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Ridin’ along on the pushbikes, honey
We’ve had visiting artist Jacqueline Donachie with us last week…part of The Common Guild/ACCA Glasgow/Melbourne alliance juggernaut of activities rolling out over this year. Jackie and the intrepid Jane Rhodes rode the length and breadth of Melbourne scoping out sites and routes for a forthcoming major public art event which we will wheel out early next year as part of our DESIRE LINES exhibition and events.
They rode the by-ways, by-passed the highways and, aghmmm, might have dismounted for a couple of hills. (yeah they did) On the week long riding mission they checked out many Melbourne hoods, via the bikepaths, footpaths and streets of the ‘Roy to South K, around the Lake and up the guts of Carlton via Canning St, they circumnavigated the G and took the scenic route along both sides of the Yarra and rode all the way to Docklands. Jackie was on the search for quality pavement, vistas, road curves and the perfect round-a-bout which of course we have aplenty in Melbourne and it’s environs.
We’re excited! We’re going to need riders and energy for this one…we’ll call on you later. Oh and we need a helicopter…if you have one and want to help us out, please let us know!
Many thanks to our helpful friends at Jelly Bean Bikes….cool wheels for types who like their bikes colour coordinated and architectonic…check ‘em out here: http://www.jellybeanbikes.com.au/
Jacqueline Donachie – Slow Down
Jacqueline Donachie – Slow Down
Jacqueline Donachie – Slow Down
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As ACCA’s current exhibition NEW12 comes to an end (closing 20 May 2012) we announce our forthcoming exhibition: Berlinde De Bruyckere: We are all Flesh (2 June – 29 July 2012)
Berlinde De Bruyckere
019,2007
window, wax, epoxy, covers.
Collection Claude Berri
We are looking forward to Berlinde’s arrival in a couple of weeks. We hope to see you all at the opening on 1 June 2012, 6pm.
In the meantime here is a Q&A with ACCA’s Artistic Director, Juliana Engberg:
How did Berlinde initially react to the ACCA space?
When I invited Berlinde to visit ACCA for her site visit I imagined she might find the space, which is vast and inspiringly scaled, somewhat like a cathedral. This was exactly her reaction. We decided then that the commission would use ACCA’s long room as a kind of approach to an alter and that the side galleries would become akin to chapels where one might have a more intimate scale to contemplate.
Tell me about the new works that ACCA has commissioned Berlinde to produce…
Berlinde has been working on the new commissions now for two years and the main work features two conjoined horse forms, which are hoisted on a tall scaffold and another, which is suspended from a wall support. The horses retain their bodily mass and their hide, which has been allowed to keep its wounds and flaws visible. Considered this way, the horse forms become awesome, majestic, yet paradoxically frail and wounded things…like the crucified Christ figure and saints. In the side spaces we also have new works, which typify Berlinde’s interest in the metamorphosis and transformation. In these works the human body entwines with, emerges from and back into animal and vegetal. These works seem both pagan and ecclesiastical in character, as well as deeply psychological. They suggest Greco-Roman mythology as well as the Christian concept of the body of sorrows.
Her works “recall the visceral gothic of Flemish Trecento art”. Tell me a little about her fascination with this era.
Berlinde is a Belgian artist and works such as the Ghent Altarpiece, the amazing carvings that adorn churches and the traditions of Flemish art are an inescapable part of her visual culture. Her works play homage in certain ways to this tradition.
She presents the human body in a way that is intensely visceral and moving. What ideas are at play here?
Several ideas are embedded in Berlinde’s works, as discussed above there is a strong relationship to the mythologies of pagan traditions and clearly the link to Christian beliefs as exemplified in art works through the ages.
Instead of marble - which is hard and permanent and has the connotations of richness and exploitation – Berlinde instead uses materials – wax, hide, wood, fibre – that are fragile and apt to disintegrate, mutate and transform. – In certain ways her works therefore have a greater drama and a closer relationship to matter and to the inevitable collapse of the body made from organic and visceral things. Her’s is a more humanist approach therefore – humble and knowing – acknowledging the transitory nature of life.
Can you tell me about her use of humans, horses and nature to explore these ideas?
Berlinde uses wax in a gesture towards the traditions of marble and she has created amazing techniques to achieve an appearance between marble and flesh. The works are quite startling in their depiction of sinew and the bodily fluids, which are hinted at through colourations that suggest veins and arteries. Whereas marble eventually mummifies its subject, this wax process re-enlivens the form because it continues to be organic matter transformed.
What is her process?
The process she uses is casting. This enables her to work from the body and combine the human form with other things such as branches and animal parts. The works have a staggering beauty.
