Tasteless

Buffet d’art at Hestercombe gallery is a smorgasbord of buffet-sized sculpture, live art, film, sound, light and painting from 45 different artists, all of whom have been invited to bring work that can be ‘perused on a plinth’.
 

“The show is a meleè of mismatched yet aspiring works, some with delusions of grandeur, others grubby with spillage and monotonous repetition, set to a medley of smooth and relaxing music, designed to whet the senses and heighten your experience of these buffet-inspired memories.”

An unusual exhibition warrants an unusual response so I am writing mine in the form of a buffet table conversation between three people with very opposing views as they attempt to digest what lies before them.

Person X: What ill conceived manner of cacophonous, inane, conceited  tat is all this?! Something that can only best resemble a turd, a giant band aid, a woman urinating, a load of old cigarettes... A blue stick! A cupcake, that as far as I can see is unedible!

Person Y: It is safe to assume that you liked it then?

Person X: Liked it! If I wanted to see a load of something of nothing, I’d have gone to [disclaimer we could not include the name of the gallery here, but you know the one]!

Person Y: I think any reaction is a good one, besides its playful, an example of bringing together these disparate, strange and creative elements. Their variety and unexpected nature of viewing works on and under a giant table is visually a lot to look at in a small curated space.

Georgina Starr

Person Z: I don’t get it.

Person X: It’s taking the p**s is what it is. A cheap way for artists to boost their CVs and for galleries to they’ve exhibited work by a wide array of artists.

Person Y: Cynically, perhaps yes. But where else do you get the opportunity to see work like this, by artists whose big works you may be familiar with, it offers a glimpse into the playful and other creative outputs within their practice.

Person X: I wouldn’t want to see any more of some of it!

Person Y: It is all here, lights, coloured liquids, music, strange undefinable forms, waves, a diorama of a swimming pool, a revolving pot, recycled entities, felt, paper, foam. A village of tiny people, projection, a yellow baseball cap!

Person Y: Maybe you are taking it too seriously. Think of Dada, Surrealism, artist’s studios and the ‘real, lived process’ of what it means to be an artist and make art. Is it not at times inquisitive, spontaneous, rebellious in its non-conformity? See this as a buffet, a taste of lots of variables out of many. So many that we may not have time to savour and understand each one individually for long before moving onto the next thrill, the next surprise, the next thing that may upset, delight or confuse us. Some are intentionally small things, but with grand ambitions that the status of the plinth provides. You could see it as ironic or tongue-in-cheek.

Reith Bowler

Person Z: I don’t get it.

Person Y: What would you expect or want to see in Somerset?

Person X: .....I suppose, ...variety. Something contemporary.

Person Y: Exactly!

Person X: But I am not sure I get the ‘joke’ here, if that was what was intended. I am not sure if pointlessness for the sake of pointlessness either does anything to help raise the bar or what is it challenging or prove?

Person Z: ...I really do not get it.

Person X: The only people this will appeal to are those hipster, do-gooder, lefty, decaffeinated-skim-latte drinking mediocrities blinded to the facts that what this truly is, a waste of space! 

Peggy Atherton

Person Z: “Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art.” Susan Sontag

Person X: Even if this is art, which isn’t quite the same as what we are arguing here, what this is, is still not good art. This is a bunch of stuff masquerading as being important because it is made by an entitled, insider bunch of artists.

Person Y: Isn’t that what all art is. Who decides what is good or bad, it’s all subjective. What is the inside? These are old issues. It is all too easy to grow cynical of these things; I think that the connection it creates between artists, curators and gallery spaces is a good one. I read recently that, “Reviewers like to feel they are above a work of art. If it puzzles them or if they are intimidated they are more than likely to trash it.” Could not the same be said of art audiences?

Person X: ....

Person Y: Though I do often wonder if it is an apathy towards our failings to engage and discuss this sort of art with other people or ourselves and honestly, that causes these strong opinions. How often is it that we merely tolerate a lot of art that we feel is bad because criticism is difficult to express as it can be to ingest. This isn’t good for either party. Audiences are always being forced to be open-minded and try new things but do they have the same power of influence on the curators who's shows they visit and consume?

