Spent the last few weeks screwing, really sore. I’ve been attaching plates and fixtures to my pictures; the sore bits are my fingertips. Puerile way to open I know but anyway let’s “Carry on blogging”. So at the moment it’s getting the small bits done, I’ve been hanging a few pictures in the house just to see how they look and that’s going ok, bought one of these laser levels, you position them on your wall and they throw a horizontal line that enables you to position your pictures accurately, great tool. Planning the opening, a short introductory talk maybe, don’t want to bore the pants off people but I think it will shed a bit of light on things. Can art function without words, I don’t know, my maps will not speak of themselves so I do need say something about them.
You may remember that earlier in my project I did a image of stacked coffins, this was based on a 1941 advertisement : a local undertaker advertised that ‘They catered to all social classes’ stated in such a direct way it is of interest reflecting prevailing attitudes and class divisions at that time. Is present day society divided- maybe. And where do artists stand on the ladder; that’s a difficult one, rich and famous artists are treated like demi gods out of the stratosphere. For the fast majority of artists they are where they have always been right down the bottom, it’s an odd thing to call yourself an artist because in truth you don’t easily slot into any definable social group. So some things don’t change; its always been a bum rap for the majority of artists. No point moaning about it. I wanted to capture this in some way so I decided to authenticate the coffins picture and added my signature right down in the bottom perhaps reflective of the artists position in society.