Tell me about 019 and the significance of this work?
019 places a forest within a wooded and glass cabinet – the kind one might have found in the 19th century, in an Apothecary. Therefore a kind of medicinal cabinet but also an item that refers in certain ways to the profession of the alchemist. Inside there is a petrified wood…made from wax casts of real trees … which suggests another form of healing…one that might be located in the psychological research of archetypes by Jung, or the psycho-sexual metaphors investigated by Freud. In the instance of Jung, the forest is understood as a symbol for life and the finding of one’s path through the woods is a metaphor for coming into self knowledge (this is the reason it features so prominently in fairy tales which are maturation stories inevitably); for Freud, the forest was a symbol of the female genitalia, a place of mystery, birth and potential sexual danger if you subscribe to the anxiety of castration complex! In a more prosaic fashion 019 refers to transformation as well…from the forest to the utility of the cabinet – wood to wood – but I like the deeper psychological, medicinal idea and to me 019 is a potent metaphorical thing which eludes complete understanding yet tugs at the dormant, latent knowledge that we hold inside us…put away in the closet of our psyche. In mythology, of course, Psyche and Cupid are entwined in the forest!
Despite much rhetoric we feel the BB7 is a deflated and somehow defeated attempt to shift the paradigm. Art has been sidelined for the chimeric hopefulness of engagement and political energy…but these things are lacking … the revolution remains stubbornly quixotic and resistant to gentrification by art. The things that make art essential and potentially useful to the development of ideas, empathy and action are missing from this Biennale. Less didacticism and more humanity engaged through metaphor, narrative, and poesis might have had more impact.
There is, for instance, a very great difference between the narratives of return, and the phantasmic ironies which Yael Bartana employs so effectively in her project, which open gaps for thinking and analysis, and the heavy handed manifesto styled deliveries found in BB7. Artur Żmijewski might think art is redundant and purposeless, but in fact its non-appearance in this Biennale merely confirms its necessity and power – without it, things seem dead.
Quite unintentionally it may well be the case that Artur Żmijewski ushers in a new belief in art, that the paradigm that has been shifted is towards a more potent poetic. Sometimes the feather is better than the hammer to tickle and agitate than smash and destroy. Nevertheless we will watch the BB7 site with interest and follow the roll out of events and discussions – the art might be absent but the issues are none the less urgent and deserve our attention.
Berlin Biennale
Berlin Biennale
Berlin Biennale
In truth, and true to Żmijewski’s disenchantment, there is not much ART in this Biennale. The ground floor of the KW has been set up for the Occupy movement and sundry issues and concerns. It looks a bit like a protest expo. We wonder about the idea of this. To bring the Occupy movement into this sanctuary of art and its context, according to Artur Żmijewski, of neo-liberalism seems to miss the point. There is no resistance here. No energy to speak of. It is all sanctioned and annexed and seems to have been tamed by acceptance. People wander about in listless fashion and chat with various petitioners.
You can take the movement out of the street, but you can’t take the street out of the movement it seems. Read here an open letter of protest. http://www.alytusbiennial.com/news/477-open-address-to-the-curators-of-berlin-biennial-2012-due-to-commissioning-alytus-biennial-and-damtp.html
Occupy, Berlin Biennale
Occupy, Berlin Biennale
Occupy, Berlin Biennale
Berlin Biennale
Elsewhere in the KW walls have been written on in fluro paint (a nod to the seventies poster day-glo colours we guess), and black markers…more manifestos. Banner flags of new nations festoon the 2nd floor. You have to walk through them to get to the little model of Jonas Staal’s proposal for the New World Summit structure – a rondo seating plan to enable transparency for an alternative parliament for political and juridical representatives of organizations currently placed on international terrorist lists. You can read about it here: http://www.berlinbiennale.de/blog/en/events/new-world-summit-a-congress-with-jonas-staal
Berlin Biennale
Berlin Biennale
Jonas Staal’s proposal for the New World Summit structure, Berlin Biennale
Jonas Staal’s proposal for the New World Summit structure, Berlin Biennale
Khaled Jarrar, a Palestinian artist, has made a passport stamp for the State of Palestine and visitors are invited to stamp their own passports or selves. We cannot recite the chapter and verse of the law, but are pretty sure this might contravene the Passport Act of Australia (something about defacing or falsifications)…it most certainly would draw attention at borders. This is the point undoubtedly and one of those challenging moments where reality and art idea intersect problematically. It also, as it intends, tests your fear. Do you risk fine or being detained at borders to protest the current nation paradigm?
