Archive for the 'art intepretation' Category

Connecting thread (by Olga Norris)

Published July 16, 2011 Art criticism , Art Ideas , art intepretation , Artist , textile art , Women in art 10 Comments

Crafts magazine, May/June 2010

The work of artist Maurizio Anzeri came to my attention in this magazine last year, with an article written by Jessica Hemmings.  And recently I found that an exhibition of his work is on at Baltic, Gateshead.   I am intrigued by uses of stitch, especially when not on cloth, because I wonder what it is that drew the artist to the needle and thread rather than to the pencil, pen, etc.

There is of course the added dimension of both the thread and its effect – in this case the latter being the holes caused by the needle.  So is this use of needle and thread rather than pen and line adding the active dimension of piercing and pulling.  Piercings on anonymous faces from the past, and is it a drawing out of their individuality in its unknown chaotic form, pulled out to form the imposed order of the stitched pattern?

Brigitte Family Album

And do they remind you as they do me of those so fashionable pictures made with nails and string on a dark background – when was that? 

To me these works by Anzeri are the dark side of stitching, somehow destructive of human sentiment because they take time, delicacy, precision, to overlay, to obliterate   Taking the tradition of pattern stitching, historically used to denote cultural difference, originally used in a positive way: treasured reminders of meaningful family moments, added to the similarly important marker of the photographic portrait – from years before the constant instant snapping of today – these spirographic doodlings may be attractive in an abstracted way, but I find them fundamentally cruel in outlook.

But we humans are a cruel species, and just as there is excessive sentimentality about photographs, so at the other end there is this twisting of view of what they might mean.   The artist Julie Cockburn also distorts found photographs, as well as sometimes embroidering on them.

Little one (left) Daydreamer

Mary (left) Warrior

 Is this kind of work yet another way in which an artist can say what others are feeling?  That far from venerating our ancestors and their aspirations for us, their progeny, we want to impose our own patterns on them retrospectively?  Is this form of art chosen because abstraction is not direct or personal enough?  The abstract can be taken in whatever way the observer wishes, such as in the work of  Alison Schwarz.

Untitled

This does not even have a title to point the viewer.  But the altered photographs link directly with every viewer in a very personal way. 

I managed to find a middle ground, using photograph and thread – although with nails this time, not specifically stitch – a use of collage/assemblage by Dayna Thacker.  Do we find this more attractive/acceptable?  And if we do, is it because we prefer to sugar our pills?

Birth of a Prophet

I think that use of traditional materials, domestic skills, and use of previously highly regarded cultural markers can be incredibly powerful semiotic tools in expressing ourselves today.

Time (by Olga Norris)

Published May 22, 2010 Art Ideas , art intepretation , artist development , gaze , quilt art , textile art 9 Comments

Specifically, time in the visual arts.  At a concert, watching a film or other performance, or reading a book, I enjoy the unfolding, the development, the altering of perspective and increase in understanding – all of which continue beyond the end in a work of worth.  What about art on the wall?  Paintings can be big enough to encompass the whole wall, and can take time to complete the looking, but generally the fixed image has to contain something else to hold and impart time. 

 While at a jazz concert listening to a piece with a distinct journey, holding back and revealing, teasing and revealing, I thought how difficult it is for a maker of fixed images to convey such a journey to the observer.  I started thinking about it seriously after that, and managed to answer a question which I’d casually asked myself many years ago. 

 

 Why is it when visiting a new place, particularly a foreign place, that so many of us are drawn to decay?  It is not just the old ways of building that attract us, because reconstructions are not seen to be quite as alluring as decay.  What is it about the poor parts of a city that make them so much more attractive than the prosperous well-tended parts?  What makes them so artistically inspiring? 

 Is it time?  The passage of time is writ clearly upon the face of the building in its decay.  Do we need to see the marks of time to feel a kind of comfort?  Which thought brought me to looking at the marks made by thread on cloth.  In a very direct way this can be seen in the work of Matthew Harris, and anyone who is inspired by the urban archaeology of peeling posters. 

stitched textile by Matthew Harris

 

 The question of time also brought me to thinking about ‘the frozen moment’: the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson being the ultimate example of this for me.  One of his genius abilities in my mind is that although he always seems to be there to capture the astonishing instant, he also does not detract  from or paralyse the action.  In that still we are given a glimpse into a continuum. 

