Rachel Whiteread

Pairing up nicely with my own interests in light and human activity, this is an installation that was recently at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It is called Place (Village), from 2006/8 and consists of 200 vintage hand-made dollhouses lit from inside. It also included 6 additional sculptures and 15 drawings by the artist, Rachel Whiteread. I've seen her cast works in various places and enjoyed them but have not seen this kind of work from her before. Electric light is definitely an indication of human presence...! I read the book "Devil in the White City" recently, to learn that the first time most ordinary people had ever seen (or heard of) incandescent electric light was at the world fair in Chicago in 1933. Now we take it utterly for granted - I'm glad about that but it makes you think. Wonder when these dollhouses were made... some of them constructed possibly by gaslight, or candle light.

kitty kraus

This Berlin-based artist is doing a kind of Eliasson, making things happen mechanically (also an interest of my own). These installations aren't providing second hand experiences - in other words, illusions of what someone saw or imagined - but exist as immediately experienced reality. Its a sort of abstract painter's version of performance art perhaps, or installation - genres which obviously provide numerous precedents for the idea, but not quite the form these two artists' work is taking.

The upper picture shows the puddle left when a fluorescent light bulb (previously carefully frozen in a block of inky ice) has been activated in the gallery space, heating up the bulb and at some point exploding it.

The lower picture shows panes of glass constructed into light boxes with simple tape joins, and light escaping from it in a kind of perspective/hall of mirrors pattern. (Some of them have 500 watt bulbs in them that get too hot and also explode).

The wonderfully baroque puddle made itself, the light comes out from behind the glass to stupendous effect. It appears to be the ultimate "anti-aesthetic" decision, as far away from traditional art process as possible...but entirely linked in content. I like it.

I've just read a critique of Eliasson's work in Art Papers that seems to question his lack of ethical direction, real belief in anything, noting his lack of alignment with "social polemics" that, in contrast, accompanied many of those powerful art movements of the 20th Century. I thought we'd given up on the master plan for utopia...

My thoughts are that perhaps just setting out the possibility of something is enough. Let's get to the meaning slowly, individually. Maybe the fact that this art connects with the past but is achieved differently is message enough.

inflatable street art

this is just magical. Such a cool idea! It looks like trash, its animated into something curious, endearing, enjoyable by something that happens anyway. It is free, it surprises, delights. It is shared. Its positive and innovative - it brings a smile to people, like a gift. A reminder that good things are possible? To me, it seems that way. No matter it is not rocket science, and we understand how it works - it shows us a new way of using the materials and the situation. For friendly fun. Fab.

something completely different

Esther Pearl Watson
Before the landlord finds us
Acrylic, enamel & silver leaf on panel 48 x 48 inches

This is a large painting, given its outsider flavor. It has blown me away. Why?

It seems to connect with real life, and has a freedom about its expression that touches a chord in me. Esther Pearl has lived (apparently) life with an oddball family (Daddy built spaceships in the garage) and does not hesitate, riddled with doubt about her worthiness or worry about it being ridiculous to tell her story. There it is, in glorious home-made detail...but connecting a real sense of atmosphere and beauty (the sky is lavish, the fields stretch into the distant evening, and the dirt yard meltingly soft and beautiful) with the quirky childishness of folk art. Yet its about serious shit going on. I mean, running out on the rent...there is an urgency and a terribleness about it. Its not cosy, not safe, not pretty. We all understand the implications, and that is what gives this work its strength somehow. It is real, it connects to humans. On that note, I have to post another painting here...

Out of gas
acrylic on panel
8 x 10 inches

Here's (Dad?) racing across the highway with the (tiny) pint of gas that'll get them all out of there. The kids stand with their hair blowing as the cars whip by. Grit on the shoulder, exhaust, slip roads... and then that wonderful skyline and cloudscape. While all that is going on, someone (the artist - the artist in all of us) is looking around, seeing the world in all its fullness. It has the attention to seemingly irrelevant but telling detail that folk art has, and a lack of theorizing and paring down that in its directness, enriches the image.

Way to go Esther.

chuck ramirez

Chuck Ramirez
Godiva 2, 2003
Photograph
inkjet print 30 x 38 inches

Not exactly recent work, but interesting in the context of presentation. Trash that we usually throw away photographed and presented as an art object. Beautiful.

Footnotes to Duchamp, still? In a way. But I think there is more going on here. The urinal brought the pissoir into the gallery - low end brought high. Here we recognize that this object, though trash, exists/existed, was created, designed and manufactured to showcase a valuable product. Its golden rays suggesting a relationship to icons and religious paintings can't be coincidental. But it is trash. Why? Because we throw it away? Because it has no use? Because it is made of plastic? Because there are so many of them?

The reality is that this could be called beautiful. Because of what we know (all of the above comments) we do not value it. What other things are we dismissing?

thoughts on craft

Romanesco pendant, polyester resin, fiberclass, LEDs, 30 x 30 cm, made to commission. Ulrika Jarl www.ulrikajarl.com (lights)

I've mentioned craft a few times now in unflattering terms. What's my problem with craft? And what does this have to do with the "change in a wider sense" I mention on the header of this blog?

