Words ahead of a live work at Trelex Residency.
Grip a Hold (workign title).
Is a piece with a fantastic sprawl of scrap metal I found on the side of a footbath in a big cage bin. This metal is usually used to bound up materials.
I will be working live with the metal and spoken word in the barn and the garden of the residency. I will make small and intricate sounds, I will then be within and/or carrying the metal around me as I walk.
“
I can’t grip a hold
This grip is too old
A little sound can ground a soul
A sprawling mark can stay away the dark
Reigning in again
What is that voice inside that hold?
Reigning in again
A little sound
can ground
a soul
“
During the Trelex Residency I have balanced ideas about ‘live’ and ephemeral with 2 works.
One work is some water taken from the lake which has been evaporating over time.
(I originally took this water from Geneva Lake after realsing that there was an extremely small percentage of it which is publically accessible).
The water has been existing by itself and also dissapearing.
The other work is a pile of potatoes scavenged from the side of a farmers field.
(As somebody who often works with found objects and materials and enjoys skipping and scavenging and sharing- I noticed a distinct lack of ‘things’ lying around the area. When I saw these potatoes and then later thought of the early ephemeral work of Christian Dotremont in a CoBrA exhibition- I knew I had to bring them back to the studio. Just to be in a pile and to deteriorate).
For me- this has kept the studio ‘live’ even when I am not doing anything and it has slowed time down- contrasting with the shorter bursts of activity.
L’Art Brut Inspiré
At one point during this residency in Trélex I became quite uninspired by my prim and proper surroundings. The only bit of rebellion that was visible was in the little shelter at the train stop where teenagers had written on the white ceiling with their lighters with things such as A.C.A.B and Fuck the Police. I think every one of these teenagers would be very polite if they were ever approached by a police officer- they all look like clean cut wholesome models for The GAP. But I like being beside their graffitti. I was feeling out of place and all of the fenced off,gated up nice house with nice bits of land taking up all the best places to explore and 99% of the lake were making me feel boxed in.
And then I picked up L’Art Brut collection catalogue and realised where I was. I was in the heart of L’Art Brut- or at least a short train ride away. I read about women such as Aloïse Corbaz who was part of Jean Dubuffet’s initial round up of psychiatric art. I realised that many of these psychiatric hospitals which artists had been put into were dotted all around and not too far. It made me start to think of sweeping problems under the carpet and idealised versions of society and what is left to ‘represent’ normality in the functioning day to day. Story after story of artist who did something human- ie fall in love, get obsessed, pick a fight, be a teenager, be different – and then get incarcerated and ploughed into a system.
I felt lucky that I could create and express without being locked up (yet). I felt a strong connection and sympathy for the artist Aloïse. Things seemed to start to go wrong for her when she fell in love. Her actions and obsession had her deemed crazy. Her work is so much about loving- about the embrace and that falling dizzying happy moment. I decided to take this inspiration and use it to depart from how I would usually make work. I took a big roll of paper into the garden (which is massive) and some chunky pencils and crayons. I drew an embrace inspired by Aloïse- trying to feel and express in the moment and move freely and fast. I felt like I could understand her process.
After finishing the work I took it up to the studio but realised it was too big to hang. So I looked around and tried to think of where there was more space- and then I looked out of the window. It seemed obvious to hang it out of the window- for it to be free. I had drawn a house on the bottom of the picture- like many of her compositions had. I don’t know whether this house was ever symbolic of the institution for her or whether it was part of the dream- but it felt good to hang the work fromt he top of such a big house. I felt it was a tribute. I took the work back in because of the wind and it hung down from the ceiling and spread across the studio floor.
And then we went to L’Art Brut Collection in Lausanne. I felt better as soon as we got off the train as I saw a goth. Being a goth was my first experiment with identity and attraction to something ‘different’. I was blown away by the energy still resonating in that collection. I saw Aloïse’s work and was taken a back- as one piece was hung in exactly the same way as I had left it in the studio. It was uncanny. I didn’t realise that she worked on such a large scale. She achieved this by stitching lots of individual pieces of support together which added something you couldn’t get fromt he reproductions in the book. I felt truly connected and back to fully inspired.
(I was also inspired by Justine Python but will write about her ina nother post).
I recommend a visit to Collection De L’Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland.
http://www.artbrut.ch/en/21070/collection-art-brut-lausanne
__Risk Assesment
__CUNT ROCK
__An Alive Unaccomplished Scenario
2 recent works that are in my thinking during the early stage of the Trelex residency are Risk Assesment for The Chinese Arts Centre and CUNT ROCK for Be Live at The Penthouse.
There are 2 reasons for this.
1/ All 3 of these recent situations and works have involved 3 different studios which are also the places for presenting work from and all have quite different sorts of audiences.
2/ They all come at a point in my practice where I am daring to approach what I REALLY want to do. What gets my heart racing and fills my soul and feels real and important. I am daring to be unapologetic about honesty and the personal in my work.
Words that have been used in the past about my work and particularly these works include: provocative, evocative, menacing, beneath the skin, haunting, frightening.
But is there a time and place?
In Switzerland there seems to be an extra palpable sense of a time and place for everything which is very strongly goverend by capital and a sense of achieveing something practical.
The out of the ordinary seems so much more strange and out of line here. The ordinary turned extra ordinary seems almost ridiculous. Why gather some potatoes from a field and pile them up in your studio?
There is a lot of peace here- it is why people are here. Why disturb it?
The Body
Sound arrangements/sculptures
Studio as site for spontaneity
Action for person
Action for video
Action for nobody
A space for/of failure and potential
An Alive Unaccomplished Scenario
A compulsion?
An embaressment?
A freedom?
Only ever half way
Hopeful or hopeless?
Broken or unmade?
Trelex Residency, Switzerland.
Initial thinking, reflection, working- what is live art but being when no body is present?
Myself and fellow artist and co director of The Penthouse Debbie Sharp are on a 3 week residency at Trelex Residency, Switzerland (ran by artist Nina Rodin).
My work has been very surrounded by people and about sharing the live and sonic art space over the last 6 months or so as my venture into ‘being’ in my work deepens. I have courted chaos fired by adrenaline and made work directly for and infront of/amongst an audience. So in a quiet studio in a little town outside of Geneva I find myself in a radically different scenario.
Nobody is looking at me or the work and none of it will last.
[I need to add at this point that I am not an extrovert or exhibitionist or a natural performer in the traditional sense. I have found myself in this area of working due to being uncomfortable with the comfortable and pushing at what scares me. ]
I will blog my current thinking and working during this residency with some reflections on recent related works including that of my Chinese Arts Centre residnecy project and my recent work CUNT ROCK for Be Live at The Penthouse. I may not blog any/many outcomes or live works whilst I work out this massive contradiction.
