West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song
The British Library celebrates West Africa: A region that spans 2,000 years, 1,000 languages and 17 different countries – the grass may indeed be greener in West Africa.
The British Library celebrates West Africa: A region that spans 2,000 years, 1,000 languages and 17 different countries – the grass may indeed be greener in West Africa.
Early illustrations by Ibrahim el Salahi.
Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther 1867
YOU might have heard of the 17 countries that make-up the West African region and that the region is plague by never-ending conflicts and hunger. Nevertheless, have we got news for you? West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song, a major new exhibition at the British Library is showcasing/celebrating the cultural vitality of the West African region – not warfare. Its thousand years of history, from centuries-old drum language, protest songs, informative religious manuscripts to the great manuscript libraries of the early Middle Ages, through to colonialism and independence. The exhibition likewise offers an insight into the centuries-old written heritage, as well as the ancient oral traditions of West Africa, both of which continue to influence and motivate in the present day.
West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song, is conveyed through rare texts, recordings and manuscripts of the time. This is an extraordinarily exhilarating exhibition, like no other you have ever read about or seen before. Hundreds of fascinating stories from the region’s 17 nations tell how West Africans have harnessed the power of words to build societies, drive political movements and human rights issues, and sustain religious belief and fight injustice. Furthermore, it shed light on the colonial era and the slave trade controversies including a generation of enslaved West Africans who advocated for the abolition of the slave trade in the 18th century. This is an exhibition with depth and feeling, in addition to the excitements and unusual objects the spectators would see. It explores in such detail the vibrant cultural history of this multifaceted and captivating region, even if they haven’t always been given their due by the rest of the world - until now.
There are many, many things to like about this display. Watch out for several key bits and pieces including, a poem from the 17th-century Islamic scholar Nana Asma’u, which illustrates women’s active public role in Islam; a room dedicated to the music and activism of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and a striking carnival multi-coloured regalia newly designed for the exhibition by Brixton-based artist Ray Mahabir. This retrospective will open you up to new things and to what you think you know, but in a different light. My only grievance is, you’ll need to see West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song, twice to get the full gist.
West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song
Fri 16 Oct 2015 - Tue 16 Feb 2016
PACCAR Gallery
The British Library
96 Euston Road
London
NW1 2DB
Non-organic Life: Recycling to a level beyond imaginable
Visiting an exhibition about the creative experimentation with non-organic life might not seem something you would put on top of your bucket list. However, ‘Non-organic Life’ proves that the subject is as rare and unidentified as it is interesting.
Visiting an exhibition about the creative experimentation with non-organic life might not seem something you would put on top of your bucket list. However, ‘Non-organic Life’ proves that the subject is as rare and unidentified as it is interesting. Taking recycling to a level beyond imaginable, you might even say the exhibition showcases an art form that belongs in our (hopefully near) future.
‘Non-organic Life’ gathers artists addressing creative processes which denature the origin of the materials used or contradict the properties of its constituent references. Combining art, science and technology they allow non-organic masses of materials to be transformed, refiguring the perception you have from those materials, that are considered to be a deterioration of the environment, into something beautifully captivating.
Starting off by collecting clusters of non-recyclable and non-biological materials from urban environments, the clusters then get removed out of its context and taken apart, to be assembled again in a completely different way, creating new forms that make those clusters unrecognizable.
The distinctive aspect of this concept is something called: cite-specific intervention, meaning that the artwork is always linked to the site the materials were original found, opening up a dialogue between the non-organic materials and the procedures they are undergoing. This may all sound very mystifying but is in fact a unique and innovative way of recycling what we consider dirt, into striking works of art.
An inspiring exhibition needs an inspiring venue. The exhibition will take place in ‘PERMANENTE’, an artist-led initiative located in Bogota, Colombia, aiming to provide a space for experimentation and collaboration and transmitting knowledge and inspiration amongst their visitors. A perfect match if you ask me.
Artists:
Verónica Lehner
Carlos Bonil
Juan Melo
Federico Ovalles-Ar
Víctor David Garces
Laura Ceballos
Nicolás Cardenas
Luz Angela Lizarazo
Gabriel Zea + Camilo Martinez
Rafael Gómez Barros
Angélica Teuta
Andrés Matías Pinilla
Caroline Bray
Andrés Londoño
Curated by: John Angel Rodriguez
PERMANENTE | Bogota, Colombia
Introducing: Nick JS Thompson
We interview photographer Nick JS Thompson ahead of his forthcoming show The Decline of Conscience at Hundred Years Gallery.
ROOMS presents: The Decline of Conscience by Nick JS Thompson
Curated by Benjamin Murphy | Hundred Years Gallery
19 - 25 Nov'15
Nick is a photographer with a strong sense of social conscience, and his work is always both beautifully alluring and ethically charged. This duality is what balances his work perfectly in-between honest documentary photography and fine art.
Often his photographs show human-altered landscapes, long after the people charged with their intervention have left them behind. These ghostly but familiar images are both beautiful and almost frightening.
BM – Is photography a nostalgic art form, always documenting the past?
NJST – Not necessarily. For my work yes possibly; it is rooted in nostalgia. I create work that explores events that have happened in the past and what people’s actions have been. Maybe that is a nostalgic act but I still wouldn’t class my work as nostalgic. I think it depends on the type of photography though. Something like still life photography, which is created in the present with a certain purpose in mind, could be anything but nostalgic.
BM – Are photographers creating or recording a reality? And do you think you can do one without doing both?
NJST – That’s a hard one, I think both are true. Obviously if you are a photojournalist and covering a story, you should be recording reality as it happens or as it happened in the past. Photography is such a broad term that it encompasses things such as fashion photography where each situation is carefully controlled and created to evoke a particular emotion or put across an aesthetic which has been chosen by the photographer.
BM – Susan Sontag said that no two photographers can take the same photograph of the same thing, do you agree?
NJST – Yes I do, I think that even if two photographers are photographing the same scene at the same time the images will each be different. Every person has a different take on things, what their views are on the subject matter, and emotional insights, and biases that each person has.
BM – How much control over the final image can the photographer actually claim, due to lighting changes, wind, shutter speed etc.?
NJST – Again this depends on what type of photography you are talking about. The phrase that Henri Cartier-Bresson coined is that of “the decisive moment” which he sums up by saying "the decisive moment, it is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression." This is taking the chance events that are happening around you and trying to control them to the best of your ability in one image. This is true of documentary photography, or the street photography that Cartier-Bresson is famous for, but if you are creating a still life in a studio then you obviously have complete control of every aspect of the image.
Fanø
Fanø
BM – Should photographs only be viewed in print? As then the artist can control exactly how it is encountered. Screen brightness and quality affect how it is seen, is this a problem?
NJST – I definitely prefer people to see my work in print. Viewing work online also affects your concentration, people flick through thousands of images and don’t give them as much attention as they sometimes deserve. (I know I’m guilty of it.) It is very easy to become desensitized with an endless stream of images from your computer screen or smartphone. The display quality is also definitely an issue, presenting images, which have sometimes been compressed and the resolution reduced. These things can greatly influence and detract from the viewers experience with an image.
The sequencing of pictures in a series is also extremely important for me to tell the story that I want. In the digital world this is often lost; which is why the recent surge in self-published photo books, with people like Self Publish, Be Happy leading the way. I think that is an incredible thing.
BM – Do you think smartphones and the Internet have ruined photography?
NJST – With platforms such as Instagram, where images are presented in an endless list and shown on a small scale, on screen, like I said before I think has definitely affected photography in a negative way. I wouldn’t say that it had ruined it per se but the knock on affect for a new generation of photographers and artists viewing work in this format I’m sure will have repercussions down the line.
“it is really interesting to see how people alter things for purposes that maybe no longer matter or aren’t relevant any more”
Having said that, I think that digital has a place in the world of photography and obviously it is here to stay so we just have to look for ways to use it in different ways; to embrace it and use it in a way that compliments the technology.
BM – You take photos and make videos, what does photography have that video doesn’t?
NJST – They are such different disciplines for me. In my opinion, photography can be more powerful. A still image can be looked at for as long as you want, and is often seared into you brain. The length of time you can look at it and the attention you can give to it mean that it can have more of an impact.
Video for me is more of a whole atmosphere that can be created encompassing sound and images. This is more on par with a photo essay or series of images to make up a whole picture of events or what you want to portray.
BM – You take mainly portraits, but more specifically portraits within landscapes. What are the relationships between the two?
NJST – My work looks at the effect and marks that people have left on a landscape or surrounding. I think it is really interesting to see how people alter things for purposes that maybe no longer matter or aren’t relevant any more. My work on Fanø for example was documenting the huge number of bunkers that cover a small island off the coast of Denmark, built by the Nazi’s during WWII. Their purpose has completely changed, and they are obsolete. Their appeal to the viewer now is at first glance more aesthetic than functional, although they have undertones of what the original purpose was, and this adds a sinister layer of emotion to the work. Or the work that I have shot over the last few years around the Heygate Estate in South London, again is a record of how people have changed the environment in which they live and the constant changing of this for better or worse
The Decline of Conscience
BM – Are these the fine art photographs and your Cambodia ones more documentary?
NJST – Yeah, some of the work I shoot when I travel is more based in the traditions of documentary photography. The Fanø series is a lot more calculated and thought out over an extended period, where as the travel documentary photos are usually more off the cuff and going with the flow of what is happening around me at that particular time.
BM – Why do you choose to show the documentary works in a fine art setting?