David Cotterrell

Person Z: I suppose by that comment you are referring to me. I do not understand it but that does not come out of apathy or lack of desire to understand. I am content with just experiencing and viewing it for what it is.

Person X: Well, certainly no apathy here!

Person Y: Maybe it is all a conversation. The pieces brought together from individual artists, arranged in a way so that they ‘talk’ to one another. See it as a series of rhythms and forms, colours and textures that change. Or maybe the point is that it generates us to have the kinds of conversations we are having now.

Person X: Not big enough or isolated enough to be satisfying.

Person Y: I found a couple of things that really stood out for me. I like R J Hinrichson’s pamphlet on creating your own ‘Semi Formal Discussion Networks’. Though as a whole it looked a bit goofy and forced together and I couldn’t appreciate how the different objects related to one another in terms of their space on the ‘table’.

Person Z: I liked Ben Joiner’s piece. It sort-of looked like it was crawling onto the table like a giant fried egg.

Person X: Hmmm, ... I still do not see quite why someone would be willing to waste their time looking at this as they would want to read about it.

Person Y: On that we can agree.

 

 

You too can gorge yourself silly or go on an art detox at Hestercombe Gallery's Buffet d'art, open Sun, 21st May at 11:00 am to Sun, 18th Jun at 5:00 pm http://www.hestercombe.com/event/buffet-dart/

FaB 4!

Art-goers of all tastes have until June 11^th 2017 to catch dozens of visual arts exhibitions plus performance, music, film and talks as part of Bath’s annual Fringe Arts [FAB]. The Visual Arts part of the festival sees twenty-eight curated exhibitions in a range of venues and locations across the city, some worth visiting for their surprising venue alone; visitors have much to explore! I have been to several Fringe Arts Bath years and always attempted to write about too much of it in the past. I am of mixed opinions on what I saw this time around, even from some of what I have chosen here, but if you don't have time to see it all then you won't do badly by sticking to my FaB four!

 

In no particular order:

Robert Good 'A Defensive Manoeuvre' exhibited in 'The Obsessive
Compulsive Practice at FaB 2

Robert Good as part of The Obsessive Compulsive Practice, FaB 2, 94 Walcot Street

Should it be troubling that my favourite exhibition in the Fringe should focus on obsessive behaviours and compulsive repetitions or tedious practices of the need and making of art? There were several artists whose work I found interesting in this exhibition, Abigail Simmonds, Lucinda Burgess to name a few. Though the piece, ‘A Defensive Manoeuvre’ by Robert Good stood out for me. Lest alone because I work in a bookshop! Or maybe it is because I work in a bookshop that this works place within a show about obsession, collecting and ‘a sense of order’ really drew me in. At first it made me smile, like a highly organised Arman, the work safely houses ninety copies of the same book, each has been collected and arrange into its own neat bespoke box/vitrine. The wit of then reading that these are copies of Charles Rycroft’s ‘Anxiety and Neurosis’, mass-produced as Pelican books, adds to the seemingly compulsive orderliness of how they are arranged. The fact that they are second-hand, worn, read, used; each one we imagine may have belonged to a different person at some time who bought the book either out of interest or because perhaps they themselves were in a state of some anxiety. Maybe some copies were well read, whilst others not so. Those subtle differences and traces of use make them individual and aesthetically pleasing as it is loaded with meaning. Presented here, as a set, that anxiety becomes a collective one rather than a private one and possibly alluding to the bigger concerns that we still have as a nation in addressing, speaking about issues surrounding mental health.  Pardon the pun, but maybe I am reading too much into this piece –though it did get me thinking and for that it was one of my personal highlights.

http://www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/obsessive/



Ally McGinn 'Broken Skin'

The Bath Open Art Prize at 44AD Artspace

Small but perfectly formed, there is a lot to see in this relatively small space that features a great variety of work. Some of my personal favourites include; Nina Gronw-Lewis, Ally McGinn (pictured), McFarland and Singer. http://www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/bathopen/

 

Embodied Cartographies at Walcot Chapel

“Walking . . . is how the body measures itself against the earth.” -Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking Embodied Cartographies is ‘An inter-disciplinary series of events and exhibition focusing on walking as praxis, mark-making, language, performance, choreography, philosophy, wayfinding...’