Khaled Jarrar’s passport stamp for the State of Palestine, Berlin Biennale
Khaled Jarrar’s passport stamp for the State of Palestine, Berlin Biennale
Khaled Jarrar’s passport stamp for the State of Palestine, Berlin Biennale
The Gentrification Program by the Institute of Human Activities takes place over five years in which the ‘modalities of art production’ launch a Gentrification project eight hundred kilometers upstream of Kinshasa on the river Congo. In a specially built bamboo settlement seminars will be held to discuss the issues arising from the ‘transfer of artistic production to this zone of reception’. Like many, the artists included we imagine, the people of the upper Congo might have preferred medicine, supplies and shelter, and so we understand this project to intend a cynical critique of the processes of gentrification that follow artistic inhabitation in places like New York’s, lower East and West sides, Melbourne’s CBD, and many other arts lead urban recoveries.
The Gentrification Program by the Institute of Human Activities, Berlin Biennale
Writing and drawing on walls becomes another trope in this Biennale. At the ST. ELISABETH-CHURCH on the Invalidenstraße artist Pawel Althamer has invited anyone to come and contribute their art…we saw some children working in groups and one young woman making a crayon mosaic pattern on the floor, the rest of the site seemed to already have been overtaken by the scatological scribblings of people who don’t seem to know how to share wall space and so the contributions seem already compromised.
ST. ELISABETH-CHURCH, Berlin Biennale
ST. ELISABETH-CHURCH, Berlin Biennale
ST. ELISABETH-CHURCH, Berlin Biennale
ST. ELISABETH-CHURCH, Berlin Biennale
Back at the KW Althamer exhibits one of the only actual art works…his film piece Sunbeam which is quite fabulous and we had wished was shown larger and in a room where you could see it more easily. Sunbeam riffs off rock/pop clips with a visual narrative that moves from the wintery hardships of the Eastern European (Polish) snow storm to the happier sunny times of the emerging new spring of Poland basking in the golden glow of EU investments. Like good art, this film, which refrains Althamer’s gold lame wearing protagonists from his previous Common Tasks project, uses metaphor, symbolism and rhetorical tropes to deliver a critique of the new Poland. Romantically shot with many tricks of the Rock video trade it’s MTV feel is the right touch amid so much that seems heavy and inert in this Biennial so far.
Later we wonder if Althamer’s Sunbeam was a late replacement of Artur Żmijewski’s own video Berek, which is listed in the program, but not found. Consistent with his centrality in all undertakings, Żmijewski has included this controversial work from 1999 in which naked people play a game of tag, laugh and dance in a disused Nazi Gas chamber. The work was recently rejected from being shown at the Martin Gropius Bau, and we think perhaps has been a midnight hour withdrawal from BB7.
Althamer’s Sunbeam, Berlin Biennale 2012
Althamer’s Sunbeam, Berlin Biennale 2012
Althamer’s Sunbeam, Berlin Biennale 2012
Althamer’s Sunbeam, Berlin Biennale 2012
Althamer’s Sunbeam, Berlin Biennale 2012
Althamer’s Sunbeam, Berlin Biennale 2012
At the top floor of the KW a nursery for young birch tree seedlings being raised from trees brought to Berlin from around the area of Auschwitz-Birkenau – where they have grown in the soil where bodies are buried. Berlin- Birkenau is the project by Lukas Surowiec, a Polish artist and intends to be a living monument and memorial for the lost lives of the millions of Jews murdered in the concentration death camps. This is a project of mutual thought and responsibility. If you promise to care for the seedling and bring it to maturity in a life long activity then you can take a seedling home and plant it. The mature trees are also being settled around Berlin. This project recalls Joseph Beuy’s 7000 Oaks for the Documenta 7, 1982 and to our way of thinking is a fine continuation of memorial symbolism.
Lukas Surowiec’s Berlin- Birkenau Berlin Biennale 2012
Lukas Surowiec’s Berlin- Birkenau Berlin Biennale 2012
We travelled to the Deutschlandhaus, a building with a history that represents the shifting geo-political context of Berlin from Weimer Republic to Nazi era to East block sectioning. It is now proposed as the site for the SFVV (Foundation for Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation) headquarters. The building is intended as its own exhibit – with stained glass windows, designed by Silesian artist Kowalski in 1950, a 1922 sculpture ‘the Expellees’ by Hermann Jochim Pagels who would go on to sculpt the heads of Hitler, Hess and Goebbels – and delivers a kind of mute history. On the upper level a small exhibit of personal items donated by families of German Jews who were forced to flee are arranged like a regular museum display.
