I am currently working towards more content for this blog, to be posted during 2012. Currently planned is writing on the following artists and an exhibition:
- Mathew McConnell
- Adrian Jackman
- Iain Cheesman
- Chris Hargreaves
- Peter Deckers
- A 2011 group exhibition at Rm Gallery, Auckland, featuring work by Rebecca Burt, Andrea Gaskin, Linda Roche, Kathryn Tsui.
Archive for the ‘Commissioned writing’ Category
New content coming soon
In Commissioned writing on 19/03/2012 at 8:27 AMBest in Show 2011 publication
In Applied Arts, Best in Show, Commissioned writing, Curatorial projects, Design, Objectspace on 24/01/2011 at 3:45 AMBest in Show 2011, 29 January – 24 February, now has a digital publication which you can download here from Objectspace.
Best in Show 2011 publication
Objective lessons: a review of the 2010 Objectspace programme
In Applied Arts, Commissioned writing, Objectspace on 18/01/2011 at 8:58 PMOn 14 December 2010 I wrote a review of the 2010 Objectspace programme:
“It is nearly seven years since Objectspace opened its doors at 8 Ponsonby Road. In the ensuing time frame, this small non-profit presenting institution, largely funded through Creative New Zealand along with a variety of sponsors and private donors, has consistently pursued and sharpened its mandate to talk about and showcase applied arts practice in New Zealand. Presenting an ever growing core audience with frequently changing exhibitions supported by an award winning publications programme, web archive, as well as regular talks and lecture events, these experiences and perspectives are clearly reflected in the organisation’s current purpose statement: ‘To position making – principally in the fields of craft, applied arts and design – within a range of cultural, economic and social frameworks in order to provoke new assessments about the making, functioning and value of works and practices.’…
Read the rest here.
The Halo Effect
In Commissioned writing, Contemporary Art, Manukau Festival of the Arts on 07/10/2010 at 4:00 AMA 2010 work by Auckland based artist, Chris Hargreaves, Halo displaces field recordings taken at various locations and repositions these findings into a sound incorporating sculpture. Displayed at the Uxbridge Arts Centre during the Manukau Festival of the Arts, the work creates an artificial ‘ecosystem’ of sound. Simultaneously analogous to multiple locations, the semi-random juxtapositions created in Hargreave’s sculptural mash-up of sound recordings highlight the diversity of the Manukau region and complexity of the contemporary urban soundscape.
Trained both as a pianist and as a visual artist, these two areas of knowledge inform each another in his visual art practice. For instance, Hargreaves’ approach to sound as the central component in Halo shares an affinity to the theories and practices of phonology and of musique concrete. French composer Pierre Schaeffer, founder of musique concrete in the mid-twentieth century, pioneered the usage of what he called acousmatics (sound one hears without seeing the originating source) in playful creative practice. The interesting juxtapositions of phonographic sounds in Halo suggest the hand of the artist is at play with our surroundings and that he is inviting us to engage too, at an experiential level. After all, we each have many thoughts and feelings relating to the innumerable sounds we are constantly experiencing.
Hargreaves notes that he is interested “in the way the interpretation of the familiar object can be changed when it is re-contextualised, in notions of truth and nostalgia, in the way people interact and build relationships with material objects, and how this can alter what we perceive to be real or genuine.” Given this observation by the artist himself, it is fitting that the physical construction of Hargreaves Halo and the sound it incorporates offers the viewer a number of ways in which to perceive the artwork. For instance, some viewers may see a metaphorical wink to Uxbridge’s previous history as a community church. For others, Halo may suggest a metaphor similar to the incredibly popular computer game of the same name, which involves an alien race occupying an artificial planet resembling a ‘halo’ with its living ecosystem spread over an earth-like landscape inside the rim of this unique shaped biosphere.
Involving the audience as both viewers and listeners, Halo invites the audience to interrogate individual perceptions around our sense of place through sound. This approach is partially inspired by key works from the conceptual artists, Bruce Nauman and Bruce Barber. These artists employed a binary approach to sound in their respective art practices. In one well known Nauman video work, Hargreaves was drawn to the interplay between two clowns talking at the same time, one saying ‘yes’ repeatedly and the other saying ‘no’. Similarly, in a challenging Barber video, Hargreaves recalls “a couple continually scream at each other”. Both of these seminal works deliberately pit the voices of actors against one another, revealing universal truths about human nature. Hargreaves Halo also operates in this vein; not attempting to tell you what to think, but juxtaposing multiple urban noises against one another in a simple yet conceptually rich gesture.
Matt Blomeley, 29 September 2010 (writing commissioned by Chris Hargreaves for the Manukau Festival of Arts)
Quotidian: finding inspiration in everyday design
In Applied Arts, Commissioned writing, Curatorial projects, Design, Objectspace on 03/06/2010 at 10:33 PMPublication essay for Quotidian: finding inspiration in everyday design, curated by Matt Blomeley, showing at Objectspace until 26 June 2010.
Quotidian installation at Objectspace
The Quotidian
“the human mind is exquisitely tailored to make sense of the world. Give it the slightest cue and off it goes, providing explanation, rationalization, understanding. Consider the objects–books, radios, kitchen appliances, office appliances, office machines, and light switches–that make up our everyday lives. Well-designed objects are easy to interpret and understand. They contain visible clues to their operation.” Donald A. Norman[1]
Quotidian: finding inspiration in everyday design offers a selection of New Zealand designers who talk about existing objects of design that have inspired their practice. These nine individuals and two collectives have each chosen a quotidian (def: everyday, commonplace) object not conceived by them which in some sense is a design inspiration, partnered it with an object of their own design and then written about the relationship between the two. The result is a collection of unique discussions that provide a designers eye view of our varied and complex relationships to objects that surround us.