NJST – Documentary work can definitely be shown in a fine art setting. It depends on what your thought processes are behind the images and work as a whole. For me, my work falls under fine art to an extent because of the ideas behind what I am trying to portray visually to people. I choose to show the work in a fine art setting because it gives me a space to explore the work and display the work exactly how I want it to be viewed instead of handing it over to a picture editor and letting them then edit and govern the work, possibly even changing its intended purpose to fit a particular agenda. I think it is maybe me being a bit of a control freak over the work and over people’s experience of viewing it.
BM – Do you think that once you have taken a photograph of something, that the act of you taking the photograph changes it forever or are you entirely a voyeur?
NJST – I like to think that it doesn’t change it, but I think possibly it does. It’s a question that I constantly ask myself. If you are going to enter a person’s personal space or environment to take a picture then I think that inevitably you are going to effect their behavior in some way. This is why I prefer to spend longer periods of time with people so that they become used to me being around and then almost forget that I am there. This is the ideal.
Phuomi
BM - Often your work is rather bleak, what is it about this kind of photography that attracts you?
NJST – For me it some of the most interesting human emotions are fear or distress. I don’t know what type of person this makes me (Laughs). They are extreme and when people are in these states it sometimes makes them behave in odd and interesting ways. For me putting myself in uncomfortable situations either as they are happening or after the event, pushes me to create work that reflect these extremes.
I also find it interesting to see how viewers engage and react to work when confronted with images that are uncomfortable to look at.
BM – My favourite of your works are the empty rooms, what do you think these can say that a portrait can’t?
NJST – This links back to showing how people have altered their surroundings and the effect that this has on the atmosphere of a space. Vilhelm Hammershøi is a massive influence on my work, with his paintings of rooms with often-muted tones and somber ambiance.
It is documenting everyday life but when you take the people out of the image it slows things down for me, I can concentrate of the finer details of the scene that I think can be extremely telling in what that person is like. And this adds to it being a more complete picture.
The Decline of Conscience by Nick JS Thompson | facebook event
19 - 25 November at Hundred Years Gallery
Curated by Benjamin Murphy
Solitary by Patrick Colhoun at the Ben Oakley Gallery
With exhibition ‘Solitary’, contemporary sculpture artist Patrick Colhoun introduces his new take on the dark nature his previous works dealt with, going from grievous to playful in an utterly unique way.
With exhibition ‘Solitary’, contemporary sculpture artist Patrick Colhoun introduces his new take on the dark nature his previous works dealt with, going from grievous to playful in an utterly unique way.
When an artist is capable of expressing himself through his works of art, transferring his feelings to objects and sculptures and translating even the darkest thoughts into every little physical detail; that is when art has reached its greatest version. The man that stands by this method and masters it simultaneously is contemporary sculpture artist Patrick Colhoun.
“I have a strong belief in myself and my work. I am confident that my work has the potential to stand out and as long as I can keep making that sort of work, I will keep progressing. How far though, in this game, is anyone’s guess.”
Patrick Colhoun’s art is known for treating dark subjects such as death, decay, sexual deviancy and aggression. Dealing with grief and difficult encounters he has experienced in the past, many say the work he produced in his previous years has been a way to express his emotions, portraying them in an extreme and mesmerizing way.
Today, 6 years after his last solo exhibition, Patrick’s creations have taken another turn, shedding a light upon his previous work and changing the atmosphere from grievous to playful. The exhibition: Solitary is the third part of a series of 3 exhibitions. Having taken place at Belfast and Dublin, it is now London’s turn to be wow-ed by the artist’s ability to move with sculpture. The exhibition still deals with memories from Colhoun’s past, however this time he highlights the parts he likes remembering. Solitary combines contemporary sculpture and mixed media to create something that Patrick calls ‘anti-ceramics’. Striving upon the idea of being unique, the artist surprises every time, may it be with unseen material combinations or objects that are as far removed from ceramics as possible.
“I want to do ceramics, but not as you know it. I started introducing other materials to the ceramic base, including latex, neon, hosiery, spikes and piercings, all things not usually associated with traditional ceramics.”
Solitary will take place at the Ben Oakley Gallery from the 13th until the 29th of November.
‘Be Inspired’, an exhibition by Save Wild Tigers
Save Wild Tigers brings people with an appreciation for art and a love for animals together in exhibition ‘Be Inspired’.
Save Wild Tigers brings people with an appreciation for art and a love for animals together in exhibition ‘Be Inspired’. As this promising title states, the prestigious Hotel Café Royal is lavishly filled with inspiring artwork, highlighting the beauty of the wild tiger and raising money to give them a better habitat.
INAZUMA by Daisuke Sakaguchi
Painting legend Christian Furr is selected as curator for the event, as well as contributor to what probably is one of the most spectacular artworks of the exhibition. Together with friend and designer Chris Bracey, he created a 3D neon artwork with chrome tiger head sculpture. Internationally known artists Rose Corcoran, Dan Baldwin, Otto Schade, Daisuke Sakaguchi, Shauna Richardson,John Gledhill, Julia Wager, Claire Milner, Misha Masek, Jacky Tsai, Pandemonia and Lauren Baker also used their creative talent to contribute by interpreting and incorporating the wild tiger in their work. The results are astonishing and might just be the most exciting way to create consciousness around the distinction of this beautiful creature.
If this hasn’t convinced you to visit the event, the next piece of art will. Chosen to be the showstopper at ‘Be Inspired’ ‘INAZUMA’, Japanese for ‘Lightning’, empowers the qualities of the wild tiger: power, speed and impact. The artwork, meticulously painted by Daisuke Sakaguchi, captures the freedom of the majestic wild tiger in a modern way. Both ‘INAZUMA’ and all other artworks at the exhibition will be available for auction online, giving you the opportunity to take a reminder home and simultaneously support the good cause.
Another pinnacle of the event is the work of urban art talent Otto Schade. With "Butterfly Tiger" he takes the abstract layering he is known for to another level, intertwining creatures together and modifying the perspective on the wild tiger.
Butterfly Tiger by Otto Schade. 150x122 cm mixed media stencil spray
Time to bid! Please visit this link to view the "Be Inspired" art bidding which will be up on PADDLE 8 until the 8th October 2015:
Curated by Christian Furr
The Club at Café Royal, 22 September – 8 October 2015
By Appointment Only
A preview of Judy Chicago's Star Cunts & Other Attractions
The Riflemaker Gallery will play host to Judy Chicago once again with work both acquainted and un-introduced. Meet her Star Cunts & other attractions; a feminist-fired suite of her historic sculptures, paintings and archival pieces.
Image credit - Judy Chicago at work in her china-painting studio in 1974. Courtesy of Through the Flower Archives
By Suzanna Swanson - Johnston
From 14th September - 31st December 2015, the Riflemaker Gallery will play host to Judy Chicago once again with work both acquainted and un-introduced. Meet her Star Cunts & other attractions; a feminist-fired suite of her historic sculptures, paintings and archival pieces.
Artist, writer, educator, pioneer and artistic-punk-rocker, Judy Chicago created the feminist art movement; reacting to to social and political injustice during the revolutionary times of the 1960s and 1970s that she rose to prominence in. The history of art was the history of the white bourgeois man, till it was remoulded in the hands of Judy Chicago. Her art is dry-witted, dirty-talking, socially-pointed, intricate, fecund, frank, kick-ass-colourist abstraction. It dresses up in a history of representational feminine imagery in order to draw on the historical associations, and subvert them. Rifle-maker offers us a peep-show of the elements unseen.
In their exhibitive debut, on show are porcelain test plates which chronicle Chicago’s studies of china painting in preparation for the Dinner Party. In her key note work, Chicago created the symbolic history of women in Western civilisation and brought the diminished voices of 39 historical and mythological female figures to the table…literally. Using her distinctive multi-disciplinary-multi-media style, Chicago incorporated subject matter into the method by drawing on the traditionally feminine applied arts for the place settings. Along the 49ft triangular table sits embroidered runners, ceramic flatware, embroidered gold napkins, 2000 inscribed tiles and china plates with hand-painted vaginas; the studies for which are on show. Also featured are a series of steel dome sculptures and the eponymous Star Cunts - a set of prismacolour and pastels on paper - that lean towards her earlier minimalist style but still carry the prevailing feminist and feminine forms that characterise her work.
2015 marks quite the year for Chicago; she will simultaneously carry seven shows across Europe which stands as quite the testimony to her continuing influence, impact, relevance and status as ’America’s most important living artist’; this is one dinner party invitation I wouldn’t pass up.
‘Star Cunts & Other Attractions’ : Riflemaker Gallery, 79 Beak Street, London
14th September - 31st December 2015
All images courtesy Riflemaker Gallery
Ai Weiwei – Creating Under Imminent Threat
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is as well known for his art as for his activism. A steadfast critic of the Chinese government, Ai has been denied a passport for over four years and has been unable to leave or exhibit work in his native country.
Photograph by Harry Pearce Pentagram 2015
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is as well known for his art as for his activism.
A steadfast critic of the Chinese government, Ai has been denied a passport for over four years and has been unable to leave or exhibit work in his native country.
Recently Weiwei posted a photograph online of him holding up his newly returned passport and announced that he has also been granted an extended six-month visa to visit the UK, which he will coordinate with his Royal Academy retrospective.
On the 19th of September 2015, The Royal Academy will host the first major retrospective of his work, showing works from his entire oeuvre. From the smashing of a Han Dynasty vase (which will appear in the show), to the poignant critique of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake that killed over 5,000 Chinese children, Weiwei’s work is bold, controversial and unforgiving.
All the works in this show have all been created since 1993, the date when Weiwei returned to his native China from America. This exhibition will show works that have never before been seen in this country, and many have been created specifically for this venue, Weiwei navigating the space digitally from China.
