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Week 9 EEA211

Review of Geelong By Night:  New Wilderness

The Death of the Artist: 

 Democratise of the gallery space –

  • Imbued with ideas of connoisseurship –

    • Inviting people in/closing them out

    • Allowing and inviting response to the work – in our exhibition – the spectators ‘made the work work’ – they completed it –not just visible – engaging

    • Reference to occupy – playing in the space – not ‘privileged few’ but projections inside the tents –

    • Disruption – with shadow puppets. 

    • Engagement with others – chatting – singing – Jonathan

    • Hundreds visited and many stayed for quite a while (but the VC – was there for only a short time – ‘What did she think?’ –

    • Children – ‘self-monitoring’ – kids played on the instruments –

    • Reflect on all of this for response in journal

  • E.g. Picasso – went back to primitive and children’s art – despite his skills being at a massively high level by age 17. 

  • Cites David Cross’s – inflatables play activities

 

Response about your work – second handout sheet –

What does Geelong mean to the artist? – depends on the artist

How do you present yourself to the world? (Radio Monocle)

How do people utilise space? – e.g. the body in space through skateboarding –

Constraints – things you can’t change – e.g. the poles disrupt the field of view

  • Not enough powerpoints – need for overhead tags

  • Lack of quality in projectors (e.g. will not do full size – would not focus properly)

Considerations – negotiations

  • Multiple artists – working together/rubbing against

  • Seeking help where needed

  • Treading on the toes of other Deakin issues – e.g. can’t interrupt ‘The Cube’

Relationships to other art forms – e.g. skateboard to Jackson Pollock’s gestural lines – using whole body to paint the large canvases. 

The popularism of the sub-culture – e.g. the punk being taken over with bejewelled safety pin art – for rich society ladies

The tents – what do they represent – could they be a reaction to militarism – the lines of tents in occupation zones – e.g. Iraq, Queenscliff (Fred Kruger photographs in late 19th century)– the politicising of space – reclaiming space – the tents were inside – a safe and easy space for non-Deakin people to feel comfortable in the Deakin campus

The big picture

  • We live in a world of visual imagery – the picture is the new literacy

  • Use an interdisciplinary approach to make meaning of art /art practice

  • Semiotics – signs and symbols – how the meaning may be consistent for some over time, but for others (e.g. the swastika) change meaning

  • All you look at is strained through the culture of the artist and the spectator –

  • E.g. photography – there is really no neutral portraiture

  • Reason for making art has changed, the nature of art has changed – e.g. from mere recording, and religion, mapping, information, The gaze, the nude (looking at this historically – in part 2 subject Visual Culture)

  • In recent decades the bounds of art have changed – not mere recording, propaganda, commodifying, now more pluralistic, bounds change due  - ideas, topics, themes, political is really strong

  • Art knowledge – no longer an linear movement from e.g. commercial art to fine art, we are still steeped in Western Art – some change to voices from different cultures, different sub-cultures (e.g. feminist, indigenous, ethnic) – the white European artist is no longer supreme –

  • The death of the author – the viewer is now constructing own meanings

  • E.g. The Christian story – used politically – to keep people in line, frightened, to promote male supremacy

  • Karl Marx – on art – eg. No need for commodities in the family unit – no money – each to his own needs – MK cites Facebook – all about commodities –

  • Modernism-v.s. Post Modernism

  • Not just one institutional position or school of thought – plural views – but was it ever thus?

  • Representations of people are really just statements of position – bring the artist’s perception to the work. 

  • The critic no longer knows it all –

  • More sceptical – leading to challenges of assumptions –

  • E.g. Occupy – a struggle site

  • New technologies have democratised the art space – anyone can have their art out there on the web (e.g. sites like Tumbler), self-published books, audience has much more sway, choice

  • Galleries need to move into this space – by making the work more participatory, more accessible –

  • The moving image – an art of time – time can be manipulated – doesn’t need to be narrative – but may be. 

For the response on the Major Project – tie this into the above. 

All work for this unit is due on 8th June. 

Feedback from Cameron

  • Merinda – asked the students to look at how people used the space

  • Adults – looked at Eben’s sculpture – didn’t react – children – straight in an using the music sticks (‘children’ not saddle-bagged by the white cube syndrome’ – MK)

  • Did we get video footage – e.g. jonathan – tenor – singing to the sculpture. 

  • The tents – children in the main enjoyed playing with the light in the tent – commenting on the democratisation of the art-making process – kids just do what they want – without being restrained

  • Cam’s reflection –

  • The viewers effected the work – almost the atmosphere of the disco – (Meg’s work plus the lights

  • The tents as a recurring motif for Merinda/Cameron’s ongoing New Wilderness work

  • ‘it had to be calibrated very quickly to work with the other artists in the space’

  • The animations – successful – the constraints – poor projections (better projectors) – no way to work outside the space –

  • CB – the democratisation of the image is really important – we’re so well geared to the white cube mentality – as artists we are also breaking this –

  • MK – there’s a letting go process – going past the aesthetic constraints – sharing a space with others – kids moving around the space –

  • Children got a bit excited – some bad behaviour – didn’t want to leave the tents.

  • Jane den Hollander sees this space as a place to demonstrate that Deakin is a ‘risk taking’ institution.  CB

  • Suggestions of using the waterfront. 

  • Had my vision been corrupted? No! 

  • Comment (MK) – of the 4 images of Meg’s reflecting – on all screens and also projected in the window. 

  • Cam – “how did Eben feel about the work and how successful it was?” Merinda knew that it did work – in the end

  • How did the diverse work work together – MK – would have liked more time to put it all together. 

 

In response to an email about our work for the exhibition, Jane den Hollander replied: 

Thanks for the nice email Helen.  Yes I had over promised too many people and had agreed to look at a number of Deakin things – all magnificent and your installation amongst the most thought provoking in my view.  The photographs are beautiful thank you.  Jane

 

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