Agnes Denes makes her mark at Firstsite

The clean contemporary space of Firstsite in Colchester was a nice breathing space between the excesses of Christmas and the New Year with its hopeful resolutions and quickly broken promises. On show were the works of Agnes Denes http://www.firstsite.uk.net/page/agnes-denes, her drawings mathematical and meticulous recalling the works of Leonardo da Vinci, beautiful, repetitious and profound. The exhibition also showed the photographic records of some of her environmental projects, in particular the planting of a field of Golden Wheat in Lower Manhattan in 1982. Amongst these philosophically challenging exhibits there was an unexpected flash of humour, a small sequence of body prints; smudgy, uncontrolled and tactile their presence in the exhibition added a corporeal earthiness. I really like that, the unexpected adding its edgy touch.

Baubles

Mad and chilly at The Freud Museum.

A nippy wind followed my friend and I,still in high spirits after our lunch alfresco ( in December!!) and a visit to the delectable Margaret Howell shop, to The Freud Museum for their latest exhibition. http://freud.org.uk/

Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors is based on a book by Lisa Appignanesi which charts the treatment of women with mental health problems from 1800 to now. The exhibition includes work by Louise Bourgeois, Sarah Lucas, Helen Chadwick and Alice Anderson. Their works cannily placed amongst Freud’s possessions echoing sympathetically with the disturbing stories of so many women. The straight jackets and leather mitts, buckles and shackles, the wrapping copper wires, the rhythmic rocking and droning voices, the distorted body drawings.

As we slipped away to the bright Christmas cheer of Hampstead I was unable to shake off my chilly thoughts. It seems that there is barely a dividing line between sanity and insanity, a line so shakily drawn and redrawn over time, a line so easily crossed even in my own secret history.

aghast

Poor ‘bag’ was left on the shelf at the charity auction in Cambridge and didn’t even make the reserve price. But like Cinderella…and with Christmas just a short time away I can surely be excused for drawing on this analogy, she was swept off her feet and purchased later. She may have sulked in the corner for a little while sad and humiliated, her ego bruised but she will now bring a little magic as a Christmas gift!

Now…her ego bruised…or mine? The friend who bought the piece commented about my choice to go in the opposite direction of the accepted norm. Of course I know this but it struck me again that as this is a choice I need to stop whimpering ,feeling sorry for myself and face the truth with a bit more courage.



dry the tears

...doggedly on.

Another rejection, another week in which I must endeavour to pick up the pieces and cover the wound. An outcast! I must give up this battle for inclusion and quieten to push doggedly on.

head group

The elephant's herculean task.

blind

Teaming with rain as I emerged from Lancaster Gate tube and a murky walk through the park to reach the new Serpentine Sackler Gallery and Zaha Hadid’s beautifully crafted café. The smooth flowing lines a stimulating contrast to the rough, hand marked grey clay which makes up the bulk of Adrian Villar Rojas’s exhibition ‘Today We Reboot the Planet’.

http://serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/adri%C3%A1n-villar-rojas-today-we-reboot-planet

The straining exertion of the elephant at the opening of the show, its exhaustion palpable as it pushes against the interior wall of the gallery is partially explained as the visitor is guided into the ‘inner sanctuary’ behind. Here lies a ‘laboratory’ of stuff, much of it made of clay and some alive with vegetation, detritus of every kind, row by row, shelf by shelf. Bones, birds, animals, vegetables, crockery and vessels all jumbled together. The elephant is straining to keep this at bay, to hold back the tide? Then in the next vast room a cathedral of emptiness, silent and still with soft light filtering through two stained glass windows high above!

What an amazing feat of imagination and vision by this artist! Once again using the mundane, the ordinary, and the overlooked we are asked to think and question and pause ...to take a longer look.

Sadly this exhibition finishes today, I am sorry if you missed it but at least the elephant can now take a break from her herculean task.

First step.

A new studio space, clean(ish), white and uncluttered. A place to sit and think, a ‘room of my own’…away from…and a slow move towards…

in place

 

Old bag.