The Walcot Chapel hosts a lot of great exhibitions and is worth a visit during anyone’s time on a visit to Bath. A few of the pieces in Embodied Cartographies I had the pleasure of seeing before in other exhibitions but it was still good to see some of those familiar pieces in a new context and alongside some new ones, such as, Lydia Halcrow (pictured). In selection of artists and concept, this should be a great exhibition; though I feel slightly weary that it should happen in a year that has seen so many similar exhibitions to explore weathered and alternative ways of mapping and documenting and being in the landscape. Maybe I have seen too much but am still waiting and hoping for an exhibition in the future that seeks to shift the balance away from this very muted, geological, meteorological look on the natural world.   

http://www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/cartographies/

 

Lydia Halcrow 'The Black Ground: walking the Taw and Torridge estuaries',
exhibited in 'Embodied Cartographies' at the Walcot Chapel.

The Building at Fab 1, 15 New Bond Street

One of my favourite things about FaB is being allowed access to spaces that we as the public would not normally have access to. In a former shop space in the centre of the city are five floors and a basement hosting six individual art exhibitions. The lowest-level being particularly atmospheric as you descend into a subterranean brick built cellar with curved arches, low-lighting and damp, dank conditions. It is an exciting place to see art in, ignites the imagination, it is unusual and fitting of what a fringe festival should represent; the hidden, the inaccessible made accessible. What if the walls could talk? What was this space used for? How old is it? There is an installation in this space (below) as part of 'Dreaming in Full' which transforms the cellar at New Bond Street into a fairytale-like living quarters complete with mushrooms, teasels and folk art style furniture. It is a bit too over-the-top, twee, too theatrical and staged for my taste; I think I would like to see work that responded to the space so you could appreciate and see it as it is. One solid, strong projection, lighting or sound could add intrigue to this space without turning it into something else. 

There is a lot of potential in the spaces and buildings used in the Fringe, I am sometimes surprised that the context of being in Bath, with its history aren’t responded to more. Being a visitor it is sometimes more overwhelming and distracting to be exploring floor after floor of these shops than it is looking at the work within it which cannot always compete with the space it finds itself in.

Installation at FaB 1, 15 New Bond Street

FaB is on until June 11^th where you can all make your own mind on all this and much, much more! http://www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/ 

Glasshouse Effect

Nothing like the sound of cracking glass to make one’s senses suddenly on edge, even more so if one finds oneself hearing that sound whilst standing inside a giant domed-glass structure! Though fear-not impending doom, for this was the sound installation of German born artist, LotharBaumgarten [1944] exhibited in the Palacio de Cristal in Madrid’s Retiro Park. Phew!

 

The impressive 22 metres high glass and iron, birdcage-like structure built in the 19^th century to exhibit the flora and fauna of the Philippines (Spain’s last colony) is now used by the Reina Sofia Gallery to host temporary exhibitions. Between November 3rd 2016 and April 16^th 2017, Lothar Baumgarten’s sound piece, ‘The ship is going under, the ice is breaking through’ was installed in this space. Amid the more permanent cultural highlights that Madrid has to offer; Picasso’s Guernica, Goya, Bosch and Velázquez, I was fortunate enough to discover and experience this work first-hand.

