Hello one and all. Late as ever this week and am majorly rushing this blog as I am going away tomorrow and have to write this in 30 minutes before I bugger off the for the weekend woohoo!! This weeks cultural pursuit was four-fold – impressive huh!? I stepped out with my lovely friends Nat and Zarah and soaked up the many sites of the Tate Britain – probably my favourite gallery in London, probably. On at the Tate at the moment are the following: Rachel Whitbread Drawings and an exhibition about Eadweard Muybridge; the pioneering 19th century photographer. They also have an installation by Fiona Banner in the Duveen Galleries and a weird installation recently acquired by the gallery by Mike Nelson called The Coral Reef, all of which we saw – not bad eh!?
So, to start with the worst; Rachel Whitbread. I want to punch this women in the face. For one thing she is totally miserable looking cow and an all round pretentious twat. For another thing she has been reproducing the same idea for her entire career, but most importantly that idea wasn’t even hers to begin with right?!?!!?? Didn’t Bruce Nauman cast the empty space below a chair in 1970-something??? Has no one else ever thought about this??? She ripped off Bruce Nauman to begin with and hasn’t actually thought about anything else since or developed the idea in any real way??? MADNESS. I mean once the negative space of one domestic object has been cast do we really need to do the same with a house, with a table, with a load of boxes?? Thank god she was commissioned to do that Turbine Hall piece of crap and everyone else finally realised this women is a waste of space – it was the worst installation in the turbine hall there has ever been!! Yet for some reason the general public is expected to pay to go and see a shabby little exhibition of her proprietary sketches – it takes the piss!! This exhibition walked a fine line between shoddy IKEA prints and the sketch book of a derivative 16 year ld art A level pupil. NOT GOOD, just look at some of this pointless crap:
Inspiring no?! I literally can’t believe the arrogance of this women to dare to display this, she should be strung up. Luckily I hear her career has, rightly, nose dived of late so at least there is some fairness in the world. There is actually a little booklet accompanying this exhibit??? Shame on you Tate, SHAME.
Next we have the Coral Reef by Mike Nelson. This is what the Tate website has to say about it:
“To enter Mike Nelson's The Coral Reef is to enter a parallel world. Rooms, doors, passageways, all bear traces of habitation and decay. Different, often conflicting, ideologies or belief systems are presented through these traces. The implied occupants of Nelson's world appear to be detached from the political and economic centre, left to exist at the margins of globalised, capitalist society. The work's title alludes to this collection of complex, fragile belief systems that form an obscured layer - a coral reef - beneath the 'ocean surface' of prevailing orthodoxies. Nelson's absent protagonists occupy positions of resistance in the face of dominant ideologies. However, Nelson perhaps conveys a sense of inevitable futility about such resistance. In his words, he wants the spectator to feel 'lost in a world of lost people'’”
So, there you go, that makes loads of sense to me, really it does (???). The installation was lots of fun if rather gross, everything looked like it had been pissed on and left to fester. It’s really quite gross and looks like a dodgy cab firm somewhere in east London or a squat which smells a bit. Things I did like were the sense of confusion and claustrophobia and the way he had created rooms that looked exactly the same so walking round in the maze of corridors and squeaky doors was highly disorientating and unnerving. What was it all about?? I have no, fucking, clue! But it was fun!! I have to say I find this type of installation a bit dull though – what’s with the endless amount of ply wood in contemporary art? It makes me feel a bit sick in the way people feel sick about untreated wooden lolly pop sticks on ice lollies, which funnily enough we all had after we left. Ummm, ice lollies. I also don’t like that type of set design installation art – it feels somehow very, very basic; the creation of a domestic space seems somehow prosaic and like a bit of a cheat – meaningful yes but 2 dimensional and cheesy. But that’s just my opinion obviously. I know this is a highly stupid word to apply to any form of ‘art’ but it just feels terribly terribly contrived and although this is only 10 yearsd old feel like it has been done 3000 times before/ Maybe he was the first? Huh, certainly wish he had been the last.
