Wyatt Kahn explores non-illusionary forms of representation where negative space is consciously included in the compositions. Un-primed canvas is stretched over multiple wooden frames and assembled on the wall, and as a result of the gaps in the frames the wall is included as part of the work. The subject of the works becomes the interplay between 2D and 3D- experienced by shifts in surface, structure and depth. Gaps in the picture plane disrupt the otherwise geometric composition. The stretched forms don't depict anything other than themselves - lines and shapes that could be drawn onto canvas are instead turned into physical components of the artwork. Gabrielle De Santis uses punctuation to highlight gaps in communication. His marble pieces symbolise an attempt to stabilise fluctuating communicative methods- rooting the work in the traditional material of marble. It also demonstrates a physical "gap" in between the two punctuation marks. Other works using punctuation are mounted on skateboard wheels, symbolising the constant shifting of meaning of language, especially in the world of social media which elevates the speed of communication beyond standard "human" pace. Punctuation symbolises boundaries and checkpoints in written language. It visualises the tone of voice, as well as pauses and asides. It fills some of the gaps between words but not all of them... Tony Lewis uses rubber bands covered in graphite powder wrapped around nails in his wall text installations. Traces of the artist’s movements are left behind as the piece is installed, and these marks become part of the work; the artist remains present with the work throughout its time on show. After the work is uninstalled, traces still remain from the outline of the words, emphasised by the graphite powder around the edges. Almost like the trace of something once said, there is the absence of the actual word but presence of its memory; gone but not yet forgotten.
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"Does a text hibernate when we are not reading it? Does a book die when you close it? Why is it so still?" This is a quote from Sally Noall’s Spokenwrittendrawn commission that explores the use of language within the Tate institution. It draws the attention to text as a tool and how it functions with an audience. Is there a need for an audience in order for text to retain its function? It also brings into question the difference between an active text and a dormant text; can we really know what a dormant text would look like? As text is activated by our engagement with it, would dormant text require no audience at all? Spokenwrittendrawn is a collection of sketchbook pages created by Sally Noall in response to the use of language in the workplace. Noall is the Programme manager for young people at Tate St. Ives, and this 6 month project explores language as an aspect of “organisational change” in this role. As an artist working within an institution, Noall explores how the dos and don’ts of institutional language are carried out in reality, and questions how these restrictions can complement an artists’ working practice. Noall has scanned in pages from her sketchbooks and made them into a single digital publication that can be seen as a book online. This process has allowed her to eliminate irrelevant notes and scribbles, but also highlight her own thinking process; “Content which I would previously have considered unimportant, unfinished, or just the beginning of an idea, exists independently. The digitisation process has been as significant as the original pages. Editing has removed some of the white noise and scribble, and brings pages together to create a new work suitable for sharing.” All of the pages have been scanned in and turned into flattened images, yet even as a 2D document the pages still resemble book pages, with shadows and lines indicating their origin. There is a strange sense of a barrier here- the digital programme lets you turn the pages with the press of a button yet the viewer cannot hold the pages themselves. The data on these pages has been frozen and can no longer be altered. The sketchbook is transformed into a spectacle. Noall has turned her personal, inward-looking sketchbooks into an outward-facing public document. The editing process that she has gone through to produce the publication makes a completely new piece of work, with the categorising of pages into chapters, addition of digital text and the blocking out and layering of other pages. The full document can be viewed here. Over the past week since the start of the new semester I have attempted to collect my thoughts in the form of a series of sketchbooks. The aim is to fill one book a day with anything that deems appropriate. The first 6 days have produced 6 sketchbooks, each containing a variety of notes, sketches and reflections on the work of others. The hope is that with the volume of material being generated I will be able to identify a theme that runs through them and hopefully use this as a starting point to steer my practice.
