art-Corpus

Tuesday, 10 July 2012

Interview with Martin Davey

10/07/12

Martin Davey

Going Underground

Martin Davey (born 1954) has been taking photographs since he was eight. After more than 30 years spent working in the automotive industry, he returned to full-time education in 2009, and has just completed a BA in Photography at UCA Rochester. As part of his final project, he produced a book, Going Underground (Blurb Inc., 2012), containing a series of black and white images of people on the tube.

Anna McNay: In the foreword to your book, Going Underground, you pay tribute to the influence of Walker Evans and his New York subway series from the 1930s/1940s. It has been said of Evans’ work that the subway might be seen as a “prime symbol of urban life.” What does the London Underground symbolise for you?

Martin Davey: Yes, Walker Evans comes from an era of photographers I have been heavily influenced by. I wouldn't disagree with that statement, but would add to it, because today the Underground is also a great example of cultural diversity, a showcase of how multicultural London has become. It’s the lifeblood of the London transport system, and it’s what keeps London buzzing. I love that buzz.

To read the rest of this interview please go to: http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2012/07/going-underground/

Sunday, 8 July 2012

Review of Obsession at Louis Vuitton Maison, 160 New Bond Street

08/07/12

Obsession

Louis Vuitton Maison

160 New Bond Street

8 June – 8 July 2012

Although I’ve been to plentiful art galleries in Mayfair, I have to confess to feeling more than a little intimidated (as well as underdressed!) as I stepped inside the Louis Vuitton Maison at 160 New Bond Street, and asked the doorman whether or not I was in the right place to view the exhibition showcasing the winner and four shortlisted artists from REcreative’s recent Yayoi Kusama-themed competition. Indeed I was, and, as I ascended the stairs to the small gallery space opposite the shoe section, I was greeted warmly, provided with an information pack, and invited to sit down on the couch.

REcreativeUK.com is a website devised by young people in collaboration with the Hayward Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts, the South London Gallery, Tate Britain and the Whitechapel Gallery as part of the Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project. Since its launch last summer, the website has become an active online community, where young people can upload and discuss art works, watch video clips, win prizes, and interact with a range of arts professionals, artists, and art critics. The Kusama competition, run to coincide with the artist’s recent Tate Modern retrospective, received nearly 100 submissions, all inspired by the concept of “obsession”, a theme which has formed the core of Kusama’s own work for the past 60 years.

The winner of the competition, which was open to young artists aged 16-25 and judged by the artist herself, along with Tate Modern Director Chris Dercon, South London Gallery Director Margot Heller, and Tate Modern curator Frances Morris, was 23-year-old student of Fine Art at Central St Martins, Yi Dai. Her work, Pure Land (2012), recalls Kusama’s Infinity Net series, and has been described as a “paint-less painting”, in which, instead of pigment, Dai has built up layers of tiny singed paper discs. With an air of slightly wilted blossom petals, they could almost be seen as a homage to Kusama’s homeland, Japan, and Dai might get to see the stunning cherry blossom season herself, as her prize is a trip for two to Kusama’s studio in Japan.

Kusama herself praised Dai’s work, and liked, in particular, the fact that it looks like her own! The method was certainly meticulous and repetitive, but the result ephemeral, suggesting bubbles floating to the top of a liquid, with some escaping into the infinite beyond.

Amongst the four other shortlisted artists are Gabriel Calderwood, aged 18, with It Never Changes to Stop (2012), and Georgia Henn, aged 20, with Numeric Obsession (2012), both film works. In the latter, feet are seen climbing a seemingly endless flight of stairs, whilst a voice counts the steps. As the artist explains: “Numbers are infinite and forever ongoing, which is why the obsession with repetitively counting is unavoidable.” Calderwood, on the other hand, has approached obsession from a less compulsive, more unsettling angle, by transforming his bedroom into “a haunting prison”, papered over with a seemingly infinite pattern of eyes. Shot in the dark, with an eye-shaped patch of light, the short film shows the artist and his shadows, sitting and watching, and, in turn, being watched, both by the viewer and the myriad eyes which surround him. Blurred movement adds to the dream-like quality, but it is certainly not a dream I would wish to endure.

