19 August 2012

Damien Hirst at Tate: Color and Hapticity

When couple of years ago I had a short interview with one of YBAs for my MA research, I wasn't profoundly aware of the whole group and their works. Gradually, I went to see some works by Mat Collishaw, Tracey Emin and other artists, and finally this interest brought me to visiting Damien Hisrt retrospective at Tate Modern during my business trip to London this month.

There is a number of iconic works on the show, which set forth the narratives running through his career, while I got interested in those which were created at the emergence of his practice.


A Picture of Tate Modern Booklet

Anthraquinone-1-Diazonium Chloride, 1994
Original Image Here

I like the referencce to the 20-th century abstract art. I find it in geometrical or 'scientific' approach to decisions on forming the plane of the painting, e.g. Josef Albers' Homage to the Square series was based on a pattern made of mathemtically formed square formats.


Hommage to the Square, 1959
Original Image Here

Nevertheless, while Albers explores the subjective color experience referring to his color studies (Albers graduated from Bauhaus, which had a particular approach to color), Damien Hisrt does not use any of traditional harmonies. I believe he does not explore colour from the viewpoint of colour perception, but investigates the colour as a phenomenon itself. I do think though that his works address viewers for their individual experiences of the piece rather than presenting his personal artistic opinion.


Spot Painting, 1986
Original Image Here

This geometrical approach in his Spot Paintings creates a system for generating an infinite, endless series of paintings in a variety of scales


Ethyl Fluoroacetate, 2008
Original Image Here

Made with such medium as domestic paint, they look very common and haptically well experienced. Taking the same size and circular shape on a plane they seemed to me like cuts of painted domestic surroundings: doors, windows, cabinets and other pieces. I believe that something Damien Hirst aims to reach in his work is universality, which lets the viewers form their own relationship with his work of art and their own individual interpretation.

14 June 2012

Sigalit Landau and her video artwork at the Solyanka Gallery in Moscow

Last Moscow Thursday I had a chance to visit Sigalit Landau retrospective opening at the Solyanka Gallery. I was truly impressed by her video work and felt sorry that I didn't manage to encounter with it earlier on Venice Biennale in 2011, where she presented an installation in the Israeli pavilion. 

Metaphoric and narrated, some of her work obtains a form in a medium of film. While she continually looks into reoccuring themes, their result is highly visual. Sensual, vibrant and full, they are not only a journey towards exploration of particular issues, but possess particular visual qualities, which are powerful both bodily and incorporeal.


DeadSee, 2005
Original Image Here

DeadSee, 2005
Original Image Here


The movement of the depicted within the frame of the video is one of those things I find highly aesthetic in her work. She creates a comprehensive image, which does not obtain motion, but throughout the time forms a continuous sequence or series of images of their own. And so, it seems like there is a natural articulation in universal notion of cycle. Circular image turns into centrifugally unfolding spiral, moving within the volume of the sea. In the latter the changing pattern of light filmed from underneath the water reminds about the recurring pattern of the movement of the waves, governed by the cosmic bodies according to particular cycles. I believe this immersion in the sea evokes a desire for meditative contemplation of the universal image.


Under the Dead Sea, 2005
Original Image
Here


The nature of the abjects she films brings in particular colours and light to her work. While being on the plane of the video screen, they are spatial and engulfing, immersing the human body into the depths of the sea and presenting their relation within each other.

Standing on a Watermelon in the Dead Sea, 2005
Original Image Here



DeadSee, 2005
Original Image Here


Being so visually pleasant and mouthwateringly colourful, her works they are fleshy and tangible. Using salt, she preserves watermelons, and the imagination of the taste of the contradiction between the sweetest watermelons and saltest sea water clashes the senses.

The Dining Hall, 2007
 Original Image Here

I believe that her works are so touching and sensual not only because of multilayered narratives within them, but also because of the objects she choses to work with: flesh of the fruit, salt and her own body.

08 May 2012

Dale Chihuly and his Magical Worlds

Now I am in Moscow and probably for a good while. I still want to continue my investigations and in this post I want to write about the exhibition I have seen in London just before my leave. This was Dale Chihuly at Halcyon Gallery. I would like to point out that the reason why I made a step through the doors was something seen behind the spacious windows of the gallery, and it was not an object, but the atmosphere created by a number of those.

Halcyon Gallery, London
Original Image Here

Dale Chihuly says: 'when you're looking at glass you're looking at light', while I felt like I was looking at the coloured light, which was glowing from the far end of the staircase and flowing into the old boat just in the middle of the gallery space, like if it was brought here from somewhere magical. There light obtains shape.

Halcyon Gallery. Upstairs
Original Image Here

All his works seem like if they were probably not inspired by anything in particular, but taken from some artists imagination reality, which is formed, in my opinion, by practical engagement with the material. His objects are spontaneously developed, which is determined by the process of the glass blowing technque. This kind of work is complex: adding pigments to the glass is done a number of times and glass is melt everytime one is added, and all these should be done quite quickly. While the form is blown, fire and gravity take part in the process, and I think that probably because of these processes his objects look like a result of natural happenings, forming a series of them.

