Project Me

After what seems to be about a month, or maybe more, I am delighted to say that my second piece of cast glass is out of the kiln and ‘resting’. The process has taken twice as long as it should have as the piece required re-casting after setting additional glass on the first attempt. (I had underestimated the amount of glass required to make the ‘surface pool’ over the shadow form.) The pieces looks great, and I will see more detail when I remove the mould material on Monday. Glass does not like variations in volume so the form that I made is particularly challenging as it goes from large to small volumes very rapidly. I am incredibly grateful to Ulrika for her skill at programming the kiln, especially the cooling phase which is the most critical.

Although this second cast* is now finished I will only be showing the first one in the show that opens here next week. The glass will be presented embedded in a sheet of plywood. Ideally I would like to install the pieces directly in the floor however this was simply not realistic to attempt with my other commitments at the moment. I am rather pleased with the more sculptural solution that the plywood provides. I am also rather pleased with myself for working out how to make, and fit, supports for the uncut sheet (2.5 x 1.25 m) that tip it up at an angle while making sure that it is secure. Some of those 33 year old geometry lessons came in really useful while I was scrabbling about on the floor working out exactly how to position the three different height legs.

The next day was the first of my final two in Gothenburg. It was really interesting to see the students’ presentations. I was impressed by the range of their individual projects and where the projects have taken them. During the discussions after each presentation I was often reminded that coming from fine art, and the UK, gives me a different perspective which I think students found both challenging and enriching. My enthusiasm for them making ‘discursive objects’ seemed a good counterpoint to others’ responses about the technical aspects of textile processes and the aesthetics of pattern. It was the combination of these lines of discussion that I hope will enable all the students to make critical and informed choices about how they tackle their future assignments and projects.

In the evening Karin and I discussed which London colleges she and her colleagues might visit, we found a short promotional film about what was Central St Martins presented by Caroline Broadhead. As part of the University of the Arts London a student attending a course at the new Kings Cross building is one of over 4000 students registered at the school, Karin remarked that she grew up in town which had less inhabitants! The film is very slick and well produced, mentions all the now famous former students and the international fashion house where (nameless) students are now working … it was all so very very promotional! A timely reminder of how different things can become when students pay for their education and become art schools begin to operate like multi-national corporations. Meanwhile here in Stockholm, at Mejan, students prepare for their MA show after five years of free education and in the knowledge that most if not all of them will receive some kind of graduate stipendium from the school to help them continue their practice ….

http://www.kkh.se/index.php/en/exhibitions/spring-…

*this second piece is actually in the first mould that I made, so I think of it as the first piece.

Uploading my photographs from visiting the art museum in Gothenburg produced some images that I find fascinating and intriguing. My recently updated i-photo programme now automatically applies its ‘face recognition’ feature to all my pictures. Having taken photographs in the museum’s Painted History exhibition there were a number of faces … I attach a particularly good example of the outcome.

The painting is one of many depictions of Karl XII being returned to Sweden after losing his life in battle in Norway. I love the way in which twenty-first century technology has indiscriminately assigned a, wholly inappropriate, utterance to members of the royal entourage. I keep returning to the (updated) image and find myself looking, and looking again, at the complexity of it – somehow it suggests something very performative. It may become the start of a new work, or at least something to look further in to.

At the moment though I should be concentrating on making something from my year at Mejan presentable. The year, as I have already mentioned, has been quite different from the year that I had imagined. As I am still not entirely sure exactly what will be achievable during the next couple of weeks, I have decided to propose a relatively modest and simple installation for the end of year show. We have to submit our ideas to the ‘hanging group’ by Monday. The spaces around the school are not inspiring – or rather the spaces that inspire me are either off limits (fire exit routes) or so remote that I fear visitors will never find them. I am reminded of my MA show at the Slade where my intentionally discrete, subtle works were completely overlooked by all but the keenest of eyes. I do not wish to make the same mistake again; it was not really a ‘mistake’ in terms of placing the work, it was however not the best thing to do under the conditions of a very competitive show. So instead of the beautiful old stone staircase – where each step bears traces of the centuries of men stationed in the building when the island was a naval base – I will perhaps suggest locating my work in the architecturally and emotionally sterile main entrance in the 1980s extension.

