Assignment 2 - Unnatural/Target Practice

I'm using this assignment to develop an idea that I submitted to my tutor for assignment 1. Keith's feedback asked me to think about the repetitive nature of the triangle shape and to see if I can develop the idea with a little more variation. This chimes with a comment that the OCA tutor Clive White made at the recent Brighton crit. He mentioned that he envisaged the triangles as part of a journey through an installation that leads to a different object for the viewer to discover. So it might be an idea to make a new image (an event that occurs in the pink triangle book) that was to be made into a triangle and work it up into a different form.

11th Nov:

After reading about the clay pits in the pink triangle book and the horrific abuse and death that took place there I wanted to visualise and mark this particular atrocity somehow. I hit on the idea of making body prints using clay coloured paint. I bought some art supplies and used my partner Gerry as my model. I taped two parallel strips of poster paper to the kitchen floor and mixed paint to the right colour and consistency with some thickening agent. Then the mix was rolled onto Gerry's naked body. I kept the roller quite dry so that the shape transferred to the paper would leave gaps and lines and not look too solid. The result came out really well first time.

Once I'd photographed the poster sheets from different perspectives I processed the image. I then had to decide what to do with it. I thought about having a photographed print at full body size edged with bricks (the mined clay was used to make bricks for the Nazi building schemes). I like this idea and may still use it but I've also decided to take the idea a step further.

15th Nov:

I want to make a mine cart and cover it with the body art images. The cart features prominently in the Pink Triangle biography and caused a lot of deaths. I began by researching cart shapes on the Internet.

Then I cut out some shapes using mount board and put my design together.

Then I printed out my body print images and experimented with covering the cart. The edges will need to look smoother. I also need to make wheels out of something suitable for the cart to sit on.

17th Nov:

I then took the idea even further and thought a steep base for the mine cart would create an interesting visual and indicate the effort required to move a fully-laden cart out of the clay-pit site. I began work on the inclined base. I wanted the base to look sculptural and part of the artwork so made it quite angular and sculptural looking. It was easily made out of paper and card. It took a day to make which is not so bad compared to other pieces I've made in the past.

The base was easier to design and make in two separate pieces. This made the geometry easier to work out as I could concentrate on the angles of each piece.

I really am rather pleased with the result. I think the proportions work well in relation to the mine cart and the base. I had to make a connecting piece using card so that the cart did not slip back down the steep incline.

I took the work along to the latest Thames Valley student group and the work was well received. I discussed my plans for covering the work in the body art print that I'd made earlier and my concerns on exactly how to go about doing this.

20th Nov:

A paper template that I used to cover the base. This was so I could stick on cut out pieces of the body print and work out where to position them. Once placed on the template I could see on which piece of the 20 stuck together pieces of A4 paper they sat and work out the dimensions for the final print.

I had a number of attempts at placing the body print pieces and I wasn't really happy with any of them. The work was stating to look a bit messy to me.

Then I had the idea of placing the pieces towards the bottom of the base, leaving the upper section blank. I think this would have more visual impact. I would still cover the mine cart in pieces of body print but the the blank section of the base on which it sat would create a good visual contrast.

24th Nov:

I've tidied up the image and made it much more cohesive. I now have one larger piece that will be placed across the bottom section of the inclined base. I think it works really well as an image in its own right and it has had very favourable feedback from other students. I've incorporated tracks into the image too. These will line up with the wheels of the mine cart as it sits further up the incline.

Nov 27th:

Where I am at the moment. I'm fretting about the finished mine cart piece and how it is going to look. The execution of this piece will be crucial in its success. I worry that the pieces of A4 paper that I was going to spray mount to the base structure will wrinkle and look very unprofessional. But just how do I get my image my body print image onto the base? I'm going to try a new method using a special inkjet paper that will allow me to transfer my printed design onto fabric. Once the image is printed it is only a case of placing the paper onto the fabric surface and ironing over it  - apparently...

