Visiting exhibitions has taken up quite a substantial amount of time the week or so, therefore it feels appropriate to begin with a quick assessment of what’s been seen and learnt. First on the list was The Luhring Augustine gallery in Chelsea which was showing a three channel video installation by Guido van der Werve and a couple of Roger Hiorns’ copper sulphate creations. ‘Nummer zestien, the present moment’ is a selection of three films all which appear to be depicting a different state of mind (and body). All three films are set against the same stark, black background, removing any sense of time and space; all comprehension can only be achieved through studying the individuals within the films. Each group of people are of 3 ages, young (20-somethings), middle aged and old; all are performing essential tasks for humanity to survive e.g. sex, eating, drinking etc. The lack of anything recognizable, other than human bodies, brings on the idea of non-space or space which exists but is not investigable by humans. The 3 levels of consciousness would fit these specifications – id, ego, and superego. The films are accompanied by a piano in the centre of the room; there in no one playing the piano yet there is sound coming from within it. We then learn that Van der Werve is also a classically trained concert pianist and composed the musical score herself, a paean written in twelve parts in the twelve major keys. The piano is acting as a surrogate for the artist in this first film in which he does not physically appear. The repetition of the number twelve runs all the way through the piece; there are also twelve acts in each film and the camera motions (synchronized through all three screens) during these acts follow the schematic line drawings of the twelve zodiacal constellations. The film is strictly structured on several axes of time and one forms an abnormal relationship to time once coming into contact with the piece. ‘Liquid Pictures’ at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery was another place we found ourselves; to put it briefly, time, more so than narrative, was on display. The show — named in honor of MTV’s 1990s Liquid Television program of experimental animation shorts — features Leah Beeferman, Melissa Brown, Erica Magrey, and Adam Shecter. Four walls for four artists in a darkened room. Erica Magrey’s ‘Tag Sale Cosmology’ was a favourite; adapted from an interactive, retro-looking web platform it features Magrey interacting with handmade and found objects as if playing her own game. Some of the items, ranging from the ordinary to the oddly unidentifiable, are physically present in the gallery too, challenging the real vs. virtual bifurcation. The surreal scenarios, all of them non-sequiturs — why is Magrey sleeping on three sides of a rotating triangle clock? — dare us to laugh.
Pope.L and Will Boone occupied all three rooms of the Andrea Rosen gallery and the quality of the works appeared to undulate from piece to piece. We are fans of Pope.L’s previous, interventionist, public art works such as ‘ATM Piece’ where he attached himself to an eight-foot length of Italian sausage to the door of a Chase bank in midtown Manhattan wearing nothing but a skirt made out of dollar bills. But the works on show were very catered to the fact that we were in a Chelsea gallery, insinuating the necessity for the work to be sellable products, this did of course facilitate the production of a beautiful publication handout #youwinsomeyoulosesome. But the installation of his film, ‘Syllogism (T-Version)’, seemed to still have the same intelligent yet rebellious touch. Boone’s “Gate” paintings are supposedly expanding on the subjectivity of perspective and the concurring of ideas of security and confinement. A painting doesn’t appear to be the most appropriate methodology to go about this. How the information is communicated could very much be part of the piece; surfaces can blinds ones reading of something’s content. However, if that’s the point, it feels like a classic case of ‘fuck that point, make something good instead’. Purely by coincidence we were walking past Chamber, a design gallery, and our eyes were caught by a variety of contraptions including what appeared to be a self-sustainable micro ecosystem. We then found out the photographer and film maker Andrew Zuckerman’s vision was to bring together objects that each engage the relationship between humans and the natural world. It brings on that strange feeling one gets when standing on the beach looking at the ocean; the world is so much vaster than ourselves.