Next up, or rather the first thing we saw, was the installation by Fiona Banner. Annoyingly I took some great photos of this but didn’t bring my iphone cable today so cant download them onto here!! I may try later. The show consisted of 2 great big war style fighter planes, or whatever they would be called. One was hung from the ceiling by its tail bit pointing straight down and almost reaching the floor. This was quite fun I thought, mainly because t looks like they strung it up using only one wire – which is pretty impressive! The other plane is lying on its back and is very very very shiny. Really really fun actually as you can see the reflection of the people and the gallery space in the high gloss finish of the plane. I am guessing, maybe, that this was all about the how these big old instruments of war and death can be put into an almost whimsical setting and seen both as displaced almost meaningless toys (almost), objects of beauty and powerfully dangerous vessels at the same time. The shiny shiny surface gave the sense of speed, beauty and elegance yet lying on its back in the middle of a gallery the fighter jet, or whatever it was, was rendered totally worthless, meaningless and docile. I guess it was also to do with the fascination we all have with war, power and death and the fragile relationship we have to these concepts. This dangerous and industrial instrument can be seen as a plaything, a thing of beauty and much more. Or WHATEVER. Saying all this only one of the planes was shiny, the other was all mat and dirty looking so there was obviously something going on in that contrast, what I can’t be bothered to pontificate on though. Anyway it was mucho fun but maybe I liked it so much because it was like a mirror and I am very, very vain!!
So, to start with the worst; Rachel Whitbread. I want to punch this women in the face. For one thing she is totally miserable looking cow and an all round pretentious twat. For another thing she has been reproducing the same idea for her entire career, but most importantly that idea wasn’t even hers to begin with right?!?!!?? Didn’t Bruce Nauman cast the empty space below a chair in 1970-something??? Has no one else ever thought about this??? She ripped off Bruce Nauman to begin with and hasn’t actually thought about anything else since or developed the idea in any real way??? MADNESS. I mean once the negative space of one domestic object has been cast do we really need to do the same with a house, with a table, with a load of boxes?? Thank god she was commissioned to do that Turbine Hall piece of crap and everyone else finally realised this women is a waste of space – it was the worst installation in the turbine hall there has ever been!! Yet for some reason the general public is expected to pay to go and see a shabby little exhibition of her proprietary sketches – it takes the piss!! This exhibition walked a fine line between shoddy IKEA prints and the sketch book of a derivative 16 year ld art A level pupil. NOT GOOD, just look at some of this pointless crap:
Inspiring no?! I literally can’t believe the arrogance of this women to dare to display this, she should be strung up. Luckily I hear her career has, rightly, nose dived of late so at least there is some fairness in the world. There is actually a little booklet accompanying this exhibit??? Shame on you Tate, SHAME.
Next we have the Coral Reef by Mike Nelson. This is what the Tate website has to say about it:
“To enter Mike Nelson's The Coral Reef is to enter a parallel world. Rooms, doors, passageways, all bear traces of habitation and decay. Different, often conflicting, ideologies or belief systems are presented through these traces. The implied occupants of Nelson's world appear to be detached from the political and economic centre, left to exist at the margins of globalised, capitalist society. The work's title alludes to this collection of complex, fragile belief systems that form an obscured layer - a coral reef - beneath the 'ocean surface' of prevailing orthodoxies. Nelson's absent protagonists occupy positions of resistance in the face of dominant ideologies. However, Nelson perhaps conveys a sense of inevitable futility about such resistance. In his words, he wants the spectator to feel 'lost in a world of lost people'’”
So, there you go, that makes loads of sense to me, really it does (???). The installation was lots of fun if rather gross, everything looked like it had been pissed on and left to fester. It’s really quite gross and looks like a dodgy cab firm somewhere in east London or a squat which smells a bit. Things I did like were the sense of confusion and claustrophobia and the way he had created rooms that looked exactly the same so walking round in the maze of corridors and squeaky doors was highly disorientating and unnerving. What was it all about?? I have no, fucking, clue! But it was fun!! I have to say I find this type of installation a bit dull though – what’s with the endless amount of ply wood in contemporary art? It makes me feel a bit sick in the way people feel sick about untreated wooden lolly pop sticks on ice lollies, which funnily enough we all had after we left. Ummm, ice lollies. I also don’t like that type of set design installation art – it feels somehow very, very basic; the creation of a domestic space seems somehow prosaic and like a bit of a cheat – meaningful yes but 2 dimensional and cheesy. But that’s just my opinion obviously. I know this is a highly stupid word to apply to any form of ‘art’ but it just feels terribly terribly contrived and although this is only 10 yearsd old feel like it has been done 3000 times before/ Maybe he was the first? Huh, certainly wish he had been the last.