 

The 12” square canvas has sat menacingly under the table for the last three months, with time ticking inexorably by. A cool white blank. With some trepidation, as there is no going back, the canvas is stripped from the stretcher, for it is no good I cannot face it as it is. Why this trepidation, this fear of failure? After all it is not a matter of life and death. As the hard edged voice of a teacher from long ago drips disappointment and disapproval in my ear the sound of ripping brings immense satisfaction…it is done! Now there is only one way to go and that is forward as something must be done for the charity auction ‘Magic of the Ordinary’ and the deadline is now! http://whitehousearts.co.uk/

There is of course the humiliating prospect that the work will go unsold, my rather odd little work not attaining the status of ‘magic’, for nothing could be quite as ordinary and mundane as a bag, especially an old bag!!

 

bag

 

 

Give it a stir!

 A quick trip up to London yesterday found me winding my way through the throngs of the Southbank to see the Ana Mendieta exhibition Traces at The Hayward Gallery London. This comprehensive show of Mendieta’s work includes film, documentary photographs, drawings and sculptures. Her early works are fascinating, experimental, brave and varied using her own body to explore the boundaries between absence and presence, a common thread of many of the women artists that I admire.

 Sadly she fell out of a New York apartment window when only 37 years old…another early death. By this time she had begun to gain some recognition for her work developing her Siluetos, imprints of her body in nature. The show leaves one feeling that for a short time before her death her work had got rather stuck in a groove. Perhaps the exhibition gives too much space to not much, not quite enough culling and cutting which is a shame. Had she lived would she have succumbed to the wiles and charms of success or pushed her work to break further boundaries? We will never know of course but at least we have the privilege of her legacy.

As my intervention at the local museum draws to a close I am pleased (after some initial reeling from the punches) that it has been causing some controversy. Ruffling feathers and stirring up some strong(ish) feelings from the dusty depths, my wrapped cups and saucers apparently causing offense! I amuse myself by wondering what they would have thought of one of Mendieta’s Siluetos hanging in ‘their’ window!

 

absent or present?

 

 

 

 

Mirror mirror on the wall Arken Copenhagen.

Another of the wonderful Galleries that I visited in Copenhagen was Arken.

One of their exhibition spaces presented a selection of works about gender, questioning and challenging what shapes our attitudes to male/female and the stereotypical views that can and do entrap us.

 http://www.arken.dk/content/us/art/exhibitions/love_me_gender

Mona Hatoum’s ‘Sous tension’ is an installation of sieves, molies, colanders and graters intermittently lit and trailing wires ominously buzzing. Set in a darkened recess it particularly caught my attention. The text suggested that the kitchen with all its memories of cosiness and warmth was also place of disaster and threat. Gathered up with that thought was also the idea that the role of the woman, safely in the home, may not always be one of comfort…mmm…something ominous prickling beneath the surface…things are not quite what they seem…’mirror mirror on the wall’.

Yet again such a simple, mundane group of objects but communicating so much!

 

who is the fairest of them all?

 

A surprise in Copenhagen!

I have been in Copenhagen for the last week, a city of waterways, bicycles, cobbled streets and of course the delicious Danish pastry!!! Amongst the many highlights was a trip north of the city to ‘Louisiana’ http://www.louisiana.dk/dk a modern art museum in its own rural landscape overlooking the Oresund.

Apart from special exhibitions they have their own collection of artworks and it was odd to encounter here, of all unexpected places some of the works of photographer Francesca Woodman. I had only previously seen her work in books and the first thing that struck me was the smallness of the photos each set in a contrastingly large mount. Using her body as the main subject of her work she creates disturbing interior scenes. Her figure is frequently merged with and overwhelmed by the background. There is an odd uneasy contradiction between her concealment (a sort of self-effacement) and the apparent violence and ‘look at me’ tone of the image. This was underlined by the way the photo was framed, dominated by the large mount, pulling you in to peer closely and then be caught in her troubling world.