For her work, Obsessive Rolling (Working title) (2012), Rhiannon Lewis, aged 23, has collected, shredded, and rolled up a number of take-away menus, creating paper pellets, which are heaped in a pile in the corner, as if discarded rubbish at the edge of a pavement. Here the emphasis is on repetition and futility. As judge Francis Morris says: “Part of the problem of obsessions is that the obsessor is unable to stop so it’s fitting that no ‘end point’ can be foreseen.”

The final shortlisted piece is entitled The Flies (2012) and is the work of Laura Navin, aged 23. A recent graduate of the BA in Fine Art at Cass School of Art, Navin has carefully handcrafted hundreds of tiny white plasticine flies, arranging them in rows on a white table. Inspired by Kusama’s Accumulation Sculptures, Navin explains: “To eliminate anxiety is to be free from it; I gain a sense of freedom due from the pre-determined nature of my work. All decisions are made, the only act left is to re-create and multiply.”

And thus we have it: obsession, repetition ad-infinitum, and re/REcreation – the themes of the show, and the idea behind REcreative itself. If only for an excuse to enter the Louis Vuitton Maison, this small but carefully crafted exhibition is well worth popping into.

Images:

Yi Dai

Pure Land (2012)

Gabriel Calderwood

It Never Changes to Stop (2012)

Georgia Henn

Numeric Obsession (2012)

Rhiannon Lewis

Obsessive Rolling (Working title) (2012)

Laura Navin

The Flies (2012)

Tuesday, 26 June 2012

Review of Jenny Holzer: Sophisticated Devices at Sprüth Magers

26/06/12

Jenny Holzer: Sophisticated Devices

Sprüth Magers
1 June - 18 August 2012

“When you’ve been someplace for awhile you acquire the ability to be practically invisible. This lets you operate with a minimum of interference” (from the Living Series, 1980-1982). Yet, despite having been on the art scene since the 1970s, Jenny Holzer (born 1950), whose text-based public artworks have been projected across venues as imposing as billboards in Times Square and the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, is anything but invisible.

To read the rest of this review please go to:

http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/jenny-holzer-sophisticated-devices

Copyright © 1893–2011 The Studio Trust. The titles Studio International and The Studio are the property of The Studio Trust and, together with the content, are bound by copyright. All rights reserved

Friday, 22 June 2012

Review of Doris Salcedo at White Cube, Mason’s Yard

22/06/12

Doris Salcedo

White Cube, Mason’s Yard

25 May – 30 June 2012

Colombian sculptor Doris Salcedo (born 1958) is probably best known in the UK for her Turbine Hall installation, Shibboleth (2007), a 167 metre fissure in Tate Modern’s concrete floor, said, by the artist herself, to represent “borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred.” Her latest exhibition, consisting of two new large-scale works at White Cube, Mason’s Yard, is no less politically engaged.

To read the rest of this review please go to: http://diary.darlingcollective.com/?p=634

Review of Danja Akulin: Penumbra at Erarta Gallery

22/06/12

Danja Akulin: Penumbra

Erarta Gallery

15 June – 14 July 2012

“When less than four years old I was standing with my nurse, Mary Ward, watching the shadows on the wall from branches of an elm behind which the moon had risen. I have never forgot those shadows and am often trying to paint them.” (The Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer, Painter and Etcher, AH Palmer, London, 1892)

Shadows, and the interplay of light and dark, have long been a matter of intrigue and concern, both for artists and philosophers alike. As early as Plato, the shadow was used as a metaphor for human knowledge and ideas, in his allegory of the cave, and, in the 19^th century, Nietzsche equated light with knowledge and darkness with ignorance. The Greek myth of Dibutades tells of a young Corinthian maid who traces the shadow of her lover on the cave wall, and whose father, a clay modeler, then fills the silhouette with clay to produce the first sculptural relief. This tale has been reprised by numerous artists over the centuries, including Jean Baptiste Regnault as Origin of Painting (1785) and Joseph Wright as The Corinthian Maid (1782-1784).