The eleven everyday objects chosen evidence an impressive variety of influences upon the objects produced by these designers with which they are partnered. Through these qualities identified as influences it becomes apparent that what we call ‘original’ is often inspired by, or negotiated, through our appreciation of the everyday. Significant qualities highlighted by these designers and discussed in this exhibition project include; categorical references, aesthetics, mechanical principles, universal design, balance, precision, systems, economy, ecology, sensuality, purposefulness, freedom, beauty, history, skill, craft, and the decorative arts.
Matthew von Sturmer compares his design process to an axe. Using this ubiquitous and age old object to explain a simple mechanical principle, which is a driving force in his design process, “work equals force multiplied by distance.” Drawing upon this idea and another principle inherent in the design of the axe; the taper, it is apparent that modern digital tooling has fundamentally altered von Sturmer’s approach to his practice. Prototyping objects with a digital workflow in his studio and using ‘Trimatrix’, a “friendly” product developed as an alternative to more toxic materials such as MDF, von Sturmer observes that it is not the technology or the possibility of a smaller carbon footprint that drives him.[2] Through his renewed consideration of the engineering properties of an axe, von Sturmer has discovered new understandings, and perhaps new possibilities, in prototyping and manufacturing, as the Taper bench seat he presents in this exhibition bears witness.
In 2009 product designer Jamie McLellan wrote, “over the years I have learned to live with and celebrate my inner engineer”[3]. McLellan draws a significant amount of inspiration from the forms within industrially produced objects. What could in some sense be referred to as a form of ‘interior design’ is upon closer inspection a process involving direct formal and philosophical influences that draw upon the technology, processes and materials often unseen within the everyday, to inform the new products he designs. McLellan’s prototype carbon fibre Floor Lamp presented in Quotidian is expressive of this aim, “my fascination with engineered objects has led to many of my designs being expressive of their ‘insides’, with nothing hidden and no sides that shouldn’t be seen.” Peter Haythornthwaite, a well known New Zealand designer with a great deal of experience and a particular interest in manufactured objects, similarly finds “beauty in honesty.” Haythornthwaite, in his discussion of a design classic, the Olivetti Lettera 22, suggests that this complex and well developed object wasn’t indulgent, but exceptional, and what made it so was that the Lettera 22 “was not a product of styling imagination but rather of form determined by purposefulness – and that’s where its beauty originates.” Relating this modern classic to a principle of design such as purposefulness seems all the more important when considering the complex keyboard product for disabled computer users that his company peterhaythornthwaite//creativelab was involved with, the Lomak “focused on causing the users to feel advantaged, rather than disadvantaged.”
An interesting design opportunity popular with many contemporary designers is the extension of use of a single material. Plywood, for instance, is a versatile material and a fitting example of this as a material with a great deal of history in New Zealand design, attested to recently by the Hawkes Bay Museum and Art Gallery exhibition, Ply-ability, in which Katy Wallace featured. In Quotidian, Wallace discusses her Leaning Shelf, a ‘flat pack’ plywood design, the philosophy of which is interestingly demonstrated through her discussion of the staple-less stapler, an innovative product that simplifies the concept of binding multiple pieces of paper together without the use of that familiar small sliver of bent metal. Another example of “beauty in honesty”, the Leaning Shelf loses little functionality in its economy of form, literally being cut from a single piece of material.
Nat Cheshire uses the everyday as a point of departure in his design practice. Writing about a recent residential project, one aspect of which involved the conception and construction of an innovative four metre long cantilevered table, Cheshire, a delineator for Cheshire Architects, says “we have sought to destroy form.” In rejecting the everyday, Cheshire is of course aware the table still exists and in fact it is a central feature in the design of the property, but it is immediately apparent that he wishes to minimize the influence of the everyday objects in this project, without wholly purging them. It is fitting, having chosen an ornate demi-lune console table as his quotidian object, that the decorative detail in this object shares a lineage with decorative gilded painting frames. In paring back the visual impact of the necessary and the everyday, the interior of the residence in question ‘frames’ the contemporary art collection that it houses.
Kent Parker of Formway Design discusses the age old requirements for support and protection of the human body. Relaying the story of footwear’s history and highlighting the recent interest in ‘barefoot’ running with advanced yet simple shoes that are aligned closely with the natural mechanics of our feet, Parker raises an interesting point that sometimes innovation is startlingly obvious, sometimes it is hard to improve on nature’s good design. Formway’s award winning Be chair, for instance, employs a design process analogous to that of the Nike Free shoe design concept. Encouraging the body into maintaining a natural and healthy posture while sitting seems like an obvious requirement for a chair design, yet as countless uncomfortable chairs (and shoes) attest, this is a rare feat. Auckland design company Alt Group similarly have found it hard to improve a design archetype. In talking about the everyday, they observe that “every object has been designed, but some objects are considered common because we take them for granted.” Drawing upon the Bordeaux wine bottle, Alt Group “unlock new meaning” from this archetype. Their version of the bottle entitled A Lean Year, literally has a leaning body and neck and was designed as a gift to clients during the current economic recession. Valuing the power of keen observation to offer timely and wry commentary, they write; “so what happens when you mess with an archetype? You push up against what you already know, open up possibilities, unlock new meaning and make the familiar worth another look.”