I have always been attracted to staircases – as places to show work, and more generally! – I remember a photograph from my childhood in which my aunt, who has lived in America since before my birth, was standing in the middle of a very glamorous sweeping staircase, as I remember she was in a white cocktail dress (above the knee), pointed white slingbacks, and had big (almost Dusty style) hair – it was the sixties. The staircase was carpeted in deep red, it was the kind of staircase that had balustrades on both sides, it may even have bifurcated and swept round to both the left and right. I could have misremembered this terribly, but that is not really the point. Years later a colleague gave a lecture about Art Nouveau through examples of its staircases, he was a brilliant teacher and thinker, his presentation was fantastic. Previously I thought that the staircase was a space between places, now though I wonder if it has perhaps more to do with being simultaneously here and on the move …

As this (academic) year draws to a close I am already drawing up an autumnal ‘to do’ list. There are so many things that have been neglected in the excitement, stress, and now-ness of the last few years(!). I am looking forward to having time not only to be at the studio but also to really re-engage and re-invigorate my practice in the light of the courses that I have taken and the ones that I have taught! And speaking of courses I have discovered an adult education Art History course in Swedish, its going to be a way to improve both my written Swedish and my knowledge of Swedish art history – perfect!

As I got off the train last night it struck me that if I am serious about wanting part-time teaching then I need to make myself more relevant. It was a somewhat sudden and unbidden thought and I am wondering now what I might exactly mean by it. Standing up after three hours sitting on the train it occurred to me how, in every industry, those who get employed are the ones with the most relevant skills. Simple, and obvious, as it sounds it was something of a revelation to me when I applied it to working at an art school.

I had just done two days teaching in Gothenburg and really enjoyed it. It is the kind of work that I would like to have regularly, even permanently. So taking my shockingly simple new insight (!) I need to ask myself what would make me a relevant member of a teaching department?

Writing now I wonder if this ‘relevance’ has a full and round form, at the moment I do not feel so full and round – well not artistically! The last year and a half has been full of new experiences and input, not least generated through my introduction to the field of artistic research, and my time in technical workshops at Mejan. And at the same time I have hardly been in my own studio and feel very distant from the work and materials that lie abandoned there. It is as though some kind of re-balancing needs to occur.

What I like about the term ‘relevant’ is it’s contingency (“contingentness”?). Perhaps it is not so very different from ‘best’. But if it helps me focus and order myself, and indicates areas where I need to brush up my competence(s), then it could be very useful and productive. On a very personal level I find the idea of being ‘The Best’ quite difficult, whereas being the ‘most relevant’ is much more appealing!

It is exactly four weeks to the opening of the show at Mejan. In the next week or so I want to decide what I will show and how. Tomorrow I will attempt another plaster cast as I am still not happy with how they are turning out. The problem now seems to be my mixing, the question is whether I have time to learn how to mix plaster well. Looking at the surface of the most recent cast – which thankfully hardly leaked at all – I think that the plaster was both too thick and not sufficiently blended. The sculpture tutor suggested that I trim down the plaster jacket of the mould, stop using bolts to hold it together and instead use cling wrap and tension belts, judging by the first attempt this seems to work.

I can hardly believe that eight months after starting I am still struggling to make a plaster cast – something that I imagined I would have achieved within weeks. Of course I have achieved a great many other things in the mean time, most of these however have not resulted in anything physical, any objects, any art. I have to trust that this year on the project programme will bear fruit in the future!

The first of my glass casts worked! After something like five days in the kiln I was delighted to discover that the mould held up, and that the glass melted, set, and cooled as it should do. The second, of three, pieces is in the kiln now, and being thicker than the first will remain there over the Easter weekend at least. Glass is a wonderfully curious material!

Today I started working out how to present the glass casts. At the moment I am thinking about the end of term show – and how I can achieve something of the feeling of the casts being sunken into the ground without actually doing that. I want to play with the depth of the casts – literally how thick the glass is, and also how it is hard to fathom the thickness when they are seen from above. As it is not possible to install the piece(s) in the actual floor I am thinking around other possibilities, and ways to reference a floor without it actually being a floor.