To read the rest of this review please go to: http://diary.darlingcollective.com/?p=622

Thursday, 21 June 2012

Book review of love is... by EJ Major

21/06/12

love is… by EJ Major

Edition size: 150 Limited Edition

Place of publication: London, UK

Format: Hardcover

Number of pages: 450

Price: £100

Love. Both one of the simplest and yet most complex emotions that exists. Necessary, elusive, all-consuming, painful, joyful, enigmatic. Can anyone explain or define this confounding human state? With suggested synonyms ranging from the lustful “passion”, through the loyal “devotion”, to the somewhat more moderate “affection”, “attachment” and “fondness”, dictionary definitions flounder in their attempts to capture a term used variously to describe a bond based on kinship, sexual desire, or admiration; an assurance thereof; the object thereof; the action thereof; the godly personification thereof, and beyond. Is it any wonder then, that, in 2004, artist EJ Major found herself struggling with the subject to such a degree that she decided to begin a mail art project whereby she would seek out the responses of randomly selected members of the public in an attempt to glean some insight into this universal phenomenon?

To read the rest of this review please go to: http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2012/06/love-is/

Review of Sadie Hennessy: Strange Hungers at WW Gallery

21/06/12

Sadie Hennessy: Strange Hungers

WW Gallery

20 June – 14 July 2012

I defy you not to crack a smile or chuckle to yourself if you go to see the current exhibition, Strange Hungers, by Sadie Hennessy, at WW Gallery. Greeted by a plethora of phalluses – a series of placemats depicting volcanic eruptions (Place Mat (i-iii), 2012); a child’s rocking horse-cum-unicorn (no prizes for guessing the embellishments around the horn) (Happily Ever After, 2012); a phrenology-cum-pornology head, again regally bedecked with protrusion (Unicorn, 2012); and a set of nine lighthouse postcards, with, of course, penises of varying shapes and sizes in place of the respective landmarks (Totem, 2012)– there is something very Chapman brothers-esque about the tone. A seemingly unrelated but humorous piece, Spoons (2012), consists of a velvet-lined case containing a set of seven teaspoons, one of Henry VIII, and one of each of his wives, with the heads of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard snapped off.

Nonetheless, it might not all be quite as light-hearted as it at first seems. Little Darlings (2012), for example, a matchbox filled with nametags for various dictators, seems to question the nature of evil: is it innate or learned, are we all born innocent and as blank slates, and are we all equal if dressed the same in school uniform?

It is an elaboration on this theme – what is visible on the surface, and what is the reality underneath – which is the overarching theme of the exhibition. For Peter (2012), for example, is a poignant image comprising two superficially identical portrait photographs of a young woman, one with her dress coloured white, one with it black, with the latter also marked by an inky drip, or tear, from her eye. The words “some days whole minutes pass without thinking about you” are superimposed, and suggest, perhaps, the hatred which might grow within a loveless (and, to extrapolate from the photos, possibly arranged) marriage.

Even within the bounds of a potentially “happy” marriage, things are not always necessarily as they seem. Elephant in the Room (2011) is a farcical collage of a 1950s housewife, dressed in suit and white gloves and hat, caressing a larger-than-life black penis in her drawing room, with a man, presumably her husband, standing proudly, chin on hand, elbow on knee, by the window in the background. As the press release suggests, “taking a playful look at the slippage between repression and expression, decorum and disarray, the exhibition is a wry celebration of female empowerment.”

