'Love You Up' - Two Inch Punch

A brilliant response from Sandro Kopp...

Sandro Kopp, a figurative artist well known for his Skype portraiture, was one of my chosen artists for Theory's, Curate and Critique.
I emailed Kopp about using his images for the presentation, I also stated that I felt as though figurative work is less appreciated nowadays, but that his work has given me hope.
He replied, and not only did he say yes to my use of his images, he also said this:

"There is SO MUCH appreciation of figurative contemporary work nowadays. Don't let those suckers tell you anything else."

Thank you Sandro Kopp, for being 100% BOSS.

Check out his work here: it's frickin incredible.

Claire Bishop is a baddass, who can write a sweet article.

"In other words, relational art works seek to establish inter subjective encounters (be these liberal or potential) in which meaning is elaborated collectively rather then in the privatized space of individual consumption."

-Claire Bishop, Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics

I think this has a ton to do with what I've been thinking about recently in terms of blogging, and sharing of information. This is a research blog, to show what I'm reading, what I'm looking at, to back up my folders and research for Studio II. I post things that I read, watch, listen to, experience, but I also post things that I want to share with others, most of which are in my year group who may, or may not, be interested in what I have found while researching. 

Firstly, I made my blog public- not private so that only those I choose are allowed to see - and I did this because this act of making my blog private, reminded me of deliberate exclusion or withholding of collective information. I deliberately made it public so that those who wanted to share, take part in discussion or simply just read any articles I put up, can.

What am I but a speck in the blogisphere; a tiny, talking page with a follow number of 9. But this is not my first time in the blogging world; I made my first blog in mid-2009, my last year of High School. The two blogs, one on Blogspot and one on Tumblr, were purely aesthetic I think. I posted and re-posted photographs, drawings, music I liked from other blogs I'd trip over, from time to time. I enjoyed the collage of images most. If you press the archive button in Tumblr, all the images you've posted over the month and the previous months, mix between themselves, and I enjoyed the colour, the imagery, my interests all in one space.

But blogging for me has come a long way and the more I think about it, the more this blog has the potential to have been an ongoing work of mine since mid July, when we were told to start them.

Since a conversation with MJ last week, I've been thinking more about, and reading more about Relational Aesthetics (probably to Fiona's utter dismay). I came across Claire Bishop's text, Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, I'm currently half way through the text, but needed to get some of these ideas out before they pummeled into nowhere land.

You can find Bishop's text here

Ranciere and Sloterdijk at the University of Warwick - PODCAST

"...debating the aesthetic both as a way of understanding the modern word and as a problematic category within the world."

3:00pm, Tuesday 20th May, 2008

I listened to the podcast here, and it was interesting - and this may seem a little strange- to hear Jacque Ranciere's voice, for the first time. After reading so much of his work, especially The Ignorant Schoolmaster, I never really thought about what his voice ACTUALLY sounded like. He kinda sounds jacked up on some sort of energy drink, in a cool, French, kind of way.

He talks kinda like Robin Williams would, doing an impression of Ranciere. But seriously.

In terms of the podcast, as much as I love Ranciere, he's pretty hard to follow sometimes. I enjoyed the introductions by Professor of French Studies, Sean Hand and Professor of Law, Ralf Rogowski as they touched on major works by both Ranciere and Sloterdijk, and did them fair justice. I have yet to listen to the whole thing but I am intrigued to listen to Sloterdijk speak as I am less familiar with his work.

The Political Compass

An interesting test that, judging by your answers, shows you where on the scale you sit, in terms of both your economic and socio-political stance. The questions I found to be rather convoluded and really confrontational at times because of their loaded nature. I found it hard also, that there was no "unsure" or middle-of-the-road button; often a place I find myself in questionaires or tests of this nature. However, it's always fun seeing where you stand (I'm not sure why...).It's also an interesting perspective on where our society is, in 2012. These questions are clearly a responce to our social issues, our present government and our capitalist structure.



 This was my scoring on the test (below)...More liberal then Ghandi! hahaha.
A friend got a similar score, only far, far, far more liberal. It makes me wonder about the political mind of the youth in Auckland, especially those who I know at both Elam and AUT. It truely differs so much. I'm even more surprised at the lack of knowledge or care for politics and economics, in our own little country, and the world in general.

