The 2nd year Chelsea 2nd year show was this week which is always fun to attend; pitching oneself in the university sphere in both colleges and years. Having a show at the end of every year was something we’d taken for granted since finishing our GCSEs so it was strange completing our first year and it never quite happening within the institution. Obviously we then very quickly decided to put on our own shows with friends from uni but it’s an interesting distinction that CSM doesn’t provide that service. However, it does feel very in line with their freedom policy within the fine art department; autonomy = responsibility. Returning to the Chelsea show, there were some really good works on show. Bob Bicknell-Knight had transformed a whole room into a crazy utopian space, covering the floor with a giant blue tarpaulin and positioning various new and old works around the room. Our interest here was in the range of works; from the more subtle features such as ‘Extended Self’ (a piece which consists of a blue 4 way extension lead powering other works), to much more customary gestures such as ‘Zo’, a moving image work depicting the artist having a conversation with a bot with various backdrops lifted from games.
Another work which we found highly amusing was a trail of bizarre looking cats eventually leading to a whole bin which was overflowing with the muddled creatures. The appeal here seemed to be the absurdity of them and the total uniformity of their weirdness. Also the questions it raised in our heads; what are they doing here? Why are there so many? Where does bin lead? Always exciting to have you brain provoked into wonderment.
Our guest curated show for isthisit? is now online! We ended up putting a set of switches on the ‘home’ page which were all turned off, visitors could then decide which works to view and for how long for. In a similar vein to Ryan Gander’s ‘Ampersand’ and ‘Fieldwork’ (works where a window is installed from which the audience can watch objects rotate round the room on a vast, walled-off conveyer belt) time is a big fact; however we have given the audience all the power in our show, whereas Gander has taken it all away, only allowing a few moments for each object. We went with ‘Red Handed’ as a title as a kind of tongue-in-cheek reference to artists being accused on theft when in fact their work is merely referential. Click >>>here<<< if you want to see what it’s all about! Also our curatorial notes from the show are below!
So, we all know what a picture is, right? Or at least we think we know; one of the best definitions comes from Sherrie Levine who describes it as ‘a space in which a variety of images, none of them original, blend and clash.’ Here, a picture is seen as a combination of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture. This show is intended to encompass Levine’s definition and highlight artists re-examining, responding to or in some way encompassing ideas about the art world in their work. They are tracing narratives of transformation, and underscoring the myriad of ways in which artworks are evaluated and how objects are embedded in our cultural history. The whirring and beeping of Nathaniel Faulkner’s sound work is mimicking that of an IBM server, an object that probably exists in every company building in the world, from art galleries to offices, Tate to BP. It greets you into the slightly sparse environment where four light switches are displayed. Flicking a switch turns on, and then off again, each work in the show.
Eva and Franco Mattes have restaged Vito Acconci’s ‘Seedbed’, and other historical performances, inside videogames as an attempt to reinvigorated these significant pieces, freeing them from dependency on the art institution. This leads them to present this work in a context where these issues of the body, sexuality, identity, and the environment and public space, acquire a completely different meaning. As a consequence the original energy of the performance, and its power to provoke, dissipates, or turns into something completely different. This draws a parallel with Lawrence Lek’s ‘Unreal Estate (The Royal Academy Is Yours)’ which takes you round a 3D animated virtual environment in which London’s Royal Academy of Arts has been sold off as a luxury playboy mansion to an anonymous Chinese billionaire. This virtual Royal Academy, as metaphor for the art world, makes you acutely aware of how successive historical articulations of power and desire can converge in one space. The building, in this context, makes the fantasy of total ownership and real prestige both accessible and understandable.
A particular building is also the subject of John Kannenberg’s ‘A Sound Map of Tate Modern: Montage (for wobbly ventilators)’. As the title suggests Kannenberg has created a sound map of Tate Modern through walking over the vents in the establishment. The loose pieces of metal expose some of the cracks in the paint of the once perfect white cube, but ones nobody really notices or minds because they've been there forever or are essential components of the space. This activity, walking on the vents, also allows the viewer a little insight into his personality; he is an audible presence or character within the maps, performing his own auditory relationship with each space as opposed to detaching himself from the recording.
When it comes to creating a character Max Hollands has used himself to created a comedic persona of what appears to be a less than happy art student, until he exchanges his art theory books for everyone’s favourite cartoon beagle, Snoopy. Hollands can be seen to be rather confused by John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ and Marcel Duchamp’s ‘The Afternoon Interviews’, perhaps attempting to debunk the notion that all art students have a battered copy of Ulysses on their shelf and try to quote Nietzsche at least twice a day. In addition, the Snoopy reference is definitely no coincidence; Snoopy's whole personality is a little bittersweet. But he's a very strong character. Similar to an art student attempting to cram their head full of academic literature, he can win or lose, be a disaster, a hero, or anything, and yet it all works out.
The new Artists and Friends chat with Adeeb Ashfaq is also now online! Was really interesting to talk to about his upcoming projects, different forms of value, artist Visas and online art spaces. He also managed to get multiple shout outs to Jessica Young, Harry Meadley, Bob Bicknell-Knight (isthisit?) and Aryana Hessami which is always fun! Check that one out >>>here<<<
There’s been a bit of progress with the Light Eye Mind, hopefully we’re going to be kick-starting their new programme of events on September/October with a show curated by us under some sort of structure/rules that we’re yet to define. They seem super up for anything so it should be a really exciting time!
Been a little update on the Scaffold Gallery show too! Need to have a fully formed idea by mid-July and then the show is going to happen mid-August so after we return from the Wigan residency, we’ll get on that one. Still thinking around similar ideas so those subtle, unnoticed works that almost sink into the gallery walls, such as ‘just ignore me’ where we hire a photographer to document the private view and the photographs are then displayed for the duration of the exhibition.