Sadly Woodman died when she was only 22 years old, what would she have gone on to produce in her later years, I can only surmise but am grateful for the haunting images that I encountered and inspired by her rawness.

 

 

cut 6

 

Autumn Clear Out

^{It feels like the time of year for clearing out and putting away. Stepping aside from both the uncompleted and the finished to allow space for the new….albeit that this ‘new ‘may lay dormant and inchoate for a little while yet. It certainly is tempting to feel satisfied when looking at a completed project but self-congratulation is a dangerous place to stay for longer than a moment. The only way to move forward is to undermine and question, to look with a critical eye and to start to build again from the rubble…wrap and unwrap and unwrap and wrap…}



cup and saucer

 

cup and saucer

 

An untreasured collection.

^{A day trip to London starting off at the quietly delightful Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green did much to restore my faith in the explorative and expansive power of art. It has been a bit of a discouraging time with my intervention at Woodbridge Museum. The narrow mindedness of a small but vocal number of the Woodbridge population simply refusing to be open to something different disturbing the dust. In contrast the exhibition ‘Treasured Collections’ was in pride of place in the Museum foyer recognising the value of collaboration with various artists. The exhibition paid homage to the collector in many of us bringing new ideas and new ways of looking at some of these collected objects through the introduction of new ‘treasures’ alongside the old.}

^{As I passed my wrapped mower ‘Cut’ left outside to map the changes wrought by time and weather I can only hope that some will have paused to take a second look and a moment to wonder.}

 

'Cut' changed by time and weather.

'Cut' changed by time and weather. Detail.

^{I am excited about seeing our ‘intervention’ come to life in the window of the Museum tomorrow evening. A perfect stage for our ‘theatre of the absurd’. And as I read about some of Samuel Beckett’s works being staged in London and Edinburgh, his ‘stains upon silence’ I hope that our small ‘intervention’ will cause some to pause and reflect on the vanity of life... a small scratch in the shiny surface of Woodbridge.}

drain

 

A nasty case of nostalgia.

^{August 4th}

^{Preparations continue for the installation of my work at Woodbridge Museum early next week. A frenzy of activity and decision making, dialogue and discussion with curator Helen.}

 

^{The late evening walks beside the River Deben, soothing and repetitious, evoke a series of overlapping memories. The rescuing from the path of a stranded caterpillar or an upside down beetle, the spotting of a hedgehog track in the deep undergrowth, the late mews of the gulls. A concertina of years.}

 

^{OH DEAR, DEAR!!!! a very nasty case of sentimental nostalgia which must be excised soon before the poison spreads.}

caught (jarred)

Bags of treats.

^{In my preparations for the small ‘intervention’ at Woodbridge Museum I have been busy stitching and mending as well as the same old same old wrapping and tying. It is partly I realise a way to bind up and repair. A symbolic act of healing and comfort. Add the memory of a shiny wrapped sweet offered from the depths of a Grandmother’s handbag and suddenly all is well…a plaster for the wound.}

 

 

Bag of treats


 



Bags of treats.

One spark sets off the forest fire.

^{Out of the ordinary the extra ordinary, a different way of looking at the familiar, the mundane and the commonplace. Just a little alteration to catch the eye and one story sets off another.}

Who was Jean Stewart?

^{A visit to the sweet local museum set me thinking about history, myth and memory. I heard a talk by Christian Boltanski  about how few of us are remembered once two generations have passed away. We might have memories of our Grandparents but few will remember their Great Grandparents. What struck me as I peered at the exhibits with their explanatory labels was how fragmentation challenges history and memory. What do those fragments really tell us set alongside each other, creating their own little dialogues? I rather like the possibility of the telling of a different story. A co-mingling of fact and fiction, the tales of the in-between spaces.}

Who was Jean Stewart?

Unpicked

 

unpicked

 

 

^Deleted

^Labelled

^Modified

^Perished

^Stuffed

^Seen/Unseen

^{Visible/Invisible}

^{Something/Nothing}

 



Dropping all the plates.