Speaking of which I give it up to Amiria from Mark, artist collective at Elam School of Fine Arts for finding this test.

Take the test here

"Given that words too often supersede handmade visuals—paintings, drawings, sculpture, and so on—how to make those visuals matter? That is, how to contemporize painting, say, or, more specifically, return it to the level of discussion it engendered fifty years ago, before our world went mad with beeps, and biomorphic forms and various color fields and portraiture and drips and concentric circles inspired conversation, too."

- Hilton Als

Text from Sandro Kopp's exhibition 'There You Are" at Lehmann Maupin, New York, 2012.
This entire text is beautiful and I will post it below. However, this excerpt struck me as it relates whole heartedly to conversations i've had recently about my over-arching ideas this year regarding the contemporary nature of painting in 2012.

In fact, here's the whole write up...

You see too little. No sooner do you tumble out of bed than your eyes search for some means of connection, words that describe yourself to yourself: Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr: You don’t know what you look like. You don’t know what shape you present to the world. You don’t know what your eyes say, since they never look up; like Narcissus you are always looking down at your reflection, but instead of water, it’s a Blackberry screen. You talk too much. No sooner do the words tumble out than they devolve into meaningless sound-symbols signifying the busy work of thinking, of being, of feeling, while doing very little of the above. You lack half-wit. You plug into your day like another appliance: a double pronged, bi-pedaling thing immune to sensation you cannot mitigate through a television screen, a computer screen, an iPad screen, mobile phones. You don’t know what your mouth looks like as it shapes the words that tell you about the world in which you assume you have a place because you share the same language—sort of. What about the language of the soul? Individuality? That which our individual bodies sing only to ourselves? What about all that Walt Whitman gave us when he wrote, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself,/ And what I assume you shall assume,/ For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” You can’t celebrate yourself because you don’t know yourself, trapped in that net of beeping words. 

Given that words too often supersede handmade visuals—paintings, drawings, sculpture, and so on—how to make those visuals matter? That is, how to contemporize painting, say, or, more specifically, return it to the level of discussion it engendered fifty years ago, before our world went mad with beeps, and biomorphic forms and various color fields and portraiture and drips and concentric circles inspired conversation, too. In recent years, the brilliant English artist, David Hockney, in addition to his work on canvas, has begun to use the iPhone as another canvas. Every day, via this Apple method, he sends images to twelve or so friends—still-lifes, landscapes, self-portraits, whatever he comes up with that day. By using an electronic tool for communication, instead of the transmission of more information, Hockney subverts standard use, and marries the artist's hand to what can't be avoided—our contemporary world—and what we misuse: apparatuses like the iPhone that allow us to spread more and more blather. 

In Sandro Kopp’s recent painting, “Mum,” a dark-haired woman sits in a room. She looks as if she’s lit from within. She has a long face, and she wears a headphone—the most modern of accessories. She’s looking down, and to the side of the visual field. But at what? She’s thin, and her body communicates that she is trying to communicate something, but what? In Sandro Kopp’s painting, “Viktor and Rolf,” two men sit against a white wall. The wall looks as if it’s lit from within. Both men are thin—one more than the other—and their silence is palpable. It is a silent painting, made electric through light, and brushwork: patches of lit heaviness alternating with dark shapes that communicate something about his subjects bodies, they’re being joined, but in what way? They, too, look a bit off center—which is say, it appears they are, and aren’t looking at the artist, all at once. In Sandro Kopp’s painting, “Maria,” we see a woman’s head. She seems to be lit from within. Brown hair frames a facial plane composed of lines made out of strong brushstrokes. Who is Maria? What accounts for the sensuality of her lips, the wry intelligence in her eyes? And why does she look as if she is and isn’t looking at the artist? In Sandro Kopp’s recent paintings, the sitter poses in a field of ether. The artist works in collaboration with his subjects, but at a remove: they pose in the terrible intimacy and distance that Skype affords them. Kopp can talk to his subjects, certainly, as they adjust their eyes to the image of the artist recording who they are, or thought they were, or who Kopp sees them as, but he can only touch you through paint, through his attention, and his various descriptions, on and off the canvas—seeing through modern technology, but transmogrified, somehow, through the artist’s eyes, which is where vision belongs. Like Hockney before him, Kopp’s work isn’t just about painting—that is, the image qua image—but about how to incorporate the artist’s subjectivity with a modern contrivance, thus not only making painting matter in a post-Impressionist world, but the better to show ourselves to ourselves in a framework we understand: that distant and close world where talk is cheap, but it doesn’t have to be, and paint communicates our inner silence, the only vocabulary worth knowing.