Folds act as markers of intent, checkpoints; something to return to. They act as ‘loops’ in the book’s system. Folds also increase the amount of space that the book occupies; the object becomes wider, therefore the gaps made by folding the corners act as entrances- points of entry to the book. A fold creates three lines, either side of the fold and the fold itself, this doesn’t include the other side of the page where more lines are created. Even when the fold is flattened out a small relief can be seen where the fold once was. Folds change the dynamics of a surface. A surface is no longer flat; it is on the border between two and three dimensions. Direct manipulation of the surface means that images, text and lines that already exist on it can be distorted and their visual impact can change as line up with other elements on different parts of the surface. The surface can remain folded or be opened out fully- with evidence of the folds always remaining present. The action of folding and unfolding could also be an invitation for interaction from audiences. Creating a folded structure would allow interplay between shape and surface, with each plane offering a separate space for line, text and colour to occupy. A folded structure also has the benefits of being able to be viewed from multiple angles, each with a different perspective of the structure and the material that exists on the surface. PRESENCE / ABSENCE
Isolating the material from folded corners provides a very narrow perspective on the content of the book. Depending on the books design and layout there are different encounters that can be made by folding corners; book pages, images, lines of text, blank paper. Each encounter will also be affected by the angle of the fold in the page. Erica Baum has addressed this idea in her book ‘Dog Ear’, which collects a number of photographs of folded corners in a number of different books to reveal small squares of text. Publishers Ugly Duckling Presse describes the project as follows: “The concept of Dog Ear is simple and straightforward: dog-eared pages of mass-market paperbacks are photographed to isolate the small diagonally bisected squares or rectangles of text. The photographs are formally quite neutral and sedate—cursorily reminiscent of Alber's "Homage to the Square" series of prints, paintings and tapestries—but the text also demands attention and it is what allows or coaxes the viewer to linger. In his introduction to the book, Kenneth Goldsmith asks: "Do we see them or do we read them? If we choose to read them, how should we read? Across the fold? Through it? Around it? If we choose to look at Baum's pictures, how should we see them? As artistic photographs? Documentation? Text art?"” This quote from Goldsmith perfectly describes the questions that I am trying to address in my own practice; the differences between seeing and reading text when we encounter it. Without any further manipulation the simple fold creates a textual structure that changes how we approach and engage with the text, whilst retaining the reference to its original form as the pages from a book. If I am to work with books I would like to somehow retain its integrity as an object, so with as little variation to effect that as possible. Folding changes the structure yet retains the original information whilst creating something new. It is definitely a process that I want to consider taking forward. The work of Joe Rudko has inspired me to look towards what is already present in books; to find checkpoints that have been left behind by previous readers. This usually exists as a folded corner on the page; a tactile marker that can be found again. If I was to find a book with folded corner pages I could then find a common connection between those specific pages; what was the reader interested in? Why did they want to come back to that page? Or is it simply a sign of a break in the reading process?
What would be interesting to draw from this would be to map the process of reading and stopping; to catalogue the reading process of another reader and attempt to visualise any patterns… Tracing a path Mapping a route Finding relationships between separate points Condensing a narrative Utilising the text Appropriation as a means to make maps that incorporate image, line and text Disrupting the reading process and ‘fault lines’ in a physical space Taking meanings intended by the author and moulding them to fit a new narrative Making the map unique to that book Picture it as a “cartographic review of [insert book title here]; engineered by an unknown reader, plotted by Rachael Coward I was advised to look to literature to develop a more concrete context and source for material to use in my work. The form of a book has partly been addressed in the act of filling a sketchbook every day, but I have been looking more specifically at how the content of the text can be used…
I have also considered how the book can be considered as an object to work with, using its visual qualities to provoke an action in response. The work of Joe Rudko has come to my attention because of his use of found images/and photographs as a material which are stretched beyond their original means. Rudko breaks up the images and extends them with pencil lines of a corresponding colour. These linear pathways fill the gap between the fragments of the image, and alter its shape and composition. They seem almost cartographic in nature; they are tracing something, mapping a pathway through the image. It is an infiltration of the original image that reveals something else, unlocking a new narrative. The folded corner in ‘Manual’ (2014) shows a hint of the past or future of the book, depending on which way the page is bent. A folded corner in a book marks a place; a location within a text, a place of interest, somewhere to return to. It is an integrated bookmark that is tactile and leaves a permanent mark on the page. Perhaps a way that I source material is to find marked pages in existing books and to use only those pages; to follow in the footsteps of a previous reader. Christina de Middel’s piece ‘Party’ explores how a text can have its meaning abstracted through direct manipulation and association with additional imagery. Middel describes the piece in the passage below:
“If there is to be a revolution there must be a party”. This is how one of the most iconic and politically engaged book of the century would start if we applied an intentional filter. The filter would hide the parts of the slogans and sentences that got eventually obsolete in the last decades and the book is the Little red one: “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung”, the second most printed book in History (after the Bible) but a book that can only be found nowadays in China at some tourist shops. In an attempt to build a documentary object that to pushes the limits of documenting with images, the series “Party” presents a deliberately personal approach to the contemporary Chinese society and adds layers of significance by choosing a loaded platform. Using censorship to erase the parts of the text that are no longer in use in the country´s routine, the resulting pages become a script where the matching images build a series of diptychs that dynamical raise the question of the real nature of Communism in China these days. – Direct quote from Middel’s website What Middel presents is an abstracted version of events, which is abstracted further with the addition of images not original to the text. The new text that has been created is realised in reality via association with the accompanying image; a new relationship and narrative is created. The visible act of censorship which can be identified by what isn’t there draws us into further enquiry about its original content. What can help resolve this however is the page numbers which have been left untouched. Acting like markers, an investigation could be taken further by comparing the original and new texts using the page numbers as reference points. When it comes to working with books, I think that the two key things that I need to look at are the use of reference marks/checkpoints throughout the text, and the manipulation of existing information through censorship, the folding of a page etc. The journey through the text should be addressed, not just the text printed on the page. Tate Collective’s lunch-time chat with Exhibitions & Displays Curator Laura Smith about her recent curating roles, and the do’s and don’ts of being successful in the art world.
