Shadows of the Wanderer

I am currently invigilating in the Studio 3 gallery at the University of Kent, where Ana Maria Pacheco's Shadows of the Wanderer (2008) is in residence (Jan 17th 2011 - May 17th 2011). The sculpture includes two figures in the foreground; a young man, struggling with an older man on his back. It has links to Virgil's Aeneid, when Aeneas carries his father, Achises, out of the burning city of Troy; a journey that will end with the creation of Rome. However, Pacheco leaves any interpretation of the piece very open to the viewer. It can conjure up ideas of the burdens we carry through life, always being followed by the shadows of our past, or the idea of the asylum seeker, with concerned witnesses following; we must not forget however, that as viewers we too are witnesses.

To digress from the sculpture for just a second; I have just finished reading Boris Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago. To be more precise, I turned the final page of the book on the day that I first saw Pacheco's sculpture. With the image of desolate and desperate Russia fresh in my mind, I can only presume that I was a little biased when arriving at my own personal interpretation of the piece. Yury Andreyevich's journey from Moscow, where he grew up, through the atrocities of the First World War, to the rural Russian Urals seems like a journey that could be illustrated perfectly in Shadows of the Wanderer. In fact, it could finely illustrate the journey of any Russian person during this period. The idea of carrying the burden of one's own beliefs at a time when beliefs and theories were very dangerous things resonates very believably throughout the piece.

For me, however, it symbolises the fight to save what one cares about, whether that be a belief system, family, or indeed, Aeneas' father. It personifies the journey through life, in its rawest form. We all struggle down our own path in life, meandering and turning, and humanity will stand there and watch, albeit with concern upon its exaggerated face.

Brilliant Read....

I LOVE this book!! "The Private Lives of the Impressionists," by Sue Roe. Its not very art-historically insightful, but its really very good for historical context and general getting-to-know the artists. Its pretty much just an historical description of the emergence of Impressionism, and Roe doesn't really give away any of her own opinions - a nice light read :) Makes looking at their art all the more enjoyable once you know all their sordid secrets!!

High Society

Want to go and see this!! - http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/high-society.aspx

Want to go and have 'Kaffeine und Kuchen' in the coffee houses of 18th-century Leipzig!! - (There are some awesome-sounding events accompanying the exhibition).

[High Society at the Wellcome Collection, 11 Nov 2010 - 27 Feb 2011]

"A Fine Line"

"A Fine Line," by Belgian sculptor Frederic Geurts, is currently in residence at the Fabrica Gallery in Brighton. Working as a volunteer at the gallery, I must sit with this monstrous sculpture - of which I have grown to admire - for hours at a time. My first meeting with this work was at my 'volunteer induction' meeting, where I was shown a small model of what the finished work would look like. This little model was seemingly incredibly fragile, but at the same time had an air of stability that screamed 'indestructible.' I did wonder how something of this fragility and apparent frailness would hold up on such a large scale. Looking around the exhibition space, I mused at the fact that this skeletal frame would be the only piece on show - a big job for any singular work in such an overpowering space (the building is a converted church, complete still, with altar).

The first day I sat in on the exhibition was the first day I saw the finished sculpture, and I have to admit, it definitely could hold its own in this already very strong space. The fine lines of the metal contrasted incredibly with the dark wood of the interior architecture of the building. A contrast that might not be seen if this work had been exhibited in the standard, white, characterless gallery spaces of today. At first I couldn't quite get my head around how this heavy plaster structure could sit so comfortably and safely upon metal legs as thin as cocktail sticks! But, it appeared to do so, without any support from above or below.

The plaster structure running along the top of the metal legs below appears almost as a white line in space from a distance. The metal stand is so unobtrusive that it is possible to almost just see the plaster - a wiggly line running through the gallery space. This was the idea that had driven Geurts. The concept of balance - a surprisingly sturdy, weighty top, to a conversely spindly, weak bottom. I remember one visitor came into the space with their child, who, upon spying the structure shouted "Look mummy, a giraffe!" And this I can see. To me, the sculpture is creature-like (it has move about a foot and a half along the floor since it was installed), taking on a life of its own. A baby foal struggling towards its first few steps.