The Battle, win lose or draw
The much-anticipated Battle of Berlin re-enactment lasted 15 minutes with a small number of participants assembling and going through the paces to musical accompaniment.
stained glass windows, designed by Silesian artist Kowalski in 1950, Berlin Biennale 2012
stained glass windows, designed by Silesian artist Kowalski in 1950, Berlin Biennale 2012
stained glass windows, designed by Silesian artist Kowalski in 1950, Berlin Biennale 2012
We were slightly worried about the Glasgow weather again on our blustery walk to the Cambridge Street car park, located a little distance down the hill from the Glasgow School of Art…Certainly some of us were better dressed for the outdoors than others (Note to self remember Northface jacket). But although chilly, the wind kept at bay for most of Bianca’s action, the finale of her week long series using found and made objects and located around various sites in Glasgow: only from the perspective of an observer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur.
See her record of it at http://uponthesurfaceoftheearth.blogspot.com.au.
Bianca Hester, only from the perspective of an observer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur, 2012
Some of Bianca’s actions were process based in nature (collecting sticks and redistributing them in piles), while others involved a direct invitation (for all the occupants in one street to open all their doors and windows for an hour on a designated day). For this final action Bianca drew on students from the art school and other people she met along over the week, to come together for an improvised action with steel hoops and rods.
They (we) rendezvoused at The Common Guild and then proceeded in a festive fashion to roll the metre in diameter, and reasonably heavy, blue steel hoops down the winding streets to the nearby multi storey car park. This classic brutalist structure was a perfect setting for temporary repurposing. With its painted red, yellow and blue sections denoting parking spots and driving lanes you could almost think that it had been prepared as a sports court or oversized game board.
At first, the participants tentatively began to spin the hoops in the centre of the expansive space but within minutes, and as if in unspoken agreement, the group started to become more confident with the implements and their potential to create both visual patterns and aural effects. Gathering momentum the percussion of whirling, chiming metal rang out across the rooftops of Glasgow – like a calling to the city. With the participants increasing experimentation with ways to use the circling hoops and rods, not only did their actions become more strenuous and intense, but it appeared as if people were being drawn out of the various stairwells to come see what was going on.
At the same time an increasingly large group of seagulls circled and called above. The action ended much as it had begun, with gradual decrease in the activity of the group and separating out into individual actions. We dispersed to find cover and warmth, nonetheless invigorated by the opportunity to tune in to the surfaces, surrounding atmosphere and rhythm of the city.
Bianca Hester, only from the perspective of an observer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur, 2012
Bianca Hester, only from the perspective of an observer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur, 2012
Bianca Hester, only from the perspective of an observer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur, 2012
Bianca Hester, only from the perspective of an observer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur, 2012
Bianca Hester, only from the perspective of an observer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur, 2012
Bianca Hester, only from the perspective of an observer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur, 2012
Bianca Hester, only from the perspective of an observer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur, 2012
Bianca Hester, only from the perspective of an observer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur, 2012
Bianca Hester, only from the perspective of an observer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur, 2012
Bianca Hester, only from the perspective of an observer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur, 2012
We weren’t so familiar with Glasgow’s underground train system, which happens to be one of the first in the world (well actually the third oldest after London and Budapest). Unlike the Melbourne version, which loops our city centre, the Glasgow version creates a loop from one side of Glasgow centre to the West End, leading us to speculate about the historical layout of Glasgow and its urban planning, and who it was built to service back at the underground’s establishment in 1896. There is something special about this underground; both the scale of the trains and tunnels look to be 1/3 less than usual, more like cable car size. And at a number of stations, as it originally built, the platform is the narrowest of islands between the two trains, the one moving clockwise and the other anti-clockwise around the loop. Standing on this island platform is a little terrifying – certainly no place for over active toddlers or anyone not in full charge of their senses. We gather a refurbishment plan to modernise the remaining stations is well underway which is no doubt a sensible idea although it will change the historical and intimate quality of these stations. There is something especially nice about the way the train driver looks out and up the platform to the descending stairs to see if there is anyone she should wait for – well that was on the weekend we ventured underground anyway. The station-master informed us that the underground attracts 4 million travellers each year – so the system is well used and in our experience ran like clock work.
Joshua has created a series of posters that are housed in the glass advertising cases on the platforms as well as amongst the advertisements mounted on the opposite curved side of the tunnels. His posters stand out from the mix of social service messages, advertisements for theatre shows and new album releases around them, firstly, through their perceived compression within the glass case, then also their strange cropping, pixilation and tones of black and white, and their appearance of being in transition – at a moment of placement or arrangement, being glued to or perhaps removed from the wall. He has taken, as his starting point, the undergrounds nickname The Clockwork Orange and while his posters don’t appear to advertise anything, they allude to some kind of coded language or process of obscuration or uncovering. What is especially rewarding about this project, is how it takes on the context, repeating the action of something only partially viewable in transit in its format, reiterating both the flickering, repetition and partial abstraction of the image and in our viewing of it.