Often labeled as an activist or a political artist, this social conscience is what has influenced most of his works to date. Living under constant imminent threat from those with absolute authority, Weiwei’s work is created out of adversity and struggle. His oppressors are ones who are able to work above and therefore outside the law, and for that reason his struggle is a very real one. Despite this, Weiwei will not be defeated, and continues to critique the government and its actions towards the Citizens of his beloved China.
In a career spanning over three decades, his hand has also been turned to: activism, architecture, publishing, and curation, in a tour de force of creative activity. The artist worked alongside Herzog & de Meuron (the same company to design the Tate Modern in 1995) to design the 2008 Beijing National Olympic Stadium (commonly known as the Birdsnest). This project was born from a building Ai designed nine years before, when he needed a new studio, and decided to simply build it himself.
This confident disregard for convention is the attitude with which he approaches all of his work, and it has gained him many critics. The most notable of which being the Chinese government themselves, who have arrested him, seized his assets, terrified his wife and child, tracked him daily, tapped his phones, and rescinded his passport.
Perhaps most well known for his Sunflower Seeds artwork, in which he filled Tate Modern's Turbine Hall with 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds. Each seed was hand crafted and painted by hundreds of Chinese citizens from the city of Jingdezhen, in a process that took many years. Visitors to the show were overwhelmed to see the vast expanse of seeds, and were originally invited to walk and sit upon them, interacting with the work in a way in which we are rarely allowed to. (For safety reasons this was later disallowed)
The sunflower seeds appeared uniform but upon close inspection revealed themselves to be minutely unique, created using centuries-old techniques that have been passed down through generations.
In the Chinese culture sunflowers are extremely important, Chairman Mao would use the symbology of the sunflower to depict his leadership, himself being the sun, whilst those loyal to his cause were the sunflowers. In Weiwei’s opinion, sunflowers supported the whole revolution, both spiritually and materially. In this artwork, Weiwei supported an entire village for years, as well as creating something that promotes an interesting dialogue about the very culture that created it.
Weiwei’s work is about people, about the often nameless many who are oppressed or ignored. It is about justice for those who have been abandoned or neglected by those who are there to protect them, and it is most primarily about their basic human rights.
It is tragically ironic that those human rights that he has worked so tirelessly to protect for others are those denied him by his own government.
The Royal Academy has turned to Crowdfunding to help raise £100,000 to bring the centerpiece of the exhibition to Britain. Weiwei’s reconstituted Trees will sit in the exterior courtyard and be free to view for all. The campaign has just over a week left and still needs to raise just over 25% of its target.
Get involved here
The show will be on between
September 19th – December 13th 2015
Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD
All images courtesy of Royal Academy
OUT OF AFRICA
Africa Industrial Revolution. This time the revolution will be downloaded.
London in summer is a wonderful place. With or without the heatwave. There’s a host of arts exhibitions across London this summer, offering a feast of delectable, outstanding and eye-opening events to indulge your eyes, add to your repertoire and broaden your horizon. And roomsmagazine.com have brought you quite a few, well more than a few. Here is one more to indulge in. All hail to the Tiwani Contemporary Gallery who have brought us this captivating exhibition titled: “African Industrial Revolution / the revolution will be downloadable”. Yes, you read right. I know most of you must have heard and read of – “this time the revolution will be televised”. But in keeping with the times as there’s been a complete revolution in digital technology, and people look more and more at art through the media, its apt for the artist to state that, this time, the African Industrial Revolution will be downloaded. How about that?
Francisco Vidal, 'If I'm free, it's because I'm always running no.1', 2015, oil and acrylic on recycled handmade paper, 255x255cm. ® Sylvain Deleu
Africa Industrial Revolution is a venture by the e-studio Luanda. E-studio Luanda is an international artistic collective of passionate artists resident in a studio complex founded in 2012 in the Angolan capital Luanda by four artists: Francisco Vidal, Rita GT, António Ole and Nelo Teixeira. The collective has played an influential role in developing the visual arts scene in Luanda, bringing into being regular shows and running an art education curriculum. What it means to be an artist now, even compared to 1980s, has changed so dramatically that they have redefined not just how we make art, but how we consume it. In this the collective’s first exhibition in the United Kingdom, A. I. R. exposition is a backdrop and also takes the form of an open studio within Tiwani Contemporary’s space, transforming the gallery space into a temporary artist studio where the visiting public can appreciate artist Francisco Vidal and Rita GT producing work live in-situ. Visitors can also observe the artists start up the U.topia Machine:
U.topia Machine is a 60 x 60 cm plywood box containing an all-in-one toolkit for producing work. I'd say this is what being an artist is in the 21st century. The complete exhibition at it's very best portrays artists who like to build momentum. The whole gallery is covered with art display – from top-to-bottom, windows and doors. The large scale works are all by Francisco Vidal and the posters are by Rita GT. The exhibition gives the visitors a whole new perspective on wall-to-wall arts. One thing among many others I find interesting is that the works are displayed in order to catch the eye and get one thinking. I don’t want to spoil things by giving too much away in this review, go see for yourself. Even if you have seen a picture or a painting on the Tiwani website or on roomsmagazine.com, when you actually stand in front of these large scale works it is a completely different experience. The paintings are challenging, moving and a lot more besides. Hurry!
It’s also worth seeing the artists live at work. How cool is that? If you ask me this exhibition is initiating a riot, but in a good way. There are many more artists coming out of Africa these days and for a long time now it’s been a lot more vibrant and less political. The international art world is now looking at Africa a lot more, not as a backwater but as a would-be front-runner of the art world, sooner rather than later.
African Industrial Revolution, Tiwani Contemporary, 2015 ® Sylvain Deleu
African Industrial Revolution | e-studio Luanda
10 July - 15 August 2015
Tiwani Contemporary, 16 Little Portland Street, London. W1W 8BP
Tuesday - Friday, 11am - 6pm
Saturday, 12pm - 5pm
Free entry
SATURATION II – Add Subtract Divide opening at the Copperfield Gallery
Paint is not a dead art. Especially not when six unique Spanish artists rehash the painted form and naught but maths ensues.
Paint is not a dead art. Especially not when six unique Spanish artists rehash the painted form and naught but maths ensues.
After the success of the first SATURATION exhibition series, the Spanish Contemporary Art Network (SCAN) brings us their sequel act in the Copperfield Gallery.
The past century has seen a slow, almost degenerative decline in the traditional art of painting. The painted image has almost become jaded in the minds of the average contemporary artist. But six Spanish artists are boldly revisiting this in an abstract form by utilizing new technologies.
If painting is to art what Euclid is to geometry – then this exhibition glorifies the intangible. Add Subtract Divide provides us with the experimentation that our modernistic eyes so sorely crave. There is a deep emphasis on the art of layering; the works are not bound by the uniplanar visual form – paint simply applied to a canvas. The works successful blur the boundary of painting tradition.
This exhibition certainly does what it says on the tin. Expect to see an addition of paint (a sheer, bloated mass of pure acrylic in one case) as well as a subtraction and division of the materials that make up a painting. By exploring forms such as trompe l’oeil and collages, the notion of a modernist geometric painting is explored and scrutinised.
Artists:
MARÍA ACUYO
RUBÉN GUERRERO
GUILLERMO MORA
SONIA NAVARRO
LOIS PATIÑO
ALAIN URRUTIA
6 Copperfield Street, London SE1 0EP
15th July at 6:30pm
Images via Copperfield Gallery website
Review: Barbara Hepworth, Sculpture for a Modern World Exhibition
Affable, sensual and a bit perplexing.
Barbara Hepworth in the Palais studio at work on the wood carving Hollow Form with White Interior 1963 Photograph: Val Wilmer, ©Bowness, Hepworth Estate
Affable, sensual and a bit perplexing
For ticket holders who aren't familiar with her, Tate Britain's retrospective of the British celebrity sculptor Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) cannot compare to the stature of the lady herself. Born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, her passion for art and sculpting led not only to her eventual global fame but also to her future husband and collaborator Ben Nicholson, a relationship that has been at the forefront of this exhibition. After they settled in St Ives, Cornwall, without her knowing it would be where she'd reside for the rest of her life, St Ives' landscape formed a relationship with the lady which is reflected achingly beautifully in the exhibition. The sensuous and balanced shapes and forms embody the fantastic control and craftiness of Hepworth who in this almost biographical exhibition emerges not as an Iron Lady but a lady who carves with iron.
One of the reasons that I called it perplexing is that the selected works are more or less monotonously placed into vitrines that sit awkwardly with the eye level. Locking the tactile sculptures into glass cases could be a kludge to avoid big budget mise-en-scene environmental set up as many of Hepworth's works had been made for outdoors, despite the artist herself had urged that these sculptures were meant to be touched. The staging of the pieces proves to be underwhelming against expectations more than anything considering this has been the first in London in 47 years. This is not an exhibition that aims for spectacles nor is it inventive or imaginative in its presentation of such modernist works. Surely, for the female artist who changed the face of sculpting in a male dominated world of sculptors who refused to be addressed as a sculptress, there could be a bit more rickety to rock her perfectly balanced, sensual and sentient geometric nirvana. With the exception of the last room for “Garden”, the rest do not quite distinguish themselves from an Apple store.
Hepworth in the Mall Studio, London, 1933
Photograph by Paul Laib
The Barbara Hepworth Photograph Collection
© The de Laszlo Collection of Paul Laib Negatives, Witt Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London
Another reason I was underwhelmed is its lack of narrative. A lot could be said of a woman who went to art school and sculpted through two World Wars and rebelled against the totalitarian regimes of the Europe – there isn't a clear structure of feeling, in contrast to the actions that the artist has taken to ensure the way she is portrayed by the media, including mediating specific environments for photographing her works as well as public displays.
