Thought on blogging...

It was initially quite exciting to record and document my own and other peoples’ work in a different format to a sketchbook. However, I’ve found it hard to be disciplined to keep the reading and writing of it up. Even though it has been good to focus specifically on the topic of ‘Audiences’ a lot of what I have written here would have been what I’d be writing in my sketchbooks anyway so it has been hard to be motivated to write them in a blog.

 

For students like us on a course together where we see each other quite regularly, I felt the blog didn’t really improve our communication or networking much more. If I wanted tell somebody something about their work and I hadn’t had the chance to see them I would do it via email, facebook, their studio space, their pigeon hole, text or passing the message onto somebody who will see them soon. However, I do see the benefit of it if you want to demonstrate the sort of work you’re doing and the thought processes you’re going through to someone potentially interested in your work who can’t see it or see you in person. This way it becomes a useful tool to build up contacts locally and nationally and to almost gather a sort of following or fan-base.

 

I’d like to work harder perhaps at keeping up a blog for the latter reason because it becomes like an online portfolio, easy for you to update and easy for others to access.

Coloured Sugar Sculptures

I’ve made these sculptures by dripping food colouring onto small mounds of sugar. I think they’re quite peculiar and there’s ambiguity in what they could be or be about so I’m trying to think how an audience might interact with and understand them.

 

The fact that they’re made out of sugar is very significant. This connects them to the history of sugar and how it was a major part of the slave trade. Therefore sculptures like these could be situated in places that deal with this kind of history, for example The Sugar Museum in Berlin or the London, Sugar and Slavery gallery that’s opened

 fairly recently in the Museum of London. One of the most well known producers of sugar is Tate and Lyle, whose legacy now lies in the cultural business of art galleries across the UK, the Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool etc. Being art galleries that stem from the history of sugar makes them the perfect place to site my work.

 

However, if I was to look at each sculpture more individually then they have a very crystalline quality, almost like I’ve intentionally tried to make my own form of precious rock or stone. In this case they might appeal to an audience interested in crystals who you’d most likely find in museums or rock shops; I think there’s quite a few of these in the Lake District. This would give me scope to really go over the top and lay them out individually on silk, gold edged cushions in pristine glass cases with name-tags; including the place of origin, date discovered, what different elements they contained for example.

 

To display this work in college I’ve decided to

 use a standard plinth. I’ve chosen one that is a good height 

for people 

to be able 

to look at 

the work 

closely without having to 

bend down too far, or stretch up too high. Ideally it will have space around it 

because the sculptures are quite unusual in shape 

and each one is different so it would be 

good to let people see them from all angles. I definitely don’t want glass or 

Perspex over them. I think it’s 

important that the audience can get as close as they like, even at the expense of them getting broken, because the reaction to them might be more varied than if everyone had to look at them no closer than the distance set by the glass or Perspex.

The surface of the plinth is something I need to consider because if people do come close in to look at them then the top of the plinth is suddenly very noticeable and could distract a bit from the work. My aim is to get it as smooth and clean as possible so the focus is on the sugar. 

Inside the White Cube. 1) Notes on the Gallery Space

This is talking about the ‘White Cube’, the ‘archetypal image’ that comes to mind when we think of 20^th century art. I think Brian O’Doherty has a point because white walls, usually making up a large square room has become what is expected of the place where you will see modern art. This space is supposed to be neutral, to be like a blank canvas ready to show off the work inside it. However, has the focus shifted from the artwork to the building/room in which it’s contained? Do we see the ‘White Cube’ before we see the artwork? I think a lot of us do. Either consciously or subconsciously we will be clocking the building and what the room looks like before we even start to think about looking at the artwork. It could therefore be argued that the ‘White Cube’ has so much influence and authority over its audience that practically anything could be shown there and it would be respected as art.

 

For the show at college we’ve been prepping the studio so that it has clean white walls but because they’re quite broken up with skirting boards, offices and windows etc. it doesn’t quite look as professional as the all pure white of somewhere like the Henry Moore Institute for example. So there are valid reasons for this type of white gallery space. 