I've ordered a set of special papers and I am quite eager to see how effective the process will be. In the meantime I've also purchased some white cotton fabric that will cover the whole base and some velcro strips to enable me to hopefully secure it to the structure and keep the fabric looking neat.

The mine cart still needs to be covered in body prints. I think that I will still use the original paper method here. The pieces of cart are quite small and I should be able to handle the paper and spray mount without too much wrinkling of the paper.


Dec 1st:

I've tried ironing the print onto a test piece of my fabric. It has transferred really well. Getting the fabric trimmed into a 3d shape is another matter. It is important there are no saggy edges to spoil the clean lines of my inclined base so a lot of pinning and cutting to get the fabric taught was required.

There are some edges and folds that I'm not completely satisfied with - I keep telling myself that this is just a first attempt and later versions will have a better finish. I need to remove the fabric cover now and iron the body-print onto it.


Dec 4th:

Six sheets of A4.

Ironed onto the bottom half of the incline base.

I'm not sure I like the difference in colour. Should I cover the whole base in one colour? I think this would give a more cohesive look to the piece. Also, the feedback from the student Google hangout on 29th Nov has made me critically appraise this piece once more. The feedback (which I agree with) is that scale is so important with a piece of work like this. The work needs to be much larger to be effective. As it is, the table-top sized version looks toy-like and gives off the wrong message. I completely understand this and this version was only intended to represent a much larger version I want to make at some point in the future. But with the issues of the unevenness of the fit of the fabric and the contrast in colour between the transfer print and the rest of the piece, is it time to call this one an experiment and move on?

I like the concept. Though the execution method and final output has issues. Do I persevere? I don't know what to think at present. I need some time to evaluate.



Dec 10th:

I've decided to change tack with this assignment piece. After thinking about the issues around the mine cart and inclined base I've decided to park the idea for now. Concerning scale; I need to make the piece much bigger for its impact to be felt by the viewer. But I'm not ready to make a bigger piece just yet. Maybe it's an idea I can follow through with for my last OCA course, Sustaining Your Practice. That will give me the time needed to concentrate on just one piece rather than the triangles and other ideas that I am floating for the various assignments for BoW.

But I can take elements from this piece of work and still incorporate them into the assignment. The body-print can easily represent the same idea of the repression of the gay prisoners working at the clay pit site - it doesn't have to be on the inclined base. I can use other methods to say the same thing.

So my current thinking is to print the body-print onto a large piece of fabric (3 metres). This could be attached to a wall at one end and anchored to the floor at the other to create a slope in the fabric. This is a much simpler concept than the inclined base idea. I've ordered more fabric and feel positive that I am moving forward with my concept. Even though I've spent a lot of time experimenting I feel this time has been well spent in exploring possibilities and learning new skills along the way.



Dec 13th:

I had big plans to push and complete this piece of work today. I scaled up my body-print image in Photoshop in order for it to fit the 3 metre piece of cloth. The image now covers 50 sheets of A4 rather than the original 6. That is a lot of ironing. I was prepared for a long day! I began to print out the A4 sheets. I did the first 25 and laid them in out in sequence.

Then began to iron the first of the sheets onto my piece of fabric.

Disaster! The image is not transferring evenly. Large pieces of the image are coming off with the removable backing - no matter how hard I press with the iron! This must be because I am using a different fabric from my original. When I went to order the larger piece they had run out of stock. I had to choose from stock that was similar but had a rougher texture. This is so frustrating!

Dec15th:

Can I live with the image having a rougher surface and parts of it missing? I considered it! After all the image from a distance may look pretty similar to the smoother version - who knows! The problem boils down to cost. Do I iron on my 50 sheets and then decide if I like it or not. I could have done but knowing me I would not have been happy with the loss of quality. Comparing the two ironed pieces that have images on them, the original piece is so much more superior in feel, look and finish. I will hold out and buy some more of the original fabric when it comes into stock. This will probably be after Christmas now and my assignment deadline is slipping away with me.