Jonty Valentine describes his typeface design, Yonkers Line, as “a formal system of arbitrary signs.” Reworking the grid-based elevator display screen typeface that many of us interact with everyday, Valentine employed the grid as a set of parameters that were applied to a new typeface design resembling the elevator display but in which the grid system is advanced to incorporate a wide range of letters. Although the quotidian inspiration and his designed outcome have a close resemblance to one another, the geometry within Valentine’s adapted system is tested and pushed nearer to its logical limits. Valentine describes this kind of grid as “an essentially modernist point of view” in which “the best typefaces are the ones that make perfect sense within the logic of their own systems”. In some sense paying homage to the elevator display in this project, Valentine also illustrates the ‘borders’ of a designed world in which we may occasionally feel trapped.
“The use and manipulation of textiles is a growing interest both personally and within my practice,” says Guy Hohmann. He considers that the outside world is something from which we seek distraction in order to find a measure of comfort and Hohmann suggests that textiles can provide that distraction. He discusses his reaction to the writer Angeli Sachs, who said that “forms inspired by nature become topical when modern society finds itself in crisis.” Hohmann’s take is that in times of crisis – an everyday experience for many people – we do not express “a collective yearning for the pastoral,” but what we really seek is distraction. Cut and Sew Lamp, currently in prototype form, Hohmann says “attempts to replicate and exaggerate this idea of distraction, mimicking the soft ‘reconciliation’ of the carpet in the gentle bell curvature of the frame and the ease of the draping fabric.”
The proliferation of objects produced for the modern world suggest that we should sit back more frequently and reflect upon the relevance and value of existing objects. Fashion designers, Adrian Hailwood and Cybèle Wiren have each identified objects of influence that, while not coming from the discipline of fashion, illustrate the power of everyday objects to affect us, inspire contextualization and visual relationships, and remind us not to forget the beauty in that which already exists. Wiren talks about the inspiration board in her workroom, where two images of spiral staircases have lived on the wall, while Hailwood tells the story of an Oriental screen bought at a market that is used as an elegant and effective divider between his retail space and worktable. Some might regard it as paradoxical that these two designers, who work in a design field associated with the temporary or seasonal, are inspired by everyday objects that have stood the test of time.
Frequently we marvel and curse at the simplicity, elegance and limitations of that which already exists. But the designers featuring in Quotidian remind us that the objects in the quotidian can and do inspire outstanding contemporary design, their discussions emphasizing that design and design practice can be located, to some extent, in the quotidian. Considering the aesthetic and functional values of the objects around us, these designers highlight that in the pace of the modern world we often forget the everyday. It is fitting then for Japanese designer Kenya Hara to ask: “In a situation like this, might it be more important to listen to the cries and face the delicate values that are about to be dissipated in the whirling change, than to look for the next big thing on the horizon?” [4]
Matt Blomeley
[1] Donald A. Norman, The Psychology of Everyday Things, Basic Books, New York, 1988. (pp2)
[2] John Thackara, In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World, MIT Press, Massachusetts, 2006. (pp18,21) Thackara, writing about the outcome of a recent study conducted in Europe regarding design and the environment, remarks “the designers and researchers at PRé [a Dutch group] insist that environmentally sound materials do not exist; environmentally friendly design approaches do.”
[3] http://www.objectspace.org.nz/programme/show.php?documentCode=1984 (accessed 14 May 2010)
[4] Kenya Hara, Designing Design, Lars Muller, Japan, 2007. (pp410).
Best in Show 2010
In Applied Arts, Commissioned writing, Contemporary Art, Curatorial projects, Design, Objectspace on 03/06/2010 at 10:20 PM
The following makers/designers/artists, recent graduates from art, craft and design programmes around New Zealand, were featured recently in Best in Show 2010 (27 March – 8 May 2010) that I curated and installed as part of my role at Objectspace. The above link has images and the below texts regarding each maker, as well as a link to a free PDF download of the print publication.
Best in Show 2010 exhibition installation
Kristin D’Agostino
Investigating the relationship between the wearer and the jeweller, Kristen D’Agostino “attempts to scramble the current paradigm where one person makes and the other observes. In this case, both parties function as giver and receiver and as maker and viewer. It is an experiment in interchange and initiating relationships.” D’Agostino’s ‘relational’ forays within jewellery allow her to negotiate the boundaries of her practice both as a maker of jewellery and as a facilitator of projects such as the ‘Brooch of the Month Club’.
Nadene Carr
Applying details of her subject to a unique level of scrutiny, Jeweller Nadene Carr explores the subject of ‘the suit’. Reveling in the new discoveries uncovered by her approach, which crosses the boundary between accessory and apparel, she says “the transformation that I do want to present is its remodeling into an agent of art, quality in the materials and beauty in design. I am not concerned with garments that go in and out of fashion, or to be a passive symbol of status. It comes down to the relationship between the object and the wearer, and my questioning of the objects role on the body.”
Robyn Singh
Robyn Singh likens the process of resourcing materials for her jewellery to the feeling of having a sugar rush. It is fitting in this sense that these resources often come from such staples of our retail environment as ‘$2 shops’. “Walking away from the store” she says, “my sugar high turns into a low and guilt starts to overwhelm me. What am I going to do with all of them?” Rather than merely grabbing a bargain or indulging in retail therapy, Singh reinterprets the potential value of everyday objects, creating jewellery works which “suddenly transcend their original purpose and enter the realm of thoughtful and desirable objects. They become a unique multiple.”