My wrestling with plaster casting continues. This afternoon I attempted another cast and again the plaster seeps out of the two-part mould. It should not do this as the inner silicon mould sits securely in its plaster jacket, and the two parts of the plaster jacket are bolted together. Discussing it with the sculpture tutor we wonder if it has something to do with the difference in density within the form itself – parts being reasonably thick and others being rather slim. This uneven distribution of pressure might be causing the flexible silicon to ‘collapse’ a little in certain areas and thus allow the wet plaster to run out. We have resolved to tackle this issue after the Easter weekend.

In the meantime I am taking advantage of the brilliant spring days and trying new ways to create shadow forms. Painting the shadow in acetone on polystyrene has interesting results, the challenge is to find a way to make a good positive from this.

Antonie and I continue to discuss how we will establish some kind of research platform for our own and other artists’ research. After hearing Antke Engel speak about the ‘Institute for Queer Theory’ I am thinking that perhaps an institute for artistic research would provide us with the (theoretical) space and ambition we are seeking. Engel’s institute is an independent organisation that presents artistic, cultural, and philosophical events in collaboration with various host organisations. She was a guest speaker at yesterday’s activities under the Normalcy cluster programme currently happening at Mejan (and continuing until next Sunday). Her talk was engaging and inspiring – themed around radical and not un-complex philosophical ideas she spoke so eloquently and elegantly that I found myself carried away on trains of thought speeding through new and unfolding landscapes. She concluded with her intention of “becoming indigestible” – as active resistance to normalisation and hierarchisation. The images she conjured up left me feeling both energised and a little embarrassed at how readily I capitulate to an easier position on the spectrum of normality!

The gunpowder workshop and the day at the shooting range were also part of the Normalcy cluster events and next week there is one final big explosive day out with artists Assa Kauppi and Johan Wik, and in the presence of Roman Signer!

http://kkh.se/index.php/sv/om-kkh/aktuellt/2226-no…

http://www.queer-institut.de/

On friday evening I used my dear old laptop at the studio to write a post but due to the computer’s age I could not upload it … now it is Monday and here it is …

It was great to catch up with Michael and Roberto last night at the terribly glamorous opening of their pop-up exhibition here. It’s Stockholm Art Week and Michael’s book The Art of Not Making is being promoted with a show featuring selected artists from it. I was very impressed that they (and “former gallerist” Jonas Kleerup) collaborated with the Bukowskis auction house to put on the show.

Art week has arrived with spring, and with me realising that I am getting stressed about all the things that I want to be doing. Teaching the artistic research course is really interesting and requires a great deal of time which, of course, has had a curious knock on effect; a desire to get to the studio and get on with things, and at the same time considerably less time to do it. This I need to resolve!

Teaching the course is also waking my own desire to develop my own approaches to artistic research. My days in the workshops at Mejan present a stark contrast. As I wrote that sentence I began to wonder if perhaps this contrast is not so pronounced … how might it be if I consider my time in the workshops as research and in the classroom as practice?

It is less than two months until the spring show at Mejan. I am determined to show something but am rather uncertain about what and how! I am starting to hear that as the show (of project and guest students) is at the same time but in a different location to the main degree shows it attracts a considerably smaller crowd. Part of me wants to take up the challenge of putting ‘our’ show on the map, while another part feels that I could end up spending time and energy on doing that rather than producing the work itself (this would be less of an issue if I was interested in curating, however I am not). It is too easy for me to slip in to an administrative role and then … well to be honest, to resent it. I need to be smarter than that! Maybe, and this sounds dangerously selfish, I need to think about putting my work on the map. I do not mean it selfishly, I am attempting to express my genuine desire for making a good show (for everyone) and/by making a good part of it (my own piece in it). If I had been at the initial planning meeting I would have suggested that we offer a ‘finissage’ there than a competing vernissage – unfortunately I was in Manchester when the meeting took place.

My motivation for the trip to Manchester was purely personal – a good friend lives there and we have not managed to get together the last few times I have been in the UK. We had a great time, I made my first visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park – mainly to see Roger Hiorns’ Seizure installation that I foolishly missed in London – and re-visited Manchester Art Gallery and saw Joana Vasconcelos’ Time Machine exhibition. Both of these made me think about scale of ambition. Do I think too small? I had something of an echo of this last night …