Joshua Petherick
Joshua Petherick
Joshua Petherick
Joshua Petherick
Joshua Petherick
Joshua Petherick
Joshua Petherick
Joshua Petherick
Joshua Petherick
Joshua Petherick
Joshua Petherick
Joshua Petherick
We made our way to the Goethe Institute, which was only one street back from The Common Guild, to watch David Rosetzky’s one day screening of his video work How To Feel. From the body of projects featuring Australian artists in this GI, this is the only one in which an existing work, a major commission for ACCA in 2011, has been taken holus bolus and re-presented. It was really satisfying for us to see this again, its Melbourne location, accents and inflection of the voices, were of course more noticeable away from their roots. But, for us, the opportunity to present the mature work of an artist who has carefully refined his subject and its mediation over many years, was very satisfying. We stayed for an hour or so at the Goethe with many others coming and going, most often staying for extended duration picking up the subtle shifts of viewpoint and actions between one segment of the video and the next. It was interesting to think about David’s work in relation to film and video based projects (before mentioned) at Tramway for the GI, there being a connection in the desire to deconstruct and reconstruct cinematic spaces, explore the role of personal narrative, and the importance of the audience to the constructed self.
David Rosetsky, How To Feel, 2011
David Rosetsky, How To Feel, 2011
David Rosetsky, How To Feel, 2011
David Rosetsky, How To Feel, 2011
David Rosetsky, How To Feel, 2011
David Rosetsky, How To Feel, 2011
We welcome guest blogger Milo Adler-Gilles and his Glasgow contributions:
Glasgow’s weather gods really smiled on Laresa Kosloff and Andy Thomson’s project ‘The Green Text.’ The Partickhill Bowling Club suffered no more than a total 30 minutes of rain scattered across the five hours of the work. This was, we are reliably informed, as spring as things get.
The bowlers were out in force, many of them not Partickhill club members but drawn from the broader Glasgow bowls scene. For some bowlers, it was a reunion after years apart.
The artists told us that club memebership is diminishing and the jolly, ello ello styled advertisements for ‘Have-a-Go-Day’ made it clear. But when the two teams took to the green, it was difficult to discern. A group of older people laughing and enjoying themselves together in a manner that was a pleasure to be able to observe. Laresa and Andy’s text was presented in the voices of the fictional lawn-bowls experts Dr. Lindsey Fischer-Price and Alistair McLeod who also have sidelines in Ancient Greek natural science, contemporary continental philosophy and British history. The droll text, which the viewer hears via headphones, ranges wildly. It was not uncommon, looking around the perimeter of the green, to see a smirk or a chuckle on the face of a viewer.
As the commentators banter strayed from the game, the question of what is this construct of the game, its rules, traditions and required skill, were able to riff and ponder a broader range of intellectual concerns. Was the game a manner in which to think through ideas or simply another human way to whittle away at time, another form of light quirky chatter, as one our commentators puts it, “in the face of our inevitable demise”? Or a profound, balletic drawing of arcs and tilts…sculptural and performative nodding towards the coloured ball arrangements of conceptualists Baldessari and co. On the green this matters little probably, but the tea and sandwiches were great and the day ambled along with the pleasant sound of colliding bowls and friendly banter.
Laresa Kosloff and Andy Thomson’s project ‘The Green Text’
Laresa Kosloff and Andy Thomson’s project ‘The Green Text’
Laresa Kosloff and Andy Thomson’s project ‘The Green Text’
Laresa Kosloff and Andy Thomson’s project ‘The Green Text’
Laresa Kosloff and Andy Thomson’s project ‘The Green Text’
Laresa Kosloff and Andy Thomson’s project ‘The Green Text’
Laresa Kosloff and Andy Thomson’s project ‘The Green Text’
Marco Fusinato’s day-long noise event took place at Glasgow’s SWG3 venue. It was a fortuitous location. As we ambled about downstairs, not quite sure how or when to enter the former metalworks. We had an appropriate prelude to the day. Cars zipped along the A814 and beyond that, the Clyde. Cranes arced and crouched on the docks, a reminder that this city once built more of the world’s ships than any other. Its heavy industry is largely gone now and its traces are everywhere. A semi- or non-functioning place for labour was the ideal setting for Marco’s compelling metalic activity.