‘BLACKBOXING’ was an exhibition centered around a black, enameled aluminum, tete-a-tete by Donald Judd, created in his lifetime. Minimalism isn’t usually something we consider within art practice but is undeniably incredibly to experience within a space/place. The use of industrial materials is very commanding and is all but alien to the world of functional furniture. It’s an I/O device, just as it could be argued that every object of human creation, even a cellphone, is an I/O device. The French sociologist Bruno Latour argues that ‘When a machine runs efficiently, when a matter of fact is settled, one need focus only on its inputs and outputs and not on its internal complexity. Thus, paradoxically, the more science and technology succeed, the more opaque and obscure they become.’ Blackboxing foils understanding; it is that which we cannot grasp as we consider an object’s function or complicate it with meaning; it is the ineluctable enigma of uniqueness. It doesn’t fit neatly into art that we want to make and at times we question whether it’s good at all but it’s undeniably beautiful.
The 2013 Venice Biennale was the first place we saw ‘Ravel Ravel Unravel’ by Anri Sala and were very impressed with every aspect of the piece. Sala returned with a solo show at the New Museum, presenting a huge number of works, however none of them came close to his masterpiece. There were a number of drums which were presented upside down on the ceiling – an interesting thought but seemed slightly gimmicky and didn’t feel inline with the rest of his thinking. But once we got to the firth floor you forget about all that. The sounds of orchestra and piano buffet you, while the two videos – one above the other – each presents a close-up of a giant left hand playing the piano. Even the walls and ceiling seem exaggerated: They’re covered with two-foot high wedges of foam that mute echoes. The music is Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D, which was commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, a pianist (and brother) who lost his right hand in World War I. The hands on the screens belong to the pianists Louis Lortie and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, who each performed the concerto with an orchestra, using scores with tempos altered by Sala slowing or accelerating different parts. Their hands are chasing each other up and down the keys, moving in and out of sync, finishing each other’s passages. The accompanying video, ‘Unravel’, is an attempt to straighten out the ravel, or tangle, created by ‘Ravel Ravel’. Installed in a smaller, lighter room next door, ‘Unravel’ shows the DJ with a record of each performance, trying to sync them up. In contrast to the pianists’ sparring hands she gently taps or pushes the discs, stops them completely or sets them spinning, sometimes with slurring sounds. Synchronization is fleeting and impossible to sustain, but it is invigorating to follow the fierce concentration. The two versions of Ravel’s music cannot be reunited, but here, we experience Sala building art upon art and even lives upon lives.
There have been several artist talks which have been eye opening in one way or another; Peggy Ahwesh is artist and film maker who uses narrative and documentary styles, improvised performance and scripted dialogue, synch-sound film, found footage, and digital animation. Her films take interesting forms and tell thoughtful stories which is why when her ‘artist talk’ was basically just her showing four of her films with a brief introduction we were somewhat disappointed. We were there to listen to an artist discuss their judgments and intentions of their work not to enable me to do what I can do sat in bed. For our YouTube theory class we’ve been required to do some reading by Lev Manovich, so when we was giving a talk it seemed like a good idea to attend. His visualizations of data were pretty extraordinary; huge undulating graphs of all the photographs uploaded to Instagram over a few days – going from light photos taken during the day to dark photos taken at night and back again. This method of measuring the emotions of a country based on how much they smile in these photos was also a noteworthy aspect of his talk. Most of what he said with regards to data collection was difficult to understand on account of the subject matter and speed at which he was delivering the information. Eyebeam organized a talk titled ‘MVR’ (pronounced “mover”) which was a series of individuals introducing their projects. They were exploring the potential for an innovative dialogue about the relationship between the body and technology; it includes assistive technology, games, performance and wearables. Amelia Winger-Bearskin, artist and co-founder of the Stupid Hackathon was the most entertaining talk, all was eye opening but her notions of the utilization of technology were the most interesting when considering out own thoughts.
BHQFU was hosting a talk where Eva and Franco Mattes were speaking so we took a trip over there to see what they had to say. They began by describing their practice – something we’ve tried to do in the past but never managed it in such a concise fashion; they’re obviously interested in the Internet and all that it has to offer but they’re work is very different from that of the net artist (aesthetically and conceptually). Their work is not about the surface of the Internet but about its politics – surface was the word that defines most net art. Listening to them talk about their work was hugely rewarding, even if what they were saying wasn’t always particularly new because of our awareness of their practice, but something that was new was the links between the pieces. For example, ‘No Fun’ is a film of an online performance in which they simulated a suicide and filmed viewers’ reactions. What Eva and Franco realized was that the audience’s reactions were in fact more provocative than the image of the suicide. This lead them to create ‘Emily’s Video’; a compilation of reactions to “the worst video ever”, which was later destroyed. The video is shown on a monitor facing away from the entrance to the gallery – the enables visitors to see real time reactions to the video before they watch is themselves. Another strand from ‘No Fun’ was their most recent piece ‘Dark Content’ which is a series of videos about Internet content moderators. The connection is simple; ‘No fun’ was taken down and the curiosity of who took it down led them to building this new work. These links are beautifully simple and appear to be a very rewarding method of creating work.