Ko-Hsin Chen
An awareness of the unnecessary accessories aimed at the blank spaces in our lives, feeds the practice of Ko-Hsin Chen, who observes; “we crave for unnecessary accessories all day every day, especially when there is a limited amount in supply.” Chen reinterprets these desires and has transferred the contemporary craving for sneakers into a range of bags fashioned from recycled retro-style shoes; perhaps drawing inspiration from previous eras when recycling was not necessarily ‘de rigeur’ but rather more of an economic and physical necessity.
Sunni Gibson
Sunni Gibson’s work questions “jewellery’s current and historic role as a signifier of status and wealth.” Gibson’s work is not focused upon upon one type of object, but represents multiple ways of viewing the subject. Treating a range of signifiers as both material and subject for jewellery, the works resulting from this interrogation are for Gibson embodiments of a thinking and making process that is engaged with our often problematic desire for luxury goods.
Matt Fanning
Textile designer Matt Fanning draws inspiration from his interests in optical effects, magic, cinema and geometry. His design practice encompasses a range of 2D and 3D elements and techniques with an emphasis upon exploring three dimensional space. Fanning observes that “directors and magicians control their audiences’ perceptions through the manipulation of space and time: my collection endeavoured to explore the manipulation of real and virtual space.”
Helen Perrett
At first glance Helen Perrett’s dog women may appear to some viewers as a statement about gender roles. Perrett on the other hand suggests a unique and empowering stance for these works when she quotes the artist Paula Rego, who said: “To be a dog woman is not necessarily to be downtrodden; that has very little to do with it … everywoman’s a dog woman, not downtrodden but powerful. To be bestial is good. It’s physical. Eating, snarling, all activities to do with sensation are positive. To picture a woman as a dog is utterly believable.”
Gwen Hudson
Gwen Hudson employs a background in fashion and textile to a series of work which combines her skills and applies them, using wet and dry felt techniques to create what she refers to as “ambiguous soft sculptural forms”. Although on one level a playful exploration, there is a serious message embedded in Hudson’s work about which she says ”these forms, representing affected mushrooms, are created around a theme of the dangers facing nature and nature’s fragility and susceptibility to manipulation and abuse.”
Raewyn Walsh
Raewyn Walsh describes her practice as moving freely “between jewellery and object and investigating the attachments we have to physical things … I am interested in the themes of collections, possession, function and purpose.” Among her investigations, Walsh’s use of the vessel, which she says represents “form and formlessness”, is a central element in her work. She is attracted both to the vessel’s utilitarian function as well as its tangible and intangible associations. Walsh intervenes with found objects, “cutting, adding new materials, and distorting shapes. I also transplant my own objects onto to them”.
Kate Butler
Jeweller Kate Butler says that her work “operates in what Julia Kristeva has called ‘women’s time.’ This is a time described as non-linear and cyclical and includes natural processes that require no agency. It is a system of ebb and flow. This notion of womens time encapsulates my process of collecting the remnants and non precious evidence of living.” Butler employs this theory using a crochet process that resembles the double helix structure of DNA. It is a fitting analogy as “each crochet stitch is a further link in the ancestral chain that I am working into … These crocheted works speak for me of complicated relationships – families meshed tightly which appear transparent on the surface but hide secrets within the mesh.”
Emma Grose
A recent excursion to Istanbul led textile designer Emma Grose to an inspired visit to a Turkish Rug shop. She writes that “the shop had a certain charm and sense of mystery about it, accompanied by a colorful shop owner, Hussein, who told wonderful tales of carpets, travel and the Turkish people.” Back in New Zealand and inspired by her travels, Grose used various photographic and digital techniques to distort light and create wonderful abstract photographic images which were then digitally printed onto fabric. The mystery and spirit of her adventures has been innovatively channeled into these works.
Corinne Lochner
Not many students would find a direct source of inspiration for their work in the building in which they undertake their study, but graphic designer Corinne Lochner did just that. Many people will know that ‘Building 1’ at Unitec is the historical site of the Oakley Hospital. She says “over the few years I studied at Unitec I was always told stories of what went on and I wanted to find out more.” Following up this interest, Lochner became inspired by “how and what went on at Oakley Hospital and having connections with people that used to work and were around when it closed as a mental hospital“. She then developed an in-depth historical project, producing and designing an intriguing new book about her findings.
Jade Muirhead
Taking inspiration from modular structures and kitset construction, Jade Muirhead’s jewellery is based on the principle of what she terms ‘kitset jewellery’. Taking on the issue of status, Muirhead says of her work; “the less you have the more you desire. Packaged in specific kits, the first kit shows what can be created if you join the second kit to the first, and then what you can have joining the third, thus leading you to want more … With play being the main factor, the wearer is the designer of their own body adornment.”
David Kaho
Graphic designer David Kaho says “being an Australian born Tongan who lives in New Zealand I have become more curious of my cultural identity”. For the final year of his design degree identity became a key influence in his design practice and saw Kaho creating a suite of work aimed at helping “understand the differences between Western and Polynesian cultural to create an understanding within myself.” The resulting publication is closely related to a poster designed to promote the. The poster is very interesting as a stand-alone project. For this Kaho designed a “contemporary-pacific heading typeface to compliment the publication. It had references to a common polynesian motif and weaving.”