I think I will document where I am with the piece. Send in a printed version of my body-print image, some of the test fabric pieces and just document my experiments and progress so far. The final printed fabric piece will have to be done sometime between the new year and eventual assessment.

Jan 26th:

After the Christmas break I had one more attempt at making the shroud-like piece with a new purchase of my original style fabric. I still had problems with the technique. In hindsight, ironing on a couple of test sheets is just not enough of a test. I again had problems with the transfer paper becoming damaged, despite following the instructions. I was expecting far too much from this technique.

So, I have finally sent in just the digital print of the composite body-art image for assignment. I am in the process of investigating print courses in an attempt to learn a silk-screen process or something similar that will enable me to make the shroud-like piece as intended. I have documented my explorations and process and contextualised the work with regards to post memory and artists working in a similar area. I will make some separate posts using my notes on this.

This assignment has been a long journey with many explored dead-ends and sidelined ideas. I've made a chart to show how I arrived at where I am. The final composite print would not exist without many of these experiments so the experience has ultimately been worthwhile.

One last point to add to this assignment is that the finished shroud-like piece is intended to hang at an incline from a gallery wall - anchored at the top by rope and stretched out and anchored to the floor. I also would like to do the same with this piece in a woodland setting - perhaps tied to a tree. I like the concept of an unknown and unseen memorial in a setting like this as it refers to the 'hidden history' that underlies the work and the forgotten/ignored aspect of homosexual concentration camp victims and survivors. I would record the work in this setting using either photography or video.

Mar 5th:

I've had feedback for this assignment via Skype with my tutor, Keith Roberts. Two questions were posed to me as a challenge to some of the statements I made about the work in my assignment notes:

The first question was in regard to the body-print image. Keith asked me if I felt that photography was restraining me in any way when making work. He noted that my work is becoming quite sculptural and fine-art. My response was that I still felt quite grounded in photography. The base images for the triangles are just folded photographic prints after all. The body-art image, although created with paint and a roller, has been re-photographed and manipulated in Photoshop to create a montage with multiple bodies overlapping; if observed closely, the join between the two sheets of poster paper has been captured in the re-photographing process. I still feel strongly that this is a piece of photographic work.

The second question related to my statement that I wanted to take some of the sculptural elements, the triangles, the fabric shroud, and photograph them in a secluded spot like a woodland. Keith asked why not photograph them at the site of the concentration camp that the events originally took place? I was slightly stumped at first as although I have a lot of thoughts rolling around in my head regarding the work, this is the first time this particular question has been asked of me. I explained that I wanted the work to reflect the 'hidden history' element of the narrative. The concept isn't just about the events that took place at the camps. It is also that those events were covered up, dismissed, trivialised, and are largely missing from commonly perceived history. Historians and documentary film makers have largely (and sometimes wilfully) ignored this subject. I see the work as an artistic response to the subject matter so in some respects I am quite anti-documentary. I want the work to be photographed in an unseen, secluded place, like a memorial to hidden history itself almost as much as the events that happened during WWII. I am quite against showing the work at the concentration camp site.  

These thoughts all came tumbling out during the discussion and Keith said that as long as I can justify the direction my work is taking then that is a perfectly valid approach. It is good to be challenged on the work and statements that I'm making as it helps to firm up my sometimes woolly thought processes that lead to making work.

I've since expanded on my thoughts during the Skype session above:

If, hypothetically, the work became well known and opened peoples eyes to those events; then it is possible that over time they would become incorporated into the mainstream narrative - as if it had never been left out! Do I want that? It would be like the injustice never occurred! I think if that happened my point would be lost; namely, that hidden history is all around us. We are fed a tale of history that is naturally biased towards the ruling hegemony. Of course, there is no guarantee that the same thing couldn't happen by creating a piece of art in a secluded woodland. But my intent is that the location would and should raise questions about the artwork. In this way the concept of hidden histories that affect us all, not just minorities, is foregrounded in some small way. I touch on the same subject with the 'Rubber Flapper' work too.

After writing this I am much happier that I can vocalise my intent regarding the work; which is, I'm sure, what was intended by my tutor all along - thanks, Keith!

