All that glitters

So, Richard Wright has won the Turner Prize. Despite my ardent support for Roger Hiorns (in my case still the rightful winner) I had a feeling Wright would swoop in and take it. Wright's piece, a giant wall painting in gold leaf, is incredibly intricate and painstakingly executed and yes, its beauty is undeniable. However I still can't get past the fact that, for me, it didn't really work in the space it sat in, and it wasn't an immersing awe-inspiring experience that everyone was claiming it to be. Admittedly Hiorns' offering wasn't necessarily as spectacular on first sight but I felt that his work contained a quiet beauty, the atomised jet engine creating a beautiful, desolate landscape that spoke of modern world materiality and that was a timely reminder of how everything eventually returns to dust. I do feel that Hiorns was let down by the fact that his most breathtaking work was half an hour away in a dilapidated flat in Elephant and Castle, sitting unaware to anyone that didn't take the time to watch the artist videos at the end. It would be nice to think that the judges took Seizure, arguably the most exciting and original art piece to be made in years, into consideration, however if they did then how did he not win? Perhaps, and this is probably just a cynical presumption, they wanted to reward the piece that showed most 'skill' in an attempt to save the prize from the many of the public and media's perception of pretentious joke (anyone else blame Martin Creed?)... That or certain members of the judging panel had a slightly predisposed bias..

Anyway, I shouldn't take away from Wright's achievement, his work has appealed to many and certainly is magnificent in its own right. It just so happened that he wasn't all my cup of tea.

Xeroxing

A view of some work I've been exploring lately, I'm looking at reducing an image to form and shape, tone and line, abstracting it so that it becomes unrecognisable as a conventional, readable image. It's been exciting to see just how much you can achieve with a 6x4 glossy print and a photocopying machine, watching how the image transforms each time the enlarge button is pressed. I'm thinking of creating some kind of wall installation of the different formats I've been working with, each has their own distinct materiality and hopefully I'll be able to create something that captures the intimacy of the original image without directly revealing it.

How very 1994..

Relational art was a term coined at the end of the 90s by renowned art critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud as an attempt to classify a group of artists who had come to prominence during the decade. His book "Relational Aesthetics", a collection of essays on the topic which I am currently reading, goes to some length to describe this kind of art form, which he described in short as 'an attempt to improve the world we live in' through work that prompts interaction with its audience. The work he dwells upon ranges from performance to installation and photography and video, covering a particular group of artists he championed as carrying the torch, so to speak, for this new art movement.

Bourriaud has a history of suggesting or attempting to distill ideas and themes within art practice into a definable term, the most recent example being this years Tate Triennial, dubbed 'Altermodern', a phrase coined by the curator as the next stage of modernism, alluding to the idea that modernism and post modernism are dead and this new, alternate modernism can be seen as encompassing works that address our ever globalised world. In some ways an this could be read as an extension of his idea of relational aesthetics, although I don't feel it was an entirely successful exhibition or theorem. I do feel there is merit in his idea of relational art, however. Many of the artworks he uses as the basis for his theory are often based in quite humble and simple ideals - in the context of an ever increasingly technological world they return back to the very basic idea of human interaction and, for want of a better word, spirit, whilst never becoming detached from the context in which they are made. Felix Gonzales-Torres' billboards of empty beds at once engage the wider public with the most intimate setting of the bed he shared with his lover, whilst the fact his lover had recently died from AIDS gives the picture a haunting sense of absence and provides a wider context for the work. Another of his pieces consists of a gallery floor littered with sweets, the audience involvement in some ways creating the piece - its form dependent on the how much each viewer choses to take or leave.

After a decade of big money painting and the return of the 'art hero' (in part showcased by Tate's current Pop Life exhibition) relational art, or the art classed thus by Bourriaud, was an attempt to re-engage with ideas based in human emotion and the interaction we share with others (not to be confused with interactive art..). It strove to exist for a purpose, at times only existing for those present to witness or engage with it.

A couple of pieces by artists mentioned in the book that are worth checking out:

Pierre Huyghe - Streamside Day Follies

A short film depicting the staging of celebrations proposed by Huyghe in commemoration of the anniversary of the new town Streamside in New York state. Hard to find in full online, although a short excerpt can be found here - http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/huyghe/clip2.html

Dominique Gonzales-Foerster - Parc Central - Hong Kong

http://www.ubu.com/film/gf_parc_hong-kong.html

One of a series of films by the artist portraying various cities around the world, ambient, ethereal portrayals that suggest a dialogue between east and west and that question the Western World idea of there being nowhere left to journey to.

For the love of god

This week has been a very busy week with lots of gallery visits and the exhausting Frieze Art Fair all taken in. Yesterday, amongst other shows, I went to see the Damien Hirst exhibition at the Wallace Collection. I have to say I was highly sceptical, not being the biggest fan of Hirst's past work. The show consists of about twenty paintings based around the theme of death (nothing new, then) that have been painted by the artist's own hand, a noted departure from his Factory-style assistant-produced artworks of old. The first thing to comment on, an unavoidable talking point, is the location of the show. The Wallace Collection is a family collection of mostly 15th and 16th century oil paintings and artefacts, and for Hirst to assume he has the right to show his work there (he funded the show himself, to the tune of £250,000...) is quite insulting, to be honest. Fair enough, he has generated much interest and probably increased the visitor count ten fold, but his paintings are just so incongruous and completely at odds with the many other works of art that the Collection houses that it all feels a bit... distasteful.