^{The works of Dieter Roth currently on show at Camden Arts Centre until mid July are a collection of personal diaries, installations, videos, drawings and assemblages. His works are full of energy and repetition and are described as showing the 'indivisibility between Art and Life.' There was indeed a lot of trivia and detritus,the scraps and parings of existence and the clutter of living on show.}

^{http://www.camdenartscentre.org/}

^{Although I found the exhibition difficult to warm to knowing very little about his life and not having come across his work before it did resonate with me this week as unlike Dieter who made his life a work of art ( maybe this is a man's world) I failed to keep all the plates spinning and simply lost my way.}

check-up (attend, inspect, watch)

A poke in the eye at SNAP Aldeburgh!

^{A winding evening drive to see the SNAP exhibition at Snape on Friday and to the discussion about the art works between the art critic Jonathan Watts and three of the artists involved. http://www.snapaldeburgh.co.uk/}

^{This is Britten's centenary year and the selected SNAP artists were asked to make works that were ' related to or inspired by Britten's legacy'. What struck me most, borne out later by the discussion, was the impenetrability of many of the artworks particularly in relation to the spaces and sense of place which is so uniquely Snape. Although impenetrability isn't such a great mis-demeanour, arrogance is and a little more insight into the work would have been helpful and given those visiting a kindly helping hand. In comparison to The Freud Museum,London where the work was placed so intuitively, so lightly and genially it made the artists in SNAP seem ungenerous and rather mean. Sadly in the discussion when challenged on this point by a member of the audience the artists behaved with total lack of grace and good manners becoming defensive and rude. Such a pity as their lack of humour made me want to run for cover and not go back for a second, slightly better informed look.}

pharming

Dispelling stuffiness at the Freud Museum.

^{Whoever decided to introduce to the Freud Museum, London small exhibitions of contemporary art must have known well the incredible effect that these works would have. The Museum with its thick velvet curtains, heavy odour of old books and dust collecting artefacts is the perfect backdrop for the current exhibition of the work of Damian Ortega http://freud.org.uk/exhibitions/ His fascinating works,rather oddly connected to each other, set up little dialogues with all the bits and pieces which make up the Freud house. The apparent randomness of Ortega's works, both their beauty and their strangeness begin to dispel the stuffiness and make one look afresh at some of these more familiar things. For that reason alone it is well worth the trek!}

freud

Lily

^{In connection with my work a friend handed me a copy of 'Granta The magazine of New Writing' from Winter 2004. This edition was all called Mothers. In it I found a short story by Ian McEwan which tells the tale of the narrator's mother now frail and senile. As he visits her in her nursing home he recalls his early memories of her as a young woman, then in her prime as a swift and graceful swimmer. Perhaps it is her name, Lily that has led me down memory lane this week with both sad and amusing recollections of my own Grandmother who shared her name. Or maybe it is making work from clothing that has brought on this little fit of nostalgia!}

Lily

Two left feet!

^{My daughter doing some research at Felixstowe Docks discovered that the people unloading the containers at the port have no idea as to what is inside them, this is for security reasons one assumes! They also told her that if for example there is a shipment of shoes, one container will contain the right foot and another the left! These absurd little facts feed into the subconscious and then reappear as uneasy oddities, subversions of the truth.}

^{I wonder how many people are walking around with two left shoes! Is this I wonder what might happen to this little pair?}

 

pumps
installation/drawing

Maybe I should put them up for auction on ebay!

Disturbed by Alice Munro.

^{Over the past couple of weeks I have been reading a collection of short stories by Alice Munro. She is the mistress of the understatement. Each story seems to carry you benignly along, drawing you in to the often unremarkable world of her characters, their ordinary lives a parallel to our own. Then caught in the text, without warning and unheralded she slips in a shock, and because you have been so beguiled by her writing, the softness ( I cannot think of another way to describe it) of it you pass over this moment with ease until seconds later it registers....WHAT!... and in disbelief you have to go back and read the text again, and again!}

^{It is this I suppose that I am still looking for in my work; that moment of easy familiarity... undone.}

ward
constructed drawing detail

Grassy breathing spaces.