Persians
Original Image Here

Seaforms
Original Image Here

Team Glass Blowing
Original Image Here

Objects from the same series while made in the same technique, look as a result of a playful, experimental approach, like if the artist was curious every time about possibilities of glassblowing in each of them. I believe every object looks like a new step on the way to the whole journey. Nevertheless, his perfect knowledge of technique and high professionalism let him play with hot honey-like lquid glass in such a natural manner.

Original Image Here

While all the objects in his work are done in the same technique by blowing the glass, I find it interesting that each series is a result of particular hand movement. Work is done by a number of people and the steps made each time are the same, nevertheless every object is a result of different movement and every time there is something slightly varying in each of them, so every object and series objects form also become an ambodiment of physical motion.

Outdoor Fiori
Original Image Here

I really do enjoy that his works do have names, but not every particular piece. They determine the movement probably more that the meaning the artist imposes on them, and so by that these objects obtain the wholeness of their own.

Indoor Fiori
Original Image Here

I am simply really happy that I had a chance to engulf myself with the atmosphere, which was created by Dale Chihuly's objects. I believe that his works distinctly express not only his own imaginative reality, but the possibilities of highly masterful approach for the material and genuine fascination by its possibilities.


30 April 2012

Milano: iSaloni and Melt Down glass forms

A few days passed before I am ready to post again this time about Milano trip, which definitely gave me a number of things to write about. This time my journey took me not only through the beauties of this wonderful city, but through several pavilions of the iSaloni. While there was a great quantity of acknowledged companies, factories, designers and suppliers, my attention was grabbed by Salone Satelite and those it exhibited.

Melt Down Lamps, Lindstén Form Studio
Original Image Here

I got really excited by the experiments done and the number of techniques applied by young designers in their work and definitely the glass blowing was among those. Not everyone could work out their quality with wood, steel and other materials, while glass works were on the top, providing not only high quality work, but theoretical investigations.

Melt Down Lamps, Lindstén Form Studio
Original Image Here

These pendants by Lindstén Form Studio represent such a wonderful series of colours in translucent glass, evoking a feelings of having a variety of jellylike delights on the tongue. Though the designer was concerned with 'meltdown' while working on the series, I still find its visual performance as something touching senses, almost evoking sensation of color-associated flavorings.

Moreover, I think that their shape suggests as if it was made of one of those gelatin substances, soft and mellow. It's incredible how rigid and fragile material depending on the shape it creates resembles something absolutely opposite than it is. 

13 April 2012

Zurab Tsariteli, Moscow Stained Glass

Being on my holidays, I went on an inspiring trip to still snowy Moscow where among other beauties I had a chance to contemplate the splendid of the world famous interiors of Moscow metro.
One of the stations which grabbed my attention was Tsvetnoy Boulevard. I can't state that I am very much attached to works by Zurab Tsariteli as i am not impressed by his sense of proportion, nevertheless his small scale works which are a part of station decor impressed me greatly.

Vitrage 'Vladimir'

This work could be called as stained glass window where the pieces of glass are cut to predetermined design with the help of a stell or carbide wheel glass cutter and then grinded. The pieces are attached with the help of the lead starting from the corner. The lead can differ in the profile section and consistency.

Detailed Section: Lead Profile and Glass
Original Image Here

Nevertheless looking at the piece by Tsariteli one could notice that the profile is hidden between the pieces of glass, and they are profoundly more substantial and solid, almost being a 'brick' rather than a two-dimensional glass plane kept between the sides of the came. Moreover, it is noticable that the pieces were made probably in the similar technique as marble or stone sculptures, which is called hammer and point work. I think that the 'vitrages' are made at that point of techniques mixture, where the artist approaches the light picture plane by means of applying a method for its elements as if they are imposed with mass and weight.

Vitrage close-up

Another curious thing about this work came to me when I was visiting Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Dormition in London. While being inside at some point I realized that the stained glass windows are so at variance with the space for a simple reason that usually I see those bearing a different kind of aesthetics: the one typical for Mideval or Gothic Europe. While I could probably state that in this particular church they were made in regard to its architectural component (it was built in Italianate style in 1846 as an Anglican church), the application of the stained glass window technique in order to represent the icons or bible stories is quite out of ordinary in orthodox world and the paintings are traditionally made on a wooden surface. What I am trying to say here is that the narratives represented in Tsariteli's works while made in an alien to orthodox art techniques communicate visually as religious art.

Orthodox Cathedral of Dormition
Original Image
Here


St. Serzhius of Radonezh
Original Image Here

I believe that these works are on the verge of mixture not only of techniques, but narratives in art. At some point they could seem ignorant to the history of techniques and the depth of the reasons for their application, while at the same time the uncertainty and playfulness gives a rise to a variety for interpretation.