Text received from; http://www.sandro-kopp.com/41.html

Wellington Composer, Rhian Sheehan

Straight up, this is a little ridiculous.

 (Their family is nuts...seriously though they're all musically on crack.)

Here's some music for ya'll to study to. Get those Curate and Critique's done!

In first year at Elam I took NZ Music as a General Ed and it was a BRILLIANT paper.

Our musical history from rock n roll to pop, through to our contemporary composers-just to name a few- is really interesting!

Tracks like Nusquam (the second from the top), are a massive influence on my making. As a musician listening to instrumental music, with a narrative within the composition of the instruments is an incredible learning experience. As a theatre geek and film fanatic, music is the addition of another dimension. As an art maker, it's an inspiration source and a place where emotion is evoked from the subconscious. I enjoy the narrative within these pieces and the use of different instruments to create bodies.

Performance is something I have heavily studied this year and with that came the notion of using voice as a medium. I haven't worked it out fully but it's always been something in the back of my mind and I continue to read about performance, about music within performance, about voice and body within a contemporary art context.
At talk week, as I ended the performance with an acapella piece called 'Cheerleader' by the artist St. Vincent (Annie Clark), people from the other side of the studio and even outside came over to my performance space. I was so interested in this. How the voice carries and calls. What does it evoke in people that they gravitate towards a voice. Is it nostalgia? Is it curiosity?
Does the voice, a singing voice, have a sort of power, for lack of a better word.

I became interested in protest songs; the songs of men and women across the Middle East, which this year has been filled with protest and riot. Our own little courntry too, whose University protests I attended. Both very different but the use of voice, as a collective this time, is key.

Sheehan's music however uses little to no voice, but he's an incredible composer. The instruments sing for themselves.

Rashid Johnson makes 'Things to Put Things On'

Rashid Johnson's practice is based around domestics and the everyday, as well as ideas of Escapism. Incorporated into work surrounded by dialogue of afrofuturism and "afroscism", Johnson creates a work of, things to put things on. Tables, desks, shelves, etc.

SUPER cool work, and a super cool guy.

Andy had actually been talking to me about building shelves to put 'things' on.
Like a collectors exhibition.

Rammellzee

BATTLE STATION, 2011

I Know Girls (Body Love) - Mary Lambert

If there's a song you gotta listen to, it's this one.^
I say this because I appreciate what Lambert is talking about, obviously, being a girl etc.
But it's true, the morphing of the female in this world is strange and it links closely, I think, with technological growth and how we, as women, as young adults, as people, relate to ourselves. Both outside and inside the computer or our phones or whatever.

Listen to more below.
It's spoken word, but Lambert is also an incredible singer. Featuring in the song "Same Love", a few posts below. 

Mariele Neudecker

Mariele Neudecker talks about her work, 'Heaven the Sky'.

Awesome piece! They're like little fish tanks with water all the way to the top, with fiberglass, spray painted mountains. Watch what she does next though that takes it to the next level of coooool.

What she speaks about also, in terms of viewership and perception, and painting too!

'Bird in Hand' Ellen Gallagher

It strikes a chord because it reminds me of drawings I do. I feel like there's no substitute for the original of this, I want to see more but the pictures never do it justice.