Suggested reading:

Heidegger Reframed: Interpreting Key Thinkers for the Arts - Barbara Bolt.

Christian Boltanski

Christian Boltanski has made an number of installations that speak of memorialising the dead. But unlike actual memorials, Boltanski's installations are made up of ephemera; rusted biscuit tins, electric lamps, old clothing etc, are grouped together into very powerful installation pieces. Some of the pieces are small; a number of empty tins stacked against a wall with a few photographic portraits of children placed on top. Each portrait has an electric lamp pivoted to shine a light directly into the face, partly obscuring the image. The empty tins a metaphor for some unnamed tragedy, the photographs plucked from obscurity, having little connection to real life events. Other installations are on a much larger scale. The work 'Personnes' uses old clothing placed face down into sectioned off grids to represent the dead or missing peoples from history. At the end of the gallery space a huge mound of clothes are sifted by a large claw.

Boltanski uses the technique of post-memory to make his work. The viewer does need to see real evidence of trauma and tragedy to know that it exists in the world. Besides, documentary practice can be highly biased with underlying agendas not immediately apparent to the viewer. Evidence can be selective to push a certain outcome that portrays history from a particular political angle.

It is worth noting that any attempt to question received wisdom around historical events can lead to very dangerous ground - such as Holocaust denial. It is important to distinguish between hate crimes like Holocaust denial and revisionist history, where attempts are made to re-evaluate facts in order to gain an insight that may not have been apparent or ignored or covered up by original historians at the time. An example of this is LGBT history, often obscured and ignored by historians and likewise colonialist and women's history where collective acts of political struggle or individual sacrifice are left to languish in the shadows.

Boltanski grew up after the Holocaust. The child of a Jewish father who had to hide under the floorboards to escape Nazi detection, Boltanski has no memories of these events except as passed down to him via his parents - post-memories. This fact does not stop the work from being highly emotive and thought provoking. The 'Past Lives' chapter in the book 'Family Frames: photography narrative and postmemory' by Marianne Hirsch states that:

"Boltanski's early work... is devoted to uncoupling any uncomplicated connection between photography and truth".

and goes on to say,

"Boltanski's lessons are not history lessons, they are lessons about mass destruction and the need to recall an irrecoverable past in the absence of precise knowledge about it."

My reading around the concept of post memory has brought to my attention the notion of an opaque barrier between memory and post memory. Post memory has difficult access to the events of the past when even documentary truth is disputed. For post memory work to be effective it needs to highlight this barrier. Boltanski's use of anonymous imagery and clothing takes this stance and reminds me of the work I am making into LGBT hidden Holocaust histories. Hardly any records of homosexual prisoners exist; all that survives is anecdote in biographies and scant documentation (some of which has been wilfully misinterpreted by past historians to eradicate their place in history).

Post memory is valuable tool when making work of this kind and I will continue to use it to explore the narratives when making new work.

Physical Learning Log Scan

The Relationship Between Installation Art Practice And The Presentation Of History With Particular Reference To The Nazi Oppression Of Homosexuality 1933-1945 - Nigel Hurlstone

This PhD thesis by Nigel Hurlstone was provided to me by my tutor Keith Roberts as part of my feedback for assignment 1. I was most surprised that a document existed that could be so closely aligned to the subject matter that I am proposing for my body of work. Of course, I shouldn't be, as by now I know that most topics have been covered in Art. I am really pleased that a document so rich in ideas and references to the subject matter has come to my attention so early in my research. Many thanks to my tutor Keith for providing access to it.

This PhD thesis has covered a number of points that I hadn't considered when dealing with a sensitive subject matter and has proved most invaluable:

The thesis explores the concept of 'Historicising Installation artwork' and Hurlstone states that "The politics of difference dominate..." and that "The deconstruction of an arbitrary history based on white patriarchal power is the shared objective of artists practising in this medium" (pg2).