 

Firstly, the Palacio de Cristal is a spectacular space. Architecturally and visually pleasing, like walking inside a giant bird-cage or greenhouse, one is ever conscious upon stepping inside, that it is made of glass the surrounding trees and park outside framed from the inside, outside; greenish tinged light and warmth floods in somehow creating a phenomenological illusion of filling the vast space that is, other than a few chairs and the bodies of the people that occupy it, physically empty. Though one cannot escape the feeling of containment created by the skeletal ribs that form the iron framework on which that glass is supported, they create their own architecture of shadows across the floor. It is refreshing to be in a space this big and imposing yet to have ‘nothing’ in it, and by nothing I mean, no sculptures, no stuff, no physical things, artefacts or objects which would in some ways only distract from the grand and interesting visuals of the space itself. In a capitalist culture obsessed with products and production I feel increasingly drawn to art that uses existing space, material or subject matter without need to occupy it with too much (if at all) physical ‘stuff’. I recall Rita Mcbride’s laser installation within the carnivorous belly of Liverpool’s Toxteth reservoir and Susan Philpsz’s sound installations under bridges. Pieces that relate to their context and enhance it, make it accessible and seen with fresh-eyes without them intruding, adorning or infiltrating the space in a lumpy or materialistic way. Sound and light animate and create atmosphere or thought in these places in a far more experiential way.

 

All this spectacle and I have not even begun writing about the actual work yet. Though with sound it is perhaps hard to know where the work begins and ends, is it with the space in which the sound is heard, or is it the actual sound itself? Probably a combination of both. The ‘sound’ in this instance being that of cracking ice as it thaws on the Hudson river, New York, where the artist works. It cleverly creates the illusion, in the context of the Palacio de Cristal, of the sound of glass breaking, the threat of collapse physically immanent. It is a slow, suspenseful sound rather than the more immediate sound of the shattering of glass. Given Baumgarten’s practice of subverting the Westernised view of the world and the dialectical relationship between nature and culture it is an appropriate use of sound and context. The context of this Spanish structure built to display and organise the flora and fauna from the Philippines, a very Westernised construct and an institute of power, wealth and classification is given a very natural and dystopian sound piece that threatens to destroy the building itself whilst mocking us, in that it is all, in fact a hoax. The glass isn’t really breaking but the structures, systems and monuments that we build are in constant flux. The accompanying pamphlet handed to visitors like myself explains that it is,  

 

‘a tonal analogy for the crashing stocks and assets of the insatiable ‘shark trading’ of financial markets; it concerns greedy speculation about unlimited economic growth and the resulting impact on the dramatically changing global climate.’

 

Indeed, or perhaps, just as we have recovered from realising that the glass above our heads is not breaking, an even heavier foreboding beckons, that this sound; not of glass but ice, becomes the weighty realisation of the thawing and melting of glaciers and global warming. The immediate localised threat taken away, the sense of the fragility of a much greater, global threat, heightened.

“This melting ice is at odds with the sun that floods the Palacio with light, ...yet there is a logic here too. Something is breaking, melting, disappearing in plain sight, though it goes unnoticed. Effects of actions that cannot be seen can be felt and heard elsewhere, even while we might pretend otherwise. The title of the work speaks explicitly of disaster, one that has many keen resonances – past and present, real-life and literary, economic, ecological, social, philosophical and physical disasters – all are all bound up in this.”  –Anneka French

 

Such is the work of Lothar Baumgarten whom has been working since the sixties but only just entered my periphery of art knowledge (I apologise, it is an ever increasing field). I am impressed at how this piece operates on so many levels, from the bodily effect it has on the viewer (an initial sense of panic soon replaced by one of laughter or relief) to the almost political affect it has on the context within which it is meant to occupy. One of his previous works titled, ‘Unsettled objects’ 1968-70 involved looking at how ethnographic museums, including an all time favourite of mine, Pitt Rivers and how they ‘frame the viewer’s perception through the manner in which their objects are displayed’. I only wish I had known of this before as it would have been so apt during a project that involved looking at museum modes of classification at the Somerset Heritage Centre.

 

For me personally this work marks a shift in how, perhaps, as I’ve grown older I have become more critical, more politically and globally conscious, less concerned with the production of youth, obsessed with making and churning physical artefacts  out. Now I feel more conscientious of process and ‘need’ to make, instead increasingly interested in minimal states, self-sustaining means of producing and work that responds or highlights to the beauty, intrigue or nature of what already exists. There was a time when I could never have dreamed that a mere sound piece alone would move me to such provocations; I am humbled and pleased that my tastes and understanding of art are ever evolving.

