Sarah Lucas SITUATION @ Whitechapel

To read this on the PI MEDIA website click here

Whitechapel are currently holding Lucas’ first solo exhibition, which may come as a surprise to those who know their modern art – Sarah Lucas was a championing figure in the YBA’s, with Damien Hirst calling her the ‘best’ of them all. So where has she been? From the look of the exhibition, SITUATION, she’s been busy making some pretty explicit looking fruit and veg.

Anyone that knows Lucas’ art is aware of the explicit, too the point, nature of her work, whether this be a ham wearing some knickers and leaking its juices into a stained old mattress, or even the famous table with 2 lemons and a kebab on. Lucas’ ability to turn food and general inanimate objects into something sexual is something of a talent, and it does have to be said that the first room of the exhibition is extremely erotically charged. The whole back wall is wallpapered the tips of penises, very uncomfortable for those who aren’t sexually comfortable about giant penises staring out at them.

Regardless of the content we all knew would be in abundance, the exhibition itself is just quite awkward. It’s a tangled mess of objects that don’t really interlink very well, I found myself having to do 2 laps of the room to take in the majority of the art works whilst snaking in and out of tables, mattresses, chairs, toilet bowls and plinths, which made the whole exhibition a bit too much to take in at first. The messy-ness of the room stressed me out a bit, however the upstairs layout is much easier and calmer.

Absolute Beach Man Rubble is the name of her second exhibition room upstairs and the first thing I notice about the exhibition was the neutral, tamer colouring. Whilst SITUATION gave off a general fleshy pink vibe, the second room was more like beach, with space to move around and enjoy the golden, distorted Henry Moore-esque sculptures. Her style seemed to have developed into less of an explosive, random expression of sexuality to a move civilised, tamer reflection on society – big framed pictures of herself made from cigarette butts are hung from the walls, and her new sculptures reflect the light in a way that make it hard to look away. But when you do look away you’ll see a giant penis crushing a car. So maybe she hasn’t changed that much.

The thing with Sarah Lucas is she takes things that we see every day and turns them into something new, something erotically charged, and we’re not sure how to take it. Who would have known placing a couple of melons and oranges, a cucumber and a bucket would resonate sexually with me. Maybe she’s letting us know how dirty minded we all are.  

Au Naturel, 1994, Copyright the Sarah Lucas, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ

UNITITLED : A Short Exploration of Namelessness

Where would we be without names? How would we refer to places or people or objects? Life would be a lot harder and disconnected if we didn’t have names, however this is a reoccurring trend within the art world. Modern and contemporary art is littered with ‘Untitled’s, some artists even have Untitled 2, 4, 46 in their collections. This disconnection to their paintings is an unsettling show of the mass productivity of art, leading us to question whether or not art still carries the same passion and meaning as before.

When my parents named me, they put a lot of thought into it. Baby books where poured over, relative names were debated, and when they finally chose my name is seemed right. My mum had just spent 9 months making me and it seemed right that she gave me a name she loved. If this was not the case however, and my parents didn’t give me a name, they’d surely at least refer to me through some sort of characteristic – girl? Baby? Noisy? When you think of artists, you have a stereotypical image of someone who is undeniably passionate about their art work, puts their life and soul into everything they create, yet how can they call their work…nothing. Untitled. Every time I see an ‘Untitled’ in a gallery my heart sinks. Poor painting.

For artists now there are a few problems that bring around the need for a nameless artwork. The first of these problems is the mass production of artworks by famous artists, so much so that the paintings are repetitive and almost identical to one another. Think Mark Rothko, unquestionably a very talented artist who had his own distinct style, and since his fame everyone wanted a Rothko hanging in their house. But there are only so many Rothko’s in circulation, and when people are paying an average of $41,000 for a piece of the action, Untitled seems to be the fall back for art that has an infinite amount of brothers and sisters and is being produced to demand. The art market has reached an ever increasing peak, with fine art sales reaching $7 billion in 2012, so its unsurprising that artists would like to create as much art pieces as they can. Whilst his art is worth lots of money, we can’t purely pin point the reason for his untitled works on this. Rothko’s extensive use of vibrant colours were symbolic of religious and political experiences and through the colour he wanted the viewers themselves to feel emotions and take away their own experiences without being told what to feel. Rothko used his own opinions and emotions as his inspiration for colour, but left us to feel something of our own.

Another problem facing new art’s possibility of a name is, widely speaking, the sheer randomness of what we today can count as art. You only have to stumble into the minimalist section of the Tate Modern to come face to face with a room full of ambiguously unnamed art works. Robert Morris, Larry Bell and Donald Judd (among many others) give their work the ever so uncreative name of ‘Untitled’ – where has modern creativity gone? These artists are creating piece of art that sit in world class galleries like the Tate and the MoMa but they are so unidentifiable by name, making the viewer question if these objects had any inspiration behind them, or what the ‘meaning’ of art actually is. There are so many people in this world who look at art and say ‘that’s not art’, and for people like this a name would help them identify with a piece of art and be able to take away an intended message. Minimalism however has always had a trend of naming (or not naming) works Untitled. The lack of defining word given to the art work is to open up the experience of viewing this work to the public and let them understand how they feel best. By giving a piece of art a name in reference to a political, religious or social group or movement, the artists closes the piece of art off to other members of society.