You would however find yourself at peace and properly meditated after a walk-through, because staring into marble sculptures “Two Segments and Sphere” (1935-6) or “Large and Small Form” (1934), will make you helplessly yearn for balance as the pure genius of the weight distribution and craftiness of these sculptures must endure not to fall all over the place and panic viewers. You will genuinely wonder how Hepworth was able to determine where to make hollow or to protrude.
Four large carvings in the sumptuous African hardwood guarea (1954-5), arguably the highpoint of Hepworth's carving career, are reunited for this exhibition, which is also a highlight for me because they command the entire room, looking like four very proud half eaten apples.
Without being able to hype and emphasize one of her most important works "Single Form" (which now resides outside the UN headquarters in New York, due to a what seems to be a convoluted curational process, although it appears to be complacent in repositioning Hepworth as a global giant) Tate Britain however treats Hepworth's superfans with a never before seen experience and reveals not only the aspect of Hepworth that was only known to a few selected private owners but also a bitter-sweetness in the celebration of an English sculptress’ extraordinary life that will leave you filled with beautiful tenderness.
I recommend it for a first date.
Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture for a Modern World is now open at Tate Britain.
24-June – 25 October 2015
Tate Britain, Linbury Galleries
Top 5 International Exhibitions: Yoko Ono, Ryan Gander, Chen Zhen, Michael Beutler and Tianzhuo Chen.
From one of the most famous multi-faceted artist-performers celebrating approximately 125 works, to young installation artists addressing commonplace post-millennial issues: This wide spectrum of current major international exhibitions has a lot to offer.
Chen Zhen Image: Daily Incantations, 1996, Courtesy de Sarthe Gallery, Hong Kong and GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano / Beijing / Les Moulins, Photo Tom Powell.
From one of the most famous multi-faceted artist-performers celebrating approximately 125 works, to young installation artists addressing commonplace post-millennial issues: This wide spectrum of current major international exhibitions has a lot to offer.
Yoko Ono Image: Yoko Ono. Cut Piece. 1964. Performed by Yoko Ono in New Works of Yoko Ono, Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, March 21, 1965. Photograph by Minoru Niizuma. © Minoru Niizuma. Courtesy Lenono Photo Archive, New York
It seems as though MoMA may be the go-to destination for internationally renowned performance art: and quite rightly so. Recently, they were host to Marina Abrmović’s high-profile exhibition ‘The Artist is Present’, acting as a retrospective to her years as the world’s leading performance artist and simultaneously showcasing a piece which saw her sit in a chair across from visitors every day for three months. In a similar vein, MoMA in New York currently exhibits a Yoko Ono retrospective: ‘One Woman Show, 1960-1971’. Not only can one witness a huge variety of installation works, objects, recordings and films, but this exhibition has spawned a variety of events. Ono’s ‘Morning Peace’ event encouraged a global gathering during sunrise on the 21st June this year during the course of the current exhibition, remembering its first performance by Ono herself in Tokyo 1964, this time, seeing 5am musical performances by Devonté Hynes of Blood Orange.
Ryan Gander Image: Ryan Gander, Ampersand 2012. ©Ryan Gander, Courtesy the artist and Ishikawa Collection, Okayama. Image: Andrew Curtis
Across the Pacific, at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, is Ryan Gander’s ‘Read Only’. Gander is well known as an art innovator: a generator for streams of ideas. His artistic endeavours often surprise and intrigue audiences with a playful sense of imagination and commentary. Gander’s work has always been associated with the unseen, unknown and unpredictable, adding intrigue to a lot of his work. ‘Read Only’ sees 66 unique objects placed on a revolving conveyor belt, only to be witnessed by the audience through a ‘viewing window’ acting as an ‘irl’ slideshow. Inherent to a collection of objects shown one at a time, a viewer begins to search for narrative or association in the juxtapositions of objects, creating meaning that may not actually exist. To some extent, most of the works collated by Gander at this exhibition reflect this sentiment: the artist sets up opportunity for the viewer to infer meaning in a work by purposefully hiding components of the pieces.
Chen Zhen: Purification Room, 2000, Installation im Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai. Image via marta-blog.de
The Rockbund Art Museum, located in Shanghai, is showing the work of the late Chen Zhen. With works displayed in the Tate and MoMA, Zhen’s ability to compose large sculptural masses of combined antique objects and sand-dusted sculptural scenes is unparalleled. Often, his work is associated with an exploration of cultures and societies – obtaining the ability to discuss the contrast of modern society and cultural antiquity and the human condition. This year, the Rockbund celebrates its 5th year anniversary, and the current Zhen exhibition embodies the importance the gallery represents in the context of China’s contemporary arts scene and with the impact of the art deco building itself amidst the city of Shanghai.
Michael Beutler Image: Michael Beutler. Moby Dick, 2015, Installationsansicht, Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / Thomas Bruns
Located in the impressive ‘historical hall’ of Hamburger Bahnhof, or Museum für Gegenwart of Berlin, the architectural and structural mystery of Michael Beutler’s ‘Moby Dick’. Beutler transforms this former railway station into an artistic workshop, an intentional ‘work in progress’ and mass of diverse constructed materials. With this, Beutler explores industry and creativity: the act and need of ‘making’ in our society. Through colour and use of space, the exhibition creates the feeling of constant movement and work occurring in this massive space consumed by an overwhelming amount of material and construction.
Tianzhuo Chen Image: Vue de l’installation "Dead drops" d'Aram Bartholl, Palais de Tokyo (24.06 – 13.09 2015). Photo : André Morin.
Finally, Palais de Tokyo puts on the work of Tianzhuo Chen, an installation artist exploring contemporary social issues of the 21st century. Chen explores ideas surrounding morality in our celebrity-obsessed culture through unique neon-tinted imagery reflecting iconic objects and scenes throughout our current culture. With these images, Chen is able to explore devotional and near-religious reactions and attitudes regarding these moral attitudes. With a mix of sculpture, video, performance and painting, Chen creates a hypnotic new world within which the viewer will get lost in.
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alumni come to London
Three graduate sculptors of Kunstakademie Düsseldorf come together with Tony Cragg to bring us their latest work.
Three graduate sculptors of Kunstakademie Düsseldorf come together with Tony Cragg to bring us their latest work.
Coming up at Blain Southern London this month is a sculpture exhibition by Mathias Lanfer, Gereon Lepper and Andreas Schmitten, all alumni of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. The exhibition is curated by prestigious sculptor Tony Cragg, who is also a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
Cragg is an English sculptor who moved to Germany in the 70s, he has exhibited in countless galleries and won many important awards such as the Turner Prize. His work is particularly concerned with material. His earlier work is specifically interested in making use of found and discarded objects and materials. For him material determines form.
Using sculpture, Lanfer’s work looks at form finding as well as public space, Lepper’s work investigates nature’s response to technical intervention and the ongoing transformation of energy, with the addition of Schmitten’s clean sculptures influenced by his interest in film and animation it is exciting to see how the work of these esteemed artists will come together under the curation of Tony Cragg.
The exhibition will run 10 July - 29 August 2015 at Blain Southern, London.
Michael Armitage at the White Cube
Art is an agent of social change - we interview Kenyan artist Michael Armitage.
Michael Armitage, Accident 2015
Oil on Lubugo bark cloth. 67 x 87 in. (170.2 x 221 cm) © Michael Armitage. Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)
Renowned Nigerian photographer Johnson Donatus Aihumekeokhai Ojeikere (J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere) (1930 – 2014) once said: “Art is life. Without art, life would be frozen.” Totally true. Art is a means of expression. Be it painting, drawing, welding, fashion, writing, sculpture and poetry - Oh yes, welding and construction is art too.
Art is the grander merchandise of the human imagination. As well as “the state of our souls”, enthused Kenyan born, London-based artist Michael Armitage. “Art can be an agent of social change. I don’t think anyone should underestimate the impact of art on any society”, he worried. Little did he know he’s agreeing with the master - J. D. Ojeikere. Why is Armitage saying things and why am I in tête-à-tête with him? The reason is that this promising young aspirant has taken up residence at the White Cube - the avant-garde fashionable art gallery in Bermondsey in South East London.
In this his first solo exhibition in the UK, he’s transformed this very enormous White Cube room with eleven giant symbolic paintings that center primarily on stories from his native country, Kenya. Countless concepts for his paintings commence with reports of a newsworthy, contemporary incident, including media news, East African legends, internet chats or thoughts and images stuck in his own personal memory about a momentous event. The ensuing imagery is then developed with oil on ‘Lubugo’, a traditional bark cloth from Uganda, which is beaten over a period of days creating a natural material which when stretched taut has occasional holes and bristly indents. In one of his paintings, Accident (2015), is a snapshot of a bus crash. He returned to a scene of personal pain: an airplane crash he experienced as a teenager, with his father and uncle, deep in the Kenyan bush.
Michael Armitage, #mydressmychoice 2015
Oil on Lubugo bark cloth. 59 x 77 in. (149.9 x 195.6 cm) © Michael Armitage. Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)
In another painting, Hornbill (2014), Armitage depicts one of the four terrorists who carried out the Westgate Shopping Mall attack in Nairobi, in which 67 people were killed including a group of children who were filming a cookery programme in the mall at the time. Michael Armitage was born in Nairobi, Kenya, now a resident of the UK for the last fifteen years, he still works between London and Nairobi. In a conversation with Armitage at the White Cube he said “I can understand if some people find my art controversial, however I am only exposing the daily realities of society’s political problems, male-dominated society, and total disrespect for women’s rights in many parts of the world and extreme disparities in wealth. The gap between the rich and the poor is on the increase both in the Western world and in sub-Saharan Africa”.
