Longing……For……For……For……

Why look into Damien Hirst?

I wanted to look into his use of ready-made objects that help create his sculptural works such as the inside workings of his human representations and the animals. Also I wanted to look into the use of medicines in how he presents them into a sculptural form. I think this relates to my Chinese and English illness where I have my ready-made objects for my latest sculptural idea and medicine packages from both cultures to help me get better from my illness.

What works were I interested in the most?

• The Tranquility of Solitude

This was in fact very inspiring for me as he had included a toilet seat in this sculpture with a goat looking like he is doing a crap in the toilet. This very much reminded me of my latest illness idea of how this goat represents death because of the way it is stuffed and no longer moving. Something in the air just seems like death to me on top of the toilet seat and this idea very much relates to mine.

It relates a lot because of the way the toilet is confined and looking uncomfortable atmosphere in a way that my toilet experience in Chinese was indeed uncomfortable to me as I had to always squat to do a crap and there was not very much room to move around in. So Hirst’s work relates to my illness ideas and has given me some inspiration to walk away with.

• Boredom/Nowhere – Medicines

His use of medicine boxes in cabinets give a different aspect to what art really is about for me. But in the way that they are presented gives good visual awareness of hos much medicine we go through within a year or more because of bad germs and bugs that are going around. His art work looks quite patternry and well organised on the shelves which also gave me ideas for my Chinese and English medicine boxes.

Seeing his installations of medicine boxes has given me ideas for my Chinese and English medicine boxes which I may present on shelves, in display cabinets or in deep frames and may place each cultures together so that people can compare the both together.

How does Damien Hirst relate to my Chinese and English illness ready-made sculpture?

I deeply feel that Hirst’s sculptural works of inside the workings of animals and humans strongly relate to my latest sculptural idea but not in an obvious context. The context of my inner workings of my Chinese & English illness in my sculpture are not obvious and are shown in ready-made objects rather than skin and organ replications.

I want to be able to show my Chinese & English Illness in a representation of myself shown in objects rather than replications of skin and organs. With any luck these objects will show enough circumstantial evidence for the viewer of my illness that I suffered in England and China.

Why look into Jeff Koons?

I wanted to look into Jeff Koons because of in my latest illness sculpture called ‘The possibility workings of inside a working man’ is a sculpture made from ready-made objects. This is why I wanted to look into Jeff Koons because of his use of ready-made sculptures based from his desires of balloons and childish fantasies.

What kind of work does he like doing? 

• Balloon Animals

In 1998, he done a series of animals in 5 different colours which were magenta, red, orange, yellow or blue and they were mirror-polished stainless steel with transparent color coating of these 5 colours. These animals he done were either a dog, rabbit, monkey, snake or the women and were all at least 8 foot tall or above. Orange Dog – his most valuable piece sold at auction for about 58 million dollars.

• Heart

Koons presented Hanging Heart, a 9 feet tall highly polished, steel heart, one of a series of five differently colored examples, which is part of his Celebration series. Large sculptures from that series were exhibited at the Metropolitan museum in New York in 2008.

• Vacuum Cleaners

In 1981 he done a series of readymades of vacuum cleaners in which Two immaculate, unused wet, dry vacuum cleaners are stacked one on top the other and are sealed in Plexiglas display boxes lit from below with fluorescent lights. Separated from their domestic role as cleaning machines, the objects are elevated to sculpture.

• Jeff Koons Quotes:

“I chose the vacuum cleaner because of its anthropomorphic qualities,” Koons has said. “It is a breathing machine. It also displays both male and female sexuality. It has orifices and phallic attachments.”

So how does his work relate to my work?

So really when he states that his objects such as the vacuum represents a person such as a male or female this was exactly what I was thinking with my sculpture. I strongly think that his work relates very well with the sculpture that I am planning on creating which will be constructed with the use of ready-made objects.

some of these objects will represent myself that will re-enact my illness that I suffered in China and England and like Koons vacuum works representing humans, my objects will represent myself. These objects will be a Chinese squatting toilet with plastic tubes and funnels which will re-enact myself.

Who else will I start looking into?

I may start looking into Damien Hirst with his use of ready-made gruesome objects that he uses in his sculptures and the ones with medicine. I will also look into carsten holler’s ready-mades too with his twin looking sculptures.

What new ideas do I want to make?

Based from my last post in my blog about my Chinese and English illness, I have been thinking of different ways not just on paper but also in my mind on how I can make an effective sculpture that is based from my illness. I now want to try construct it as I see it in my mind and paper is yet the closest thing so far in making it become real although I have started in gathering some materials to make it.

Yet the main hardest object needed to make this happen would have to be the Chinese squatting toilet because in my mind I would of had to order it all the way from China but it seems that I do not have to!

