cap_benjamin – Page 11 – Contemporary Art Practice etc…

A Willkommen Return

Published July 12, 2007

Dear All,

it gives us enormous pleasure to be back with you all after a short but well-earned break.

After a quiet week in the windy wilds of Brighton town playing the penny arcades, dodging the maniacal drivers, falling out with the waiter in a rather well known Fish & Chip Shop and failing to find any note worthy artwork (Actually we did come across a rather famous work by Banksy. Art ?) we now find ourselves in Germany on a pilgrimage to view as much contemporary art as we can in 9 days.

Over the next few days we will be touring Munster Sculpture Projects before moving on to Documenta 12 in Kassel. For those of you who may not be aware of the significance of these events, they are of international importance and the following is intended as a short introduction:

Munster Sculpture Project was initiated in 1977 by Kasper Konig and happens every 10 years taking over the whole of the city of Munster. The first event featured work by many of the most significant artists of the time; Carl Andre, Michael Asher, Joseph Beuys, Donald Judd, Richard Long, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Ulrich Rückriem and Richard Serra. Since the first event it has grown to become the largest and most significant survey of contemporary publicly sited sculptural works in the world. This years highlights includes works by: Bruce Naumann (with an inverted pyramid dug into the ground initially proposed for the original in 1977 but impossible then due to budgetary constraints), Mike Kelley (with a petting zoo including a salt lick in the shape of Lot’s wife) and Gustav Metzger (a work which plays on chance and the dual histories of Munster and Coventry’s destruction during the second world war.)

Documenta 12 as the title suggests is the 12^th edition, the first happening in 1955 and then every 5 years give or take. This year the exhibition is curated by Roger M. Buergel and Ruth Noack. Documenta is considered by some to be the most important exhibition of contemporary art and certainly one of the most heavily theoretical. This year the curatorial team have developed three central questions which run through the selected works, these are:

‘Modernity: Is it our antiquity?’
‘Life: What is Bare Life?’
‘Education: What can be done?’

These themes are explored in a number of ways, through the exhibition itself, a programme of lectures, tours, discussions and 3 magazines each dedicated to one of the questions; containing writing selected by around 100 international publications. For further info on both events click on the following links:

http://www.skulptur-projekte.de

http://www.documenta12.de

Over the coming days we hope to bring you some of the highlights and perhaps even the lowlights of our time in Germany so stay tuned for regular updates, perhaps Fact of the Day will rear its head once or twice.Best Wishes

Form – Launch & Exhibition

Published July 1, 2007

Well I have to say the launch of Form went very well indeed with all credit going to Ben, Jennie & Chris. Both the publication and exhibition of drawing was very well recieved by the significant numbers in attendance including several of our colleagues from the HND Courses.

The project space at ESW really is an underated and underused space for events of this kind. Lets see some more please.

Sorry about the image quality. Hope to have better ones soon.

Best

ED….

Exhibition One Night Only

Published June 27, 2007

Dear All,

Please see attached invitation to the launch of the latest edition of the ESW Publication

FORM

Co-edited by Jennie Temple & Benjamin Fallon
Featuring drawings by

Mathew Brady
Benjamin Fallon
Scott Laverie
Jon Owen
Sam Stead
Jennie Temple
Chris Walker

and text by

Alan Holligan

Launch event will include an exhibition of original drawings.

Refreshments from 6pm

Thursday 28th June 2007

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
25 Hawthornvale, Edinburgh, EH6 4JT

http://www.edinburghsculpture.org

HND 1 Exhibition Video Cast

Published June 12, 2007

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DgcqouNkTk]

The exhibition is open:

Tuesday 12th – Thursday 14th 10 – 8

Friday 15th – Saturday 16th 10 – 4

3rd Floor Blue Block

Edinburgh’s Telford College

350 West Granton Road

Edinburgh

Its Not Over Yet Till it’s Over

Published June 11, 2007

Dear All,

firstly, please accept our apologies for the lack of posting over the last week or so. This has been due to end of year assessments and getting everything in place for the launch of the new HND.

There are only 11 weeks to go until our first intake of HND Contemporary Art Practice students and everyone here is very excited about the prospect of fresh challenges.

Lets not jump the gun though as there is still plenty of life in the old dog yet.

This week sees the current 1st year Public Art students presenting a selection of their excellent creative exploits from throughout the year.

The Exhibition opens tomorrow in the Fine Art Studios of the college (3rd Floor Blue Block) and will be open everyday this week including Saturday.