Please watch the video below to hear it for yourself.

Samples

Just a short post to mention an exciting book that arrived today; in 2013 during my first visit to the Venice Biennale I discovered the work of Columbian born artist, José Antonio Suárez Londoño. The work consisted of hundreds of tiny drawings/paintings on paper laid out in glass cases in the centre of the ‘Encyclopaedic Palace’. I fell in love with these quiet, captivating and imaginative drawings admiring their sometimes referential and other times surreal-looking or ‘automatic’ subconsciously derived imagery. They were an inspiration for my own ‘drawing-a-day’ projects and continue to be motivational for my sketchbooks which I still produce but seldom show. I have often written about the 'need' to draw and mind-set induced by the commitment to drawing regularly. They are personal items of use, obsession and need so I have never felt that they need to be subject to the self-conscious inducing scrutiny or rationale of an audience or gallery, however I have shown some and subsequently am grateful that Londoño’s work has been shown in the public domain and embraces an outsider art sense of integrity, to be just what they are (but by all means makes them no less brilliant), drawings in notebooks.

 

“José Antonio Suárez Londoño revives the profession of artist as a reflection of his time, his surroundings, his personal experience and that of the moment in which he lives.”   

I have been in search of a book of his work for the last four years (they are as hard to come by as it is to repeatedly have to type his name into search engines) and the more I learn about him the more interesting he becomes [For example, I have just discovered he illustrated a book of poetry by Patti Smith]. The book is a retrospective catalogue of his works that were shown in 2015 in Spain Columbia and France. Once I have read the book I will perhaps post more info on here but for now wanted to introduce to more people the work of this exciting artist.    

"Since the 1970s José Antonio Suárez Londoño has expressed himself through drawing, in the form of his prints, his numerous notebooks and rubber stamps. The intense focus and emphasis on a single medium has allowed the artist to create a coherent body of work, which has become an undoubted reference point for the new generations of artists now championing drawing as an essential tool within their artistic activities. Suárez Londoño’s constant, daily endeavours are revealed through an oeuvre that represents a type of inventory of the world, a diary that almost obsessively describes his situation and concerns...an artist for whom drawing is a way to present the viewer with new micro-universes, encouraging us to construct our own narrative."

To View an Online Book of Suárez Londoño’s Works Click Here

Images and Text Sourced from: José Antonio Suárez Londoño: Samples, (2015) This Side Up, Madrid.

Into the Wild...

The independent artists’ book HIVE IV is to be released into the wild on Saturday 1st April 2017. The publication of the book will coincide with an exhibition featuring each contributor’s original artwork at The Old Brick Workshop, Wellington, Somerset, throughout the first week of April.

 

The exhibition Private View / Book Launch will take place on Saturday 1st April, 18.00 - 20.30. A limited edition, signed copy of the book will also be auctioned on the  night.

HIVE is an ever-expanding group of artists associated with the occasionally-published artists’ book of the same name. Since 2014 there have been three issues of HIVE, each edited by different artists who have also set the theme for each issue. Past themes include: ‘Track 6’, ‘The Wrong Side of 15 Minutes’ and ‘Out of Line’. The concept of HIVE [that has since inspired the spin-off publication SWARM] was originally initiated by artist/educator Stuart Rosamond and artist Frank Edmunds to promote creativity and give exposure to the work of an eclectic group of artists, photographers and designers based in the South West and beyond. HIVE IV will feature the work of twenty artists;

 

Rico Ajao,  Chris Dart,  Roger Dean,  Frank Edmunds,  Jon England,  Tony Girardot,  Nina Gronw-Lewis,  Kevin Hawker,  Martin Jackson,  James Marsden,  Tim Martin,  Jane Mowat,  Natalie Parsley,  Eileen Rosamond,  Stuart Rosamond,  Ruby Rowswell,  Chris Taylor,  John Watling,  Rob Watts,  Deborah Westmancoat.