Next up, or rather the first thing we saw, was the installation by Fiona Banner. Annoyingly I took some great photos of this but didn’t bring my iphone cable today so cant download them onto here!! I may try later. The show consisted of 2 great big war style fighter planes, or whatever they would be called. One was hung from the ceiling by its tail bit pointing straight down and almost reaching the floor. This was quite fun I thought, mainly because t looks like they strung it up using only one wire – which is pretty impressive! The other plane is lying on its back and is very very very shiny. Really really fun actually as you can see the reflection of the people and the gallery space in the high gloss finish of the plane. I am guessing, maybe, that this was all about the how these big old instruments of war and death can be put into an almost whimsical setting and seen both as displaced almost meaningless toys (almost), objects of beauty and powerfully dangerous vessels at the same time. The shiny shiny surface gave the sense of speed, beauty and elegance yet lying on its back in the middle of a gallery the fighter jet, or whatever it was, was rendered totally worthless, meaningless and docile. I guess it was also to do with the fascination we all have with war, power and death and the fragile relationship we have to these concepts. This dangerous and industrial instrument can be seen as a plaything, a thing of beauty and much more. Or WHATEVER. Saying all this only one of the planes was shiny, the other was all mat and dirty looking so there was obviously something going on in that contrast, what I can’t be bothered to pontificate on though. Anyway it was mucho fun but maybe I liked it so much because it was like a mirror and I am very, very vain!!
Last and not least we had the retrospective of Eadweard Muybridge. You may be wondering what the hell that name is all about and basically the guy was clearly a bit mental and not only changed his surname for some reason but also adopted the weird medieval spelling of his first name as well – very Victoriana. This guy was a bit mental in general really – he shot his wife’s lover and got away with it as the general belief at the time was it was the wife’s lovers fault and he shouldn’t have done it?! Ahh how the world has changed. Despite the murder and subsequent court case being international news he went on to be a hugely celebrated public figure and now they have a bloody exhibition at the Tate! 150 years later or whatever! Just shows you eh? – what I don’t know though.
The main reason for the longevity of his fame lies in the fact that he was the one who first managed to photograph a galloping horse, therefore proving that they did indeed take all hoofs off the ground at points when galloping. He went on to photograph many action style things including people walking around (naked) and horses doing various things. He managed to achieve this by developing shutters an trip wires and things like that – I don’t know I don’t find that particularly fascinating to be honest and believe me once you have seen one set of stills showing horses running around you really don’t need to see 2 HUGE ROOMS filled with them, especially as the naked ones are all quite gross because apparently everyone was a bit saggy in the 19th century – god he even took ones of himself when OLD – uggggh, old bearded man walking round naked – gross. Anyway there was then a room about how he used these images to develop the moving image by investing something called a Zoopraxiscope which was basically a slide projector going round on a disc thus creating the sense of movement – or whatever. Those of you who ever visited the now defunct Museum of the Moving Image may remember seeing them there – very Victorian faire ground and he did in fact send many years touring the world with these type of shows. One thing I did find interesting were the images he made of water. If you think about it this would have been the first time veer people could see what actually happens in slow mo when water spills, moves, splatters etc – previously they would only have seen it as a solid mass. That’s quite interesting if you think about it and interesting in relation to his earlier works covered in the first half of the exhibition. This was when he went round various parts of the Yosemite Valley in California, a newly developing tourist destination. His huge, beautiful photographs captured new tourist spots as well as creating tourist spots himself by finding new and exciting views and vistas to photograph. I find the development of photography in parallel to tourism, and vice versa, very interesting. He was also employed to photograph the development of the railway in California, including some great images of the Chinese population working out there, and lighthouses and stuff. Many of these early images were done using that technique that I haven’t got time to look up the name of where you have 2 slightly different images of the same subject are stuck next to each other and using glasses to view them the spectator has a sense of three-dimensionality. This was fun.