Further details and images from the show will appear on the blog over the coming days.

So please, come back for regular updates or even better come and see the work first hand!!!!!!!!

ED !

The Exhibitors:

Published May 28, 2007

The following is a list of the exhibitors in this years show.

Please click on the names to download their individual exhibition statements and a selection of images:

Elizabeth Donnachie

Brenda Smart

Private View

Published May 27, 2007

The opening of the show was a great success. There was wine, beer and chocolate a plenty. Associate Principal, Alex Craig opened the show with some well chosen and supportive words. He congratulated the students and
staff on their hard work and efforts in pulling together such a strong and cohesive exhibition, before awarding a student prize for ‘Significant Achievement’. This prize went to Monica del Campo. So, Well done to Monica,
but a huge Congratulations must go to all participants for the team work shown in not always the easiest of circumstances.

Day 3 of Installation

Published May 27, 2007

Day three and final day of instillation at Patriothall was a hive of activity. Much still had to be done before all works could be hung. Emma had to plaster, then sand down the wall area for her knitted piece. Hayley, now
on her 8th coat of paint, had to finish preening her pet plinth, and Monica had to try out a 156th compositional layout for her sculpture instillation. However it all came together at the 11th hour. The computer was still
churning out artist’s statements with less than 10 mins left, but all was in place by 6pm. Phew!!!!

Day 2 of Installation

Published May 24, 2007

Day two of installation at patriot hall presented another hiccup, our Course team leader had taken ill and was unable to continue coordination of the show. However the show must go on, and go on it did.

Students were quick to fill the troops in on yesterday’s progress, allowing final decision to be made regarding the placing of artworks. There was great support shown from fellow students in helping each other install the work.

The eventful instillation of the day goes to Liz whose hanging harness had to be hung from a 10 foot height. Two pairs of ladders and three pairs of hands saw it raised, but not quite placed – to be continued tomorrow.

*Apologies for the lack of visual documentation. This should be back on track tomorrow.

First Day of Installation

Published May 23, 2007

First day of installation at Patriothall today and everything went pretty well. Minor hiccups included the van being just too small to get all we needed in one load and forgetting the cutlery for lunch.

The gallery itself is a great space tucked away in a really interesting part of Edinburgh’s Newtown. The building has been around for sometime and has gone through various uses including a bakery before being taken over by WASPS and turned into artist studios and a gallery space. (see Brenda Smart at the opening for a historical summary)

Everybody demonstrated great patience and understanding as the process of laying out and installing an exhibition of so many diverse individuals and artworks can be an involved and fractious experience.

Unfortunately I didn’t make time to take as many photographs as I might have hoped but they will give some impression of what went on today.

HN Diploma Installation Begins

Published May 22, 2007

!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5000 hits in 3 Months !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To celebrate the 5000th hit on the HND Contemporary Art Practice Blog site we will be launching a series of special blog events.

The second year HND students at Edinburgh’s Telford College will begin the installation of their exhibition at Patriothall Gallery tomorrow, Wednesday 23rd May.

Each day we will publish images and comments from the Gallery on the blog giving all our readers an invaluable insight into the highs and lows of the installation process.

This will be followed by images and comment from the private view on Friday the 25th May.

Finally we will feature the work of all exhibitors on a daily basis until the 30th May when the exhibition will end.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our readers for their interest and comments to date.

!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5000 hits and counting !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Art e-Fact 56

Published May 21, 2007

In 1924 in the first surrealist manifesto, Andre Breton, the French poet and one of the founders of surrealism defined the essence of the movement as “Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation” The writers and artists associated with surrealism tried to reach this state of mind in order to create, by a number of means including sleep deprivation, hypnosis and drug induced states. However, after a series of disturbing incidents including an attempted mass suicide by a whole group who were in a hypnotic trance, the experiments of these extreme means of finding the unconscious were abandoned. Breton did not address these incidents in the first surrealist manifesto and rather emphasised that surrealism was a natural, not induced activity.
The visual manifestation of automatic thought can be clearly seen in the works of Andre Masson, his drawings appear as a stream of consciousness. A number of artists and writers were associated with the movement including Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Paul Eluard, Francis Picabia, Miro, Hans Arp and Salvador Dali.

Courtesy: J. Temple & C. Walker

1 Week to Go !!!!!!!!!!!!

Published May 18, 2007

We are delighted to announce that the Private View of the HND Public Art Diploma Exhibition will Take place on Friday the 25th May 2007. Please see below for details.