Michael Armitage, In the garden 2015
Oil on Lubugo bark cloth. 76 15/16 x 58 7/8 in. (195.5 x 149.5 cm) © Michael Armitage. Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)
Michael Armitage, Kariakor 2015
Oil on Lubugo bark cloth. 66 15/16 x 59 1/16 in. (170 x 150 cm) © Michael Armitage. Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)
Now, for an artist crusader who wants to show the world its ills and atrocities and inequalities via figurative paintings; to exhibit in an avant-garde, posh, experimental and high-profile gallery has raised an eyebrow or two. Why exhibit at the White Cube?
Absolutely I agree with you. Avant-garde and the rest of it. However, it is an opportunity to have my work exposed and to be looked at on a global stage And I would like the subject of the work to be considered as a global thing on the same level as other global messages out there. It is a platform that was granted to me and I took it because it will reach a lot of people and let the debate begin. The narrative of the paintings are mostly about Kenya. It’s about specific things that happened across east Africa – but it can happen anywhere in the world too. The suicide bombings in Nairobi, Kenya can affect us all in the UK or the US. No one thing is now specific to one country. So showing in this gallery will help propel my work to the world stage and that’s what any artists in my position would want. Get world-wide recognition and get the people talking – that is important to me.
Your art work is a tad bit macabre, if I may say so. Violence, suicide-bombings, prostitution and limbs flying about. One hell of a dark and sad world you portray here. From the sensible to the ridiculous. There’s no in-between. These paintings aren't like anything I have seen before. What would you like your viewing public to take away from this?
Sure. Absolutely macabre. But that is life for you in all its entreaty. Make of it what you wish. I did not want to do an uplifting pussy-fussy, tip-toe around works of art for art sake. I know I have very serious issues and messages to deal with. There are lots of dark things going on right now in this world. I portray rape – there’s rape every day. I portray child and adult prostitution – these are happening right now with no sign of abating. No offence to anyone, but I will tell those people who say my work is too dark to look around their communities or far away communities – somewhere, somehow evil is going on. We should not let these things happen. We must talk about it now. I want hard hitting, in your face works-of-art. However, I will also add, they can make of the paintings whatever they wish. If there’s a sort of miss reading at first I would quite like that. If there’s conflict, that is kind of good too.
But do you have to ill-use the current dreadful state of affairs by turning it on its head as art? This is provocative work right here. Would you concur?
Categorically yes. I hope it’s provocative in a sense that it makes the wider audience ask questions about what they are looking at. Question their attitudes. Question why some things are easy and some are not, for as I mentioned earlier in this conversation, art is an agent of social change. I don’t think anyone should underestimate the impact of art on any society. There are a lot of crazy things going on in the world that people are not willing to talk about and have a proper intelligent debate about. As artists and journalists these atrocities should be a lot higher on our agenda than they are now. For me my work is entirely necessary and justified.
Born 1984, Kenya. At that time, in a typical Kenyan family you are encouraged to either be an accountant, a doctor or a lawyer or something they call a real job. How did you become as passionate about art and art as a process for change?
Michael Armitage, Lucy 2015
Oil on Lubugo bark cloth. 66 15/16 x 58 7/8 in. (170 x 149.5 cm) © Michael Armitage. Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)
[Laughs] Art has been very present in my life since I was a six year old growing up in Kenya. It’s not a passion I acquired when I located to Britain. I came to Britain to further my education and attend higher education. My mother is Kenyan and my father is English. Both have always said – go for it. Take it as far as you can go. They have been incredibly supportive although neither of them are artists. And I had a school teacher that encouraged and thought me the ropes and discipline to be a good artist.
Michael Armitage, Sun Wukong in Gachie 2015
Oil on Lubugo bark cloth. 77 x 59 1/16 in. (195.6 x 150 cm) © Michael Armitage. Photo © Stephen White Courtesy White Cube
Is it reasonable to conclude that Michael Armitage is an angry man or just an angry artist who is expressing himself with paintbrushes?
I would not say that I am an angry artist or that my work is angry. In the painting #mydressmychoice the events were horrific - women wearing miniskirts were taken off minibuses stripped and molested by the drivers, touts and some passengers; this was filmed and circulated on the Internet. After watching it I felt complicit in the abuse, it was my culture that was twisted to say that a woman in a mini skirt is morally wrong and that the attackers were using to justify the abuse. I was implicated in the attack through watching and I wanted to question my position, and question this attitude within my culture - in the painting the most important character is you as the viewer. Of course the attack makes me angry, but that is not why I make the paintings.
You have exhibited as part of a group, and now gone solo in a posh gallery and you will be featured in roomsmagazine.com. What more would you like to achieve?
[Laughs hysterically] Thank you very much for this interview. I appreciate that. At this stage I can say there’s a lot to come and a lot to come afterwards. So it’s hard for me to be specific about something right now. There’s a lot of stuff that we have to deal with. There’s a lot of violence that we have to deal with. So watch this space...
What is an activity or activities that you do regularly in your leisure time for pleasure or just to wind away downtime – that does not include a paint brush?
I play squash. I listen to music by artists like Cyndi Lauper, Franco and TPOK Jazz, Tallis, Toumani Diabate, Cluster, Beyoncé, Sauti Sole...etc
White Cube Bermondsey, 144–152 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3TQ
Theaster Gates: Freedom of Assembly
Michael Armitage: Inside the White Cube
28 April – 15 July 2015
Herbert Golser channels mother nature in a quivering solidity
Golser’s latest exhibition at Rosenfeld Porcini Gallery showcases a tightly sculpted juxtaposition between fragility and structural durability – a combination that leaves you questioning whether these sculptures were crafted by the artist or Mother Nature herself.
Golser’s latest exhibition at Rosenfeld Porcini Gallery showcases a tightly sculpted juxtaposition between fragility and structural durability – a combination that leaves you questioning whether these sculptures were crafted by the artist or Mother Nature herself.
As one enters the unassuming Rosenfeld Porcini Gallery on London’s Rathbone Street, the space’s white-washed walls cite Michelangelo in describing the exhibition: “the figure already existed inside the slab of marble”. Indeed, Herbert Golser’s sculptures, which reveal waves, sweeping strokes and pointillist landscapes from within masses of wood, embody Michelangelo’s view in this regard.
Golser hails from Austria with lengthy experience in sculpting, particularly with wood as his medium, graduating from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and the Technical School for Wood and Stone Sculpture. A great deal of tradition and time is felt from behind the works displayed in this particular exhibition; one cannot help but imagine the painstaking patience required to forge such detailed and fragile works.
Fragility feels important in this collection. At times as you wander between these monuments you dare not breathe at risk of disturbing the resting flakes and strands of wood sculpted by Golser. This grants the space an inherent stillness and calm that underpins the pieces displayed. A tight relationship between the sculptures and the space grants Golser’s work further dimension; shadows cast by towers of wood protruding from the walls and between the floorboards cast warped geometries, wall-mounted lattices reveal white from the walls in the grates of wood toying with the eye, rows and columns of miniature blocks laying perpendicular to the wall shift the sense of perspective as you pass a piece enabling a sense of movement. What originally seem like still natural creations, upon closer inspection, contain great amounts of life and vitality.
Each sculpted piece conforms to a series of repeated patterns which applies a mathematical quality to the works and yet the pieces which contribute to an individual work retain a sense of individuality – much akin to mathematics found in nature. This parallel exists to the extent where at times the viewer begins to question whether an artist exists at all: perhaps through a series of natural erosive processes these artefacts themselves in a gallery.
Herbert Golser’s exhibition, A Quivering Solidity, is open at Rosenfeld Porcini Gallery until 11th July 2015.
A festival for art lovers
Style and substance go on display at Muse Gallery and at a tube station near you. We interview artists Francis Akpata and Ewa Wilczynski.
I may not know what art is, but I know what art isn’t. The ongoing Art Below annual summer group exhibition in collaboration with London’s Muse Gallery and Studio, taking place at the Muse, is a festival for lovers of good art works. A total of 50 artists, established and unknown, are exhibiting their work - 25 artists from the 4th - 14th June followed by another 25 artists from 18th - 30th June. Why would 50 people want to partake in a gig like this I hear you holler? It’s providing a tad of everything for everybody. Besides to foster the spirit of public participation and engagement in arts, some of the works are also on display on billboard posters across the London Underground network throughout June and July. Is this a winning formula or what? Answer on twitter, please.
Artists taking part includes: Welsh painter, poet and television personality Molly Parkin, 83, Ewa Wilczynski, Hayden Kays, Lora Hristova, Francis Akpata, and Nasser Azam. Paul Lemmon, Ben Moore, Dora Williams, Ani Lang, Leo Jahaan, and Christopher Flower, expressionist figurative painter from Southeastern North Carolina, USA. And there’s more: Stephanie Brown, Louise Barrett and Marty Thornton, to name but 16 - London is becoming an art capital now. The show has galvanised what can be refer to as a frenzy because The London's Muse Gallery is based in the capital's cultural heartland Portobello Road, known world-wide as the home of Europe’s biggest street festival, the London Nothing-Hill Carnival. The Carnival Bands will take to the roads on Sunday 30th and Monday 31st August.