When we spoke to Marco the day before the performance, he was interestedn in abusing the acoustics of the massive concrete bunker with the big PA system. And while there were pockets of people in the space at any given time, it never ceased to feel cavernous and strangely, ghostly surrounding. It was one of those art events where no one really sat near anyone else. In the best possible way. There was a strong sense of shared event but not in any kind of sentimental fashion. The noise enters into you. We might have spent an hour in closed-eyed concentration, attending to the twists and turns of Marco’s
performance.
At each moment, the movements of Marco’s processed guitar sounds were tangible – like solid space. Visitors moved around the room, as often as they sat stationary, in an attempt to move with the sound pulsating through the space. More than once we observed someone sitting on a speaker to feel the noise. You could feel the thudding and humming everywhere in the room. At times (the louder ones) there were soundwaves that washed over you until the inevitable crash which went into your body. This was often followed by a mess of noise which made the stomach churn.
There was an electric moment somewhere near the middle of the day where one of the few lights in the space went out. For a moment, it was minimally dramatic – and just a bit ominous. As one of our friends from Common Guild put it “It feels a little bit risky. For me. I’m scared I could stay all day and that might turn into forever.” buried in the noise.
Marco Fusinato
Marco Fusinato
Marco Fusinato
Marco Fusinato
Marco Fusinato
Marco Fusinato
Marco Fusinato
Another sub theme in the GI is the strong desire to mine the archive…and preserve cultural material.
A collection of historical works from the American artist and activist, Emory Douglas’ time with the Black Panthers is exhibited at the Kendall Koppe…
The launch of Alan Kane’s book documenting the photographs and clippings on the walls of a Glasgow institution – the Val D’Oro restaurant in Trongate (just around the corner from The Modern Institute). Its not only the material in this archive of Glasgow and the Italian family who own it, but the way it has been displayed and catalogued on the cafe walls that is of interest and presented in this publication by Kane.
Back at The Modern Institute, Toby Webster has put together an exhibition from Paul Thek’s notebooks. This is a real gem in the GI program, a beautifully crafted exhibition of writing, drawings and found images that has a lovely sense of intimacy about it. Also on exhibition at the Modern Institute, Peter Hujar’s photographs of Paul Thek and his studio, appear so fresh and relevant - all up a rewarding interlude…
Paul Thek, Glasgow International 2012
Paul Thek, Glasgow International 2012
Paul Thek, Glasgow International 2012
Paul Thek, Glasgow International 2012
Paul Thek, Glasgow International 2012
Paul Thek, Glasgow International 2012
Paul Thek, Glasgow International 2012
Then we were off to Ruth Ewan’s The Glasgow’s Schools project, housed in a Macintosh school building. It was a little out of town and we were not sure what we going to be seeing… Its a wonderful archive of pamphlets, notes, interviews and the like, and again, very thoughtfully presented, describing the principles and practices of Glasgow’s Socialist Sunday School movement which was a secular alternative for many generations of Glaswegian kiddies. We liked the petition to give kids fresh milk and make the galleries and museum’s free!
Ruth Ewan's The Glasgow's Schools project
Ruth Ewan's The Glasgow's Schools project
Ruth Ewan's The Glasgow's Schools project
We discovered Henry Coombes’ compelling film at the House For Art Lovers (Macintosh inspired), actually the gardeners sheds nearby, a terrific location and site for his work I am the Architect, This is not Happening, This is Unacceptable – a magical hallucination set inside the mind and work of the ‘architect’ who finds himself in the menacing and strange world of ‘art’. This terrific black and white film, with its nod to early Bauhaus costumes, theatre and films, plus movies such as The Fountainhead, Dr Caligari’s Cabinet and the architectonic aesthetics of Fritz Lang et al. is one of those happy discoveries – an oedipal drama and artistic showdown, a bit nutty and nicely strange and deranged – we loved Henry Coombes.
Henry Coombes, Film still from I Am The Architect, This Not Happening, This is Unacceptable, 2012
Henry Coombes, Modernist Marcella in her modernist living room, Film still from I Am The Architect, This Not Happening, This is Unacceptable, 2012
Henry Coombes, The Rat, Film still from I Am The Architect, This Not Happening, This is Unacceptable, 2012
Every carnival needs one, and GI’s own version of the bouncing castle is Jeremy Deller’s inflatable Stonehenge ’Sacrilege’. This pagan throwback made of glossy pvc products nods to the stone cirlces which dot the isles of Britain, and its most famous henge The Stonehenge north of Salisbury (by no means the only one…just the one that became a celebrity henge). Originally the site of pagan rituals, worship and harvest festivals, this newly minted henge is a lure to the village folk of the Glasgow Green and when we visited was already well utilised by the wee and larger types who enjoy bouncing and falling. Our cabbie, Iain (with two ‘i’s he tells us), also worries that the Green is a dodgy bit of the city…so we are thinking the henge might have some social engineering purpose too … Deller’s piece is in sympathy with the playground of Dialogue of Hands (previously mentioned)…so we have quickly discovered a sub-theme of public space and play here!