 

 and the list of potential contributors to future editions is constantly growing. HIVE IV is edited by graphic designer Rob Watts and will feature artworks responding to the theme of ‘Lost &  Found’.

 

Visitors are invited to celebrate the launch of HIVE IV with the artists at the Private View of the exhibition at The Old Brick Workshop, Wellington, Somerset, on Saturday 1st April, 18.00 - 20.30, where they can view the original artworks from HIVE IV [Lost & Found] created by its twenty contributing artists. This will be the first time that contributors’ works have been publicly exhibited. During the evening there will be a live auction when visitors can bid for a limited edition, signed copy of HIVE IV, as one of 22 copies only ever to be produced; proceeds of which will go towards funding future HIVE publications. The exhibition will remain open to the public to view for free from Monday 3rd April to Saturday 8th April, open 11.00 - 16.30.

 

Graphics and Photo by Rob Watts

 

HIVE IV [Lost & Found] EXHIBITION

The Old Brick Workshop

Higher Poole, Wellington, Somerset TA21 9HW Monday 3rd April - Saturday 8th April 2017 Open 11.00 - 16.30

PRIVATE VIEW / BOOK LAUNCH / HIVE AUCTION Saturday 1st April 2017 18.00 - 20.30

 

For further information please visit www.theoldbrickworkshop.com

 



 

Of Mutability

Agricultural objects, detritus, artefacts from the consumer-age lay to rust, surfaces weathered, worn and washed with time, light travels across coastal vales, misty veils and illusions of by-gone places, nostalgia, memories, horizons, distances and journeys. Nothing is ever fixed. Nothing stays ever the same. In the words of Percy Shelley's famous poem, ‘Nought may endure but mutability’.

 

Mutability is a good word, I’ve decided. Its official that I also think it is a good word to describe the transformations of the landscape and our place as equally changeable beings within it; and how that process works both ways for both better and sometimes not. This should be nothing of a revelation to many, countless poets, writers and artists have been writing on mutability and the landscape for years before the idea settled into my post-arts degree addled brain. In fact, it was the word,  muted rather than mutability, that first sprang to mind upon seeing the work exhibited in ‘The Transformed Land’ currently on show at The Brewhouse Arts Centre in Taunton.
 

Eleanor Goulding, Linn O'Carroll and Russell Denman's work
exhibited as part of 'The Transformed Land' 

 Muted, in that the colour (or lack-of) and general sense of a feeling of quiet or mute distilment, permeated the works within this exhibition. Featuring the work of 14 artists there are one or two exceptions to this observation, notably David Daniels’s bold, bright, graphic, stylised, Julian Opie-like digital prints of lonely winding rivers, streams and hillsides. Where there is colour in other works it is controlled, reserved, sparing. Jason Miller’s watercolours quietly hum with the delicate quivering, glow of a Rothko and David Smith’s collaged mixed-media pieces also use traces of colour but in a formalistic way. They appear considered and reflective rather than spontaneous. Andrew George’s egg tempera pieces of big, dramatic coastal landscapes are executed with superb scale and technical ability with a colour palette that is both natural but also nostalgic and reminiscent of post-war landscape artists such as Eric Ravillious’s paintings. And they really are BIG paintings with fine detail that do a great job at drawing the viewer in.

 

Andrew George 'Coastal Path Dorset' Egg tempera on gesso panel. 

I have no problems with my perceived lack of colour in this exhibition, it demonstrates that the work within it is on the whole very contemplative; these are artists whose work reflects that they must spend time in the places they depict, go for walks, take photos, make sketches, match colours, collect objects, materials and see how the landscape changes over time. The only perhaps pitfall to this is that perhaps there is too much work in this exhibition that is careful and not enough that appears as a spontaneous or immediate reaction or capturing of the landscape. This reflects perhaps, the interests of the exhibition’s curator, Paul Newman whose own work, graphite drawings of trees and landscapes is very precise and technically masterful as they are sensitively observed. Similarly, the wood engravings of Howard Phipps are competent as they are crowd-pleasing images of countryside it’s just that personally I would like to have seen in addition to these some more work that took less caution, reflection and tranquillity and perhaps demonstrated an immediate reaction or the wildness and sometimes fearful relationship we have with land and landscape.

