. Is this how Brancusi started?
Also make sure you comment on the city art gallery and the Northern Art Prize. My own fave rave this week is the small show of Chinese found rocks in the small back room in the Henry Moore Gallery. The relationship between carved stands and found rocks opens out a reverse art history where the plinths are more important than the sculptures. Is this how Brancusi started?
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