Reading notes

I know this blog is supposed to be about reading, but I haven’t really read anything today except for checking the local paper to see if the DAD screenings in Dover this Saturday have been covered and in passing reading a horrible story about a dog that was killed by another dog in the park where I often take my own dog.

I went to the Jerwood Drawing Prize exhibition this afternoon. It was very different show from last year; what struck me was the emphasis on the range of materials, especially supports – everything from cardboard to resin, including canvas, plasterboard, laminate … There was a lovely sculptural drawing by Warren Andrews which I nearly missed as it was hidden from view by a bunch of students drawing in the space and I did like Cadi Froehlich’s tea table.

Oh and I did also read a few pages of Mastering Chinese – doing some revision in preparation for a trip to Bei Jing.

Rather than a website for the moment I’ve set up a blog as website at http://studio308ltd.wordpress.com/. There isn’t much content yet but at least I have it up and running and structured more or less as I want, thanks to some time spent looking at and reading other people’s blogs.

I’ve been doing some ‘back to basics’ drawing classes with Marcia Teusnik at London’s galleries. Really good fun and a nice way of spending Friday mornings.

I’m more than half way through Rawson and am wondering what to read next. I think a novel would be good – I don’t seem to sit and read much these days. Get too distracted. It’s time for some concentrated attention.

I went to see Rachel Whiteread’s drawings at Tate Britain and generally enjoyed the exhibition although the work didn’t excite me as much as I thought it was going to. The way she isolates objects is very much a sculptural approach and I am not sure I saw much that was spontaneous – the little booklet refers to the drawings on paper as a “spontaneous and intimate counterpoint to her sculptures.” Full marks to the writers of the booklet for banality in this statement: “While her casts contain the imprint of other lives, Whiteread’s works on paper are the marks of her own hand and trace her own thoughts.”

It strikes me that too much effort was being made to compare the drawings with the sculptures in such a way as to elevate the drawing practice.

At the moment I am reading Drawing by Philip Rawson. I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone interested in drawing – he is great on blots, and lines and the way how something is drawn impacts on its meaning. He also makes interesting comparisons between East and West – for example, black in the western tradition standing for a shadow, or a hole, while in the east it indicates presence.

I have been making forays into drawing with ink and trying to ‘liberate the hand’ (cf. Rawson).

“I didn’t know we stocked that” the Pumpkin man said to me as I handed over some coins for September’s Prospect magazine and some extra for a black coffee as well.

I was on my way to Brighton by train for the Dada South Check in – Check out event, where I had a great time catching up with everyone – Dada Exchange artists and advisors. Trains are good for getting some reading done. I don’t often take a book though, as even a small book gets heavy after a while.

So, settling down to read my magazine (a title I’ve not often bought) I alighted on The nature of beauty by Nicholas Humphrey who writes that our appreciation of beauty has evolved in the context of sexual selection:

Artistry is sexy: “it’s a way of showing off what you’re worth”.

Also interesting is his argument that we believe beauty is something that is made by someone – there is a creator behind it. This leads to an explanation for a belief in or love of God as the maker of beauty in nature.

The maker of beauty is the object of love. He concludes “…our experience of natural beauty will lead to an erotic infatuation with whoever we suppose created it. Religious ecstasy, aesthetic ecstasy and sexual ecstacy will have become part of the same package.”

I think there is definitely alot here to think about, in terms of art in general, not just beauty.