A number of other works (The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret (Porn Star Eyes) (i-xii), 2011, and A Celebration of Old Roses (i-iv), 2011) use collaged images of women from magazine covers, where they are depicted as gormless beauties with no minds of their own, and here, in a manner akin to John Stezaker, Hennessy has blacked out or replaced their mouths or eyes – an acute reference to that which remains unseen by others, and/or that which remains unspoken. Further magazine collages, such as Milf Magazine (2011), preposterously juxtapose images of a mother, child, and freshly baked cakes, cover-lines for kitchen planning, knitting, and cookery, with, suggestively, what the housewife readers might really want, namely “New Bonus! 2 Hardcore Movies inside! Over 3 hours! A $60 value!”

More blanking out, this time of the genital regions, occurs in a set of four porn collages, showing women masturbating or having sex (Pyre, 2012). What speaks most about this work, however, is its positioning, high up above a shelf, behind the gallery door, almost out of sight, reflecting the typical social stance towards a female’s own sexuality and the expression of her lust or desire.

For me, the main message of this show is not to judge on outward appearance. As Mother Love (2011) further reinforces, with its size 42F, stained, off cream, cotton bra, hanging from a wooden hanger, and adorned with red sequin heart-shaped nipple tassels, no one and nothing is ever quite as it seems.

Images:

Place Mat

Digital Prints on Somerset Paper

2012

100x100cm

Image courtesy of WW Gallery

Elephant in the Room

Collage

2011

32x27cm

Image courtesy of WW Gallery

The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret (Porn Star Eyes) (vi)

Collage

27.5x33.5cm

2011

Image courtesy of WW Gallery

Milf Magazine

Collage

2011

33x28cm

Image courtesy of WW Gallery

Mother Love

Assemblage

2011

65x45x10cm

Image courtesy of WW Gallery

Also published at: http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/2272829

Monday, 11 June 2012

Review of Jason Martin: Infinitive at Lisson Gallery

11/06/12

Jason Martin: Infinitive

Lisson Gallery (52-54 Bell Street)

11 May – 23 June 2012

Walking into the Lisson Gallery on one of the hottest days of the year, I already feel as if I am melting. To then be confronted with the molten metal slabs, vibrant pigment swirls, and larger-than-life burnt woodpile that form Jason Martin’s (born 1970) latest exhibition only seems to increase the intensity of the heat. His paintings have always been almost sculptural in their dynamic, dense, and hand-worked surfaces – an exploration of the materiality of paint – but these latest pieces are so full of vigour that they seem to be transmuting before your very eyes.

To read the rest of this review please go to:

http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/jason-martin-infinitive

Thursday, 7 June 2012

Review of Giuseppe Cavalli: Master of Light at the Estorick Collection

07/06/12

Giuseppe Cavalli: Master of Light

Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London
18 April–17 June 2012

by ANNA McNAY

In 1947, Italian photographer Giuseppe Cavalli (1904–61) co-founded the group La Bussola (The Compass), which, as part of its mission to “establish a valid aesthetic credo for photographers,” asserted: “We believe in photography as art. […] It is equally possible to be poets with the lens as with the brush, the chisel or the pen.” Certainly, the selection of Cavalli’s works currently on show at the Estorick Collection confirm this statement. Muted and monochromatic, yet exploiting myriad shades of white, his bleak, unpopulated land- and beachscapes, are prematurely postmodern, reflecting a further axiom of the group that “in art the subject has no importance at all”.

To read the rest of this review please go to:

http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/giuseppe-cavalli-master-of-light

Wednesday, 6 June 2012

Review of Steven Morgana: The Future Feels Like a Phantom Limb at La Scatola Gallery

06/06/12

Steven Morgana: The Future Feels Like a Phantom Limb

La Scatola Gallery

11 May – 15 June 2012

Questions of entropy have concerned artists since Robert Smithson’s early experiments and writings, back in the 1960s, and Rudolf Arnheim’s seminal essay, Entropy and Art, of 1971. Obviously, this issue of energy crisis and loss is renewedly salient in the current climate, with pressing environmental concerns, such as global warming and the depletion of fossil fuels. Emerging artist Steven Morgana, currently completing his MFA at Goldsmiths College, confronts these issues head on in his first solo exhibition, currently on show at La Scatola Gallery, an eerily minimalist space, at the foot of the banking world’s tall city towers.