Howard Phipps 'Malacombe Bottom' Wood engraving.

One artist’s work who does counterbalance this slightly in this exhibition is Andrew Lansley whose drawings show a lot of personality and are taken from views sometimes literally on his doorstep. They have more of that sense of immediacy that I was looking for, the other is Clive Walley whose depictions of trees are amongst the more painterly works in the exhibition. The other, for me personally is Linn O’Carroll. Based on the lived-experience of walking in South Wiltshire where the artist has lived for the last twenty years; found, discarded rusty objects ranging from a shopping basket, hay forks, hooks, pliers and hundreds of nails lay seemingly systematically placed in a circular motif on a weathered (what I presume were former carpet tiles) surface on the gallery floor. It is a calendar, a Tony Cragg meets Goldsworthy and amazing Dutch artist herman de vries all at once; an infinity of lists and one of possibly three pieces in the whole exhibition that refers to the manmade in the environment and that our relationship with land may not always be a harmonious one. These are honest fragments, readymade art in some ways and for me, greater reflect a real sense of time, weather and the relationship some humans have with land than some of the representational or abstract works.   
  

Linn O'Carroll

Elsewhere in the exhibition Russell Denman’s wooden models of huts continue the manmade theme and whilst fascinatingly constructed I am a bit less sure of where they fit into the overall exhibition other than as posing as possible designs for dwellings within the landscape? Eleanor Goulding’s digital HD video ‘Spring Observances’ is beautifully shot depicting a stranded, made derelict  by rust, ship on the coast. I am visually biased being drawn to such images, finding the traces of where humans have interacted with land more fascinating than the idealised, haunting or romantic emptiness of ones without. Is it possible, I wonder to ‘know’ the landscape without the human in it? If not then it seems a relevant decision that so many artists try to detach the human presence from their work.

 

Andrew Lansley 'Leaving Dartmoor' Egg tempera

Where ‘The Transformed Land’ really excels is at having a diverse array of mediums on display, from woodcut, to painting, to drawing, sculpture and conceptual as well as representational based practices. At the more conceptual end of the scale, Deborah Westmancoat’s work combines weather-like processes of evaporation and flooding with materials of handmade oak gall ink and collected water from glaciers. It shares its approach with several other works in this exhibition that imply a response to landscape that is seasonal, site specific or one of measuring, collecting and documenting. It feels museum-like, a form of attempting to preserve it through documentation.

 

It is rewarding to have been introduced to the work of so many new artists in this exhibition, my only small regret is the unfortunate timing that makes this exhibition the third show in a row at The Brewhouse to explore the theme of land, landscape, the sea or the environment and I hope that it doesn't dilute people's interest in seeing this exhibition or thinking it is the same as previous ones, as it is quietly captivating and deserves to be seen with open eyes. 

 

You can visit ‘The Transformed Land’ at The Brewhouse Arts Centre, Taunton until April 29^th 2017 www.thebrewhouse.net

They came from outer Somerton...

In Jack Finney’s 1950s sci-fi classic ‘Invasion of the body snatchers’ alien seeds invade Earth from outer-space replacing people with perfect physical duplicates grown from plantlike pods. The novel become a metaphor for the paranoia and fears of communist-like conformity present in US society at the time; an examination of our fear of 'the other'. In the year 2017 I explore what can a 1950’s sci-fi novel and an exhibition featuring human-sized, interactive and immersive sculptures have in common and what relevance, if any, that has today.....

“The human mind searches for cause and effect, always; and we all prefer the weird and thrilling to the dull and commonplace as an answer.”

Where did they come from? Why are they here?