‘Who Owns Digital Social Memory’ was the titled of an event on at The New Museum which we attended. There were a number of interesting individual involved in similarly interesting activities. But the most exciting person to talk was actually a man called Nathan Jurgenson. This is because when we go to these talks, we’re less focused on wanting to learn about someone giving a voice to someone to a certain type of person and more captivated when people talk about the ideas surrounding a subject. This doesn’t mean to say that people Kim Drew’s numerous social media personas, promoting the visibility of black artists isn’t tremendously important it just isn’t at the front of our minds when attending these discussions. Nathan’s position on the notion of digital social memory was that in archiving something, we give that something value. This is a given, the things we choose to document or keep a note of are more important to us. He then went on to introduce the idea that if we were to go through this process with everything, would anything be important or would it all just achieve the same level of significance. This built up to his final point of instead of thinking about what should be archived but instead what shouldn’t be, the complete opposite question the rest of the panel had been asking.
There are a fair few new ideas we’ve got floating around at the moment too. One which is completed, and can be found on the website, is ‘All Art Begins With Shopping’. It’s a film involving six vloggers going on a trip to purchase ‘art supplies’. If we consider the material of paint to be a readymade then is a painting a readymade also? If not a painting then at least an assemblage? ready mades are defined as ordinary, manufactured objects that the artist selected and modified; now if that's not a painting then we don't know what is! Vlogs also contain interesting subject matter, mostly due to the type of person who is more likely to make them. Advertising works the same way with ‘art supplies’ as it does with everything else – ‘if that guy can do it with these exact materials why shouldn’t I be able to?’ Art is also begins with fairly affluent people; it’s far more rare to see poorer people learning to become artists because of the uncertainty in the monetary return. People with money mostly believe that they can buy their way into anything, and mostly they can and if not it definitely helps, but more frequently in more creative industries there’s a ceiling with respect to how far money alone can take you. We’ve been considering the idea of place cards with the name of all the people who attended the last supper. But when reflecting on this we realised that name tags is a slightly more critical perspective to take when constructing this scene – the idea is that events in history that we believe to be coincidental are not at all and instead are composed very carefully. It continues to happen to day; the price of various milk and bread increases and it just happens that Mr. Tesco, Mr. Co-op and Mr. Sainsbury’s all bumped into each other at the golf course the week before. The nametags give this a business-like side too – there’s a corporate element to the church and to religion itself that people tend to turn their backs on. It’s an institution run on money, just like any other. We have also written and are in the process of having illustrated a children’s book. It’s about a white crayon that feels useless until she is united with black paper. Art history paper toss is another idea in the mix; having a stack of A4 paper print outs of art history ‘masterpieces’ and then having a bin and a fan (just like in the real game) to throw the paper into. We also wanted to try to break some world records – this particular idea was born from the desire to be try things which we’re not prepared for or skilled in. it’s a slightly more humorous method of presenting this idea since attempting to eat a 12inch pizza in 41.31 seconds is fairly entertaining already, without the added bonus of never having tried it before. We also thought of submitting performance art pieces into the world records, for example Vito Acconci – longest time to point into a camera, or longest amount of time to spend wanking under the floorboards. It brings these works into a different frame, they are no longer art but durational acts of desperation.
To finish up, the Pratt experience is slightly improving but in general is as pigeonholed as ever. Some aspects, however, are so bad they’re good, an example being that a guest lecturer is an art lawyer – obviously someone who really knows a lot about the art world as opposed to say an artist; they won’t really know anything, if they did they’d have as much money as the lawyer does.