Exhibition hanging at St. James' Hosptial

Having helped hang the work in St. James’ Hospital today, it was really good to see patients, visitors and staff looking at the work, talking about it and talking to some of the students about it too. Because it’s such a public space within the hospital, plenty of people walk past so I think it’s been stirring up a lot of interest. Being such a public and practical space means this exhibition will be viewed by a wider audience hopefully. I think that’s part of what makes this exhibition exciting and interesting, because it won’t just be art students and other artists who come to see it. I think it will be very useful to us as emerging art students to get feedback from staff/patients/visitors because they will see our work with fresh eyes. Also people won’t know who we are, which sometimes makes it easier to be more honest and critical.

The Audience at St. James' Hospital

Patients, visitors, staff. Many of the patients could be very ill, which either means the Atrium Gallery is a great place for them to help take their mind off things and concentrate on something else for a while. Or, it could mean that some patients have too much on their plate to be concerned with ‘contemporary art’ and what’s going on, on a large wall.

 

Visitors could be all sorts of people from very varied backgrounds and with different experiences of contemporary art. It’s possible that some of them may never have seen an exhibition before and so respond in an unexpected way. It’s likely that most visitors will at least walk past the Atrium Gallery at some point and many will stop there to eat, drink or meet people in the waiting area. This gives people little choice over whether they see the artwork or not, which is a very different dynamic to the usual tradition of purposely going into a gallery to see art. This is why the selection of work needs to be done sensitively, which I think it has been because there looks to be a good range of different colours, sizes and media chosen so hopefully there’ll be something there to please everyone.

 

I’m not quite sure what reaction the work will get from staff at the hospital. I imagine they will always be rather busy, so won’t have a lot of time to stop and enjoy what’s on the wall. It must at least make it a bit more of an attractive wall-space to walk past but unless they have a particular interest in contemporary art then I wouldn’t be surprised if they were quite apathetic towards it. I’d love to be proved wrong on this though.

Syagr and the Library

Sugar in Cafe Nero

Sugar-eating, gluing, sorting, recording

For my work in the studio I have been using sugar collected from packets that you get given or find at cafes and restaurants. I am also interested in archiving and recording information, particularly in lists-using numbers and descriptions.

I started to consider the sugar outside of its paper packets, which are very much a throw-away 

item. I've thought about the possibility of inviting people to 

come and eat some of the sugar, perhaps a grain at a time but I 

feel I should have a stronger justification for doing this. Originally my idea was that each packet of sugar I had, had some kind of emotional attachment to it from the place and situation 

I was in when I acquired it. So in a way those would have been 

internal feelings that get physically materialized or represented 

in the sugar, which then get ingested by other people. 

However, I'm not too taken by the idea of the emotional assignment to each bit of sugar because for a lot of them I can't remember exactly where I was and what I was doing/feeling when I got them. And I wouldn't be happy to make it up. And I feel that there's only so many individual words you can use to describe a 

feeling/emotion or atmosphere, so they wouldn't give a very detailed or accurate impression of the moment.

I'm more interested at the moment in documenting the individual packets with words and playing about with the sugar as a material-how I can stick it together without it dissolving, perhaps how I can capture its pouring movement and sticking it to the outside of the packets.

Allan Kaprow

Talking about 'Happenings' with Louisa, the artists name Allan Kaprow cropped up. I've had a look at some of the stuff he's done. It often seems to involve very direct audience participation or interaction. We were discussing today how when it actually comes to getting people involved, they (adults) can often be reluctant and children are a lot more up for getting stuck-in and having-a-go. Perhaps interactive art should be made more accessible to children..? or we should just get over ourselves and be less self conscious-but thats not going to happen easily, so maybe 'interactive art' needs to be directed to a more specific audience in order to ensure that some people at least will take part and you will get a good mixture of responses.

Here's a few links to Kaprow's work...

No Rules Except...

Fluids

Art As Life

Thinking about audiences

I'm going to take the sugar packets I've been working with, outside of the studio, to see how they might interact with different audiences, spaces or situations. Two places I've got in mind so far are the Leeds City Museum and some kind of cafe/coffee shop. The museum because of the way things are very ordered and categorized there and a coffee shop because of the obvious connection with the sugar packets. It would also be good to find some places that are very un-ordered and chaotic and that have little relation to sugar, just to see how the contrast of objetcs and context would work.