The Art Below was started in 2006 as a public art organisation by brothers Ben and Simon Moore with a vision to “enrich the everyday life of the traveling public by giving fresh insight into the very latest in contemporary art whilst at the same time providing a platform for emerging and established talent”. To date, Art Below have displayed the works of over 3000 international artists, both emerging and established artists in several underground stations in London and overseas. The Muse pieces on show: a mix of painting, printmaking, photography and sculpture and landscape, (a drifting jumble) arguably, I can say ranges from the absolute shocking to the damn-right sublime and some in between. To wrap up: Art Below Summer Show 2015 is the Glastonbury of Art festival and part the masterpiece of London’s big summer happening. Don’t miss it. 4 stars!
As part of my review for this piece I contacted two artists of this must see exhibition. First; Francis Akpata, is only on his second exhibition, but counting. Born in Nigeria, however, came to the UK in 1991. Akpata briefly (one year) studied Fine Art and Literature at the University of Benin, Edo State, and Western Nigeria. While he says he is mostly self-taught, looking at his works of art you will be forgiven for thinking that Akpata was some eons ago a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) or pupil of Édouard Manet (1832-1883). Francis said: “I hold the view that art should be an expression of one’s thoughts and feelings through images. I merge images and colours to express my thoughts”. Who could argue with that? However, Francis is exhibiting only one piece at the Muse gallery - titled In Repose, which precedes another one he exhibited last year called In Recline.
Francis Akpata
How would you describe your art style?
My style is either expressionist or abstract. The expressionist works are figurative while the abstract pieces describe feeling, ideas or pose a question. I paint primarily in oil for abstract work and then combine pastel, water colour and ink for figurative paintings.
Digital and computer art is upon us big time, which means that anyone with any proficiency in software design programs can produce a drawing at the drop of a hat. Does this worry you? And life drawing is now seen by many as an old-fashioned and unnecessary waste of time. Do you agree?
I think computers and digital media are tools that will also help separate artist from craftsmen. As I mentioned the artist uses his imagination and the tools, which could be paintbrush or a computer could be used by the artist. So it does not worry me, I intend to use digital media to make installation videos in future.
Francis Akpata
How do you evaluate art? Every attempt to define "good" art is doomed to frustration. Allowing the free market to decide, may sound intelligent, except that auction prices identify Damien Hirst as the best ever UK artist, which sounds a bit suspect to me, if you ask me?
I evaluate art as good when it is able to engage our imagination and understanding. Some artists like Damien Hirst are also able to market their works effectively, this is no different from Michelangelo who was able to get the attention of religious and political leaders in the 15th century which led to him painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Ever since the controversial works of Marcel Duchamp, avant-garde artists, have been pushing the boundaries of your profession to breaking point resulting in the ongoing debate about 'What constitutes art?' Is this not a trivial squabble between scorched academics? And would you agree that categories such as Contemporary Art, Fine Art; Visual Art; Decorative Art; Applied Art; Crafts; Art Glossary; Junk Art; Graffiti Art - these categories should be eliminated?
I believe the categories should be eliminated and that we should thank Marcel Duchamp for allowing us to separate craft for art. A craftsman learns a particular skill and uses that methodically without using his imagination. An artist uses different mediums, styles and genres to express ideas.
Francis poster is up at Green Park tube station till the end of June.
Thenceforward, welcome London-born Ewa Wilczynski who has been exhibiting since 2009 and this is her seventh outing. A graduate of Central Saint Martins, London, and the Académie des Beaux Arts in Paris and has exhibited internationally and throughout the UK. The title of Ewa’s show is THROES. Shocking!
Why Throes as a title?
The title of the show THROES takes inspiration from death throes: that moment in-between life and death. My work deals with those elusive and ethereal moments - 'In between' in human nature.
How many paintings are you showing in this exhibition and why?
Ewa Wilczynski
The exhibition showed all the pieces I had made in the few years since graduating from St. Martins and living in Berlin and Paris. It was a chance to consolidate a whole body of work during these really influential and inspirational periods of my life as a young artist. So I had about 6 large scale pieces which took anywhere from 3-7 months to paint each one and several smaller works too.
Now, your CV, well what can I ask? A graduate of Central Saint Martins and the Académie des Beaux Arts in Paris. An artist, actress and muse. Exhibited internationally and throughout the UK including campaigns across London Underground. Digital billboard campaigns across London. Exhibited at London’s Mall Galleries and your debut solo show at the Royal Academy of Art?
During my time at university I was always working, whether it be exhibiting in other countries: Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Toronto, having billboard campaigns of my work on the London Underground and digital billboards over ground using ad space like art space as an exhibition with Art Below, or working in film and fashion. Fine art has always been at the centre of everything I do, so even when working in these other fields I approached each project like I would a painting composition. I took the starring role as 'The Oracle' for Dennis Da Silva's short film Apophonista?! which was screened at Cannes film festival, and most recently collaborated with Joel Byron on our film A Thin Place.
How would you describe your art style and what drives Ewa Wilczynski?
I think what I do is quite different as I seem to have one foot in the past and another in the present. It's quite rare to see work like mine at the moment, and most people respond not only to the overpowering scale, but the overwhelming emotion they evoke. I paint using Old Masters' techniques, and am quite traditional in my appreciation for the craft and also my attraction to classical nude figures. I make my own glazes and paint layers and layers and layers of translucent colours over one another. This can take up to 7 months sometimes, but gives the most luminous effect where the colours reflect and change, and it also gives the paintings a sense of depth. But then the other side of me re-contextualises these techniques in the present day and I manipulate the form/composition in my own present day perspective , including inspiration from my interests in human nature, and as well as my own personal emotions at that time of painting.
You are in my humble opinion a high-profile artist. This is a huge accomplishment. Do you have that feeling of 'I have arrived - Let’s celebrate?'.
Oh thank you that's kind of you. I have a very strong work ethic, and always push myself to be the best I can be. So I get up 4am and work, work and work. So even when I had my debut solo show at the Royal Academy - especially being so early in my career to achieve such an honour - I was just in complete work mode and didn't have a chance to feel 'I have arrived'. Even now, I'm onto my next projects and challenging myself so have not really thought about things like that. However, the thing I am most proud about is seeing people's response to my painting, because that is what it's all about.
Ewa Wilczynski
What next for Ewa Wilczynski?
I will be auctioning my work with Avenir Magazine and Sotheby's at the Groucho club in the autumn and currently painting towards my next solo show! For updates follow me on Instagram and twitter @ewawilczynski or my Facebook fan page Ewa Wilczynski
The Muse at 269 Gallery & Studio, 269 Portobello Rd London W11 1LR
Opening Hours: Thursday-Sunday, 12.00-6.00pm
Watch out for the forthcoming exhibition titled: Art Below Regents Park 2015 from 05/10/2015 to 01/11/2015
Information on how you can exhibit your work on public space with Art Below go to www.artbelow.org.uk www.artbelow.org.uk/ab/Home.action
Jo Peel's Cityscapes
Jo Peel's new show ‘Cityscapes’ is a collaborative show with Anaka and Ashes57 and opens today at Jealous Gallery Shoreditch.
Jo peel is a Yorkshire-born artist who creates expressive paintings and animations of architectural structures. Often lacking people, these are the types of buildings that often go unnoticed. Peel brings these fade-into-the-background buildings to the forefront. Buildings such as tube stations, pubs, cafes, and fishmongers all have been glorified and gilded by her brush. She paints the dull greys and blues of these semi-dilapidated structures interspersed with shocking oranges and blues to give them life.
BM - Your chosen subject matter is the often ignored buildings one sees in run-down areas, what attracts you to these typically ugly subjects?
JP - Well for a start I don’t really see them as ugly, but interesting and therefore quite beautiful. The buildings I chose always intrigue me and have some sort of human history attached.
I don’t necessarily seek out run-down areas, but places that help shape the identity of where I am.
BM - The paintings also often lack people, why is this?
JP - I think that as soon as you put a person into a painting, it becomes all about them and the building becomes a backdrop. By taking the people out of a scene, the eye is then drawn to the building and this can become the focus of the image.
BM - Would you say the buildings have been personified in your paintings? For me they feel like portraits in some way.
JP - When looking at a building I try to give them some sort of humanity and imagine the personality of the space, so I guess that yes, they are portraits of buildings, rather than direct representations.
BM - How do you choose which buildings to paint?
JP - I never find it difficult to choose what to paint. Wherever I am, I walk around a lot, looking at the buildings and taking loads of photos. Normally the buildings I choose have some sort of story, or speak about their environment. My work in East London in particular was a reaction to the redevelopment happening around me and how the landscape is changing.
BM - Do you sketch the buildings themselves and then paint from sketches or do you work from photographs?
JP - Sometimes I sketch from buildings directly, but more often I take photographs and use those to create the work. I often take lots of different photographs and then make up a composition to suit me that might not actually exist.
BM - The way you paint is very fluid and free, which contrasts with the rigid forms you depict, is this an intentional device?
JP - I’m not sure how intentional or thought out it was in the beginning, but I’ve found that depicting something as rigid and straight as a building without rulers and with freehand lines gives it more character and aligns it more with a portrait or the natural environment.
BM - Were these new works created specifically for this exhibition, and if so did you paint them with the other two artists in mind?
JP - The works on show at Jealous are a collection of works made over the last few years and are predominantly taken from East London and the surrounding area.
BM - What exciting things can we expect from you in the future?
JP - I’m currently working towards a major solo show in Sheffield documenting the two twinned Steel Cities of Pittsburgh and Sheffield. Alongside paintings, drawings and a large mural in the space I have been working on a documentary made in the two cities.
I want to explore further the narratives between cities that share parallel histories and understand how this affects the people, culture and the buildings.
Jo Peel's new show ‘Cityscapes’ is a collaborative show with Anka and Ashes57 and opens today at Jealous Gallery Shoreditch.