Jeremy Deller
Jeremy Deller
Jeremy Deller
Chats etc.
There are a number of get-togethers all weaved through the day, and one is to meet and chat with colleagues over informal nibbles. We’re happy to talk at length with our pal Claire Doherty of SITUATIONS and hear a little more about NOWEHERISLAND her project brainchild of artist Alex Hartley. The little arctic island is floating towards the Olympics as we speak and will moor nearby during the games. It’s looking for citizens so if you want to become one log onto www.nowehereisland.org and do so before it floats off to a watery finale. We forgot to mention, Stonehenge will also be doing a Olympic circuit.
The Melbourne contingent…
Are marshaling their energies and resources for the following week when their projects, events, screenings and actions will take place. We hear tell there is a massive underground movement of NOISE followers, so Marco Fusinato’s performance is sure to draw the crowds. Bianca is plotting her moves (between drizzle patches). Joshua’s posters are up in the underground, Laresa is polishing the bowling balls and David is focusing the projector!
The itinerary…vast and sprawling
We managed to knock off 18 venues so far…30ish to go…the GI, true to its roots, takes you to big and small, evident and secretive spaces and a lot of democratically programmed and umbrella-ed events and exhibitions. It’s a great way to get to know the city. We discover MELBOURNE coffee at South Block…a design hub with café at front…where we have a great chat with our colleague Fulya Erdemci
Director SKOR in Amsterdam, and incoming Director of the forthcoming Istanbul Biennial. Sounds exciting!
Top picks thus far include…
Nairy Baghramian’s SPANNER is a tightly-wound, waist-height horizontal cable/bar stretched between the perfunctory temporary walls of the otherwise ornate Mitchell Library. Where other artists have preferred to fill this grand space with floor -ased works (and here we are thinking of previous GI exhibitors such as David Noonan and Callum Stirling), Baghramian has shifted the focus back to the space itself highlighting its intrinsic qualities and testing its very limits with tension. To our way of thinking there is a tug of war here and while not overt, definitely a politic in this project.
Nairy Baghramian
Nairy Baghramian
Nairy Baghramian
Nairy Baghramian
THE IMMORTALS by Folkert de Jong at the Glasgow Art School…an interplay of the classical and disheveled sculptural forms utilizing the given immortals of the schools collection of classical cast figures and de Jong’s lumpen, rough personages and furnitures.
Folkert de Jong
Folkert de Jong
Folkert de Jong
Rosalind Nashashibi’s Lovely Young People (Beautiful Supple Bodies) is the outcome of an extended period of visitation behind the scenes of rehersals of the Scottish Ballet. At a certain point in the development of the piece, she decided to bring small groups of locals into proximity of the dancers and the focus of this beautifully crafted film to video is as much about how we viewers orientate ourselves in unfamiliar spaces and in relation to performers in the act of looking as it documents the extraordinary feats and strenuousness of the ballet itself.
Rosalind Nashashibi
Lovely Young People (Beautiful Supple Bodies), 2012
Courtesy of the artist
Rosalind Nashashibi, Lovely Young People (Beautiful Supple Bodies), 2012
And those we have –previously mentioned.
Meanwhile…
The BBC crew in search of the answer to the question Why are there so many great artists from Glasgow…? Or the Glasgow Miracle as we’ve heard it called, pop up at openings and venues all over the place trying to suss it out…but we like Katrina Brown’s explanation…a lot of sheer bloody hard work! Aye to that!!
The GI is a very particular event. Festival though it is, it remains, in this city so close to its art and artists, authentic and graciously, one might say even resolutely true to the grass roots. Proud too, as it well might be with its impressive alumni of global art stars, many of whom were in the room to hear the polis ring the bells of home-grown success at the opening bash.
Said speeching preluded the viewing of Richard Wright’s (Turner prize winner) intense and intricate works on paper at the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery (one of those wonders which still has the stuffed things along with the art things). A nicely flamboyant aesthetic environment for Richard’s super detailed and lightly loaded works that elaborate the line into pathologies of pairings and psychological tensions
Richard Wright
Untitled (08/06/09), 2009
Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery, London/New York, The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd, Glasgow, and BQ, Berlin. Photo credit: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
But the night was yet young!
The rolling opening continued at Tramway, that vast cavernous space in the City’s southside. Four projects here, which all require better attention than can be mustered between chatting with colleagues and friends. But you get an inkling.