I haven’t got time to go into any more details as need to leave in 10 minutes and have managed to write this whole blog in less than 30 which I think is quite impressive!! I will just briefly touch on how interesting it was to see this exhibition of photography which so clearly influenced major artistic developments at the turn of the 20th century. They had on display a bronze horse by Degas which was directly influenced by Muybridge’s horse photos. What with my highly Greenberg-ian art historical education and the total unwitting infiltration of the Shock of the New I am use to seeing how artists such as Manet, Degas, Braque, Delauny and Picasso were influenced by photographs like this and their articulation of a new world built on action, movement and speed so it was interesting to view the images by themselves, rather than in relation to other artists, However, I have to say exhibitions like this, as in the photography one I went to see at the British Library a few months ago, get confused about whether they are a retrospective of the photographer (artists as photographer?) or an examination of the development of photography as a scientific process and art form in general. What do you want to be???
Anyway enough is enough must fly!! See you next week boys and girls xxx
The main reason for the longevity of his fame lies in the fact that he was the one who first managed to photograph a galloping horse, therefore proving that they did indeed take all hoofs off the ground at points when galloping. He went on to photograph many action style things including people walking around (naked) and horses doing various things. He managed to achieve this by developing shutters an trip wires and things like that – I don’t know I don’t find that particularly fascinating to be honest and believe me once you have seen one set of stills showing horses running around you really don’t need to see 2 HUGE ROOMS filled with them, especially as the naked ones are all quite gross because apparently everyone was a bit saggy in the 19th century – god he even took ones of himself when OLD – uggggh, old bearded man walking round naked – gross. Anyway there was then a room about how he used these images to develop the moving image by investing something called a Zoopraxiscope which was basically a slide projector going round on a disc thus creating the sense of movement – or whatever. Those of you who ever visited the now defunct Museum of the Moving Image may remember seeing them there – very Victorian faire ground and he did in fact send many years touring the world with these type of shows. One thing I did find interesting were the images he made of water. If you think about it this would have been the first time veer people could see what actually happens in slow mo when water spills, moves, splatters etc – previously they would only have seen it as a solid mass. That’s quite interesting if you think about it and interesting in relation to his earlier works covered in the first half of the exhibition. This was when he went round various parts of the Yosemite Valley in California, a newly developing tourist destination. His huge, beautiful photographs captured new tourist spots as well as creating tourist spots himself by finding new and exciting views and vistas to photograph. I find the development of photography in parallel to tourism, and vice versa, very interesting. He was also employed to photograph the development of the railway in California, including some great images of the Chinese population working out there, and lighthouses and stuff. Many of these early images were done using that technique that I haven’t got time to look up the name of where you have 2 slightly different images of the same subject are stuck next to each other and using glasses to view them the spectator has a sense of three-dimensionality. This was fun.
I haven’t got time to go into any more details as need to leave in 10 minutes and have managed to write this whole blog in less than 30 which I think is quite impressive!! I will just briefly touch on how interesting it was to see this exhibition of photography which so clearly influenced major artistic developments at the turn of the 20th century. They had on display a bronze horse by Degas which was directly influenced by Muybridge’s horse photos. What with my highly Greenberg-ian art historical education and the total unwitting infiltration of the Shock of the New I am use to seeing how artists such as Manet, Degas, Braque, Delauny and Picasso were influenced by photographs like this and their articulation of a new world built on action, movement and speed so it was interesting to view the images by themselves, rather than in relation to other artists, However, I have to say exhibitions like this, as in the photography one I went to see at the British Library a few months ago, get confused about whether they are a retrospective of the photographer (artists as photographer?) or an examination of the development of photography as a scientific process and art form in general. What do you want to be???
Anyway enough is enough must fly!! See you next week boys and girls xxx