Recurring motifs of a rainbow – symbolic of the beauty of uninterfered with nature, but also of peace – and repeated references to waste products and comparative value, serve as a timely commentary on issues of sustainability and human interference within our ecosystem. One of the two large sculptural installations, How Much Does Your Building Weigh? (2012), consists of a geodesic dome built out of cardboard, suspended from a pulley system, and held in equilibrium with a smaller stack of cardboard sheets, purportedly the waste matter from the construction. The dome itself is fairly non-utilitarian, and the pile of waste almost as substantial as the product itself. As Smithson said, in an interview a couple of months before his death:

“There's a certain kind of pleasure principle that comes out of preoccupation with waste. Like if we want a bigger and better car we are going to have bigger and better waste productions. So there's a kind of equation there between the enjoyment of life and waste. Probably the opposite of waste is luxury. Both waste and luxury tend to be useless.”[1]

A similar highlighting of the (im-)balance between commodity, value, and waste, is to be found in Alchemy and Chemistry (2012), a set of three inkjet prints, each depicting a plastic water bottle (Volvic, Highland Spring, and Evian, respectively), but filled with a yellow tinted liquid, which, it turns out, is actually unleaded petrol, although, at first glance, one might wonder about rain water, urine, or some other polluted fluid. The individual titles further give the comparative prices per litre of the original bottle contents and the pictured petroleum – the latter, surprisingly, being minimally cheaper in each case. Shocking really, when we are amidst a fuel crisis, and water is, in principle, something which is freely available.

Talisman (Energy Adventures in the Northern Peruvian Amazon) (2012) presents

a photo-collage of a picture from a children’s colouring book overlaid upon a photograph of marching Peruvians with rainbow flags and rainbow coloured-scarves, protesting against exploratory well drilling in the Amazon Basin. The colouring image comes from a book produced by Talisman Energy, the company responsible for the drilling, and shows Terry the friendly Fracosaurus, dressed in hard hat and boots, and carrying a drill. It was widely distributed to children in Pennsylvania and New York before ultimately being withdrawn. Fracking, the blasting of land to release natural gas, is one of the most contentious issues of fossil fuel extraction.

The least pointed and most beautiful work in the exhibition is the second sculptural installation, It Was All Ephemeral as a Rainbow (Welcome to the Anthropocene!) (2012), which consists of a concave mirror, bisected by horizontal, rainbow-coloured, neon and argon lights, bending the other way. Reflected in the mirror, they form a complete circle of rainbow light. The work, however, is powered by a portable petrol generator, positioned prominently nearby, thus destroying any illusion of nature, and reminding visitors that even works of art leave their environmental footprint. The Anthropocene referenced in the title is, further, a recent coinage to refer to the extent of human activities that have had a significant global impact on the Earth's ecosystems. Whilst standing and enjoying the colourful illusion, the viewer’s own reflection also becomes captured in the mirror, reinforcing, once more, the unwelcome intrusion of man into nature.

As gallery director and curator, Valentina Fois, summarises, this exhibition seeks “to unravel the paradox between notions of beauty and nature, and concepts of social progress and co-operation.” The sparsity of works, the loftiness of the gallery itself, and the visibility of generators and disused packaging, invites strong comment upon the issues at hand: value, waste, and man’s interference with the Earth. Is entropy therefore unavoidably also a doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration? Morgana raises the questions; it’s up to us to think about the answers.

Images:

Steven Morgana: The Future Feels Like A Phantom Limb - installation views

Photos by Raymond Cheung

Courtesy of La Scatola Gallery

[1] Interview with Alison Sky, available online at http://www.robertsmithson.com/essays/entropy.htm [accessed 01 June 2012]

Also published at: http://www.rovesandroams.com/2012/06/steven-morgana-the-future-feels-like-a-phantom-limb-at-la-scatola-gallery/