^{The variety of grasses growing along the bank by the river have caught my attention this week. They are the most subtle of colours, a barely there of colour , quiet, slight, unobtrusive. Then looking up some of their names: Velvet Bent, Orange Foxtail,Crested Hair, Green Bristle, Cats-tail, Water Horsetail these seemed to me to perfectly catch their essence, a precise pairing up of the grass with its name, no fuss, no frills!}

^{As usual I am full of doubts about my work, paring it back to such a state of simplicity it seems to teeter precariously on the edge of becoming nothing. Yet it is this concision that I find so appealing. So shaking and quivering, I guess this is how it must continue to be, I take a lesson from the grasses...}

breathing spaces
constructed drawing

breathing spaces detail

nurses...

^{Stuff, push,squash...I wish I had been brave enough to throw away more...a black bin liner full and tied tight at the throat. Dumped..lid down and dark.}

^{It is the only way to make room for more, a necessary hitting rock bottom in order to start coming back up to the top. Frailty out of which comes strength... at least that is the plan!}

nurses
installation
constructed drawing

..a spoon full of sugar...

^{An exhibition of the work of , until recently, little known artist Saloua Raouda Choucair at Tate Modern, raised some interesting questions this week. http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/saloua-raouda-choucair}

^{It is a small exhibition by Tate standards showing a range of Choucairs paintings, sculptures and macquettes. The paintings, mostly abstract with titles such as 'Composition in Yellow' and 'Visual Meter' used shapes and colours that worked in subtle harmony, really quite lovely.}

^{Perhaps working at the same time as the great experimental giants of the 20th century Choucair also felt the need to push beyond the boundaries of paint and so began making sculptures in the 1950's. These were often modular in structure, echoing her paintings, using wood, stone, metal and plastic. Rather disappointingly most of these simply didn't work. They felt contrived, forced, lacking in depth.}

^{How sad that the visceral essence which seems to me to be so vital in making art had been so lost in translation.}

^{And for me a lesson in persistence, finding ways to coax myself on...a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down...}

sweet detail
constructed drawing 

snip, snip at the hairdresser...

^{Snip snip snip,a hair cut as 'exhale' is clipped and trimmed and turned inside out...a bit of harsh treatment... if the medicine doesn’t taste bitter what good does it do? 'Sag' is no more, her stitching ripped apart, an act of necessary destruction, a punishment for the crime of being ignored. The blankets a source of inchoate comfort. But again subject to cut, repair; tear and mend; snag and darn...}

leakage hairs
drawing installation

 

LOOK, LOOK, LOOK , Whiteread at the Gagosian Gallery!

^{Another visit to the Gasgosian Gallery in Britannia Street and how appropriate a place to show Rachel Whitereads latest works. http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/rachel-whiteread--april-11-2013}

^{'Detached' an apposite title reflecting both the underlying tenor of the works as well as the the great white space of the gallery. Whilst I was there a deafening hail storm hammered the roof adding drama to the three steel and concrete sheds sitting impassive and stolid side by side. Grey. Interiors marked by time and now caught forever in the setting of the concrete.}

^{And then pink,turquoise, lime,purple. Translucent and radiant full sized doors and windows cast in resin leaning and hanging. Locks, knots, latches and catches subtly solid in the light.}

^{The work seemed to me to render reverence to the mundane, to the overlooked and the everyday. As I continued to make work this week using old blankets the glamour of 'Tender's shiny Private View now behind me, I reflected on one of Whiteread's titles, 'LOOK, LOOK,LOOK'. Yes that is what these and my own 'unassuming' works ask you to do.}

 

inhale
blanket pod drawing

 

Celebrity for a day

^{The belittlement of my work is painful whether from jovial mocking, masking a deliberate hurtful lack of a desire to engage and understand or the cold rejection of some drawings submitted to (yet another ) 'Open' exhibition. Yet this has been in stark contrast, this week to having the very interesting and flattering experience of being filmed for a project by my daughter who is a student at NFTS.}

^{Talking over my making, funny furry microphone just in eye shot, whilst stitching up , tucking in, pulling tight, dunking in,hanging up, drying out, pin popping and pulling through my work became a Grand Dame ,a Diva, a Celebrity.}

^{She got her moment in the spotlight, albeit just for the day...and did she enjoy it? Oh rather....!!!!}

sag

Comfort blanket.