Now, the paintings themselves. To say they are an homage to Francis Bacon is an understatement: large scale paintings in prussian blue covered in geometric lines, including a couple of triptychs, featuring such symbols of death as the skull and a lemon. Yes, a lemon. The tour guide, who was doing her best to convince us of a great depth of meaning and significance to these paintings, duly informed us that Hirst intended the lemon as a symbol of death, despite the fact that historically the closest a lemon has come to being a symbol of anything is the inclusion of lemon trees in paintings of the Virgin Mary. There was more, of course. He also included spots in many of the paintings, apparently signifying the death of his old practice (his spot paintings are somewhat of a trademark) and the next stage in his artistic career. In other words, he has realised that the spot paintings and the diamond encrusted skull were hollow and meaningless and has decided to try his hand at the lonely, romantic painter locked away in his studio image. Perhaps this would be ok, were the paintings not so two dimensional and repetitive. Each one feels like a reworking of the last, as if he's taken four elements and tried to configure the most number of ways of composing them possible.

Before heading over to the exhibition a friend and I happened to bump into Adrian Searles, chief art critic at The Guardian who we'd seen take part in a debate at Frieze. He was friendly and had time for conversation, and even recommended a show. This show was by Sarah Lucas, who along with Hirst came to prominence in the 90s as part of the famed YBAs. The contrast is telling: hers, held in a disused shop in Dover Street, was original, intriguing, and held your interest as you took in the four floors worth of art. Hirst's? Well, I think I've made my feelings clear. "Don't get sucked in by Damien" were Searles' parting words. Needless to say, I didn't.

Money over matter

http://www.showitwithmoney.com/artist_about.html

If you thought the Tate's Pop Life showcased the end of integrity in contemporary art, this has just about put the last nail in the coffin. Damien Hirst has proved he's the master at making obscene amounts of money out of an increasingly pretentious art world, and with this he's just about come up with the perfect con. In my opinion.. I'm certainly not going to be buying into it.

London calling..

So, the birds are flying south and my dear companion has flown north and I'm left in King's Lynn alone with not much else to do but check my flickr stats every five minutes and twit every last banal detail of my daily routine. I think I'm slowly coming to terms with the end of the summer, and for the first time in three months I want to go back to London. Our house is as close to being ready as it will ever be, and a fresh start awaits.

This week hasn't been completely uneventful - I've been taking tentative steps to creating a lo-fi/surf/shoegaze band with a friend and I've also gained ownership of yet another camera (I think the collection is hovering somewhere near 10..) Combine that with the aural pleasures of The Big Pink and Health's albums and a growing appreciation for daytime property shows and Strictly - It Takes Two, and I guess it's not so bad. Really... Ok, I think it's time to go.

So long

I felt an update was in need, I've been focusing on my flickr a lot recently and my blogs have been rather neglected. I went pro a few days ago and now have a rather swish stats page which charts my daily photo views and thus consumes my life by being ever so addictive. Today I got a film developed from my olympus trip and after rather mediocre results last time I was surprised to find many of the prints were actually well focused and rich in colour. It's certainly nice to know that it will be able to serve me well whilst I track down a new AE-1. Some of the photos are up on my flickr, and I shall upload the rest soon I should think.

Earlier today I also popped into hmv and by some stroke of luck beyond belief they just happened to be selling Albert Camus' The Outsider, The Plague and The Fall for a pound a piece. Needless to say I bought a copy of all three, I've been desperate to read them for ages and I'll most probably be some sort of existential mess once I've finished.

Also, in case you hadn't notice, it seems that the longest summer ever is drawing to a close. Nevertheless there are still adventures to be had, and tomorrow I am off to stay in a yurt and then on Sunday I'm heading to the Lake District for a few days for a spot of hill walking and maybe a peek at the Wordsworth museum. Then it's back to London (hopefully with a fully furnished house waiting) and all of this will be a distant memory...

Music from big pink

I couldn't resist posting this, the one band currently restoring my faith in British music. The hype's been building for a while, and I'm very excited about the soon to be released album.

In other news, check out my now up and running photography project that I mentioned before here.

Making waves

After losing in quite spectacular fashion at the tennis (0-6, 0-6; my forehand needs some work..) I'm now sitting back and taking in the new track by the quite prolific brat from the west coast of America, Wavves. With a new member on board and a notable increase in production values, it's not so much a departure from his last long player but certainly takes his tried and tested formula of fuzzy chords and 'woooos' and adds a few more twists and turns. Catchy stuff, and has reminded me that despite being unable to behave like an adult on tour he certainly writes some catchy summer anthems.

In other news, I'm currently working on an online photography project thing, and will write more about it when I have a clearer idea of what it will entail. This is somewhat in response to the impending 'presentation of recent work' in the first week back at college - I'm slightly worried my artistic development has been rather stunted in recent months. It's easy to forget they expect it to be a full time occupation. Anyway, I'm now off to bed for a spot of light reading, Virginia Woolf's 'The Waves'.. Seems I can't get enough of them right now..

I think my camera is possessed..