on accidental installation #7

what a combination this piece is. the grey and red, hard and soft textures play together beautifully. Its like Jasper Johns having a fight with Robert Smithson, and Mimi Dennett steps in to break it up.
the scarf bleeds from the bluestone in ornamental design, folding in and around itself without compromising the architecture of the rock. it resembles a letter or character that doesn't exist. the weathered nature of the piece tells a story of loss and time. was it a treasured item? is it more treasured now because its lost?
our sentimentality over items like the scarf adds emotional weight to the piece. there is a story - one that has continued via me taking the photograph..   

on Rothko

Rothko spoke about the 'accuracy of silence'. gazing into one of his fuzzy doors to the transcendent you get it. they allow you to drift untied from the confines of civilisation, and he  makes apparent 'the void'. we are forced to dive in, swim about, and find something out about ourselves.
he hung them close to the floor because "that's the way they were painted". but this idea engages us more, particularly with the big ones, because we feel we can step into them. the door is open.

they expand and contract. breathing with us.



In a letter to Clyfford Still, someone he greatly admired, Rothko said, " Any picture that does not provide the environment in which the breath of life can be drawn does not interest me". Stills' abstractions influenced Rothko deeply.

the optical flutter and the shattering of artistic assumptions.

Rothko hated labels - denying abstraction and colour-field for emotion. he remained a punk - the story of the 4 Seasons commissions is fantastic. he couldn't stomach the food nor the idea of his pictures being in such a "pretentious" atmosphere - so he returned their money and kept the paintings. 11 years later in 1970, some of those pictures arrived at the Tate in London the same day he opened up his wrists with a razor and bled to death.

on accidental installation #6 - industrialism

 the two pieces on the left are random as art but adhere to process. in both cases the labour involved had clear objectives for the end of the day - to secure the site, make it safe, and prepare it for ongoing work. the materials used are site and task specific. there is a practicality here, and even though the installers were not thinking aesthetically, there is a regard for space, which is thinking of aesthetics anyway i guess. ultimately, they had other people in mind.





the tones work beautifully, and both look like they could be in a 'gallery'. i'd feel pretty happy if they were. there is a fine balance of object and texture, placement and light. its raw and untamed by knowledge, unfettered by art idioms and theory, and it works.
by photographing them and putting them here, do they become ART? were they already?

Anthony Caro - below right - takes reference from industrial design and deconstructs it. i think it lacks the freedom and innocence that makes the accidental pieces likeable. its cold and detached - almost the opposite to the non-artists work, whose semi-permanence lends itself to life and transitory place.

even when industrial work has a permanent place - as in the device above, there is a warmth and playfulness in its absolute utility. it is uncompromising because it has a specific purpose and aesthetically must be spot on. and it shows. look at it, its great.

on accidental installation #5 - portraiture?

the fumadore has dropped the packet on the footpath and judging by the condition and discolouration of it, appears to have been there for some time, its installed. its disgusting and thats why it works. people will notice it and avoid it, step around it, maybe even smell it. it will take someone with rubber gloves to remove it. or maybe a rainstorm will wash it away.

the stained contents are reminiscent of a smokers lung, and the brown protruding filters are not unlike a bad set of top row teeth. in that sense the piece is self-referential, maybe even a portrait.

'my life as an ashtray' would be a good title.

on Damien Hirst

thought i'd continue the Young British Artists thing going and talk of DH. i first saw a shark at 'Sensation' in 1997. he paid the australian shark hunter Vic Hislop $10,000 to kill the creature. Hirst continued to source his sharks from Hislop when he needed to replace the eroding one in 2006.

the pickled animal pieces - shark, zebra, sheep, cow, etc are a bit like old time exhibits from a circus, and thats what i like about them. there is an accidental reference point to freak shows, and 'see the amazing creature from the deep' type of stuff.

i'm pretty sure Hirst hasn't quoted this influence.

the only thing missing is the beautiful old hand painted signs. they'd look better...

otherwise they bore me. shock tactics/murder given quasi intellectual turns of phrase. i'd rather see a living specimen.

on Tracey Emin

i've never thought much of Tracey Emin. the work has always maintained a kind of forced rawness, leaving it a little vacuous and lacking in intent. the Young British Artists tag was good timing for her, and i can appreciate that she has forged a career making the art she does.


her 2011 appointment at the Royal Academy as Professor of Drawing - only the 2nd woman since the RA founded in 1768! - is a bit of a strange one - she can't draw. her drawings get raved about - the passion! stripped bare!.... but i don't buy it.























The images above and right are by Egon Schiele. he has influenced a number of contemporary artists, including Emin. But where Emin 'scribbles' sexuality, he draws it. but don't get wrong, i know the art barricades are down and anything goes....


i just don't see the substance in Emins work, she so desperately wants there to be meat that there ends up being very little, and that sort of search has its finality in self consciousness and an awkwardness for the sake of being awkward. She has said,"There are some days when i can draw and some days when i can't draw". The drawing of the Queen, bottom, was what sort of day?

on Lowbrow and Highbrow

the terms - 'Lowbrow', and 'Highbrow' - have quite strange beginnings. they come from the 19th Century science of Phrenology - how the shape of ones skull dictated levels of intelligence. it was cut and dry - a 'high' forehead meant you were smart, a 'low' forehead meant you were stupid.
it set up forms of cultural divide in all sorts of ways - and spawned pseudo-superiority complexes that at worst would manifest in acts of genocide throughout the 20th Century.

 In 'ART', the terms are more blurred now than they have been. but when 'Lowbrow Art' emerged in the 1960s, some of the art world reacted like it was the 1860s and metaphysically reached for their Phrenology texts.
Lowbrow took the influence of the street and emerged out of posters and comics, cartoons and the drug scene.
Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, Gilbert Shelton and Robert Crumb are a few names who were there at the beginning of modern lowbrow. Peter Max got lucky when General Electric decided to use his stuff on clocks.
Lowbrow has come a long way since then. A lot of imagery fits into it, so much so that its hardly a term at all anymore. Its swallowed up via mass information and general acceptance.
It is mostly 'non-intellectual' in that it normally doesn't require too much chin stroking or wrinkled brow discourse. it is immediate and generally does not pretend to be otherwise. thats why i like it, its empty and fun.