Graphic artist Ashes 57, creates monochrome drawings rooted in the urban landscape through print and original works on canvas. Anka Dabrowska responds to feelings of displacement and notions of the outsider common to city inhabitants, combining delicate pencil work with city-found ephemera. Painter, printer and animator Jo Peel captures moments that are at once familiar and yet distant from memory, which leaves the viewer questioning their existence. This group show will take visitors on a crawl through urban city life, drawing inspiration from intimate elements of the city as a landscape, dwelling place and cultural hub.
Jealous Gallery 53 Curtain Road, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3PT
IT’S THE LEAST I COULD DO – A forthcoming exhibition from Ben Oakley
Savvy gallery owner, businessman and artist Ben Oakley brings us an electrifying and ingenious exhibition at the Ben Oakley gallery. And this time it’s his own.
Savvy gallery owner, businessman and artist Ben Oakley brings us an electrifying and ingenious exhibition at the Ben Oakley gallery. And this time it’s his own.
IT’S THE LEAST I COULD DO, is the upcoming exhibition from Ben Oakley, the man who hosts regular exhibitions by local artists at his gallery. And with his more-than-generous contribution to contemporary art, providing us with his own work certainly is the least he could do.
With a background in antiques, he has developed a keen eye for (in his own words), ‘quality and craftsmanship.’ So expect an emphasis on textures, bold, unique compositions and a diverse range of mediums as well as themes.
The exhibition is formed of several different pieces that Ben Oakley has composed over the years from his own experiences. You’ll find wood beside enamel, beside concrete, beside prints – and no less than a medley of varied materials. You can assemble around the assemblage, ponder at the portholes or find yourself beside the figurines.
For those of you looking for something truly unique and truly personal, then just head on over to the Ben Oakley gallery in Greenwich – you will be pleasantly stunned.
June 20th – July 5th 2015
Preview Evening:
Friday, June 19th 2015
6:30 – 9:30pm
9 Turnpin Lane, Greenwich Market London SE10
Lesley Hilling : A Silent Way
An interview with artist Lesley Hilling ahead of her new show In A Silent Way in collaboration with Anders Knutsson.
Lesley Hilling is a contemporary artist who utilizes reclaimed antique wood to create her intricate and alluring sculptures. All of her materials have past lives, some of the objects she has included in her work include: bowling balls, lenses, saw blades, syringes, chess pieces, mirrors, and photographs. Each of these objects bring a new dialogue to the already complex plethora of interweaving stories present.
In 2013 Hilling created the character Joseph Boshier, and attributed her new exhibition to the fictional architect. The tragic story of fame, failure, and disgrace was believed by many, and can be read about in depth here: http://www.josephboshier.co.uk
BM – your work is very haptic and tactile, not only in the way it is produced, but also in the way it invites touch. Is this something you allow or would you rather the work is viewed only by the eyes?
LH – I go for that on purpose, and I’d like it to happen a lot more. I think that’s something quite important.
BM – In the Boshier exhibition there were little doors with things behind, often people think they aren’t allowed to touch an artwork. Does a lot of the detail go unseen because of this?
LH – When I did the Boshier show I was actively encouraging people to explore the works. It was about ‘what lies behind’ etcetera.
BM – That resonates nicely with the alter ego you’ve created.
LH – Yes, I think so, it was intended as another layer. Having people looking at them closely is a really important element. I started putting magnifying glasses and lenses in as well, so that as you moved around, the photographs inside became distorted. It’s all to do with memory, and how the memory distorts.
BM – How much of the aesthetic of your work is dictated by the original appearance of the materials, do you use existing joints and cuts or do you make them all yourself?
LH – I cut all of the joints myself. I think the work has two different sides, there are the pieces that are all antique wood jointed together, and there are the larger Joseph Boshier pieces. The Boshier ones are a cladded substructure. If it all goes horribly wrong I can just re-clad. So it’s only really the colour or the texture that dictates how the piece would come out, rather than the shape.
The Boshier pieces are a lie, whereas the others are quite truthful.
BM – Something very obvious in your work is your love of balance, both with colour and also with the precariousness each piece suggests. Is this something you do intentionally or is it something that happens more instinctually? A lot of the pieces look like they shouldn’t be able to stand unaided.
LH – That’s right and I love that. It’s amazing how they do stand. I think its about 40% me and 60% something else, I’m not quite sure what. It’s a bit dangerous. The bigger pieces are in sections, so when we’re photographing them or moving them and they are not in their complete form, they can fall over. The top section will balance the piece perfectly when in position, but the piece isn’t balanced without it and is liable to fall.
BM – Is the process of creating artworks for you cathartic or do you find it stressful?
LH – Both. Its interesting, because at the end of the Boshier documentary Derval reads out the last entry in his diary, and it says “My art has seen me through”, which does suggest how cathartic it has been, and I think it’s true. I can be one hell of a nasty, bad-tempered person if it’s not going well. My partner Nel knows when things aren’t going well.
BM – Your work gives off a very ‘mad scientist’ kind of vibe, do you think there are elements of that in your character? This seems to be what you have written about the Joseph Boshier alter ego. How akin are the two of you?
LH – Not at all. I’m so modern and young. I’m very up-to-date with things. I’m certainly not mad, I’m a bit reclusive maybe. (Laughs)
BM – A lot of artists are, I think you have to be.
LH – I’ve been with Nel for 32 years this year, so I’ve always had someone around, coming home from work or pottering about the house. She’s creative too, and we’re part of Brixton Housing Co-Op, which is the LGBT community. I know everyone around here, and there are loads of artists and poets. It’s full of creative people. So although I’m reclusive I still have a network of friends around me.
The Joseph Boshier character was a real recluse - his story was about guilt, loss and longing. Emotions that are important to me and my work. Maybe that’s why they have that Mad Scientist look about them.
BM – What do you think the connection is between the LGBT community and the arts community? Do you think its because artists are quite liberal and free?
LH – Maybe liberal, but also maybe damaged. A lot of people who do art are damaged in some way. We’re all a bit damaged I guess. Now it’s quite open to be a lesbian or a gay man but when we were young it was really difficult to come out. Years before that it was illegal. I think all that feeds into people wanting to have a creative outlet. There is definitely that correlation between artists and queers.
BM – Do you believe in the ‘Tortured Artist’ dialectic?
LH – I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about it. A lot of artists have emotional baggage they are working out in the art and it makes it that much more interesting. Also I think people who can create convincing political work and those who come from cultures where they experience oppression, bring so much more to the work.
BM – Maybe the past experience of hardship is what differentiates a good piece of artwork from a good piece of craft?
LH – If you have all of that going into it, it really does help.
BM – Do you think there is still a disparity between women and men in the art world?
LH – I suppose there is, there is in the world isn’t there? Not so much in the west these days though. I think there are so many great women out there doing really great work.
BM – You are using what some would call a traditionally ‘masculine medium’, do you think that’s why you chose a male pseudonym?
LH – Actually I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a man. My dad was always doing woodwork and things, he built a boat in the front garden. So as a child I was always doing that with him. I’ve always had that interest. When people who don’t know me see the work that do assume I’m a man because Lesley can also be a man’s name.
BM – How much did you have to get into the Boshier mindset whilst creating the work, did it have any adverse effects? Did you start thinking like him? And did you create the works for that show or were they existing works?
LH – Yeah a lot of them were already existing, and I think that’s why it worked. I borrowed a lot of previously sold work so it was a bit like a retrospective. I don’t think I could have made the pieces specifically for the show. Joseph came out of the work, the work couldn’t have come from him.
BM – In your opinion, is the whole story, and the reactions from the press and the public part of the artwork itself, or is that all just auxiliary and a means of publicizing the show?
LH – Yes, it was part of it. The story was like another layer on top of all of that wood. The success of making up a story like that is dependent upon the reaction. In a way I felt it was slightly flawed, because so many people left thinking Joseph Boshier really existed. I wanted people to leave the show doubting.
BM – Did anyone come out of the woodwork genuinely claiming to have known him?
LH – Yes, we had someone claiming to have heard of him. A magazine also wrote an article and I don’t think they realized he didn’t exist.
BM – What has been the single piece of artwork or exhibition that has affected you in the most profound way?
LH – Chris Ofili, his work when he won the turner prize. I really love soul and black culture. I felt his work was saying “OK you can do anything” and I found that so inspiring.
Lesley Hilling's new show In A Silent Way is a collaborative show with Anders Knutsson and is on at :
The Knight Webb Gallery, 54 Atlantic Road, Brixton SW98PZ
6-27 June
The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2015 Exhibition at The Photographer’s Gallery
Deutsche Börse Photography Prize Exhibition 2015 is opened at the Photographer’s Gallery in London, showcasing the work of finalists Nikolai Bakharev, Zanele Muholi, Viviane Sassen and Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse.
Last week, this year’s Deutsche Börse Photography Prize Exhibition opened at the Photographer’s Gallery in London, showcasing the work of finalists Nikolai Bakharev, Zanele Muholi, Viviane Sassen and Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse.
Coil, from the series Soil, 2014 © Viviane Sassen
Perhaps having just finished Lelyveld’s profoundly moving book Move Your Shadow, I was immediately drawn to the work of Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse, shortlisted for their publication, Ponte City. Displayed on the top floor of the gallery and quite fittingly so, Ponte City documents the results of a mammoth six year project on a 54-floor apartment block in Johannesburg, which was built during the Apartheid era and stands today as a living reminder to all those who suffered an inconsolable amount of racial antagonism and arguably today, still sits at the forefront of conflict in South Africa.