Yes… thats right… Instead of calling some bathroom firms over the phone which were quoting me £170 for one I wanted to try get one as cheap as I can so I went on Ebay and don’t you know it? I managed to get one ordered within 4 days for only £70! This was indeed the best exciting news for weeks and at this point, it just took half the weight off my shoulders in trying to make this new sculpture idea and the worst part was over…

What did I do next?

Next I began to try hunt around for some decent wood which has to be roughly 1 and 1/2 meter long by 1 meter width piece of wooden board for the Chinese toilet to fit inside. With the help of my good friend and classmate Broden, he said that I can have one of his big good quality wooden boards that he found from the skip in town for free. This made me very happy that I had to offer him some cash for one as it was the exact size i was looking for but he said he did not want any money for it so it was quite a good opportunity for me.

I then placed the toilet on top of the wood and began drawing around it so that I can get the exact measurements of the toilet to cut around it using a jigsaw cutter.

Were there any problems during these processes?

Well if there was some problem it was the fact that the jigsaw cutting had a habit of angling off track which meant that once I cut the gap out I then had to use a file to file down the edges as they were at a slight degree angle. Once I had done all of that, it looks very nice now and just the right size for the Chinese toilet to fit inside.

What is next part of the process?

Now I just have to try gather the rest of the materials like the tubes, funnels, bota bag for the stomach and other things that I need in order to complete this sculpture. I was thinking of looking in the skip near the college to see what kind of bricks the workers are chucking out and may ask them if I can take some to use to make my plinth. I will keep updated once I manage to do these tasks.

What other inspirations did I gain on my London trip?

After the Soane’s museum I decided that I wanted to look for the ChinaTown in London with one of my classmates so that we can eat some delicious Chinese foods for dinner and to see what it is like. We found it a bit difficult getting there as we lost our way and plus there were the riots going and the movie premier of the Hunger Games MockingJay Part 2.

In the end we found ChinaTown and it just looked very nice just seeing how you can grab a piece of China and bring it back to England. This very much related to my kind of work that I try to make with the different medicines and foods and my degree show from my BA in fine arts. It was the exact inspiration I was looking for and it just broarden my insight more in comparing China and england together.

What else did I do after the Ai WeiWei gallery?

The Soane Museum

I did successfully enough tried to find the Soane museum with my three classmates who got a little bit lost in the city area but did manage to find it in the end. When we got there, we had to remove any bagging and loose items before entering the old looking house which is turned into a museum full of relics and free to enter.

• Old Books

So… as I entered this victorian style house, it had a narrow hallway and a living room to the right where it housed a wide collection of old books in high display book shelves. Also the thing that drawed my eye the most was seeing some very old greek vases in which some were real but I heard that some were copied because of the war that was going on at the time.

• Chinese & Greek vases

Also he had some very nice twin vases which sat either side of the humongous greek vase and these twin chinese vases looked looked just as big that were green in colour to represent the special colour of jade. They were so inspiring to see as I myself deal with different cultures in my artwork and it is like seeing many cultures together at once in this museum. This was the kind of impression that I started to get.

• Roman & Greek sculptural ruins

Yeah… We came across many narrow corridors to get to different rooms that had different classifications but I thought this room really was the best. In this room or I should say ‘Open hallway’ seemed like the most spacious hallway we’d seen with the window on the top of the open hallway just letting a little fragment of light in on all of the sculptures.

There were a lot of sculptures there that go as far back as 1000bc like parts from pillars and very immense detail and highly preserved. Also there were a ancient Egyptian sarcophagus ‘without lid’ so we be able to see inside of it and saw the trace of the girl that was buried inside it. This was all inspiring to me as it opened my eyes more to seeing how art starts forming from different past and culture.

• Paintings

The painting room was in fact open and when I got there, there was a small enough room that housed some very famous paintings. One famous painting that I noticed was Canaletto, He was the most famous painter of Venice scenes in Italy and felt good to be standing right in front of one of his biggest paintings he made.

Canaletto’s painting was a classical one that I had done my research on in the past comparing his scenes with my printing scenes that I did in my BA and is a very good artist. Some other artists paintings looked good but did not recognise them but told  very interesting story as it was based on a true story and the guy that were guarding the painting told us the story which was funny and interesting.

What did I learn from this inspiration?

Well if there is one thing I have learned, is that there were many cultures in the same house and kind of made me reflect on my China and England in a way. It has also given me some historical knowledge about different cultures and stories in England that has left me wondering ever since now and still keep reflecting back to what I’d seen. It will certainly broaden my aspect of historical past and open my views more with dealing with two cultures of England and China.