The sculpture also changes dramatically when viewed from different angles. One afternoon, I decided to take a walk up to the altar. From here, the white line of the plaster appeared to meander uncontrollably towards the far wall - much more bendy than it seems from ground level. Visitors seem to grasp this necessity to view the creature from different angles, and as they stroll around it, like strolling around an animal at the zoo, they too seem bewildered, asking such questions as "It's nailed down, right?" Wrong. And this is what makes it so spectacular. Designed specifically for the space at Fabrica, it compliments the already existing architecture so well, whilst pressing issues about balance, fragility, space and material upon visitors. Of course, visitors get their own chance to try out balancing tasks, with large jenga and dominoes lying around the space, they are encouraged to experiment with the boundaries of balance and raise any questions niggling at them after viewing the structure. A fine example of balance at it's best.

Brighton Museum Work

I have been doing a couple of days a week working in the Design Department at the Brighton Museum. I have mainly been measuring exhibition areas and drawing them up on the computer, as well as helping to come up with ideas for standardising the Museum's exhibition spaces. Above are a couple of scale drawings of exhibition case design ideas for an upcoming Archaeology exhibition. I created the images using Adobe Illustrator.

Picasso: Art as a "Weapon."

Pablo Picasso once described painting as, "not made to decorate houses." Instead, the artist described it as "an instrument of offensive and defensive war against the enemy." Picasso, despite his paintings appearing to be quite unoffensive, enjoyable pieces, actually intended for his work to help with the progression of Communism and anti-Fascism, of which he was an active supporter.

One of his most famous pieces of course, being Guernica. Guernica is a highly descriptive and moving image depicting the Spanish Civil War, and is one of the many paintings that Picasso completed to portray his disgust for Fascism. Despite the apparent lack of politics and personal belief in much of his work - (particularly his earlier stuff - his still lifes, portraits and other ordinary-object paintings) - it is actually quite apparent throughout Picasso's career.

His Charnel House, painted in 1944-45, shows a murdered family, thrown under their kitchen table. There are definite links to Goya's "Disasters of War" and Charnel House. The black, white and grey shades that Picasso uses in his more serious works, such as Guernica and Charnel House, show the gloom and morbidity of war, Fascism and, ultimately, living in a world that does not fit in with your systems of belief.

"Modern Masters" - Henri Matisse.

Just finished watching the 'Henri Matisse' episode of the BBC's new "Modern Masters" series. The picture I have attached to this post is Matisse's Piano Lesson, which I have never really taken much notice of before, but have now very swiftly changed my mind! The image depicts the artist's son, Pierre, having his piano lesson. Pierre supposedly despised these piano lessons, and this becomes very obvious once you analyse the image. The shape in the top right hand corner of the piece can be identified as Pierre's piano instructor; she hovers above him in a very dominating, strict and almost threatening manner. Her appearance away from the main content of the painting further shows Pierre's disregard for his teacher. Her feet are shown as raised way above Pierre's head; a clear teacher - pupil divide. The sharp angles of the metronome sitting directly in the eye line of the student further lead us to believe that Pierre was in fact daunted by these lessons, and possibly music itself.

The colours Matisse used in the painting are not those usually associated with his work at around this time; the time of the First World War. There is a vast expanse of grey tone right across the picture, possibly showing the morbidity of the time. Pierre is shown as much younger than he actually would have been at the time the painting was created, which seems to portray the young age that men were when they went to fight. At the time of painting the image, Pierre was in fact at war, and Matisse was obviously unsure when or if, he would return. The painting, then, almost has a nostalgic, wistful feel to it.

Overall, after reconnecting with this image, after a long time of disregarding it as not one of Matisse's greatest works (after all, on looking at the image without prior background knowledge, it might be difficult to decipher this as a Matisse image; aside, perhaps, from the decoration adorning the piano and the railings), I have readjusted my stance. The picture is completely harmonious, and with its underlying symbolic ideas, twisted in with a bit of Cubist influence, the outcome becomes a piece which highlights Matisse's nostalgia, and possible worry about his son's fortune at a time when no one was really sure what the future held.

References: http://smarthistory.org/matisse-piano-lesson.html