Whilst a name of a painting offers a kind of completion to a piece of work and is indisputably a powerful tool of influence on the viewer, nameless work opens itself up to the audience and makes art broader and accessible to people of all races, religions and languages.

The Strength and Vulnerability Bunker

The Southbank Centre is currently holding the annual Koestler Trust exhibition ‘The Strength and Vulnerability Bunker’, showing art by offenders, secure patients and detainees, giving an insight into the personal feelings, regrets and hopes of people in secure settings. The Koestler Trust was set up in 1962 by Arthur Koestler, who was jailed three times for political reasons – the trust was created to encourage prisoners to occupy their mind whilst building something positive out of their situation. Re-offending affects us all, and the trust was set up as a way to show offenders that they have something special and can improve their lives from it.

A stereotypical view of the art world would be one of leisure – artists creating art, wealthy people buying and displaying art, the public viewing art in galleries, the study of art history or fine art – all very pleasant and leisurely appreciations of art. However, since the mid 20^th century art has been cultivated to be used as a therapy for those with mental health issues or behavioural problems, or a way to build something positive out of jail life, and this therapy has proven to be incredibly useful when lowering depression and anxiety in the mentally ill, as well as helping us understand offenders in jails. A lot of speculation as to the effectiveness of art therapy is understandable – issues aren’t spoken about or built on in the traditional sense, yet it is used as a tool to express emotions with more accuracy than speaking can provide for certain people.

The exhibition space and work shown were chosen and curated by Speech Debelle, and the set up of the space itself is very impressive – the area is split into three different sections, the bright yellow and frenetic ‘Strength’ area which leads into the dimmer and more ominous ‘Vulnerability’ section, which then leads into the beige coloured, calmer part to represent the calm after the storm. The Strength section shows works of passion and hardship, some of them are uncomfortable to see and hold a lot of emotion, one video in particular from a mental health patient called ‘Tears on my Pillow’ includes a lot of loud wailing that echos throught the exhibition hall, which is almost disturbing, yet adds to the general feel of the bunker.

Emotions run high in the art work, and they are a startling insight into the lives and feelings of the people who have produced them, and personally I felt a great amount of sympathy for them, despite the fact that a lot of these people were offenders and had been jailed for a reason. Ironically, the theme for many of the art works is ‘forgiveness’, and this theme resulted in probably some of the most moving pictures and paintings of families and acceptance – the especially poignant ones are a set of 4 illustrations with titles like ‘How did we fail as parents?’ and ‘Daddy is working away again’, showing that these prisoners are aware of how they are viewed and that they need to address these issues.

Whilst the strength part of the exhibition showed powerful images and work, the vulnerability area moved into deeper and sadder issues of religion, hopelessness and isolation; religion seemed to be a strong theme touched on by a few of the works, a particularly strong one of a man kneeling in front of the first page of a bible whilst the moonlight creates crucifixes on the floor from the window frame. Isolation was prominent too, with paintings of people looking through windows or bars and over fences, which encourages the fact that art is necessary in these environments as a link to the outside world and a stimulating pass time from counting the minutes.

One thing in particular that I noticed in this exhibition is that whilst some of the art is clearly therapeutic, as their art works were basic but emotive, there was also a lot of talent behind others. My favourite piece was a small sculpture that had been made from bars of soap - it is exquisitely made yet addresses that in some prisons there is a lack of resources to allow offenders to cultivate art therapy. There are pieces of art made from such a wide variation of materials including blue bin bags, bread and PVA glue, chicken bones and bottle tops. However, we have to remember that physical art isn’t the only art available as a therapy, and the written word can be just as powerful. Poetry and written work were amongst the 7,300 entries that were submitted to the competition this year, and the way these have been incorporated in the exhibition is clever and striking – poems are painted on walls, looking almost reminiscent of a jail cell wall, or extracts of poems and stories are hung from ceilings. These written words are equally demonstrative of the emotions of prisoners and its clear that writing can be a release for people who find it hard to verbally open up to therapists.

The problem people may have with this exhibition is the haphazardness of the art works – some seem professionally done, some seem amateur, some are sculptures, videos, sounds, poems, paintings. It’s hard to take in so much at once, especially when there is no flowing theme between them, but if you take your time and appreciate the message and emotions behind each one there is definitely something you can take away from the exhibition. To me, this exhibition is a great show of what art therapy can produce, and the affects it can have on people who need it – by the end of the exhibition I felt like I had a deeper knowledge of emotions that I hadn’t even felt before, and I think this will resonate with me for a long time.

‘The Strength and Vulnerability Bunker’ showing until 1 December 2013 at Soutbank Centre

New Loves..

I have fallen in love with a blog that is probably already really well known but i just feel like I need to tell people just how much I love it.

iGNANT is the most beautiful blog I have ever seen, I could just easily sit for hours and look at all the amazing and genuinely interesting things they put up.

