Visiting Lecturers

Cedar Lewisohn -14/11/12

'Is an artist and curator based in London. Between 2005 and 2011 he worked at Tate, where he curated the exhibition Street Art in 2008 and co-curated the exhibition Rude Britannia in 2010. He also curated numerous large scale public projects for Tate and was assistant curator of the exhibition Dali and Film. In 2010 he co-curated the UK touring exhibition Orbitecture and in 2012 he curated the exhibition Les Fleur de Mal at the BWA Gallery, Wroclaw, Poland. In 2008 he wrote the book, Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution (Tate), and in 2011 his book Abstract Graffiti was published by Merrell.' 

Sean Dower -20/11/12 
http://www.seandower.com/

Darren Hayman -21/11/12
http://www.hefnet.com/

David Sheppard

Patti Ellis -18/12/12
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/current/usa_reviews14.htm

'Is an artist, writer, and curator. She has written catalogue texts for museums, publishing houses and commercial galleries including, The Royal Academy, The Hermitage, Gem Museum, Vanabbe Museum, Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Thyssen Bornemisza, and MUSAC. She has worked with The Saatchi Gallery since 1998 as a writer and spokesperson. Ellis has curated 11 international exhibitions in the UK, Finland, Israel, and Ireland, including the British exhibitions for the Tirana Biennale 2001, ArtKliasma Moscow 2003, and the Prague Biennale 2005. She was Specialist Advisor to the Scottish Arts Council from 2007-2010 and is an Artistic Assessor for Arts Council England.'

Personal Tutorial
I was lucky enough to have a personal tutorial with Patti, and was the first tutorial I have had out of all the visiting lecturers. I felt comfortable talking to Patti about my work and she gave me some great feedback about how to develop ideas and I felt she knew what I really wanted to do in my artwork; which gave me the encouragement I needed. 
Patti gave me feedback on my strengths- composition within my sketchbooks; this lead onto a discussion about book-making, which gave me an idea for future work and projects such as FMP. She also liked the confessional work I did last year in my Foundation Course and this got me excited to develop this work further this year. Lastly, Patti mentioned my strength in life drawing and also talked about progressing this subject in a confessional way.

Patti recommended an artist for me to research relating to the confessional work I would like to carry on from last year:

Elke Krystufek
Elke Krystufek (1970) is an Austrian self portraitist working in a variety of media including: painting, sculpture, video and performance art.

There are pieces with Krystufek photographing herself in a mirror, becoming her own model.

'Replicant Hitler Print' 2000 Print on aluminium 

'Les Miroirs d'Elke'

'Ths Is Hardcore' 1998

Lecture Notes 'Everything I Know About Art'

• Art is something you do to make life more interesting
• Art is best when it's honest 
• Embarrassment is a virtue
• Most people only access the world through media 
• Media is instructional about the world

Arthur Hailey 

• Formulaic genius (60's) 
• Makes instruction manuals glamorous

Benjamin Buchloch- Art Critic

Thomas Hirschhorn- 'consuming/waste' 'basically a gallery filled with piss'

Hyper-realism is a copy for which no original exists. 

Performance -'General Idea'

• DIY media
• Panto criticism 
• Institutional critique

Joseph Kosuth 

• Uses theory for stupid purposes 
• Proves the bloody obvious is super intelligent 

Advice:

• Do shows when you're a student-just like a real artist 
• Start a gallery or a zine or a blog 
• Go and see shows and sneak into PV's
• See and be seen (the more you see, the better you look)

Post-Modernism 

1940's/60's 

Micheal Graves 

Claes Oldenberg 

Piero Manzoni 'Fluxus' 1961

John McCracken 'Black Cube' 1971               -Liam Gillick

Malevich 'Black Square' 1915                   -Jeddediah Caesar     -Reference to 'Black Cube'

Anti-Modernism

Thomas Heatherwick

Anthony Gormley 

Mike Kelley 'Petting Zoo' 2007

Zhu Yu 'Eating People'

Sherne Levine 

Khristian Hornsleuth

1. Christo 'Wrapped Coast' 1968-9 vs Damien Hirst 
2. Allan Kaprous 1967 vs Matthiew Leonetti
3. Hanne Darboven vs Mike Kelley
4. Jenny Holzer vs Banksy
5. Robert Rauschenberg vs Stelarc

Problem: What art is supposed to be versus what art should be.

'I Hate You in June' -a show about dating and breaking up Ein Harod Museum, Israel. 

University Sample Lecture

Modernism

Invention of Photography to 1960's 

Miles Vander Rohe 

Mark Rothko

Giacometti 

El Lissitzky

Josef Albers

Jackson Pollock

                                                      

Film

Andy Warhol



'Kiss' 1963


George Kuchar


'Hold Me While I'm Naked' 1966

Essay Brief and Essay

Essay of around 1,500 words including illustrations.