Sita Main
Designer Sita Main’s ‘Furoshikability’ shelving system was “initially inspired by the decorative and fluid nature of traditional Japanese Furoshiki, the art of folding textiles to create a myriad of forms.” Main describes an interest in “the physical nature of furoshiki from how it was knotted, rolled and folded to the nature of the textiles being fluid and soft yet able to be transformed into various structures which always revert back to a simple square piece of fabric … ‘Furoshikability’ was a term coined by Korean author O’ Young Lee who wrote ‘Furoshiki Culture’ and refers to a traditional eastern way of life which favours a flexible approach over the more fitted ones of the West.”
Emma Cullen
Emma Cullen treats jewellery practice as a fluid and experimental creative process. She describes her 2009 body of work as being “made up of smaller ‘projects’, which are interconnected, particularly through the process (thought process, set of rules) they are made with and through the hand of the maker.” An initial glance at Cullen’s work suggests a selection of disparate objects. This estimation is in one sense correct however Cullen elaborates, saying that her objects “relate to experiences – each is a visual response to an investigation of my own practice, my working method, my life experience, and my person … I like to be reminded that the objects exist outside of a formal context.”
Lars Preisser
Lars Preisser recounts his upbringing In Germany where part of his family was involved with industrial looms. He recalls “I was able to see these weaving machines in action a few times. They are extremely fast and the noise they produce is so loud that you had to wear ear protection.” In exploring weaving as an artist Preisser emphasises the repetitive motions and sounds of the machine along with himself as the weaver. Integrating audio cable into the weaving, Preisser provides the listener with “an insight into the process of the weaving by echoing its own creation” and notes that “I am always aware that the computer is historically dependent on the loom. It’s the question of where something begins.”
Matt Blomeley
Carving: Patrick Lundberg
In Commissioned writing, Contemporary Art on 29/09/2009 at 7:36 PM
It seems every young kid is destined to undertake certain ill-conceived acts and then remain ashamed of such activities well into adulthood. This kind of lingering shame would hopefully indicate an aversion from a future life in crime for the majority of us. An example: Hacking into my mum’s painting easel with a knife. what was I thinking? It was the early 1980′s and I was an easy-going country kid; a typical boy who fished for eels in the creek over the road and a keen reader who was also into drawing and painting. Trucks, animals, family members, houses, cartoon characters, etc; I drew them all. This predilection towards art makes the vandalistic action upon a painting easel appear slightly ironic.
There is probably a Freudian case study which would explain my one or two lawless acts during these years. For example, the easel from Freud’s perspective is possibly an untouchable ‘clan totem’ (1) from my childhood. In some sense the easel predestined my attendance at art school by twenty or so years. What then of hacking into it with a pocket knife? Fortunately I wasn’t born of a different era or locale; Freud notes the totem is accorded utmost respect among worshippers; in past ages violations of ‘totem taboos’ met with with harsh consequences, to say the least. (2)
In as much as it could have been the spirited rebellion against a taboo, or understandable frustration in not being able to use my mother’s oil paint with the same virtuosity as a felt tip pen, it was not in this instance an act of anger or frustration. I believe now, as I did then, that this action was simply the intoxicating combination of an exotic and unobtainable looking material meeting a pocket knife blade.
Although no longer able to visually recall hacking into this easel, I still respond viscerally from the incident – even following an art school education – to the notion of carving into something permanent or solid. The easel, thirty or so years later still in regular use by my mother, was the first thing I thought of when I came upon the art gallery wall carvings of Patrick Lundberg in 2006.
The transience of Lundberg’s work, in that these carvings, or excavations, will happen for a short period of time and disappear with the first swipe of polyfilla, imbue viewers with the feeling that despite the limited time frame of an artists gallery showing, his works – being as they are ‘carvings’ – are something other than temporary. Fittingly, the walls of rm103 gallery in downtown Auckland still bear the faint shapes of Lundberg’s 2006 exhibition, as he recently pointed out to me at a gallery opening. Whether or not this story relays an intentional aspect of these works is not really the point, but it illustrates the sense of permanence the viewer may experience as an immediate response to Lundberg’s work.
Lundberg’s wall carving work is predominantly destined to occupy a concept of temporality, although this is not entirely related to the time alloted an art exhibition. Foregrounding the temporality in Lundberg’s work is the recent emergence of a culture within many presenting institutions and major public museums for the authentic and live experience. This is of course an addition to the regular presentations of new and old ‘pre-approved’ objects. The nature of the live experience however is that it is almost lost before it began and so the historical moment passes irretreviably.
While not suggesting a criticism of this institutional framework, to the regular patron of an institution Lundberg’s work in a sense bridges the gap between the varying degrees of dialogism captured in an institution’s past exhibitions, and the currently popular souvenir-like live event. The process of skillfully marking and cutting the outline of a drawing then delicately removing strips of paint from the gallery wall uncovers stratified layers from previous exhibitions and often previous artists site specific wall works; all within a precise and site specific drawing. (3)
This brand of virtuosity with a scalpel blade suggests the continued potential and importance of painting in conceptual art and critical theory. Lundberg is ungrudgingly attempting to engage with multiple possibilities. At the same time, it appears – despite the different intellectual references – that he relishes the opportunity and sentiment of digging his way through various histories of the institution, at least as much as I secretly enjoyed hacking into an easel with a knife.