I'll share my history. My first art qualification was a 3 year diploma in studio ceramics obtained in 1984. After that I had a designer/maker ceramics business that did very well. I immersed myself in this particular section of the craft industry, the intersections of craft and industry, and all the reasons why craft survived in the age of factory production - along with how craft becomes a version of factory production. I saw a lot of craft work in all kinds of guises and situations. I enjoyed it, I bought it, I thought it often beautiful and intriguing but at some point it ceased to have much to offer me. I wanted more - what, I didn't know.

Ultimately I closed down my business and went back to university to learn more about fine art, getting a BFA and an MFA in painting. I never wanted to see another piece of clay again... My interest in craft ran out. Though I was disillusioned in various ways that may color some of my comments, the main point is that I feel craft (in the strictest sense) to be limited by certain parameters, and to function mainly within arenas that I would rather question. So when I say William Pye's bronze wave deserves a booth at the local craft fair I mean that he is showing a lack of awareness of wider issues. He is not addressing concerns that I consider important.

"Craft" refers to a skill, and craftwork often centers around these skills. A well-crafted novel MAY be rather dull conceptually. The craft of painting refers to how the painting is made, whether the layers will adhere, or the brushstrokes are well made or the face on the portrait is ... what? Neat? Suitable? Skilled? Professional? This has nothing to do with what art can accomplish by altering assumptions, opening up visions and ideas of things we hadn't thought of before. The visionary, intangible aspects that live on beyond the layers of varnish and nicely turned handles. My previous interest in craft and industry has become more conceptual, involving a contemplation of the cultural contexts and implications.

My current manifesto is that technology (or "skill") is just a tool, and that re-defining the criteria used to direct technology (or skills) opens up the possibility of new outcomes. This process is the basis of human ingenuity and development, at the core of progress, responsible for all the technological innovations we currently enjoy, for better or for worse. And as such can be seen at the cutting edge of contemporary concerns, part of the way forward. This is where I see artists contributing to contemporary debate, imagining the unimagined - as opposed to providing palliative products, soothing and reassuring us... which is what the Kinkade cottages are all about, no? Pleasure and fun and reassurance are fine and worthy, but ART is one of the few cultural ...what, institutions?... that is able to deeply question the fabric of society and its assumptions, and propose incredible, fantastic, unimaginable alternatives. As such, my definition of art is that which engages that potential.

Above is pictured an object for sale on an artist/designer's website, falling between craft, art, design and industry perhaps. Open for debate? There are huge crossovers between these areas - its not clear-cut, and all objects can function in different ways. That's my point about Alice Ballard's ceramics. It is a question of definition more than it is a value judgment. What is called craft can function as art, there is no doubt, but for an artwork (whatever other qualities it may have) to fall into the craft category is to conclude, for me, that it has not reached its full potential.

presentation and perception

Leaf with Small Magnolia Pod, Large Magnolia Pod, 2004 white earthenware, white terra sigillata. Alice Ballard (photo by Luis Quiles, 2007)

Comparison of two presentations of this artist's work illustrate (to me) the move from craft fair to museum. Craft to art (or craft that also functions as art). Why? Its not a style thing, but about attention to the qualities of the item and what it signifies. The black and white (color) photo focuses on intricate form and pregnant lushness contrasting with the smooth, luscious but lifeless material the items are made of. There is balance, contrast, rhythm and a variety of descriptions of form. Black and white, magnolia pod... color issues of the south. Tender white... vulva-like forms... supported by encompassing blackness... well, yeah, it weaves some interesting ideas back and forth! There's a tenderness, a brokenness, a mystery and darkness about the beauty we are shown despite the hard and permanent, pristine reality. The image offers the possibility of discovery, of different understandings.


This color photo is downloaded from the artist's website http://aliceballardmunn.com and may be her own.

Maybe this collection of work doesn't function as well together as the previous selection but its presentation also positions Ballard's work as craft. It does not encourage me to linger on philosophical concerns, it doesn't particularly highlight the qualities of the objects. They become decorative products with a focus on the homespun and rigid layout. Serried rows might suggest factory anonymity, military overtones, or even informal markets (that may be the rattan...) but industrial hardness and logic seems at odds with the objects' lush, full roundness and textured additions, their feminine nature. Lying on a mat at a country market might work but isn't quite coming off. It also suggests casual and affordable - objects "unremarkable" in the daily round that gain cultural significance largely through acknowledgment of cultural context or removal from the market setting.

However, they are obviously for sale, and offers a handy way to display your purchase(s) for those without any better ideas.... What else would you do with one if you bought it? It would be harder (but not impossible) to display it in a special situation laid out permanently like the items in the first image. Or have it in a simple stand near a window where you could pick it up, or just observe the change of light over its shape. Then again, it might be easier to buy a Luis Quiles photograph of Alice Ballard's work with the presentation all worked out.

What am I saying? Last post mentioned the benefits of professional documentation. These images of Ballard's reveal that making the item is only part of the process of making art (or craft with benefits), given that the definition of "art" relies on a consensus of opinion regarding cultural significance.

Top photo from ArtDaily.com, publicising Tradition/Innovation : American Masterpieces of Southern Craft and Traditional Art, which will be at Knoxville Museum of Art, TN October 4, 2008 to January 18, 2009.