^{31313 what a lovely date of recurring repetitious numbers, somehow so soothing, calming and lightweight.}

 ^{I was having a bit of a browse through the catalogue that was published for the exhibition 'Women Artists elles@centrepompidou' in 2009 this week. As well as taking a little trip down memory lane I was also looking for some reassurance. The section called 'Immaterials' offered me some comfort as I continued my, some would say, 'dogged' experimentations with,currently old blankets to make my...well what? Nothings exactly but in the making a continuing search for 'an economy of means...[by]...reductions,removals,divisions and disappearances' p.220}

day nurse
pencil on paper

Itch and jump!

^{'Delicacy and tactile subtlety both partake in and amplify the perversely feeble power of the tip, the fringe,the edge,the hem...the fingertips...suggest reach and the delicacy of that which is almost touched, touched and not touched at once.' p265 'The Book of Skin' Steven Connor.}

^{A turning back and a turning over this week as I hit the buffers again. A turning back to some previously visited terrain, a pause as I contemplate the edge....and jump!}

 

 

multiply detail

Beguiled by 'Jammers'

^{Kings Cross to Britannia Street...a cold,wet,grey,rainy, uninviting walk. The heavy glass door opened in polite welcome, this the Gasgosian Gallery currently exhibiting Robert Rauschenberg's Jammers. http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/robert-rauschenberg--february-16-2013}

^{A place of gesticulating suited attendants the silence punctuated by the regular rumblings of trains.}

^{But what a space and what a spectacle! To be honest I know very little about Rauchenbergs work but what was evident to me was that these were an honest response to a visit he had made to India just before the making of these exhibits. Swathes of beautiful coloured silks stitched together as banners, pulled threads and translucent layers, stripped tin cans hung with string, a huge 'bag' hanging with its sagging heft (very Hesse), bound and notched rattan poles,a stuffed pillowcase – like an oversized pocket.}

^{He was obviously beguiled and in turn beguiled me with the both the simplicity and the delightful touches of detail in this uplifting show.}

tender detail
constructed drawing

 

jars and labels

^{Cabinet upon cabinet, jar next to jar,detail within detail, labels and labels and labels;The Hunterian Museum housed at the Royal College of Surgeons is a paradise for the lover of minutiae. It is a vast collection of specimens, human, animal and plant; normal and abnormal and practically all looking very odd!http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums/hunterian}

^{It brought back memories of a treasured possession that I had loved as a child...a microscope. I can now recall hours spent squeezing little things between the glass slides and peering at them through the lens. It was a thing of fascination and enthralment. Then along with this magnification, this change from something known to something mysterious, are all the scientific names and phrases that add another layer, another world again.}

^{Look at some of these sea shell names for example: Paper Fig, Pear Whelk, Lace Murex, Lettered Olive, Scotch Bonnet, Atlantic Bubble, Baby's Ear, Kitten's Paw, Egg Cockle,Spiny Jewel Box, Turkey Wing, Sunray Venus, Fly Speckled Cerith, Calico Clam....http://seashells.org/seaident.html}

^{Quite delicious!}

menders
pencil on paper

 

Tea with Eva Hesse

^{'Eva Hesse 1965' an exhibition currently at Hauser and Wirth Savile Row, London is a rare showing of some of Hesse's experimental reliefs and drawings from 1965. http://www.hauserwirth.com/exhibitions/1648/eva-hesse-1965/view/}

^{Coming from the heady interior of The East India Company with its exotic array of tea caddies and extraordinarily named teas, the gallery, just a short walk away is in itself worth a visit with its vast quiet interior of cool greys and splash of Thames green.}