Matt Blomeley
1. Freud, Sigmund. Totem and Taboo, The Return of Totemism in Childhood, Routledge Classics, 2001, London, (pp120). Quoting from J.G. Frazer’s Totemism and Exogamy (1910), Freud suggests there are “at least” three kinds of totem, “(1) the clan totem, common to a whole clan, and passing by inheritance from generation to generation; (2) the sex totem, common either to all the males or to all the females of a tribe, to the exclusion in either case of the other sex; (3) the individual totem, belonging to a single individual and not passing to his descendants…”
2. ibid, “The rules against killing or eating the totem are not the only taboos; sometimes they are forbidden to touch it, or even to look at it; in a number of cases the totem may not be spoken of by its proper name. Any violation of the taboos that protect the totem are automatically punished by severe illness or death” (pp120)
3. Wright, Richard, Richard Wright, Richard Wright and Thomas Lawson in conversation, Milton Keynes Gallery, UK, 2000. Wright observes of his painting practice, which displays an interest in site specificity similar in some respects with Patrick Lundberg, “It’s not so much about the individuality of ideas, but the quickness of how an idea gets translated through the agency of something like skill. It’s karaoke shit really. The sheer dumbness of trying to transmit something through your own body – being forced to find definitions. The agency of this kind of manoeuvere that, against the odds, allows you to come up with the goods.”
Overheard Conversation
In Applied Arts, Commissioned writing on 17/09/2009 at 9:25 PM
An abiding interest in topiary (hedge and shrub sculpture) is one distinguishing feature of American ceramic sculptor Scott Chamberlin’s artistic practice. Topiary, of course, is a complex and long held tradition involving the trans-generational maintenance and subtle grooming of living plants into various shapes. Many active topiary gardens in Europe predate the colonization of New Zealand not just by decades, but by hundreds of years.
It is fitting given his commitment to topiary that Chamberlin, a Visiting Professor in the Contemporary Craft Program, Unitec in 2009, during the course of his artist residency in Auckland has closely observed – and taken inspiration from – the many unusual plant forms that make up our flora and fauna. The title of Chamberlin’s Objectspace Vault installation is suggestive of the approach he has taken with his studio practice while in New Zealand.
Like a witness to an ‘overheard conversation’ – the conversation being New Zealand’s Diaspora of recently immigrated peoples and our relation to the landscape – the new works that have resulted bear traces of his present inspiration but they also lean on his experiences as both sculptor and topiarist.
Extracting reproductive forms and other attributes from our foliage, in these new works the native forest of New Zealand and our engagement with it is investigated with fresh eyes. Chamberlin has created a terracotta landscape combining plant-like elements with subtle and erotic forms suggestive of the body.
Chamberlin observes of his New Zealand muse: “One can see acknowledgement of many visual remnants of my impressions of NZ. One will see wigged (colonial) people, one will see foreigners, one will see ornamentation (from a European perspective) one will see my response to a bewildering verdancy… much flora and fauna, some “native” and some not. One will see some pondering of what “native” means to varying constituents.”
Mark Masuoka, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver, has observed that Chamberlin “continually mines a rich vein of ideas by fusing material sensuality with a tactile consciousness and the pleasures of spontaneity. The structural clarity displayed enables the viewer to experience the presence of the object with a ritualistic simplicity. His lush, voluptuous forms are clearly not utilitarian, but function in defining internal as well as external space.”
Scott Chamberlin is the 2009 Visiting Professor/Artist in Residence at the Department of Design, Faculty of Creative Industries and Business, Unitec, as well as international judge of the 2009 Portage Ceramics Awards. Snowhite Gallery at Unitec is showing Fertile Matters, an important solo exhibition of Chamberlin’s work (until 19 October.) Chamberlin was born in California in 1948 and holds a Masters Degree from Alfred University. He has featured in numerous US and international exhibitions and is currently a Professor in the Department of Art & Art History at the University of Colorado. Chamberlin is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts awards (1990, 1996) as well as a prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2001.
What: Overheard Conversation
Where: Objectspace
When: 22 September – 7 November 2009
(Unitec studio image courtesy Scott Chamberlin.)
Handstand: Unfamiliar and Innovative Contemporary Jewellery
In Applied Arts, Commissioned writing, New Zealand Jewellery Showcase on 07/07/2009 at 10:46 PMNotes on the Top Mark and Resene Award Winners
The first four years in a contemporary jewellery career is a pivotal time. Inevitable and obvious issues confront the maker head-on; finding gallery representation and supplying proven selling pieces, not to mention holding down a day job. These exterior aspects of a practice push and pull new makers in perhaps unexpected directions. Although by no means insurmountable, challenges like this serve to define the committed versus those who will inevitably fall off the radar. A small yet vibrant part of the visual arts sector, contemporary jewellery has grown exponentially in recent years and witnessed a number of New Zealand practitioners establishing national and international reputations. The makers showcased in Handstand provide a fantastic snapshot of just a few talents emerging out the handful of tertiary education programmes in this field, from around the country.
Top Mark Award winner Vaune Mason’s unique work, Control, stands out with its consideration of the jewellery wearer. An intriguing and nostalgic object, the work is not what you would consider typical jewellery. A vintage-looking object resembling a mourning jewellery locket, or a ‘box brownie’ camera, and finished with a sensible leather strap, the wearer of Mason’s work engages in a conceptual manner with the object. In choosing from a selection of portrait images, one of which then peers out of the lens-like porthole, the viewer is perhaps left to ponder; is this a metaphoric device providing us the ability to capture our mood (like a camera) or is it suggesting that one can choose who we mourn on any given day? The truth is slightly different, as the images are of Mason herself, who explains: “I have given over my physical identity as well as my ‘marks’ to this piece. The new owner, over whom I have no control, will be able to decide how I am viewed. They may never meet me in person, but with this piece, they can see an intimate side of me.”