 I realise that this is what I want from fixed images: that they should engage with both the concept of time and with my time.  I take as the ultimate example the magical image of Yves Klein’s Leap into the Void.  Having grasped the attention it immediately provokes the imagination to supply the continuum, it questions, it arouses curiosity, and is timeless.  I love it, and find that it leaps often from the void –or out of the blue – into my mind in conjunction with many different topics. 

 In my own work I suppose I try to capture an ambiguity or enigma which can change with viewings over time.  Although my own emotions are encompassed, I hope that they have been distilled and abstracted (aha! – see my last post here) enough to be more universal.  I aspire to the foothills of Edward Hopper in providing a work which is not-quite-completely-knowable, but which attracts and satisfies timeless curiosity.  It will take me some time to get there, but I hope to continue having fun on the way!

Fit for purpose (by Olga Norris)

Published March 18, 2010 Art criticism , Art Ideas , art intepretation , artist development 5 Comments

I recently visited an exhibition of the work of art editor and graphic designer David Hillman.  He is a man whose work I have long admired – and indeed did not know that he was the one behind all the different manifestations.  From the days of the iconic Nova magazine, the glory days of the Sunday Times newspaper, the surreal Benson and Hedges cigarette advertisements, all the designs for Pentagram , … these are images which brought feelings of wonder, excitement, a need to see and know more.  This was the kind of design that I dreamed of aspiring to in my publishing work.

In each case the image was more than the sum of its parts, and was definitively fit for purpose: it drew the appropriate attention to the product, not to the designer of the image – except from fellow professionals.  Good product design similarly excites me, as does brilliant architectural design.  In each case the end result should be at the very least fit for purpose, and also hold some individual integrity beyond the sum of its parts.

 Design is done to a brief which provides boundaries and requirements, as well as the discipline of a necessary respect for the materials and techniques involved.  I have always believed that the more one knows, but the less one indulges oneself the better prepared becomes the vital tool of the brain’s back burner.

 Although art and design are different disciplines, they should overlap, just as they should both overlap with craft.  The more frequently exercised debate is the one between craft and art; but the one not often enough heard is that between design and art, most especially the question of fitness for purpose.

Of course this fitness for purpose in art this is not so clearly defined as in product design, architecture, even graphic design and craft.  And it goes without saying that I am not in the least talking about any practical purpose.  The artist themselves and time are the important judges of what that purpose is; but the informed observer – whether a practising artist or not – should keep seeking to make critical judgments of their own – even if those judgments are later refined or even revised in the light of further enlightenment.  And by critical I do not mean only negative judgements or observations.

 I do believe that there should be a fitness for purpose in one’s art, and that this should constantly be under consideration.  This design thinking, once second nature, along with mastery of appropriate craft and its twin, appreciation of materials, facilitates those special tools of the artist – imagination and the back burner – in making good art: something more than the sum of its parts.

The fool on the hill (by Olga Norris)

Published January 13, 2010 Art criticism , Art Ideas , art intepretation , textile art 4 Comments

This thought bunch was triggered by a news item: a former Guantanamo guard apologising to two former prisoners.  During the interview one of the prisoners commented that translators at the prison did not always render correctly what had been said.  My immediate thought was how powerful translators are, and what a great contribution to one’s own abilities knowing another language is.

I read a lot of books by foreign authors, and am conscious of what a difference a good translation makes to the enjoyment and appreciation of the author’s work.  Indeed a good translator should be able to overcome some of an author’s language shortcomings – or should they?

As I mused further about being able to see both sides, and being able to take an overview, I turned to my recently broached topic of criticism – and to the power of the critic.  In the art world the late Clement Greenberg leaps to mind.  It was when I read the excellent Anthony Caro: Quest for the New Sculpture that I realised what a huge role Greenberg played in Caro’s development.

Shakespeare’s fools are often the eyes which can speak the politically unwise.  How good it would be to be our own fools: to stand on the hill and see both sides.  The difficulty arises when distance is not what is needed to develop good work.  Sometimes the blinkered determination of a clear but narrow view is what produces the great breakthrough – sometimes there is no translation because there is no equivalence.