This brings back the question of narrative, and how it can be done in [my]work... cos I think i've avoided it for a while.

picture from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gallagher-bird-in-hand-t12450

FORWARD

Have you read the YouTube comments lately
"Man that's gay"
Gets dropped on the daily
We've become so numb to what we're sayin'
Our culture founded from oppression
Yeah, we don't have acceptance for 'em
Call each other faggots
Behind the keys of a message board
A word routed in hate
Yet our genre still ignores it
Gay is synonymous with the lesser
It's the same hate that's caused wars from religion
Gender and skin color
Complexion of your pigment
The same fight that lead people to walk-outs and sit-ins
It's human rights for everybody
There is no difference

The Propaganda Project

The Propaganda Project is a student project blog dedicated to the issue of propaganda and understanding it.
Earlier in the year Maddi Atherfold and I spoke about doing a collaborative project for drawing. She had been spoken to about "silencing" as a topic or discussion in her work. We thought about "silencing" as a basis for a project and as we work very differently, we had different takes on the word. Maddi's was very physical, with her structures held together by placement of her objects and sometimes string or rubber bands. I thought more of imagery, and setteled in the idea of propaganda.The collab and the work quickly disintergrated as such, but the ideas have still been floating around my head.

Mark, the collective from Elam School of Fine Arts, posted 3 links today. All of them, as always, were really interesting. One of the links was The Propaganda Project.

On the blog, there was a page called 'Questions for Consideration', and they are just that.

1)      Where do you generally draw the line between persuasion and propaganda?

2)      Do you feel that your education used propagandistic techniques to create consensus (for example, in high school history textbooks?)  How so?

3)      Do you think propaganda can at times be used in positive ways?

4)      Is it necessary, to some degree, to keep people in the dark (specifically when it comes to policy decisions made by the government)?

5)      Does human psychology make us susceptible to propaganda, or is its use a byproduct of the society we live in?

6)      How much responsibility should the public take in educating themselves, and how responsible are the media and government for providing accurate information?

7)      What do you think would be the effects of having a well-informed, critically thinking public?

The last one has particularly stuck with me. I am currently reading 1984 by George Orwell and (without spoiling it) have gotten to the end of the book, which at a particular part, literally made me jump with fright. No joke. It's that messed up.

(But it's messed up in a really, real way. Which makes it entirely more scary then any horror film.)

^hahahahahaha best.

 

1984 is a novel, one could describe as Science Fiction. Written in the 1930's by George Orwell, the son of a gun predicted, as such, many things about the future. Communication via 'telescreens' being one of them. The story is set in Oceania-one of 3 sections of our earth- the other two being Eastasia and Eurasia. Oceania is always at war with either one or the other.

At Oceania's heart lies the Party, made up of four Ministries. 

The Ministry of Love

The Ministry of Truth

The Ministry of Peace

and the Ministry of Plenty.

And in complete and utter power of everything and everyone, is Big Brother, *cue light bulb* always watching, always listening.

Inside the Ministry of Truth, works a man by the named of Winston, who finds himself questioning every part of his society and the regime he's confined to.

What does Winston do 'bout it?

I DUNNO, READ THE BOOK.


Picture sourced from http://www.serwer.wssm.edu.pl/~jakub_s/cms/?page_id=66

Curate and Critique

'Truth Is Concrete' 21st-28th September 2012

by iconoclasistas

"Truth is concrete is a 24-hour, 7-day marathon camp: for 170 hours more than 200 artists, activists and theorists lecture, perform, play, produce, discuss and collect useful strategies and tactics in art and politics. A full grant program additionally invited 100 students and young professionals from all over the world. The marathon is a platform, a toolbox as well as a performative statement. It is a machine that runs non-stop – often too fast, sometimes too slow. All day, all night. It produces thought, argument and knowledge, but it also creates frustration and exhaustion." - truthisconcrete.org

Go to the website www.truthisconcrete.org

There is a conversation about art and political action that's really worth a read. It explains the project and who's involved, there's even a link to a continuous live streaming of the events on 21st of September till the 28th.

"On our travels during the last one and a half years – be it to Zuccotti or Tahrir Square... Tunis, Rio or Buenos Aires – everywhere artists were among the first to get involved, among the first to join the political and social movements. But how did art, how did artistic strategies and tactics play a role? At a time when art, theory and practice seem to be constantly lagging behind reality? When art is seen more and more as a mere leftist hobby rather than a foundation of humanity?" - truthisconcrete.org

good questions.

The Russian Pavilion at Venice Architecture Biennale 2012

Interactive and engaging, the space is activated when viewers use the tablets and scan the codes. This is probably one of the coolest things i've seen in a while!