Second place in the Top Mark awards went to Vivien Atkinson, whose series Suite: Illusions addresses bridal jewellery. A universal symbol, the ‘bride’ is synonymous with beauty, purity and of course the always implied air of temporality. In transferring the fragile and undoubtedly highly skilled craft of cake decorating to jewellery, Atkinson engages directly with the discussion of adornment, an issue which resounds more strongly in contemporary jewellery than other art practices.
Winner of the Resene Award, Jhana Miller’s The Charm Bracelet is a witty work which highlights our contemporary obsession with disposable consumer goods. This colourful collection of charms is ironically fashioned from the eminently more recyclable and un-jewellery-like medium of paper.
By the time they have ‘made it’ those who thrive in contemporary jewellery can be considered successful as both fine artist and skilled craftsperson. The emphasis on craft skill is something which needs to be asserted here: skill, in combination with fresh ideas and cogent aesthetic explorations that is. As writer and curator Damian Skinner discusses in his essay (the publication accompanying Handstand will include essays by Damian Skinner and Kevin Murray), developing skill takes time. Skill of course cannot be acquired via a certificate and it takes many years of hard graft in the studio to – hopefully – master the nuances which add the indiscernible polish that can define a successful craft practice. These makers are proving beyond doubt that they are well on their way.
Matt Blomeley (2009 judge of the Top Mark and Resene awards)
HANDSTAND: Unfamiliar and Innovative Contemporary Jewellery
Exhibition dates: 16 – 19 July 2009
Sky City Convention Center
The New Zealand Jewellery Show
www.jewelleryshow.co.nz
Curator Peter Deckers (educator and established contemporary jeweller from Wellington) has brought together the Handstand exhibition, featuring the latest works from participating emerging jewellery artists in a variety of artistic styles and media.
In from the Garden
In Applied Arts, Commissioned writing, Contemporary Art, Curatorial projects, Objectspace on 21/05/2009 at 1:04 AM
“Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. You are always living three, or indeed six, months hence. I believe that people entirely devoid of imagination never can be really good gardeners. To be content with the present, and not striving about the future, is fatal.” – Alice Morse Earle (1897)
Twentieth century German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys famously proclaimed “every man is an artist” and it seems that we have built upon this notion to include craft practice. It is perhaps easy to utilise Beuys’ statement as a truism for considering all creative practice as equivalent but the realities are much different. For the majority of us, one reminder from our time spent making is the sobering discovery that the vision and skills necessary to realize a well crafted object readily identifies the ‘amateur’ from the ‘auteur’.
Art, including craft is a barometer of the times, and as Alice Morse Earle observed, notable practice always looks to the future. Gleaning information about the practices of a new generation of contemporary craft artists, In from the Garden showcases four currently establishing makers who clearly have strived for the future, both creatively and professionally. These exhibitors, since emerging from their respective New Zealand tertiary arts programmes during the last half decade, have between them exhibited nationally and internationally, entering and winning awards and demonstrating capabilities as makers of artistically attuned craft.
There is a certain period in a creative practice where a maker has attained that fine balance between exhibiting and selling work, making a living and having time in the studio: i.e. the realities of professional creative practice. During this period, where there is often much more to achieve, there is a sense that an epochal work could be just around the corner. Objectspace has observed the opportunities and difficulties makers can encounter in establishing practices. With this in mind, In from the Garden is intended to look closer at four makers from around New Zealand who, currently at this period of their respective careers, are staying the course and readying to settle in for the long haul.
A new series of work by jeweller Renee Bevan goes by the boldly self-explanatory title, Blooming Big Brooches (2008-9). One can confidently claim that Bevan is currently obsessed with flowers. Bevan recalls, “I have long been fascinated with the pre-packaged emotive power of flowers; specifically the rose. Its manufactured sentimentality, vast symbolism and long-standing history in jewellery and adornment; the rose has a unique ability to speak of love, life and death all at the same time. Transforming imagery and materials already entrenched with an abundance of history and meaning I exaggerate and play on their existing connotations and suggestions.”
These brooches engage in a distinctive new conversation for Bevan regarding dimension, subject and adornment. Earlier in her career, Bevan was fascinated by pre-existing jewellery. A series of work entitled Lost and Found (2005) resulted from casting new works in precious metals as direct impressions from mass produced jewellery. (1)
This time around, Bevan has borrowed generic images of roses, the kind of images which proliferated in 1960s and ’70s gardening related publications. In these new works, the rose image is détourned, (2) cut-and-pasted to become sections of petals on successive layers of wood. The resulting brooches are kind of clunky yet elegant and not entirely disposed of their former glory.
Ceramic artist Blue Black is engaged in a practice which emerges from “an organized and ordered place to disorderly, freeplay chaos and back to organizing what happened.” Embodying these words, Black’s works arrive from the kiln as perlocutionary statements after this energetic and performative process as variously charred, colourful, grotesque and ultimately striking objects.
Blue Black’s work is refreshing at a time when it often seems every aspect of the craft process is over-investigated for relevance in order to be vindicated, sometimes stifling free expression. Black tackles expressive processes with relish explaining that “while my imaginings take a back seat the physical pleasure of the actions of making is the focus … My priority is finding my own rhythm and being swept along in the sensations of the body and materials, as if it is a performance.”
