The MFA sculpture students at Pratt were having an open crit in one of the gallery buildings so we thought we should check it out. Our first observation was that the some tutors seemed relatively childish in the way they were conducting themselves; all constantly shouting over each other, and this aggression portrayed an attitude that felt more geared to attack than to mold. Obviously dealing with people of this nature is somewhat necessary since not everyone will always like the work that is being displayed. However, there were some tutors in the room who seemed to be able to behave in a professional manner (being critical of the work but in a constructive manner) so why couldn’t the rest? The work was nicely varied in how it manifested itself, not that we were expecting it to all be the same but it’s fun to go to an exhibition here and not see abstract paintings. Even so there was a continuation of something we’ve witnessed before; it’s all stuff that kind of looks like art. Our theory with this is that they have an idea and then they try and convert that idea into art as opposed to just finding something to house the idea. There was a film we quite enjoyed which explored the history of the candle.
The history began with candles appearing in paintings, and obviously the paintings are of important/wealthy people meaning that the candle becomes this desirable object, that is associated with wealth and significance. The story of the candle then develops and from time to time the narrator confers with the artist about the wording of the text he’s reading. This tiny detail turns it into this ‘uncut’ thing and in a world with beautifully made objects and crisp footage, something that once upon a time might’ve have been accidental or circumstantial, is clearly a choice. It reflects that the imagery has been sourced online and so is a fairly amateur experience; he hasn’t gone leafing through physical archives to find the perfect piece of information, he’s Googled it. The consultation between actor and director also suggests it’s a work in progress, a first draft of sorts. This is a technique which is similar to the breaking of the forth wall in what it is trying to achieve. Breaking the forth wall appears to be about changing what was once a story into something potentially ‘real’. Being addressed by an actor in a film gives an audience the feeling that what is happening on the screen is/might/will happen in ‘reality’. It removes the actors from their pedestals for a moment and allows them to be stood in front of the people watching, they’re now equal. This has some cross over with what people are trying to achieve by leaving in parts where the actor consults the director. They too are being removed from the spotless position they were once in and are now just as clumsy and clueless as the rest of us. They’re both promoting equality between actor and audience. Breaking the forth wall is perhaps more about acknowledgement of being fictional but a byproduct is definitely feeling more in tune with the individual on the screen.
We also went to the opening of the Mmuseum and it was great to see so many people interested in the project. Something else, which was great to see, was Casey Neistat who we spotted whilst we were there and we even got in the vlog (for a aggregate time of 1 second). The second famous person we’ve seen this week, so we’re hoping to complete the hat-trick with Tom Cruise tomorrow.