^{Hesse too loved to play with words and looking at her works I caught an echo of those bizarre tea names.}

^{Her drawings are intriguing and compelling. They ask to be looked at closely and arouse curiosity. The main group are ink on paper with some judicious use of colour. Colour instinctively and unconsciously placed it seemed, little touches of femininity and pauses for thought.}

 

Hong Kong brooms
Photo Michael Murton

dyeing for the undefined

^{In the forward of a copy of Ali Smith's 'Girl meets boy' I read this quote by Joseph Roth; 'It is the mark of a narrow world that mistrusts the undefined'.}

^{Since I stopped painting nearly 5 years ago I have had 'issues' with colour in my work. I am fearful of prettiness,of the suggestion of representation,of trite interpretation pinning my work down. Even as I am beguiled by the drab greens and greys of the riverscape, the flashes of mustard yellow as Spring emerges from the hold of Winter, the catch of red from a birds wing.}

^{So in the hope of that 'undefined' I spend a morning dyeing.}

 

rack

A lesson from the ice age.

^{Oh my! After a difficult week with my work, of what I shall call a series of ' near misses', of 'oh bother!', of ' what on earth!', of 'oh my hat!', I had a treat ! The Great Court at the British Museum milling with people, winter lit and softly buzzing with hundreds of voices only partially prepared my friend and I for the meeting of our artistic ancestors from 40,000 years ago!}

^{Ice age art arrival of the modern mind http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/ice_age_art/about_the_exhibition.aspx is a truly astonishing exhibition. The cases of artefacts including many figures of women ( fat and skinny!), animals and tools are full of minute detail. Some of the works are astonishingly modern,pared back and abstract. It is thought, by scholars that some of the figures were made by women artists and were possibly self portraits!}

^{What is perhaps most extraordinary is that research has shown that in these ancient societies artists were at work making artefacts purely for the sake of art, without function, setting aside time...loads of time... to do something that has no obvious use...to go back to Germaine Greer. Women and men at the grand opening of a time honourable occupation!}

^{After a week of failures what better moment to be reminded ( AGAIN) to keep that pencil sharpened...}

 

odd pod
constructed drawing
feb 13

 

Tender Pencil

^{Just some tenuously connected thoughts this week.}

^{Tender: soft or dainty or delicate. Tender:loving or fond. Tender:susceptible or young or vulnerable. Tender:compassionate or caring or kind. Tender:to offer or bid or propose. Tender: a ship or galley. Tender:grant. Tender:dispense something needed. Tender: to yield. Tender: sore or swollen.}

^{A film by Kim Longinotto and Jano williams ,'Shinjuku Boys', follows the lives of three women who work in The Marilyn Club in Tokyo. Onnabes are women living as men . The film exploring the fluidity of gender in contemporary Japan is moving and thought provoking. A tender, careful portrayal of vulnerability.}

^{Walking through the dusk catching the last sightings of the Lapwings, Greenshanks, Dunlins feeding on the mud before the darkness falls. Fluttering half seen, turning, seen and unseen, seen,unseen, grey soft light.}

^{Waiting for my drawings to return.}

Concrete beauties.

^{Michael, the source of many unusual books,popped in for a coffee this week with another of his eclectic collection; ' Concrete Ideas: Material to Shape a City. ed. Pina Petricone/publ.Thames and Hudson.}

 ^{This recalled my visit to The Whitney, New York in November. A 60's concrete Brutalist building designed by Marcel Breuer which took my breath away with its gorgeous textural surfaces, rough and gritty. Although stark and spare it has a wonderfully feminine quality. The womb like intimacy of the stairways contrasting dramatically with the vast and imposing gallery spaces. I must admit that although I enjoyed the retrospective of Artschwager's,at times hilarious work, it was the building that really caught my eye. http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/RichardArtschwager}

^{I am now on the look out for more of these brooding concrete beauties...mmmm take a look at the one below.}

Winchelsea sea defence.
Photo by Michael Murton