Laura Smith, Exhibitions & Displays Curator at Tate St. Ives joined Tate Collective St. Ives for lunch to discuss her recent role as one of the curators for this year’s Turner Prize at Tate Britain in London, and to share her journey through the art world, starting by studying Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art. After completing her degree, Smith began to realise her interests in curating when she started putting together pop-up shows hosting the work of her friends in unused buildings. This lead to studying a masters in Art Theory at Falmouth School of Art, followed by a successful application to the Royal College of Art to study their masters programme in curating for two years. Smith described this as some of the hardest years of her career, but these have luckily lead to her appointment as Exhibitions & Displays Curator of Tate St. Ives with many successful shows now under her belt. Smith’s most recent undertaking has been to co-curate this year’s Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain, and she is now back in Cornwall to prepare for the re-opening of Tate St Ives in March 2017 with a new show entitled The Studio and the Sea. Curating, according to Smith, to put it simply is “putting stuff in a room”, but more importantly than that, Smith’s key objective in her curatorial practice is to expose artists whose lives don’t fit the narrative that Art History wants to tell. “I like showing people something that they have never seen before… something new.” For an artwork to be successful in Smith’s eyes, it is important to be able to FEEL the work, for it to have an immediate impact when you first encounter it. She stresses the importance of seeing works first hand, but when it comes to selecting works to display in her own shows, Smith is often working from photographic reproductions on computer screens as the works are on the other side of the world; and so instinct has to be trusted to select works of art that are going to work well together. This is a skill that has been refined through years of practice. “You can never tell what the work is going to do until it arrives.” So what about the next generation of art enthusiasts? Smith leaves us with some tips for surviving the art world, both as a maker and a curator;
This article was written after a recent Tate Collective meeting, read the article on Circuit's blog here. This past semester has proved difficult for me to get my bearings on exactly what it is that I want to make. Having the dissertation module running alongside my practical work had its positives in that I did a lot of research and found out a lot about the field that I am working in. However this also meant that I didn’t have my full attention on what I was making, and so to not be too bogged down in anything too complicated or labour-intensive I stuck with small-scale experiments in different media in the hope that I would get inspired by the media outcomes to produce more developed work at a later stage. Although my experiments have proved reasonably successful with potential for further development I am still yet to grasp the purpose behind this work. I am lacking an anchor that ties all of the work together, and without this I fear that my work isn’t fully rounded. Despite the amount of time I have had to reflect on my work and move on I am still struggling to identify what it is exactly that I want to make the work about. I have been looking into the work of other artists and practitioners and I am often inspired by the forms and materials that are used, but the contexts of these pieces have little interest for me when it comes to the making of my own work. When displaying my work for assessment in my studio, I used the space to display a series of my most recent print experiments; showing the stages of my thought process over time rather than a selection of finished works; as these do not yet exist. I also used the space as an opportunity to try to display my cut mount board pieces that I used for blind embossing. I like these pieces as objects in themselves, and I have hung them away from the wall using small pins; they are suspended but not flat against the wall. This allows for the light to work against the shape and cast shadows around it. I am still unsure what it is that I want from this body of work, I am hoping that further investigation into past ventures will help to identify a path to follow.
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AuthorThird Year BA Hons Fine Art student studying at Falmouth University Archives
April 2017
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