1. Explain the term 'context', and give a simple example. 
2. Select a minimum of one piece of art or design made in the last 150 years. You can choose from any discipline: a painting, sculpture, film, example of fashion, graphic or textile design, etc. Analyse this piece of artwork, using the following formula: 

• Describe the piece
• Describe the formal aspects of the piece 
• Interpret and evaluate

     3. State when the artwork was made and the time and place.

     4. If you can, explain the way in which the artwork fits into its context, and include some documentation:   quotations by the artist/designer/film-maker or comments by a critic or writer. 

Deadline: Wednesday 9th January. 

I have recently come across an artist that I feel I should have discovered a long time ago. His name is Jean Michel Basquiat.
I wish to use him as an example to explain the term 'context'.

Basquiat was an American artist and began as an obscure graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970's and evolved into an acclaimed Neo-expressionist and Primitivist painter by the 1980's. 
In this sentence, the words 'American' and 'New York City' explains his geographical context. The phrase 'late 1970's' and '1980's' explains the time context in which he was producing work. And lastly, the words 'Neo-expressionist' and 'Primitivist' explain the stylistic movement he was a part of.
Basquiat's work particularly appeals and relates to me because he had to rely on his own emotion and feeling to create work, whether it be agression or love or identity, etc.
It was hard to choose a piece of artwork from the massive collection he has created, but I have narrowed it down to one.

Jean Michel Basquiat created ‘Fallen Angel’ in 1981. A ‘fallen angel’ (in Christian, Jewish and Muslim tradition) is an angel who rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven. I feel this painting describes the emotion a ‘fallen angel’ would have felt when being ‘cast’ out of heaven.

The angels’ face and wings appear to be set on fire. I think this because of the red and yellow paint, (being the flame) the white paint (being wing that has not yet been burnt) and the black paint (being the charred wing). The jagged and wild brush marks around the edge of the wings describe the movement of the flames. Also, the smudged paint eliminates the perfect of the wing that would have been.

Another element that describes burning is the fact that you can clearly see the angel’s internal organs; these are highlighted in red, as is its halo, which also has sharp lines/brush marks which describes harshness.

After studying the painting, I now know the angel is a male due to genetalia.

On the angels’ right arm, replacing his hand is a trident. A trident is traditionally associated with the devil, hence the ‘fallen angel’ falling into hell from heaven.

The vibrant, thick coat of blue depicting the blue sky allows the angel to ‘stand out’ against the softer, lesser bold brush marks of the angel, and moreover, his wings.    

In some ways, I believe Basquiat was trying to convey that he was a fallen angel, and painted this because the affects of his struggles with coping with success and fame.

‘Basquiat's paintings also attacked power structures and systems of racism, while his poetics were acutely political and direct in their criticism of colonialism and support for class struggle.’ -Wikipedia

‘I am not a black artist, I am an artist.’

‘I thought I was going to be a bum the rest of my life’

‘I had some money, I made the best paintings ever. I was completely reclusive, worked a lot, took a lot of drugs. I was awful to people.’ -Brainyquote

‘Some say he resented being a black man whose fate twisted with the whims of an all-white jury of artistic powers. Others say he pined for fame but was crushed by its burdens. Some friends believe greedy art dealers and collectors exploited him. Some say wealth fed his longtime appetite for drugs.’

‘Mr. Basquiat's struggle hints at the hazards posed by quick fame and wealth in the 1980's artistic world.’ -Quote from: www.nytimes.com

Living in New York City in the 60's and 70's, Jean Michel Basquiat was influenced greatly by an important figure from the Pop-Art movement in this period; both as a close friend and also as an artist. His name was Andy Warhol.

 Basquiat and Warhol went as far as producing work together and made collaborations such as: 'Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper)' 1985-6, 'Origin of Cotton', 1984 and 'Brown Spots (Portrait of Andy Warhol as a Banana)' 1984.

There is a contrast between the 'hard edge' of Warhol's screen-prints and Basquiat's free-hand paintings which I find is a perfect mix between the two.



'Origin of Cotton' 1984

'Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper)' 1985-6

'Brown Spots (Portrait of Andy Warhol as a Banana)' 1984

"It was like some crazy-art world marriage and they were the odd couple. The relationship was symbiotic. Jean-Michel thought he needed Andy's fame, and Andy thought he needed Jean-Michel's new blood. Jean Michel gave Andy a rebellious image again." -Ronny Cutrone

Due to quick fame and a busy lifestyle, I feel Basquiat 'sold out' by entering the gallery system and also by collaborating with Warhol. The conflict between being a sucessful artist and -possibly- a 'tame primitive' could have, quite forcefully, contributed to his death of a herion over-dose in 1988.

Printing

I produced some mono-prints in black and coloured ink using my own handwriting, a stencil and rubber stamps. These prints describe the beetle display using text, which I found was something different compared to a painting or drawing for example. I found it quite difficult at times when writing by hand because of the fact I had to write backwards. It was also quite time-consuming because I couldn't reproduce the same print over and over like I could of done if I had printed in the form of an etching for example. But, on the other hand, the mono-printing and stamp printing was instant. 

Over-printed Monoprint using letter stamps in coloured ink.