Moyra Davey’s film Les Goddesses deserves longer viewing, but the small bit we did see showed a seductive visual poesis in operation, brought together with a monologue based on the writings of proto-feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft, her daughters Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later Mary Shelley) Fany Imlay and her stepsister, Claire Claremont, who are collectively known as ‘Les Goddesses’. We enjoyed the nervy, jumpy and self-conscious reading – too fast at times, halting at others, uncorrected and bare – along with the assured film work which delivered some beautiful and patient footage, which gave space for thinking.
….ok, not a lot thinking…the crowd was noisy and thick.
Moyra Davey, Les Goddesses, 2011
Black Forest was an event by Los Angelian artist Kelly Nipper. An ambitious performance of enigmatic qualities, which activates the floor as a stage for slow moving choreographies amid still props. A hard gig with so much chatter.
While the collaboration between film, theatre and visual arts in Graham Eatough, Graham Fagen and Michael Mc Donough’s hugely ambitious The Making of Us posited the audience (allowed entry periodically –doors closed to block out the buzz of the opening celebrations) to become extras in the making of a new film. We were witness to a particularly dramatic scene in which the lead actor was required to hang himself from a tree…we want to go back and see more of this staging and making that will result in a film at a later date!
We managed to organize a few sneak peeks
We were lucky to have an early viewing of Wolfgang Tillmans’ beautiful photographic stagings at The Common Guild. Exploiting the very unique aspects of this domestic Georgian space, with its immaculate whiteness, grand glass windows and turned wood details, Wolfgang has made a precise and pitch perfect installation of his photographs. In each instance the clusters combine to include the found visuality of the space – the fireplaces, mirrors, spiraling staircase and grand bay windows become ensembles of double pleasure.
We were particularly seduced by the floating world within world that he managed by the simple gesture of placing images on the mirrors which then enter into the world outside through the windows. The Common Guild is one of these spatial and given gifts to artists. It never fails to provide an inspiration for artists who have already succeeded at the large scale to reacquaint themselves with the detail of their practice. We loved Wolfgang.
Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans
The sublime and awesome
From the intimate and small to the large and hefty, we were also able to sneak a peek at soon to be opened Karla Black’s awesome project at the GoMA. Another of Glasgow’s fabulous spaces, the ornate and vaulted grand room at GoMA, with its procession of sturdy neo-classical columns and gilt ornamentations has been beautifully framed and wonderfully held by Black’s massive sculptural block of compressed fibrous wood and sawdust. Bulky, convincingly dense and indomitable, this form displaces the gallery space to its outer edges and upwards where you can delight in the acrylic chandeliers of twisted plastic that festoon the hall and sculpt the air. Small surprises and reprises are held within the twisted stuff and slow viewing rewards with glimpses of little things and mini sculptures and painterly details.
Karla Black
Karla Black
Karla Black
Karla Black
Up on the roof
Dialogue of Hands is up and open and we hope less chilly as the days roll out for the GI event. A certain way of keeping warm is to have a go at the tin drums …we did…and play a bit in this temporary sculpture park made to make you move the body and create your own spaces. The works of Chris Johanson, Camilla Law, Mary Redmond and Corin Sworn are the brought together ensemble for this event that lives between sculpture and social enterprise.
Dialogue of Hands
Dialogue of Hands
Dialogue of Hands
Dialogue of Hands
Dialogue of Hands
Pipilotti Rist in conversation at her exhibition ‘I Packed The Postcard in My Suitcase’ at The Australian Centre for Contemoprary Art. Pipilotti talks about her approaches to video and how she hopes people experience the show. She also explains her use of colour, speed and sound, her reflections on the museum as an experience, and how the development of digital video and new technologies has influenced her practice.
I Packed the Postcard in My Suitcase
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
21 December 2011 – 4 March 2012
http://www.accaonline.org.au
Named a “guilty pleasure” by British critic Adrian Searle, Pipilotti Rist is one of this century’s most sought after artists and has shown in major exhibitions, biennales and festivals around the world, including the Venice Biennale in 2005 where she represented Switzerland with the stunning installation Homo Sapiens Sapiens in the Church of St. Stae.
Her works are epic and lush and often deal with issues related to gender, sexuality and the human body, but in a way that evokes a sense of unadulterated happiness and innocence.
Her ACCA exhibition, the first major presentation of her work in Australia, will bring together several key works from Rist’s recent exhibiting history, as well as a new commission which will spread across ACCA’s main exhibition hall with kaleidoscopic glee.
Watch as our crew install Pipilotti Rist’s incredible work ‘Gravity be My Friend’.
17 days in 3mins 50sec …enjoy!
Flickr Photos
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