For map and further info: CLICK HERE

Art e-Facts 55

Published May 14, 2007

British art group Unit One was formed by Paul Nash in 1933 to promote modern art, architecture and design. The two major currents in modern art at the time were seen as being abstract art on the one hand and Surrealism on the other. Unit One embraced the full spectrum, Nash made both abstract and Surrealist work in the mid 1930s and played a major part in organising the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936 (British Surrealism).

The launch of the group was announced in a letter from Nash to The Times newspaper, in which he wrote that Unit One was ‘to stand for the expression of a truly contemporary spirit, for that thing which is recognised as peculiarly of today in painting, sculpture and architecture’. The first and only group exhibition was held in 1934 accompanied by a book Unit One, subtitled The Modern Movement in English Architecture, Painting and Sculpture.

The other artists associated with the group were Armstrong, Bigge, Burra, Hepworth, Moore, Nicholson, Wadsworth and the architects Welles Coates and Colin Lucas.

Art e-Facts 54

Published May 9, 2007

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N8VsdaX8RM]

Doug Aitken’s complex multi media installations address the elaborate inter-relationships between man, media, industry and landscape and the nature and perception of time. The viewer’s experience of his installations is as much a process of discovery as the making of the pieces was for the artist. The narratives reveal themselves in intricate spirals in which the viewer is forced to actively engage, both physically by passing through the exhibition space to see the various projections and mentally as the multiple images prevent a single interpretation.

http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2007/aitken/

Art e-Facts 52

Published May 2, 2007

During a career that has brought her controversy and acclaim in equal measure, Sarah Lucas has made art from the discarded and unexpected, incorporating such diverse materials as cigarettes, food, second-hand furniture, cars, pigeon shit and her own self-image.

In 1992 Lucas exhibited one of her most famous works, Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab, in a shop in Soho. Every morning, she had to get up and buy a kebab, then fry the eggs, then arrange them carefully on a table.

http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue5/encounters5.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1889518,00.html

Art e-Facts 51

Published May 1, 2007

Glasgow born artist Ross Sinclair has described his work as “a lifetime project that aims to engage as wide an audience as possible in a dialogue around the paradoxical gaps between life as it is lived by a society of individuals, and the aspirations afforded by ‘spectacular life’ as we absorb it through mediated images of ourselves and everything around us – in other words, it’s ourselves alone versus the world.”

Sinclair’s ‘Real Life’ has been unfolding since 1994 when he had the words Real Life tattooed on his back confirming a lifetime commitment to the project. With works such as ‘Studio Real Life’, ‘Real Life Rocky Mountain’, ‘Dead Church/Real Life’ and ‘I Love Real Life’, Sinclair has sought to open a new space in which to observe and discuss our relationships with the institutional pillars that form the architecture of all our lives. By doing so he has slowly begun to construct a parallel vision of society and its component parts. His is a vision of the world, “not as it is, but as it could be.”

Have a look athe web site and see if you can score in the game of real life !!!!!!!

I got beat 6 – 1, Ed.

http://www.rosssinclair.co.uk/

Art e-Facts 50

Published April 30, 2007

In 1921 Marcel Duchamp decided to launch a perfume. The bottle was to be a ‘false’ replica of the Rigaud brand perfume bottle that was available in the shops. The original label was modified by Duchamp by adding the face of Rrose Selavy (see fact of the day 18) Duchamp then instructed Man Ray to create a photomontage for the label to read BELLE HALEINE / Eau de Voilette (translated as Beautiful Breath: Veil Water). The perfume which was to be launched in Paris and New York had the company logo RS – New York – Paris. Duchamp then decided against the venture and the resulting false replica of the real Rigaud bottle (almost a reversed ready-made) has become one of the most precious ready-made objects of this period, authored by both Duchamp and Man Ray.

Courtesy: D. McLachlan

Art e-Facts 49

Published April 27, 2007

The artists magazine ‘Aspen’ was published between 1965 and 1971 and each issue had a different designer and editor. Former editor of ‘Women’s wear daily’ Phyllis Johnson conceived it as a multimedia magazine showcasing ‘culture along with play’ acting as ‘a time capsule of a certain period, point of view, or person’.

Over the 6 years there where 10 editions. Each edition came in a box containing booklets, phonograph recordings, posters, postcards — one issue even included a spool of Super-8 movie film. This format was incredibly important as the traditional bound format of the magazine was seen as restrictive.

For more information and to view a full archive visit

http://www.ubu.com/aspen

Courtesy: onezeroprojects