The podules lie dormant, an almost engulfing presence but one that is so strange that it beckons further investigation from sight and touch of their contours and hairs, intestinal-like villi and skins of varying colours and textures. I pluck up the courage to step-inside one and climb into another -Ooer! Perhaps never to be seen again like a fly lured into a venus flytrap... inside I’m enveloped in a soft-padded walled membrane, an outer-shell covered in veins that seem to pulse and thrum with a subtle glow that suggests the presence of life or an otherworldly-ness. Though there is nothing sinister about these pods if anything they are more bodily, womb-like, relaxing. Far bigger than a man but ergonomically proportioned to fit the cup of a hand or enclose the shape of a seated human-figure. There is an indistinct sound generated from within the pods that I cannot quite place and a smell, not unpleasant, but another sensory distraction in what is already an unusual encounter. 

 

Sometimes fiction is more remarkable than fact.The fact is, the day is Tuesday 28^th February and I am visiting Somerton’s Ace Arts Gallery to view an exhibition by Jan Nedojadlo. What I am confronted with are a series of large fabric clad, textured pod-like or utopian structures that are interactive, designed with places within which to sit, rest and explore (the only ingredient missing probably was a mist machine). These pods, like their sci-fi counterpart are designed to inhabit the human form in which the viewer can become miniaturised into a sensorial innerworld of lights, textures and smells. Thankfully with these pods there is no threat of menace or intent on creating body-doubles to take over the world, but they do have the ability to change or alter those who choose to spend time in them offering unique spaces for rest, reflection and relax. In some ways the pods do contend with the notion of ‘fear of the other’ by creating spaces that help people confront fears of disability and/or mental health. I’d like to see some really political pods, out of context in the gallery and for example in campsites in Calais for refugees, made with refugees and other minority groups and the possible outcomes that could produce.

 

Their form,derived from human organs, hands and the liver,

commissioned by a pharmaceutical company, another, a spine built working with patients in mind for the Stoke Mandiville Spinal Unit. That in itself should be enough reason to want to investigate but I was almost disappointed to accept the grown-up reality that these imaginative things had not landed from space and as far as I am aware at least, made by an artist who is human of some sort (I’ve met a few artists who I’d be less sure!). The illusion of organic form being made from common place or recycled materials such as the bristles from brooms, towels and wire was no less fantastical in its inventiveness and transformation, in fact perhaps unintentionally it links well with the environmental themes in ‘Invasion of the body snatchers’ but nonetheless I was left with the overwhelming feeling that this work is better confronted not knowing that this red furry husk-shaped thing I’d taken fascination in exploring from every angle for the last ten minutes is meant to be a liver or that their purpose of creation arose from a utilitarian practicality around its funding as either a health-care tool or science fair exhibit,

both of which for me turn it into a holistic form of glorified interactive furniture. I want to believe the pods are art objects in their own right, my critique more perhaps on the way in which audiences are invited to think about these objects, the amount of information that is presented, is what I am questioning. Sure, one can choose not to read artist statements, but I think why have them there at all if they’re not meant to be read. This exhibition had me thinking a lot about interpretation and the imaginativeness of it, sometimes the overly prescriptive nature of how an art work is rationalised can alienate (if you pardon the pun) an audience rather than present one distinct concept as a point from which many meanings can proliferate. I do not need to know that the piece central to this exhibition titled ‘Hand's of God’ was created from a Christian ‘experience’ in order for me to relate to it in a spiritual way. 

 

“When modern men and women lost religious faith, they lost the associated belief that human beings are special, that we were created with purpose to undertake a life with meaning. Science, technology, and politics have not yet filled that void and probably never will be able to do so, especially not if they continue to be powered by the ideologies that have thus far informed them. If we believe that we are just animals, without immortal souls, we are already but one step removed from pod people.” Dean Koontz writing about ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’

I’ve tried to use ‘Invasion of the body snatchers’ as a way of framing the themes and ideas I feel has been explored in this work. It is a different approach to how I normally write and viewers visiting the actual exhibition may experience the it very differently. I would just ask that sometimes art is at its most creative for the questions that it raises or the interpretations it ignites rather than knowing its answers. Answers are boring.

Forth into the unknown...

 

Catch the podules before the beam of to another galaxy near you at Ace Arts, Somerton until March 11^th. http://www.acearts.co.uk/