I guess that’s when the translator’s art is most needed in the widest sense of interpretation.  And that is when we need their best work.  Should that translator be the most efficient, effective objective conduit, or like Greenberg have a substantial subjective input?  I think my own ambition in this field is to use both, to inform myself as much as possible so that I can be my own fool to look around at the whole landscape as well as my own patch of ground.

Is there however sufficient informed critique about contemporary textiles?  There are many descriptive articles informing us about the artists and their work.  Telos Art Publishing produce many beautiful books which inform us visually, and which have descriptive and biographical texts, but only three volumes of serious critique in their Reinventing Textiles series.  I reviewed the first two volumes, and was disappointed that so much obfuscatory academic-speak was employed.  I suppose that’s perhaps necessary to make sure that the text is not seen as more general articles for hobbyists. 

To be fair, magazines are improving.  Fiberarts, Surface Design, Embroidery are all including many more serious articles, and Craft Arts International I find excellent, although textiles is a minority subject there.  I used to subscribe to Sculpture magazine until the exchange rate made the cost prohibitive – there the work of artists such as Annette Messager and others who similarly use textile materials or techniques is discussed seriously within a wider context.  I miss those views, and just this minute while thinking of that loss, I have decided that instead of entering the lottery of the Quilt Visions exhibition I shall renew my subscription to Sculpture magazine.  So here I sit with my foolish grin, delighted in anticipation.

I think that there is a gap, a need for a wider serious (but not a pseudo-academic-self-importance-speak) critique of textiles such as that produced from time to time by Linda Millar (see her latest touring exhibition: Cultex) so that we can learn more about the wide landscape in which we are tilling our own soil.

Reaction and/or judgement? (by Olga Norris)

Published December 17, 2009 Art criticism , Art Ideas , art intepretation , contemporary art , gaze , textile art 17 Comments

Deep thought

I have recently made two visits to a solo exhibition of a celebrated textile artist – one whom I have admired for many years and whose work I have loved.  But on seeing the show my anticipated delight was abruptly turned to disappointment and doubt.

In this post I want to discuss my response and ask questions of others out there rather than to talk specifically about the work in question.  I want to think out loud about how we form our critical responses to work.  I want to find out how others deal with instant instinctive reactions, quietly considered judgements, and gradually – or even dramatically evolving opinions.

As I say, the artist is one whose work I have responded to positively for a long time, and that admiration has persisted throughout  my own education within the field.  I understand so much more about technique on many levels now, but this work has remained up there as excellent and inspiring.  I would place the artist up amongst the special few.

This exhibition contains one large piece in the familiar style, but also many illustrating a new approach.  I found those to be ‘too easy’, taking advantage of technique perhaps to speed up completion.  I found that they appeared deliberately commercial – meaning made to make more product from a ‘name’ – rather than speaking with an integrity of their own.  I find that they are not good work – and by that I mean so much more than just that I did not like them.

I was downcast and confused.  Because these days I am in a precarious emotional state personally I wondered whether my judgement had gone haywire.  Was I dismissing these works because they seemed rough, and different?  Was I unwilling to accept that the artist’s approach had changed?  Should an artist not be entitled to take advantage of esteem and ‘churn out’ a few lesser pieces (if they are indeed generally accepted as lesser) in order to make a living?

I felt that here was an area for further pondering.  I can make use of my few free hours to make the short journey to visit the show again and again to examine and re-examine my reactions.  On my second visit I noticed that all the smaller pieces I find attractive -’acceptable’! – have been sold, but those which I find unresolved and unsatisfactory still unsold.  But is that just good old convention at work?  Is that simply the market asking for more of what it already has deemed acceptable – and thus makes it so difficult for anyone with a well defined style of work to change in any way?

I don’t think that I am stuck in my opinions, but then perhaps I wouldn’t.   I would like to read what others think about this general principle of an approach to work, and how one gauges whether a work is good even if one doesn’t like it – or obversely judges that a work is slight even if one likes it tremendously.  Do changing tastes affect the integral quality of  work?

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