Print using letter stamps in black ink.

Monoprint using stencil in black ink.

Monoprint using my handwriting ink coloured ink.

I produced some screen-prints of a beetle photograph in coloured ink on various coloured and textured paper and canvas. I thought in total there were about 10 successful prints that I could either mount or frame or continue to use further to enhance the prints. Although I used a range of textures to print on, I thought the clearest prints worked on paper. 

New Beetle Photographs

I took some new images of the beetles from the Blackburn Museum because the original photo's I took weren't clear enough to use for screen-printing.  I still found it difficult to take the photo's because of the reflection of the glass, but because I used a better camera, the images were a lot clearer and crisp.

I will now select an photograph to use, and screen-print the image this week.

Overview of the beetles cabinet to recognize the range and quantity of beetles there are

Over- Painted Photographs

Photograph of elephants, distorted using sandpaper.

Photograph from magazine- acrylic paint and then scratched into.



Photograph from magazine- acrylic paint and markers.

Photographs from magazines-acrylic paint and scratched into.

Close-up of 'Pearl Jam' lyrics. Used photograph from magazine for background.

Photograph from magazine-black and white acrylic paint.

Over-painted collage using photographs and text from magazines and painted assitate.

Overpainted photograph from magazine-acrylic paint.

Photograph from magazine using acrylic paint.

Child Action Northwest

Our group went to Blackburn Orphanage due to an optional project Jo and Jamie had set for us. The project was to produce a book cover for a biography about the Orphanage owner, James Dixon. We could use any media we desired. Although it was a good project to do and would produce a lot of work for my sketchbook and portfolio, I don't think my other work and projects would benefit from it and I would rather concentrate on making those stronger. Therefore, I am not going to carry on with this project. 

Link: more information/photographs about the orphanage/pound day

Frank Auerbach

Quote from the John Tusa interview: 

'the thick paint, the gashes of colour, the bold gestures of the painting. It's very recognisable, as indeed Auerbach's pictures are - they're only in oil or charcoal, occasionally acrylic now, only portraits of a very limited number of sitters, or of landscapes around Camden Town in north London. For 50 years since leaving Art College , Auerbach has ploughed the deepest of furrows - some say too narrowly perhaps - with an obsessive intensity. He seeks to capture reality, to create something new, create something living as he puts it, to add something to the world. Frank Auerbach belongs to no school though he has been linked to his friend Leon Kossoff, to Lucien Freud, to Francis Bacon. He has followed no -isms, belonged to no active coterie. He works intensively, slowly and doggedly to achieve that rawness that he seeks.'


http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/auerbach_transcript.shtml

'Self Portrait' 1958 Charcoal on paper collage laid down on card 

'Nude' 1954 Charcoal on paper 

'Study for Mornington Crescent' 1970 Charcoal on paper 

Unlike his drawings, I have come to recognize that what I appreciate about his paintings is the think application of paint, not the aesthetic, but the free movement of the process.

'Head of J.Y.M No.1' 1981 Oil on canvas

Robert Rauschenberg

Overpainted Photographs

Referring to the work I did on the first roundabout week with Richard, I can see some similarity with the over-painted photographs and these paintings by Robert Rauschenberg.

'Retroactive 1' 1964 Oil and silkscreen ink on canvas

'Creek' 1964 Oil on canvas

Texture/Mixed Media

Whilst studying the works of Trevor Sutton, the colours also reminded me of those used in Rauschenberg's work. Although Sutton's work is quite flat compared to Rauschenberg's, I think the mix of styles I plan to incorporate appeals to me and would work well together.
I aim to include influences from Rauschenberg's work in relevance to color, texture/layers, composition and the use and range of media.

I came across this interview a couple of years ago, and it has come to mind now when trying to explain Rauschenberg's work and thought.  

'A Conversation with artist Robert Rauschenberg' - http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/5065

'Gossip' 2000 Screenprint

'Rhyme' 1956 Mixed media

'Winner Spinner' 2000 Screenprint

'I think a painting is more like the real world if it's made out of the real world.' -Robert Rauschenberg 

Photograph to evidence the surface quality of Rauschenberg's paintings.

'Combines' :at the Met 2005-06

Trevor Sutton

Richard looked at my blog and the work I have done for Blackburn Museum. He recommended an artist (Trevor Sutton) that  he thought could progress the studies I have done involving the beetles. 

I can see the relationship between the colour of the beetles and Trevor Sutton's work. Watercolour isn't something I have particularly worked with in the past but after researching Trevor Sutton's artwork it has inspired me to do this.   Quote from www.trevorsutton.com :

'Their character lies captured between layer upon layer of semi-transparent oil based glazes that build up a visible history of colour and brush marks. This process gives the work a physical and atmospheric quality  buit does now provide specific pictorial or geographic detail.'

'May E Ireland' 2008 Watercolour on paper

'Ireland-London1 13' 2003-2007 Watercolour on paper

'London March 1' 2005 Watercolour on paper

'May F Ireland' 2008 Watercolour on paper