Untitled #5, from the series Relation, 1991-1993 © MAMM, Moscow / Nikolai
Built for the white ‘sophisticates’ in the heyday of the Apartheid, by the 1990s Ponte City hailed a new group of residents and with that came a pool of neglect. A building that once welcomed its residents to ‘heaven on earth’ quickly turned into an epicenter of crime, a symbol of urban hatred and South Africa’s tallest slum-dogged squat den, to put it bluntly.
In 2007, Subotzky and Waterhouse began their project, picking up the pieces that remained in the now half occupied residency. The result was a stunning culmination of visuals, architectural plans and the untold stories of past and present occupants, documenting the history of a building packed with contrasts and indicative of a nation’s changing cultures, ideologies, racial neglect and the less grandiose reality of apartment living.
In an impressive floor to ceiling light box, Subotzky and Waterhouse display the images they captured on each floor of the tower block; every door, view and television screen captured through the lens of a camera and with it, the accompanying stories, essays and documentary texts that put it all into context.
Ponte City from Yeoville Ridge, from the series Ponte City, 2008 © Mikhael
For me, what was so striking about this exhibit was not so much the photographs themselves but the sheer number of lives and stories subsumed within the solid walls of one tower block. We live in a world of hellishly confined spaces yet have mastered an unnerving ability to keep everything behind closed doors and Subotzky and Waterhouse’s project does well to address this. Ponte City reaches beyond the facade of rainbow coloured curtains and smiling faces, to expose us to the realities of apartment living, poverty and the unending prejudice that still lingers today. Visually perhaps not the most striking, but here is a body of work that sticks with you both for its content and ability to leave you questioning what has really changed in a country still evidently stuck between its past and present.
Downstairs, visual activist Zanele Muholi uses a different medium to challenge, specifically, the identity and politics of LGBTI communities in post-apartheid South Africa, with a wall of stunning black and white portraits. At a glance, individuals silenced and under explained, but shift your attention to the limply held, hand written words hanging to the left of the gallery and an unsettling likeness begins to emerge. For these are the real faces and real words of former victims, subjected to prejudice and curative rape but still stand before us. No rainbow filters through these images, but strength, defiance and dignity remains. They are the images of a ‘Rainbow Nation’ cast only in black and white and captured by Muholi in the most sensitive and simultaneously hard-hitting of ways.
Untitled #70, from the series Relation, 1991-1993 © MAMM, Moscow / Nikolai
Politically, here are two of the better contestants, but all indisputably unrivalled by last year’s finalist, Richard Mosse who, in his epic display of coloured jungle war zones, set the bar very, very high. For me, this year’s finalists lack any real visual flair but rather, comply with the often held high view that ‘content is king’. An interesting, defiant and provocative body of works nevertheless, and most definitely worth a visit.
The exhibition, featuring work by all four shortlisted artists is on show at the Photographer’s Gallery until 7 June | www.thephotographersgallery.org.uk
Pictoplasma Festival 2015 | An interview with cofounder Lars Denicke
This week the world’s leading and largest Berlin-based conference and festival of contemporary character design reopened its doors for the eleventh year running with a playground of character designs for us to feast our eyes on.
This week the world’s leading and largest Berlin-based conference and festival of contemporary character design reopened its doors for the eleventh year running with a playground of character designs for us to feast our eyes on. Kicking off with a talk by Helsinki based director and animator Lucas Zanotto, the festival showcases a plethora of talks, workshops and exhibitions by a stellar lineup of international artists, animators, graphic designers and more.
I caught up with co-founder Lars Denicke to chat about the festival, its origins and why Pictoplasma is that little bit more special than your average conference.
Pictoplasma and character design seem to embody a huge variety of different mediums, practices and domains, how would you best define the terms?
Characters aim at our empathy and emotional involvement and function around the very essence of what makes something an image: that it gives us ourselves, the feeling of being looked at. They often have an animist quality, as if they were real and alive, or at least create belief in a virtual existence, as a character in a play.
Characters also function on the principles of abstraction and reduction, as if they were typographic characters, taking away all arabesque details and contexts to maximize a common denominator for us to relate to, neglect of cultural difference. A post-digital play with media is a common strategy; artists and creators play with the same character design in different media. Many, for example, have a digital background for creation, and a longing to leave it behind and experiment with more permanent media. Staging the same character over and over again gives it a virtual identity, each single picture adds to depict this virtual character that supposes to exist somewhere else
How can we use character designs as tools to improve our own understanding of the real world?
Firstly, it’s hard to define the real world, but it is true we feel characters play with our understanding of reality in creating the virtual. Given this, they can increase our understanding of realities being relative to others, interdependent, constructed and not solidly defined. In their animist quality, they tickle us to reflect on the essence of what being alive involves.
“They tickle us to reflect on the essence of what being alive involves.”
Tell me about the initial stages of Pictoplasma and then the Festival, how did it develop? You began as an online and print based publication, right?
In1999 Peter started Pictoplasma as a research website, he came from animation and was looking for a new generation of characters that were more appealing, with fewer targeted audiences, less slaves to the ever same narration. This led to publications.
In 2004, coming from cultural studies and inspired by discourses of the iconic or pictorial turn, I joined Peter with the idea to make a conference out of it. We were looking for a way to present the loud, varied and playful aesthetics in a modest setting, so we thought a conference and not a festival or convention would be best. Just 40 minutes for an artist to talk about his/her creation. We managed to stick to this formula, as these talks get very personal – there is always a reason why someone creates these characters, and it gets through in every talk. Gallery exhibitions and animation screenings were part of this event from the very beginning, which made it a festival.
From 2006-2009 we started to produce ourselves, firstly giving characters designed by other artists a corporeality through the hands of costume designers who passed them on to dancers to discover how a character would change personality when having a certain body; then with installations that played with the idea of creating a world for us to get immersed - this culminated in the exhibition Prepare for Pictopia (2009, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin).
In 2010 we created the Missing Link, a character reflecting on the Yeti myth, and investigated artistic strategies of community, tribes and following in the digital age; this led to the exhibition Post-Digital Monsters (2011, La Gaîté lyrique, Paris). In 2012-13 we focused on characters in visual communication, the terror of photographic realism, and the commercial character as mascot, (White Noise, La Casa Encendida, Madrid 2013).
And then in 2014, the celebration of a decade of the festival was done in correspondence with the time-honoured genre of the portrait gallery, again giving each character that shaped our festival a place in an exhibition that performed the idea of being pre-digital, as in much earlier, or a memory of the digital age, as in much later.
NICOLAS MENARD
What makes Pictoplasma different to other conferences?
Pictoplasma encompasses all design practices – we don’t make a difference as such, we just follow characters, not the artists or concepts. Therefore it is open to all, it is not an elite fine art club as such. The contexts give the creation to the characters and we are accessible to all.
I think this is what is important. Often people are repelled by fine art, it’s an exclusive form of art, which character design tries not to be. Character design is a concept that is open to all and is rooted in the classic conference and exhibition style.
Is there a year that stands out for you?
2006 for me was a good year, the second big edition. It was that moment when you realise you’ve started something new. That feeling of continuity is very exciting. A bit like a puzzle, piecing it all together.
What is the theme for this year’s festival and the inspiration behind it?
Form Follows Empathy goes back to the basics of Pictoplasma and the empathic quality of characters. When everything gets so functional, tech-gadgety, planned characters remind us that we have to like things in order to be ready to interact. Obviously, it breaks with the Modernist credo (Form Follows Function), but not in a strict opposition: the graphic quality of many of the characters featured in the project obviously stand in a Modernist tradition.
German design is very serious and functional, with little space for fun at all. It is important to put a character on these things – it’s not just about pure function, you have to like it. Characters are there to remind us that it is not just about function but also appeal.
(Lars took the example of a mobile phone to demonstrate)
Mobile phones are like big eyes that watch you. They are completely fixed on the eye and the way you perceive things (such as watching, learning, touching). All very perfect. The appeal is neglected here and I think that, in the long run, the appeal has to be in a more comprehensive set up. The phone is now our mobile companion but is it our best companion? They improve function but what about empathy? Is the phone the right device for this? Form Follows Empathy plays with this idea.
A very interesting thought...
How is the digital age impacting contemporary character design today?
We started our project 1999 when the Internet became available for the masses, and implied the promise of a virtual world. In a time where photography was not yet that widespread due to slow data transmission of modems, graphical characters were the inhabitants of this supposed virtual world. At that time, the digital age informed the way characters looked. This is obviously over: we can play with styles and media and diffuse them instantly through digital media, so the digital age now is less about aesthetics and how characters look, but more about distribution and diffusion.
HIKARI SHIMODA
Now, the terror of photographic realism is everywhere - everything is depicted and consumed while we move. There seem to be less room available for characters, and yet the artistic production is blossoming. Maybe they function as an antidote to this photographic realism of today. And then there is the afore mentioned post-digital practice, where digital is just not interesting per se, but part of our reality and characters move from digital to analogue and back, or where everything is both at the same time.
You’ve managed to get some pretty impressive speakers on board – what is your selection process?
Step by step, we build up the line up. Research, chance, recommendations, even artists contacting us – this all leads to a growing watch list. In conversation of the two of us, Peter and I agree on the artists. Somehow, the fact that their characters are appealing to us in a very personal, empathic way is a secret rule. But the real love affair starts after we have met the creators and begin to get to know their characters.
“The real love affair starts after we have met the creators and begin to get to know their characters.”
Every year I worry that I won’t be affected in the same way that I have been before, but it always happens, both in terms of the artists as people, and their creations, the characters.
Special thanks to Lars for taking the time to talk to us
Pictoplasma Festival | April 29 – May 3 2015