The fact that it's based in my favourite city Berlin makes it even better, i really really want to go back there just to explore all of the galleries.

EVERYONE needs to look at this blog

TROPFEST

Until I came to Australia I didn't know what Tropfest was and after going, I feel it is my duty to educate the rest of the world. Tropfest is a short film festival that has been running for 22 years. Its probably the most popular and succesful short film festival in the world. I work in the Domain in Sydney which is where it's held, so me and two friends went (its free!)

You dont realise how much you can fit in a seven minute film! These films were amazing, some of them were so sad, like 'Time', the story of a boy who thought he could time travel and he found a rock from 'the future' and all the other boys bullied him, until his mum drove into a lake and he used the said rock to free his mum from the sinking car. EMOTIONAL STUFF. You dont even realise how emotionally attatched you can get to someone in 7 minutes.

Some films were heartwarming, like 'We've all been there', which actually turned out the be the winner.

Tropfest is going to New York soon! Globalising!

Below is a picture of me thoroughly enjoying Tropfest as well as the winning video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpkjGqYJxos&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia

There is always going to be that fine line in between amazing and weird when it comes to contemporary art and thats exactly what i found at MoCA. The building itself is beautiful, with a direct view of sydney opera house and the harbour bridge, and the outside exudes art, from giant flashing arrows to words scrawled on the pavement. It is a gargantuan gallery, with walls made of thick cement and nothing else to give it a minimal feel.

As you make your way through the gallery the work skips between odd to beautiful - a wall full off pencil drawings of faces is amazing, i loved how the drawings were slightly off centre. However just before you get to these drawings you walk past of model version of spider man facing a hairy face that is morphing out the wall (see pictured below with james, rightfully looking bemused). Whos to say that isn't art though? Personally i wouldn't have it in my living room but that doesnt mean its not artistic.

One of the most frustrating things about contemporary art is that its hard to see any message. When it comes to older art, take the Renaissance, the messages are almost always clear, but nowadays I feel like curators are desperately needed as a gateway between the artist and the viewer as a sort of translator. As much as i LOVE looking at a room full of objects painted yellow, I want to know exactly what I'm looking at.

The museum was interesting to say the least, and after going it's made me associate CONTEMPORARY with COLOURFUL, which i think is understandable given the pictures below!

Oh, the photos were taken by my wonderfully talentes friend James, who runs the blog The Final Cut. Go!

Bacon In Australia

Oh my gosh it's been SO long since I've last blogged, not having a secure internet connection and constantly searching for a job/work experience whilst also tanning really takes up a lot of time. I have been keeping up to date though, last week I went to see the Francis Bacon exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. 

RIGHT so, anyone who knows me knows that Francis Bacon is my all time fave person in the world, he is the messiah of the art world, I love everything about him and everything he ever does. When I first discovered I liked art in year 10 and I had to research a new artist, I had no idea what to do or any artist that wasn't Picasso, so I vividly remember looking through an ELLE magazine and finding a piece of Francis Bacon and literally falling in love. I thought I'd like discovered him (he's actually been dead for years), and when I did my project on him I thought 'God, my art teacher is going to be like, 'who is this guy?''. Turns out everyone already knew who he was, but from then on wards I've always had a little art crush. 

I was on the plane to Sydney, reading the in flight magazine and I saw that Francis Bacon had an exhibition going on and I almost died. After 5 weeks of being here I finally go and see it and it met all my expectations. And more. 

The curator insights next to the paintings were so amazing, they made me look at his work in such a different way. His Pope series has reoccurring themes, like the boxed in pope who appears to be screaming, but the open mouth may show suffocating instead, as they're trapped behind the curtain/box and it feels claustrophobic instead of terrifying like many people believe. 

Bacon clearly has a fascination with the human body, and the exhibition really shows this. His paintings of Heads are animalistic and distorted, they are almost identical to the Study of a Baboon Head. He studied the human body in great depth, with Michelangelo and Muybridge being big influences. The definition of the bodies he paints, and the muscles, is obviously reminiscent of Michelangelo, and the cabinet of 'influential material' found in his studio is very interesting into seeing how Bacon's mind worked. 

'Picasso is the reason why I paint. He is the father figure, who gave me the wish to paint.' - Picasso is a great influence on Bacon. The pieces where I can see this influence the most are the brightly colored large paintings with dissolving pink bodies in the middle of them, best seen in Studies of a Human Body (1970), where the  lilac backgrounds contrast with the mess of flesh in the middle. These paintings, to me, are beautiful. 

It's easy to understand why Bacon has been described as a 'violent' artist - his thickly applied, raw painting technique, dark colours and ambiguous images are often seen as dark, however very little of his paintings actually have violent imagery in them. When knowing the context of Bacon's life (abused as a teenager, being gay and unaccepted, involvement with petty criminals, the death of two of his lovers on the eve of his art shows) it's not difficult to see why the content of Bacon's art may be of a disturbed nature. 

It was actually amazing getting to see my favourite artists work. I've been waiting 5 years to see all his work in one place, and finally it's happened. I would literally recommend it to anyone