This statement aligns with the work I've undertaken in my last few projects that deal with the notion that it is impossible to write history from a neutral and objective viewpoint. My 'Rubber Flapper' work in particular has a fictional curator that controls the flow of artifacts for the telling of my fictional hidden history. Keith Jenkins book "Re-Thinking History" has greatly influenced my views on how history is sifted and interpreted from a biased and skewed viewpoint. As Hurlstone's thesis states, Installation art is complicit in "exploding the myths of history as fixed and unchanging [and] undermining the artificial constructs which support exclusionary views of culture." (pg2).

The thesis goes on to examine a number of conceptual pieces of historicising installation art. Three pieces, 'Gaze' 'List' and 'Reliquary' are Hurlstone's own work - alongside the analysis of other artist's particular to the genre. The analysis of all the pieces plus the documented artistic practise of Hurlstone was useful in terms in broadening out my own understanding of how installation art is conceived, researched and produced. As I have only completed a single read through of this document I shall no doubt return to this section for more insight and for potential leads to research the highlighted artworks in more depth.

One of the chapters deals with the social and political background leading up to the imprisonment of homosexuals in internment camps. These references are most useful for establishing the prevailing morality and reasoning behind many of the decisions behind the strengthening of the law against homosexuality. The system of discrimination using the pseudo science of Eugenics was very popular across the Western World prior to WWII. "He (Himmler) feared that instead of fulfilling its 'candidature for world power and domination', Germany would sink into insignificance within fifty years because some of its 'racially pure' and 'sexually capable' male population did not want to have sex with women." (pg61).

Before I'd read this thesis I was already prepared for a difficult subject matter. I knew I would be reading difficult historical documentation and biographies such as 'The Men with the Pink Triangle'. Although there is one aspect on the sensitivity of the topic of the suppression of minorities in patriarchal culture that I found disturbing; it is that the researcher/artist's research or artwork can be trivialised or found offensive. This section in Hurlstone's thesis was most informative. He recounts the discussions and feedback when viewers have engaged with his own art installations in public and gallery spaces. "Researchers may find their work trivialised or viewed as undermining what is 'natural' or 'sacred', of subverting traditional values or of being advocates for particular sexual practices." (pg37).

For myself I find it quite encouraging that I am working in a subject area that is currently not that well covered and has a lot of scope for research and creativity. Hurlstone claims that historicising installation art is often used by artists that deal in minority or underrepresented subjects as a means to explore issues that have traditionally been overlooked in the gallery space. I find it interesting that for my current project I have been drawn to this method of working and have been thinking about the display of my work in places that are unseen or unnoticed by the public, like woodland - perhaps using photography to record the work.

Strangely, I began work of this kind with the Citadels that I made with my partner as we travelled across America in 2016. The idea of the Citadels eventually led to a conceptual framework for the triangle project that grew into installation pieces rather than photography alone. As I analyse where I am in my artistic and creative process at this point in time it feels like I have come full circle.




Future reading/references:

Grau, Gunter. Hidden Holocaust? Cassell, London 1995

Marshall, Stuart. 'The Contemporary Political use of Gay History - The Third Reich', in Bad Object-Choices (ed) How Do I look? Queer Film and Video. Bay Press, Seattle 1991 pp90-97.

Video:

We Were Marked With A Big A: Lesbian & Gay Holocaust Survivors.

Marshall, Stuart. Bright Eyes, Ch4 1984. 
Marshall, Stuart. Desire: Sexuality in Germany 1919-1945, Ch4 1989.
Marshall, Stuart. Comrades in Arms, Ch4 1990.
Marshall, Stuart. Over Our Dead Bodies, Ch4 1991.

Pink Triangles, Cambridge Documentary Films, 1986.

Installations:

Hurlstone, N. Reliquary 1996.
Hurlstone, N. Gaze 1998.
Hurlstone, N. List 1999.

Private Holocaust libraries:

Wiener Library, London.
Lesbian & Gay archive holdings, Hall-Carpenter Archive, University of London.
Lesbian & Gay Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington.