Physical Learning Log Scan

Physical Learning Log Scan

Egon Schiele and Francesca Woodman - Life in Motion, Tate Liverpool

Francesca Woodman

The pairing of these two artists work at Tate Liverpool provided some interesting comparisons to be made between the works and artist's intent. Firstly, having seen and admired Woodman's work before I was concerned that the small scale of the images (mostly 5x5 inches) would be overpowered by Schiele's paintings. Thankfully the works were separated by sections of wall space and Woodman's photographs were mounted with large white borders that doubled their size. I thought the exhibition was hung extremely well and the works flowed through the gallery space divided into chronological sections that showed the phases of both artists development.

Woodman is an early photographic inspiration for me and her interest in props and experimental use of space has influenced my own work. This exhibition is far superior to an earlier curated exhibit in London a few years ago which used the daft concept of the 'zig-zag' as a conceptual device to curate her show. In Woodman's work she explores her own gender identity and body; her use of cellotape to bind her legs, mirrors, and the contorting of her body into a display case shows an extensive visual repertoire in which to examine the society in which she found herself in the mid to late 1970s. Woodman is extremely visually inventive.

Schiele's painting is fairly new to me not having taken much notice of the artist before. A figurative painter of the early twentieth century Schiele was influenced by Gustav Klimt but soon developed his own style. Schiele's work appears to mostly explore female sexuality and some of the images are quite explicit. They appear to sit within the artistic style and timeframe of Gustav Klimt and similar painters that were openly exploring the nature of sexual desire. I found many of the works expressive and well made.

A number of comparisons can be made between the two artist's. The both died young; Schiele of Spanish Flu in 1918 and Woodman of suicide in 1981. Their artistic careers were cut short leaving behind a body of work to be speculated on, manipulated and curated free of input from the artist (thinking about those zig-zags). They both made extensive studies of the human body. Schiele painted women, often in explicit poses, and this can be problematic and viewed as misogynistic as the painter is working through the lens of the male gaze and woman as sexual object. There is a power play between the artist and sitter, male and female, that is difficult to overcome. Woodman explores her own gender and through the use of her own body circumvents many of the negative aspects that Schiele can be accused of. Woodman's exploration of sexuality is more complex and has more depth than in the Schiele paintings and shows a young woman asking questions about where her place is in the world and the potential possibilities open to her. Both artist's work has a fluidity to it with Woodman's time-lapse work providing ghost-like spectres as she moves through the frame or stands perfectly still, her hand making blurred gestures; The movement in Schiele's work is in the free paint strokes often belied by the languid poses.  

Egon Schiele

This exhibition was thought provoking for me and confirmed my respect for Woodman's work. I enjoyed looking at the Schiele paintings although some of the most explicit paintings seemed to me to overly objectify women from a male point of view. I suppose it is not so much the paintings themselves but the intent with which they were made. Would a woman photographer making the same work be considered acceptable? The intent could be considered a critique of the politics surrounding the representation of female nudity and have quite different connotations. Female nudity is such a tricky subject matter in the light of unequal treatment of women in a male dominated patriarchy. It is a question that is hard to have any clear answer on.  

     

Natural Selection - Andy Holden & Peter Holden: Towner Art Gallery

This exhibition is in two parts and begins with a look at nest building by birds from around the world. The structure and variety of the different types of nest was fascinating. The birds made an incredible range from really basic designs to elaborate structures, through to collecting and sorting of stones and brightly coloured objects to decorate their nests in an attempt to attract a mate.

The second part looked at the obsession with egg collecting and the destruction that this has caused to many species of bird. Throughout the exhibition a narrative is woven that tells the story of the artists; a father and son and their collective interest in ornithology that has continued throughout their relationship. The father is a renowned authority on bird behaviour and the son an artist who has used his skills to pull a visually creative collection of elements together. The gallery space is interspersed with a variety of nests, replicated eggs, photographs, drawings and video screens that alludes to the symbiotic relationship between birds, man's appreciation of their beauty and an obsessive desire to own and ultimately destroy that which is desired. The exhibition is a fascinating insight into man's interaction with nature and the learning and damage that can lead to.

This was a fascinating exhibition and visually very well put together. Thinking ahead to my own exhibition I do wonder about placing my props from my photographs somewhere in the gallery space. Having sculptural objects on view certainly does enhance the gallery experience and breaks up the repetitive nature of just prints hanging on a wall. The props were not intended to be seen this way but I do need to consider this element of my practise. The downside to this is that I do not want the viewer to become too engaged with my working practice because the danger would be that my message becomes diluted and it is very important for this particular project for that not to happen.

Natural Selection - Andy Holden & Peter Holden

Gillian Wearing, Claude Cahun: Behind the mask, another mask - National Portrait Gallery

Claude Cahun 1894 - 1954.

I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading the exhibition catalogue for this work more than the exhibition itself. In the gallery I found it hard to relate Gillian Wearing's work to that of Claude Cahun. Although it was clear that Wearing had made a number of pieces in response to Cahun's B&W images, the scale between the two was completely off. Wearing works in large format and the images are impressive and enjoyable to analyse; but juxtaposed against Cahun's tiny prints I found reading them together quite hard. In fact some of the works in the exhibition were not even placed together. It was not until I returned home and slowly went through the catalogue, reading the text and comparing the images (printed at a similar scale) that I was able to appreciate the intent of the exhibition. I was also unfamiliar with Cahun's work so it was a joy to discover her surrealist and subversive images and to learn about her lifelong struggles; first against misogynistic surrealist artists and critics who managed to expunge her from the history of Surrealism and then her efforts to destabilise the Nazi regime in Jersey through her art practise - a dangerous stance that put Cahun and her same-sex partner both in jail for a period of time. Cahun experiments with androgyny in her work and frequently changes her hairstyle or shaves it off and adopts all manner of costume to explore what it is to be gendered by society.

As a contemporary artist it is well known that Wearing plays with the idea around the construction of social society and the rules that are placed on gendered bodies. Wearing employs masks to play with the notion of gender, adopting the roles of family members of both sexes. Over time Wearing included famous photographers and other groupings in her constructions and the masks and body suits became more elaborate - although Wearing always takes care to ensure that the eye holes around the masks are visible. These pieces were included in the gallery as well as Wearing's new work made in response to Cahun's. I found the exhibition a bit confusing to read in this respect; but strangely in the catalogue the choices work better for me. I think the text helps to ground the work made for the exhibition and is a good reference for anyone undertaking gender as a theme in their photography studies.

On reflection the large scale of Wearing's prints and Cahun's endearing, tiny, absorbing images contain an interesting contrast; that of the ability and relative freedom of Wearing as a modern day woman to make large art pieces and Cahun who often made her work at home or in her garden. This of course is not a true representation as, technological developments aside, Cahun was fairly well known in the Parisian art scene; not only as a visual artist but as a writer too. But there is an element to be read in the juxtaposition of the subtle and not so subtle oppression that women had and continue to face in a patriarchal society that continues to assume and enforce gender stereotypes.

A Handful of Dust - Whitechapel Gallery

David Campany is the curator of this exhibition, pulling together photographs from different decades and genres that emanate like a stream of consciousness from one original source - that of Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp's 'Dust Breeding'. The photograph taken in 1922 looks almost like an aerial photograph of the landscape with its grid lines and swirling forms. It is in fact a photograph of a piece of art created by Marcel Duchamp that was gathering dust under a bed in his studio. 'Dust Breeding' has had a number of titles and its meaning has changed and been appropriated by various art theories over time.

    'Dust Breeding' Man Ray, 1922.

Campany uses this image as the source of an exhibition of photographs that have featured dust in some way. This idea seems so simple but yet encompasses a fascinating array of images with political overtones regarding man's inhumanity or environmental impact on our planet. An image that struck me early on as I walked through the gallery was a photograph of Mussolini's staff car, covered with dust, as it sat in storage ten years after the dictator was pulled from the vehicle and assassinated by anti-Fascist rebels. This black and white documentary picture links conceptually with other images where political choices have led to major societal upheaval; the 9/11 image of a business man covered in grey dust and surrounded by paper from the collapsed towers; Dust bowl images from the FSA photographer's where intensive farming practice led to the loss of the top soil and exacerbated by the Great American Depression; all these images link thematically back to dust. The chaos in these linked images reminds me that regardless of our actions and great social changes that entropy will take everything back to disorder and nothingness eventually.

Mussolini's Car, Unknown, 1955.

'Allowing dust to gather, as a trace of time is a sort of canning of chance. Photography too can be a way of canning chance. The dust photograph is thus a trace of a trace.' (Campany, 2017).

The title of the exhibition 'A Handful of Dust' is taken from the T.S. Elliot poem 'The Wasteland'. Campany states that:

'Eliot's great poem [published the same month as Breeding Dust was taken] is modern in the same way as the dust photograph - a hybrid work of allusion and association that pictures the world in fragments if not ruin, but sees the world's possible redemption in those fragments too. It's a coincidence I couldn't ignore.' (Campany, 2017).

I found this exhibition to be illuminating in the way that it was put together from so many different types of photography. From documentary to conceptual they all had a common link. I can take this idea of an eclectic mix of genres held by a common concept with me into my own thoughts about making new projects and how to display pieces together in an exhibition. 

Reference:

Campany, D. 2017. '1000 Words' [online] At: http://www.1000wordsmag.com/david-campany/ Accessed on 10th June 2017.

Gregory Crewdson - Cathedral of the Pines

I attended the OCA study day at the Photographer's Gallery recently. I must admit I was expecting to see more of the same with regard to Gregory Credson's work. I was pleasantly surprised. I think most photography students become familiar with his Twilight series early on in their studies and then move onto other interests as they progress. The Cathedral of the Pines is more subtle than his previous work. Maybe it is the reduced colour palette or the all encompassing mist that seems to pervade most of the outdoor scenes. Most of the images are of interiors, a solitary figure pauses to contemplate, their gaze turned inwards. Through windows or doorways the landscape is partly visible and the mist is laden with meaning.

I found it interesting during the post student discussion at the pub how many students had attached different readings to the ambiguous expressions of the subjects. Ironic that in most of the images a half empty glass sat on side tables or in a corner. For a glass half-empty person like myself (I hate to admit that!) I read, sorrow, anxiety, trepidation, longing, on the looks of the characters. Because of this reading I saw the mist as forbidding and ominous. That even if the characters were to step outside their oppressive houses there would be nowhere to escape to. So I was quite surprised when our tutor, Jayne, said that she read the mist as hopeful. That the characters were at a turning point and I assume she saw that turning point as a moment in which the character moved forward in a positive way.

I enjoyed seeing the large scale of the images and that the series was all in one place across four floors. I was pleasantly surprised to re-engage with Gregory Crewdson's work.

Queer British Art - 1861-1967

"The history of queer culture is punctuated by dustbins and bonfires - much has been deliberately destroyed or simply unpreserved... photograph albums rescued from junk shops, drawings and negatives smuggled out of the house of a dying lover - before a family can arrive to scour away any evidence of a life that was less than fully heterosexual." (Barlow 2017:17).


Because of the "dustbins and bonfires" the history of Queer culture is patchy and often suppressed or ignored by historians. This exhibition brings to one place a number of works by British LGBTQ (Queer) artists, spanning the period 1861 to 1967; from the abolition of the death penalty for sodomy (the death penalty! for having sex!) to homosexuality being decriminalised in the United Kingdom.


Coded Desires

Against a backdrop of oppression, secrecy and victimisation, Queer artists have made their art. The first part of the exhibition is arranged around "Coded Desires". Although many Queer artists were accepted in bohemian circles they still had to be very careful when making art for public consumption - being too overt was generally frowned upon. Earlier works from the period tended to concentrate on the male nude using the aesthetic style of Greek and Roman antiquity or from religious stories. There was already an established tradition of male and female nudes in painting so "coded desires" often went unnoticed by the general viewing public although sometimes critics from the newspapers would place knowingly barbed comments in their reviews:

"In style there is something seductive, but it is not masculine."

"That repulsive sentiment that too frequently marks Solomon's compositions."

The Bride, Bridegroom and Sad Love - Simeon Solomon, 1865.

It is stated in the exhibition catalogue that Solomon's "The Bride, Bridegroom and Sad Love" depicts the relegation of the bridegroom's male lover to the shadows. The groom's hand is touching the groin and stroking the palm of the angel figure. According to the catalogue a palm being scratched is an indication of lust - although I've not heard of this before symbol. To me this composition indicates that while the groom appears to show affection for his new wife his hand indicates where his sexual desire is really focused.


Crafted objects were also displayed alongside paintings and sculpture. This cup made by Charles Robert Ashbee for his homosexual friend James Headlam bears the inscription "To the ancient, from CRA, on the mournful occasion of his transition into matrimony." The handle and stem appear to show stylised balls and a penis.

Twin handled cup - Charles Robert Ashbee, 1893

Public Decency:

This section holds some of the artifacts relating to the trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde in 1895. His cell door from Reading Gaol hangs on the gallery wall and is a striking object. To take such a banal item and change its use; to make it an artistic statement of oppression for LGBTQ people is really quite powerful. This object has actually solved some visual problems that I've been thinking about in regards to an upcoming assignment in my body of work. The famous calling card that the 9th Marquis of Queensberry left, accusing Wilde of being a "sodomite" is also on show - along with photographs and letters between Wilde and his young lover Alfred Bruce Douglas.

These artifacts are pertinent to the exhibition as they show that although LGBTQ artists are given a certain free reign in bohemian circles, they can easily overstep the bounds and end up as targets for blackmail and victimisation.

Cell door, Reading Gaol - National Justice Museum, Nottingham.

Bloomsbury and Beyond

The Bloomsbury group of artists and writers famously "lived in squares and loved in triangles". In 1911 Duncan Grant was commissioned to create a mural for the dining room of Borough polytechnic. The naked swimmers are shown diving into the Serpentine, a well known hangout for homosexual men. The mural of a muscular naked man as he dives, swims, and climbs into a boat made some critics uncomfortable. "The National Review described the dining room as a 'nightmare' which would have a degenerative effect on the polytechnic's working -class students." (Jones 2017:99)

Duncan Grant lived with Vanessa Bell at Charleston in East Sussex and had a number of homosexual lovers; one of them, Paul Roche, who Vanessa Bell did not approve of was forced to camp on the South Downs and wasn't allowed inside Charleston. The famous economist John Maynard Keynes, bought a house with his wife adjoining the Charleston farm to be close to Grant.  

Bathing - Duncan Grant, 1911.

Defying Convention

Claude Cahun's photographs depict the interaction between the body and the natural world. Her self portraits are staged, often made on the coast or in the grounds of the home that she shared with her life partner, Suzanne Malherbe. Cahun's explorations can be seen as a way to work out issues of gender identity. Originally named Lucy, Cahun swapped to the masculine Claude and published a book on the themes of gender identity in the form of poems and montage. Cahun continued to use feminine pronouns and indications of her ambiguous gender-fluid identity are further noted when she states that "Neuter is the only gender that always suits me". (Young 2017:130).

 

I Extend My Arms - Claude Cahun, 1931-2.

Physique and Photography

Gay culture was still underground in the 1950s and 60s. Police attempts to stamp out homosexual behaviour meant that body building magazines were often extremely popular under the guise of health and fitness. Many of the photographers were themselves homosexual and the small ads in such magazines often enticed readers with the option to buy full frontal nudes and 'action' shots of the same models. Using the public postal system to send illegal images was often highly risky and photographers and recipients were sometimes caught and jailed. This practice almost completely died out when magazines specialising in Gay porn became more readily available in the 1970s.

Physique Photograph - unknown photographer, c1950s.

Queer British Art 1861 - 1967 is an extensive show and features work from artist's too numerous to mention here; the paintings of Francis Bacon and David Hockney; Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell's subversive art practice of doctoring book covers from the public library before returning them to stock. There are also categories dealing with LGBTQ input into the world of theatre and female impersonation. This show and its accompanying catalogue will be a useful reference point for me when researching hidden history and LGBTQ artists that are often sidelined or pushed into the shadows.






















References:

Barlow, C. (2017) Queer British Art 1861 - 1967. Tate Publishing: London.
Jones, E (2017) Queer British Art 1861 - 1967. Tate Publishing: London.
Young, L (2017) Queer British Art 1861 - 1967. Tate Publishing: London.

Physical Learning Log Scan

Physical Learning Log Scan

Wolfgang Tillmans - Tate Modern

'If one thing matters, everything matters'. This title of an earlier Tillman's project helped to unlock his photography for me. His work encompasses a vast array of bewildering imagery from car headlamps to plant pots on windowsills, Concorde, the moon, Gay clubs in Berlin, a t-shirt hanging on a peg, a skinhead pissing on a chair; if one thing matters, everything matters. This quote has been a mantra of previous artists, like Robert Rauschenberg, in an attempt to break the art establishment grip on what is perceived to be the correct way to approach making art - breaking down hierarchies of subject, object, medium and materials.

In a 2003 Guardian interview Tillmans states:

'I'm driven by an insatiable interest in the manifold shapes of human activities, in the surface of life, and as long as I enjoy how things are pointless and hugely important at the same time, then I'm not afraid'.

The article's author goes on to say that:

'It is a truism that the camera can only reveal surfaces, light and its absence. But there are other things in the photograph, too: subject, composition, order, viewpoint, proximity, scale, size, print quality and so on, not to speak of time, human emotional affinities, and whatever it is we might want, knowingly or not, when we come to look. All these entangled elements inform the way we read both singular images and entire bodies of work. There is always a lot of context, and there is more recontextualising going on all the time. The culture of the photograph matters.'

So it seems that what the photographer makes of his work and what the viewer finds in it are not always connected. 'The death of the author' and all that... I find this to be true. In Tillman's work I can connect to some elements of Gay experience and not others. No doubt some may find the image that Tillman's made as an airline passenger of a food tray, complete with his friend's pink cock slapped on top, to be wilfully shocking - others see it as just part of the fun of everyday life. As a photographer Tillman's captures the mundane in a special way, often using light to make something deeper of the image; making abstract interplays of light and form and colour, or as a comment on our contemporary culture - take your pick...

As a photographer myself I connect with the language of visual culture that permeates Tillman's work; although primarily a street photographer I see elements of Gary Winogrand's ethos of photographing the world to see what it looks like. Tillman's goes even further, experimenting with process, making abstracts from film chemicals and rolls of paper.

Tillmans hangs his exhibitions using small bulldog clips, or taped directly to the walls; he uses plain white frames too, that give an element of consistency to the look of the exhibition. Prints are placed large and small together and appear at varying heights and groupings. There is a visual connection to each grouping that helps to tie the whole look together.

Whether at the current exhibition at Tate Modern, or previous projects, or from his books I always look at Tillman's work and think about the people, places, things in Western society; connecting stuff that we manufacture, purchase, surround ourselves with; the art we make; the people we know and love and interact with in our daily lives. I look at his work and think about the vast contemporary culture we are all part of and wonder what is it all for and what does any of it mean?

Physical Learning Log Scan

Robert Rauschenberg - Tate Moden

I really enjoyed my visit to this exhibition and found the work inspiring. Rauschenberg, who used all manner of materials to make his art, was considered quite controversial in his day. As part of the burgeoning Pop Art movement he rejected Abstract Expressionism as an art movement that could uncover the internal psyche of the artist. Pop Art is the beginning of a move from the all encompassing meta-narrative and the artist as 'genius', to the Postmodern concept of the artist as being part of the world, influenced by and soaking up a culture that is all around us.

Rauschenberg liked to mix up his art with found items from skips and put them to new artistic uses. He would go on walks through the streets of New York seeking out abandoned items to incorporate into his 2D and 3D pieces. A particular example of this is Rauschenberg's 'Bed', 1955. This work is part of his 'combines' series, taking items found in the everyday world and applying paint and other traditional artists materials to make a new piece of work; one that speaks of the combination of art and life and not the self reflective formality of Modernism.

I found his use of varied materials refreshing. Why should paint and paper and pencils and photo paper be considered art materials and other items as unsuitable? Surely they are all just materials! All of it is suitable for making art. To think otherwise is too formal an approach and stifling to creativity and ideas.

'Bed', 1955. Robert Rauschenberg.

'Monogram', 1959. Robert Rauschenberg.

From my own artistic perspective I was particularly drawn to his 'Scatole Personali' (Personal Boxes). These little wooden boxes containing small reliquary-like pieces are quite sculptural and, for me, exuded an intriguing narrative that held my attention. They looked like small worlds, having an almost dioramic quality to them. I am currently thinking ahead to a particular assignment for my Body of Work and how to visualise a particular event from the 'Men With the Pink Triangle Book'. This small box format has very distinct creative possibilities for me. I'm looking forward to moving through the remaining exercises and assignments on Body of Work to completion.

A collection of 'Scatole Personali', 1952-1953. Robert Rauschenberg.

Physical Learning Log Scan

Physical Learning Log Scan

Brighton Photo Biennial 2016 - The Dandy Lion Project

These exhibits were part of Brighton Photo Biennial 2016. We visited both venues as an organised group of OCA students and it was interesting to hear and discuss other people's viewpoints on the work.

The Dandy Lion Project

This work uses the convention of advertising and fashion photography to:

'highlight young men in cityscapes, defying stereotypical and monolithic understandings of black male identity, by adopting Edwardian-era fashion and fusing this with traditional African sartorial sensibilities.'

I had difficulty reading this work. I'll openly admit that I have a bias against fashion photography - apart from making people, clothes, and objects look cool what is the point; it's just designed to sell stuff; and even though, as the tutor Clive White pointed out, the work is subverting the genre of fashion to communicate the message of stereotyping and identity, I can't get past the fancy clothes and shoes.

Of course the colourful clothes are kind of the point of the work. They are used to create a sense of identity in order for 'tribes' to communicate their status to others. We see this all the time with teenagers, followers of particular designer brands, or members of a golf club. So in retrospect now that I've had time to think about the work I can appreciate the intent - but the visual aspect of the work itself - not so much.

One aspect of the work I also take issue with is in the curator's statement that the images challenged the traditional notion of maleness. I totally disagree with this statement. The clothes are heavily masculine in their characteristics. The men mostly wear suits, with traditional waistcoats and leather shoes. The colours and patterns are bold but the look of the clothes could not in any way represent an androgynous outlook. I think the work helps to challenge Black stereotypes but the work and the wearers of the clothes are thoroughly embedded in the gender stereotype box.

The Dandy Lion Project

Brighton Photo Biennial 2016 - Reimagine

The theme for the 2016 Brighton photo biennial deals with identity by looking at the representation of minorities and urban sub cultures through the lens of photography:

"Beyond the Bias – Reshaping Image, explores photography’s role in defining and informing our understanding of subjects such as: gender and sexuality, the representation of the body, the politics of style, subcultures and the subversion of social and cultural norms."


Reimagine

I attended as part of the OCA study group weekend and we began our trip by looking at 'Reimagine' a collaborative exhibition between two photographers, Bharat Sikka and Olivia Arthur. The project photographed LGBTQ+ people in Mumbai, India and Brighton, UK. The work shown was made on large format film, using mainly B&W for India and colour for Brighton. On a first walk through I noticed that the work appeared to be separated by photographer and that made me wonder how much collaboration had taken place.

The content of the India work appeared more somber. This is due to the nature of the subject, where LGBTQ is still a highly political issue in that country. The choice of B&W also influenced my reading of the work. I was struck by an image where a couple (men?) appeared to be embracing on a beach in the shadows at night. The figures were distant and blurred, and there was a sense of danger because of the vulnerability of being exposed in a public place but also trapped because there was no private place to go. The portraits were more relaxed and taken inside and being in a private space, contrasted well with the public space images. My reading of the images were confirmed by the statement in the artist's handout:

"When I started making work in Mumbai I focused on private spaces. In their own space a sitter can be comfortable, really be themselves. People were being open about themselves and their sexuality beyond what I had been expecting, or hoping for. But I began to realise the context was missing for the project, that I needed something to show the sitter's boldness and the cultural background they were willing to show their image in... [...] Down by the beach, on the steps by the waterfront, even on the hard shoulder alongside the freeway, couples would try to find some privacy in a dark, but very public space."  

The Brighton work appeared more relaxed and celebratory and had an element of fantasy and creativeness - mainly because the sitters were in the process of exploring themselves through clothes and body image. One of the standout portraits for me was of 'Loki". A bare chested man wearing a taffeta tutu is leaning out of a window. The room is in shadow and his body is half exposed by the sunlight. The metaphor in this image for me was all about the contrast between the projected and public face of masculinity (the bare and muscular chest juxtaposed by the lower body wearing a tutu in half shadow) and exploring a more feminine identity that needs to be kept private and suppressed - for the majority of males.

Loki "I grew up on a rough council estate. When I moved to Brighton I felt I was comfortable in a community that would accept a six-foot skinhead that could wear a taffeta tutu."