Through the study of expression, Black’s research forms an organic part of ceramic practice. Pushing clay around freely is championed and thus allowed to inform the artist’s thinking about modernist concepts like the sublime and the subconscious as something “produced from automatic emotional responses of the artist which can be perceived by the viewer.”
In Harm’s Way? (2008) is a central work for Jeweller Victoria McIntosh, who presents this installation with the quote, ”Primum non Nocere – First do no harm.” A maker of finely crafted individual works and installations, McIntosh’s work often seems to poke at the vagaries of how we each relate to objects and in the process of doing so emotionally attach ourselves to them, using this emotional resonance to draw meaning and define our notions of individual identity.
A provocation is deliberately set-up and ‘emotionally fractured’ in In Harm’s Way? by McIntosh. A collection of found and hand altered finely crafted objects are subjected to the notion of separation – a central idea in McIntosh’s practice, as an adoptee. In this work a framed found image depicts a mother and child. This image, with its cracked glass metaphorically separating the two intimate subjects, is installed beside a matching frame containing various objects. The words ‘Nature’ and ‘Nurture’ are finely embroidered onto the labels of two vintage lace collars, subtly embodying the dichotomy that may come to bear if we are separated from our genetic past.
Echoing Alice Morse Earle’s observation, McIntosh is concerned with the future, as she observes, “science moves us further away from the tried and tested methods of conception – I am left wondering the impact this will have on future generations. The concerns I have stem from my experience growing up as an adoptee without access or knowledge of my own genetic origins. This piece is a response to the new reproductive technologies and the ethical questions they raise for society as a whole.”
Ben Pearce’s practice illustrates the value of tinkering around in the studio with conceptual ideas and technical craft skills ready to be freely deployed. Pearce’s objects are predominantly of wood, which is minutely crafted and skillfully combines locally found objects and machine parts.
Pearce is inspired by memory and childhood. For Pearce childhood is a metaphor for the act of looking at something potentially unknown, as an adult. A recent work, 28 Various Preservations (2009) delved into this idea in depth, with Pearce noting “28 actual memories may be recalled and visited here, just one small section of a vast inter-related city. A City of desperation and adaptation, the forms are not eloquent or fancy, they take on a tree hut feel, that of ingenuity, as if constructed simply to perform a basic function of protection.”
Similar in some respects to Victoria McIntosh, Pearce is also interested in family history and genealogy but from a more general perspective. A recent work, Grandfather Clock (2009) “presents a window into the idea about the connections that we make and construct around an ancestor un-met. The pieced together nature of information that in-stills in us a type of familiarity of them, we wish to meet them face to face, stand in their air and time.”
The makers in In from the Garden emerged from educational programmes developed in the 1980s for an art sector which has evolved since then. A number of New Zealand tertiary institutions have expressed a reinvigorated level of enthusiasm towards craft in the two ensuing decades. This is in no small part due to the successes of a select group of New Zealand craft-aligned artists gaining international recognition. Some of these makers trained in the above programmes, along with mid-career makers who emerged earlier.
Accommodating for and building upon the interest in a small but vital and expanding field like contemporary craft requires not only innovative ideas but also forward thinking at an educational level. Despite certain regional strengths within disciplines of craft education, care is needed to develop and ensure existing programmes stay relevant. The perceived strength of craft programmes is on one level the opportunity for students to acquire craft skills and on another level the opportunity to refine their critical (fine art) acumen: there is often an issue with the balancing of these two dimensions. (3)
The four makers in this exhibition have established a strong case for the continued valuing of craft skill. Without a place to learn these skills, aspiring makers in craft disciplines have limited options outside of established community-based societies. It is a concern for many that some institutions are moving towards combined art and design programmes, where the balance between theory and practice does not address the distinctive nature of craft practice and the needs of emerging practitioners.
The context for making contemporary craft and art is an intimate occasion, drawing upon makers wants, needs and concerns and it is a natural conclusion that these makers are often drawn to the deepest recesses of their imagination. These unique vantage points are a rich source for rewarding and enlightening projects. Helping to redefine the parameters of contemporary craft and fine art practice, the makers featuring in In from the Garden demonstrate that they are “striving about the future”.
Matt Blomeley
28 May 2009
1. http://www.objectspace.org.nz/programme/works.php?documentCode=656 (26 May 2009)
2. A fine arts technique where imagery, or an object, is borrowed or reused to make a new work; often containing a different message than intended by the original author.
3. Jenkins, Douglas Lloyd, Volume: After The Makeover, keynote presentation, ‘Volume’ symposium, Hawkes Bay Museum and Art Gallery, Napier, 18 October 2008, http://www.hbmag.co.nz/item/volume_dlj.pdf (26 May 2009). Jenkins’ notes that this emphasis on degree credentials at the expense of skills is not limited to New Zealand and he quotes Jane Jacobs, who has cited a similar concern within the diploma system in Canadian community colleges.
Image – Ben Pearce, Home Alone No. 2, English Beech, English Walnut, Cotton, 2009, courtesy of the artist (image Peter Tang)
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What: In from the Garden curated by Matt Blomeley
Where: Objectspace, 8 Ponsonby Rd, Auckland
When: 6 June – 18 July, 2009
Gallery hours: Tues – Sat, 10am – 5pm. Free admission. A print publication for this exhibition is available from Objectspace.
