Today was a wonderful culmination of our week. We started at Studio Voltaire which was full of sensory overload. The exhibition was based around a game and having had it explained by the curators it made sense but without the explanation I think I might have struggled with this one. Emma and I later reflected about how often this is the case. This one we felt was fairly understandable on the surface but the deeper nuances that we heard about would probably be lost. I certainly wouldn't have understood it at all without additional explanation.
Next we moved onto Corvi-Mora where Maiko (my research paper tutor/assessor) was exhibiting. It was a large space which seemed empty aside from the occasional piece. Jonathan explained a little about Maiko's practice and how empty and organised her studio is which began to explain the exhibition. Maiko then spoke a little and I appreciated it so much more having heard her speak. The more I learn about art and the more exhibitions I see, the more I need them explaining, I'm so much more interested in what happens to create the pieces than in the final piece! Maybe this is something to do with my insatiable need to explain.... I remember a friend in my teens criticising me for always having the worlds most long winded story but I still seem to need to start at the beginning and fill in all the details, an overview is never enough. I'm wondering whether my need to explain is something to do with my desire to understand? I was taught never to ask questions as a child, that prying was rude. This was reinforced countless times throughout my life through TV, films and radio. Call the Midwife is a great contemporary example, They're all so bloody polite to each other and never pry! This is how I was raised. But I'm nosey, I want to know, but I can't ask, I have so many unanswered questions! This exhibition raised so many more questions, at least I managed to note down a couple of things that Maiko said;
It was about how we experience things and space.
She had carefully considered the time it took to walk between the two objects positioned on the floor
everything she does is about experience ... it's all about the experience
Our next gallery was Gasworks which had an exhibition of carpet/tapestry work used in many different forms to replicate the female form exploring witchcraft and the female bodies surgeons used to practise on etc. There was something about this exhibition which really reminded me of the poem Tam o'Shanter by Robbie Burns. It looked like there was oppression present but also that the most enormous was party possible.
Our last 'curated' gallery was the Chinsenhale. Sean, Emma and I agreed that we had really enjoyed the show the previous year so we had high hopes of it. We seemed to agree that with the curators explanation we were privy to it was an amazing exhibition BUT that we wouldn't have understood it at all had we just walked in off the street with no explanation. I would have picked up on something about the benches being solid whereas usually that is the carved out shape in a string instrument such as a violin, viola, 'cello or double bass. Beyond that I wouldn't have got. The letters on the window I would have assumed were always there and I wouldn't have understood the programmes at all. This exhibition lead to a healthy debate about the need for explanation in art between a few of us.
The view that an image should speak for itself was put forward, alongside the view that all the background research artists do to create the work deserves explanation, particularly when it's not explicit in the final work as seemed to be the case in this work. There was so much depth that we were left wondering how other viewers accessed it.
Our final visit was to the Whitechapel gallery. The gallery itself seemed wonderful and the exhibition involving the school children was brilliant but I have to admit to being less impressed by the other exhibition. There were some pieces which I enjoyed but the figurative oil paintings in particular I struggled with; they looked unfinished to me, unfinished in both the actual painting and on the skill of the artist also requiring more work. I don't think I'm a particularly refined judge but they weren't images I could appreciate or enjoy. I can't decide whether it's brilliant or awful to see work like this in a mainstream gallery... I mean, 100 years ago Matisse and Cezanne were being criticised for their lack of skill ion basic drawing and painting... the world has most definitely moved on!
Overall the day was stimulating, thought provoking and . Just as it was last year. The gallery days is a brilliant part of the low residency, I just wish Southbank Printmakers was bigger and Bankside was less mainstream as I'd adore a curators talk from either!